Well I've always blasted off a few tables of cash games from time to time just for fun sometimes when bored However, recently I've really tried to keep games running when I am only 1 or 2 tables left in MTTs to maximize my hourly EV. For example if I can make like 2-3$/game or a few BB/100 will help my long term hourly quite a bit as opposed to 1 tabling. That being said I'm relatively inexperienced in cash and I'm learning quite a bit in that format and through watching some training vids etc. Will do my best to stay down @ 50z though where I can't lose too much $ while I'm learning! (I think I'm probably having an ok winrate when the games are softer late at night and the regs are sleeping )

I can definitely see why you would think that lol. Sometimes in the chat I've gotten out of line for sure (hardly at all recently though). I also have a dry sarcastic sense of humour from time to time which could be interpreted the wrong way very easily Deep down I like to think I'm a kind hearted and humble guy, but don't we all?

I got a lot of work to do this year but I'll try my best. Thanks for the kind words!

https://gyazo.com/eb2640f81fb36d72dee7afd81bbf1f18

been working on getting my grind station set up. (only moved into this place recently so still needs a bit of work). my desktop PC got rekt a while ago so need to work on getting a new one. currently laptop is really solid though. got the extra desk if any grinders decide to stop in for a session

Big Sunday ahead let's get'em boys

That's a nice clean looking desk , how sturdy is it ? Where you pick it up? I might have to try getting myself of those when I move. Using an old marble table at the moment that is ugly af.

gl on the sunday grind 2morro

I actually got it from Jysk of all places. Generally the stuff from there is pretty cheap quality but it looks pretty good. No complaints about my desk thus far its nice and sturdy and pretty big in size. Was only ~100$ or so. Here is a link to it:

https://www.jysk.ca/zealand-corner-desk-set.html

(you can get all 3 pieces in a bundle but i elected for just the biggest piece.)

cheers, you too!

"It is not the mountain that we conquer, but ourselves."
-Sir Edmund Hillary (First guy to climb Everest)

WOW! I think I'm going to have to move my weekly updates to Mondays (one of my days off of poker.) Grinded for ~12 hours today and feel completely wiped. Even though I can barely think I'll give it a shot...

Health:

Workouts Completed this week: (4/6)
Number of times straying from my dietary plan: 2
Cheat meal: 3/1
Cold Showers: 7/7
20 Minute Meditation Session: 7/7
Books Read: 1/1
Body Weight +/-: -2 lbs.

Wealth:

Training Videos Watched: 1/1
Hours in the lab: 0/2
Sessions played: 4/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation: 0
Weekly MTT Profit: 682$
Yearly MTT Profit: 682$
Live Poker Profit: -100$
Cash Game Profit: 689.50$
Graphs:
Cash: https://gyazo.com/71e6a155389cc21fcee7f0ace4181388
Tournaments: https://gyazo.com/b19cd1a910b80391d9c6ecb4ef2f7ee2

Additional Notes: Was very ill at start of week and missed 2 workouts.


Any points worth mentioning about weekly book or readings:
The book I read this week was "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu (Chinese General hundreds of years ago). It was a pretty quick and easy read. Overall, I didn't learn much from this book but it was ok. He basically just talks about tactics of war (obviously outdated). However, some of the underlying messages and principles could be of some meaning. Funny enough, Bill Belichick (coach of NE Patriots) considers this book his bible apparently.

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

Pretty good start of 2017 overall! Although I missed a few workouts because I was ill, they have been kicking my ***! Was pretty brutal after first day leg workout could barely walk after haha. Very happy with my poker play and focus overall, but have been running like absolute aids when I need dat rungood! Anyways, better to just focus on the things that are in my control and the bottom line should correct itself

I watched a cool youtube video this week from RSD (iirc) about dealing with insecurities. It hit home quite hard with me, and I'm sure it would with most of us. Quite simply, insecurities are something almost everyone has and being in their own head about them can be really tormenting, especially in social environments. For example have you ever wanted to talk to someone but then in your own head made up every possible reason why you shouldn't? Maybe you told yourself: he/she looks busy and I would be interrupting their day, he/she wouldn't want to talk to me etc etc. However, quite often that guy/girl is also in their own head and thinks the same about you. In general, people like being talked to. Would you like it if someone was in the elevator with you and asked how your day was going? Maybe there are some exceptions, but if people give you negative reactions it's likely everything going on with them and nothing wrong with you. Don't take it personally.

