tomorrow my challenge for the upcoming 3 month will start:

3 meals a day

no snacks, no calories

also,
will take 1 on 1 yoga teachin from next tuesday on. Really excited and sure I will benefit greatly. When I see good yogies (!") doing their exercises I always think to myself that this is real strength, unlike gym strength. I really love going to the gym and so on, but the body control you practice at yoga seems superior to weight lifting.

Also looking forward to my thai massage next week :)

Singletasking is working out semi well, currently on vacation and drinking a bit too much. Thus, not playing a ton, but when I play its fine overall.

Happy new year and great success with all your endeavours next year!

Cheers, Aquila

Time for my weekly update:

"Real life"
I will follow along with my wife on a "one year, one word challenge". The word I choose is moderation.

“Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.” ~ Democritus

I tend to go to extremes and then not stick with stuff. Or just skip other stuff. For example: I really love sports, but when I get into the gym groove, I go 6x a week, but don't really do cardio or mobility. After a while my body starts to hurt and I think the overall better approach for me is to hit the weights 2-3x a week, do cardio 2-3x and learn yoga and practice this daily. As this is the part I lack the most. Also, not doing yoga for 1 h, but just 15-20 minutes. I also tend to either drink alcohol a bit too regularly or then go without any for extended periods of time. I think finding a good middleground is what I am looking for.

Cardio:
Did all my training sessions and felt really good after the intense intervall training on saturday. Got my heartrate up to 171 bpm. Felt really excited throughout the rest of the day :)

"Poker"
This week has been quite good overall, I think I was godrunning in way too many spots and still made bad calls, where I didnt take the time to think or where I know that I will be beaten the vast majority of times.

Hand count: 4.193 hands
Money count: +96.36

I failed at the study front. I created some cards finally, but didn't learn cards on a daily basis.

Goals for next week are:
- to play a minimum of 11 session of 30 minutes (most likely no time on tuesday and thursday)
- learn AnkiCards at least 3x during the week
- do Cardio 5x and take my first private yoga lesson
- do sungreeting every morning (and then incorporate other moves from the lesson on tuesday
- enjoy my new triology from Brandon Sandersson (for those that like Fantasy or SciFi)

good luck mate! it seems like you have some very healthy poker/life focused goals for the coming year, so hopefully you manage to achieve and even surpass them :)

did you say you needed to take the booster in order to go to the gym? is that enforced by the government?

Hi Demondoink : thanks for coming by :)
Yes, right now here in my state I can either test before I go the gym or I am free to enter if I had my last shot no longer than 3 month ago. Madness if you ask me, but I have some shoulder pain, so the break is in a sad way probably quite good.
Yoga seems to help as well, my first lesson was cool and already looking forward to the next one in about 2 weeks. Got a small programm to practice everyday. It's about 20 minutes long and consists mostly of core strengthening and stretches. I think I will really benefit a lot from this in the long run, not only in general but also in the gym.

Poker has been a catastrophe so far this week (basically back to 0). Not sticking to a proper routine and also playing when I should be working, and then feeling guilty for doing so (and thus playing extra bad). Also forcing the action way too much. And not studying.

I really need to become a Student of the game, and not a "grinder", something I don't need, something I have never been good at and something I don't really find intriguing.
--> Playing 4reg tables and sticking to my set amount of time. Also warm up with some study (see part below? :) ) and some cooldown study afterwards. The study/play ratio needs serious attention ^^

I will add some preflop hand selection and so on here in the next entries, to maybe get some feedback if my ranges are okayish.
I am also thinking about purchasing Flopzilla pro. I have never studied the game off the tables, besides reading or watching. I think it shows in my "career". Flopzilla pro is def. affordable unlike Pio for example (for an NL10 player). It's just a hobby and for NL10-50 I don't believe that I truly need Pio. What about GTO+? It's quite affordable as well. Which software would you guys recommend?
I really want to become *better*....

