Started out September with a few tough sessions so far but it's strictly just some negative variance still knocking on the door so it's not that big a deal. Took a few coolers on the chin last night and had to bet fold on two big pots with premiums. The only bad part to it all is that I was playing in a really great game and had two whales pushing some great action. Those almost feel worse when you just can't get a part of any of it.

South point is running another 100 hour promotion for a $145k gtd free roll in December, and you have 3 months to do it in so I'll be mixing in the old SP grind once again. At least this time I have the full 3 months to do it in so it will be a lot nicer to not have to play all my live sessions there.

I've had a few instances lately of battling some sort of entitlement tilt in my recent sessions. It stems from sitting in games where we know we are probably the best player in the game (this is a standard confidence not arrogance way of thinking in today's low/mid stakes games that are just so full of people who don't take the game serious or think they do but put in no effort on the 'driving range' with study, review, and self evaluations), yet are unable to capitalize on the weaknesses of our opponents on that given day.

As I have touched on before, and often, variance will be our best friend at the end of the day/week/month because that is what allows these sorts of players to come back and play again tomorrow. Without them, my job would be so much more difficult to have long term great success! However, in the short term of it, when we have whales blasting off buy ins left and right and either we are the only one at the table seemingly not getting a piece, or even worse we are the only player they keep winning pots off of, that is when the entitlement tilt creeps in.

It is so easy to fall victim to this mental game weakness line of thought. I feel that over time I have improved and nearly eliminated this sort of emotional behavior, but I am human. There are still days that are more difficult than others to put this thinking aside and stay shielded from the mental leak. Once it takes hold of me though, it usually means it's break time (just for a 10-20 minute break if it's live, or best to close out my games online) to correctly and fully inject logic concerning the situation.

As I continue to grow as a player in the live low and mid stakes games, and an online mid stakes player, it is nice to see that I can recognize these sorts of leaks that lead to disastrous results when not dealt with in time. I usually react to my own mistakes in a positive way, and use them to reflect on my overall play for that given day to be better aware to nip it in the bud prior to my next session.

So far, although I most definitely have had the mental mistakes show up from time to time, this journey has been so much about learning all about myself in ways I wasn't aware of in regards to my mental approach to my daily processes. Utilizing these learnings as a stepping stone is what is going to enable me to take things to the next level and find the success I am looking to achieve in this business!

So a few weeks have gone by since my last post, and it's mostly just because I have been so busy this month! I'll try not to make this post too long, but I feel like I have a lot to update, so apologies if it TL;DR's a bit...

Several things have occupied my time, and it has been a solid month of poker and life balance, mental game toughness, and technical game advancements.

I have managed almost 100 hours of poker volume already as of today and I still have a solid week to go. Feeling pretty good about that, considering all the added things I have been up to this month. I returned to my old home in Scottsdale for a weekend to attend a wedding of a friend of mine and was able to spend some time with several friends that I haven't seen much or at all since moving to Vegas so that was awesome!

I am currently doing an Ultimate Reset 21 day detox and diet with the gf that has my daily routines a bit jumbled from what I'm used to, but in a good way. It does make it challenging to be on such a regimented schedule of food and supplements, but I am certain it's going to be worth it in the end. I am a heavy caffeine drinker on the norm, drinking coffee mostly now a days as I have cut out soda pretty much entirely, and an occasional sugar free red bull still finds its way to me, so that was the first thing I knew would be difficult to eliminate (as not even black coffee is allowed when you follow this program). Somehow, I only had a mild headache for a day or two in the beginning, but have since not had really any other sort of withdrawal symptoms. I still have 13 days to go, so I'm sure there are still going to be some difficulties, but I feel great and have been sleeping very well, even though I am still maintaining a poker player type schedule that has me up late most nights.

I am hoping this program will help to jump start some healthy eating (and drinking) habits that have been eluding me for a while now. Given the fact that I am not as young and in shape as I used to be, I felt it was best I tackle that head on, and not let my bad eating habits or lack of exercising inhibit my staying healthy as I inevitably grow older. These are all also very important and key to keeping a healthy and focused brain ready to go every day to keep me in top mental shape, which of course is key to my goals, short and long term, with my poker and overall life success.

