I know you guys hate long posts I'll try to keep this introduction part as short as possible.

-23 year old
-been playing poker for quite a while
-played micro stakes for longer than I should have
-due to various reasons which I may or may not tell I started playing terribly near the end of the summer last year
-had a 50k hand beakeven stretch at stakes which I beat with a solid winrate
-was frustrated of my terrible recent results so I fired up play some 10nl just to book a winning day
-20 minutes in my first 10nl session, an old poker friend/ex-coach whom I haven't heard from in a long time messaged me on skype asking me why I'm playing 10nl
-after a short conversation he offered me an awesome coaching/staking deal which I couldn't refuse
-started working with him and an 200/500z reg (both are top winners in their games)
-because my coaches are very good players and are able to explain their thought process in a way that's easy to understand to me, I made more progress in last 6 months than I did from when I started playing poker until when I started working with them
-currently playing 50-200nl

This is my graph:



In this thread I'll keep track of my poker progress and also my progress various aspect of life. Other than playing poker I also go to uni so pretty much all my free time goes into playing and studying.

Some of my long term goals are:

[ ] beat mid-stakes by the end of the year
[ ] learn an other format of poker - cash games are getting tougher day by day and there's also a lot of money to be made in other formats of poker (like MTT's)
[ ] start making money from something that's not poker related (this doesn't mean getting a loljob) - poker variance sucks and I don't want to be a guy who's in his 30's with zero life experience
[ ] travel - would love to play some live tournaments and do some traveling, especially during the summer
[ ] yolo a bit while I still freedom and ability to do that



But for now let's focus on short term goals:

[ ] play 140 hours this month
[ ] fix my low WTSD (24,4) - I'm literally the player with lowest WTSD among winning regs in my database. Guess I should just stop being such a nit
[ ] complete all my uni tasks
[ ] fix my fwkd up sleeping pattern
[ ] hit the gym 4 times/week
[ ] meditate every day
[ ] play at least 2 hours of 10nl zoom per week without a hud (as a warm up for my regular sessions) just so I don't become a total hudmonkey - my playing style is very HUD based so too often I become reliant on stats to the point where I'm no longer thing about the ranges. Also, it's 10nl so idgaf if I make a mistake when trying to apply new concepts.


GL everyone!

gogogogogogo!

glgl

GL

gl srbendo

gl

glgl

Subscribed GL on tabels

Thanks guys!

Thanks Hrvoje!

It's time for an update. Last couple of days I didn't get to play too much because I was too busy with studying and I also started going out a bit more which takes a lot of time and energy.

I'm still on track with my volume goals, meditation, gym and my WTSD is slowly going up. I will do a bigger update at the end of the month. Month is going well so far.



Here are some fun hands:

Some bluffs go well



Some don't




This is something I've been experimenting with lately. I feel like people float too much vs small cbets and then if turn goes check/check they too often bet river with hands that they probably should not bet with (like A highs) because their calling range OTF will be really wide. That's not a problem when you have a strong hand but usually you have nothing. In order to prevent them from being able to float and bet anything OTR I think spots like we need to have a raising range for both value (some slowplays) and bluff. Not really sure about this one tho.

Can relate.





Those are spot on.

Congrats on your fast progress, 50 to 200 ain't no easy task.

GLGL

@Princess Elsa

I like those comics. They are spot on indeed, especially second one. Today I told myself I would go to bed early and here I am typing this at 4 am while waiting for my sleeping pills to kick in. Pffffff. Maybe tomorrow

Tytytyty but I wouldn't call my progress that fast. It took me long time to beat 50nl with a decent winrate and I was actually breakeven for first 2 month since I started working with my coaches but once things clicked (at around 60k hands mark) and I was finally able to apply concepts I've been learning about, journey from 50nl to 200nl went pretty smooth. The thing with 200nl is that most regs mix between 100 and 200nl so you pretty much play against same people at both stakes whereas this is less common at lower stakes as they can get enough tables at whatever stakes they want to play.

Anyway, those sleeping pills have finally kicked in and I'm ready to crash.

Gl to you also

Glad you're finding the gap between 100 and 200 to be almost non-existent. I , for myself, found it excruciatingly hard. Tbf, I did not have coaching so that probably eased your process.

What kind of sleeping pills are you taking??

Every now and then, I'll pop a Benadryl whenever I really NEED to sleep but just can't. They are meant for my allergies but their main side effect is that they make you sleepy af.

I try not to take them pills too often as I don't want to become dependent on them.

