Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career

[Football-Tipper]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Good Luck Phil And you will want to come to Vegas with us next year then...Serious cash to be made at The Imperial Palace...;) Football-Tipper :notworthy

[stereoman]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career If you ever see a guy called 'alchamos' on your table, do take all his cash off him. Please. :lol :ok :cry Play the cards as they come and be careful of a juiced deck. :unsure

[msaban]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career good luck phil Mike

[friskyfitz]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Just seen this now.............. Heres to a prosperous new year and new venture :cheers:cheers Best of luck mate :ok:ok:ok

[laidbackbloke]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Good luck mate and enjoy the early retirement :clap :clap :clap Since you're not relying on an income from the poker there is no pressure on you ...................... sounds like a fun way to spend your time :ok

[BillyHills]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Best Wishes mate! Keep a diary, would be great to read in a few years when youve cracked it. BH

[DC]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career I know we're only 8 days into the new year and it's less than 20 days since your announcement, but how are you doing Philossify?! Bring the lounge some hope!!! Danny

[Big Andy]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career nice "bump" Danny. :ok Yeah phil, hows it coming along ? :hope

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Hi Guys, Have played suprisingly little poker this year so far ... but thats gonna change. Retired (maybe non permanently but I'm hoping) on Thursday. Spent £350 on a boozeup for my workmates - its amazing how cheap beer is when you buy it by the barrel :beer. The brain relief at not having to do "real" work is immense - all the more brain cycles to devote to poker. Life at the moment feels good - walked 15 miles round London yesterday - feeling really fit (may even join a gym and get rid of this beer gut). Signed up for French Cookery evening lessons for next 6 weeks - only problem is that its a Wednesday (7 to 9:30) so I will be late getting to the SO dollar up. Rest of January will be spent sorting out my finances (loads-a-money coming in :cow most of which goes straight into getting my mortgage down :( so that I can survive on my pension if need be), visiting family and putting my poker plans and accounts in good order (more to follow on this). Did a survey of all the accounts I've got and found theres about £700 resting in about 15 accounts (and another 15 with nought in them) - plan to get down to only 4 sites if I can (probably Betfair,Laddies plus couple of others). Will keep others alive just for the odd fun game - SO dollar up for example. First financial quarter of my poker empire building starts Feb 1st - ends April 30th. Before then (this month) I will probably invest and hopefully win some money - if I don't then it won't bode well for 1st quarter, in playing 100 or so £5 STTs (3 at a time) on Betfair (although I can also play these from my Littlewoods account as well). I will post my results on these and also put up my Feb-Apr plan asap (for criticism / suggestions). May even extend my experiment (100 STTs, 3 at a time should only take about 50 hours elapsed time by my reckoning) to investigating STTs on another site (BetFred?). Am even thinking of trying to put together some home grown software to automagically find the mugs on the Betfair STT circuit - so I can keep out of games with Winty1 and the like :ok - it would be nice to have a profits ranking of the regulars so that you can choose games involving best proportion of regular losers and smallest proportion of regular winners. Could do it manually by compulsively scanning the finished games - but that seems a drag - whether I can figure out some software to do it is questionable. So "Watch this space", I expect to be posting more than usual as I have all this spare time :D .

[Football-Tipper]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career :hope

[tfalbb]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Best of luck with that. You seem to have the 'business' side of it well thought out which is something people often forget. Wish you all the best with it, and look forward to reading the updates as it's something I'm working towards doing in about six months once I get my bankroll up to a working level.

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career As promised a review of my plans for the start of my poker empire.... :rollin Having escaped from paid employment on Jan 5th, I've spent most of January cogitating and trying to get my affairs in order. Almost there - family visited, house a bit cleaner, mortgage dramatically decreased. Last thing on my list is do my tax return for 2004-2005 before Mr. Taxman fines me a £100 and that will (as usual) probably be submitted online on Jan 31st. During January (which I considered a holiday) I've played a fair bit of poker (often quite a bit looser than normal) and confirmed one thing that I suspected for a long time ... THE KEY TO WINNING AT POKER IS CONCENTRATION That may seem obvious. Whenever I've played below par its been because my brain is engaged on other things than the game or I've had the sniffles or I've had a few drinks (I'm not a big drinker and find that if I have anything more than 1 bottle of beer then my game suffers). All these things affect my ability to concentrate and keep playing to plan. Its not too big a problem if I'm playing freerolls or el-cheapo games but if I'm planning to make consistent profit then I need to make sure that I play under optimum conditions. So I have to make sure I only play when I feel able to concentrate - even thinking of getting a DO NOT DISTURB I AM PLAYING POKER AND CANNOT BE INTERRUPTED AS IT MAY AFFECT MY FINANCIAL WELL-BEING sign for the front door! As i was writing this doorbell rang and it was Jehovahs witnesses - have they no respect for my religion (the Church of Poker :rollin ) !!! Right so first financial quarter starts 1st Feb ends April 30th. The highlights of what I plan to do during this are.....

