Two Sundays in a row where I didn't get much going.

Today, I actually felt a bit rusty having not played for 4-5 days straight. I didn't feel as sharp and some decisions where a lot harder than they should have been. And it was the first time in a few weeks where I felt like my mental game wasn't there either. I guess it goes hand-in-hand when you're away from the game even just for a few days.

Good news is, I hauled ass and studied a good few days prior to the big test this past week and managed to get an A- on it, making up for the poor result of the previous test.

Going to take a break now, then probably do my taxes, organize my schedule for the week, and get in some HH review.

Tomorrow will be work, class, and then I want to get in a session of grinding.

Bankroll: $1400

Just an observation over the past few weeks.

I have found it difficult to switch from school studying mindset to poker studying/playing mindset. If I have a test coming up, after a few days of hiatus away from just playing poker, it puts makes your playing ability that much duller.

Gotta figure out an efficient way to minimize that.

Played today with a interesting kind of tilt.

The past week I have been able to squeeze in zero play time. I felt like today was my day to seize the most playing time I could. That mentality went against me.

I fired more bullets than I should have. Typically I fire a single bullet in the higher end of buy-in tournaments where I take shots at -- several were taken. The first few entries were okay, although I was getting coolered often. In three of the tournaments I busted KK vs AA. After several entries in multiple tournaments I noticed my play started to lack, but I still felt like I should play.

Big mistake. -$200 day today.

Mentality wasn't there today, I think it's a combination of a lack of playing time, work, and school the past week. There were a lot of spots where I had the correct range on my opponents, but I did not have the discipline throughout the day to make the correct laydown.

The good news is, I feel like it is easily fixable with a good slew of playing time. I think a good way to use my time efficiently is to continue studying detailed HHs, as I do not have the time to commit to MTTs throughout the week, especially these last couple weeks.

April is going to be a month that is much more free for me. I hope to increase my volume and make a run for my goal. It is not looking good to have it done by May; however, I feel like it is definitely achieveable once school is over and the summer is here.

We'll see how I progress.

Bankroll: $1225

Not much to report. Spring break is here but I have family over. No playing time, but that was expected. Get to enjoy my time and cruise the island. =)

April is going to be my month! Going to put in a good grind. Sitting pretty comfortable in all my classes so not much to worry until finals week.

Tests out of the way for 2 weeks, plan to get in around 25 games a week this month.

Let's do thissssss. Might take a shot at a $1m guarantee that's going on this month depending on how I feel about my gameplay. I better not have work again.

Think I'll start adding pics to this thread, people like pics.

Starting this Sunday with a BR of $1333, attempting to play a bigger volume today and bink something relevant here.

A few big hands from last night. I was chip leader for a good portion of the FT but fell to AQ v. 10-2 and QQ vs A7. Ended up scraping up some flips for a 2nd place finish. Sucks cause not much tournaments going on on this site. Really limits my volume and I have to play micro-micro stakes, which I don't mind at the moment because I spent the last two weeks on hiatus with exams, and traveling the island with family.







Anywho, good luck to all and may the poker Easter bunny throw me some eggs with profitable situations today.

Broke even for the morning session. Going to go run some errands, work on a quick assignment, then have a 2nd session tonight.

Made another FT, and played FTW, but fell short and got 7th place in a $1k guar. r/a tournament. Towards the end everyone was 10-20bbs, and I felt like everyone was nitting it up. My bust out hand was the most questionable one, as I had ~9.5bb in the SB with 96o, thought I could push just to accumulate the valuable BB/ante. BB decided to call with K8s and held up. Maybe that was a fold? I don't think it could be that bad.

I actually noted that after I busted out of that FT, I lost patience/tilted in my other tournaments. My care factor reduced dramatically after busting out of that FT.

Bankroll: $1331

Night session went worse.

Something non-poker related tilted me during my off-time. And I wasn't in the mindset to play poker, but I played anyway. When this happens, I find myself buying in for multiple bullets unnecessarily when I usually cap myself off at some point. A pattern I'm recognizing when I'm pissed off at something off the felt, now I need to find a way to neutralize it. Most immediate logical solution? Don't play when you feel like ****.

