Quick Update:

Unfortunately I've had a nagging cough for about 10 days. Peaked in severity 2 nights ago when I could only sleep about 90 minutes and mostly was just up all night with coughing and congestion. As such, I put my workout plans on hold and am focused on recovering with lots of water and rest while also playing shorter poker sessions when I can that don't stress my system much.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be a case of corona as there aren't any of the other accompanying symptoms like high fever or muscle ache, but one can never be certain so I put seeing my girlfriend on hold this week. Coronavirus is really ramping up here in Mexico and they had over 1k daily deaths for the first time this week. Which means actual deaths are probably at least 2-3x that figure. They say it might not even peak here until late July or early August, so I'm just trying to stay as safe as I can and only really go outside occasionally for groceries or a short walk in light traffic areas.

My girlfriend is starting to do a bit more work with her social media stuff. So far she set up an instagram page and posts stuff about grammar and culture. It seems to be bearing fruit as she's getting a few more students in italki and has about 2-3 classes per day on average. Ideally that would be more like 6-7 per day, but it's a slow build.

You can see her stats below. March was her first full month and she's been increasing from there, and looks like June will be even better. So it looks like there is potential there. Of course my ultimate goal would be to have her be able to work full-time teaching online which would allow us the flexibility to travel or live abroad while still working online on the side.

Some have asked for a link, so if anyone's interested, you can give her a follow on IG, SpanishWithGaby. If you'd like to start taking Spanish classes with her, you can find the link to her teaching page in her IG profile.

I've had a goddamn cough for what seems like years. In reality it's been 2-3 weeks. Luckily it finally seems to be getting better, but it was tough to put in many hours on the days when I wasn't feeling well and I was also more irritable and susceptible to tilt.

Games have seemed to get tougher in the past week or 2 and I'd like to take advantage of the remaining time we have left with juicier quarantine games, so I'm gonna undertake a month long challenge.

The rules are as follows:

-All hands at .50/1 and 1/2 PLO across BetOnline, Ignition, untracked sites
-Must play 10 hours per day when girlfriend is not here and 5 hours per day when she is here (should be about 20 10-hour days and 10 5-hour days)
-As such, goal is 250 hours and $25k profit by July 14th (Bastille Day!)

My usual stakes are .50/1 and 1/2 PLO, but during the heart of quarantine I jumped up to 2/4-5/10 PLO when I could find juicy games. I ran pretty hot in those games, but lately hit a bit of a downswing and I feel like I tilt pretty easily when I lose a couple quick stacks at those higher stakes. So the plan is to just stick to stakes where I'm comfortable and will be able to grind long hours.

Profit goal ($100/hour including rakeback) is probably a bit unrealistic, and I won't mind if I don't reach it as long as I'm working hard and playing tilt-free poker.

I'll try to post a daily update if possible and weekly garfs.

$25k Bastille Day Challenge starts tomorrow morning!



P.S. Because I'm a huge dork I actually learned the lyrics to La Marseillaise in French while I lived there. It's the GOAT anthem (Mexican is up there too).

Day 1 Results: 9 hours, +$552

Overall: 9/250 played, $552/$25,000 (pre-rakeback)

I had planned on playing a 3 hour evening session, but after about 40 minutes I was completely exhausted and decided to call it a day. Still not feeling 100% and my sleep has been pretty irregular in the last 2 weeks and I think it caught up to me.

Still, it's a pretty nice start to the challenge. The dollar amount listed above is pre-rakeback and then tends to be ~$40 hour, so I was pretty close to my hours and profit targets despite not being 100%.

If there was a silver lining to feeling too sick to put in many hours over the past couple weeks, it's that I had plenty of time to think about a lot of aspects of my game. I did a lot of work on the mental game, reading articles, old notes I've accumulated, etm's book, etc. I was also able do a lot of studying and think about a lot of spots and how the population plays differently now compared to 4 months ago.

