Cheers!

I know I said I was done posting here for the year and I know I said I was done grinding except for Sundays...Welp this Sunday left a hunger lingering and I couldn't help but flick in some tournaments today. I mean, some of these games just seem so absurdly good right now and I feel like my game has been peaking...it's tough to resist!

Heads up in some bowl as we speak and just busted FT of a hs mtt with somewhere between 20-30k up top and I got 7th. I don't want to get too specific about it cuz I think we give up a pretty big edge when others know our identity on a site.

First hand: Reg who I don't know much about other than I presume he's not up to date with study/play and have heard he was/is a bit of a punter. BB 20k he opens to 54k from EP around 800k stack, I call LJ 9c9h others fold. FLOP: 728ccx, he c bets around 3/4 pot (119k) i call. TURN: 9s...he bets 1/3 pot i call...RIVER: 5d he jams... I tank call and lose to JTo.

Pretty stupid given the ICM on FT etc and busting such a nice stack. Feel like the general consensus is the population is massively under bluffing here but thought from the limited information that this reg could have some bluffs. In hindsight, his turn bet is actually pretty strong and fairly revealing imo...don't think that turn sizing should really be a thing. Anyways, I almost jammed turn to deny his range equity so I guess I woulda lost anyways. I probably jam for value if he checks river so like w/e I think his line is weak....his turn sizing basically says "I have very little to protect against and I want to induce light calls/jams." Meh maybe it's not too bad and I'm just tilted cuz AA lost to KK and 99 in massive pot very next hand anyways GG

------------

Year Ahead:

Kinda oi making a lot of ambitious goals and letting myself down time after time. I've always been a really lazy dude unless there's extreme pressure to get the job done. Like in Uni I only got the 100% in Finance class after I got an 8% and then a 37% the first 2 times taking it and the Dean threatened to kick me out of the school if I failed it again. Same story for calculus.

The times I had my biggest success in poker was 1) when GF kicked me out and I was sleeping on a buddies couch stone broke 2) When I was almost broke and near forced to retire.

With fitness/losing weight 100% rationally I can tell you that is the most important goal to me right now...it would improve relationships, confidence, mental state, poker game etc. Every day I eat bad **** or don't exercise when I know I should be eats away at me a little bit. W/e man this ain't some sympathy party I need to man the fk up.

Had a long conversation with the GF yesterday and told her about all this and said I need her to follow the same path with health or else we need to part ways because I can't have bad influences and I need the support. Not sure if it's a dick move but if nothing changes...nothing changes!

With health and relationships it sorta feels like I just coasted through my 20's. I have 2 more years in my 20's to correct the path of the ship.

-------------

Poker Plan
-Start the year out with 2 live stops in 'Murica (Florida and Atlantic City) for 2 tourney stops
-Keep grinding when I can and working on my game. I want to keep my game/mind sharp and not stagnate but whilst maintaining balance.
-Visit a few tourney stops per month/play some online a few sessions/week.
-Financially stable again so there isn't a huge need to be grinding an unhealthy amount anymore.
-Vegas house is booked and it is SICK. Grind out the whole WSOP and get dat bracelet

Health Plan

-Yeah, I mean speaks for itself. Figure **** out and lose weight. I'm around 260 lbs. atm
and getting down to 220 lbs. by WSOP seems like a good goal.
-Gonna hire some people for the new year because it's evident I keep failing on my own.

Life Plan
-Learn stock market and start doing some investments/trades on my own/get used to investing my own $.
-Continue honing mindset and developing healthier thought processes.
-The line between a good and bad gamble often gets blurred through all the noise. Get better at telling myself when something is a "good spot" and "-EV punt". Get better at listening to that voice and minimize -EV gambling.
-Travel a lot more this year and enjoy being young. To go list: Costa Rica, Thailand, Iceland, Czech, Netherland. Try to visit 2+ of those places...through poker or not.

-Keep figuring out wtf to do with my career path. Am I going to be here grinding the hot 22 in 2032? Hopefully not, but it would appear that's the trajectory so far


Thanks for reading/supporting homies.

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight...it's the size of the fight in the dog"

hey bro, i'm happy that u doing fine, keep on w good work and scores. I wanna address couple of things, since you're posting 'em public hope you won't mind me being honest:

this just sounds bad to me, like your ego is getting best of you and you ain't appreciative enough of how you got out of your nightmare year/downsing. it's like, ''hey dad, I had luck to make a huge bink w 0.05% of my BR left, see me rolling now biaaaaaatch'' ... if there is need for you to say ''I told you so'' that means you still seek for truthful acceptance for this path u've choosen. ' I told you so ' is not sign of security, it's ultimate sign of insecurity imho.

seem like stuberness and ego, your dads pov on poker is completely reasonable and you've proven him right by being at the edges and desperate pretty often in last couple of years( at least from his pov ). I think only way for you to have a good relationship w your dad is to get over this and accept that he gonna always see this as big risky thing. you don't have to prove anything to him, you have to prove it to yourself it seems? life is passing by, who knows how much time you have left w eachother... I'm saying this bcs my dad was recently diagnosed w some nasty **** and I figured I've spent way too little time w my dad in last like 5-10 years and now finding out that we have 3-5 years left made us both put our differencies apart and find a way to love eachother.

