New month.

I wish I could write some more optimistic things. And there were bright moments in June giving a hope and positive outlook, however every single time it turned out rather disappointing. Hardly making a progress, definitely not as much as I wish or expected.

Next few months will be very difficult and I am again in quite uncomfortable territory. Life is life, and few unexpected events happened and circumstances are also dynamical. First of all, as I already mentioned my monthly income got slightly decreased. It is a difference that plays a role at the current moment. Next, my cat got sick. Both mentally and financially this is additional burden and I am really worried about her health status. Cat is old but it is still not the age at which we should think about a goodbye moment. However an operation might be necessary. It shouldn't be difficult one, but the real problem is in putting cat into narcosis. And lastly each month now I will have some additional extra expenses that will make my financial situation really tough. In July I have car related expenses. In August there is my summer holiday trip friends. September might be better, but still have to pay insurance things. Worst case scenario, I will have to consider taking a step back and opening another small loan to cover these. Really not a route I would like to take.

Meanwhile, poker tables are still not kind to me. Mini-challenge went break-even, while I had to grind a ton sub A-game, to get enough points. Pokerstars has just awarded me a new challenge for July and here is another roadblock. They increased the points requirements compared to previous month. So there is no chance I can successfully go for it, especially that I have a 1-week business trip this month. So I decided to give one more shot to GG. I have a weekly 35% rb here. I can just grind here as much as I feel comfortable and don't need to chase points, challenges etc. Of course rake, pvi and other things on GG are making me feel wrong about grinding here, but for now I don't see any better option. Need to quickly decide if I go for regular tables or rush and cash. Somehow I have a feeling I should switch to reg tables. We will see. However, now on GG I have a very small bankroll. So it will be running it up from micros - once again. I really need some results here, if I want to support my situation with poker profits.

I think not much left to write in a post for a new month. Plan is to "survive" and grind GG. Last week of July I do the business trip. If I don't blow up anything in this month, don't take a new loan, don't bust my roll, perform well at a trip, and finish month with some money on top - yes, then I will write it was finally a solid month. Let's go....!

Maybe the best decision in last two months, maybe not... but probably the toughest.

I decided to take a summer break from cards.


Not sure if I can make it completely not playing. I know that either I have to dedicate a lot of time or better stop for a while, so I will try to avoid playing from-time-to-time, but it is not easy when I used to button-clicking last 10 years almost everyday.

I have an OK option to earn some additional money as a side-hustle and frankly speaking it can help me more than grinding micros during summer. Especially when I have three trips in incoming two months and I am not able to play for monthly challenges on stars. The option is really nice in my current situation and I would be stupid not to go for it. But it will take a lot of my time, so it is not possible to keep grind in my standard volume.

The decision seems to be wise. I will earn additional money and this should improve my situation in next 2-3 months. What then? I don't know, I will decide when I am there. I will not post about grinding non-poker projects, so either I will stop posting here for some time or maybe post random small sessions on micros if I decide to play this in free time. But I really don't expect that I will grind solid volume during incoming 2 months and not going to study much.

GL to all of you and thank you for staying here in my journey so far.

This month so far things are going pretty well for the gravedigger.
I play little bit of micros sticking to zoom on PS. So far graph is rather break even. With chests I have small profit, but I am pretty sure, soon I will be able to get into some $$$. Last session was pretty good in terms of EV line, but I lost all flips. Earlier thou I was running over EV so it almost evens out.

I don't grind as much as usual and this situation will probably not change till September or October. I study also less hours - I don't think now I need a lot of lab work to beat the micros. But on the other hand I don't want to completely shut down study and grind. I think even playing 2k hands per day and watching 1-2 videos per week can keep me in good poker shape. That is enough for me atm.

On the other side, my summer side-hustle project is going ok, and when I finish it I should be able to significantly reduce my monthly debt payments, down to the level that is very manageable for me. This, along with my summer trips are currently my main goals and focus. It will be nice if in the background I can grind some green on the tables.

So probably the volume and stakes will be at reasonably low level but I will happily report incoming wins and loses from the green felt. Preferably the wins!

Finally a good session on NL5/NL10 streets of Zoom poker.

After nice start, somewhere in the middle I got a tough moment and almost gave away all the winnings. Managed to quickly bounce from the ground level and build some more. I wish more session looks like this for me.

I implemented a few small improvements that are of non-strategic nature, rather they keep my quality of play and focus.
1. Due to a lot of my other work I only play at most 2-3h per day at strictly specified time of a day. It is easier for me to keep focus and good attitude toward good quality play than when I grind +8h per day in 2-3 separate session randomly executed during day. Also, when I know that I have only 2h of poker per day I really take more care about this time, motivation and my focus.

