Easiest subscribe of 2024! :)

GLHF!

GL in 2024 hope it goes well for you!

Gooooooooooooooo

I'm not really a NLHE player but looking forward to following some higher stakes action in this thread - good luck!

Great goals! Looking forward to seeing how you do this year. Best of luck

Douglas

Will follow this closely.
Love the idea about the diary, i recommend it to loads of people who are struggling to structure their time. I remember in the past where started to get frustrated with office chats because they would put me behind my schedule for the day. lol

GL with the MTT bink as well.

I love that you're able to review a previous goal and reason/accept that there is some aspect of it that you'll be less bothered about in your next cycle of goals.

Thanks for continuing to blog and wishing you the best with all your goals for 2024!

Update- back on the grind

Routine-

I just want to clarify one thing about my original post and subsequent comments on the topic. I mentioned about how in goal 1 I wasn't too bothered about routine, and was just more focused on hitting volume goals and on moving up in stakes. This is true, but my default will still be my routine- I just don't want to be so rigid within it.

For example, last week I played poker Monday-Wednesday, had a new boiler installed on Thursday (which meant I had to get up at 8am and slept only 3-4 hours) so obviously I didn't play poker that day. I then played on Friday, took Saturday off (as usual, and went to a castle) and then played MTT's, cash and even some heads up on Sunday.

At the moment I can be in 'routine mode', but I also want to have some flexibility there. If I decide to put in a lot of volume on one day, then perhaps I take the next day off as a reward. If I want to go to a football match, which will cause me to miss a day of grinding and only play four days that week, then no problem.

And, just as importantly, if I feel like playing during one of my preassigned days off- I will play. Which is something I wasn't doing last year. I was being too rigid.

For me flexibility is important, but I need some structure within that flexibility. Too much flexibility and I will play like three days per week. Too much routine and I will start to get anxious about playing (as I feel forced to do something), I will get burnt out and then stop playing for a while.

However, with a rough outline (Monday off, as I usually play long MTT sessions on a Sunday and Saturday off, to watch sports, go someplace, do something social etc) then I have a good starting point. I will default to this routine, then deviate when necessary.

Update-

I was planning to take a couple weeks off, or perhaps even longer off, during January so that I could travel around The Highlands and see more of the area that I've moved to. However, I realised that it's not the best time to see the area (as it's very cold and gets dark very early) so it makes more sense to grind now, work on the house etc and then 'earn' my time off during the warmer, longer days and months.

So with that in mind, after a week off, I was back on the grind. On Friday night the 500z pool was one of the largest I have seen in a while- and also the softest I have seen in years. I done a rough calculation and worked out that (imo) I was making around $400-500 per hour in that game. So I basically just ignored all regular tables and just played four tables of 500z like it was 2018.

The way I arrived at that figure was as follows. I could play around 800 hands per hour. My default WR is around 5bb/100, but there were some mega whales in the pool, as well as other fish and some weak regs. So I think I was winning around 10bb/100 in that pool. That's $50 per 100 hands, so roughly $400 per hour. This didn't include rakeback (I'm currently getting a very good % rakeback too). So it felt nice to sit in a game like that and know you are absolutely printing $EV. Though, as we all know, that doesn't mean that you will win in the session!

You can get similarly crazy hourly rates playing other games, too. For example, lets say you one table a $10k game (and have all of your own action). Usually on a $10k table there will be 2-3 good regs, 2-3 weak/bum hunter regs and 1 pretty big fish. So again, 10bb/100 WR in this game (assuming you are one of the stronger regs) is very possible- cos the rake is <1bb/100 too.

The downsides are;

1. The variance. Especially if its 10x your ABI.
2. The game usually doesn't last very long as the fish will often bust soon.
3. The very small sample size (which isn't an issue with four tables of 500z).

Anyways, in this case, instead of 800 hands per hour, you are probably playing around 100. However, due to the very high buy in, coupled with the high WR, you are making $1000 per hour. You might think this is impossible, but there are some fish that are literally losing 100bb/100 hands (I seen the guy on GG that lost the most money last year). Even if we go with a more conservative fish that loses 30bb/100, we can take maybe 1bb/100 to rake (assuming you play on Stars) between all six of us. So 29/5 regs= 5.8bb/100. But of course some regs are better than others, and the bum hunting regs are much worse than the good regs. Thus you can probably still be winning at like 8bb/100 in this game.

Of course once you factor in something like high rake (like on GG) then this will quickly decimate WR's. Now it make become tough to even be profitable, unless you are one of the better regs, or if the guy is a -100bb/100 whale etc.

Either way, you can see the two extremes. In one scenario you can make $400+ per hour playing four tables of low stakes. In the other, you can literally one table and make somewhere in the region of $500-$1k per hour (albeit with a ton of variance within this sample size).

So this is what I am trying to do more of this year- spot good money making opportunities and take them. Sometimes it makes sense to play $1k/$2k only during one session, other times it makes sense to completely ignore them and just grind 500z. You could, of course, call this 'bum hunting' but I will still battle regs plenty- so don't worry about that. I'm never gonna be one of those guys fighting over every last seat on the reg tables after the fish has sat down.

Anyways, on Saturday I went to Urquhart Castle, which is on the shores of Loch Ness (I didn't see the monster unfortunately). One of my main plans for this year is to explore more of Scotland- and especially the Highlands. Often we travel abroad, instead of appreciating and exploring what is already on our doorstep. Then you see hundreds and thousands of people flying over to our country, just to visit places nearby to us that we have never visited ourselves.

It was really nice, and I decided to walk around 40-45 mins each way from a separate carpark, to the castle, in order to take in more of the surroundings.

On Sunday it was back in to grind mode. I started at 4:30pm, and just after 3am you would see me grinding in the $500z HU pool. There was a whale in the pool, so even though I'm no expert by any means, I still know (roughly) what I'm doing. Despite playing for close to eleven hours at that point, I still felt pretty sharp mentally and was able to play two tables. Usually I don't play cash until near the end of my MTT session, when I'm down to a couple tables, but I decided to add a couple tables throughout my session, as these few hundred hands will add up over the course of a year.

I had a ton of big stacks, was chip leading several tournaments but then everything fizzled out and I had to settle for a profitable day- but one devoid of any big tournament scores. It's cool though, I was happy how I played and the big MTT bink is coming- it's only a matter of time!

GG.

Edit: I didn't take this photo.

400bb pot at 500z

Bluff, bluff, value bet

Standard cooler

Okay, lets say hypothetically if you win this year 200k-300k, whats your plan? Do you cashout it? Or gonna keep battle even higher with potential of losing it or even more because of downswing?

Paying for expertise

Life-

Overall I am quite a stubborn person. I typically try to figure out things by myself, instead of enlisting the help of others. Of course this is good to a certain extent (we don't want to delegate everything to other people, as we will not end up doing any thinking and problem solving for ourselves) however, we might also be extending and slowing the learning process needlessly. Perhaps we could speed up this process with the help of someone with a little more expertise and knowledge. Perhaps they could correct the leaks in our mentality, or in our form in the gym, or with our golf swing etc.

This is not to say that I do not like to learn- I am constantly listening to podcasts, reading and stealing or adopting behaviours and ideas from smart, hard working people to incorporate in to my own life. Like I said in a previous post (I believe from the 2022 thread) I try to be a sponge and absorb as many good ideas as possible, from people who have excelled in their field of work- people like Jocko Willink, David Goggins, Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman etc- and of course all of the many interesting types of guests that they have on their respective podcasts. Historically I have really like Joe Rogan, but he often talks about hunting, eating meat etc (which is of course fine) but it's not something that I have literally any interest in listening to. I would much prefer if he just talked to guests who are experts in their field instead of talking about his diet all of the time.

So just now I would say my favourite podcaster is Lex Fridman. Imo he is a better listener than Joe Rogan (even if Joe is better at having a more natural conversation), and he also has more interesting guests- instead of random comedians or outdoor bow hunters. I just started listening to his latest podcast (ep 409) with Matthew Cox, and despite being only an hour in, it's the most interesting story I have heard in a long time. He ended up going to prison for bank and mortgage fraud and tells his story about some of the ingenious ways he done this (before he was caught of course). Anyways, hopefully the remaining five hours is as enjoyable as the first hour haha.

So last year I hired a golf coach cos I wanted to get back in to the game, and I realised how messed up my swing was (I have a massive overswing). I got five lessons, and even though there is still a long way to go before I am gracing the fairways like Tiger Woods, it's at least a start. I actually joined a golf club this year too, for the first time since I was a junior- which was around 15 years ago. I thought it would be a good way to meet people in the area, and I want to do more outdoorsy things instead of spending so much time sitting at home in front of the computer, or my phone etc. I joined a golf club in Nairn, even though there were options in, or closer to Inverness. I've only been there a couple times, but I fell in love with the place as soon as I visited it. It's a little town right next to the sea, so I thought it would be a cool place to spend more time in this year.

In terms of how this all relates back to poker, I wrote a post in last years thread about (after EPT Barcelona) how I needed to hire a mental game coach to get over the mental block of higher stakes. I don't actually think this is that important now (though I will likely hire one at some point) but more so, it forced me to write a list of about 13 things which would enable me to get better at the game and elevate me to the next level. So i've been working through that list, contacting people etc and I feel like I now have a pretty good plan and direction going forward in terms of my poker improvement for 2024 and beyond. When you look at tennis players, for example, they have a team around them- physios, dieticians, coaches and perhaps even psychologists.

However, us stubborn poker players often think we can do everything for ourselves, and don't delegate enough of these responsibilities to others. Perhaps even the simple act of studying with a friend, in order to give us a different perspective and someone to bounce ideas off of, could work wonders.

Especially as we move up in stakes, we should be treating this game like we are an elite sportsman. Meditating, exercising etc is one thing, but now that everybody is doing that, then how can we gain the next edge over our opponents? There are so many different ways we could do so, so my current mission is to explore these different possibilities and maximise my potential in this game- whether that be at cash games, mtt's or perhaps even live poker (though I'd prefer if it wasn't the latter tbh).

Poker-

This year my cash game results have been quite swingy. I will have a few good sessions in a row, then they are wiped out by one bad one. This has happened a few times. It's not as if i've put in much volume yet (just 11.5k hands of cash, as I took a week off at the start of the month etc and also play mtt's on Sundays). Sometimes I have played really well, and other times not so well. However my EV is okay and at this point in the year it's just about putting in hands and focusing on playing well as often as possible, so I will be focusing on these two things in the coming weeks and months.

On Sunday, for the second week in a row, I decided to play tournaments. As I highlighted in my original post, I want to get my first $100k+ score this year, and see no reason why I can't (assuming I run decent when it matters of course). Now this isn't easy, because prize pools are much smaller these days outside of series, so there are only perhaps a few tournaments I can play on a Sunday where this score would even be possible. However, it's a long year- so there will still be plenty of other opportunities outside of the standard weekly grind, with SCOOP, WCOOP etc.

Last Sunday I had a ton of big stacks, deep runs, but then they all fizzled out. This week, however, I managed to close one out and (finally) get the win in the Bigger 109. It's definitely my favourite tournaments over the years. I've final tabled it plenty of times, and it has the nice balance of being a $109 buy in (so not the toughest mtt on the internet) but also it's much tougher than the average $109 buy in- especially once you get to the final table of it. Something like the bounty builder 109, or the Sunday Million etc are obviously much softer once you get to the latter stages- despite being the same buy in.

Anyways, I went in to the final table as chip leader, and never once lost that chip lead. When I got to heads up we were around 60bb effective (I had around 100bb and he had 60bb), and this was when I was thankful that I had been playing some $500z HU recently. Obviously I am, by no means, a HU expert. But I have an edge over most other 6m regs who don't play the game (even though I expect to be losing vs the actual $500nl HU regs) and I tend to just play the pool when there's a whale in it- which means I am probably slightly +EV in the pool. Either way, it just baffles me when you see these mtt guys get to HU and then have no idea what they are doing, especially when they are deep stacked. I remember watching an old Doug Polk video and he talked about how much softer mtt's were (so it's higher EV to play them) but that you should also be playing like 25% of your volume at cash, so that you can get solid fundamentals and practice your post flop game vs good opponents.

So that's another reason for playing some HU cash. When I get to HU in a tournament, where you are playing for thousands of dollars (sometimes tens of thousands) then I want to have the confidence in my game that I will have an edge over most players. Of course when you get short then the game is different, but the post flop fundamentals still apply. You just do a lot more limping etc instead of RFI, as far as I'm aware.

Anyways I ground him down to like 13bb, then he got back to 20bb, doubled up (44 vs my ATs) and then we got all in a bit after with my KQs vs his AJo. It was a chip lead pot. If I was to lose that all in, then he would gain the CL for the first time, but if I were to win it, then it would be all over. Fortunately I flopped a Q and dodged his A and gut shot outs, to hold for the victory. First place was only around $6,400, but this victory was more for confidence than anything else. It had been a while since I last won a tournament on Stars, so it was nice to do it in a tournament where I am playing against a bunch of regs who play these things full time, yet still feel very confident in my game in the process.

We will see where I end up come the end of the year, but I just have to put in the work, trust the process and see what happens.

GG.

Big 109 win

I wanted to fold flop/turn, glad I didn't

Poker's dead

Non GTO hand- but sometimes I'm naughty

Consistency

Life-

Whenever I watch my football team Rangers play, there are always those players that put in a consistent seven or eight out of ten performance every week. They hardly miss a game through injury and are almost always available when their manager and teammates need them the most.

Then there are those guys that can be amazing one week, and anonymous the next. They may also miss large swathes of the season through injury, or they may allow their on field lack of discipline to lead to sending offs and suspensions. Either way, these are not players you can rely on. Even if they are capable of moments of brilliance that the reliable player cannot replicate, these are fleeting and their inadequacies more than gulf their redeeming qualities.

The reliable player may not be the most glamorous, they may have the shaved head and the average physique. The 'talented' player may have the skills, the tricks and the fancy haircuts, but beneath these superficial things, they lack depth.

As a kid growing up, you often want to be the talented, glamorous, maverick football player, instead of Mr Reliable. However, as we grow older, we start to appreciate the dedication and commitment of the latter, while also being eager to steer clear of the volatility of the latter.

In poker there are these types of players too. There are the ultra try hard, over bluff, station in every spot players (often with a certain flag next to their name) and then there are the more solid, deliberate, consistent players who rarely seem to make a big mistake or do a big punt.

In the past I was the first type of player, but in the past couple of years I have tried to transition towards being a more rounded, balanced player- instead of one that sees an opponent check over to him and then instantly clicks on the 'bet 75% pot' button.

Ultimately, the best players nowadays are not simply the most aggressive ones, they are the most well rounded. In the past we looked at guys like Chris Moorman, Ole Schemion, Vanessa Selbst etc dominate mtt's through their sheer aggression. Then we watched guys like Tom Dwan and Isildur do the same online and live, then of course, a host of other similar players followed in their footsteps in the following 10-15 years afterwards.

However, now the best players (on Stars) are the guys like Ipoker, Milanov etc who are not just blindly mashing 'bet pot' on every street, but are playing a very deliberate and considered strategy. They are thinking through their decisions and are willing to hero call in a big pot, but also realise that they don't have to call you 100% on every river just because you once shared a hand on RIO where you bluffed. So they are also willing to fold- which is just as key in poker as calling is (so long as you don't overdo either, of course).

Anyways, these guys might not be the flashiest players, but they are the ones that sit down and will almost never punt off a stack to you.

Just tonight, for example, I was playing against one of these other sorts of players (the over aggro ones) and he just completely punted off 120bb to me for no reason at $1k, when the clear play pre flop was to either fold or call. He 4bet, and then I trapped him post flop to induce the jam. From my own perspective, I played the hand perfectly and managed to exploit this player type, but from his perspective, it was completely needless.

I think that the reason you see those types of plays is often ego related. They want to 'prove' themselves (especially if they have just moved up in stakes) or they want to send a funny hand history to their friends. As you grow older (especially now I am 30) you realise that these things are unimportant. You want to be aggressive enough so that your opponents (usually) pay you off with your value bets, but not so aggressive as to needlessly punt off 120bb when you could have just folded pre and lost 2.5bb.

I notice a similar thing in these forums, especially at the beginning of each year. We hear about how we are going to read the best cash game blog ever written, then a couple of months later the thread is dead in the water and they never post another update. Or we see someone outline their goals for the year, post for a month or two and then abandon the thread.

It's like the person that goes to the gym every day throughout January, then never enters the gym again for the remainder of the year.

We all want to be the best poker players, or get in great shape and look shredded, or become rich and have a successful business- but most of us are like the football player who only plays well every fifth game, or the player who is constantly out injured, after making a promising start to the season.

So that's why I try to post every Monday, and make it part of my routine. My posts may not always be the most interesting (especially because I don't share my results) but I just want to show up every week, write (what I believe to be) a relatively interesting piece, and then do the same the following week. I want to do the same at the tables too. Sit down, and just be that annoying player to play against, but one that doesn't spew off in the process.

We admire the Neymar type players when we are young, then we grow to appreciate and admire the Roy Keane type players as we age.

Poker-

Last week I played five days. For the past three weeks I have been very consistent in terms of playing (after taking the first week of the month off). I bought Pad's MTT course and he talks about never missing a Sunday, so Sundays are now designated to playing tournaments. That leaves me with four other days where I will play cash games (typically Tuesday-Friday) and then take Monday/Saturday off.

I like tournaments because they offer a flexibility in playing that you cannot really get away with at cash games- especially against good opponents. I can be very imbalanced and exploitative in mtt's, but in cash games I am much more concerned about playing a good overall strategy. It's also good because you can essentially play a ton of spots in a vacuum, because you rarely play with the same opponents in these large field mtt's- or at least not often enough for them to counter exploit you.

Tournaments are more like in game problem solving and adjusting, where as cash games are more about discipline and playing a good baseline strategy. Of course some people play cash games in an exploitative manner too, but it's not something I seek to do.

Anyways, I went on a bit of a heater at cash games and had a good week in terms of results. It was still a little frustrating though, cos I was running a decent bit below EV. However, this will even out in the long run, so I just need to keep focusing on playing as well as possible during each session. I made one punt call on the river, which I was really not happy about, but I have vowed to never make a similar mistake again as I now clearly understand the solvers logic on the river in these spots when bluff catching- and it's definitely not to call with my combo!

So it's fine to make one of these calls every 10,000 hands or so, so long as I learn from the mistake and don't do it again.

I also won another tournament- albeit it was in literally the smallest prize pool of any mtt I entered on Sunday- the $82 Bounty Builder $5k gtd, for around $1,400. It was still good to get the win nonetheless, and I think it proves that I am heading in the right direction in terms of my tournament progression. Also, it's good to get final table/heads up practice, so that when I do make a final table with a much larger prize pool, I will be ready to go!

I am going away at the weekend but I will play for the next three days, and get in some volume before I leave on Friday. Let's hope it's another good week!

GG.

$82 BB win

Winning hand HU

No, not condescending at all. I don't really read blogs until I've seen them post a decent number of times because so many just fade away.

Thanks for the feedback re blog, hopefully I can maintain it beyond the initial 100 day challenge and not fade away like some of the others. I think they're a great way to get down a few thoughts when things are going badly or even well. But like you I'll probably try to make it a weekly or fortnightly thing otherwise it feels like a needless commitment.

I think if you have the skills to mix between both formats successfully then its a great way to diversify your week a little and its probably something i'd consider in the future. But might need to polish up my MTT skills, or just run good and bonk one!! . GL... hopefully I wont see you at the tables too often. :)

Your thread is very enjoyable to read. Definitely worth a sub.

Perfectionism

Poker-

We have our daily routines, our weekly routines and (often) a rough plan for what is going to unfold over the course of a year. We may tend to go on holiday during the Summer, and spend the Winter months grinding online. Or we may go to play the WSOP during the Summer, and take some time off during the Winter to spend with friends and family, or simply to relax. Either way, we usually have some sort of plan laid out so that when we do sit down at the poker table(s), we are putting ourselves in the best position to play well, and ultimately maximise our win rate.

However, what happens when our daily routine is thrown off course? Or what happens when our planned day at the gym is no longer possible? Do we throw in the towel and take a day off poker? Perhaps it's the logical decision to take the day off- we don't want to sit down and play our C game and punt off a few stacks in the process. Or are we taking the path of least resistance, and are simply rationalising some more excuses in order to justify our laziness?

I was faced with this dilemma on Sunday. Fresh with the words of Pads ringing in my ears of 'never take a Sunday off' I was very close to caving in and doing so. 'Caving in' was perhaps not the fairest term- I had just travelled back from a weekend down in the Borders where I visited my Granny, and off the back of a 2.5 hour journey back home to my parents house. I only had my laptop- so no monitor and no PC chair, only an old, wooden back breaker.

I messaged my poker friend and had a brief conversation. I told him that I had not meditated, nor done any exercise that day. I wasn't in a great mood, and I had done no poker study (or poker warmup like some mtt pre flop drills etc).

To me it seemed like the obvious decision, the +EV decision. You don't want to step in the ring with poor fitness and a cut above your eye. Regain your fitness and allow your wound to heal, then step back in.

However, poker doesn't work like that. If we are a poker player, then any time we are not playing poker, we are costing ourselves money. Obviously it's not the best way to look at the game, but I think its still an important observation to make.

So let's just accept that because of my lack of preparation before Sunday's session, I will not be able to play my A game. Okay, thats fine, but am I still profitable playing my B game? I wasn't in such a bad mood that I would be playing my C or D game. I wasn't sleep deprived, nor was I hungover- I simply hadn't done my meditation or daily poker study. Perhaps my ROI on an average Sunday is 20%, now it is only likely to be 10%, but surely that still means it's worthwhile to play? I am still profitable and will, at least in the long run, make money by doing so. I had nothing else planned for that evening, and always intended to play on Sunday and hit my fifth day of grinding for the week.

My friend helped me to clarify my stance, and made me accountable for my rationalising about why I shouldn't play today. What I was really doing was merely a form of perfectionism. Because I hadn't done my typical daily/pre session routine, I thought that I wasn't prepared in order to play my best- thus meaning I should take the day off. Now, this would be a pretty valid justification if I were to be playing three handed $2k against Davy Jones and Milanov, but I wasn't doing that, I was going to be playing $100 ABI tournaments against mid stakes mtt regs and fish. Even though it would be preferable to be prepped to play my A game, it wasn't a justifiable reason to wave the white flag and let down Pads in the process.

So no, I am pleased to say that I did not miss a Sunday, and I keep the streak going this year. Granted, I made one or two questionable river calls, but it's okay cos I wasn't striving for perfection- I was just striving to show up, put in some hands, play profitable poker and hope to run good in the process.

In the end I went deep in a $530 7max PKO (which I actually satellited in to- I like to play them to reduce MTT variance) before getting coolered with JJ vs QQ in an 80bb pot, busting in 15th place for just over $3k. Obviously it was a little frustrating to go out in this fashion, but it was another deep run, and another tournament where I gave myself a good chance of winning the $40k up top.

Tonka was also going deep in the $530 7max (he's one of my favourite streamers), so I watched his stream alongside my table (I usually don't do this, but I was down to one table- though I would drop it if I made the final table so that I could focus 100%). At one point someone in his chat mentioned about how he should 'manifest' a first or second place finish, because he kept saying that he would final table bubble the tournament and likely come tenth or eleventh.

I think that, while it is pretty funny, using the brand 'team never lucky' is quite counterproductive and is likely leading to some form of self sabotage. If you continue to view yourself as unlucky, and others as lucky, then you are likely to overlook your own flaws and weaknesses- areas that you could improve upon to increase your ROI and become a tougher player overall. You can always blame your bad luck instead of all the bad plays that you made during a session. When you do lose that flip on the FT bubble (that you had a 50% chance of losing) you can hop straight back on to that victim mentality train and rant about your bad luck.

After reading the law of attraction book, I do actually believe in the manifestation process. Am I doing some form of nightly ritual where I chant about all the things I want in life? No. But am I believing that I will achieve my main goals and objectives in the coming year or two? Absolutely. Of course I still need to put in the work off the tables, so that I can give myself the best chance of achieving success on them, but with each deep mtt run that ends with a disappointing 15th place finish, I see progression. I see myself getting closer to that big score. I see myself playing against superior (at least for the moment) mtt players and holding my own. I see how close I am, not how far away I am, from reaching my poker related goals.

It's easy to slam the desk in frustration and whine when you final table bubble yet another tournament, but it's just as easy, if you reframe your mind and your thought process, to smile at how close you were. To find joy in your deep run and to know that it's merely a matter of time before you move up in stakes, or before you get that big mtt bink.

It is clear that in elite sports, mentality is what differentiates the best and the rest. Why should it be any different in poker? Those guys that got to the highest stakes, who were able to stay there and flourish are not always the most technically sound poker players, nor always the best ones. They are the ones who truly believed in themselves, and didn't allow outside (or inside) noise to limit their unwavering belief. They faced the adversity of big downswings and of getting beatdowns from the tougher regs as they tested themselves at stakes out with their comfort zone, yet they relented. They kept going and got their just rewards.

So next time we criticise a player that is playing higher than us for making a punt, or complain about how lucky they are, perhaps we should question ourselves. If we are so good, then why aren't we playing the same stakes? Why aren't we showing them who is boss? Even if we don't necessarily admire their poker skills or talents, we have to admire and respect their heart and their belief. Without these attributes, we are the OTB Red Baron's of $25nl.

We go again on Sunday :)

The tipping point

It's early September and a warm, Summers day in Barcelona. As I sit outside the Sagrada Familia, alone, I ponder my thoughts. I've been grinding cash games at Casino Barcelona for the past week, but I'm not quite sure if 'grinding' is the correct word. I see friends arriving at the casino early afternoon and leaving late in to the night. I arrive in the evening and leave not long after. Typically I play around four hours, which is plenty online (when you can sometimes get in 500+ hands per hour) but not so much when you are playing 30-40 hands per hour of live cash.

I'd like to say that I am instead enjoying the weather, treating this more like a holiday where I play a little poker on the side, but I am not. I am not really enjoying my sightseeing during the day, as I am feeling a sense of anxiety in the back of my mind about the impending poker session that will come in the evening.

Then, when I arrive at the casino, I am fairly eager to get out of there. I have never been a big fan of casinos, and I can't see that changing any time soon.

For me, this is a tipping point (which I've only just realised, as I'm currently in the process of reading Malcolm Gladwell's book). I take out a notepad and write down over ten ways in which I can improve at poker- with the most important one being hire mental game coach.

It took a poker trip to Barcelona for me to say enough was enough. In the first half of my poker career, I never suffered from anxiety before starting a session. I would pretty much play every day, even when I was hungover, and would sometimes play from midnight at night until 8-9am- though these sessions were never profitable, and were more about chasing losses than anything else. Who would have thought that playing a poker session when you are almost falling asleep, isn't a good idea? Especially when you are four tabling 500z.

However, in the past 4-5 years, it seemed like the pre session anxiety had slowly been building. I would go in to sessions dreading playing, and would often allow this anxiety to talk me out of playing, on a night where I fully intended to put in some hands.

So on the sunny September night, I finally took action. I accepted I had a problem that needed rectifying, and I took the first steps towards doing this. Something as simple as writing down ten ways in which you can improve, could do a great deal more than you initially thought was possible.

Now, it may seem hypocritical to now admit that I never did get that mental game coach, however I don't think that's a problem. As I worked through the 'ways to improve at poker' checklist, I realised that I was no longer going in to sessions dreading to play. I was no longer mentally distracted before a session, thinking ahead about what could possibly go wrong. I formulated a plan on how to move up in stakes, and I now have clarity on how I am going to achieve this. There is now clarity, once I hit x bankroll, I move up.

Before it was about how I 'felt', even when I was more than rolled sufficiently to play higher stakes. Now it's about hitting the required $ roll, then shot take. No excuses, only exposure. If I lose those buy ins then drop back down, rinse and repeat until those are my regular stakes.

I also started studying mtt's a little more seriously, buying Pads course and vowing to play every single Sunday (that I possibly can) for the entirety of the year. I started studying with friends regularly, started tracking my hours studied, and on which spots I am studying- in order to make sure I am not studying the same spots all the time and ignoring others that I should be focusing on.

I am pleased to say that there has literally only been one single day so far this year, where I didn't play simply for the reason of feeling anxiety pre session. My mind just really didn't want to play that night, which I accepted, but other than that I have effectively played every single day that I planned to play on. For example, last week I was back at my parents and didn't get back until Wednesday. So I made sure to get back early afternoon so that I could play on Wednesday evening. My brother was coming to visit for a couple days on Friday (so that meant no poker Friday/Saturday) so I put in a longer, 2k hand session on Thursday in preparation for that. Then on Sunday, after he left early afternoon, I played tournaments from 5pm until I final table bubbled the Sunday Warmup at around 1am.

So even though on the face of it, I only played three days last week, I literally couldn't have played any more. In the past I would have probably played one or two days- or perhaps just taken the whole week off. However, I just made sure to squeeze in some sessions when I could (as these hands will all add up come the end of the year)- and also made sure to maintain my Sunday mtt streak.

Unfortunately I got coolered out in 10th place in the Warmup, losing with AKs vs KK. However it was another good run and I gave myself another chance of getting a nice score, so I am happy with that- even if it's always a little frustrating to FT bubble.

It's back to the cash game grind tomorrow!

GG.

1- Over bluffing reg

2- When you think you have the nuts

3- Sometimes you gotta bluff a fish

4- Aggressive 4bet

Good read as usual. What do you do on your days off?

Work or play?

In the past six months or so, I have been focusing more on having fun while playing poker. Of course there are times when this is not always possible, when you are running terrible and down a ton of money (though perhaps someone truly enlightened could still find joy in this), but for the most part, I want to enjoy each time I sit down at the tables.

Otherwise, what is the point? Are we simply accumulating money for no other reason than to add an extra zero to the end of our bank balance?

Also, there is the added benefit that when you are in a better mood, you are likely to play better poker in the process. Of course it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I do not care about money (I do see the value in it) but I wish this to simply be one factor in my work, instead of the sole, driving factor behind it. Having a job that you enjoy is also just as important to me.

I was watching a couple of Alan Watt's (an old English Philosopher) videos on Youtube, one of which he was discussing the importance of play, and the other in which he was discussing the importance of death. I think they linked pretty well together, though.

Essentially what he was saying is that death is necessary, so that we can create space for new people (kids)- who have new ideas, a new enthusiasm for life and appreciate all the small things that we take for granted in our daily lives. Once we reach a certain point in our lives whereby we are only living to make money and plan for the future, then the vitality of our youth and of life in general has essentially left us. We are simply existing instead of living. We have ceased to play- like a young child or a dog does.

So in order to prolong our existence, we must find the joy in the small things in life- like washing the dishes. It's funny that he used this example, because I actually enjoy washing the dishes. All my close family have dishwashers, but I prefer to wash them by hand. I find it quite satisfying to take a dirty plate, bowl or pot, wipe the grease/residual food from it and then place it in the drying rack, ready to be used again. It's like you are wiping away yesterdays problems, and are starting today from a clean slate.

By outsourcing this to a dishwasher, then you stop being involved in this process. You simply see the end result and nothing else. You are not involved in the 'play' of the everyday, mundane task.

I guess this is similar to online shopping. We used to always have to get up, take a shower, put on some clothes, make our hair look presentable, walk (or drive) to the nearest shops, look around, interact with staff and then make a decision on what products we want to buy or not. Nowadays we can just lie in our beds, load up Amazon and in one click, have someone deliver a brown parcel with that product inside to our front door.

We have decided, as a society, to cut out the play in order to prioritise convenience. We order food to be delivered instead of going to a restaurant. We use dating apps instead of approaching a stranger in the street. We run on a treadmill instead of along a country lane. We play online poker instead of going to a casino (I'm sorry, but this is something I'm unwilling to change lol). We send a message instead of meeting up for a real conversation.

Where is the play in a message? We cannot see a facial expression, a smile, make eye contact etc. It's just some random words on a screen (I see the irony as I write this).

Anyways, of course I am susceptible of many of these things myself, too. However, I am trying to be more conscious in an effort to reduce them to as infrequently as possible. The internet has, overall, been an amazing invention that enables us to work from wherever to wish, make a good living doing a job we love. As online poker players, then at pretty much no other point in time (unless we were born in the future) could we do such a profession. So for that I am grateful.

However, what I want to be conscious of going forward, is to make sure I enjoy myself in the process. I was walking on the beach today with my parents and their dog. He loves swimming (sometimes I don't know if he would prefer to be a fish or a dog) and constantly goes in the water. I would throw stones in the water for him, then he would swim towards them after they plopped in the water. He found those stones literally zero times (there were a lot of waves and the water was relatively deep) but he would instantly stare me down until I threw in another stone, and continued to do this for over thirty minutes.

We wanted him to dry off a bit before he got in the car, so after turning around, we walked on a path, instead of on the beach. He kept staring at the water the whole way back, wishing he was back in.

Imo we could learn a lot from him. At that point in time, there is nothing else in the world he would rather be doing. All he wanted to do was to swim after a random stone that he was never going to retrieve. And as soon as he realised he wasn't finding that stone, then demanded I threw another so he could try all over again. He was playing.

Was I 'playing' poker when I got tilted after another bad beat? Was I 'playing' poker when I cursed my opponent for making a bad play and sucking out on me? No, I was not. I want to get to the point where I am playing poker, and I can be like Rocco (our dog) swimming after a stone he is never going to find. I want to accept that loss so gracefully, yet approach the next stone with just as much enthusiasm as the last. If that process leads me to moving up in stakes as a result, then great. But if it doesn't, and perhaps I end up taking some different career path in the future, then I wish to approach it from exactly the same perspective.

As poker players we may sometimes feel like we are very smart, and know much more than the average person. But in reality we are outshone by a dog, who has an intelligence of a toddler. Let's not forget that the next time someone makes a shitty play against us and gets rewarded. Maybe they were just playing poker, as we were playing poker.

Maybe your best post so far. Enjoyed reading it quite a bit :)

Nice blog, I have read all your blogs, truly inspiring, wish you all the best.

Demondoink, thanks very much for putting in the time to write this journal, I've enjoyed reading it!

Clarity

Life-

For me, clarity is a beautiful thing. Clarity is to arrive on the turn and the river, and know exactly what combos to bluff with. Clarity is knowing how thin you can jam on the river, and what combos are (slightly) higher EV to x back. Clarity is spending one hour studying one specific board texture, and then executing this newly learned information in game, the next time this texture/spot arises.

However, clarity does not just need to be theoretical. Clarity can also be to study one specific opponent (who you think may have some leaks/imbalances in their game), then come up with a game plan on how to counter them. Clarity is writing down five bullet points on their game, and then know exactly where to adjust the next time you play hands with them.

This preparation done off the tables, when you are able to think clearly, without time pressure, dollar pressure etc means that you are able to execute with a much clearer perspective the next time you do play a board texture/spot/opponent whom you have studied recently. Without adequate preparation, then you are simply button clicking and hoping for the best. Sure, your poker understanding may be slightly better than your opponents (thus giving you a small edge), but wouldn't it be better to have a much better understanding of the texture/spot/opponent than the guy you are in the hand with?

Is our goal in poker to always remain slightly ahead of our opponents, or are we striving to become the best poker version of ourselves? Where we constantly study, improve, refine, hone our game, and where we are always self assessing and remaining vigilant for any knowledge gaps in our game that we feel may need plugged asap.

