Sup guys, quick update as to how the weekend went.


Didn't end up grinding on Saturday so I'm going to be grinding today instead. For some reason I find it really tough to play on Saturdays. Fridays and Sundays are no problem but Saturdays are just generally a struggle. I'm usually very busy that day with a squash match around midday, Stoke game in the afternoon and then tea at rents in the evening. When all that's over and it comes to sitting down and putting a few hours in on Saturday night I'm normally quite weary (Stoke being utter **** doesn't help) so from now on I think I'm going to have Saturdays as a default day off and only grind it as an exception. Fridays and Sunday are better anyway.


Productivity has been OK but not amazing since last update. I've let myself down in a few areas but overall things are better than they were and I've worked myself into a nice base of form to close out February / start March strong.


Results were awesome! I'm pleased to have caught enough heat to be roughly breakeven for the year now. Yesterday especially was really sick. Think I had QQ>KK and KK>AA AIPF so can't complain.



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Graph for Friday 22/2/19 and Sunday 24/2/19





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There's 4 working days left in the month. I'll be grinding hard 3 of those and looking to put in a little volume on the "off" day too. Will be updating Thursday night.


Cheers.

Sup guys. Going to review this last goal set. Afterwards, I'll be setting daily goals outside of the thread for a short while as I'll likely be switching sites early next week, so it makes no sense to set longer term goals until then. Just waiting for the deal to be confirmed.


Since the last time I set longterm goals things have been moving in the right direction but I'm still a long way off where I need to be in terms of overall discipline and productivity. February overall wasn't a great month but I've definitely been putting one foot in front of the other for the most part, and I feel I've made some measurable strides both on and off the tables. On the other hand there's been some clear fails that I'll be looking to amend in the coming weeks.


Results have turned recently as I've caught a beautiful 25BI upswing over the last 12k hands. Now, whilst it's easy to deceive yourself into believing you're playing well during upswings, I do feel like the adjustments to my overall game that I've been struggling to implement for most of this year are finally starting to feel natural. Also been playing a lot of my volume on the regular tables and I think that's helped a tonne as the games are a good deal softer.


Been working decently hard off the tables too with coaching sessions, video-watching and general self-study work. Hit the combos goal I set and that's something I'm going to continue working hard with as I know that the more I do it off the tables, the stronger my on-table intuition will become. I honestly believe this is one of the key missing pieces to my poker jigsaw.


Fitness has been decent (8 workouts in those 11 days, mostly squash matches) and nutrition has been OK, although I can still make big improvements to both. Made the decision yesterday to cancel my weekly evening squash matches as they interfere with poker way too much. Also had a few disappointing performances on the squash court the last few nights and I do think that playing at 8:30pm after spending a day sat on a PC is the opposite of GTO, so from now on, barring league games where the other person can only play late on weekday evenings, I won't be playing after 5pm.


The mental goals were a big fail. I meditated a few times but nowhere near even half the days, and I haven't been reading before bed like I said I would. However, I bought the first two Harry Potter books (ye I'm a harry potter fanboy ******) and I'm looking forward to starting with those this month. Read a few when I was younger but then just got lazy and watched the films, which were mostly dumb and childish. Been saying for a while I'd like to read the series so now is the time.


Overall volume for the year is behind the requirements but I don't think I'll fail to hit 50k hands a month for the rest of the contract now as I've done a ton of work off the tables and my h/hr playing the same amount of tables is higher than it was several months ago. Will also be upping tables when I do grind zoom so I'll be well ahead of requirement pace by the Summer.



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Graph for 18/2/19 to 28/2/19 - reg-tables + zoom






Graph for 18/2/19 to 28/2/19 - just reg-tables






YTD





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Will update again early next week when I know what's going on with the site-move.


Cheers, Shelly.

Well done Shelly. Love the way your thread is laid out. I'm starting a thread too and I think I'm going to steal your layout. I grind 25/50NL right now so will definitely be following! GL!

