First week
It has been a decwnt first week. I've been busy with an assessment at work in order to get a permanent position, but it paid out, because they offered me one. Pokerwise Ive been playing well, running not too good. Sunday, when it was my grindday, I was sick. So I didn't reach the pokergoals. Did do the study goals through the week though, so thats a win. And I still haven't checked my results.

This weeks goals:
- Play 10.000 hands
- Watch 5 videos
- Run a script of marked hands for 'ep vs ip cc', 'sb vs bu 3b pot' and 'sb vs co 3b pot'.
- Respond to 10 hands in low stakes subforum.
- Post an update in this Journal.

Good luck! Where abouts do you teach? Not checking results was a big one for me, definitely does help with the mental game

Meh
This week has been mediocre to be honest. I've played 12.6k hands, ran moderately bad. Nothing too crazy though. I've been playing too much on autopilot though, playing 3 tables when I should play 2, not taking breaks as regulary as I probably should. Given these circumstances I've played reasonable, it's just that I miss a few too many small spots. Another thing is that it's harder to actively mark hands.

I've watched roughly 10 video's, so I got that goal though. Still, I didn't get far with my GTO+ work. I've been running sims with a standard subset of flops and let my laptop run them overnight. Will be a few nights till I have a few spots.

So this week I'm going for a change in pace:
- Play 4.000 hands (max 2 zoom tables or 4 reg tables).
- Mark as many hands as possible.
- Review every marked hand.
- Review 5 boards of my bu vs bb sim.
- Up my WWSF by 2 percent point.
- Up my button rfi by 3 percent point

THE END OF FREEDOM
The school holiday has come to an end. This morning there were 16 children (aged 12-14) from Syria, Eritrea, Hungary, Portugal and Spain lined up in front of the class, eagerly waiting for school to start (well, at least some of them were) and for me to take them to the 25 square foot room some might call a class.
Within the last months I haven’t posted much in my poker journal. I have been busy enough with making sure these children get everything they deserve, and since it’s my first year as a full-time teacher, that takes a lot of time. A LOT OF TIME. (Oh, and did I mention that I’m planning for a wedding in July?) The limited time I had left I spent on studying and playing, rather than writing about my progress. Today, as school started again, I felt like it was as good as time as any to write this update.

RESULTS & REMINDING MYSELF I SHOULD STAY PATIENT AND HUMBLE
When I started this journal, I hadn’t played a hand in months. Still, I felt like I had the skillset to beat 25nl. I had beaten 2nl, 5nl and 10nl over reasonable samples and I had acquired a roll in the process that allowed me to take shots at 25nl. Off course, I hadn’t been able to play much, but I figured I’d wipe of the rust on my game with a couple of sessions on 25nl zoom. Needless to say: I was wrong. I quickly dropped 8 buy-ins. I had to take a step back. I studied a lot, got Run It Once Elite, and moved back to 10nl. It took a while to remember myself that the stake I play now is irrelevant, it’s the stake I play three years from now that matters. All I can do now is study and improve. Here are my results for the past 8 months:

From now on forward, humble is the way to go. I’m not done at 10nl, and I shouldn’t feel like I am. I still have a lot to learn and 10nl is probably the best place to do just that. It is difficult to face, but I’m just not as good as I sometimes like to think I am.

THE PARETO PRINCIPLE: FOCUSSING ON MOST COMMON SPOTS
I’ve asked myself the following question: what skills do I need, or what parts of my game do I need to improve, in order to make the transition to 25nl as comfortable as possible. The plan I made for myself is loosely based on the Perato Principle. The idea being that 20% of the work leads to 80% of the results. This works the other way around too, sometimes 80% of the work leads to 20% of the results. Granted, it’s an gross over-simplification of reality to state that 20% of the work will always yield 80% of results, but I still think the concept translates to poker in a way. I could study some rare spot that only occurs once every full moon, but rather than spending a lot of time studying 4bet pots bb vs ep, I figured it was better to get a better understanding of basic spots that occur often (flop play on single-raised pots btn vs bb and sb vs bb is my main target). Not only are those the most reoccurring spots in poker, they are also really hard to play, because ranges are wide. A lot of EV to be gained.
Other things I want to focus my attention to are polishing my preflop game and strengthening my mental toughness (also a lot of work to be done there). I will share the plan here later this week and I will evaluate and share results when spring break ends early may.

MOVING FORWARD
I will try to update this journal more often. Not that I cherish any expectations about anyone missing this journal when I stop writing. It’s more for myself than for any of you. So expect graphs, hands, thoughtfull insights and maybe a video or two!

PERSISTANCE IS KEY
As i've lined out in my previous post, I've created a plan for the next couple of weeks. The goal is to keep playing zoom 10nl, build the roll a little further and try to learn as much as possible in the process. Here are my main goals for the next 10 weeks (school period + spring break). This week I set the following goals.

The bankroll is at €1119,18

SHAPING THE PROCESS
Things have been pretty intense. My goals were a little too ambitious. I especially underestimated the time it took to review the 74 flops. The first boards I reviewed extensively, also looking at our strategy on various turns in different branches of the three. After a while, I realized I had to keep it simple. Now, I'm almost finished and I have a base strategy for in position on all 74 boards. I suspect however that I'm going to need more time too evaluate the results for the 'SB vs BB' sim, because there will be a lot less rangebetting and a lot more mixing going on. I still like the way of studying though, so that's good. Also I'm going to play 3 tables instead of two from now on.

RESULTS
Videos watched: 8
Hands played: 5.889
Net won: -$8,84

NEXT WEEK GOALS
- Play 10.000 hands
- Watch 7 videos
- Finish reviewing 'BU vs BB 74 flops' sim
- Run 3 extra 'SB vs BB' scripts in order to speed reviewing process next week
- Study notes on videos bij Julian Kopansky on underbluffing and overfolding.

I'm yet too see the light, still
I felt like writing a mid-week update. I have been playing and studying a fair bit. I've finished crafting flop strategies for all 74 textures bu vs bb. It has helped to get a better understanding of range interactions and I can already tell that I have a clearer idea of where I am ingame. I also played roughly 10.000 hands, playing 3 tables max, managed to win a few buyins and generally feel like I'm slowly moving forward mentally and technically. Baby steps. Besides that, I'm at 3 of 7 videos and the weekend is het to come.

Still, I feel a bit disappointed with myself. I'm still not where I want to be. I'm still trying to shape my playing and study process in a way that yields maximum results. I'm still yet to commit in a way that's going to really change my results. I felt like I needed that of my chest before going to bed. Sigh :(

Hows it going?

I don't even beat 10nl
Lately, I've come to terms with the statement above. My results just haven't been great. Or good. Or mediocre. Since the start of this blog, I've put in a lot of hands. Without succes. Overall I've played way too many hands on 10nl, the results are mediocre at best.

Making changes
I do feel I've made a lot of improvements though. Not only to my game, but also to my attitude towards the game. In the samples above there is a lot of 4-tabling. I have been so focussed on getting volume, grinding through the stake, rather than trying to learn the most while playing, trying to think about the spots that occur. This has changed. I don't play more than two tables now. Finding this quote by Saulo Ribeiro has helped me a lot:

Volume is overrated. Stop what you are doing, buy the poker software you need and start doing the work that is really going to get you where you want to be. Break the cycle man. It's time.

Direction
I've also made a lot of improvements on my general learning process. When I started this blog, I used most of my time to play poker. Besides that, I watched a couple of video's per week (without taking notes, obv.). Now I make a weekly schedule that looks something like this. This video showed me some valuable insights.

Still I feel like I lack real direction. I know where some of my leaks lay, I feel like I'm on the right path sort of, but I feel like I miss the map to consistent growth as a player.

Being realistic
I think it's time to come to terms with the fact I'm still a losing 10nl player. It's a hard fact, but I have to accept it in order to move on and do everything I can to change that fact. For now, that is my only goal in poker.

Not a crusher by any means
I think I've had my worst month ever. When I look back now, I know I've not played my best game for most of the month. I've been struggling with my mental game a lot, making all kinds of mistakes along the way. For as long as I can remember I've had issues with confidence and self-doubt. This is part of the reason I was afraid of moving up when I played poker back in 2008-2014. I think i've played over 5 million hands of 2nl on stars. Just grinding 24 tables. Not even thinking about spots. When I look back at that period now, I can't imagine never finding the confidence to even try 5nl and move up. Now I've got my life back together and I don't rely on poker as an income, I just want to progress. I know I have to work hard and be patient though. There are no shortcuts.

The positives
Although my results have been horrific, I still see a lot of good things that happened. I've found a new balance, in which study my (mental) game has become more of a routine. I've been doing all kinds of stuff and I actually feel like i'm on a path to consistent growth. I can actually feel I'm starting to become a better player. The results will come eventually. I've been studying my mental game, doing MDA, simplifying my gametree, finding a grinding routine that works, I've started a journal and a session log and I've been living more healthy. A few times a week I'm running now while listening to audiobooks, which I can recommend to anyone. (reading tip: Thinking fast and slow). But most importantly, I've come to the realization that volume is overrated and focus is underrated. A big one, especially considiring most of the losses I've had this month where from 4-tabling zoom when on slight to medium tilt :-)

Looking forward
The next month or two, I'm going to play 4 regular tables of 10nl on PartyPoker. I've been looking into lower rake alternatives, but as of now I prefer having the option to review hands and improve, rather than making money. Maybe I will diversify a bit when I reach 25nl.

Goals this month:
- Play 30.000 hands (4 regular tables max)
- Finish building popups in H2N to do range research
- Find a way to simplify my game tree (I've been watching a lot of Nick Howards content lately :-))
- Post weekly recap with graph
- Run 20 min every working day and eat 250 grams of vegetables every day.
- Keep using a weekly planner
- Keep using session log and aim for 8+/10 for focus every session

The shameful graph:

Weekly recap
This week I've been pretty busy. It's been rough trying to balance my love life, social life working full time and trying to improve in poker. This week I gave the first two more attention, which definitely felt like the right move. Most of the poker-related time I've used to build a popup to do population research. This was a pretty time-consuming task, but I'm happy that I've sort-of finished it. I have a popup that allows me to research numerous lines in all kinds of spots. The plan was to just do the lines, but yesterday I really got the hang of it and also created reports for different flop, turn and river textures. I haven't had any time to do anything with it yet, but still I feel pretty happy with the result for now.

I haven't grinded much and I don't know if I'll hit my volume goal this month. I try not to worry to much about it and focus on the process instead. This has worked out fine, since I haven't played too many tables and I can feel my thought process becoming clearer. Still I have some troubles, especially making folds in underbluffed spots :(.

The class of Elias
Also I wanted to share something that has really moved me. On television there was a documentary on called 'The Class of Elias'. In this documentary the film maker helps Elias, a Syrian refugee who came to Europe two years ago, in his search for his old class mates from back home. Most of them he hasn't heard a word from since the day he fled the country. All they have to go from is one class picture that was taken on the day the first bombs went off. It found it devistating, yet inspiring to see how Elias and his friends found the strength to rebuild their life after most of their youth was taken from them by this brutal war. I feel humbled that, as a teacher who teaches children simlar to Elias, I can be part of their process and help these children to shape their future.

Next week I think I'll have a little less time than I did this week. Think getting as many hands in as I did this week is a reasonable goal.

Letting go of all my fears
I have no idea how to start this post. This week has been so intensely contradicting in nature. For the first time since I started this blog, I can say that something really changed in the way I perceive this game. I have watched a lot of Nick Howards content lately, and it really guided me and gave me the direction I so desperately needed when I started this blog a few months ago. It feels like I found a hidden door, and behind that there is endless scientifically driven data that has provided me with so many valuable information already. All I have to do now is study, integrate, repeat. It honestly feels that simple. I'm so excited for what the future has in store for me. And even though I have one of my biggest losing weeks since starting this blog, I can truly say I’ve never been more confident in my chances of becoming a 100nl beater in the years to come.

In a way, I feel the same way as I did when I started dating my fiancée, five years ago. We had a rocky start: she was young and she just came out of her first serious relationship. She made mistakes. In a way, we both did. We were both naïve and insecure. Scared to commit.
I remember this one night when it all happened: I had gathered all my stuff and quickly ran to the bus stop to take the last bus back home. We lived several miles apart back then and I knew I had no other option of getting home. I ran as hard as I could. When I got there, I looked at my phone to see that there was still a few minutes before the bus would arrive. I sat down, lighted a cigarette, expecting to feel relieve. But I didn’t. A few minutes later the bus came and left without me. There were no other options anymore. I walked back, only to meet her halfway. That was the real moment of relieve. It was such a counter intuitive moment. Upon that moment I had always walked away when things got difficult. I always felt like it was more convenient to not bother trying. Because if I’d try, if I'd really try, I might find out that I’m just not good enough. It’s such a paradox: in order to gain (self)trust I had to let go of the fear of getting hurt.
Now, more then four years later, a lot has changed. Since that moment I’ve cleaned up my life: I stopped smoking cigarettes and weed, I paid of all my debts (of which there where many), I got my bachelors degree and became a teacher. Two years ago we started living together. Last summer I asked her to marry me and just a few months from now I’ll be able to call her my wife. And if that’s now enough, yesterday she gave me an early bithday present (I turn 29 in a few hours). She somehow got into my old Pokerstars account and bought me into the Anniversary Sunday Million tomorrow. Very excited to play such a big event. (I’ll forgive her for collaborating with the enemy for now��)

The future
The upcoming months I’ll be continuing on the path I’ve stumbled upon. (I actually have to thank Saulo Ribeiro for directing me into Nick’s direction). I still have a lot of obstacles to overcome, a lot of things to learn. But for the first time feel a real sense of direction. I’ve created a routine that I’m going to follow for the next 30 weeks. Within that timeframe, I’m not going to check my results. I just don’t see any reasons to do so. Every time I checked my results I started to compare myself to my own expectations and started to feel the urge to win right now. To be able to show results right now. So that I would prove to myself and to the few people who are reading this that I’m a winning player. It’s just not the mindset that I want to have. I have a sufficient roll to overcome the most horrible swings and I’m not going to move up until I’ve shown consistency anyways. So either way I’ll continue to grind 10nl for the foreseeable future. Within that period I’ll update this journal whenever I feel the urge. Hell, maybe at some point, when I feel confident enough, I will be able to share some insights ��.

For now, I'll stick to posting my last mandatory graph (for the time being):

Back on track
So, it's been a while since I updated this journal. Can't imagine anyone has had a lot of sleepless nights over this, but still I thought it was time to for a new entry. Things have been going great the last couple of months. I've found a routine and I'm constantly studying a lot. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not a crusher by any means and I don't think I'll be one soon. But I'm working hard and I know I'm on the right track. It's funny how fast things can turn around when you are humble enough to question every certainty about your game you thought you had.

I've moved up from 10nl to 20nl, and I'm certain that I've not reached my ceiling yet. When I look back at the goals I've set at the beginning of this year, I think it's very well possible that I'm going to achieve them. I might be able to take some shots at 50nl if things are going to keep up the next few months. Although I might just use the money to get some coaching instead. I guess time will tell.

Roll: €1516.68

Good luck!

Honeymoon and chill
At the moment I'm writing this in the train on my way to an ill planned meeting with our wedding photographer. It's almost the end of the schoolyear, my first full year as a teacher, and with a planned marriage just before summerbreak, I can honestly say it's the most hectic period of my life. I'm sure in the end it will all be worth it, but at the moment I'd like to just crawl up in bed and pretend there are nothing that needs to be taken care of :-).

Afer we get married (the 12th of july) we have a day at home just to chill and then we're leaving for our honeymoon. We're travelling close to a month through southern Europe by train, visiting a total of 11 cities, including Nice, Milan, Barcelona, Valencia and Paris. One of the perks of having severe fear of flying I guess.

The infamous x number of hands challenge
As you probably figures out by now, I didn't have a lot of time to spend on poker. I imported my hands of the last two months today, and I've managed to play 25k hands total. I spend most of my time studying though, so considering everything I'm actually pretty happy with that number. I feel like I'm making insane progress. As Nick Howard would describe it: I'm emerging into higher context (or so I would imagine). And because I'll be traveling a lot by train during my honeymoon, I expect to keep up with my study schedule the forthcoming weeks. When I get back at august 8th, I'll have two weeks left before the start of the new schoolyear, and since I didn't get a lot of volume in, I decided it was time for a challenge.

The goal is to play at least 50.000 hands (4-6 regular tables max) for the rest of August. For now, I'll leave you with a graph (last two months):

Quick recap
Since the last post a lot has happened: I've gotten married, traveled through Southern-Europe for almost 4 weeks, started taking drivers lessons, began working out again and a few weeks ago the new schoolyear started. When I wrote my last post, I thought that august would be a month of freedom and focus, of hardcore grinding. But I was wrong. It turned out I didn’t have as much time as I expected, and besides that I didn’t want to spent august behind a laptop =).

New beginnings
The start of the schoolyear has always been a moment to regain focus for me. I’ve had a lack of structure most of my life, so when the summer holidays start I tend to let go of everything and return to my natural chaotic state of being. So after 6 weeks of drinken too much, sleeping irregulary and eating unhealthy, I kind of start craving for stability and structure again. Last few weeks I’ve gotten back in the rhythm of work, taking drivers lessons, working out and besides all that I spent around 15-20 hours on poker every week and I plan to do so till the end of the year. During my honeymoon I couldn’t play at all, but since we traveled a lot by train, I had a lot of time to devote on studying the game.
I’m getting closer and closer to the goals I’ve set for 2019, which I’m pretty thrilled about. I’m beating 20nl at a reasonable clip (small sample though), and I’m getting closer and closer to being able to take shots at 50nl. I still have a lot to learn though, so even though I could take a shot right now, I’m probably going to take the safer route of studying a lot more, getting more of a sample in and then take some shots. I know I have to become more consistent and there are still infinite spots and lines I need to study to start crushing real hard.

Bankroll: €1914.23

Early recap
I'm signing off a bit early this month. I haven't been able to put in the volume I would have liked. Besides work and my social life there just isn't a lot of room to grind. I have also been going to the gym 3 times a week, which I'm definitely happy with because I gained a lot of weight on my honey moon. Either way: stakes and graph. As you can see I've been taking shots at 50nl and even though I didn't run good, I still am proud that I've made it this far. I started a little over a year ago on 4nl and just taking the shots feels like all the work I did was not for nothing. I'll get there. It's just going to take a while.

The upcomming month I'm doing things a bit different. I have been studying a lot the past year. If I had to put it in numbers I'd say at least 60% of my poker related time has gone up on studying. This month I'm going the other way around. The goal is to play a lot and really challenge myself. I'm aiming for 60k+ hands.

Crushing through 20 and hitting brick walls after
Last week I played a lot (for myself) on 20nl and I've crushed pretty hard. I've been working on keeping focussed and don't get distracted by my phone or the internet while playing, which has helped a lot. The fact that I couldn't lose a flip helped a lot as well, haha. I won a lot and by the end of the week I figured: why not take a few shots at 50nl again? My bankroll was sufficiënt, I had a lot of confidence, so why not dip my feet in the pool and see what happens?

It didn't went as fruitfull as hoped. The games we're pretty good, but especially in the beginning I got way to emotional. It's something I've strugled with every time I moved up and it's something that fades over time, but every session, every flip I felt like I had to win. Like the money suddenly mattered. I didn't play very good and lost quite a bit back over 3 sessions this weekend. There's light at the end of the tunnel though; over the stretch of these sessions I could feel myself getting more comfortable. It isn't that much harder. I'll get there.

Endgoal
The last few months I've thought a lot about what my endgoal is for myself in poker. I don't want to eventually turn pro. I have a wonderful job and I know that the stability that I need the stability and general happiness that it offers me. Yesterday I had a realization though: I think I might want to work a bit less, maybe offer coaching some day. Who knows.

Bankroll: €2442.72

Let's recap
At the beginning of this year, I set some goals for myself. The most important was beating 10nl and 25nl. The first few months I struggled. I felt like I lacked direction. I had the energy, the time and the determination, I just didn't know where I was heading. I studied actively, watched videos, took notes, but still I felt like something was missing, hence the title of this journal. I came to a point where I realized I needed help. After reading Saulo’s blog, I decided to contact him to see if I could get coaching, but given the fact that I still pendled between 10nl and 25nl, I quickly came to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to afford him. So I explained my situation and asked him for advice. Generously enough, he took the time to give me just that and a little bit more. And it changed my trajectory completely.

End goals
For a while, I didn’t have a clear end game for poker. And as a struggling microstakes player, there’s not much more to fantasize about than getting yourself to a point where you are actually winning. For me, looking beyond that seemed pointless. Now that I found direction and the results are getting there, I can allow myself to look past the micro’s. I know I still have a long way to go. I’m nowhere near where I want to be. But seeing the progress I’ve made, I can finally admit to myself that some day I'd like to wake up and see if there are any games running at 500nl+. It’s still a long way, and maybe an endless one, but the last few weeks I started to realize that if I keep working hard, if I keep improving, it just might happen one day.

Moving up is hard
After moving up to 50nl, I found myself struggling again. I ran bad, but the games are tougher as well and it took me a while to adjust to the higher stakes. Now I’ve settled a bit and I feel way more comfortable. And even though the results are still not very good, I remind myself every day that learning the maximum every day is way more important than winnings this month. That’s also why I’ve applied to two CFP-programs (PokerDetox and BRPC from Saulo and Zinhao). Both seem like a good fit and even though I realize getting accepted a longshot, I feel like it’s the right path for me now. Let's hope they feel the same way!

Hey man,
Well I'll tell you what Saulo told me: 'If you follow Nick Howard's content, you' ll be Allright. '

The direction you should towards is simplifying your game tree and finding out where the population is deviating from equilibrium. Find for instances spots where the population overfolds or underbluffs and adjust accordingly. There are a lot of free videos on the Pokerdetox YouTube channel that can help. Also read Saulo's blogs here on RIO, with the Postheumus of a Microstakes grinder in the Pursuit of Balance blog as a highlight.

If you want to talk some more, just hit me up via PM. I've been coaching another guy from RIO for a non-premium fee. And even if you're not going to be able to, I'd be happy to point you towards the right direction.

Signing with PokerDetox
Today a big dream of me has come true: I've signed a deal with PokerDetox. It still feels surrealistic. Ever since Saulo pointed me towards their direction, I've eaten up every tiny bit of their content, slowly progressing day by day ever since. And now I'm just super thrilled to be taking the next step as a part of their CFP.

Goals
Since I've reached most of the goals from the beginning of this journal, I figured this would be a nice turning point. So I'm setting some fresh goals:
- Start working a day less to get some more time for poker.
- Learn to effectively plan study/playing time on forehand and follow that schedule rigidly.
- Play 500.000 hands before the end of 2020.
- Beat 50nl and 100nl with a significant win rate.
- Write at least one entry in this journal a week and focus them more on strategy and random thoughts and a little less on how things are going with the grind.

How To Use A Solver #1: Using A Manageable Framework

A quick disclaimer: I’m NO expert. If you want expert material, take a RIO-subscription and browse through the library. There is more than enough expert content over there on this subject.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s start. Say you’d want to investigate how to respond to check-raises on the flop, how would one go about that? One of the first things most players do, is see what equilibrium looks like and study that like it’s a vocabulary. Not that long ago this is what I did as well. But is this really the smartest way to go about things? We know that humans deviate a lot from what solvers like to do. Even the best players in the world can’t replicate something that even remotely looks like equilibrium. It’s just too complicated. So while the game is solved on an AI level, on a human level, we don’t even come close.

Forming a base-line
What we can do, is try to find a more human threshold and use that as a baseline. We do that by diving into our database using Holdem Manager or PokerTracker. Let’s roll back to our defend vs check-raise example; say we’d like to know how often our population check-raises vs our cbet. First, we can group a bunch of regulars from our database into an alias. Since we want to use node-lock later stage to develop counter strategies, we’ll have to filter for a specific formation (in this case we’ll go for BTNvBB). That means we need a lot of hands to get an somewhat accurate base-line. Depending on the size of your database and the size of your pool, you might want to go group regulars very liberally, ensuring you have a large enough sample. Another way to go about things is to use Hand2Note and do mass-database analyses, but since this option is a little bit more complicated and more expensive, we’ll stick to HM2 or PT4 for now.
When I created an alias with ~300k hands and ran the filter (our population is on the BB and there is one preflop raises who is from the BTN), these we’re the results:

(Note that I’m playing on a partly anonymous site, so I had the option of including ‘Player 1’, ‘Player 2’ etc. in one alias, making life a lot easier.)

A gradient approach
Now that we have our numbers, we can compare that with the check-raise frequency in equilibrium. We can obtain them by running a large sim with a lot of different flop textures and taking an average check-raising frequency for the out of position player from all. The average check-raise frequency a solver uses for this formation is roughly 15%. Compare that to our number and you can see that the population is check-raising (a little) less then optimal. Since we can’t just assume every player is check-raising 13% on the flop, one more thing we should do is to create two more thresholds: one for players that are likely to be check-raising less than average and one for the more aggressive subsection of regulars. That way, we can investigate how to counter three different strategies:
1. Villain check-raises 10% (less than the population)
2. Villain check-raises 13% (the average for the population)
3. Villain check-raises 16% (more than the population)

Reasonable assumptions
We’re not done though. We still need to compare the solver strategy to what we think most humans will do. Here we have to rely on some assumptive work. Since we want to use a framework that is manageable, we’ll go through a sim of 15 flops that are a somewhat accurate representation of the 22100 possible flops. The goal is not absolute accuracy, but rather finding a base-line solution within a framework that is manageable. A higher number of flops would increase the accuracy of our research, but it will also increase the amount of time we spend on this. Time we can’t spend on other important spots.
When we go through a number of grids, two things stand out:
1. Our population doesn’t seem to check-raise as depolarized as the solver would (meaning they check-raise less of the mergy subsection of hands like weak top pair, MPTK etc.)
2. Our population doesn’t slow play as much as a solver would with the strongest hands in their range. This makes sense from a practical standpoint; the population also doesn’t barrel off enough as the in position player vs check-calling ranges, therefore check-raising early on is more incentivized.

Off course these are just assumptions and unless we do a range composition analyses in Hand2Note we can’t be sure of what our opponents range looks like, but I’m pretty confident that these assumptions are at least somewhat fair and should be weighed in when we node-lock our opponent strategy. The idea here is that including them will more likely than not increase the accuracy. One thing to keep in mind is that although our assumptions may seem reasonable, they are still assumptions and therefore should be always be weighed in to a certain degree. Over-adjusting the solver strategy might taint the results.

So when we node-lock villains strategy, we will make sure we only node-lock to a slightly less depolarized strategy and a slightly higher check-raising frequency with the nutted subsection of hands.

Running the script
One last thing we have to do is to get create a spreadsheet and play around with the check-raise frequency for the 15 flops we’re investigating to make sure the averages of the three strategies are close to the 10%, 13% and 16% benchmarks we’ve set out:

(Note that the average check-raise on these 15 flops is a bit lower than when we'd use a larger, more accurate subset of flops. This is something we have to account for moving forward.)

After that we’ve got a check-raising frequency for all three strategies on all 15 flops and we can use node-lock to match those frequencies, while also weighing in our assumptions. In the end we’ll end up with three different scripts, each one matching one of our benchmarks.