At the moment, I have one line that I need to study. Whenever I arrive in this spot on latter streets, I feel like I am too passive and don't have enough clarity with exactly what I am trying to achieve. Whenever I get these feelings of discomfort about a particular spot, then I take this as a clear signal that I need to put in work off the tables in order to learn the logic and drivers behind the solver's strategies.

Then the next time a similar spot arises, instead of experiencing the feelings of unease and discomfort, we experience the feeling of clarity. We are like a Navy Seal who is ready to take out their enemies. We have gone from thinking intensely about how to reload our gun, to reloading with consummate ease and efficiency. It's gone from a slow, ponderous process to a form of art. From five seconds to a fraction of a second.

I heard a similar quote to this, and it really resonated with me-

How you do anything, is how you do everything.

At the start of the year, as is the case with most poker players, we right down some goals etc for the coming year. These could be poker related, or they could be something else like health or relationship related. However, the main thing is that we have a (rough) plan for how the year will look.

The first month of the year is already a good test for us in relation to the quote that we are discussing. If we are the type of person to have already abandoned all of our 2024 goals before the end of January, then we are very unlikely to be the type of person who can go far in poker. We have no discipline, no ability to stick with our plans and goals, and no capacity to push through- even when we temporarily lose the motivation to do something that we had already planned to do.

Now it's easy to say 'I want to be the best poker player in the world and make $1m this year, $2m next year and so on'. Literally any poker player could say that. However, we may also realise that in order to achieve that tough goal, we have to put in a ton of work- especially off the tables, with a solver etc.

After we realise that, then already the guys looking for a quick fix will fall by the wayside. They will start reading about investing, buying Bitcoin, betting on sports or something similar. They will ditch poker, and maybe return to it in a couple years time when they catch a second wind and decide that it's time to become the best poker player in the world all over again.

Then you have the guys that will become obsessed with something for a while, before losing interest in it and (probably) never touch it again. These are the guys that don't go to the gym for six months, then go every day throughout January- before becoming burnt out and then completely lose interest. They might even become quite good at poker, but don't have the patience to sit down every day, study, grind, rinse and repeat for years on end.

Finally, you have the guys that will get somewhere in poker. They might even work less hard than the obsessed guy, but the key difference is that these guys will have longevity, patience and a clear direction. They recognise that poker is a long term, sometimes tedious game of small, incremental improvements. This isn't a quick fix, get rich scheme. This is a 1% improvement over the course of a month. Followed by another 1% improvement over the course of a month, and so on.

And this is where I want to bring back in the subject of clarity. Like I said, like most other poker players, I plan out some goals at the start of each year. However, I also write goals for each month, so that I can have good clarity on what I want to achieve this month. I read in 'Eat that frog' about how you should then, select your three most important tasks and then rank them from 1-3 (or A-C) in order of importance.

This sounds like a very basic thing to do, but it's actually quite transformative imo. Before I used to spend a lot of time doing low importance things, instead of the higher priority goals/tasks. For example, spending 1-2 hours messaging people because I put on my daily checklist 'reply to messages'. Instead of studying, or instead of playing. Or perhaps I would go to the gym instead of playing.

Now don't get me wrong, of course health is very important too, but if I select 'play 20k+ hands of cash' as my most important (A goal) for the month, then I should always be prioritising poker over everything else- even if it's something productive such as going to the gym. Then if i select my B task to be 'redecorate spare room' then this will also take importance over everything else (except from grinding).

This clarity really helps me in my daily life, as I know exactly what I need to do.

Anyways, I have not played poker since last Friday as I took a little time off to visit my friend and my Gran etc, then when I came home on Wednesday I designated a couple more days to work on my spare room. I will either get back to the grind on Friday or Saturday, but either way I should be able to hit my volume goals for the month- so long as I'm consistent and don't take needless days off (which I haven't been doing so far this year, only taking off planned ones, for the most part).

GG, and back to the tables soon!

Attention shortening device

Life-

I was listening to a podcast with Jeff Bezos not long ago on Lex Fridman's podcast. Tbh I don't know a ton about him, but I thought it would still be worth listening to as he is one of the worlds richest men- so clearly he is doing something right!

I think that even if you don't necessarily 'like' someone, then it can still be worth listening to them. Obviously I don't know him personally, but if i had to choose my favourite billionaire then it would have to be Elon Musk. He literally spent billions on an overpriced Twitter simply because he wanted to retain the power of free speech- something that seems to be disappearing before our very eyes in todays current society. He questions authority and isn't afraid to stick it to the man. In a society of sheep and political correctness, sometimes what we need is someone to say what we are all thinking. Sometimes what we need is someone with a spine and an opinion that doesn't go along with everything that the main stream media spout out on a daily basis.

Imo we are kind of at a dangerous time. Since the end of world war two we have, for the most part, as Europeans lived a peaceful and fruitful existence. Our standard of living has drastically improved, as has our life expectancy. More people can go to universities, more people can afford to travel and we can connect with people from anywhere in the world with the touch of a button. Almost all of us have access to an abundance of food and clean water.

However, at the same time we see unprecedented levels of suicide (especially from men), depression and an escalation in the tensions between Russia and NATO (as well as other 'wars', such as Israel and Gaza etc).

Why at a time of such prosperity, when the vast majority of Europe (and indeed much of the world) are living with a good standard of living, are we sad, depressed, suicidal and getting in to pointless wars?

I don't know exactly. I think that part of the issue is that in order to become a politician, you almost have to be sociopathic. Who would actually want to become a politician? Half the country probably hates you. Your pay isn't amazing. You get in to constant debates and it's other people jobs to literally try to make you look like a fool. You are constantly in the public eye and everything you do (especially if you make a mistake or two) will be scrutinized.

There's also something to be said about people that want to control others. It's not the empathetic, kind, generous people that want to get in to these sorts of positions (they will instead be doing caring jobs like nursing, being a doctor, a teacher, a sports coach etc), instead it's the narcissistic, sociopathic power hungry people. So do we think these sorts of people are going to make decisions that are for the good of the country and it's citizens? Or are they going to make decisions that are for the good of themselves?

If a caring, empathetic politician sees that getting in to x or y war will make the country, or indeed the politician(s), millions of Dollars/Pounds/Euros, then they will still reject this proposal because it will lead to the needless deaths of thousands of innocent people. They will not value profit over lives and safety.

However, if a narcissistic/sociopathic/power hungry politician is presented with the same profitability figures about a potential war with x or y country, then all they will see is the profit- not the collateral damage of war. They will not care if thousands of people are killed. They will not care if families are blown apart (both literally and figuratively). They will just care that their pockets are lined and that they continue to retain power of the populace, in the process.

In the news we are always told some bs reason about why we got in to yet another war, so that we just go along with it and don't question it. But the reality is that both the politicians and the systems we currently have are both rotten to the core. These jobs attract the wrong type of people, and the wrong type of people bring about the wrong type of outcomes for the country.

Imo we need to transcend wars and conflict. That's not to say we can be totally naive and get rid of all weapons, military etc over night, but more so that we should always be striving to avoid conflict, instead of striving to create it. However, with the people in charge of most countries, I struggle to see this happening any time soon.

Anyways back to the topic of the post. At one point Bezos talks about phones and calls them 'attention shortening devices'. I thought this was a great description of them and sums up them perfectly. A phone can be either a tool (that we use to research, to keep in contact with friends, to get directions to a good restaurant etc) or it can be a black hole that completely absorbs all of our attention and obliterates our attention span.

It's funny that in the past we would go the the cinema and watch a film that lasted 3+ hours. However, since then, every piece of video has been getting shorter and shorter, and with it, our attention spans have been doing the exact same. We went from films to TV shows/series that may last one hour per episode. Then we went to Youtube where a video may last 20-30 minutes. Now we are at the point where a lot of the content we consume could consist of videos lasting 30 seconds or less. Whether that be a Youtube short, a Tik Tok video or an Instagram story/reel. It's like we have been trained to become less and less patient, and to become more and more malleable to the short form content that is now thrust down our throats on a daily basis.

Bezos talks about doing things such as reading and listening to long form podcasts etc, as antidotes to the power and control of the attention shortening device. Sometimes I notice that my mind is itching to be stimulated. I mean don't get me wrong, I think I am much better in this respect than the average person (I never wear headphones in public, don't listen to music/use my phone in the gym etc or when I run etc) however, sometimes I still feel this sense of urgency for my mind to do something stimulating. Perhaps this is also a result of my work, where I am doing something very intellectually stimulating on a daily basis (whether that be study or playing) but I think that it mostly stems from things such as Youtube, that destroys your attention span and causes you to start watching videos when you are taking a shit.

Anyways, my plan is to continue to counter these issues in the coming year. I have joined a golf course, which will mean that I am outside at around 4 hours at a time, without going on my phone/technology etc. I am also going to get back in to hiking again, which often last much longer than 4 hours per walk/hike. And the plan is to read at least one book per month, for the remainder of the year. When I travel etc, then I can read a lot more (as I'm not working/studying/going to the gym etc). But on a daily basis, I can easily go a week without reading. So by aiming for one book per month (minimum) then this (assuming the book is around 300 pages long) is only 10 pages per day. Of course there will be several days where I don't open the book, but there will be others where I read 20-30 pages (like today).

I love podcasts too, they are definitely my favourite form of entertainment right now- even more so than television/video. Often my favourite part of the day is finding a good podcast to listen to as I make food. I can happily spend 1-2 hours in the kitchen, being absorbed in an interesting conversation (often learning things in the process) while also cooking- which is also very enjoyable for me.

Poker-

Anyways, I wrote a post late last week, but I wanted to get back on to the Monday night blog post slot- to get back in to a consistent routine in that regard. Poker is going well, though my volume is dropping a little recently. Fortunately I am playing very well (and also running well) so that's a nice combo. Tonight, for example, I was playing with such clarity that I have not experienced for a long time. I think it was a combination of preparing for the session well (going to the gym/sauna etc), getting in some good study earlier on in the day, eating healthy foods and generally just being in a good mood.

However, sometimes, for whatever reason, you just get in to the zone- and there's not any real or logical explanation that you can make for this happening. Other nights our minds are restless and distracted and it doesn't take us much resistance to push us over the edge and towards a session of frustration and tilt.

I guess this is what makes life interesting though. If every day was a flow state, zen like experience, then it would quickly become the norm and then we would take it for granted. Conversely, if every day was a stressful, tense experience, then our life satisfaction would quickly plummet, and we may well spiral towards depression and misery. It's the balance of 'good' days and 'bad' days that make life interesting, and mean that we appreciate those good days when they do arise.

Perhaps this is what the politicians are doing. They are keeping us on edge so that we do not take this nice, comfortable life for granted. Either that, or they are just making lots of money. But hey, at least the first option is a 'glass half full' perspective :)

GG.

One week challenge- no phone

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and I've decided to begin this challenge on Monday morning and do it for the next week. I will post daily updates for the next week with my thoughts, what I've been up to etc.

I want to see what is possible if I minimise the time I spend on my phone. I'm only going to allow myself a maximum of 30 mins per day, but ideally this will be 5-10 mins and only really to do things such as responding to a message or booking a golf time via an app etc.

Usually when I wake up I meditate in my bed (playing some meditation music off Spotify) but I'm not going to allow myself to listen to music, nor podcasts. I'm not going to lie, the thing that is worrying me the most is not being able to listen to podcasts. I don't really like messaging any longer tbh, and often take ages to reply. I don't really listen to music on my phone either. So I tend to use it for mindless things like looking through Instagram and watching Youtube, as well as more 'productive' things such as listening to podcasts while I cook/wash the dishes etc.

I feel like there are a lot more hours in the day that are passing my by as I do mindless things, or even 'productive' things, on my phone. When I take away that option, then it will be interesting to see how I respond and what new things I will get up to in the coming week. I think it's pretty likely I'll finish my book in the next week, for example, even though I only planned to have it complete by the end of the month.

Anyways I better go chill for a bit and wind down after ending my poker session just before 4am.

GG.

Day 1- more hours in the day

Last night I ended up playing poker until 4am. Needless to say, this kind of ruined my sleep pattern and I don't think I got to sleep until closer to 6am, as I like to chill after playing and not attempt to go straight to sleep afterwards. It doesn't seem too healthy to me to go from thinking intensely for 4+ hours straight, to then lying in your bed trying to fall asleep. So typically watching TV/Youtube etc helps to dumb me down a little before I fall asleep.

It's funny cos recently I've got back in to Yugioh. As a kid me and my brothers friends would collect and play Pokemon cards (as well as the Gameboy games), but for whatever reason I preferred Yugioh. The PS2 game of it was really good too, from what I remember. I actually bought an old silver, slimline PS2 a couple of months ago. I haven't owned a console since I was a teenager and had an Xbox 360 (I'd usually play COD 4 online with my friends). However, I just had the urge (mostly for nostalgic purposes) to buy either a PS1, or a PS2. Ultimately I went for a PS2, just cos the graphics are a little better and there are more good games for it. It's funny but the PS2 is actually the best selling games console of all time, even though, naturally, we tend to buy the more up to date versions of consoles nowadays.

Anyways, I started watching Yotuber's opening Yugioh cards, then that got me thinking of how I still had some cards at my parents house, in a random box somewhere. So I ended up picking them up while driving home the other week, and I also started to watch the anime too. I have a few friends who watch anime, but I've never been that bothered about it tbh. However I used to watch this as a kid too, and it's quite good to watch it after grinding as it's pretty relaxing, but you are actually following a storyline- instead of watching random, unrelated Youtube videos. The first series is almost 50 episodes, and I think I'm on 40 or 41, but they are less than 20 minutes long, so it doesn't take too long to work your way through them.

I've not actually played the PS2 that much, just cos I don't like the idea of playing another game after playing poker, and atm I am not taking that many days off. However, I'm sure I'll play it more in the Summer etc when I am planning to take more time off poker to get outside, play golf, go hiking, travelling etc. It will be a nice way to wind down after spending most of the day outside.

Today-

Like I said in my post last night, this week I plan to use my phone as little as possible, and today I achieved that. Usually when I wake up I like to watch Youtube for around 30 mins to an hour (probably not the healthiest habit tbh) as there is a channel that does a 30 min video each day about Rangers (though I watch it at 1.5x speed so it's only 20 mins for me haha). Then I will quickly check Instagram, read the sport on the BBC website and then do a 12 minute meditation, followed either by some chess puzzles, or some games of chess. The problem with me and chess is that when I go on a losing streak, I can't stop playing. There have been days where I've laid for 3-4 hours in my bed, upon waking up, grinding chess. Obviously this is a colossal waste of time (even though it happens rarely, maybe once every month or so) and I often get tilted as well lol. So it's probably one of the worst ways you could start your day- drain your brain of energy, waste several hours of the day and get tilted in the process.

However, last night I left my phone in another room so that option wasn't there. So I ended up doing the 12 minute meditation without music, then followed this up by reading 10 or so pages of the book 'Prisoners of Geography'. Imo this is a far superior way to start the day- even though I did wake up just before 1pm due to the late night last night. So far I've been really enjoying the book, and enjoy learning more about geopolitics- which I didn't know a whole lot about before. It's amazing how something as simple as a river can be the cause of conflict that, perhaps, could even lead to wars. For example it was discussing how Ethiopia have built a dam somewhere along the Nile, that is capable of storing a years worth of water. Egypt are almost completely reliant on the Nile as their water source, but now Ethiopia can control the flow rate with which the water runs. So, if they decided, they could essentially turn off the water that is flowing in to Egypt (or at least that's what I garnered from the book).

There were plenty more interesting things in the book, about why Africa continues to be a poor continent, about why the USA remains the superpower of the world, about why Europe needs an EU- otherwise conflict may arise again between France and Germany- and even a snippet about Scotland too! If we get independence from the UK, then we won't be allowed back in to the EU for 10+ years. So that would leave us in a very vulnerable position! This book is what inspired my previous post. Clearly it wasn't a particularly popular post, but I wanted to discuss it, so I wrote it regardless.

I also picked up the book 'The wisdom of groundhog day' at the weekend from a charity shop. I like buying books from a charity shop for several reasons. 1- they are cheaper. To me it doesn't make a ton of sense to spend £15 on a book that you are, often, going to read once. 2- the money goes to a good cause. 3- you end up finding random books that you would never select in a book store, due to the randomness of the books for sale (as they are all donations).

I will analyse the book a little more once I've read more of it- as I've only read one chapter so far. All in all I read almost 50 pages today, between both books. I went to the gym and done an upper body workout, then went to the sauna. I got in just over an hours worth of study, focusing on 3bet pots in position. When I left to go to the gym, I just left my phone in a drawer at home. I didn't see any point in taking it with me.

Overall it just seemed like there were more hours in the day. When we, subconsciously or consciously, write off large chunks of the day as 'phone time' then we are writing off chunks of time where we could be doing something else- like reading a book, going to the gym, studying etc. Of course there are times, like after a long poker session, where we want to do something fairly braindead (like watching Yugioh) but it's probably not a great way to start off our days in this manner.

Anyways I'm only one day in, so I can't say that I have learnt anything life changing yet. My first impression is merely that it feels like there are more hours in the day when you are not using your phone.

I didn't play today as I had a long session last night, and Monday's tend to be my day off regardless. I'll get back on the grind again tomorrow.

Day 2- Back to work

Poker-

On Tuesday it was time to get back on the grind, after taking the previous day off. At the moment I am feeling close to burn out in all honesty, and feel like I need a holiday or a week or two off to get away from poker and mentally reset. The first two months of the year were very consistent in terms of my playing schedule and volume, however this month has been more of a struggle. Before many of the sessions, I've had zero motivation to play- but I am quite proud in the sense that I have played regardless. In the past I would have rationalised about why I should have taken a day off, but now I have quite good clarity with what I want to achieve.

At the start of this thread I highlighted that I want to play 200-300k hands this year of cash. So my plan has been to hit 20k hands each month, and do so for the first five months of the year so that I hit 100k hands by the end of May. That will enable me to essentially have two months off where I can do whatever I want, and then I simply have to hit the same volume goals for the last five months of the year. Of course I won't take the entire June/July off, but I have two weddings, I am going to the Euros in Germany and I would also like to do a lot more exploring in and around the Inverness area- to make the most of moving up here.

So when I am struggling, or have literally zero motivation to play on these cold, dark, March nights, I look forward to the carrot of a warm Summers day, where I have complete freedom and no obligation to play or study. Of course it's vital to live in the present moment as much as possible, but when our present moment doesn't want to do something, sometimes we have to use the delayed gratification tactic in order to get ourselves to sit down at our desk and put in some hands.

Overall the session didn't go very well, but I think I played pretty well- which is the most important thing! It started off well enough, then I went the last hour or so losing pretty much every single pot.

One hand that tilted me was when a reg made a flush in a 3bet pot with a hand that is a pure fold pre flop, cos that's obviously a variance free 4bb profit you 'should' be picking up pre flop, instead of a 100bb+ loss post flop. However he punted off in an almost identical spot with another hand that is a pure fold pre flop the week before, so I guess these things even out and we should focus on playing +EV poker, and enjoy when our opponents make -EV mistakes- even if we do lose the pot in the moment.

There was another hand where I folded top pair in a 3bet pot when the FD completed, and my opponent showed a bluff. But in game I had a pretty clear game plan- call when I had a FD blocker along with my TP, and fold when I don't. The solver agreed and went for that exact strategy, so my slight frustration was alleviated when my thought process was proved to be correct by the solver. It's pretty funny how results oriented we can be sometimes, where as a solver just cares about making good, +EV decisions and wouldn't care less if an opponent called too wide pre flop and made a flush, or bluffed you off a hand you're supposed to pure fold. But I'm a human I guess, and I had a losing session so I'm going to be slightly more irrational than usual!

Life-

In terms of the no phone challenge, it's going pretty well so far. Yesterday I got in a bunch of reading again. Starting off the day with a 12 minute, silent meditation followed by some reading, before getting in some poker study and then heading to the gym for a kettlebell class. At the moment I am going to the gym twice per week, but as the weather is also getting better, I am also trying to play golf once per week too. I feel like I should be doing some sort of class at the gym once per week as well, cos atm I'm not really doing any cardio except from walking. I'd never done a kettlebell workout before, and it was funny that I was struggling with 10kg kettlebells at one point just cos my body wasn't used to this high rep, no rest form of exercise.

Afterwards I went to the sauna as usual, which is always a nice reward for a workout or a successful gym class. Then it was back home, before making some food and of course getting on the grind.

So far I have not really missed using a phone at all tbh. In the mornings I do notice it a bit, where my mind is kind of craving some sort of digital stimulation when I wake up, as it's so used to me checking Instagram, the BBC sport and watching a Youtube video or two. However, ultimately these are just habits that I have picked up over the past 5-10 years, and so they can also be undone. I think that after I do this week long challenge, I will likely stick with the habit of leaving my phone in another room when I go to sleep, and of doing a silent meditation (no music etc) and reading upon waking up each day. This will also curb by chess addiction! So it's a win win haha.

Anyways, time to get in some study and then get on the grind later on tonight. I am more motivated to play today, actually!

GG.

Good turn

Bad turn

Day 3- A productive 'rest' day

I planned on playing golf today, but late last night after my session, I was kind of dreading having to get up 'early' to go and play. I definitely wanted to play, but the problem was I didn't get to sleep until after 4am. My tee time was booked for 12pm, but its a 30 minute drive to the golf course, which meant I needed to get up at 11am.

Having been at the gym on Monday and done a kettlebell class on Tuesday (as well as getting in more than 10k steps on both days too, walking to the gym and home afterwards) meant I felt kind of drained. Playing/studying poker can be draining too. So today ended up being a stay at home day, where I didn't bother leaving the house- and I was happy not too!

I had a study call with my friend scheduled, which ended up lasting around 2:30 hours (around 2 hours of study and 30 mins of chatting). Afterwards my brain felt completely fried. For me, around 1 hour of study is optimal, so long as I do so in an efficient and deep way. When you get towards 2 hours then, assuming you are studying intensely, it can start to have a detrimental effect on your ability to play poker later on in the day.

Think of it this way. If you are playing a game of football (soccer) then you would do a warmup beforehand that involves some jogging, stretching, ball work etc and then perhaps some sprinting, just to get a little more blood flowing as you approach kick off. You wouldn't run a half marathon before playing an important game, would you?

It's the same in poker. We want to approach our daily study, assuming we are also playing poker on the same day, as something more akin to a football warmup. However, we still want to be doing slightly more than a warmup, cos we are wanting to learn before our session, not merely warm up our brains before playing.

So there is a fine line between learning just enough in your pre session study, where it will both benefit you and also serve as a mental warmup before playing, and overdoing it completely, frying your brain and burning yourself out before you begin your session. This is completely fine if you are taking the day off playing and just want to get in a bunch of study. But if you are playing on the same day, then your study should serve as both a learning process, yet also a warmup process too.

Imo if you are able to study 2+ hours per day before playing then either you aren't studying very intensely (most likely you are just randomly checking hands to see if you played them 'correctly') or you are simply unaware that you are burning yourself out before you start playing, and are likely playing worse as a result.

In Luke Johnson's video at the start of this year he also mentioned about how he 'only' studies for around an hour per day, too. However, he obviously does so in a very efficient manner, as he is a very theoretically sound player who has a great understanding of the game.

So for me today, 2 hours was probably a little much, so I made sure to take a couple hour break before I started playing, so that my brain could have a bit of a rest before I got in to the poker mindset again.

The session didn't start very well. I got stacked in a couple of tilting spots, and seemed to continue the previous session where I could barely win a pot towards the end. However, towards the end of the session, I started to run hot and in the space of a couple hundred hands, I had completely turned the session around and was now in healthy profit.

I'm not gonna lie and say it was skill, it was mostly just down to making good hands in big pots, but overall I think I played quite well and managed to ride out the negative variance at the start of the session to reap the rewards of the positive variance towards the end. It was also a fun session in terms of banter at the tables. I wrote my post on 'work or play' a couple weeks ago, and since then I have tried to have more fun on the tables when I am grinding. I quite like interacting with other players at the table, and quite a few of us were all chatting/having a laugh during our sessions tonight.

I also managed to win a $6k pot at $2knl, so we take that! I have quite a clear plan on how I am going to get to $5k+ again, but I need to win a bit more before I will shot take those stakes. Hopefully it won't be too long though, ideally in the next couple of months I will be up there again and take my 2bi shot!

In all honesty I'm not sure how much longer I will play poker for. For the past couple of years I have almost felt like each of these years could be my last. However, it also seems pretty dumb to 'throw away' something that I am pretty good at, making a good income at and have a ton of freedom in doing. Yet I still don't think that is a very healthy, long term profession (at least for me).

Anyways this may seem contradictory towards my goals of moving up etc, but ultimately I will just take it year by year, until I no longer want to play. Most likely in my next career, whatever that may be, then I will be earning a fraction of what I do now and starting at the bottom. However there is more to life than money, and I don't want to do the same job for 20-30+ years and auto pilot through life. And the good thing is that, if you develop good, strong poker fundamentals, then they will never leave you. You can always come back at some point in the future.

Sure, you will have to shake off the rust etc, but GTO doesn't change. A solver approved play now will still be a solver approved play in 2-3 years. So perhaps what I may find that I need, is a year out of poker (at some point in the near future) trying out some other form of work, before coming back to the game.

Who knows. For now I am just studying and grinding. Trying to play well and move up. No more mental restrictions, only opportunities and open doors. It's time for me to walk through them.

GG.

When their line makes zero sense

Day 4- Unplanned day off

Life-

Today the plan was to wake up around 12pm, get in an hour or so of study and then go to the gym/sauna before getting on the grind later on in the evening. However, this plan was quickly torn up when, at around 9:30am, I was awoken by a ring of my doorbell. My friend moved to Australia around 1.5 years ago and I've not seen him since. We keep in touch, messaging every so often, but it's an old friendship that doesn't really need a ton of contact to maintain.

Whenever we see each other then it was always just going to continue from where we left, due to the fact we have known each other since primary school- actually I think I went to nursery with him when I was aged like 4 or 5. I'm not saying we have been friends this entire time, but I have known him for around 25 years and the bulk of my life.

He had messaged me the other day to say that a parcel was going to be delivered my on Thursday morning, and that I needed to be in in order to receive it. I didn't think much of it other than thanking him for seemingly buying me a present randomly. Anyways it turns out that it wasn't a present, he had come back for a two week long visit instead! So obviously that meant by days plans were thrown out the window (though of course I didn't mind). I didn't get to sleep until after 4am, so I had only gotten around 5 hours sleep- I usually try to get 8 hours as this is perfect for me.

So we had a catch up, went out for 'lunch' (even though it was my breakfast) but then we realised we were both very tired- he had barely slept for the past couple of days and I wouldn't mind a power nap either. Well, that turned in to around 3 hours and, at that point, it was about time for him to head back down the road- though we are catching up again next weekend.

Anyways, after this weird middle of the day sleep, I felt pretty groggy. I got in an hours study, looking over some 3bet pots from yesterdays session, but I couldn't shift this grogginess and decided that it was better not to play today. This definitely wasn't ideal, given the fact that Scotland are playing Holland tomorrow as well, in a game that I would have liked to have watched. So playing today was a no brainer, but ultimately sometimes social plans take priority over grinding, and today was one of those days. I can always play an extra 1-2k hands another day to make up for today, but I might not see my friend for another 1.5 years (well, apart from next weekend haha).

Whenever I take an unplanned day off, I always try to at least make it somewhat productive. So I think that even if I don't feel like playing, then there's no reason that I shouldn't get in some study. Actually, these are the kind of days where you could just get in 2-3 hours and completely fry your brain cos you aren't going to be playing later on in the day. I was just happy reviewing all the 3bet pots that I tagged from yesterdays session though. Even though I had a good session yesterday, I still wanted to review plenty hands that I was unsure about and to give me clarity for the next time a similar spot arises.

In all honesty I have no idea how often other cash regs study, but I usually do 5-6 days per week, typically ranging from 1-2 hours per day (though most study sessions are a little over an hour). Unless I am away elsewhere, or have a friend over to visit etc, then there is literally no reason that I cannot sit down and do an hours study. Even as I type this I am considering doing a second, shorter study session before I wind down for the night and start watching some brainless TV- most likely another couple episodes of Yugioh!

One thing that I do love about poker is it's ability to humble you, and to make you realise how little you know. However, this is not a demeaning 'you know nothing and are stupid' humbling, it's a 'lets improve/correct your thought process' humbling. Improvement is amazing. It's cool to look back at the stakes we were playing several years ago and see our progress, or to see what weights we lifted when we started going to the gym, or our 5k times when we just picked up running again- then compare them all to the stakes/weights/times we are doing now. Of course, sometimes we might have peaked in the past. For example, even though I am better at poker now than I was several years ago, I am weaker at the gym and I haven't ran in like 6 months, so my marathon condition would absolutely smoke me in a race in my present condition. But it's not only about where you are now, it's about where you started off at, and where you got to.

When I done my first 5k run during lockdown, I almost threw up and shit myself simultaneously. I was a tall, skinny guy who done a lot of walking and thought he was quite fit- wrong! Fast forward to marathon day, where I ran it in around 3:40 and far exceeded my 4:00 target time. So even though, in my current condition, it would probably take me four days rather than four hours to run a marathon, I know that I have this massive improvement and high ceiling in my locker, if required. We can't peak at literally everything simultaneously in our lives. We can't prioritise poker, running, lifting weights, dating, reading, coaching, blogging, cooking, socialising, travelling, hiking, volunteering all at once. Perhaps we can select a couple of these things at once, focus on them and give them our all, before shifting our focus again (especially if we want variety in our lives).

For now my priority is poker and on being in good shape. Not marathon running shape, not peak physical strength shape. Just 'I'm going to the gym twice per week and doing some other sports on the side' shape. If I compare my social life now to it in my late teens/early twenties, then I might also become frustrated and sad. However, it's just the nature of life. I am happy that I enjoyed such a fun time as a younger, alcohol drinking guy who had no worries other than to get the cheapest £1 drinks and have just enough money left over for a McDonalds the next day.

Imo it's kind of cool to look back on parts of our lives and see how much we have changed, what was going for us, what wasn't going for us and on how different we are now to where we were. Of course there will always be aspects of our lives in the past that were 'better' than what we have now, but there are also plenty aspects of our lives now that are 'better' than what we had back then. For example, as a teen/early twenties I was pretty insecure overall and, for the most part, I have fixed this through meditation, self improvement books etc. So would I actually want to go back to this point in my life where I was always heading out to bars/clubs, meeting up with friends and trying to chat up girls? Not really. But am I glad that I experienced this? Absolutely.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

So perhaps we aren't currently in our best physical or mental shape, perhaps we are on a downswing and had to move down in stakes, perhaps we have lost several friends over the years or are just out of a breakup. There are so many reasons or excuses to be sad, but conversely (assuming we frame things differently) there are so many reasons to be optimistic.

We can still get up tomorrow and go to the gym, we can start of our day with a meditation in an attempt to rewire our brain, we can put in some extra study (but not too long haha) and battle to move back up in stakes, we can get out of our comfort zone and meet new people and make new friends and we can walk down the street and fall in love (like that Lego meme) with the cute girl who just smiled at us as she walked by.

We are told to embrace negative poker variance and downswings, but perhaps we should be told to embrace life variance and life downswings too. That way we appreciate the upswings so much more.

Phone challenge-

To be honest I have one admission to make- I have been listening to podcasts while I cook! I just enjoy it too much haha, and I'm not staring at a screen or anything so I don't think it's a huge deal, though arguably I should be more present when I cook instead of following a random Joe Rogan conversation.

I've still massively limited by screen time, and pretty much only use my phone atm to reply to messages. I've been leaving my phone at home when I head out (for example today with my friend) and haven't watched any Youtube videos on it, and barely open Instagram either. Its funny but when I watch Youtube or whatever on my TV, then after like 30 mins to an hour I just say to myself this is enough and come off it. Where as, for some reason, if I'm watching it on my phone then I can watch it for much longer periods without feeling the need to come off it.

I read 50 pages today too, basically split evenly between the two different books that I'm reading. I'm honestly quite tempted to buy a crappy flip phone that I can alternate between when I feel like it. I'm not saying I'm going to completely get rid of my smartphone (it's still very useful in lots of ways) but I think it would be good to have a more basic phone so that I can do this kind of 'challenge' on a more consistent basis.

When we were out eating at the restaurant, there were two older women sitting next to us, and both were just staring at their phones. It was kind of sad tbh, that we value a piece of technology over the company of a friend or a family member. This is obviously very common and you see it all the time when you walk past restaurants, bars, pubs etc.

Anyways I'm not preaching, cos I'm sure I do this (occasionally) too, but it's just an observation.

Back to the grind tomorrow, unless I get another friend from Australia arriving at my door in the morning!

GG.

Day five- running on fumes

Life-

It was time to get back on the grind today after an unplanned day off yesterday, and the preparation leading up to my session involved going back to the gym too. Today was leg day (which I actually enjoy) and so I done a leg workout consisting of squats, followed by some machine exercises and farmers carries.

I usually don't do farmers carries, but I've been watching a lot of The Stoltman Brothers (Scottish strongmen) videos recently, so it inspired me to add a new exercise to the workout. The problem was that the gym area was too busy to use the dumb bells, so I walked to a different area where the only option was either very light dumb bells, or plates. I warmed up with a 20kg plate in each hand, then tried to do 2x 20kg plates in each hand, but I couldn't really hold on to them properly as they were too thick to hold on to, so it didn't really work. So next time I will just have to either do a longer distance with the 20kg plates, or go at a quieter time so that I can use the dumb bells. Either way it was a cool exercise and I feel like it's probably good for your core strength and especially your grip strength.

Cos I've been getting out of my bed earlier (as I'm not staying up as late watching Youtube, and not wasting time on my phone in my bed in the mornings either) then I've been able to go to the gym a little earlier too. This means that I can enjoy longer in the sauna/spa area. I've started taking a book with me again, so I tend to read for a bit after exiting the sauna. I think that if you struggle to maintain motivation and consistency in terms of going to the gym, then join one with a spa and reward yourself by going to it after every workout. It's like a cheat code, cos even if you can't really be bothered going for a workout, you will go regardless in order to go to the sauna/steam room etc. So nowadays I find it pretty easy to go to the gym, even though I lost all motivation to go to it a couple years ago and barely went last year either.

Scotland were playing Holland tonight, in a match that I wanted to go out and watch, but it would have meant pushing back my poker session from 8pm until around 10pm, and I also knew that there was a good chance we would lose tonight (we did) and so I would probably be kinda tilted after watching it. So I made the mature decision not to watch it, and instead grind instead. This would mean I would be finished before 12am, and so I could also get up at a reasonable time on Saturday and make the most of my day off.

Poker-

Fortunately the session went well again. I lost a bit back towards the end, but it was still a good, profitable session. There were quite a few $1k tables running, mostly around this kind of reg/fish guy. I mean he is not terrible by any means, but he makes enough mistakes to make it worthwhile grinding when he is at the table (even though WR's will probably be relatively low, especially compared to playing against proper fish or even whales). 500z had a massive pool too, at one point with around 40 entries or so. The bulk of them were regs, but it was still fun to get in some zoom hands and the boost in hands per hour that it inevitably brings.

