Awesome, glad that you're enjoying it. Hopefully I'll find the inspiration to do another book recommendation soon; I enjoyed writing the first couple.

Re: DFS, I just don't have as much interest in the NFL (apart from the Browns...lol) or NFL fantasy this year, even though like you mentioned NFL is undoubtedly softer than NBA. NBA fantasy has been my favorite since I started doing it many years ago and it's definitely the sport of which I have the highest level statistical understanding.

I've had some sweats since starting up a few weeks ago with several top .1% finishes over multiple days with a sample of ~100 lineups total in the site's massive $3 tournaments. Nevertheless, these massive entry tournaments are so top heavy that even with some extremely high performing tournament entries I'm still stuck a bit on the site (I've also run pretty poorly at $5 h2hs). Currently I've invested $1040 into buyins and have received $944 back. The other day if I plugged a guy who I had in 6/10 lineups into a particular other lineup I would have finished 2nd out of 96k entries for $10k lol.

QUICK LIFE UPDATE: Things have been going great lately. My nl cash results have continued to be very strong and I'm feeling more and more comfortable with nl again after all of the plo this year. I've also been enjoying playing more than I was previously this year, and my motivation to play has been high. Most importantly, I've been doing much better in the crushing life saga, checking dem items off the to do list, working out every other day, reading, keeping in touch with friends and family, getting back into dating, etc.

Hey bud! I've enjoyed catching up over the last few weeks. Glad to see things are going great! Of course I must mention my winless record in live hang outs Let's fix that soon - the Doc and I and/or LA and I have lunch regularly and you are always welcome (and encouraged!) to join. It will require waking before 13:00.

What a great blog! I've enjoyed many of the stories and HHs herein. Have you considered writing essays about topics other than poker? I'd read every one.

Like you, I soak up the ME and desire to play it, though life/poor planning continues to get the best of me. I may already be precluded from playing in 2016 if it overlaps w Country Concert. Can I reserve a % of you now so I am ensured a vicarious sweat?!

With regard to your desire to not play poker professionally forever, I have some thoughts on career options and wealth building. Combined with $1.25, my thoughts will get you on the COTA, though some may provoke a new line of thinking for you too. Let's chat soon!

I hope to check out some of the books mentioned itt. I often recommend the two books below and I cannot remember if they were mentioned already. Apologies if so.

Dale should need no introduction. This timeless piece is one of my must-reads for everyone on earth. I have the audio companion and I listen to it often. If I had to guess I've listened to it over 50 times lol.



I also have the audio version of Minimalism: Live A Meaningful Life, and I repeat it from time to time, though not as often as Dale. Fantastic read, life changing information. One of their pieces of advice that has helped me get into better shape/health is about the use of the word 'diet'. Most refer to a 'diet' as a short-term gimmick to lose weight quickly. This is a recipe for failure every time because there is no gimmick to lose weight quickly and easily. Eating well and exercising are the only way to stay fit and these must be done constantly. Ones 'diet' should refer to the entire roster of everything one chooses to eat and drink every day of their life. Our 'diet' isn't a short-term thing at all.



The Minimalists

Thanks for the kind words, Nick, and welcome to the thread.

To answer your questions:
Yes. To a certain extent, this thread has helped scratch that itch, but I'd like to go further. I enjoy writing and I haven't been doing enough of it.

I'm not sure whether I'll be playing the ME next year, but, if I do, I'll make sure you don't get locked out. Thanks again for all of your support this past WSOP.

I hope you're able to experience it all for yourself soon.

Haha, the COTA reference has me intrigued. Next time I see you (hopefully the upcoming OPC events?), hit me up with your thoughts.

Thanks for adding the book recs. I've borrowed the Carnegie book from the library a couple times, but I still haven't read it. It has been referenced in many of the books I've read this year, including The Antidote.

I haven't read much related to minimalism, but the minimal amount I do know (pun intended) has been appealing to me. I'll let you know if I do any reading on that front.

QUICK UPDATE: Things continue to go well. Poker-wise, I ran way below EV in allin pots this past week ($4k below at best guess), but I still managed to show a decent profit for the week. I'm particularly proud of my work yesterday. I lost $1k in two different pots in a really good 2-5 nl game, including losing with 66 allin against KQ on a KQ6 flop, but I still managed to lose only $250 for that session without ever having tilted. After six hours in that 2-5 game, I then headed over to a 5-5 (later 5-T) PLO game where I finished +$1300 over four hours despite fighting tiredness and playing my B game.

