Mastering Mental Game and Mental Health
01-29-2023
, 06:45 AM
legit 1000000x better weather than UKcheers mate! you still hard on the grind?
cheers slug
the year of your triumphant return???
<3 loving your updates, although few and far between, ben!
nice one husk, still grinding?
ahaha lmao it's losing a little
Quote:
I'd say in general i try to play games with 1 rec, but naturally that's not always possible so i do spend a decent amount of my sessions sh with regs i feel i comfortable vs. Obviously as i've moved up these players are few and far between. Now that i'm playing ignition, i don't game select, just get 4 tables of 2k up and only leave if games break. And as for gg, I'm super selective so as to not get eaten alive by rake.
ty mate! am lurking your blog still
thanks!
hope you goooodlooool paging @bean
so good so many of us are still knocking around, even if not all playing haha
cheers gaz! will definitely make it up to see you this year!
nice one bro!
---
Not an update, thought i'd respond to everyone.
The year has been very swingy so far but I'm absolutely loving the grind right now. May post a few hands here and there to stay a little more connected on 2p2!
glgl
03-31-2023
, 03:22 AM
When you have your best month ever but....
This year has been an absolute swingfest so far but I feel like great things are just around the corner
glglgl <3
Spoiler:
This year has been an absolute swingfest so far but I feel like great things are just around the corner
glglgl <3
03-31-2023
, 09:07 AM
12-30-2023
, 01:57 AM
Was gunna play 2 more sessions but caught covid again so will post now!
—
Yooo. How the hell has it been a year since my 2022 EOY update?! On the one hand I had way less responsibilities this year (solely playing poker and not practising any form of therapy), but on the other, this year has been quite challenging on both my mental game and life outside of poker. Will try keep this as concise as possible but it could well be ridic TL;DR
I also just wanna preface by saying that my results for the year are financially decent, but I’m actually quite disappointed with the way things went down. I’m also putting a lot of focus on my GG results because those were the stakes that caused me the biggest issues.
—--
Living in Australia.
I’ve now been in Melbourne for 15 months, and I gotta say, the process of moving to a new country with no family or friends nearby has been a LOT harder than I first thought. It took close to a year to form any sort of good friendships, which for someone who has always had best mates around the corner their entire life is a pretty big shock to the system haha.
As a byproduct of this, one of the ways I dealt with this was to fully send poker. I played a ridic number of hands this year given I pretty much exclusively played 2k+/1400 hours pre study. This has taken its toll on my enjoyment of poker, mental resilience, and at times, my overall well being outside of poker. I’ll go into this a little more.
Shotting Highstakes
I said this in last year’s EOY update:
The way I figured I could achieve this goal was by playing tons of volume while also shotting highstakes. This was partly due to my timezone and the availability of games, but also likely down to my ego; I improved massively last year and wanted to push myself. To cut a long story short, I had many swings including my worst day ever:
This was a mix of 2k-10k and I lost 16bi, mostly to Zachas and some of the other hs boys lol. This horrendous day was in late Feb, but I continued to shot 5k and 10k until September. Since then I've experienced many bi/$ swings, each one trumping the last.
Here is my GG graph for the year - it ain’t pretty, but I also wanna reiterate that although these are beyond normal bi swings, the $ amount was the thing that was so impactful to me.
$$$
Bi
As mentioned before, at times my physical health was impacted which isn’t something I’ve ever experienced with poker. I saw this as a HUGE red flag - bad headaches, chest pain, detriment to sleep (elevated heart rate throughout the night, particularly after bad days) and generally feeling quite disconnected from my emotions. It wasn’t so much the swings in and of themselves, it was the sheer accumulation of huge volumes of hands, daily/hourly swings and a super high pressure grinding atmosphere. When your body and brain is under that low-mid level stress constantly, it simply can’t maintain emotional equilibrium (or at least I couldn’t), and can adversely impact you in other ways.