2. I used to play with some background electronic music. Recently I only fire very silently youtube with a "space ship" white noise and that's it.

3. I switch of all other lights in a room and other devices.

4. I put my main screen in front and a little bit above the level of my eyes.

I still have a feeling that micro and small stakes is all about playing pretty tight, correct poker and just putting big volume without tilting when fish suckout on you. Now I don't put a big volume, but I think I take care about the rest pretty well. I think I will keep this mode of grinding till the end of August. Unfortunately, no chance for grinding out monthly challenge so during this period I will have pretty bad rakeback. So I don't count to much on this - just small chests and leaderboards is all I can get. Therefore I really hope to generate some positive winrate even in high rake games.

Less that two weeks of poker left in July for me as last week I go for a trip. Plan for now is to keep current low volume, high focus grind mode on NL5/10 and if I have few more sessions like yesterday, maybe I attack NL16/25 in August.

High volume does not mean more profit.
You can grind like crazy for 100k hands a month, but due to the poor quality of the game, we can end the month in the red even with Rakeback.

The quiet concentrated game you describe will bring you more profit and pleasure from the process, so I like this approach more

Thank you slyless for good words.

Yeah, let's see how this approach will work out for me during summer. The very beginning was rather average, but now I can report another great session.

It is been a while since such a smooth sailing. I know it is not possible to run like this everyday and one very important, critical point here, is to accept bad sessions that are ahead of me. But for now I just want to grind about 2k hands on most of days and not focus on real results, but rather on best plays and optimal preparation for my sessions.
Currently I just start each session at the bottom (NL2) and keep grinding hands for LB's. Then I move up. Yesterday I finished at NL16. I think soon I might start my run at NL5 and finish at NL25. No specific bankroll goals so far or anything. I just will be happy if I grind some profits that can help to support my finances but during summer time it is pretty good situation for me outside of the poker anyway. So it is more to calmly grind through summer, be in ok shape to grind micros/small stakes, study little bit and just get few steps closed in digging out of my hole.

A very good thing is that I really don't even remember when exactly was my last real degen gambling moment. I don't want to keep exact count of those days. All those gambling actions shouldn't take a place at all, at it is something that should not be in my regular schedule. I have most dangerous things (casino, slots, high stakes, high BI SNGs, spins) restricted on stars, but I even had no moment in recent time that I was thinking about playing some of these.

I have about 10 more sessions to play in July and then I have scheduled my business trip. I think I won't put a daily graph each day as it is rather boring. I was just very happy last sessions went pretty well, so I had to share it and it also helps me mentally in some way. If the rest of the month goes reasonably and without any punts I will put this total graph of this month at the end of next week.

I have a notebook.


Actually I have at least 3 notebooks that I actively use everyday to take various notes. One has all my small and big goals and I also track other corresponding things inside, second one is for my regular job and third notebook is for poker. I will write today a little bit about this last one, a poker notebook.

I like to take notes. I think I run many times into idea that taking actively notes is good for being more focused while you listen or learn. and it is also good for memorizing new knowledge. Another good technique to memorize and learn is to later review your notes, preferably before sleep. I review these regularly and many times. It works.

So I apply note-taking to study poker. I take a lot of notes when I watch videos or cash game streams on twitch. Either good plays or bad plays that I want to later analyze by myself. Everything that surprises me basically lands in my notes. Some random ideas. Plays, moves, strategies, ranges that I often forget about - I keep noting them again and again. Eventually I will memorize it and imprint in my mind. As mentioned earlier I later review notes, either before session or before sleep.

Eventually I filled my poker notebook from the first page to very last. What now? Well, luckily I had a solution well before. Not all notes are really important after all. Sometimes it is obvious, what I was capturing 10 pages ago. So I extended my strategy to digital solutions. In the end I prefer everything in digital form as it is easier to edit and search. And you don't waste paper. I found a software and I have a file or few files where I put most important and relevant notes, and organize them better. So for poker I have some sections like general ideas, preflop, postflop, 3bet pots etc. Additional bonus is that I again have to work with my notebook, run through recent notes, select best ideas, moves and strategies and put them into my digital file. Another step that helps to memorize new data in my mind.

Unfortunately it is not that easy to use this method to upload all ranges and solutions into my brain.

What software do you use for this?

At one time I tried many services and programs, But now I've stopped at the combination of Google Keep, Google Tasks, and Google Calendar, but it always seems that there is something more convenient and functional

I highly recommend to test Obsidian, just google to find their website (I am not affiliated and have no business relationship with Obsidian). It is free for personal use. It is portable, has some links between ideas and notes, you can make a graphic view, lot of plugins, extensions and themes. Very good for tech people and scientist. You can check a lot of reviews and youtubes how people are using it.

