Lockdown -Sept 23-May24
Posted by Zeneka
Posted by
Zeneka
posted in
Poker Journals
Lockdown -Sept 23-May24
Has been a long time since I used this acc. :)
I need someplace to vent and be held accountable a bit i think it will work.
Background is a long story, played up to 1k 2010, had to quit fulltime grind 2016, went fulltime again in may 2021 playing 50nl. Been working my ass off for 2y and am now playing up to 400nl but bulk is 100-200nl.
I have had some regrets about how I treated my pokercareer last time around so this time I feel an urge to not screw things up. I schedule, I do theory, zero shenanigans irl.
I love playing poker and I have nothing really comparable to fall back on, I have to cash in at least a little bit and I have to do it sooner rather than later.
So here it goes; I will use July and august to spend time with family, rest, build up me health as much as I can etc. Then from September-May it will be full on grind.
I have a study partner and we do like 10h per week together + I try to do 5h/week alone mostly repetition on what we do together. So thats what I will keep doing. On top of that I will try to play 100-130h/month, not trying to stress playing as many tables as possible, but rather playing as high stakes in as soft games as possible.
I dont mind if bulk is 200nl since I have a great hourly playing 4-5 tables there, but 100nl should just be a compliment and be like max 25% of volume.
Current hourly overall this year has been somewhere 80-100$ but I havent managed to put in enough volume so I have only made like 5k/month which I feel is just me doing a very poor job being a professional. This has reasons related to IRL stuff that I cant controll but still, playing 50-60h/month is just a waste of my potential both in developing as a player and creating a good financial situation for me and my family.
Going from 5k/mo to 10k/m would be great so that is the main goal (I dont mind more obv).
Things I need to fix to be able to compete is my overall health, it is at an solid 3/10 atm or so.
Food
Exercise
Sleep
Genereall relaxation/Rest
Hobbies
Being outside
No phone
What I have done so far:
Taken 40min walks for 3 days in a row. I want to build on this and do like 1h walks, then running slow and building up to 1h there to. Then do some HIT once or twice a week.
Thats it.
I feel like I am in a great position, I crush the games Im playing, I have a study partner that is sharp and pushes me to be better every day. Spending 40-60h month on theory should just put me in a position to move up in stakes if and when BR allows.
Any thoughts or input are very welcome, ill use this as some sort of diary to keep me on the right path.
Graphs etc might be coming later.
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Haven¨t played anything since above post. Having some vacation and spending all the time with my family. But I keep putting in the theory hours 10-15h/week to keep moving forward.
I believe it is very important to spend time away from the tables from time to time. Part of it is just to recover and reset but also to make space for whatever. I've learned that not everything can be known in advanced and it is important to make room for my body and my mind to give me input on things that are I cant reach will in full grindmode. I try to use this to calibrate my plan and how I approach this whole poker-dream I try to pursue.
Ill try to share as much of that as possible here.
Other than that I have had a few talks with my SO about the coming year and she is onboard with me spending more energy towards poker and we will try to streamline the day to day life so that we don't spend energy on things that are not that important.
Playing poker for a living can be consuming, very consuming, and to make someone else understand how hard and taxing it can be is prob close to impossible. I feel fortunate that she trust me in what I say instead of me having to overexplain things, I know others that runs into a brick wall with their SO.
But of course it will be up to me to prove that the sacrifices we both make will be worth it, not just financialy but also with how I feel and how I take care of our family when I am away from the computer.
So far we have said that 2 days a week I will be completely free, and that she gets to plan one of those days as she wish (I dont mind this at all). She will take care of unexpected things during the days while I'll do more chores that isnt dependant on an exact time and that I can plan as i wish.
We also have talked about things like food prep etc where we will plan things in advance a lot more than we do now.
We will keep improving on this as we go along.
Guess thats it for now.
Good that you prioritize your health in this period of time. I look forward to follow your journey in the upcoming period. Good luck!
Tnx! :)
Ok just came back from a 6 day vacation in the woods. Hiked to see some waterfalls and slept prob 10h/day wich was well needed.
Now I have access to my db so I can share a graph and some stats.
I guess your take away should be to move up in stakes ;)
Stakes
Graph
This is the last 110k hands and its not that big of a sample, but since I have studied so much the last couple of months my guess is that my winrate is around 10bb/100 att 100-200nl.
Following! GL GL
The bb/100 point forward. Lets go
Ok, time for an update.
Started grinding again a few days ago after spending a lot of time with my family. Took 4 weeks completely off poker, cant remember when that happended before. It was strange to sit down and play the first sessions, couldn´t remember what the stats were in my hud etc haha.
Have played about 20h now and it feels like im back in crusher-mode again.
Aiming to play around 40-50h in whats left of August. Been putting in a few great studysessions with the guy Im working with also so it feels like Im constantly gaining small edges at the tables.
I don´t know how many hours the average 100-200nl player puts in off the table but my guess is that Im in the top % with my around 40h a month.
Been talking regular walks and started to eat a lot cleaner too. Basically one big meal with meat, cheese and vegetables and then a smaller yoghurt + fruit meal.
Havent done any serious research or anything like that but low carb diet is supposed to be good for mental focus and overall wellbeing so Im going that route-ish.
