keep going mate! i like your motivation and hope u can reach ur goals

Cheers man, I lurk your thread from time to time! Gl to you too!



-----

So yesterday I ended up not grinding. My timekeeping was pretty horrendous and then some logistical reasons that I don't really wana discuss ITT hindered my ability to grind, and after a pretty poor day upto that point I decided to go home.

Anyway, here's the update of what I did do.



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Health & Fitness

Same workout as on Tuesday and it was awesome. The exercise isn't gettting any easier because it's still a massive mental and physical battle, but I'm definitely getting stronger and more in-shape because today I blasted through the workout and I felt amazing after finishing. My energy levels, focus and form were noticeably better during the session, and today I took much less rests between the individual exercises. It feels great to see my hard-work paying off right before my eyes.



Study

Started by making notes on a mammoth 26 hands I saved from yesterday. Now that I'm playing games where stacks are deeper I'm finding there's so much more weird stuff going on and I firmly believe that the hard-work I'm doing now is going to lead to a higher expectation in the future.
Finished a solid hour of note work by clearing 3 players from the "make notes better" list.

Finished my study by plugging a rediculous 60+ hands. Procrastinated quite a lot, maybe I was daunted by the sheer volume of work that needed doing, but also I felt pretty tired and took a power-nap in the middle. I'm always feeling pretty tired after strength workouts.



-----

So ye, I'm finding that if I procrastinate a little I procrastinate a lot. I guess my obsessive-perfectionist attitude hinders me at times. If things start going downhill I have very little ability to recover and make the best of the rest of the day.
As mentioned in the update, I'm also finding that I feel really tired after strength-sessions and I guess that is something I need to address. Maybe I need to look into some ways for a boost on strength days, maybe eating some high-sugar foods or something. I'll read up on it anyway. It's interesting that I feel really energised after cardio but really sleepy after strength. I guess it's a good demonstration of the different processes involved in the workouts.

One final point is that, I think I'm being a bit OCD with the save-for-review hands. Yesterday I was pretty daunted by the size of the task ahead, and I think that led to some of the procrastination. I've got into a habit of saving literally every spot where I'm unsure during a session, but I'm finding that on a lot of spots I save I still don't know what ranges to estimate, and I don't think I would be any the wiser unless I was sitting in on a discussion between some higher-level players. Moving forward with this I'm going to try to be a little bit more selective with which hands I choose to save. My volume this year has been atrocious and that needs addressing. Despite little glimpses that I am heading in the right direction, there's still a ridiculous amount of improving to do and if I'm not careful I'm gona end up focusing a lot of time and dedication in the wrong places and getting nowhere!


Playing tonight so update later. Shelly.

Health & Fitness

Went running on the 3.5ml route again this morning. Didn't feel enthusiastic before starting and I guess that acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy because I took a lot of walk breaks. Finished in a disappointing 00:34:38.
Really pleased that I forced myself out there though and I'm sure that if I keep doing it even when I don't feel like it, my consistancy of performance will start to benefit greatly!



Pre Sesh

Just a very short amount of study as I did most of it yesterday, and also my timekeeping was really shoddy today.

Just cleared 1 note-hand I saved whilst railtarding a friend yesterday, then cleared 3 guys from the list.

It would've been good to have done an ICM-review as I'm really lagging behind with my ICM work, but as timekeeping was so awful I decided to grind longer instead.



Sesh

Depending on how you look at things it was either another really awesome sesh, or a really ****ty one.

Graph says I lost a little bit more than I actually did.


I'm going through a really tough downer at the moment and the session was full of absurdness. At the same time I felt really calm for the most part and it's good to see the improvement in myself from my last poor downer towards the end of 2013. Mentally I'm much stronger, and imo a huge part of that comes from all the studying as it gives me the confidence to know that plays I'm losing with are correct.


Although it was mostly just anal-rape I did have a couple of exciting moments.


Saw some little sparks of heat in this $5.40-TKO and took a ******ed number of KOs before busto in 45th.





Had just a couple of deep runs in the 3rs. The first I made a pretty marginal jam with 13 left. I plugged it and it said we get a very small edge ICM-wise, but the blinds weren't up for a while and the table was soft so in hindsight folding>jamming.



Then the last game of the day looked like it was gona save the sesh. I was on a FT with a lot of inexperienced players, which is quite rare in 3r, and I'd managed to ride a short-stack all the way to the final and then heater up to 2/6.
Got coolered though against an aggro-rando and couldn't bink the flush or recover afterwards.

There's a very slight hint of "obvious-induce" about it but it was actually just a massive cooler.



