14.2.2019 - 198k hands in 38 days, thirteen days behind

All right, so I have done the first 13 days of the challenge and it's been brutal. Nothing positive to say, It's been an awful ride. Now starts the fun phase, though. I am quite a bit of behind my schedule, so I need to put the turbo boost on and finish the challenge in time. Today I'm taking a day off to enjoy Valentine's day and then it's game on!

I have to play about 7k hands a day to reach my goal, so I have to add quite a bit of volume each day, but I don't think it's a big problem.



Results after thirteen days:



I wanted to give up so many times, this month combined with the January been brutal. I have worked 250 hours and got nothing to show for it. Not happy, for sure, but I will work till I win again. I do not give a **** what poker throws at me. Sometimes you have to be brutal about it and keep going because the wins are coming, you just have to push through. **** swings and **** this game, I will never give up.

take a pause

19.2.2019 – The struggle makes you stronger, NEVER QUIT!

You would think the best times/moments make you better, but it’s the opposite. Whenever you face the most problems in life and deal with them correctly, that’s where the biggest improvement happens. Last few months have been brutal poker-wise, and I certainly had my struggle mentally to keep going, but I believe it’s fine to feel bad now and then, but never let the game get the best of you. You have to have believed, that you will always bounce back! In the end, these struggles will make you stronger, and after you have beaten them, you can say - ”It wasn’t that bad. If I can tolerate that, there are not many things, which can hurt me.” I think that’s a good way to look at any problem in life. It’s good to remember, that we are not going to live forever and I think it makes us enjoy the moments more what we have on this earth. Never take time as a granted thing, because it could end soon, in an accident, illness whatever. Never take anything for granted, not even life. Appreciate what you have now because at some point you might not have!

Sounds kind of dark text, but I wanted to share my experience from the last two months. It’s been brutal run, but now I can look at it in a more positive light because I dealt with it — some experiences I wanted to share.

I've been taking a bit more breaks than I should have. Good advice though!

Now back to grind!

Hope things turn around for you soon pal gl

Hello again!

All right, time to get back to blogging. I’ve had a break for some time, but now I’m eager to get back to grind and blogging. I lost the purpose of my life at the start of the year. I was doing some foolish challenge, which meant nothing to me. I guess I got motivated to do some project because other people were making their new year’s resolutions and from that, I learned an important lesson: Never let other people influence yourself to do things(especially not fitting your purpose) because that might not be something you want to do. It’s tempting to do everything, but you have to find your way and stick to it!

Tournament series:

Exciting times ahead. Tournament series are starting. I would recommend keeping a few things in mind:
1. There are a lot of fun players.
2. A lot of regulars.
3. Everyone with good energy levels (at the start of the series)
4. Big prize pools
5. Good mental state and focused playing (first few days, week)

Fun players:
First, it’s good to recognize there’s a lot of fun players, meaning there will be a lot of value. We should try to aim against the people who are not as good players as the other regulars. Try to isolate the fun players and make them pay for their lousy decision’s pre-flop and post-flop. Maximize your EV by getting the max value from the Fun players. Try to play as many pots with them as possible.

Regulars and their energy levels:

Regulars will be pleased the first few days/week because they are full of energy and excited about the big prize pools. They will be a good challenge for a week. After one week, you will notice a drop in their level of play, because of the physical/mental exhaustion. Regulars are tilting more, because of a bad run, unfortunate eating/sleep/lack of rest habits. Try to take day-offs, so you can mentally play well every day, not just once or twice a week. Remember to take breaks and not to get FOMO (Fear of missing out), because If you play every day, it will probably cost you in the long-run in bad decisions and tilt. Phase yourself!

Big Prize Pools:

We will be playing for big prize pools, which means we can probably bully people a bit more than usual. Think about it like this: If you feel fear and you are a competent poker player, imagine how much someone else is feeling pressure which has never been to a similar situation? Mental edge is one of the biggest things when it comes to playing Big Prize pools. We can run over people because they are scared of money. Fear happens especially in a large field tournament with substantial prize pools. Use fear as your weapon!

GL to everybody! Now it's time to kill the games!

gl bro.You forgot to mention the importance of working out regularly

Thanks. Oh for sure.

GL to you as well!

Forget your EGO, and stay patient!

Patience:
Patience is one of the most underrated skills in poker. I always struggled with patience because it’s not my biggest strength, but it’s getting better over the years. Patience allows us to wait for better spots and not spew our tournament away. Patience becomes especially a key in slow structured tournaments. I would say, If you have great patience already, play a lot of deep stack tournaments because there’s a lot of players who are just willing to give away their stack at some point because they get bored.

Sleep well:
Don’t underestimate how much good sleep can affect your patience and ability to play poker! It’s a key ingredient.

Keys to having good patience or improving it?

Meditate.
Sleep well.
Play only the tournaments you want to play. (for reals) Don’t play tournaments you don’t even want to finish, or they start too late for your schedule(too tired)!
Try to have good patience every day, in real life. Improve it. Whenever you face problem, try to remain as calm as possible. Traveling is one good way because traveling is mostly waiting.(unless you can stay in the present moment the whole time, but it’s tough when you have nice destination coming up!)

Forget your EGO:

Don’t take the game personally and stick to your original strategy. When you start taking other players personally, it becomes much tougher to play poker mentally, because you think it’s a battlefield and in a way it’s, but our goal is to keep ourselves as calm as possible! If you start cursing about other players who are playing aggressively against you, don’t get annoyed. Be patient and wait for their mistake, because most of the time they will make one. Not to mention, most of the time, when people playback a lot, they usually have good hands. It’s easy to let small sample sizes mess up with our head.


Your tips for improving the mind?

