Hello , I am Rsiatat here and at the tables , It's been 3 years since my last challenge here wich was about me starting my carrer as a poker player from bottom scratch :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...inder-1023928/

wich was a pretty succesfull challenge , I managed to to make more in that year that I was expectig and also got to know alot of great people (pokerplayers mostly ) and I am very thankfull to that

In 2012 and 2013 I haven't made any challenges moved to mtts beating turbos and strugling with reg speeds , the learning procces in-game was slow with big swings and very bad mental game . Also at the mid of 2013 I put an end to the small staking stable I had , because of few horses that got in MU very deep and because of my mistake of not letting them go sooner and keep sending them money . Basicly I didn't realized when it became -ev for me to keep investing .

So not being comfortable with the BR I had left I started the grind in august 2013 and since then it went up good ; I did things right I learned alot on the strategy plan and on the mental plan and right now I can say that things are fine.

I am opening this challenge here because right now I strugle with motivation to put in the hours ( I can't play as much as I used to , also have some back problems and it hurts when staying more than 8h a day for a few days in a row @ pc ~ it's nothing very serious tho just need to do alot of sport and muscle recovery , but the problem is that It's hard to grind and keep focus when u're in pain ) so I am looking to motivate myself trough you guys and perhaps I can help a bunch of you that are going trough the same things I am

Also I am looking to improve my game more and more and hopefully
will be able to beat the higher stakes because so far I am failing @ highstakes due to bad run and a bad mindset .

I will be making constantly updates about my sesions and the leaks that I can identify every sesion , I will post hands from time to time and try to analize them here , and trying to identify the strategy mistakes that I am doing and the mental leaks that I find and keep working on them !


2014:

So far this year was a good year for me , the goal is to make 120k$ but I will be happy with 100k aswell .
September Was my biggest downswing yet due to all the big series that have been running , thus I played higher and I played pretty bad , only B game , C game and alot of tilt ...

Therefore I decided to quit highstakes for good ( I am down 70k$ lifetime here ) and not play a single buy in over 100$+ untill 2015's late spring

I don't like big swings , in the past years had alot of them due to my weak game and mindset so I am tired of them , also I have a new mental aproach about the money so 70k that I lost at HS means alot of money to me and I could of brought 2 studios with them here in romania .

Also I am trying to save money to buy an apartment next year so my roll might not be big enough next spring to try highstakes again

Goals :

Make 120k$ ( at least 100k$)
Get in 7000 games ( Atm I am at 5k games this years so 2k more to go )
Play as good as I can everytime and keep improving


2015:

Goals :
- make 200k$
- play about 7k games


There is no certain plan or other objectives , I will just grind it out and hopefully keep myself motivated to put in the volume , and play as good as I can every time and study alot

I will keep this updaded as much as I can , hopefully after every sesion for now

thanks

Ok dear readers and fellow grinders these are the numbers

So 2014 looks like this so far :



2014 w/o highstakes looks like this :




and my lifetime HS looks like this :



This year I lost 40k at highstakes , and with my overall losses the frustration when I play these games is very big cause I want to win and when I get a deep run and then I loose my stack I start to tilt .

I know that my problems are mental but I am also accepting the fact that I am not comfortable with these swings so untill I make some more money I will quit them , and maybe just give a shot with 30k$ just for highstakes when I am comfortable with the bankroll , and not do shots with 1-2-3 hs mtts a day along with my MS tables , and instead grind just HS with a 30k BR shot .

Also playing bigger this month combined with bad run big swings and no breaks resulted in me playing bad and loose 10k $.

I started to read the mental game of poker because I stopped improving my mental game since last year when I made a huge improvement , and since then I only improved my strategy game , but recenttly I realized that what costs me the most money is the mental game , and I also think that is something that I should be always improving and not just my strategy game .



Anyway I am + 77k this year 43k to go in 3 months and a half

The goals better structured for this rest of the year are :

- Will try to study after each sesion , analize hands that I saved in-sesion and post em here
- Need to increase the awareness in-game so I can spot easyer mental and strategy mistakes
- Will try to play 5 days a week most of the time to the end of the year with some with maybe full 3 weeks off ( in december with holydays and 1 for vacantions the next months )
- Need to do more sport so I won't suffer from backpain while grinding
( I will try at least 3 times a week to go swim / play bball / go ciclying )
- Play 2k games to the end of the year \

I will also need to finish to read the mental game of poker so I can start up with the volume 2 and keep working with it
The mental work I have to do the most now is to increase my awareness , and to improve my B,C and D game more untill I no longer need to think about it to be able to play good !