And then, all we have to do is investigate :)

A few things I’ve learned from dropping 30 buy-ins on 50nl
Well, the first one is pretty easy: I’m not as good as I thought I was. My grind on 20nl has been smooth sailing for the most part, but since I’ve moved up I’ve hit nothing but brick walls. When you fall as hard down on the face as I did, it’s only natural for the ego to tone down a bit and humility to take over. I mean, sure I ran bad, we all do sometimes. But I must have done some things horribly wrong, right?
Well, the short answer is yes. But the last few weeks I’ve tried to find an more thorough answer to that I wanted to internalize in order to prevent this thing from happening. Here are a few observations:

Performance-stress
So why did I lose as much as I did? The games are certainly not that much tougher and I did not run that bad either. The first answer is simple: performance stress is real. Every time I moved up I endured a lot of stress. It’s only natural. Where on the previous stake the result of a single session didn’t affect my mood in any notable way, enduring a 4 buy-in losing session on a higher stake definitely does have a considerable effect on both my mental state as well as my game. Suddenly I’d ask myself all these questions: am I good enough? Will I win this back? What if I keep playing and keep losing? Should I change something?
All these thoughts and insecurities creep in the mind and take over like supernatural parasites. Win rate isn’t a static thing. It depends on a lot of factors, like your skill level, the skill level of your opponents, your mental state of that particular day and a lot of other factors. If you’re in a spot where you’re enduring a lot of stress and you don’t take the necessary precautions, it can easily turn a positive win rate in to a losing one.

Knowing how to take shots is important
One more thing I definitely did wrong is not have a solid game-plan for taking my shots. I’d just decide to play either at 50nl or 20nl based on my mood on that given that. Sure, I moved down for a few k hands after losing a ton, but I didn’t have a framework in place to guide me when things got tough. When everything comes pouring down, it’s inevitably going to cloud your vision. If you don’t have a solid framework to fall back on, it’s a slippery slope to keep playing just a little while longer to avoid the embarrassment of having to drop down. After doing some research, I found a few tips that seem very basic, but I still didn’t apply properly.
1. Choosing a proper stop loss. For me this is going to be 5 buy-ins. If I lose them at 50nl, I’ll just drop down to 20nl and try to recoup them.
2. Take shots when you’re feeling well. Like I mentioned before, win-rate isn’t a static thing. Shots are important, so why would you play half-tired and a little hangover from drinking the day before?
3. Take shots when the games are good. On the same token, why would you play on a Wednesday afternoon vs 4 capable regs and one tight fish while you can just postpone your shot to Sunday and play vs a way softer field?

Changing your strategy takes humility
Every time your changing your strategy, wether it’s a minor change or a big shift, it’s inevitably going to affect your game. Say you did a database review and you find that you’re not 3betting enough out of position. So you create new ranges based on a few valid sources and after that you start playing again. But then a few spots come up, spots that you’ve never in before because normally you’d already have folded. It’s totally unrealistic to expect to be able to navigate through all these spots while you are playing at a higher stake. And yet I did. I made considerable changes to every part of my game after I joined PokerDetox, but I lacked the humility to just drop down while I was getting accustomed to those changes. And it cost me a lot of money because of it.

Where I’m am at now
Right now I’m in the process of recouping some of my losses in order to take another 5 buy-in shot at 50nl, and since I can’t seem to lose a hand at 20nl, luckily that has been a pretty smooth process up untill now. Next shot I’ll definitely take on a Sunday, after a good night sleep and a healthy breakfast, and maybe this time around things will be different.
I’ll leave you with two fun hands I played the last couple of weeks. I think my next entry will be a live play video, since I’ve been recording a bunch of them lately. My main goal for this blog is being able to track my progression when I move through the stakes, so I think a video would be kind of cool to do.

Bluff-catching with 2nd pair in a 500bb pot vs a raging fish
Villain humiliates me

First Hand is nice. What was your reasoning? Good blockers and villain is repping only a very small valuerange? Also many draws are busted on river.

Mini december challenge
The end of the year is near, a time of reflection is upon us. But before that, I want to do one more quick challenge. I have two weeks off from work and besides the holidays and spending time with the wife, I want to spent most of my time playing and studying. I've set some study and poker goals, the main goal being a volume goal:
- By the 6th of january I want to have played 30k hands (at either 20nl or 50nl) playing 4 regular tables max.

Happy holidays!

Recap
With the last hours of 2019 approaching, I thought it would be as good as time as ever to look back on my goals from last year. It's pretty hard to imagine that only a year has passed. Just reading the first post in this topic gives me the feeling decades have gone by. I sort of crushed all the goals I've set in the topic. I don't know exactly how many hands I've played, but probably around 250k hands. I'm in the process of getting all the handhistories in one database, but it may take a few days. I also have moved up from 10nl to 50nl and I even took my first 100nl shot yesterday, which at this point still feels pretty surreal to me. I don't know, it feels like I actually have a shot getting to mid/highstakes.

Goals for next year
In general, I want to approach poker a bit more professional. I definitely didn't get all out of it. I can't even count the number of sundays I sat down at the tables with a pretty severe hangover from the day before, feeling tired and nauseated. I think if I want to take the next step in poker and in life, that's gotta stop. Seeing the health of my mother decline pretty steeply last year sort of urges me to make changes as well. I'll start of by not drinking in january and then sort of see where that leads me. Besides that, I decided to start working one day less. It might not seem like much, but everything I've accomplished the last months I did while working full time. If I want to give myself a real shot at higher stakes, I gotta have more time. Some actual numbers:
- Play 500.000 hands in 2020.
- Move up to 100nl and take shots at 200nl by the end of the year.
- Review every pot over 10bb won/lost.
- Buy a house.

The ambition-sustainability paradox
The last two weeks I did a mini challenge during my holidays. I didn’t reach the volume target (30k hands), but that’s okay. I still did a lot of things with friends or family and since I work full-time during most weeks, my holidays are also a time where a lot of social activity takes place. I tried to trim it down as much as possible, but in the end it’s also necessary to not let my ambitions and this sense of urgency get the best of me. It’s a strange paradox, because in order to get to high stakes I’ll have to do everything I possibly can to stay (get) ahead of the curve, but in order for my growth to be sustainable, I’ll have to be able to let go from time to time, which is something I have a lot of trouble doing lately. Today my wife told me that she had changed her plans and would go out with friends on Saturday and the first thing that popped into my head was: extra time to play, extra time to study.

Lately I’ve had a lot of trouble sleeping. I don’t fully understand why yet, but I feel like it has a lot to do with the sense of urgency I feel. Half a year ago mid stakes (or even low stakes) seemed light years away. The last few months it all started to become real very fast. There are times where I go to sleep, only to wake up two hours later feeling like I need to do something. Review hands, study ranges, watch a video. Something. I know the answer to the paradox is balance, but I still have trouble finding it, let alone being able to effectively apply it in life. I know taking rest is important, I just want to get to high stakes first :).

Result-wise I did pretty good. I made some pretty big technical changes, but overall I just ran very hot.

Also made one really thin value shove I wanted to share :)

Enjoyed this thread! Was a good read! A poker thought I've been having lately is that preflop and flop play can be studied quite hard and our play is rewarded more more theoretical study. Turn and river decisions are rewarded with more abstract and critical logical thinking, and experience plays a bigger part than theory here. Game tree is deeper on later streets, obviously these spots can be studied hard out of game, but in game, the ones with strong intuition reign supreme(on the later streets)

All the best for 2020, will be following. Cheers.

Random thought: players who have surrendered to the fact that they can try their best to get to high stakes and still not succeed have the highest chance to get to high stakes.

Long time no speak
At the end of january I got pneunomia. In itself it was pretty annoying because all I could do is lay in bed for two weeks straight. I didn't get to play poker, didn't get to do much of anything. The most annoying thing was something different though.

I don't remember when exactly, but there was a point somewhere during the year when I realized that this poker thing might just work out if I'm able to give it all. I was still working full-time, so in order to stay ahead the curve I had to be willing to do more in less time. So I spend whole 2019 gradually getting better at living a balanced and structured life. It started with simple scheduling, eating healthier, drinking less. After that I managed to get into a sleeping routine that worked for me, for the first time in my life. I woke up every day at 6, did a 10-minute work out and studied poker while eating breakfast. It took some time, but I got better and better.

At the end of autumn my wife asked my over dinner one time what I wanted to do with my poker winnings if things kept going the way they we're. 'I don't know, maybe start a bussiness,' I replied. She laughed. 'You're not structured enough,' she said. I remember thinking for a minute. In a sense she was right, I had never been a structured person. In most of my adolescent years that was always a problem. But the last few months I had really made steps. 'How late did you wake up today?' I countered. It's weird, I've had thousands of conversations, some of them on much bigger things, but I remember this one vivedly. I think it caused me to see that for me poker might be a way to get the best out of myself.

The annoying thing is that all of that went out of the window when I got sick. Some days I slept more than 18 hours. There we're days where I didn't even think about poker, let alone keep to a reasonable schedule. Now I'm feeling all better, but it takes some time getting back in shape again. Something that BenCB mentioned in a Poker Life Podcast with Joe Ingram helped a lot:

Don't set goals, build a system. Focus on the things that are in your control. Work-out, study on a regular basis, meditate every day, eat healthy six days a week. Don't get too attached on the outcome. Don't focus on 'I want to achieve this within five years'. Just build a system that improves the odds of you succeeding as much as possible and then accept whatever result may come from that.

January graph
February graph

I think one of the reasons I have been attracted to poker is roughly the idea that good processes become good performance and, perhaps counterintuitively to some, poker provides better feedback and less risk compared to something like starting a business with little experience. It is however no less future proof.

I enjoyed scrolling through this blog this morning. Congratulations on your marriage. Your wife looks so happy. Best of luck.

Corona quarantine

It’s crazy what’s happening to the world at the moment. Cities, regions and even whole countries are in lockdown. People are not allowed out in the streets. It all feels pretty surreal. A few days ago we got the news that our country is in a state of lockdown as well. Every day more people are getting infected and every day more people are dying. I’m still young and healthy so I’m not that concerned for my life, but it scares me to think about family members that are already struggling with their health. For me personally this also means I can’t get into work for the next couple of weeks. It sucks, because I love my job, but it also gives me the chance to get some more volume in.

Since I haven’t been posting a lot here, so I decided to do a little volume challenge. I’m at a stage where I’m making some real improvements and I want to revive this thread a bit so someday I can look back at this journey and see what I was up to.

The challenge will be as follows:
- Play 60.000 hands before the end of april. This might not seem like a lot, but I get roughly 240 hands in per hour, so it actually is a lot.
- Post a weekly graph.
- Post a weekly article about a concept I’ve learned.

If I succeed, I will book a weekend away for me and my wife when everything is settled down.
If I fail however, I’ll donate 250 euro to a good cause and do a free database review for anyone who replies in this topic :)

I guess I've seen the light
Last month I had my biggest month ever. I've been playing decent volume, especially after the lockdown set in. I managed to get to the 60.000 hands I wanted to play, but I didn't update my topic as often as I wanted, for which reason I'll give PrankCallRiver a free database review :). I'm also going to donate 250 euro to a good course. I'm not entirely sure which one, as I find a suitable one, I´ll let you guys know.

All in all I'm very thrilled since I've come a long way. The question that keeps popping into my head is: what's next? Honestly, thousands of thoughts have popped into my head. The most frequent recurring one: holy fuck, I could actually make it.

What I learned from playing poker all day
Well, that volume is overrated, still. In the beginning of the challenge I changed my schedule, I started playing more, studying less. This caused me to shift my focus more from my process to the results. Normally I have a very rigid study routine, so whenever I have a big losing streak, I can look myself in the mirror and say I'm doing everything I can to be a better player tomorrow, therefore I don't have to worry about shortterm results. After the lockdown hit, I started to let go of my regular schedule and instead started playing all day. In my defense: the incentives we're there. Anyone who's played a hand of online poker has noticed the games looked an awfull lot like I imagine they we're in 2005.

But I realized that just playing all day is not working for me. I like to study, figure shit out, and in return I have an easier time accepting losses as part of the game. On other words: when playing poker is all you do all day, you sorta want it to go well. When it's just a part of your day, it's easier to look at the bigger picture, at least for me.

So, what's next?
I honestly don't know. Within a few weeks my school is opening again and I can't wait to start teaching again. On the other hand I feel like I can do something bigger with my life, something that I couldn't ever do teaching. So, honestly, I don't know. I'd like to go pro one day, but I'll try to stay humble and take it one step at a time.

Challenge graph

Wow. Gratz Man!!!

This blog should be pinned to show the poker dream is alive.

Clicking buttons
A few months before I started this blog, I asked my wife (fiancee at the time) if she thought if she was okay with me taking 200 euro out of our savings account to play online poker with. She stared at me for a second. "I don't know,' she replied. "I just don't think we can afford it right now." She was right. At the time we had just moved because our previous landlord went bankrupt. She was still in college and I just started teaching. We didn't really have any money and the money that we did have we desperately needed for our wedding. I had to swear the money would be back into the savings account exactly one year later before she eventually (and reluctantly) agreed to let me deposit the money.

Lately i've been thinking a lot about that conversation. At the time, all I could think about was getting better, moving up and playing at a higher level. I worked full-time as a teacher and during the nights I spent my time studying all the material I could get my hands. The weekends I allowed myself one night off, the rest was packed with playing and studying. In the beginning I struggled a lot. There we're nights, around the time I started this blog, where I had lost and felt like giving up. It was hard. I remember numerous nights where I just stared at the ceiling of our tiny bedroom, asking myself if I'd ever be able to beat the micro's. The only thing that kept me going was my ambition

Now I'm at a point where I don't know what is next. I'm making more money clicking buttons online than I make at my job. But do I want to 'just' click buttons all day, every day? I'm not sure. I don't think I'm made for that. I love teaching and the fulfillment it gives me. I love the interaction, the a-ha moment when the student gets it. I love playing football with the boys during lunch breaks. I don't think I'm ready to give that part of my life up for just playing poker.

Right now I don't know what's next. I'm reducing my hours at work so I'll at least know what it's like to go semi-pro. I don't know if I'll ever go full-time pro thought. Maybe, at some point, I might get into coaching, so I can combine my poker-knowledge with my teaching skills and help others. I think I'd like that. But for now, i'll just stick to clicking buttons.

I'll leave you guys with my very first hand at 500nl.

Let's re-evaluate
I wanted to do a quick re-evalution of the first six months of 2020. I'm very grateful for the place I'm in currently. My results have exceeded what I thought was possible by miles. I'm getting really close to high stakes, a place I'm eager to reach. The most important thing is that I gained self-trust. I know I'm still not there. I'm not even close. I still go out drinking on fridays only to regret it the next day. I still miss targets on a regular basis. But I'm more aware of the process and I'm grateful for where I am.

Exodus of the Microstakes Grinder
One other realization I had is that I'd like to help others out like some people have helped me out. I know I wouldn't have been close to where I wanted to be, if it wasn't for Saulo's blog for instance, that set me on the right track. Self-indulging as it may be, I'd like to be a person that helps others. Therefore, I'll be releasing a series of articles here with lessons that helped me get from where I was a year and a half ago to where I am now.

Lastly, If you are playing micro/lowstakes right now and are looking for some help, be sure to hit me up!

Note: I've updated the graph I posted here earlier. Initially I included hands without rake from GGPoker. I thought the difference would not be as big as I thought. It turns out they both take way more rake and give way less rakeback than I initially thought. Now I've taken these hands through a converter to give a clear representation of my results.

I love a good success story!!! Awesome man, just awesome.

Thanks man, means a lot!

Awesome results! I haven't read the whole blog yet, but looking forward to diving in and learning about your journey. Looking forward to the articles as well!

Okay, so I´m going to release my first article. It will be one in a pretty long series. In the first ones I´ll primarly focus on how to study, rather than what to study. I do realize that might not be what most of you are looking for, but it´s something that I think is very undervalued. It will probably be a pretty long series. The goal will be to provide a framework for all guys who don´t really have effective systems for improvement. I hope it can help some of you out.

Exodus of the Microstakes Grinder Part I: Deliberate Practice (I)

“The difference between expert performers and normal adults are not immutable, that is, due to genetically prescribed talent. Instead, these differences reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance.”

Dr. Anders Ericsson (aka the expert of experts).

Spelling bee
In one of his researches, Dr. Anders Ericsson interviewed dozens of Spelling Bee contestants to see why some of them excel and why some of them don’t. In earlier research, Ericsson’s research-partner Angela Duckworth found that grittier contestants we’re more likely to put in more practice hours and therefore had a bigger chance of success during contests. In the new research the goal was to see if there was a relation between the type of study of spelling bee finalist and there success rates.
They found that there we’re basically three types of activities recommended by experienced spellers:
1. Reading for pleasure and playing word games like Scrabble.
2. Getting quizzed by another person or a computer program.
3. Unassisted and solitary spelling practice, including memorizing new words from the dictionary and reviewing words in a notebook.

It’s what you do, not how much you do it
The results we’re quite staggering. It turns out that it was not so much the amount of time a finalist spent on his or her training, but rather it was the type of practice that mattered tremendously. Finalists that mostly used the third form of practice – the only activity that researchers define as deliberate practice – exceeded to further rounds far more often than any other kind of preparation. Interestingly enough, there was not a single link found between reading for fun and advancement to further rounds. Lastly, on average spellers rated deliberate practice as significantly less enjoyable than any other activity they did to prepare.

During my younger years, I really wanted to be a professional football player. Every day after school I would get my ball and play on the field behind our house. Sometimes with friends, but often, when there weren’t any friends willing to play, I’d just go out there alone. I’d practice my shooting by aiming at walls, threes, you name it. I think I must have spent hundreds of hours trying to get better. And yet I barely did.
One of the reasons is a severe lack of talent. But the other reason is my practice wasn’t deliberate. I didn’t set clearly defined stretch goals. I didn’t get immediate and informative feedback. There was no high concentration level. There was just a lot of repetition without reflection and refinement. It didn’t meet any of the criteria for deliberate practice.

So, what is deliberate practice?
Deliberate practice is a structured process with the specific intent to improve a skill. In order to become better at aiming your shots in football, it is important to set a clearly defined stretch goal: ‘Yesterday I hit the tree with 5 out of 10 shots. Today I’m going to hit it 6/10 shots or more.” It would have been better if I had a coached who gave me feedback. “Put your left foot next to the ball. Lean a little more backward and hit the ball with the inside of your instep.“ Stuff like that matters.
In order for practice to be deliberate it needs to meet the following conditions:
1. Clearly defined stretch goals
2. Immediate and informative feedback
3. A high concentration level
4. Repetition with reflection and refinement

In my next entry I’ll go over my process and how I incorporate deliberate practice in my study routine.

I´ve used this book as a source. I´d highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to improve their performance on and outside of the poker table.

Exodus of the Microstakes Grinder Part II: Deliberate Practice (II)
In this article I want to give you a few tips on how to integrate deliberate practice in your study routine. A big part of my study routine is based around the principles I’ve laid out in the previous entry, I want to note however that I’m not an expert on how to incorporate this type of training in your study routine. I just do what works for me. So, with that out of the way, let’s go over the conditions for deliberate practice one more time.

A clearly defined stretch goal
In order to get a clearly defined stretch goal, it’s important to dissect a skill into the smallest possible sub-skill. Say you want to get better at defending versus c-bets. While that’s something most players should desire as most of the pool is still overfolding, it’s way to broad to be able to define a clearly defined stretch goal. So what you’ll want to do is dissect the skill into the smallest possible subskill. A clearly defined stretch goal would be: I’m going to go over 25 hands where I was on the big blind and faced a 1/3th c-bet from the button. Note how I’m convieniently choosing a spot that occurs very frequently, rather than going over spots where I face a river raise in a 3bet pot. Basically I’m applying what is called the Perato Principle, which states that 80% of the results are usually gained by 20% of the work you put in.

Immediate and informative feedback
This one can be tricky. The most effective and informative feedback comes from a qualified coach. An added benefit of hiring a coach is that you most likely are able to get the feedback right when you need it. ‘Well, I’m playing 10nl right now. How do you think I’m able to afford a coach?’, you might say and you’d be right. Microstakes players usually have limited resources. Getting coaching may be on your wish list, but getting a tracking program or a solver might be a higher priority (and cheaper). What you can do is trying to find a couple of guys who are at roughly on the same level as you and create a peer-group where you review hands and discuss strategy. Other ways to get feedback accumulating data by using solver results as a benchmark.

One last tip: don’t be afraid to ask people for help. I'm at a point right now where I still need to force myself, but it's infinitely better than when I didn't do it at all. Most people like to help other people, so just force yourself to contact people, build up a network. It's going to be your most valuable asset as a poker player.

A high concentration level
Often more is less. My approach is to take a few spots every week and study them about an hour to 90 minutes at a time. I find that after the hour mark my concentration drops at a pretty high rate and I don’t get the same results for every minute I spent. There are a few more extreme approaches, like the Pomodoro Technique, that advocates 25 minute sessions with 5 minute breaks.

Repetition with reflection and refinement
The rest is just all about doing the actual work and reflecting on the process before, during and after. Going back to the defending versus c-bets example; you might find after you’re first session using a solver to predict defending ranges that on some boards you’re strategy was working quite well. You found the check-raises you needed to find and you we’re able to predict a few cuspy hands correctly. Upon reviewing you found that on paired boards you had some trouble reaching the appropriate defending frequency. You decide for your next session you’ll focus on these board specifically.

In this article I’ve linked a few videos from the Youtube channel Better Than Yesterday. I’d highly recommend going over their channel if you are into self-improvement. In the next article I’ll go over a few learning methods I use myself that could be qualified as a form of deliberate practice and I'll go over my own schedule to give you an idea of how I'm making sure I'm as prepared as can be when I start my session.

Cool post! What sites are you playing? Do you play zoom or reg tables?

Dan Self I'll be going over my study process in a little bit more depth over the next few entries :)

For how long were you engaged before you two got married?

We we're together for six years and one year engaged :)

COACHING FOR DETOX
Today is a big day for me. I've got asled to help the coaching staff at Detox to help players just starting out on the program. Honestly thrilled that I get to have this opportunity. I love teaching as well as poker and being able to get paid to do both is a dream come through.

I'll also be running my own small team within the cfp for players that get to Detox through me. I'll be offering exclusive coaching to speed up the integration process and guide them through their journey from low to midstakes and beyond! Yesterday we've signed the first guy and I can't wait to start to actually work with him.

Anyone who's interested feel free to pm me!

Hi
Amazing results - Amazing progress in such a short time. I think many players would like to go your way.
I have big requestl and it would be nice if you could analyze my video recorded from the game.
Best regards and good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tROiQQxDR4k

Consistency versus freedom
Usually the summer is filled with travel, hanging out with friends and drinking a lot more than I should. As you all are very much aware, this yeah is a quite different. The lockdown is over, but we decided to stay home anyway. There is some fomo for sure, but I think it's better.

Results-wise this month has been awesome, I played solid most of the time, but I lacked consistency. I didn't play nearly as much as I wanted. One night I'm playing 8 hours, the next one I quit after an hour to get some drinks in the city. I've talked about this with my mental game coach and later in a call with Nick Howard, and it made me realize two things:
1. I should schedule a set amount of hours to grind a week at set times and I should treat that part of my schedule with the highest priority.
2. I have to form habits and routines that can help me get more efficient.

Together with Nick I created a schedule that should allow me to easily play 10k hands a week. Since I've decided to give going pro a real shot this year, I think that should be the bare minimum I should aim for. As a form of accountability, I'll post a weekly graph from now on to see how I'm doing.

(There are some rakeless hands from GGPoker included in this sample, I actually won $8.6k)

Coaching
The other thing I'm really stoked about is the fact I started coaching some of the new recruits and lower division guys at Detox. It's been a lot of fun talking hands with these guys. Besides that I got to bring a few guys on to the team to give them intensive coaching and get them to midstakes+ as fast as possible. It seems like we'll starting off with two guys and I honestly feel like these guys will be at midstakes before the end of the year. They seem really motivated to make this poker thing work and I think they both are going to surprise themselves over the coming months. I'll be looking to add a few more guys over the coming months, so if anyone is interested, be sure send me a message!

EXODUS OF THE MICROSTAKES GRINDER PART III: DELIBERATE PRACTICE (III)
In this third and last article on deliberate practice, I’ll give you guys a few practical examples on how I use the principles derived from the previous entries to guide me towards a more effective study routine.

Line drills
When I’m developing and implementing new strategies, I like to drill the spot by going over a set number of hands in that formation. Say after some solver work I realize that I’m not check-raising enough versus small c-bets, then I’ll load a number of hands into the solver and drill this specific action. Whenever I’m in doubt I’m running a quick sim to verify if my hand ever check-raises and/or what other hands constitute as a check-raise in equilibrium. If you want to mimic a real-game environment you could use a shot-clock. There is an infinite amount of interval timers you can use on YouTube. The stretch goal I usually give myself is 25 hands. This is more than enough to keep me busy for a while.

Drilling equilibrium
Another way to drill strategies is to use programs like Simple GTO Trainer or GTO+ to play against a solution. Although it’s sometimes hard to interpret why a solver is doing what it’s doing, this is still a very effective way to get immediate feedback on your game. And since you'll be drilling a set number of hands, there is actually a clear stretch goal for you to aim for. A big drawback is that the program is mostly used to train solver-like equilibrium strategies, whereas humans are rarely able to mimic a solver correctly. Therefore, in most instances ‘playing GTO’ will actually be sub-optimal. Still, it’s a very nifty program that’s perfect to actively study GTO solutions. But you don’t have to take my word for it, some of the biggest crushers of the game also use this program, like in this video of 500z reg MyNameIsKarl.

Spaced Repetition
If you don´t have access to either of these programs, then try to to create your own drills using a flashcard program like Brainscape. Flashcards are a highly effective method to implement new strategies. I’ve created many libraries studying my preflop ranges, my blueprint strategies, but also sets where I mimic in-game situations like defending versus c-bets. Just the process of creating these cards helps to integrate the knowledge, as you'll actively be studying the solutions to find spots that are unintuitive and therefore need extra drilling. With the use of Brainscape, you’ll also have the added benefit of applying an evidence-based learning technique called spaced repetition.

Watch-and-pause
Another technique that I like to use when watching videos here on RIO is pausing regularly in spots that I find challenging. This is especially useful when watching liveplay videos. The obvious drawback is that it’s not possible to set a clearly defined stretch goal, but it is a inventive way to get some feedback on your own thought process in-game. Besides finding it generally more fun and engaging to watch videos while trying to actively compare my level of analysis to a few of the sickest crushers in the game, there is infinite evidence that active learning yields higher results compared to passive activities like watching and listening.

Check-decide
And then there is CheckDecide, which I believe will be the holy grail for optimizing poker study techniques. CheckDecide works in a similar fashion like Simple GTO Trainer, but it has the added benefit of coaches being able to give students the context they often so desperately need. It’s cool to see a solve where your combo jams over a c-bet in a 4-bet pot, but being able to recognize specific data points in the hand that lead to that action is a whole other ball game. You lack context. And CheckDecide gives you just that. You’ll basically play hands you’re coach has uploaded, provided with his commentary. While there is still some work on the development side of things, I’m certain that this eventually will turn out to be a way more effective learning tool than any other currently out on the market.

