Hi all,

Cliff notes:

This is going to be a poker blog/life blog/travel blog/health blog. The cliff notes is I was a HSNL player, who transitioned to 'real life' stuff a few years ago and will now be playing poker a little bit on the side for the next several months (who knows where it'll go!?)

27/M/Canada; would like to remain anonymous beyond that.

Poker background:

I went to uni for 2 years, dropped out and played poker from late 2006-2011. In 2008 I broke into 25/50 and never looked back. I became a very successful winner/regular at 5KNL+ on Pokerstars/Full tilt. On the chance you know what my SN's are, or who I am, I'd appreciate if you didn't reveal them. Anyhow, I'd rather not talk tons on the past and focus more on the present/future, but yes I did well and in turn I burned myself out (Ran over 400K below EV, coupled with some unfortunate life events led me to begin losing my passion for the game). That might sound whiny, which shouldn't be the case, cause I did do very well overall and I'm extremely happy to be able to have success on the level I did. Anyhow, I 'retired' in 2011 a few months after black Friday and went back to university to finish my business degree. I did that and then bought a business.

Life background:

I finished my university (and truly enjoyed the experience of going back to school, believe it or not!) and I moved to Alberta and bought a business in the Oil & Gas industry. I did this for awhile, but unfortunately with the recent downturn long story short I got ****ed and will be selling it for a huge loss. It was a gamble, and results aside I basically bet big on it and lost. Given what I knew at the time I'd do it again, so despite the result I'm not too bummed about it.

What I hope this PG&C thread will do for me:

Last time I played poker I found I had remarkable tilt control, in that even when losing my game never slipped. Sounds great right? Yes, but.. I found poker affected me negatively off the tables. For example, I'd be moody/grumpy when losing, and just not the best person I could be. If I'm going to be investing any of my time into this game I want to make sure this does not happen again. My goal is not to climb to the top of the throne as I am financially secure, but instead maybe make some money on the side WHILE having poker supplement my life. I have a great girlfriend, am reasonably fit, and I want to keep improving myself as a person. I might be starting yoga/meditation, as well as new exercise regimes in the future. I'm hoping this blog will hold me accountable. In a perfect world, I might be playing poker 50~80 hours a month while living an extremely interesting/healthy life off the tables. Everyday I'm getting more into health/fitness, and plan to travel lots and do lots of great things moving forward. This blog is as much for me to make sure I don't get sidetracked from the bigger picture.

What you could possibly get out of this PG&C thread:

I'm more than happy to share my thought process/help people along the way and give back how I can. If you want me to help you out with hands etc give me a link and I'd be happy to share my thought process. I'm also hoping if you find my thread interesting you can contribute and help me too. Despite not playing high stakes since 2011 I'm still confident in my game. Why? I went and read the HSNL thread in NVG and read a bunch of NLH hand histories (LOL). Ok I'm up to speed on the game. Really though, I think this will serve as an interesting litmus test to see how it goes.


Plan moving forward:

July I'm going to be finishing winding down my business/dealing with lawyers, and August+ I'll be travelling for a bit. I'm also going to be in the process of moving to a new city (leaving Alberta with my tail between my legs). However, I do expect in January 2016+ I'll be able to take poker a bit more serious. I didn't want to wire money back online and felt If I was going to play MSNL I had to earn it. And it'd let me shake off some rust too.

In late May I put $500 back online and sat at $200nl. Not surprisingly, I busted it around hand 1400 in that graph! I re-deposited (hadn't done that for awhile, pride = hurt) and finally caught a little traction. For anyone curious, I specialize mostly in HU/shorthanded as I feel that plays to my strengths, but bulk of play is 6max. Here's what I've got so far. By the way don't use my bankroll management haha. My play will be 3/6-5/10 for the near future along with possibly some 10/20 if I feel like I'll win flips. I don't have any specific monetary goals or hours/set play.. my main goals are all outside of poker, which I'm sure I'll talk about later in the thread.