I will start playing on sunday till thuesday then on friday again and then repreat

Untill then I will try to finish that book and keep u guys updated !

thanks for reading and good luck to you all

I played this sunday a long sesion , things didn't worked out very well for me but overall played good

So this is the first sesion in the challenge:



Got in 49 games and overall played a decent game maybe -A or something close to that

I made some mistakes due to multitabling and not being able to focus better on the situations

The mental game :

At some point after running so bad , I got very bored sitting so many hours at the pc and not even getting interesting spots to keep me entertained a little , and at some point I stopped regging because I knew I wasn't going to play more tables if I keep up on adding tables .

Took am hour where I stopped regging and drank a small beer 0,33 that calmed me down and after a 20 min tv series along with 4-5 tables left I felt a little better and started to add tables for a full sesion again .

I belive I have to increase my awareness overall in-game regarding tilt and focus I have to check things more ofter , even tho it's hard to do this after 6 h of grinding 12 tables I have to do it ! ( even reduce the tables and skip some events at peak hour so I can focus better )

- tilt control : so it was good even tho I had to use some small tricks to get me better
- focus : the focus was good overall but at some points in the sesion missed to think about some hands the right way due to multitabling and having a limited mental energy like everybody does


Pokerstrategy : I belive I have to learn the new things I got around lately at the level of unconscious compentence so I can autopilot them and then start to learn new things , because all of these things are tough to implement and they are many , so I will keep on analizing my own sesions but stop learning new things untill I get these right !

http://weaktight.com/7002844
Here this was the Mini FTOPS ME vs some weak and very lag reg , I think I missplayed my hand on the river , should of check/called because there is not much value I get from Q high type of hands , and there could be more value if I induce a bluff
As played I don't know if I should to that river raise cause is isn't repping much just a poorly played Ax where he missed a street of value , but he might be bluffing ( even tho I am not sure with that sizing ) anyway I shouldn't get into these spots , and make my life easyer by just checking the river ...
http://weaktight.com/7004435 here vs a decent reg that I know , I missed some value OTR , should bet way smaller so I can get called by his small to medium pairs , with my sizing I got too much Fold equity

http://weaktight.com/7004444 this spot is close between shoving or folding , the regs after me where 3bet happy , reshoving alot and shouving would be the best play but idk if this too high variance so I should just fold instead , maybe some of u guys could tell me what u think about this one

http://weaktight.com/7004464 vs fish pretty tight on the river this cleary a bad call , I just have to give him credit that he's got the goods , we were 3 way initially and he doesen't seem to mind that , also his bet is pretty big on the river , clearly he wants value
This is a mistake due to my lack of focus and multi tabling , not being able to analize the situation better and make the right decision

I belive I should pick my bluffing spots better and bluff less the donks and also the regs that have history with me , overall play more solid than I do now

Another thing I have to do is to increase my awareness in-game for slow played big hands , like pun in the preflop ranges AA and KK aswell to the good regs out there and play cautious some of the time , also need to look for ppl with stack so small that calling makes it so obv that they are strong
I really need to look more for these things

Anyway as an mtt grinder I get alot of spots after a sesion because I am playing for so many hours a day , it's hard to sort it all out aftersesion when I evaluate myself , gotta work more in-game aswell to be able to pick up more spots while playing and save them

So this was my first sesion , tonight I will play again , hopefully things will change

Good luck OP some very impressive stats here subbed will be following closely

thanks looks like you are the only one , haha

+1

This sunday I failed to see that I actually I tilted early in the seision , probably because of a poorly sesion warmup , and I made some spews in a deep mtts and busted on 40 ( I realized this after I made the previous post , I did a small sesion rewiew )

I have played this monday and tuesday , pretty solid play overall with small mistakes here and there , tuesday I played a very small sesion ( turbo only like 4hours ) and even tho I didn't too great I managed at the end of each sesion to FT some turbo's .
graph for monday and tuesday



Will do a small analisys soon then go to a massage and start the grind later on

top 5 romanian regs in order?

Subbed, gl

Feels pretty familiar running like **** in highstakes

GL

glgl, seeing you at my tables pretty often and usually not happy about it

subbed, gl !!

Also subbed, gl!

GLGL.. love MTT threads.

gl man, I say go for at least 8k games if you're playing ~50 on a Sunday.