I'm sure the main reason why you found jump from 100 to 200nl that hard is because ther's a huge difference between zoom and regular tables. Zoom regs tend to focus most of their volume at one stake which they are comfortable playing so guys who get crushed at 200z move down and play only 100z and guys who are good enough for 200z obviously don't play 100z. At regular tables it's more common to have guys playing multiple stakes at once so often times you get to play in similar lineups at both stakes. I think this is the reason why there's such a gap between each zoom player pool and not so much between stakes at reg tables.

Yeah getting addicted to that stuff can be horrible and I know this from my own experience. Benadryl works for sleep but I need to take like 5 to have an effect on me. I experimented with it when my sister had some allergy but now she doesn't so I don't have them pills anymore

My biggest problem isn't falling asleep but staying asleep so I need something that knocks me out for 8 hours. I've experimented with couple of things and here's my experience with them:

Cerson - 10mg of these put me to sleep for 8 hours straight with least side effects (except addiction but thats obv). These are my favourite and that's what I currently take when I need a good night sleep

Diazepam - they put me asleep quickly but I wake up early and feel like total **** for the rest of the day

Fluzepam - popped them like it's candy and they didn't do ****

Melatonin - Helps with falling asleep, especially after staring at screen for a long time before going to bed but doesn't keep you asleep. """"Science"""" claims that they don't have any side effects but when I quit taking them after I had been taking them for a year straight, for 2 weeks I was so tired that I could barely get out of bed let alone do anything productive. Those were by far 2 worst weeks of my life. Wouldn't recommend taking this long term to anyone but it does help with falling asleep.


Today I went to a bookstore and bought couple of giant black papers which I will use to cover the windows to make my room pitch black while I sleep. I will tell you if I see any improvement from that.

In your blog I read that you like MDMA so you probably tried weed at one point or another. Have you tried using it as a sleep aid? If you did, what was your experience with it?

try VINJAK

What can I mix vinjak with?

Subd

Do THC-Wax or a joint, way better than pills, just dont forget to not abuse it, however is the best thing for meditation and/or sleeping.

Gogogogo

Yeah, that might just be it and it makes sense. Well put.
Haven't played reg tables since summer of 2014 so have no clue rly on what's the game like there.

Can I get these off the counter at a drugstore?
Or do I need a prescription from a doctor?

All my friends smoke weed regularly, but I don't. I may have smoked weed like 7 times in my entire life? So yeah, I wouldn't know, but my guess is that it helps falling asleep as some of my friends would smoke all the time just before going to bed to ease themselves into sleep.

Yeah most def.

Weed seems nice, but I know I have a very addictive personality so don't want to start using too many stuff casually because I fear I will get hooked at some point if I enjoy it too much.

Same thing w video games basically.

Whoa this turned into a drug review thread pretty quickly

This is first time I heard of THC-Wax so I did quick research and it def seems like something that would be fun take but I can't get my hands on that so I'll just experiment with regular stuff. Your avatar suggests you are way more experienced with drugs than me Tytytyty and gl to you!

They are def softer than zoom but you have to deal with scripters and a bunch of eastern european regs who fill out a table in like 2 seconds when fun player sits down. Def not worth trying out when you are doing well at zoom tho.

Out of all that stuff I mentioned only melatonin is available off the counter, you need prescription for everything else but doctors prescribe these like it's nothing because so many people have issues with sleep. Don't forget to check what those are called in your country if you decide to go down that road.

Glad to hear it works for them. I'm not a huge fan of weed because I don't like process of smoking and it just makes me tired and useless so I don't use it but after hearing people are having positive experiences with it I'll give it a try. At this point I'm willing to try anything just to have my normal sleep pattern restored.

Pffff I can very well relate to that (in both stuff and video games) so I know how you feel about having to restrain yourself from doing things you enjoy just for sake of not getting addicted to them. And when you are constantly surrounded by people who enjoy them it sucks even harder. Good thing about having addictive personality is that if you find something you enjoy and is productive (such as poker) you can easily put in hours into playing and studying. Btw you said you didn't have a coach, so what studying methods do you use than?

Lol that sounds so unappealing. Alongside all the table politics and griming and such... ugh

Tyty for the info

Yeah exactly. Like the video games I enjoy, I get so much euphoria from them, it's almost impossible for me to stop once I start playing them. And it's not just about playing the games, it's about try harding and checking strats on the Internet and gaming forums and wanting to become better.

Games I've had the most trouble dealing w are Fifa, Hearthstone, COD Black Ops II, and Mario Kart Double Dash.

These are games that I could literally play for 24h straight and not get bored.

But yeah you're right about our personality type being a "pro" for poker since we can put endless hours and grind insane sessions.