I even played a 530bb pot at 500z, which was kind of crazy.

In all honesty before the session, again, I felt a little burnt out and wasn't too bothered to play. However, I overcame these thoughts and put in some hands regardless. I am going to head back to my parents next weekend, and hang out with my friend (the one who is back from Australia) and probably catch up with other friends too. So this made it easier in a sense. I will get some time off poker to reset and recover from this burnout, but I have to earn that time off- and you don't earn it by lying on the sofa watching TV!

Phone challenge-

I've hardly been on my phone all day. I think I may have been on it like 15-20 minutes total. In all honesty this challenge is pretty easy, but has also made me realise how much of my life I was wasting, staring at a small rectangular screen for hours on end and for no real benefit other than to satisfy my minds insatiable appetite for stimulation.

This 'detox' actually seems to be having quite a big effect. I sat and watched TV for like 1 hour or 1:30 hours after my session had concluded, but towards the end my mind actually said 'enough is enough' and didn't want to watch it any longer. So it seems like I am, perhaps, starting to rewire my brain so that I don't just crave mind numbing stimulation in every spare hour of the day.

Reading is also much easier too. In the past few months, I have often sought out something more stimulating (like watching Youtube) instead of reading in my down time. My mind would crave something like that, and struggle to focus on reading as it was 'too boring'. But at the moment I can easily read 20-30 pages in one sitting, and I am probably averaging 40-50 pages per day atm. Which is a lot more than the 10(ish) that I read on average per day.

In the past I have switched my diet and stopped drinking alcohol. It seems like this challenge may lead me towards correcting the next leak in my life- the smartphone addiction!

Anyways, tomorrow I will take the day off and do something different- though I'm not quite sure what yet. I just want to get a good sleep tonight and make sure that I am fully ready for Sunday's session. I have kind of scrapped playing tournaments on Sunday's for the past month or so, and just switched back to playing cash on that day instead. I am sure I will get back in to them again later on this year, but for now I am happy to focus on cash instead- and on moving up in stakes!

GG.

530bb pot at 500z

Day 6- free time

There is only just over a day left of this 'challenge' but in reality I will likely be continuing this beyond the end of the week. In all honesty I have used my phone slightly more than I'd have liked to, but 30 minutes per day is very difficult to remain under when it can take you 20+ minutes just to catch up and reply to some messages. I've still been listening to podcasts while I cook, too. In a sense I think that I should stop this, in order to remain more present etc, but in another sense I really enjoy it, so why should I?

If I was literally listening to music/podcasts etc during all of my daily activities, then I'd accept that I had a problem with simply doing the activity and being present in it- but that's not the case. When I go for a walk I don't listen to anything, similarly when I am at the gym, playing golf or on a hike. Tomorrow I will be playing golf where I am outside for 3+ hours and completely disconnected from technology.

When I leave the house now, I throw my phone in a drawer and leave it at home. It's weird, cos for the past 15 years or so I have always walked around with a wallet in my right pocket and a phone in my left. I never alternate which item goes in which pocket, it's always the same. Now I am just walking around with a wallet in my right pocket and nothing in my left. It's weird, but at a certain point I think it's important to question WHY we are doing certain things in our daily lives, so that we do not simply drift through life unconsciously, before arriving on our death beds with a lifetime of regrets and missed opportunities.

If I were to ask you if you thought having, and using, a smartphone on a daily basis was a net positive, or a net negative, what would you say?

I am genuinely curious, so feel free to share your thoughts and opinions below. For me, at least, it's a net negative. So when I look through my life and figure something is a net negative, then I will usually cut it out- like with alcohol etc too. So below I will share some of the positive aspects (in my opinion) of using a smartphone, and some of the negatives.

Positives-

1-Useful apps- whether that be maps, Duolingo to learn a language, chess.com to grind chess, spotify to listen to music/podcasts etc.

2-Entertainment- if we are on a long flight, train journey or simply waiting in line, we can tap in to our phone and instantly be entertained in some fashion.

3-Easy to contact friends/family- whether that be through social media, facetime or by simply calling or messaging them.

4-A web browser in our pocket- we don't need to load up our laptop or computer, we can access google (or in my case Brave) in a fraction of the time.

5-A handy torch- in all honesty I don't even own a torch. Putting out the bins at midnight would become more problematic without my phone.

Now I will go through each point and attempt to debunk them.

1- This one I can't debunk in all honesty.

Without a smartphone then you couldn't access these apps, so it just depends how highly you value them. You could always learn through other means (like taking a Spanish class, buying a Spanish dictionary etc), but for things like maps there isn't really a good alternative imo.

2- Read a book or a magazine. Buy an old Gameboy or play cards with a friend while on the train/flight. Buy an old Ipod and listen to music. Become more present and stop seeking entertainment cos you are in a queue for two minutes.

3- A basic phone can still call/text. Sure you can't facetime them, but you could always just meet up with them if you wanted to see them so badly- unless they are in a different country or something.

4- Again, you can't really debunk this.

However, I would say do you actually need a web browser in your pocket? Do you need to fact check 24/7? If you wanted to check something, you could easily take a mental or physical note of it and check it later on in the day on your computer.

5- Buy a torch for £5-10.

So imo only points one and four are valid arguments, the rest you can easily find an alternative. I guess we have to assess whether these two points are worth the negative points that owning/using a smartphone inevitably bring.

Negatives-

1- Huge time drain. This cannot be overstated. I heard on Joe Rogan's podcast that the average teen uses their smartphone for nine hours per day! That is just insanity. Personally I used it nothing like this much, but I guess I also go on my computer etc for work, so perhaps this cancels some of it out.

What else could you be doing with this spare time?

2- Destroys your attention span. If you need constant stimulation, check your phone in between sets at the gym, on the train, in a queue in a shop, as you take a shit, when you are out for a meal with a friend, then you have no attention span.

3- Takes away from the present moment. Imo it's extremely difficult to enjoy and live in the present moment when we are on, or tempted to go on our phones all the time. There is something special about just staring out of the window while on a train, or in a car etc. However, when we have a phone in our hands then we are so much more likely to seek out some form of entertainment as we take that journey, instead of staring out the window and watching the trees, fields, houses, animals go by as we speed past them.

4- Makes us unaware of our surroundings. When we are walking around and staring at our phones, we stop being aware of our surroundings. We might be putting ourselves in to more danger by not looking around and seeing the shifty guy walking towards us, or seeing the speeding car weave carelessly towards us.

5- Expensive. I bought my Iphone a couple years ago for around £500, but I can imagine they are a lot more expensive now. You could easily get a decent, basic phone for one tenth of the price.

Now I guess the challenge is to compare the positives and see if they outweigh the negatives. In my personal opinion, they do not. Does this mean I will throw my Iphone in the bin? No. But there is a good chance that I will buy a more basic phone, so that I can alternate between the two (perhaps taking my Iphone with me when I go travelling, as I will need maps etc a lot more than if I am at home) and using the basic phone more often at home.

Either way, I am very happy that I finally decided to do this challenge. I think that everyone knows we are, to some extent, addicted to our smartphones. It's just become so common now that we all seem to prefer to ignore the issue and sweep it under the rug.

For me, the challenge is now to find enough things to fill my day with. All of a sudden I have a lot more free time, and less urge to use other forms of entertainment like TV etc. I will need to find more hobbies, get outside more, spend more time with people in order to fill out my waking hours. Ideally I would be able to get up earlier in the day, so that I could make use of the daylight, but unfortunately I play poker between 8pm-12am (roughly) so it would make no sense to wake up at 8am as I would be too tired by the time that I would start my session.

However, I would much rather have this problem than have the opposite problem of too little time- which can easily happen when you wake up and grind chess for four hours lol.

The most valuable asset of a material life is money, but the most
valuable asset of a simple life is time.

It's time I started taking time more seriously, and made the most of each and every day.

Back to the grind tomorrow!

Hi Demon. I wanted to ask for your thoughts about using speech play to generate an edge over opponents at the poker table. I'm in a few different poker-related discord groups, and there is one where a player who has played against you said you use table chat quite regularly. I don't know if that's true. I personally always have the chat function turned off on any site I'm playing on. I feel as though leaving it on allows players the chance to influence me and hence generate an edge on me, rather than the other way around. I think it just adds another variable that I'd rather not add to all the other variables that go into decisions at the table.

Day 7- what next?

Life/phone challenge-

This week has been a good week. Of course there have been the odd times where I haven't felt in an amazing mood or whatever, but overall this is the direction and way that I want to live my life going forward.

In the end I spent an average of 57 minutes per day on my phone this week. This is obviously a little higher than I planned, but overall I am still very happy with how little I used my phone and of the overall improvement in the quality of my daily life as a result. I hadn't actually checked my daily/weekly phone use in a long time, but essentially for the previous two weeks, I had been using my phone for an average of five hours per day!

(These stats are just for screen time btw).

It's actually insane how much I was using my phone before. Yet I wholly believe that the average person actually uses it for a decent bit longer than this, or is at least connected to their phones for much of the day (perhaps listening to music etc as they commute, workout at the gym etc).

So it was like an 80%+ reduction in the use of my phone. What did I do with this new found time? Well, of course some of the Youtube use etc was simply outsourced to either my TV or my computer, but I also spent the time in a productive manner. I read around 280 pages this week, which is almost the length of an entire book. This was split between two books- one of which was a self help book and the other about geopolitics. So they offered a quite good variety. I would tend to read the self help book first thing in the morning, to get me in the correct mindset for the day to come, then read the geopolitics book later on in the day, often after I had been in the sauna and was just chilling on one of the benches.

Because I didn't take my phone in my room, then I would fall asleep much quicker at night, and then I would wake up earlier as a result. I took away any opportunity to do something like binge play chess for four hours upon waking up, and it meant that I was starting every day in a productive manner with a 12 minute meditation followed by some reading. I also spent more time alone simply with my thoughts. Sometimes mulling things over, other times just trying to remain more present and think less.

Today, for example, I set my alarm for 11am, and woke up then as a result. I done meditation/reading, then quickly ate my breakfast before driving around 30 minutes to the golf course. I was just going to play by myself (it's only my second round there so I don't really know anybody there yet) but the guy at reception said I could play with the guy in front of me if I wanted to. So I quickly caught up with him as he was teeing off, and we ended up playing 18 holes together.

He was probably in his early sixties. We got along pretty well and the round ended up lasting just under four hours, simply because we were stuck behind a fourball that simply refused to let us through. I don't think I checked my phone once throughout the round, and felt really present for the entire duration of it. It was almost like I was in the flow state. I noticed that as soon as I got back to the house and logged on to the computer in order to study, that I started thinking too much again and lots of random, somewhat negative thoughts would go through my mind.

Anyways, the round was fun and now I feel like I have the golf bug tbh. It is like the perfect sport for me just now in the sense that it gets me out of the house and off technology for long periods of time, and you can also end up playing with random people and have good conversations in the process!

I went to the gym twice this week too (doing an upper body workout one day, and a lower the other) and went to a gym class for only the second time since I've been a member.

Btw, I have to highlight the importance of the book 'the wisdom of groundhog day' in all of this. I bought it last weekend from a charity shop, and it was almost as if it was placed there in that shop on purpose (perhaps it's the universe helping me out). I cannot overstate how good this book is (at least for me, at my current point in life) so I would definitely recommend it if you are looking to go down the route of being more present, more conscious in your daily life and want to break out of the unconsciousness that daily habits, routines etc can inevitably bring.

I've not finished it yet, but that book, along with the law of attraction (which I read a couple times in December while on holiday), have had a massive, positive impact on my life and on my outlook. So I would definitely recommend both books, especially if you feel like you are on a bit of a 'spiritual' journey and wish to feel happier, more content, more grateful etc in your daily life.

Anyways, I am going to continue with the routine of leaving my phone in another room when I go to bed at night. I assume I will start to use it a little more at other times of the day, but I still plan to often leave it at home as much as possible when I don't think I'll need it- for example when I go to the gym etc.

I want to spend more time outside, around other people and having new experiences. I want to spend less time staring mindlessly at a small, rectangular screen and allowing precious minutes, hours and days of my life to slip by.

Poker-

I ended up playing poker tonight, as planned, but the games weren't amazing and it was pretty difficult to get in hands due to the 500z pool kinda dying (and then several $1k tables etc died too). So I only played for like 2:30 hours, and ended up having a breakeven session. In literally my first hand of the session, I doubled up bvb in a 3bet pot with AA against a pretty sticky call down. Sometimes it's good to have the image of someone who likes to bluff a lot! It's just not so good when you are bluffing and then they make the same call down haha.

The plan was to play five days, as usual, Tuesday-Friday and grind Sunday, but I didn't play on Thursday as my friend showed up for a surprise visit. Overall I'm pretty happy that I even played four days tbh, cos I had almost no motivation to grind this week, and before basically every session it was a struggle to sit down at the tables and put in some hands.

The good thing is, however, that my pre session anxiety seems to have completely dissolved this year (which always held me back for the past few years), so I'm much better nowadays at sitting down on days that I plan to grind on. In the past it was much more a case of playing when I felt like playing, which isn't a good recipe for getting in a lot of hands as it's always easy to rationalise why you should take another day off.

I'm not too far off being able to shot take $5k again. Though I'm not in any rush as I know it's only a matter of time if I keep playing well, studying etc. The most important thing is to avoid complacency when you are running decent, as it's easy to get cocky when you are on a bit of a winning streak.

So it doesn't really matter if I have a really good session or a really bad session, I am still showing up for my study the next day and approaching if with the exact same intensity, regardless of how the previous days session went.

Tomorrow I will (likely) take the day off, as part of my usual Monday/Saturday day off schedule. I have a call with a poker friend in the evening, though I am somewhat tempted to also try to grind at some point because I will be away next weekend- meaning that I miss out on the Sunday grind. So I could grind Monday-Friday and hit my five days that way instead. Though in reality I might just be happy to hit four days, given that I am feeling quite burnt out.

Anyways we shall see. Back to the weekly posts again on here again too.

GG.

Was gonna pure fold otr then changed my mind

Where are the best places (outside of the UK) to live and why?

Hey guys. So this week (April 1st) the Scottish government brought in a new law on 'hate speech'. This wasn't put to a public vote, and instead was pushed through by politicians that are ideologically driven. Essentially this law is an anti democratic one, whereby offenders can face up to seven years in jail if they are convicted of a 'hate crime'.

Anyways, while I am still happy living in Inverness at the moment, I need to plan ahead and think about what I will do in the future. My new house was not only bought as a place to live in, but also as an investment. So it's not really a problem if I decide to move abroad and rent it out- as it should be pretty easy to rent out.

I am at the age where I am thinking about what to do next in my life. I watched Arnold Schwarzenneger's documentary and found it quite inspiring, but I also related to it in certain ways. During the first period of his life, he focused solely on body building and on becoming the best in the world at it. When he achieved this, and was clearly the best, he decided to move on to something completely different (acting) and become one of the best at this too. Then when he hit the pinnacle of that, and was raking in tens of millions per film, he decided to move in to politics.

He didn't milk bodybuilding for every penny, he sought a new challenge. He didn't milk acting for every penny, he sought a new challenge. He didn't seek to become the next US president after being the governor of California, he decided to move on and enjoy the twilight years of his life and help others at the same time. He didn't quit each career at the bottom, he quit at the top.

By no means am I saying I am one of the best poker players in the world, but I can also recognise that I have managed to get up to high stakes and, at the very least, become one of the better regulars that play cash on Stars on a regular basis. Last year I mentioned about how it could be my last year in poker, but ultimately I decided that it wasn't to be and I would do at least another year. I am fully committed to playing for the entirety of 2024, but after that, I am not so sure.

Perhaps I will play on a more part time basis next year. Perhaps I will go back to University and finally get a degree. Perhaps I will open up a food truck and make food. Perhaps I will travel around and simply enjoy living. Or perhaps I will decide to carry on for another year at poker.

But sooner or later, I will decide to move on from poker. Like Arnold, I have always seen my future as being away from my 'first love' of poker (or in his case body building), and that I wish to try out something else. I've never had any intentions of doing a Negreanu or an Ivey and playing the game for a living for 20-30+ years. It just seems pointless to do something for such a large portion of your life when we have one life. Surely the goal is to try different things and make sure that each 10 or so year cycle in our lives is different from the previous 10 year cycle.

I digress. I am going to take another day or two off poker (I've been back visiting my parents) and the plan is to do some research in to where would be a good place to live, should I decide to move out of Scotland in 2025. I would really appreciate other peoples perspectives and insights, so that I can narrow down my search.

At the moment, the two places that kind of stick out to me are Switzerland and Poland. Switzerland is probably one of, if not the most beautiful country that I have visited. The people are very nice and whenever I speak to girls from there they are always extremely intelligent and open. I like Poland too, and I think that, because they are more of a religious country, they still have a backbone that many of the European countries seem to have lost (UK included) in recent years. Obviously Poland is a lot cheaper though, so if I were to be playing poker, then my money would go a lot further over there!

I always liked the idea of moving to Canada, as I really like the people there and it's a really nice, scenic country too. But Trudeau is a nut job and their laws are even worse than ours- so unfortunately that is off the table. Austria was another option (another great country with a ton of mountains etc), but their laws during lockdowns were extremely draconian.

Perhaps this is just the way the world is going at the moment. We have went through 100 years or so of democracy and freedom, and now it is time for much of the world to slip back in to authoritarianism. Hopefully that's not the case, though, and this is merely a blip in history before we return to normality.

I will highlight a few things that I am looking for;
1. Free speech. Preferably the country isn't woke and isn't heading in this direction.
2. Very scenic. Mountains to go hiking and lakes to go swimming.
3. A good standard of living and low crime.
4. Nice people. Family values.
5. Able to play on Stars.com- preferably no tax. In case I decide to keep playing.

Anyways, I would appreciate anybody's help. Perhaps they have lived in Switzerland or Poland and can give me some information. Or maybe they have lived in another country that they think is a better option! Even feel free to share your experiences of living in a completely different country and the pro's/con's of living there! I'm all ears.

This is not something that I plan to do immediately. I will almost certainly remain in Scotland until the end of the year at least, but I thought now is as good of a time as any to start doing some research on where could be a good country/place to move to in the coming year(s).

Thanks in advance! And even if you don't agree with some of my conditions, please remember that they are just what suits me and it's totally cool if you have different preferences. We can still be friends though :)

Hey man, I enjoy reading your blog and we probably have more overlap in our views than you will suspect from this post. I'm also glad you added that last caveat as you’re open to disagreement but won’t take it personally (and neither will I). Here is some hopefully constructive criticism:

If you have seriously ruled out living in a beautiful country like Canada because of ‘wokeness’ then you have gone down a right-wing rabbit hole that isn’t a balanced representation of reality and won’t serve you on the path to happiness.

I went through a phase 6 years ago consuming a lot of content by Jordan Peterson et al that lead me down the anti-woke rabbit hole. It took a good amount of learning other perspectives and introspection to tease apart what things in 'woke' ideology I actually disagreed with and what things just made me uncomfortable because they threatened my world-view and identity.

There is definitely overreach in some left-wing ideology/laws and I'm not au fait with the Scottish hate crime laws, so I'll take your word for it that they go too far, but I suspect you are massively overestimating that and the impact it has on your day-to-day life.


It’s also worth exploring the other side’s perspective, as expressed by themselves, rather than filtered or cherry-picked by someone on the right. As I said, there is some nonsense on the woke left. There are people who are projecting their own trauma and just want to lash out and make other people feel bad rather than actually make the world a better place. But there are also a lot of valid points, and I would say their interpretation of history is ultimately more accurate than the more traditional pro-colonial one I learned in school.

If you are curious to do some introspection, consider whether you agree or disagree with the following. As importantly, how does each statement make you feel? And deep down, does how they make you feel impact your answer to the first part?

1. It’s a big advantage to be born white and especially to not be born black
2. The legacy of slavery and colonialism continues to impact the outcomes and realities of some groups of people for the better, and others for the worse

Demondoink Appreciate the reply as well.

Vaccine Requirements - These are not in place for anything outside of a few select public health positions (working with immune compromised patients, etc). I got two vax doses but did not receive any boosters and this is not a concern at all for me if I leave poker.

Free Speech / C16 - These are the spots gender identity were added to the constitutional amendment:

First: It was added to the Canadian Human Rights Act, joining a list of identifiable groups that are protected from discrimination. These groups include age, race, sex, religion and disability, among others.

Second: It was added to a section of the Criminal Code that targets hate speech — defined as advocating genocide and the public incitement of hatred — where it joins other identifiable groups.

Third: It was added to a section of the Criminal Code dealing with sentencing for hate crimes. If there’s evidence that an offence is motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, it can be taken into account by the courts during sentencing.

So I guess personal preference about finding any of these objectionable but this does not happen:

"Personally I think it's ludicrous to get jailed or indeed receive a big fine for words that you have said. If you are threatening someone or inciting violence then of course, this is completely different. But to criminalize 'hate' (who on earth is morally superior enough to even define what is hate and what isn't?) is Orwellian imo."

It is only considered hate speech when it is inciting violence or threatening (or discrimination in tangible way).

I do appreciate that you gave a full reply because you clearly have well thought out views. It just frustrates me as a Canadian to hear the right-wing talking points (and the "centrist" views you talked about are all coming from Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Douglas Murray, the Weinsteins, etc etc etc, so maybe you don't define this as right wing) infecting the conclusions/views of smart folks in other countries.

I don't mean to offer criticism of your conclusions so much as challenge some of the underlying assumptions. I will say that there are a few very good reasons not to move here, but I'd argue they center around cost of living (especially housing).

Happy to continue this over discord if you'd like, or just kill it here if you've made up your mind on Canada as an option. Cheers

Minimum effective dose

Life-

In recent years I have quite liked the concept of minimum effective dose. It is defined as 'the smallest amount of an input required to achieve a desired outcome'.

There are several ways that I have (consciously) adopted this methodology, and perhaps others where I have (less consciously) adopted it.

For example, while listening to a podcast (I think it might have been Joe Rogan, but in all honesty I can't remember for sure) they were talking to a neurologist who specialised in treating military personnel who were suffering from PTSD etc. The neurologist was using mindfulness techniques to treat them, and she highlighted that 12 minutes per day was enough to help to rewire the brain and help them to overcome their PTSD.

So after hearing about this, I decided to increase my 10 minute daily meditations (that would sometimes be 5 minutes and sometimes 20 minutes) to 12 minutes, in the hope that I could rewire parts of my brain that did not necessarily serve me well.

Now I can't say I done a ton of follow up research on this, to see if 12 minutes was indeed the magical number, but for the sake of 2 minutes of my daily life, I am willing to take that risk! She seemed like a credible woman, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt haha.

A few years ago I also started doing cold showers too. I've seen some Youtubers doing a '30 day cold shower' challenge, but to me this is kinda dumb cos it's basically impossible to wash yourself while you are in the cold water cos you are just trying to survive. So what I do is to just have a normal shower, then at the end turn the water to cold and (usually) set my watch to 30 seconds.

However, I had literally no idea what time I should be doing, or whether this was long enough or not. I just done this amount of time because it was long enough to be challenging, but not long enough for me to dread it each day. In general I would feel some positive after effects, but I think this is always going to be the case with cold water exposure.

Then the other day I click on a random Wim Hof video, and he talks about how 2 minutes is the sweet spot in order to reap the rewards of cold exposure, and anything beyond that is simply a mental challenge and nothing else.

So with that in mind, I decided to extend my cold showers and do 2 minutes per day now. The one at my home is quite easy, as the water isn't that cold just now as it's a lot more mild water just now (so the pipes are a bit warmer). But the one at the gym must be specifically for cold water, so you literally get brain freeze if you keep your head under it for too long. Surviving in that for 2 minutes the other day was quite brutal, but afterwards I felt quite amazing and it seems like (despite the small sample size) it does have a very positive impact on your mood if you stay in for that long.

Even with my workout, I started to use a timer in between sets, and it's amazing how you can cut down a 1 hour workout to just 45 mins if you take shorter rest between sets. I feel like taking shorter rest periods is better too, so that you can push yourself more during your sets, instead of waiting 5 minutes between each set and either staring at your phone or (in my case) staring out the window haha. I just do an upper/lower body split each week, cos in the past I would go 5+ days per week, but then completely lose interest and not go for ages. This way it's easy to go and I know that even if I'm busy for most of the week, it's pretty easy to get in 2 workouts.

Plus the reward of sauna etc afterwards can give you added motivation to go.

It's the exact same with poker study. As I've said before, I tend to study for around 1 hour per day (though this year it's probably averaged a little over an hour). For me, this is the MED where I can learn a lot, but also avoid burnout and mental fatigue that will negatively impact my session later on in the day.

I wouldn't say I am a naturally productive person. You see former military guys like Jocko Willink waking up at 4am every day, and here's me lying in my bed watching Youtube for an hour and getting up at 2pm- though of course it makes no sense for me to wake up as early as I don't usually grind until around 8pm. However, this is a good approach for the more naturally 'lazy' people, who want to improve (both at poker and perhaps in other areas of our lives) but aren't willing to wake up at 4am, nor grind 12 hour work days.

Poker-

So far this year my results have been quite good, it's just frustrating cos I am running way below EV and can rarely seem to win an all in. The good thing is that if I catch a bit of heat then I should be back at $5k soon enough. I mean I probably could just play it now, but I decided to set myself somewhat of a bankroll challenge, where I just start off with the money in my poker accounts and try to run it back up to higher stakes- without depositing anything else or counting other money as my poker bankroll. So hopefully I start winning some all ins otherwise it could take a little longer to get back there!

This week my friend is coming over to visit for the weekend. I thought he was coming on Friday, which would mean taking Friday off (as well as the usual Monday/Saturday) but it turns out that he won't be coming up until Saturday- which means I can grind tomorrow night too! I've not ran great this week, but I've been pretty resilient in terms of getting off to terrible starts in the sessions, but keeping going and usually clawing a decent amount of the money back. I think that people who quit after they lose x amount of buy ins (or perhaps if they feel a little tilted) are missing out because imo it's important to develop mental strength and toughness by continuing to play even when you are running like shit. If you just insta quit any time you're down 5 buy ins, then how do you ever develop this mental toughness? What then happens if you're in a juicy live game with a whale open jamming any two cards, and you are down 5 buy ins? You quit the highest EV game of all time?

So I usually just set myself either a hand target (typically between 1-2k hands per session) or a time limit (usually 3-4 hours per session). That way, I won't quit until I have achieved at least one of these session targets, even if I'm running terrible and feeling a little tilted. Then, if the games are good and I feel like continuing to play, I will keep grinding. But tonight, for example, the games were kind of dead so I just stopped after a little over 3 hours (which was only 800 odd hands) but I hit the low end of my time target, so that was good enough for me. Then we go again tomorrow!

On Sunday I played a couple MTT's on the side of my cash grind. One was the Sunday Million anniversary, and the other a 109 Euro satellite to the Estrellas live poker event in Malaga (a 1k buy in). My friend mentioned at the start of the session about going there, so I thought I would see if I could get in on the cheap- and I did! It was a 1500 Euro package, and the field was so soft, mostly consisting of fish and weak regs. I guess most regs wouldn't even bother playing this sort of satellite. I ended the day in the Milly with 70bb, but the next day I could barely win a hand, so in the end I was just happy to min cash (and recoup most of my 2 buy ins back).

The only slight problem is that the series ends on the 16th of June, which is also the day that I am supposed to be flying out to Germany and heading to the Euros (from Scotland). So I'm not exactly sure what I will do there.

Either way, it's going to be a fun Summer!

In the meantime, though, I want to have a fun Spring! That will involve being consistent in my poker routine, studying, grinding, going to the gym, playing golf and having 2 minute long cold showers!

GG.

Finding bluffs

Finding bluffers

Finding my passport

2 minute cold showers- the cheat code to feeling good

I just want to write a short post. I was considering writing about another, completely unrelated topic, but I want to be 100% sure before I write about that- so I will mull it over for a little while longer.

Anyways, I just wanted to give a suggestion to people if they want to feel in a better, more positive mood. I've done cold showers off and on for the past few years, but after hearing Wim Hof's suggestion of two minute cold showers (I was only doing thirty seconds to a minute) it has almost been life changing.

Today I went to the gym then sauna, before finishing with a two minute ice cold shower. Ever since then, I have been feeling in a mood of almost elation that I could only really remember in my drinking days when you hit the peak of your night and have that social buzz.

Granted, it's not a massive sample size as I've only been doing this for a couple weeks, but I would highly suggest that other people try it out too if you would like to feel in a better mood on a daily basis. I think when I get my bathroom done up, I will try to see if they can install something that makes my showers colder (like the one they have at the gym) so I can do it on a daily basis- as atm I am limited to 2x per week at the gym, and then a not so cold 'cold' shower at my home on the other days.

Anyways this post is short and sweet, but to me a two minute dose of daily discomfort is worth hours of daily bliss and feel good.

Clickity click

Do you have tickets for a match at the euros?

Re cold plunge/shower, this is good advice, it goes a long way. It helps release more white blood cells, which fight disease. I also noticed it helps deepen the breath.

I personally finish my showers cold, a "skill" I learned long ago, and practiced on and off, not so much in winter. I never really developed it. I have reapplied myself, at this point I am like halfway there in relation to Demondoink, or the people in my yoga studio who use the cold plunge after a practice, and I already find it effective. We live in a culture where more is always better, and nothing is ever enough, and that can be too intense and a rough way to approach disciplines. Leads to burnout, resentment, injury. This specific discipline can be a pleasure if practiced with measured care. I look forward to it these days. I thought this may be an encouraging echo testimony for people who are intrigued, but a bit intimidated, or just...cold! In my experience, increments work with this.

Reading Demondoink encouraged me to make a bigger effort so I am trying to push my edge a bit in terms of temperature, and making sure to keep it going for at least two minutes. That's not very drought conscious, so I have to work on shortening the hot water phase. This created a perspective for myself where I find incentive in growing at this discipline for one extra reason that is a bit beyond my own immediate self interest. My other goal coming up here as the weather is getting hot is to try the cold plunge in this yoga studio I mentioned. I am a bit shy about it for some reason, even though I feel comfortable in the studio, and I think a part of why is that it is kind of a spiritual experience and I am used to doing it alone. Perhaps some ego involved as well, I won't last long the first time. But I'll regret getting out early, and grow from there. This seems like a good exercise.

Do you think that starting hot or lukewarm is a big compromise?

When did you apply for them? I probably will never do that because I m not good at planning ahead so much lol. Jk, will try for the next euros I guess

Interesting. Yea, starting with 30 seconds sounds like a good place to start. I mention the white blood cell release because, well, talk about high EV, white blood cells attack cancer cells. Pretty amazing for making the effort of meditating in cold water, and kind of a charming change of approach, in this culture of always pushing to the edge of our capacities "no pain no gain", which leads to injury!

When I google the benefits of cold therapy, a lot of the focus is on athletic performance, and some more superficial and immediate benefits. A lot of info about the nuances of when to plunge, before a workout helps build muscle mass, afterwards, good for recovery. That's nice, and I am also interested beyond these nuances because it feels so good it is kind of mystical. I believe in that, the mystical arts, home cooked meals, nature walks, having a pet, yoga, massages, art, love, many others, some of these practices are as old as time and probably have even more benefits than we have proven at this point in time. In this regard, one interesting thing I noticed is that I will do a whole yoga practice, focus on my breath, called ujjayi breath. It deepens after a long practice. And then I hit the cold shower for two minutes and it deepens even more, very cool and rewarding. Breath is the life force, irrigating organs, it is the most important component to longevity. I went to a class today and took a couple pictures I will try to attach. The directions advise priming the breath beforehand, it makes sense.

So, regarding today, funny how things work out. I went to check out the cold plunge after class and there were two women in that area, kind of a rare occurrence. This plunge is colder than my cold showers. I inquired a bit, one of them was in there, chillin. She said that she can stay over a minute now and that today is easy, there are no ice cubes. lol. She was smiling ear to ear when she told me that she feels so good all day afterwards, "pure endorphins". Sounds familiar. I think you may be underestimating yourself and perhaps ready for the cold plunge: she said something interesting, that the cold plunge is easier than the shower because it's absolute. You're in there, enveloped, as opposed to feeling cold drops falling on you, her friend agreed. Her friend was waiting to go next, and she told me to "join the train", but I didn't have a bathing suit. This studio is pretty low key and in a gentrifying part of town, the people are not too snobby, if there's any cheering, it is likely to be in good encouraging spirits. So even though I am a bit of a loner, I think connecting back there with some people who share common interests would be cool.

So from the research I've done, you are actually making it better by moving around once you hit the brainfreeze because that's one of the differences with a plunge, you're not submerged in a shower, so your shoulders and side body are not exposed to enough cold. That resonates with me because I noticed that if I stay still, parts of my body are spared. It would be cool to be still, more spiritual and meditative, so that's one clear distinction between the plunge and the shower. But overall, you seem far along in this discipline, discussing the nuances of GTO plumbing, that had never occurred to me.
What I do think about is the place I start from, and that's why I asked your opinion of starting your shower warm. My yoga teacher (other studio, bit of a drive to get there I go twice a week) told me he goes to his friend's house for a cold plunge, yet still always takes cold showers from start to finish. I made a point to ask him if he starts warm at all, he looked at me like "dude, obviously not" This guy turned seventy in March... I wonder if starting a shower warm kind of compromises the benefits of your plunge and turns it into a cool down. You know, in the same way that, for example, I personally don't like ice water(and I don't think it's healthy), but after a hot and spicy dish, I may indulge in a glass of ice water

The cold plunge is back there on the left, in that little wooden box. It is like a cooler for camping in there.
the blurry part says:
stay for 2-4 mins, be still in the water, breathe slowly and deeply

Time moves quickly

Life-

Apparently there is something in our brains that makes the passing of time appear to be quicker as we age, compared to when we are children. I don't have a source for this, I just recall hearing this random piece of information somewhere in the past- but I felt like it was true from my own experience.

Either way, it seems like time moves very quickly. Sometimes ten minutes of a football game seems to last an eternity (especially when your team is a goal up and trying to hold on to their lead). Yet other times hours can pass by with the blink of an eye- perhaps when you are playing poker or a video game, doing some sort of sport or hanging out with friends.

What I noticed with myself is that sometimes I allow days (that I will never get back) to slip by too easily, doing very similar things to what I done the day before, and not really getting out of unconscious daily routines and patterns.

For example, sometimes when I wake up I will do meditation (as usual) and then play 'a few' games of chess. These three games of chess, that should take less than thirty minutes, may end up compounding in to ten or twenty games and eat up hours of my day. Now this may seem fine. I am being 'productive' and playing a good that is intellectually stimulating, so it probably bodes well for my poker game. However, to me it is just a complete waste of a large chunk of a valuable day. Perhaps it's fine once or twice a month when you wake up and just can't be bothered doing anything on that day, but not when it happens often and is costing you the opportunity to do new things in your life and get out of your unconscious daily routines.

Of course there are other ways that I eat away time in an unconscious manner- watching Youtube, randomly scrolling on Instagram etc.

The problem is that we don't know how long we are going to be alive for. Hopefully we will all be here for a long time to come, but you just never know. So with that in mind I want to start living each day with more intention, being more present and doing less things that are a massive time drain. Today I uninstalled chess.com, and I don't plan on getting it back any time soon!