It was the kind of day where it seemed nothing short of miraculous that I was able to book a decent winner overall. I've had a lot of those kinds of sessions this year and I think it speaks to the mental game progress I've been able to make since turning pro.

Life-wise, I don't have anything new or exciting to report, but I'm still feeling good, especially physically. I've toned down DFS a bit lately and have replaced it with reading more (currently reading Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari), online dating, and putting in more poker volume while I'm feeling motivated to do so.

TY sir! #WSOPME

Read Dale! You won't regret it! I'm hoping to make it Friday but cannot play Saturday. Sunday is even iffy tho if it's a day 2 and I have chips, I'll be there. Ideally I'll play the PLO MTT and the $20k next week.

Glad to hear all is well. Doc and I had lunch today...just sayin'

I've observed a weird pattern emerge lately of starting stuck big out of the gate and then grinding it out to eventually leave a winner or leave with a small loss. I referenced last Sunday's session above, where I was stuck $1400 a couple of hours into a 2-5 nl session but ultimately finished the day +$1k between that game and a short-handed 5-10 PLO game. Little did I know that trend would continue the entire week.

Tuesday, I was stuck $1400 in an average 2-5 round by round game after an hour and ended up leaving +$400 for the day seven hours later. Wednesday I was stuck $1900 thirty minutes into a good 5-5 nl game and ended up leaving a $400 loser. Thursday I was stuck $1200 a few hours into a mediocre 5-5 PLO game and ended up winning $300, with the comeback occurring after the game became 4 handed. Friday I was stuck $2300 five hours into my 5-5 PLO session in a decent game and ended up losing only $100. Finally, tonight, I was stuck $3100 in an incredibly juicy 5-T PLO game but managed a massive comeback and finished the day +$2700.

Crazy, and the especially weird thing is that this is far from the first time I've noticed such a sustained trend in my results over a decent patch of sessions. I've had many such stretches over the last few years. This week, at least, on none of those days did I feel like the quality of my play was worse at the beginning at the session than towards the end. It is possible, however, that one common difference between the first and second halves of these sessions is that the quality of the game improved as the night wore on.

I'm tired, so I apologize if I'm not stating this very coherently, but I wonder if this pattern is just statistical noise that stands out because it's such a loud, noisy trend or if there's something about my playing style that leads to this kind of pattern emerging more regularly than it would for other players.

I've wondered this too as a lot of my sessions go this way.

I feel like I've seen this pattern in my play too. I have speculated that I sometimes start out a session with some kind of expectation tilt, so I play looser than I should, and/or, just trying to become the mythical good LAG in the beginning of sessions. Then, when stuck, as long as I don't go on normal stuck tilt, then I may go into a tight (TAG) mode, playing very solid poker when stuck.

I can identify with the above but may just use different wording along the lines of entitlement tilt. When playing I think there are four types of dynamic:

• Initiative
• Position
• Card Edge
• Skill Edge

For myself at times I'd overvalue or undervalue some of these and getting stuck was the wake-up call.

Easiest adjustment was taking ~5% out of some ranges and strengthening that card edge. After a dealer rotation or two, that's often been a good spot to re-adjust to whatever is going on in-game.

... or it could just be PLO variance

Had a very karamazonk-esque tournament series at my local casino last week.

$200 "super stack" (in reality, a turbo) $20k gty, I had no intention of playing but get talked by a friend into registering at the last second and I late reg a couple of hours in. Less than thirty minutes thereafter, I'm down to 1.5bb after a villain on monkey tilt raise/calls a 25bb 3bet shove when I have AK and he has 56; given the tilt dynamic I was expecting him to call with his entire range, and I wasn't let down. He flops a five. I lose. I give villain a friendly fist bump, expecting to be on my way out soon.