95% of my hands were at PLO200 (I'll stick with that level unless I need to add a couple at PLO100), and I feel really confident at that level and am easily able to shrug off a string of bad beats.

250 hours of play in 30 days sounds hard, I am aiming for 184 play hours this month and not sure I'll be able to achieve that, even harder when I know I add around 30 hours of study outside the tables.
At least think I'm in pace as I've made 91.5 hours when 2nd half of the month is 1 day away.

Eliminating Distractions

OK, so it's been a pretty frustrating period b/c I had a severe cough lasting for 2-3 weeks that cut into my focus and ability to grind and gave me headaches. So I wasn't able to put in the hours I would have liked, but it was still a productive period. I was able to put in a lot of study into my game. I realized that my opponents have changed a lot in the corona influenced games, but I haven't adjusted my playing style much.

I've been working out ways to exploit weaknesses in the population and hopefully improve my winrate as a result. I've also put a lot of work into the mental game. I realized it's slipped a bit in recent months and I'm hoping to fix that.

One area where I've struggled is giving in to distractions. A lot of time browsing corona news, checking Facebook, Youtube, etc. Most of it is a waste of time that also takes me out of my rhythm while playing/studying.

As such I've added a cool browser plugin called StayFocusd and added the following websites to my "restricted" list:

Facebook
Instagram
2+2
Unstuck (politics forum)
Youtube

This means I will only have 30 minutes per day for all of them, and after that period the plug-in locks me out of them completely.

As a result, I'll be wasting way less time and also only checking the most important threads or replying to urgent messages on Facebook.

I've given myself one "free" day, which will be Wednesday, when I won't be restricted to 30 minutes, but will have unlimited access. However, I'm sure I will find that I don't miss these sites all that much as they don't add much value beyond maybe 5 minutes of checking out the most important topics/info.

Not only will this give me more time during the day for important stuff, but should also dramatically improve focus while studying, playing poker, or just chilling with my girlfriend as I slowly break the habit of wanting to check my phone or social media for a notification.

Armed with a clear and concise new strategy to attack the virtual felt, a renewed focus on an A+ mental game, and finally feeling back to normal health-wise, I'm really excited to get back into an online poker groove. July also represents a fresh slate so-to speak. The first half of the year is over, and while I had great results and am proud of what I accomplished, I also left a lot on the table. I'm hoping to build off those results and learn from those mistakes to come back even stronger in the 2nd half. I'll be updating 1-2x a week with hours played, results, and thoughts on mental game progress.

214 hours devoted to poker is quite an impressive feat and you should be proud if you achieve it or come close to that #.

My 250 hours in a month is more of an "aim for the stars, land on the moon" type of goal where I'm hoping to set a big goal, but even if I "fail" but come close, it would still be an impressive output. I'm hoping for a big month in July, something like 200+ hours played and 30+ hours mental game/tactical study. I think we're gonna find out soon that completely opening for business is a bad idea, and I think we'll go back to controlled shut-downs and limited openings for essential businesses. So it will probably be a good time to put in lots of hours. In any case, it's not like I can travel or do much anyway, so I might as well take advantage!

Love the attitude. Good luck bud.

Just checked the WSOP PLO schedule for GGPoker and it's got me intrigued:

21/7 - 5k PLO
23/7 - 1,050 PLO Bounty
26/7 - 2.5k PLO
5/8 - 400 PLO
8/8 - 800 PLO DS
16/8 - 1.5k PLO
19/8 - 800 PLO DS
27/8 - 1.5k PLO

I'd say the 2.5k and 5k are a bit out of my reach, but I'm strongly considering playing all the 1.5ks and lower.

July is almost upon us and I'm itching to get back to the grind after a couple weeks consuming material on the mental game as well as digesting several videos from RIO Elite PLO coaches.

The first WSOP PLO event I'm thinking about participating in takes place on July 23rd. So I'm making a deal with myself that if I profit >$10k in the first 3 weeks of July, then I have permission to play the $1,050, $400, and $800 tournies. Should be a breeze as I'm planning to play 50 hours a week in July or around 200 for the whole month, but it will be nice to have a bit of extra motivation with a couple WSOP events as a reward for the hard work. It'd be my first WSOP event.