As I was heading back from my brothers today (on the train) I had to make a change at Stirling, and switch from one train to another. I only had around ten minutes to wait before the second train arrived. However I had an idea- could I go out of the station for a couple hours and then get (a different) connecting train back home? It turns out that I could. So I ended up walking around Stirling for a few hours, getting food, then heading up to the castle for a good viewpoint. Usually when I get the train (or drive) I am just in the 'lets get home' mindset. I will drive by places that I always intend to stop in. One day I will stop in them, but not today- I have to get home!

I ended up turning an unconscious day of travelling back home, in to a more conscious day. One where I managed to visit a place I hadn't been to since I was a child- yet a city that I had driven past literally hundreds of times since then.

I know I still have a long way to go before I can start to fully shift out of these unconscious, conditioned though patterns, but today was another step in the right direction. Now I know that I can get off at random places on my train journeys, and explore (for free) places that I have either never been to, or not been to for a long time.

I want to slow down time instead of speeding it up. I want my daily life to become a blank page where I don't know what will unfold, instead of a page that is 95% filled in advance. I want to have new experiences and visit new places, instead of doing the same old shit on auto pilot and going to the same 'favourite' restaurant one hundred times.

Poker-

Last week I only had time to play three nights. The plan was to play four nights- Monday was my day off as usual to reset, then I would grind Tuesday-Friday, before heading to my brothers for the remainder of the weekend. However, after watching Rangers drop points (again) on Wednesday, I was a bit tilted and figured it was best to just avoid playing and get back on the grind the following day instead. Though at least I followed through with this and ended up playing Thursday and Friday.

The games weren't great last week in all honesty, with lots of regs and not many fish on the tables. Perhaps this is because of the time of year, where recs are getting outside and doing less indoorsy things- like playing poker on the computer! Or perhaps it's just variance and the games will be good again this week. Either way I think I played pretty well, and fortunately had a good session on Friday to round out the week.

SCOOP is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I will grind for the remainder of the week, and likely take off most of next week- before locking down and grinding for most of the 3.5 weeks of SCOOP. I'll probably just play tournaments on Sunday, and then go back to cash games for the other days of the week- perhaps adding some mtt's on the side of my cash game grind. In previous years I have abandoned cash and completely focused on mtt's for the duration of SCOOP, however I don't intend to do that this year. Hopefully I can bink some random, big mtt, but either way I just want to keep focusing on cash and on moving up. Things are going well atm, so I just have to keep studying and putting in hands in the coming month or two- then I'll take most of June/July off.

I was actually thinking of going to the WSOP to play the main event this year, but I'm not so sure. I will have a think.

Anyways, I got home today and didn't play cos it was a Monday, however I will be back on the grind tomorrow! Hopefully the games are good and I can get in a decent amount of volume.

GG.

Questionable stack off

Interesting topics. Your journal is a popular place, and I am not used to presenting my thoughts publicly the way you do, but I think I can answer in a way that contributes to the theme of your journal, hopefully positive, for members of our community, curious poker players seeking interesting perspectives, and connections with other poker players. A bit vulnerable and open about my own experience, yet not too specific. There is an art to this, I've back read your journals and you do well with that.
Technology is the drug of our times. It is interesting the extent to which people stopped smoking cigarettes when, in the mid sixties, they learned how toxic it is. Or perhaps even more interesting that so many smoked until informed it is obviously an unhealthy habit, seems very familiar to the current climate with phones, more about that later. In America, cigarette use has gradually and consistently gone down since 1964, and is still going down currently. I don't know how the new vaping medium trends affects this stat.
However technology is much more dangerous due to its nuance. We have a long way to go before finding ways to put in place some kind of an blueprint to technology usage hygiene.

We can all agree there are many ways in which technology makes life easier, it is pretty impressive sometimes.
Yet, the price to pay is steep, you have a potent drug in your pocket at all times, and multiple avenues to pursue depending on what you get a kick out of. It is addictive in the sense that it keeps you out of touch with yourself, and the more you engage the more compulsively you engage, and oblivious you are to being out of touch with yourself and the toxicity of the phones. Until not even realizing that the whole appeal is the constant distraction from yourself. And everyone around us is doing it.
That polarity within the one device seems to be difficult for human brains to compute and measure, and for people to manage. One associates the phone with human connection, and experiences where the phone helped to connect with others, and it becomes a way of life...so why not find love this way as well. But the phone acts as a shield to some of the human intimacy, really. Also, it is brutal, fucking with our focus and the trajectory of our thoughts.

To make matters worst, choosing not to have a smartphone is a risk to being penalized across the board, professionally, socially, in terms of opportunities you miss. People actually seem to think that digitalizing everything is a better way to go. My personal opinion is that distractions are as old as the world, but that telephones are so potent that they are rewiring the way we communicate and connect, or lack thereof, amongst one another. And subtly deviate the way we think for ourselves as well. The phone is a whole new ballgame.

I agree with you, I think that initial impressions in person are so pure, and full of information, it's kind of beautiful. And they shape and stay with you as you consume the relationship. They are very cherishable. Sometimes they can be instructive, looking back and trying to remember the sensation and the intention behind the attraction can teach about oneself, how we see things, what we seek... I don't use the online dating platforms either, anymore, for over three years now, and I do wonder about the missed opportunities on occasion, so I check in with myself every once in a while to make sure this is what I believe in, and yes! I don't want to start a relationship this way, nor get lost in the distraction. I tell myself I get some (rake)back because it encourages me to be more resourceful in real life. When a connection occurs in real life, it is more gratifying perhaps even encouraging to treat it with better care.
However, I that online dating may be a nice opportunity for certain people in certain circumstances. I could even be open to the idea that it would be irresponsible not to be on it for some people. Very case dependent. Interesting topic.

"The old guy" haha, he looks fifty. Haha man Wim Hof is nutty, but within reason, I agree it's +EV influence. Think you make good observations, no much use in just bathing in cold all the time. And the heat from sauna or whatever else is cohesive with plunging, it feels priming to me. My showers are getting colder, and my new focus is to make sure the muscles of my face are relaxed during the plunge, corners of the mouth slightly turned upwards, like in yoga.

Re your chess, nice going. It is so much like poker! I played a lot of live poker through the years, and came across so many regs who play chess during sessions, not a coincidence. Unless you were fascinated with chess, and/or trying to become a very strong chess player, kind of seems like the attraction and the common denominator with poker is that it's like the same sensation, if you make one mistake, you likely lose. Many golfers have the same attraction, another game where you partly excel from not making the mistakes you can prevent yourself from making, That's pressure! And it's not because we are used to making decisions under pressure in poker that it is any chiller on the brain and nervous system. But golf is middle of the road, because there's nature and some golfers are very detached to their results. I think learning and playing an instrument is a good one, you have to be serious, focused and consistent, but it is pure beauty. It is blissful and healing. I have been using a book to do classical training for guitar, since I went to a Cat Power concert nearly a year ago now. At least fifteen minutes a day, have not missed many days and it has been quite gratifying, like learning a new language. It is effective after sessions, when not finding action, after long sessions, or to transition out of the feeling of winning or losing big pots and hindsight neurosis. Just like the cold shower, the healing kind of stays with you after. I also love watching old movies. I think in general, the arts go well with life, and balance out poker very nicely

Going hardcore

Life-

I just finished reading Elon Musk's latest Biography by Walter Isaacson. It was a very long book (over 600 pages) but some of these pages were pictures (so probably like 550 pages of actually reading) and overall I found the book very easy to read, and very difficult to put down.

In the past I never read biographies or autobiographies, as they felt a little too self indulgent to me. However, I have now changed my perspective and I think that they are a very good way to gain an insight in to peoples lives that you would, otherwise, not gain much insight in to.

I remember starting to read self improvement/help books aged eighteen, when I realised that I had mental leaks that needed plugged. However, over time these have (for the most part) been plugged, so now I feel like the next step in my 'self improvement' journey is to learn from the best and to pick up some small things from them in the process, that I can then apply to my own life.

When it comes to Elon Musk, there are many things that I admire about him- but also things that I would not like to mimic. However, I don't think that someone needs to be perfect in order to learn from them. So surely it makes sense to try to pick up a thing or two from the wealthiest man in the world who (somehow) runs six different businesses simultaneously.

One thing that resonated with me was his mantra about 'going hardcore'. At Tesla, Space X etc he would make sure his employees would work long hours, and push them to their limits in order to speed up the production processes. Of course for some people this didn't suit them and they would quit, but for others it did suit them, and they find purpose and meaning in pursuing a higher mission than themselves- whether that be trying to create a car that could run on renewable energy, or create a rocket that would enable us to (eventually) becoming a multi-planetary species.

That's the beauty of being part of a team and having a common mission, and a big, bold end goal. As poker players we are (for the most part) partaking in a single player game, where we study by ourselves and play by ourselves. We don't really have any long term 'mission' except from trying to move up in stakes and become one of the best poker players.

We are trying to get to $50/$100, not trying to get to Mars.

Musk is clearly a workaholic (personally I much prefer more of a work/life balance) and would push these surges in his companies, where he would encourage his employees to work hardcore for a short period of time and try to meet some sort of very unreasonable and unattainable deadline.

Usually they would (just) miss the deadline, but either way, it showed that when you really want to, we can work so much harder than we think we are capable of doing. We can sleep for a few hours under a desk, and then get back on to the rocket grind after a coffee and some cereal out of a paper cup.

Overall I am someone who enjoys time off as much as they enjoy studying and grinding, but this book inspired me to, at least sometimes, go on my own surge and 'go hardcore'. If we have a car that can go 150mph, then we are very rarely going to hit this top speed and instead, usually max out at around 70mph along the motorway. However, perhaps it is sometimes good to see how far we can push ourselves, and floor it to see how fast we can go.

Even if we do enjoy a good work/life balance, maybe sometimes we should just grind all night and play 3x longer than we set out to do before the session. Perhaps we should set a bold monthly hands target, as a one off, and push ourself in order to achieve this- even if it's just to prove to ourselves that we have the capacity to 'go hardcore' every once in a while.

Poker-

So on Saturday last week, as I was deciding whether to play a session or not, I decided to play- on a day that I typically take off. I knew I was going to head back to my parents the following day, and knew that I would have a week or so off, before SCOOP begins the following Sunday.

Should I chill and watch a film, or should I take some inspiration from Elon Musk and go on a late night surge? I decided to do the latter, starting my session at 1am (usually not a good idea) and playing until 7:30am. In the end I lost a small amount, but overall I was quite happy with how I played, especially considering that I was playing at such stupid times (I typically aim to play between 8pm-12am).

In the past I used to have at least a few of these all night sessions per year (usually losing a ton as I was almost falling asleep) but in the past few years I have kind of cut this out. I was just inspired to take a leaf out of my old, grinder book, and put in some hands.

So that is the plan for this month. I will play some SCOOP events on the side of my daily cash game grind, and aim to have a good month- one that hopefully involves a big MTT bink! When I start to lose motivation I will look deep within, and ask- what would Elon do? Would he take a day off? Would he play a three hour session and then watch TV for the remainder of the night? Or would he identify this as, at least in online poker terms, one of the best and most important times of the year to grind- and then double down in terms of volume!

May- let's go hardcore!

SCOOPing

Last week I received a message from a yoga studio that I had briefly visited last year for a few classes. They offered me a free two week pass, which I promptly took them up on. In the past I would do yoga on an almost daily basis, but for the past couple of years I have kind of fallen out of the habit and I don't think I'd done it even once this year before my invitation. So I ended up going to a class on Monday, which was good, and I chatted to a few people at the end too- who were pretty cool!

SCOOP started the day before, on the Sunday. So I wasn't even sure that I could make the class it would have clashed with any day two's were I take to make any. Unfortunately (and in the yoga's case, fortunately) I didn't make any.

The plan for this years series is to mostly focus on cash games and play tournaments on the side. I was going to focus more of my study and time this year on mtt's, but in all honesty I've not done that and instead I just want to focus on making as much money as I can from cash, and on moving back up to $5k and $10k and finally getting some volume in there. However, a nice mtt bink this month could help me to get there much sooner!

Basically I will take Mondays and Fridays off and play for the remaining five days of the week, unless I make some day two's on Sunday- then I will play Monday as well. Usually I take Monday's and Saturday's off, but Fridays are the official SCOOP days off, so it makes sense to shift my schedule slightly to align with that.

I've kind of fallen off with my gym consistency, and don't think i've been twice in a week (as usual) for a few weeks now. Last week I went to two yoga classes, played golf one day and went to the gym and done an upper body workout. I think that exercising five days per week going ahead is a good place to aim for, but I also need to be mindful to balance solo exercise (like the gym) with some more social exercise (like yoga classes) as I need to meet more people up here. It hit 20c for the first time this year, so it's getting to the stage where I want to spend more time outdoors and less time indoors. That will mean adding in hiking as well, and I plan on doing more camping- as well as staying in Bothies, and perhaps increasing my weekly golf to twice per week.

So maybe I will just cancel my gym membership for a couple months and focus more on outdoor activities, I dunno. Either way, my weekly exercise routine is going to look something similar to this-

1x yoga class
1-2x golf rounds
1-2x gym sessions
1x hike

I've been thinking about signing up for another marathon this year but I don't think I really have time to train for it, cos it basically becomes almost like a full time job on the side when you have to run 3x per week, but also have to recover from those long runs etc. If I signed up for it then I would have to forgo some of those other sports, which doesn't make a ton of sense given I just splashed out on a golf membership and just mentioned about how I need to do more social sports in order to meet people. Running by yourself isn't ideal for that haha.

I would actually say that its best to do a marathon earlier on in the year, before the Summer- like I did in April two years ago. Sure, you have to train in the cold months prior to it, but you don't want to play golf in January, you don't want to go hiking in February. Where as when it comes to Summer time, then there are so many outdoor sports that are suddenly much more appealing when its 20c+ and sunny.

It's funny as I'm almost like a hermit in the Winter months, then the complete opposite during the Summer time. I really want to do another hostel trip around Europe, but I'm not sure to which area cos I've been to the bulk of it at this point. Most likely it would need to be more of Eastern Europe, unless I wished to repeat some of the same countries again. I wanna visit Asia for the first time too, and really like the idea of Japan. I seen a TV show on it recently and the North of Japan looked really nice and very traditional. Tokyo looked a lot more futuristic and just more like a typical big city. Nowadays I prefer small cities near to nature- like Salzburg, or Inverness (where I live).

Anyways, in terms of poker it's been a good start to the month at cash games, but less good at tournaments- typical mtt's! It's kind of difficult to get in volume at cash games, at least on Stars. 500z very rarely runs and even getting enough $1k and $500nl tables is often a struggle. Ideally I would only be grinding $1k+, but there just aren't enough games on Stars to play those stakes alone. I've been playing a little $1k on GG as well, but the rake is very high there so it's more just one table on the side for some extra hands per hour and a (probably) very low WR. It's 5bb/100 rake on GG at $1k, compared to 2bb/100 on Stars, and on Stars I'm on like 40% rakeback so it's almost like 1bb/100 rake. So obviously it's a no brainer where I would like to prioritise volume at that stake!

During Sundays session I was running decent at cash but I literally don't think I had one mtt cash. So it's kind of weird in a sense when you are running good at one format but crap in another. However it's just about playing in profitable games, and in the long run, you will make money!

Today (Monday) was my day off, so I caught up on some things I've been meaning to do for a while and called some of my family members too, as I'm pretty bad when it comes to calling/texting people. I prefer to just arrange plans to meet up in person and talk to them then. I decided to go for a walk around Inverness and in to this nice area that I hadn't walked through since I moved here. I found a really cool reading spot too, on this bench that is slightly elevated and overlooks the river- so i'm definitely going to be frequenting that spot a lot in the years to come!

It's back to the grind again tomorrow, and I'll be playing some tournaments alongside the usual cash game grind. I'm just trying to grind hard for the remaining 2.5 weeks of SCOOP and then I'll likely take 1-2 months off so I can travel, play golf, go hiking and see friends and family.

But for now it's time to grind!

GG.

480bb pot at $1k

Bluffin'

How is it going with your house? Have you finished all the work around it? How do you like living in "your" house?
Have do you like Inverness? Have you met some locals?

The mountain bothies association is doing some noble work :) Interesting website. I saw a few pictures, looks very nice. I want to go one day. They actually say that the bothies are owned by people who just put their bothie on that network. Seems to help with maintenance and restorations. And I guess visitors have enough integrity for the system to work. It is so nice when communities are working together like this. Would love to see pics when you go. This guy Bernard Heath who founded this organization lived to 93.

I mostly practice a derivation of Ashtanga, both for my home practice and in studio. My teacher comes from an Ashtanga background, but the title of the class on the schedule is Vinyasa flow, and that's my favorite. However we do holds after flowing, which I like.
Returning from Covid the studio added some infrared heaters, which I really like, surprisingly (he doesn't crank it up though, the room is usually around 95 degrees, that's 35 in Celcius, dry).
If I had time to go to a studio every day, I would do some Iyengar.
If I was not playing poker in the evening time, I would also do some Ashtanga, which takes place almost daily, at sun up.

All yoga is restorative. The ideal level of intensity is just what your body wants. Don't worry about how far you go, stretching very deeply is not ideal, and a common error. Flexibility is actually strength+training. But stretching feels amazing and spiritual, and it can be addictive, overdone. Although women are more prone to become addicted to it.
If one stretches too deeply and doesn't strengthen the muscles involved, it can lead to injury of tendons/ligaments, and lower back.
Regarding flexibility, one of the best thing I have heard my teacher say about it is that all it is, is that for a flexible person, it takes going that much further to get to where a stiffer person already is.
The goal is just to stretch with engaged muscles, but really it's all about the breath, keeping the breath strong will irrigate the body with oxygenated blood, that's the yoga!

I have not tried the plunge yet. The studio that has the plunge I only go to on Sunday's. I missed last Sunday because my main studio was doing a live drumming class with three musicians who synchronize their drumming to the teacher's class. It's at 10am once every two months or so, a little early for me but I don't miss it. It's a cool way to practice every once in a while. As well as a nice community event, the class gets so busy like around 75 people. Not a bad excuse :) I am gently planning a plunge, waiting for a nice summer day, when I'm feeling it.

Thanks. I am not playing scoop because I play cash games on the U.S sites. So I'll send the good luck back to you : )

SCOOPing- part two

Life-

Last week I was a bit slack in terms of my exercise. I didn't go to the gym at all and didn't play golf either. I went on a decent walk on Monday, then went to Yoga classes on Thursday and Friday. There were some days where I intended to go to the gym, but then by the time I got up, studied, washed the dishes, read etc then it was either too late and I wanted to start grinding soon, or I had simply lost motivation to go.

However at the moment I have decided that the number one priority is poker. So exercise is going to take a backseat to my poker plans. I think that, while it's obviously very important to exercise, sometimes we give too much importance towards things that don't deserve that importance.

For example, lets say we intend to go to the gym today and then play poker afterwards, but perhaps we have been up late the evening before grinding (or watching a film or whatever). Now we are behind on the day and are not going to make the intended session starting time. We think 'oh I have to go the the gym and study first' yet by the time those things are done, along with the chores of daily life, it may be an hour or two later than we initially intended to start playing.

So you can either start later on and prepare for the session as previously intended, or decide to cut out things that aren't vitally important for your main focus (which for me atm is grinding). I went through a period of around a week or so where I was focusing less on study, but I feel like that is so important for me that I cannot afford to do that. I should be getting in at least an hour of study basically every single day (unless it's a day off) without fail.

As I'm not an athlete then exercise takes on less importance. For me it's more about health and feeling good. But taking off a day or two during the middle of SCOOP is going to make literally no difference to my health, and so long as I meditate etc before I start playing, I should go in to the session in a good mood regardless.

I've mentioned this book several times before but I've start reading 'eat that frog' for like the third or fourth time. I always read a chapter after my meditation (often it's only like 5-6 pages) but it helps me to clarify where my priorities lie and gets me in to a productive mindset for the day ahead. It reminds me that it is perfectly acceptable to 'procrastinate' and delay the less important things in your life for the time being, and shift all of your focus on to your main priority(s).

So for an athlete who is trying to learn poker on the side, then perhaps they need to sacrifice their daily one hour of poker study for the time being, as they enter a crucial period in their sporting season. But for the poker player, perhaps we need to sacrifice one or two gym sessions in order to begin our session on time. Then when we have more flexibility around our poker schedule again, we can go back to increasing the priority on exercise (or whatever else, perhaps its decorating or washing your car).

My Dad came up on Saturday and we went to watch the football team he supports (Hamilton Academical) play against Inverness. The winner would go in to the second tier of Scottish football, and the loser would enter the third tier. Fortunately Hamilton won, but I didn't want Inverness to go down either as I am unlikely to bother watch them next season if they are playing in such a low division.

Poker-

I don't think I really bothered to play any tournaments until Sunday, where I decided to reg maybe 10-12 of them- basically just the biggest prizepools for my buy in range. I'll play up to $530 buy ins (though I'll play $1k main events too) but I don't want to buy in for a ton and just wipe out my cash game profits, so I've not even really been bothering with the $530s this SCOOP either. I know that I'm going to be +EV in these tournaments, but I also know that I am far from an mtt expert as that is not my area of expertise.

So then you have the trade off between studying for mtt's at the expense of your daily cash game study, as I don't think you can do both on the same day unless you are having a day off of playing. What is more important and where am I likely to excel in going forward? The answer is clearly cash games, even though it's of course possible to get very good at mtt's if you study them too.

Of course another approach is just to gamble, to buy in to $1ks $2ks etc and then just back that your cash game background will give you a good edge post flop on these mtt regs. I think this is true to a certain extent, but it's also complicated when you are playing bvb limped in mtt's when you normally play RFI only bvb at cash. And it's difficult to play from the bb with a 70% range when you are normally defending 30-40% or whatever it is. Suddenly those heuristics that you have for bvb and SRP's no longer apply when you are playing with completely different ranges and completely different stack sizes.

Of course your cash game fundamentals should still allow you to make better 'guesses' as to what to do post flop than an mtt player, but they almost certainly have an edge on you pre flop, so you have to factor in that too as that will cancel out a lot of that edge- especially when you are on FT's where it's mostly a pre flop game driven by ICM pressure.

That's why I focused a lot of my initial mtt study on pre flop. On figuring out what are the pre flop defence thresholds vs 3bets, what hands do we 4bet jam etc, how wide we defend from the bb vs RFI when there is now no rake and there are antes (dead money) in the pot.

Anyways I cashed a couple tournaments, one being the Big 109 (which I finally won earlier this year) and the $250 main even on GG, which I went relatively deep in before losing a few all ins in a row and busting in around 100th place. So it was better than the previous Sunday where I cashed almost nothing.

Cash games went well, though it was weird cos on some nights on Stars there were hardly any games running, then on other nights you could be playing 3-4 tables of $1k and some $2k too. I had one very frustrating session where I was up like $3k and then just seemed to lose every pot and ended up losing $4k in the end. Obviously it's a pretty standard losing session for these stakes, but it's annoying when you start off well and then don't win a pot for an hour or two.

There's only 1.5 weeks left of SCOOP, and so far I haven't missed one day that I had intended to play on. I have been close on some days, but ended up playing regardless. It seems like I have finally shifted the anxiety that would often lead me to sabotaging sessions that I had intended to play. So in that sense I am really happy about this mental progress. I am edging closer to my $5k shots too, but in all honesty I don't even know where I would take them as my roll isn't huge on GG and $5k rarely seems to run on Stars unless it's reg battling- which doesn't seem the wisest way to shot take.

Anyways, back to the grind again tomorrow! I look forward to playing and finishing the series strong, even if it's just on the cash game tables and less so on the mtt tables.

GG.

Not the hand you wanna see

haha yea, sometimes you just have to say fuck it namaste, and jump in the plunge.
Yea our class gets hot but this infrared technology is pretty great, it heats you from the inside. Very good for your overall body regulation, helps with quality of sleep. Bikram yoga in relation is I believe, too hot. I would rather be in normal room temp than in intense heat. But practicing with the windows open is nice, so pure. I do that for my home practice. One of the other cool things about regular room temperature is that you really feel yourself building the tapas (inner heat from activity), your body as your only source of heat. To me that is one of the feelings that makes me feel the most healthy and alive, the inner heat generated from yoga practice. But I like the infrared room because it has allowed for my practice to remain a cardio exercise as my yoga practice and strength grew.
About doing exercise at an intensity that isn't high enough to sweat, I think that it can be a very good exercise spiritually, in managing our relationship with intensity. Intensity, and constant movement or activity, the mind seeks, but good cardio exercise doesn't have to be that intense to be effective. So then the question becomes how much do I need, and if I get more, will I then need more? Perhaps at this point, more never be enough...I try to ask myself this question often. This is a part of why I go for walks, the challenge of ease.

No I think you are right, the buzz we get from exercise is essentially the same as drinking, drugs, sex, food, social media. It's primitive, it's physiological, it's powerful. However in regards to drugs and alcohol, food, social media, it's the other side of the coin, not much discipline, all indulgence. For either side, the changes are glacial when you look at it day to day, but you go in a certain direction, further and further. Our activities exponentially shape our mind, spirit, and body.
Cross addictions are a major phenomenon in the human condition. We all need things to cope and flow, it's the balance of life. In the poker community there's a culture of denying this inevitable spectrum, the "poker is all I need" mindset. It is especially prevalent in live poker, and younger players (I've been both). It's passion for poker that has gone too far, turned into some kind of bullshit entitlement, using poker as an instrument of elitism, distraction, and degeneration at this point. The business partly paves the way for this culture. The great games that last all night. The live player who eats all his meals for free at the casino due to comps(smart, but not wholesome). Or the online player and the whole rakeback pro thing, always online. I think that leads to habits and instincts of disregarding or disassociating with everything that is not related to poker.
Cross addictions are important to understand, ourselves in relation to our environments, because we, as humans, tend to migrate towards what's indulgent and comfortable. Therefore we are likely to adopt the toxic behaviors that are most common and accepted in our direct environments, our partner, the business we are in, local culture in general. Poker culture struggles with this tendency of feeling disenfranchised from society and responds with further disassociation.
It's good to focus deeply and learn to grow that focus threshold, it's okay to have very ambitious goals and surpass 40 hours a week every week, but I found that the sooner a poker player begins to learn from life outside of poker, the sooner he will experience big growth spurts as a player, and the right kind of growth for his own realities. That's just how life works, no matter how much these telephones are changing the world, we will not reinvent the wheel. How one does anything is how one does everything, so it is important to have structure and goals with things outside of poker. I think understanding this is an element of what separates people who earn freedom from poker, from people who have lost all their freedom to poker.
So are you like one of seven dudes in all of Scotland who does not drink?!

I live in LA. I will visit Scotland, I'll let you know. That sounds like a nice trip, kind of spiritual to go to a place so different form my desert landscape. Same to you, let me know if you are ever in the area.
You are detail oriented in regards to your schedule. That's natural. I am the same way and can be hard on myself with checking all the boxes. Routine is really helpful in poker, and it's important to build our own structure of course. Yet, the inconsistency of the action in poker can sometimes have a bit of a domino effect on a schedule and that somehow can affect the whole week sometimes. It's important to be prepared for that, and it makes complete sense to ease up on other areas when a previous task took longer than expected. I have my normal routine and then my "compromised routine", go to concessions. The one reoccurring difficulty for me is that I dislike going to bed right after a session so I stay up later than I would like. I like my evening routine, cooking, meditation, reading to sleep... I find that sleeping during the night yields better quality of sleep. I have also found that playing poker during the night yields some nice action haha. Obviously...
Overall it seems like you are in touch with yourself in terms of what things are not negotiable to remove, an important piece in making these adjustments on the fly from my experience.

I think the manner in which you tackled tournament poker on the side is efficient, and something your readers interested in learning new variants can benefit from. What you wrote is almost like the introduction of a workshop on transition. Aside from the "fuck it I could also just play all the 1k's and 5k's and see what happens" haha
Stars not having the monopoly anymore seems like it is making things kind of different and more rogue for you guys. That's poker. Your post Scoop trip to the Bothie is a good approach to preserve focus and encourage performance! gl for tor the last stretch of Scoop

SCOOP 2024 wrap-up

As another SCOOP series draws to a close, another Summer beckons over the horizon. As one thing ends, another thing begins. It is with both happiness, yet sadness that this great series is over. It will be back to a more 'normal' sleeping pattern (perhaps 3-4am bed time instead of 5-6am). It will be back to the gym on a more consistent basis, it will be back to arranging social plans and leaving the house- something that I didn't do between Saturday and Wednesday evening this week.

As much as I am looking forward to the Summer, of going to my first ever European football championship (or Euro's for people that know football), seeing Scotland playing in the flesh, going to my friends wedding(s), hanging out my brother who is back from Australia, going camping with my friends, going hiking and perhaps doing another solo hostel trip around Europe, there will be days during those warm(ish) Summer months where I long for this months antisocial, poker oriented routine. When I would go to sleep at 6am and wake up at 2pm. When I would get up and barely have enough time to study, let alone go to the gym, get outside and even do a food shop. When I'd have to run downstairs on my hourly five minute breaks and go to the toilet or throw on some food.

It would be a month of pasta from a (luckily) plentiful supply. It would be repetitive meals, but unpredictable poker sessions. It would be running hot at cash games, but shit at tournaments. It would be sun running one session and then getting coolered continuously in the next.

As the series wore on, I became more and more of a recluse. I would wake up, do some study, wash the dishes and then get on the grind. That would be me until the early hours of the morning. However, did I wish to be doing something else? No. It was fun. There were times when I was running hot and felt invincible (at least at cash). However, there were also times when I was running terrible and punched a wall (that happened once over the course of this month). Towards the end of the month I could feel myself getting a bit salty, more frustrated at coolers and of regs making 'bad' plays but getting bailed out by variance. Of course I'm not proud of these moments, but ultimately if you are (largely) housebound for almost a month and if you eat, sleep and breathe a game, then you are going to be emotionally invested in that game- especially when there are thousands of dollars on the line during every session.

Anyways, thankfully in the last couple of sessions I was able to enjoy myself again, so I finished on a more positive note instead of the 'I fucking hate this game' mood that I experienced only a matter of days ago. It's funny how a good sleep, a new day and a new session can wipe the slate clean.

My plan was to play five days per week, taking Mondays and Fridays off, except from during the last week (this week) where I would play Monday- Wednesday. I am proud to say that I literally didn't miss one day. Even on Saturday as Rangers lost (yet again) to our biggest rivals, in a cup final no less, I just accepted the soft tilt and got on with playing. In Barcelona, for example, I didn't play a few times simply because Rangers had lost and I was in a terrible mood. I am currently reading Ross Edgley's book (the first man to ever swim continuously around the British coast) and he talks about controlling the controllable's during his swim. He could control his diet, he could control his mindset and (to a certain extent) his body, but he could not control the weather, the waves, the boats nearby or even his father getting diagnosed with terminal cancer while on the swim (his father insisted he completed the swim though).

So while I can support Rangers, ultimately I cannot control them in any way- other than cheering at a game whenever I attend one. As I have almost no bearing on their results, it doesn't make a ton of sense to allow those (uncontrollable) results to dictate my mood and decide if I'm having a good day or a bad day. I'm not going to lie and pretend that I don't care when they lose, I'm still pissed off about the weekends result (we were the better team and should have won), but I don't want these frustrations to destroy the rest of my day. I can accept and feel these negative emotions, but still move forward regardless. It seems like each year that passes, days and time seem to pass by even quicker than before. I am definitely aware that I cannot afford to take time for granted, and that each and every day counts and matters- even if Rangers lose a cup final.

I just have to make the most of the rest of the day, even if I may not be in the best mood ever.

Of course we can apply this concept to poker as well. Bad plays and bad players will get bailed out by variance (at least in the short term) but in the mid-long term, our skill edge will prevail. This isn't always easy to accept in the heat of a session, after a long grind when you are tired and frustrated at losing a lot of money, but ultimately we need to just reset emotionally and come back the next day- aiming to play as well as possible and print that mid-long term (but also hopefully short term, if we run good) EV.

Overall this month I won around $21k from cash games (including rakeback) and lost around $7,700 at mtt's. Obviously mtt's didn't go great, but I only played like 150 of them so it's very standard variance. My ABI in them was around $100, just because I feel like I need to prove myself at lower stakes first and have a history of good profit at them before I start moving up and increasing my ABI. I would rather slowly build up and improve my mtt fundamentals along the way, than to rush in and try to just go on a heater and rely on luck. Overall I am up around $130k lifetime in mtt's, but I still feel like I am an intermediate in them and still have a lot to improve on.

One guy that I speak to (who also plays cash) asked how I would approach studying for mtt's, coming from a cash background. I've yet to reply to him (yet) but I will outline what I do in here.

Posftlop- Look at some short stacked sims (10-40bb) and then look at how you play hands such as top pair, compared to how you play them at 100bb. Now we need to fast play hands such as top pair, due to the lower SPR, but we can actually slow play a lot more hands such as two pair (that we would pure raise at 100bb) simply because the money can go in easily and we want to let our opponent either bluff or catch up.

Preflop- Look at defence ranges, especially when it comes to facing 3bets and defending vs RFI from the bb. In terms of 3bets, you will defend a lot wider at mtt's than you would at cash, simply due to the lack of rake (the rake gets taken from the buyin not from each pot you play). I was definitely over folding by a lot vs 3bets at mtt's because I was playing similar ranges to those at cash. For example lets say you open 66 utg and get 3bet from IP 6h, you will maybe call like 33% of the time and fold the rest, but in an mtt you will pure call- and pretty much pure call all your pocket pairs. This is quite a big difference.

ICM- I'm not exactly sure what is the best place to start with this tbh, but you need to at least learn about this concept so that you can maximise your chances of winning as much money on final tables, give yourself the best chances of min cashing, or of getting in to a satellite etc.

That's probably a good place to start. I'm no expert in these but I feel a lot more confident in them now that I've started to study them more often. GTO wizard is an excellent tool for tournaments, as it would be almost impossible for someone to run all of these spots by themselves- even if they were renting a server. I just get the one that is like $90 or so per month and it does the job.

I was actually up $5k in tournaments this year before this month, so I'm only down like $3k in them for the year after this month- which is almost breakeven given the variance in them. I'm gonna start playing them on Sundays again, after I take some time off for this Summer, as I feel like there is good value in them, I enjoy the challenge of learning and mastering a new format, and I think my aggressive playstyle is pretty well suited to them.

Cash games went really well this month, which is my bread and butter, and I plan to continue to study and improve at them as well. Cash games will always be my number one priority, at least for the forseeable future, but I see no reason why I can't dedicate a day or two per week towards studying and improving my mtt game. My WR is, so far this year, where I want to be (I always aim to be winning at at least 5bb/100). But there is still a lot of room for improvement- though not quite as much as there is in my mtt game!

The only slight downside was that I didn't hit my cash game volume goals this month, but they were probably unrealistic given the fact that I was also playing tournaments at the same time. I hit my schedule goals though, so I am more happy about that than anything else, as in previous years I would have definitely taken off at least a few days for no real reason during the series- or would have allowed that Rangers result to tilt me to the extent that it was no longer a good idea to play poker on the same day!

I've got to play another 8k hands of cash before I can fully take the Summer off, but I think I'll take a week off to reset from SCOOP and then try to get them in before I leave for Germany on the 16th of June.