-----

Hopefully I'll be back at it tomorrow. I would like to get through this downer as quickly as possible. A huge mistake I've made in the past is losing heart when things aren't going my way, and then grinding much less and being stuck in a bad stretch for much longer than I should be.
Mentally though I'm the best I've ever been so there really is no excuse! Let's keep the foot on the gas! >:-D


Thanks for reading, Shelly.

Hello buddy!! Your TJ hand is standard and profitable but its bottom of your range. Its not an icm spot(at least not heavy icm) because its 6 ppl left and the icm starts when 5 are left.Icm wise its even better push + the game flow was telling you that you wont be called light GG be patient it will come !

Rightly or wrongly I don't subscribe to this widely-believed viewpoint. Also, it was 13 people left but even so I believe ICM is a huge factor here. I play ICM from before the first bubble onwards. I guess I will ask around and see what other people think to this.


Thanks mate.



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I just got to my bro's under the impression that Stoke were playing today, and as such I was expecting that to disrupt my day. However, I've found out we aren't playing until tomorrow so I've got an uninterrupted 11hrs in front of me to make this a great day.

Update later!

Health & Fitness

Today I completed my workouts for the week by doing a single-circuit of the strength routine, preceded by the standard 15min walking warmup. It was a great little workout and as I was only doing the one circuit I decided to really push myself and take shorter breaks between the exercises. Felt energetic and focused all the way through and really pleased with my efforts this week. It was also good to do that extra workout as I feel it makes up for missing a workout last week.

Tomorrow there should be a game of football and I'm hoping that I will be able to see an improvement in my fitness from the last time we played. Part of the reason for just doing a single-circuit today was so that I could save myself for footy tomorrow. It's been a really productive week of fitness and I'm looking forward to trying to improve my performances again next week!



Pre Sesh

Started with the standard notetaking work. Made notes on 13 hands then cleared 3 players from the list. ezpz

Did a full ICM-review of that 6th from last night. Reviewed from about 36 left to the FT-bubble. It took a lot longer than it should've cus there was curtains being noisily put up in the room where I grind so decided to go and take a needed powernap whilst that was being done. The ICM work was very hard but quite useful.

Finished by plugging the best part of 40 hands I saved from my sesh yesterday. Timekeeping wasn't great but I'm pleased with the work I got through.



Sesh

Only played a short sesh. Managed to book a really small win but I'm left feeling very bitter and depressed because I had a lot of stacks deep and even made a few FTs.

Graph is exact.




Came 5th in this one. Thought for a short while before calling and it seems 77 was good and 66 was marginal.



This one I came 4th and I'm absolutely devastated. This is one of those shoves that people say is standard, but it isn't standard at all given the table. It's ****ing bad!
There was two aggressive fish ready to commit suicide against each other, and then a volumetard reg who was literally little better than the fish. Some of the ICM errors on that table were amazing to witness.
What hurts the most is that as soon as I jammed I realised my error, so if I had just stopped for another second or two I wouldn't have made this mistake.

I was so annoyed I had to stop reggin. Really gutted because I know I'm good enough to make that fold.
(don't wana hear anyone telling me that jam is good because you are wrong)



-----

Gona go home now and try to get a good nights rest and put that disappointing session behind me. At least I booked a win and ran a bit better so that's encouraging.
Tomorrow I'm playing this MM-main so it could be a longass grind!


Shelly.

I push all day there
Nice push !!!

Go shelly! You sure have what it takes to crush these things! GL (btw if you still new help message me here or on Skype, might be able to help you now)

haha :P


Cheers ben, I believe so too it's just a matter of more time and effort. All sorted now wrt that but cheers.



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Football has been cancelled today so I'm gona get all my **** ready and put in a long grind tonight. Not that much studying to do so gona leave ICM review today and play a few MTTs to try and lucksack my way out of this downer.
Gona be playing Storm, MM-main, Bigger 11 and a few other things I don't normally play. Hopefully jesus will be nice and satiated and worn out from the last however many weeks of raping me in the ass and then he'll let his guard down so that I can have my turn at bum****ing him.

Pre Sesh

Started by making notes on 15 hands I saved yesterday, then cleared 3 guys from the list.

Finished by plugging 10 hands from yesterday including a few ICM hands. I'm actually finding that most regs are appalling when it comes to ICM, so whilst that's nowhere near as encouraging as a game full of fish it's at least a little bit encouraging.



Sesh

Played for about 9hrs today. Had an exciting little schedule with a few MTTs. Unfortunately I bricked almost every one of them and then could only make a single 3r-FT.
Don't feel like I played great but I kept the table-counts really low (no higher than 10 and mostly 8 or less) so when I did make mistakes I was able to realise them, which is a consolation at least.