Marko

Superstitious or wrong beliefs in poker

Almost every player has some ”superstitious” or weird/wrong beliefs in poker, but we shouldn’t let those things matter while playing. Mind works in weird ways, and here are some thoughts I have(during or after playing):

- When you lose a big pot, and you will end up with a very small stack. You NEVER double up again, you always lose the next flip.
- When all the short stacks double at the FT-table, you are doomed to finish last
- I always run worse than my opponents/friends
- “I ****ed up again” when you lose a standard hand at the end of the tournament.
- I ALWAYS spew my stack away
- Tournaments are waste of time, I never win.. God Dammit.

Usually all these beliefs come from the mindset we have. There’s no real truth to these; they are all made up in my mind! We have to remember that human is more likely to remember the moments when you had pain than success. Is there any reality to things I’ve written as my “beliefs or superstitious” in poker? Not really. There’s no truth base; it’s just my opinion or what I felt in the moment.

That’s why It’s important to remember, that we are living in the moment when playing poker and these painful feelings are more common in poker than good feelings because most of the time you will end up being disappointed in tournament. It’s part of the game AND part of the charm of tournament poker. What makes tournaments so interesting form is the brutality of the game. It can be brutal, or it can be beautiful when you beat the field and win 20,000 field tournament and a big amount of money.

My advice:

Write down your thoughts while you’re playing, for example the most negative thoughts after busting a big FT-table or whenever you felt emotional. Then read the text next day and think about If there’s any truth to it. If there is, then you should fix your game, If not then fix your mindset, because you will feel much better after you know It’s just your mind playing games WITH YOU, not REAL FACT!

What are your wrong beliefs in poker, which your mind keeps feeding you?

Crazy Overlays, Use it to your advantage..

Hey, little bit talk about Overlays. It seems after a big tournament series is over, there seems to a big hangover among regular/fish, so it leaves many tournaments with a significant overlay. If you feel you’re not exhausted, you should be playing, because in a day you can easily make an extra $200+ per day playing tournaments.

Just a small tip for some gain.

1.10.2019 – Tilting

Sunday was a rough day. I started playing around 14:00, and things began quite well, a lot of deep runs, but everything busted around the 9-12th place. Very frustrating. The whole session kept going the same way, some deep runs, but always went broke when there was a “chance.” I think the frustration can build up through the day and then at the end of the day I was a bit tilted. The clock was 22:00, and I had ZERO deep runs. It’s quite annoying to notice you have zero good runs after such a long time playing, so I got a bit frustrated and the whole day felt like a waste. I was also tired because I started so early, so an unfortunate combination of being tired and a boring run.

REMEMBER:

Tough moments are the ones which build our character, so you must try to fight your negative feelings and put them on the side. See the positive in the struggle, because these things will improve us!

What I want to point out, it’s easy to say “control your emotions” and other crap, when you are feeling good, and you are not playing yourself, but when you are in a bad situation, it’s much harder to deal with such a situation. Outsiders can always easily judge others, so don’t be too critical to yourself, when this happens, because it’s normal. Just try to deal with tilt better than most of the people, and you will profit from it. (almost everyone deals with some TILT). In the end, poker is about being better than other people; If you can deal with stress better than 95% of the players, you are making good money. The higher you climb the percentage pool, the more money you will make compared to others. We don’t need to be perfect; we need to be better than others. Simple as that.

Meditation for help

Meditation can help with the frustration a lot because you get more used to dealing with dull moments or let’s say quiet moments. Meditation has improved my patience a lot over the years. I was very impulsive earlier years (20-28 years I would say), but my tolerance is increasing every year. It’s an excellent skill for poker.

in

good luck

TY for the blog man looking foward to next post. you motivate me alot

You're welcome!

Finished page 2 & then skipped to page 8 (plan on reading 3 to 7 at some point).
Wish I'd been around for the personal challenges... not that I'd want you to fall off & eat a mars bar... but some 'free coaching' sessions would be the bomb! Maybe a trade for some personal training stuff? (I used to train 'trainers' many years ago, along with people in movie industry ie. Reese Witherspoon). Was also competitive bodybuilder back in early 1980's & have also competed in powerlifting competitions. Have not personally done any resistance training for many years due to serious illness which has kept me from being able to do so but am just starting up again this year! (Very light stuff & have Lifecycle bike for office & 'fatbike' for short rides outside in the snow.... used to have full gym in my home years ago, for training clients). In 2019 I lost 30kg with plans to lose another 15kg in 2020 (was 130kg in Jan.2019, now 100kg).

I am interested in coaching but have been away from MTT's for many years & never playing seriously (just recreational micro donk). But have done some studying & feel I have potential as my life has changed dramatically over the past year. I was previoiusly working part-time as property manager (but became full-time commitment)... didn't leave me room for much poker so mostly played cash tables (5nl to 50nl) w/o much study. I saw a thread of your's on here about wanting to travel to Canada to live for a bit... I would've been able to set you up nicely in small towns of Interior of B.C. but with pretty much zero nightlife, but LOTS of outdoor recreation activity (fishing, skiing, hiking-climbing, swimming (warm lakes)) & VERY CHEAP (had 750sq.ft. apts for as little as $450/mth. (Cdn.$) with heat included, close enough to all amenities in town where you don't need vehicle.)... BUT I retired 9mos ago (hence why I can NOW play poker!!! )

I feel I need to play a couple thousand tournaments before I'd be ready for coaching... to get the most from it. Also funds are a bit tight at the moment ... only living on small disability income presently. But I have plans for this to change in not so distant future & to become your #1 student!
(maybe I should've posted this elsewhere?)

Awesome post and great read. Yes we can certainly change some info on dieting/working out and poker.