I'm really saying this from in completely untoxic manner, no pun intended really, I debated w myself for 10 days should I go for this but decided to just be honest in my life so here we are.


you're seeing biggest success as winning big tournament which I believe is very flawed and result orriented logic on which you don't really have big (/any??) influence on.

and fwiw I think that asking your GF to follow same path is very selfish. ie her not eating ice-cream when she wanna eats a icecream because of your diet will just make her unhappy which can cause ton of **** in your relationship after some time. you should def ask her to be supportive tho and not go ape w eating bad stuff while you're around etc but asking her to be on the same diet as you looks like a no-no to me. it looks like you want to find somebody to share that discipline and responsiblity together while in fact that's the battle you gotta win by yourself and w no one to blame but you.

anyway, was completly honest w you bruh, wish you well and gl on the tables. winter series is comming tho, I could bet you won't sitout that one

I think any bet bigger than 1/3 on this particular turn shouldn't be a thing, the 9 helps you quite a bit more than it helps him, when this happens you want to either block bet or check

as for the fitness part I started going to the gym 3 years ago with my wife with clear goals in mind, it helps having a partner to go with initially so you're accountable for each other

as for food, stop being a degen and don't buy anything that is clearly bad for you

@nomalice: good to see you are still alive my friend don't think I've seen you at the tables all year lol. Hopefully it's cuz u are beasting other sites away from the #aidssite.

damn man I'm sorry to hear about your dad I guess it's kinda a sad reality about life that we gotta face that **** and it makes all the bad beats we take in poker so miniscule. glad to see that you can repair the relationship and enjoy and you have some time left to do that.

I get along with my dad pretty well for the most part and he's really proud of my poker successes but he's always been looking out for my best interests (which he thought are not poker). Tbh he could have/likely was correct in terms of life EV....like x times/100 I probably just ended up completely broke and in a messy situation. Luckily I ran good

I kinda like what u said about not needing to post receipts to my dad and that it comes out of insecurity. IDK if it does but I think you're right. I really didn't mean to send him the picture as an "in your face look at me now" type thing but more just a joke really/bit of a brag. Regardless, I think needing validation from others for our decisions and bragging about them is one of the behaviours I'm trying to minimize!

Nahh, I see the success this year (even just outside of Fallsview win) as a very great thing because of 2018 that I spent in the trenches digging without any real reward. At the end of day I'm more happy/proud of the fact that I went all in and gave it my best effort and was lucky enough to achieve my goals along the way. Even if I ended up broke and quitting the game I would have been happy and told myself "hey, I tried my hardest and it didn't work out...no shame."

-Stuff about the GF I guess I sounded a little bit harsh when I posted it. Didn't mean it like "if you eat ice cream I'm dumping you". More meant that I need people in my life who value their health and are good influences on me. Agree that it's a battle I gotta win by myself though...sorta

Happy new year m8 and all the best in 2020 I appreciate the honesty and constructive criticism!

@Xenoblade: Interesting imo small betting shouldn't be a thing on the turn here (well maybe at a small frequency)...sure we could find arguments to use different sizings as an exploit. So much of IP player's range has a heap of equity and the nut hands change on so many different rivers so I'd think if he was betting he should mostly bet large or check high frequency. (just imo)

I haven't ran a sim all year but I'll see what pio says on this hand cuz I'm curious

-Important to keep in mind that I think both player's overall strategies should drastically shift because of the ICM nature-and we both have an incentive to reduce variance for that reason. Like for example I think both players should be sacrificing some cev to protect stack utility/tournament life etc. So truly optimal ranges might be way different than what pio suggests in a vaccuum.

-Did you find success with the gym/still going? As for the food part it's very easy on paper...much more difficult in practise

Thanks for the post!

definitely found success in the gym, and im still going, although I've been lazy in 2019, only went on average 2x/week so it was maintaining muscle mass at best, I never needed to lose weight fwiw I'm on the other end of the spectrum I needed to gain weight (gained 16-18 pounds and stayed there)

for me food had always been an issue in the sense that I struggled at digesting a lot of unhealthy food, so switching to a healthy diet that works for me was probably easier than most people, that said the easiest way to not eat junk is really to not buy junk, and also cook all of your meals if you can (you'll save money and lose weight in the process)

If I had to lose weight what I'd do is intermittent fasting (consume all of your daily calories in an 8 hours window) I'd drink exclusively water, and obviously eat exclusively whole food, mostly plants so that it's very dense in nutrients

ye bro, im doing aight, have hit my first 6 fig year and counting. stars profit is under 10k 40% of volume there obv, classic stuff but dgaf, saving an tremendous giraffe for 2k20

glad to hear you found success i've dabbled with IF and various diet strats but it just comes down to lack of discipline and lack of consistency for me. have had moderate success but definitely looking to improve next year...have been researching and had some talks with people to build a plan for the new year...I don't have any excuses anymore

haha nice! glad to hear you're doing well. stars is pretty rip and winning any $ there it seems is a pretty big win relative to the average reg/player there