Cardio: I am taking this down a notch, I cycle 20 minutes 5x a week in the morning and I "hike" with my kid on the back (roughly 13 kg) daily for 45-120 minutes (weekends usually longer on hikes). My legs are mildly sore most of the time and putting extra cardio on top feels too much. Moderation, right :)

RoleTide thanks a lot for your input. :)

Weekly summary:
Last week was not good in terms of Poker. Like I said I am back to 0 and haven't played afterwards. So, fail on the Poker front. Well, it can only get better from here on :)

Fitness: Had my first private lesson (actually more like 2 h) and now I do a small routine on a daily basis. I do mostly core exercises with some yoga moves, like sun greeting or warrior 3 pose. Next lesson is set for next week and then I want to learn more poses, like the triangle or the crow (not sure I can do that but it looks fun).
I also did some cardio and still no gym.
On saturday I had a thai massage as well, and it did hurt! ^^ Especially the calves. I could hardly breath. My shoulder is still messed up. Will see how this evolves.

Had some awesome Sushi and prepared some wild boar, which was delicious. Also had some fantastic black forest gateau (or cake):

"According to one school of thought, the name is derived from the specialty liquor of that region, known as Schwarzwälder Kirsch(wasser), which is distilled from tart cherries. This is the ingredient that gives the dessert its distinctive cherry pit flavor and alcoholic content flavor. Cherries, cream, and Kirschwasser were first combined in the form of a dessert in which cooked cherries were served with cream and Kirschwasser, while a cake combining cherries, cookies / biscuits and cream (but without Kirschwasser) probably originated in Germany."

I live in the black forest and thus some confectioners here prepare really good ones.

Goals for this week:

I will get my booster shot on wednesday and I have no idea how well I am going to take it. So I will keep the goals on a small scale.

Poker:
Anki Cards 2x this week
Play 4 focussed 30 minutes session (before wednesday) when the little one is sleeping and after meditation.

Unsure about GTO-Wizard, but will probably give it a try (but will probably save it for next week)

Fitness:
Cardio on monday and tuesday. After booster I will take off for the rest of the week. You never know...
Yoga every day if I can, but probably mon-tue and then friday-sunday.

I am also now at Day 10 of 3 meals a day, except for the cake day last week, because we had a friend coming over and I will make exceptions on such occasions. This actually works pretty well and I don't mind feeling hungry a bit from time to time. Actually lost a bit of weight, but this is probably more due to not going to the gym.

Books:
I did read this book 4000 weeks a little while ago and here is a short summary from the internet Summary. There is an interview with the author in the waking up app by Sam Harris and I thought I could give it a try. Overall the "interesting" point about the book for me was that you should become aware of your mortality and that your life is finite. You can't do everything in life was probably the biggest point for me. I find this relatable, because I often times find myself thinking that I want to do a lot of cardio while also going to the gym x-times of the week or having a job that is x and y at the same time. There are always downsides with each decision and that is just part of life and something I can be aware of and need to "accept". I actually didn't finish it, I found it to be to repetitive and a bit dull. Funny to me was that in the interview it sounded like the book is actually quite short but maybe this was a joke?!? I thought the message was fine, but it seemed way too long (maybe I missed important parts later on, but idc).
Not going to recommend it.

Cheers,
Aquila

Nice video: Work First, Relax Later

Last week I didnt play any poker, not in the mood currently. But after my booster shot I was back in the gym on friday! Was back at it today. Will do Full Body 3x a week for a while.
I was also in the pool again on saturday and swam a bit (like 1 km). I really enjoy the movement and it feels really good afterwards, but people are so annoying in the pool. With the covid restrictions you are forced to swim in a "circle" and it always amazes me how 2-3 people are able to block 2 lanes (actually 4 (FML!). I really wish I had a lane by myself and also that the pool would be closer. It's like 25 minutes drive, time I just don't have.
Still considering to give GTO Wizard a try, but there's just other more important real life stuff up right now.
Maybe some big changes come up in the next 2-4 weeks, but we will see how things go.

What is your definition of "hope"? I started listening to this podcast "Doug Abrams on why Hope is the antidote for apathyand I was quite surprised by their definition of the word.
I also wouldn't think of the Dalai Lama as the one to go when it comes to "Joy".
The part I thought that was really good so far (haven't finished it yet, I listen to podcasts when I am either in the gym or walking the dog in the forest) was about hope theory. This is what wikipedia has to say about it:

Hope theory
As a specialist in positive psychology, Snyder studied how hope and forgiveness can impact several aspects of life such as health, work, education, and personal meaning. He postulated that there are three main things that make up hopeful thinking:[16]

Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.

In other words, hope was defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.