To touch on some results, since that is part of what this documented journey is all about, I am on pace to have one of my better months since moving to Vegas. That of course doesn't guarantee I will close out the month in record fashion or anything, but I wouldn't be discouraged in the least if I don't reach that mark. I think that in itself is quite the victory to me. My ability to push through and avoid the negative mental behaviors that stem from the fear of losing is growing stronger. The fact that I had a losing month in August, yet was able to bounce right back and put myself in this position in September to have a record earning month is some evidence of that ability to me. Some of my success is tied to just plain old experience, and some of it I attribute to my continued and persistent work ethic that drives me to improve and to advance with every passing month.

I haven't stated it as of yet in the thread, but I have actually just hit my 1 year mark for officially starting this cash game journey. I am quite happy to say that my progress has been exciting and encouraging to me. I feel like I have laid a solid foundation and now it is time to build that tower high and mighty, just like my chip stacks have grown accustomed to doing over the course of the year!

I am taking shots in the 2/5 games in Vegas and even had a near shot at some 5/10. It hasn't happened yet, but it is on my radar and I am working up to that goal. 1/2 and 1/3 have been as successful as expected and I am maintaining very solid winrates in those games, even though it still is a relatively small sample. I have decided to leave out the graphs and dollar amounts from my reports for many reasons. I felt they were important to my growth at the start of the journey, but as I have progressed and had success in my processes and in reaching many of my monthly goals, I don't feel the need to continue to post about those specific results in the thread.

I will continue to use this thread as my personal sounding board for many things as my journey continues in 2016, despite not recapping all of my facts and figures monthly as I did at the beginning. Hopefully that doesn't take away from the content of the thread to anyone, but the main purpose of this is for me to have a place that I can share with an audience the struggles and successes I go through on a monthly basis as a sort of personal accountability to what I ultimately am trying to achieve.

inspiring words brother bear! helps keep us humble grinders working hard. keep em coming!

Just a few sessions left in the month (maybe only 1?) and we have been teeter tottering all weekend with ups and downs, so we are still right on the verge of that big month, but nonetheless a nice profitable month and a bounceback month are just what the doctor ordered!

I am well over pace now for my South Point hours, sitting close to 40 hours through the first month, so that is nice. I am a little low on my online hours as a result of getting some extra live hours in this month, but its been a decent mix of all variants all month long so that I am happy with. Having so many options makes it nice, especially if one of them isn't going so well at any given moment. In August, Bovada was really brutal and were I took all of my negative variance, while my live grind and WSOP.grind saved my ass a bit. This month, its WSOP.com that is being brutal with the negative variance, but Bovada is kicking ass for me. My live grind remains a constant winning grind, however, so that too is partially the reasoning behind my hours split between live and online.

It isn't as much the coolers and big pots this month for my negative variance either. It's actually the much more trying types. Getting it in KK<AA or losing AA<XX all in preflop is whatever. But when you are getting dirty runouts in prime post flop spots vs all different player types, and playing perfectly against them is where it becomes much more difficult to stay mentally sharp and able to brush off the losses. For example, only calling an agro fish down, and never raising, when I have position on him and he triple barrel donk leads into me when I flop the nut flush, or top set, or the nut straight, only to watch the dirty runouts pair boards (when I am flushing or straightened), or bring back door flushes and straights (when I am setted up) yet still calling due to their entire range (and us of course being underrepped all day long) on the river jams and watching them show da new nutz. These spots don't happen a lot, of course, but for some reason, in September, on WSOP.com, they are happening almost every session. Ha! It is just an outlier of a results thing and it is fleeting and will turn around, so it almost isn't even worth mentioning. But since this thread is mostly about my mental game journey when it comes to the actual transition into full time cash game grinding, I figured it was applicable.

So being able to cool down from those spots on the fly is extremely important, and I have gotten pretty good at doing just that. The immediate burn it might have in my chest is short lived and quickly gone nowadays, where in the past, it would sit there and stir up more and more anxiety and cause me to make decisions in the future of the session based on the past result. It's not perfect yet, but my mental fortitude and sharpness works hard to remain dauntless. Sometimes using the physical song that was used in Divergent for the Dauntless faction helps in these moments for me to push through, and remain, in fact, DAUNTLESS!!

(#Reference "Run Boy Run" [instrumental], by Woodkid for your musical pleasure on that note.)

Bring on October!!