TY sir and best of luck to you as well. I've enjoyed brushing up on the mental game and each time I read a new book/article I learn a new thing or two I can apply to my life. I'm planning to make mental game study for a couple hours a new part of my monthly routine. It's also a good way to stoke my passion for the game and increase motivation.

Am stealing your 10k/play some bracelet events idea Btw, do you already have an account with GG? If not, make sure to go through a rakeback affiliate when you register (am looking into it right now)...

GL on the grind this month bro

Day 1: 9.5 hours, +$4800

Just an absurd start to the month, for which I'm grateful. That's 24 buyins (not including rakeback), and was sun-running to the tune of 19 buyins over EV. Last month was pretty rough in terms of variance so it's nice to have some hands go my way.

I hit a str8 flush vs. nut flush and boat for a 6 buyin pot. Also was coolered on the turn w/top 2 v. top set in a 5 buyin pot, but my flush redraw saved the day.

The plan is to ease my way back into yoga and meditation, as well as introduce pre and post session routines each time I play. I took care of the routines for all 3 sessions and did my 20 minutes of yoga and 15 minutes of meditation. Gonna plan on 31 days of yoga and meditation and make sure not 1 session goes by without preparing and winding down properly. Once I've engrained some positive habits, I'll increase bit by bit.

I also plan to sleep 7-9 hours per night as well as eat extremely healthy. Today I only drank water and ate eggs, gluten free pancakes, fruit, veggies, pasta, and soup. No processed sugars for me.

For me it's always been easy to put in tons of hours when running well, so the real test will be when I'm on the other end of variance.

GL All!

GL man! It's looking promising for reaching my goal so I'll plan on seeing you at the final table of the WSOP PLO bounty!

Day 1: 9.5 hours, +$4800
Day 2: 9 hours, +$0

Overall 18.5 hours, +$4800

Played 9 hours, ended up even (well down $4 to be exact), but these figures don't include rakeback which is a nice chunk of change (about $40/hour).

Not much to talk about regarding my routines, took care of yoga, meditation, eating well, pre and post session routines, etc.

I'm really happy with my evening session. The tables were super soft, but the whales were holding over me and I couldn't flop in any of the big multi-way pots. Normally in sessions like these, my frustration might get the better of me and I'd VPIP and 3-bet the whales way too much in an effort to "get even", but I stuck with the gameplan. Obviously there will be the occasional session where you feel like you "deserve" a nice winning session, but you can't win them all, and I got more than my share last night.

My focus for this month was limiting losses in sessions where I'm running poorly, so I'm happy to end up even on a day where the cards weren't going my way. I think in the past I might have given away 2-3 extra buyins. Before the evening session, I got into a nice groove in my 10 minute meditation where I felt a wave of contentment and was just super stoked to be in that moment with my breath, the breeze, and birds chirping in the distance. It's always so fleeting those moments, but hopefully as I deepen my practice I'll be able to access them more often.

I was pretty locked in in the evening, so I recognized the familiar patterns of frustration rising up in me, a big one is that I notice my body temperature rises. Thus I was able to mitigate the frustration and not give in to it. I think sometimes I expect myself to be this perfect zen master, but I'm realizing more that it's only human to be upset when the dude playing 90/50/40 stacks me for the 2nd time. What we choose to do with that frustration is what separates the even keeled guys from the heavy tilters. I didn't give in this time, and hopefully I can remain equally calm when the inevitable downswing comes.

Day 3: 9 hours, +$1700
Day 4: 3 hours, -$1300

Overall 30.5 hours, +$5200

Really tried to give it a solid go today, but the poker gods weren't having it. Seemed like I got set over setted a million times and ran poorly in some key pots.