To my surprise, however, through some patience and good luck in allins, I turn the 1.5 bb into a ~35bb, decently above average stack when the last hand before the dinner break occurs. Squirrely villain opens MP at, I think, 2400bb, to 5400. I 3bet the BTN w/ KhQh to 16k w/ tight villains in the blinds, expecting to win the pot pre a large % of the time. BB flats (red flag for a strong but not ultra premium hand). MP flats, unexpectedly. Flop 752r. Checked around. Turn Qx, no flush draw. BB checks, MP bets 30k, I shove 63k, BB folds, MP lightly slams the table, says he "got caught" but is priced in, calls, just barely covers me. He has T5dd, a pair of fives. Ten ball on the river. I'm out of the tournament by a smidgeon, after getting it in as a nearly 90% favorite for what was at a minimum a top 3 stack, possibly a CL stack. BB says he had JJ.

I left very irritated after again finding myself having become emotionally invested in a tournament narrative, this time the "comeback from 1.5bb" narrative that started developing after the cruel AK <56 aipf blow: 1.5 bb --> 35bb ---> 90% shot at CL --> busto.

Fast forward a few days later to the $500 Main Event of the series, a $100k gty with a prizepool that balloons almost to $200k. An extremely good value tournament I've been looking forward to for weeks. I play cash on Day 1a believing Friday cash games too good to pass up, and then register for the tourney on Day 1b (Saturday).

About four hours in, despite being at one of the tougher tables of the tournament (not really saying much), I'm the first stack to have reached 200k from the 50kss, having played what I thought was some really strong poker, and also getting lucky in a big pot: 68hh > JT allin on 9h8x7h flop.

Not much later, however, I end up losing 80k of my 200k stack to a set over set in a four way pot, 33 < TT on AT3ss8x. Somehow in ~125 hours of nl tourneys this year I've managed to be on the bad end of 4/4 set over sets.

An orbit later, I defend the BB w/ AhKd against an utg+1 raise. Flop K86ccc. I c/c a bet of 9k into 15k. Turn 3d. I lead out 17k. Villain calls. River Kx. I bet 35k. Villain shrugs and quickly tosses in a calling chip. I turn my hand over, expecting to ship the big pot. He flips over AJcc. The flopped nuts. I'm genuinely shocked. Tough villain across from me meets my glance as this is happening and gives me a "wtf" look as to villain's hand.

After that hand, I manage to win a bunch of pots w/o showdown to stay alive and enter the dinner break w/ a nearly average stack. However, my bad luck continues, and I end up being crippled down to 3bb when KK < AJs aipf with additional dead $ in pot where if I win I'd be at 1.5x average stack, 25% of field left. I shove the CO the next hand w/ J3o where BTN is tight. BTN flats. SB flats. BB becomes my hero when he raises allin. BTN tank folds. SB folds. Suddenly I'm in a great spot to turn the 3.5bb into a stack w/ fold equity. BB has pocket fives. The board runs out a bunch of cards that do not provide any salvation. I'm out of the tournament about ten hours in.

Bleh. I genuinely feel like over the last couple of years I've run especially bad in poker tournaments. I'm sure > 90% of the poker community feels the same way. That being said, I don't really care that much anymore. I'm happy to keep playing high value tournaments and rely on cash games for the vast majority of my income, while simply hoping for the best in tournaments.

Fortunately, cash games have gone well over the last few months, and I think my overall results have been right around expectation. In nl, I've almost certainly run above expectation, and in plo I've almost certainly run below expectation.

My last 455 hours of live cash games, after a miserable 125 hour stretch prior to that which started mid-WSOP:

As 2016 approaches, I have no idea what my intentions are with respect to poker going forward.

Results-wise, 2015 has been great overall, my best year yet. While live PLO cash ended up unexpectedly being my bread and butter and the source of most of my profits, I also posted strong live NL cash results on the year, mostly thanks to focusing on rediscovering my NL A-game over the last couple of months. I also performed decently well in the little live mixed cash this year, including going 2-0 in 50-100 stud8 sessions, the biggest mixed cash I've ever played.

Tournaments were ultimately disappointing and slightly unprofitable on the year, but at least I'll take some fun memories out of it all. As heartbreaking as bubbling the Main Event was, it was still an awesome experience and I'm very glad I was able to play it. One silver lining to mtts this year is that I ended up having my best year ever in terms of some of the cashes I was able to accomplish, with two WSOP cashes ($1500 6 Max, $1500 stud8), two Venetian top 9 finishes including a 2nd place chop, and scooping a 1k+ runner bovada tournament (I'm not sure, but I think I actually ended up posting a decent profile in bovada mtts this year for the stakes that I played). I also had seemingly a million close calls, especially during my East Coast trip during the fall. There’s an alternative universe where I crushed tournaments this year. That being said, I definitely could have run worse in tourneys this year, too.