Closed the books on a solid September and am fired up and motivated to push for a high volume and kick ass month! I came super close to breaking a personal record for actual cash game profits for the month and I look to build on that as I take more 2/5 shots and continue to push myself for online improvements as well. Looking to start shot taking at higher stakes a bit more online as well as we near the close of 2016!

All that said, the first 72 hours this month has kicked me in the ass pretty hard! I probably have stretched a few sessions too long out of the gate, partially to try to jumpstart another big volume/profit month in a selfish sort of way (not completely negative thinking here, but certainly need to proceed with caution so that my motives are logical and aren't counter intuitive to my underlying goals), and partially just because it's the weekend, and the games should be at their best!

I definitely felt some mental game pressures from a bit of negative variance that seemed to pile up on itself in a very short amount of time. I think it perhaps may have influenced me to push some lines a bit too aggressively in spots that didn't call for it. I also found myself river bluffing in spots that don't seem too logical against the villains in those particular hands. These are the things I am gleaning as I do some post game analysis. Remembering my warm up and cool down processes are going to literally save me from making things worse at times like these. Grabbing hold of these realizations now as I journal these moments of the journey without hesitation during today's cool down will help me to better prepare myself for every session hereafter as I strum the baseline for those perfect sounds of success in Roctober!

I think it's important for me to remember that even though it is good to be confident in my game play overall, I need to be aware of winners tilt and not get blurred vision or cloudy thoughts as I try to "punish the fish" in every single pot. Giving up in spots is ok. Not turning into a super lagbot just to try to prove to myself (or anyone around me) that I can crush the game will also be a key to moving forward during times like these, not backward. Even though I am a proven sustained winner at my current stakes and below, I am going to have trying times where I question my technical and mental game immensely. It does not mean I am doing it all wrong. It does not mean I have truly 'forgotten' all I have learned just because I make a mistake that I once used to regularly make and now don't. To channel a little Spock here, that would be, illogical.

Going through such highs and lows in such a small window of time is certainly only going to help my growth and maturity as a player and a person in general in the grand scheme.

After all, the band will play on. It's Roctober!

I have strung together a few very solid and productive sessions the past few days and made sort of a personal observation on something I think I have let slide of late in the process.

Again, nothing new to see here, as this has come up more than a time or two in this past year along the way in my journey. Remembering to slow the game down "in the moment" and truly clear the mechanism (watch "For the love of the game" movie w/ Kevin Costner if you aren't familiar with this terminology) in order to erase or minimize the potential for mental and technical game mistakes in game!

The last phrase is wherein the importance counts the most: IN GAME. Yes, of course, to be able to do a post game cool down and self analysis to break down some things and find mistakes and fix them is extremely important and beneficial to long term success. However, there comes a time when we must be honest with ourselves and realize that if today's post game analysis and realizations continually DO NOT carry over into tomorrow's 'in game' performance, then we are not fully grasping the concepts or our processes in general.

I felt a period of zen-like A game in my latest session that I wanted to capture for this journal post specifically so that I can personally recognize it for what it was; a further advancement and improvement of utilizing some post game analysis of past sessions and incorporating them directly into future sessions. As basic as that sounds from anyone's perspective, the cliche phrase 'easier said than done' comes to mind.

Regardless of whether I'm 1 tabling the slowest live cash game in the world, or 8 tabling 6 max games on two online sites where I'm making multiple decisions simultaneously in just seconds, taking each spot slowly and making precise and deliberate decisions based on real time reads, assumptions, and info at hand rather than just 'auto piloting' or 'clicking buttons' (as all the cool kids refer to such robotic tendencies regarding to gaming, poker, etc) is the key to achieving A-game decision making at both the technical and mental levels of game play...

...and the band plays on as I continue my journey through Roctober!

After a rocky start (not quite the description "RockTober" was meant to start out with), I have battled back to being in the black with some monster live sessions, and some relentless online volume over the past week or so.

My largest profit came in a session of live pokerz at Green Valley Ranch where I was able to close out a session with 450 big blinds of profit in 6 hours. I added to that a 350 big blind win in just 4 hours a few nights later. Those two sessions alone helped pull us out of 1 of our very few 10 buy in downswings we have hit in the past year. The beauty of cash game downswings is they seem to be few and far between when you relate them to those of tournament downswings. Of course 80 big blinds per hour is not a sustainable winrate (LDO), it is nice to run well after you hit a patch of negative variance and negative winrate!