So what did I learn from this and what’s the plan? Well, I’ve dropped 5k/10k and will only be playing 1k/3k for the time being. Through journaling, the question that I kept coming back to was; why do I play poker? Anyone who has read this blog over the years knows how much I love and appreciate the game. But I’ve found myself in the mindset that I have seen so many others getting caught up in - chasing $. This, at times, has left me feeling, like others, bitter and resentful towards poker. A trap that I need to be super mindful of not slipping into again. In addition a HUGE re-realisation has been life/health EV over $EV. I think this has actually been the most important reminder to me. It’s pretty crazy how easy it is to slip from great habits/mindsets into unhealthy ones.
Moving forward I’m going to be playing just 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. And of course studying. I’ve crunched numbers and although my earning potential will likely decrease by a significant margin, I’ve already noticed a rebuilding of gratitude for being in one of the very best professions in the world. I’m definitely not done with high stakes, but for me to give it another go, I need to approach it with more emphasis on the impact it may have on my emotional response and continue to listen to that. Also I gotta say that the game quality atm is pretty damn great - notwithstanding the RTA/cheating news released this week. Even at hs on GG, there is soooo much edge to be had. Obviously rake is a huge concern but I 100% believe I’m beating decent hs games. Would also be nice to hit a BBJ at 1k lmao.
Results
This is what you’re all here for!
$ with rakeback
bb
Pretty much made the identical $ amount as last year but with 1/3 more hands played.
—
Here are a few of the biggest pots of the year:
Completely slapped by omega
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $25/$50 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $10,485.00 (210 bb)
MP: $9,745.00 (195 bb)
CO: $13,944.42 (279 bb)
BU (Hero): $11,406.75 (228 bb)
SB: $12,441.58 (249 bb)
BB: $5,713.50 (114 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($75) Hero is BTN with J
T
2 players fold, CO raises to $200, Hero 3-bets to $700, 2 players fold, CO calls $500
Flop: ($1,475) 2
9
4 (2 players)
CO bets $737.50, Hero calls $737.50
Turn: ($2,950) 8 (2 players)
CO bets $1,475, Hero calls $1,475
River: ($5,900) 2 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $3,068, CO calls $3,068
Total pot: $12,036 (Rake: $25)
Showdown:
BU (Hero) shows J T (a pair of Twos)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 40%, Flop: 29%, Turn: 30%, River: 0%)
CO shows A Q (a pair of Twos - higher kicker)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 60%, Flop: 71%, Turn: 70%, River: 100%)
CO wins $12,011
vs our boy zachas
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $50/$100 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG (Hero): $15,772.58 (158 bb)
MP: $39,126.90 (391 bb)
CO: $15,354.74 (154 bb)
BU: $29,983.40 (300 bb)
SB: $22,763.89 (228 bb)
BB: $16,355.97 (164 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($150) Hero is UTG with J A
Hero raises to $250, 3 players fold, SB 3-bets to $400, 1 fold, Hero calls $150
Flop: ($900) J A
2 (2 players)
SB bets $297, Hero raises to $1,073.88, SB calls $776.88
Turn: ($3,047.76) 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2,730, SB calls $2,730
River: ($8,507.76) Q (2 players)
SB bets $8,507.76, Hero calls $8,507.76
Total pot: $25,523.28 (Rake: $35)
Showdown:
SB shows J Q (two pair, Queens and Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 32%, Flop: 6%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)
UTG (Hero) shows J A (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 68%, Flop: 94%, Turn: 100%, River: 100%)
UTG (Hero) wins $25,488.28
vs reg
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $50/$100 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $20,000.00 (200 bb)
MP: $14,408.50 (144 bb)
CO: $11,719.50 (117 bb)
BU: $20,993.50 (210 bb)
SB: $20,677.25 (207 bb)
BB (Hero): $12,115.00 (121 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($150) Hero is BB with 5 8
2 players fold, CO raises to $250, 2 players fold, Hero calls $150
Flop: ($550) 8 5 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks
Turn: ($550) A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks
