I see what you’re saying; thanks for point that out.

My original reply was deleted or never posted, presumably user error on my end, although not sure what happened. But it was much more detailed and I believe had the right stack sizes in the sim, and the above was replicated quickly and poorly.

Enjoying the read, good luck mate.

Will give further update sometime within the coming week. Just got back from a 2 week trip from Oklahoma and Texas. Went out to OKC from two Sundays ago until that Friday and stayed with a friend and his wife, worked in their home office during the day, and played in the evenings. I am still convinced that Oklahoma offers the softest and most lucrative live cash games per the stake for NLHE in the United States (although haven't been to Florida yet), but more on that later. After Friday, went down to Dallas for the weekend to meet up with some friends there before they went on a cruise. Didn't know big tourney series was down there so the lists on pokeratlas were absolutely atrocious. On Friday I got a warning call from a friend and played at Winstar for a few hours. Action was not bad and it was a beautiful facility. Friday at midnight I start playing at Dallas TCH until like 6:30am roughly. Got back next day at 3:30PM and played for about 12 hours. Ran pretty rough for the weekend and subsequent first half of next week but so it goes.

Was supposed to drive back Sunday, but after driving by Winstar I impulsively stayed the night and booked two more nights in Gainesville, Texas, about 13 miles south of the casino in a small (16,000 pop.) town. Will go into detail on that below. Ended up playing there for 4 more nights, and got back to KC area after midnight on Thursday, or technically Friday morning.

Had a very brutal session that Friday in KC, played from 4:30PM to 4:30AM. Then came back for shorter sessions on Sunday and Monday and ran very pure. Overall, first week of trip at Riverwind alone I made like $4,300 I believe playing exclusively their $1/$3 100bb capped game. At TCH and Winstar I lost a few hundred. Lost thousands at $1/$3 and went on pretty gnarly run, but played $2/$5 my last two nights and retained good chunk of losses back. After expenses I believe I netted $3,500 over the ~two weeks or 11 days, whatever it ended up being. Their $2/$5 game at Winstar was incredible. The $1/$2 and $1/$3 were hit or miss but mostly fairly mediocre. Don't know what to add about it it just wasn't special but game quality varied greatly. The $2/$5 game however was beautiful. People were much nicer and easier to get along with (lots of people at 1/2 and 1/3 threw tantrums, threatened me, beat up trash cans, made scenes, and were overall painful to listen to/sit by and were melodramatic about everything) but my experience at $2/$5 was the opposite. Lot of socially well-adjusted people, most of them stupid wealthy, owned blue collar businesses like HVAC businesses, some multi-family properties, or oil companies, etc. The game's $1,000 cap was too small for them as they often play $10/$25 or $25/$50 at TCH, so lots of them it was just entertainment/**** around money, however, the capped structure allowed me to buy-in and have competitive stack size unlike my home casino. At Harrah's in KC, it's uncapped and the $2/$5 game will frequently have well beyond $50K on table, have seen players lose 5 figures there in an evening a high percentage of my visits there. The capped structure thus made all the difference for me in Winstar and even RiverWind (although RiverWind it's for other reasons). I remember one guy called a $900 all-in after a jam and a call with 43o because even though he knows he'll almost always lose, when he does win, he loves putting people through pain and stacking people with the worst of it. I respect it a lot, and if I had that sort of money, would probably do the same myself.

During last week as well, I worked in their local library some, spent hours reading their collection of obituaries and daily registries from early 1900's, like the years of spanish influenza and the World War 1 letters sent home. It was beautiful. Everything anyone wrote had the elegance beyond any modern writing skills I am exposed to, Everything was poetry, pleasing to the senses. Captured emotion, and imagery far better than I could ever amongst my best efforts. I will share some of them later. I also enjoyed going to the downtown area. When you drive in, white lights cover the buildings of the downtown area, its very walkable everywhere and the architecture is beautiful; the government building in the center most especially. It is also giving off of a very personal feeling. Driving in, a local theatre downtown had a sign up all week where the movie titles usually go that wished a local citizen by name and wished him a happy 90th birthday. I enjoyed that. The history was apparent when walking down the streets. On my first day, some 30-something year old man in jeans (everyone wore jeans, most also wore boots and flannels as well, despite 115+ degree heat every day), a cowboy boot, and hat tipped his hat and nodded at me, followed by a distinct "Howdy"... he remained paused like a statue mid-stride, and did not continue until I myself returned the gesture of a greeting and gentle head nod.