I do have some pictures (nom nom nom chip porn) but unfortunately am having some issues posting them here tonite. Hopefully I can get those resolved (although I'm not a huge proponent of the pic posting, I know it can bring some added fun to the journey for those following along). My image shack trial ran out, and my old imgur account doesn't seem to want to cooperate with uploading the links correctly. Any advice is welcome of course, since I know there are many out there who post pics to the forums regularly.

Third attempt at the pics??:

http://imgur.com/a/uRgdf

I have my next tournament adventure just around the corner as well, so I have decided to put up a small package to sell some of the action to the WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT week here in Las Vegas at Planet Hollywood. If anyone is interested in any of that action for a sweat, here is the link for it:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/18...-23-a-1565706/


As RockTober Rock'n'Rolls onward and upward, I am looking forward to riding the momentum to a great fourth quarter and a nice jumpstart into 2016!

Keep it up! How many months since you started your tourney to cash transition? How big was your ABI when you were doing full time tourneys? Tourney swings are scary!!

Thanks man. I literally just finished up my first 12 months of cash games since the transition!

A few stats to post about to help answer your questions in regards to MTTs... I have a 6000 MTT sample size close to $30 ABI for strictly post black friday MTTs 2013-2014 it looks like. (Looking at old spreadsheets so may be off a bit here or there).

I have too many different places to look for LIVE MTT info, considering I have a lot of volume that is not on Hendon Mob from over the years. I'll share a few pieces of what I could find tho. In a 1 year period I have a daily ABI of $150 with 100 MTTs played, with an ROI of 70% that is almost exclusively from a time period I played backed for some live daily stuff in Scottsdale Az. As for WSOP and side event stuff, I have done a sample of volume every year there over the course of the last 7 years or so that probably looks something like: $500 ABI with ROI's all over the place year by year. I had a few losing years, a few breakeven years, and a few winning years for the summer runs which appear to have averaged out around 40% ROI.

Again this is me just doing some piecemeal research from different spreadsheets I have saved over the years, and trying to extrapolate as much info as I can from them and combine into a usable stat line. Sample size all combined for live is probably 300-400 MTTs from these years. (Thats a huge gap of a range I know, but truly is hard to know exactly since I have never kept all that info in one place over time).

If you go back to pre black friday, my ABI slowly worked up from $12 all the way to around $50. Unfortunately all the stat sites for the old FTP and Stars don't show those numbers anymore. I can say I had SEVERAL, 100 BUY IN DOWNSWINGS, in the course of those years. I also recall a stretch run where I was down probably 250 buy ins before getting a running bankroll back in the black. Yeah, that totally sucked! And as for the 100 BI swongs, not just one, but many. They can really be trying on the soul, no matter what sort of mental game savant you are! As I know from reading some of your latest journeys into tourneys, it's not so much about the how of the bustouts, but more about the when the bust outs occur that can be the most devastating. I think my volume sample size pre black Friday is in the 10s of thousands range, but again, I have nowhere to go to tabulate all that up and its been so long that my old brain can't come up with much more exact than that right now, ha!

Losing flips, 70/30's, 80/20's and the occasional 88/12's we do in fact lose (yeah the old fun AA<AKo 200bb aipf smashed in the face) in themselves are nothing extraordinary or life ending. However, when you stockpile them up for an average downswing of 100 times your Average Buy In, and they start to occur in life changing equity moments, that is where the true testament of our inner being is challenged the greatest.

haha yeah def the bolded for sure. i really only play the good value highish guarantee tourneys (usually only find it worth regging ones with 5k+ up top) so i don't get to put in a huge sample. Busting 100+ away from the money never hurts very bad even if there's a twinge of disappointment, but those bustouts within the last couple of tables or early at the final table always leave a little pit in the stomach for a day or so (especially in these US tourneys where even deep the tables are much much softer than a site like stars). Thanks for the detailed answer, gl the rest of Rocktober!

Great thread title, lold

Ha thanks!

Been on a late night schedule lately and games have been pretty good all over!

Found a few Bovada Bombers that I actually helped their cause out by donating a few buy ins to recently so you guys can thank me later for helping sustain the economy on there a bit this month!