• Play maximum of 40 hours per week and have at least one poker free day per week. This means that I've set up a log where I'll clock on and clock off.
• 16 hours or so per week I'll be playing the Ladbrokes ladders $10 games. Why these - well I've experimented and find I have some success at these so I'm already bankrolled to the extent of $400 virtual on these - also they are quick (40 minutes per game or less which means I can do 2 at a time get through 40 or so in 16 hours). Now if I can achieve my target 40% ROI then this means that I will make $10 virtual per hour. Now I keep saying virtual and thats because the money only appears when you play the $100 games at the top of the ladder and the big question to be answered is whether when I play those games I break even. If (as I hope) I achieve my target from the $10 level then when I've got a virtual $1000 in the Ladder system I intend to experiment at the $30 level which if I can get say 25% ROI means I'll be winning at a rate of about $18 virtual per hour. When I have $1500 virtual in the bank then I intend to start playing the $100 games to realise "real" money. The ladders games are interesting as they demand a slightly different play pattern to normal STTs in order to do well.
• 16 hours per week I'll be playing on the £5+0.50 STTs from either Littlewoods or Betfair (they are the same STT). I'm starting off on these rather than the £10 games as I need to get my rythm right before I move up the food chain. Again my intent is to reach a 40% ROI (I think it will start lower than this). And I intend to play 3 these at once (each game should average out somewhere round 1 hour) which means (if I reach 40% ROI) then I'm making £6 per hour. Note that (if I can raise myself from my bed :zzz ) I intend to count the 3 euro 9:00 a.m game as part of this sequence - so I'll play that plus two or more (depending on progress in 3 euro MTT) £5 STTs as my start of day.
• That leaves 8 hours per week for "special" opportunities, which will mostly be good value MTTs. Thie list of such opportunities I suspect will change over the course of time. Currently on my special opportunities list are (of course) the SO dollar up games. Most of the current freerolls where the virtual entry fee is less than (say) $2 I'll have to pass on because the value in terms of hours playing to potential winnings is below minimum wage. Of course the likes of the PartyPoker one still count. Whenever I'm playing in a special opportunity game I'll almost certainly be multi threading and playing at least one other game (either MTT or STT). Also under special opportunities may come such things as bonus earning via playing raked hands - theres deals around where you can get $100 for playing 500 raked hands - trick is to pick the ones where making the raked hands requirement is lowest risk. I reckon, if you pick right that you can do 500 raked hands in 8 hours (playing two tables) and therefore if you pick up $100 you are making $12.50 per hour. My preference for doing this is on the limit game at 0.50/1.00 tables on such sites as NordicBet - which has recently sent me an email offering such a deal for reloading my account provided I do it by Jan 31st. Reason for limit game (even though iot it is boring) is that the risk of losing gets exceeding small.

Anyway, theres my thoughts/plans for the 1st quarter. One aspect I can see in my plan on which I aspect criticism is that I have a spread of different types of event which means I may have too much change in strategy to cope with (like the difference between flat racing and over the sticks racing) and that may affect my bottom line. My excuse is that I'm trying to avoid being too "bored" (thats not quite the right word) and want to maintain the fun of the game - its important to me that it doesn't turn into a "proper job" - its got to be like getting paid for something you'd do for free anyway :ok (professional mattress tester would be a good job). I intend to keep fairly detailed records of my progress which I'll be summarising on here so you can all see whether I'm anywhere near hitting my target of £6 per hour - in true business plan mode I suppose I should be keeping a graph which will hopefully show me getting to that level at end of 1st quarter. Anyway theres the plan, hope its of interest to my fellow PLr's'. Watch this space through the next 3 months and congratulate me if I succeed or sympathise if I fail. If it looks like I'm failing I may move over to Plan B - which dumps the STTs and goes back to freerolls,MTTs and excessive whoring :rollin .

[GaF]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Wow - you really have thought this through - good stuff!! and Good luck!!! Just out of interest - what are your criteria for Freerolls? If Prize pool divided by number of entrants is greater than $2, then you'll enter it?