Graph is exact.



So ye, another tough day at the office.



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Gona go home and recuperate ready for another day of hard-work tomorrow. I'd say I'm running as bad this month as I've ever ran. It's hurting a lot but I'm also quite proud because my mental-game is now better than it's ever been. Hopefully if there's not much else to take from March 2014 I'll be able to finish the month better equipped for the whenever I next have a period as rough as this.

I'll update again tomorrow night.


Cheers, Shelly.

Health & Fitness

Had a good run on the 3.5ml route today. Setoff not quite feeling it but managed to tough it out and complete, without walking, in 00:33:53. It's over a minute slower than the record I made last week but I'm still quite pleased because I just want to be able to consistantly complete without breaks before I start focusing on getting faster.

The plan this week is to do my workouts Monday-Friday. It's Mother's Day on sunday so there won't be any football. I might go and do an extra run on Saturday morning on the old 2.65ml route and see what it feels like after running this 3.5ml route for quite a while now.



Pre Sesh

Made notes on the best part of 20 hands I'd saved from yesterday, then cleared 3 players from the list.

Finished by plugging the about 40 hands I'd saved from yesterday. It was a really good little mental-workout. I've decided that I'm never again gona click the Calculate Nash button in mizer when there's a bunch of ranges, because nash is a pile of bollocks and it assumes people are playing perfectly against one another but the reality is that you should be estimating and adjusting in every single situation. Obv I do that already but I reckon that every time I'm feeling lazy and click Nash I hinder my own development, so it stops here!



Sesh

Decent day. Managed only my second 3r bink of the month. Got scummed a bit in the games I was freerolling but I'm just pleased to get a solid winning day on the board.

Graph is only a dollar or two from being accurate.




Went deep in a $4.40 Progressive Turbo Super-KO to finish but ended up busting in 90th.


Rando had just got moved to the table. Can't believe he was sitting on AK haha.


Busto to same guy next hand.


-----

Tomorrow it is essential that I wake up early and improve my timekeeping as I'm doing weights, which takes a while, and then I got a lot of study to do pre-sesh. I'm finding a good bit of hardwork-form to finish the month so let's keep it up and take it into April!


I'll update again tomorrow night.

Shelly.

Can you explain your river bet in that first hand?

I've just spoken to my backer and he didn't like the flop bet and I agree with his reasoning. He said that nothing better folds, nothing worse calls so we're bluffing with the middle of our range when we should probably be betting our value-hands, our semi-bluffs and our Kx with two overs. I'd prob bet weak aces and complete air too if I had any, because randos tend to call wide from the bb against mins so even on wet boards that look scary we have way more fe than if say HJ had flatted.

On the river I'm estimating that all his 2pr would've pushed by the turn, and I discounted AK because I believe most players would've raised/jammed pre. That leaves Tx which we can get value from, the straight, and then a lot of Ax that decided to call our small cbet. There was a FD out there so it's possible he could've had Ax with the fd.

Obv it didn't workout but I think, other than the flop bet which I agree wasn't clever, it seemed profitable. Maybe I should've checked back though?

Why u bet so small ott ? Do u want to induce a raise ? I would bet bigger
I agree with checking the flop ip
If u check flop and he leads turn ?

I bet small ott to induce both raises and calls from weaker. If we bet bigger then there's less chance that he could decide to semi-bluff jam with draws, or even turn some hands into bluffs. And we might fold out some Tx that we want value from. I'm not that worried about draws because even if he hits his flush OTR it's gona be real hard for him to get value. Obv if spade comes OTR I can check back, or fold to the donk-jam.

Also, I'm thinking about my SPR on a river jam. If I bet bigger OTT then I'm gona be jamming like 80k or 70k into 150k and that's just gona look too strong. By sizing the turn smaller I can rep a bluff better OTR by jamming 100k into 125k.
Obviously you can make a case that with really poor players, it might be better to bet bigger OTT and then make them feel committed OTR but for the majority it isn't the case, and the guy was a rando so we couldn't make that adjustment.

If we check flop and then he leads turn I'm just calling.

I guess my thought if that we have bet flop and turn now, so not sure what he is calling three streets with that we are happy about. I think check flop is good and then you can get two streets pretty easily, but the way you played it, just not sure what you are targeting otr.

Health & Fitness

So today I forced myself to wake up earlier than I have been doing of late but felt like **** as a result so procrastinated for a while before exercise. For my strength session I decided that I want to start introducing larger weights so I dropped to a single-circuit of 6-reps with heavier weights. It wasn't too difficult and I'll make sure that for Thursday I add the second circuit. I'll also be doing weights on Saturday this week as there's no football on Sunday. Hopefully a light introduction today should've prepared me better than busting my balls and then having bad workouts for the rest of the week.