Starting to play some 2/5 live this week finally again, and looking to get at least 25% of my live volume at that stake before the end of the month. Might be a bit lofty of a goal considering how many hours I have already logged this month, but that's ok. It will keep my focus on the matter at hand, which is to begin the move up in stakes!

Played for the first time at Aria since moving to Vegas last night and was quite pleasantly surprised at the fishy level of the 1/3 games! I think the fact that they are capped to $300 buy ins helps keep some of the regs away, but the unfortunate trade off is he action players and whales are not as likely to sit 1/3 as a result when they can be much deeper in a 2/5 game there. Again that has me motivated to start scouting out those stakes more and see what I can get myself into!

Hanging out with 2+2r Duke the past few nights as well just talking some poker and fun life stuff. About to put in a session at Belagio now so looking forward to a quick little positive TR in a day or two! Half way point of the month (almost) and I'm already near 70% of my volume goal, so crushing that. Have been teetering on just ahead or just below the break even line so far, but I'm very happy with my overall efforts after starting out the month in a 10 buy in hole!

Now to keep the quality of the volume high, and not let my mental game get lazy as the 2nd half of the month starts! Rock on, RockTober!

With 10 days to go, I am rollercoastering a lot between down 5 buy ins and up 5 buy ins. I can't seem to break out of the two steps forward two steps backward trend with my results after digging myself out of a big hole early on. As frustrating as that is, I know I need to stay diligent in my sessions, and not worry about forcing the issue in spots just to appease some sort of silly real time short term pattern that has no impact on my long term goals and successes. This is the ongoing battle that has a tendency to creep into my thought processes on occasion, even when I put extra emphasis on my mental awareness of such a leak.

One of the factors in the break down of mental strength in this regard is when it isn't negative variance at all that is keeping us from stepping forward but when it is in fact from mistakes, misreads, and forced errors vs inferior or otherwise opponents. I feel that I have an unbalanced number of just such things this month and it really bothers me so much more than anything. Losing is never fun, but when you know you are the root cause of it, and not variance factor, it weighs down a little more heavily on the brain.

The biggest area I see this happening is in my forcing thin value bets in spots that are clear show down value only spots. I have ended up value owning myself more than I can remember doing in such a short amount of time over the course of the month. I need to get a handle on some of my reads, sure, and imperfect information will result in imperfect actions on my part. But getting beyond that, there have been many clear spots that I have decided to go for that value that just isn't there!

I even was time banking down in a spot where I took a bit of an unorthodox line with just a flush draw in a multi way pot on a paired board. The river brought in my flush, but certainly after being called on the flop when I check raised, and then called again when I barrel big on the turn, shoving this river just can't be optimal. His continuing range is going to be so nutted OR capped to show down value sort of range that just isn't calling off my triple barrel when a good part of my semi bluff range gets there. Not only that, but this villain was not "stationy" at all, and did NOT have a high VPIP stat, and had a tendency to bet when checked to very wide, so again clearly the best play was to bluff catch here and check/call. Before I could click the check button tho, I quickly told myself that it would be a disaster to have him check back top pair here and that I needed to value shove. He snapped my shove and of course I was coolered by the nut flush. Now I'm not saying the end result is ever going to be different in this spot, but it highlights how skewed my thought process was in that I was afraid of losing value in a spot I am just not losing value in. And I allowed myself to take the sub optimal line because of that fear, and incorrect thinking that this was a thin value spot instead of a show down value/bluff catching spot.

The internal struggle is real. Every hand, every session, every day. This cool down moment is extremely necessary for me to evaluate things close when my head is not biased by in game thinking. Taking the time to go over this spot and overall concept was hugely important for me today, and should help to net a much more thought out AND EXECUTED plan for future similar spots.