I think these 3 main things are actually good and worth thinking about. Also watched this here:
Göran Winblad Goal Setting
I watched a video of him about running everyday. He managed 2 years now and even did a 100k run in between. The shots of him "running" the day after are quite funny :) Leave a subscription if you like it, would be nice to see him grow a bit. I think there are quite a lot of good guys "stuck" at low numbers, that actually put in hard work.

As I said some life changing things might occur in the coming weeks, but we have been waiting for this change for roughly 4 years now. We have been in a limbo for quite a long time and I hope we can pass it soon.

Cheers, Aquila

haha! Yes, but that picture aint mine, but the quality of cake is the same. Very good indeed :)
taken last saturday at the same place. Haven't had apple strudel for many years. It was good, but not perfect. I prefer more cinnamon with it. But I feel like these pictures give off a very wrong impression. I am not into sweet stuff, I go without eating that kind of stuff for weeks, but when I eat it, I want to eat good quality and I also want to enjoy it. Like you go to a really good restaurant and they have amazing chocolade cake or ice cream. Very enjoyable. Tomorrow I will go to an eritraen restaurant. Will take another picture. The food is decent (not amazing), but I'm looking forward to meeting up with friends and I am curious to see our son eat from a plate with us with his bare hands :) Will be fun for sure.

"so stop making excuses and go sign up! :)"
You are right, I will sign up tomorrow. There is my 2nd yoga lesson tonight. Will start to practice daily, cause what do I do otherwise? Play LOL? That's not getting me anywhere, unless you count moving up and down in ranks to be an achievement...
Thanks for the reminder!

Quick Update:
Signed up for GTO Wizard yesterday and played around a bit. Tonight I'm heading out for dinner, but tomorrow I think I will start with UTG vs BB SRP's. I think for a start it's probably best to start with a smaller range. BTN vs BB seems a bit overwhelming for the start.
Any suggestions/recommendations?
Is there a list of Flops that I should look at (those that kinda cover all "spots")? Should I skip Turn/Rivers at the beginning?
My first idea was to write down which flops are range bets, mixed, checks. Kinda trying to get a feel and then practice mode the spot and see where I make mistakes. Good or bad idea?

Fucked up my back (doing squats) and now my wife had to undergo a surgery (nothing big). Life is a bit messy. Played around with GTO Wizard only a little bit, not sure if this is the best direction to take.
Will see.
Wednesday is the big day. Hopefully :)

Returning to the blog :) feels a bit like the typical new years resolution failing xD
I have been playing on a semi regular basis, but there were a lot of things happening.
Job wise I will stay in the same one, but will become a Beamter (for those from Germany). Basically a civil servant with a better version of retirement.
For the next year I am still working only 50%, thus I still have time to rise up in ranks.

So, the goal for the next year (I always have to tell my work place in advance how much I want to work in the coming 2 years) is to move up as much as I can.
Right now I play NL20. I was beating NL10 with roughly 18bb, but there is 0 point in staying there. I will add some money to have a 500$ roll in the near future, but I have about 280 now and have started playing NL20. My goal is to move up with 25 buyins up to NL100.

Goals in summary:
- Move up as far as I can until next year April
- move up to NL100 using a 25 buy-ins br
- Move down if necessary ;() and be fine with swings
- Stick to 4 regular tables
- start yoga class in May
- go to the gym 4x a week
- play 2 hours of Poker on average daily
- read to my son daily

Enjoy life. I am set and can be more aggressive with certain stuff.
Let's do it :)

I like all the goals and wish you the best of luck. The one comment I will make is that maybe considering your win rates, and the fact that you have a decent job, maybe you can loosen up on the buy in requirements especially in the lower stakes. But I get that it's also good to stay disciplined in all spots.

Hi GEOabc thanks for your reply. Valid point, but to me 25 buy-ins are quite loose already.

4x Gym for the week is done.
We will also move into a new place, a small house of 160 sqm, in June. Looking so much forward to having a small garden, being able to barbeque and sit in the sun and enjoy the great view.

Anyone here a specialist with regards to Power Racks? I consider buying one, but have no clue. I want to be able to do Dips as well.