Anyways, back to insecurities. The guy said that so many short guys he has met through the years have been creepy. On the contrary, the most talented guys with women that he has seen have been short guys. He chalks this up to the fact that a short guy who just accepts that he can't change his height and owns it is very attractive to women. A lot of short guys develop some type of "little mans complex" which gives them all these ideas in their heads that they need to over compensate for their height (hence the creepy vibe). So moral of the story is don't let the things that are out of your control get inside of your head. Not to mention most other people are so inside their own heads anyways they won't notice or care! Actually a little tip that he gave is to just talk about your insecurities or joke about them. It gets the elephant out of the room so to speak and helps you become comfortable with it. When you talk about them you realize how silly it is to be all pent up in your own head. Don't let your insecurities prevent you from living the good life!

Hands: I won't get too in depth or really talk much about any hand. If you are curious of wtf I was thinking (usually I'm not ) feel free to ask.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22225169_C6598A6067
vs good reg

https://www.boomplayer.com/22223158_6BD7E72450
some thin value on river. maybe too thin. a lot of draws missed and people get so horny to call down on these runouts. i will have a lot of bluffs here so i think i can merge my value range. usually its perceived that im very strong or air in these spots so i think merging value range is cool.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22220744_24928F981B
running it. this is probably bad in hindsight. idk.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22220352_17F2100CA2
think this is wp

https://www.boomplayer.com/22219097_ECB2A10CCD
thoughts on this? wasnt sure if checking river is best.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22216779_F9A1ADADE6
flop sizing prob isnt the greatest here. i think i can find a fold on river :S

https://www.boomplayer.com/22209824_7C9616171A
haha i shouldnt be playin hu cash. i ve done 0 studying in it and am a complete blaster there

Anyways guys, I feel great. Hopefully can keep this motivation going for the other 51 weeks of 2017

Mike

Really enjoying reading your pg&c thread! You're definitely destined to continue succeeding and have your **** together.

Hope you don't mind me commenting on your hands.

74o - I like raising the flop here. It balances our range when we re-raise here with gutshots/open enders and a good reg can very well level himself into shoving over here with air or Kx. As played easy call down.

KJo - Definitely like your line here. As you said, people love to hero on these runouts so our hand is great to vbet on the larger side here.

A4s - I think you played this fine. A4s is a good hand to iso here IP. On the turn, we still have 8-11 outs when called and obv you are playing all overpairs the same way.

T9 - Played fine, first reaction was check back river, but our hand is underepped and villain will call with a lot of made hands here.

JTdd - Preflop can flat but JTs is still a good 3betting candidate. Certainly jamming this river. They are never folding with Ad and it's unlikely the player behind bets the river with air into 2 people.

KK - Gross, I'm sighcalling river.

GL on the grind!

thanks very much for the kind words sir! I try to make it not too boring and monotonous I very much do appreciate your thoughts on the hands/as well as anyone else in the future. Also helps me feel like I'm not writing to a brick wall! I guess first hand my thinking was that he is limping and then stabbing 100% which probably wont include much Kx but will have heaps of bluffs. Only value hand I will flop here is potentially 47. (I usually jam everything else cuz the average villain isnt balancing their limping ranges in sb very well. actually i would normally raise pre here too but i gave this villain more credit for being balanced. so perhaps you are right raising flop is best cuz i wont have many value holdings but will have tonnes of bluffs, but so will he so idk.

JT hand yeah i agree it's a good 3 betting candidate because i need to have at least some bluffs here+it plays well post when flatted this deep. Thoughts on using a small sizing OTR or OTT? have been thinking about this spot a lot. I think on the turn maybe a small sizing can give them odds to peel with their sets to boat up/ maybe they call with worse flushes.

Thanks again!

74 ok ofc, can also raise flop
kj don't mind it, would be slightly careful though picking this sizing vs good players with this hand (bc those can check back qx etc)
a4s sure why not
t9 would bet flop, value protection is kinda important
jts is interesting, would do some checking on flop but bet is fine. maybe bet river small yourself bc ad is gonna shove anyway
kk not sure, pbb letting it go vs most

the 109 hand yeah i sort of agree, especially vs a fish which I forgot to specify.

