COVID-19: Chapter 6 - ThanksGRAVING

As I’ve said over and over, it’s up to the poker pro how much time or money they want to put into being a net positive on society. The time freedom gives us a lot of options. The time spent at the poker table isn’t adding to society, but it’s not taking nearly as much out as people like to suggest. But the freedom can add a lot to society.

You can be available to be there for friends and family almost any time, you can volunteer your time, you can donate money… Lots of people working typical jobs don’t have as many opportunities in that regard.

Yeah pretty close. I’m the only one who losing $10K would really sting for, and our food/alcohol isn’t quite as good - though it might be if not for a pandemic.

Yeah every stake I’ve moved up the vibe has improved and the money has been less important to the rec players.

I played online only from March through July, and not at all from like August through early October.

For whatever reason - games got tougher, stress (or something) fried my brain, downswing, all of the above - I was a small loser after early July online. I still turned down an invite to a no mask required game. In October I got this invite and took it.

If you know of any WFH jobs where I can clear ~$4K a month after taxes (or $3,600 + healthcare), I’m all ears. Or any ways in person to clear them with less risk than in 12 hours a month of masked poker in a well ventilated setting, also all ears.

But don’t equate that for 12 hours a month to make a living with someone going to a bar in a big crowd for fun. I’m still turning down invites to other live games. I could be playing in home games 3-4 nights a week for 8+ hours a night.

I could have also been playing in the casino for a couple months when they reopened - I heard the games were great. I could have played as much as I wanted there, probably 50-60 hours a week with ease.

Instead I’m doing 12 hours a month, the minimal amount to generate enough EV to cover my living expenses, in the safest setting possible.

This nails it. I once met a guy at the WSOP, and we chatted all day while playing. He quietly leaned over at one point and said, “I can tell you’re a pro, but man, don’t spend your whole life on this, it’d be such a waste just from hearing you talk.”

Like I appreciated it and somewhat agree with him, but in the context of my life experiences to date in the American economic system, the gap between somewhat agreeing with that, finding something better that still keeps me secure, and executing it successfully is massive. Meanwhile pre-pandemic I was like 1-4 years away from being set for life at a reasonable level - own a reasonable home outright, own my car outright, have enough in my retirement account to retire by 60 at the latest off standard annual returns. The plan was to keep living off the same amount, treat myself occasionally, and put the rest away. Once I hit those milestones, no matter what happened I’d only need to find enough income to pay property taxes, food, utilities, healthcare, etc. So I’d be fine, and have most financial pressure eliminated. That seemed like the time to take more chances or deviate more.

Unfortunately I was only about 3-4 months into making that kind of money when COVID hit. On the other hand if the pandemic hit four months earlier, I’d be fucked. So I’m fortunate in that regard and it is what it is, I’m thankful I got far enough along that I can get by off 12 hours a month now.

Getting back to the point, I graduated and spent six years pursuing broadcasting and I was extremely talented but extremely unconnected and not a good networker - thus that went nowhere and I never made over $13,000 in a year at it despite doing some pretty cool stuff and reaching some fairly high levels.

Meanwhile I did numerous things on the side to make ends meet, including trying to start a web design business. That went awry when a really shitty client fucked me over pretty badly. I also did public relations (loathed it), freelance writing (it was drivel for SEO that paid terribly and I hated it), and a few other things. I was pretty routinely working 70+ hours a week to get by for a few years there, between multiple part time/freelance jobs.

Once I realized broadcasting/sports journalism was going nowhere financially anytime soon, I was at a crossroads. I had poked around a little with a couple political/news journalism gigs, but nothing panned out. (One was an Internet startup that didn’t take off, I worked for free for them for a bit. Another was a paid opportunity I did for a little while, but I couldn’t juggle it with my two other jobs - it paid the least, had the worst hours, and I wasn’t making enough to cover my expenses so I had to cut the one that paid the least.)

So I had a broadcast journalism degree from a top school in that field, and the most common fields to get into when one gives up on that are public relations or advertising/marketing. I hated PR, and I didn’t want to start out entry level in advertising - I think I might enjoy coming up with some of the top level campaign ideas in that field or the strategy, but I would hate doing the sales/planning of it at the entry level, and I’d inevitably be working some (mostly?) for clients who I hated working for because of what they were selling/how they functioned as a company.

So my two options seemed to be: go back to school for an MBA or law degree, or pursue poker full-time. If I went for an MBA, I wanted it to be at a good school with a good MBA reputation - I wanted that degree to open a lot of doors for me to come in at a decent level in a new career, since I’d be starting it around the age of 30 with a very negative net worth. In college I was told my GPA wouldn’t matter because it’s not important in broadcasting, so I underperformed in some of my other classes to focus more on extracurriculars and fun. So that was a barrier for me in getting into some MBA programs. I think my final GPA in college was like 3.4 or something. Anyway, I reached out to some contacts and talked to a couple schools about whether I’d be a viable candidate, and UNC said yes I would likely get in because of my unique background.