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In gl

Subbed! All the best Kazuya. Seeking the balance in all of life is key. It will help with perspective at the tables and perhaps lessen tilt, as you'll remember that LIFE isn't POKER, but instead, poker's just a great part of it. Peace and good luck!

In & awesome story! Might have to go back to school as well

Update:

It's been about 4-months since my last post. I realize this post/thoughts is a little scattered, but here's where I'm at.

-Moved to a new country (with the girlfriend) to experience a different city. Spent over 6-weeks apartment hunting/getting internet hooked up which truly took forever. We signed a 6-month lease so I will be in the same place for the next 5 months. I expect to play a fair amount of poker the next month before breaking for the year a week or so before Christmas.

-Business wise, I finished closing out my business. All that's left is filing the year end/closing the books. That's a huge weight off my shoulders (and despite booking a huge loss on this business, that's life/lessons were learned)

-Finding more of a passion for investing/managing investments & looking to read more into this field. I have a fair amount in the stock market and will be making a sizeable bet on BTE (a Canadian Oil stock) in the next 30 days. I'll post the trade/my thoughts on it in my next post once I've taken my new position in it. But long story short, and after my experience in the oil field (despite getting owned), I feel pretty bullish on it long run and think this stock has a lot of potential.

-My full-time work right now is just 'exploring the city/poker/fitness' I'm going to be focusing more on health/poker in the next 30 days. While we were finding a place, we were basically living out of suitcases/eating out a bunch. Now that I'm settled I truly have no excuse to not pick it up and plan to go to the gym every other day or so until the new year. From there I'll see where I'm at, but I'm planning to address 2016/new goals and go from there.

-Read a book called Shantaram and it was great (highly recommend it if anyone is reading this). If anyone else has any good books recs (and youtube music playlists!), please post them here. (for music, big fan of Sheepy house edm, Calvin Harris, stuff like that)

-Poker I've taken huge breaks and has been sporadic but all together that's around 250 hours (my 2015) logged on Pokertracker. Starting with $500 and a 4-year break, I wasn't sure when I started how far I'd fallen from the throne and how much games have changed over the years..but I still feel pretty comfortable at MSNL. It's been a grind/humbling experience where I've had to tweak a few things in my game. I still feel like I'm not anywhere near my potential/ceiling. For now, I'm happy building the roll more before I begin battling 10/20+. This will 'probably' happen earlier 2016 if I'm in a good mind-set and motivated. I'm still taking it day-by-day and don't have any goals surrounding poker but I might make some for new years resolutions.

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Respect, gl op with poker and life.

How your red and blue line both go up?

Mfbkevin35,
Magic! Just a function of playing style. My red line always trends up, showdown usually goes sideways or down possibly, depending on how I'm running or how much HU I'm playing.

I had a couple PM's asking me stuff. I encourage you guys to post it in here instead so everyone in the community can benefit. I do feel like I have a pretty good perspective as I've played during the boom years, spent 4 years away from the felt, and am now cutting my teeth again in the 2015 environment. I could ramble on about a bunch of stuff but I'd rather the material be focused/helpful towards fellow 2p2r's. GL at the tables!

Kazuya , can you please tell me how to achieve this type of results (red line postive) (broad question , I know) and the perks of it being like this ? (I have heard that with this style negative variance might last less) . How to find like minded people that are willing to work hard ?

From what I know there are many former highstakes players from back in the days who now barely breakeven at midstakes and I've always wondered about this. You seem to have no problems at all getting straight back to crushing. Any idea why some guys only used to crush in the old games?

Happy you've decided to blog this, best of luck!

Really excited for future updates Kaz, as I've had a similar-ish path. You're definitely approaching life the right way.

My friend is a PM at one of the larger Canadian money managers - just asked him his view on Baytex. I won't get into his exact thoughts on the play, but one thing I'll mention for now in case you aren't aware (though with your 'in the next 30 days' comment, you probably are) - the tax-loss selling deadline is Dec24.

Wish you the best of luck!

Danufcs,

Approaching poker you should never try to 'emulate' a player. Doing the right move for the wrong reasons is not conducive to long-term growth.