That’s basically it. You know what you need to know on how to use deliberate practice in your study routine. If you would like to learn more about this subject, I highly recommend you guys to read GRIT, by dr Angela Duckworth, one of the world’s renowned and leading scientist when it comes efficient and effective learning methods. For my next entry I have a few ideas in mind, but I’m open to suggestions.

One more thing
Besides I wanted to let you guys know I’m still open to add more guys to the stable I’m creating within PokerDetox. The first two guys have recently signed their contracts and a third one is on his way to make it to the team. Players who join via me will get direct access via a Discord chat, weekly coaching calls and a Dropbox with all sorts of content. Besides all that the most important incentive is obviously a scientificly sound, data-driven approach that has made many (myself included) rise up through the ranks.

Bad variance, good variance
A lot of shit has happened since my last entry, so I figured it was about time for a new one. Since last time I moved into a new house, which has been a massive upgrade for me (no more playing poker a narrow corridor, looking forward to be able to stretch my legs whilst playing, haha), but everything that could go wrong, went wrong. To summarize: there was a storm that flooded the entire street the week before we got in, all the furniture we had ordered got delayed multiple times, the previous owners had removed the access point for internet, so no wifi and to top that my phone broke down as well. Long story short: I've been living in my bedroom with limited internet access for the last couple of weeks. Couldn't play much at all.

Luckily last month I got in a couple of hands and ran hotter than the sun, so had my best month ever. If all goes well this friday everything regarding the house will be finalized, so I can finally get back on the grind. Hopefully I can get in some hands before the month is over, since I just played 35 up untill now.

Coaching
The group within Detox that I'm coaching is slowly growing. Right now there are four guys in there that are really eager to climb the stakes. When I get internet access again, we'll set up a bi-weekly call, which I'm really looking forward to as well.

If you are interested in this, or if you just want to talk poker a bit, my door is always open. You can add me on Discord via: freenachos#2821

Talk soon :)

I'm mixing 400 and 600 if it runs at Winamax right now. Of things keep going this way I'll take a shot at 1k as well soon.

Unbelievably inspirational. Thanks for sharing your journey :)

THE POKER DREAM
One year and eight months ago I started this journal as a struggling micro stakes grinder. In one of my first sentences I wrote: ‘In this journal I’ll write about the struggles I encounter towards my end goal, beating z100nl.” Now, one year and eight months later I took my first shots at high stakes. I guess if I want you guys to know one thing, it’s that the poker dream is still alive.

I’m not saying it’s easy. Just scroll through the first entries here and you know I’ve suffered my fair share. There we’re many nights when I closed the tables, pacing around the living room realizing I simply wasn’t as good as I thought I was. This realization still comes once a month btw :). I’ve felt like quitting more times than I care to remember. But for some reason the next morning I'd sit down at the kitchen table and do it all over again. I guess there’s a fine line between determination and plain foolishness :).

I wanted to end this post with a shout-out to Nick Howard and the entire Poker Detox family for paving the way and giving me the chance to walk in their footsteps. I couldn’t have done it without you guys. Honestly I still can’t believe how much my life has changed and for that I’m forever grateful.

Also, I'd like to extend my offer to help anyone out there that is struggling. Simply hit me up in DM or ask me anything in here. I wouldn't have made it this far without the community and I'd like to give back.

Can’t Hurt Me
The last few weeks have been the most exciting times since I’ve started this journey. Honestly, I don’t think there is anyone that’s ever had such a blast losing as much as I did. It’s weird, I’m in a place where I feel almost complete acceptance over the fact that there are infinite things that are outside of my control. I think the most important change I’ve made over the last year is trying to take full control over the things I do have control over and that makes it easier to surrender to the things that I don’t have any control over.

I’m currently reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins and something he wrote really resonated with me. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but at some point during his training to become an navy seal, he hurts his legs significantly. He tries to continue, but on top of being on the toughest training in the world he is now injured as well. Pain is everywhere. He thinks about quitting, but he decides to hold on just a little while longer. He reframes the pain he’s feeling as just another obstacle that has to be conquered. After a while the pain slowly fades away. Throughout the rest of the training the pain comes and goes in waves, but he pulls through. Eventually he felt like the pain was pushing him forward, rather than holding him back. ‘I’m fucking doing this hell week while being injured and I’m actually capable of getting through this’.

I won’t compare the pain of losing at poker to doing a navy seals training on what turned out to be two broken legs, but something in this story resonated with me. Right now things are not going my way and this would have been something I’d feel discouraged by. Like I mentioned in my previous entry, there we’re many times where I’d just be pacing around the living room asking myself when this all would stop. For some reason now it’s different. I haven’t lost more than this ever, yet I feel like this shit is only driving me forward.

I think being able to reframe downswings is one of the most important things a poker player can learn. I’m not saying you should deny the emotions you have when shit starts hitting the fan. Don’t deny your emotions, accept them for what they are. If you feel hurt, feel hurt. Take a deep breath and tell yourself: ‘It’s okay to feel hurt right now. It’s okay that I get emotional over this. It just doesn’t define the actions that I’m taking.’ In Goggins journey, he didn’t try to pretend he wasn’t hurt, but rather he accepted that he was hurt and realized that that wasn’t just a negative thing, it was also an opportunity to prove how tough he was.

That’s how I feel right now. I still get annoyed when I lose yet another flip. I still feel the pain of booking losing sessions. But at the same time there’s something empowering in getting punched down hard and standing up again.

Pursuit of balance
So the last couple of days I hit a bit of a rough patch. Poker-wise it's been up and down a bit. I won enough back at 500 to shot 1k again, then won a bit, then lost a bit and now I'm taking a more gradient approach. If there is a good 1k table I'll just sit at it, but if I have to choose between a reg war at 1k or a good 500nl table, I'll just opt for the latter. The swings can get pretty crazy in terms of $, but I'm doing allright dealing with that.

The struggle has been more outside the tables. The thing is: I'm getting dizzy from time to time. The world starts spinning, vision gets all blury and I need to lay down for a couple of minutes for it to fade away. I think it's just the workload being as high as it is right now. I'm still working full-time and besides that I'm trying to embark high stakes, doing coaching privately, doing group coaching, studying. It's just too much. I've been working with a guy that has helped me to compartmentalize my schedule and prioritizing my goals. This has helped a lot and I might write an article on it here when I got everything down.

Ultimately things will get easier when I significantly reduce my hours. Untill then I gotta find balance, because this is just not systainable.

(Stole the title of this post from Saulo's blog, which is a must read for everyone if you ask me!)
The s

A final note
A bunch of guys have hitted me up through DM and on Discord asking me if I do private coaching outside of the Detox stable. The answer is no :). I work with a group of guys within Detox, which has been a lot of fun, so feel free to hit me up if you're interested in that!

[X] First $10k+ day

Wow I just stumbled upon that blog it is really inspering to see your progression.

It amazes me to see hard work and diligence pay off.

Congratz buddy

All good things come to an end
After being on stake for a year my time with Poker Detox has come to an end. Right now the feeling that dominates is sadness. Over the past year my life has changed so much and it's weird to realize that I'll be leaving the place that's for a big part responsible for all that.

I will be forever grateful to Nick, Gabe and all of the guys that made this year life changing. I never would have imagined that all of this was possible for someone like me and there are many days where all of this feels like a very long, soothing dream. I've been in poker for almost 15 years now, I played more than 5 million hands on the micro's without ever finding the strenght to move past 50nl. And now I'm playing on some of the highest stakes available. Again, a massive shout-out to Nick, Gabe, Patrick, Matt and anyone in Detox that helped me realise my dream over the past year, for that I will be forever grateful.

I don't know what the future holds. For now I think I'm going to focus on the grind and do some private coaching along the way. Who knows, maybe I'll apply to become a coach here on RIO. We'll see :)

I've been in poker for almost 15 years now, I played more than 5 million hands on the micro's without ever finding the strenght to move past 50nl

Omg, I have the same story but with 4M hands instead.
Tyty for this post, you don't know how much you are helping me right now.

I want to join PD because I thought they would change my life, and you basically confirmed that.

Best of luck and keep us updated

That's one of the biggest compliments I've gotten in a while. Feel free to hit me up anytime bro!

Private Coaching
Hey guys, since I've stopped coaching for Detox I'm looking for a few students that want to get private coaching. I'm pretty sure that I'll soon be mostly targeting 100nl-500nl players that want to make the jump towards high stakes, but as I'm just starting out right now I'm starting with more reasonable prices (especially for guys that take a 5 or 10 pack). This will be a limited offer as I'm expecting that I'll find enough guys through my network soon. Hit me up via DM for prices:

My entire journey has been documented here, so my skill level is probably pretty clear. In terms of my coaching ability: I've been a coach with Detox for a little under a year now. There are a bunch of guys that joined the program through me and that had 1-on-1 and group coaching sessions with me. Most of them have rised through the ranks themselvers now. I'll ask to see if they want to leave a review here.

Incredible story, congratulations!

Dreaming big
Over the last few weeks a lot has changed. I've had to deal with (and I'm still dealing with) tax issues that caused me a lot of stress. I couldn't play for over a month, slept horribly and ended up resigning from Poker Detox - the company that guided me to high stakes - as a result of it. Right now I'm eager to put all this shit behind me. There is still a lot to take care off, but at least I have the option to bet on myself again succeeding in this game that I love, which is all I ever wanted.

Over the last couple of days I had the time to reflect on what I want from poker moving forward. I came up with the following goals:
- Play 1000.000 hands this year.
- Make a quarter million
- Take shots at 5knl towards the end of the year.
- Update this blog once a week.
- Become a Run It Once coach.
- Become the best private coach in the space.
- Carefully craft my own methodology and start my own stable towards the end of the year.
- Set up an high-value affiliate business.

It's funny, because when I started this topic I formulated an end-goal of 'beating z100nl'. I never had imagined that all of this would be possible for someone like me. I honestly never expected to get past 100nl, let alone ever reach high stakes. But now that I'm there, I don't want to limit myself anymore. I used to be really scared of failing, now I'm just scared of not giving it my all.

I will write a weekly update on Monday to reflect on the past week. Maybe I'll do an occasonal stream if there is interest in this. This week the main goal is going to be focus on the grind and pump volume. I'm aiming for 25k hands, which - again - is pretty ambitious all things considered, but I'm super eager to get back on the grind again and I want to leverage that. Let's go!

Balancing Covid and the grind
Over the past week I've played more hands than any other week over the past year. I've come up short of my 25k hand goal, but there is a lot of stuff going on right now, so I decided not to be too harsh on myself. My wife has tested positive for Covid on Monday and she's been getting a little worse every day. It's nothing to be too concerned about, right now she just has severe flu symptoms, but it is stressful for sure. I know it’s not reasonable to have expectations this high in times like this, but I’ve been so bad at navigating day-to-day choices for so long that it’s pretty hard to surrender to the fact that there are indeed times where shit just hits the fan and it’s outside your control.

On a brighter note: coaching has been popping off like crazy, way more than I expected. I’ve been raising my prices pretty consistently over the past week, but it’s not holding anyone off up until now. It still baffles me sometimes that people are willing to pay me to talk about this game that I love. Such a bizarre feeling.

For the coming week I’ve decided to lower my expectations a bit to just playing 15k hands. I’ve been developing symptoms myself, so I gotta wait and see if I’m able to play much anyway or if I’m going to be forced to stay in bed for a couple of days as well. Time will tell :)

Recovery
It's been a tough few weeks. Right after my most recent entry I got tested positive for Covid as well and it's been pretty tough for the both of us. I mostly felt like I was drugged for the most part. I was tired, my mind felt clouded, like I was hangover after a long, drug-infused weekend at Burning Man. Needless to say I didn’t play any poker. Even if I wanted to, I just wasn’t up for it. It was frustrating at times, but luckily I slept 14 hours p[er day, so didn’t have too much time to be too worried about it.

Right now I’m doing a lot better. I’m eager to get back to the felt, but I still gotta take it chill a little bit. Starting next week I want to pick up my full-time schedule again. I made the commitment to myself to play 20k hands a week with a minimum average stake of 500nl. I’ll post a weekly review here to hold myself accountable. First one is up March 15. Let’s go :)

Can't believe I missed this journey. Resonates with me loads. Im a teacher trying to progress beyond the micros despite several years of trying.

Love the mda stuff and the deliberate practice article. Ive used gto+ a bit fir that but always feel overwhelmed by the endless branches to the game tree. But having consumed this journey today, i know i need to focus on the commin spots to find exploits.

Gl. Looking forward to the next installment

All the best Patrick. You have transformed me from being a NL10 breakeven player at best to a NL100 player with contract at Poker Detox. You are an incredible good poker coach.

Wow, can't believe I somehow missed this thread!? Like in the dark here going to read through the whole thing later! I

This journal is the nuts. Actually inspired me to stary my own.

20k hands/ week at 500nl :D, is that some zoom format or just reg tables. That sounds incredible. Could you maybe give a little more detail on what your schedule looks like. Really want to put in more volume myself at reg tables! Thanks and good luck!

NACHOSPOKER
Today I’m happy to announce my own coaching and staking company, NachosPoker! After being in poker on and off for 12 years I can honestly say that this far exceeds any other success I have had during those years. To be able to combine the two things in life I love doing most, teaching and poker, on a consistent bases whilst building relationships with a lot of fresh (and some older, you know who you are) faces in the game is truly a blessing.

The goal of our company is simple: get players from low stakes to mid- and high stakes as quickly as possible. The core of our methodology is based on simple metrics derived from 2020-2021 pool data, allowing players to exploit their opponents in zones where it is most incentivized, blended with simplified GTO principles. A lot of work has gone into crafting the strategy and I’m very excited to see where this all might lead to.

The "old" face is pleased to be in :D

Another months in the books
It's been a swingy month on pretty much every front. I haven't been able to keep up with my volume goals, which to be fair is probably more a function of them being unrealistic to begin with. At the moment I'm still working two days as a teacher, I've set up a business and I'm trying to play as much poker as I can, which is challenging. Since I'm also playing on non-taxed euro sites, I am forced to play during the nights, but since I have to wake up early two days a week still, it's a fairly ineffective schedule where most of the time I feel like I'm jet lagged.

Next month I am going to allow myself to have lower volume expectations (aiming for 60k hands in April) and hopefully get some better results in the process.

Graph BB
Graph $

Scheduling 101
Over the past year I've had to balance the grind, with coaching and a full-time job as a teacher, which at times was challenging. As someone who has lacked structure and dicipline for most of my adult life, it took a lot of falling down and standing back up again before I found a routine that worked (sorta). In this article I'm outlining some lessons I learned the hard way.

Allow for time off
Time has been my most scarce asset since I started to take this poker thing serious. When I started on stake with Detox a little over a year ago I was working five days a week and often felt destroyed when I got home. In the weekends I had at least one social activity, leaving very little time to study and grind. I forced myself to study for an hour after work and then play 3 hours. I barely took time off and when I tried to do nothing but watch Netflix for an evening, I often felt stressed because it felt like I was wasting valuable hours on something that didn’t help me in achieving my goals. As it turns out, I was making all the basic mistakes that somebody eager to reach high stakes is bound to make at some point; I was burning myself out. Essentially I was taking a loan out on future time. Around November I started to get panic attacks. I would walk in the grocery store and started hyperventilating. I’d get dizzy in front of my class. In the end I had to take two full weeks off and it took me till mid-way through January when I felt like I was able to pick up the pace again.

The first and last hour of the day are yours
One of the other big changes I made over the last year is going to sound very counterproductive, but I think it may have been the biggest upgrade I made. During the first and last hour of the day, I’m allowing myself to do whatever I want. I don’t need to do anything! In the morning I wake up, drink coffee and read the news for the better part of an hour. I eat a little bit and exactly an hour after I woke up I’m plowing up the stairs to get behind my computer to study.
Now you may think: what a highly ineffective use of time. But for me it works. Prior to doing this I’d plan to get started 15 minutes after I’d wake up and sometimes I’d do this, but other times I felt so tired that I just kept sitting (and sitting), until after an hour or two I’d finally crawl behind my pc, feeling super stressed because (again) I hadn’t sticked to my schedule. Now that I’m allowing myself to chill a bit, I’m actually way more consistent.
The last hour of the day I usually fill with listening to an audiobook. And even though I really like playing poker, there are often times where I’m in the last two hours of my grind and I’m looking forward to that moment where it’s just me laying in bed with my earphones in, totally relaxed, not a poker-related thought on my mind.

Choose one thing to focus on
It used to be that I’d come home from work, cook dinner, eat, study for an hour and then play for 3 more. While it may seem like it’s effective to stuff your schedule full with little bits and pieces of everything, often times it’s better to compartmentalize a bit and focus on one thing at a time. Right now I’m working in 4 hour blocks. If I’m grinding, I’m grinding for 4 hours. If I plan for study related stuff, I make sure I get in 4 hours. That way my schedule feels less fragmented and it gets a lot harder to skip entire segments. It’s also a lot easier to plan breaks when you are taking the breaks at the same time each day.

Sit down whenever you’re supposed to sit down
As poker players we have the luxury to choose when we want to play our session. There are players that like to wake up early in the morning, get a work-out in and then play a 9-to-5 type schedule and there are players (like me) who like to play during the nights, when everyone else is sleeping. This luxury comes at a price: it’s very easy to postpone the start for ‘just a couple of minutes’. And the weird thing is: whenever your starting time is not fixed, it seems like every night something important pops up right before you’re supposed to sit down and play. It took me a while before I realized that if you want to play poker for a living, it’s probably good to be at least disciplined enough to start on time. Right now there is rarely a session where I don’t start at exactly the time I was supposed to start. No excuses.

Link to my schedule

Low volume, low stakes
Putting yet another month in the books. With the stable just starting out this month, the workload has been crazy. Besides the stable popping off, I'm still working two days and I've been doing a lot of private coaching as well. So all things considered I think I should be fairly happy with the volume I put in. Since I've played all of that volume on just one site (for tax reasons), I had to mix in a lot more 200nl than I wanted, but it is what it is.

For next month I'm going to aim a lot higher. I'll have a lot more time and I'm going to diversify and play across a couple of sites, so I'll be able to play a higher average stake as well. Gonna try to aim for a minimum of 100k hands.

Someone that recently got accepted in Detox hit me up today and asked for advice on how to take the most out of the opportunity. I think it's pretry useful (if I say so myself) for anyone, so I'll share it here as well:

In no particular order.
1. Try to connect with as many guys as you can. I'm a social introvert by nature, so I usually don't take initiative but in Detox I made it my goal to reach out to guys and build connections. Those connections have served me very well. Don't be affraid to ask for advice, people are happy to give it for free.
2. Share as much of your resources as you can. For a lot of guys this is counter intuitive, because it'a easy make the mistake of tbinking that if I give you sometging without something in return you won something and therefor I must 'lose'. It's usually the nature of a zero-sum game and as poker players we often are trained to think like this. The reality is that in a multiplayer zero-sum game it can be very benificial for you if other players 'win' (by you sharing something they don't have). Inevitably you're going to run into some walls and when that happens there are going to be plenty of guys that are willing to return the favor (making it a win-win).
2. Click the buttons you're supposed to click as consistently as posible, especially on the river. Many of the guys that started to develop 'systems' that allowed them to deviate ended up getting coached by me. The first thing they'd ask is: what are you doing different. The answer was always the same: I'm not doing something different, you are. Call if you're supposed to call, bluff if you're supposed to bluff.
3. Build effective habits. Start small. I started with doing flashcards before my session. I was working full-time and didn't have a lot of time to study and play. By doing these flashcards (the check-decide ones) consistently I got a little better each day. Consistent growth is what you'll want. Choose that over one big upgrade each month every time. Try to use poker as a hedge to develop skills that transfer to the real world as well.
4. Invest in yourself. If someone that plays d4/d5 offers coaching on the side, go for it. The upgrades you'll get there will be worth the investment multiple times.
5. Build a library of upgrades from today on. I used Evernote to structure my studies and flashcards to integrate them. Make sure you don't forget mental game upgrades.
6. Read: Grit, Atomic Habits and Peak.
7. Make sure you enjoy the ride, even when it goes down. When I look back now, the times that at times felt horrible we're also the time where I learned most. Be nice to yourself when you're going theough a rough patch and actively think back at times in your life that we're rough. I think often times you'll see that what felt horrible when you went through it also brought a lot of good things.
8. Celebrate wins AND losses. My first day playing 1k I lost 10k. By the end of the day I took my wife out for a few drinks and celebrated. I fucking made it to the point where I'm able to lose 10k in a day In a way it's something I dreamt about when I started out, so how the fuck can it be a negative thing? Being able to take the wins out of the losses is a trait that ebery succesful poker player has to have in order to survive.

I recently had 5 private coaching sessions with Patrick and he definitely deserves a review. I only have good things to say about him and he's coaching. I doubt that there is a methodology or type of coaching that will improve you faster than the type Patrick is teaching, it's insane how much concepts and leaks he is presenting in 1 hour that is also easy to apply and find.
Not sure if he will do much more private coaching bc of the start of CFP but I was lucky to be able to buy 5 more sessions :)

VegasandtheMirage On the river the pot is generally biggest and not following through on your game plan will therefore be most costly. Ironically it's also the spot where you generally have to make a lot of investments that you'll lose the majority of the times, while it's still profitable (due to the pot odd nature of the game). It's the street where it's both most tempting and most costly to default to passivity.

FAILING
The month has not come to an end yet, but I felt like updating my journal a bit early. The last few weeks have been stressful. There is a lot of shit going on: the stable is growing, I've a bunch of private coaching packages running, working part-time and trying to play full-time. It's been pretty stresful as there is never enough time in a day.

One thing that makes things worse is that I've given in to my degen tendencies a little bit. I always had these periods in my life where my alcohol consumption spiked and it was harder to keep to my schedule. Overall I've gotten better at finding balance throughout the years, but I've also realized that I'll always be someone that will degen it up from time to time.

The results have been decent, nothing too crazy. Volume is higher than most months prior to this one, so that's good. I also took some shots at 5kNL (which I'm obviously not rolled for). Nothing too interesting happened, except for this hand maybe.

Just found this video on one of the books I've recommended (I think). I'm re-reading it now because I felt in my usual trap of focussing too much on the end result (x number of hands) instead of finding little upgrades to my process.

very good and sound advices !
<3

WHERE TO GO NEXT?
Five more weeks and I'll finally be a (full-time) professional poker player. We're nearing the end of the school year and everyone os already looking forward to what happens after the summer break (am I getting transferresd? which class am I getting? Do I get an intern assigned to me?) but for the first time in years tlI' no longer a part of those conversations. Over the last few months I've looked forward to the day where I can finally direct all my attention at this poker thing, but now that we're getting closer it's also weird to realize that some of my students will be staying in school and I'm the one that's leaving. I know it's inevitable, but still.

There are a lot of good things that I'll get in return though. I've always wanted to live abroad for a couple of years and now with poker going as well as it does and the stable growing quite rapidly, it might even be the best option. And since I recently was able to convince my wife as well, everything seems possible now. At this moment I have no idea where we'll go to as it depends on so many things, but it's thrilling to discover all these new possibilities!

I got a few guys asking me if the CFP is still open for new applications. The beginning of this month we started a new flight and we'll likely start another one towards the end of July. If you're interested feel free to DM me or apply directly via this link.

For the time being I'm also still taking on private coaching clients, although I've already started scaling down a bit.

Congrats on making the jump to full time. Cant believe you vet so much done whilst teaching a couple days a week as well.

SUCCESS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF COMFORT
During the many coaching calls I've had over the last couple of months, one of the most recurring themes is passivity leaks. I think conciously a lot of players know that players at high stakes bluff a lot and fold little and for good reason. There are infinite spots where the pool as a whole just over-folds significantly compared to a solver. Yet when I converse with player's there's a lot of resistance towards pulling triggers consistently. A lot energy goes wasted towards finding the exception to the rule. And the most important thing to note here is that need to find the exception is not grounded in reality, but in a inner-urge to default to passivity. So they'll say something along the lines of: 'I feel like he just doesn't have that many folds/bluffs here and solver really doesn't bluff/catch with my combo, so I'll fold this time'

What they forget is that this time is going to repeat itself over and over again untill you are able to surrender to the fact that numbers don't lie to you, but you do. It's always easier to come up with 10 seemingly valid reasons to not pull the trigger in some spot, then it is to just pull the fucking trigger.

Ever wondered why you feel bad about a profitable bluff getting called, but not about checking behind in the same spot? You're losing just as much EV for every -EV bluff that you take as you do for every +EV bluff that you miss, yet when you consistently miss these bluffing opportunities there's infinite comfort and even if there's not, you're monkey brain will find a way to comfort you by inserting some faulty logic. You can spend years in that place without realizing you're slowly bleeding. Believe me, I've been there.

I want to end this post by sharing this mini-podcast episode by Nick Howard on this topic. Honestly feel like everyone in poker should listen to this at least twice a day.

The Volume Trap
Out of all the players I know in the high stakes community, very few play more than 50k hands a month. Over the last month I've realized more and more that there's a valid reason for that (and it's not just a matter of a lack of games running at high stakes!). Yet every once in a while I still fall into the trap of thinking I should play more hours, more tables, more hands. (You can spot them in this topic even by just looking at the amount of failed 'x number of hands in x number of weeks/months challenges')

If I could change one thing over the last two years it's capping the number of tables I play to 4 and finding more excitement in thinking really thoroughly on each decision I face and making sure I don't auto-pilot as much as I have been doing. I was reviewing hands I played in November last year to create some content for the CFP the other day and I was just baffled by the amount of mistakes I spotted. And I'm not talking about stuff that I just didn't comprehend back then, but simple over-folding spots.

It's funny, because back then I thought: 'well, I've played 24 tables for years, I can easily play 8-10 tables without caring too much.' The amount of arrogance that’s packed into a thought like that is incredible, yet I had just had my best month ever so at the time it didn’t even feel a little bit off to me. I was just one of those sick grinders that was able to 10-table high stakes quite casually. And then when I started losing I thought to myself: ‘fuck, I need to play more volume.’

Not a second was I worried about the quality of my play.

So for the rest of the year I’m just going to stick to 4 tables and focus on scraping as high a win rate of the tables as I possibly can. The funny thing is: it’s a lot more challenging as well. If you really want to make sure you hit every node with 100% accuracy, you just can’t get by on 1-2 seconds in each spot. Giving myself the time to think about what I want to do has made poker a lot more engaging to me.

In July I’m going to take 3 weeks off, which has been my longest break from poker in 2 years. When I get back I’m going to focus on building my roll some further and getting a lot better so I can hopefully take some more shots at 5knl towards the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

Thanks a lot for the responses guys. I've always been a all-or-nothing kind of guy, so finding balance has always been kinda hard. At least I'm gonna take some of your advice to heart as I'll be going on a holiday for 3 weeks! I'll show some pictures if I get the chance :)

All Good Things Come To An End
This week I said goodbye to my job as a teacher, something I did not think was possible when I started out this journal. And not only because I could not have foreseen the progression I made as a poker player after being stuck in the micro's for so long, but also because I'd never thought I'd leave the school that I worked at before my retirement.

