I just wanted to put something down on ''paper'' here that I'm officially retiring from being a Poker Pro.
I start my new real world job tomorrow. Tomorrow, August 15th (exactly 4 months after my so called Land of the Free essentially took my job, career, livelyhood, dreams away for me ) I will wake up, shower, take my son to my sisters house for babysitting, cause my wife is also getting a job, and head into a office, where I'll again have to answer to someone other than myself... For the first time in 6+ years.

It's embarassing what I'll be making per hour. It's embarassing when my friends/family ask what I'm going to next. It's embarassing that all the people that looked up to me and my freedoms and my awesome job (lifestyle) will now be looking down on me as I make half of what they make since they've been building a career and putting in the time for the past 6 years..... I'm starting from scratch. I'm going through an orientation process tomorrow with 21 year olds. I'll be the sad, older guy, that they think "wow, I hope I dont end up like him when I'm 30) It makes me sad to think of anything farther out than the next 2 months. It's all just so...embarassing.

On the bright side, this is mostly a preventitive measure that I'm taking BEFORE all my poker money is gone and I'm desperate. I was afforded a little leeway in taking some time to find the ''right'' job, and putting my wife through some schooling so she could do something better than she was 6 years ago. The sad realization for me was I don't really have that many options when looking for a ''right'' job. No education (my fault), 6 year resume gap, and no real skills outside of calculating some pot odds and determining why someone made the bet that they made. I will say that poker proved useful during my interviews. It seemed that at the end of every interview, the interviewer made some comment as to how surprised he/she was that it went so long and that they just got wrapped up in ''job history''. (in other words, we've never had a legit poker pro in here and we have no idea what to ask you as it relates to the job, so we'll just be a fanboy for an hour or so).

In regards to poker, I imagine I'll load up a forum once a week or so to keep an eye on the legislation process. I'll probably make one poker trip between now and the WSOP, and maybe one during next years WSOP. Sadly, i'm not sure I'll have ''worked up the vacation'' time to even play the main event. Something I never thought I'd ever miss... Again, its all so embarassing.

I know I know I should quit whining.

Going to keep this short, but just wanted to update that I finished day 1 with 52k. Up from teh 30k starting stack. I had a fantastic table that let me do basically whatever I wanted all day. I also had Joe Cappello a good friend from way back, on the table. It was awesome to be able to sit and chat with him all day and catch up. Also at the table was Joe "Hoodini10" Udine. The funny thing abotu this was him and I and him and Joe were in most of the big pots with each other all day and he waited til 5 min left in teh day to tell us who he was. We got a good little laugh abotu this. Especially cause I was pretty convinced he was a brother or relative of Dutch Boyd. From the nose up he looks just like a Boyd :)

I play again tomorrow and I don't recognize anyone at the table. I looked them all up and the only one with real results is Fernando Brito who won an EPT highroller and Ft's another EPT.. He has direct position on me and double my chips :(

Will be updating all day at twitter.com/devinporter

I was about to sit down and wax poetic about my upcoming main event Day 1 and then I remembered I did just that in my blog post from last year at this time (even down to the Tin cup detail which i'm watching right now ) ..I might as well copy/paste cause it all still applies minus turning 27 as I turned 28 yesterday :) Another key difference: this is likely my last poker tournament for a very long time. I wish I could say its a self-imposed retirement, but the U.S government decided I can only be ''free'' in the ways they decide, and therefore will be likely be finding a ''real'' job for the first time in 6 years (brag) until Online comes back. That is an awesome sentence to write. :(




LAST YEARS POST:
Wish I could bottle up this excitement, this anticipation, this thirst for success, this passion to just sit down and play this game I love... I spend many hours reading/watching/listening/looking for things to inspire me to continually play my best. Today I got back to Vegas and took a walk down to the Rio to take in day 1c festivities and find inspiration...It worked!!.. I start play tomorrow and am sooooo amped to get started.

If I could play every online sesh with this hunger..man..I love this feeling..

Wife and kids stayed home this time, but that didnt stop them from sending me down with birthday gifts (I turn 27 tomorrow) and homemade cookies! Wifes are the best.

Going to continue my tradition of watching Tin Cup before I start my main event..I made a little list of goals/steps for this years championship..I'll share:

Win a hand
Get above starting stack
Make first break
Make dinner
Make day 2
Make dinner on day 2
100k in chips
Make the money
1 million in chips
Do better than I ever have (204th place)
Be Chipleader at some point
TV Table
Final 27
Final Table
Win

Seems easy enough

Just thought I'd update this since I havent since Black Friday. I am in Vegas for the WSOP (obv) and have just busted out of todays event. I am 0/10 as of today without a day 2. I havent even really gotten a nice stack yet. Closest was today I had 14k on dinner break. You come back from dinner with 150-300 blinds so 45bb. Unfortunately I was out 10 hands after dinner ha!