Antisocial, poker oriented May is over- time to enjoy the Summer!

GG.

Not gonna lie, this hand tilted me haha

Clean bluff catcher

The more you know, the more you know you don't know- Aristotle

Last year, during my trip through Eastern(ish) Europe, the city that I found myself enjoying the most was Athens. There was just so much history within that city to learn about, study, admire and explore. Whether that be the Acropolis, the Acropolis museum, the Agora's or the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. I guess because of the works of ancient Greek Philosopher's and Stoics, I have always found that particular countries history very interesting. Even their language is cool. I bought a notebook that has a cover photo on the front of an old marble tablet inscribed with the Ancient Greek language.

It's kind of funny how intelligent, and ahead of their time, some of these Philosopher's were. We have things like computers, mobile phones, AI and endless amounts of books that enable us to hone and improve our knowledge. We may think we have had a Eureka moment, only to google our thoughts and realise that an Ancient Greek Philosopher already said what we just figured out, but done so thousands of years ago without the help of Chat GPT.

In terms of the title of this post, I thought it was an important concept to explore. When we are teenagers we think we know everything, despite our parents telling us otherwise. We are rebelling against authority and attempting to forge our own, independent path in life. We do this, safe in the knowledge that, thankfully, we also know everything there is to be known in the world. Despite our lack of life experience, our lack of maturity and our lack of basic understanding of 99% of the world, we still know everything! It's amazing how this happens :P

However, when we start to study, whether that be College, University or Poker, we start to realise that we may not know everything. When we start to take some kind of interest in politics, we realise that we know even less than we thought. When we start watching a new sport, we quickly figure out that we barely even know the rules of the sport, let alone the players names.

In terms of poker, I started playing in a pre solver era. There wasn't really a great way to learn and correct your thought process, other than watch random training videos from guys that didn't really know what they were doing either- but they were still slightly better in their guesswork than you were with yours.

Nowadays we have solvers, so in that sense it's much 'easier'. However, in the pre solver era, because we didn't know what the correct answers were (or indeed if there were even 'correct' answers for poker) we didn't really realise how little we knew. For example, I recall 3bet/5bet jamming 33 from mp vs utg for like 100bb in some mtt against an aggressive regular. Sure, there was a chance he was over 4betting (thus making my 3bet/5bet jam good) but obviously my decision to 3bet in the first place was kind of crazy- but this is what happens without a pre flop solver. You guess. Your opponents guess. Everyone guesses. Nobody knows what we are doing, and we all live in a state of ignorant bliss where we can blame variance when our 3bet/5bet jam with 33 runs in to AA or KK. It was just bad luck I guess...

It wasn't until a few years ago that it even crossed my mind to study spots like x down to the river in SRP, bet x bet in SRP, bet x bet in 3bet pots etc. But once you start to use a solver to study (perhaps its SRP btn vs bb looking at triple barrel line) then you start to get curious about what happens when you x the flop and face a probe, or when you x the flop and have the opportunity to delayed cbet, or when you x back again and face a river stab. Studying one spot starts to open up your eyes to all of these other spots where you have a knowledge gap.

Then you do the same for 3bet pots, for 4bet pots, for bvb, for utg vs bb SRP, for OOP vs Btn flat SRP etc.

Previously we looked at poker in terms of- I'm going to 3bet this guy and hope he spazzes off his chips to me, whether it be with this hand or a future hand.

To- I'm going to study bvb bet x bet node and see both how thinly I'm supposed to value bet otr, and how I construct my river bluffing range.

I was like an NPC playing these lines 6-7 years ago. Maybe I bluffed them sometimes, but it was with absolutely zero gameplan whatsoever. This is the beauty of solvers. The more we study with them, the more we realise that we don't know.

Cool, now I have some idea of how to delayed river cbet bluff btn vs bb, now I need to do the same for bvb. Cool, now I know how to bluff OOP in a 3bet pot on the triple barrel line on an A high board, now I need to do the same for when I am in IP vs OOP call in a 3bet pot. Nice one, I just x raised the flop in a SRP and barreled off against my opponent and got a fold at some point. Good, cos in all honesty I was just button clicking- so now it's time to review that hand and correct my thought process so that I can make that same x raise/barrel off in the future with clarity in my mind.

Of course this is also applicable to non poker endeavours. At the moment I am (very slowly) redecorating and fixing up my house. Before I moved in I didn't really know how a boiler worked. I thought that the boiler pumped up gas in to your radiator, not that it heats up water and then sends that heated water to the radiators throughout the house. I thought that taking off wallpaper would be easy (wrong), and that redecorating an entire house within 6 months would be a realistic target- alongside a full time job (also wrong).

Now that I have some time off poker, I am trying to learn about redecorating. So I went to the library and borrowed a book that walks you through all the different steps required to redecorate. First up- tools! No matter how knowledgeable you are when it comes to redecoration, you can't do so without the correct tools. I've been slowly buying tools since I moved in to my house, buying my first ever drill (I gotta admit I love using a drill), then more basic things like a hammer, screwdriver set, saw etc and then things like a wallpaper steamer for the redecorating. With the help of that book, I was able to identify some other tools that I needed before I can start to sand down, fill in and eventually paint the spare room. So I will work through the remaining chapters so that I have a decent understanding of what I am doing before I start.

So even though I am quite good at poker, in the grand scheme of things, I am a fish at redecoration. Indeed, I am a fish (and most people are) at 99% of things. Even if you get to a high level in one area of your life, it seems to merely make you realise how little you know in almost every other area. Of course we could simply outsource these issues on to other people, and pay them to do the work for us- but where is the fun in that? I want to learn about how to fix up and redecorate a house, so that I have decent foundations going forward. That means if I want to do it again in the future, I will be able to do so- and probably at a much faster rate due to my learned knowledge and experiences from my first attempts.

In the past I wouldn't even think about these types of things. In the pre solver era, or indeed the pre home owner era, we live in a state of ignorant bliss. We just click buttons at the poker tables, or allow our parents to fix the blocked toilet, or the leaky pipe. We think we know everything, but in reality we know almost nothing. Then, when we are thrust in to the 'real world' and have to start to figure out things by ourselves, we slowly (or perhaps very quickly) realise that we have been living in an insulated bubble. That bubble has burst, and now we must face the cold, harsh reality of a pre flop solver. Suddenly our 3bet/5bet jams with 33 are under the theoretical microscope- and it's not pretty!

However, now is the time for growth. When the day inevitably arrives where we realise how little we know, then that is the time where we can start truly learning. Because even though we may realise how little we know, we also realise how little everyone else in this world knows- whether that be your friend or the billionaire. Everyone is knocked off their pedestal and we are all simultaneously humbled.

The Ancient Greeks Philosophers might not have had a pre flop solver, but they were certainly on to something!

Your 50 pounds per month package is a good deal. Yoga is expensive in general, but fair trade if you find a good teacher in your studio. Yea, I've organically accumulated knowledge about yoga since I started practicing in 2014. I believe in the eight limbs of yoga, they correspond with my values in life. I guess it became more than organic learning, as I started to take interest in learning about the philosophy, as well as making efforts to deepen/protect my yoga practice. Pratyahara is important to me. This is one of the reasons why I do not have Instagram. Reading books was cool, the yoga sutra attributed to patanjali is a good one. But I am not so well read in yoga philosophy, I have focused much more of my energy on understanding the asanas well (the poses), as to have an effective practice, and prevent injury. A lot of these poses are complex, with a dual action (one part of your body presses towards one direction, while another part of your body will press towards another direction). Lack of understanding of the poses can reinforce bad habits, and if your practice is consistent, which is kind of the goal, then the repetition will lead to wear and tear, and seriously damage tendons or ligaments. Overall, I still have a lot to learn and could still do a better job of using and applying to life what I've acquired thus far in yoga.

Golf is a great challenge, and gratifying as you improve. Unfortunately I hurt my left shoulder with my bad swing, and it does not like the golf swing anymore. To be honest I am glad I quit because I was more interested in other things, it is too time consuming, and drives me to obsession.

Another thing I did for yoga was the trip to India I took. That was such a cool way to turn a hobby into a nice opportunity to discover history and culture. I was kind of surprised to see how many people go to India to study yoga. A lot of Europeans. I did yoga like poker, serious about not moving up in levels too quickly and before I learned well. By the time I went to India I had recently started taking the higher level classes. I got to India and many people doing a teacher training program were quite inexperienced yogis and a bit out of shape. I realized that they were doing this to enrich their life, and may not be looking to deepen their yoga practice, or even have a consistent practice. Many of them never plan to go on to teach. Not my path, but great as well, there is a lot to learn and many directions of learning. Whatever we pursue in yoga, it is ancient knowledge, from a different society and cultures than ours. Cultures that were simpler, much more patient, they measured time in generations. Cultures that have more nuanced relationships with crafts and people, than to design everything around achievement. There is great wisdom to learn from and nicely balances this terrible relationship with immediacy and achievement our culture/generation has.

I would love to visit Greece, which you mention, for these similar reasons that have to do with history. One may argue the stoics were more advanced, enlightened than we are because the phones and computers are hurting our mindfulness, therefore our sense of novelty and innovation regarding the current time. We have shorter attention spans, and this really gets in the way of our imagination. Like when you mention a bit below that in poker, now with solvers, it is in some way easier because before solvers we didn't even realize how little we knew. Well in real life, I think digitalizing the world has made us aware of so many more things that actually do not matter at all. At another point, regarding your early days in poker, you mention that people are very easily influenced by their environments (I entirely agree, and relate, and to this day find it sometimes quite unpleasant to mention poker to anyone who doesn't know the game). Based on that equation, the result is that social media is just destroying people's true selves. Or their chance of finding and cultivating their true selves.
And bringing everything full circle here, I think ultimately, that is what yoga is, one of my teacher says that sometimes after class, that we have done good work, which is allowing us to be closer and more in touch with our truest selves.

In recent times I have incorporated a Pranayama practice, it has been cool. But I think Pranayama and meditation are different disciplines. I used to be against the idea of listening to meditation videos because it seemed too interactive for meditation, but a friend from class sent me a pranayama video and ironically enough it was one of the Wim Hof ones, haha I thought of you. That helped me compartmentalize the two disciplines better. I still do that one sometimes, but I found another one that's a bit more my style. I only do it a few times a week, and most days I mediate without a video/guide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=lyFyhsB8u_c

I agree with you that not every workout should be max intensity. Yin can be so pleasant and spiritual, sensual.
I also agree that trying new stuff is really good. Also, I think that one thing we both seem to be missing is some kind of reflex training. Reflexes have to be trained to remain sharp. Perhaps martial arts helps with reflexes. But I don't want to get hit in the face. I used to play ping pong and that was great, but the guy I was taking lessons from moved back to China...It would take a bit of work to reincorporate.
I don't think playing 30 tables counts as very healthy reflex training :) not that I do that. More into playing like three and focusing.
Your schedule is good, well balanced. Mine is similar. Quite structured but the goal is not structure, it's productivity. I play online, mid stakes to answer your question. I played live for years, I transitioned during covid and it has worked out and been gratifying but I still have a lot to learn and could still do a better job of applying my study knowledge in-game.

Did not want your grandma to be your +1 for these stag do's? :) kill two birds
If you take initiative to have make up plans, like the round you mentioned with the one buddy, then I would expect your friends to finds it sad, but okay!

Decorating a home never works if you try to just get it done in one shot. Once the main design/living concept is identified, from my experience, it takes years in order to bring it together nicely. It takes discovery, sometimes travel even. Ideally it never ends, between refinement and maintenance. I started a long term restoration project in 2019, what people in America call a total fixer upper lol. It has been quite the experience, some things have been difficult. My favorite part has been the gardening, and the front looks pretty good now but the back is a different story, and the pool has been empty for years. Having a tool box may seem unrelated but it's actually the vital first step, knowing how your home functions and as much as possible about its history is very helpful in understanding its identity and knowing what it could benefit from going forward. I find the focus on practicality and sustainability to be a great anchor to homes design, but I like minimalism, which is not the most common style, really, even though people like throwing that term around these days. I don't like too matchy matchy, I don't like loud furniture or fuzzy bath maths and shit. I would like to read Richard Neutra's Survival Through Design book, in general this is the style and approach that I like. You may take interest in this book. You done any gardening so far? What are you going to do with your spare room?

Euro 2024- Frankfurt, Germany

I was always planning to take June off, having booked my trip to Germany last year and also being lucky enough to get tickets for three different matches. In the Summer I always prioritise travel and new experiences. Some people like to go to the same country each year and perhaps lie by the pool and relax. Of course having a holiday to recharge your batteries is perfectly understandable (especially for people who work a 9-5 and don't have a ton of time off) but for me I like to go to new places and do new things.

Two years ago that involved going to Budapest for two months, grinding from there and meeting several cool people (most of them I had met through RIO). It was cool getting up every day and heading outside to be greeted by 30c weather. For example, atm in Scotland it's around 15c during the daytime. This is unusually cold for this time of year, but we don't usually get much above 20c either way. The drab weather is definitely making me want to live abroad for a period of time, perhaps it will just be for a few months or maybe for a year or longer, but that is for the some time in the coming years as I will be remaining in Scotland for the remainder of the year, at least, in order to get on with fixing up my house.

Last year it was taking a month off to travel through nine different countries in Europe in a solo, hostel trip. It was basically only the second time I had gone abroad myself (the first time being the previous Summer) and the first time that I had planned to do a trip consisting almost exclusively of staying in hostels. Staying in one place for two months in an airbnb by yourself, and travelling through nine different countries in a month while staying in hostels are clearly very different experiences. Last year I was around people constantly, almost every day meeting new people, and I still keep in touch with some of the people that I met along the way. I have found that people in hostels tend to be much cooler and more open than the average person. It's just a shame that these meetings are so fleeting as both of us follow differing paths.

However this year, it was a trip to Germany, and Frankfurt more specifically, to watch the Euros. I went with my brother and my friend, and we stayed in a hotel in the middle of Frankfurt. I had other family/friends there too, but they were staying elsewhere. I was lucky enough to get four sets of tickets to three different matches- those matches being Portugal v Turkey, France vs Poland and Scotland vs Hungary. It was kind of crazy that I managed to get tickets in the general draw (nobody else that I knew got any) but also that one of the matches was a Scotland game, and the other two were involving some of the best teams with world class players like Ronaldo and Mbappe. It's likely the first, and last time, I will ever see Ronaldo in the flesh, so that will definitely live long in the memory. He could have scored but unselfishly set up Bruno Fernandes for a tap in instead.

Overall I had a great experience. The German fans were so friendly and we would regularly chat to them randomly during games in the fan zone, or even in random places like the toilet lol- some German guy started randomly speaking to me in the toilet about football after asking if I was from the UK. If you walked around in a Scotland top then it was almost guaranteed that someone would start talking to you at some point.

I was pleasantly surprised about Frankfurt tbh. In all honesty we just kind of booked it because it was relatively central in terms of getting to games/stadiums in the surrounding area, but it was a nice city to spend time in, whether that be walking along the river or having a drink in the old square. The matches we went to were in Dortmund and Stuttgart. Dortmund, at least in the centre, seemed pretty mediocre, but Stuttgart was very beautiful (despite being packed with football fans) and it's a city that I would definitely like to explore further in the future if and when I return to Germany. I had a day trip to Heidelberg as well, which was very nice and chill with a cool castle too. It has to have one of the nicest shopping streets I've ever walked down, giving you the feeling that you have been transported back in time 100+ years as you walk past old buildings and on cobbled streets.

Ultimately Scotland's performances at the Euros, Switzerland game aside, were very disappointing. Hungary were a very beatable team, but our system lacks creativity and we play without wingers and without almost any pace, so we were always going to struggle for goals in this tournaments. Either way I really enjoyed myself, and will definitely be open to going back to a major football tournament in the future. Apparently the World Cup is in Canada, US, Mexico etc in a couple years, so if we qualify then I think there's a good chance that I would head over for that. I want to visit Canada again at some point, and I've only been to the US on a brief trip to New York (which I didn't really like tbh). I would like to visit other cities in the US and see what America has to offer, as the people seem to be very extroverted and different from what I am used to in Europe.

I'll probably go on another trip this Summer, as this one only lasted for ten days, but for the remainder of this month I am going to take it easy, play a little poker and spend time with friends and family. I'll likely go away again in August, which might involved a return trip to EPT Barcelona again. If I do go there, then I'll probably incorporate a separate holiday/trip afterwards- because I don't really classify a poker trip as a holiday or as time off. I've never been to Portugal before, so it might make sense to go there, given the close proximity of the two countries to one another. For some reason I find myself liking Portugal at football, and kind of hope they win the Euros. Of course I have to back the Germans too given their great fans, but purely from a footballing perspective, I like Portugal the most of the remaining teams. They also have a cool shirt, and I've made it a bit of a ritual to buy a new football shirt each Summer from one of the countries I've visited. Two years ago it was Ferencvaros, and last year it was AEK Athens. I actually love both of these shirts, and they look cooler than my Rangers/Scotland shirts imo.

I basically took the entirety of June off of poker, bar Sunday where I played a little poker. I had to hop in the 200z pool though, to play alongside some 500/1knl, as I couldn't get enough reg tables running- and 500z never runs nowadays. The regs there play very weird. I dunno if they are trying to make huge adjustments against me because they want to win pots against me or something, but some guy called a 2x pot probe against me with AT high and they seem to do lots of very spazzy plays. It's a stake where you can probably crush regs if you adjust against them properly. I'm not big in to exploits, but if I were to play that stake regularly (which I have no intention on doing) then I definitely would be adjusting a lot. Lets just say my probe strategy vs that player wouldn't replicate a solvers output any longer. Oh, and you could also start using even larger sizings and see when their folding A high threshold begins. Perhaps 200% won't work, but 500% will? :P

Either way it's kind of fun to mess around at this stake and try out different plays, though hopefully I don't have to play it again in the future if I can get enough $500-$2knl tables going. And, like I said before, I will play higher stakes at some point this year too.

I have a couple other topics on my mind that I would like to discuss (one of which CD9 talks about in his blog) but I want to finish my book on this topic first, before I write a post about it. So I already know what I will be writing about next week!

Good luck if your team is still in the Euros.

GG.

Glad you enjoyed the euros in Germany. Portugal is one of my favourite countries in Europe, though the first time in Lisbon I was disappointed, but liked it very much the second time I was there.

Offline

I finished reading the book 'offline' on the weekend. Having done the one week with no phone challenge earlier this year (or more accurately, using it for 30 mins< per day) I realised that this was becoming an issue for me. I would often wake up, start playing chess as part of my 'productive' morning routine (which also involved a meditation) and still be lying in my bed hours later, deeply engrossed in a chess binge.

So when my annual subscription of chess.com was up, I decided not to renew it. Sometimes we have the discipline to cut out things with sheer will power alone. Sometimes we can look at a burger in the fridge, but pick up the healthier option sitting next to it instead. However, sometimes we lack this mental discipline, thus meaning that our only option is to take away the temptation. That means, in this instance, not buying burgers at the supermarket so that you don't have that temptation when raiding the fridge for food in the evening. Or, in my case, cancelling my chess subscription and deleting the app off my phone.

You can put a pint of beer or a joint in front of me and I will turn up my nose, but put down a smartphone with chess.com installed and you likely won't see me for a while.

This issue is not only related to chess, but also to smartphones in general. They are designed in such a way, as are the apps we frequently use like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc, to become addictive to the point where we are subconsciously reaching for our phones without us even realising. The phone buzzes and we see who sent us a message. We are standing in line at the supermarket and we check the news as we wait. We are out for a walk and we phone a friend or a family member for a catch up. Perhaps we are simply maximising our time. We weren't doing anything else in the queue, so why not catch up with the news? We were just on a walk by ourselves, with our dog, so why not phone our friend who we've not spoken to for a month?

We can always rationalise reasons to use our phones, and these companies know this. Our phones used to be for phoning (or perhaps texting), but nowadays we almost never use them for those functions. We use them for taking pictures, for posting on social media, for checking the news, for taking notes, for watching videos, for using maps, for ordering off Amazon, for dating. It's like our entire lives are wrapped within this small, handheld device.

The authors of offline talk about some of the ways in which we are manipulated by these giant tech companies, about how they use addictive technology based off of slot machines in order to keep our attention on our phones for as much of the day as possible. Things such as the 'infinite scroll' mean that we will never, ever run out of videos, photos or products to scroll through. We are the product, not the consumer, and our time and focus is an extremely valuable commodity. Cookies and data sharing are used in order to tailor web searches for us so that we see advertisements that suit our wants and needs. Algorithms know us better than our familes do, so we keep seeing things we like, and hearing things that reinforce our opinions and enhance the echo chambers that we live within.

One good point that the authors made was that by living within this echo chamber (usually we would discuss these types of things, for example politics, with other people in real life- meaning we would be fairly centrist and neutral as a result of hearing a variety of different opinions) we are becoming more polarised. The left hates the right and the right hates the left. Then we are suggested another video to further reinforce our polar beliefs.

Essentially smartphones, and technology in general, has been used to hack the subconscious parts of our brains- meaning that we kind of just auto pilot on to our phones, or towards the TV or computer without thinking too much about why we are actually picking up that phone, or turning on the TV etc.

However, like the chess dilemma, I also find myself becoming engrossed with my phone too often and being unable to fully control my subconscious urges to pick it up and see what's going on in the world. Which is why I was left with no option than to remove the stimulus.

Now, I think I am much better than the average person at staying off my phone- at least in terms of when I am out with friends/family, when I am walking around, when I am at the gym or at a sporting event etc. However, when I am lying around at home then I often find myself picking up my phone too often and not being present in my life enough of the time. Hours can easily slip by and you have nothing to show for it.

So what I've started to do is to leave my phone at home when I head off to the gym. Typically this means I spend around 3 hours off of all technology- as it takes 30-35 mins to walk each way to the gym, and around 45-50 mins of workout and around the same amount of time in the sauna/steam room etc area. Sometimes I even take a book with me and read in the spa area, after I am done with my 15 mins in the sauna. Reading is probably my favourite hobby atm. Today, for example, I read 60 pages of a book about Edward Snowden (it's very interesting so far). I usually don't read that many pages in a day, but sometimes I enjoy it so much that I do. I can easily spend hours watching TV or Youtube etc, so why not spend an hour reading a book instead?

I actually ended up exercising for ten days in a row. After returning from Germany on the Wednesday, I got back to the gym on the Friday, played golf on the Saturday and then went to the gym again on the Sunday. On Sunday I decided I was switching to a push/pull/legs weekly split, instead of an upper/lower one, so that meant going to the gym on Monday/Wednesday and Friday the following week. In between, on Tuesday/Thursday, I went to yoga classes, and then on Saturday and Sunday I played golf.

I think that exercising once per day is very reasonable, though I'm not saying that I will do so going forward. I think that 5x per week is the minimum, but 7x per week is attainable if you have a good balance of different sports to do. Yoga is obviously quite restorative instead of intense. Golf is good in terms of getting off technology for 3-4 hours, getting outside and getting some Vitamin D, and of course the gym is good for building muscle and maintaining a healthy body. However, I would quickly burn out if I went to the gym 7x per week, or if I tried to run 7x per week or something stupid.

I played poker four times last week too, albeit they were short sessions- apart from on Sunday. I had to sleep on the sofa over the weekend, as my brothers were up to visit, so I think that my sleep wasn't the best. Coupled with the fact that I had to get up at 7am on Sunday morning so that we made our 8am tee time. Despite the afternoon nap, I was clearly not mentally sharp and not rested enough, and probably played my worst session of the year. Granted, I also ran terrible, but I made so many sloppy, avoidable mistakes throughout the session. I don't mind losing money, it happens in poker, but I hate playing crap and gifting money to other players.

So today (Monday) I decided to take a day off the exercise and rest- I had planned to take Sunday as my rest day, before we decided to play golf again. However, that didn't mean time off poker. I locked myself in my study and got in 2+ hours of study on SRP, a spot which I've been neglecting recently. Then, later on in the evening, I even got in a short 1.5 hours session- where I managed to win a couple buy ins. It felt good after yesterdays shit show, and more importantly I played much better and with a much clearer thought process and game plan.

Tomorrow I will get back to the gym and do a push workout. I'm not sure if I'll play poker or not, I'll just see if I'm in the mood to grind and if I have time to do so.

GG.

Winning a stack at $2k

I was legit concerned about him having AA otr- obv still snapping though

Hey. First time responder, long time occasional reader. You continue to be an inspiration with your writing, poker abililty, and raw honesty.

Euros posts looked awesome. I definitely will be going to the world cup if Scotland qualify. Every time we get knocked out I go on a spiral of anger wondering how we, as a nation mad about football, can't produce a quality team, when countries similar to us in population, and often poorer than us economically: Uruguay, Croatia, Denmark, Austria, Hungary etc. seem to do great things. Feels like we're definitely due a "golden generation" at some point soon.

Glad to hear you've gotten your smarphone habits under control. I think your point regarding how smartphones are literally designed to grab our attention in the maximum way possible, that billions of dollars go into this is an important consideration. Often we can feel bad that we are personally failing if we get lost in a smartphone doomscrolling rabbit hole. But to a great extent, it's not our fault, and we are fighting an uphill battle. That's why it's so important to try not to rely on willpower like you have done with deleting apps, leaving your phone at home, is so important.

One purchase I made to that end is a ksafe, a device where you put your phone (or anything) in a timed box that only unlocks after a set amount of time (up to 3 days). It's been really good for putting in near the end of the day when I want to wind down, get to sleep, and not do any scrolling in the morning. Of course I could just say I'm going to leave my phone downstairs, but when it's 11pm and I'm ready to go to bed, often my willpower/decision making is lower than average and, as such, that it's hard to avoid.

I often think that when I'm established at high stakes, I will make a big effort to take willpower out of the equation: order meal prep or batch cook to ensure that I don't have to think about what to eat and always have a healthy option, book personal trainers so that I don't have to force myself to go to the gym at varying schedules, book coachings/study sessions with other pros so I don't miss them and have better focus, etc. All of these things add up over time, and repay the initial cost imo.

I recently read a book called "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari which also explores these topics which I enjoyed recently (and inspired my ksafe purchase).

My exercise has been slipping too, which really helps add to this "self-care" feedback loop for me, where if I exercise, I look at my phone less, study more, play more, eat better, as I'm more in the zone of "I am a productive person who does these kind of things". Going to use your inspiration to get back into it and hit the gym today after my first session.

That second hand is wild. WP. Don't understand his flop donk much at all tbh.

Good luck at the tables- I'll be following along :)

Starting from nothing

In poker most of us started with nothing. Sure, there are the people who were gifted $10k by a relative, decided to hop in to poker and managed to build a career out of it. Or the people with rich parents, who could afford to go busto several times and get bailed out by their parents each and every time. Then there were the guys, like most of us, who started off with freerolls and the micro stakes, and slowly progressed from there. We remain humble because we know what it was like when $100 in your poker account felt like the world.

I recall managing to satellite in to the Sunday Storm from a freeroll, then I proceeded to go relatively deep in it and cash for $35 or so. I sat at the top of the stairs in my parents house on my laptop, as I was finally knocked out of the tournament. A refresh of my cashier promptly informed me that I was now the proud owner of 35 American Dollars- not bad for an evenings work!

We all remember hearing the stories of 'no home Jerome' (aka Phil Ivey) back in the day. For some reason there is a certain allure about hearing the initial struggles of someone, be that a poker player, a professional athlete, an actor etc who had their struggles in the beginning but managed to come out on top in the end. Perhaps it is because we can relate to those struggles, while we aim to mimic their eventual successes.

Four homes Jerome just doesn't have the same ring to it.

What I have noticed in my own life is that it is easy to become too fixated on one aspect of your life, and end up overlooking the others. For example, let's say we are striving to become the best poker player in the world.

Well, then we need to work harder than almost every other poker player. We need to study daily, and do so efficiently. We need to prepare better for every session than our opponents. We need to make sure we play our A game each and every time we sit down at the tables. Our willingness to both embrace and accept variance is a necessity. We have to cut out bad habits that are inhibiting our poker game, and we have to cultivate better, more productive habits.

Poker has transcended being a game, and is now our life.

However, this also has it's downsides. Do we now have time to exercise? Do we have time to travel and see new places? Do we have time to spend with our friends and family? Do we have time to start new hobbies and have new experiences?

Documentaries like 'The Last Dance' may inspire us, at least temporarily, to hunker down, put in the hours in the solver and on the tables, and meditate pre and post session. But is this kind of lifestyle sustainable for the long term? We hear about how important balance in poker is off the tables, but is 'balance' just another term for mediocrity? Michael Jordan certainly didn't become the best basketball player in the world by living a 'balanced' life!

This is the dilemma that I have been faced with, since I moved to Inverness at the end of September last year. When I moved up here I knew literally nobody. I had no friends and no family within two hours of me. I also knew nobody from poker that lived in this area. When I was in Budapest for two months in 2022, I had a good poker friend who lived there, and also knew of a couple of other people (from RIO) who were going to be over there too. So even though I spent plenty of time alone while being over there, I also spent time with poker friends, and new poker friends that I made while on that trip.

When I first moved out of my parents house and up to Aberdeen, I moved in with one of my long term friends from school and in to his student accommodation. When I next moved to Edinburgh, I moved in with a poker friend (that I met through RIO). Then afterwards I moved in to a flat in Edinburgh with my best friend.

Having grown up in a family with my parents, two brothers and golden retriever, I never really spent much time alone. There would always be friends coming and going in the house, and I would hang out with both my brothers friends, as well as my own ones.

However, time moves on. We all moved out and went our own ways.

Poker is a game that I love, and probably will do so for the rest of my life. There are many positive aspects of playing the game, however, it's also important to acknowledge the negatives. For me, the main downside (by far) is the lack of socialness. Despite being an introvert, I like talking to people and hanging out with people. I definitely have a certain social battery that, when drained, needs to be recharged, but I am not someone who is happy to walk around all day without talking to one person.

Throughout my life I have always been surrounded by people. In the past five or so years that may just be one or two people for most of the time, and then more people at the weekends or when we are going on hikes or whatever. However, there were always people around who were willing to hang out, go on hikes, go to the gym, cook a meal together or kick a ball around in the park.

In the past couple years, however, this has dwindled away. My friends are getting married, having kids and are suddenly much less available. You go from seeing them every day to once a month. You go from seeing them a couple times a week to a couple times a year. In the past it didn't matter if you spent all day grinding in the house alone, because your brothers or your friends would come home and you could hang out with them. It didn't matter if you spent Monday-Friday in grind mode, cos you knew your friends were heading out this weekend and you could use your (fully charged) social battery over the course of those two days.

Poker was the perfect job for a guy in his teens and in his twenties, but is it the perfect job for a guy in his thirties and beyond?

This is the dilemma that I am now wrestling with. I wouldn't change one thing about what I have done in poker for the past 10+ years (other than, perhaps, be more aggressive when shot taking $5k+). However, is this a suitable lifestyle and occupation for the next ten years? My days of having roommates are over. I'll probably get a girlfriend at some point, but other than that, you are working in your house alone.

I knew this day would come. I always accepted that the one main flaw in terms of grinding online poker was the lack of being around other people and the lack of social interactions. I have met tons of cool people in poker, but almost everyone lives in a different country and thus you almost never see any of them. I have lots of virtual poker friends and acquaintances, but how many of them can you go and watch the football at the pub with? Or play a round of golf with? Where as when you are working in an office, then everybody is in the same area and thus it's easy to physically spend time together and go for a coffee or a pint or whatever.

Anyways, I am 100% grinding full time for the remainder of the year, and then I will reassess from there. Next year I might switch to grinding online part time, or I might start grinding more live poker- perhaps going to Vegas or Texas for a couple months at a time, then coming back to Scotland and taking a couple months off to just travel around and do my own thing. I'm not sure. Maybe I just need a complete break from the game and have to focus 100% on my social life, perhaps for six months or a year. Who knows.

However, what I do know for certain is that now is the time to make a change. Online poker will remain my career priority for the remainder of the year, at the very least, but now I have to start prioritising my social life. I can't rely on hanging out with my brothers. I can't rely on a flat mate or a close friend to spend weeknights with. I can't rely on a couple of friends, or a group of friends to hang out with on weekends. They now have other priorities- be that their kids, their marriage or their careers. They now live hours away, or several plane journeys away.

When I was looking at places to live, Glasgow was my first priority. It was close to my brother, close to my Gran, and close to one of my best friends. My other best friend works there fairly often, too. This was the relatively safe option, at least from a social standpoint. Ultimately, however, I kept getting priced out of buying a home, so Inverness was next on the list- a lot more affordable, but up North and not close to anyone that I knew.

Maybe I am just a masochist, but I think that part of the reason that I wanted to move here was to start afresh- to rely on nobody but myself. In poker coaching I stress the importance of having solid foundations to your game. You shouldn't be studying stupid, obscure spots in poker if you are massively under bluffing almost every line, or if you don't know how to bluff catch, or you don't understand the importance of blockers and unblockers. I am taking the exact same approach with redecorating my house. First I get a new boiler, new radiators, new fuse board, electrics tested etc before I even think about painting or about sanding the floor. It doesn't matter how nice your home looks if you have a thirty year old boiler that stops working in the middle of Winter (which happened in January).

Ultimately, while I always had friends from high school, from my hometown and from poker, I never really put any effort in to meeting people 'in the real world'. In poker it's kind of easy because there is so much to talk about to a fellow poker pro or even a more casual poker enthusiast. So, while I have improved and practiced my social skills over the past five years since quitting drinking, I still need to work on my social foundations so that I can become better at being around people more often and making more new friends in my new area.

If you have a group of friends from your hometown you always hang around with, or a girlfriend or wife who you spend most of your free time with, then you are probably in the exact same scenario- you are screwed if you either move away or if you split up with your partner. There are so many books about how not to procrastinate, how to be more productive, how to learn a new language, how to be more present and mindful- but very few on how to make new friends, especially as you get older. Steven Bartlett 'Diary of a CEO' podcaster, says this is one of his most frequent questions from young men- 'how do I make friends'?

In the era of digital communication, we have forgotten how to socialise and make new connections. We spend more and more time indoors and in front of screens, and less and less time outdoors, face to face with fellow human beings.

So, I am essentially starting from nothing. I may not have gone busto at poker, but I have moved to an area where I know nobody and where I need to get out of my comfort zone, spend more time around people in new settings and make new friends- and who knows, maybe even meet a nice girl along the way!

I gotta admit, on Saturday I kind of felt at a bit of a low point. I never get depressed or anything, but I just felt low. I was like- I am living in this great city, it's the Summer and I'm just sitting around at home by myself on a Saturday night. Then I made a decision, I'm not going to be a victim, I am going to take ownership and create my own destiny. In the words of Jocko Willink- I will take Extreme Ownership over my life, and especially of my social life.

I have done pretty well at poker, and got to a pretty high standard. My next challenge is trying to achieve that same standard in my social life, in a new area where I knew nobody prior to moving. I don't find talking to people a problem, but I need to be around people more often, and be around the same people enough times so that we can create some sort of connection(s). So I will do more exercise classes, continue with yoga, start volunteering again, get out to coffee shops during the day etc and continue to chat to my neighbours as I do the gardening (nobody else in my flat block is willing to do any of it haha).

I am happy with my poker game, I am happy with my health and nutrition, but I can definitely work on my social life. That is my next target. It's time to get out of the comfort zone, meet cool people and have new experiences.

