Sup,

I've never had a PG&C thread before but I've had several blogs around the interwebs where I've put a significant effort into my content. This is not going to be one of those blogs.

I've been contemplating doing this for some time but I've always decided against it, because I'm quite emo and I've felt like having an audience wouldn't necessarily have a positive effect as not being enough mentally detached from the results during playing has always been one of my biggest problems.

However I think I've reached a point in my life where I can honestly say I don't care a whole lot about being put on a platform and being seen in a positive light. All I care about right now is achieving my goals and I think this could actually be a positive thing.

This is going to be largely brag-free and the reason for its existence is to kick my own ass. I'll be the horse and y'all shall be the whip, so to say, at least in my head.

Why:

I'm mainly creating this just to be extremely critical at myself. I'm hoping that I will spew less, care more, have more heart and give myself more and more reasons to be proud of what I'm doing. Every time I catch myself slacking, when I do something dumb, destroy piles of equity, play with too little sleep, prepare poorly, don't care enough for the inevitable monotabling a noninteresting tournament when the rest of the session went to ****s, when I skip exercise because I want to surf the internet, etc etc, I am going to post it. I'm going to post only the most embarrassing of hhs where I massively screw up.

This year my only main goal is to win $150k at pokers. This was also my goal for 2013, and I was ahead of the pace quite a bit until I got sick and lost over half of the year to it (and I lost tons playing when I was not anywhere near my top form, but enough about that). Now I'm back in shape so at least I'm physically ready to reach my goals. Mentally I have no idea, because still way too often I find myself not caring, not stopping to think enough before I click buttons and just not being there 100% for reasons I can't often explain.

I'm also getting ridiculously old, I turned 27 this year and I've played poker professionally for six years now. My entire adulthood has been about playing cards, and I'm simply too old to not reach my goals. Thus I have decided that if I fail to reach my goals this year (even if it's for reasons I can't control), it will be my last as a poker professional. I'm not setting it in stone, but that's how I feel right now and I'm going to act accordingly. I'm going to care more than ever and drop every last bit of sweat so that if I'm retiring, I can at least say I left with a bang and gave the game everything I've got. Honestly I don't think I can say that for a single year before, I've had many moments of greatness but they've always been followed by periods of playing less than optimal just because I haven't cared enough. It's also been a bit of an issue being hungover on like 75% of Sundays which is supposed to be the most important day of the week, and this too will change next year.

Goals:

Main goal:
[ ] 150k+ profits from MTTs

Secondary goals that I'm going to do monthly checks on:
[ ] study, put effort into studying, make notes
[ ] review your own game between sessions, actively look for leaks, write public posts about ******ed things you see yourself doing and seek for solutions
[ ] CARE, be a professional
[ ] stop browsing while playing, stop 27-tabling facebook chats while 25-tabling poker, spend the "boring" time making notes and observing
[ ] THINK, USE YOUR BRAIN, always take a 2 second breather before a decision to avoid auto-piloting
[ ] have maximum 2 losing months
[ ] meditate before sessions, give yourself a mental pep talk before every session
[ ] show maximum heart and commitment (<--courtesy of Finnish hero Rebuy Roope)
[ ] stay motivated, never punt a tournament because you're oi
[ ] learn to be mentally stronger, stop sweating flips, start giving zero care for outcomes, don't even notice what happens, just focus on decisions
[ ] stop regging late night turbos and other "session savers", when it goes bad just let it go as long as you played good, learn to accept short term losses and always reg smart, SEE THE BIG PICTURE

Non-poker:

Outside poker I've recently taken up rock climbing but I'm not very good at it yet. I've always been into more extreme types of sports and it was clear to me after the first time I tried it that this is my sport. It's also the first sport where I can notice every time that it would really help to be insanely ripped, as every extra gram you have to drag up with you really makes it more difficult. I'm planning to do a climbing trip in some epic place like Utah or Thailand or Croatia or something in the summer, and for that purpose for the first time in my life I'm planning to get Men's Health cover boy-level ripped. I'm in pretty good shape but could definitely lose a few pounds, so I'm going to start exercising vigorously and also use this to monitor my success. Whenever I find myself slacking and not exercising enough or eating optimally I'm going to punish myself by posting here. I am going to still keep going out and getting smashed every now and then, but I'm trying to exercise at least 5 times a week and eat as healthy as possible. I've got really good genes for exercise luckily, I don't have to do a whole lot and it shows quickly, and I never really get fatter unless I go on long benders and eat junk food for weeks straight, so I don't doubt this will work out as long as I have enough self control and commitment.

What:

I will play 98% non-turbo MTTs, on about 9 different sites, with about ~$80 average buy-in. I play all games but aim to play non-NL mostly just on Saturdays and during FTOPS/COOPs etc. This is mainly just because I make more playing NL, but if/when I have time I'd love to devote some time to studying other games more, but that will have to wait at least for now.

I have a gf, the climbing, am also in the process of writing a book and I've got a couple of side things so I think I will only be able to play about 5 days a week. So instead of logging insane volume, I'm going to make it count every day when I am able to play. I'm aiming to play maybe 7000 games this year (historically I've made about $35/game so far so that should easily cut it to reach 150k), but I'm not making any volume goals. As long as I don't get sick any volume will do if I just play good enough.

I'm not going to be posting results or anything on a weekly/monthly basis etc because I don't want to put pressure on myself. There's still a lot of variance in MTTs and I don't want to go like zomg I'm behind pace and create myself extra pressure. I'm just going to make sure I'm making the right decisions and come back here to vent when I feel like I need some public humiliation.

