Rocmar87

Hi my name is Rocco Marotta. I’m 25 years old, and i’m going to attempt to give you guys a snapshot of the last few years of my poker life in what I hope is an interesting blog post.

When I was around 18-19 years old I started getting into the whole gambling scene, regularly going to casinos with some friends and obviously regularly losing what at the time was alot of money to me.  I didn’t know the difference between poker, blackjack and roulette….  I figured that if you could be good at poker, then you could be good at roulette.  In other words I was a complete fish…..

Thinking back on my life from 19-22 i think I literally lived the most degenerate lifestyle possible.  I would work all week, to party and drink Friday and Saturday nights, then gamble away the small amount of money I had left from the previous weeks work.

I knew  the way I was managing my money couldn’t continue so I made a point of not gambling.  I would just work and save a bit of money.  During this time I met my current girlfriend Daniella, who I ended up living to Australia with.

During my first trip in Australia around 3 years ago, I wanted a way to survive here without having to work, and basically live the ‘holiday’ lifestyle.  I started a small business which I won’t go into detail on, but it done really well really quickly, so I tried to expand it and took some risks. I believe that if the risks went well, I would  have been made for life, however things didn’t go as planned and I ended up busting the business.

I eventually had to return to the UK because  I couldn’t afford to continue living in Australia.  I had left my girlfriend in Australia with the promise that if she waited for me I would return.

It was at this point that I decided to learn poker. I got my old job back which was paying up to 1k per week with good commission, where I would spent most of my day on husng.com watching coaching videos

I used to upload videos onto my phone so that I could study them while on the train to and from work.  My friends would go out to party, but I would stay at home with a note pad taking notes on Mers videos (sad I know!).

At the time I didn’t care. All I could think about was learning and becoming a winner In poker…in all honesty  poker  took over the next 4 months of my life.

I studied, railed Millz and Moca a bunch, got coaching from Flippety and eventually started my own little online bankroll.  I started off playing $10 heads up regular speeds, and was winning straight away.

All I cared about now was grinding and studying.

I would hate going to work because I knew inside myself what I really wanted to do at heart, and it sure as hell wasn’t telesales  Within 3 months of grinding, i was playing $60 games, and had enough $$$ saved to quit my job and do what I knew I had to do.  I got so much stick from family and friends for quitting a well payed job for poker, but I didn’t care.

Since this point, I have been to around 10 different countries, living a higher quality of life that i would have ever imagined a few years ago…. I live in Australia with my girlfriend again, and I have managed to become a $200 regular and am regarded as one of the ‘better’ players around.  To achieve all of this in just 2 years is a huge accomplishment.

Poker is an amazing game, some people have even described it to me as an art.  To anyone reading this, i would just like to say that anything is possible.  I had literally no clue about poker and was a full on fish around 2.5 years ago.  Now with alot of hard work, I’m a respected player in the heads up world, traveling the world, more financially stable than i have ever been, and above all , I’m happier than iv ever been.

I’ve met some amazing people since being a full time poker player.  Some of the smartest, genuine and intelligent people i have ever come across.  I would like to say I’m grateful for meeting such cool people,   and I look forward to working with all you guys in the future

 

Rocmar87