We started off in poker with nothing. We played the freerolls, before progressing on to the micros and beyond. We dedicated our lives to this great game, and we reaped the benefits of that. Now it's time to apply this same process to other areas that we are lacking in- be that socially, health/fitness wise etc.

I may be grinding the social freerolls for now, but I will arrive at high stakes eventually :)

GG.

People call you here

Cos of what you do here

You are brave Demo, I admire that. Gets me motivated to blog again. Imo your best post so far. So scratch that comment I made a few months ago. This one here it is.
Are you into team sports? Or like crossfit in a group? Are you intersted in a subject and go to uni?
Cheers

Ha! Yea our correspondence is full of various interesting topics. I appreciate it very much because not all poker players are curious and believe in being well balanced. And actually this is very relevant with your recent post, this is one of the downsides of poker, it can be/feel alienating.

Some poker players, our peers, seem narrow minded. Certain phases or moments in a poker career are spent alone. And finally, there's the social stigma, which can sometimes be alienating as well. Each of these are manageable, but navigating all three is one of the delicate realities of managing a poker business. As we navigate that, it slowly, over years, harbors a certain disposition, an identity, without even realizing.

Then there's what we do, pursuing GTO, and looking for exploits, is difficult to turn off in real life. We get so much from it in poker. But life is not about concocting then capitalizing on other people's mistakes. Life is more pure, more fluid and compassionate than that, and sometimes it takes a conscious effort to draw the line and just accept people and life as they are, and not let poker turn you into a life GTO robot.
Galfond said something somewhere about the importance of not seeing a social hangout on a night where the action is usually good, as "this is costing me x dollars", that resonated with me and I still think about it when I enjoy life. Through this exercise I start to actually better quantify how much I get out of real life. Whenever my poker volume increases I take the time to ask myself if the games are really good, or if I am playing more out of ego of stacking someone/not quitting or because I just want action, and not to do life things. And I would say I am pretty good at life balance, interested in other things, so this put the reality of the poker player's condition into perspective. Wall street guys are the same, many of them never want to leave the action and retire, they are uneasy with the idea of being stripped naked, what is their identity if no longer a crusher? Unfortunately for us, we may have the willingness to study and be good and willing to confront our weaker areas, it's a nice trait poker teaches us, but poker players are no better or smarter than anyone else.

I would say that the book of social skills that you say isn't really out there, is culture. Culture is broad. I think good manners, which are fleeting as younger generations are growing up, is an important message to display, it shows willingness to adhere to the platform of the world as people learned to know it. It is the beginning of interpersonal compatibility in any type of relationship. Personally it encourages me to want to share, and receptive to someone sharing.
Then, culture in the artistic sense, food, art, politics, hobbies, is the platform for sharing ideas and ultimately that is how you communicate your identity and migrate and attract the appropriate people. If New York was disappointing to you, perhaps a sign you may find pleasant growth in this area because that's the whole concept of The city, this concentration of institutions conveniently exposes to various forms of art. I would say art is the biggest one because that's the most powerful and it's people's hobbies, music, film, literature, actual art in museums, there is so much there.

Man I had a good laugh reading your paragraph about reflexes. Interesting you were goalkeeper. I believe you Demondoink, one of your strongest things is reflexes. haha. I had a couple nice catches recently. I also sometimes do this thing where I stay cool while something like a fork is falling, to catch it in style, with ease, like letting it fall right into my hand on the side of the handle. Then look at my cat and wonder if she realizes what I pulled off. lol enough of that. I'll see you at the ping pong table.

I have thought about teaching yoga. I was taking my time to answer mostly due to this question, stresses me out a bit :) I think I may not have the ease you have when approaching a new commitment. Sometimes I feel like my focus on my yoga practice has allowed me to describe a pose or a philosophical yogic goal in a way that is well framed. In a way that may resonate for students. I first considered doing teacher training in like 2018 maybe, that's the year I went to India. I think around that time I decided I don't want to make the commitment of becoming a good teacher, and then having to teach. Just not my path. I think I have other interests that I am more passionate about. But it still comes up because I do yoga everyday.
So my idea evolved, thinking perhaps I could open a studio, but that also would be very serious and very, too expensive anyways. Perhaps I could make it happen, with some yoga teachers I know who could be partners, and if I really apply myself resourcefully. Again, I am not sure I am willing to take this risk and make such a big commitment. So for now I am just focusing on my own practice and kicking the can down the field-my specialty. I think I have other interests that may make better long term goals that I feel stronger passion for, I don't know...
But to answer to your comment, yes, you need to feel some kind of a human connection with your yoga teacher, like in Budapest. Not sexual of course, but very similar to falling in love, you need to feel a connection to trust your teacher, and want to connect with them by a way of learning from them. I drive a bit of a ways for my main teacher, inconvenient but entirely worth it.

I do not grow vegetables, I am more into gardening, landscaping. Topiaries with sage/rosemary, cacti, succulents. I have tried to make a garden that's waterwise, with mulch and rocks, as to preserve water and make a sustainable garden. I like design and sustainability so that's very gratifying for me. How's your summer gardening going? Your climate makes for gratifying spring/summer gardening

PS I tried the cold plunge. It was cold

Weddings and poker

I had not been to a wedding in around eight or nine years, before last weekend. Me and my friends were young guys back then, in our early twenties and having no real idea what kind of life would unfold before us in the coming years. I was chosen by my friend to be his best man, an honour that means I would have to organise the stag do, as well as performing a speech at his wedding- amongst other things. I would use alcohol to help me perform both of these tasks to a (decent) level.

Thankfully the speech went well and it was a good ceremony, but I would never see that 'best friend' again as he would move away and get on with his new life.

However, I do owe him a lot as he would be the guy who introduced me to poker. One day we were sitting at his Grans house (it was basically vacated so he lived there) and he pulled out a pack of cards and said we should 'play poker'. This was shortly after the conclusion of high school, when I was seventeen and not yet old enough to grace a casino.

I knew literally nothing about the game, and so he taught me some of the basic concepts such as hand strength and what hand beats what hand etc. Once me and my friends were all eighteen (I would be the last to turn eighteen) we started to go to the casino, and the rest is history. Ironically, I was probably the worst out of all of us in the beginning. My two best friends were more aggressive players, and I was a bit more passive (soon that would be eradicated from my game forever). However, I was able to learn and adapt my game over time, where as they would be stuck in the same gear all of the time and never shift out of this aggressive default mode.

Aggression is great in poker, but it has to be tempered with passivity. We have to give up sometimes, whether that be to control our frequencies a little, to exploit a calling station/fish, or to simply prove that we are a player capable of playing in several different ways. We do not want to be predictable at the poker table. Unpredictability will both confuse our opponents, whilst simultaneously keeping them on their toes whenever we enter a pot against them.

Quickly I would figure out when my friend would decide (seemingly before the flop) that it was time to barrel off three streets and either go home, or pick up a healthy pot at some point with the fold equity that multiple bets should bring. Even though there was no such thing as node locking and we didn't county combo's, it just seemed intuitive that a guy would likely be overdoing his bluffing frequencies when (essentially) betting blind post flop across multiple streets.

So perhaps, after high school concluded, it was my friends job to introduce me to poker, and it was my job to help him step in to the next stage of his life as a married man. He actually met his wife to be on a night out that we had together. Either way I will forever be grateful for our friendship and for him introducing me to this great game.

I was invited to another wedding at the weekend, which would be my first since the aforementioned wedding. A lot had changed in this period for myself. I had stopped drinking (though thankfully I had no speeches to perform this time), poker had ceased to become such a volatile income, and had instead become a relatively consistent one. I had travelled a lot, moved around cities and eventually bought a place of my own. I had started to prioritise both my mental and physical health, by doing things such as daily meditation and forging a pretty consistent workout/exercise routine.

Of course there were some downsides too, some things were better eight/nine years ago than they are now, but this is to be expected. Our lives are not a linear progression, but instead consist of peaks and valleys.

Overall it was a very good day out and nice to catch up with several people who I had not seen in years. We even got in a little Scottish country dancing, which was fun! I wouldn't say I am a massive wedding fan tbh, but the thing that I do like about them is that they can bring together people that would, almost certainly, never be brought together through any other circumstances. It's crazy the amount of time, effort and planning that go in to weddings, only to have them concluded over the span of less than half a day. I guess that ephemeral nature is not only applicable to weddings, but also to life. We think that weeks are slow, months are slower and years take an age, but in reality, weeks and months pass by within the blink of an eye, and years can fly by almost as quickly!

It may only seem like yesterday when our friend was teaching us the rules of poker, but in reality over a decade has passed since then.

Ironically I have another wedding this coming weekend. The idiom of London buses really is true! Of course there is something to be said about the fact that I am thirty, so this is a fairly common age where people will ger married etc, but either way it's still funny not to have attended one in so long and then have two in the space of a week.

I want to find a way of slowing life down, so that another decade doesn't fly by. Whether that be spending less time on technology, or getting up earlier, or shifting career path, or focusing more on relationships, or travelling more, or switching back to grinding live poker (like in my teenage years), I am not sure.

Either way, these weddings will simultaneously wrap up one chapter in our friends lives, whilst also beginning a new, exciting chapter for them. So even if we struggle to fully get on board with the clamour of seeing the brides wedding dress, or for catching the flowers as they are tossed in to the crowd, at the very least we can appreciate the beauty in life whereby one specific day is bookmarked forever in our friends lives. The worst thing we can do is to have every day meld in to one another, without ever being able to identify one day being any different to the last.

July 22nd 2024 may have just been another day for me, when I travelled home after a long and busy weekend, but July 20th 2024 will be a day forever engrained in to my friends memory, and by proxy, in to mine as well.

Tomorrow I will get back on to the grind. GG.

I rememember two weddings that I visited and enjoyed. There are moments that happend by random during the wedding day that I just remember because my heart was at peace and I want to cry when I think of them now.
What I cant remember is what I have done on the job last week or on the poker sessions I have played. Those memories are just blank right now. I suppose it is because I am not connecting emotionally.

Great, I hope to see the wedding you shared here soon :D

Lol I just spent over an hour writing a post and then accidentally clicked back and lost it all. Brutal bad beat. Might write another post tomorrow or just skip it this week now.

Competition

I remember as a kid reading about how Colin Montgomerie (a Scottish golfer) would just go down to the range and hit balls for hours in an attempt to get better. For some reason, this always inspired me.

When I was at high school I was very lazy- I didn't study at all, I was always late for school and I didn't really have a passion for any subjects. I did quite like English (which is essentially reading books/writing, not learning the language) and History- which was probably because my Dad was a history teacher haha.

In the end my grades were okay. I got some B's and C's, which weren't good enough to get me in to a good University, but were good enough to get me in to a more mediocre one. This led me towards studying a course that I wasn't really interested in, and thus dropping out after a year in order to pursue poker.

So in a sense you could say that my high school laziness was a blessing. Without it, there is very little chance that I would have dropped out of a degree that I actually enjoyed, in order to take a punt on poker.

The degree that I applied to do at the good University (which I didn't get accepted for) was for English. So it's kind of funny how, despite not knowing myself at all at the age of 17/18, I still knew that there was a passion for reading and writing within me. I think that is one of the reasons why I write this blog. I enjoy writing and having to be creative in terms of coming up with knew ideas, while trying to knit everything together in to something that is somewhat enjoyable to read for whomever reads each post.

I don't think it's something that I would like to pursue as a full time career, it's more of a hobby that is fun to do once a week or so. Perhaps one day I would like to write a book, but in my current state I wouldn't be qualified to write one on anything, bar perhaps 500z lol.

So with that inspiration from Colin Montgomerie in mind, I would go down to the range and hit balls myself, in an attempt to improve and (hopefully) cut down my handicap. I remember one time, going down to the golf course when there was around a foot of snow and chipping on to a green. I had to clear the snow so that my balls weren't simply absorbed by the thick blanket of snow. White golf balls won't show up well underneath white snow.

I ended up getting to around a 10 handicap, but towards the end of my playing days as a junior I was regressing and was definitely higher than that- probably 12 or 13. I ended up quitting the game aged (roughly) 16, and only really played once or twice per year for the following 10+ years, until I joined a course this year.

Despite struggling for motivation at high school, it was strange how reading something as simple as a guy going to a driving range and practicing for hours at a time, resonated so much with me. Perhaps it was not so much that I was lazy, it was just that I was uninterested in the subjects at school.

Looking back, this was almost like a seminal moment for me. It was the first time that I derived some sort of excitement about grinding, about practicing, about improving myself so that I could both beat my previous self, and beat others in the process.

Ultimately, I would end up taking this competitive passion and willingness to learn and improve, and apply it to poker. Studying is never something that has felt like a chore to me, I have pretty much always enjoyed it. I love using a solver and learning new concepts that will give me better clarity in game. I enjoy putting in the hours off the table so that I can excel on them when I sit down.

Poker is a game where you are competing not only against your opponents, but against yourself. You may try to adjust to, or exploit your opponents, but you also strive to make fewer punts yourself, and to maintain a better equilibrium with your mood and mindset while playing.

It really is a beautiful game, and has forced me to be introspective in so many ways, which then snowballs in to other facets of your life so that you can improve there too.

The driving range, however, can become a lonely place from a social standpoint. For a while you may have a buddy to practice with, or a sibling or family member. You may just enjoy putting in those hours by yourself, with the company of the birds chirping, or the crackling of an old mp3 playing out of your Sony Ericsson phone.
However, your friends are going out this weekend with some alcohol that their older brother bought them, to find the most solitary field within walking distance that is unlikely to attract the attention of the public or the police. What do you do? Do you continue to put in the hours in the range, or sack the medal this weekend and drink a 2 litre bottle of Strongbow in a field?
The choice is an easy one.
The Strongbow may taste like acidic cat piss, but it does the job. The golf can wait for another day...

At around this age (16) I essentially packed in the golf and the football (though I did start playing five a side football during the week instead). In Scotland we have a big drinking culture, so most people would start drinking with their friends at around age 15 or 16.

Looking back I don't even regret it- it was fun. I think that its important for kids to be kids, to have different experiences and to grow in their own time. From a productivity standpoint, I should have stuck with the football/golf etc and avoided the drinking, but from a social standpoint there was a clear winner. I would play for that football team with two of my best friends, but when they decided to pack it in then I was always going to follow. I would play golf with my friends, who were two years older than me, and my older brother, who is three years older than me. But when they turned 18 they were no longer juniors and thus weren't members any longer. It was time for us all to move on and try out fields, parks and when we eventually turned 18 and could legally drink- bars and clubs.

Some of my favourite memories were going out to a student club on a Tuesday, to a night aptly named 'skint' (skint is a slang Scottish word for having no money), getting drunk, chasing girls, getting in to stupid disagreements or fights, posing for a group photo for the guy walking around with a camera, walking to the nearest kebab/pizza shop for some food then trying to find an after party, heading to the casino for some drunken poker, or calling it a day and getting a taxi back home via the McDonalds drive through.

However, these nights out could not go on forever. We would get older, and soon enough it was too weird going to a night club full of 18-20 year olds. People got in to serious relationships and some had kids young. Others moved away or just lost interest in the clubbing scene. I moved away and left for Aberdeen, and then Edinburgh. These weekly and often bi weekly nights out now became birthday nights out or leaving nights out.

As the social calendar slowly cleared, it was now time to get back on to the proverbial driving range and take things seriously again. No more drinking and no more hangovers. Plenty of time to study and grind, but less time to go to bars and clubs. More time to travel, train for marathons, workout at the gym, read books and listen to podcasts.

We are constantly told that we need to prioritise productivity, to become better versions of ourself and make more money than we did last year. We may follow inspirational guys like David Goggins or Jocko Willink, which inspires us to put in that extra hour of study, head to the gym even when we don't feel like going, avoid that pizza when it is calling our name or snub that invitation to go with your friends to the club on Saturday- cos you have to stay fresh for that Sunday mtt grind!

We write 5-10 goals for 2024 and almost all of them are monetarily focused, health focused or productivity focused. How many of them are socially focused? Do we just forget about our long term friends now we are in a serious relationship, now we have kids to look after? Do we set out to meet new people and make new friends? Do we set out to work on our social skills?

I feel like I am at the point in my life where it's time to prioritise my social life again. Imo this game, at least for me, is not sustainable long term. I don't think it's healthy to work from home by yourself for 30-40 years. Sure if you live with someone it will be better, but then you might get sick of one another. Humans are social creatures and it's important to remember that.

When I look back on my life thus far, the best memories I have are with other people- not from grinding online poker and winning a big tournament or a big cash game pot. Sure, I love this game and always will, but it's still a mean to an end. The money that I have earned from poker is so that I can travel, have new experiences, go to sporting events, hang out with friends and family and play golf (or yoga/football/tennis/hiking etc).

Currently I am looking in to going back to University next year, and I think that it's highly likely that I will go through with this. I am not saying it's 100% certain, but within the past few weeks it's become abundantly clear to myself that I need to make a lifestyle/career change for my overall happiness. Even if I commit to doing something else, I obviously won't quit poker, it will just become more of a hobby again, or something I do when I have time off- perhaps playing live poker for a couple months when I have time off over the Summer. I'm not sure.

My intention with this post is not to attempt to talk anybody out of pursuing poker as a career, or telling anybody that them playing professionally is wrong or a bad idea. I think it has probably been the best possible job for me over the past 10+ years, however, that doesn't mean that it's the best job for me for the following 10+ years.

When I look towards the future, I get excited about meeting new people, making new friends, finding a girlfriend, travelling, learning new skills, hiking and camping in the mountains, playing golf in the sun (my days of chipping in the snow are behind me) and having new experiences.

I am much less concerned about winning x amount of money at poker or shipping the WSOP main event- though I would obviously not turn that down!

I am not going to completely rule out sticking with poker, or coming back to it full time if I do decide to pursue something else for a while, but these are my thoughts at the moment. I won't mention this topic again for the remainder of the year now, so that I avoid sounding negative or like a broken record- cos I do look forward to grinding online full time for the remainder of the year.

This quote always sticks with me, from one of my favourite films 'in to the wild'-

Happiness is only real when shared.

GG.

Winning a stack at $2k

I almost timed out here so had to just jam lol

Trying to slow down time

Last night I was at my Grans and noticed that James Bond 'Thunderball' was on TV. She doesn't have any wi-fi, and I don't have normal TV, so whenever I visit her it's a good opportunity to get off things like Youtube etc and instead (whenever we are just sitting around) watch a good TV show or a movie.

Ever since I was a kid I have enjoyed watching James Bond films. My Grandad (on the other side of the family) would often watch them, and I remember buying him 'Goldfinger' for a birthday/Christmas on VHS, so we would often watch it together whenever I went down to visit him. He would always sit in the exact same chair, so I had to find an alternate piece of furniture to perch myself on.

Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, and I'm sure that VHS got thrown in the bin when the house was cleared out.

Thunderball was released in 1965, almost sixty years ago. Not far in to the film you are introduced to one of the women that Bond would be trying to seduce over the course of the movie- Domino (Claudine Auger). She is absolutely stunning in the film, is very likeable and does a good job of slowly turning from the 'bad' side over to the 'good' side by the conclusion of the film.

Normally when you watch a film it is from fairly recently, so pretty much every actor is still alive. However, being almost sixty years old, means that many of this cast have passed away. Sean Connery, probably one of Scotland's best ever actors, died a few years ago. I noticed that Claudine Auger has passed away too. It's quite weird watching someone who is young and beautiful in a film, but who has subsequently died from old age.

It kind of brought my own mortality to the fore. She was only around 24 when the film was released, which is younger than I am, but she has grown old and passed away in the subsequent years.

When we look at old people we may think that they have always been old, or perhaps that they have simply been around for an eternity and the gray hairs and wrinkles are an inevitable result. However, they were once babies, they were once high school kids, they turned 18 like us, they turned 30 like us. We have much more in common with them than we think, even if we may take our relative youth for granted as we disregard any worries of growing old in the near future.

A photograph, a recording or a film is amazing in the sense that it freezes us in time. When we get our photograph taken as we turn 18 we are forever 18 years old in that picture. We may grow old, but that picture never changes- unless it is destroyed. Claudine Auger is forever 24 years old in that film, even if she has grown old and moved on.

It actually made me think of the Black Mirror episode named 'San Junipero', which I would recommend watching if you haven't seen before.

I have just taken a week off of poker, in order to go and see some friends and family. One of my friends recently had a baby, so I went to see him. My parents bought a new house, so I went to see that. I played golf with my friend at his course in Edinburgh, and I went to visit my Gran for a few days. I even managed to go and see a Rangers game with my brother- which was a ridiculous 2-0 loss to Dynamo Kyiv.

Now, I thought there was a reasonable chance that we would get knocked out by them- though I, and the bookmakers, still considered us to be the favourites. However, one of our players was sent off for an absurd second booking, after winning a header and getting booked for an 'elbow'. I really didn't appreciate the way that the Kyiv players were rolling around the floor throughout the match, seemingly attempting to get at least one of our players sent off.

The referee duly obliged, and after that sending off (the tie was evenly poised at this point) it was really only a matter of time before they scored. I was very annoyed after the match, but this year I have decided that I will not allow sport related frustrations to fester for long- because life is too short! Perhaps I will still be pissed off for an hour or so afterwards, but then I will do a meditation and clear my head, then focus on something else. In the past it has ruined the remainder of my day, and perhaps some of the next too, but now I choose to feel the negative emotions, accept them, and then move on.

I think that people who don't truly support a team/player will think that to be this emotionally invested in something that you literally have no control over is absurd, and I'd probably agree, but this is what you sign up for when you choose a sports team- or when they choose you. Pain and elation. Usually more of the former than the latter, but we stick around through blind loyalty and a seemingly never ending faith that our team will succeed.

Throughout this trip, I made sure to make the most of each day and have plans for each and every day. Even on the drive back up to Inverness today, I decided to stop off half way home (the drive takes around three hours) to hike a Munro. It's only the second one I've done this year, but I plan to do a few more before the year is out.

I wrote in a previous post about time, around four months ago, that one of my goals was to waste less time on things like chess (I've never played it since) and try to be more conscious and less on auto pilot. When driving home, example, this means sometimes stopping to hike a mountain, visit a town or just take a couple photos from a nice viewpoint. It's too easy to auto pilot drive home, tell yourself you will stop by those mountains/towns/viewpoints next time, and then never stop the next time either.

I have noticed recently that if you consciously attempt to get out of your unconscious, auto pilot daily/weekly etc decisions, that these conscious 'decisions' will compound. So when I study a new poker topic, I am more likely to do a slightly different gym workout, or walk home a different way, or put on a film instead of watching Youtube, or stop off on my drive home to Inverness to go for a hike.

During the first hour of todays hike, as the path twisted and turned uphill, I was checking my watch every few minutes to see how much time had passed. The watch faces reading didn't please my calves, as it read only 2-3 minutes more than the previous check.

Now perhaps you could argue that I should be more present, and not check my watch, which I agree with, but either way those minutes were drawn out. As my calves ached, the wind pounded my face. I was simultaneously sweating and freezing at the same time (your hands/face get cold from the exposure, but your body often overheats while walking uphill as you wear a jacket/rucksack etc).

There were so many different sensations going on in your body, that you had no option but to be present. Five minutes walking up that hill can feel like an eternity, yet an hour mindlessly scrolling through Instagram or getting in to arguments with (probably) bots can slip by as if it were merely a few seconds.

The seconds, minutes and hours pass by regardless of what we do, but we can, at the very least, try to slow them down as much as possible by being more conscious and having new experiences as often as possible. Oh, and hiking a (small) mountain in very windy conditions will also snap you out of it!

Just make sure to pack your hiking boots with you so you don't have to do it in trainers, then drive home with soggy feet :)

Nice post and good perspective.

Poker

I decided to write a post this week that is focusing on poker, instead of on other topics. I guess you could call it a mid-season breakdown. My volume over the past couple of months has been fairly low, however I planned on taking June/July off completely to travel etc (I only took June off) so I am happy that I've been putting in sessions even when I've not necessarily felt like playing. Every session edges me closer to my hand target for the year of 200-300k hands, even if its just 500 hands or whatever.

As someone who is not a big volume grinder any longer, I tend to focus on quality over quantity. If you have 2x the win rate of a fellow reg, then you can play 50% of the hours and make the same amount of money. Then you can use that spare time to do other things.

At the moment I am focusing a lot on my health, so that means 2-3x gym sessions per week, 1-2x yoga classes and 1x rounds of golf. So in a typical week atm I expect to exercise at least 5x per week, but potentially 6x. Because of the variety of sports I am doing, then I don't think it's possible that this will lead to burnout. However, if I were to go to the gym only 5-6x per week, I know for a fact that I would get burnt out at some point and then lose interest for a while.

Going to the sauna etc afterwards helps motivate me to go to the gym too, because I know I can enjoy that after my workout.

When I came back from Germany I noticed from some pictures that I was just too skinny. As someone who is pretty tall (6 foot 1) I only weighed around 67kg. So I decided to go on a bulk and for the past two months I have been eating between 3000-3500 calories per day, every day. I only missed one day where I didn't hit 3000 calories, and that was because I was on the phone for four hours and by the time I was done it was too late and I wasn't hungry.

So that was an important lesson- don't socialise! :D

I am now up to 70kg but my weight seems to have plateaued a bit which means I will probably have to increase my daily caloric intake to between 3500-4000 calories in order to keep gaining weight. It's cool though cos I got a PR at bench for the first time in like four years. I had slowly been getting worse at bench, or just staying the same. I watched some Jeff Nippard push/pull hypertrophy workouts, and started focusing on higher reps instead of my typical 5x5 strength focused workouts. I think because I am very skinny, that it's more important to focus on building muscle mass so that I can improve my lifts. Because my chest was very flat, and if you have very little muscle then you are never going to be able to bench anything decent.

Don't get me wrong, I am still not strong by any means, but I am in a competition with myself and just want to keep focusing on pushing myself in each workout, getting stronger and putting on weight.

In terms of poker, I will break down my three main goals from the start of the year and discuss how they are progressing.

1. Play 200-300k hands of online cash game hands.

So far I am on track to achieve this goal. In the past it was easy to play 400-500k hands per year when I was grinding 500z and could four table and play around 700-800 hands per hour, however these days I tend to play around 300 hands per hour. This is obviously, mostly, down to the fact that 500z has kind of died and only runs occasionally, so most of the time I am just grinding 4-6 regular tables.

My goal was to hit 120k hands by the end of this month (so that I could play 4x 20k hand months for the remainder of the year) and I literally just hit that hands total, so I am just ahead of pace!

Overall my result have been good so far, with a healthy win rate of over 4.5bb/100 pre rakeback. I tend to aim for 5bb/100, so that is pretty much bang on. Obviously this could increase or decrease by the end of the year, but so long as I am focusing on quality poker and trying to play my A game each time I sit down at the tables, then I should be achieving (roughly) this win rate.

2. Aggressively shot take $5k/$10knl when I am rolled to do so, and sell action if I'm not.

I have only played a few hands at $5k this year, and none at $10k so far. I could obviously sell action for these games and play them, but I always prefer to just play on my own roll. However, having set a 2bi shot take for when I reach x bankroll again, I am pleased to say that I am pretty close to that amount. Hopefully I will get there in the next month or so.

The issue that I have is that $5k rarely runs on Stars, and I'm not overly keen to shot take on GG given the high rake and the (probable) very low WR. So I am hoping that once I hit my target bankroll, there will be some $5k games running on Stars!

I actually done pretty well in my small sample size at $5k, but I just ran shit in even fewer hands at $10k which kind of scarred me a little I guess. I would have the roll to play both these games, but I bought a house etc so I've decided to be a little more careful since then and just move up slowly- once I hit my target BR again.

I should play some $5k, at the very least, before the end of the year.

3. Keep working on my MTT game, get my first six figure score.

This isn't looking promising. I've put literally zero effort in to my MTT game, and have barely played a tournament for the past couple months. I played the Sunday Million yesterday, and that was my first tournament in a while. I think I will start adding a couple tournaments to my grind on a Sunday, and just hope to get a random bink in the process. I think it actually helps me to put in more cash volume if I'm playing mtt's on the side, cos then I know I can't stand up and quit the session until those tournaments are over.

I always say each year I will focus more on mtt's, but then I get engrossed in my cash game grind and tend to just focus my study and playing time on that instead. I'll add a little mtt volume on the side, but I have no intention on giving it any more focus than that.

So there you have it. One is progressing well, the other is on track, and the final one is at the mercy of the poker gods- if they wish to bless me with a random six figure mtt bink! Tbf there are a lot worse players than me who have won a lot more than me at tournaments, so you never know!

I am channeling my inner Chris Moneymaker.

Oh, and I done a poker hand analysis (my first ever public video) which should be released on Youtube within the next week or so. I was a little nervous as I've never done anything like this before, but I think it turned out pretty well and hopefully my analysis was decent. It's on a friends channel, as I don't plan on making my own one- at least for now.

GG.

Bluffing credit in the bank gets you paid

My Youtube video with GWValueTown

Apologies in advance for the relatively poor audio quality, but we had some technical issues.
Here is the link though

video

Challenging yourself

We all have our poker comfort zones. Some of us are 6max cash game players, and pretty much play this format exclusively. Others are mtt players, who are perhaps very good at normal tournaments but struggle a little more with PKO's (or vice versa). We may even be a heads up player who loves the purity that this one vs one format espouses.

If we are a professional poker player then imo we should have these poker comfort zones. We should have these formats that we specialise in, where we know we will make money in the middle-long term (and hopefully the short term too). The worst thing that we can be is a jack of all trades, master of none. A guy who plays every format but specialises in none. Are we even beating the game with this scattergun approach?

Perhaps that win in the 6max hyper is merely masking the fact that we are a losing player at cash games, spin n go's and heads up SNG's.

For me my poker comfort zone is 6max cash (with no ante's). In the past I would exclusively play zoom (firstly 100z, then 200z and finally 500z, as well as 1kz/2kz whenever they would fun in the future). I stayed away from regular tables and didn't even consider playing them until I had reached 500z and had hundreds of thousands of hands under my belt at this stake.

Why bother playing those slow, boring tables when I can load up 500z at any time of the day, join four tables and play 700-800 hands per hour?

Of course at some point after reaching this stake you have to acknowledge the fact that the only way to move up further is to start playing regular tables, because the frequency that 1kz and 2kz would run was not very high.

So then it was time to learn about seat selection. To become used the the table flow (which you never had at zoom) and how this would perhaps play in to peoples decisions at the table. You could see when the fish would lose several hands in a row (perhaps even a big pot) and you could now smell blood. They were likely playing tilted and so it was time to pounce!

When the reg 3bets you three times in a row are they playing too loose vs you, trying to exploit your preflop tendencies? Are they attempting to induce a spaz? Or did they just get dealt three good hands in a row?

There's only one way to find out I guess... 4bet!

Eventually we get used to these table dynamics. Perhaps we decide to start tables and so now studying bvb becomes of paramount importance- because you can't be weak in this spot when it happens so often three handed. Suddenly there is no fish to exploit. There are no weak regs at the table. It's just us and two other guys of a similar (or perhaps even better) skill level. The rake makes it likely that we are all losing to the house, but our determination to improve at this short handed format, the prospect of getting a seat when the fish joins, and perhaps a little ego thrown in there, means we will continue to battle.

Stacks will fly in. Bluffs will get through and bluffs will be called. Value bets will be snapped by station regs and tank folded by others. This feels like a completely different format to 6max- because it is! We have to learn, improve and adapt in an attempt to get the better of our opponents. The term 'battling' never felt quite right for six handed poker, but never sounded so apt for three handed poker.

Eventually this format becomes comfortable. We may not be the best three handed player in history, but we hold our own and keep spazzing to a minimal.

Our poker comfort zone has expanded, so now the question is...

What next?

In the past year or so I have been playing and studying a little heads up poker. When I say 'little' I definitely mean little as it's far from a priority of mine at the moment. However, what I realised is that by not studying and understanding heads up poker to an okay level, then I was leaving a lot of money on the table when, for example, a whale was playing in the zoom pool.

I have been challenged a reasonable amount of times over the years to random heads up matches from regs with fragile ego's, and not once did I bite or have any interest in playing them. I have nothing to prove at this format and I've never claimed at any point to be an expert at it.

And lets say we are two random 6max regs who are evenly matched in this format, then who wins? The house. We both lose to rake.

Anyways, I am sure there are regs who are experts and can crush other regs in this format and beat the rake, but I have no interest in being one of those guys and so I just want to learn the game to a decent level so that I am +EV in these soft zoom pools and winning vs a random 6max reg when the table breaks and we play a few hands against each other.

The same applies to tournaments. I have done some study on this format in the past year or so, but I will not dedicate the bulk of my study to this game as my main priority (at least for the foreseeable future remains 6max cash). However, it's good to know the basics (such as good pre flop ranges etc) and to slowly increase my understanding of this game, so that I can be +EV in most tournaments that I play- which tend to be big fields with big prizepools and lots of fish in them.

I know that my ROI is good in the $1k SCOOP main event, but perhaps it's not worth playing the $5k Titans on a Sunday.

Last night I ended up hopping in the $2k heads up zoom pool because there was a whale playing in it, another presumed fish (though he may have been a reg I dk) one or two weaker regs and some very good ones. Of course I realise I am losing to the very good ones, but that doesn't matter as I am still +EV in this pool.

I ended up winning a couple stacks in less than 40 hands, which was nice given that this is the highest buy in (of any format) that I play at the moment. I ended up reviewing my hands today with my friend and, surprisingly, my thoughts/plays were mostly in line with the solver- including some nice flop threshold defends which I was proud of as it's easy to over fold in this HU format with the wider pre flop ranges.

Anyways, it's just fun to test my brain and poker knowledge/understanding in different ways. It's pretty cool that many of the theoretical heuristics that I've learned from 6max can also be applied to HU.

Good poker is good poker. Blockers and unblockers will always be vital (unless you take a more exploitative approach of course).

I took today off (as usual) but I'll get back on the grind tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I will even play a little heads up or a tournament on the side!

GG.

$4k pot at HU

hey, what do you think about my call here? its always a plasure plays aginst you!

very good point

Tournaments

On Sunday I played tournaments for the first time in months (bar the odd random Sunday Million entry). It's funny because in tournaments there is so much losing and busting, that you often think you are playing much worse than you actually are. For example after Sundays session I said to myself that I played terrible at tournaments (I was also playing cash at the same time, which I won at) but having reviewed my tagged hands, as well as all of my hands in the $1k 6max, I actually played pretty well.

Of course I am sure there were inevitable mistakes in other tournaments and in other hands that I did not tag, but it's funny how we often allow poor results (or lack of cashes) to talk us in to thinking that we played poorly.

The $1k 6max was a pretty fun tournament actually. I'm not sure if I would have bought in directly or not, but I managed to get in to the tournament from a $55 satellite. Obviously I should have a decent edge over the bulk of the field in this format, at least in a post flop sense, but it was actually nice to see on my review that my pre flop sizings/range construction etc were actually fairly accurate too. There is a decent bit of guesswork in game for me in terms of what goes in to 60bb 3bet ranges, 80bb 3bet ranges and bvb ranges from the sb (what hands I should limp vs raise for example) because I typically play 100bb ante-less poker.