KK its tough for him to have many value hands here at all by the river that being said i get shown the D here so often and not the bluff. probably better to just make nit exploit folds here though given its not that common of a bluff spot

tyvm will check it out !



Looks like i am late on hand comments ^^ , but I too enjoy keeping up with the thread , I really respect people who can keep up with updating one consistently as any time I have tried I burn out really quick due to either no feedback / laziness / don't want to put dumb bankroll choices or poor volume etc out there.

Also the insecurities thing is spot on , people shoot themselves in the foot trying to over adjust how they act instead of being themselves and worry too much about how other people see them to the point of making themselves miserable + less desirable since girls / people in general are often very attracted to self confidence not someone trying to imitate other people and be someone who they are not.
Lots of people focus so much on their flaws but don't realise that majority of people really don't care at all and are more worried about themselves and how they are percieved to notice or care about someones birth mark / height / weight etc in day-to-day life.

Thanks! I agree you are spot on as well sir. People will respect you more as well in general if you are just confident and respect yourself. (its very noticeable when people can and can't do this) Also as men we are very logical thinkers and we apply the same thinking process on to women. For example we might think the only way to get girls is have a lot of money and be very good looking. Often the reason why rich guys have a lot of success with women is because their personalities are very successful by nature. They are confident, free of outcome, leaders etc... I'm not saying go out and get fat and spew all your money away, but just saying don't let not having it being an excuse for never talking to the opposite sex and being comfortable with yourself.

I think this is my 3rd PGC thread on 2p2 now. The first one fell off pretty quickly, the second one started to slip off mid year then I told myself I would keep updating. I think it's very tough to keep updating if you aren't winning in poker, if you only focus on poker results. For example if your whole thread is based around poker winnings, it will be tough to update when you are running bad or losing. That's why last year I decided to start writing about other stuff (health/random rants/personal development/traveling) because I want to be happy with myself if I am progressing in the right direction. Yeah maybe I'll have a losing year in poker (I hope not) but I can find happiness in trying my best and progressing a lot as a person for example. If that makes sense? (Typing this up quickly on break haha). Also it helps when there are guys cheering along etc and commenting!

Long day, min cashed 109 ST and 320 ST which led to a basically break even day. Here's a few hands:

https://www.boomplayer.com/22258268_9A4465D718
he should be able to make some big folds here as a lot of his hands are drawing dead vs the range im repping and its a pretty strong line in general, ok equity when called. that being said its the b7 and probably no1 can fold 1 pair here so it might suck

https://www.boomplayer.com/22258121_E66CAC904F
stationny s. american is villain, near bubble. didnt think he checks Jx twice. in hindsight i think a smaller bet size or just not even going after this pot is better, or jamming pre. basically anything except for checking down and then over betting river lol. i just didnt wanna get called by A high which I felt is a lot of his range.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22257386_60EBBC2681
speaks for itself. villain was super aggro from my reads. seems like a good call down especially when there is hands in his range with 0 blockers lol.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22256608_A73CE90555
i hated this spot. villain is like 14% 3 bet over 1k hand sample/ was super active on table/ had 3 bet me last time i opened as well. instinctively i felt folding is better here i just had a weird feeling that he wouldnt just keep 3 betting me every open (assuming id adjust) ever just nit fold here and not tell anybody?

annnnnnnnnnnd 15 hours into the session later im chopping the Big 7.50 after 1 tabling it for 6 hours.

can't wait for a nice day off tomorrow

Congrats on the Big $7.50 chop! I bet it would have sucked to 1-table it for that long and finish 11th or something.

JTo - Wp imo and I like your reasoning. Even if your opponent has like AK here, he is in a really ****ty spot. You also have the open ender as a backup.

43s - Interesting overbet here, what exactly are you repping? I would think all your Jx, 6x, 97, and flushes are betting out on this turn for value/to protect equity. You probably shove pre here with all PPs so your river bet is attacking a capped range knowing he has nothing here a lot.

77 - Nh.