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career On freerolls (of which I expect to be playing very few) my thoughts are something like there probably needs to be at least $5 from Prize Pool/Divided by number of entrants. This is taking the view that I am a better poker player than (at least) 50% of the entrants to any freeroll (I'd better be otherwise I going to lose money over the next 12 months :cry ) - thus the true value to me is at least $10 virtual entry fee (hopefully more). What I may also do - at least with the bigger prize freerolls with multithousand entries like the $10000/$20000 ones that Nordic that attract up to 12000 entries is enter them and use the Eastern European attack mode - i.e. go all in at the start with even a sniff of a hand - hope to quadruple or more fairly fast and thus build the virtual value up. This makes sense as the one thing that really costs (time is money :) ) is waiting around in a lottery such as these for a good hand to invest with (even if I can play two STTs at same time). Its a horrible spoiling strategy I know and it will be hard on my conscience to operate in such a mode. Nice thing about really big freerolls is that you only need 1 win a year and whammo you have a nice chunk of money.

[Valiant23]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Phil, I had an idea.:unsure Gaf? has a graphics card type that supports two monitors if you remember. If I was ever to get the chance to do what you are I would seriously considering getting one. It's easy to fit, no harder than putting a new fuse in a plug. Incidentally I have a 17" monitor for sale........ :rollin :rollin :rollin

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Was thinking of a two monitor solution (already have a spare 17in monitor) so may go that way. May even have a two screen graphics card in one of my old machines. Currently have a 19in monitor set at 1152*864 pixels - so may go that way. I like to sit well back from the monitor (must be about 4 ft between my head and the display) in a very comfy recliner - find that I can operate the optical mouse on the arm rest and if I need to can use keyboard from my lap - works exceeding well for me. Am experimenting (on Ladbrokes) with mini-view mode as this has the possibility of displaying 4 screens at once without any overlap on said mode (suspect mini mode is what you get if you play poker via mobile phone only on a 2.5" or therabouts screen rather than a corner of a 17in screen). Betfred/betfair don't seem to offer such a minimode which limits the experiment somewhat.

[Jaded]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Will be really interested to see how you get on, Phil - best of luck!

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Well today is DAY 1. Its bloody hard finding enough hours in the day to play - too many other things keep interfering :D - how the !*^£% did I ever have time to go to work)!!! So I've finished for today already (except for the dollar up which I will join about half an hour late as I'm off for an evening class - French Cookery). Suprisingly I'm ahead of the curve having only logged 4 hours today. Beginners luck, it will probably be all down hill fron now :rollin . Heres the log so far (don't worry I don't intend to go into this much detail everyday - in fact you'll be lucky to get an update once a week). ===================================================== Wed 1st Feb - Day 1! =========== In: 09:00 Out: 10:40 Elapsed: 100 mins BFair Eur 3+0.30 Placed: 2/25 Profit/Loss: $ +43 Ladder $ 10+1 Placed 5/10 Profit/Loss: $ -11 Session profit $32 rate: $0.32/minute Note: Tomlagor in Ladders looks good. Amazing result on Betfair! In: 11:55 Out: 12:50 Elapsed: 55 mins Ladder $ 10+1 Placed 1/10 Profit/Loss: $ +22 Ladder $ 10+1 Placed 2/10 Profit/Loss: $ +22 Session profit $44 rate: $0.80/minute Note: Wow a good mornings start! In: 14:00 Out: 15:15 Elapsed: 75 mins Ladder $ 10+1 Placed 10/10 Profit/Loss: $ -11 Ladder $ 10+1 Placed 3/10 Profit/Loss: $ +22 Ladder $ 10+1 Placed 2/10 Profit/Loss: $ +22 Session profit $33 rate: $0.44/minute Note: Never try to be too clever on ladders! Let things work out naturally by playing tight and being patient - but be a little aggressive in the right positions particularly in the end game (last 6 onwards). Be very careful with those that have more chips than you. Wow 3 sessions in a row showing profit - only problem is that lot of the profit is virtual from ladders and won't become real money till I go in at $100 level, ===================================================== So about 4 hours play and I'm up $109 (£60 or thereabouts) even though a lot of it is virtual from ladders) - a much better start than I expected :hope (or deserve). I had a lot of luck today - went into final table on the betfair 3 euro game and my back to the wall all-ins succeeded - made the final 3 (as 3rd) and first and second had a fight which moved me up to 2nd. I'd be in the 9:00 am tomorrow except I meet a pile of old buddies for breakfast. One thing I think I did well was applying patience - I generally waited till the right hand came up to do any short-stack alll-ins. Hope the above is of interest. Will see some of you at Sandown Saturday :beer :beer :beer - another event interfering with my plan for global domination :lol .