I would take a look at Notion

For quite some time I was back and forth with my thoughts and games between PS and GG. You could probably see that in some of my previous posts that I was often thinking about playing on GG, but complaining on some issues on each of the room: rake, rb, other suspicious behavior, software and so on. We all know it.

And this question is still very open question in my mind. More comfortably it is for me to play on PS. There are few other advantages and I am used to this software, despite they keep "improving" it in my opinion in wrong direction. Yes, we all love aurora and throwing **** at each other.

However if I want to think about poker long-term and have open possibility to really crush it at some point in a future, there is one other factor very important, probably the most important one. More games, especially at higher stakes are at the moment at reg tables at GG. Stars - not so much.

Frankly speaking, GG has a very good software in my opinion. I don't like all the popups and few features, but I don't have to use it. I can play more than 4 reg tables (PS wtf is wrong with you?), graphics, layouts are clear and working really smooth at my PC. And yes, you can win pre RB.
I am very used to play on zoom tables and now playing reg tables is some kind of difficulty to me. Not enough action? Not enough dopamine? Maybe too much time between hands and then I open browser. On zoom I just keep clicking fold button and I don't have time to browse or chat on a side. All true. Nowadays, zoom is up to NL200, 500z barely running.

So maybe it is the right moment, when I am at micros/small stakes to switch to reg tables and GG? Maybe I should start there, teach myself to patiently sit on reg tables, observe all the actions, take more notes, table select. It is very convenient and comfortable to instantly launch 4 tables of zoom and play. But at some level, an aspiring HS crusher has to switch gears to reg tables, little bit of table selection or rather bumhunting and all the struggles with managing those games.

I did some research and winrates should be possible here and there. Yes - higher winrates on reg than zoom, but less hands. Higher rake on GG, but more rec players and promos and rakeback. Number of players now are very much in favor of GG. I wish the trend is reversed and then I don't have any dilemma. If this happens in future, well then I probably have to switch it back. Many things in future will change, online poker is dynamic and it is not possible to grind a whole life in similar fashion on the same site with the same layout and same strategy. That was probably one of the reason I crashed as a poker player and landed in financial bottom.

Currently, all numbers say that the game is NLHE and room is GG.



Yes, another great suggestion. Thank you.

...but at the moment I still grind stars.

After a couple of ok sessions, here comes another bump in the road.

This time I thought I am well prepared. I knew it will come eventually and was really focused to grind as best as it possible. Still it is pinch of pain and feeling of hopeless when you simply can do nothing but see as your stacks go away. I must admin I think mentally here is my current weak spot.

I am trying to think it through and "meditate" - I have a theory that it was easier for me to handle swings, losing sessions, bad beats when I was "just grinding" without thinking too much how important it is for me to profit. Now I definitely calculate to much and estimate all the time that, when I keep winning this and this amount, it will help me that much, that fast and I can maybe soon pay another chunk of my debt or have a better next month. Need to fix this approach and look at it in longer time frame. In the end, best I can do is to keep improving my game and grind A game.

While doing a review of my old notes, I have just found an interesting lesson from playing EP open vs call. I play this spot really bad having too high cbet and messing up later streets strategy. Maybe on micro/small stakes it is not that relevant as villains are not that good at exploiting this. But still, after reviewing notes related to this spot and looking at some flops and strategies, I think it is great place to improve and a lot of small/mid stakes regs also play this bad. It is not that I cbet 90% of time. Simple idea ist to x/call more on low/mid coordinated boards that are not good for my range. And I was executing it pretty well. But there is way more dry boards, even Axx boards that EP want to check, right after open. Most population auto cbet his. It is also good to have a reasonable and balanced x/raise range - you lose ev if you dont have it. Finally, simply thinking about villain - if he is sticky or not, you can better modify your flop strategy, cbet accordingly and then understanding the spot play better on turn.

I think best is to take solver and review some of the flops and see how much EP should cbet, x/call, x/folds, x/raise and what happens if we go to turn.

Really, there was quite some time since I found a spot where I played far from optimal. Old rusty strategies learned from 2010 need to be updated.

Have a great weekend!

Seems like average or rather I should write poor weekend for me. Enjoyed free time and a small party, however in general I haven't feel too good emotionally about it. Still there are moments I am really uncomfortable in my situation and despite getting used to it after 2,5 months there are moments when it hurts a lot and can spoil my mood and general wellbeing. Some unexpected expenses appeared also in my near horizon and this also hit me strong. It is not something big but basically all money I could save in one month on top of my all other expenses will go to fund it. I planned that after summer, September will be a good month to save some money and pay off another chunk earlier, but apparently it not gonna happen. Really slow and difficult time ahead of me and it will be nice if general life variance could bring some good news for a change.