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Cheers bro I guess my autism/OCD isn't totally worthless if someone appreciates it. Would be flattered to see my layouts used elsewhere.



Super curious haha. Go ahead and ask without constraint I'm open to criticism.

Ok, I'll try. If I'm not wrong, you've made 350$ in EV for the year - aren't you second guessing your time investment in poker at this point? And if not, how do you stay motivated to work hard? This was my problem with poker, there was always this thought that it's not worth trying at this point (I remember the 2008 times) and even while studying I couldn't shake the feeling that my time would be better spent elsewhere.

No it's a fair question. The reality is, for the amount of hours I've spent on poker since first playing a decade ago, and especially since returning to it a short while before opening this thread, I've earnt a slave wage by my country's standards. If I'm being totally honest this may be my last serious foray. If for whatever reasons I don't make a success of it this time then I can't see myself taking it seriously again, so in that sense the stakes are quite high.


I've managed to create a big opportunity for myself by joining bitB and I firmly believe that, under the tutelage and guidance of a team of what I would consider very successful individuals, I can reach a point in the near enough future where online poker is providing me with a steady and reasonable income. The sample this year isn't great but I definitely feel like I'm on a good path with much brighter days to come. It is only a small sample too btw, created during a period of probably the biggest short-term adjustments my game will ever face. I've made some huge mistakes in that sample and there's also been some clear runbad so I don't think it's fair to look at that snippet as a representation of what's to come. I'm playing as well as ever these last few weeks and I'm definitely feeling more and more comfortable in what I'm trying to do every time I sit down to grind.


If the worst happens and I don't make this work, at the very least I've already learnt a skillset that will always give me the opportunity to make money in poker. Live cash games aren't going anywhere and certainly aren't going to face the existential threats and constant growth in average skill that online poker is experiencing. I honestly believe that, at my current limited level by online standards, I'd be able to crush the lower stakes live cash games for decades to come.


More than anything though I want to do this as a personal endeavour. Making solid money is clearly a key consideration, but aside from that I have invested a lot of time and gone round in circles for 10 years trying to find my way in this game. Between the last two serious attempts to get good at poker I was diagnosed with autism and it connected a lot of dots as to why I've struggled so much in life so far. The reason this time feels different is that I'm coming into poker with a much stronger understanding of who I am and a much clearer, realistic picture of where I want to get to. My 20s haven't been a good time in my life at all and a large part of those years have been spent comparing myself to my peers and essentially torturing myself as a result. It's only since my autism diagnosis that I've begun to be a bit more forgiving to myself. It's a bit cliche' and not totally true for everyone because there is clearly utility for what I'm about to mention. But in my particular case there really is no point comparing myself to others. As I'm close to entering my 30s I'm learning to respect the fact that we're all on our own personal journeys and that comparing to peers is going to serve me nothing but pain.



Sorry for the wall of text. Cliffs: not making much money, think I'm going to soon

Ive seen you lately at the nl25z tables, funny thing i noticed is the chat ban on your account.

Neways, gl at the tables and i hope you achieve success!

Ty for the support. The chat ban is self-imposed I can get it removed whenever I want. I had a few chat blowups this year so it's better for me to just not have that as an option.

How do u ban urself? And how do u know if someone is banned?

Just email/live chat support. When you hover your cursor over a player's name to see their country it'll say "No Chat".



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Quick update guys.


Month is going fine so far. Was absolutely steaming volume (by my standards) but not played all weekend as I've been helping my bro/sister-in-law move house. Sounds like a simpler job than it is but they've moved in with my rents until their new house is ready, so half of the trips have been to this big creepy storage unit place. They should do a halloween spooktacular in that place it just has this inexplicable air of doom. Anyway, those two are fairly disorganised so what should've taken just 1 day ended up taking the whole weekend.