Mental game-wise, I'm extremely pleased with the progress I was able to make this year. Most notably, 1) my C game is much stronger than it's ever been, and 2) it takes much more to rattle me off my A or B game. I actually think this thread had a huge role in helping me sustain mental game strength through some rough stretches, particularly during the early stages of the 5-10 PLO era at the beginning of the year when I was running really awful in huge allin pots.

My volume this year was respectable and probably greater than most pros but ended up being much lower than last year and 2013. I’m okay with that. I put more of an emphasis on quality hours and balance this year and I think that had a lot to do with my strong results this year.

Finally, I traveled better this year than I have in the past, with strong results in both Los Angeles and on the East Coast, especially at Maryland Live. I slept much better in general and I was able to do a better job not letting myself get entirely consumed by poker. While my 7 week WSOP adventure was ultimately a letdown, I'm at least inspired by the fact I was able to start off on an extremely strong foot over the first couple of weeks of the WSOP before ultimately getting derailed by negative variance and, by the last week of the WSOP, inevitable cracks in my mental game as I played the worst poker I played all year immediately post-Main Event.

On the subject of this thread, I'm really glad that I decided to do this PGC kind of out of nowhere at the beginning of the year and I believe it's been very +EV for me in a number of different ways. Writing so frequently during the most important stretches of the year helped me keep focused and also helped keep me accountable and honest with myself. I’m thrilled now to have available a pretty thorough chronicle of my year in poker that I can consult whenever I’d like. Beyond that, all the support and kind words that people have written in here and in PMs that have been sent to me have meant a great deal to me. Living the poker pro lifestyle can feel like a very solitary endeavor at times but this thread helped me feel like I’m not alone in my journey.

All that being said, the more popular this thread became, the more my anonymity started to fade, and I would be lying if I said it has had no effect on the frequency or depth of my posting over the last couple of months. I’ve become aware that a bunch of people who see me on a regular basis read this and have never brought up the fact of the thread with me. I get it, and that’s fine, but unfortunately I think it has affected the content of my posts as of late as I feel especially self-conscious. I admit I'm also increasingly reluctant to discuss strategy and how I approach the game when the pool of players I put in a huge amount of my volume against is quite small.

Anyways, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, I have no idea what lies ahead for me in poker. Thanks to the dream results of March-May, I was able to pay off my student loans a year ahead of schedule, removing a major source of external motivation for me to grind hard. While over the last few weeks I’ve been decently motivated to play and have been putting in pretty good volume, there continues to be a part of me that’s less interested in poker than ever. Truthfully, my enthusiasm for the game just hasn’t felt the same since the anxiety of my student loans vanished a few months ago. I didn’t realize how closely my brain associated the necessity of success in poker with my loans until the loans were gone.

I could be overestimating the impact of being debt-free on my enthusiasm for the game. Because the truth is, as awesome as the first half of the year was, the abrupt WSOP flip flop from crushing to getting crushed by negative variance and then suffering the biggest downswing I’ve ever had ended up being extremely unpleasant emotionally. While I think I did a good job managing the downswing and I’m comforted by my results over the last few months (mid-June to early August was the really bad stretch), I’ve thought a lot about how inevitable downswings are and how I’m not sure I’ll ever have strong enough emotional health such that downswings are not very demoralizing and unpleasant for me.

It’s entirely possible that I find myself very excited about poker again, but right now the raging, all-consuming enthusiasm I previously had and had for many years isn’t there. Seriously, for years arriving at the casino for a night's grind felt like Xmas morning; it was thrilling and I'd count the hours until I could play again. Fortunately, it’s not necessary that I’m ultra-enthusiastic about poker to play for a living. For a long time I was actually worried that I'd be intellectually obsessed with poker forever to the point that I wouldn't be able to go a week w/o playing, so part of me is relieved that the experience of being a pro has helped me develop a healthier mental attitude about poker.