YO

Hope Christmas was good for you ma'fks! Haven't grinded too much lately and mostly have found myself punting in the odd sports bet or doing some miscellaneous activity when I haven't been playing poker. Spent some quality time with friends and family last few days which is a good way to close out the year I reckon. Never really went up to my cottage in the winter before but I gotta say ice fishing and snowmobiling is way more fun than it may seem

The whole idea of Christmas is pretty cool in the sense that people get all generous and what not and spend quality time together over giant feasts. Can't say I'm a huge fan of the whole "gift giving culture". I was in spots in previous years where I would really break the bank at Christmas to give my family presents and while it always feels great giving, a lot of the gifts kinda go unappreciated and don't really get used (the thought always is appreciated but the gifts themselves). I think Christmas often makes people spend beyond their means and puts emphasis on "materialistics". I'd rather just do no gifts or small gifts and nobody is forced to punt money but gotta say I did get some good ones this year

Changed things up a little bit on my end this year and veered away from the usual shitty "gift card" type stuff and just gave my family some cash to be used for either A. cottage upgrades they all decide on or B. a family vacation. Thought it was a pretty cool idea. Was more than I'd normally spend on Christmas but our cottage needs some upgrades and I haven't contributed much to it financially. Much more than I'd usually spend but I think we'll all experience value from this (including me).

------------

I got blasted last night when I got home and stumbled upon some interesting content that's going to fuel the rest of this post:

Video 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQtrhjfJaMA&t=1217s

Cliffs: bencb booked a small cottage in middle of nowhere iceland among lots of nature etc and did sort of a cleanse from everyday life. meditation/workouts/cold water swims/reading/only healthy eating for a week.

Instead of starting the new year off like I usually do: hungover, forcing myself into new habits I always break, playing poker...gonna change it up this year.

I'll still likely be hung over January 1st but that morning I'm driving up to my cottage where I'm gonna do a 7 day retreat like Ben did. Sucks that there isn't any running water there in the winter and to heat the place you need to put logs on the fire non stop. Will disconnect the TV/internet as soon as I get there and leave my phone in the car. It's about time I spent a prolonged amount of time thinking without distraction about wtf I want in my life and how I'm going to proceed. The week will probably be: walks in nature, ice fishing, meditation, food cleanse, reading, journal, a lot of silence...I expect to get bored as **** quickly but I need this.

Article 2:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...t/id1491952153

Stumbled upon this and gave it a listen. I always have a lot of interest and respect for the guys who can crush poker over a large sample and maintain elite body composition or physique. Really enjoyed the 1st episode because he describes so many of the feelings I experience but talks about it with an articulation far beyond my own. It kinda has a dark theme but it's brutally honest and the poker world likes to sweep a lot of this stuff under the rug and pretend like it's all sunshine and lollipops. It's nice to know that some of the **** we experience or feel in this game is the same thing that others do as well!

Anyways, at some point he says a big misconception about him is that he has a lot of money. He immediately puts this myth to death and talks about having a lack of $ throughout his poker career for various reasons.

I go to read about the podcast expecting positive reviews and see a bunch of guys saying he has a gambling addiction, he's crazy, and calling it a waste of life that he's only playing 2/5 online from America. He details putting 2-3 kids through college and paying all of their rents etc. and then about some money punts over the years like watches and cars.

I don't know the guy but it tilts the fk out of me when a guy wears his heart on his sleeve and gets scrutinized for it. It's like we ***** about people not being real but then when they're brutally honest they get scrutinized for it?

I guess whatever the haters say it says more about them than it does the guy putting his neck on the line to provide some interesting content! The whole internet realm makes it weird because these guys never gonna say that type of thing to his face.

------------

Mindset things to address on the hiatus from civilization:

-Work to care less what haters think. Work to care less about the opinions of others.

-Think about possible food addiction and think about how to rewire my mindset regarding certain foods and eating.

-Focus on living in the moment and to stop getting caught up in the past or future.

--------

That's all I got for now. Probably won't hear from me until the New Year and I'll be sure to update with some pics or updates about the hiatus! Thanks for reading fam and I wish y'all a happy, healthy, and profitable 2020

Sup guys hope the new year and decade finds you well!

I didn't feel like making a whole new thread this year because quite frankly it's just another day on the calendar of time. I also don't really feel like last years goals got accomplished and therefore I don't really feel it's fitting to move on. 2019 was a crazy year that found me going from busto to robusto and just about everything that could have went right...did.

Looking back to maybe ~5 years ago when I made my first PGC thread on this site my life was in a really confusing place and I wasn't quite sure how the fk things would ever pan out. I was on the fringe of getting kicked out of Uni, on some small-mid stakes backing contract in a heap of makeup, self-worth was at an all time low, and just an overall feeling of confusion and being lost. In times where I wasn't stressing about paying my next rent or tuition installment I was trying to figure **** out. These threads were an amazing place for me to organize my thoughts and get some support and feedback. Whenever I was bored late at night I'd just rant about random **** and I'd feel a lot better all of a sudden before bed.

I feel like everything poker related that I wanted to accomplish in my career I've basically accomplished. I mean, basically everything I ever dreamed of. My mindset has improved by leaps and bounds but to be honest some of the over-arching themes continue to haunt me. I've barely lost weight and many of the same subconscious beliefs and thought patterns govern my bad habits. So many of the problems bothering me in 2014 are still here in 2020.