Pre Sesh

Started by making notes on 15 hands then cleared 3 guys from the list.

Reviewed the 3-handed of the 3r I binked yesterday and found I played pretty ****ty, but I learnt a lot so that's the main thing.

Finished by plugging the best part of 40 hands I saved from yesterday. Pleased with the study today!



Sesh

So I've felt pretty tired all day and I think it's a combo of waking up earlier + general burnout. Decided to grind just a single batch of games so that I could get home earlier. Ended up being here for longer than I planned cus I ran very deep in a $5.40-TKO but just busted in 11th.

Pretty harsh one to take. $2.5k ut...


Graph is 50c from being accurate.




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Anyway I'm finished earlier than I have been recently so gona go home and make a big effort to sleep earlier. There's not a whole lot of study to get through so I want a big 8hr+ session tomorrow!


Shelly.

Hey guys, just dropping in with the update from yday and then wana talk about a few things and some plans.



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Health & Fitness

Had another great run on the 3.5ml route yesterday. Woke up feeling strangely nervous but I seem to perform better when I have butterflies. Once again I completed without walking and to be honest I knew in the first mile I was gona make it. The only disappointing thing is I felt like I was smashing my previous record but when I reached the finish the stopwatch read 00:33:44, only slightly quicker than my previous time. Mid-run I was convinced I was much quicker than on Monday but whatever, I'll take it. Lost about 5-10 seconds by running bad on a road crossing as a load of cars came and I had to jog on the spot momentarily, so there's that too.

I'll be running again on Friday and it would be beautiful if I can make it a clean-sweep for the week. Like I've said before, training to be able to run without stopping is more important than beating times right now, but I'll get there.



Pre Sesh

Started by clearing 10 note-hands I'd saved from Tuesday, then cleared 3 players from the list.

Finished by working through over 20 saved-for-review hands. Only a short amount of study but I was very pleased with my work!



Sesh

Had a really poor session. For the first few hours I was playing great and focused but just getting utterly scummed, and I ended up stopping reggin way earlier than I was planning because I knew I'd lost focus and any chance of recovering my A-game.

Graph is exactly accurate.




-----

The worst thing about yesterday was that it showed me I still have big mental-issues that need sorting. However, I'm going to make absolutely certain that those gaping wounds are confronted and defeated.

It's pretty clear that when I lose focus I'm actually experiencing a form of tilt. It's not the stereotypical, blood-boiling keyboard-smashing anger that we imagine when the word is mentioned, but it's something highly damaging all the same. I went into my session very foolishly feeling like things were gona turn, which may be a big reason why I was unable to deal professionally with the realisation that it could be another really poor day. My motivation and morale evaporated and I became almost indifferent to what was going on in front of me. Not being strong enough to grind the hours I set out to grind is costing me a lot of time and a lot of money. It is a huge problem and without overcoming this mountain my dreams will never be realised.

There's a huge section on tilt in TMGOP and I've brought my PC home from my bro's so that I can work with that and come up with some good strategies to help me overcome this problem. I'm pretty sure that this indifference-tilt is actually a coping mechanism that I've naturally developed to shield myself from the explosive-rage I suffered with in the early years of my career. I'll work through that section, take a step back and honestly analyse myself, and then start the long process of healing. It is not acceptable that I lose so much grinding time because I'm unable to focus on my job when **** aint going my way.


There's also a few other jobs I want to get through over the next few days. I'm going to spend a good period of time grafting hard to come up with a new, more effective HUD. Moving to 3r/180s has exposed a lot of inadequacies with the current setup and there's often times where I don't know what to do because the stats I need aren't readily available.


I'll probably drop in a few time over the next few days to update how my fitness is going. Monetarily this has been my worst month ever but there's a few goals I'm on target to complete so I'm really proud about that. I know I'm on track to provide a very promising future, it's just a case of finding enough strength to keep my head in a spot where plenty of others have fallen by the wayside.


Thanks for reading, Shelly. x

Good thread. GL man will follow

GL fellow UK'er. What are your yr results to date?

EDIT: f love your avatar. Currently on the re-watch beginning season 4.

Cheers mate, been following yours/seeing you on the tables.


I'm down on the year unfortunately. However, I made a decent amount before I got backed and that money means I have overheads covered for a good while longer.
Volume is really low for the year despite the fact that I'm, for the most part, working harder than at any point in the past. It's a mental-battle to keep the faith that the approach I'm taking to move forwards is the right approach, especially when I look around and see weaker regs playing higher and making good money whilst I'm putting in small volume and losing too, but I firmly believe that the hard-work I'm doing off the tables now is going to pay dividends in the future.
Being honest with myself, this work I'm doing is work I should've done when I was in similar positions of comfort in the past, but what's done is done and it's time to put those mistakes behind and prepare for the future.


