Road to crushing high stakes PLO

Thanks for all the kind responses guys. Here's a quick write up of my new direction.

We pursue poker for money and meaning. Meaning is found in intellectual stimulation, creativity and positive work relations.
I got into poker when I was 17 in a state of severe psychological damage and very low self esteem. Suddenly I found something I was naturally very good at and when I starting making 50-100k/month from it it was incredible, it gave me everything.

After 6 years I lost interest. What is the coolest thing in the world at 18, became repetitive, frustrating, lacking creativity, inspiration and positive work relations. I took a step back from poker and searched and traveled. Then I became very seriously ill for many years. At some point wanting to pick up work again, I got back into poker, learning plo5 from scratch, the process which I logged here.

The process of learning was the most fun, but now that I have most of the game figured out, what remains is again a fairly repetitive grind of studying situations for even deeper understanding, while grinding out low edge very high variance games.

What used to be 100k/month variance free became in a best-case execution 50k/month at extremely high variance with a number of additional downsides: little in terms of creativity or positive work relations, poor future prospects, no prospect for further growth. Look at the top poker players, none of them scream alive and fulfilling potential the way that industry leaders in tech and engineering do. Even in chess you do not see greatness, the top players all have an element of narcissism. The greatest thing in these games is to be better than another in a format that produces nothing.

Now with AI booming, the option to build the future is more accessible to anyone than ever before. To truly succeed now in poker an effort of absolute excellence is required. That effort of excellence applied to the AI boom will undoubtedly result in a better prospect by every metric, earnings included, than poker.

With a little push from friends, I have now started on this. Starting a new venture is like looking into the abyss of unknowns. Maybe I will continue logging my progress in the space here.

Gaining proficiency, I feel filled with that excitement and drive that I long lost and its the greatest feeling ever.

You are obviously very switched on and the way you write about poker is interesting and engaging, i would be interested in reading your journey into a new career as it happens, and the nuances of how you approach it.

Would be very interested in seeing how you transition into AI from scratch, please keep posting and logging how you’re going about it! Would be nice just in case one day myself and others want to do the same

Build a 100m company. Lets go!

Crucial to wealth creation is leverage. The beauty of AI is that it allows a single user to tap into unprecedented amounts of leverage. Lets build from scratch and ignorance, a Airbnb like platform.

Step 1: grind a basic python/javascript module to understand how coding works at a fundamental level

Step 2: build "manually" with chatGPT and VScode the core features of a marketplace to understand how the process is structures

Step 3: use a more advanced tool like replit to properly prompt to do the same. See what problems you run into.

Step 4: Problems from above arise from not thinking out design properly. Frontend, backend and database design need to be thought out before hand to build in a strategic manner

Step 5: Design the user interface in Figma. Designing the UI forces you to think about the functionality.

Step 6: Return to replit with this understanding. Build the marketplace now in a thoughtful manner.

I now built a fully functional basic market place with registration, login features leading to buyer: search ads, purchase, manage orders and seller: list add, manage orders. With the optionality to switch between roles. It took less than 2 hours with the proper structure to build this.

Step 7: Where are the vulnerabilities in building towards a product deployment and scaling? > Keeping good coding practice. Ask GPT to tutor you on good coding practice. Hire experienced developer to go through your current files and elaborate and guide the process.

This is where we are now.

As a poker player workign in tech with AI - please continue to write on your path and learnings. Very interesting to follow from the outside. Best of luck with everything!

Thank you for all your posts! Is there any way to get access to your plo5 server?

Are you worth 5-10 mil+ after saying you made 100k/mo in poker?

Update: From Poker to AI

For 7 years i was total wrecked by lyme disease and it was a brutal fight. In this blog last year I tried make my big comeback at high stakes. I always thought of myself as a poker player through and through, but its zero sum nature started to feel hollow. The challenge was gone, replaced by a ceiling, what has seemed great before was now meaningless. I knew I needed something different.

That’s when I reconnected with my friend Nee, someone who has always been something of a mentor to me and always inspired me to think bigger. and together we started working on a project that’s got me so excited. Its beautiful, its impactful, it can change the world, im not ready to share the details but it feels like were building something special.

I’ve found my place in system design, which has been engaging and creative in ways I didn’t expect. I’m part of a small team of five, each person bringing their own expertise to the project. Working with them is a privilege, getting to lear about each of their fields, and it’s just awesome to be around such talented people. Coordinating with them pushes me to grow while having found deep purpose in my role.

It seems that right in tandem with this my health has finally overcome this illness and I'm starting to really feel strong and healthy again. Hit some solid PR's with 8x140kg on squats, 15x50 on one arm rows, 6x70 on military press.

I really could not be happier with this choice and look forward to sharing the project when its ready.

I did that consistently for like 2-3 years, its well documented.

This is life tho. Not knocking you for choosing to move onto another path. My point tho is once you learn the mechanics of a good swing and are good at executing it vs a wide range of pitches, as well as are a proficient to strong fielder....there's nothing to do but start to grind your way up to the major leagues. You have to then learn the nuances of each pitcher you will face and get into psychological battles but if you're good at this you will eventually make it to the major leagues and on a day to day basis it will be a monotonous grind game after game.

Most people don't make it this far bc most people don't stick with it. Once you learn all the nuances of something it starts to lose it's luster, you have fewer and fewer things to be curious about and you have to dig deeper to improve at that point. But this is true of absolutely everything you work to master, the closer you get to mastering it the less interesting it will become. The true master is the one that finds joy and beauty in the absolute simplest aspect of what he's doing....it's an incredibly tough path which is why 99.99% of people opt out of it and choose to just watch greatness and be amazed by it

Whatsup boss? Hows life going?

Would love a step by step on how you transitioned into the AI world from scratch with a poker background and how to actually get hired , I relate to you what you said about poker and would want a plan B!