There was a local downtown pub as well that I regular'ed myself at. Every restaurant had iced tea out and ready to go the way most restaurants in the U.S. have with water pitchers. By the third day there my ice tea was waiting there for me before I got to my quaint seat at the bar. The interior was a décor with various large stuffed animal heads and some torsos, deer, bulls, buffalo, and others. Their TV station was on silent but featured a 24/7 Rhodeo station that I very much enjoyed. Walls were old, but well maintained stationed wooden fixtures. Empty spaces were filled by old pictures, looked to be taken in the town or region, all of which were in black and white, and framed with the same dark wooden stain.

And any restaurant or library I went to was filled with young southern women in their early to mid 20's who were as sweet and catering as could be. Beautiful too. If I didn't have a girlfriend or plans to move to Vegas soon, in another life I would simply buy a house down there and start talking to some of these ladies until I had a wife. It's not a bad life and it reminded me of the much forgotten favor of the small town south.

Besides all that jazz, I thought I played very well in 80%+ of all my poker sessions, perhaps some of the best I have ever played occurred throughout the trip and even throughout the month and these past few days. I was very pleased with my performance, with my thought processes, focus, and general execution. And although the month is not yet over, I have netted $8,200 after taking out hotel and toll expenses (haven't added up gas or other misc. but **** it) and have had by far my best month in poker yet. After 25 other months of live poker, my highest yielding month in live poker is $2,500. And to start things off I wasn't even sure if I was rolled enough to play the $1/$3 capped game at RiverWind in OKC, as the $3K cash I brought was almost everything I had, and now I have a $10K roll and am building more comfortably than I have been in a long time.

Will post some pictures and likely some further details here shortly, but until then, Thanks for reading, and God Bless Oklahoma.

Thank you for sharing, and look forward to your updates and pictures!

Thank you I appreciate it. Will try to spend the time to do it sometime this coming week. Got a ton going on with work and life.

Otherwise,
Little results update, up around $13K over last 5 weeks or so, $17.5K YTD live cash profits, and got more volume last month than I have any month in history, think 120 hours in live cash alone. Also have been going to a fairly lucrative home game every few nights. Think I will be getting semi-regular invites which is great as game is super solid, and great weeknight alternative especially since it's only 5-10min away and no wait lists or tolls.

Will update everything else soon, might post some recent HH even we'll see.

Wanted to share a quick hand history and question I had last night while playing. This is copied from my post on Blake Eastman's Beyond Tells course community member page I made last night, so I doubt it gets any responses there and will likely send him an email about this sometime soon, but this has been a topic I have been thinking about lately.

Lot of online grinders struggle with this part of live poker, and get over-attached to game theory when no one else is acting on similar assumptions and we do not have high quality MDA of any sort. At the end of the day, the whole process comes down to range reduction, as the "GTO" we do in our heads in real time is in response to the assumptions we create, as once we have confidence in our assumptions (ie. ranges) then the rest is extremely simple. Here is the Post below:

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Implementing into Realistic Ranges: A Hand-History
HH:

8-handed, Live $1/$3 on slow Wednesday evening. Hero in +1 w 33. UTG older Asian guy named Michael, very quiet, passive. Limps thoughtlessly.

I raise $15, kind of table I can run over with aggression, image is in tact, and would rather have a pot built if I flop a set. Sitting 200bb eff+, stack sizes vary.

5 callers 6 to flop, $90.

K-6-3r. BB donks $45, UTG limper contemplates raise subtly, but calls, I call. Everyone behind folds. Turn is 5d bringing in flush draw. I don’t have a diamond if that’s relevant. BB checks, UTG jams $270 into $225. I tank.

After 15-20 seconds, when I studied him, he looked genuinely bored, like non theatrically bored, just genuinely disinterested, and very comfortable in a subtle, unforced way.