So I decided I will do a short summary of July. Graph so far rather unexciting.
I had moments running and playing really good, few worse sessions too. Volume rather small compared to my typical zoom grind however as I mentioned early this month I significantly decrease my time on tables. I will probably not grind too much till the end of the month. Incoming week is pretty intense for me at work and then next week I have a business trip, so no poker at all.

In some free time and in general in August, I will generally keep low volume, small/low stakes grind on zoom. I don't expect I will grind some solid money that can help me no, it is more to stay in shape and slowly build small roll to play little bit higher after the summer. Solid winning at NL50 should be reasonable, but currently ultimate goal I think would be to beat/play NL100 and grind out from my hole there. Still it feels like far future and to be honest in May I expected all this will be much easier. I have a feeling that in past many of my "regrinds" after busting a roll or unfortunate shot taking was much easier. Don't know what is the difference right now. Poker getting tougher and tougher? My bad mental state? Lot of similar questions without answers and yes... what can I do? Just study, play my best and be patient.

I will definitely write few more posts during incoming week, then last week I will take a break and write summary of trip and outlook for August when I return from trip.

This is a very important moment (and post) for me.

It seems that recenlty things are going ok-ish for me. Nothing really super exciting and big, still the financial situation is bad as hell. But I think this is the best moment for me since I started this blog in May.

I don't gamble like before - this is the most important point. I also returned to regular NL grind that, independently from results I get, is in a controlled fashion without violation of my bankroll and responsible gaming/gambling rules. Financially I am still very deep in debt, but the monthly numbers are manageable and I can live without worrying that I will run out of funds before next paycheck. Achieving this status was definitely very important for me, for my mental comfort and for my wellbeing. Now I hope I can progress even further. The general, long-term plan is to return to solid grind and study of poker right after my summer trips - so it is end of August. Till this moment, I just stick to small stakes.

It is very important moment, not because I am finally somehow happy, and excited about the future and possibility to eventually get out of my hole. It is still very long journey ahead of me. The critical thing now is that in last two months I had about 3 similar moments and I was about to write similar post. Things looked ok, I was winning some money or just finished a monthly challenge and got nice bonus but then.... boooom and I am back in red. I really need to focus now, not to let things slip away from my control. It is always very fragile moment, when my positive attitude due to sunrun or other life events put me in sort of "winners tilt" and I was like "wtf lets gamble a little bit". Very often few hours later I was crying. Why I did it again to myself?, while looking at the empty account. This scenario happened not once, not twice...too many times. Later, always there was this bad feeling - I was already on a good track before, why did I take this gamble? No reasonable answer. It is so stupid - I can win less than I can lose in this scenario. It is more valuable and important to slowly progress now and keep everything under control than doubling my roll on roulette while taking risk of going busto.

Now I really hope and believe I am well prepared for this moment. 3 days left before my trip and I only plan to maybe play few hands on micro/small stakes. I have most of gambling possibilities blocked, but more importantly I never had a real, strong temptation to go there in last weeks. After the trip, another month starts - I will get a new paycheck. I will be able to pay of another small package of my debt and my finances will be in even better shape. Now, it is for the first time since 3 months that I can feel that I will enjoy my summer trip with friends.

I can't let this beautiful picture I have in mind get crushed due to my degen behavior that occurred so often in the past.

Breathe, meditate. Write a post. Exercise. Cold shower. Listen to favorite music. I am in full control of this bad behavior.

Let's go!

It looks like you are on the right path. Hopefully, it will only get better.

GL!

So far, so good...

I must admit that after writing last post I had a moment of having bad thoughts about gambling. It was not a temptation or urge but rather kind of wishful thinking - with just few clicks, couple of minutes and a little bit of luck I could double or triple... This is definitely sign I still need to be very careful and the problem inside my head is still real. Spent few minutes thinking through and observing my emotions and then I was back to microstakes grind. Last two sessions - low volume; one sesh up then down. It's fine.

Poker is just harder nowadays and then variance and all this really has bigger effect on results than many of us can understand and accept. I know - it is very easy to run a variance simulator and look at possible outcomes. Somehow, there is this stupid part of my brain that has a real difficulty with accepting losing sessions. 12 years ago, when I was starting with poker - it was fixed limit holdem. I really quickly learned a lot from three books I found at the internet and about 2 set of coaching videos and I was beating small stakes in a very nice fashion. I had maybe 1 losing session per week, while playing a lot. It is just almost impossible now in average fast-fold poker games without a huge winrate.