As I’m getting back into dating I’m starting to realize that I haven’t had much fun in my adult life, starting with working a zillion hours/week at the firm in Jan. 2010. Poker was the only fun I had for 3.5 years as I worked that job. It’s been less and less fun for me since becoming a pro as it’s no longer my escape and a fantasy but rather the source of my livelihood. It’s been everything I dreamed it would be, but psychological adaptation has set in such that I take it all for granted now and it's increasingly difficult to mentally imagine myself in my old shoes. Moreover, I enjoy my poker social world a lot, but I’ve also come to realize I’m feeling more and more distant from the rest of the world, as the vast majority of conversations I have are with other poker players. I’m a little worried about this and am going to try harder to balance my social life.

As far as the crushing life saga goes, I think I could have done better this year. I’m proud that in 2015 I have been able to meditate on a near-daily basis, read a lot, work out regularly the whole year and find myself in the best shape I’ve ever been, etc., but I also failed to do a lot of things I had hoped to do like date more, volunteer, write, spend less time browsing the Internet, develop new skills, travel on non-poker trips, etc. I’d give myself an A- for crushing poker this year and a B- for crushing life.

I’m conflicted. I think if I really commit myself to poker for another year I can have a huge year, and part of me does want to see what my ceiling is. Another part of me, the stronger voice in my brain right now, wants to focus on the “crushing life” saga and focus on continuing to grow as a person, while still putting in respectable poker volume and continuing to play my best while at the table. A mindset that puts self development and long term career interests (which I’ve already decided are non-poker) first while also respecting poker as my current source of income and leaving enough time for me to put in decent volume.

Just subbed, great read thanks for sharing. Can't wait to join your journey in 2016!

GL and keep crushing

Great stuff bud, as always. Have a great holiday!

Indeed! #MTTsweeeeeeee

Got drinks with a law professor who's co-teaching a "Mindful Lawyering" class. Sounded cool and similar to the trend in medical education (which I'm more familiar with) of bringing reflection and experience into one's practice.

Great writeup. Looking forward to seeing where the next leg of your poker journey takes you!

Live tournaments are brutal. The tanking once the money approaches makes it much more intense, and it's probably correct to do it in marginal spots because the decisions are so unique and unlike cash you don't mind if people fear you at the expense of a fun table atmosphere. You really have to be an EV seeking robot and not sweat the inevitable bad flips and donkouts.

I've found poker became like Christmas again since I've gotten a real job. Sometimes I feel meh about it at mediocre tables, but the few times I become miserable it's time to leave or go count cards. Keeping a non-dating foot in the real world sounds like a good idea.

How difficult did you find the $50/$100 stud8 at WSOP? Love stud8 and seems like it only takes 1 or 2 action players to make it good.

Thanks for the kind words, jaicee, and welcome to the thread.

Thanks, Nick, you too. #hangout2016 Btw, check out Making a Murderer on Netflix. I'm certain you'd like it.

Ha, I attended a one day conference on that very topic while in law school and it was one of my first avenues of exposure to mindfulness. I think an application of mindfulness can enhance any endeavor; hopefully, mindfulness only keeps getting more popular and culturally accepted.

Thanks for the kind words. Hopefully we can find an opportunity to meet up again in 2016.

Btw, we don't have to wait much longer until the next Knausgaard translation gets released!

That first paragraph is all too accurate. I'm still divided on how I want to treat tournaments going forward. On the one hand, I think I am a very strong mtt player when I'm able to play with the appropriate mtt mindset, and I think if I keep playing tournaments it's only a matter of time until I land a nice bink. However, over the last few years I've noticed that my tourney game at its strongest seems to be mutually exclusive with simultaneously being able to play my strongest cash game. Is the sacrifice of some cash game EV + opportunity costs in terms of losing cash game hours to tourney hours worth it? I'm not sure.

The $50/$100 stud8 at WSOP was the toughest stud8 lineup I've ever played in, but that's not saying much. At the time, I was fresh off of grinding some decent stud8 volume on bovada, and I felt like it gave me an edge a I was noticing a lot of little mistakes on the part of most other players, particularly on third street. Most of them were playing too loose and didn't seem as positionally aware as they should have been (i.e., playing too similar ranges from every position relative to the bring-in). I don't recall playing with a single truly bad player, but I still felt like the games were good. I'd been told by multiple people that stud8 cash @ WSOP in years past was dominated by two players, but I got the impression those guys weren't sitting in this year's games.