I opened K7cc on the btn and the bb flatted. flop was 467r and he ckcalled 900. Turn was an Ace and he looked at his chips a couple times and checked. My read was that he liked the Ace, but didnt want to bet and get blown off of it by a raise. So A9-AQ? I ckd behind knowing I coudlnt get a fold here. River was a 4 and he led out 1600 into 3300~ I was thinking to muck, but really felt like he had AT/AJ here and I could get it with a raise. I made it 4100 and he thought for around 90 seconds and called with AK. Oops!

Same orbit I open QQ utg to 700 (150-300) and it folds to HJ-1 who makes it 1600. He's your typical 40 year old WSOP weekend warrior. I elect to jam my 7575 total in and he takes about 60 seconds to call w/ AKo. 662A4 board to send me packing. I've asked a few high stakes regs I respect and 3 say to flat the rr and proceed with caution and 2 say its a jam all day. I really think it's important whether or not im getting the call from TT/JJ to make this a shove. I don't think its ever ''bad'', but maybe I left some value on the table by not flatting. Results-oriented if I flat its 662 and I can ckrais and get value from TT-JJ hands more often and likely get him off the AK before he spikes the A..Just sucks if he cks back and still peels the Ace.. Maybe a donk bet lead out? I don't know, but this is a perfect example of why I love poker. A seemingly ''simple'' hand could be played in so many ways. I think the important factor is that this is the WSOP and there is a lot of value in surviving/getting paid off when you ''know'' youre good. And also the type of player he was/is..

Anyways, I rambled a bit more than I anticipated. It's a shame that this might be my last month of poker if I don't hit a nice score. I really do love the intricacies of this game. I have 7 WSOP prelims left, 3 Venetian events and the Main event.. About half way through. Not living up to my pre-WSOP hopes, but all it takes is one :)


P.S Happy Fathers day to myself and all the Fathers out there :)

Warning: I'm going to ramble.

I'm seriously in shock from all this. I've had every emotion/thought from "Everything will be fine, this will be good for poker in the long run" all the way down to "The sky is falling, I better call everyone I know and look for a job" even to "Maybe i'll go postal".

I don't feel any semblance of freedom right now. Yesterday I was a hard working United States based (mostly online) poker pro. I have been this person for 6 years now.. June 2005.. I am now a bum w/out a job. I represent the ''class'' of poker player that is going to be most affected by this. After my son was born 2 years ago I have slowly merged from a live pro travelling the world to a stay at home dad making my living off the internet. I no longer have that option. I am seen as a criminal and a felon on par with child rapists and internet porn kings. I had the ability to stay at home, work when I wanted to and make just enough money to pay my bills and live a middle class life. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do now. I have no college education (yes this is my fault), very little job experience and a gaping 6 year hole on my resume. It's hard enough to get a job right now when youre qualified. What chance do I stand? I'm a laughingstock in the ''real world" when I apply for a job.

I have diligently paid my taxes for 6 years. I have purchased a home. I have become a good little consumer ant. I have done nothing to hurt anyone, yet my freedom to make a living the way I want to is now gone. I have paid hundreds of thousands in taxes over the last 6 years from poker. Do you think I have any chance of writing the IRS and asking for my money back? You know since they don't consider the way I obtained that money to be legit in the first place.

I've sat here thinking about listing what options I have and I can't really come up with anything. I can go back to my old job I had 6 years ago. Or atleast the same field.
I could pack my family up and move to Las Vegas (puke) or possibly outside the country to Canada. I'm not sure that +ev as the global landscape of online poker itself seems to be in doubt. Plus if I could find a way to circumvent the restrictions placed by my country's gov. I will be doing so just to flip variance coins with the other Reg's that are willing to try hard enough to play online. Bye Bye fishies
I can use what nestegg I have built up and go to school. This seems least likely right now as I'm on the tail end of a giant ball shriveling downswing and a lot of the money is gone. It seems the most likely course of action is both the wife and I get a job we don't want to be at, try to make exactly what our bills are going to be and hopefully not have to touch the money we have in the bank. A rainy day fund couldnt be more accurate.

My only hope seems to be liquidating all of my investments/retirement plans/personal loans with interest I have out (which surprisingly amounts to quite a bit of $) Getting some sort of job I don't completely loathe and try to bridge the gap between now and legalization of online poker.