I usually have a 10-buyin stoploss ($2k at PLO200) in mind, but I don't check my cashier during the session so if I feel like I'm near the stoploss I'll call it a session. Funnily enough, during the evening session where you see the dip around hand 485, I was ready to call it a session and clicked sit out next BB on all my tables, but then I hit a massive surge and won almost 5 buyins back over the next dozen or so hands. So I said I'll keep going and see where this leads, but alas, I couldn't shake the runbad.

I was pretty pleased to find out that I wasn't down quite as much as I thought once I closed the tables. My goal was to limit losses when variance was against me and so far I think I've done quite well. I sensed myself getting a bit more frustrated this session, but I'm pretty aware where I'm at emotionally and didn't let myself tilt.

Anyway, looking at the big picture, results have been phenomenal for July so I'll take the evening to knock out a few more episodes of Dark and come back tomorrow fresh.

love this man. keep it up glgl

Whelp, this isn't really the update I was hoping to make. I haven't played any poker since July 4 b/c I've had a couple health scares.

I've updated a few times that I've had a lingering cough since early June. I thought it'd finally gone away towards the end of June so I was planning to grind hard in July.

The cough has still be lingering and two mornings ago I woke up and a bunch of organs were sore all at once, kidneys, liver, just above stomach, etc. So I went in for a medical consultation and they didn't find anything serious, gave me a syrup and a couple pills to try and fight off the cough and I went on my way.

This morning I was feeling a bit better, organs were only a bit sore, but then I started feeling a headache on the top left of my head I've never felt before, like a heavy weight was sitting exactly on that spot. A couple hours after the headache began, I had to lay down, and then starting to feel tingling and numbness on the left side of my body (face, arm, leg).

I was so concerned that I packed a bag with a couple of essentials in case I needed to go to the hospital, let my gf know as well as passing along contact info for my parents just in case. I was thinking "wtf am I gonna have a stroke?" Which is an odd thought for an otherwise healthy 36 year old, but in these crazy times I guess you can never know for sure.

So I went in again and did a couple tests and they said there was nothing serious with the brain and heart and diagnosed it as a neuralgia (not sure if this is even the English word also lol), which is basically just an irritated/inflamed nerve that causes a couple chain reaction side effects, aka nothing too serious. I got a shot to reduce inflammation in the nerves and went on my way.

Since the scare I've been taking it easy. Headache is still lingering a bit, but low intensity and feeling somewhat better for the moment.

Definitely not fun having these types of convos with the gf and putting a bunch of additional stress and concern on her in these already ****ed up times. So for now, priorities have shifted a bit and I'm just hoping to feel normal soon for the first time since late May. If I feel up for playing in a couple days I think I will cap session at 2h 20m and not pay any more than 6h per day.

It's a bit of a shame not being able to capitalize on the games, which still seem softer than normal, but I think the long days of poker put a bit of stress on the system and I'd rather feel normal again.

So I'll keep the restrictions in place until I go at least 14 days feeling 100%. Hopefully that will be in early August, but we'll see.

GL to all and stay safe <3

Thanks for the well wishes, GL man

Be well man, definitely a greater priority then any other grinding goals. Sending good vibes

Hoping for a speedy return to health for you bud.

Thanks fellas, I appreciate it.

Quick update: A couple days after my post, I had a slight scare as I was right on the border of going into the hospital for a brain scan to see if I had a blood clot (or something more sinister), but I decided to wait it out a bit longer for the medicine I was on to kick in and luckily I started to feel a bit better.

Now, I'd say I'm about 80%, but still get a bit dizzy from time to time and having neuralgia (overactive nerves) in the brain/side of face is no laughing matter in and of itself. So I'll probably have to take it a bit easier for a while, and in any case, this should be a good excuse to really focus on my meditation in order to manage stress so nothing like this happens again.

I've actually gone back to playing a bit, although only 6 hours over the last 2 days. After the sessions, even though they're only an hour or two, I end up feeling a bit light-headed, so I might have to put off poker for a couple more days.