I only played 4k hands this week and ran a bit over EV. ;(
I play PLO on the side if no games are running/ no fish on the NL tables.
Fucking nutpeddling xD

Well, I am pissed at myself :)

The results are "fine", but I play piss poor and while drinking the last 3 days. Total BS!
I was also playing unfocussed at "work". It makes no sense, there are a lot of things that I do very well. I hit the gym regular, eat good food, sleep enough, have a good job, have a great family and real life overall, go running, do yoga, meditate...and still I fuck this up. You could argue its all fine, given that I am still winning, but this is not good. It stresses me, I feel it the whole week. When I stress out about it, my jaw starts to hurt. xD

I have decided to go for a dry April, makes sense regardless of Poker, because I feel this is really hurting me and I have an important doctors appointment at the end of the month.

This month was bs but also great in many ways. See last post. Lets not give up and refocus in April.
- Begin was good, until I was having winners tilt (or whatever you want to cool it, I call it cocky and stupid)
- Hardly (lets admit it, none) work off the tables
- Exercise good, not my weak part
- Sleep terrible for the last week, due to alcohol consumption and my son thinking he has to wake up at 2:30 :)
- Will move to a new house in June and bought a fireplace for ~4.5k € :) Now I need to get my hand on firewood and then start stacking it up for the winter. Looking so much forward to this.

APRIL GOALS:
- get back into meditation (start with 10 Minutes), I can always increase in single sessions, but just want to get back into the habit of doing it daily
- Poker study: study daily minimum 10 minutes of BTN vs CO 3bet pots in GTO Wizard. First 15 days I will look at it from the BTN and then switch it around. I can do more, but don't need to fulfill the goal (also won't be able to do it during easter times (family visit)
- Gym 3-4x a week and running 1-2 depending on available time
- work on the garden planing for the new house (greenhouse is basically decided (the type, not if or if not)).
- Yoga/Stretch daily for at least 5 minutes, just do a bit (course starts in may, dont want to go there completely tight)
- play 30 Minutes of Poker in the evening daily (except easter)

Rewards?
Do you have good ideas for rewards? The only one I can think of is chocolade or a drink (which is not an option).
I am just looking for a small daily reward.

Cheers and take good care,
Aquila

I relate to cocky and stupid.
Best reward is go get a smile from your son..

Day 1:
- Meditate [x]
- GTO Wizard [x] (not sure if this is optimal, maybe I should have started with preflop, but this is what I said, so I will stick with it
- Went for a run [x]
- Yoga [x]
- Poker Session [x] 30 minutes is probably too short, but on days where I am tired or don't have lots of time its fine, otherwise I will probably aim for 60 min sessions.

Interesting suggestions on rewards :)
Will get me some good chocolade tomorrow and have 1 piece after finishing the whole slew.

I also have hardly any knowledge about crypto, but have invested a bit into Bitcoin and Ethereum, but NFTs-.- I really have 0 clue. Not going to get into that.

Great video! Super inspiring!

Jared's Eye Opening Transformation

check for all

check for all. Maybe not interesting to post it like this. Probably will do a weekly review next week.

Will post screenshot of my daily GTO Wizard Practice.
What do you think is the better way to practice certain spots? Go through a bunch of hands without going into depth (1) or look at fewer hands and dive deeper (2)?

Today I practiced 100 Hands BTN vs. BB, 100bb

Theres more checking than I am kinda used to/ guess I see.
Coming week I will use approach 1 and only check Spots where I did a Blunder or a wrong move. I am still confused on how to best use the site for becoming better, but maybe it is just practice, practice, practice.

TPLancaster
Thanks for your input. I looked a bit into general frequencies (How often to bet overall, rainbow, monotone, Ace high and so on).
Still overwhelmed by the whole thing :) But just practice practice

Did 96, then the site crashed. Excellent!
One problem I kinda see is that there are too many betsizes available on the flop. I guess I want an "easier" strategy and more of a right or wrong way of looking at this. Maybe this is not how solvers work, but I need to be able to implement this. Maybe getting GTO+ (I think its the cheapest) and run own scripts might be better, where I can allow only 1-2 betsizes.

Didn't practice yesterday, but will do 2 sessions today.

Check

will add checking hands/ranges where I was in the bottom 3 categories.

Working on Preflop this week. Facing a 3bet OOP. Just Preflop.

Daily goals:
Play 45 Minutes [x] 1/7
Study at least 150 preflop decisions daily [x] 1/7 (not going to share these screenshots any more, don't think they add any value)

Feeling a bit sick, thus taking it slow. No gym today, its also deload week, so not that bad to miss a workout. Did some yoga (mainly sungreeting). Looking forward to my course in May.