I contemplate, and did not raise flop because I thought my equity when called would be overly reduced to sets and wanted to keep ranges as wide as possible. Maybe the guy who donked with presumably top pair would turn top two and I could stack him.

Theory aside now, on the river I was confident this was value (this is a very dry, honest game) and very much wanted to fold. Thought he almost certainly had 66 as that fits the story better than anything else. But I thought to myself, I’ve never played with this guy before, what if he’s value owning himself with K6, or maybe is one of the old guys that limp-calls AK and overplays the **** out of it in big pots, hell maybe even has something like Kx dd with good kicker or straight draw too. Then I thought to myself, if I fold bottom set here, what do I call with? Solely KK? And I convinced myself that I needed to call with something even though that is very much not true. And I thought of all my bad hero folds in the past, thought how often players value own or overplay their hands in these games and how plausible it was that that those aforementioned hands really were in his range.

Except after I hem and haw to myself, I eventually flick in the call for these reasons, and he has exactly what I thought he has. 66.

Now perhaps I’m just being results oriented here. But I don’t think so. This exact same process has been happening over, and over, and over again, and I always convince myself their range could too likely consists of all these imaginary combos that are indeed possible, but are almost never actually in their range. My gut always says fold, and I never listen, and my gut was always right. I always use “logic” to talk my way into the wrong decision, and I feel like I’m hopelessly embedded in this endless loop.


Does anyone else ever feel like this? Does anyone else get to the right answer constantly only to do this and in consequence time and time again? Why can’t I listen to myself? What piece of reasoning am I missing here to be able to pull the trigger and do what the behavior conveys to me I should do? How do I deal with the problem of ranging someone, especially players without history? What should I do differently?

What do you do here?

Any help or commentary would be super appreciated if you take the time to read this.

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This above is what I want to work on next, while my study of theory likely moves to the side for awhile, as learning more outside of texture specific node-locks doesn't really do me any additional good right now.

I will note, the hand above has been happening all the time. I had KK pre last week and was going to fold pre to a 400bb 5-bet jam until I used similar reasoning to talk myself into a bad call. It's not just a bad run, selective hand histories, or anything else, its an extremely common scenario that eats apart at my bottom line, and I want to fix it.

After this hand last night, I got into a spot where someone check-raise jammed 80bb on me on a bad turn and I had a measly 1-pair. Instead of snap folding I studied the man, and determined he had multiple behavioralisms that pushed him in the "does not want call" in the "doesn't mind call // doesn't want call" dichotomy I operate under in these live spots. I was right about the behavioral stuff and made the call, had him near dead and the hand redeemed the earnings of my night. This happens all the time, so I thought I would share this part of my process and development.

Again, this is a framework I almost exclusively use for live, for online I operate almost entirely under GTO frameworks as one would expect.

Still committed to posting pics from trip to OK/TX, hopefully this week is the week.

Otherwise, up over $20K YTD in live cash now. Hourly around $26/hr, and in first 10 days of September we made between $5-6K already. Not sun-running as hard as you'd expect. Simply trusting my gut more, and going for some pretty insane plays. Seem to always pay off. Hands I may post if I have the time from the week are folding turned flush after betting small, getting called, and facing large river donk lead after Ax river on unpaired board. Or 3! over-bet jamming flop w t high for value to get called by hands we dominate.

Other than that, did some work with mental coach and did some hypno therapy, which to my surprise very much helped with dealing with tilt among other unrelated issues, and outside of that, trying to enjoy live and focus on other things as well, and put more effort into that than I have in the past. Working out more at an actual gym now than I have in awhile. Although jumped back into deadlifting a little too aggressively before work today and strained by back pretty badly so we'll see how that affects things. But yeah, that's about all I got for now.

More soon, thanks for reading.

Going to Tulsa later this week. Not playing the series down there, just going to use as an opportunity to play cash in a likely more lively market than my local one.