Results have been decent although I've realised that a much higher % of my volume than intended has been zoom (something like 70%) which I'm not too impressed with as, despite the lack of convenience, the reg-tables are much softer and I feel like I perform a lot better mentally for some reason. Zoom can be quite relentless especially as I've been 3-tabling. Reg tables you just have a bit more time to collect your breath and observe.


Off the tables things have been OK although I popped my hamstring playing a squash league match last week and I've been pretty sad about that. The positive is that it's been 7 days now and it must've been a much more minor injury than I first suspected. I came off the court almost instantly which is something I've not done in the past so I'm sure that helped. I skimmed through my fitness diary and I found that the strongest I've been over the last year or so was in the months right after my last hamstring injury. I was completely ****ed that time and could barely get up and down the stairs, but I rested it for several weeks and then spent several weeks rehabbing it with walking, then jogging and resistance-training, before getting back on the court. I'm going to go through the same process again starting tomorrow because I suspect that the lack of weight-lifting in recent times has led to my tendons not having the muscular support that they need for such an intense sport. Hopefully I can do what's needed just like before and come back stronger. The plan is to then ensure I'm not spending too high a proportion of time on the court vs doing the nitty gritty off the court as I think I played squash on 9/12 days before tweaking my ham again.


Still waiting on this prospective site move but I'm hearing there's been some unforeseen delays in getting the deal over the line so it'll likely be another week at least until that's sorted, in which case I'm going to set some goals ITT.



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MTD - zoom





MTD - reg-tables





MTD - Total





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Goals for Tuesday 12/3/19 to Monday 18/3/19

[ ] 15k+ hands total @ 25NL

[ ] >66% of volume on reg-tables

[ ] complete the daily workout on Lumosity before first grinding session of each day

[ ] complete a written analysis of 7+ combo spots

[ ] complete a written analysis on 1 training video

[ ] attend every coaching session

[ ] set an alarm for every 45mins and rate every 45mins on a mental-game grade of 0-5 + calculate an average for each day played

well done! Hopefully you get better. I've torn my groin before and the pain lingers for a while

Really great progress shelly well done.

Good stuff mate, nice to see you on the reg table grind as well. Keep it up

Sup guys. Can't believe it's been nearly 2 months since my last post but here it goes.


April was a terrible month for me. I completely lost myself mentally and had one of the worst depressive spells in recent memory. Everything fell to ****. Fitness; nutrition; mental-health; sleeping habits; and of course poker. Whilst there was some non-poker stuff that I think heavily contributed to this, I have to say that I did very little to help myself and have to look inwards for answers as to why I allowed things to get so bad. I know what I need to do to give myself the foundations to make progress in all areas but I did very little of that and meekly succumbed to whatever stresses I was going through.


WRT poker specifically I lost sight of the bigger picture. Volume was garbage (little more than 25k hands) and general productivity was garbage too. I've been plagued by this nagging doubt that maybe I don't have what it takes and that I'm too simple-minded to ever truly achieve much in this game, and when I indulge those sort of terrible negative beliefs it completely crushes me. I've been heartened in recent times by messages from a few guys in my stable though, who have expressed feeling similar ways at times. One of those guys recently posted about the doubts they had as a struggling 25nl grinder. That guy is now a 10k (k!) nl crusher.


Anyway, it's made me realise that there must be a graveyard of former poker players who allowed similar beliefs to fester and quit too early. Maybe if those guys had persevered they'd be the ones crushing 200nl+ by now. It also made me realise I am a member of the graveyard. From 2013-2015 I grinded 180s hard, put in a lot of work but lost myself mentally and effectively left the game for several years.





If I had been stronger mentally and carried on persevering who knows where this graph would be by now? I don't want to become a corpse again and, whilst I haven't had any overt suggestions that this is a possibility, I do have to be aware that if I don't pick things up and start showing signs that I can be consistent in my efforts, maybe my backers might decide that there is a queue of grinders who would better utilise the amazing opportunity that being a member of bitB presents. I'd be devastated if that happened because it truly is a world-class stable and I love being a part of it, but I haven't made the most of this opportunity so far and there has to be big improvements in the near future.