I don't even know who to be mad at. I want to be livid at our government for shutting down an american pasttime and being a bunch of closeminded greedy fools, who think that playing poker for a living is somethign that should be abolished meanwhile theyre bailing ACTUAL thiefs and dirtballs out of trillion dollar scams.. I want to be mad at "The Big 3" of the poker world that allegedly money laundered/committed fraud or whatever to get the attention of the DOJ. I want to be mad at the Australian boy genius who ''single-handidly brought down online poker" but it sounds like he was only retaliating by doing the very thing the poker sites did to him. Allegedly.

In the end though I only have myself to be mad at . For being in this game as long as I have and not developing an exit strategy. It's my own damn fault. Anybody hiring? lol

Libertas mortis?

I'm going to steal an idea. A blog I frequent quite often is called 1000 awesome things. It basically counts down in no particular order things that the author thinks are awesome. It's a feel good blog.
http://1000awesomethings.com/


I'm going to do a 50 awesome poker things countdown. I originally wanted to do 100, but that seems to ambitious. If i get through 50 and there are still awesome things to be discussed I'll continue on.
So, without further ado:

#50 Getting a walk in the BB when you have a real crappy hand

You're just outside the money. Youre down to 10 big blinds and its your turn to pay the big blind. You glance at the lobby and see youre still 10 people away from the money. This is it! Time to get a monster and double up. Instead you're dealt the all-powerful 92o. Ahh crap. It starts to fold around and you think "there's no way the people in late position are going to let me slide here. They HAVE to attack my short stack especially cause we're on the bubble." Before you even have time to think about how awful these lagtards are it quickly folds around and you get a walk.

There's no way you can't fold into the money now!!

October 20, 2009. The last day I outright won a poker tournament with more than 200 ppl and not a sattelite.

February 20, 2011. The new last day since I won a poker tournament. 16 months exactly. To the day.
Tournament poker is a funny thing. I've had scores bigger than last night (1st was $7600) during that 16 months, but it wasn't first place so it felt like a loss. Yet last night was that rare winning feeling you get in tournament poker. 1st place. No chop. No what-ifs. No what might have beens. No "if that Ace didnt hit I'd have coasted to the final 3"

It wasnt anything glorious. A $16 turbo on stars that had 3600 people. I had the chiplead from around 30 people on down and never really gave it up. I lost a flip with 6 ppl left that put me 5/6 but got the CL back soon and basically applied perfect money jump pressure to chip up fairly easily. Not much else you can in regards to skill once a TURBO mtt gets down to the final table. Who can run best. And I'm glad it was me :)

The amount of $ won is pretty minimal compared to my downswing but its a start.

Baby steps..

P.S I shaved my hideous stache off around new years so there was no ritualistic shaving last night.
for those wondering.

P.P.S (or is it P.S.S) My favorite era was the thoracic period

The perfect poker player would have:

Ivey's disregard for $

Brunsons respect of the game

Gboro780's ability to close

Bonomo's thinking process

Negreanu's ability to get free info through mindless table chatter

Assassinato's commitment

Mement_mori's work ethic

Taylors gift of foresight

Moorman1's aggression

Tommy Angelos un-tiltlessness

Hellmuths image

Galfonds temperament


Feel free to add any of your own. And, yes I'm aware I'm being a giant fanboy

Assuming that I dont bink something big on Sunday (the day after christmas, which I might not even play) then I will finish 2010 in the red. This will be the first time in 6 years of being a poker pro that that has happened. I know I know mbn.

It always happened naturally in the past..I would play and play. Have a big score, have a big score there. Final table something major here, something major there. I never hunted it or chased it. The latter half of 2010 was diffferent. After the WSOP came and went w/out anything significant I was always on the lookout for which mtt was going to be my salvation and rescue me from a losing year.
I have been taking the bad beats much more personal this year. No doubt, due to a (essentially) two year downswing.

I've been really lousy in terms of HH review and study. No doubt this has helped the downswing along. I don't necessarily feel like the game has passed me by or anything, just that it can never hurt to do more study, more volume.

It's funny, after my big scores of the past, I found myself playing less and less poker cause I had this massive bankroll, and no real need of $. This year is going to be different. I'm sure it has something to do with the possible legislation that almost passed and that inevitable 15 month blackout period, but, I'm going to play my brains out! I don't like even the idea that the game has passed me by. So I'm going to go back to the beginning. Vizzini style. Get back to where I love playing again. Study Study Study. Work Work Work.

I'm not sure if a volume bet is in order. Some sort of plbrace, or p5's ranking race. But, Im ready to eat, sleep, breathe poker again.

Annus horriblis to annus mirabilis




"Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn.'
To live alone?'
To live. With what you are."