[Guest gazza271]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Great start mate, Well done:clap :clap :clap

[ubermonkey1]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career gl phil:ok ive been thinking of doing the same for a while.ive been averageing about $20 per hour profit on $10 sit and goes on 888(weekend mornings are great, loads of drunken americans abuseing you as you take their money).so i dont think you shouldn't have to many probs doing it :hope .my problem is i run my own buisness which complicates matters ,if i was in your position id defo do it ,with the rise of poker in general there are a lot of newbies out there with a fair bit of cash to burn ,it a good time to take advantage of it.keep us all posted on how you are doing ,be intresting to see how plausable a idea it is, if you beat 40k i'll have to seriously consider doing the same.

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Well its 1 week into my new career and what are the results. The good news is that I'm $156 (£90 or so) up on the week having (due to various circumstances) played only 23hrs 46mins. The bad news is that this is only £3.80 per hour which is well short of my target. Highlights: Played 21 Level 2 ladders on ladbrokes and made $66 (ROI=27%). Didn't play any betfair £5 STTs. Profits from assorted other stuff - risked approx $60 Won: $+90 ROI = 150%. This was mainly MTTs, things like the 3euro game on betfair, Betfred premier league, So dollar-ups - fun stuff in other words. Week was interrupted by lots of events (happy events like the Sandown trip :clap ) and I played on a couple of occasions feeling under par (still recovering from bad cold) . This next week I've got fewer committments and will hopefully get more hours in and hopefully get better returns. Intend to start into the betfair £5 STTs and see how they go , play more ladders (and hopefully improve ROI) and play the 3euro on betfair at 9:00 am most mornings. Am also I think committed to playing the SO dollar ups, the SO Championship and the Betfred Premier league. So mix will be daytime STTs (ladders and Betfair) and evenings 3 hours approx of MTTs.

[sherry009]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career go for it mate if you stay disceplined u have got a chance i started playing at the start of jan i dont think im in much profit because some days you win some u lose!!!! in jan i made £700 in 3 days on thr $1/$2 cash tables then i lost £200 in one hand thats the way it gos if you av the will to walk away when you win you will be a sucess i sugest you set urself a target of £60 a day and if You lose dont let it go over £30 the best of luck keep me posted:hope

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Week 2 Summary Bad news: :cry Definitelty behind target in winnings ($190 in two weeks) although I think I put in the 40 hours this week (although 1 day at least was devoted to a cleanse of my umpteen accounts.) Good news: :ok Still a nother (just) profitable week - so not to be knocked. MTTs going well. Profit only $56 this week (although a few points earned in SO champios league and BetFred Premier league). Just about broke even on Ladbrokes ladders. Saviour of results is MTTs. Good wins seem to be in MTTs, bit disappointed by coming 11th in midnite $10 on Betfair (only got $30 when winner got $840!). Closed down assorted "dead" accounts including Europoker so fair few dollars converted into real money :ok . Am now mainly Sporting Odds (primarily for dollar up and Champions leagueMTTs), Betfair (MTTs at mo), Ladbrokes (for Ladders) and BetFred (for Premier League) Investigating whoring on Bet4Ever but don't like their cashier variations much (Neteller) and continuing to "experiment" with the balance of my playing (MTTs, versus Ladders/STTs in the main). Playing too many freerolls with not enough value in them - must cut these out :spank !. Llets see if week3 does better - at least I'm up in time today to do the $3euro betfair breakfast special! :cheers

[Masterplan]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career i also play poker online sem-pro(full time student) i find stt's will never give enough profit/time ratio, nl cash games have a lot more potential, so long as you can recognise the good tables, when you're winning, when you're losing. player notes is a must! if you see a guy call a bad hand , write it down! if you see how much someone raises with aces/kings, WRITE IT DOWN eventually you'll get enough to recognise bad players and strategies, i normally aim for $100 a day profit, but will settle at $75 or thereabouts if i feel uncomfortable recognise your moods!! sometimes you might be playing recklessly without knowing it, sometimes you might be in the ultra-tight mood for a good multi, sometimes you might be aggressive for a ring game with low budget players and can easily take advantage of them i recommend playing minesweeper to help with that, it has set strategies and risks and can be a direct mental comparison to your poker playing. just my 2 cents :)

[stevie-p]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career hi philossify, good read and best of luck with that...fair play for having the balls to give it a go. i played you last night in the league game. curious to know what name you play betfair under as i used to play the €50 bonus regular....looking at the entries for this morning and cant guess.... i play as jack high.