I like to use the 80/20 rule in the areas Im not that interested in and 20% effort into simplifying and eating clean will prob get me to 80% of what is optimal, thats fine for now since I prob were at 20% optimal a few weeks ago.
Ok, lets keep crushing!
First 8 days after the vacation and it feels like Im better than ever. Been playing well and running well.
So to set up the long term lockdown Ive been thinking about what skills I need to develop.
In terms of direct poker skills I have to work a lot on 3b/4b pots since Ive spent a very small amount of time in the solver in thos spots.
Also I want to keep working on exploits (both vs regs and recs) since it is on of the most satisfying part of poker IMO. Playing 100-200nl is very fun in that way since everyone has huge leaks somewhere, and most players have few tools to deal with being exploited. Right now Im focusing on how far I can push aggression vs weak regulars and it seems like Ive been way to conservative in the past. There are spots (BvB) where I should have 40% 3b vs some profiles for example.
Been doing some yoga and running last week and I think that improves my overall quality at the tables, being able to focus longer and having a clearer mind throughout the sessions.
Been thinking about what will be my best plan forward with regards to how I will move up in stakes, the current situation is; I have access to 100-200nl games (and a little higher like 5-10% of volume) that are very soft, it is a small pool where I play vs the same regs all day long. If I want to move up I need to play on other sites that most likely are going to be way tougher.
I estimate that if games keep being soft on my current mainsite it will be possible to have prob 15bb/100 if I keep studying. That would mean very little variance, small BR required and having winning days way way more often than losing.
Becoming the biggest fish in a small pond has very few drawbacks as long as there are games running most of the day even tho stakes are smaller on average.
Changing sites to play 400-1k games might make some sense but until I have a much bigger BR than now I feel like just printing at 100-200nl must be by far the best move. If I can get to 15bb/100 at 200nl that is basically the same winrate as a 3bb/100 winner at 1k.
Results this month: 15k hands 5k winnings (running very well).
Ok first month is in the bag more or less. Just going to play a couple of more sessions. Results have been incredible. 30k hands or so, 10k in profit. Been running well in the higher games and more importantly, I have been playing A-game for the entire month until yesterday where I lost some focus.
One of my biggest leaks lately have been to loose focus when winning a lot and finaly I have come to a conclusion about what happens. When running very well I tend to increase the hours I play, and add 1-2 tables a bit to often wich results in me eventually having no energy left and thus being unable to focus when playing.
So I think it is a pretty easy leak to fix, just set an amount of max hours on any given day, and have a target every month.
Having a target has worked very well for me before, it also makes it easier to relax when Im not playing (as long as I am on pace).
So what are the maximum hours I can play every month without burnout? I think I want to put around 180h/month into poker at this time in my life, playing 110-120 and studying the rest. So it will take some effort to make this work since I have a life to take care of but I think it is possible. Then come next summer, Ill just take a big evaluation and reflect on how to move forward from there.
Allright other than that Ive ramped up some running, walking and cykling so Im on my way :)
Peace
September has arrived and Im reday to go!
50k hands
105h at the tables
60-70h off table
Keep running and biking etc
Eating well
1/3 of September done. Had a very bad start to the month and lost like 2,2k the first two days. After that it has been a fight to stay focused and I think I have played my B-game most of my sessions tbh.
Well last few days have been better and I am now up over 2k for the monthI havent checked it exact. So Im happy with that but I have a lot ot things to work on.
Halfway in September. Havent been playing my best as much as I would have liked but Im trying to not be to critical of myself, playing at 90% or something is completely fine when you do this every day.
I think one of the most underrated aspects of doing this for a living is consistency and I really have gotten this down lately, playing the same hours every day, studying the same hours every day etc.
Also rather than trying hard to play my A++ game Im focusing a lot on improving my game off the tables so that my 90% performance keeps getting better rather than achieving 100% performance.
Im up around 5k for September so Im very happy with that, will prob reach around 50k hands this month. Also have been running and walking more and more but I still feel pretty shitty physically but I think it is mostly my sleep that needs to improve. Averaging around 7h a night atm but I have to get in a little more and Im working on it. Now I go to sleep the same time every night and falls a sleep fast (have had big problems with this all my adult life) so Im getting there.
First month done, played 45k hands and won 8k ish so Im kinda happy but not A++.
Played pretty bad first week but got a hang of it after that. Been improving a lot and started to rework my strategy from the ground up to be able to hold my own at higher stakes in the future (maybe).
Also kinda just ok with my performance this month, started losing a lot first to days and it kinda set the tone for the month which is pretty stupid tbh, it shouldnt affect me that much imo.
Anyways I think its so nice to have 10bb/100 or more since most days are winning days, and very few days with more than 2-3 buyins or more in loss.
Some might say I need to move up in stakes but I kinda feel happy where I am atm (stake-wise), a big fish in a small pond.
8k is a lot of money and I really believe I will do better on average than that.
Have some things for Oktober;
- 50k hands
- Check results the 15th and 31st
- Get a few more hours of theory in
- Run and bike a little more than previous month
- Sleep a little more on average, I still feel a little bit to tired
- Keep cutting my spending a little (just take away some stupid things and structure shopping for food). (goal is to live day to day on 2.5k and invest the rest of my winnings, and grow BR)
Allright, lets bring on Oktober!
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