I've come to believe that I'm more predispositioned to things such as addiction/anxiety and so many of the bad habits I have very little or no control over. Very similar to what Olivier talks about in his podcast. For example with nutritious eating and monitoring calories it would seem like second nature to many people out there-they just do it without thinking twice. Perhaps I have a higher degree of compulsion to certain activities or substances/lower degree of self-control...but I highly doubt it that many people feel this degree of "pull" towards unhealthy substances or degenerate behaviours.

For example I can go out and have a couple beers or get hammered one night and would have no desire to drink the next day or for even a few weeks. I couldn't ever see myself being an alcoholic-there's just no compulsion towards alcohol for me. I could quit cold turkey right now if I really wanted to. Why is it that some alcoholics can't go a day without drinking? They must have some deeper level of compulsion to that substance than I do? Maybe it's on a physical level though I'm not too sure/perhaps that's a bad example. Why was it that when I started poker I was OBSESSED and had to be playing every spare second whilst my brother could just flick in the big 2.20 for fun and not touch it again for months?

Anyways, I'm not trying to make excuses here but I think some of my problems are a little bit more deep-rooted. I don't have the excuse of money/time anymore so what now ?

--------------

The January Agenda

1. January 6th-11th: Head up to my cottage with no electronics or phone. 1 hour of meditation in the morning, 1 hour of meditation in the evening. Live a more primitive life for a few days maintaining the fire to heat the place and what not. Spend the week alone and write down a lot of thoughts that come to mind. Get a bit of a cleanse from everyday life and only bring healthy foods and water there with me. Probably just spend the days ice fishing or snowmobiling.

2. January 13th-23rd: Got a pretty good Airbnb in Miama area for the poker series @ Seminole Hard Rock. Focus on cooking 1-2 meals/day in the kitchen there and workouts in the morning before playing poker all day. Try to take down a big live bird. Enjoy warm weather.

3. January 24th-February 1st: Borgata series in Atlantic City.

--------------

Hopefully after my week cleanse I'll come up with better formatted goals and gain some more perspective as to where I want this year to go exactly!

Thanks to everyone who's been following since day 1 or has followed/supported the journey along the way. I'm really excited for 2020 and wish you guys all the best of luck and good health/happiness!!!

Let's get it!!!

Ice Fishing sounds like fun. GL for 2020

What are your thoughts on the live tourney grind after factoring in the travel expenses/wasted travel time etc? Gl 2020!

For sure was a blast I'll talk about it a bit in the next post. Thanks and you as well!

Thanks! Just my opinion but I think it depends a tonne on the scenario of the player and what they are looking to achieve. Factors like: size of bankroll, ability/inability to sell pieces with some markup, stakes they play, EV in the games they intend to play, comfort with travel, do they enjoy traveling/grinding? If the EV of playing > expenses, they have the BR to sustain the variance/expenses, they enjoy traveling/grinding I think it's a win. All of those factors are subjective-ish though

I think to do it optimally/successfully one would need to be well adapted in the above and be willing to put in lots of volume outside of the main events (side events/juicy cash games) and avoid the obvious temptations that could put a dent in the EV.


-----------------
Shitting in a Snowbank

Hey guys just got back from my hiatus a couple days ago. I'm leaving in a few hours for a live poker trip for the next ~3 weeks to Florida and then Atlantic City. Will be grinding most events between ~500$-5k$. Got a pretty nice Airbnb in Florida with a nice kitchen/gym that should help with staying on the right path with healthy living. Before shutting down my place for a few weeks I thought I'd talk a little bit about the week off and an epiphany or two that I had:

For those who didn't read above I went to my cottage for a couple days and did a detox from people/electronics/processed food/poker/gambling and all the bullshit.

I arrived at my cottage Monday afternoon after a ~4 hour drive and the first thing I underestimated is how fkn cold the place would be after -15 degree temperatures and nothing heating it. The first thing on my mind was getting the fire lit and heating that place the **** up!

It took around 2-3 hours to heat the place up to the point that I wasn't shivering my ass off. It was at this point I did some meditation for about 30 minutes until I quit out of boredom. Sadly, this was the only meditation I did the whole week lol. I then proceeded to go sit by the fire and after about 3 minutes of that I realized "I'm so ****ing bored". There was nothing to preoccupy my mind or fill this "void" that normally existed. I couldn't watch TV, gamble, eat, surf the internet, hang out with friends, or fire up a session.

I tried sitting there for a few more minutes and gave into temptation and turned on the TV and watched the Leafs game. Then like some 17 year old kid who just tried weed for the first time I smoked a bunch and then watched some stupid cartoons like Family Guy and King of the Hill before falling asleep.

It was the sleep of the century until I woke up to a freezing cold cottage because I was an idiot and let the fire go out. So at 3 AM in the morning there I was freezing my ass off chopping wood in the pitch black like some type of lunatic.