[philossify]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Play on betfair as wpr1 it was fiirst site I joined (to have a bet on Grand National as I was too late/lazy to walk to the bookies) and thought I'd be able to change my moniker after joining so used my initials. I can remember playing against you .... will say hello next time I see you.:ok

[stevie-p]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career yeah wpr1.... i was playing you a few days ago and ran into u twice... last hand was when on sb and all folded with a/10 ...i was clowning around on the table after taking a beat from u earlier and had climbed back into contention ...i am playing real loose and am about to tighten up and pray for a hand to get action...a/10 im dealt and i cant resist one more roll of the dice ...u had j/j :) i enjoy those games ...might try to play the midday one ....gl

[ThePro19]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Phil - have you given a thought to 6paks on the cryptologic sites (betfair etc)? They normally last about half an hour, top 2 places pay, winner gets 4.5 * buy-in and 2nd 1.5 * buy-in. 2nd is not much, but what I've found is that if you play tight you can normally do well. At one point I actually turned betfair around into a net profit of £16. Unfortunately, a few bad beats after that and I was back to a £400 net loss (started doing some silly things through frustration). Anyway, if you have a big enough bankroll (I personally am not prepared to put that much in), I believe I have a very profitable strategy. Minimum 6pak buy-in is $10, however, I would probably recommend that you start playing £10 games because of what you are trying to do. A win there would get you £45, a profit £34 (taking into account the £1 entry fee) in about 30 mins. If you lose 3 games on the trot, then move up to either a $20 game or £20 game. Winning these would return $90 and £90 respectively, again, a tidy little profit. Once you've won, go back to the £10 games and start the process again. If you lose a couple at the $20/£20 games, move up to $30/£30 and keep this process going until you win. And you will win. There is only 5 other players to beat and laws of probability say you will generally win at least 1 in 6 games. I have successfully used this strategy; worked on betfair but then I got into a bad rut. However, I have started to recoverit again and my net loss is coming back towards zero. I am also playing them on littlewoods and it is working there too (no reason not to). Personally I like to move around the cryptologic sites doing this as, for some strange reason, I seem to do better on a site when I leave it for a few days. Can't check at the moment, but I believe the 6pak buy-ins go up to £90, or maybe even £120, so if you are happy spending that in one go then I can't see how this strategy can fail. Agreed, you won't make as much as 1st place in a decent MTT, but if you play one or two of these at a time I see no reason why you couldn't be averaging £30 per hour profit, which I think is well above your forecasts. I am 90% certain it can work, and have proved it to some extent. For example, I deposited £25 into Littlewoods, lost it. Deposited another £25, played 3 £10 6paks and got 2 2nd's and a 1st. And I was unlucky that it wasn't 3 1st's! It's amazing how many times I've had over 4k in chips and then cannot get a hand or get a bad beat. Anyway, that bumped my bank balance to £65 or so. Then unfortunately had 6 bad games where I never won anything. Had one where there were 4 of us left. I had about 2.2k and got dealt AJ. Low stack went all-in for about 460. Next player also went all-in for a little over 1k. I decided to not get involved and folded. Low stack had 88, 2nd player had JJ... glad I folded... until flop brought an A and river brought another A. Could have taken both out in one go and been in the money. As it was, got some bad beats and went out in 3rd for nothing. Anyway, back to the strategy example, deposited another £25, played a £20 6pak last night and won it - £90, tyvm! An overall profit about £22. Now I don't play anywhere near as many hours as you (I still have a full time job) and so I'm happy with that. I reckon you could do even better because you will probably play the hands better, you will have good notes on players (I never make written notes, only mental notes) and will make better decisions. Although I am currently at a loss on Betfair, I am turning it around again, Will Hill is probably currently at a loss although I don't use it very much and don't keep track, and Littlewoods I reckon is well in profit, but again I don't keep track and they don't display a net figure like Betfair does. Let me know what you think, and if you try it, let me know the results. Best of luck.

[Pocket Lady]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Phil - you can turn this around and turn your profit into quite a bankroll. Here's to tonight and you getting to the final table in the Dollar Up. :hope

[brael]

Re: Philossify launches a Full Time Poker career Pro, what worries me about your system is that you seem to be chasing losses... if you lose a $10 STT then you move up to $20 to try and recover what you've lost. To me that seems to increase the risk of losing your bankroll. Personally, I can find myself getting very frustrated and doing all kinds of silly things (Monday nights Dollar Up being an example! :lol ). That being the case I wouldn't want to find myself getting annoyed and hacking away with any old hand on a table where I've paid more. The increased risk to your bankroll could just add to frustration when things ain't going your way. I think it's better to record what you've played. I've started doing so this month and, after a good start, it's faltered... a bit! :eek However, I'm still in profit for the month and I'm hoping it will improve before the end of the month... thankfully there's still 13 days to go!! :lol I'd be interested in hearing how you get on. What works for me might not for others of course so it may be worthwhile comparing notes with other PL'ers.