Cash games are obviously an incredibly tough game to master, especially in spots like bvb or when you get deep stacked, but tournaments are so complex in the sense that stack sizes are always changing- which means you have to have vastly different 3bet ranges based on your stack size, and vastly different post flop strategies based on your stack size too. Top pair at 20bb is a fist pump raise/stack off, top pair at 100bb not so much. Then you have icm as well, that can completely alter a typical ChipEV strategy.

My plan during WCOOP is basically to play every Sunday, and then just play some tournaments alongside my regular cash game grind on other days.

I've started to watch Pads course videos again too, and especially the play and explains that help me to get in to the mindset for playing tournaments again. Personally I prefer to just use a solver for studying post flop, but watching an elite player actually playing and giving his thought process is very beneficial imo. Then I use GTO wizard to review hands and check pre flop ranges etc.

I was starting to lose interest in studying tbh. I think this was mostly down to the fact that I was almost always studying the same game (6max cash) and mostly by myself, but recently I've started studying with my friend again (1-2x per week) and mixing up my study- sometimes doing HU, sometimes tournaments, and covering spots at 6max cash that I often overlook.

Today was my day off from grinding, so I studied one spot in 6m for around 1.5 hours with my friend, then later on (after I'd been to the gym etc) I decided to review my hands from the $1k 6max mtt, which took another 30 mins or so. In all honesty I could have easily studied longer in the evening, but I didn't last too long in that tournament so I ran out of hands haha.

So perhaps if other people are struggling with the motivation to study, maybe it could be a good idea to mix up your routine and study a slightly different game or a different spot, or think about studying with other people (or perhaps by yourself if you typically study with others).

In all honesty I feel like I need a proper holiday in order to mentally reset before getting back on the grind for the remainder of the year, but I am getting some work done on the house atm and it's my bday etc soon too, so I'm not sure if I'll have much time this month. I have barely done any travelling this year (only to Germany for the Euros) but I think this will change a lot next year again. Then WCOOP also just started too, which means the cash games should be a little better than recently, and obviously some of the tournaments are worth playing too.

Anyways, this weeks post is probably not the most exciting one in all honesty, but I think this is merely a reflection of where I am mentally and the fact that I need a break.

Oh, and last week I played some $5k again for the first time in a while, so that was fun. Hopefully it runs more this month and I can have some more opportunities to grind it.

GG.

This river tilted me ngl

Fish (who typically 3bets garbage) hero folds! :P

WCOOP wrap-up

I would like to apologise for not posting here in a while and slacking in terms of my weekly updates. However not only was I busy grinding WCOOP, but I also just had no motivation to post in all honesty. I didn't feel in the best mindset and so thought it would be better to get in to a better headspace before writing up my next post.

I said to myself at the start of the month that I was not really going to focus on tournaments, instead only playing them on the side of my daily cash game grind- and perhaps focusing exclusively on them on Sundays. However as the month wore on, I became engrossed in the mtt grind and basically just focused on them.

At the start of the month I was able to maintain my exercise regimen fairly well, and I was also studying more often than in the previous months. Yet as the month wore on I kind of just sacrificed exercise and study and just focused on preparing well for each session (usually with meditation and reading or perhaps a walk). I am not used to playing such long days and I guess it took a toll on me as the month went on. For example, on a typical cash game day I will study for around one hour and then play for three to four hours. Sometimes I will play longer depending on how the games are, but I am not a big volume player these days. But during WCOOP I was just grinding until I finished all of the tournaments I was in. Usually I'd aim to start at around 5:30pm and would grind until the early hours of the morning.

On Monday, for example, I ended up playing for just under eleven hours as I was going deep in a tournament. I ended up finishing second in it after losing a couple all ins heads up.

I've actually played $5k a few times this month too, and managed to make a little profit from those shots. Me and my friend have been discussing moving up and taking more risks quite a lot throughout WCOOP, so I kind of just told myself to stop being such a pussy and play higher stakes cash. I see guys whom I played against and, at the very least, held my own against move up and on to bigger and better things. Yet here I am, stuck within the comfort zone of $2k and below. It's not happening any longer!

Overall I ended up having quite a decent month. Including rakeback etc I made around $13.5k from tournaments and cash, which I was very happy about given the fact that I was down almost $13k at tournaments at one point and was literally losing at them for the entire month until the last couple days. But I finished strong with around a +$10k day on Monday (I got second in the Bounty Builder $33 for like $7k, and I also won just over half a buy in at $25/50) and then on Wednesday I had like five or six deep runs simultaneously- getting second in a GG tournament for $3k, winning a Stars $55 hyper for $4k and then having some other decent scores for a +$9k day.

I was really happy that I kept going until the end, cos usually I just kind of stop playing in SCOOP/WCOOP's after the Sunday, unless I have some Day two's on the Monday. However I decided to go until the final day, despite the much smaller guarantees etc, and was promptly rewarded with some positive variance!

Overall I would say that it took me a bit of time to get back in to the swing of playing tournaments. It probably took me a couple of weeks before I started to feel like I was playing well, but towards the end I felt like I had an edge on the regs, which was nice. I only play like $100 ABI tournaments cos I need to prove myself at these stakes before I move up, build confidence and gain an edge on my opponents, but for now I am definitely heading in the right direction!

Anyways, today I just caught up with some stuff around the house that I'd been putting off for a bit- doing the washing and especially cleaning the house. It was as if it had been covered in a layer of dust for the past couple weeks cos I've been having people working in the house throughout this period. So I gave it a thorough clean today and tomorrow I will get back to exercising again- most likely playing golf as the weather forecast is decent.

I feel very tired today and drained, so I'll likely take a bit of time off poker and then go back to focusing on cash again.

GG.

MTT results

Thought I was gonna win a stack here

apart from deposit restrictions I assume if econmies will be better as a whole people will find more money to deposit. atm in most countries living expenses went up a lot, at least in europe and usa i believe as well.

also if crypto goes up a lot too haha

Time for a change

Recently I've not been overly happy. It turns out that moving to Inverness was definitely not the right move for me, and now I am kind of stuck with a house that is in the process of getting decorated, in a place that I no longer wish to stay in. In all honesty if I could move out tomorrow I would do so.

For the first six month I was pretty happy- I was living in a new place that I had never really explored much before, I was able to focus on my online grind after spending the past year house hunting and I had my own space after basically living with other people for my entire life (bar around a six month period when my flat mate moved out of my flat in Edinburgh).

However for the latter six months (I've been here just over a year now) my mood has slowly been getting worse and worse. Towards the end of my stay in Edinburgh I experienced these same negative emotions, so I paid attention to them and moved out, before going over to Budapest for two months and then house hunting when I got back. Now these negative emotions are back, and are probably worse in all honesty.

I just started listening to a podcast tonight on 'diary of a CEO' with 'the brain rot doctor' and (although I've on only listened to around 25 mins of the podcast so far) in it the doctor talks about how important it is to listen to our emotions when we feel them. Our emotions serve a purpose. He talked about how some forms therapy can be detrimental.

For example lets say that someone goes in to therapy and talks about all of their problems to the therapist in a venting manner. Often this will feel like a weight has been lifted off of their shoulders (at least temporarily) but they will then soon go back to having the same emotions soon afterwards. They have not solved the problem. Instead he says its important to pay attention to your emotions because they are trying to tell you something. If you are feeling crap then it's probably a signal that something needs to change. You (or perhaps someone close to you) just has to figure out what that 'thing' is that needs changed.

In my case I have discovered that their simply aren't enough people of a similar age up here. They tend to move away from the area (if they are ambitious) at around 17/18 after high school and usually to one of the bigger cities where they can attend University (there isn't one here). Then because there are more jobs in these big cities, they don't tend to move back- unless perhaps they are starting a family or something and wish to move somewhere with more affordable housing and in a nicer, more scenic area (like the Highlands).

This is not a good place for a (relatively) young, single guy to live. This is a middle aged+ city imo.

Compare that to Edinburgh and where I lived which was basically in a student/young professional area (we were like 10 mins walk from the Uni) where you were surrounded by people in their 20s/30s etc. There were very few families cos the vast majority of the housing in those areas were flats, which aren't really big enough to raise a family in.

Anyways I'm not saying I want to move back there, I am just pointing out the huge difference in the demographics of people I am living around currently compared to a couple years ago.

One of the reasons I decided against moving to the Isle of Skye was because I noticed (while walking around) that there was a distinct lack of younger people. I ended up speaking to an Irish guy in the gym (he was probably in his twenties) and he confirmed my suspicions and said there weren't many younger people and told me not to move there lol. I guess I just wish I had done more research before I moved up here, but because they had a college I just assumed that there would still be a good amount of younger people up here too.

My intentions with this post aren't to rant or complain, I just want to outline my thoughts and one of the main reasons why I have not been posting on here very recently. Also, hopefully this post will force other people to think twice before moving to a town/city that they haven't done a ton of research on- especially if you are moving by yourself. I think that the vast majority of places can be good if you are living with a close friend or partner, but if you are living by yourself (and also working from home as a poker player) then we have to make sure that we are in an area where it is relatively easy to meet similar like minded people so that we avoid becoming socially isolated.

So I've decided that I'm either going to rent out or sell my flat. Originally I had planned to wait until the end of the year so that I could grind etc, but honestly at the moment I don't even give a fuck about grinding I just want to move to some place that I will be happy living in, so I might try to sell even sooner than that. The only issue is that the house is like half way through decorating so it's not exactly in pristine selling condition lol.

Just to be clear Inverness is a really nice city and the Highlands are amazing, but it's one thing visiting for a holiday and another thing living there (especially by yourself).

My brother lives in Australia and keeps on asking me to fly out there for a holiday. It was never somewhere that I particularly fancied travelling to, but now I am strongly considering just saying 'fuck it' and moving out there for a year. I have two other friends who live out there too. I wouldn't be able to play on Stars though, so I guess maybe I'd switch to other sites or even just grind live or something. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea just taking a year off poker as well, as I've been doing this full time for eleven years now.

The main issue is what to do with the house though so I have to figure that out first, and I'm also half way through dental treatment so I'm not exactly sure how that would work if I moved out to Australia lol. I'm also thinking about whether it would be better to buy a place somewhere closer to my friends/family here, in a younger demographic area, before moving abroad- so that when I do return I have somewhere decent to live in, instead of having to move back here or house hunt again.

Also, the other night I logged back on to Reddit for the first time in like five years (I stopped posting on there cos they temp banned me because I fought back against a girl who heavily implied that she hated men) and I read a couple of my old posts. One of them was titled 'I'm not chasing any more' and discussed how I am no longer willing to chase after girls who show a low/lack of interest. It actually proved to be one of, if not my most popular post as so many other people (both guys and girls) resonated with my message about how crap it can be chasing after people who don't really give a fuck about you.

Anyways the main point I'm trying to make is not related to girls (I think this post was from 2019), it's that we should apply this approach to ALL of our relationships- whether that be romantic or platonic. What I noticed was that I have been clinging on to friendships where the other person is often making very minimal effort, and where I am essentially the only person trying to arrange plans to meetup and hangout. Overall I don't mind organising plans, as some people just don't enjoy doing that, but the very least you can ask of a friend is a reciprocal effort on both sides where you both make effort to catch up and organise plans together.

After reading that old post its like something clicked and I realised that I was taking my old approach of chasing girls and now applying it towards chasing long term friends who make almost zero effort nowadays, simply because I have not surrounded myself with enough like minded people and I have prioritised the online grind too much. I make poker friends (like minded people) and then basically never see them cos we live in different countries.

So my next move, whether that be in Scotland or abroad, is going to purely focus on being around other young, ambitious, adventurous, like minded people.

Of course I cannot blame everyone else and absolve myself of all responsibility, I was the one who chose to move here for example, but I can hand on heart say that I always make effort with my friends. What I have to realise is that I am no longer a priority for them, and that it's time for me to move on and focus on creating a new social circle. Instead of chasing after people that don't reciprocate the same effort.

I will be back to posting more positive things next week, but I wanted to get this off my chest and explain why (perhaps) I may not be playing much poker this month.

GG.

Hi Demondoink
havent posted here for a while, but thought I would add something to your post above (House moving, selling and so on):
I would definitely advise you to go to Australia for 1 year. The number of hours of sunshine alone could have a very positive impact on you. I think it can be a great country for sports enthusiasts.
But I wouldn't buy a new house or apartment beforehand. What if you want to stay in Australia? Or you think you want to go to xy. Your life situation can change “radically” very quickly (partner or something else). I would think that it would be easier for you not to have any extra luggage in mind.
What options do you have to play online in Australia?
I think live is just super bad in terms of times to participate in normal social activities. Which judging by your post is the most relevant.
All the best!

How much money is our youth worth?

I was listening to a podcast with Jimmy Carr and at one point he discussed life, and more accurately our youth. He said something along the lines of- in thirty years time we would trade our entire material worth to come back in time to this point in our lives. It is so easy for us to take each day for granted until one day we wake up and we are thirty years older, having spent that duration of time mostly living on auto pilot.

Recently I've been having a lot of conversations with people, whether that be friends, family or even acquaintances, getting their advice on what I should be doing next. The vast majority of them are in agreement that a move abroad (most likely to Australia) out of my comfort zone is the best move. The main issue with that is that I could no longer play on Stars- a site where I've probably put 90% of my volume in on over the years.

However, what exactly is the point in earning money?

Is the point to earn enough money so that we have freedom to do things that we otherwise would not be able to? So perhaps that would enable us to travel for a year, or shift towards more of part time schedule, or perhaps change career entirely. Or is the point of earning money merely to add more zeros to the end of the numbers in our bank accounts? Or is the point of earning money not so much about the money itself, but more about the process? We know that money isn't easy to earn, and we know that humans (especially guys) require a purpose in their careers in order to feel fulfilled.

I'm not exactly sure. But we also need to think about what Jimmy said, that time and life is something that you cannot really put a price on. Our hourly rate when coaching may be x amount of dollars, and our hourly rate at the tables may be y amount of dollars, but how much is living in this current period of time worth? How much is being in our twenties and thirties worth? How much money would a guy in his eighties pay to switch places with us?

Lets say our target in our life is to grind until we hit $10m, well would we take $10m right now to switch places with the eighty year old? I highly doubt it. Which clearly highlights that our age and youth is almost priceless, yet we often take it for granted and just allow the years to drift by as we sit in front of the TV or the computer screen, or as we stare in to our phones for hours at a time.

At the start of this year I wrote down around twenty experiences on a list that I wanted to do in 2024, and I am ashamed to say that I have done only five or six of them so far. Whenever we go in to a new year we swear that this year will be different, but how different does it actually pan out being? Perhaps we start the year off hot by going to the gym 5x per week, by doing dry January and by going on Holiday to escape the cold weather. We read several books and we tell ourselves that THIS is the year that we finally break in to high stakes and beyond.

But then auto pilot kicks in. We start going to the gym 4x per week, then 3x per week, then it becomes a struggle to go at all. The motivation to study and grind slowly decreases, and we start watching Youtube instead of reading our books.

Before we know it, this year appears eerily similar to the last. We want to shot take, but we are in our comfort zone at 500nl and don't wanna risk that 5bb/100 WR. Summer comes and goes, the sunshine and weather that we have been longing for for months is now turning to rain and snow. Next thing we know the Christmas decorations are starting to appear, and we start to think about how next year is going to be different. We break out the notebook and construct a list of goals for 2025.

1) get to high stakes 2) go to the gym 5x per week and get shredded 3)...

WAKE UP!

Tomorrow I will start the day off by ticking off one of the things from my 2024 experiences list- by running before light. I literally don't think I've been on one run all year, so running even 5km will probably be a struggle, but my alarm is set for 7am (according to my watch the sun is rising at 7:49am).

Actually my mood has been a lot better for the past week. I think I may have had some mild form of depression, but then I realised that I've not been getting much sun and I've not taken any vitamin D etc supplements since before the Summer. So I went and bought a multi vitamin (iirc I had this issue a couple of years ago) and I actually feel really good tonight. Also I've been making plans with friends/family for the coming weeks, so my social calendar is a bit more full after the extremely anti social WCOOP grind.

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders after deciding that I am leaving Inverness, and tbh I'm just gonna sell the house to get it off my hands and then (hopefully) go to Australia for a year. I might even go to Thailand at some point- both to visit (I've never been to Asia) and to get my Pokerstars fix!

Anyways next year WILL be different from this year. No more auto pilot bullshit and taking time for granted.

When the alarm goes off tomorrow morning at 7am, it will be a new day- both physically and metaphorically.

GG.

Hi Demondoink

why does it have to be a "next year I change xy" approach?
I strongly believe that we should change gradually, small steps over time. Work our way towards a life that we are good with on a daily/weekly basis. This Jockostuff might be very motivational, but we gotta ask ourselves, if thats truly what we aspire. I dont know your sleeping regime, but I guess 4:24 is closer to the time you go to bed than your waking hours :)
What is important to you? In no Order:
- Poker
- a social life
- Sports
Those 3 seem to me your most important assets. Try to to improve these with small steps. Forget about the rest. Obviously I dont know your 20 experiences for 2024, but maybe they sound good but arent really that important in the end. I find that eating selfmade cake with my son and wife on a saturday afternoon is one of the best things in life right now, it's a tiny thing, but it makes me feel good. Thus it is much more important than training for Triathlon (to prove to the world that I still got it).
Good luck with selling your house! I hope everything works out!

I wish you the best,
Aquila

I accidentally woke up at 4.30 am this morning. I cant recommend it unless having a stable 7-8 hour sleep. I would rather wake up at 5.30 or 6.30 with a more rested mind and body.

The power of now

This year, so far, has been a bit of a strange one. My poker volume hasn't been amazing, but I have actually been pretty consistent in playing and I grinded both SCOOP and WCOOP for the bulk of both months. What has cost me volume is the fact that 500z continues to rarely run, and even getting volume at $500/$1k/$2nl tables can be a bit of a challenge on Stars recently. I played $5k a couple of times in September and then I've never really seen it run again (on Stars) since then. This has meant that I've even had to play some 200z recently just to increase the hands per hour, which isn't ideal given I could be shot taking $5k right now.

Of course I could be playing on other sites, but I still greatly prefer Stars to any other site out there and I also like knowing which player is who- something that I have no idea about on other sites, for the most part.

I've made a small strategy tweak this year because I wasn't overly happy with my win rate for the previous two years, and I also felt like I was giving too much respect to other regs in some regards (but I don't want to get in to specifics).

Anyways, overall I am feeling pretty good on the poker front and I'm much better this year at shifting my poker logic from one stake to another- something that I struggled with in the past. If I was playing a session then I would tend to just play the same (roughly speaking) on all my tables. Whether that be the $2k table or $500nl. It can be difficult to think simultaneously on 4-6 tables about your poker decisions, while also trying to take on spot from the $2knl perspective and the other spot from the $500nl (or perhaps even 200z) perspective.

At the moment I feel like I've trained up my brain pretty well this year to the point that I can think in different ways while playing hands at the same time, at vastly differently skilled stakes.

I guess what a lot of this boils down to is being present or not. When we are grinding a session, the bulk of our decisions are somewhat automated- we know (roughly speaking) our 3bet ranges from every position. We know (roughly speaking) our 4bet ranges, our SRP opening ranges and our bb defence ranges. We know what boards to big bet and what boards to small bet, we know what boards to range bet and which boards to split on. We know who are the nitty regs and who are the bluffy regs. We know x combo makes a good bluff on certain board textures, but how y combo is a much better river give up.

Most of our in game thinking is about maintaining focus, making small tweaks to our strategy based on our opponents, or when we play a weird spot that we have basically never studied before. The vast majority of our game is done on auto pilot, assuming we have reached a fairly competent stake level where we have a good understanding of pre flop ranges and how the post flop game is supposed to function.

However, it can get to the point where too much is automated, and not enough of our game involves actually thinking. When we are playing the same style at a stake 1/10th of our higher buy in, then this is more to do with automation than logic. Logic would dictate some sort of adjustment in our strategy, but automation dictates that we play the same way, regardless of the stake. Of course this is the exact same when we play against different player types. Some guys are capable of bluffing in most spots, and other guys are nitty pieces of crap who have never shown down a river bluff in their lives. Yet we project bluffs on to both of their ranges, and we click call with our second pairs...

I've noticed that the same happens in our daily lives. Much of our daily lives are automated. We have managed to formulate a 'good strategy; when it comes to daily living. Perhaps this involves waking up at a reasonable time, having a healthy breakfast of (in my case) porridge oats, some sort of milk (typically coconut or oat), frozen berries, peanut butter and maple syrup. Sometimes this changes a little and I might switch the frozen berries to a cooking apple (stewing the apple first then adding the porridge oats at the end of the stewing process). Or perhaps I may add cocoa powder to add a different flavour dimension, or protein powder if I've been at the gym the previous day, or plan on going that afternoon. Sometimes I will mash up a banana and cook it with the oats- my chef friend showed me this, instead of cutting it up and topping the oats after they are cooked. Or maybe I will lose my mind and add a couple squares of dark chocolate to melt in to the porridge oats as they cook on the stove.

However, either way, I know pretty much what I am going to eat for breakfast every day. I have refined my porridge cooking from brick hard, clumpy oats cooked in the microwave, to smooth, creamy perfection, cooked on the hob. My porridge strategy (like my poker game) has been refined to the point where it's 90%+ automated.

The issue is that with automation comes predictability. We know what to expect, meaning there is very little fun involved, and very little room for novelty and creativity. When we play poker on autopilot, we lose the joy of finding a funky line, of pulling off a creative bluff or of making a wild hero call. And in our daily lives we can know what to expect before the day has even begun.

We know what we are eating for breakfast, with the exception of protein powder or not. We know what workout we are doing at the gym, we know what way we will walk to and from the gym, we know our methodology of study, we know what we will cook for dinner, we know what time we will start playing poker and we know the way that the day will pan out- perhaps with the exception of how our poker session will go!

Of course some of this automation makes sense, we don't want to wake up every day and have no idea what to eat for breakfast. Spending 1-2 hours walking around shops trying to get creative ideas for a good breakfast recipe. We don't want to show up at the gym and have no idea what we are striving towards- are we trying to put on muscle, build strength, improve our cardio or simply use exercise as some form of meditation, to cleanse our minds of the daily worries of life.

There is a thin line between too much automation and too little. We want to play good poker, while maintaining our capacity to find creative plays and make good deviations. We want to get in a good workout and progress towards our physical goals, whilst also maintaining some sort of novelty in our workouts. We want to walk around the city in an area that we enjoy, whilst also avoiding taking the same path every single time.

Over the past year or so I have been focusing a bit more on spirituality again. I have meditated most days for the past 5-6 years, and while that has helped me greatly when it comes to improving my confidence and overcoming insecurities and fears, I feel like it kind of stagnated and I wasn't really getting any better. It helps each day to a certain extent, more so to cleanse me of some negative thoughts etc, but my mind is still restless and I still think too much of both the past and the future. I wanted to be more present in my daily life, so that each day, even if it was a day of 'routine' where I was going to be playing poker etc, maintained some level of novelty and excitement. I don't want to know exactly what I am eating today, exactly what I am studying, exactly what time I'm playing poker, exactly what workout I'm doing and exactly what TV show I'm watching after the grind has completed.

So I started reading the power of now again. I have read it once or twice before, but probably not for a couple of years. The book talks about having an outer purpose (goals, destinations, achievements) and also an inner purpose- which is essentially to remain present in each moment.

Sometimes I find myself doing things as a means to an end. I will watch a film, but I am already thinking about the ending and what I am going to do when it's finished. I start a poker session and I'm already thinking about what I am going to eat afterwards. I step foot in the sauna, and I am already counting down the minutes until my fifteen minutes is up (which is why I now sit in a position where I cannot see the clock).

It's funny cos I talked about the book 'the wisdom of groundhog day' earlier this year, and how I wanted to apply some of the lessons within that book to my own life. I ended up buying the DVD for like £1, but it was tinted a weird shade of green when I tried to watch it on my PS2, so I never watched it. I had seen some of the film on Youtube years ago, but never the whole thing. Anyways, I am on Prime last night after my session and browsing the suggested films- most of which are James Bond, and up shows Groundhog Day! The film expires in four days, so needless to say I watched it right away.

I think it's actually the best every film, at least that I've seen, when it comes to meditation, being present and enlightenment. Phil goes through all the different stages of living when he realises he is stuck in a time loop- the initial fear/shock, then lust/greed, depression/hopelessness before eventually becoming grateful and fully present and appreciative of each day.

Initially he is Punxsutawney just to get the weather report over with. He is doing his job as a means to an end. His mind has already left the town before his body has. However, at the end he is fully present. He doesn't see people in cafe's, in shops, on the street etc as NPC's, he sees them as human beings who have likes and dislikes, dreams and goals, hobbies and interests. He sees them as people who are important to others- whether that be their spouse, partner or even a friend or family member.

I think most of us are like Phil at the start of the film. Perhaps we aren't as cynical as him, perhaps we treat others with more respect etc, but most of the time our minds are on to the next thing before we have finished the current thing. We look forward to holidays that are months away, we dread getting up in the morning for our run, or we watch a TV show whilst simultaneously scrolling on our phones.

What I've noticed since I started reading the power of now again is that I start to notice things again. Normally when we look in a food cupboard, much of the 'food' doesn't even process as food in our minds. Perhaps they are weird ingredients that we have never looked up a recipe to cook with. Perhaps it is something that takes hours to cook, so we leave it for another day. We use certain spices and sauces regularly whilst consistently overlooking others. Things become props in our lives that we don't even notice, because we are never truly looking.

For example, I have a small basket of books in my living room next to the TV, but I almost never look in the basked and instead I go to the library for a book, or buy one from a charity shop. The other day I actually seen it as a basket (instead of a prop in the background) and I took out a small book and started reading it again.

Anyways the point I'm trying to make is that when we spend most our daily on auto pilot, we don't notice most things. Strangers are merely NPC's who we rarely interact with, books gathering dust tend to gather more dust, weird ingredients lie in the cupboard until they go out of date.

My aim is to be like Phil at the end of the film. Appreciating each day, interacting with people whether a friend or a stranger, noticing the small things that we tend to take for granted on a daily basis, and living each day as if it of vital importance- which they are! I may have an outer purpose (whether that be poker related, fitness related, relationship related) but my inner purpose is the most important one. That means being as present as possible on a daily basis. This presence will lead to a much more fulfilling life- one that enables me to escape auto pilot and who knows, perhaps even take porridge off the breakfast menu for a while!

GG.

How are you?

I'm good, Rocco and the lesson about the stone really resonated with me. Almost every day I read and re-read your blog and contemplate and feel myself in it. It gives me a lot of motivation. I always look forward to your new articles, my English is bad, I hope you understand. How old is Rocco? What color fur does he have?

Update

For the past month or so I have been focusing more on social activities, on my health, and then simply playing poker when I have the time and when I am motivated to do so. In the past I was always someone who would organise things last minute- for example there were times when me and my friend would be booking our holiday accommodation as we were sitting at the airport, waiting to catch our flight. Nowadays I prefer the clarity that creating plans in advance provides.

I think that something that doesn't get talked about often enough in poker is how too much freedom (which we all have as professional poker players) can actually be detrimental. Assuming that we sleep for eight hours per day, then that gives us sixteen hours per day in which to work (play poker), exercise, socialise, read, study etc in. That sounds like a lot of hours, which it is, but it is still easy (at least for me) to allow these hours to slip by, without having played poker, without having done any reading and sometimes even without, now the weather is cold, leaving the house!

We have so much freedom as poker players, that sometimes it can become stifling. Our freedom is in fact our prison cell. Playing poker becomes an option. Studying becomes an option. Exercise becomes an option. Reading becomes an option. Socialising becomes an option. Youtube, social media and television are more than happy to suck up that mental indecision and have us hooked for hours and hours at a time, with almost zero reward for our troubles.

Even things such as podcasts, provided they have good hosts and good guests, can educate us and make us smarter. I have honestly learned so much from the hours that I have spent listening to podcasts. Sure not all of what every podcast host/guest says is true, but then again I don't expect ANYONE in the world to only say things that are 100% factually true. We all have biases, we all have blind spots, we all have knowledge gaps and we all have some level of ego that will (often) be unwilling to accept that we are wrong, even when we know that we are.

When we play poker- we make money (assuming we are +EV players).
When we study- we improve our understanding of the game, which then leads us to indirectly making more money.
When we exercise- we improve our cardiovascular fitness, or we build muscle, or we lose fat. We extend our lives and we boost our mood.
When we read- we learn new information, or we are absorbed in to the plot of a novel. We extend our attention span. We get off technology.
When we socialise- we connect with other people. We practice and refine our verbal skills. We share experiences that we may remember for a lifetime.
When we listen to a podcast- we learn and absorb new information. We can multi task and transform a seemingly mundane task (such as driving long distance) and make it in to a learning experience.

We know that by playing poker, studying, exercising, reading books etc that we are being 'productive' and thus improving the overall quality of our lives, so long as we don't fixate too much on one of these components and instead try to diversify as much as possible- meaning that we don't ONLY play poker. We don't ONLY exercise or socialise. We try to have a good balance of all of these healthy habits and routines.

However, with so much freedom I often find myself mindlessly watching Youtube for hours, or commenting on news articles, or getting in to pointless online debates. It's easy to tell ourselves that we will study later, or we will grind later, or we will exercise later, then watch as the hours slip by as we watch TV, before realising that we no longer have enough time left in the day to achieve all of these productive, daily goals, and now we need to select which one(s) to complete and which ones to leave for another day.

Compare that to someone who has to head in to work for 9pm and who will be working in the office until 5pm. He has deadlines to meet. He has a boss and coworkers watching his every move. He simply cannot sleep in and arrive at work at 11am. He cannot start the day off with a Youtube binge. He cannot take the day off because he doesn't feel like playing.

He has to show up. He has to work. As a result he WILL work. Then, safe in the knowledge that he now has the remainder of the day (after 5pm) free, he will feel a sense of lightness. His work for the day is done- now he can enjoy some relaxing time to himself, or some (slightly less relaxing time) to himself working out at the gym, or he can catch up with friends and go for drinks, or watch a film or two.

Anyways, I am not trying to say that working a 9-5 is a good thing, but I think there are certain positive benefits from having less ambiguity about our upcoming day.

For example, today I had a busy day. I woke up at 10:30am, chilled in my bed for thirty minutes, then took Rocco for a walk for about an hour. Then I came home, made breakfast and watched a decent chunk of Grant Horvat's two hour long major 'cut series' video (I wouldn't classify this as mindless Youtube watching as it's almost like a film in terms of length, and I watch every single one, compared to watching an assortment of random, unrelated ten minute long videos with no intention behind your decision to watch them).

At just after 1pm I decided that I needed to do some work on the house/garden, so I sorted out a bunch of vinyl flooring that I'd tossed in to the shed and procrastinated about for months, and took it to the skip. That allowed me a short fifteen minute break before starting my 3pm study call, which I waited around for around thirty minutes before realising that they probably weren't coming along- and there had been some sort of misunderstanding. So I ended up doing an hours study by myself (on bvb), washed the dishes and then went to a yoga class at 5:30pm. Upon returning from the yoga class, I made dinner, watched the remainder of Grant Horvat's video, then got on the grind, playing for about two hours as the games were pretty dead and I also needed to take Rocco on a short walk to go to the toilet etc. I ended up battling $2k three handed for most of the session, which was fun, but a little frustrating as I was up two buy ins at one point, before losing some pots back and finishing up a buy in.

Then it was time to walk Rocco, get involved in some pointless online debates on the BBC website about the Ukraine/Russia war, before heading back up to my office to write this post (it's currently 2:17am as I speak).

There are days where I waste so many hours in the day- whether that be laying around in bed after waking up, watching Youtube, or scrolling through social media. Having no set poker schedule an sometimes be very detrimental, even though (on the surface) it seems like a blessing. But on days like today, when I have lots of things to do, and much of the day is already planned in advance (walking Rocco first thing, the poker study call, the yoga class etc) then I feel better. I feel like I have purpose. I appreciate the short breaks watching Youtube, because I know that in fifteen minutes I have something else to do. There can be freedom within the constraints of a schedule. There can be no freedom within the endless possibilities of a day void of any plans or schedules.

I think that's why Jocko uses the 'discipline equals freedom' phrase. Without discipline, without schedule, without planning then we lay around wasting large swathes of time and getting no closer to our goals or targets. We may think that having so much free time would enable us to learn a new language, to read multiple books, to make lots of friends or to go on plenty dates, to exercise and become shredded, but the reality is that we often use this lack of routine to instead do pointless things of no ultimate benefit.

A dog forces you to get up at a decent time and walk him first thing. This starts your day off in a positive, productive manner. You have exercised, you have gotten outside, perhaps you have interacted with some people during the walk. Compare that to when I am not dog sitting. I can lay for hours in my bed trying to fall back asleep, or watching random Youtube videos, before getting up.

This freedom and lack of responsibility can quickly become a curse.

Tomorrow I will get up at a decent time, I will walk Rocco first thing, and then I will have a productive day. I want to live each day with intensity and avoid taking time for granted. Perhaps, for a moment, I will wish for an extended stay in bed, as I check the weather app and look at the cold weather outside. But I know that, despite by reduced 'freedom', I will have a more enjoyable day as a result of getting up and outside.

It's currently 2:30am. I have been awake for sixteen hours. Now I can finally relax, make food (hitting my daily caloric target) and watch some (mindful) Youtube, because I have earned it.

GG.

Great post demon.

Having worked the 9-5 I definitely see the parallels and differences as it relates to full time poker.

I will say there's a nice aspect to poker that you really get to try your hardest when you do study and play. Whereas at a job it can sometimes be easier to slack and fall into the routine of just picking up a pay check (my mind goes back to some of my first mundane jobs as a teenager).

But in jobs you definitely still need to show up every day. And in poker it's easy to not do that if you're not disciplined about it. I'm thankful I had that experience of having real jobs so that when I made the transition to full time poker I didn't see taking random "off days" as much as an option as some players who had been poker pros their whole adult life.

There's downsides to that mindset if you're prone to overwork/burnout. But if you are able to find that balance in mindsets between discipline, effort, and rest, there is no greater gift than the freedom of poker allows.

Today is the anniversary of my girlfriend and I, and because I'm a poker player, I get to take the afternoon and go for a long lovely lunch, rather than having to look through my year and count up if I have enough holiday days for it. You almost have to experience the alternative to appreciate that reality.

Also, any particular reason you decided to check the KQQ board? Seems like the rangiest of range-bet spots. I'm guessing given how it played out, you had a bit of a read on the guy xD

Also, if you need more partners to do study calls, feel free to DM ��

The ant 'trapped' in the circle

I was listening to a podcast the other day and in it, the guest mentioned about the 'ant in the circle' experiment. This involves placing an ant (or however else you get the ant in to this position) on to a piece of paper, before drawing a circle around it. The ant then proceeds to try to 'escape' before experiencing an invisible barrier any time it approaches the line.

Sure, I am sure some of this is to do with the toxic smell of a freshly drawn pen line, but nonetheless, it still acts as a good anecdote for us humans and highlights the fact that many of the boundaries that hold us back in life are merely ones that we created within our own minds.

I am curious, what are the limiting beliefs that you draw in your own mind?

You don't actually have to answer (but also feel free to), yet perhaps just taking a note of whatever springs to mind may help you to start to overcome them.

Personally speaking I have a few, most of which I am already pretty conscious of and I'm trying to work through.