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There were a couple of positives in April. I played a small amount of volume at 50NL and, whilst I was definitely a bit shaky during those sessions, I do think I'm technically competent at the level. One of the guys in my stable was also kind enough to send me his HUD which I semi got used to during the last days of April, so that should be a big help moving forwards as my previous HUD was not fit for purpose despite a lot of hard work having gone into its creation.


And finally, the site move that I was talking about a few months ago is finally close to happening. It's been delayed due to a series of unfortunate circumstances but I'm basically 99% certain it'll happen in the next few days. The plan is to play X amount of hands at 20nl and then, once I'm all setup and used to the software, move up to 50. With the deal we have effective rake should be a decent amount lower so I'm really looking forward to the switch.


I've got a bunch of **** to do over the next few hours but I'll drop by later and set some goals for the evening. I want to be a lot more active in this thread than I have been and hold my feet to the fire, then once I've moved sites I can start setting long-term goals again. I'm also looking forward to not checking results again as I've been checking daily for a while now (and even sometimes during sessions) and I know it's aids for me mentally. Once I've moved I'll make that a thing so that I'm not swinging from feeling like I'm the next Ivey one day to feeling like collecting trolleys at tesco is about my level the next.


Update later, cheers.

Goals for Wed 1/5/19

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous sessions

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] 4.5hrs+ grinding 25nl regular tables

[ ] play the mega freeroll

[ ] no checking results or balance until the day is finished

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new daily goals before day is done

Yo. Solid day on and off the tables. Got a load of **** done and laid some nice foundations to kick on and have a solid month. Unfortunately I've had a migraine for the past few hours so volume is a fail; feel pretty rough so I'm deciding to call it a night and get to bed early. Hopefully it'll be a blessing in disguise as I'm more productive when I'm up early.




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Goals for Thu 2/5/19

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous session

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] 6hrs+ grinding 25nl regular tables

[ ] attend the group coaching session

[ ] no checking results or balance until the day is finished

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new daily goals before day is done

Yo this thread is motivating af. Hope you have some good results, sounds like you are putting in a tonne of work.

A few study recommendations. There is a video on youtube by PokerDetox 'Forcing aggression'. After I watched this I basically stopped punting off stacks unnecessarily and my win-rate went up by a lot. (Not suggesting you punt, but for some reason this video really helped reduce my volatility, the coach's thought process really simplified some concepts for me about mental game.) Think this could help you.

Charlie Carrel's youtube series, (his bankroll challenge + his 50nl coaching sessions). This series offers a tonne of insight into how he ranges his opponents and why he does a lot of things he does. Very eye opening, also if you watch enough you get a greater understanding of fundamentals (cbetting, barreling etc.)

One thing about zoom, if you slip into B/C game or even tilt during a zoom session it has a compound effect because your seeing so many more hands than reg tables. You have more decision points and therefore if your game is off your going to be making more mistakes more frequently and this can be very costly. On a reg table you have more time to deal with your emotions/process things and get back into the zone. It's a small thing but could be an idea to switch from Zoom to a reg table if you ever feel slightly off. In zoom it is very easy to get into a 'flow' state, whether it be good or bad.

Good luck mate, sure you will have your success soon.

No April graph?

Thanks for the kind word mate and ty for the study suggestions.

The stuff you say about zoom is so true. I've actually been doing a lot of reg-table grinding over the last few months. It's obv < convenient but I much prefer it overall to zoom for the exact reasons you describe, and also that you can pretty much choose your winrate by good table hunting





I didn't post because I was embarrassed by the volume and my general performances, but here you go.







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Had an awesome productive day on and off the tables. Very pleased with how the month has begun. Only sour point was the 2nd half of the day where I ran a bit aidsy and couldn't get much going, but also was quite foggy-headed. The games were good though so I know I was +ev. All reg tables btw.







Also fired this badboy whilst I was doing my pre-session work.