AJo - Don't even sweat it, easy jam with AJ here. Your opponent is going to be 3betting extremely light here and probably more than 20% of the time on his stack. Fwiw I think all suited aces and PPs are 4bet shoves here, (might flat KK+).

ty trent,

yes I agree lol. Actually what happened is I saw that promo going for the card matching so like a fish I played 100 nl (thats the minimum), dusted off about 2 buy ins there, in exchange was rewarded 5$ after i finally got the card filled so at this point i still had the big 7 left and i was feeling like I needed to punish myself to give my best effort, so i played relatively well and ran better.

i think JT is a really good play imo as long as guys arent getting stubborn with Kx, but i also probably punish them in the sense that i will play a lot of nut hands this way too and this is one of the few bluffs i ll have.

43 was just a disaster really. yeah i was attacking a capped range exactly of A high, i wont have many value combos here hardly ever and my line makes no sense, and might induce more calls from A high just because I cant rep much lol.

thanks!

Where can I find information related to your coaching stuff?

I find being consistent with new set of goals for the year to be the hardest part. :P

I always wanted to ask you, what did you learn from playing 235fpp hypers for sunday storm and why did you play those?

GL and crush this year!

Nice big 7.50 bink should save the run good for the big tourneys though!

43s seems nice in theory but can turn out bad with reads
JT seems like very unnecessary spew in a 7fo where a lot of people dgaf
Aj and 77 fine with reads

Thanks! I don't have anything really official online. I will pm you about coaching info. Man, the 235 FPP hypers....haha. I believe I played them (iirc), because the rate @ running @ EV in them with the T dollars was a substantially better return than cashing out the $ directly. So for example if you won 1/3 (which was EV @ breakeven) or better, you were making more $ than if you just cashed out for $.

I agree!
yeah like when a guy snap calls off AK vs my JT and i puke haha

I don't think people will fold anything which equals or is better than toppair in the b7.5 tbh

haha i question if they even look at their cards from time to time

here is a fun example: https://www.boomplayer.com/22258645_3C858D83E3

slightly disappointed in myself atm. i was doing "no drinking january" i was over at my friend's place watching hockey and they offered me a beer. out of common practice i accepted it. forgot until 3 sips into the beer that i wasn't supposed to be drinking. it's only one drink but its the principle that counts.

on another note i basically blasted off all profits made in cash games during week 1. i would say its a combination of running like aids and just playing poorly in general. i find it very difficult to take 50nl seriously after having like a -1k day in MTTs or something. I know thats a poor outlook but I think it makes sense to just focus on 1 game for now. Besides, I have done basically 0 lab work in cash games. so yeah, im done with cash games for now and I want to focus solely on MTTs and SNGs for at least the next few months. maybe i will revisit cash after i've got some coaching/done some lab work etc.

played relatively poorly today and making a note to myself that my standard of play today is unacceptable. taking friday/saturday off to rest up and will be prepping for a big sunday session.

gl next few days boys im gonna try not to touch my computer. here's a good motivation video for ya'll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASIT7U463Q0

In. Gl homie . Nice chop in the b7.50 bowltiniion

Gl for tcoop res me some % on the main

ty sir. where have u been on skype past few weeks u lil goat?

"All men are created equal. Some work harder in pre-season." -Emmitt Smith (I think)

Although I don't fully agree with the above quote, I like it nonetheless, there is also some underlying truth to it.

Anyways, what's up guys? Hopefully the weekend treated you better than it treated me

Health:

Workouts Completed this week: (3/6)
Cheat meal: 2.5/1
Cold Showers: 7/7
20 Minute Meditation Session: 4/7
Books Read: 0.5/1
Body Weight +/-: -5 lbs. (since beginning of year)

Wealth:

Training Videos Watched: 2/1
Hours in the lab: 1/2
Sessions played: 5/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation: 0
Weekly Proft: -1471
https://gyazo.com/429cb8b50bd001f3d35edeab5eae65c8
Yearly Profit: -591
https://gyazo.com/c75a6d4adc557f4b5dded95938b1a40b

Live Poker Profit: +550


Miscellaneous: I've been doing some easier workouts as I found P90x very tough to get straight into. Have been doing some stretches etc to go with it. P90x day 1 is starting tomorrow and I'm feeling excited to see the results over the next 90 days.

Story of leaving my comfort zone: Gonna give a cop out answer for my first one of these. But posting everything here and getting this process moving is far outside of my comfort zone. (I know it sounds ridiculous, next week's will be better).