Here is some #Strategy for you:

My graph just happens to show up like that because that's just how it happens to come out for me. It really doesn't matter what it 'looks' like. It comes out like that because 6-handed my stats usually end up playing (compared to typical regular) much higher VPIP, slightly higher PFR, less 3B%, less Flop CBET %, higher Turn CBET%, much higher River CBET%. This playing style works for me because I balance a lot more on later streets than most people and overall have a game-plan that allows me to make pretty good decisions on turn/rivers. It's also a function of beginning at MSNL+ you can't cbet as much or you're much more exploitable (maybe this occurs at SSNL as well too). Nevertheless, I would caution against trying to make your graph look a certain way as that is a useless exercise to think about. In a vacuum, the correct framework (for playing) is all dependent on the game you're playing and your opponents tendencies. You should instead be thinking about what you're trying to accomplish, when you're betting (or not) each time instead of automatically bucketing hands (or hand ranges) into cbet or not. AFAIK, the only perks I can think about is you definitely get put into a few more 'uncomfortable spots', whereby if you become more familiar with them after tens of thousands of hands you'll begin to sort out more of a sustainable edge than your average regular.

The best way to find people who work hard are look at the 'regs' in your game. Ask them if they have skype and would like to talk about strat! It helps if you have someone playing higher than you who can also go over hh's with you (and you'll get way more out of it if you explain your thought process [and if they are familiar with your game] before asking their opinion)

Card core,

Mostly ego/humility. Most HSNL players (at least when I was HSNL) had too much ego. The games from what I can tell have definitely gotten harder. I used to print $ at over $500/hr with sample sizes in the thousands of hours - that's just not whats realistic now. The best way I can think about it is imagine you're cooking in a kitchen with a bunch of ingredients, high end appliances, etc. If you know what you're doing you could make an amazing cake and it tastes great. Now imagine doing that every day but then once day someone slowly began taking away your butter,flour, eggs, and you're trying to still bake the same cake. It's going to beginning tasting more and more like crap and the end-product won't be the same. You have to work with what you've got, make adjustments as ingredients are added or subtracted, and curb expectations. And by that I mean the current reality of poker is not like it was in 2009. Adapt (ie: use the ingredients available to you, get better at recipes, adjust your expectations) or die.

Thepred,

Cool, yeah let me know/feel free to share your story too I'm curious as well

Glad you've returned to the thread. Curious to learn more about why you're bullish on BTE.

interesting thread OP

didn't see it skimming, have you mentioned what sites you're playing on?

gl

Thanks a lot for the response man ! Good luck on your journey !

I wanted to add something in here, hopefully it helps someone else:

-In the last 40 hours of poker, I played about 25 of them (call it 7-10 day stretch) where I was just auto-piloting. I was playing a lot of tables - and had a lot of decisions - where in hindsight I was making decisions perhaps a bit too quick and without the thought/analysis level I'm capable of. I ended up running 'bad' (in this small sample) where it was a blend of my play/set-ups. The stakes I'm playing now are still only 20-30% of what I used to play for 500k+ hand samples, yet it's very important to admit to yourself when you're becoming complacent and stale.

After this 25 hour sample, I took 30 minutes and went through my pokertracker and put my ego aside. Truth be told, I played quite a few hands poorly and called off a few too many times despite knowing I was beat. Whining about set over sets, or losing with AA, etc.. that's not productive and not conducive to actually growing as a player. Same with worrying about whether your EV line will pan out. Remember none of us are entitled to anything (results/luck/etc), and we're privileged to be able to play a game of cards and make money at it. You should always approach poker where you're dealt what you're dealt; as a professional it's our job to play *those* cards to the best of your ability. I can tell you right now if you're counting how many times your overpairs have lost today or 'coolers' gone wrong, you're keeping track of all the wrong things.