The next day I woke up at 6 AM and went ice fishing with one of my buddies that lives up near my cottage. We didn't catch much but had a few fish on the line that got off but I gotta say it was a cool experience seeing a pack of coyotes or wolves actively hunting something (probably coyotes) with no other humans around. Here's a couple pictures:

https://gyazo.com/12aab27a3e8f35abe01648d9f056ccfa
One of the holes we fished out of. Basically drop a lure down the hole and bounce it off the bottom repeatedly until something bites. The other lines we had small fish on and just waited for bites.

https://gyazo.com/841bb1c1383951c7fa991f6eb84832f9
The frozen lake.

https://gyazo.com/902a6a573daa8d5dd6a4afff51740cdf
2 of the fish my buddy caught.

After that 12 hour fishing extravaganza in the freezing cold I was ready to pass out and repeat the next day.

I wish I could say I spent the whole week getting through that boredom and not doing anything degenerate at all. I couldn't handle the boredom and being alone so I ended up grinding 2 sessions with my buddy but meh was cool to catch up with him and go fishing!

There's no running water at my cottage in the winter and thus no shower or toilet usage. After 3 days I was starting to feel greasy af and I improvised some "bucket shower" and took a **** in a snowbank as my nuts shriveled up into my stomach from the cold lol.

Epiphanies:

1. I take my quality of life for granted WAY too much. Things like being able to use a flushable toilet, fresh running water, the ability to take a hot shower that I control the temperature of whenever I want, transportation, and how easy/comfortable it is.

2. When all "modern" distractions are removed it quickly puts me into a totally different frame of mind. Without these distractions I quickly realized how bored and empty I felt. I wish I just got through that and didn't give in to temptation to watch TV etc. I'll definitely try this again because in that frame of mind demons can be slain.

3. Sometimes the comfort of our everyday lives is a curse and not a blessing. If I was a human in the times we evolved those times of boredom would be spent hunting/fishing/building/surviving. In 2020 surviving is basically already done for us. Most of us work some weird job that feeds consumerism in some way and we get paid money to buy the stuff we need to survive instead of providing it ourselves. North American society is in this weird conundrum where we're almost too comfortable...perhaps revisiting our primitive survival behaviours is the key to making us all not feel "****ed" and helping us to realize how blessed we really are.


Thanks for reading guys if anyone made it through that post could have been a little dry! Time for me to get to bed and get on an early morning flight. Florida Sunshine Beckons

PS: If you're wondering 2020 started out the way 2019 ended with some pure run in poker and fantasy hockey. I won my second 12.5k package to the Fantasy Hockey World Championship in Nashville and that same lineup luck boxed a 10$ tournament to a 10k win. Have squandered a bit of money into DFS so not all profit but feels good to bink nonetheless

nice.

pics of cottage plz !

i'll get a few next time im there haha. unfortunately i don't know how to post images on 2p2 and cant seem to figure it out

Sup legends

Long story short I'm losing my jacket on this live trip. Well, probably close to the most of my personal $ I've lost in a stretch of ~3 weeks. I'm like ~1/15 on cashes and running sick bad but w/e I wanted to take some shots in great value games and I'm pretty well positioned to take shots right now so w/e. Still got a chance to save the trip with day 2 of the 3500 Main @ Borgata tomorrow so fingers crossed! Despite lots of **** not going my way on this trip feeling really good with my game and mindset and keeping the things within my control in check

Had heaps of fun and enjoyed every minute of the trip but looking forward to returning home to the everyday grind and routine. I'll talk about some more random **** and a more thorough update when back to the homeland. Goodbye for now and GL me @ saving the trip!



"I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like 'my back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill.' We all have self-doubt. You don't deny it, but you also don't capitulate it. You embrace it."

-Kobe Bryant

Yaoo

We're back home and couldn't be more happy to say it. Probably lost close to ~25k$ in buy ins over the trip and a decent amount of expenses. Sold a responsible amount of action so much less of my own personal $ were lost. Losing for myself or others feels just as gross nonetheless.

On the bright side of things just when I thought the 2019 heater had come to an end one of my pieces I bought saved my trip

Upcoming ****:
-Fallsview poker series in late Feb. where I will try to defend the title in the 1k
-Nashville at end of the month to compete for DFS world hockey championship
-Late March sweat my boy on FT of the borgata main, which for some reason takes place in Vegas...no clue why.
-Prep for WSOP grind. Attempting a full summer/schedule there this year.

Kobe:

Always a little bit cheesy when a celebrity dies and the public has some type of bias to give way more of a care when they know the celebrity as opposed to some random person. For example there were a bunch of other people on the helicopter crash that killed Kobe but their names and stories were basically set aside. There was also a plane shot down in Iran with a bunch of innocent people on it recently that seemingly was swept under the rug.

Despite what I just said above Kobe's death hit me a little bit harder than the average celebrity death. I've been binge watching his career highlight and interview videos and gotta say what a fierce competitor that guy was. I can't help but admire how passionate and driven he was to be the best basketball player he could be. He knew that he had to make a lot of sacrifices and didn't let anything get in the way. That's something a lot of us can learn from whether it's fitness, poker, reationships, careers or w/e the fk. Kobe's death is a cruel reminder that even for a seemingly "untouchable" dude like Kobe, that death/disaster can strike at any moment. Life is very fragile and nothing is for granted.

