Cliffs - 6 year poker pro wants to crush NJ online poker and move up in stakes

Outcome Goal:

get my skills and confidence to point where I am successfully grinding at 2/4NLH+

Process Goals:

1) start each day with a few minutes of meditation followed by coffee and 60 minutes of focused poker study
2) maximize hands played at my A-game by taking care of myself with good sleep, exercise, and eating habits
3) get into the grind and put in the hands 6 days per week

I have been playing full-time for more than 6 years. Truth be told, more like part-time as I have never been a big volume player. I have managed to pay my living expenses and build my bankroll up each year. I feel like I am ready to take my game to the next level. For me this means playing more hands and moving up to 2/4NL and beyond. I have some doubts about how long the online poker gravy train can last so now that there is “legal” online poker in NJ I want to jump on the opportunity.

I live in NY about 2 hours from the NJ boarder so I will be commuting to NJ to grind 4-5 days per week. As I write this I am in a motel in NJ. I am hoping to find a decent but not overly expensive room or small apartment soon. I will also be playing on other poker sites while home in NY.

I will be following a Paleo way of eating. Basically this mean eating meats, fruits, and vegetables and avoiding processed “fake foods”. For the next few months I am going to keep the workouts pretty simple by dong some original strength resets, kettlebell swings, turkish get-ups, and pushups.

I want to write about the process of pursuing my goals but I will be posting some updates on result from time to time. I am off to a good start in NJ as I have more than doubled my $1500 deposits just grinding on on a few NJ trips I took in December.

If anyone wants to know more about me just google ken aces and/or killfatmike and you will find my old blogs

Nice guy and a good coach. I look forward to learning from your progress.

I second Flash's comment about Mike. Very nice guy and an equally skilled coach.

Looking forward to follow this.

thanks for the kind words

I have been holed up in a cheap motel last few days here in NJ. Poker has gone well, but the current challenge is to find a cost effective way to travel/grind in NJ. I have spent an average of 3 days a week the road since black friday grinding live poker. Traveling for online poker is different as I have zero free rooms and no comp dollars for meals. So I have the "travel rake" to overcome. For this 7 day trip I am in lockdown in a cheap motel room with lots of food from grocery store and a small refrigerator and microwave. This is OK for now but i really do need to find a room or apartment soon.

I am happy to be back home after 6 days living in a motel. Overall felt like it was a good start to the new year. I did a good job with my all my process goals except for eating healthy. This is always a challenge while on the road. I have two ideas on how to improve on this. One is to find a room or apartment where I can just do all my own cooking. Two is to join the Lift Qualified Diet - https://lift.do/quantified-diet.

I have used this Lift app on my phone and it is very simply but powerful. Basically you set daily task you want to do and just check them off you list. I remember learning "what gets measured gets repeated" concept at some business seminar and have always felt it was valid. Using the Lift app is an easy way to put this into practice. Right now my list is; am meditation, 1hr of am deliberate poker study, paleo diet, original strength resets, enter the kettle bell workout.

I have been back down in NJ the last few days. I made the mistake of waisting Sunday playing a bunch of MTTs for a change of pace and because WSOP had a 250K freeroll. I ran terrible and the standard of play was also terrible. But I can't complain too much because I am continuing to do well on the cash tables.

I have been spending time every morning working on my game but for now the games are so good that I just need to make sure I just put in the hands. The challenges to getting in the hands in NJ right now are non-poker issues. I haven't had any luck finding a room to rent so I may just have to get an apartment. I also need to get some table ninja like software set up. This should help me play a few more tables and alleviate some elbow pain I have been getting.

The end of month one seems like a good time to pause and update. I still haven't found a place in NJ. Right now I am at a friend's apartment in NJ. The results for Jan were very good until the last 2 days. I hit a bit of run bad/play bad and gave back maybe a quarter of my months profits. While these kinds of days are tough I am ready to get back into the fight and make Feb a better month than Jan.

I have been using the Lift App to track my daily habits so here is the recap for the last 21 days:

Kettlbell workout - 12/21 I am happy with these 12 workouts as it has turned out harder than I thought it would be. I am following "simple and sinister" which calls for lots of kettlbell swings and turkish get ups. I like that this is very simple and can be done anywhere. I am also finding that it is really attacking some weakness of mine. I plan to continue to follow this routine for a few more months and see where it takes me.

Original Strength - 20/21 - I do these 5 easy exercises/movement drills every morning to get the rust of my joints. It only take 5-10 minutes and I think it is really helping my low back and shoulder issues. I would highly recommend this book.

Morning meditation - 21/21 This only takes me 10 minutes and I have established this as a habit. I have been using an app called buddhify most mornings.

Paleo diet - This has been a fail for the month. Between being on the road and my girlfriend buying a box of very good cheesecake I doubt I lost any weight. Keeping with the themes of "what gets measured gets repeated" and creating feedback loops I have been keeping a food journal the last 7/7 days. I still eat mostly Paleo as this has been my routine for the last 3+ years but ~70% compliance isn't going to cut it.

Hour of am poker study - 15/21 While I work on my game just about everyday I haven't gotten into a strong routine yet with this. I think it is in large part do to not having a clear plan for what to work on. This past month the am study has been a mix of HH review using various poker software, watching videos, constructing some pre flop ranges, talk to friends about hands. I am sure all of these things are helpful I am unclear how to get the most out of my time. I would love to know what other pros think is the best use of time? I am going to give this a little thought and come up with a better more specific study plan for this month.

I am back home from a long trip to NJ and wanted to do a quick update. A friend of mine let me stay at his apartment while he was away for a week so I got to get in some good volume. Thank you Billy!

The poker was a huge roller coaster ride with a massive downswing followed by a equally big upswing. I don't remember the last time poker took me for such a wild ride and challenge my mental toughness. One way I deal with this is by not checking my results but I am pretty sure this trip was about break-even.

My motivation for all my goals remains high and I am looking forward to some poker study and grinding while home for the next week or so. Today I went to the gym and got some coaching on improving my kettlebell swings and turkish get ups.

I had a decent week grinding from home that makes me question the commute to NJ. I can make more in NJ but, I am not sure I can make that much more after expenses to justify being away from home so much. I haven't given up on NJ poker yet but I am just taking a pause and thinking things over.

On another note I got an email from FTP claims people and they said I should expect to have my FTP money in my checking account in 7 days

I feel like I should rename this thread to something like - Overcoming non-poker related challenges on the way to poker success:
-still trying to find affordable room to rent in NJ
-lost last weekend grind due to back injury and the muscle relaxers I took(feeling better now)
-lost grinding time this weekend getting Macbook WIFI card replaced and it is still not working right

I got my FTP money yesterday. It is enough money to matter but not enough to really change any of my poker plans. It is very strange because I feel like I should be happy about it but I am still angry at FTP and the DOJ. Overall I think these two emotions are canceling each other out because it mostly feels like a non-event.

So I am off to hook up my old desktop to get some poker in while there is still time left in the weekend.