Yes, I think now my most annoying mental leak is some difficulties and discomfort with accepting losing sessions. This was most often moment for me to look for some winning back options by playing higher or gambling. As I have a break from poker for the next week, I will use that time to think how to improve and fix this issue, so more detailed rambling on this topic I will deliver probably in August.

And to be clear, I know I can handle this. I played PLO for few years on much higher stakes I can play NLHE right now. I had big swings. It was ok. I had a really good mindset at that time and it was very easy for me to be in a frame of "big picture" and "long term". I feel like it was as simple as looking at a graph from last 30 days and I see its OK. Even when I loose session after session for one week. If longer, I just switched to half-a-year graph. Still feeling good.

I think the main difference back then is that I was more secure, that it is just variance and I have a proper winrate in a long term. Probably now it is less visible for me in NL. I also had no other financial pressure on me. Now big part of my struggle is thinking almost all the time that I really want to win some money at the tables to pay of my debts. And it is more painful when you see losing session and have to move backwards. But that is how poker works - you need to invest some resources, take a risk. No other way around. I just need to think it through in a way than on a level based on reason and logic I clearly understand it and ... just study, play well and play a lot.

With each month things should go slightly easier and easier for me. August can be such a really good month, when I finally take a solid step forward in the right direction. Of course all this if I don't sabotage myself with next uncontrolled gambling occurrence. But right now I am doing pretty well in this battle.

Two days till my next trip...

Last short post before the trip.

I will return right at the end of July so I can put monthly summary next week. Not much poker action going to happen now. There is small possibility I will try some live games in a local casino during my trip, but it is very unlikely as my schedule is really busy. No online poker till next Saturday or even Sunday.

I am very happy that my overall mood is pretty good for this trip and in general. Financially, I am still very far from comfortable place but now I am definitely in a safe place and heading in right direction. After the August time, I should receive a cash bonus from my summer side-projects at regular work, it should allow me to close my next debt package and help improve monthly budget in consequence.

It is still very painful and annoying how ugly situation I have created for myself. I do my best that this does not affect too much other parts of my life, but let's be honest. It is not possible to completely detach from this. It is slightly easier that it was right after hitting my bottom. Back then, I had a chaos in my head, often sleeping not well, bad mood and loss of motivation and energy. Now I can feel the difference and overall improvement, but it is still far from my optimal performance and happiness. Therefore, assuming I have my degen demons under control, in August I will focus on patience and long-term thinking. It is still month when my poker volume will be relatively low. I have only 2 solid weeks when I can grind, rest are my trips during which I take a break from poker. But I can spent some time on developing patience that I really need now. If I follow my current pace and don't screw anything, at the end of the year I will have something like 1/3 less costs and size of my total debt. Can't wait for that moment to enjoy it. Haha and that's maybe the problem. Easy, no rush, no stupid gambling or shot taking. Not now, not this year, not soon. Maybe sometime in distant future.

So the patience will be main theme in August. But I add one more bonus - I want to reduce alcohol consumption. I don't do it regularly and I never have uncontrolled behavior after drinking, but nowadays I put myself way too often in some social events where everybody is drinking and I do as well. To be honest, I don't even enjoy drinking in many of these circumstances. It is not that I am not assertive and have trouble to decline. In past I had it sorted out pretty well and had a very good discipline here. Now, after more than 2 years of covid and isolation I think I too often use it as an excuse or justification to drink with people. "We haven't seen each other for so long." "There was no possibility to meet and drink". "Lets enjoy this time, we don't know what will be next." You all know this. So in August I probably allow myself to drink only during my holiday trip with friends and rest is just work, chill and more healthy activities. Overall it is just obviously a very good step for my health, finances and performance at the poker tables.

Just returned, all great, very nice trip. I really needed it. New country, new city, new people. Time flied really fast.

Get a strange mix of feelings right now. Probably it is normal, right after a week trip to new place and when you just returned home. On one hand I already miss the life from during the trip when lot of troubles were left elsewhere, on the other - reality hits right in my face and new tasks, ideas, projects and troubles are ahead. I could probably spend less money during the trip (or more...???) but I felt with it pretty ok. I still have a life I want to enjoy and not all the time I should be thinking about saving money to pay of all debts. It wasn't that big of an amount that would change much in my finances right now. But after everything, when you think about it too much - well... still a long road for me with this uncomfortable feeling.

Started small grind today and EV didn't want to make me any happier.


Tomorrow I will start to get back on track and right schedule - study poker, grind and exercise. Not much power left in my inner batteries, so my best decision is probably to get a very good sleep.
Soon.

New month, here we go!

Pretty busy right from the 1st day and (un)fortunately not a lot of poker in August for me.