Over the last few months it became more and more obvious that I couldn't combine playing at a high level, studying consistently, coaching private clients, managing a stable and still teach my class. Every Wednesday I'd turn up to teach the class with 4-5 hours of sleep, only to rush home after because I had coaching sessions planned. It just was not doable anymore. In a sense the decision was fairly easy. I could pursue my passion and do things that I would never be able to do if I'd quit my job, but I underestimated how hard it would be to actually leave.

So here I am right now on my first day as a full-time poker professional, but with mixed feelings. In the 6 years that I worked there I've teached over 100 students out of 28 different countries. Some of them had expat backgrounds and came from wealthy backgrounds that allowed them to have most of their education in high-end private schools, others took their first steps in a classroom at age 13 on their first day attending our school.

I know there's a lot of fun things ahead, but for now I'll just remember all the fun we had and all the things that these kids taught me.

Roadtrip
Over the last two weeks I've been enjoying some well deserved time off. With the travel restricitons around here mostly lifted, we had to opportunity (with some careful planning) to plan a road trip through France with a couple of friends and honestly: I can't believe how much I've missed being in another country. And although driving through southern France has been a bitch (some people put very little value on their life) France is truly an amazing place to visit.

We've been hanging out around the Cote D'Azur mostly, spending our time drinking beers and going to the beach and swimming in the clear blue waters. I've even had the chance to visit one of the guys that is on the CFP, Leo, who showed me around a bit in a local cafe with some of the finest beers and cheeses anyone is able to find in Nice. Right now we're in Cannes, where I've played my first hands of live poker (after being almost 15 years in poker!). I've had little success, busting a small stakes MTT fairly early, but honestly had an amazing time. Hands trembling, heart racing. Reminded me of first hands playing online.

We still have one week to go before we head back north and the grind starts again. I've had a lot of time to reflect here on what my goals are for the coming year and what I have in mind for the CFP. We've been growing pretty consistently, with over 25 active contracts right now with a healthy range of stakes and I feel like we're doing quite alright, but there's always more that can be done. But for now, I'll just enjoy the free time with family and friends.

Direction+Action=Result
One of our high stakes players recently broke down his journey from the micro's to where he is today and there is so much value in it that I asked him if I could share some of it here. He generously agreed:

... With only a few months of living expenses left, and a dwindling bankroll I could no longer afford to keep losing. At the start of the year I was living off government stimulus, which had now ended. If I kept losing it was going to be game over.

Knowing that I would be forced to quit soon, I made myself a promise: one last hail mary and if that didnt work, I was out. My strategy was very simple: I would take two months off playing, and commit to studying 14 hours a day every single day without ever a day off. And thats what I did. I simmed databases for every single formation of the gametree (SRP IP PFR, SRP OOP PFC, etc) and by hand, painstakingly went through EVERY SINGLE turn, and river within the weighted subset of flops. I broke down which hand classes took which actions, and wrote them down by hand in a notebook. I didn’t really eat or sleep much, and at the end of it all noticed that I had lost 20 pounds. Oops. In retrospect it was super unhealthy and I really cant make a good faith recommendation for anyone to do this.

The strategy worked. It was now december. I had not played for 2 months. I loaded the last of my money back onto global poker and immediately started crushing. Bankroll went from almost dead > $10k that month. And another $10k in january. $20k in february. I flew up the stakes and just kept winning. Turns out going through the entire gametree by hand is actually pretty valuable.

Feeling like there would be a diminishing return in continuing to study the GTO side of the game, I reached out to patrick for data coaching around April. Using the data he has shared I now try my best to deploy a blended GTO/data strategy which I hope will take me to crushing 2knl.

In retrospect, what I would do differently would be two things: First, play less volume. It really doesn't matter. If youre tired and not having fun you are just wasting time. Second, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STUDY. It doesnt matter if you feel like youre studying enough, ITS NOT ENOUGH. I really felt like I was studying a ton, but until I locked myself in my room for two month IT WASN’T ENOUGH. I would go as far as recommending a 75/25 study/play split for anyone under 200nl.

It's funny, because I took the path that was completely opposite. I don't think I started using a solver consistently (and correctly) untill mid-2020, when I was already dipping in some of the high stakes games. What we have in common is that we both really liked the game to a point where we could spent hours studying without feeling too drained. For me, what I missed most over the last three weeks is sitting alone behind my computer, trying to figure shit out that I don't understand yet. I honestly don't think it's necessary to go as hard as this player went and I wouldn't advice it on anybody, but you can start studying more and playing less today. One thing that really helped me in that regard is starting my sessions by studying for 30-60 min. It might not seem like much, but do it consistently and you'll do a lot more than the average reg in your game.

how much subsets we should used study SRP and 3B pots ?

Becoming The Best
Over the last few weeks I've had a lot of time to reflect on my ambitions as a poker player. At this point it's needless to say that I've been lucky enough to reach higher than I ever imagened I could. I mean, when I started off this journey the most I could dream of is beating 100z, which seemed impossible at the time as I had failed many times before. Now I'm at a point where I get to play high stakes on a daily bases. So while I laid on the beach in France not so long ago I asked myself the question: what's next?

There we're a few things that stood out to me:
- There is still a lot of room to grow, both on a technical aspect as in terms of higher stakes to aim for;
- I want to help as many others reach their full potential;
- I want to enjoy this thing while it lasts

The Road to Nosebleeds
Over the past 9 months I've played high stakes pretty consistently. I've gotten to a point where I feel super comfortable playing a couple of tables of 1k and 2k, and enduring the swings that come with that. I know my game is pretty solid and I could rake in a 100k+ a year fairly easily. And while that is a very large sum to me still, it's not what I want to take out of this game.

When I look back at all this in 30, 40 years, I want to be able to tell myself that I took everything out of it that I possibly could. That I didn't settle for anything. I know there is still infinite that I can improve about my game. There is not a session that goes by where I'm confused as fuck as to what I should do in a specific spot. I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on how I can improve that, so it's just a matter of: am I willing to put in the work or am I going to stay in the comfort zone. Taking the time to reflect on this made me realize that I don't want to settle, even if it's more than I initially thought was possible. So, we'll see what the future holds, but I'm going to give it my best.

Paving The Way
I know it sounds cheesy as fuck, but I like helping others. It's why I got into teaching and why I ended up starting my own CFP: NachosPoker. Over the last couple of months we've grown quite a bit, starting out with just 5 guys in the beginning of April to roughly 25 active contracts at the moment of writing, ranging from players playing 25nl all the way up to guys playing 2000nl. I feel like we're at a point where all the hard work we're putting into this is finally starting to pay off. It's really cool to see that we got a real community going where people help each other when they're struggling. There's rarely a day that goes by that people are not hanging out in the voice chat, streaming sessions or studying together. Being able to not only be a part of that, but to lead them and hopefully take them with me on the journey to high stakes and beyond is truly amazing. I pinch myself daily to make sure I'm not dreaming. So over the coming months I want to cherish this as much as possible.

With money flowing in pretty consistently now it's easy to get caught up in a mindset where you lose focus of what is in essence important to you. Especially in a game of poker, where we do our best to quantify every decision in terms of the expected value we think it's going to bring us. At times it's not going to be easy, but as we grow this thing, I want to stick as much to my core motivation as possible. I like helping others. That is what'll give me fullfilment in the end. Money is important, but should always come second (or even third).

The Poker Dream
The last thing that I want to be mindful of is allowing myself to enjoy this thing as much as I possibly can. Over the last few years I've put in a lot of work, got incredibly lucky and now am in a position that I can travel the world and enjoy the freedom that this carreer brings along. When I visitted Cannes over the summer I got to play my first every live event. It was like I was playing poker for the first time again: hands trembling, heart racing and the overwhelming urge to play every minute of the day. Getting to experience that again made me realize that I should try to do that more often over the coming year. The world is opening up again and even though it might be more profitable to just sit at home and grind high stakes for 8 hours a day, I just want to live the poker dream as much as I can. The carreer is likely not going to last me decades, so I might as well enjoy it as much as I can. I already planned my first trip in September to Rozvadov for the WSOP Circuit events. One time?

The Downswing Antidote
I had one of my students ask me the other day whether I'm still scared to go on a major downswing. The honest answer is: yes, I am. Going on a massive downswing is always horrible a horrible feeling. You lose control, can't seem to do anything right and yet you gotta power through. Honestly, it's the worst feeling. Over my carreer I've had multiple 40+ buy-in downswings and honestly it just feels like you're on a rollercoaster ride without a seatbelt on. You try to cling to the railing, hoping you'll make it to the end without any serious trauma.

There are a few things you can do to make it easier though. In this article I'll cover a few things that help me get through these patches of bad luck

Always Favor Quality Over Quantity
It might sound obvious, yet I see a lot of players making the wrong decisions on this very basic level, causing them to spiral into self-destruction-mode. Usually the train of thought someone uses goes something like this: I need this downswing to stop, if I can play more hands then variance becomes less of an issue so I might need to play more hours, more tables, more hands. I think this couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, when I'm on a downswing I usually play less tables and less hands. In situations like that I don't think you have the luxury to play less focussed. What you should do is aim for is more time off, less tables, higher focus and table/site selecting aggressively. Don't get caught up with the latest rakeback bonus you got form Stars; focus on quality, not quantity.

Re-Discover The Passion
In times where nothing goes your way, it's always very easy to forget why you fell in love with the game itself, rather than the lack of succes it brings you. Making sure you spend enough times studying can re-ignite that spark. Don't set too goals, don't study stuff you don't like. Just make sure that whenever you feel like spending your time on poker, you'll choose a study session (any study session) about half the time. The added benefit is that regardless of what happens in the coming sessions, you'll be able to tell yourself that you'll be a better player over time anyway. So even whenever that inevitable thought creeps up: I just can't beat this game, you can easily tell change that into: 'Even if I don't beat this game now, I will be a way better player in a couple of weeks anyway, so who the fuck cares?'

Don't Go Through It Alone
Poker can be a very lonely game at times, especially when nothing really goes your way. Finding a group of like-minded individuals that have similar ambitions as you can come in handy in times of need. Now, that doesn't mean you should spam every channel on Discord with 3-page essays on how unlucky you've been this week, as that usually only works counter-productive, but having the ability to reach out to someone to give you a sanity check is not only very useful, but it makes this game a little bit less lonely.

Remember: Your Beer Still Tastes the Same
I remember on my very first day playing high stakes I lost about 6k dollars during my first session. I ended up closing the tables and going downstairs to get a cup of coffee. After chilling for a moment or so I decided I wanted to continue playing as planned. I felt good, I played good. I just ran like shit. 30 minutes later I was down the full 10k and closed up. Now you might think that I felt horrible at that moment, and you'd be right, in a way. But on my way downstairs I decided that losing 10k in one day is a milestone as well. Something I could be proud of. So that night I went out with my wife to celebrate. We got a couple of drinks in our favorite place and ended up walking home. It was a warm summer evening, the air was thick, the sky sprinkled with stars.

The point is: it's really, really easy to forget that there are numerous things in life that you are still able to enjoy. The beer at the end of your day will still taste the same. So make sure you enjoy the fuck out of it.

Always Favor Quality Over Quantity

What do you think about dropping down through 2 stakes while maintaining the grinding routine? I'm asking you this because during a swing I tend to play less and less and I've ended up multiple time to take weeks off. My behaviour is detrimental because it seems the downswing endure for months while it is just a few weeks. It's ok to put less volume, but at the same time stop playing altogether is too much.
I think showing up when you need to, everyday could make a difference in the long term, you would feel more in control imo and, at the end of the day, you know that you have pushed yourself a little bit and the sense of pride should make you smile. Well, in theory, let's see whether my next swing confirms it :D

Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that we launched our website today. Check it out at www.nachospoker.com!

100k in 100 days
Over the last couple of months I haven't been able to put in a lot of volume. It turns out that leading a poker stable takes time. It's a lot of fun, but it takes time. Especially in the beginning you're just going all over the place, trying so hard to manage the carreer of all these players that it becomes increasingly hard to think about your own.

It's not like I haven't played any poker at all, but I've honestly missed just sitting down for a couple of days straight and just battle it out at high stakes. So I've decided to turn my schedule around a bit and do a challenge: win 100k in the last100 days of this year playing poker. Now, I'm going to be realistic here and say that it's unlikely at best to assume that I'm to going to win that much playing the stakes that I do (mostly 400nl-1k). But that's not the point. I want to put a level of intensity into this as if there is a 100k on the line. I want to just lock myself up in the basement and grind it out. In the meantime I'm also working on bunch of stuff for the team, like preparing for our weekly masterclasses, finding new data exploits and working on our high stakes course, so it'll be a challenge. But honestly I feel like I'm ready. I think I found a way to balance my coaching work, personal life and the grind in a way that will allow me to succeed.

The goal is to post a weekly update with a graph and just take it one week at a time. So see you next week.

Good luck man :-)

DAY 4/100
Decided to post an update every playing day rather than every week, so starting off day 4. I've played 3 out of the 4 days, mostly 4-6 tabling on 400nl-600nl. Like I said: I'm a bit rusty from not playing too much, so dropping down in stakes a little felt like the right play. Overall I'm quite happy with the play and the run I've had. There is about 1.8k missing in the graph as well, which I think is because of HM3 not tracking bomb pots at WPN. All in all quite happy with the volume I've been able to put in and will probably start mixing in 1k if things keep looking up.

Day 5/100
Played about 2.2k hands and ended up pretty much breakeven. Overall I'm pretty happy with the volume I'm putting in. I've played 4 out of 5 days and played about 10k hands. I honestly think that I'm not really going to be taking too many days off in the near future, so I feel like a 2.5k per day average is probably doable. I feel like the quality of the play can be a bit better. I'm still getting used to being focused for extended period of times, so there are plenty of times where I just kinda doze off while listening to a podcasts. All in all I'm super happy that I'm starting to get back on the grind. I've been sticking to my schedule, excercised daily and had just loads of fun ripping in stacks :)

Day 6/100
Had a shorter session than usual because I needed to prepare a coaching call for the CFP, which took longer than I expected. It felt good to dive deep into some concepts before the session though. I'm not sure if I'm trying to find a relation here, but felt much more ready and motivated to play than yesterday. Running good must have something to do with things as it's been pretty hard to be losing a hand since I've started the challenge, but getting back into the grind has been a lot easier than I expected.

One of the reasons is that I've locked down into a night schedule. It's hard to say what it is exactly, but something about the quietness/darkness makes it easier to just sit down and play for hours on end. No distractions. Just you and your opponents battling it out.

I'm currently at 10k profits, although there is still 2k missing in the graph.

Day 7/10
Been running good and playing decent, so felt ready to add in a few high stakes tables. Initially my game plan was to take it chill a little and grind mid stakes mostly till I had a decent sample, but after winning a decent bit the first few days I just couldn't resist myself. I don't know what it is exactly, might be the higher stakes, might be the run good, might be just a bunch of interesting spots popping up, but really enjoyed myself. Played for 6 hours straight and would've played longer if it was possible. Here are some hands that we're mildly intersting:

Bluff catching a sick bluff by reg
Thin value shove
Thin bluff catch vs the same guy

Total profit: $13,563.35 (graph is missing a bunch of bomb pots unfortunately)

Damn son. Might have to change challenge to a milly.

In the meanwhile while I'm grinding my ass off for a 100k in a 100 days, one of the high stakes players on our team won more than a 100k in just the last month. Yep, you've read that right. One month!

(He also casually won 24k$ at an untracked site)

DAY 34/100
I haven't been updating as much as I'd have liked over the last couple of weeks. There have been some things happening in my personal life, some good things, but for those reasons I need to be there more then I expected when I started the challenge. This basically means that I only get to play one session a day, so volume is low and in between grinding, working on our high stakes course and managing the CFP it's been tough to find the time to do other stuff, like updating my journal here. Anyway, since we're at 1/3 of the challenge I figured it was time for a graph!

Well done Coach!!!

Zoom: The Path Of High Resistance
I think anyone who takes their game seriously can tell you that the win rates in zoom games are lower than they are on regular tables. Yet there is something weirdly appealing to playing in these reg-infested games. A big part of that lies in it's convenience; in 10 seconds you open up a couple of tables and play till you want to quit. You can direct all your attention to the game instead of having to select tables constantly. Another reason that zoom remains so populair is that it's hard to quantify how much worse win rates actually are. In this article I'm going to share some mind-bogling data that might make you re-think your options when you open up the lobby tonight
.

We selected the highest volume players in a zoom database as well as a regular database. For the zoom database there we're 231 players who played over 100k hands of zoom, for the reg table database there we're 238 players who played over 200k hands. Keep in mind: this sample reflects the highest volume grinders only. It might be that if we’d be able to include the entire reg population that the numbers would be different. The trend would remain more or less the same though.

The first thing that stands out are the average win rates: while the zoom grinder is losing on average about 0.7bb/100, the reg table player is winning almost 3.5bb/100 more: 2.7bb/100. While the majority of the zoom players are losing money (about 60% of the subset of zoom players lost), the vast majority of reg tables players are winning money (about 90%). When you look at the extremes, the results become even more absurd: about 13% of the reg tables players won more than 6bb/100 over their sample, whereas only 1 in a 100 players maintains a similar win rate in zoom games.

Looking at these numbers you’d have to be insane to favor zoom over regular tables, yet I have no doubt that the average zoom player who has read this article will just shrug his or her shoulders and fire up a few tables of z50. What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient

Day 42/100
I'm still plugging along. The chances of me getting there are still slim though, as I won't be home for a little over a week to travel and play some live events. It's all going to come down to December, with a healthy dose of run good and soft games it might be doable

On Not Being Ignorant
Since we've opened our virtual doors back in April, our players have been moving up consistently. Some one or two stakes, some a lote more. It's truly amazing to see the development of these guys and see them break through barriers pretty much across the board. Take Brendon for instance. He started off at 100nl just 4 months ago and is now crushing 500nl and looking up to high stakes already. And I don't want to take anything away from him, but he's not alone. In six months we'll have an army of players embarking up high stakes.

Honestly it's baffling to think that there are still CFP's out there that don't use any data. I can't think of any market where a business model like that is viable, where it would be viewed as reasonable to disregard such a wealth of information. In a way it's reassuring, as I think there's still a very bright future ahead if the majority of the pool keeps being as ignorant to all this as they currently are.

Day 48/100: A Baby Nacho
A non-poker update: me and my wife are bringing a new Nacho into this world! It turns out that every cliche that people say about having children (it's life-changing, it's the happiest moment in their life, an indescribable feeling and I could go on for a while) i true. We’ve known for a little while now and I’m so happy that I can finally share this moment with the people around me. I honestly can’t wait till the summer when my wife is due.

We found out about the pregnancy a week after the start of my 100k challenge and the weirdest thing happened: I became consistent. I did not hit any of the goals I set for my volume, as I had to step up my game a bit to support my wife, but I did sit down pretty much every day at the same time and quit at the same time. And the weird thing is: I’m still on schedule to make a 100k before the end of the year. To be fair: at this point there are other things on my mind than grinding 12 hours a day to hit a financial target. I’d rather just stay as consistent as I can playing 5-6 hours a day, making sure that the company is still running as smooth as possible and most of all: making sure I take the time to support my wife and enjoy the months ahead!

Getting Back into the Grind
Over the past few days I ended up playing a few live events, which was a costly but very entertaining endeavour. The highest cash game that ran was 10/20 with 5k max buy-in, which was still relatively soft with always 2 recreational players at the table. I'm not super happy with the way I played, but all-in-all I lost just a little bit. I also fired three bullets in the local main and didn't cash, so I lost about 10k$ on the trip. But like I said: in terms of entertainment value it was a 10k well spent.

It also got me eager to get back into the grind online, which I started yesterday. To be honest it's pretty unlikely that I'm going to hit the 100k$ goal by the end of the year, but that's fine. I'm super content with the consistency I'm bringing to my playing and studying routine and besides all that I'm still running the CFP, doing masterclasses, creating a high stakes course (that's turning out to be fire, if I say so myself) and taking care of a pregnant wife. I think the most important part of it all is that if you'd ask me to take a step back and reflect then there isn't that much I'd want to change.

Coaching For Profits: 6 Months In
It feels like only yesterday when we started our coaching-for-profits program. Back then it was just five low stakes players and one coach (me). Today we have 34 players ranging from 50nl to 2000nl and a handful coaches helping out on all levels. It's hard to believe half a year has passed so quickly. Back then our program revolved mostly around coaching sessions and a small video library. Now we have our very own Playbook, which contains all the latest data exploits and simplified GTO instructions based on aggregate sim data. We’ve started doing weekly Masterclasses, we have launched a (free!) Honors Program for the students that want to make most of their time in the CFP and this very week we will be releasing the first parts of our High Stakes University program which will make our players break through the barriers of high stakes and beyond.

Looking at the results up until now I think it might very well be possible that we will win more than a million dollars in our first year as a team, which just seems like such a bizarre, unattainable number that it just blows my mind. But more than on the numbers I’m proud of the community we’ve build. I’ll be honest: it’s a lot easier when the majority of the team is winning as much, but still: it’s such a chill, supporting environment and I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it.

It’s super exciting (and scary as fuck!) to think that the tables I’m playing on these days will be filled with NachosPoker regs in a year or so. There is still a lot that needs to be done, but it’s possible. Until then we’ll just be paving the way!

Stumbled upon this live play video of myself from thee and a half years ago. If you're playing 10nl right now then aim to do the exact opposite of whatai'm preaching in there and you'll be alright.

Christmass Giveaway #1
This month I got a nice early christmass present: I got a free month of RIO Elite for making it into the community leaderboard this month. It's not something that I actively tried to achieve, but it's a nice touch nonetheless. That got me thinking: why wouldn't I give something back to the community that has brought me this much?

Untill the end of the month I'll be doing a weekly giveaway in which I'll be give away liveplay reviews, coaching sessions, packages and more! This week we'll start with a 1-on-1 coaching session. (You can check our website for my credentials.) The only thing you gotta do to to enter the giveaway is like this message.

Rules:
- Must be playing <200nl;
- Agrees for the video/session to be used for (possible) future content.

Gonna choose the first winner later this afternoon, so for those of you that are still on the fence: this is the last chance to enter this giveaway :)

Giveaway winner
Congratulations to @mates for winning the first give away. Hit me up through DM to claim your prize!

Day 78 - Consolidation
Haven't updated the 100k challenge in a while. Last time we we're hovering around the 50k$ profit mark and we're still hovering around those numbers. I'm honestly super happy with the amount of hands I've played up untill now. I do realize I'm very unlikely to be reaching the initial goal, but while I was aiming I got a few other things in the progress. I've a super strict schedule now, which is for the first time since high school. This allows me to be more effective and have more time to chill with my wife and friends, which has been amazing. It's about the complete opposite as what I expected to happen when I challenged myself to this unattainable goal (unless your name Matt Marinelli, in which you just aim to do this once every month for a full year).

Could I have played more hands if I pushed harder? Definitely. But during the challenge I've started to realize that valuing quality and consistency over quantity just makes the journey much more fulfilling to me.

The Art of Failure
I don’t have to explain the concept of variance to anyone here. Poker is a game where winning players have do endure and overcome the feeling of loss (and thus failure) more than in any other competitive sport or game. It’s the price we pay for having a game where not only the very best are able to make a decent amount of money. Yet when I’m coaching players and even when I’m observing our chat inside of the CFP I often see players trying to protect themselves against the feeling they get when they lose. They will do things as purposely playing lower stakes than they are cleared for, incorporate rigorous stop-loss limits, all with the intention of minimizing the hurt. Although this behaviour is understandable, I think it’s far from effective.

In a previous life I was a microstakes grinder, I mass-multitabled the lowest stakes available. My strategy was simple: I’d bet when I had a hand, give up when I didn’t and by doing so I would have very few losing days. Each day more or less went the same. I’d play for a couple of hours and would have a slightly higher bankroll by the end of it. In a way you could say that I was playing the lowest risk strategy in poker. I cracked the code. Or so you would think. The reality of the situation was that by not taking on extra risk, I was actually risking the thing that I valued most: to make a living out of this game that I loved.

Fast forward 10 years to December 2020. I had just won more in one single month than I had in the 13 years prior to that month combined. I felt on top of the world, had just started taking shots at 2k and felt ready to battle anyone. And then variance hit; I lost a little over 30k in less than 3 weeks. I couldn’t do anything right, every button I clicked resulted in me losing yet another stack. By the end I came awfully close to having to move back down to 200nl. Yet I felt quite okay going through the entire thing. So, what changed?

Well, the first thing that I had learned during my year at Poker Detox is to stop resisting to things that are outside my circle of control. In order to be able to do that, I had to take full ownership over the things that we’re in my control. Realizing that I couldn’t control the fact that my graph came plummeting down was one thing, but taking full control over the things that we’re in my control was the next. I remember one night after yet another session in which I lost more than I ever thought was possible I made two lists: one of the things that I could control during this horrific downswing and one of the things that I couldn’t. And as the list of things that I could control kept growing and growing I realized something: there’s more opportunity to grow now than ever.

To speak in the word of Henry Kissinger: a diamond is just a piece of coal that did well under pressure. In other words: no pressure, no diamonds. In poker none of the high stakes beasts you see battling it out at nosebleeds made it to the top without facing their fair share of adversity. The only difference between you and them is that when they got knocked down, they stood back up, brushed the dust of their shoulders and recognized the opportunity that was in front of them.

So, next time when you take shot and fail, see the opportunity that is in front of you. Learn how to stop resisting, to improve your mindset, to learn from your mistakes, to take on a growth mindset and take full control over the one thing that you still have control over: how much you learn from the experience. After all your goal should be to make it to high stakes and achieve things that are beyond your imagination. Right now it’s just the training ground. Believe me: in a few years’ time you won’t remember how many attempts it took you to stick the landing at 200nl, let alone individual losing sessions that may feel horrible when you go through them, but are often forgotten by the end of the week. But the skills acquired during these times of adversity, when the rain comes pouring down and all you seem to be able to do is to barely hold on, those skills will last a lifetime.

Giveaway #2: Let's support RIO
Hey guys, quick message. Decided to give away 3x one month RIO essential subscription and a from the ground up course. Enter the giveaway by just liking the post. Will announce the winners on Wednesday.

Winners Giveaway #2
The winners are in:

Rio Essential 1-month
MarianoBoni
MOM SAID
Esir

Free FTGU course
urbanpoet303

Congrats to the winners! I will hit up the staff at RIO and you should get everything as soon as possible. I will likely do one big final giveaway in the upcoming week.

Just read through the last two months or so of your journal, fantastic! I have been trying to fix my redline for so long, I have no idea how you got such a crushing redline! My WR is still solid, but Redline and blue line go in opposite directions. I'll have to check out more of the detox stuff. Thanks for keeping the journal going!

Hello to the entire RIO community!

I'll just tell you that yesterday I had my coaching session that I won in the FreeNachos giveaway on this blog :).

First of all I would like to thank Patrick because he is selflessly doing these things for the community and it is something to highlight without a doubt.

I also have to highlight this that continues to speak of the generosity of FreeNachos.
We agreed to 1 hour of coaching that lasted approximately 2 hours 20 minutes ... so imagine my joy and happiness :)

About me: I currently play NL25 at Pokerstars / Bodog and have been a member of BRPC Micro Team for 3 months.
My Coachs are STEVE PAUL (ESSENTIAL PRO) and the CEO is MAX LACERDA (ESSENTIAL PRO).

