Zeneka

First month done, played 45k hands and won 8k ish so Im kinda happy but not A++.
Played pretty bad first week but got a hang of it after that. Been improving a lot and started to rework my strategy from the ground up to be able to hold my own at higher stakes in the future (maybe).

Also kinda just ok with my performance this month, started losing a lot first to days and it kinda set the tone for the month which is pretty stupid tbh, it shouldnt affect me that much imo.
Anyways I think its so nice to have 10bb/100 or more since most days are winning days, and very few days with more than 2-3 buyins or more in loss.
Some might say I need to move up in stakes but I kinda feel happy where I am atm (stake-wise), a big fish in a small pond.
8k is a lot of money and I really believe I will do better on average than that.

Have some things for Oktober;
- 50k hands
- Check results the 15th and 31st
- Get a few more hours of theory in
- Run and bike a little more than previous month
- Sleep a little more on average, I still feel a little bit to tired
- Keep cutting my spending a little (just take away some stupid things and structure shopping for food). (goal is to live day to day on 2.5k and invest the rest of my winnings, and grow BR)

Allright, lets bring on Oktober!

Halfway in September. Havent been playing my best as much as I would have liked but Im trying to not be to critical of myself, playing at 90% or something is completely fine when you do this every day.
I think one of the most underrated aspects of doing this for a living is consistency and I really have gotten this down lately, playing the same hours every day, studying the same hours every day etc.
Also rather than trying hard to play my A++ game Im focusing a lot on improving my game off the tables so that my 90% performance keeps getting better rather than achieving 100% performance.

Im up around 5k for September so Im very happy with that, will prob reach around 50k hands this month. Also have been running and walking more and more but I still feel pretty shitty physically but I think it is mostly my sleep that needs to improve. Averaging around 7h a night atm but I have to get in a little more and Im working on it. Now I go to sleep the same time every night and falls a sleep fast (have had big problems with this all my adult life) so Im getting there.

1/3 of September done. Had a very bad start to the month and lost like 2,2k the first two days. After that it has been a fight to stay focused and I think I have played my B-game most of my sessions tbh.
Well last few days have been better and I am now up over 2k for the monthI havent checked it exact. So Im happy with that but I have a lot ot things to work on.

September has arrived and Im reday to go!
50k hands
105h at the tables
60-70h off table
Keep running and biking etc
Eating well

Ok first month is in the bag more or less. Just going to play a couple of more sessions. Results have been incredible. 30k hands or so, 10k in profit. Been running well in the higher games and more importantly, I have been playing A-game for the entire month until yesterday where I lost some focus.

One of my biggest leaks lately have been to loose focus when winning a lot and finaly I have come to a conclusion about what happens. When running very well I tend to increase the hours I play, and add 1-2 tables a bit to often wich results in me eventually having no energy left and thus being unable to focus when playing.
So I think it is a pretty easy leak to fix, just set an amount of max hours on any given day, and have a target every month.
Having a target has worked very well for me before, it also makes it easier to relax when Im not playing (as long as I am on pace).

So what are the maximum hours I can play every month without burnout? I think I want to put around 180h/month into poker at this time in my life, playing 110-120 and studying the rest. So it will take some effort to make this work since I have a life to take care of but I think it is possible. Then come next summer, Ill just take a big evaluation and reflect on how to move forward from there.

Allright other than that Ive ramped up some running, walking and cykling so Im on my way :)

Peace

First 8 days after the vacation and it feels like Im better than ever. Been playing well and running well.
So to set up the long term lockdown Ive been thinking about what skills I need to develop.
In terms of direct poker skills I have to work a lot on 3b/4b pots since Ive spent a very small amount of time in the solver in thos spots.
Also I want to keep working on exploits (both vs regs and recs) since it is on of the most satisfying part of poker IMO. Playing 100-200nl is very fun in that way since everyone has huge leaks somewhere, and most players have few tools to deal with being exploited. Right now Im focusing on how far I can push aggression vs weak regulars and it seems like Ive been way to conservative in the past. There are spots (BvB) where I should have 40% 3b vs some profiles for example.

Been doing some yoga and running last week and I think that improves my overall quality at the tables, being able to focus longer and having a clearer mind throughout the sessions.