Of course, Stars is tempting me with new and nice monthly challenge. I didn't make it last month and they kept the same level of required points as previously. So unfortunately it is not doable for me right now. If I have full month available for regular grind, then it should be relatively easy job. I could grind it on NL50. With planned 2 weeks away from home and not being able to grind, it is bad idea to take a shot and try to make in on NL100. Don't want to take a risk in my current situation, especially things are slowly going in right direction. I don't even have enough of BR to play 100s. But no worries, in September I will be prepared and finally attack monthly challenge again (if PS awards me one).

Therefore, I don't have any specific poker plans for August. I just plan to grind micros on zoom whenever I am able to. I also keep studying, but not super hard atm. Just viewing some videos from RIO/other sites and little bit of studying specific spots that I find interesting.

Financially, situation is currently "stable". I should be able to do my summer trip with friends, pay all loans installments and safe something on top. I have more and more often positive state of my mind, but bad moments/days still are there. I wish this all could progress at a better rate, but hastiness is bad in this case. I need to be patient and as mentioned earlier I will focus on this topic in August. So expect here some "patience" rambling from me, mixed with graphs and reports from August trips and hustles.

Somehow I am still not in a grind mode after my last voyage. So far played maybe as little as 3k hands this month - nothing spectacular at the tables and in terms of results. Also not gonna play much more for the next two weeks due to a lot of paper work and summer trip. Maybe I could squeeze few more hours but I don't want to push it to hard. I feel I am winning more by not gambling/degening right now for quite pretty long time, and it is more important to keep it under control. Playing quality poker at high volume is another goal right behind the corner. We will get there. Soon.

Patience.

Very important topic for me right now. I think I can blame my lack of patience in first order as the reason of my big downfall. There were moments when I really couldn't stand slow regrind at some parts of last year. Instead I just looked for a quick ways to gamble it up and rebuild my roll. It was really difficult for me to step down one or two stakes lower and regrind. Somehow I preferred to take a shot higher, gamble on roulette, look for easy wins and of course we now how it ended up - I was just digging deeper and deeper. grave for myself On my way down, I was actually couple of times almost scratching the surface - grinding it back for some time properly. I have now my notebook opened on pages from that time where I was counting how many percents of my downer was already recovered.... 13% 18% 25% ..... 75% and then baaam!!!! 6% 8% ..... 30% ...... 60%... zzzzzzzzzshtr!!! 3%... again Now it is almost hard to believe I couldn't play it slow and patiently, when being so close. SMH. Why to work hard, when maybe bank can give me another load and I can quickly double on red? Bank said yes, roullete said NO.

Now I have no choice. I need to undergo a massive training of this virtue. Patience.

I have a lot of moments nowadays, that I want to say I am doing fine. I am on the right track. No gamble for how long?... almost 2 months. 3 months of writing this blog. Working hard on life outside of poker and of course on poker, and mindset too. I can also see and feel real progress. This is all great. But the finish line is still pretty far away. I am even sort of scared how long it will really take me to cover all my loses and debts and enjoy life to the fullest. Don't want to think about it in such details yet. But I will give here some more overview and few more details after the summer.

So how can I improve my patience? I am planning to do some basic research on this topic and specifically I will look for some ideas from some of my "masters" in various self-improvement/psychology/business/neuroscience related fields. Don't worry - no BS here. I am now mostly anti-self-help guy not believing in 99% of rubbish sold by those guys, but some people out there have a real knowledge that can help and fit my problems. I will definitely share my findings here, so stay tuned if this might be also important for you.

Today I can only write few of my basic ideas that I keep in mind for the most of this hard time for me.

1. I am safe. I have love, family, home, health, food, peace, work. Internet too. Comfortable bed. Friends. Pets. Passion. Maybe you forgot how important these are?

2. Sooner or later I will resolve my problem. Worst case scenario I can take it for few more years and I will have to live little bit more frugal. It might have even some other positive aspects on my life but lets don't use it as any sort of justification to spent/lose money in an ugly way to become frugal.
It is just a matter of time. And time flies fast. Look back how it speeds since covid outbreak. I need maybe up to two years to work and I should cover all my loses. It is less time than since end of 2019 till now. This shift of timeframe not always work well but after some time, you really see/feel the difference as time elapses and it is unavoidable anyway.

3. I had/have no troubles with patience in many other aspects of life. At work, in education, family, sport, business, marketing, technology, health, other games, friends, life events.... One trick that always worked well for my mind is that eventually there is this finish line - just keep grinding and you will get there. I need to bring back this attitude to poker and finances right now.