I noted the mistakes, wrote myself 3 'actionable' things to do differently, and some positive affirmations. I then took a proper full day off to 'recharge', exercise, enjoy life, eat healthy, before playing my next session. In my next session I dropped my table count by half, and really concentrated on every decision, whether the pot was 2bb or 20. I found spots/clarity and my 'process' was sound. I was extremely happy with my level of play. It didnt matter that I still ran 'bad' in the sense I definitely ran into situations that made me bound to lose, but the important thing was I controlled the things I can control (my emotional state, my level of play) (and ended up a slight loser for this session, which should of been much worse if I autopiloted/played how I was earlier etc..) That didn't matter, I played better that day then on days where I've won thousands. It felt good. Take care of yourself off the tables (in my opinion this is MUCH more important than putting in that extra bit of volume, trust me on this), be honest with yourself post sessions, and don't grow complacent. Put your 'ego' aside, and always look for spots to improve. Even today, after millions of hands (and past successes), I'm still learning more about the game. Cheers guys!

edit: wrote this quick, hope it resonates with someone!

nice post!... gl

Hey guys,

Mini-update before New Years. I'll write a 2015 de-briefing, and another 2016 goals post sometime afterwards.

So I'm looking for someone who has experience in Squarespace! I need someone to build a website (or direct me to resources on how I can get this done efficiently). It's for my gf, she's looking to start an online blog (not sure, but kind of a catch-all for her writing). I bounced the idea off her (she enjoys writing) and she thought this would be a fun way to get started. I'd be happy to pay whatever the market rate is for someone doing this or if you want to make some kind of deal I'm open to suggestions.

Other news, I re-bought into Baytex (a CDN O&G stock) @ 3.81 for 20,000 shares. I'm planning to buy another 20-30,000 shares depending on it's trade range the next while but I wanted to put my first bullet in now. To be honest, anyone who claims this is the bottom for oil is probably blowing smoke. I'm not sure where it is, but I still believe this is a great buy (albeit one with a lot of risk). My thoughts are if oil stays <40 this stock will trickle towards zero. That is a fact. The last while, they've cleaned up capital expenditures, slashed their dividend to zero, hedged some 2016 oil futures, and their operations in Texas operate (roughly guessing) @ $38 dollar break-even point. Make no mistake, there is a possibility (I'd say greater than 15%) that oil stays sub 35 for the next year and this stock will be trading at less than $2. However, if oil rebounds to 40-50 in the next few months, and then eventually finds an equilibrium around $65 (which is what my thesis is based on) then it will definitely go above $12 and continue rising on oil strengthening. It's basically a leveraged play where there's possibly a 30% chance or so I lose 50-90% of my capital, but the potential upside makes it worth it. (Note: this is similar to how I view bitcoin, but less extreme) This is not make or break me money, and still a small % of my portfolio so I can live with the result either way. I'll follow up in a few months (or once I've bought more or made a play on it) and see what develops, but I'm planning to hold it for awhile.

Poker-wise, I haven't been playing as much as I've anticipated. Some life things have kind of come up (relationships!) and my mindset hasn't been what I would call conducive to grinding poker. That being said, the limited hours I have played I've tried to really concentrate and more sure they are quality. I'm still making mistakes. Progress has stalled a bit - despite my results still being good - but I'm feeling what kind of mistakes I'm doing and it shouldn't be hard to adjust and keep moving forward. I'm thinking of making a more in-depth post about poker content, more philosophy than anything, just thinking if any readers have a particular subject in mind? Let me know!

Life-wise, I'll talk more about it in a future post and put a TR afterwards, but I signed up for a 10-day Vipassana course. It's 100+ hours of meditation, no talking, etc. I read about it in one of the blogs here and thought this is what I want to try. I don't have set expectations, I'm just hoping it'll give me more insight into my mind, perhaps relax it a bit, and help me shuffle around 'life' and give me more perspective. I'll be doing that early next year and I'm really excited.

Tell me more about acquiring skill in poker and breakthroughs. I am in a point where I am ****ing drilling at this plateau and all I wanna do is breakthrough, I have invested a lot of money in relative terms(from eastern europe) in my poker mind and it's just not coming through as of yet , but eventually it will bow down to me . That would be interesting and hopefully useful !

how you come to success in 6max MSNL games?

gl in 2016 , great posts , please more !