River: ($550) K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $412.50, Hero raises to $3,230, CO raises to $11,469.50 (all-in), Hero calls $8,239.50
Total pot: $23,489 (Rake: $42)
Showdown:
CO shows K K (a full house, Kings full of Fives)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 81%, Flop: 9%, Turn: 5%, River: 100%)
BB (Hero) shows 5 8 (a full house, Fives full of Eights)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 19%, Flop: 91%, Turn: 95%, River: 0%)
CO wins $23,447
One of the most ridic hands all year vs agg reg
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $25/$50 - 5 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $11,173.78 (223 bb)
CO (Hero): $9,946.44 (199 bb)
BU: $6,524.99 (130 bb)
SB: $7,975.50 (160 bb)
BB: $8,054.99 (161 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($75) Hero is CO with K J
1 fold, Hero raises to $120, BTN 3-bets to $356.25, 2 players fold, Hero 4-bets to $1,050, BTN calls $693.75
Flop: ($2,175) 2 7 A (2 players)
Hero bets $475, BTN calls $475
Turn: ($3,125) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $1,245, BTN calls $1,245
River: ($5,615) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $7,176.44 (all-in), BTN calls $3,754.99 (all-in)
Total pot: $13,124.98 (Rake: $27.50)
Showdown:
CO (Hero) shows K J (high card, Ace)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 47%, Flop: 26%, Turn: 23%, River: 0%)
BU shows 9 9 (three of a kind, Nines)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 53%, Flop: 74%, Turn: 77%, River: 100%)
BU wins $13,097.48
—
Off tables
Plenty of stuff has gone down this year, but the highlight is definitely Caris and I eloping in Bali.. It was a truly insane week with incredible memories. Here are a couple of pics:
2024 plans
I’m taking most of January off cus my sister is visiting for 2 weeks and then I’m heading to Thailand for 10 days. I’ll then be in the UK from May-Sept… Obviously all of this throws pretty big spanners into the works with regard to grinding/consistency. I guess I’ll have to report back this time next year and let you all know how things went!
And lastly, something I've really missed this year has been community interaction. Obviously I stopped posting here and on IG. I’ve decided that I’m pretty likely to start a YT channel with similarish updates to ig/2+2 - weekly round up with some hands, graphs, thoughts on the week. I haven’t got all the details ironed out but if anyone has any suggestions please let me know!
This post is egregiously long and I know teh stone ain’t gunna be happy, so we’ll end it there.
Thanks for swinging by and hopefully there’ll be a lot more interaction throughout 2024. Take care! <3
—
Yooo. How the hell has it been a year since my 2022 EOY update?! On the one hand I had way less responsibilities this year (solely playing poker and not practising any form of therapy), but on the other, this year has been quite challenging on both my mental game and life outside of poker. Will try keep this as concise as possible but it could well be ridic TL;DR
I also just wanna preface by saying that my results for the year are financially decent, but I’m actually quite disappointed with the way things went down. I’m also putting a lot of focus on my GG results because those were the stakes that caused me the biggest issues.
—--
Living in Australia.
I’ve now been in Melbourne for 15 months, and I gotta say, the process of moving to a new country with no family or friends nearby has been a LOT harder than I first thought. It took close to a year to form any sort of good friendships, which for someone who has always had best mates around the corner their entire life is a pretty big shock to the system haha.
As a byproduct of this, one of the ways I dealt with this was to fully send poker. I played a ridic number of hands this year given I pretty much exclusively played 2k+/1400 hours pre study. This has taken its toll on my enjoyment of poker, mental resilience, and at times, my overall well being outside of poker. I’ll go into this a little more.
Shotting Highstakes
I said this in last year’s EOY update:
Quote:
A loose goal is to be playing 2k-10k and who knows, even get some seats in the bigger games. I’d also like to play ~350k hands.
This was a mix of 2k-10k and I lost 16bi, mostly to Zachas and some of the other hs boys lol. This horrendous day was in late Feb, but I continued to shot 5k and 10k until September. Since then I've experienced many bi/$ swings, each one trumping the last.