To end the session I misclicked an all-in call with 75o into a board of AA6 when obv the other guy had Ax. Kind of fitting for the session given my undisciplined and C-game mood I had for the night.

If anything, I'll study the legit sessions I had over the past two days and restart for a morning session. I need to at least make some sort of progress.

-$80 for the night session, so:

Bankroll: ~$1250

Think I'm going to take a shot at the $1m guar since this IS a challenge and time is winding down. With my current schedule, I simply do not have the time to put in the volume I want until the summer.

If I lose, oh well. Not a big hit and I'm confident I could put in the time to make my goal by summer's end. =)

#brmanagement

Welp, I bricked the $1m guar.

I played to the best of my ability imo up until the break where the bubble was about to burst. Something broke me during the break and I lost my focus directly after that. I was sitting comfortably on a 45bb stack and my mind wandered off to stack down within 30 minutes. This game really is a game of stamina, and I find it hard to maintain because of my on and off playing time that is constantly going between poker and studying. Sucks, I could've folded my way to a min-cash -- but that wasn't my goal. In the long-term, I think that is a good mindset to have. In regards to this challenge, I should have kept that in mind. =)

It is kinda weird, but it feels like a poker switch just turned off and all of a sudden I was not thinking my hands through or planning later streets.

Negative? Lol @ BR management, it is the last couple months and thought I'd take a lol recreational shot at a high buy-in tourney. Of course I'm gonna go back to conservative BR management and grind my way up. Looking at the major FT now, all of the players there are established and obv got there for a reason.

The positive? After my exam this week, I want to lay out a consistent study schedule specifically for poker alone. Of course it'll take a break once finals comes around in 4 weeks, but after that I could put all of my focus on poker which sounds great to me. Yes my BR took a huge 50% hit, but it'll force me to play lower buy-in tournaments and keep learning from there. There are some fundamentals that I need to sharpen on to build a strong poker foundation for myself and it is a good place to look at myself in the mirror. Even at micro-stakes, you can always learn something about what mistakes you did with your play.

This week I will take off, as I have not done any studying outside of poker. My academia has seriously been on a 2-week hiatus. =P Big test on Friday so spending the next few days focusing on that. Maybe make my poker study plan on my downtime.

BR: $550 >.<

Not a bad day, played in 5 tourneys. Cashed in 3. Final Tabled 2. Took 1st and 2nd. Was almost two 1st's but villain won 3 all-ins and the last hand with 15% equity all-in going to the river.

Good part of it? I actually felt good playing today. Focused throughout the tournament, made sound decisions to the best of my ability consistently. Of course there were mistakes, but they weren't as much as the last weeks where I had exams in the back of my mind.

I find that I play my best when my mind is clear and 100% poker with no exams/projects to worry about.

Almost back to even after that lol-shot at the Sunday Mill. I'll get it back up.

Bankroll: $920

Bubbled the FT of a rebuy tourney, and binked another tourney.

Back in the 4-figure mark bitch.

Bankroll: $1055.58

FT'ed was chip lead most of the game, then this happened:



Lol @ value PSB.

That hand brought me down to 17 BB, more than enough to fight back but ran AQhh into KK BvB. Felt good and primed to take down another tourney, had to settle for 4th. =/

Still alive in a few tourneys and hopefully make something out of those.

Busted with meh cashes in remaining tournaments. Ran card dead and did not even have reshove hands to go with for 2 hours as I blinded down to 10bb and had AK vs TT w/o hitting.

Although felt pretty good about my play, no major leaks, but I'm sure there were a lot of spots where I can improve on.

Probably take the rest of the day off and enjoy the day with my gf, do an assignment and then watch a movie. Review the past 3 sessions tomorrow.

Bankroll: $1115.40

I don't think I should play SnGs. I think I'm so -EV in them bc I'm missing some kind of ICM-discipline in there, in a rush to get the game done when I could fold my way to an easy ITM spot with over 50% of the chips.

Meh, maybe micro SnGs to get my fix lol.

Anywho, dabbled in some of that, and didn't run so well in today's MTTs. Lost most of my flips and some hands where I dominated villain.