As of a few days ago, I had made $31K+ YTD in live cash. Was on a $25K+ heart almost all in $1/$2 and $1/$3 from $300-600 buy-ins and ~10 weeks of play, however, over saturday night and sunday I had the worst poker day of my life. Lost like 10-15 all-ins consecutively. Didn't count but remember the hands as this was just days ago. In a 7 hour session I only won 2 hands out of like 40-50 that I played. had tons of premiums pre and post, just ran into perpetual worst case scenarios. Anyways, don't really care, as long as I played well and I am rolled for the games which I am it doesn't really matter. Not tilted by it, just stoked that I have been doing so well since the last OK/TX trip in early August and grateful that I can lose so much in a day (just under $5K I believe) without being affected by it.

Overall, feel pretty good about my play. Been getting pretty out there with the exploit stuff, although there has been so much volume in the past couple months I have not been studying as much, or getting coaching as much, let alone playing online.

Additionally, guess it's worth mentioning that I had my best session ever last week as well. Some whale from Oklahoma was coming into town and they catered an entire night around it. Apparently last time he came to the city he lost $300K in a game but don't think he played in a casino. I know in that game one of his buddies tipped a dealer $10K at the end of the night. Anyway, because he was coming into town, they hosted for him at my local casino. They had 10/20/40 for him w a min of buyin of $3K. Saw him sitting with $40K I believe when I was there. Additionally they had a $10/$20PLO game that was pretty big, then they had a few $/$5 games w $10 Rock and that is what I played. Bought in for $700 one time, and there were a lot of players in that game waiting to get into one of the others who were not very good and particularly punty. Card dead most of the session but had hands when it mattered towards the end. Cashed out for $5,100+ for by far my biggest night ever.

Week before that, took over a week off and went to Hawaii for a wedding and to see a lot of my best friends. Was an extremely pleasant time, god knows when I last took a vacation that wasn't poker or family. Stayed on Oahu the entire time. Beach every day, did some hikes, had some good food and I don't really drink but I drank a bit this week, and it was much needed. Forgot what it was like to do something like that. Probably amongst the longest complete breaks I have taken from work and poker, pretty much ever. Felt so ****ing good.

As for playing professionally, even after my sharp pullback last two sessions, my YTD hourly is still a bit higher than my salaried hourly. My total liquid cash is still somewhere between $25-30K. My minimum goal to quit my job was $50K. Still is, but not sure if I am going to quit as soon as I hit that number. Want a number of months more for data, want to get a little bit better, and I want to make sure my mental game is secure as well. Wouldn't hurt to have more than $50K either, so I am thinking the latest threshold will be sometimes in latte 2024, but I am not going to be lazy and shortcut anything, go for the fastest possible route, or do any of that anymore. I am going to take it slow, be intentional, and suffer more than I need to to make sure everything is in place and as good as can be, as I will probably only take one shot at this.

Would like to give more specific updates. Still haven't sent the files from the library in Gainesville, or uploaded a number of hand histories I have wanted to, but I am keeping extremely busy. Work at my real job is getting so much harder and more demanding, and I think that is contributing to how much harder it is for me to stay online at any point afterwards and study or play as I simply get burnt out of looking at a computer screen. Additionally, starting I believe next week I will be volunteering 5-6 hours a week for 6 weeks with an important person (but surprisingly lesser known) in the poker space to go through stuff and help them develop the newest iteration of their course. might expand on that later, might not.

Anyways, thanks for reading, will update after Tulsa at some point. Goodluck in your games in the meantime.

Tulsa was tough, prior getting there + the 4 days I was there including probably the worst week of poker I have ever had. It's not that I lost that much money ($5.5K on week, but <$1K in Tulsa I believe), but it is how I played, how I felt, and how it all went down.

In Tulsa, surprisingly on the weeknights (I guess before the series or ME started which attracted lots of very bad players) there were some of the most lucrative games I ever played. Multiple players sitting with $5K+ at $1/$3 with absolutely no intention of walking away with any money. Very few good cash players, and the ones that were decent were predictable with their lines and refused to let go of their hands. All in all, I had the potential to have a $10K trip playing $1/$3 without exaggeration.

