The Story of the Worst Grinder- EVER!

Disclaimer:

Before you even start reading, let me first assure you that it will be a waste of your time so you might as well stop right now. And not as in I secretly want you to read on, and that is a thrilling and eye-catching opener, but rather literally as in it will seriously be a waste of your time.

The reasons for this are as follows:

It will mostly be about Limit Hold’em- The dreadful minbet game from the 80’s played by pussies who don’t want to play for stacks. To top that off for you- it won’t be played above micro and low stakes. So don’t bother.

It will not improve your game. Even though I may write about poker, you will be much better off at any other place, so don’t stick around. Go improve bro!

It will contain offensive language, in all likelihood have a severe case of tl:dr, and at times be reminiscent of a mental patient’s ramblings (you know, the kind of people who scribble shit on the walls. Literally.)

That said, the good news is that if you’re interested in micro stakes Limit Hold’em, not really wanting to improve your game, and enjoy reading shit- this is right up your alley!

 

 

The problem with introductions

 

Okay, now that we’ve established that, let me tell you about myself. I’ll try to keep this part short, because not only is it painfully boring, but if you have ever read any non-superstar poker player’s story of how he or she started and stuff… well, you know what I mean. It’s not all the same, but at the same time it kind of is. This is true even when you read about people who have had some or a lot of success. Before I signed up with umm.... another training-site.... and viewed the coaches section it went something like:

I first started playing when…

Yep, get on with it!

*click view coach’s result*

These people probably have spectacular stories, as most everyone on the planet does, but let’s face it: the poker stories of how you got started is pretty much the introduction-equivalent of a bad beat hand history at twoplustwo. Most of us bought the book and whatnot; started grinding and so forth; and that time you had Aces someone flopped a straight after calling all-in with shit. You’re only 6 steps from Kevin Bacon, after all.

Anyway, look dude, I am really just a normal guy, but a bit of a life loser. I am too old not to be humping some crappy job somewhere for meager wages, hating it and feeling miserable on any given weekday. But instead, I’ve chosen an awesome independent alternative- playing a quadrillion hands of online Limit Hold’Em!

That’s it really. Of course there’s more to it, but that is the nutshell version. Except the quadrillion hands-part as I didn’t really choose that per say. I have never considered myself a professional poker player. I am not. If there were a book about my life and poker, it would just start with “Once upon a time, there was this guy who went on vacation and didn’t go back. Instead he said ‘Eh, screw it!’ and then he played some cards and stuff.”

Now that you know this I have just spared you the amazing story about me buying the book and started grinding and so on. (I might talk about that later because I had already written that part up but quickly realized how boring it was. However, I’ll be fucking damned if I’m going to delete it after taking the time.)

 

Why am I here though?

More important than further introductions are the reasons that I, today, all of a sudden decided for the first time in months not to play a single hand of poker and instead went on to start this blog. Since I promised myself I would be brutally honest, here they are:

 

Reason 1: I am practically busto.

(Yeah, I know, right? Original stuff right there!)  Yet, this is sad. A Poker player who is broke is basically a failure, all out of cool-points, and pretty much the bottom of the barrel. Naturally, you can still make fun of people who think they’re vampires and the Furries, but anything past that would be seriously reaching.

However, sad as it may be- and even though I’m writing in a public forum- do not for a second think that this is some sort of cry for help. It is not. That I am almost broke is just a simple fact, and what has led up to it is all in the past and I will not delve any further into it right now. Besides, there is no amazing story there anyway, so don’t expect one.

Although, one thing I want to say is that while I am a somewhat mediocre player, I firmly believe I am a winning player in the games I play. And this is not grounded in some delusion of grandeur but a recorded fact over millions of hands. (Like it’s grandiose to beat lol-micro-donk-games, but you know what I mean. It’s like Americans and their lala-land over the top optimistic-I-can-do-it-attitude! It is precious and in general a positive trait, but sometimes you have to kind of smirk on the inside.)

That said- results are in the past, and we are not concerned with the past here. We are concerned with the future.

 

Reason 2: I want to set goals for myself.

While typing the line above my mind simultaneously went ‘lol, be more predictable! Or is that even possible?’ But yes, I want to set goals and discover what I am capable of.  It is not some grand endeavor- It is human nature.

Not that I haven’t done this before. In fact I have probably changed my goals this year about a hundred times already. My conclusions of my capabilities so far have been but one– I am absolutely extraordinary at, and doing a tremendous job of setting expectations too high and bailing out. If I could just figure out how to do that for money I would be extremely well off.

So what is really different this time? Nothing, I suppose. Except a sheer determination to put my money (I don’t have it yet) where my mouth is in a public forum. I don’t want anyone to read about it, I just want the knowledge that someone hypothetically could. What’s wrong with me Jared?

 

Reason 3: I want to document… something.

What exactly it turns out as I have no idea at this point in time. It might end up as the story of how I quit playing poker; how I carried on playing poker; how I went completely broke and had to get on it with, or something completely different. Whatever it may be, it’ll at least be here, in writing. (Just like all kinds of shitty poetry and gobbledygook all over the internet, only better written!)

These three reasons combined can be simplified into one single but pretty wordy sentence :

“As of today, I have four hundred and twenty seven big bets left for $0.25/$0.50, and to survive I will have to put more volume in than a Russian guy on meth, while at the same time writing about it!”

It could also be somewhat accurately summed up in one acronym – FML!

Because I am the worst grinder – EVER!

 

6/7/2012

Mission statement:

To play as many hands as it takes to either get back on my feet, or go completely broke, whine about it, and move on.

Write something worthwhile every three days during the process.