Anthony Martino
Royal Flush
Back in December 2019 I let the cat out of the bag that I had quit my job at the end of September to play poker for a living, by creating an Ask Me Anything thread. Now that we're about 10 months in, I figured it was time to begin a thread to follow along on my journey.
To provide some background, I'm now 43 years old, having left my job at 42 to pursue this change.
My background is that I grew up poor, in a family that survived on Welfare and Veterans Assistance. Got my first job at the age of 12 (as a paperboy) and had a high school friend whose parents owned a local hotel, so got a job at the front desk at the tender age of 16! Went to community college in the town I grew up in, got my Associates in Business and went to work. Always been a jack-of-all-trades, some highlights from my time working for "the man" include:
On-Call Firefighter & CPR Instructor
Communications Manager for a Ski Area
Emergency Medical Dispatcher for a private ambulance company
IT Support for multiple companies
Dispatch for multiple companies
The job I left last year to pursue this dream was as manager of a trucking company. We were a local auto-hauler, moving cars to and from dealerships and auctions, doing home-deliveries and brokering anything out-of-state. We had (7) seven-car haulers plus (4) tow trucks, and then office staff I also managed. We averaged 650 cars moved each week, although we had weeks that hit over 800.
The problem was, we operated 9am-9pm, Monday - Friday, but because we were so busy and it was difficult to find truck drivers (especially reliable ones), we were often short-staffed with our fleet. This meant we also were generally running guys in rotation on Saturdays as well, plus occasionally a customer would have a tent-sale we'd service so we might work Sunday as well.
So the job essentially became my life. If I was home for supper, I wasn't "home", and I certainly wasn't "present". I would have drivers, customers and staff calling me at all hours, whether it was 6:30am or 11pm. I might not physically be in the office, but I was putting in 70+ hours per week and did it for three years, and it was taking its toll. I was coming home exhausted and angry, and it was affecting my marriage. Eventually Jenn said "you need to quit, go play poker".
One of my friends that I had met in a local tournament here had told me he thought I'd do well playing PLO cash games. What's funny is I had always viewed them as essentially coin-flipping and gambling, as I hadn't really studied it much. My background in poker was growing up Italian, so at family gatherings we'd play 7 card stud, 5 card draw, roll dice, etc.
When the Moneymaker boom hit I learned Hold Em, although I didn't become competent until I had read Harringtons books on them. Then I learned fixed-limit Omaha hi/lo and from there branched out, picking up 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, Badugi and other mixed games. I actually preferred fixed-limit games, I didn't enjoy the pressure people could apply to me in No Limit or Pot Limit games.
But anyway, jumping ahead to September of 2019. I'm beat up, I've reached the point where if I don't make a change somethings gotta give, and I'll either wind up fired, divorced or both. So I gave my boss my two weeks notice. He wasn't happy to see me go, but I didn't want to burn any bridges and left the right way (the ass you kick today may be the ass you kiss tomorrow!)
Going into this change in life, I had saved up 6 months of living expenses plus a separate bankroll just for poker. But, I hadn't really played PLO, and I was making the jump! I got Hwangs and Slotbooms books on PLO, read up, and jumped in!
At the time the Tampa Hard Rock would get a 2/5 PLO game with a rock (a $10 forced straddle posted by the winner of the previous pot). Buyins were $200-$2,000 and suddenly I was playing for much larger sums of money than I was accustomed, and playing a game I had no track record in! But, I had confidence. I knew I was a capable player and could pickup new things, and felt I had a strong enough background in a variety of poker formats to make the switch. I wasn't out there looking for glory, to be the best and beat the best. I just wanted to find players that were weaker than me and would pay me off so I could feed my family (just the wife and three cats, but hey, they gotta eat too!)
This is my graph since I started, by session. I might play multiple sessions per visit to a poker room, as I might jump between different stakes of PLO, Big O or mixed games. I am not showing the part of the graph that reveals the total dollars won, as that's not something I'm comfortable sharing. However, I know folks like to have some inkling of what someone in my line of work is making, so I'll provide a range of between $60-120/hr overall across all game types. Some games my rate is above or below that, depending on stakes and location. But my combined hourly is somewhere within the 60-120/hr range.
It's more money than anyone is going to pay my Associates-Degree having ass in a 9-5 job, that's for sure. So now you'll ask what games and stakes I play, well, I'm glad you asked, here you go!
Primarily I focus on:
2/5 PLO with a $10 Rock (buyins 200-2K)
1/2 PLO with a $5 button straddle and unlimited restraddles (my most profitable game each week, buyins 200-1k)
1/2 PLO (buyins 100-500)
I also play a 40/80 fixed-limit 27-game mix, although the variance is higher with so many draw games and generally I prefer PLO overall, but it is a nice change if the lineup is right.
In March I got a gym membership for an entire year, plus a personal trainer for 8 sessions, and then a few weeks in I was going to the gym every day and Covid hit, shutting the gyms down. They've since re-opened and I'm back in there doing my thing, plus I try to rollerskate once every week or two as well, which I enjoy and I'm quite good at.