About coaching:
We got in touch and he has sent me a calendar where I can choose the day and time according to availability.
He request the hands of my last 2-3 months to prepare the class.

When the class started, he had a working excel of all the sequences (SRP IP, OOP, 3bet, etc) and all the sequences that could be given.

We did an analysis of my hud against his hud to find possible leaks in my game in the sequences SRP OOP as PFC and SRP IP as PFR.

I was surprised how well planned everything was, He had already marked hands, which there was no downtime at any time. Besides being always predisposed to answer all my questions.

Imagine that it is impossible in 2 hours to go through all the leaks, but in simple concepts that he gave me, the general approach that I should have to climb levels, without a doubt they will bear fruit in the future.

He asked me to keep in touch to see how everything is going forward :)

So Patrick, I can't tell you how grateful I am for yesterday's coaching, for your positive attitude and all the good vibes you have.

Im.8n Nachos CFP so im a bit biased but i can confirm all of the above. Patrick is a legend. The amount of content hes managed to produce over the last 9months is staggering.
Anyone considering a cfp and not considering Nachos is insane. ��

Last Giveaway/Recruitment Open
Sorry in advance for the shameless plug, but we're starting a new flight of players around the start of next year, so if you're ready to take your game to the next level, please feel free to apply on our website! If you want to talk some more then you're always welcome to hit me up via DM as well.

Now that we got that out of the way I wanted to do one final Christmas giveaway. In this one we'll be giving away:
- 1x 1 hour coaching session + a month of RIO Elite
- 3x RIO Essential month

my like goes anyway knowing that I can't participate :). It is very great what you are doing Patrick, I am very grateful for it.

Winners are in:

Essential:
Berti
TheBuddhaIsBear
D Q99

Coaching session and Elite:
Strain

Congrats to the winners and happy Christmas everyone!

Ty Nachos. Happy Christmas to you and your family.

Thanks a mill Nachos. Have a great Christmas

Wow what a nice surprise! Thank you so much, happy xmas :)

Thanks a lot Nachos! :-) Been reading through your blog after being linked to it recently by Mates. Super inspiring stuff, great to see such hard work and dedication paying off! :-) All the best for the coming year :-)

I will be writing an end-of-the year blog in a couple of days to reflect on the last year (which just has been crazy on so many levels) and in ehich I look forward to next year. For now I want to wish everyone here a happy New Year and should you want to take use of the opportunity to step up your game next year, we are still open for recruitment. We will start a new flight of players towards the end of next week, so if you want to make it in there, now's the time to apply!

A Year in Review
2021 might very well have been the most hectic year of my life. I’ve quit Poker Detox, started NachosPoker, travelled through France for a full month with friends, played my first live events, became a full-time poker pro and through all that I even managed to get my wife pregnant as well. Looking back it’s hard to believe only a year has gone by.

Looking at my results I have mixed feelings. When I started the year my main goal was to keep moving up and take shots at 5k. I started out playing 1k in January, but the decision to leave Poker Detox changed the timeline up quite a bit. I wasn’t staked anymore and was forced to move back to 200nl. It took me a while to get back to high stakes (most of my volume last year was played on 200nl lol). In addition to that I didn’t played nearly as much as I expected. When I started the CFP a lot of my time was spent on creating content and making sure the team was running smoothly. In addition I was still working as a teacher, so I just couldn’t put in as much volume as I wanted. So all things considered, I guess when I look at the graph I can still be content, although it’s far from the mid-6-figures I was aiming for.

Next Year
Poker-wise my goal is to play >500k hands at 1k+ and take some shots at 5k. I have a pretty steady schedule these days, which means that my grinding and study sessions for the coming year are already planned, so it’s all about making sure that I keep being as consistent as I can and book my hours. Within the CFP my eye is set on working on our High Stakes Course and running our Honors Program. The team is doing very well and most of the building phase has been taken care off, now it’s all about raising the bar as high as we can. I'm also thinking about applying to become a coach here at RIO. I'm not sure sure if I'd want to add another job (let alone if they'd even consider hiring me), but it seems like it could be fun for sure.

On a personal level I really want to become fit again. Over the last few months I've gained weight pretty consistently and have gone from slim to having some serious overweight for the first time in my life. It turns out that eating junkfood and not working out does make you gain weight pretty quickly. I think that for me right now it's just a matter of making the healthy choice easier, so I bought a desk bike and got myself a mealplan. Up untill now (2 days in) I'm actually doing quite alright :) My highest priority (and probably easiest) goal for the year is to take time off during the summer to enjoy process of becoming a father for the first time. My wife is due early June and I'm really looking forward to just spending a month or so with just her and the baby. Can't wait!

IAmNeo It's funny, because I feel like every coaching session I have these days I fall back on something that I learned from you during our coaching sessions. Best of luck to you too. Maybe we'll see each other at nosebleeds some day. (Remember when people said that 'Detox players never make it to high stakes'? Boy did that age quickly :) )

Congratulations on great year and baby! Hope you have great 2022 as well! (:

Random thoughts
What got me into poker initially was that itchy feeling you get when you're trying to solve a complex puzzle. I think I got very lucky in that regard, because on days when I'm losing heaps I can just tell myself that it's not just about the money or the success it's about the puzzles. I think a lot of players like poker because they see a potential for success. And while there's nothing wrong with that, I think players like that are far more likely to burn out and get frustrated, lowering the chances of obtaining the success they so desperately yearn for exponentially.

RunItTw1ce Verry little of it is 200nl as I practically broke even there for 70k hands (12 tabling a bunch pbb didn't help). Luckily with some help of rakeback and running decent at higher stakes I was able to get some momentum going. Win rate for the year is ~6bb/100.The red line is just bluffing more. I probably over-did it at times, hence the hurting blue line. But tbh as long as the green line is going up steadily it's all good.

Locked In
I started the grind again on January 3rd and have since then been in full grind mode. I took some time off towards the end of last year and really felt eager to come return to the tables and hit the lab for the high stakes course that we're releasing. I've always had an all-or-nothing type of personailty, luckily I've started dealing a bit better with that as a grew older, so even though I'm still degenning it up an playing 10 hour sessions, I also make sure that I'm working out, eating healthy and that I chill a little with my wife every day.

I started the year playing 1k, but then I started sun running and so I decided to add in some 5k when there we're soft spots. I've played one semi-drunk session before, but this time I honestly feel like I belong there. Obviously there are guys that are just way better than me, but I feel like I'm beating the games that I'm playing in for sure. I remember back in the day railing the lobbies on Stars to see guys like ADZ124 play these stakes. And now I'm sitting there. I've played such an insane amount of hands at the lowest stake available that it almost feels like the last few years are one long dream. Let's hope I don't wake up tomorrow :)

I didn't play too many large pots unfortunately, but this one was pretty fun. In addition to feeling good, I got pretty lucky as well as I had my biggest winning day today as well. I guess I'll end this entry with my yearly graph up until today:

Amazing results Patrick, glad to see the hard work is paying off so well for you. Keep grinding!

Bragged in our Discord that I was sitting at the same table as Wiktor today, then one of our players made one the most truthful statements I've read in a while:

Stunning results my man. Hoping to battle with you in NL5k with you in the future ;). Don't take all my money too quickly though.

Are you contemplating to join Nachos? Then this post is carefully crafted to tip you over the edge and apply :). The graph below is from one of our students, Dan. He was stuck at low stakes when he joined the team about 8 months ago, breaking even over 500k hands. Since joining he moved up multiple stakes and is now playing 200nl, inching in on 500. Now I'll be honest, not everyone in our team is winning at 10bb/100, but with some direction, a lot of dedication and a little bit of heat anything is possible!

Gonna be sharing another 2021 graph of one of my students. This is what he wrote in his recap:

2021 was my first real year as a poker pro. I entered the year with a $10k bankroll, still trying to bridge the gap from 200nl to 500nl. After a 100k hand breakeven stretch, I decided to seek data coaching from Patrick. My oh my, that was the single best decision of my poker career.

You can literally see the breakeven stretch end, and see where I decided to seek coaching. It’s absolutely insane. Data analysis is very real and it works very well, and I believe that in conjunction with a practical, fundamental knowledge of equilibrium, will absolutely annihilate games. (Patrick pls stop taking on new students).

You can see the win rate over the entire year in the graph (which is 200nl-2k). Pretty impressive indeed.

I posted this in our Discord the other day. Plotted how much the top 50 highest volume players' winrate vs amount of fish per table. Just a casual reminder to favor quality over quantity:

Yeah I was streaming some 5k in our Discord the other day and one of our players asked me: who do you think has the highest win rate at this table? I said: 'That depends on how bad the fish is playing. If he's mediocre but not horrible it's probably George (youmadbro), if it's a punting whale then I think I might be the one.'

I've been getting a bunch of requests lately both via our website as well as through DM from people that are interested in buying private coaching. Over the last few months I've denied requests by saying: 'Not right now, but maybe later if things settle down.' It just turns out that things never really settled down. So even though I honestly had a blast doing these coaching packages I've decided to just stop doing them all together and focus on the grind and coaching/creating content for the team instead.

Where Should I Play?
A question I've asked myself infinite times: where should I play? Often times it's a really tough question to answer due to the many moving parts; what sites are available, what stakes are you playing, what is the influence of rakeback and bonuses and so forth. Anyway, I did a small study where I took the top 50 players based on volume and averaged their win rates, taking out obvious recreationals. These we're some results:

As you can see there are some pretty large differences. Now, some might say: off course the win rate on GG is lower, but the rakeback is way higher, which compensates for the lower win rate. Well, that is only partly true. The gap is definitely smaller, but GG would still be last pick (this is when we assume that GG has an effective rakeback of 41%, personally I got never further than 35%):

Now, obviously there are still many other things to consider. On some sites there is a table cap, which generally makes the tables softer. It also reduces the amount of rakeback grinders that are playing solely for the leaderboards. In addition to that there are tax implications, software quality, selection of games runing etc. So in the end it all comes down to your unique situation. Still, now you have some data to help you make your decision :)

I'm not entirely sure what it is @Kalupso. At higher stakes Ipoker recoups a decent bit and then is at a similar level as Stars and 888.

Around the start of next month we'll be launching a YouTube channel, where we'll release some YouTube exclusive content. For that I'm looking for a microstakes player that wants his liveplay reviewed. If you're intested, hit me up through DM.

Be Happy Now, Not Later
Over the last few weeks I haven’t been playing as much online. This is partly due to attending our first team trip, but even before I didn’t play that much. As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been pretty stressed from working too much in January. I think the biggest issue that I’ve had is finding balance between poker and other stuff in life. As someone on our team mentioned I think it might be due to a false sense of urgency. Poker is around right now and I’m not sure if it will be in 10 years, therefore taking time off feels like a waste of valuable time that could be spent clicking buttons. It took me some time, but I've come to the realization that this is an unhealthy approach that inevitably leads to burn-out.

Taking some time off and forcing myself to not stare at a screen all day has helped a lot. I honestly had a blast on the team trip. Playing drunk 5 card, 3 board omaha where you can pick up to 3 cards was honestly the most fun I think I’ve every had playing cards. Getting to meet some of you there truly was something different and Basically I realized two things:
1. I like to lock myself in a room and focus only on playing poker, studying poker and teaching poker.
2. I like to travel, meet new people, take time off and enjoy life.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve worked with the following heuristic: if I like playing poker and I like to do other things, then it makes sense to just play poker because poker might not be around in 10 years. ‘I can always do fun stuff some other time. Now is the time to lock myself in, grind as hard as possible and try to become the best.’ And whilst I still think there is some truth in that, I also don’t want to trade happiness for EV. I’m in a position now which allows me to travel around a bit and see something of the world and I should allow myself to enjoy the fuck out of that while it lasts.

For now I think it makes sense to keep grinding a solid schedule at times, lock myself in and just focus on poker and the team as much as possible, whilst at the same time make sure that I plan time off and enjoy the perks that playing poker professionally brings as well. In March I’ll try to keep my head down and get back into the grind, but towards the end of the month take some time off and play the WPT Deepstacks events in Amsterdam with no expectations of value whatsoever. Just book a nice room, hang out in the casino and enjoy the city when I don’t feel like playing. In addition to that I’ll force myself to take two afternoons off every week to just chill and do nothing poker related. I’m not 100% sure that this is the way to go, but it’s definitely better than just blindly pumping volume without any prospect of doing something fun outside of punting stacks at high stakes.

So over the coming months I plan to go on a holiday to Nice with my wife and later this year I’m set on going to the US for a month or two and travel and play in some live games if I have the chance. Playing in Rozvadov reminded me of how much I liked playing live, so if I can combine traveling and sightseeing with some soft high stakes live action then that would be the dream.

Over the last month we've had three of our players that joined the team about 9-10 months ago break through to high stakes (any many more pounding on the doors as we speak). It's honestly been a super thrilling and scary as fuck to see players now sit at my left in some of my own games..

Link to graph

" if I can combine traveling and sightseeing with some soft high stakes live action then that would be the dream."

Great sentence. This is the way to go, for sure. You will always be a winner if you combine your passion for an activity with a trip to a new location.

Hey guys, I'm getting a bunch of request for coaching over the last few days. I want to reitterate I son't do any private coaching any more. If you're interested in our methodology feel free to check out our website and apply to our CFP!

Pursuit of Balance
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve struggled quite a bit with my consistency. Since Rozvadov my schedule is more or less fucked and I feel like that was the anker that kept me in a somewhat consistent place of eating semi-healthy, working out semi-regularly and playing similar hours every day. Since returning from Rozvadov I’ve been pretty much all over the place. You know things are not going too well when after waking up you have to look at your phone to determine whether it’s morning, evening or night.

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve always had periods in which I’d focus on one thing - whether it’s poker, gaming, sports or partying - for a few weeks only to give myself a reset and try to get back into a healthier rhythm. Over the last few years I’ve gotten more balanced for sure, but I’m definitely a far way out from where I want to be. In a few months I’ll be a father, which brings a lot of responsibility, the biggest one will likely be setting an example and being a role model. In addition to that my wife is starting to become really pregnant and I just need to step up and do more to support her. Can’t do that if I’m on a bi-phasical sleep schedule, especially when the times I go to sleep aren’t fixed.

In one of the calls that I had with Jason Su we concluded that sometimes I want my life to be balanced and sometimes I want chaos. I think at that time that was a massive upgrade for me. Instead of feeling bad for getting hammered on a Friday night with friends, I just made sure that I took the Saturday off to recover and the rest of the week I’d be as balanced as I could be. Now I feel like I’m at a point where I just want balance more than anything else, I just can’t seem to find it.

So as I like to do with poker, I took a step back and created simple strategies to do better. For now I’m really not putting a lot of pressure on myself, except for doing these three things:
- Stick to my (vegan) diet 6/7 days;
- Do some form of exercise every day;
- Play at least 4 days a week (no hour/hand goal).
- Go to bed between 5am and 7am, wake up between 1pm and 3pm

My diet (again) is very simple and consists of
- Plant-B Mealplan;
- Green (water based) smoothie;
- Veggies and vegan chicken;
- Protein bar/Protein chips;
- Handful nuts;
- Piece of fruit fruit and soy based yoghurt.

It’s definitely not the best, most balanced diet, but it’s relatively simple, which makes it a lot easier to follow. I’m purposefully not setting any weight goals, just want to make sure that I stick to the diet/exercise routine most days.

Also delivered yet another player to HS, you're welcome pool :)

One of our students that started at low stakes less than a year ago posted his year to date graph in our Discord and I had to repost this. And no, this is not an anonymous environment, this is a known pool. The pool - even at high stakes - just doesn't adjust.

freenachos
commenting on this: - Go to bed between 5am and 7am, wake up between 1pm and 3pm

Not sure how aware you are of the potencial health costs of "working night shifts".
"Night shift work could lead to lower levels of leptin, the hormone known to play a role in regulating weight, as well as affect blood sugar and insulin levels, Health.com. reported. Working the night shift could make you more likely to have a heart attack"

I guess it's when games are the best, but I would clearly prefer consider shifting to a regular rhythm even if it comes with a cost EV wise.

If you are vegan, make sure you take all the required supplements to avoid malnutrition.

Cheers
Aquila

STARTING A MICROSTAKES TEAM
With our first birthday coming up I'm able to share some exciting news: we'll be starting a microstakes team! Over the last year we've refined our program to the point where we are happy to welcome players from all limits to join us on a journey to high stakes. So if you want to improve your game from the ground up then feel free to check out our website and apply to our program. Even if you've applied in the past but didn't quite meet the criteria yet we encourage you to apply again.

Man, thanks so much for the inspiring blog, even being 3 years late I really enjoyed the ride. I registered just to be able to thank you, but Im pretty sure I will find loads of content at RIO.
All the best with your new job, dad. Its the best roller coaster around.

Nachos' Birthday Giveaway
Yesterday we celebrated the first birthday of NachosPoker. Looking back I almost can't believe we started only a year ago. So much stuff has happened! I'm going to write a longer blog entry with some deeper reflection on the entire experience, but for now I just want to thank everybody that lend me a hand along the way.

In addition to that I want to thank the RIO community. A lot of this has been thanks to getting the opportunity to write about things that happened when I was playing low stakes. If you'd told me 3 years ago that this would all amount to the point where I am right now - being able to make a living out of playing, studying and teaching this game that I love - I wouldn't have believed you. Getting RIO Elite and reading the blogs of Nick and Saulo has been a massive motivater and a push into the right direction. I hope that this blog can do something similar.

That's why I want to do another give away - this time strictly for players that are playing <50nl and are struggling to make any progress. Just hit me up through DM or reply here and within a week I'll choose 3 players that get a an hour of coaching and RIO essential for a month for free.

Hey Nachos, your blog is already one of the best here on RIO, you motivate me everytime I read it.
Thank You

PS. keep writing even when you will play NL100K pls.

Nice, congratulations on the journey and the team, and best luck to your students.
Nice offer, some guys gonna get lucky and happy. Sadly for me, Im not in a position of balance yet to apply.

Comeback
In February and most of March have been some of my hardest since I went pro. My results sucked, but more importantly the quality of my actions we’re mediocre at best. I slept poorly, ate poorly, didn’t exercise much and played my C game while watching Netflix on the side the majority of the time. I felt stressed and tired and entered the mindset where every next session it felt like ‘I just needed to book a win’. Anyone who has been around the tables for a while knows that this way of thinking only leads to self-destruction. In poker there is no short or medium term reciprocity, especially not if you don’t make sure the quality of your actions align with your expectations.

It took me some time to climb out of it, but since my last posts I’ve been doing a lot better. I’ve started waking up early again, locking in consistent hours at the table and in the lab and catching 8 hours of sleep most nights. I’m definitely not where I want to be, but at least I’ve become focussed on the process again. Whenever I grind it is just to get hands in so I can study and review them to get better. Whenever I study I just want to learn as much as I can so that whenever I sit down to grind I know subconsciously that I’m ready to battle. The funny thing is when you start on taking this approach and get hyper focussed on the process, results don’t matter that much anymore. So in addition to it being the best path in terms of consistent growth, it also is a lot easier to deal with the mindset side of things.

So I’m waking up early again, got into a healthy rhythm and feel like I’m top of the world, even though it’s been a while since I booked a winning month. Then again: last year around this time I was break even for 4 months, whereas now I’m only a solid week away from booking my best year ever. Perspective is everything I guess.

Outside of the poker tables I made a drastic decision as well: I’m going back to teaching. It’s just going to be one class for one day per week, but I’m thrilled to be able to help out. Over the last few months I’ve really started to miss being in a classroom and interacting with students, so when the head-teacher contacted me and asked if I was available to help out, I was instantly excited. There are a lot of Ukrainians that fled the war to find refuge in my country, so it’s quite hectic right now with new students and classes starting pretty much every day. I know it’s not the max EV line and it’s definitely going to be a challenge to keep all the balls up in the air, but life’s about more than EV. And besides it’s only till the summer. After that we’ll have to see what is possible as I’ll have other things to worry about (like waking up at 2am to change diapers).

We started only a year ago with just 5 low stakes players. Fast forward 12 months and we've won north of 750k! Couldn't be more proud of everyone on the team.

Been working on a team alias for this year (which turns out to be a bitch due to many nicknames/unsupported hands and other logistical problems). The graph below is far from exhaustive (currently all players with 10k+ hands played included), but it should give a decent idea of what we're all about at Nachos.

1) This is an average of all (most) of the player profiles of our team over the last few months. Some guys are just starting off on stake, some are already playing 1k. Some are playing in Ignition (where moving up is a lot easier), some are playing in tough zoom pools and then the win rate will be a bit lower.
2) This has to do with playing in known pools as well (just can't go as hard). In addition to that we actually have players with losing red lines on Bovada.
3) Again, not just bovada players in the sample :)
4) Yeah I saw that and I'm not surprised. I got a 10% turn donk in a 4BP the other day on 2k in the most random spot. Later looked it up and turned out that in this tiny branch of the subtree it did that on a low frequency. Now maybe my opponent had studied turn leading ranges in 4bp BBvsEP that add ~0ev to the game tree, but chances are that he had the solves open whilst playing. Tbh it's frustrating, but I'm lucky enough that I haven't found any decline in win rate. As long as recs keep playing and people with bots are uncapable of max-exploiting the recs than I think then at least for the foreseeable future things are not as bleek as they portrayed it in the podcast.

Having said that I hope that the guys doing the RTA'ing will be kept out of every single game on the planet.

Time to reflect
I’m currently on a 5 hour train ride from Paris through the heart of France to Nice and figured: what would be a better time to do an extensive write up for the blog than now? The last couple of months have been quite challenging and I’ve been struggling to keep up with everything, including documenting my progress through the stakes in this journal. Over the years that I’ve been keeping this journal it’s something that I’ve always enjoyed doing. Having the option to ‘go back in time’ by reading back to some of my older entries is quite amazing and in times where I faced a lot of adversity at the tables it’s been straight up therapeutic. Looking at your lifetime graph can help, but nothing puts things in perspective than reading about times where I really did not think I was going to be able to get even remotely close to the point where I am now. So as long as I can find the time I think I’ll keep updating this until I retire.

Compromise
My main goal for the current year we’re to play 500k hands of 1k+ and maybe take some shots at 5k towards the end of the year. Now, four months later, I’ve played about 100k hands at 1k+. I don’t think it’s all that likely that I’ll play another 400k in the rest of the year, so we might as well lower it right now. With NachosPoker growing significantly over the last year it’s been getting tougher and tougher to combine the responsibilities I have towards the team with my own ambitions as a poker player. I don’t think I’ll every stop grinding completely, but I think it’s important that I remain realistic about what I can and can’t do. I basically have two full time jobs right now and working more than that is just not something that I aspire to do. Listening to the podcast that the guys from Poker Ambition did with Zinhao has helped a lot in that regard. Listening to how he dealt with the struggle of wanting to grind on the one hand and grow his company on the other was truly inspiring.

Anyway, for the rest of the year I’m just going to assume that I’ll be playing another 200k hands and if I’m able to put in more hands than great and if not then that’s fine as well. In practice this means that I’ll play about 4 hours every day that I’m working. Over the last couple of months I’ve aimed for 6 hours and have constantly felt stressed for consistently not hitting this target. In the end it’s just a matter of simple math: if I add up all the hours I’m putting into poker and work for the CFP then there is not that much left as it is. Grinding 6 hours would equate to either sleeping two hours less or not having the chance to unwind a bit and hang out with my wife at the end of our day. Both are things I don’t want to compromise, so playing less it is! :)

Building Our Brand
Over the last couple of months we’ve been working hard on the release of new content, which is scheduled for the 1st of July. In addition to that we’ve recruited new players, hired coaches and guys that are helping us with some of the leg work when it comes to content creation. In addition to that we are working with developers to get custom build tools both for streamlining the learning process as well as to create tools that can help us get a better fundamental understanding of the game. Honestly I’m really thrilled about our future as a team. It’s been really cool to see a bunch of the guys that started the first few months move up to high stakes and to be able to battle them at the tables.

Over the coming months it would be cool to see if we can partner up with some other companies in the industry and see if we can build out our brand a little bit. Maybe in the future it would be cool to do a podcast or two and talk about the ride up, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see if something comes up.

Life
My wife and I are currently on our last vacation with just the two of us. My wife is about 34 weeks pregnant now, so in just a couple of weeks we’ll be able to finally welcome our little girl into the world. We can see her grow and move around in my wifes belly, so waiting till we can finally hold her in our arms has been a lesson in patience more than anything else. For now I’m just planning on taking it chill a little and support her as much as I can. In that sense I’m super lucky that I’m generally working from home, so that makes things a lot easier. The coming two weeks I’m taking as much time off as I can, take some distance from poker as well (which hasn’t been treating me too great recently) and just enjoy the weather, the culture and maybe enjoy a beer or two :).

We arrived at our destination!

RunItTw1ce Yeah we've hired Brendon as coach and a few other guys are helping out in a more official manner. So part of the job has been delegating to guys like Brendon who have been doing very well themselves and have been pilars of the community. The other revelation has been that I need to lower my own expectations as a player a bit instead of getting frustrated for under-performing to some unrealistic target. Most of my time is spent on the team these days, attending meetings, doing research, creating content, doing coaching etc. As the team has grown my role changed quite a bit, which just means I am not a professional poker player that does coaching on the side any more. Both just co-exists equally now and that's fine :)

Graph Porn
Last month we signed Brendon as a coach after being on an impressive run that brought him from low stakes to being cleared for 2k in less than a year! (Phil, we really need some fire/egg plant emoji's)

ELITE GIVEAWAY
Got the message today that I made it to the top 5 of the leaderboard today, which resulted in a free month of RIO Elite. Since I already got an amual membership I decided to so another giveaway. Like this message to enter, I'll pick someone within 48 hours!

My wife picked the 8th like, so the winner is Kalupso Congrats, I will hit up the mod to make sure you get your month of Elite added.

Just wanted to make a quick post informing you guys that I've decided to take on 1-2 private coaching students. I've turned down a ton of guys over the last few months, so it'll basically be on a first come first serve bases. Contact details can be found on our website. I can provide references from players on our team as well as guys I've coached privately on request. In addition to that I'll post a graph from one of my students (and no, this is not Bovada/Bros):

Run It Once
I'm really happy to announce that I'm going to become a Run It Once Essential coach! As a longterm member of the community this definitely has been a dream come through. I remember when I started my first blog out here about 4 years ago when I was still grinding 5nl and binging the videos of Sauce, Tyler and Ishter. If you had told me back then that this day would come I would've thought you we're crazy!

My content will have a similar focus as a bunch of the articles in my blog, so focussed on soft skills and using poker as a hedge to learn new things. In addition to that I plan on doing some exploitative content based on MDA. Lastly I'd like to get the community involved in my content, so if you guys have any suggestions feel free to drop them below.

Gonna do another Elite giveaway! To enter just like this post and I'll pick a winner in 24 hours.

Hey Berti, for now I've kept my screen names to myself as I play a fairly exploitative strategy and don't want people ti be aware that it's me. I'm considering streaming a bit in the not so distant future. If I end up doing that then I'll likely play a more GTO oriented strat, but for now I prefer flying below the radar.

Wow this is so cool. I clicked on your blog with the thought: ah one of the many starting a blog and gone for good.