I have also set myself a "training diary" that I will keep just in private. It will mostly be used to make quick notes during my session for things I need to check afterwards like "you did X in Y tournament vs Z did you have enough equity?", and for making notes about videos I watch, about leaks I may find in my own play, and about revelations I may have when playing around with pokerstove and similar programs. Basically I'm just aiming to write everything down because apparently that's how your brain really registers the new information (=the reason you write stuff down in schools too). My aim is to update this on a regular basis.

I will also post short-term training goals for myself here, like short "projects" such as "I think my play with 15BB is too mechanical, for the next two weeks I'm going to pay extra attention to that and look for solutions to mix it up more and look into some maths".

When:

The challenge will begin tomorrow and last until 31/12/2014. The exercise part will only begin after NYE. I'm planning to have an alcohol-free January for the first time ever, but I'm currently still in the middle of stuffing myself with christmas food so I'm going to have a diet of chocolate and candy for the next few days until I've eaten every bit of sugar left in this apartment, and I also plan to get extremely smashed on NYE as it will be the last time in a while

Good luck man! These threads are what makes poker fun so you get an insta sub from me.

If this is anything like your thread in BBV should be sick. GL and In!

This will most certainly be nothing like my thread in BBV, but I will have a book out soon from the bbv thread which will hopefully be a lot sicker.

Awesome goals, take it down

Gl broski, looking fwd to reading this all yr long.

Subbed <3 scandinavian sickos.

GL i'm a huge fan of your BBV and your blog so hope this will be good too.

And finally, are you completly done with liveaments ?(gotta get them hendon mob flags

Thanks guys.

Willyoman, I remember you were one of the few guys posting extremely good advice when I was starting and posting tons of thread in SSMTT, so thanks for that. Hope all is well with you.

French_Donk, I guess I'll never be entirely done with liveaments. Someone way smarter than me said something along the lines of "in the world of mtts live poker is the tax", and I couldn't agree more. It's just ****ing impossible to run good enough to win something, so I've more or less given up. I haven't had a profitable live trip in 2,5 years and I've done quite many of them since. But they are like a drug to me - live poker is just so much more fun and I always miss it after a break. I'll probably do 2-3 trips this year in comparison to like 30 that I did in 2010 or 2011. I'm going to choose my destinations based on company, drinking buddies and other things instead of value and am fully expecting to lose all buyins so I'll just treat them as expensive holidays.

GL Chuck.

Browsing while playing is such a leak. Agree on that. Have tried to eliminate that myself.

It's great to have a guy like you who gives back to the poker community: Stars meetings reports, preventing ghosting, CRunner videos, etc.

Let's hope you meet your goals and stick around longer than 2014!

omfg SNAPsub! gl man and looing forward to that book

GL, Chuck. Subbed.

If you make this a priority, many of your other goals will become more attainable / less stressful for sure.

Good luck Chuck

Subbed gl

Subbed, empathy for turning 27 in '13 here lol, glgl

GL Chuck,

we have similar goals for the next year and I'm thinking of also making a thread, so I will follow. I have 2 years on you, though! muahaha.

As said there will be no brag posts / brag hands / other nonsense. However there's still about 13 hours until the beginning of the challenge and I can't sleep, so I'm going to make an image post to make sure I'll get herocalled all the year with a fake lag scandi image




Lesson 1: It's Texas Hold'em = no one ever has anything = RAIZE







Lesson 2: Utilizing blockers to balance check-raising range vs river overbets in 300€ heads-up tournaments






Lesson 3: Check-shoving rivers to make people fold flushes and boats works at least 2% of the time, so it's worth a try when given the opportunity






Lesson 4: When the pot is too big pre-flop you must not leave it laying around, but do your best to win it at any cost

$10/$20 No Limit Holdem
888
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG AKSharky1 ($4,751) 238bb
CO Arttyomka ($5,219) 261bb
BTN Becpoker087 ($4,103) 205bb
SB Mourgis ($5,040) 252bb
BB Hero ($6,057) 303bb

Pre-Flop: ($30, 5 players) Hero is BB 6 5
3 folds, Mourgis calls $10, Hero raises to $60, Mourgis calls $40

Flop: 2 2 9 ($120, 2 players)
Mourgis bets $60, Hero raises to $225, Mourgis raises to $460, Hero raises to $862, Mourgis calls $402

Turn: 4 ($1,844, 2 players)
Mourgis checks, Hero bets $965, Mourgis calls $965

River: 8 ($3,774, 2 players)
Mourgis checks, Hero goes all-in $4,170, Mourgis folds

Final Pot: $7,944

Hero wins $7,944 (net +$1,887)

Mourgis lost $1,887


Lesson 5: Turning two pair into a river 3-bet bluff with blockers, sick bad beat if he somehow has a boat / quads in which case hand will be buried into the cooler pile






Lesson 6: Standard flop 5bet in a basic cooler situation in Sunday major ft, nothing I can do here





Lesson 7: As long as the button on the right appears you can always click it, you never know how much folding equity a man can have if you don't try!

looking forward to this man
best of luck

Reverse, reverse psychology, showing us some bluffraises trying to convince us you're actually a nit by heart all so you can LAG it up scandi style in 2014.... right, anyone still with me?

you're so aggro. love it. glgl

Lesson #8: It's a good experiment to try bluff-raising rivers for awhile and take yourself out of your comfort zone and then sit down and analyze when it does and doesn't work.

in!

FU & GL

I reckon this will be one of the more entertaining PGC threads so might as well subscribe

GL man! And respect the elderly

How much did you profit in 2013? Roughly?

hey what the hell ever happened with you being sick as a parrot that time
did it just pass, bad sushi?