I was weighing the situation, and the option was basically spend a ton of money on the program (it currently costs $126K + living expenses, I forget what it was back then), or go into poker. Graduating with a shit load of student loan debt into an economy that I had figured out first hand would exploit the fuck out of the non-rich sounded like a bad situation compared to poker, so I went with poker.

So far it’s been the right decision. I’ve tried to start some stuff on the side or consider other options, but so far nothing has panned out or presented itself that would make sense, or what I’ve seen has turned me off. We’ll see how that continues to play out post-pandemic.

But I’m definitely not ashamed of what I do, I don’t think I’m a net negative on society overall, and I love the freedom poker gives me. Frankly it seems like a very reasonable response on my part to the economic realities of America and the series of events that led me to poker.

12 hours per month, not per week. I get nervous that in that small of a sample I could easily run bad for the rest of the pandemic, but so far so good.

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Like I was invited to a ton of poker games during the pandemic, but never went. (Most have stopped now that we’re in “code red”) I’ve been fine doing well online, but I also do work.

We’ve all had to make a ton of decisions during this pandemic. We are all in differing economic positions. We live in different parts of the world with different levels of responses to the pandemic. Most of the people here have done very well for almost an entire year, to do best for themselves, their loved ones and their community. We’re in the end game, keep it up and don’t just pick fights.

Getting tested tomorrow, pretty sure it’s just a cold, been working ~FT and playing ~6 hours of poker a day as well, so just run the fuck down.

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The only time I’ve gotten really sick in the last 5 years was live poker last year about this time at the AWS conference in Vegas. Nasty nasty dry cough that lasted 3-4 weeks. One week of pure hell coughing myself to death every night.

Not much worse than live poker for spreading germs, except strip clubs and bars.

This is all good. I’m not shaming you for doing it.

I’m just saying maybe don’t throw stones at ViridianDreams who’s mostly just endangering himself and feels pretty stupid for doing it anyway.

The true isolators can throw stones at all of us.

Except for an ICU nurse getting a free coffee. Infinitesimal risk, hero, deserved.

Havent played a hand of live poker since March.

8 tabling zoom, the eye strain is real.

I cannot tell you how excited I am at the possibility of being able to wear a mask whenever I play live poker going forward.

Since I worked as a prop and am not a middle-aged Asian woman, I couldn’t do this. I was always sick. I am quite hopeful that masks will reduce how many days I spend hating life in bed and will give me more to spend hating life at the tables.

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Really? Most people run marathons in 5-7 hrs. An elevated heart rate for that long causing damage shouldn’t be that surprising.

Neither of these things are true. He went to restaurants at least twice, then to a bar. He endangered everyone he encountered a couple days after the first restaurant trip. He also expressed that he did it because he needed interaction, but he lives in Florida where the weather is still great and could have found plenty of ways to interact with others without being in a crowded setting or indoors at all.

I certainly have not gotten the impression he feels stupid for it. Last I saw he was still saying he knew the risk and was fine with it.

Comparing this to doing the minimal amount of work I can do to cover my living expenses is ridiculous.

https://twitter.com/SamPancher/status/1339704422201483270?s=19

The first guy to run a marathon famously dropped dead at the end ffs.

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This is because you are too caught up in your own self-righteousness to actually read people’s posts. Like, you’ve spilled probably a thousand words trying to justify why you play poker for a living to prove that you are not a net negative on society, when that was never what I said. I said your profession was a net negative on society, it is (you really need to be more honest with yourself about this, you ain’t Eddie Murphy, people aren’t playing poker because you are so entertaining, lol) but I explicitly said, at least once, that that doesn’t mean you are a bad person, and I even said I thought you were a decent guy, because my whole point is that person’s worth is not defined by a single decision, like to make a living sucking money off people that are dumber than them, or to go out to a bar during a pandemic.

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People who fuck up love to talk about how the people who criticize them are diminishing their worth as a person or denying their humanity or something equally dramatic

This is day 2 of this shit now. Take it to the Festivus Airing of Grievances thread.

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That was after righting in a battle and Instead of 26 miles he is supposed to have run 150+ twice before running from Marathon to Athens

Nobody likes hanging around with a child beauty pageant coach, so my flawless ethos for life holds :)

Question about vaccines. When I get the vaccine am I then safe? Like say it all goes well and I get the booster or whatever am I done worrying about covid the way I never worried about measles or does it rely on enough people around me getting jabbed too?

Every time Pence calls the vaccine a miracle I want to punch him in the face so hard. It’s science moron!

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https://twitter.com/scottgottliebmd/status/1339635334934646784?s=21

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