Here is my GG graph for the year - it ain’t pretty, but I also wanna reiterate that although these are beyond normal bi swings, the $ amount was the thing that was so impactful to me.
$$$
Bi
As mentioned before, at times my physical health was impacted which isn’t something I’ve ever experienced with poker. I saw this as a HUGE red flag - bad headaches, chest pain, detriment to sleep (elevated heart rate throughout the night, particularly after bad days) and generally feeling quite disconnected from my emotions. It wasn’t so much the swings in and of themselves, it was the sheer accumulation of huge volumes of hands, daily/hourly swings and a super high pressure grinding atmosphere. When your body and brain is under that low-mid level stress constantly, it simply can’t maintain emotional equilibrium (or at least I couldn’t), and can adversely impact you in other ways.
So what did I learn from this and what’s the plan? Well, I’ve dropped 5k/10k and will only be playing 1k/3k for the time being. Through journaling, the question that I kept coming back to was; why do I play poker? Anyone who has read this blog over the years knows how much I love and appreciate the game. But I’ve found myself in the mindset that I have seen so many others getting caught up in - chasing $. This, at times, has left me feeling, like others, bitter and resentful towards poker. A trap that I need to be super mindful of not slipping into again. In addition a HUGE re-realisation has been life/health EV over $EV. I think this has actually been the most important reminder to me. It’s pretty crazy how easy it is to slip from great habits/mindsets into unhealthy ones.
Moving forward I’m going to be playing just 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. And of course studying. I’ve crunched numbers and although my earning potential will likely decrease by a significant margin, I’ve already noticed a rebuilding of gratitude for being in one of the very best professions in the world. I’m definitely not done with high stakes, but for me to give it another go, I need to approach it with more emphasis on the impact it may have on my emotional response and continue to listen to that. Also I gotta say that the game quality atm is pretty damn great - notwithstanding the RTA/cheating news released this week. Even at hs on GG, there is soooo much edge to be had. Obviously rake is a huge concern but I 100% believe I’m beating decent hs games. Would also be nice to hit a BBJ at 1k lmao.
Results
This is what you’re all here for!
$ with rakeback
bb
Pretty much made the identical $ amount as last year but with 1/3 more hands played.
—
Here are a few of the biggest pots of the year:
Completely slapped by omega
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $25/$50 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $10,485.00 (210 bb)
MP: $9,745.00 (195 bb)
CO: $13,944.42 (279 bb)
BU (Hero): $11,406.75 (228 bb)
SB: $12,441.58 (249 bb)
BB: $5,713.50 (114 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($75) Hero is BTN with J
T2 players fold, CO raises to $200, Hero 3-bets to $700, 2 players fold, CO calls $500
Flop: ($1,475) 2
9 4 (2 players)CO bets $737.50, Hero calls $737.50
Turn: ($2,950) 8
(2 players)CO bets $1,475, Hero calls $1,475
River: ($5,900) 2
(2 players)CO checks, Hero bets $3,068, CO calls $3,068
Total pot: $12,036 (Rake: $25)
Showdown:
BU (Hero) shows J
T (a pair of Twos)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 40%, Flop: 29%, Turn: 30%, River: 0%)
CO shows A
Q (a pair of Twos - higher kicker)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 60%, Flop: 71%, Turn: 70%, River: 100%)
CO wins $12,011
vs our boy zachas
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $50/$100 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG (Hero): $15,772.58 (158 bb)
MP: $39,126.90 (391 bb)
CO: $15,354.74 (154 bb)
BU: $29,983.40 (300 bb)
SB: $22,763.89 (228 bb)
BB: $16,355.97 (164 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($150) Hero is UTG with J