A way better “ending” (beginning?) than expected! Good luck with the little one. We have 2, one of 4 and one of 1. Don’t be to harsh on yourself not being able to do all the things you feel like you need to do.

I am no pro but with a full time job as enterprise sales professional I am happy I get in 2 hours at night of playing :)

A bit late to the party, but I've been pretty preoccupied with this little one:

Anyway, Traingegourdin is the winner of the giveaway!

Ohh, so cute. Congratulations!

the mystery of life and unconditional love experienced.

She's gorgeous Patrick. Very happy for you and mom. Congratulations!

Finally got that name in the right colour!

So how is life treating you now with the new born?

Thing have been going very well! I've taken the night shift so I'm waking up pretty early to take care of the baby. The nice thing about this is that I get to grind a bit more than I used to. I've actually gotten pretty good at playing while changing diapers!

The first guy (or - albeit unlikely - girl) that sends me a DM with a liveplay will be reviewed in a RIO video (and if you don't have a subscription I'll make sure that you get one).

2 tables of zoom will be best, but 4 reg tables is fine as well. No need to say anything. You can record with OBS and upload to Drive or a filesharing site like WeTransfer.

FreeNachos One thing I did with Steve Paul for one of my student reviews was just filtered for all hands VPIP that saw the flop. Instead of watching 4 tables it cuts out all the preflop stuff where you just win the blinds and also some of the down time. Lastly it allows the viewers of the video to focus on one table replayer video, similar to a lot of Tyler Forrester videos for using the trainer or going over replayer hands for certain formations for 3BP / 4BP etc. I found this to be more detailed oriented for learning than just a recorded live play video. On PT4 you can simply add this filter and CTRL + A to highlight all the hands then right click to export video into a replayer format. I think it makes it easier and better learning experience for both the coach and viewer.

Thanks for the suggestion, sounds like a solid idea. Will see if the reviewee a DM to see if this is an option.

We got another player that joined the 100k profit club! He started his journey with NachosPoker in December at 200nl and is now taking shots at 2k!

Link to image

That's really cool! Does the 100k club means he has earned more than 100k? I can never press the picture so it becomes bigger and my eyes aren't good enough to see lol. What I do see is a lot of green, and that's what we love, right :)

Edit: There is a link. Super nice job!

The image is not good enough, i cant see anything :(

Any of your students crush on GG over big sample? Never seen a great GG graph (even after rb).

Repost (right-click and click open image in new tab to see full screen)

Repost (right-click and click open image in new tab to see full
screen)

LOL! for the computer-noobs like me hahahaha

A Million Hands of High Stakes Online in One Year
Over the last couple of weeks things have been quite hectic. I wake up around 1 am these days so I can take the night shift and take care of our daughter whilst grinding. The weird thing is that since I don't really have time to go out for drinks any more, I actually am grinding a lot more. I've basically been grinding every day for 7-8 hours, then go for a work-out and lunch and then work on CFP stuff. It's weird: a couple of years ago most of what I'd do in my free time was going out getting hammered and then recovering with junkfood and Netflix. Nowadays all i do is grind, study and coach. My wife is sometimes worried about the lack of balance, but to be honest I wouldn't want to change it for the world. I know it sounds cheesy, but I've dreamed about a life like this for so long and I still love playing and studying this game so much that I rarely can find a reason to do anything else. Off course, I still see my friends, but when I'm all alone and have to choose between Netflix or grinding PIO, it's PIO all day long.

Not that long ago I re-read Stephen King's On Writing, in which he writes about his life as a writer. I highly recommend anyone (whether you're into writing yourself or not) to read the book. But regardless, there is one quote that kinda stuck with me:

“I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie. I told them that because if you agree to an interview you have to say something, and it plays better if it’s something at least half-clever. Also, I didn’t want to sound like a workaholic dweeb (just a workaholic, I guess). The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday (at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway). And when I’m not working, I’m not working at all, although during those periods of full stop I usually feel at loose ends with myself and have trouble sleeping. For me, not working is the real work.”

In a sense I feel similarly right now. When I wake up all I want to do is just grind it out. And even when I kinda feel like doing something else I usually end up doing something poker-related anyway. I am a grinder after all.

This is why I decided I wanted to do something challenging: I'm going to play a million hands of high stakes online poker in a year. I've actually started 2 weeks ago with some trials to see if I can do it and since I've been doing quite well I've decided to just go for it. Right now I'm 15 days in and have grinded about 31k hands. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it, but I'm definitely going to give it my all. I will document this journey via my blog here as well as possibly streaming a session or two on Twitch and making some YouTube content out of it. Let's go!

Day 15/365
Hands played: 31.4k
Hands needed to be on schedule: 41.1k

(We got some work to do)

There are many things I learned being a father, and one of them is that your evenings and weekends are kind of set in stone. We live in the same country so I can give you a nice example; When the lockdown came, and the government told us nobody is allowed to be outside after 22:00, my wife and I looked at each other and laughed a bit: Where should we be at that time?

After kids go to bed, now one of us can go outside for sport or whatever, but often, you will be at home.

Now they are a bit older they sometimes have a babysitter so the wife and I can go for dinner.

RunItTw1ce Yeah I've basically been mixing a ton of sites to get enough action, even some pretty low win rate ones. It's not going to be easy by any means, but think it is possible. If I grind my current schedule I'm getting about 3.3k hands in per day. I might want to add in an hour here or there and aim for 4k hands so I can go on vacation every now and then. Up untill now it seems doable, but I haven't had the inevitable 40 buy-in downswing yet. That's going to be the real challenge.

Yeah that's the way you should approach it. What I do now is just make sure I can tick off every 'task' of my to-do list. It generally looks fairly simple:
[ ] Wake up, take care of baby
[ ] Grind 7 hour session
[ ] Run
[ ] Work-out
[ ] CFP work

Every 'task' starts at a specific time and my only objective is to just make I can check the boxes. A few days ago I lost a lot in one session. Reminded myself that the only thing that matters is whether I'm amble to tick of the box. That is my only job. So I ticked it off, went for a run, done my work-out and felt real good after. Think that is one of my biggest upgrades this year btw: doing something physical after my session. Been a game changer!

trainegourdin Sorry, I had forgotten to give your nickname to the team. Will send it now :)

Im happy to have a coach with that kind of goal !!!!

Go for it !!!!

question: When you say 1M hands on highstakes, what stakes are included ?

Answering the Why
I recently read my friend Sippin Cris’s blog and there was a thought-provoking statement in there, where he essentially wrote that if he was financially free, he would not play poker anymore. Being from roughly the same generation, coming up in the pre-Black Friday era (although he did a lot better than I did back in the days!), I’ve been in poker for more than half my life. And while I’m by no means loaded enough to sail off into the sunset and sip margaritas for the rest of my life, I have the freedom to do a million other things that are not poker related. Yet poker is usually the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing right before I fall asleep. So the question remains: why?!

Reaching My Full Potential
Growing up in poker, I remember railing the high stakes games on Stars and seeing guys like Nanonoko and Lex Veldhuis grind it out on a daily bases with an insane amount of consistency and work ethic. Back then I was a losing micro-stakes player that would’ve given his left nut to get the opportunity to battle it out like that for even a week. Now, more than a decade later, in the fall of my professional poker career by a strange sequence of good fortune, I am in a spot where I can do just that. And (other than turning a little gray) nothing has changed: I still want to battle it out, develop my skills, become a better player, and prove to myself that I’m not simply here to compete but to obliterate.

Now I’m still pretty far from that point. There is not a day that goes by where I’m not entirely clueless about what is happening in a specific hand, let alone come up with a decent strategy to solve that puzzle. But having that inner urge to get to nosebleeds and reach my full potential is there and that is all that matters.

The Dream
So even if I had infinite money right now, I think I would still open the lobbies tomorrow, which I realized is a very blessed position to be in. I’m literally living the dream I’ve had for so long, so I try to remind myself of that as often as I can. It’s easy to get caught up with the daily, weekly, or even monthly swings of a poker/coaching career and let that stress weigh on you, while the reality is much more joyful.

One thing that I realized over the last few weeks is that it is important to enjoy this as much as I can while it lasts. Over the next year, I plan on visiting a few poker stops, traveling the world a bit during school holidays (when my wife is off from work as well), and meeting up with a bunch of guys that I’ve met through the team. And in between those stops, I’ll simply lock myself in my office and battle it out.

EPT London Challenge
I am still aiming for a million hands in a year, but since my last post, a ton of family stuff has happened which has led me not to play as much as I wanted. In order to get back on track a bit, I’ve decided to dissect the million hands into a few more digestible pieces. Currently, I’m working on the first one: a mini-challenge before the EPT London (which I’ll be attending). In the 50 days before the EPT, I’m going to need to play 150k hands and lose 8kg in 50 days. If I fail either goal then I’ll have to fly out someone in the team out and pay for their stay. If I fail both then I’ll have to fly out two guys! Now, losing the challenge would not be the worst thing as we will be making some sort of a team trip out of it anyway. But still, the thought of failing in front of the entire team has given me that little boost that I needed to get things going again. I’ve been grinding most days since and I’m ahead of schedule a bit, so so far, so good. Compartmentalizing it like this has also brought me quite a relief as well. I know that I need to keep my head down and overstretch myself a little, after which I can reward myself by going out and seeing the world — combining the best of both worlds: doing everything I can to reach my goals whilst enjoying the journey to get there as much as I can.

Private Coaching Sale
With summer ending I've got some room in my schedule for some private coaching, so I decided to do a 25% sale on all coaching for the coming two weeks.

Sale prices:
10 hour coaching pack - $2250

Group Coaching
If there is enough interest I'll also be hosting a group coaching flight. The costs of this program is $1500 (discounted price), for which you'll get access to 10 group coaching sessions where we'll go over the game-tree in a structured way in a small group. In addition to that you'll get access to a pack of liveplay videos.

Student Review

I just recently joined the cfp and am really excited to be here. Before this, I have taken a bunch of private lessons with Patrick. I was extremely impressed with his coaching and how willing he was to share information so it felt like the right choice to join the group. Now that I have joined, my expectations have been exceeded even more.

Giving away one on one coachings to whoever likes this message!

Just finished reading this blog! Wow I’m inspired. Mostly been playing mtts but with my job I want to transition to mostly cash games. I was wondering what the steps are to join free nachos staking or coaching. I am a winning mtt low stakes player but my dream has always been to move up to the high stakes. I currently play 25nl with a 6k roll on gg and PokerStars.

Think they take breakeven regs imdabest514 are you winning on nl25?

Zer0 won the giveaway, please hit me up through DM/Discord to set up the coaching call!

Hey guys, quick reminder that the private coaching sale is still running for another 2 weeks!

10 hour coaching pack - from $3000, now $2250

How Joining Poker Detox Changed My Life
A few weeks ago there was a vibrant discussion going on over here in the forums on whether it is incentivized for anyone to join a CFP. I purposely decided not to enter the discussion as everything I have to say on the matter comes across as being heavily biased. Now that some time has passed, I felt like sharing my experience of joining Poker Detox a few years ago. Now to be very clear: not everyone will have the same experience as I did when I joined the CFP. I got lucky in a lot of ways and I might have had an above-average way of going about the opportunity that I got. Still I felt like sharing my personal experience as I thought it would be beneficial to anyone reading this.

Mobius: A State-of-the-Art Curriculum
One of the ways I got lucky is timing: about a week after I joined Poker Detox they released a new program: Mobius. The first moment I read through the material, everything suddenly clicked for me. I had been doing a ton of MDA on my own, but honestly, the way it was structured and the amount of time that went into creating the material is something I could have never done on my own. Reading through it was like reading an Ivy League research paper on how to get to high stakes. Could I have gotten there without it? Possibly. But with it, I felt like there was no way I wasn’t.

The amount of detail was astonishing. Doing that amount of work on my own would’ve been impossible at the time. I was working 4 days and simply lacked the skill to do that type of work.

Think of it like this: it’s one thing to know what type of c-betting strategy is warranted on a specific texture. It’s a completely different thing to not just know what strategy is warranted, but also how to implement that, what possible caveats are, in what subsequent lines the pool is deviating, and how to exploit those deviations by either going for a hard or soft exploit, how the chosen flop strategy influences river bluffing and bluff catching opportunities.

It was like I suddenly had x-ray vision.

This part of joining a CFP is wildly underestimated I think. Mobius had a total of 400+ pages with strategy content, which took hundreds of hours to create. Think of it like this: anyone can learn a new language well enough using a free app and by going over free resources on the internet. Getting extremely good at that new language usually requires something extra though. Enrolling into Detox and getting access to Mobius was like enrolling in a University with a state-of-the-art curriculum. Progress was guaranteed.

Coaching Filled with Aha Moments
During my time at Detox I got coached by Matt. Having access to the same material was hugely beneficial, as I could now ask him what his interpretation was of certain concepts. The coaching he gave me definitely stepped up my game a lot. Hands down the best investment I ever made. Getting access to coaching like that is pretty hard to come by. Most coaches have a different playing style and it can be hard to level with one. Sessions with Matt were always very practical and filled with aha moments. It was simply something different to learn from someone who understood where I was in my development as a player and who crushed the highest stakes around himself. I honestly think it’s just a matter of time before he’s in the top 5 players worldwide if he’s not already.

Getting coaching from someone like that is something that is not easily found on the open market, especially as it’s not always the coach's incentive to share all information.

Which To Pick?
When I joined Detox there weren’t that many CFP’s to choose from. These days there are infinitely more. Some of them are decent, some of them are great and some of them are borderline scams. It can be hard to make the right decision. It pays dividends to do your own research, but just for fun: if I had to join a stable today (and it can’t be my own), I’d probably apply to any of these:
1. Mobius Poker and Poker Detox
2. BitB
3. BRPC

I have no stake in any of these and don’t even know what the program of BitB or BRPC looks like, so take it with a grain of salt, but these would be my picks!

Summary
Now again: not everyone will have the same experience that I had joining Detox and playing with Mobius. Everyone is different and therefore the most important thing to consider is your personal situation. Do you have a lot of time, and feel like you are on a very clear path to high stakes as is? Then joining any CFP is probably a waste of money. If you are like me though and you do not have 30+ hours to study and build strategies and are lacking a clear path toward high stakes, then joining a CFP might be an interesting option.

What percentage of students after completing their contract are actually set up to play 500NL+ or even 200NL+ on their own dime? I see a lot of players who finish their contract and have to drop down in stakes to 100NL or even 50NL after their contract is up. We hear about the great success stories, but how many are actually set up to make $100K+ a year after their contract is up?

What do you think about this? From Matostar blog:
"I would strongly consider PokerDetox if you have access to bovada/ignition/bodog.

I would strongly consider BrPC if you dont have access to bovada/ignition"

The Truth Behind GGPoker Rakeback
In an earlier post I outline that the average reg on GG is losing between 1.5 and 2 big blings per 100 hands, depending on the stake that they are playing on. The most heard response to this is: 'that may be the case, but most of your profits come from rakeback anyway.' So the question remains: how much rake are you paying and how much of it are you getting back?

First of all there are different promotions: fish buffet, leaderboards, ThanksGG and the Bad Beat Jackpot. In addition to that GG uses PVI to determine how much actual rakeback you get. Since the PVI can change over time, the amount you can expect will change as well.

Fish Buffet
Let’s start with the Fish Buffet. I am Platinum Whale, which should generate 50% rakeback (spoiler alert: I got much less). Again, PVI comes into play, so the amount I got varied from 18% in the beginning, quickly dropping towards about 10% net rakeback at the end. Looking at the trend I think it’s quite likely that this could drop a little further even.

Leaderboards
The biggest part of your rakeback will come from the leaderboards. The issue is that top-5 spots earn about two times the rakeback per point earned compared to the lower places:

Average points needed per dollar earned, horizontal: place in the leaderboard. Data taken from 4 weeks of leaderboards at 500nl.

To get in the top 5 a player needs to play about 4500 hands minimum. This means either playing a lot of tables or a lot of hours and often times a little bit of both. Over the 10 full days I grinded these leaderboards, they netted me an average of 14% rakeback. I could definitely have done better if I had prioritized grinding long hours on the same days a bit more, but I think the way I did it now is a fair representation of how I would perform longerterm. There are inevitably days where you have stuff to do and not grinding at all on those days is costly as well.

ThanksGG
ThankgsGG is a daily 100k flip out whereby players accumulate chips for the tournament by getting a bad beat (GGCare) and making monster hands (GGCheers). How many points you get depends on the stakes you play and how big of a hand you played (smaller beats get less points, full house over full house for 300bb deep get more). The variance here is pretty high, but I got something most days that I played, netting an extra 2.2% rakeback.

Bad Beat Jackpot
Lastly we have the Bad Beat Jackpot. This isn’t technically a promotion as you are paying for the Bad Beat Jackpot by paying extra rake: one BB for every pot over 30 big blinds you win. Going over my own database of roughly a million hands, this means an extra rake of 1.8bb/100. You are supposed to get that 1.8bb/100 back in full though (assuming you play an average amount of pots >30bb). It is important to note though that the fee for the Bad Beat Jackpot is not taken into account in the rake that is shown in your tracker. It is however included in your net profit.

Net Rakeback
Taking both the Bad Beat Jackpot fee and the rake into account, my net rake would be 9.9bb/100! This is more than DOUBLE the rake you pay at Stars! Out of that 9.9bb/100 you get 1.8bb/100 back through the jackpot. Over the remaining 8.1bb/100 in rake paid, I got an average of 28% rakeback over the period that I played there. It is important to note though that this number has been declining a bit as my PVI got worse.

My total net rakeback: ~4.1bb/100 (this is including getting a 100% return on the jackpots). So, is it worth playing there one might ask? Well: it depends. For me personally I don’t think this is going to make most sense moving forward. There is a pretty heavy deposit limit, meaning that I can only play 500nl for the time being. In addition to that the reality is that for most of the year I would be making 2.3bb/100 (assuming I don’t win anything on the tables, which means I'm winning 2bb/100 more than the average reg) and then hopefully get close to my EV in the jackpots. But I don’t think I need to explain how much variance goes into something like that.

Holidays Giveaway and Private Coaching Sale
Going to do the yearly giveaway again. This week I’ll be giving away one month of RIO elite and one free one-on-one private coaching session to anyone who likes this post.

In addition to that, I’ve got a bit of room to take on one or two private coaching students.

5 lessons - 1399 EUR
10 lessons - 2499 EUR
20 sessions - 4599 EUR

(Payment Plan Available)

Both packages will follow the same curriculum where I’ll be taking you through the game tree, discussing fundamental concepts as well as pool tendencies (and how to exploit them!). The full curriculum contains 40 lessons. Here is a before and after graph from a player who had 20 sessions with me this year:

Before

After

And re-posting a review he posted in our Discord after he signed a contract with the CFP:

I just recently joined the cfp and am really excited to be here. Before this, I have taken a bunch of private lessons with Patrick. I was extremely impressed with his coaching and how willing he was to share information so it felt like the right choice to join the group. Now that I have joined, my expectations have been exceeded even more.

The sessions typically last an hour or so. There are no hands between the two graphs. He played on a local Swedish site as well. Here is his graph from that entire time frame:

You can probably see the point where I started coaching him. Added ~3bb/100 to his win rate over that sample from what I can see on the graph.

Regarding my own challenge: I failed miserably. A ton of stuff happened in my personal life that made me not play for about a month or two. In November I started playing again and currently thinking about my goals for next year. It'll likely be something volume-based, but I'm not sure what exactly it'll look like as I'm also really looking forward to not work 80 hours per week next year. We'll see!

hey Freenachos I tried to reach out to you by e-mail but apparently it doesn't exist according to google. What's the best way to reach you? Discord? I wanted to ask few questions bout coaching + DB pack. Thanks!

Simon

Hey Freenachos ! Great blog :) I've been considering getting a GTO trainer or something to drill my mistakes in. I already have Pio 2.0 but I've seen people recommend Lucid and GTO Wizard. What's your take on that? What would you recommend going with? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Mike

Freenachos added you on dis

Thanks for your reply Freenachos ! Dojo looks pretty nice and would definitely improve the learning process in Pio of how the ranges interact - does it also let you node lock or you'd need to open Pio for that? I'm not yet very familiar with the GTO Trainer in Pio, it feels a bit "raw" and that's why I've been considering trying out Lucid as it seems to have a better work flow and gives you feedback in a nicer way. Would you say this was your experience with it?

Mike

Yeah pretty much. It's just that the costs for a nicer feel are relatively high as you now need PIO and Lucid afaik.

Dojo is suplemental to PIO, so for node-locling you'd still need to open the sim in PIO.

What a blog to read! Loved it soo much so I was finished in a few hours.
The poker dream is still alive! However I’m not sure for the Dutch people at this moment..
I’m only able to play on GG poker (tax free) but rake is sooo high. And on local sites (Ipoker) but without any rakeback. Your previous post about rake really openend up my eyes! Struggling at 100nl, but ain’t giving up just yet! Grinding my ass off at Pio and GTOW
So for now I’ve chosen GGPoker reg tables.

GL on your grind and all the best wishes! Keep the posts comming!

If You're Going To Be a Bear, Be a Fucking Grizzly
Hilde and I spent the last few days of 2022 in Brugge, a canal-based city in Belgium, about 50km northwest of Brussels. We got an apartment (which turned out to be a studio - which is a big difference if you're living with a bab6) just outside the city, which seemed like a good idea when we booked it (as we weren’t going to be going to any pubs anyway), but in hindsight limited our options quite a bit. Still, it was nice to spend some time away from poker and just chill a bit with Hilde and Noortje. Noortje is 7 months old now and it’s quite amazing to see her develop this quickly. Just a few months ago all she’d do is lay in my arms and sleep, now she’s crawling around, giggling, and reaching for everything that is in her eyesight. I can't say I feel particularly rested as the nights were too damn short, but seeing that she's happy means the world.

I did get a lot of time to reflect on 2022. My main goal was to break through at 2000nl and beyond and establish myself at nosebleeds. I think it’s safe to say that I did not succeed yet. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the main ones are a lack of consistency and not being able to deal with the added stress of going through 50k+ swings. I simply had so much going on in my personal life that I opted to remain sane and play it safe by grinding it out at 500nl and 1k most of the year.

I still had my best year ever in terms of $ won, but don't feel like settling anymore. I've thought about it for a while and I'd rather be able to look back at my career at some point and think: I did everything that I could and got to play with the best in the world, rather than just playing it safe and grinding it out in lower variance games. I think I’m lightyears away from my full potential as a player and I’m confident that if I give it my all, I could hold my own in these tougher games. One thing that one of my older poker buddies wrote in an unrelated conversation kinda stuck with me: 'If you're going to be a bear, be a fucking grizzly.' So that's my goal for the year: be a fucking grizzly and annihilate. This means mixing in more 10/20 and 25/50 when it runs.

It’s my aim to update my blog regularly again. Over the last year or so I’ve been pretty preoccupied with running NachosPoker, becoming a father for the first time, and the grind that I simply lacked the time and energy to put everything into words. Right now I’m in a more balanced place and really look forward to becoming a bit more active again.

Best of luck in 2023. Hope you guys crush as hard as I plan to!

Oh yeah, and @lantp22 is the winner of the giveaway. Feel free to hit me up on Discord to book the call: freenachos#2821.

Thank you so much, Patrick!

You Should Probably Delayed C-Bet More
As Saulo pointed out in his blog, almost every reg has trouble defending appropriately versus delayed c-bets. There are two main reasons for this: the pool on average checks a range that is more capped than the solver and in addition, the pool ends up struggling to find the right thresholds versus bets of different sizes.

In the chart below you see the range composition for when PIO and the pool check flop from the BB and turn (after getting a check back by the BTN). What stands out immediately is that the pool checks a weaker range on average than the solver on this node. The difference might be subtle, but you can immediately see the imbalance in the big blind's range. Note that this is an average of all textures and that there are actually textures where the pool checks a stronger range than the solver. Another thing to take into account is that the data that has been used for the pool here consists of hands played at 500nl+, if you're playing lower stakes it's quite likely that this effect will be even larger.

Note: The pool data is derived from 500nl-2000nl clairvoyant hands from Ignition.

If we now take a look at a BB's response vs a small delayed c-bet on a random board, let's say 8632r, then we can immediately the problems that the pool faces:

In order to defend appropriately here, the pool needs to find thin calls like naked K-highs, thin check-raises like weak top pair and even some middle pair and end up on the turn with a range that still consists of enough two pair, sets and straights. Enter: problems.

Now, granted, the higher up you go the more players you will find that are aware of how they should construct their range and that are able to defend a lot better versus delayed c-bets. Hell, you'll even find guys that are now over-defending. But in all likelihood, if you are playing versus your average 100nl reg, they'll still overfold and under-raise, so the last thing that you'll want to do is to mimic the solver.

So, what should you do? Well, the answer is simple: bet more. Enjoy!

Hi Patrick I have some questions about NachosPoker:
- What makes it different from others cfps like detox ?
- I live in Italy so I can only play on Italian sites, which consist of only italian players (or at least living in the italian territory). How relevant the data gathered from Ignition would be in such pool ?

RaSzIk I'll likely cook up a part two at some point in the future that addresses all your points :)

Hey Freenachos , how did you extract this range composition data in a certain node from Pio? I'm aware you can use Range Explorer in a single spot, but I'm wondering how to get range composition data from all textures on average like you showed on that circular graph in the post above? Is there a new function in Pio? I'd be really grateful for your help!

Mike

Played my first (somewhat unwarrented) shot at 50/100 when the games were really good. Lost a stack vs the rec, but damn was it cool to sit with Stefan for the first time!

Going to take some time to recap the year of NachosPoker and it's students over the next few days/weeks. Today we're starting off with one of our coaches, who will remain anonymous. He was playing 50nl when he started out at Nachos and has since moved up to 1k.

Link

He doesnt coach anymore lmao

In this same vein let me ask what are players like Linus/Stefan doing that Matt isnt? What is the nachos cfp player/coach doing that seperates him from you? These are just cunty questions and serve no purpose.

Weird hater energy, Goggins would not approve.

I just read the post about GG's rakeback. Thank you so much for sharing the awesome info!
Let me ask you one thing. Do you think cash drop (10bb bonus at golden table) doesn't have big impact on the amount of entire rakeback? I have no idea how often we can get that though.

Next one up: Brendon aka sippin_criss
Brendon startedhis journey at Nachos a few weeks after we opened our doors and has since moved up from 100nl to 2000nl. He mostly plays a mix of 500nl and 1000nl on Ignition these days and I think it's an understatement when I say that he's had an amazing 2022!

IAmNeo I think there is only one 'The Nacho' and he's battling Stefan and Markus 3-handed at 20knl. Still, only good that a poor man's Nacho like me has something to aspire to!

End of The Year Review #3: Stars Crusher Spencey91
Starting off the year at 50nl, Spencey grinded himself up to shot taking 1000nl in the fall. Playing on Stars most of his action these days is at 500nl, where he plays a mix of 6-max and full ring with an evBB/100 of ~5!