Haven't been playing too many hours on Sunday's since the NFL season showed up as I was dabbling in DFS and overall just enjoying the day for a day off most weeks. Decided to put in a long day yesterday and grab a little of the value out of the $500k gtd on WPN while I was at it... But overall the day did not go well. I was down early in the cash session but was just cruising a long with no major situations I could have avoided. Then in a matter of about an hour, I proceeded to get pummeled in pot after pot with overpairs, sets, straights, and flushes. It was one of those hours that need to be forgotten fast. The problem was I had built a nice stack in the tourney and needed to stay strong and focused to have a shot at that big score! I closed out all my cash tables (probably needed to happen regardless of the fact that I was down 5 buy ins which is my stop loss anyway) and did my best to snap out of the mental funk I felt myself in. After all, just a decent deep run and I could erase the rough patch of the day and still show a profit! As we neared the money bubble, the big stack at the table started to do his thing. Playing every pot, mixing up his play well and putting pressure all around. I had 30bbs and faced a spot where a short stack shoved in late position and the big stack called. It was a clear and obvious spot for me to reship all in with the A and the K, which I did. The big stack then tanked and clicked the call button with the A and the T. And that was that... T on the flop and we were dunzo, sigh. No regrets, no "wish I had folded" thoughts, no nonsensical rhetoric, I simply shut down my computer for the day and headed out to dinner with the gf and left one of my worst sessions of the month right where it belonged, nowhere on my mind.

Well, ok, that is not true at all. It stuck with me for a few hours, and it took quite a bit of injected logic and breathing it out to finally put the day to bed, but I was able to do so. A quick journal post this morning to sort of do a mental check up felt necessary and pertinent, so here it is. I only have a few days left in the month to try to turn the corner back to profitability but regardless of how the month closes out, I am very happy with my efforts in my volume this month and even more happy with how I have handled the rollercoaster of RockTober! Strong finish is on my mind, so time to get to it...

Quick update to post that I hit my monthly volume goal of 110 hours, then crushed it by getting 160 actual hours for the month. This is my monthly high for volume since switching over to cash games. Feel pretty good about it regardless of the fact that I was unable to pull off the full comeback profit wise so closed out the month on a bit of a downswing and down for the month. Some of my intangible positives on the month are that I have put in a decent amount of hours toward some of the ongoing rakeback promos I'm working on, (Diamond tier for Total Rewards/Caesers properties for 2016, and the SouthPoint $145k December freeroll qualifying hours) as well as I put it more volume in 1/3 to prepare myself for the jump into a heavier dose of 1/3 and 2/5 stakes as I move forward into November and beyond.

Have some work cut out for me in Govember as I climb out of my downswing and keep up the volume momentum. With the WSOPc tournament series I'll be playing a lot of hours in (Planet Hollywood Nov 12-23rd) my cash game hours will be cut back for a big chunk of the month, so it will put even more emphasis on my 'quality' over 'quantity' A-game poker in order to hit my personal winrate and overall profit goals.

Efforts and mental game grades for RocTober are high as I evaluate my play during this post month analysis. I have some database study work to do early on this month, as well as a study/sweat session to schedule with one of my coaches, but with the short month that is full of busy 'off the cash game felt' it will take every ounce of effort to get to my volume goal so as I wrap up a weekend getaway trip back to Phoenix today, I look to kick off my Govember tomorrow with session #1!

GoGoGo Govember!

One more volume update, I'm at 971 hours for the year so far so my goal of 1000 hours is almost complete! Pretty excited for that!

The hours and experience I have gained this year has been invaluable to me and the only regret I have is that I didn't do this sooner in my career! I hope to take this first 1000 hours of serious cash game transition and only build on it as I look to what 2016 has in store for me in both online and live cash games, as well as mixing back in some tournament grinding along the way!

Nice start to GoVember!

Everyone loves pics... Was waiting/hoping for a good looking 2/5 game at Caeasers when I stumbled upon 2 pretty solid 1/2 tables!



Got a few tier credits closer to Diamond today too! GoGo GoVember!

Diamond is easy to get. Video poker ftw.

Yeah, I've been mixing it in here and there but I'm on an easy pace to get there without sacrificing too much EV at this point (video poker at Caesers property is never better than 98.x%)...

With a full schedule of WSOPc events and standard live cash game play between now and end of Govember I'll be at the 15,000 tier credits needed!

killin it! I'd think it'd be pretty rare for a 1/2 to be better than sitting a 2/5 somewhere though no? unless it's one of those super deep super fishy 1/2s

Well I was getting a few hours in at Caesers for some credits in the early afternoon when the games are generally ok but nothing special yet on a Monday, and the 2/5 game going was fair but not great... The 1/2 game I started in was incredible with 4 English fellows drinking up a good one, and a few calling stations mixed in between...

...mic drop!

Hehe mic drop = you printing money