The problem on the trip was how I ran, and how I felt, as it wasn’t just bad, but it was the way it went down. In the most lucrative game I played, I went a full 7 hours without winning but one pot which was won preflop for a few bb’s. This has been happening a lot recently. Going 5-7 hours without winning even a single hand. Often in these periods both preflop and postflop I am getting or making monster hands constantly. I remember on the last orbit I played, I lost a massive pot w top set on 932 IP, got flush over flushed, got 2 pair + redraw to nut flush 2 outered to better two pair, had top pair + oesd get backdoored to a flush, had to fold an overpair on the flop IP to a cbet, lost QQ to KK in a big one, and this was just in 6 consecutive hands dealt. The whole week looked like that just the most frustrating way a hand go down, was lost in such fashion, nearly every pot, for hundreds of pots. Most sessions I won and the last week alone, I easily won less than 5% of the hands I VPIPd. Playing short handed $2/$5 in a lucrative straight forward game, got coolered in gnarly ways in every hand I played for the first 2 hours before I took down a pot. I just got ****ed every hand for around 45 hours of poker or so. Never really had a good session, and almost every pot for the entire week was max pain. The most titling runout, the most tilting setup. Rarely just normal **** that would have bothered me way less. Had all the best spots in the world and could never seem to win *a* pot. It was just a lot, it took a lot out of me, and I was unimpressed with how I reacted, and began playing much worse in the end as well.

Honestly it all drove me kind of insane, and made me realize my mental game has not improved that much, and is actually the biggest liability towards my ongoing success. In all fairness, sparing even more details, I am extremely doubtful for whatever **** anyone else may talk about this. I think there are few that could go through the week that I just had in poker and remain totally composed. I simply don’t believe it, given how I see others, even pros react at my tables when they undergo adversity in a hand/session, so I am uninterested in any more high horses. But that aside, I am not happy with how I handled it on the worst nights, it all bothered me way too much. So much so that I am taking some time off live poker, getting more into weight lifting and trying to figure out how to correct this, as ever since the mega run bad that accelerated like 8 months ago I have been unable to retain any progress that I have made in the mental realm, even after my subsequent heater, which bothers me. I have another session scheduled with the mental coach for now, and am trying to stay away from live until I think I can make better decisions and react better to anything that may happen. I think once I get this figured out I will be so solid and everything will start to come together even more than it already has, but this will be hard.

Other than that it was nice to see and spend time with friends. For most of the week, I got to spend my time in a very nice suite, easily the nicest room I have ever stayed in. Was there for 3-4 nights, and spent my days working remotely there. I was very impressed with how nice everything was, grateful I got to experience all that, for free no less, and have walked away for more refined goals for my future, both near and long. Still had a good time, everything was a net positive and I am grateful for the opportunity to even try to do this at all, but the mental needs some serious work, and it is always disappointing to see you are not as far along as you had thought. But I am proud I had the foresight to cut my trip earlier than intended, and realize that towards the end, I was no longer playing to the standard I think I should be, and much of what I was going through became far more self inflicted, including the run bad, as that is what happens when you are no longer playing as well as you can/should be.

Anyways, GL in your games everyone, will update in a bit.

Will update in greater depth in the next week or so. Going back to Winstar and Dallas on Thursday for ~10 days or so. Just got back from a week at MGM National Harbor. Still on a downswing but was able to cut back most of it at MGM playing 2/5 and a sprinkle of incidental 5/10.

Been a sort of dry run, besides one respect. On Monday before work last week I went in to play before I started my W2 day (as I had messed up my schedule falling asleep way too early the night before). More on it later, but had best session/day of my poker career in a 2/5 turned 5/10 game at 6 in the morning. Made ~$5K. Also won a lot of consecutive sessions, but they were all quite small. Strange state, but approaching ~40ish sessions now, besides Monday where I had my best day ever, i still haven't won more than $800 otherwise. 40 sessions only booking one session over the top of your initial starting stack size range is pretty dry run. Lots of intensely boring sessions, haven't had much going but have been chipping away at the downswing.

MGM was lots of fun though, reggy, but the regs there are mediocre best. The "pros" had no discipline over themselves at all, on or off the table. Property and room and everything in between was absolutely lovely though. Can't wait to be back at the end of the month.

Will add more very soon if anyone sees this.

Running pretty bad in Dallas. Games have been incredible. Regs there say when IÂ’ve been there they werenÂ’t that good but theyÂ’re so much better than what IÂ’m used to I think theyÂ’re just so great.