I don't think that it was a coincidence that I didn't feel 100% and things didn't go my way. What is that called? The law of belief? Ah, no... the law of attraction.

Yes MTTs have high variance, but what is variance when you don't feel 100% and money isn't attracted to you. Do you play anyway to continually build up your confidence and playability? I think the answer is probably. You can fail, and get used to failing -- and that's OK. The important part is getting back up to work on your game and sharpen your mind so the same mistakes don't happen over and over.

The hardest part about this learning whole poker thing is, there is no actual structure or curriculum to follow. For me, the difficult part is identifying where I went wrong, how to fix it, and then finding the resources to resolve it. How do you identify you did something wrong without actually knowing the most correct way to do it in the first place?

Something I've been pondering...

Bankroll: $998

Been running bad the past few days...

All of my recent big hands:













Ahh so frustrating after I grinded back to even from the 50% BR shot. Of course I am making mistakes, but they aren't any major mistakes and some really close spots.

Did the math on all the spots where I was speculating and most of the moves I were making were okay. Not sure if speculation is a result of bleeding chips but I am trying to expand my game where I play more pots with hands that have potential to unknowingly stack the opponent.

Must. Learn. More.

Bankroll: $916.68

The downswing continues:



Man, this MTT variance is tough business. Maybe I should convert to cash game to see a more overall steady line? Hard to fit MTTs into my current schedule; however, summer is just around the corner.

With continued hard work and studying, maybe things will turn around sooner than later.

Probably not gonna hit the $10k mark by the end of this month unless I bink a couple Sunday $15k's lol. Will revise my summer goal when the time comes...

Bankroll: $871.23

Kind of a funny feeling, it is the week before finals and I have been studying more poker than academia - just had a bigger urge to study the felt.

Also noting the fact that I am no danger of failing any classes.

Once finals are over, I can't wait to spend most of my free time playing and studying poker. I think I'll have a 25% studying and 75% playing split generally speaking. I feel like you can study all you want, but you aren't able to absorb the information AND apply the concepts in real-time then the studying is a bit moot.

Getting in a micro MTT session today, then studying for finals/errands the rest of the day. Taking a day off from both studying and playing tomorrow to go diving/BBQ with a few friends. It'll be my first real spearfishing trip. I've gone diving before, but only for lobster and crab (slipper lobsters are a lot more delicious than Maine lobster imo). Maybe if I catch something cool I'll post a pic up here.

Finals are over!

Working part-time, putting all my school time into poker time is a good feeling. I am motivated to wake up and study poker everyday now.

Going to start integrating cash games into my weekly routine and see some progress. I've probably stated this before, but I should rename the title of this thread for the end of summer. I'll wait until the end of this month in case a miracle happens in a couple Sundays. =P

I will probably start updating more frequently now that I have the time, included with both logs of studying and playing time spent.

Let's do this!

My first free Sunday!

Yesterday I had over 50% of the chips remaining and 100bb with 3 remaining. I was forcing hands and trying to finish the tourney early bc my gf wanted to go adventuring. I finished 3rd, but I was a little rushed so I wasn't too tilted about it.

Felt pretty good today, first couple morning tourneys didn't go my way. Lost AK vs AQ, KK vs A7o. The were the most memorable bustouts.

Kept my head straight most of the day until one hand where I had a meh call that costed me 50% of my stack, built it back up to 25bb then ran AQs into AKo when I was restealing. What can you do.. get better!

The day ended a bit early for a Sunday, going to take a break and spend a little time with my gf, take my dog out, etc. etc. Gonna get in some poker studies in tonight and maybe a little cash on the side to get in the groove of that. Probably review HHs since they're fresh in my mind, I've been more geared towards theory recently so it should be a good change of pace.

Cash games and MTTs are a very different dynamic, if I want to get in the groove for both, I need to learn how to switch modes in my brain depending on the game.