As for my usual poker studying...

I know all this because I used to be like that (I mean I still am but don't really play games since this poker thing because it feels like a waste of time so I can't really enjoy them as much because I think I should be doing something more useful). Yea, video games def do get more interesting as you keep learning new strats and keep progressing. I think what makes them so addictive is that they give you a feeling as if you are achieving something and because those casual games where there is no money involved aren't as competetive (as poker for example) you can progress very quickly which in turn gives you a lot of satisfaction so you want to keep doing it, so you put in even more work, get better results and it just goes in an upward spiral which makes them games so addictive. It has something to do with dopamine and neurotransmitters.

Idk about you but for me biggest difference between poker and video games is that in poker you also have to deal with downward spirals (run bad-> lose money -> hate poker -> play bad -> lose even more etc.) which don't exist is video games so they are more enjoyable but also addictive af.

Altho I prefer CS to COD and NBA to FIFA I can relate to you because those games are very similar. Def a lot of strategies you can learn to get better at them and that makes them a lot of fun despite kind of being repetetive. I never played Mario Kart Double Dash but if it's anything like Re-Volt I understand why it can be addtictive as I spent waaaaay too much time on that game. MMORPG's can also be very addictive so I find it wierd that you didn't mention any.

Each summer for like 5 years straight during elementary and high school me and my friends from my neighbourhood would spent like 12 hours playing WoW every single day and then when we would go meet up outside only thing we could talk about was WoW because that's the only thing we knew about. Positive thing about it that non of us plays any video games these day but what a time sink it was...

I tried all "studying on my own" methods (like watching vids on RIO) but those did not work for me so I won't bother making those same mistakes again but reviewing hands with players who are better than me def helped tremendously.

You mentioned that sometimes you talk to yourself as if producing a video for a coaching site. You know, I def noticed I put more tought into my plays when I have someone sweat me so maybe the trick is that when someone sweats me I have to explain my thought process before doing something so I never end up in auto pilot mode. I will def try this one as it takes minimal effort to implement that one but can def improve my results and continue with doing my regular reviews and sweat sessions.

Thanks for sharing your studying methods! I really appreciate it.

THIS

And yeah, agree w all the other things you said about video games and such, especially where you state that there is no downward spiral in video games compared to poker.

I never played any MMORPG because 90% of those games are on like the CPU and I used to game console and like the computer when I was growing up could only be used for "work" purposes in my family. I'm kind of glad in a way that I never played any of these tbh... However, I sometimes used to sweat my friends who played DOTA 2, and GOD did it look fun to play.

And yeah, can def relate to your talk w friends about a game. Talking over what best strat is to use in each game; and it's like the BEST thing to talk about w friends. Nowadays, me and my friends have some of these talks about board games lol.

Np, glad it helps

Done with my volume goals for the month so next 2 days will mostly be spent on doing some hand reviews and hanging out with a friend who studies in another city and rarely visits our home town. Really excited about that.

Yeah you should be glad that you never got into those games. Not only they are very addictive because they are fun to play but you also have this leveling system which makes tracking your progress easy because you can easily measure it (character level, item level, ratings, achievemnts etc) and I find it that when I can see that I'm making progress in something I will want to spend even more time doing that. I mean you can also do that in poker (winrate), or gym (strenght gains) or whatever but that takes much more time and effort. I wish my parents were more like that because I now I have to put in concious effort to use computer just for work and spend as little time as possible on cheap entertainment which computers and internet provide such as news portals, youtube, forums, vid games, etc.

Yeah this, and it's not only limited to games. I find it that as long as conversations are related to how to get better at something which is in my interest. And it can be anything from sports or poker or dealing with people or whatever. As long as there are concepts that I can relate to being discussed I'll be interested.

OMG OMG best month ever!





Took a break from everything poker related due to a downswing.

No more ****ing around. Time to put in some hours and focus more on off table work.

Let's review how abdomination of last month went so before moving on may.

This month I will focus more on quality rather than quantity so I'll lower my goals to playing 130 hours of my A game. No skype, no checking messages on phone, no music. No more ****ing around.

I also listened to other people recommendations such as replaying hands after each showdown and trying to figure out opponents thought process and also explaining my own though process while playing. This didn't make that much impact on the decisions I'm making but they made me realize a lot of spots that I used to consider "standard" could actually be played in a different way.



For example, this guys though process is obviously "click click click". Villain is actually a (slightly losing) reg.



BTN is a """"""reg"""""", SB is biggest whale I've seen.

Subbed.
Interesting stuff!


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Seems solid, want to follow, gl