Danufcs,

How did I climb through the ranks? When I first did it, the biggest wall I hit was 200NL. You'd think it was going from 5/10 -> 25/50 but that wasn't the case for me. 200nl was my mental roadblock. I was a small winner there but got beat up a bunch playing 400nl.

1) Quit playing mass volume. Focus more on quality over quantity. People pour in volume to make livable wages, and you need to do that, because your [their] win rate is SMALL. Focus instead on getting better and increasing your edge. I personally went from 8tabling 200nl to 2-3tabling for awhile. I found the game moved too fast playing 3k+ hands a day and it stunted my growth. I changed that habit on good-faith and in the end it worked out for me. So what happened when I went from 8tabling to 2-3 tabling?? Yes, my hourly dropped (momentarily) but I was getting BETTER at poker as opposed to being a robot HUD reader clicking buttons. And after awhile 2/4 didn't seem hard...nor did 5/10.

2) I focused on the people I thought were the best regs/hardest to play against/etc whatever you want to call them. What were they doing? How were they playing? I would try to figure out what they're doing to exploit me, or others. How do they view their competition? Every hand tells a story; I can tell within 5-10 minutes of playing with someone online how good they usually are, and what I can do specifically vs them to ensure I am competitive. This was through PRACTICE. I didn't have some supernatural talent that catapulted me to 5Knl. I took notes, re-clicked hand histories and saw what lines/sizing people took (which you do NOT have time to do while 8 tabling) and saw how hands played out [and more importantly tried to figure out why the hand was played out that way imagining their thought process], and took notes. Ironically, I didn't spend much time in HEM/PT, outside of reviewing big pots, but in game dynamics I found were key.

3) I remember being mad one time when someone hero call'ed me on some wet board all it 45K73 or something with garbage and they were right. I thought to myself, how could they call me there I could easily have (insert whatever hand beats them!). I truly felt mad cause I had no idea. I realized that was a break-through for me. I began to think much harder about my ranges and how to make 'hero calls' on wet boards vs me a mistake. For example, I'd value bet AK there if I knew the guy had a thought process of 'straight or nothing.' I also wouldn't bluff there if the person thought I wasn't capable of value betting AK there or thought I was super polarized. Sounds basic right? but this was (and still is) HUGE. I'd blend my ranges. Which brings me to my next point

4) Balance is overrated. People are so worried about that stuff nowadays. I can hear you saying 'But I watched some GTO RIO video and the instructor is talking about balance! I play a certain way, but the bottom line is when I'm on the river I myself know what I am capable of (say: value betting thin!) however that doesn't dictate my actual range. If the person thinks I'm incapable of value betting thin, or say they view me as a maniac or as someone with a basic thought process that will actually change what sizing I use, or whether I choose to bet. If I was playing GTO machines I couldn't have the inelastic sizing I usually do.. but that's because I'm looking at my notes vs players and sizing up how they play/how I think they view me. Where I make my $ is from making plays they thought I was incapable of (ex: I'll call Kazuya with KJ on that 45K63 board)

Anyone struggling at 200-400NL I really think if you're in poker for the long haul you should drop tables and re-learn postflop play. Spend hours 'railing' the best winners at your stakes and try to guess their hands before they flip them over. Keep doing this over and over. Hand reading is so key and that will help. Don't worry about making a few mistakes and learning along the way, the regs aren't going to exploit you that badly (if they could, they'd be playing MUCH higher.. truth be told even 5/10 regs make quite a few mistakes (as do I).. the trick is so long as you keep learning (as opposed to clicking buttons) and have a process on how to 'learn' it'll be worth it in the end. Hope some of that wall of text helps (and I don't regret writing it, haha!)

Dec1ftw, I'll get to your post in awhile. I'm done poker for the year just going to chill. I'll do a small write up with results for 2015, goals for 2016 sometime after NY. Cheers

2015 Summary:

This year had some pretty low lows and medium high highs.