Will sign up for a half marathon in the middle of September. 2 Friends will most likely join me. Goal is to run 2-3x a week, this week maybe only 2 due to the sickness. Right now I just want to get 3x runs in per week. My watch can create a training plan for me, but it's like 16-20 weeks ahead of the competition. So right now this would be too early.

We will see how I feel tomorrow.
Making lots of cool plans for the new house :)
And I am back on track with meditation. Started at the 1.4 again and have done so daily. Started with 10 minutes, right now 10-15, depending on how I feel.

Also: Next week I get 1 hour free coaching by freenachos!!! :) Looking very much forward to it!
Unsure what to expect, but I am sure it will be helpful!

Wow fucking awesome plans! Great plan. The study may not get many likes but i think its a good idea. It makes us/you responsible for what we do and even though I dont aknowleged via a like I still see it and id keep doing it on. Its a great habbit to continue.

Live in Manchester and saw people running at the 21 mile mark in the marathon, and saw people running a 2.5/3hr marahons (made me ashamed of my physical prowess haha). Was amazing and very inspiring, good luck mate go for it 100%. The more I read of these posts the more its not poker and the more its personal satisfaction and and this sounds like a great time to run with friends more than it is to complete the 1/2 marathon. Please correct me if im wrong. Might start a thread on what makes us/me happy (HTO) but dont know if people will like it.

TPLancaster

Thanks for your reply. 2.5 hours is actually the time I estimate for my half marathon, nowhere being a great runner. :) I hope to get below 2 hours, that would be amazing, but the really important part for me is to just do it and train with a "goal", which forces me to stretch/get better. The 2 friends are probably going to kick my ass, especially the female one. She weighs nothing and runs a decent amount. Good times ^^

"Might start a thread on what makes us/me happy (HTO) but dont know if people will like it." Just go for it. I would def. be happy to add my 2 cents. Sent me the link if you decide to open it.

With regards to being happy: I went to the library last week and took some books history books with me. I had been mainly reading via kindle and it felt so good to actually hold a real book in my hand. really have to say that reading can make me very happy (not in an extreme way, but a relaxed generally satisfied way). They also have a nice kids area and I am happy that my son will be able to read a lot of exciting stories in the future. I was absolutely in love with our local library when I was a kid. For summer holidays I borrowed basically all books of five friends (Enid Blyton, 22 books or something like it) and read them all in the first half of the summer holidays. We often traveled to Portugal when I was young via bus. The drive oneway took us something like 3-4 days. In the Pyrennaes you could walk next to our bus, it was so slow. Good memories. Reading a ton + vacation at the beach :) I also remember my parents struggling with the maps in Paris and that there were different radio stations everywhere. (Obviously my memory is a bit fuzzy about some of these things, but I am fond of these and I can see that there are certain things that I want to show my kid as well).

CO vs BTN 3bet. Biggest blunders were 65s, JTs and QJs.

What kind of movies do you like? Or what topic are you interested in? Books can be extremly boring and tedious, but if you find something you really like...That would be my recommendation. So, I dont think its about attention span, its that people often believe they are supposed to read certain genres.

For some reason I am not 3betting nearly enough on the BTN vs HJ, CO opens. Confused myself. Also running like Shit. But who cares. Just play without tilt and results will come (I hope xD). Also, Rake is insane. Really need to move up.

Hello there,

Thanks a lot for your replies! Just wanted to say that I have decided to quit Poker.
I have banged my head long enough against this wall and with limited available time and plenty of other more important matters, I have come to the conclusion that I will move on. In the past weeks whenever I played I could only focus on the negative, just playing regardless of winning or losing stressed me out. That's not good and not needed. I am sure I did plenty of mistakes along the way, but I am good in "real life" and there is no shame in admitting that this wasnt ment for me. I think in a way what I found most interesting was talking to people about "self-improvement", but I suppose I dont need a poker forum for that.

Special thanks go out to Demondoink @RoleTide. Was fun and interesting talking to you via skype/discord and I wish you all the best.

Take good care and I see you in the next one ^^ :)

Cheers,
Aquila

Nice fold I guess.
Good luck on your life, and blow a good kiss and tight hugh on your son tonight!