UPDATE: It's been an eventful last ten days. Last week, I didn't end up playing much poker, but the little poker I was able to play went extremely well and included booking my largest session win in awhile in a 5-10 PLO game, mostly thanks to scooping a huge three-way flop allin with top set against a player w/ AA + nfd and another player with a mediocre wrap.

Last Sunday, I went on a first date I had been particularly excited about with a 25 yo Korean girl with an interesting, different personality, basically a girl with no filter and a DGAF approach to life, by her own words she's "been described as cold, logical, and weird," not usually my type but I found myself quickly getting into her. I texted this girl after about a week of messaging on okcupid, and very quickly we had a fun, flirtatious strong text rapport. Lots of hours-long late night conversations touching on deep subjects, veering far away from small talk, sometimes approaching some mild sexting. I've never had anything like that with a girl I've met through online dating before, typically using texts only for setting up dates and some additional small talk. One of the best parts of this texting frenzy was it gave me zero anxiety re: poker and how she'd react to it. Before we had texted much, she sent me a text out of nowhere a little past midnight saying something like "You seem like the kind of guy who gets up early, like, really early." I explained how wrong she was and why, and it only seemed to make her more interested.

After a few days of texting I asked her out, but with finals coming up (she's a grad student) we decided to wait another week before meeting up. First mistake (spoiler), I invite her to a local light show at the zoo that's a big attraction locally. Before the date, I'm nervous as I'm getting ready at home, but by the time I get there I feel okay. She arrives and she's even better looking than I expected. After a couple of minutes, I realize I'm feeling pretty anxious again. I also realize that I'm freezing; it's 38 degrees, and ever since losing 90 lbs I get cold really easily. I never feel that comfortable on the date, and while I find myself liking her as much as I hoped, I can feel her interest in me waning. I put my arm around her a lot of the date, but never go for a kiss.

I text her a couple of hours later, and when she texts back it's what I expect: she thinks I'm a good dude, but didn't feel like our text chemistry was matched in real life; she felt no irl chemistry and is not interested in another date. I felt sad and bitterly disappointed that night, but by the next day I felt a lot better and resolved to use it as a learning experience.

Some mistakes I think I made:
1) Even though conversation-wise we had progressed to 5th date territory (her own words), I still think a coffee date would have been better for the first date. The light show was a romantic and different and fun idea, but I think for a first date it's too much investment. And, with how easily cold I get I definitely could have anticipated some lack of physical comfort, which could predictably affect my comfort getting physical.

2) Naturally I am a very agreeable and deferential person w/ people I don't know very well. It's how I was raised, and it's a good strategy for getting on friendly terms with strangers. Unfortunately, this can be devastating in the dating context, where women get very turned off by any perceived lack of dominance. This "safe" side of me came out during the date, as it usually does during first dates, and I think it killed her attraction, an attraction which was evident throughout the texting and early part of the date. I'm confident I can turn this off and be more dominant, while still being authentic to who I am, on first dates in the future; it's just something I will have to think about and work on.

3) Between the huge amount of texting and the added pressure of an overly romantic first date environment, I think it increased her expectations going in. As someone who takes awhile to feel comfortable around people I haven't met in person (not a problem I have w/ other forms of communication, like texting or 2p2), I think I failed to meet those expectations by being a bit reserved and far from comfortable enough to start doing much physically. Lesson learned to not go too overboard w/ texting beforehand and to keep expectations reasonable on both ends.

4) I got too invested emotionally, despite having resolved to focus less on myself and more on having fun and meeting interesting women, not worrying about the future but focusing on having a good time in the present. I had been doing a good job acting under that mindset than stumbled once I found myself getting excited as things w/ this girl got so promising over text.

Long story short, I need to work on becoming more confident and turning on my more dominant side during first dates. This should only be getting easier as I find myself getting more attention from women than ever now that I'm in good shape and feel much more in control over and satisfied with my life.

Anyways, I'm still a little stung by what happened, but I nevertheless feel great about things in general right now, including dating. I'm not going to let this one disappointing experience deter me going forward but instead am going to use it as fuel and a learning experience. I had some time to think on a long flight the other day and came away feeling motivated and positive about what's going on in my life and what I plan to have going on soon. During that time I made a list of some goals I have for 2016; I plan on posting about them here soon. Currently I'm with my family for Xmas week and it's been a great, relaxing time. Back to the grind next week.