Borgata Main Bust Hand:

Darren Elias limps the SB with ~100bb stack, I have A9o in the BB with ~31bbs. I guess it's worth noting that we had pllayed ~4 hands bvb and he limped 4/4 and I checked 4/4.

What is our play here? Check, r/c, r/f, jam?



Poker as a Whole

January 2020 was close to the least amount of online poker I've played in a month in my whole career. It's weird when I take a step back from the grind for a few weeks I all of a sudden lose a lot of motivation/possible addiction that compels me to grind the big volume I'm accustomed to. I guess for now I'm gonna grind when I feel like it and focus on just enjoying life and figuring this stuff out. Feels gross-ish that I'm almost 28 years old now and don't have something that I'm 100% confident/passionate to do the rest of my life. I know the lifestyle I want just not sure of what career fulfills it!

Til' next time- Mike (walmart)

Who's your boy at the final table?

The main bustout hand think I'd just check specifically vs elias.

And 100% the secret you realize as you get older is pretty much no one ever has things 100% figured out about their life. And when you do figure things out, things can change, priorities can change etc. Just like in poker just analyze things the best you can as you go along and be adaptable imo.

the chip leada

Yeah, in hindsight think maybe I should have. Prefer it much more than r/f and r/c. That being said we do miss some EV (I think) by not raising this strong of a hand vs. what is likely to be like a ~75% limp range. I hadn't been raising his limps much not sure how much that plays into it, but likely means his limp/jamming range could be a little tighter as he may expect check backs from me. Checking we just avoid a gross and marginal situation which is probably best in a field like this.

haha yeh that is a little secret I'm figuring out along the way for sure. it's sort of an uncomfortable truth that most people just pass their days doing what they gotta do to get by and time flies

https://gyazo.com/caa80ca03a5af7c6f40732c05252cd38

OOPS I DID IT AGAIN

Whaddup whaddup

The heater doesn't even feel real anymore guys I can't lie. Even though on the FT I was really card dead short handed etc I somehow pulled a win out of my ass. A couple suckouts, flips, coolers etc. and I end up coming out on top of the "blessed EV" pile yet again. Regardless of how it feels like this keeps going I promise I'll never forget ~1 year ago having to phone a friend about having to sell my condo and quit poker because I was going broke. If you told me a year ago that I could have rebounded from the 2018 downswing as well as I did I wouldn't even fathom how it would be possible!

Health Grind

After a decent hiatus from health and gym routine I'm happy to say we're back on the wagon. Only a few really positive workouts and 100% clean diet days but I really believe I'm on the right path now. One thing I've come to learn about the health grind is that consistency>intensity. The guy who sticks with the grind and is able to get back on the wagon after falling off is always going to have better results than the guy who goes all in for short bursts and then quits for long periods of time. I've been so good when in rhythm to be 100% clean and then one weekend away or one night of getting blackout drunk I fall off the wagon. That won't happen anymore and I promise to myself and anyone else who gives a fk.

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I've posted this piece a lot through the various PGC threads I've had in here and every time over the past few years when struggling I always reference it. Even though the piece is more about black people in America etc. I can find ways to relate to it and back in 2015 when I was broke/semi-depressed/lonely-ish/failing school just reading it would give me some hope that **** was gonna turn:

"The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it
Its only job is to eat or consume everything around it
In order to protect itself from this mad city
While consuming its environment
The caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive
One thing it noticed is how much the world shuns him
But praises the butterfly
The butterfly represents the talent
The thoughtfulness and the beauty within the caterpillar
But having a harsh outlook on life
The caterpillar sees the butterfly as weak
And figures out a way to pimp it to his own benefits
Already surrounded by this mad city
The caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon
Which institutionalizes him
He can no longer see past his own thoughts
He's trapped
When trapped inside these walls certain ideas take root, such as
Going home, and bringing back new concepts to this mad city
The result?
Wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant
Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations
That the caterpillar never considered
Ending the internal struggle
Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different
They are one and the same"
What's your perspective on that?

I'm working to get this framed for my place atm I like it that much

Anyways, not to get too sappy on you guys here I can't wait to crush the rest of this month LFGGGGGGGGG

Congrats Bro!

ty

yoyo

Just coming off my most GTO week in the past ~6 months or so. Made it to the gym for some quality workouts and diet was completely in line (until Saturday/Sunday). Feeling really good and ready to repeat that again this week. Oh yeah, had a good week at the tables too

Before posting a few hands from the week I just wanted to tell a quick story.

The good news: it's time for a new car. The bad news: it's time for a new car.

I was staying at a hotel in Toronto last night for the Raptors' game and my car decided it was a good time to conk out right in front of the hotel lobby. The bell hop from the hotel came out to try to help us get it started again before we realized it probably needed a tow. This dude literally helped us find tow truck numbers, compare prices, get a boost for my car, get us a room upgrade, and helped sway management to let me leave my car parked there overnight (yeah I was that idiot who's car was blocking up half the valet entrance lane). As you can imagine I was pretty fkn tilted with the whole scenario and then the guy said "man, you're in a shitty situation but there's nothing you can do about it. don't worry about this and go have fun at the game".