AHero raises to $250, 3 players fold, SB 3-bets to $400, 1 fold, Hero calls $150
Flop: ($900) J
A 2 (2 players)SB bets $297, Hero raises to $1,073.88, SB calls $776.88
Turn: ($3,047.76) 3
(2 players)SB checks, Hero bets $2,730, SB calls $2,730
River: ($8,507.76) Q
(2 players)SB bets $8,507.76, Hero calls $8,507.76
Total pot: $25,523.28 (Rake: $35)
Showdown:
SB shows J
Q (two pair, Queens and Jacks)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 32%, Flop: 6%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)
UTG (Hero) shows J
A (two pair, Aces and Jacks)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 68%, Flop: 94%, Turn: 100%, River: 100%)
UTG (Hero) wins $25,488.28
vs reg
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $50/$100 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $20,000.00 (200 bb)
MP: $14,408.50 (144 bb)
CO: $11,719.50 (117 bb)
BU: $20,993.50 (210 bb)
SB: $20,677.25 (207 bb)
BB (Hero): $12,115.00 (121 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($150) Hero is BB with 5
82 players fold, CO raises to $250, 2 players fold, Hero calls $150
Flop: ($550) 8
5 5 (2 players)Hero checks, CO checks
Turn: ($550) A
(2 players)Hero checks, CO checks
River: ($550) K
(2 players)Hero checks, CO bets $412.50, Hero raises to $3,230, CO raises to $11,469.50 (all-in), Hero calls $8,239.50
Total pot: $23,489 (Rake: $42)
Showdown:
CO shows K
K (a full house, Kings full of Fives)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 81%, Flop: 9%, Turn: 5%, River: 100%)
BB (Hero) shows 5
8 (a full house, Fives full of Eights)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 19%, Flop: 91%, Turn: 95%, River: 0%)
CO wins $23,447
One of the most ridic hands all year vs agg reg
GGPoker, Hold'em No Limit - $25/$50 - 5 players
Hand delivered by Pokeit
UTG: $11,173.78 (223 bb)
CO (Hero): $9,946.44 (199 bb)
BU: $6,524.99 (130 bb)
SB: $7,975.50 (160 bb)
BB: $8,054.99 (161 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($75) Hero is CO with K
J1 fold, Hero raises to $120, BTN 3-bets to $356.25, 2 players fold, Hero 4-bets to $1,050, BTN calls $693.75
Flop: ($2,175) 2
7 A (2 players)Hero bets $475, BTN calls $475
Turn: ($3,125) Q
(2 players)Hero bets $1,245, BTN calls $1,245
River: ($5,615) 9
(2 players)Hero bets $7,176.44 (all-in), BTN calls $3,754.99 (all-in)
Total pot: $13,124.98 (Rake: $27.50)
Showdown:
CO (Hero) shows K
J (high card, Ace)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 47%, Flop: 26%, Turn: 23%, River: 0%)
BU shows 9
9 (three of a kind, Nines)(Equity - Pre-Flop: 53%, Flop: 74%, Turn: 77%, River: 100%)
BU wins $13,097.48
—
Off tables
Plenty of stuff has gone down this year, but the highlight is definitely Caris and I eloping in Bali.. It was a truly insane week with incredible memories. Here are a couple of pics:
2024 plans
I’m taking most of January off cus my sister is visiting for 2 weeks and then I’m heading to Thailand for 10 days. I’ll then be in the UK from May-Sept… Obviously all of this throws pretty big spanners into the works with regard to grinding/consistency. I guess I’ll have to report back this time next year and let you all know how things went!
And lastly, something I've really missed this year has been community interaction. Obviously I stopped posting here and on IG. I’ve decided that I’m pretty likely to start a YT channel with similarish updates to ig/2+2 - weekly round up with some hands, graphs, thoughts on the week. I haven’t got all the details ironed out but if anyone has any suggestions please let me know!
This post is egregiously long and I know teh stone ain’t gunna be happy, so we’ll end it there.
Thanks for swinging by and hopefully there’ll be a lot more interaction throughout 2024. Take care! <3
12-30-2023
, 06:56 AM
love that you came back for end of year updates 
And very sorry you had such a bad start to the year, must have been hard to come back fro……WTF?!
And very sorry you had such a bad start to the year, must have been hard to come back fro……WTF?!
12-30-2023
, 10:39 PM