Just found this thread so wanted to say congrats on what seems to be a great year overall for you! Still catching up on the background stuff, but am intrigued at the level of success you have attained in your journey! I am on a similar journey of cash game poker and have been going through a similar mental game progression. The biggest difference for me is that my year has focused mostly on the transition away from MTTs (for the day to day grind anyway, I still enjoy them and play them when I can), and into deep stacked cash games. Work in progress as both a live and online player, I see a lot of great things I will be able to take away from your story so looking forward to reading the rest of the back story here!

Best of luck in 2016!

also I just found this thread and really like it...will follow it

you have very analytical approach to all things, not only poker, probably that attracts me reading more as i am very analytical person also

also agree your analysis about the date
especially i agree Points 2 and 3
Point 2 though i think "lack of dominance" might not hit it completely. Yes surely there are woman out there that look for dominant Partner, but what really almost all are looking for is a selfconfident partner. So for me lack of selfconfidence is definetly more a road block.
Point 3...same experience in the past...

Thanks, Rossi! From your posts in your own PGC, which I've checked out from time to time, you seem to approach the game from a solid, positive mindset. Keep it up and the you'll be where you seek to be before you know it. GL in 2016!

Thanks, braindead! I agree that I tend to approach things from a very analytical perspective. Glad to know that I'm in good company.

As for the dating analysis, I think you're right that self-confidence is the primary thing whose absence turns women off. In my case, I would say that the lack of dominance I tend to display on first dates is a signal for poor self-confidence, if that makes sense, regardless of whether it's truly reflective of poor self-confidence (which in my case is closer to the truth than not).

It has been almost exactly a year since I started this thread. It seems like a good time for an update and for a fresh examination of my goals.

First, an update. My first session back went pretty terribly. While I ran bad, I also played very unfocused and kind of on edge but in a bad way. I'm embarrassed to say, I let my DraftKings sweat (for less than 5% as much $ as my stack) occupy the lion's share of my attention for the first couple of hours to the detriment of my ability to play my A game. That wasn't the only reason I didn't play my best. It's funny, as much poker as I've played (I'm probably at or near the 10,000 hours of live poker Gladwell threshold at this point), a week off from playing will still throw off my game for a little while.

Fortunately, I played much better and ran better the couple subsequent sessions I played and I booked two large winners to offset the results of the initial session. The last session, on New Year's Eve last night, was weird. I sat down and immediately felt like I wanted to be somewhere else. On previous NYE's, I've been happy to be at the casino, but this year it unexpectedly felt a little depressing. I won a big pot w/ the flopped nuts holding allin against two players right away off (PLO), then the game got worse from a starting place of being mediocre, and I decided to just take off after an hour of play, a little before midnight. In my opinion, any quit that involves quitting because I very much don't want to be playing is a good quit. It's something that rarely happens so I'm not too worried about it going forward.

In other news, I'm starting to get more into video games, which is a tad worrisome. They have their place for fun and stress relief, but historically I've had a tendency to go overboard with them and as a result in a feat of discipline I mostly ignored them altogether for close to a decade. If I end up playing over a dozen hours a week of video games, that'd be bad.

I'm addicted to the process of watching myself improve at any kind of competitive activity that interests me. My experience with FIFA 15 sums up my appetite for gaming (which encompasses poker) in a nutshell. In March or April, I started playing some FIFA matches with friends at a local poker club that had a PS4. I lost or drew the first few matches but had a lot of fun and really wanted to keep playing and watch myself improve at the game. I bought a PS4 pretty much just to play the game. After steadily playing the computer throughout the rest of the year, I reached a point where I could consistently win at the World Class mode, which is the equivalent of All-Madden. After a friend talked me into buying Battlefront the other week, I went ahead and bought a year's worth of PS Plus (the online platform). Rather than playing Battlefront, I found myself playing FIFA. Brag: I'm currently 11-1-1 against the randoms I've been matched up against and have had an absolute blast playing (esports future??? ). Anyone interested in setting up a match for fun, PM me and we can arrange something.

Finally, I watched a couple of things lately I thought were extremely well-done: Making a Murderer on Netflix and The Big Short. I couldn't recommend either more highly.