I've almost never written a complaint/compliment to a company before but couldn't help writing a quick note of recommendation for that dude. Just a good person who wanted to go beyond his job and help us out for the sake of helping. No apparent exterior motivations. But anyways, I had to get a tow home and it fkn sucked. Been a good car but time for a little upgrade

https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=524uChRpC
Interesting-ish hand vs. elite reg. Think I played it well. Wasn't sure if I should check the river as he will potentially jam for thin value/bluff this river a lot and maybe find some hero folds. Meh, idk really prob best to jam.

https://www.boomplayer.com/32389026_68D3C58227
weird hand vs fish I guess it's fine?

https://www.boomplayer.com/32388266_F7BDD1B835
so fkn sick of calling these type of spots and just never seeing bluffs from tight regs. I felt insanely gross calling 99 here, that's probably the only worse hand I call than KK lol...value jam is very thin imo.

https://www.boomplayer.com/32373400_28D7532EE8
hands from the hood. key is to post the most outlying hands so people watchin the hands think I'm always out of line

Can't keep my eyes open m8s have a good week

Sup lads? Been insanely busy and haven't had a whole lot of time to update here.

Poker Cliffs:
-Traveled to a few live tourney stops and bricked hard, swaps saved my bacon.

-Played much less online than I have in the past to start the year. Ran nice when I did play and binked the 530 BB series event.

Nashville Trip:

Draftkings had 40 different qualifiers throughout the NHL season and the winner of each satelite won a package to the live finals in Nashville. I was lucky enough to bink 2 packages and secure a decent little score at the live final. As far as the trip went it was a fkn BLAST and most fun I've had in a long time. The only work I had to do was study the game slate and submit my lineups and outside of that it was a 3 day booze-fest with some great friends/met some new ones.

Overall Cliffs:

-Not where I want to be in some areas of life but much further than I ever thought I would be in others. As a whole just trying not to take life too seriously and enjoying the process along the way. For the most part things have been amazing and really starting to come together the past year or so. Can't express how thankful I am for that!

It's pretty ironic that what seemed like the worst things for me sometimes along this journey actually turned out to be the best things for me; I just couldn't see it from the dark. Going broke in 2018 and being ~1 week away from needing a job or being forced to sell my condo and getting my ass kicked for a whole year in all walks of life...seemed horrible at the time...why me??? Does Stars know how fkn badly I need to win this Big 33 final table with 3k up top and 33% of myself??? Bills were stacking up to the ceiling and I was getting 0 traction.

That downswing taught me some very valuable lessons in money management, friendship, game selection, and forced me to enter a whole new paradigm of poker theory. If I never went through that downswing I wouldn't have ever came up with some of the theories/strategies that crushed during my upswing. I wouldn't have been forced into that "highest gear" that I'm capable of.

If my AK held vs AJ in that big 33 final table and I went on to win it would have just prolonged going busto for another few days. I wouldn't have learned anything really and would have been so much worse off than I am today.

Maybe sometimes being from that troubled situation/childhood/background gives people a level of toughness or a strong mindset we would never acquire if our parents spoiled us and we got everything we ever wanted without working for it. It's just so hard to see that when you're in the dark...

Sup lads,

I guess you could say the thread has been on a slow decline and dying down as time passes. Posts in here on my end have been sporadic at best and I guess that's not the worst thing. I wanted to give a little bit of a story to sort of explain what this thread was to me all along:

First, I need to rewind the clock a little bit:

In high school I played a very high level of hockey and was in the best shape of my life. I had an abundance of friends, girls, and not much need for money because I lived with my parents. Life was pretty good.

I was conditioned by guidance councilors, teachers, family etc. to believe that obtaining a University degree was "expected of me" and the optimal route in terms of keeping doors open down the road. Ironically, I think this methodology actually closes more doors than it opens for a lot of students...but that's another story for another time.

I was extremely lazy in high school in terms of the school work itself. Seemingly, my objective was: do the least work necessary to achieve the minimum expected result. So if I needed a 80% average to get accepted into the Uni programs I wanted to get into; I probably got an 80% average...no higher, no lower. Life outside school was amazing: playing hockey, partying, video game all nighters to name a few. School itself was very uninteresting and it was just a matter of doing the bare minimum there and passing the days.

I figured I would be a let-down to society if I didn't obtain a degree and I knew if I had to go to school for something; it would be business. My ~80% average wasn't high enough to get into some of the top business schools in my area so that immediately closed some doors as to where I could live. Back then I thought it was important to get accepted into a "tier 1" school for my Undergrad (what a load of BS). You were allowed to apply to 3 schools so I applied to 1 shitty one that I knew I could get accepted, one decent-ish one within a few hours away, and then one that I thought would be really great based on what I read/my best friend had told me who went there.

I got accepted to all 3 and based on my friends recommendation and my own inkling I picked the school an ~8 hour drive away in a French speaking place. Ever since accepting the invitation I dreaded everything about it: leaving my family/friends, living so far away, having to live on my own, being scared of Uni workload that I was warned of. I soaked up what I could of the summer and was off on the journey.