4. Actually, right now my current life is almost no different than before my wreckage. Really. Ok today I try pretty hard to spent less each month. I cut all unnecessary expenses and a little bit more. But pretty soon, in 3 months or so I will be able to allow more and more guilty pleasures for myself if I really want to. Well, maybe I will not buy a new car next year. Other than that I can basically enjoy my life in similar fashion like before. The one hell of a difference is this splinter in my mind that brings back painful reality whenever I want to spent too much money now instead of paying of debt. But each month it will get easier.

5. Enjoy the progress. I always enjoy progress and I love to track it. So this will be my last point for today. Unfortunately my total debt is too big right now to keep exact track for all the time and do regular updates. Well it is doable but rather pointless. In order to make it easier and healthier for my mind I just want to break it down into smaller parts. Yes I know, nothing new and fancy. But it is something that works for me (not necessary for everybody). Therefore, as mentioned earlier, maybe around September I will write more about how many small loans I have to pay off, and then I want to have paying off the next smallest one to be my closest financial goal. Depending on how I perform on poker tables + some side hustles at my regular job, these steps should be like 1-2 months top per each one. It is around 10 total to go.

Nowadays, each month I pay a little bit back of each of those 10 guys m-fkrs, so even if I don't perform well during a month, it will get easier next month as each loan is getting smaller. And if I pay off another one early, I keep more money from my next paycheck to use for another one. Unfortunately, at the end there is one big ENDBOSS. But I will beat him too. No worries.

One of the guys in this community who I respect .

Its not the money success , its about the work .

I had a slot gambling problem as a kid (Finland is full of slots , government puts them to grocery stores) , (happiest country in the world)...

Anything is possible when taking the problem seriously and being willing to confess .

Wise words.
BTW it is intriguing that slots are probably the only way of gambling I really never tried and I keep staying away from it. IDK why, but I don't see them as exciting and probably they don't trigger my dopamine as much. Good for me. I have to admit I sometimes look at slots streams on twitch and it is really hard to understand why people are so engaged into this form of gambling. Lots of colors, flashing lights, spinning elements, sounds? Clicking fast fold button and waiting for AA in holdem seems way more exciting and you have more decisions and strategic options in front of you. And I really prefer and love playing cards.



I am right in the middle of my August to-do list. One more trip to go and I can close the summer season and focus on poker.
This month so far I generated only few hands on micros and rather unimpressive graph:

Soon I should play few more and maybe a little bit higher but the real grind will begin in September.

Other things going pretty well so far. These two summer months and good budget will improve my financial situation a lot. Maybe not in total numbers as there is still very long way to go till the finish line, but now I start to feel comfortable and safe in terms of money: having a small emergency fund, some amount of money for small guilty pleasures and finally me seeing and feeling some progress.

Next week I have a few days that I will continue my micro grind. No real goal here. Just study a bit before each session and then play my best. Main goal is to be ready and fresh for September. grind. As mentioned before, I want also to do reading/watching content on the topic of patience and I will write a post about it in upcoming week. It is interesting thou that now I feel that a lot of work, trips and in general active summer times - all make that time goes on fast forward for my mind. On one hand it is good as I go faster to the end of all my pain. I already want to be on the finish line of my financial troubles (yes, I need patience), or at least insta-jump to the next summer with much healthier situation or even to December.... but on the other side, it is better for me to experience it all in details without autopiloting mindlessly through difficult times. There is a big lesson for me, so I better take some notes.

"There is no magic pill."

We have seen it many times. We know it. We still often fail to behave reasonably and think logically and still look for quick fixes, white magic, magic pills - blue or red, doesn't matter.
I spent some more time reading content on topic of patience and honestly there is nothing really valuable that I can add to my previous post, nothing that could change and fix my or anybody's life.

Again, I am disappointed with a tons of crap you can find in self-help/personal development realm. More worried is that there are still people buying it. But hey... I have my own troubles. It is not a moment for me to be a hero and safe the world.

Moods are swinging and again I am rather slightly depressed with my current situation. Maybe it is also due "hangover" after summer holidays. I do not want and can focus on it too much. One more trip ahead, now it is strictly business, so I have to get shsht together and do my work.

Then we will get back on poker more seriously. Unfortunately, I already know I will have a hard start. I have two serious issues to fix in my car as soon as possible (start of September) and it will cost some money. All things considered I think best option for me is to withdraw big chunk of my small BR and use this money to pay for it. It will slow me down with plans of paying some loans early, but there is no other option for me. It is also probably not that bad idea. At the moment I play around my B-game most of the time. I need some more practice to get back to shape for serious grind. So I will skip an attempt to grind Monthly Challenge on stars for one more month. I don't feel I can grind it out comfortably on NL50, while I'm slightly winning on micros. Things could go in bad direction, and I don't want to find myself in a place when I have a big temptation for another degen gambling session. Please, no.