The low lows:

-Between myself and my business partner we lost roughly 2/3 of a million dollars. Results aside, that even knowing what I know now, of probably a 10% chance of this happening. And that perfect storm happened. We bought into a commodity business and it crashed. While this was a risk, the potential upside was extremely high as well so I was willing to accept this. Truth be told the $ doesn't really bother me. I still think about having to fire employees for the first time and it really sucks when you know some of them are depending on you. There were a few I really really liked. This was the hardest part for me. It was an unwinnable situation.

-I was more in shape January 1st 2015 then January 1st 2016. I was closer to my family/friends and have grown a little bit complacent on this front.

The highs:

-Moved to a new country, and currently enjoying a great lifestyle right now with my girlfriend. Long story short, we've now been dating for 14 months or so. I had to move away for work and we did long distance for 5 months. She moved farther north for me, and has always been there for me. I'm extremely lucky and acutely aware of how good a person she is to just be around. I'm now 28 and have dated plenty, I see her as someone I'm proud to be with and truly enjoy spending time with her. We're not always the best communicators and it hasn't been smooth the whole way, but a part of me really wants this journey with her to flourish and grow stronger and hopefully there's a future for us somewhere.

-I grew as a person. I learned a lot from my business, but one of the biggest lessons I learned was that if something doesn't feel right don't push it. I didn't mentally 'commit' to this business as I should have if I was going to invest. I tried my best and didn't let that effect me day-to-day but my problems were the work environment and the core business. Like poker, in O&G there are a lot of people that can wear you down. It definitely affected me and wasn't good for the soul. Even if I crushed it and made a ton of $, I now know I feel it wouldn't have been worth it in the end. I guessed wrong on that front when beginning this venture. My justification for getting into the business in the first place (reason 1: $, reason 2: test myself, grow 'value' in a business environment) were not strong enough reasoning. At the start of 2015, I saw reason 1 as the main driver, a year later I see reason 2 for all my future endeavors. I'll evaluate future opportunities not clinically based on ROI but whether they resonate with my personal values and are worth my time and $.

-I began playing poker again and I actually enjoyed it. I didn't let it consume me and my emotional control is very good right now which was my #1 goal. I don't feel nearly as much pressure before (where I put an insane amount on myself to set the bar unreasonably high, at the cost of life balance). I'm now much more relaxed about it, and have expectations that are less $ based. They're more centered around focusing and playing consistently well, finding small spots to improve, and letting the results take care of themselves. I ended up playing roughly 385 hours this year spread out over 99 days for a profit of around 101k + rakeback. It helped the last month I played 75 hours or so and won $33k. I started again with $500 (busted it, redeposited 500) back in April after almost 4-year break and found I hadn't lost much of my stride. The disclaimer is if I didn't have my past experience playing 25/50+ I very much doubt I could have had the results I had even with all this years' distractions. I'm most surprised at how little variance I had given I did have some rust in my game. I'm nowhere near my ceiling, but to be honest I plan not to test that ceiling in 2016. Anyhow for 2015, I think I can attribute this to card distribution slightly in my favor, a pretty high paper winrate, and simple luck. (note: some hands missing/paper EV was 4k less than green winnings, which is the first time I've ran above EV in a year [see first post!])

I also lost $3k sports betting, kind of whatever. I don't track Y-O-Y market stuff because I'm a long-term investor, but my portfolio swings definitely dwarf anything I make in poker. Overall I was down slightly in the market as well.

This post is getting long but the next one I'm going to talk about goals/directions in 2016. 80% of it will have nothing to do with poker, but to me that's what is much more important. Where I'm going to be January 1st 2017, and what I hope to achieve in the next year. Best of luck to everyone this year, let's make it a good one!



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I'm in for 2016!!
Good luck

Thank you very much ! Please do continue writing as you are an inspiration to me as a person and as a poker player/entrepreneur. Good luck in 2016 !

good read, get it in, dude!

Will be following.