Been running pretty atrociously though. Won 2 all-in so far, both of them they were basically dead. Lost a dozen + otherwise. CanÂ’t get anything going. Lot of frustration. Playing well but not perfect. Probably average B/B+, but my B+ game is pretty solid. Mistakes I notice are basically spots of indifference where I think one option was slightly better in retrospect, but havenÂ’t made too many egregious errors, even while insanely tired and playing super long sessions. Wrote down 15-20 hands though, will probably take half of them and do a coaching session over them.

Besides that though the results are getting to my head. I tell people IÂ’m close to I anticipate quitting my job for poker near the end of 2024. Yet, in 2.5 years of playing and never having a losing year, being a proven big winner etc, IÂ’ve been on a downswing for 26/30 months IÂ’ve ever played. That stat just makes everything seem so insane. But poker has not been kind to me in the sense of results, and it all is beginning to exhaust me and get to me more than it was recently. I told a couple friends today, that if I donÂ’t experience what I deem as a medium level of (results-based) success in poker, it will likely mess with me psychologically for quite awhile. ItÂ’s really difficult to articulate the amount of work IÂ’ve put into this for the last two years. But I canÂ’t imagine thereÂ’s even a single person out there making the same sacrifices.

IÂ’ve given up my social life, literally completely. I hang out with friends less than once a month, and have lost several friends due to absence as far as IÂ’m concerned. I used to be in great shape. Now I sit for 18 hours a day and yeah I lift a little, but I never walk or run, and am in the worst strength and especially cardiovascular condition of my entire life, and itÂ’s not even close. IÂ’ve also given up on all my hobbies. Think I went climbing maybe 1-2x all year, both of which were in a gym. I used to go 3-4x a week and travel 20+ weekends a year for it. I used to be quite a reader as well. Not even sure if I finished one book this years and last year every book I read was a poker book. My sense of focus has gotten worse, IÂ’ve become addicted to my phone. My motivation is declining.

A semi-well known poker player awhile back stated he was looking for a new student. He had apps and set up a call with me. We talked for 90min, and he basically said he couldnÂ’t accept me because he canÂ’t really teach me much. Said I need to do other things, one of which being, I have to stop making sacrifices for poker if I want to make it in poker. I struggle with that tremendously and am working with mental coach now about why I canÂ’t allow myself to do other things. ItÂ’s not addiction to poker, but moreso perceived progress. A mix of productivity and opportunity cost.

LetÂ’s say I make $150/night playing $1/$3 in my home casino. LetÂ’s say I told myself IÂ’d take a particular day to work out and read after work instead of play. Okay, well maybe IÂ’m tired and know I wonÂ’t get a good workout in, but know IÂ’m sharp enough to play a more simplified system in my fatigue that will still earn $20/hr. I choose the latter. Same analysis can go with how I rationalize studying over say going to trivia night with friends. I just always rationalize things back to the decisions of sacrifice and one-dimensionalism. But I have a whole array of mental issues relating to the game.

Beyond that, I am tired of whining how I run. On here, to a couple close friends. ItÂ’s so many of my posts. Going to be more aggressive about fixing mental these things and optimizing performance. A lot of stuff has been shedding light to me recently, and I need to take a step back and make some changes soon.

Considering taking month off in first quarter of the year and getting really into weightlifting again, may even give Whole 30 a stab.

All in all the results recently have been messing with me too much and I have a lot of mental game issues to fix that may not be obvious when sitting at the table with me. I donÂ’t complain at the table and I donÂ’t tilt off my stack or play reactive. But in my mind thereÂ’s just so much thatÂ’s a brewing.

As much as I love and emphasize studying it really isnÂ’t my 1-3rd priority if IÂ’m trying to optimize pretty much anything in life or poker anymore. I am beyond good enough to beat the $1/$2 through $2/$5 games IÂ’m playing and IÂ’m not making any dashing breakthroughs with the work IÂ’m putting in.

I want to write about the other aspects of my poker experience and adjacent life in here. Hopefully I actually do that soon. Right now poker is really taking it out of me, and I hope I can correct course before itÂ’s too late.