Also studied some good stats material, looking over my db and man, am I a fish in a lot of spots. =/

Studying time: 1 hour

Starting BR: $965.6
MTT Profit: -$101.30
Cash Profit: -$10.26
Ending BR: 850.44

5/18

Study time: 45m

Today

This morning's poker playing was my F game, was literally just clicking buttons and not thinking. A day of early tourney bustouts led me to just studying the game more. After some errands here and there, put in some more study time, and decided to get in a cash session as my mind was ready to actually go through somewhat of a thought process. Netted a little over a buy-in, but I felt like there were some spots where I was just spewy.

Hopefully tomorrow turns out better.

Studying time: 2 hours and 25 minutes

Starting BR: $850.44
MTT Profit: -$74.3
Cash Profit: $29.04
Ending BR: $803.73

*Note: During today's study session, there was a topic I covered that simultaneously went over my head/blew my mind. I thought I knew things here and there and just needed a nudge of deeper understanding. But today revealed to me how little poker I know, and why the top players are where they are. Nuts how complex the game is and how top tier players really think, just became all the more impressed by pros who genuinely learn the game for the love of it.

What a frustrating cash session!! I was up 4 BI then a string of coolers hit... After the first initial coolers got me, I still had a level head but of course as time went on I started to tilt. Had to take myself out of the game even though I had the urge to grind it back up to where it was -- I knew that would be a bad idea because my mind wasn't focusing and I was starting to trend towards clicking buttons mindlessly/angrily.

Morning tournaments, I felt like I played well with minimal mistakes. Just couldn't win the big pots min-cashed a couple of them... Been a bad week profit wise.

Study time: 35m

Starting BR: $803.73
MTT Profit: -$66.26
Cash Profit: -$15.89
Ending BR: $721.58

5/21:

Study time: 1 hr

5/22:

Study time: 1 hr

Today:

Couldn't get any in any studying time today. I usually like to do it in the morning when my mind is fresh, but I went out last night with a few friends and woke up a little bit hungover. Not even sure why either, didn't even drink that much (3-4 beers, 1 shot). Does that mean I'm getting old?!

Anywho, not many tournaments going on today. Cashed in one, but failed to get top 3 -- no glaring mistakes. Decided to play a bigger side SnG cause the game looked good, and lost to most of my stack QQ vs AK.

Cash session went decent. Overall positive, but still noticing tilt which continues to be a big leak of mine. Not surprisingly my graph steadily trends downward after I get coolered. Need to refocus my mind to get back on track faster IMO.

Hoping for a good MTT Sunday tomorrow, probably review in the morning and have my mind sharp to start off with.

Study time: 0 hr

Starting BR: $721.58
MTT Profit: ~+$25.00
SnG Profit: -$21.75
Cash Profit: +$43.16
Ending BR: $767.95

Losing Sundays!

That's what I call this day of the week. I always do bad on Sunday, I think the past 3-4 have been losing days.

MTTs weren't a bad run, I bubbled one FT with a badly timed jam. I final tabled the other to get fifth and failed to secure a top 3 spot. It would've been nice, but this FT the whole table was relatively shortstack ranging from 10-25bb.

My cash game sessions haven't been going any better. I have +EV plays overall, but my net for today's session is in the negatives, and a few BI negative... here are a few examples why:







That last hand I didn't play particularly well, but it fits the theme and definitely contributed to the tilt which led to a lot of small-med pots spewed away. So after those hands resulting in tilt I had to take a few hours break to clear my head of poker, and I was actually down a couple more BI than where my ending BR is for the day.

Didn't get in any study time today either, didn't expect to on a Sunday. Will get back to it tomorrow to keep trying to implement/apply what I learn into my game.

Study time: 0 hr

Starting BR: $767.95
MTT Profit: -$34.68
Cash Profit: -$55.96
Ending BR: $677.31

Welp, it's the end of May and I have fallen way short of my goal.

It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, but I was trying to do it only with MTTs and my school/work schedule didn't really work well with that.

Definitely humbled myself, but at the same time, I feel like I am a lot better player than I was 5 months ago. Obviously, plenty of room for improvement.

There are things that I still definitely need to work on, the two sticking out off the top of my head is sticking to fundamentals and tilt.

I will probably think of a new PGC thread to keep a log for myself, with the same end goals in mind. What I have to decide on are the parameters and such. I'll marinate in my own thoughts before deciding.

RIP thread, and to a new journey ahead.