Any points worth mentioning about weekly book or readings: This week's book was "The Solution to Social Anxiety" by Dr. Aziz Gazipura. I guess you could say social anxiety is something I've struggled with off and on since I was a little kid, and I think most people could relate to some extent. Was recommended this book from a friend and I've enjoyed it and learned a few things in the first half of it. I remember when I was a little kid I was super awkward around people I didn't know. Symptoms of this were helped greatly when I was in my teenage years as I was a very good athlete/ had a good friend group so I had a lot of confidence from that. During Uni things took a turn for the worse but have been steadily improving since graduating. It's cool to read a book like this and hear the author describing so many scenarios from his clients that have literally identical thought processes to my own. The book really gets into talking about how our inner voice is irrational and where it is born from. Would highly recommend the book for anyone finding difficulty with social anxiety.

Hands: Boomplayer was down today unfortunately. I'm doing a marked hand review session tomorrow though from my grind today. Definitely have a few interesting hands to post. For now I'll just post a few from the week:

https://www.boomplayer.com/22282409_EA8168767F
I felt like unloading the clip on the river here and I would have on a lot of rivers. Certainly he should feel gross about calling down with JJ here on say an A, K, Q river or even if the board pairs, or any spade. I think I pick up enough sd value on the river here and just pray he has 89 or something Imo it's important to have some bluffs from the SB here and 10Js is prob one of the best hands to incorporate into a depolarized range imo. Basically just repping an over pair which I think is pretty reasonable here, as a very high portion of my 3 bet range from SB would contain JJ+.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22281827_C06545E8C1
I cant remember exactly who villain was but I believe I had some read for extending BTN calling range a little bit. What you guys think about turn raise?

https://www.boomplayer.com/22281635_CE904F6DA1
Think I made this call cuz villain is a loose monkey. Probably far too loose. I think I'll have better bluff catchers than this.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22259156_94B4628C6D
annoying hand haha. villain is aggro fish.

Anyways: From a poker standpoint I've been feeling very sharp at the tables. Had heaps of deep runs today but couldn't pull the trigger anywhere. I've been selling a good chunk of action to almost everything over 20$ buy in, so personally I had a decent profitable week, but lost overall. I think the focus for this week will be game selecting a little better, and staying a bit more disciplined on Sunday. I just think playing a little bit smaller of stakes where I have far higher edge/swings is a little bit easier on my stress levels and happiness. I'll keep selling daily as I find this helps me stay disciplined (as I want to play my best for investors), and cuts a lot of variance. I just want to start cutting out the dick swinging contests where $/game is tiny and swings are astronomical. *note to future self this week*

Random Rant of the Week:

So I was watching a speech this week where the presenter was talking about "what makes us happy". At first glance the answer might seem obvious: cars, women, money, health, winning an MTT, graduating school, being seen as a net positive on society etc...What he said, which sort of led me to a paradigm shift was: "when happiness depends on something, it's always temporary." He said almost all humans have a natural default of happiness...this is why we are always chasing it. Somewhere along the paths of our lives we get it in our head that we are not happy, and we need to get something to be happy. During this process we train our brains that to be happy, we need more.

When I was starting out in poker I remember seeing my sharkscope graph being slightly losing. I remember my other noob friend telling me about a guy named "thelipofund", and he showed me his sharkscope results. I would rail this guy all the time like some type of fanatical lunatic (maybe a little sarcasm though). I dont remember what the amount of profit was but presumably in multi 6 figs. So I thought to myself "holy ****, if only I could do 1/10th of that I would be the happiest guy on earth." So I grinded 2$ 180 mans like an absolute fiend, eventually my SS graph hit 10k profit. I was happy for 10 minutes and then I was like yeah, I need 25k...then 50k, then 100k, then 200k, then 500k. Weirdly enough this rang true for me, so much of the stuff I was relying on for happiness was just a carrot and a stick, something that would never fulfill me, a mirage...I could give a lot of other examples of this type of story outside of poker as well, but you get the idea. It's super important to love the process of our journey as much as we love the end prize. If you have some spare time this is the video and it was a pretty good watch or listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xxqg4PHg3M

Anyways, I'm exhausted. Time to catch some zzz's. Thanks for reading.

"In life, as in chess, forethought wins." -Charles Buxton

Excellent blueprint man, all the best this year! Stay disciplined and you will have that bod in no time Keep up the good work!


Also recommend you get one of those floor mats from Staples, so your wheels don't wreck the laminate. (****ed my office floor this way lol). Nice set up