I will keep grinding micros, small volume till the end of the month. Then I will increase study time and volume to about 3-4k hands per day. Still there are open questions for me to answer. I think with some reasonable work I should be able to have a positive winrate on 100z and this is one of the long-term goals. I think this is also a level at which I want to grind most money to cover my "grave hole". However I definitely expect some withdraws before NL100. And this is some conflict here, on one side I don't want to keep decreasing my BR by withdraws, but if I can boost my monthly budget a little bit from poker - it is quickly a big difference. So I still struggle to find an optimal approach here. We will see in future how it will work out.

Mentally I feel a little bit better day today. I think I am already used to the fact that I will keep having some swings in my bankroll, but also in my mood. When it is really low, probably time is the best healer, and then writing a post is next to it.

I spent today some time on watching educational poker videos and very often it is a good thing for me. Of course it is skill improvement if the videos are good quality, but it also makes wonders for my mindset and motivation to play. I am still rather in chill mode as far as study and grind is considered, but I am already getting excited that soon I will turn on a higher gear and focus on poker with full power.

Also booking small winning sessions even on micros helps to build confidence and momentum. In past I often underestimated this and when I played a certain limit at any given time, I was never going down when not feeling my A game. Not sure what was the problem - ego? maybe I was thinking that playing session on lower limit is like "losing"? or just I had a bad assumption that I should be winning/grinding my current level no matter what is going on. Now I have a more reasonable view on this issue and grinding lower stakes doesn't look like a problem at all. Now I grind NL2/5/10 as focused as I was grinding NL100 in the past.

Soon I have a final business trip for the summer. I will have break from poker and writing for about a week (I will write at least one more post before I go). Then starting from September I will do my best to change the mode of this blog into more poker/study focused. However I will still keep sharing my difficult days/emotions/some financial stuff concerning my situation, as I think it is important for the context, purpose of this blog and for me personally. Wins in all aspects are really appreciated and help me to go forward and some celebration and sharing victories is a must here, on a blog that is established on one big disaster.

Play poker responsibly.

Hello, I'm back from last summer operation. It's time to close the summer. Ready to rumble at a poker tables.

Mentally, I think all my trips and less poker helped me. Feel much better, enjoyed a lot of time despite having this big debt burden. On the minus side, I could spent much less money and financially, I could have been in better place. But grinding all summer poker tables with mixed results at this moment, with poor mindset, was rather a mediocre idea. Overall I think that few things could go better during last two months but still there is slight but important progress.

Unfortunately, September doesn't look too easy for me. Mainly due to additional funds that I need to fix my car. Without this unexpected issue, I could pay of another chunk of debt and enjoy lower monthly costs. Nothing I can do about it, other than focus on good poker and work. I also have few nice events planned for September together with my friends. It will be fun time, and now I am really happy I can enjoy it. Maybe not in 100% of my life energy and happiness, but we are slowly moving in the right direction.

OK.

Now it's time to really focus on poker.

I was able to play only couple of days in August and the total graph shows some good trend at the end.
I had some free time to study this month and improved couple of spots. Now its time to apply it at the tables.

I was not doing any gambling degen moves for quite some time. Now it is a moment that I want to take a small risk and I decided I will grind for the monthly challenge in September. Of course it will happen only if Stars assign me bonus, so lets wait few more days. But if I get similar like last two months then I give it a shot. If I break-even at the tables, then bonus + chests are really enough for me. It will allow me to pay off one loan earlier and left some more for next month in my poker BR. I think there is real change I make small profit at the tables. Worse scenarios: if I am losing small, I can still show profit at the end of month. Even if I finish with half of the bonus as a profit at the end of the month it is still good result for me. Breaking even whole challenge is rather unlikely and I have to run really bad. Worst case scenarios are if I lose and not finish the challenge/give up or trigger some unnecessary gamble. Highly unlikely but I can't completely exclude such possibility. I will do my best to protect myself from these options. In the end, I still think it is reasonable gamble and now I am in a spot that I can accept the risk and loss. It is pretty good bet and I can win way more than lose and odds are in my favor.

I plan to grind around 3-4h per day, while study 1-2h. Depending on progress I will grind between 25-50-100z. In case I run behind the pace (points/day necessary to finish challenge) I have few backup options to generate more rake - most likely some PLO as it is easier to generate points there. I don't think I go for it if I am in red, but can go for it when challenge run good in terms of $$$. Other obvious and safe option is to grind more at the cost of study time. However my initial calculations show that if I get challenge of similar size as the last one, that should not be an issue unless some unexpected events happen that don't allow me to play.

Let the big grind begin!