Although dreading the thought of Uni I did have a few positive thoughts of what Uni life could be like: having my own place and setting my own rules (finally having the shackles of living with my parents removed), college parties like I saw in the movies, an abundance of college girls ermm..like I also saw in the ermm "movies".

I arrived at my residence and quickly learned that my "own place" actually resembled that of a jail cell, in which I had to share with another "inmate". I got along "ok" with this dude but it's hard to really like somebody when you share a jail cell with them 24/7. I got along brilliantly with him; in comparison to most other tandems of roommates who hated each other by the end of the school year.

My buddy was telling me legendary stories about ****ing a new girl every night in frosh week and I thought I'd be living that up as well. Night one passed...no dice, night two passed...no dice....night x passed and no dice. As each day passed my confidence/optimism stooped a little bit lower and I was getting blackout drunk every night because it helped me forget about how unhappy I was with the place I was supposed to spend the next 4 years of my life.

A very vicious circle ensued because of how much I was drinking accompanied by a very poor diet and absence of exercise. I was starting to get fat which didn't help my confidence or self-worth which was at an all-time low.

I was broke, fat, lonely, and failing at school. I was in this place that didn't speak my language (literally and figuratively). I should have quit after the first semester and went somewhere else but friends and family encouraged me to keep going. The whole time I kept thinking "you've come this far don't waste it now"...for 5 years I thought that.

It was around my first year when I really started to take poker seriously. My parents weren't around to yell at me for playing or to yell at me for not going to bed at time. I never really had money then so I just played tiny stakes and most Sundays my homie (huge shoutout to him) would buy me "pre-paid visa" cards so I could play some tournaments. Usually 25-50$ so I would load the "Sunday Storm" as my main event and grind some 2.50$ 180 mans on the side. The whole poker thing became a bit of an obsession and before I knew it I was playing night and day and even grinding a couple tables while I was in class (if I didn't skip it to play poker).

Yeah I was broke, fat, lonely but I finally found something to silence out those voices. I didn't need the booze anymore to numb those feelings...I could 24 table and that would use so much brain power that I wouldn't have time to think about being broke, fat or lonely. I started to have small successes in poker and those temporarily made me feel like a million bucks. I had something that I could strive to be good at and would get recognized by people for being good at it.

I found this forum called "2 plus 2 poker" and started reading a lot of these "PGC" threads and thought it was the coolest thing that guys would share about their progresses/challenges etc and the community would cheer them on and support them. I didn't really have any poker friends at the time and was desperate to talk poker and achieve my goals. I had a failed attempt or two at starting up my own PGC but I finally started getting some traction with one that I believe was called "From Walmart Warrior to Walmart Wizard". Whenever I was feeling confused or uneasy I'd just post about random stuff in there and was delighted when I'd see other guys giving encouragement or just expressing their thoughts about hands I played or whatever.

Times started to get a little bit better and I luckboxed my way to getting laid a few times and eventually ended up living with one of the girls I slept with and dating her. We got in a big fight one day and broke up and she kicked me to the curb on a Saturday night. I wasn't concerned about where I'd be sleeping from now on...or anything...I was concerned with where I would play my Sunday session the next day.

I frantically called my friend to explain and he said "no problem man you can crash on my couch for a few days and play your Sunday session on my desk". (Another shout out to him as he was the same guy buying me pre-paid visas all the time and later in my career bailed me out of a huge hole).

Believe it or not, that Sunday, the guy who got kicked to the curb the night before, who's biggest score was ~15k, who at most had 5k in his bank account his whole life...binked the biggest online tourney of the week...the Sunday Million.

I was almost more happy to come post in this thread to tell the guys who cheered me on all that time than I was to tell people in my real life. The thread started to gain a lot of traction and every night I'd go out for a long walk before ranting about a lot of random stuff going through my head on here. I was starting to become content with being a lone wolf out there and a lot of that time spent on my own (my GF and I broke up so I was back to solo life) was in deep thoughts about life and poker...and I started to really like that.

After 5 years of that I finally graduated that Uni and moved back home. I'm still working to prepare some of the mental and physical trauma that happened during that time but hey...I wouldn't trade any of it for the world because looking back, the journey had a lot of costs and prices to pay...but the lessons I learned and things that happened were priceless.

The reason I don't update here as much anymore is because I feel like I've kind of kicked a dead horse and I also have come to get to know a lot of friends and people in poker. I'm not some anonymous keyboard warrior anymore (well still am I guess) and publicly posting a lot of personal stuff/details I guess can expose a level of vulnerability that I'm not super comfortable with. I also feel far more stable and confident in my life inside and outside of poker...a lot of those demons I felt like I needed to rant about every night have been dealt with. I guess you could say that Walmart Warrior has finally become that Walmart Wizard (under his own definition ). Life is pretty great now guys and trending very positively...I'm happy to have those days behind me. Thanks to those guys who railed this journey since day 1!!!....or any day really.

I'll try to keep the thread to just major updates or if there is anything I feel like ranting about just like old times

Thanks <3

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Haven't talked to much about results lately but here's where we're at in terms of the online grind in the past ~15 months or so for anybody curious:

https://gyazo.com/87a669cb6c45e646edc0751df7f30eab