Been thinking about what will be my best plan forward with regards to how I will move up in stakes, the current situation is; I have access to 100-200nl games (and a little higher like 5-10% of volume) that are very soft, it is a small pool where I play vs the same regs all day long. If I want to move up I need to play on other sites that most likely are going to be way tougher.
I estimate that if games keep being soft on my current mainsite it will be possible to have prob 15bb/100 if I keep studying. That would mean very little variance, small BR required and having winning days way way more often than losing.
Becoming the biggest fish in a small pond has very few drawbacks as long as there are games running most of the day even tho stakes are smaller on average.

Changing sites to play 400-1k games might make some sense but until I have a much bigger BR than now I feel like just printing at 100-200nl must be by far the best move. If I can get to 15bb/100 at 200nl that is basically the same winrate as a 3bb/100 winner at 1k.

Results this month: 15k hands 5k winnings (running very well).

+1

I feel you, had very poor financials for a while and it takes it toll. But it seems like you are doing what you can to fix it. Is it possible to rent out the appartment until you can sell it?

Ok, time for an update.

Started grinding again a few days ago after spending a lot of time with my family. Took 4 weeks completely off poker, cant remember when that happended before. It was strange to sit down and play the first sessions, couldn´t remember what the stats were in my hud etc haha.
Have played about 20h now and it feels like im back in crusher-mode again.
Aiming to play around 40-50h in whats left of August. Been putting in a few great studysessions with the guy Im working with also so it feels like Im constantly gaining small edges at the tables.

I don´t know how many hours the average 100-200nl player puts in off the table but my guess is that Im in the top % with my around 40h a month.

Been talking regular walks and started to eat a lot cleaner too. Basically one big meal with meat, cheese and vegetables and then a smaller yoghurt + fruit meal.
Havent done any serious research or anything like that but low carb diet is supposed to be good for mental focus and overall wellbeing so Im going that route-ish.
I like to use the 80/20 rule in the areas Im not that interested in and 20% effort into simplifying and eating clean will prob get me to 80% of what is optimal, thats fine for now since I prob were at 20% optimal a few weeks ago.

Ok, lets keep crushing!

GL!

Ok just came back from a 6 day vacation in the woods. Hiked to see some waterfalls and slept prob 10h/day wich was well needed.
Now I have access to my db so I can share a graph and some stats.
I guess your take away should be to move up in stakes ;)

Stakes

Graph

This is the last 110k hands and its not that big of a sample, but since I have studied so much the last couple of months my guess is that my winrate is around 10bb/100 att 100-200nl.

Awesome, keep going! :)

Great. Would be great to see RFI,, and BB fold so bu steal, and sb steal.
From the stats you posted just overall aggression could be on the lower end so id like to see bet river and fold river (to any bet).

The good things I see is your WWSF, W@SD are good (but id like to see your RFI stats and bet/fold river to determine if there are some things there you can work with.
Sometimes, if one is playing to tight preflop that can result in higher WWSF since we have too strong of a range, or if we dont bet river enough, that can make our W@SD seem good but in reality we are missing value. Things like that :)

Tnx! :)

Thanks :) Could you post the stats by position? :)

Nice, stick to playing 5nl ant take shots st 10nl imo.
If u want to post some stats i can give my 2c.

Haven¨t played anything since above post. Having some vacation and spending all the time with my family. But I keep putting in the theory hours 10-15h/week to keep moving forward.

I believe it is very important to spend time away from the tables from time to time. Part of it is just to recover and reset but also to make space for whatever. I've learned that not everything can be known in advanced and it is important to make room for my body and my mind to give me input on things that are I cant reach will in full grindmode. I try to use this to calibrate my plan and how I approach this whole poker-dream I try to pursue.

Ill try to share as much of that as possible here.

Other than that I have had a few talks with my SO about the coming year and she is onboard with me spending more energy towards poker and we will try to streamline the day to day life so that we don't spend energy on things that are not that important.

Playing poker for a living can be consuming, very consuming, and to make someone else understand how hard and taxing it can be is prob close to impossible. I feel fortunate that she trust me in what I say instead of me having to overexplain things, I know others that runs into a brick wall with their SO.
But of course it will be up to me to prove that the sacrifices we both make will be worth it, not just financialy but also with how I feel and how I take care of our family when I am away from the computer.
So far we have said that 2 days a week I will be completely free, and that she gets to plan one of those days as she wish (I dont mind this at all). She will take care of unexpected things during the days while I'll do more chores that isnt dependant on an exact time and that I can plan as i wish.
We also have talked about things like food prep etc where we will plan things in advance a lot more than we do now.
We will keep improving on this as we go along.