Ye I didn't even start watching til after season 4 and I've since rewatched it all again. I guess when I'm loaded in 10 years time I can kick back and watch it all again, again. ;p



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March Review

So once again some really good aspects to the month and some disappointing things aswell.
It's hard to explain why things haven't quite come together this year, but at a guess I'd say that doing a complete U-turn to become somebody destined for success after a decade of self-inflicted failure isn't something that will happen over the first 1/4 of a year. Realistically, this whole year could be dominated by that arduous transition so I'm preparing myself for that. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, and try to improve my consistency each month, and fingers-crossed I'll be able to say that 2014 was a tough but crucial year that allowed for a more prosperous future.



March Goals



Poker

[ ] 1500 total games

Clear fail, didn't even get half this volume.


[ ] reach goldstar

Finished just short of 1250, and the target was 2500.



Study

[X] clear the saved-for-notes hands before every new session

Win.


[X] clear 3 regs from the "make their notes better" file before every session

Win.


[X] clear the saved-for-review hands before every new session

Win


[ ] 10 3r/180 FT ICM-reviews

2/10, big fail.


[ ] 5 3r/180 full ICM-reviews (about 35 players onwards)

3/5, fail.



Health & Fitness

[ ] 5 workouts (3 runs and 2 resistance-sessions) every week (with week meaning Monday-Saturday)

Give or take a few days where I juggled the goalposts slightly, I was on course to achieve this goal. However, I've spent the last few days in a haze of excess and as a result failed the workouts goal. I'm pretty pleased with the month as a whole though and there was some clear progress along the way. Looking forward to another month of improvement in the exercise department, and hopefully a few more games of football!



Results

Graph won't be far from accurate.




-----

I've spent the whole weekend just chilling, drinking and spending time with family. Went to see Stoke win (again) so that was a lot of fun.

Have only just got round to starting the HUD work and I've got to say it's a real chore and a daunting task. I'm quite nervous about getting the foundations right but I'll get it sorted. Want it ready for tomorrow so I can start a month without losing days to some bull****. It'll be slow at first as I'll be playing even lower volume than normal so I can adjust to the new configuration, but longterm it's a good move and something I should've done ages ago. I'll start a new file so that I can make notes as I play on how to improve it further, and hopefully over time it'll evolve to become ****ing awesome!


I'll drop in maybe later tonight or tomorrow to write some goals for April.

Shelly.

GL shelly nice to see you in the 3r's.

hey, yh like you said, past is the past so as long as your doing your best now then you can be happy. Hopefully things will only improve. Best of luck to you !

Pete

Cheers man, what's your sn?


Thanks for the support pal!



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Hey guys, not posted for a while because since my last session I slipped into a deep depression and my bodyclock turned to liquid. Sometimes I get really bummed out about stuff in my life, and the longterm feels so far away that I lose heart to keep going and just curl up into a ball and sleep/waste-away.

Finally ready to snap out of it now though and get things heading in a positive direction again. Played 3 games yday (2 were free EPT satty tickets) and there's still a lot of things I'm unhappy about with my new HUD, but the foundations are there. Ideally getting all this **** sorted would've been mostly done by now and I'd be ready to put some decent volume in but that'll be the focus of the next couple of days.

I've managed to do a very small amount of exercise in my depressed state, went for a run on the old 2.65ml route and wheezed like a bitch (didn't realise til after that this African smog had reached Stoke) so that was pretty ****. Took me over 28mins to finish, which is about 5min slower than my record for the route. Completed without walking though so that was a positive at least.
Also managed to do a short weights session and a 30min treadmill walk. Fitness will no doubt have dropped somewhat, especially considering I've not ate well over the last 10 days, but I'm sure I'll get back to my previous levels in no time!


Saharan-smog in Hanley.



My bodyclock isn't far from being sorted now. I woke at 2am this morning but that's not too far from a good level, and certainly much more workable than waking at 7pm and being up all night.

Plan for today is to play low volume and work more on my HUD and making sure things are working right. I'm gona go running on the 3.5ml route and I'll get through all the studying I have from my last proper session, so I'll make a proper update later and then tomorrow I'll take all my setup back to my bro's and look to get back into the swing of things. Will set some goals once I've got through this HUD work.


Shelly.

Hey man, lots of respect for staying positive and putting in tons of effort. Hope it translates in you having a great month! Keep it up