Also, have a couple funny stories from the table for this trip, and also something that happened to me in response to a youtube video I posted awhile ago (it's not really a serious or active channel, mostly an archive where I delete everything pretty quick) but probably long-winded. I am bad at taking the time to update the more interesting side details/experiences, but I am stay busy and like I said above, I am very bad at allocating time to things that do not immediately progress poker for me.

So, hopefully more later.

I also just read the whole thread from start to finish for the first time. Took awhile despite only 3 pages long. Brought back a lot of memories and small details I had forgotten. The months go by so fast but when I read back on them they actually feel like different life times. Makes me see how much faster I and things change than I conceptualize.

Anyway, until next time. GL in your endeavors everyone.

Have a lot of interesting stories accruing from this Dallas TCH trip. They take so long to write out and I am bad at loathing about on here but maybe one day.

Reached out to mental coach again today. Going to work with him more frequently. Truthfully this is such a long process. I do not expect fast changes but hope at least within the next 12-18 months I can transform my mind permanently for the better.

Had a convo with my mentor this morning as well. Realized that I am probably too conservative with my risk threshold with regard to life roll:bank roll ratio. Probably 2-4x'ing my number now vs what actually makes sense for my situation.

Final note: Bought GTOw AI tier. Started nodelocking and comparing normal 6max GTO ranges + solutions to nodelocked ones I played in real life, and my god have I been punting. Admittedly there were some hands that I played very well and am proud of, where I successfully node-locked their range/obvious and consistent tendencies in real time with maximum effectiveness/implementation, but that was unfortunately not at all the norm. Many hands I played were okay in theory but punts once node-locked, or just punts in both.

Now, I wil say the nature of these games are certainly different than the ones I am used to playing, so I suppose I should be kind and not too mean to myself about it, as after all, within this discover lies incredible opportunity. However, I am disappointed to see some of what I saw.

I've written about it before but as to what is obvious, people don't GTO ranges or freq's very often, and often players in low stakes games, once you figure out where they're doing something wrong, how it's wrong and what they're doing exactly becomes fairly obvious, as the level of complexity they exhibit is not particularly high. So nodelocking feels less risky, but obviously you want to play around with various different but similar assumptions to make sure you understand what's happening which certainly makes it more time consuming than traditional sims or looking up spots. But yeah, I have studied toy games and thought I understood all the meta variables super well, and I am now seeing how much more room I have to improve in non-marginal ways. Ie., not just getting slightly better at Sb v Btn 3-bet pots at 150bb on this specific board texture, but in a more general sense of who I am playing against and how I should respond on every street.

So I am excited for the opportunity, but once again feel that I know nothing, which is a less pleasant feeling.

Last hand of night Tuesday lost a $3K pot getting pocket paired over pocketed pair. in 3-bet pot. Since yesterday got set over set twice, lost AK to KQ in 3-bet pot for most of my stack on KQxx, got 3-outered and stacked, and lost another $3K pot with AKss vs QQ vs QQ in 3-way all-in. Never won much of a pot myself. Down $8500 since Saturday, and am about to call the bank to see if they have cash for me to takeout since my max withdraw is $1900. Have comfortable $15K left in my roll, probably a little more, but definitely getting disheartened.

Played a few times online this week, lost every all-in and just ran very poorly. Looked at my stats and see that I haven't won even a single buy-in since mid October, when I dropped down in stakes again, although I only play like 2-3x a week max.

13 months of being backed and I am still $2K in the hole. I do review my hands and study very frequently still, doing occasional PT4 reports/hand review sessions with coaches, and I do punt sometimes, but most of my hands look pretty good. Looked over last few sessions this week and I didn't find any hands where I made even medium mistakes yet.

Just brutal how long poker can go like this. It's extremely discouraging since I've been doing this for over 2 years now and have really struggled to get anything going despite outworking anyone I've ever met. I did have a solid 1.5mo live from August-September if you've read above, but it was immediately followed by an extremely aggressive pullback.