Guess thats it for now.

Nice. If you want more input on your stats you can post positional stats also. Fold to steal from different positions, 3b, RFI. Also overall cbet, fold cbet, xr etc.
Nodes most players play v bad is fold to probe, fold to delayed cbet (turn and river) so if you want to post those too :)

Great stuff! :)

Yeah, go look up variance calculators and see how useless small samples is to determine how well you are playing :)

Yes, OOP is hard, esp BB. One thing is that it is OOP but also that usually we have to play wide ranges and thus a lot of our range will be weak on most boards.
BB is by far the position people struggle most with.
When playing BB vs BU for example, BU also has a pretty weak range, and learning how to play this situation, along with SB vs BB will have a lot of impact in your game.
Both SRP and 3b pots.
Do you use any solvers?

Great work. Id try to not focus that much on BR and winnings. One thing that has heleped me is also to zoom out from individual hands and think about spots a little broader.

For example; Which positions/situations is hardest to play? (hint ex,situations in BB).
Why is that?
What are the biggest mistakes I do? What are the biggest mistakes my opponents do? (hint usually the same as I do).
What should be done?
What do I do to exploit the difference between what people should do and what they actually do?

cold 4bets are generally very strong so I dont mind folding. If everyone plays GTO ranges we might call here yes.

Hey! This is what you should do asap! Open your phone, dl amazon kindle app, buy Lazy mans guide to enlightenment. Read (2 hours, it is short). Then let me know what happens. Do not think about it, just do it.

GL! And congratz

Good insights :) Small pots are so important and few spend a lot of time thinking to much about them!

Following! Going trough this kind of life changing situations can be a rolercoaster in many ways. Make sure to take care of yourself as well as possible.

GL!

Today I have been at my IRL-work and spent the whole day in a meeting wich resulted in giving me a permanent job for around 5 shift a month (a 24h). This will give me the freedom to save most of my poker BR and also give me a couple of hours of study every day I work. I think this will be a total game-changer for my entire life since I have spent the past 3 years living on the bare essentials basicaly.

The job also will give me time to rest and sleep well most of the time hopefully and I am very happy about it, could not come at a better time. Will start from June.

So 3 years ago I was in a very bad place in life and somehow I have managed to make decent decisions to dig myself out of it. Took a soulcrushing job just to make rent and support my kids for 1.5 years and then slowly changed my life to where I am now.
The biggest thing I have taken from this is easily related to poker, take the right decisions early in the hand and the rest of the hand will be much much easier to play. I took so many bad decisions with relationships, finances and friends that "on the river" I could only make bad plays and lose almost everything I had.

And.

It takes so much time correcting those huge mistakes.

From now on I will nourish my inner voice and trusting my reads from the get go.

Thank you life for teaching me so many cool things.

Love

/ Z

Thanks for the reply. Going trough those videos and starting to learn to make my own palace.

Simple but not necessarily easy is a very good concept that Ive been thinking about for many years. It ties in to what we talk about when we say that we should look for things that are obvious. So for example, Ive been playing while being tired. Such a simple solution to that, right; rest more. So simple, and so obvious, and in fact it is also quite easy. It is not that hard to lie down for a while.
So just going trough all this, sort of waking up to the fact that I have not been able to listen to myself and seeing the obvious, simple answers I already walk around with inside me have been overwhelming.

Looking forward to continue this journey.

Ok so many things are happening right now. I am learning how to build a memory palace (Chris vid Here watch it if you have not), I approach life in a whole different manner, people are smiling at me and are happy around me and I can feel a big different in the vibe I am giving out.

I am also learning the Point and Call technique that Chris taught be briefly the other day while we made a video together (Chris Pimmer do you have a link to the video where you talk about it more in depth?)

Overall just realizing that love is actually something you can practise is so huge, well maybe I am not practising it so much as I am telling myself that I want to feel it more, and then my body just reacts to my intention, I dunno.

So me and Chris are working on a couple of videos that will be released here and I find that it is very good practise to work on letting go of fears to make videos for others. And also it is so much fun and I am learning a ton every day.

Peace

/Z