Now, on to goals. I have mixed feelings about New Year's resolutions. Research suggests that they can actually be counter-productive. Reason being, writing about goals without having yet performed them tricks the brain into thinking it's already accomplished something, reducing motivation to actually perform the goals. Nevertheless, I've also been allowing my to do list to stagnate over the last few months, and I think writing about how I want to check those items off my list will help keep me more accountable to myself in getting things done. Moreover, with respect to positive habits I developed or continued in 2015, I think writing about those habits can only help me keep them up. For now, even though I have poker goals, I am focusing on non-poker goals in recognition of the fact that the crushing life saga has priority right now. These goals are flexible and I'm not sure I'll revisit them itt but I'll use the checkbox framework, anyways.

Here are some simple, discrete, boring but important goals that I have for 2016:

[ ] see the eye doctor and get a new prescription and (finally) contacts
[ ] arrange for new dental insurance that will be able to cover wisdom tooth extraction
[ ] get a physical
[ ] consolidate all my retirement funds
[ ] renew my passport

Here are some habits, practices, or general aspirations that I'd like to start, maintain, or expand in 2016:

[ ] expand my mindfulness practice; meditate longer on average and every day, do loving kindness meditation more often in addition to regular meditation, do daily gratitude exercises
[ ] continue working out regularly, both cardio and strength training
[ ] become more proficient at cleaning
[ ] learn how to do some elementary cooking
[ ] improve posture and be more aware of body language/nonverbal communication generally
[ ] continue learning more about investing
[ ] read at least 25 books (at least 18 of which must be first time reads) (*on a sidenote, I'm always open to receiving book recs)
[ ] travel better (come prepared with a plan for every trip and don't allow trips to be disruptive of good habits)
[ ] travel smarter (keep travel costs down; plan ahead better)
[ ] keep becoming more aware of style and dress better
[ ] spend less time browsing the Internet and cut down my Internet loop
[ ] expand my social circle to become less poker-centric; do more socially (maybe start doing yoga, try to make some contacts in the startup world, join a book club or discussion group, etc.)
[ ] develop a new skill or hobby (some candidates: rock climbing, cooking, music, programming, web design, trading)
[ ] go on at least 10 dates and keep developing a healthier mindset about dating
[ ] develop a better understanding of nutrition
[ ] be more aware of my thoughts and how they shape my behavior

Some additional things I think would be really cool but I won't yet put much pressure on myself to do:

[ ] make at least one trip abroad
[ ] go on a silent retreat or some other kind of meditation retreat
[ ] do another session in the flotation tank

Just stumbled upon this article, a gallup summary of some interesting findings as to world trends in 2015: http://www.gallup.com/poll/187973/ga...campaign=tiles .

It's quite sobering to read that roughly 3/4 women worldwide (so, two billion humans on this earth) consider themselves "struggling" or "suffering." I wish I read these kinds of articles more often. They always expand my perspective on my life and my place in the world, in this instance reminding me that by sheer virtue of my birth and demographics I've been placed in a better starting position to succeed and have a happier life than the vast majority of six billion people inhabiting the world.

In other news, I'm still looking for people to play FIFA 15 with! (note the #firstworldproblems relative to the last paragraph) PM me if interested. I don't much like the club in real life but I play as Real Madrid b/c that team fits my style best.

I'm also looking for book recs at the moment even though I have plenty of books on my to read list (I'm probably going to read "Superforecasting" next). I prefer non-fiction books but anything is fair game. I can't promise I'll read any recs, but I always appreciate receiving them. One of my favorite things about maintaining this thread is that people have thrown a lot of interesting stuff my way that I never would have known about otherwise.

It's a fiction rec but I just finished futuristic violence and fancy suits. Very entertaining. Same author wrote John dies at the end and there's spiders in this book which the first one was made into a movie. Also very entertaining reads/movie's fantastic.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
The book is significantly better than the movie. Very philosophical, about knowing oneself, exploring one's good and bad sides, among other things.

Thanks for the recs, guys. xazel, that author sure knows how to create an intriguing title. I haven't heard of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits but I've heard great things about John Dies at the End. Maybe I'll check out one of those; I'd like to start getting caught up on some of the better recent fiction authors.

As for Ender's Game, that's another book I've borrowed from the library multiple times but never read. Definitely my kind of thing. I'll probably read it at some point.