Switching to poker has really helped my relationship and me personally as far as my mental health. I focus on cash games and play very few tournaments, because those lock you in for 8, 10, 12 hour days. With a cash game, I can go and play for 2 hours, win $1300 and head home, see my wife, watch some shows and enjoy life outside of constantly grinding. Some weeks I'll only put in 25 hours, other weeks 30-40. But nowhere near the 70 hours I was putting in working for "the man".
Don't get me wrong, it's not all sunshine and roses. In February I suffered my first (and crossing my fingers, so far only) losing month. It started off great, I think for the first 11 days I had made more than my monthly goal and was on track to match or exceed what I did in December (my first five-figure month) and I was feeling great!
Well, PLO has variance, I was warned, it wasn't going to last forever. Suddenly I went on a horrible downswing. The donks were getting me! Guy raises 3456 preflop to $30, another guy repots all-in for $150, I spring my trap with AAxx and repot to $450 and the guy with 3456 just calls off half his fucking stack and spikes the 667 flop, which looks good when you have Aces, since this guys calling range shouldn't include a 6 in it for half his stack, lol.
Flop top set and nfd vs a weaker fd and an open-ender? He binks the river straight. Have a guy drawing to ONE out on the turn in a $1,400 pot when you hold top two and the nfd vs his K944 with 2nd nfd and only one four in the deck is good for him since the other gives us both the flush, and he binks it on the river as a 2.5% to 97.5% underdog.
Most of the other losses were standard fair, flop straight and flush draws vs top set and I miss my draws, or flop the nut flush vs top set and get it in and he pairs the river, etc. I will say about $800 of my losses were bad play/tilt induced. I'm certainly not immune to it.
When Covid hit I wasn't able to play live anymore, and I'm fairly nitty so I'm not getting invited to any juicy private games either. I found a site online where I was able to play multiple tables of PLO, Big O and 5-card PLO and would play up to 6 tables at a time, sometimes tossing in a NL Hold Em tourney or PLO tourney into the mix as well. Helped keep me sharp and was profitable, although not as much as live poker. But it helped me get used to making a lot more decisions, getting more hands and experience in and also dealing with the ups and downs of this life I've chosen.
Anyway, we're closing in on almost a year of doing this, and I'm still happy with my decision. I will say I don't get the joy out of poker that I once did, as it's more work and less entertainment, so I do miss some of that aspect of it. But being able to pay my bills without having to punch a clock, having the freedom to choose my hours, to adjust to things in life I need to take care of without having to worry about dealing with my bosses needs, has been really freeing.
So stay tuned and subscribe to this space to follow along, and I'll continue to keep ya posted!
To provide some background, I'm now 43 years old, having left my job at 42 to pursue this change.
My background is that I grew up poor, in a family that survived on Welfare and Veterans Assistance. Got my first job at the age of 12 (as a paperboy) and had a high school friend whose parents owned a local hotel, so got a job at the front desk at the tender age of 16! Went to community college in the town I grew up in, got my Associates in Business and went to work. Always been a jack-of-all-trades, some highlights from my time working for "the man" include:
On-Call Firefighter & CPR Instructor
Communications Manager for a Ski Area
Emergency Medical Dispatcher for a private ambulance company
IT Support for multiple companies
Dispatch for multiple companies
The job I left last year to pursue this dream was as manager of a trucking company. We were a local auto-hauler, moving cars to and from dealerships and auctions, doing home-deliveries and brokering anything out-of-state. We had (7) seven-car haulers plus (4) tow trucks, and then office staff I also managed. We averaged 650 cars moved each week, although we had weeks that hit over 800.
The problem was, we operated 9am-9pm, Monday - Friday, but because we were so busy and it was difficult to find truck drivers (especially reliable ones), we were often short-staffed with our fleet. This meant we also were generally running guys in rotation on Saturdays as well, plus occasionally a customer would have a tent-sale we'd service so we might work Sunday as well.
So the job essentially became my life. If I was home for supper, I wasn't "home", and I certainly wasn't "present". I would have drivers, customers and staff calling me at all hours, whether it was 6:30am or 11pm. I might not physically be in the office, but I was putting in 70+ hours per week and did it for three years, and it was taking its toll. I was coming home exhausted and angry, and it was affecting my marriage. Eventually Jenn said "you need to quit, go play poker".
One of my friends that I had met in a local tournament here had told me he thought I'd do well playing PLO cash games. What's funny is I had always viewed them as essentially coin-flipping and gambling, as I hadn't really studied it much. My background in poker was growing up Italian, so at family gatherings we'd play 7 card stud, 5 card draw, roll dice, etc.
When the Moneymaker boom hit I learned Hold Em, although I didn't become competent until I had read Harringtons books on them. Then I learned fixed-limit Omaha hi/lo and from there branched out, picking up 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, Badugi and other mixed games. I actually preferred fixed-limit games, I didn't enjoy the pressure people could apply to me in No Limit or Pot Limit games.