I can feel the emotion pent up at this point. I am not really frustrated at any one hand, session, week, etc. Even last night when I kept losing all-ins or nasty pots back to back to back and the whole table sat in silence cringing waiting for a reaction. They never got one. Besides the long 10-18 hours sessions through the night where I'm sleep deprived, exercise and nutrient deprived, it's been since Tulsa that I can recall actually reacting to a hand or anything. But what really gets me worked up is just thinking back on how long its been and how much I've done, that's what ****s me up more than anything. That's what makes me question it all.

And today, like I've done before and will certainly do again, I find myself questioning why the **** I even do this in the first place, and what the point of it all is after all. If I figure it out, I'll be sure to get back to you.

Until then, questionably grinding.

Ended up Dallas down a few grand. Had a day where I lost $6.5K, only won lik 2/10 days. Had some days where I played phenomenally, and some where I was very unhappy with my decision. Played 80 hours of poker in a very short period of time while working and not doing much else. Meditated just about every day, but didn't eat super well, and only used the hotel gym twice.

As for online, been going super poorly, can't ****ing get anything to go even okayish. Did a hand review in PT4, probably missed the download period for a bunch, but didn't see anything super bad since like October so I don't really know what to say there, but think I've only had 1 maybe 2 sessions since then where I won more than a single buy-in. Seems like this can just go on forever sometimes, although I can't complain too much about online because I haven't been putting in a ton of volume so the results don't mean a whole lot, just annoying in conjunction with other items. But it's all starting to led to burnout tbh.

Thinking about taking a break sometime soon and just trying to rejuvenate and energize myself. Might do this late January for a good 4-6 weeks. Also may have an expense next year (besides rent and other expected increase costs of living stuff) that may cost me over $10K. If so, that will be a huge wrench in my plans.

More details to come just wanted to make this quick.

Guess I haven't posted in a while, huh.

Well, (hopefully) I update later, but I did it. Just closed my work laptop for the last time. Put in my two weeks, and finished out those 2 weeks today, said my final goodbyes, and closed out the laptop and that's that. Tomorrow I go to FedEx and mail it back to them. I am officially unemployed, or a professional poker player.

I have $65,000 in cash, this number obviously fluctuates a bit, but my minimum goal was $50,000.

In August I move to Vegas permanently. Still looking for a place but thinking high-rise on the strip. I would like to have $70,000 cash by then (that was original plan, not adjusted plan), and I have a few large investments or bills coming up so we'll see what happens.

Until then, I am traveling all over the midwest and south to play and visit people before I leave the region for good.

But I did it. I ****ing did it. I am a professional poker player, and I am set to do everything I ever said I wanted to do, or said that I would do. I did it, and it's all right here now. Time to lock in and really make something of myself.

Thanks for reading everyone. More soon.

GL, why Vegas though?

Seems like the live cash games for your current stakes would be better elsewhere than Vegas

Everyone IRL and online keep saying, "why Vegas, why Vegas" and yes, I know Vegas has horrible cash games, but there other places aren't that great either. Texas is not what it used to be. Since August I've spent over a month out here, and am even here now. It's all grinders and Europros. It's not bad, but it's not good most of the time either.

Maryland isn't a bad option, but I grew up in the area and want to get somewhere different.

Florida is probably a great option. I never played there, but plan to visit and may move down there in the future.

So why Vegas? Well, outside of poker not being as great as it used to be, and other options not being that great, I just love the atmosphere. I have a lot of options of places to play, and I am bad at sitting still or bad with monotony, and think this would help. I would be close (I plan to live on the strip), and also, I love rock climbing. I haven't been able to rock climb regularly outdoors in 3 years, and I miss it. It would improve the quality of life I have tremendously.

Also, Vegas is just different from what I am used to, and I would like to seitch it up. I am used to shitty games. I have been primarily playing in probably the second worst poker market in the United States for years now, and I am unphased by it.

Also, I am not scared of tough games, or to battle. Although, I am aware that a lot of the regs/pros don't necessarily battle each other as much, which is fine either way. Truthfully, I have studied harder, worked smarter, and ran worse than near every pro I'll be playing with, I am not phased by it. I'll play the tougher, worse games, and if somehow my wr isn't enough, I'll just continue to study harder. I find it hard to believe I am not crushing almost any natural live lineup in the United States though, truthfully.

Any other questions?