Link

The Data Dashboard That Reignited My Passion For The Game
Over the last few weeks we’ve been working on a data dashboard that allows us to take any node of the game-tree and visualize the range composition for both the pool as well as the solver. Being able to better understand why a certain spot is overfolded (or overdefended for that matter), has been extremely illuminating to me and has reignited the passion for the game. For quite some time now I feel like I’ve known quite well where the pool is deviating on any given node of the game-tree (thanks to Poker Detox and Mobius), which has helped me become a winner at high stakes. Beyond that I’ve spent quite some time playing around with solvers, trying to gain a better understanding of how a specific spot works. And while this has definitely broadened and deepened my knowledge of the game, one thing that was still lacking was actually seeing where it is that the pool is making mistakes.

Let’s take a random BTN vs BB spot as an example: facing a small c-bet on T82 monotone. By going through the sim, one thing that immediately stands out is how passive we are supposed to play with our flushes. Even our nut flushes typically take lines that involve a whole lot of checking and calling and very little raising and betting (unless we check on the river and face a bet, obviously). By doing leg work like this, we can easily see that it is unlikely that humans are able to control their frequency like that in practice, which is why monotone textures are notoriously underbluffed. Still, up until recently we weren’t able to actually see the difference. Until now:

Link

What you see here is how the pool and solver are defending on monotone textures, BTN vs BB. And - surprise, surprise - we can immediately see that the pool is check-raising too many nutted hands and subsequently check-calls too capped of a range. The cool thing is that this does not just happen on the flop, but on the turn as well. In other words: humans go ‘too frontdoor’ with their nutted hands, leaving their more passive lines capped and vulnerable.

The Data Dashboard is currently still work in progress. There is still some stuff we are adding and improving and there is a lot of data entry work to do still as well, but the goal is to be able to browse the entire game-tree like this and visualize what mistakes the pool is making when constructing their ranges. Or, another way of looking at it is by asking ourselves: where do they hide their nuts and air? By doing so we can build more accurate models to exploit these mistakes. Rather than simply overbluffing in a spot where we know the pool struggles to defend, we are now able to build models that indicate we can go way thinner for value or go with a completely different sizing structure all together. Very illuminating stuff to say the least!

To state the obvious: we are not selling access to this dashboard to anyone outside of the CFP, it’s just something that we are creating for our players playing mid to high stakes. Should you be interested in work like this though, feel free to hit me up through Discord (freenachos#2821) as we are working with competitive splits for established players that are interested in joining the team.

Also: I’ve decided to take on one or two more private coaching students. Feel free to hit me up through Discord to get more information on that as well.

Using Poker as a Hedge
Today, I took a long walk to reflect on life. Over the past year, I have consolidated myself as a winner at high stakes in almost every poker pool. I have won at a decent clip regardless of which site I played at, with an EV win rate of 5bb+ per 100 hands. However, I have felt like I was pretending whenever I played over the last couple of months, thinking that these guys are way better than me. I believe the reason for these thoughts creeping up is that I have not been as professional as I should've been in my approach to the game, affecting my decision-making and resilience in poker.

To improve my quality of life, I have two options: (1) carry on as I have been for the past months, grind it out at 1k for the most part, and accept that that is my ceiling right now, or (2) make some changes to improve my quality of life and leverage my ambition in poker to help shape that process. I believe finding a way to progress in all areas of life would be better, so I asked ChatGTP for advice, and it came up with five things:

• Take care of your physical health: Maintaining a healthy diet, staying hydrated, getting regular exercise, and taking breaks to stretch and move around.
• Practice mindfulness: Meditating, taking deep breaths, or simply paying attention to your thoughts and emotions without judgment.
• Connect with others: Join a poker community, participate in online forums, or attend live events to meet other players and share your experiences.
• Set realistic goals: Set realistic and achievable goals that align with your values and priorities.
• Find balance: Take breaks, pursue other interests, and spend time with friends and family.

To implement these things easily, I broke each of them down into simple rules that I can follow:

Taking care of physical health
Rule #1: Spend the first 45 minutes of the day doing some physical activity.
Rule #2: Only eat veggies and eggs for the first 5 hours and the last 3 hours of the day.

Practice mindfulness
Rule #1: Do one mindfulness exercise before going to sleep.

Connect with others
I don't need additional rules for this as I have the NachosPoker community and don't feel like I need more.

Set realistic goals
Rule #1: Study poker for at least 1 hour per day, 6 days per week.
Rule #2: Start your session at 9 pm, play 6 days per week.

Find Balance
Rule #1: Don't plan any work-related activities from 6 pm till 9 pm and take one day a week off.
Rule #2: Make a schedule for each week and start by planning at least one fun activity with Hilde and/or Noortje.

By following these simple rules, I think I'll become a happier person and hopefully a better poker player and coach in the process. Simultaneously I'll try to force myself to play more 2k and 5k and remind myself that the worst thing that can happen is that I'll find out what my actual ceiling is.

Kinda want to go back to blogging more consistently again, but always feel like I don't have anything interesting to share. If you guys have any ideas or suggestions, let me know!

Decided to do an AMA over at Reddit, feel free to hop on with any questions!

My Take On The Charlie Carrel Bet
For those of you who missed it, Charlie Carrel put out a propbet betting anyone he can win at 5bb post rake at 200 RnC (which translates to 14bb/100 pre rake). I decided to have some fun and pull up some data on win rates at GG pre-rakeback to shed some light on his chances. Before I do though I want to clearly state that I have no idea how strong Charlies' game is, so none of this should be taken as a comment on his game in particular as I simply have no clue how good he actually is. So for the purpose of this bet I'm just going to assume he is a top reg in these games and see what his chances are based on that premise.

Alright, let's start by looking at some publicly available data for how regs are typically performing in those games. We don't have access to RnC in particular, but we can take a look at 200nl reg tables players. Now, keep in mind that this data comes from the reg tables at GG, which by nature make for higher win rates as recs tend to lose at a significantly higher rate in these games. In addition to that there is always the option to select tables when you are playing reg tables, whereas, in fast fold games, you are forced to sit at all reg tables a decent percentage of your hands. Anyway, When we plot the results of the top 100 regs based on volume into a graph, these are their results:

As you can see not one out of the 100 players (based on volume) managed to get a win rate of 5bb+ per 100 hands. The one guy that got closest won at 4.4bb/100, but ran 1bb/100 over EV. Based on our data, the loss rate of recs in fast fold formats is significantly lower than it is on regular tables. The main reason is the fact that recs also play significantly tighter in these games. Based on an old database of Pokerstars 200nl hands, the win rate of the average reg drops from 2.2bb/100 to -0.7bb/100. In other words: regs give up 2.9bb/100 when they choose to play fast-fold formats.

Now, granted, most of these regulars won't be qualified as top-level regs, so assuming that Charlie is, he'll do a lot better than all of them. Taking all of this into consideration though, I'd say there are just a handful of players that are able to pull it off. Whether Charlie is one of them I don't know, but personally I'd be tempted to take the bet.

One of my private coaching students playing on a European site shared his results before and after coaching with me. He moved up to a higher average stake, more zoom, still increased his evbb/100 with +2.

Before:

After:

Balancing Fatherhood, Nachos and the Grind
Things have been very busy but wanted to take some time to reflect and write a longer update on here. It’s been almost a year ago since my first daughter, Noortje, was born. She’s grown so much that it feels like a decade has passed. I always wanted to become a parent someday and having her in my life has been the greatest thing to happen in my life. It’s a cliche, I know, but it’s incomprehensible how much you love someone until you have a child of your own. She’s standing up straight and waving to everyone she sees. I was already happy before she came into my life, but having her around has made everything ten times better.

Balancing poker, running NachosPoker, and taking care of her and my wife (who is heavily pregnant again and due to give birth to our second daughter in a little over a month) has been very challenging. I remember reading about the lack of sleep before Noortje was born and thinking: ‘How bad can it be, they sleep 17-18 hours per day!’ Well, very bad apparently. I think I haven’t had 3 days of 8 hours of proper sleep since she was born. I think we’re just running bad, especially after reading that Doug Polk’s baby is pulling all-nighters after just a few weeks. We’ve tried everything at this point and to be fair: things are getting a little better, but with another baby on the way I’ve surrendered to the fact that I won’t be catching any sleep for the next year or so.

Poker has definitely taken a hit. With people moving up fairly consistently my coaching hours have quadrupled over the last year or so and we’re consistently working on upgrading our methodology, so my to-do list is never-ending and there’s always something that needs my attention, leaving relatively little time for poker this year. I guess that is something that I struggle with to this day, being able to accept that there are many important things in my life right now and that playing poker simply has become one of those things. I still have ambitions, and I still want to break through at 5k and beyond, but I've come to realize that there's no need to rush things. Family always comes first. At the end of the day, balancing fatherhood, coaching, and the grind of professional poker is a constant challenge, but it's also a fulfilling experience. Being able to provide for my family and pursue my passion at the same time is something that I'm grateful for every day. And while there are certainly moments of exhaustion and frustration, the rewards of being home every day and seeing my daughter grow and Nachos succeed makes it all worth it.

Over the coming months I’m probably going to focus on building a roll on GG so that I can try and take some more shots at 5k and beyond and hopefully stick the landing this time. We have some pretty hefty deposit limits, so will have to put in the hours at a lower average stake than I’m used to, but GG is the only site that has high stakes running 24/7 and since I can’t be too picky with when I’m able to play anymore, it’s probably the way forward for now.

Congratz for the second one! Mine is 1 about one month old and 2 years difference with the first one. get ready for even less sleep! Is a great adventure but really really demanding, i'm trying to have a full time job, take care of famiily and still pursue my dream to play full time one day, so challenging!
Good luck for everything!

Total profit: 83k

Had to do with the way the forum displays the post, so had to crop it a bit more.

How are your 200 rush results and overall opinion about that pool?
Do you think it's doable to have 5bb as epiphany claims?

Me in my last two posts:
'so will have to put in the hours at a lower average stake than I’m used to...'
'but I'll likely mostly be playing 500 reg tables with the occasional session of 1k till I got my bankroll at a point where I can just play 1k'

In reality:

Stefan, Here I Come
It’s been a while since I last updated my blog here and for a long time I felt like there was no point in writing another entry to begin with. I had reached all of my goals in poker more or less and definitely reached the goals I had set for myself when I started this blog (beating 100z, boy did that feel like the most absurd/obscene goal ever could’ve thought off). But over the last few months, things have changed.

First of all, my wife and I got another daughter this summer. She was not planned, but I couldn’t be more in love with her than I am. She is two weeks old right now and since my wife has had some physical issues as a result of the second pregnancy in a year, I had to step up and help out. So for the last three weeks I haven’t played a hand of poker, didn’t do any coaching calls and haven’t been around in the Nachos Discord as much as I usually am. Instead, I’ve been changing diapers, cooking, and cleaning on an average of 4-5 hours of (segmented) sleep. To say things were tough is quite an understatement. Still, it did give me plenty of time to reflect on poker and life.

The way I see it I have two real options:
1. Cary on the way I have been, play 1k mostly with some 2k mixed in whenever it’s running and simply grind it out.
2. Aim for the stars and try to get to nosebleeds.

I’ve thought about this for quite some time, as there are some ramifications for both. Option one is low risk and I’ll likely get to a point where I’m somewhat financially free. Option two is higher risk with a potentially higher reward. The thing is: going through 100k swings will be all but guaranteed. In the end I came to the conclusion that I’d rather look back one day at my poker career and realize that I tried and failed, than knowing that I never tried at all.

This also gives my blog a new purpose as there is still something to aspire to. Something that at this point seems utterly unattainable (and maybe simply is unattainable). I’ll be updating my blog somewhat regularly in the same way I have been up until this point and share some graphs, hands, and random things I have on my mind at the time.

Goals for the next 3 years
- Get a sample of 100k+ hands on 5k+
- Become a RIO Elite coach
- Do a regular AMA (Did one on Reddit a few months ago which was a lot of fun)
- Maybe get invited on a podcast or two

Got back to coaching and some other CFP stuff over the last couple of days, gonna play my first session on Saturday which I'm looking forward to. To overcome that time I'll be sharing some graph porn over the next few days, starting with a z200nl graph that one of our players shared recently, winning ~5.5 evbb/100 over a decent sample. Love to see it!

Private Coaching*
I often get DM's asking whether I'm still available for private coaching. Usually I tell them that I'm not available, but now I actually have time for one or two students. If you're interested, feel free to add me on Discord to discuss details: freenachos#2821

(right-click and open image to see it in full resolution)

August Recap: 5000nl Is No Walk in the Park
This past month I took the opportunity to venture into the realm of 5k games a bit, unfortunately without success. The total amount of hands played this year is still so small, but damn, the swings can be brutal! Despite this, it’s still been one of my best months ever, largely due to running pure at 1k. To be honest I’m still not entirely sure whether I really want to go for playing these super high stakes, or whether I want to take it a bit more chill and not endure 100k swings regularly. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut here, the only way to get used to riding the bigger waves is by getting onboard and grinding it out for 100k+ hands. For now, I decided to just grind up to 2k if it’s running and focus on becoming a better and more consistent player instead and then we’ll see.

Part of the decision to take it a bit more chill is also because me and my wife recently bought a new house. We currently live in a fairly shitty neighborhood, in a house that became too small since our second daughter was born over the summer, so I’m really happy that we can move to a safer neighborhood with a large garden where my kids can grow up happily. But it does mean that I’ll have to reassess my risk tolerance a bit in regard to poker a bit.

Life After Poker
Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking more and more about what my life after poker is going to look like. I don’t plan to quit anytime soon and probably never entirely, but still, it’s something that is on my mind quite a bit. I think it would give me a sense of peace to have a path that is a little more consistent and that ironically has a bit more freedom. Being a professional poker player is a dream come true, but playing poker, studying and coaching takes a lot of time and sometimes I look somewhat envious to my younger self when I was teaching and had all this free time to go out, travel and hang out with friends and family.

In addition to that it would also be nice to do something that is plus sum instead of zero sum, something where I add value to society. I’m not entirely sure what that looks like. Part of me is intrigued by the idea of launching a business, while another part considers academia, perhaps as a college professor. I don’t feel the need to figure all of this out soon,. but the thought there may be a path kinda like BenaBadBeat’s path open for me, where I can combine playing and coaching poker with something else does feel oddly calming to me right now.

Casual reminder to anyone to anyone out there:

Why Some Succeed and Most Don’t
About two years ago I was on vacation when I got a text from one of our players: ‘Hi Patrick, unfortunately I need another reload.’ My wife was heavily pregnant at the time, so it was the last vacation with just the two of us. I had promised her: no calls, no poker and as little Discord as possible. I felt shitty as I couldn’t really offer him much support. ‘How you’re holding up?’ I asked. ‘I'm almost 38bi down if I take into account few k hands before staking. I won't lie: it doesn't feel great, but there is nothing I can do but keep doing what I'm supposed to do.’ After that message he proceeded to lose another 10 or so buy-ins.

Link

Now, I often get asked: what can I do to make my time in Nachos a success? In other words: why do some players succeed and others don’t? And while it is hard to name just one thing, if I had to then it would bit this: the player that is most likely to succeed is able to take full control over the things that are within his control while being able to fully surrender to things that are not.

If I look back at the beginning of my own journey then one thing is as clear as day: I was not more talented than others. One could argue that I was far less talented (I had after all been stuck at the micro’s for years). But what I excelled at is recognizing that in a race between meaningful effort and talent, effort usually wins. So every spare minute I had I spend trying to get better and improve my chances of someday reach my ultimate goal: make it to high stakes.

I learned how to use Hand2Note and spend weeks building all the stats and pop-ups from scratch. I read numerous books to acquired soft skills that further enhanced my poker skills. During my walks from and to school I’d listen to archived group coachings sessions from Detox. These walks often took twice as long because I'd pause to jot down valuable insights in my phone. I realized that while poker is a zero-sum game, it's multiplayer in nature: sharing knowledge might lead to someone else sharing with me in return, creating a win-win. With every step I took and decision I made, I asked myself: does this enhance my chances of reaching high stakes? If yes, then pursue. If not, then avoid. Simple as that.

Now, to be fair: I made a ton of mistakes along the way, but the thing I made sure of was that at the end of each day, whether I was winning or getting demolished, I could tell myself: It doesn’t matter, just keep doing what you are supposed and one day you might get there.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago: another text. ‘I surpassed this milestone and I wanted to share this with you as this wouldn’t have happened without you or the CFP.’ Now while I can't say I'm not flattered, the truth is that this was 90% him. He simply kept doing what he was supposed to :)

Link

Now, to be fair: I made a ton of mistakes along the way, but the thing I made sure of was that at the end of each day, whether I was winning or getting demolished, I could tell myself: It doesn’t matter, just keep doing what you are supposed and one day you might get there

Need to be able to do just that :)

Hey guys!

Just a quick message to let you know that I'll be taking on 2-3 more private coaching clients. Contact me through DM or Discord for additional info (freenachos#2821).

Elite
Some good news: I'll be signing a new contract with RunItOnce to produce videos for them. I'l become an Elite Pro, which is something that I thought was not in the realm of possibilities when I started this blog almost five years ago. It honestly is a very big honor to be considered good enough to provide training videos, let alone follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest of the game like Sauce and Koon.

I also noticed that this blog got to 1k likes, seems like a decent milestone to give away another 1on1 coaching call. Like this post to enter, will draw the winner in a week or so :)

Congratz!

Very well deserved!

Looking forward to your videos :)

My Second Year As A Pro: Where to Next?

Two years ago, in the summer of 2021, I made the life-changing decision to quit my job as a teacher and pursue a career as a professional poker player. Since then, my life has undergone significant changes. I have become a father of two beautiful daughters, which in itself has turned my life upside down. NachosPoker, the site that I play on, has grown from about 10 players to 62 active players last month. I have also progressed from being a RIO Essential coach to being a RIO Elite coach. Despite all of these new responsibilities, I have managed to maintain a full-time poker playing schedule and have established myself as a winning player in both 5/10 and 10/20 games. It's quite challenging to juggle all these responsibilities, and sometimes I miss the free time I had when I was younger. It's no surprise that many players in my position choose to give up playing and pursue coaching full-time.

Over the past few months, I have been contemplating the direction I want to take in life. I've taken some unsuccessful shots at 25/50 and 50/100, which has dented my profits for the year. Breaking through in these high-stakes games is particularly challenging. As Demondoink noted in his blog: it's more of a mental struggle than a technical one, and to be completely honest, I'm not sure I'm willing to take on that challenge at this time.

Nosebleeds at GG: Let’s Look at Some Data

The main challenge in breaking through at nosebleed stakes is the inconsistency of game availability. For instance, the top 10 players at 1knl on GG played an average of 431k hands over the past 12 months. In contrast, the top 10 players based on volume at 10knl only played 28.5k hands. While most players mix sites and stakes, and may still put in a few hundred thousand hands per year, there's a fundamental difference between missing a shot at 1000nl and grinding it back at 500nl, versus taking a shot at 5k or 10k and having to recover at 1k, simply because you won’t be able to just load up 4-6 tables next time you take your shot and try again.

Another thing to consider is that on GG in particular, the game is designed so that each higher stake has diminishing returns in terms of $/100. This is due to the fact that the net BB/100 (after rakeback) decreases progressively as you move up in stakes (unlike on other sites where BB/100 is usually relatively stable across different stakes). In other words, while you can expect to win more at 10knl than at 1knl, you won't win 10 times as much, but rather around 6 times as much.

(Data based on the top-100 regs on each stake based on volume).

If you take into account the lower average volume that can be achieved at these stakes, the winnings per year for the average 1k regular player are actually higher. However, as I mentioned before, high stakes players are obviously playing on multiple sites and at various stakes, so the chart below may be a bit distorted:

The primary argument against moving up to high-stakes games is likely the amount of liquidity required to minimize the risk of ruin. This is money that you would need to keep on the sidelines, whereas you could invest it in assets that generate income. The hourly loss from not investing is a factor that must be taken into account.

The Pragmatic Approach

The most pragmatic approach is probably to take small shots here and there and spread the risk over a longer time frame. This way, you can increase your risk slightly, and you will still likely have winning years even if you run poorly at higher stakes. However, it can be harder on the mindset because you won't be able to grind out 50,000 hands at a time.

Personally, I am currently at a point where I am only going to focus on playing 5/10 and 10/20 until the end of the year. With two young kids and running a company life is already stressful enough without going through regular 100k swings. I still love the game and wake excited to grind, but I will wait until I am ready to pursue bigger goals again. Until then I’ll just try to keep demolishing my regular games as much as I can.

Giveaway Winner
@thetaav has been the lucky winner of the coaching giveaway. Please hit me up through Discord to claim your prize!

If you are interested in getting coaching then feel free to hit me up through Discord or DM's as well for more information, as I'll be taking on a few more private coaching students over the next few weeks. You can find some more information here as well

havent played a lot on GG, which might be a mistake, but the rake/100 is quite high isnt it? also I heard regs dont get rakeback/or at least way less?
Where did you get the data from? :)

Book Recommendation: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Been reading listening to The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and it's been one of the best books I've read this year, if not in my life. Very inspirational, highly recommend it to anyone. If you want to get a feel for the author first, he did a podcast with Joe Rogan a few years ago.

Happiness Over EV

Since I started this blog nearly five years ago, I have devoted numerous hours to optimizing my life with one ultimate goal: to become a professional card player and earn a living from it. Through consistent effort and some good fortune, I have successfully achieved that goal. However, in recent months, I have come to the realization that simply reaching this goal did not bring me any additional happiness. In fact, one could argue that it has actually made me less happy. How, you may ask? Let me explain.

Performance Equals Sacrifice
In our CFP we had a running gag for a little while: we had done research to gain a better vision on which times to play on different networks and it turned out that on most sites, the 3am to 6am time slot was generating highest win rates. So for some time a bunch of us would wake up around 2:30am to collectively start grinding and that time slot became the most active time slot in our Discord as a bunch of us would grind and post hands. When someone would post another hands around 4am where they'd get stacked, we often asked ourself (jokingly): ‘Is this that high stakes dream that everyone always talks about, getting out of bed in the middle of the night to take a few punches to the face?’

The point is: performance equals sacrifice. To reach high stakes, most mere mortals like myself have to accept that certain things (such as staying awake past 8pm) are no longer feasible. While you may have some flexibility, such as playing on different sites or relocating to a country with time zones that align better with when the good games usually take place, the fundamental truth remains: in order to excel in one aspect, one usually has to relinquish something else. This in itself is not a negative thing, as long as there is (some) balance and a higher purpose (like reaching high stakes). Once you lose either of those (or both), you're fucked.

The moment I reached high stakes and went pro, I found myself feeling stuck for a while. The feeling of: ‘What now?’ doomed up on me.

Financial Independence, Retire Early
I decided that I needed a new aspiration: financial independence. Since I don't have access to many sites and opportunities to consistently participate in nosebleed games (and certainly not ones that are not raked till death), setting a new financial goal seemed like the most logical choice. (Spoiler alert: it was not). The idea was that if I can get my bankroll to x, I’d never have to work a day in my life again if I don’t want to.

While this may seem like the ultimate path to freedom, the problem is that everything has the potential to become an EV calculation. For example, I can choose to take tonight off and watch football, which I enjoy, or I can study or play poker, which I also enjoy but also generate money. So, why would I choose to take the night off and watch football? Additionally, since it's difficult to assess how long I can sustain playing poker professionally and making the same amount of money, it became very tempting to put too much pressure on myself.

This line of thinking is also an example of a scarcity mindset. I am already at a point where I have the freedom to do whatever I want. Even if poker were to cease to exist tomorrow, I would still be fine. I could go back to teaching or start another company. I have no desire to simply do nothing, so it doesn't make sense for me to be overly fixated on "early retirement."

Yesterday, I had an epiphany while contemplating whether to register for the WSOP Online Main event. I thought to myself, "Imagine winning; that would be life-changing money." However, I soon realized that even if I would win, I wouldn't change anything in my current life. I would still wear the same clothes, drive the same car, and eat the same food. Literally, nothing would change. So, why do I feel this urgency to do whatever I can to reach this number that I made up?

Desire is The Root of All Suffering

Now, let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with temporarily giving up certain things, such as watching football games, in order to achieve something greater than yourself. Becoming a professional poker player is challenging and requires dedication and consistent effort. You will need to sacrifice certain things, big or small, and that's perfectly fine. The problem arises when desire takes control, as you find yourself constantly bargaining with yourself, saying, "I'm okay with being unhappy now because there's a future reward that is within reach," only to see it move further away every time you get closer.

I’ve come to realize that I want to be happy now, regardless of what goals I reach. Someone shared this Rick Rubin quote with me that summarizes how I feel quite well: ‘Consider your craft as an energy alive inside in you. It’s just as much a part of the cycle of evolution as other living things are. By practicing to improve, you are fulfilling your ultimate purpose on this planet.’

Over the last week I’ve done just that: aim to practice and improve, without feeling the overwhelming need to reach any other goal than just that. I stopped going to bed at 7pm, I stopped waking up at 3:30 and stopped forcing myself to play when I did not feel like it. I spent the afternoons going on walks with my kids and I even started watching a series with my wife, something that I haven’t done in years as I’d always go to bed right after dinner. I will have to play at sub-optimal times, I will likely have to mix in some mid stakes as games won’t always be running at 1k-2k, but I’ll play any game up till 5k that runs and do my best to improve a little bit every day. And most importantly: I’ll be happy now, not later.

What it's like to play high stakes on GG:

Quick reminder to anyone running like shit:

Hey guys!

I wanted to let you guys know that I'm doing another Reddit AMA where RIO has graciously decided to give away 5 monthly subscriptions to RunItOnce. In addition to that we've launched a public NachosPoker Discord channel where we will share valuable strategic upgrades, free articles and videos, and other helpful resources. This community is designed to provide you with a platform to connect with like-minded individuals, engage in meaningful discussions, and stay updated with the latest trends and developments in the poker world.

Nacho's Almanac
Over the last few weeks, I've been busy putting together a Notion page called 'Nachos Almanac' to share some insights into my creative framework for free. My end goal is to continuously update this Almanac, making it a valuable and constantly growing free resource for low-stakes players. The article you're about to read is just a part of it, and you can explore it, along with a bunch of other stuff on www.nachosalmanac.com.

Fundamentals of Bluffing the River
Welcome to the first edition of Nachos Monthly! Embrace the strategy as we present the very first interactive newsletter that is here to elevate your game to the next level. In each edition, we'll delve into the intricacies of the game, dissecting hands, exploring tactics, and uncovering data-driven insights that are often hidden from plain view.

In this first installment, we will discuss the fundamentals of bluffing on the river. We will cover how different situations require different strategies and how you can improve your understanding.

What Do The Robots Do?
To better understand how and when solvers bluff, we analyzed a database of hand histories generated by PIO. Using Hand2Note, we filtered for instances where the solver reached the river with J-high or worse. This does not necessarily mean that solvers cannot bluff with better hands; they often do. However, by choosing this low threshold, we can ensure that our results are not skewed by (very) thin value bets.
The chart below shows the results for bluffing the river in a single-raised pot (SRP) from the big blind (BB).