The five most common limiting beliefs when I done a quick web search were as follows;

1. Self-doubt: “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not capable.”
2. Fear of failure: “I’ll never succeed” or “I’ll be judged.”
3. Imposter syndrome: “I’m just pretending to be competent” or “I don’t deserve this.”
4. Negative self-talk: “I’m not worthy” or “I’m not deserving.”
5. Fear of change: “I’ll lose control” or “I’ll be uncomfortable.”

I wouldn't say I've ever really suffered from fear of failure tbh, I don't mind failing and learning in the process. I've never suffered from imposter syndrome, and not really fear of change either- I've lived with different flat mates in different cities, I've travelled a lot, I've tried different poker formats (starting off in mtts then converting to cash), and I've tried tons of different sports over the years- football, golf, tennis, bouldering, running, yoga, snooker/pool/darts, weightlifting, swimming, hiking etc. I really try to force myself to do new things so that I do not experience the same day on repeat for years on end.

However, I guess I suffered a lot in the past from self doubt and negative thoughts. I am much better nowadays through a combination of meditation, reading/learning, introspection and by adopting healthy habits that put me in a better mood- which is also a great way at quietening negative thoughts.

I remember one time (over seven years ago) a girl asked me what my biggest fear as, and I literally said something along the lines of 'being at football and everyone picks a partner but I am left alone'. I noticed this translating to girls too, where as soon as another guy was interested as well, I would self sabotage in some way to protect myself from being rejected and the other guy being selected ahead of me.

This wasn't rational in any way, because I also knew I had a lot going for me.

I was actually playing golf earlier this year with some random older brothers (they were probably in their early sixties) and one of them said he was a child psychologist, and at one point in the round asks me if I'm a middle child (which I am) then proceeds to tell me how they are often the most messed up of the three psychologically speaking because the eldest brother receives a ton of attention because he is the first, and the youngest gets coddled because he is the last.

Then there's the middle one.

I never really thought about this tbh, but after he mentioned that, it kinda made sense. I guess there was some kind of deep rooted ineferiority complex that then transferred in to my teenage, and eventually adult life. The reason that I feared being selected last when asked to partner up at football, was because I felt that way growing up from my family- even if they didn't consciously/intentionally do this.

Anyways this is already pretty open so I shouldn't go too deep, but at the same time writing this out also helps me to identify my own flaws and to connect the dots in a clearer way. Plus it might help other people as well, or enable them to identify their own limiting beliefs!

The cool thing about living alone for the first time is that you spend a lot of time by yourself, so it forces you to get comfortable in your own company. I think that a big reason that people jump from relationship to relationship is because they are scared to be alone.

For example I had a friend who, a couple of years ago, was dumped by his girlfriend at the time. We went for a walk and he was telling me about how life was pointless unless you shared it with a partner. He told me he was depressed and essentially needed a girl to fill that void.

Well, he ended up finding another girlfriend relatively soon after and they have been together ever since, but essentially he has just ditched his friends and spends almost all of his time with her. On a night out he would hold her leg when they were sitting down and walk up to the bar with her every time she went for a drink.

So it's kind of weird because on the one hand you could say that the single person is 'bad' at relationships and that the personally constantly in relationships is 'good' at them, but is that a healthy relationship? Is putting all your self worth and happiness in to another person really a good way to live? Is being depressed any time you become single a positive?

Of course there is a happy medium where you can be in a healthy relationship, which is probably what we should all strive for.

Anyways, I think the point I am trying to make is that we (most likely) all have some sort of limiting beliefs in our minds, that will show up in many different ways- whether that be relationships, our health, our career, our habits etc. We draw imaginary circles around ourselves and then live according to those circles.

My intention is to erase the remainder of the lines that still circle my mind.

I still experience some negative thoughts these days, of course, but I am so much better than 5-10 years ago.

Other circles that I have draw in my mind are-

1. Wanting to live abroad, but not pulling the trigger.
2. Reaching $2k and then just kind of being content at this stake, and not being bothered to play much higher. Despite having a fairly high WR and beating every stake I've put decent volume in to.

Next year I am going to do a lot more travelling again, and if I find a country that I am happy to move to (and it makes sense to do so) then I will move abroad. The plan is to visit my brother in Australia for a couple months at the start of the year, before returning to sell my house etc and then probably go some place else- like Thailand for a bit.

But in all honesty I have no idea what next year will bring because I am unsure if I will even play poker next year. I kind of feel like I need a break from it as I'm a bit burnt out from 10+ years of grinding- actually over 11 years of full time poker to be precise, as I quit University in September of 2013.

In that podcast the guy said something along the lines of- you have to decide what phase of your life you are in, because nobody can focus enough energy on their career/becoming wealthy, maintaining/creating relationships, your health/exercise, learning new skills/habits etc. We have to prioritise some of them while (at least for the time being) put others on the back burner.

So my twenties, for example, were about playing a lot of poker and making a decent amount of money. They were also about adopting a healthy diet and exercise regimen, and improving my mentality through meditation, reading books etc. I started to travel a decent amount too.

However, they were less about dating and forging new friendships- though I still made some effort in the latter regard. They were less about learning new skills (for example investing, or DIY) and more about honing my poker skills.

This week I have not really felt like playing poker. I played like two times, but even then they were relatively short sessions. Instead I kind of just felt like socialising- chatting to girls at the gym, or on a dog walk, chatting to random people in the pub while I watched the rugby (today I ended up sitting with a woman and her mother, and then some other random guy joined us too lol). Reading. Listening to podcasts- about money, toxicology, politics etc. I feel like there is so much to learn in the world and every day it's quite exciting to learn about something that I didn't know much about.

I have been getting up and leaving the house first thing to walk Rocco, and walking him last thing at night. I am getting in 15-20k+ steps per day and also going to the gym/yoga etc most days. Compared to when I am having a grind day (when I'm not dog sitting) and don't leave the house once, and maybe do like 5k steps.

I also feel like I want a girlfriend relatively soon. So I will make more effort in that regard in the coming months too. I went through a red pill phase a couple years ago where I would watch a bunch of that content on Youtube where a woman divorced a guy and took all his money etc, but I think that, ultimately, we just have to take that 'risk' if we want to feel fully fulfilled in life. I've gone off that stuff now tbh and now I would be open to marriage etc.

I often think about the 'yin and yang' concept.

I thought this was a cool description of it-

Yin and yang are not absolute opposites, but rather complementary and
interdependent forces

If we are disagreeble then an agreeable person compliments us. If we are indecisive then someone who is decisive compliments us. If we are masculine then someone who is feminine compliments us.

We seek out our opposite energy polarity and then become one (yin and yang) together. I guess that also explains the 'opposites attract' phrase that is commonly used.

Anyways this is a bit of a random post that doesn't really hold any relevance for a poker blog, but these were just some thoughts on my mind and I felt like discussing these things. I'll probably go back to playing poker again next week, or at the very least get in the odd session when I feel like playing (and when the games are running).

GG.

I'm going to EPT Prague on the 4th-10th of December. I won a 1,100 Euro ticket earlier on in the year in a satellite that I need to use up before April, so thought this would be a decent tournament to go to. I'll be playing the Eureka main, but I'm gonna fly back before the EPT main as I'm not really bothered about playing it tbh.

If anyone else is there and wants to catch up drop me a message. I was planning on writing a post tonight but I don't have any time as I gotta be up in six hours time and still haven't packed etc. I'm not flying for another day but I have to go back to my hometown etc first to do a couple things.

GL to anyone else who is going!

Prague+ other things

It has been quite an eventful past week or so- having left Inverness last Tuesday in order to stop by my home town for a day, before flying out to Prague from Edinburgh on Wednesday. I wanted to play live poker at least once this year (which I have now achieved) and also do another hostel trip. Obviously staying in a hostel is far from ideal when you are finishing poker very late at night, and when other people in the room can snore etc and affect your sleep negatively, but I think its also important to sometimes do the opposite of your normal.

So for someone who grinds online and lives alone, then I wanted to grind live and sleep in a eight bedroom dorm haha. In general I also like the kind of people who stay in hostels. They tend to be more open minded than the average person, more social and also eager to meet and interact with new people. Where as in our home towns/cities, we often tend to stick with the same group(s) of people and are less eager to meet new people and make new acquaintances and friends.

As beautiful as Prague is, I still think that it's far better visiting places in the Summer when it is warm and when the days are much longer. Of course there is something special about the cold, dark nights in contrast to the bright, luminous Christmas lights that are littered throughout most European cities at this time of year. Yet I would take 25c weather and light until 10pm any day of the week!

However, beggars can't be choosers, and this seemed like a good stop to go to and revisit a city that I had never been to until last Summer. I arrived late on Wednesday night and had registered (online) for the 7pm Thursday flight of the $1k. This was supposed to be a fast flight, with shorter blind levels, but we ended up playing until after 5am as the bubble seemed to go on forever.

It was actually funny, cos on the (as it turned out) last hand of the evening, I actually just ran off and went to the toilet because I was so desperate. I could have likely waited another 5-10 mins, but unless I got AA then it wouldn't have really made any sense to go all in pre flop anyways, and even with AA you could argue that it's higher EV to fold, lock up the min cash then try to double post bubble.

The way I look at it is like this- if I have AA and I'm called, I have 80% equity, thus meaning I bust 20% of the time. However, if I fold everything, do I bubble more than 20% of the time? The answer is almost always no unless I am one of the shortest few stacks remaining.

Of course this isn't an exact science, cos future game comes in to play etc, but I still think it's a good overall view of how moronic it is to stack off with (almost all) hands when you are on the direct bubble of a tournament.

Anyways, I returned to bag up my chips, grab an Uber back to the hostel before making some pasta at 6am and getting to bed at around 7am. Fortunately Friday was a day off, before we returned on Saturday for Day 2.

I never got a ton going on Day 2, though I did double up once or twice. However, in the penultimate hand I opened AKo ep off 18bb before the big stacked sb 3bets me. I 'jam' leaving one chip behind as we are on a direct money jump, and he puts me all in on a JTx flop. I tanked post flop before the dealer called the clock (I didn't even know this was allowed tbh) and unfortunately I directly bubbled the 400 Euro pay jump. I cashed for 2.7k.

I ended up playing a random 550 Euro event later on in the evening, but bust relatively close to the money. I actually played one kind of hilarious hand bvb where I limped J7s vs some guy (I think he was a fish but I'm not 100% sure). I think we were around 50-60bb deep. I stabbed A92r and he calls (I think my hand is probably a better x as I dunno how many better hands I fold out). Turn is a rainbow 6x and I check, essentially giving up. He stabs small and the red line/exploitative voice inside of me tells me that this bet is weak as shit and I should just go after it. I end up x raising a no equity hand, then on the Tx river I feel obliged to follow through (I'd probably give up on most other rivers tbh) and he snap calls with a random T6s. It was a little annoying cos imo there is almost no chance he calls if he has, for example, Q6/J6, but I guess my over aggressive bluff was suitably punished!

The guy was clearly tilted about an earlier hand I played vs him when I 4bet jammed JJ for around 30bb and spiked a set vs his AA, so it would have been better in hindsight to just have zero bluffs against him and go for value. However, I still think it's very unlikely he would have called had he not binked a random two pair, and he will have a lot more weak 2nd/3rd/4th pairs relative to two pairs or Ax. So it was still, almost certainly, a +EV bluff- unless he decides to spite call down with any pair haha.

This session finished around 1am, and having looked at the next couple days schedule (basically the only tournament worth playing was a 2k high roller) I decided against playing and just vowed to do some sightseeing, reading, socialising etc instead.

What I noticed is that without the constant use of technology, the days tend to go by a lot slower and you have so much more time to do other things. I averaged around four hours of phone screen time throughout the trip (which is about normal for me) but usually I also go on my computer to grind, study etc and I also watch Youtube/sports etc either on my TV or at the pub. So in reality my actual daily screen time could easily be double this. I didn't take my laptop nor watch any TV etc while I was away.

As a result I read 'the four hour work week', which I really enjoyed, and also took a bunch of notes and answered the questions at the end of every chapter. I got several good ideas from that book that I will add in to my life- for example the 'mini retirement' or 'batching' tasks together on certain days. The latter suits my mind very well cos I am someone who prefers to do everything in one sitting (for example responding to messages) otherwise I will just continually put off the task/chore/errand until I eventually feel like doing it.

I averaged around 20k steps per day too, making sure I would get outside at least 2-3x per day and go on walks around the city. It's funny but when you are in a hostel then you feel kind of guilty if you laze around (and you don't really wanna hang around in a eight bedroom dorm). People are coming and going all the time, and you want to make sure you don't waste the day too. Where as when you are sitting at home, then it can be easy to allow hours to pass by without much awareness of time or the fact that you are completely wasting it.

I met some cool people and had some very interesting conversations. I had a random argument with a live pro who kept staring everyone down like he was on the final table of the WSOP. I tried to get to sleep with the worlds worst snorer in the bed beneath me- who managed to turn the entire room in to an enemy. I managed to get my first and last live cash of the year, and I even bought a Pokerstars t-shirt to prove that I am still a fish at heart.

As I currently write this, I am in a bar of a random hotel in Inverness. I arrived home after 3am on Wednesday morning to realise that my heating wasn't working and that I had a leak in the pipework. It's pretty cold at this time of year, so it's not really suitable to be in the house (other than sleeping/cooking) as its sitting at around 10c in the living room without any heating on.

Fortunately the plumber is coming tomorrow and will hopefully resolve the issue. I also thought I had lost my bag or that it was stolen as I got the bus back in to Edinburgh (towards my parked car) but fortunately I flagged down the same bus I'd gotten on over an hour before and managed to get the bag back.

Otherwise some petty criminal would have been walking around Edinburgh in my Pokerstars t-shirt.

Perhaps these are signs from 'the universe' that it is time to move on, that my horizons lie beyond Scotland. Next year will be a year of change. All I know for certain is that I will see small bet sizing's from fish float betting the turn as weak, and attempt to punish them, and that I will be wearing my Pokerstars t-shirt while doing so. The rest is up in the air...

GG.

Starting a new routine

On Sunday I found myself almost feeling addicted to my phone. I think that sometimes we use phones as some sort of soothing tool, in an attempt to make us feel better. We think that by continuing to scroll, check social media and send random messages then our mood will improve. I had just watched Rangers lose (yet another) game against Celtic in a cup final and there was one or two other things on my mind too. As a result I just kind of mindlessly stayed glued to my phone for hours after the game and didn't do anything productive. I would set my phone down and then feel instantly inclined to pick it up again.

Overall I would say I am pretty decent at staying off my phone (I leave it at home when I head out on a walk or go to the gym/yoga class). If I'm out with friends/family at a restaurant or whatever then I barely even glance at my phone throughout the meal. However, when you are lying around at home by yourself then it can become easy to doomscroll or just stay glued to your phone for hours at a time, unless you are careful and conscious.

Suddenly I got a flash back to a point earlier in the year when I done the 'no phone for a week' challenge, where I would limit my daily screen time to 30 minutes or less. So I searched for the 'downtime' feature' and decided to go extreme- I cannot use my phone for the next 12 hours. This was around 2am, and I will often watch Youtube before I go to sleep and upon waking up. When I was doing this challenge I would leave my phone in another room as I slept, but soon after ending the challenge I slipped back in to bad habits again and would take it with me to my bedroom as I went to bed.

So I tossed the phone to the side of my desk and left it in my office.

I went to sleep around 3am, woke up for perhaps an hour or so and then fell back asleep until 12pm. For the past few weeks I've also been falling out of the habit of meditation. Usually I would do 12 minutes per day, followed by reading around 10 pages of a random book that I would happen to be reading. Typically I read two books at the same time (well not literally the same time as my eyes work in tandem and are unable to read two different books simultaneously lol).

One is typically some sort of self improvement book, and the other some type of non fiction- sometimes a biography/autobiography or perhaps a book about war, geopolitics etc. Occasionally I will read a fiction book, but not often. I read 1984 earlier this year and enjoyed that- though some would argue it's becoming less and less of a fiction these days. At the moment I am reading 'the law of attraction' (again) and 'unmasked', which is a really good book about crime scenes, cold cases etc.

I have found that how I start my day is vital to how the rest of my day unfolds.

If I start it in a poor manner, perhaps by watching two hours of Youtube and then just lying around on the sofa on my phone or something, then typically the rest of the day will be kind of lazy and unproductive.

However, when I start the day productively, often the rest of the day unfolds in a similar manner. I am more conscious and less unconscious (the latter leads to mindless phone usage).

So today I woke up without a phone in my room. That removed the option to check social media, watch Youtube or send random messages. As a result I done my 12 minute meditation, followed by reading some of the 'law of attraction'. I think that what some of that books says is perhaps a bit hocus pocus, but I also think it's true that our thoughts often manifest in to our reality.

If we think negative things we often receive negative outcomes, and if we think positively we often receive positive outcomes. We attract people in to our lives that are similar to us, and if we don't attract the sort of people that we like, then that says a lot about us! We may struggle in one or two aspects of our lives, and see the same results (or lack thereof) year after year. Thus, clearly, our thoughts play a massive part in determining the outer aspects of our lives- whether that be interactions, relationships, success, health, poker etc.

Upon getting up I decided to skip breakfast and just head straight out of the door to the gym. It was something that I enjoyed while looking after Rocco- I would have to walk him as soon as I woke up cos it was already later than he would usually get walked (as my parents are on a more normal sleeping pattern). We only get light until around 4pm just now, so it's easy to miss it if you wake up around 12pm, do meditation/reading etc, watch Youtube, study, make breakfast etc and then head out the door.

Anyways, I ended up having my most productive day for a while. I left my phone at home and didn't get back until almost 5pm as I walked each way to the gym, done a push workout, went to the sauna, read 20 pages of unmasked and then done a food shop on the walk back home. That meant, apart from a quick 5 minute check after I woke up, I didn't look at my phone for 15 hours. My mood is so much better today due to the combination of exercise, sauna, being productive and staying off my phone as much as possible.

I also ended up playing online for the first time in two weeks (having been away in Prague and then having no interest in playing after arriving home last week). I only played for a little over an hour as the games were completely dead with basically no fish and no 1k+ games running, but I was happy to at least get in some hands and shake off the online poker rust again. It felt nice to be back.

Going forward I want to stick with this routine. Granted it is literally day one, but I really like the 'get the fuck out of the house' first thing approach. No messing around. No breakfast. Get outside. My phone is locked between 2am-2pm going forward too.

I actually love reading too. One of my favourite things to do is hit the sauna after the gym and then lie down on one of the loungers and read for 20-30 minutes.

I also booked flights to go and see my brother in Australia early next year. I am only going for a month for now, as I still have a lot of work to get done with the house, but I will see how I enjoy it and then take it from there. I'm unsure whether or not I'll be living in Scotland next year, so I'll just try out different places and see if there is something that suits me. If not then I'll just keep on looking- or perhaps I will realise that Scotland is the right place for me, who knows! I am going to be pretty open minded.

I hope everyone has a great, productive week :)

What book/movie/tv character is most like you?

Today I've been listening to the Diary of a CEO podcast with 'the body language expert' and at one point she talks about asking people deeper questions instead of the typical 'how are you' or 'what do you do' questions. She then proposes to ask someone the question- what book, movie or tv character is most like you and why?

It's not something that I have consciously thought of tbh, but I guess I have on a more subconscious level. Just the other day at yoga class I was talking to the instructor afterwards and I recommended the film/book 'In to the wild', which I have also talked about on this blog before. I also mentioned to her that I stopped buying presents for birthdays/Christmas etc after it was mentioned during the film that he (Chris McCandless) stopped doing this.

Imo presents have become too transactional, and less about being a kind gesture. The issue I have is that they are expected. Expectation can often lead to entitlement- instead of being grateful for receiving a present from a friend or family member, we criticise them for their poor taste in presents. We receive another present that we will never use and we toss it in toa cupboard, never to be seen again. Even the presents that we do like, we probably don't really need.

If I need something I will buy it. If I don't need something, I won't buy it. I don't want an excess of things that will eventually find their way in to a landfill. I wouldn't say I am a minimalist, but I lean more to that direction than the opposing one.

So what I do nowadays, instead of buying them on x or y occasion (where presents are expected) is to buy them spontaneously, if it's something I think they will actually like, appreciate and use.

When I was in Prague, for example, I bought my brother a Pokerstars hoodie (it's actually very cool, I almost wanted to keep it for myself haha). He was actually quite good at poker too, and I imagine he could have done it professionally, but he was too risk averse and would withdraw his Stars account as soon as he went on some sort of mini downswing. I have been risk averse to a certain extent as well (in terms of often taking too long to move up ins stakes) but I'm fairly decent at losing and I know that this is merely part of the game and necessary so that the fish keep coming back.

He still likes poker and plays homegame's with his friends every so often, so I am sure he will appreciate the gift. I quite like buying random things while I am abroad as well. Last year I bought some olivewood cutlery while I was in Athens for my Mum/Gran, and then I bought them these little picture frames that were handmade from the Casa Batllo in Barcelona. I'm not saying any of these gifts were particularly expensive, but at least they held some kind of meaning (I had travelled to these places) and would be of some use (people always have pictures and use cutlery/serving spoons etc).

Because I remember a few years ago now I asked my Dad what to get him for Christmas, and he wasn't sure so he just said money. Imo that completely defeats the purpose.

I am not trying to be negative about Christmas (I am actually looking forward to seeing friends/family and taking some time off) but merely about the expectation around the giving and receiving of gifts.

Chris McCandless made me start to question this process.

For those of you that don't know the book/film, after graduating University, Chris simply disappears. He doesn't have a good relationship with his parents, but he does have a good relationship with his sister. However, none of them knows where he has gone. He ends up going on adventure across America, culminating in his final destination of Alaska- where he has always dreamed of living. In one iconic scene, he abandons his car before tossing whatever dollars remains in his pocket on to the ground and burning them. This symbolises his rejection of consumerism and his entry in to the life of self sufficiency and living off the land.

Unfortunately this does not end well for him and he ends up dying while living on an old, abandoned school bus. He keeps a journal throughout the journey, and one of his final entries was;

Happiness is only real when shared.

Whenever we go through a rough patch in our lives we may think in the back (or front) of our minds that running off and living in a wooden hut in the wilderness is an appealing option. We want to escape the people that are brining us down. We want to have a fresh start. We want to live amongst nature and escape the rat race. However, we are social beings. Perhaps for a month or two we would enjoy this existence. Perhaps even for six months or a year, but at some point we would start to crave social interactions. We would wish for someone to share ideas with, to converse with, to see a smile, to share a hug or a kiss.

The people that we were running away from become the people that we crave.

I admire Chris in so many ways- his sense of adventure, his rejection of consumerism, his free spirit, his braveness, his intellect and his sense of urgency to live life. Some people stay in once place their entire lives, while others stay in many different places within their own country, and other people travel and live throughout the world. In the past I have sometimes felt the urge to live in places for the wrong reasons (more so to 'run away' instead of simply because I wanted to live there).

I think it's important to question our motives when considering a move- are we doing this because we truly want to travel/live there, or simply because we want to 'run away' or 'escape' our current life situation and the people within it.

So if I was asked the question of what book/movie/tv character I would consider to be most like me, I would have to say Chris McCandless.

I think it's important to make decisions for yourself, and not simply because the people around you, or society, or the government is telling you. I try to reject consumerism as much as possible (though I never plan on burning my money like Chris did) and only buy things if and when I need them. I like to travel, to live in different places and to be outdoors. I enjoy reading and journaling like he does- though mines is done online and his was in some random notebooks haha. I do not consider myself above going camping for a few nights or even living in a hostel for a week. I am happy to spend a decent amount of time alone, but I also highly value the importance of human connections and relationships.

At points this year I have felt something like what Chris must have felt during his final weeks and days on that bus in the middle of nowhere in Alaska- loneliness and an urge for social connections. Unless we are very careful, grinding online poker for a living can become akin to living on that bus in the middle of nowhere. We are working alone, we may be living alone. Sure we may talk to people at the gym, at the library, at a class and we may arrange seeing friends/family every so often- but it's often not enough.

I may not have moved to Alaska by myself, but I moved to Inverness in the North of Scotland with the same idea of escaping the big city life and being closer to nature etc. Unfortunately, I have come to realise, this place can almost certainly not satisfy my social needs- there aren't enough people of a similar age and mindset here and there aren't enough girls that I am interested in. Also I am starting to question whether it's optimal to live in a climate where its freezing cold for basically 50% of the year and dark at 4pm.

Anyways, I am not trying to be negative- as I've actually just had my best week in a long while. As I mentioned in last weeks post, I decided to change my routine and get out of the house first thing, skip breakfast and walk to the gym. I went there six times this week (doing 3x workouts and the other 3x days I just sit the sauna etc) and another 2x days of yoga. On Saturday I met a friend and we went to the driving range for a couple hours, which was fun. I actually played poker every day from Monday-Friday, which is the first time in a long time that I have done that. I've made sure to take my multi vitamin basically every day as well, and overall I've been in a good mood pretty much every day with this routine.

My plan for the remainder of the year is to hang out with friends/family, while making sure to clear a Stars bonus before the 31st. So I'll basically just grind a couple random days in order to clear that. Overall my results have been pretty good, but my volume has been low (as usual). On a positive note, my expenses this year have been very low (I haven't had to pay any rent etc and I've only been on two holidays). Whenever I see a $5k game running on Stars now I'll hop in it (which doesn't happen all that often in fairness), so I am happy that I am now over this mental block.

In life I think it's very important to learn from our own mistakes- whether that be a hand of poker where we completely punted off or something more life related. However, it's also a great approach to learn from the mistakes of others. Towards the end of his life, Chris highlighted the importance of relationships with others. Initially he ran away from his family, but in his final few days I'd imagine that they would be the people that he craved for the most.

When I was in the sauna today I overheard two guys, probably in their fifties or sixties, asking each other what they were doing for Christmas. 'Fuck all' said one guy (which is Scottish slang for 'nothing'). The other guy also confirmed he had no plans. The first guy said that his Mum was dead and his son had stopped talking to him, and the other guy also said that his son (or daughter, I can't remember exactly) had stopped talking to him too, and had actually fallen out with him last Christmas.

As most of us on RIO are somewhere, presumably, from the ages of 18-40, then it's very likely that our parents are alive at the very least. Perhaps we even have some grandparents alive too. We may have siblings, and we may have partners or wives. So we take this family time for granted. We take it for granted that our Mum will cook Christmas dinner and our Dad will try to keep out of the way and set the table.

However, what does that look like in thirty years time, when we are sitting in the sauna, the same age as these guys? Our parents may be dead, and what if we have never had kids, what if we have never gotten married and had kids, or if we have fallen out with our kids and gotten a divorce?

We may be the one who is saying 'fuck all' when asked what we are doing for Christmas. We see young families with their kids going to the Christmas market. We see our neighbour's having their extended family over for Christmas dinner. But we look around our home and we have nobody to share that special day with. We may think back to the days where our parents had us over for Christmas dinner, and we thought these days would last forever, but time waits for no man.

So this Christmas I will make sure to appreciate those around me, while not forgetting those two guys in the sauna who have nobody to share it with because who knows, perhaps some day that could be me.

Happiness is only real when shared.

2024 wrap-up

Life-

It's crazy that yet another year has passed. It seems like only yesterday when I was back at my parents for Christmas in 2023 and making plans, goals and new years resolutions for the coming year.

If I were to sum up this year it would be that it has been one of learning. Learning about myself from living alone, learning what I require in my life (and what I do not), learning more about the great game of NLH cash games, learning more about politics and random topics through reading and listening to podcasts, learning more about my body and what kind of sport(s) are best at boosting my mood etc, and learning more about my own insecurities and weaknesses.

I wouldn't say that this has been one of the best years of my life, but I think that sometimes we require a year like this in order to achieve clarity on what direction we are heading in. In poker downswings are inevitable, and that is the same in life too. It cannot be a constant upward trajectory of positivity, self improvement, happiness and contentment. At one point or another we will experience periods of sadness, depression, despair, mourning etc.

However, I would say this is also somewhat necessary. When we are running hot at poker it is easy to overlook simple mistakes that we are continuously making, because variance is bailing us out. We may make a questionable float in a 3bet pot and spike a set. We may make a moronic bluff and get rewarded with a runner, runner flush. We may call down with an awful bluff catcher and, fortunately, run in to the bluffing portion of our opponents range.

Just because we won the pot, doesn't mean that we played the hands correctly. Similarly, just because life appears to be going well in the current moment, doesn't mean that we are heading in the right direction, and taking steps that will (likely) head towards happiness and contentment in the medium to longer term.

Next year I have decided that I will move abroad. This is not a reactive response, this is a thoughtful decision that I have been mulling over for a while. I have booked a trip to Australia for a month at the start of March, and yesterday I also booked a month long trip to Poland in the Summer. I will probably book another month long trip some place else (perhaps Thailand) before deciding which place to move to. There are a multitude of factors that I have to think of (social life, poker, weather, language etc) but I am hoping that I will get some clarity from these trips.

What I have realised since coming back to my parents for Christmas is that there is not much reason to remain here any longer.

Of course my family are here, but apart from that and a few close friends, there aren't many other reasons. I have lost touch with the vast majority of my friends in Scotland over the years, and with everyone having kids, getting married etc then it is only heading in one direction.

So I need to make the decision on what is best for me. Where can I achieve medium to long term happiness and build a life that I will find enjoyable on a day to day basis.

I also don't like the direction that the UK is heading in, but I don't want to get to deep in to that, and the weather is starting to take a toll on me too.

On a more positive note, from a self improvement standpoint I would say this year has been a good one. Ever since I turned down braces during high school, I have thought about getting them in order to straighten my teeth. So I finally bit the bullet and got fitted for retainers. Originally I was told that I would only have them for six months, but it is going to be almost 1.5 years now- hopefully I will have them out some time in August.

I've also been on a 'bulk' for around six months now, putting on 5kg in the process. I was way too skinny, mostly from having a very high metobolism and being naturally skinny, but I've basically tracked my calories for almost every single day throughout this period, and I am edging towards my target weight. I contacted the doctor about a medical issue I've been procrastinating on and pushing to the back of my mind for as long as the braces, so I am happy that I finally decided to confront this.

I think that having so much time to think this year has enabled me to address issues in my life that I have pushed to the back of my mind for years and tried to forget about.

I will, most likely, keep a hold of my flat and rent it out- as that seems like the best financial option and gives me a form of passive income on a monthly basis.

Anyways, if I decide to do another blog next year then I will go in to this more deeply.

Poker-

I set three goals this year for poker in this blog, and I didn't achieve many of them. However, this doesn't tell the entire story.

1- Play 200-300k hands of cash.

In the end I played around 165k hands, so was a bit short. There are several reasons for this.

First of all I was only able to play around 300 hands per hour, due to the fact that 500z rarely runs and I am bad at mixing sites (this would be the next area of weakness I need to address). I don't tend to play particularly long sessions (typically 2-4 hours) as I prefer to try and play A game, instead of grinding out 8-10 hours playing mediocre poker with a low WR.

Also I lost motivation to grind, especially in the second half of the year. In the first half of the year my volume was pretty consistent and was on pace to play 200k+ hands, but then I went through periods where I could not be bothered playing. However, I am quite proud of myself in the sense that I would often force myself to play even when I didn't feel like playing. Even though I didn't play a ton of hands, I would say that I actually played quite a lot of sessions- just that these would often be less than 1k hands per session.

Anyways the main issue here is that I am overly reliant on grinding on Stars. It is, by far, my favourite site, so I tend to attempt to put most of my volume on there instead of branching off on to other sites. I will sometimes play ACR and GG, but that's basically it.

Also I ended up grinding SCOOP/WCOOP and mostly focusing on mtt's for both series, so that obviously negatively impacts my cash game volume.

Ultimately these are all excuses, but overall I am quite proud of myself for my cash game results this year, and the consistency that I showed up and played. Throughout most of my poker career I have experienced some form of anxiety before sitting down to play a session, but this year I experienced very little of it. I think the reasons for this are that I started to address things that I have things that I have procrastinated on for years (braces etc) and I have also been pushing myself out of my comfort zone, especially from a social standpoint. I think that exercise has helped too- I've been pretty consistent with the gym and also added in sauna/steam room etc to my routine.

My WR this year at cash was 4.7bb/100 (all in adjusted). In the past couple of years it had been a little too low for my liking, so I was happy to get it back (almost) to my 5bb/100 target. I think it is possible to get it higher, but I never really study my opponents or do any form of MDA sort of work, I just study from a theoretical perspective and sometimes use the nodelocking tool in order to figure out ways that I can adjust vs certain opponents.

2- Aggressively shot take $5k/10k.

To be fair I would give myself a pass on this one. As soon as my bankroll got up to my target amount (and even slightly before), I started to play some $5k. Earlier this month I was even battling $5k three handed for a short while as we waited for a table with a fish on it. I got in to the mindset of playing $5k whenever it was running on Stars, but the problem is that it rarely runs. Thus my volume was still very low at this stake, even if my willingness to play it was quite high.

$10k never runs on Stars, so I didn't really have any opportunities to sell action and grind that stake. I don't think it would be wise for me to shot take $10k with a bunch of regs in that coinpoker challenge. I'd have probably put in some hands if it was $5k though as I am pretty confident in my game atm.

Again, the main issue is not mixing sites so that I could play $5k+ on other sites like ACR etc. I still don't really intend on putting in much cash volume on GG, but I think that the $2k games may be worth playing from time to time as the rake is probably beatable there if you get in to a soft enough game. I am still unsure whether $1k is beatable pre rakeback, and I am not massively incentivised to find out in all honesty.

3- Work on my mtt game/get a $100k+ score

Obviously I can only control the former and not the latter (I basically need to get lucky) but I did notice a massive improvement in my mtt game through the WCOOP series. At the beginning of the series I was making lots of mistakes and not adjusting well to mtt regs, but towards the end I was feeling confident and finally felt an edge vs most of the mtt regs. Perhaps this was delusion on my part, but I only play around $100 abi so I don't think it's unrealistic for someone who plays up to $5knl to have an edge on mid stakes mtt regs- at least from a post flop perspective.

Unfortunately I didn't get any big mtt scores, but I did make a nice comeback towards the end of the series and I think I was only slightly down at mtt's this year, after being around $20k in the hole at one point.

So that's that. Another year in the books. Next year I am not sure how much I will focus on poker tbh. I have two months before my Australia trip and then another two months in between my trip to Poland. I really need to get on with fixing up the house so that I can rent it out in late Summer, thus meaning poker may take a back seat and I'll just play whenever I feel like it, instead of trying to play 4-5x per week.

I'm not sure. Either way next year will be a year of travel and socialising. I am no longer willing to allow the years to pass by as I sit in my office and try to accumulate more money. I am definitely not quitting poker, but it will no longer be my main priority. I need to prioritise my happiness.

Coaching-

I also want to get back in to coaching more often again. I enjoy helping others improve and seeing where they can get in the game. So if you are interested in learning a theoretical approach to studying and playing the game, drop me a message. I am currently offering a discount for players that are serious and wish to book either 5x sessions and especially 15x sessions. However this is just a short term thing as I want to do more coaching, and then I'll go back to my normal prices.

I'd like to wish everyone a happy new year, and good luck for 2025, whatever you may be doing :)

Happy new year bro, Demondoink's 2025 pls