But anyway, jumping ahead to September of 2019. I'm beat up, I've reached the point where if I don't make a change somethings gotta give, and I'll either wind up fired, divorced or both. So I gave my boss my two weeks notice. He wasn't happy to see me go, but I didn't want to burn any bridges and left the right way (the ass you kick today may be the ass you kiss tomorrow!)
Going into this change in life, I had saved up 6 months of living expenses plus a separate bankroll just for poker. But, I hadn't really played PLO, and I was making the jump! I got Hwangs and Slotbooms books on PLO, read up, and jumped in!
At the time the Tampa Hard Rock would get a 2/5 PLO game with a rock (a $10 forced straddle posted by the winner of the previous pot). Buyins were $200-$2,000 and suddenly I was playing for much larger sums of money than I was accustomed, and playing a game I had no track record in! But, I had confidence. I knew I was a capable player and could pickup new things, and felt I had a strong enough background in a variety of poker formats to make the switch. I wasn't out there looking for glory, to be the best and beat the best. I just wanted to find players that were weaker than me and would pay me off so I could feed my family (just the wife and three cats, but hey, they gotta eat too!)
This is my graph since I started, by session. I might play multiple sessions per visit to a poker room, as I might jump between different stakes of PLO, Big O or mixed games. I am not showing the part of the graph that reveals the total dollars won, as that's not something I'm comfortable sharing. However, I know folks like to have some inkling of what someone in my line of work is making, so I'll provide a range of between $60-120/hr overall across all game types. Some games my rate is above or below that, depending on stakes and location. But my combined hourly is somewhere within the 60-120/hr range.
It's more money than anyone is going to pay my Associates-Degree having ass in a 9-5 job, that's for sure. So now you'll ask what games and stakes I play, well, I'm glad you asked, here you go!
Primarily I focus on:
2/5 PLO with a $10 Rock (buyins 200-2K)
1/2 PLO with a $5 button straddle and unlimited restraddles (my most profitable game each week, buyins 200-1k)
1/2 PLO (buyins 100-500)
I also play a 40/80 fixed-limit 27-game mix, although the variance is higher with so many draw games and generally I prefer PLO overall, but it is a nice change if the lineup is right.
In March I got a gym membership for an entire year, plus a personal trainer for 8 sessions, and then a few weeks in I was going to the gym every day and Covid hit, shutting the gyms down. They've since re-opened and I'm back in there doing my thing, plus I try to rollerskate once every week or two as well, which I enjoy and I'm quite good at.
Switching to poker has really helped my relationship and me personally as far as my mental health. I focus on cash games and play very few tournaments, because those lock you in for 8, 10, 12 hour days. With a cash game, I can go and play for 2 hours, win $1300 and head home, see my wife, watch some shows and enjoy life outside of constantly grinding. Some weeks I'll only put in 25 hours, other weeks 30-40. But nowhere near the 70 hours I was putting in working for "the man".
Don't get me wrong, it's not all sunshine and roses. In February I suffered my first (and crossing my fingers, so far only) losing month. It started off great, I think for the first 11 days I had made more than my monthly goal and was on track to match or exceed what I did in December (my first five-figure month) and I was feeling great!
Well, PLO has variance, I was warned, it wasn't going to last forever. Suddenly I went on a horrible downswing. The donks were getting me! Guy raises 3456 preflop to $30, another guy repots all-in for $150, I spring my trap with AAxx and repot to $450 and the guy with 3456 just calls off half his fucking stack and spikes the 667 flop, which looks good when you have Aces, since this guys calling range shouldn't include a 6 in it for half his stack, lol.
Flop top set and nfd vs a weaker fd and an open-ender? He binks the river straight. Have a guy drawing to ONE out on the turn in a $1,400 pot when you hold top two and the nfd vs his K944 with 2nd nfd and only one four in the deck is good for him since the other gives us both the flush, and he binks it on the river as a 2.5% to 97.5% underdog.
Most of the other losses were standard fair, flop straight and flush draws vs top set and I miss my draws, or flop the nut flush vs top set and get it in and he pairs the river, etc. I will say about $800 of my losses were bad play/tilt induced. I'm certainly not immune to it.
When Covid hit I wasn't able to play live anymore, and I'm fairly nitty so I'm not getting invited to any juicy private games either. I found a site online where I was able to play multiple tables of PLO, Big O and 5-card PLO and would play up to 6 tables at a time, sometimes tossing in a NL Hold Em tourney or PLO tourney into the mix as well. Helped keep me sharp and was profitable, although not as much as live poker. But it helped me get used to making a lot more decisions, getting more hands and experience in and also dealing with the ups and downs of this life I've chosen.
Anyway, we're closing in on almost a year of doing this, and I'm still happy with my decision. I will say I don't get the joy out of poker that I once did, as it's more work and less entertainment, so I do miss some of that aspect of it. But being able to pay my bills without having to punch a clock, having the freedom to choose my hours, to adjust to things in life I need to take care of without having to worry about dealing with my bosses needs, has been really freeing.
So stay tuned and subscribe to this space to follow along, and I'll continue to keep ya posted!