One thing that immediately stands out is that not every line gets bluffed at the same rate. Bluffing in a river probe line (XC-X-B) is rarely a mistake, whereas bluffing the river in a line like X-B-B is significantly worse. Why is this? The answer is, as always, EV.
When we are in a river probe line we often get to the river with a significant range advantage. The in position player had the opportunity to bet the turn after all, which he will almost always do with the top of his range. Checking behind loses a street of value and therefore slowplaying isn’t a great option (in contrary to spots where you are out-of-position with a strong hand, when you sometimes might make more money by checking as you have the option to build a bigger pot by check-raising). Let’s take a look a few equity graphs:

In one of these graphs we face a second barrel (BB vs BTN) on J♥️7♣️2♠️3♥️ and on the other one we get a check back and get to the river, which is the 6♥️. Can you guess which one is which?
If you guessed that the second one is the one where we face the second barrel then you were right! What immediately stands out is that in case the in position player checks back the turn, we have a range advantage throughout the entire range. This is exactly why the solver wants to bluff so often on this node: it leverages the range advantage and forces the in position player into a tough decision: either call and let the BB’s stronger range print money or fold a bit more and give away some EV to it’s bluffs. It often chooses to do the latter (especially in spots where the river does not improve IP’s range).

And What About Us Humans?
During one of our coaching calls, a student once asked the following question: "Where do they hide their air?" I thought this was a clever way of thinking about it. The answer is simple: in lines where they check (excluding checks to the aggressor). The fundamental truth about the way people play poker is that they typically check too weak and bet stronger than they should. This often results in overfolds in lines where they have a real option to bet (such as the second barrel spot in the hand that we just discussed), yet where they choose to check.
We can speculate on why players behave this way, but the most likely answer is also the simplest: humans are naturally greedy and therefore tend to make too many bets with their strong holdings. Regardless of the underlying reasons, what's important is being able to prove that this behavior is actually occurring. This is why I plotted the data for all the lines we discussed above in a chart:

Pool and PIO’s folding frequency vs a B75 river bet

We observed that the difference between the pool and PIO is largest in discontinued aggression lines (lines where the turn was checked through). This effect is present in all pools, but it is more pronounced at lower stakes and in pools where players tend to play more passively, such as GGPoker and closed-off markets like .IT and .PA. On the other hand, there are also pools in which players tend to overdefend rather than overfold. (Shameless plug: In the NachosPoker CFP players have access to data for all of the main pools that shows exactly how big a players overfold is compared to PIO).

It is important not to take these charts at face value. One possible explanation for the pool folding more is that the BB might be valuebetting more and bluffing less. If this is the case, then due to removal effects, the pool will be folding more in these lines, even if they have found the correct defending threshold. If we then start bluffing relentlessly, we might run the risk of playing a highly exploitative strategy for the wrong reasons. Having said that, this is stuff that we can quantify and even taking into account removal effects it does make sense to bluff lines where your bluffs are generating EV in equilibrium or the pool overfold is quite substantial.

Hey Zamadhi108 thanks for letting me know, I'm not sure why this is. I'm trying to fix it, in the meantime you can reach the original Notion page here (which should solve the problem for now).

2023: Failed Shots
Before the year started I had high hopes: I was going to play a lot and aim to force a breakthrough at nosebleeds. That turned out like quite the disappointment as I lost >50k in 5k hands. Looking back there isn’t that much I could’ve done differently. I just ran in the bottom 10% and that was it really. Unfortunately, those 5k hands had a significant impact on my entire year. By September, with only 3 months left to play, I had won less than half of what I had won in 2022. I decided to put my head down and grind it out at 500nl-2k and make the best of it.

In the end I ended up winning a little over 100k in those 3 months, which means that I roughly won as much as I did last year. A little bit more if you only include cashgames. Overall I’m really happy with the results.

Profit Untracked Sites: $24,056.48
Jackpots: $14,872.77
TOTAL PROFIT: $197,749.78

2024: Moving, Poker and Coaching
Tomorrow, we will sign the contract to buy our new home. We plan to move at the end of January, and I'm really excited about it. Over the past few months, I've been sleeping in my office because the baby is still sleeping in our bedroom and we don't have enough space. Since I wake up around 3am, I didn't want to be disturbed multiple times during the night, so my office was the only place where I could get some rest, but it’s far from ideal. In our new home, everyone will have their own room, the kids will have a large garden to play in, and we will live in a nice neighborhood in the city center.

Next year, I plan to maintain the same schedule as this year. This involves waking up early to play in the mornings, doing coaching and CFP work in the afternoons, and going to bed after dinner. However, I have come to realize that balancing a professional playing career and running the company requires significant sacrifices on the home front. Over the last few years I’ve basically worked two full-time jobs in order to make most of this opportunity, but this year I’ll likely reach the financial goals I’ve set for myself and after that I’m going to work a lot less. Hilde and I have discussed the possibility of traveling in 2025 and potentially shifting my focus more towards the company and potentially private coaching.

While I'm not completely certain yet, I do know that eventually I would like to take a more relaxed approach to life. I miss the simple things, like just hanging out on the couch together in the evenings.

Private Coaching
In the new year I'll be taking on a few additional private coaching students. For more information on private coaching you can head over to Nachos Almanac or hit me up in Discord.

New Release: Creating a Flop Game Plan
Hey guys! I just released a new interactive article in my Almanac (where i basically share a bunch of free strategy stuff), explaining how to create a game plan for the flop. It includes two videos and an example of the game plan we use in our CFP. You can find it here. Enjoy!

Unaligned
Ever since I started my blog on RunItOnce, I’ve worked two jobs: first as a teacher and aspiring poker professional, and later as a professional poker player running a poker coaching company. I’d wake up at 3:30, work from 4:30 till 4:30, and I’d do that most days of the week. When I started out, COVID had just happened, and there wasn’t anything else to do anyway. When COVID fizzled out, my first daughter was born, which meant there wasn’t much room to travel, hang out with friends, or go to the pub anyway. Besides, I was eager to establish myself at 10/20 and build an elite training program for the guys at NachosPoker.

Over the last year or so, I've increasingly felt like I was moving in the wrong direction. Even though I was doing well in poker and with my coaching company, I started to feel burnt out. The early mornings and long hours were wearing me down. I realized I was missing out on time with my family and not taking care of myself. My passion for poker was fading because of all the stress. It became clear that I needed to rethink my priorities and find a better balance in my life.

New Goals
Another thing I struggled with is the lack of a realistic path toward higher limits at this point. When I started my blog, all I wanted was to beat 100nl. Later, that turned into 500nl, 1000nl, and 2000nl. But to play higher, I’d need to play on GG, where the deposit limits are very strict. Playing poker started to feel like playing the final level of a game with the same end boss on repeat.

So, over the last few months, I’ve contemplated quitting poker entirely and just focusing on the CFP and some private coaching. On the one hand, this would allow me to spend much more time with my family. But on the other hand, I’d feel like I was teaching my students to beat a game that I wouldn’t be able to confidently say I could beat myself. Besides, I really want to enjoy the process of improving, getting better, and playing against tougher opponents.
Another option was to move to another country where I’d be able to play on WPN or GG without deposit limits and start mixing in 5k that way. With two young kids and some family depending on me, I don’t think that is a realistic option either.

My last option was to consistently max out my deposit limits on GG and start grinding my way to 5k from lower stakes. The downside is obvious, I’d give up a lot of EV in the short run, but one thing that I’ve realized while doing Adam Carmichael’s mindset course for the last few weeks is that money is not and never was my main motivator in poker. I just want to become the best poker player I can be and enjoy the journey of continuous improvement. By playing on GG from now on, I might give up some EV, but I get to challenge myself and see if I still got what it takes to beat the games over there and in the end I can aim for a new end goal: playing 100k hands at 25/50.

Balance
To achieve better balance in my life, I will take at least one, maybe two, days off per week. I’ve also started integrating other activities into my routine, specifically running and DIY projects around the house. I currently run a 5k at 6:55/km, which isn’t great, but I really enjoy the process of linear improvement. Additionally, after moving to our new home, I realized there are a lot of things that need fixing. Initially, I planned to hire people to do all of it, but I decided to start building a cabinet myself—something I never thought I could do. Picking up these hobbies has been very rewarding. Running helps me stay fit and clear my mind, while DIY projects give me a sense of accomplishment and a break from the mental grind of poker.
Moving forward I’ll be playing poker 3 days per week, while doing coaching and other company stuff 2 or 3 days a week. And since I’ve got something new to aim for, I decided to see if I can revamp this blog and document my progress towards 25/50. Let’s go!

(Posting here instead of my newer blog - Retirement of a Grinder - because I feel like I can finally contribute new content to this journal without it feeling forced. Now that I can document my progress towards 25/50 - if I ever get there - I figured it’s a good time to revamp my journal here.)

Keep up with the posting man. Truly inspiring and GL. I have a 3 week old newborn baby at home and I've been relating so much to your posts!

Poker
Last month was the first month since January where I put in a reasonable sample again. The results weren’t great, but I didn’t play particularly well either. I have been studying a lot more over the last few weeks, and it’s been exciting to shed new light on the game and try out a few new strategies.

The plan for July is to keep grinding 1k and 2k for the most part and hopefully build up a roll on GG and Ipoker so that I can jump into some higher stakes games as well. In August-October, I’ll be doing a road trip to Barcelona, which I’m really looking forward to. The downside is that I won’t be able to play online as I’ll be in France/Spain the entire time, where GG/Ipoker are not allowed. I’ll probably end up playing a fair bit of live poker in Barcelona and continue with the study goals I’ve set for myself and then during the winter I’ll put my head down and grind some actual volume.

Poker Athlete Course
Over the last few weeks I’ve done Adam Carmichael’s Poker Athelete course together with Tom, our team-manager. I was pretty burned out with poker when I started and can honestly say that going through the first few chapters, especially the first one, was a game changer for me. The first chapter focuses on self-awareness, which I thought I was good at but turned out to be an area for improvement. I realized that over the last three years, my core values had shifted from wanting to perform as well (and working as much) as I possibly could, to something perhaps a bit more healthy. Like I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve been taking one or two days off every week now, and for the first time, I’m able to stick to that as I now realize that it’s part of who I want to be now.

I don’t want to delve too deep into the course itself for obvious reasons, but having gone through the first three chapters, I can say that it’s very well structured and documented. Even though I consider myself someone with a strong mindset, it has already taken me a few steps further.

Health
Over the last few months, I’ve gotten back into working out a few times a week. In our previous home, we had a little shed where I built a small gym, but in our new home, there wasn’t any room for that. For now, I’ve been working with a basic setup in a spare bed room with some resistance bands and anchor points, but it’s nice to have something I can use at home. When I started NachosPoker, I was about 115kg, which even for my height (1.95m) was fairly overweight. With strict dieting, I got that down to around 100kg, and now with regular workouts and less strict dieting, I’m at 95.5kg. It would be cool to get to around 90kg as I think that would be roughly optimal for me, but I’m trying to focus more on the process of working out and eating healthy consistently, rather than going all out until I reach my desired weight.

I also picked up running over the last few weeks, and yesterday I ran my first 5k without any breaks to walk and catch my breath. It’s quite cool to see how linear the progress is. In my previous entry, my best time for the 5k was 6:51, and yesterday I ran one in 6:24. There are some nice parks around our house, so it’s been really nice to get out of the office and enjoy nature a bit.

First Podcast Appearance!
Hey everyone, I recently got invited to the Alan F Poker Podcast and the episode just got released here!

It was my first ever invite to something like this, and I can honestly say I had a blast. Alan is a really great host, and I think the conversation turned out to quite engaging. Enjoy!

Really enjoyed the podcast episode!

Low Effort, Low Output
Recently, I’ve reduced my poker hours significantly, meaning I haven't been playing much at all. Instead, I've been busy running the company and enjoying family time. When I did play poker, my performance wasn't great. I played more out of obligation than passion, often only bringing my C-game. Since I'll be in Barcelona for two months starting mid-August, where I won’t be able to play online poker, I’ve decided to accept this low effort, low output phase. I'm focusing on the company, coaching, and enjoying the summer with my family.

In Barcelona, I plan to reflect on my future in poker. I’m fortunate that I don’t need to play poker; I could focus solely on running the company and coaching. However, I still have a passion for poker and want to enjoy it. It would be great to consistently play at higher stakes like 5k, but that might require moving to another country. I think this extended time away from home will help show us whether moving to another country is a realistic option or whether we are just happier as a family if we stay where we are.

When I return from Barcelona, I’ll need a new challenge. Whether it's moving to another country to play higher stakes, aiming for a higher winrate or more volume in my current games or simply focus on the company, I’m not sure yet. Fortunately, I have time to figure it out.

(July Results)

Memory Dividends
With less poker, I got to spend a lot more time with my wife and kids. The early years of parenting, filled with sleepless nights and diaper changes, made it practical for me to focus on work and growing the business while my wife cared for the kids. Now that they’re older, talking, and developing personalities, I noticed it’s a lot harder to spend less time with them. Over the past few months, I've therefor prioritized spending more quality time with them. While my brain is often still in “work mode,” I try remind myself that now is the time to make lasting memories. Bill Perkins talks about this concept he called "memory dividends" in his book Die With Zero, the idea that memories can bring joy and fulfillment for decades. For most people, especially with young children, I think creating memories is often more valuable than earning more money. This is what I try to remind myself when I feel the urge to create another spreadsheet where I try to quantify how much I can make if I go all-in on poker for a year (no pun intended).

‘Another Coach That Doesn’t Beat The Games’
In the coming weeks and months, I plan to start a YouTube channel to showcase our team's work. It will be a cool opportunity to do marketing in the only way I’d feel happy doing it: by talking about poker, data and strategy and (hopefully) providing some value somewhere along the way. I’m not entirely sure when the first video will be released, but on the back-end I’m working quite hard to make sure that we are making some high quality content. I’m definitely not aiming to be the biggest channel or best YouTuber, but I want to do what I enjoy—coaching poker—and hope it resonates with viewers.

It’ll be a good opportunity to learn new skills and I think it’ll be a lot of fun, but we’ll see. The other day I was browsing through some of the comments on the podcast it made me realize what I’m getting myself into haha:

The Road to Nosebleeds Leads Us To Some Different Places
Over the last month, my family and I have been traveling through Belgium and France to Spain. The plan was to play in the EPT in Barcelona, but the apartment we booked was infested with roaches, so we left after a few days and moved to a city closer to the beach. I played a few cash games, but the experience wasn’t great. The games were just okay, the rake was ridiculously high, and the vibe wasn’t great (people constantly changing seats, skipping straddles, etc.). It made me realize how much I enjoy playing online.
I've taken quite a bit of time off in the past few weeks to relax with my wife and daughters by the beach and pool. We've been experiencing what it's like not to live at home for an extended period. I thought my wife might get homesick, but she’s been loving the nicer place and better weather. This experience made us pull the trigger: we are going to emigrate to another country!

We are still weighing our options and the most likely options right now are Andorra, which is a small country relatively close to home with high quality of live and reasonable cost of living or Gibraltar, which is a bit further away, a bit more expensive but nice weather all year round. e’re still deciding, and sometimes we consider other places like Malta or Hungary, but we’re not in a rush.

Above all I’m really excited to focus on higher stakes poker once we move somewhere with no deposit limits. The freedom to grind without restrictions is a big motivator to move. Living somewhere that lets me focus on playing poker is something I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. Plus, it’ll be great to combine that with a better lifestyle—good weather, more family time, and less stress overall.

Pulled the Trigger
Like I mentioned in my last post, we’ve decided that we wanted to move to another country. The last few days we’ve spent in Andorra and it against all odds we actually like it here. It’s a small, but very clean city with a very chill vibe. We currently live in a small (but larger) city in the Netherlands, but it’s quite a poor city with half of the city center having vacant. Over here in Andorra it is smaller, but it’s a thriving, with lots of shops and restaurants, very friendly people and lot’s of large, easily accessible playgrounds for the kids. In a way it kind of reminds me of the Netherlands in terms of how well organized everything seems. Hilde initially was a bit skeptical about our prospects of living here, but after being here for a few days she made a full 180, so yesterday we started the process to acquire residency in here. There are a few things that we will need to arrange as Andorra is not in the European Union, so we will need to apply for residency and meet their demands (one of which is putting up 50k as a bond in an bank account for the Andorran government), but I think we’ll end up fully moving over January 1st. We’ll travel back home tomorrow and the day after, so this gives us about three months to get everything in order. Very exciting!

The thing I’m mostly looking forward to is getting back to consistently playing and studying poker. In Andorra I will have access to practically every globally operating site with very few restrictions, so it’s quite exciting to be able to play on sites I haven’t been able to play on for many years. I’ve taken quite some time off over the summer as well, so I’m feeling fully rested and ready to hit the lab, work hard to elevate my game even further and grind a sample that hopefully will reflect the work i’m going to be putting in.

Now that I’ve found a new purpose in Andorra as a poker player, I think I’ll start updating this blog more often again as well. For now I’ll leave you guys with a picture of the view of our apartment over here:

Nice, Andorra is an interesting place. Still feels like an undiscovered gem when you compare it to other tax-friendly destinations. Having Barcelona not that far away and the beautiful nature around, I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. I'm pretty sure RIO coach Nuno Alvarez lives in Andorra, too, btw.

Packing Up My Stuff
Tomorrow, we’ll set off in a van from our home in the Netherlands, headed to Andorra to move some of our belongings into our new apartment. We found a great spot in the city center of Andorra La Vella, and the excitement of starting this new chapter is slowly sinking in. It still feels a bit surreal, knowing we’re actually about to move to a different country, high up in the mountains—all because of poker. Six years ago, when I started this blog, if someone had told me that this would be my life, I would have thought they’d lost their mind. Now that we’re actually doing this, I can feel a bit of imposter syndrome creeping in. I catch myself wondering: Why are you really doing this? What if you’re not as good as you think? What if this turns out to be a costly mistake? These doubts are normal, I suppose, but they’re hard to shake when you’re taking such a big step into the unknown.

(The street where we'll live in Andorra)

Poker
This past month was the first in about six months that I’ve managed to put in a reasonable amount of volume. My playing time has been pretty inconsistent this year. Early on, I was busy moving into a new house that needed a lot of reconstruction. Then, over the summer, I spent two months traveling, all while managing the business and juggling family life with a toddler and a baby. Honestly, it felt good to finally sit down in my office and focus on poker again. The results were decent—not amazing—but what I enjoyed most was just getting back into the rhythm: grinding consistently and working steadily on my game.

In November, I’ll aim to keep up a similar pace, though the move to the new apartment will probably pull me away a bit. But with a little bit of luck, by late December, I’ll be settled in Andorra, ready to really lock in and put in solid volume. I’ll have access to a lot more sites to play on while I’m there, so hopefully I’ll be able to find more action on sites that I haven’t played on for ages (Stars, Winamax, 888 etc). For next year I’m toying with the idea of setting a volume challenge as I want to make most of the opportunity that I have while I’m there, but nothing is set in stone yet.

YouTube
Today is the official launch of my YouTube channel as well. The goal is two post two longer form videos per week and a daily short. Today the first short got released and tomorrow we’ll review the first longform video. You can find the channel here, feel free to subscribe or drop a comment.

The Next Chapter
Last week, we packed up a van and drove nearly 1,500 km from the Netherlands to Andorra, moving our belongings to our new apartment. It was two solid days of driving from morning till night, quite a tough journey with two young kids along for the entire ride! But the excitement of being one step closer to settling in Andorra definitely made it worth it. The country has such an incredible mix of natural beauty and easy-going city life. I feel really lucky to get to live here. Over the last few days, we went on a few hikes in the mountains, tried out all the new restaurants, and enjoyed exploring our new surroundings. Andorra already feels like home, and I can’t wait to make it official.

Since arriving, there’s been a lot of things we had to take care of: handling residency paperwork, setting up utilities, and finding furniture. We planned to stay for two weeks, balancing work with getting everything ready for the big move. But with no electricity in our new apartment yet, I haven’t been able to play poker here as much as I’d hoped. It’s frustrating because I’m eager to get back to the grind, but I’ll have to wait until things are fully set up. I did setup a few new poker accounts on sites I haven’t played on since forever.

In a few days, we’ll drive back to the Netherlands to spend the holidays with family. Right after Christmas, we’ll be back here for good. I can’t wait to start 2025 fully focused and determined to keep pushing my game to new levels. The next year will be all about proving to myself that my best years in poker are still ahead of me, and I’m ready to put in the work to make it happen. I'll also be sharing my journey here on the blog and on my new YouTube channel, where I’m posting live plays, strategy videos, and possibly even doing a challenge in 2025. We’ll see how it unfolds. For now, I’m going to enjoy these last two days here with the family and take in these final moments before the real adventure begins!

The Cash World Championship Experience
Nearly six years ago, I started this blog as a struggling 10nl player; earlier this month, I found myself taking a shot at 50/100 and 100/200 during the Cash World Championships on CoinPoker. It was an exciting opportunity to play against some of the best players in the world, names like Linus, Darrel, Taisto, Dudd, and a few other crushers. I know that I'm going to be an underdog in most line-ups, but that's fine. The reality is that I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to playing or studying poker over the past year. Running my business has taken up the bulk of my energy. Despite the outcome (a $40k loss before I decided to call it quits), it was still a cool experience. Looking ahead, I might take another shot if they host the championship again next December, assuming I can make significant improvements by then. For now I'll leave you with a few semi-interesting hands.

Bluff vs Tony
Dream flop vs Taisto
Punty check-jam vs Darrel

Launching My YouTube Channel
In November, I launched my own YouTube channel, and it’s been a cool journey so far. The feedback has been largely positive, though I still have to get used to the random hate comments I'm exposing myself to. All in all, I’ve enjoyed the process even more than I anticipated. My main goal isn’t to chase massive subscriber numbers or become the best content creator out there. Instead, I see it as a way to showcase what we do in the CFP and connect with a broader audience.

Currently, I’ve been posting one live play video and one theory/mindset/logistics video each week. For now, I plan to continue this schedule. Looking ahead, I’m considering focusing more on regular table live plays rather than the Rush & Cash format. I’ve noticed that my explanations (and my play), tend to improve when I have more time to discuss the hands. We’ll see how it evolves, but I’m enjoying the process and looking forward to exploring more directions with the content.

Balancing Poker, Coaching, and Family
As I mentioned earlier, my volume at the tables has been a fair bit lower compared to previous years. With the growth of NachosPoker, the time that it takes to run it properly has also grown. On top of that, my daughters are no longer in the baby phase, which has changed how I approach my time. When they were babies, I could justify working long hours without feeling like I was missing much. Most of my role back then was about basic caregiving. Now, every time I step out of my office, I hear them running toward the staircase yelling, “Daddy, Daddy!” Knowint that by working as much as I do, I'm missing a lot of valuable moments, has made it harder to justify long hours.

On one hand, I feel motivated to lock in over the next year or two while I’m in Andorra and make the most of my poker career, while also ensuring the CFP program is as strong as it can be. On the other hand, I don’t want to work 60-hour weeks and miss out on seeing my kids grow up. My family would love for me to adopt more of a 9-to-5 schedule focused on coaching, but I’m still drawn to the competitive aspect of poker. Next year, I plan to continue playing poker competitively, logging a reasonable number of hands, studying consistently, while accepting the limitations that come with being a father and running the coaching business.

However, over the past few months, working more on coaching and slightly less on playing has made me realize there’s more to life than just the game. I’m not sure where this realization will lead me, but I can see a future—maybe a year from now—where I shift my focus entirely to the CFP, private coaching and content creation, and enjoying life a bit more. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even stay up past 8 p.m. again someday :D.

I know that hiking route :P

Announcing My Retirement (Kinda)
In the fall of 2024, we made a big decision: we were moving to Andorra. After visiting twice, we knew that it was the perfect place for our family to live. It’s a beautiful, clean country with the perfect mix between modern city life and enough nature, parks and playgrounds for our two young kids to grow up happy and active. For me, it meant finally getting the chance to compete at 25/50 and beyond.

Every Sunday we go on a long hike in the mountains with the family

Over the last few years I got to a point where my career stagnated. I was a solid winner at 5/10 and 10/20 and I was comfortably churning out decent profits, but my shots at 25/50 and 50/100 weren’t too successful. With the strict deposit limits on licensed sites in the Netherlands, my options were limited: either run up a massive bankroll and keep a large sum on the site or accept that nosebleed games were out of reach.

Moving to Andorra changed all of that. Now, I can play on pretty much every site, without restrictions on how much I can deposit. But the poker landscape has shifted since last fall: GGPoker removed its open 25/50+ games, and on other sites, anything beyond 500nl doesn’t run consistently.

So, where does that leave me? Honestly, I’m not sure.

The truth is, my life has changed a lot over the past few years. When I started NachosPoker, I was all-in, working long hours to build the company while maintaining my career as a professional poker player. Even after my daughters were born, I kept grinding—playing six-hour sessions in the morning, handling coaching and CFP tasks in the afternoon, and having dinner with my family before crashing at 7 pm with my girls.

But things are different now. My daughters are growing up, and I don’t want to be locked away in my office all day. The business has grown, and so has my workload. Balancing everything without sacrificing family time has been tough. And honestly, with no new limit to reach, it’s been easier to focus on NachosPoker and the Mentorship Program—a coaching program designed for low and mid-stakes players who want to improve without the long-term commitment of a CFP—rather than grinding 1K and 2K myself.

That’s why I’ve decided to step back from playing full-time and shift my focus to running NachosPoker and my Mentorship Program. It’s been a relief not to force myself to play 20-25 hours of poker every week. I start work at 8, spend my days creating content or coaching players who are just as eager about the game as I am, and seeing them reach the success they yearn for has been incredibly rewarding. I used to love being a teacher, and helping my students reach their goals feels while being able to maintain a healthy work-life balance has been just as fulfilling.

For the next few months, my focus is on coaching and helping the players in the CFP and Mentorship Program reach their full potential and when I have some spare time, I’ll likely play on GG during the day, but not because I feel the need to make x amount this year, but simply because I love the game. Maybe, hopefully, one day 25/50 rises from the death and I’ll be able to go all-in again, but until then I’m happy coaching, seeing my players succeed, and playing purely for the love of the game.

Not a Hand of Poker Played
Since my last blog post, I haven’t played a real poker session—just the occasional recording for YouTube. My days start with breakfast with the kids, then I spend the mornings and afternoons coaching and creating content for the CFP. Late afternoons are usually for hiking or hanging out with the kids at a playground in the mountains. Things are still stressful at times, but much more manageable now.

I miss playing poker more than I expected. It’s tempting to jump back into a structured grind, especially when I see sexy graphs popping up in our Discord. But I know I’d have to give up things I don’t want to—like spending time with my kids. These days, the moments I could play are small gaps between calls, when my daughter is napping, or instead of doing something else in the evening. I’ve been considering firing up some Rush and Cash when I feel like clicking buttons for an hour or two. The short, flexible sessions fit my current lifestyle quite well. Not the highest EV approach, but probably the best fit for now. We’ll see. For now, my focus is on improving the coaching program. There’s a long list of things I want to build over the next few months, so I’m probably better off knocking those out first and squeezing in the odd session in the evenings instead of watching Netflix or heading to the local wine bar.

On another note, I recently got approached by an old colleague who’s now the head teacher at the college I went to a decade ago. They offered me a freelance gig mentoring grad students on their final thesis. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it on—my schedule’s already packed—but it does seem like a rewarding thing to do. I’ve always thought I might go back to teaching at some point, and this could be a step toward becoming a college professor one day. For now, I’ll just be guiding two grad students as they wrap up their thesis.