Good decision, poker definitely an extremely unhealthy and stress-inducing activity NBA starting up pretty soon as an alternative source of income, but I don't think you are in much sports betting outside of futbol though, amirite... Sent you some good vibes friend

jesus man, hope things get better soon

+1 to rickroll

Thanks guys! Things have been improving a bit more. Still don't quite feel 100%, but getting there. I think I might grind a bit more starting tomorrow. Maybe 5-6 hours per day with a limit of 2.5 hours on each session.

I think I'm also in for the $1050 PLO on the 23rd, so pretty excited for that.

I've bet a bit of NBA in the past, but only when something really jumps out at me. Been betting/watching a bit of MLS with a bit of success, and my other sport is hockey. But really I don't put much work into sports betting and wouldn't consider it an income source going forward.

Fair enough. I follow intensely NBA playoffs, so I also take the opportunity to make some $$$ on the side ; this said, if there was any year where the lines will be off/Vegas will be guestimating at best what having no home court advantage signifies, this is it : the craziest year of dem all, 2020 baby

Blah, 1st chance in the WSOP was a failure. $1050 PLO bounty.

Bit surprised that we only started w/100 BBs (25k at 125/250).

Chipped up to 30k, then found a nice spot to win a bounty w/some dude on 9k just punting. He had about 25 BB and for some reason raise-jammed 8842 pre from UTG. I 3-bet/called his shove with good AA but flop gave him trip 4s.

So I was down to 20k and didn't have any good spots and found myself at about 14k (25BB effective) and picked up AA again from the SB. It went minraise and call in front of me and my pot 3-bet saw only the initial coldcaller make the call. KQ6ss flop w/1 PSB left so I jammed and got called by 6544ss and couldn't fade the river flush card.

Would like to say it was fun, but didn't get too much play for my 1k and only lasted 55 minutes.

I saw that a Day 1 flight for the WSOP PLOssus $400 was starting at the same time as my tourney so I bought into that as well. Going a bit better as I almost doubled my initial stack and am sitting 20/179. We'll play until level 16 and the survivors will go to day 2 on Sunday.

Overall can't complain too much with how this month's gone. Sitting on 14k profit despite not being able to play all that much the last 2 weeks. I'll probably give the other sub 1k buyin WSOP PLO events a shot as well.

Just busted the $400 PLOssus as well. Very similar bustout hand to the $1050.

I was in BB w/12 BBs, chip leader who was very active, min-raised, SB cold-called. Great spot to squeeze w/AKT7 suited to ace. Initial raiser folds, SB calls with 7654, shove the Q87 flop and hits his str8 on the turn.

Busted in level 13 w/the day ending at level 16. Would've been nice to survive to Day 2 and I think just suriving might have been enough for a min-cash, but wasn't to be.

Not really a fan of these PLO MTTs. You get maybe 20-30 minutes of somewhat deep-stacked play and then it's just a lot of 20-40 eff. BB PLO which is pretty straightforward and not that interesting. That being said, I think I did well to get myself all in as a 55-60% fave more often than not, but didn't hold very many of them.

I think I'll play the other $400 and $800s just for the allure of winning a WSOP event and a bracelet, and might play the 1.5ks depending how my overall PLO results are in the coming weeks.

Fields seem to be super tough. In my 55 minutes in the $1050, I had Juha Helppi and Slayerv1 at my table. In the $400, Helppi is the chip leader and Fedor Holz has a top 15 stack. And that's just the screennames that are obvious. Probably a bunch of other crushers as well.

I normally play 1/2 or 2/4, but found some pretty juicy 5/10 with a whale or 2 popping in regularly that I've been shot-taking. So I'll probably be up or down 10k over the next couple days. I think I might set a stop loss at 8k though.

WSOP Results: 0/2, -$1450, 0 bracelets

Yup, GG player field in general is known to be reg-infested ; rumour has it that HS regs VPN from the USA as well. I was definitely wanting to fire away a few MTT bullets mainly for the fun factor/the bracelet hunt. GL friend