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It turns out today was my last day on stars for a while - providing all goes well with the switch to Ipoker. Tomorrow will be a weird day whilst I get everything setup but I'll set some goals anyway. I genuinely can't wait to see what it's like on a different network. There will be ballaches for sure but I've seen another player's setup on there and it looks pretty sweet so if I can get my own to that level we'll be in business.



Goals for Fri 3/5/19

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous session

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] get everything setup and functioning on Ipoker

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new daily goals before day is done

Sup guys, forgot to update before turning PC off last night, realised not long after but decided to just leave it and write today instead.


Completed the site move yday but didn't get much volume in. Was just getting things setup and still got a lot of features and issues to figure out with the starshelper equivalent software before I'm truly comfortable on there. I'm guessing it'll be another few days before I'm getting back into a solid groove as there is an awful lot of things to tweak. From what little I did grind the games seemed really good, and as already mentioned effective rake will be a good chunk lower with all the rewards and perks.


As a side note I was asked about reg-tables yesterday by someone considering switching over from zoom, so I took a look at my total 25nl reg-table graph on stars.







Whilst it's a small sample I actually believe this winrate was not only sustainable, but far surpassable. As a non-scripter I noticed it was much easier to find good spots in the week before I left. The changes stars introduced make it a good time for anyone considering leaving zoom. My table-selection became much stronger and stricter in the latter end of that sample too, so I honestly reckon I could've produced 10bb+ @ 25nl over a much longer period, had I stayed put.



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I'm busy off the tables today. Got a squash match coming up and then going for a beer with mates this evening, but I'll try to get some more stuff done this afternoon with a mind to setting myself up for a big grind tomorrow.



Goals for Sat 4/5/19

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous session

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] continue working towards getting setup optimal on Ipoker

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new daily goals before day is done

Sub´d. Excellent results, keep it going, and GL in your new poker site.

Cheers bro.



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Yo. Didn't get a lot done yesterday. Had a squash game in the morning, came home and worked for a few hours, then went out for a few drinks with friends in the evening and then back to one of their houses for drinks and food. Ended up kipping on their sofa rather than make the long uphill walk home at 2am (hence no update) which, whilst surprising comfy for a sofa, was still a sofa...so I'm feeling a little groggy this morning but not really hungover. (didn't get very drunk at all and was only drinking fruit ciders)


I put in about 500 hands in the afternoon and ran quite well, and the games do seem really good + the bonuses have already started pouring in. However, I'm having a lot of issues with the supporting software that is vital to effectively multi-table. Today is somewhat disrupted (squash match, dinner with family) so I'm going to focus my available time on trying to get a bit of volume in, then tomorrow morning I'm going to uninstall and reinstall that software and start from scratch to see if I can get it working properly.



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Goals for Sun 5/5/19

[ ] attend the group coaching session

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous session

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] 5hrs+ total grind 20NL

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new daily goals before day is done

Didn't get round to updating again last night, not a good habit so I'm going to make sure I break that one today.


Grind went fine yesterday, finished around b/e but had a few scummy hands that were the diff between b/e and winning a bunch. Volume wasn't as high as it should've been but I'm going to try to get the assistance software working optimally today before I play. If I can get that sorted then I'll be able to put in at least as many hands as when reg-table grinding on stars; and it should be more actually as the lobby is much smaller so finding tables is way less hassle. Also got no workout today (resting after squash all weekend) so that frees up some time. Would like at least 2k hands.



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Goals for Mon 6/5/19

[ ] uninstall/reinstall assistance software

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous session

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] 6hrs+ total grind 20NL

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new daily goals before day is done

Sup guys. Had a decent productive day. Managed to figure out why some of the vital features in my assistance software weren't working. Did an uninstall/reinstall which didn't work, then realised there was just a couple of unchecked check boxes staring me right in the face. After that it was working great and I think I've got everything I need to go hard on the new site now.


Grind went well and I made a bunch of buyins despite running quite shoddy in some spots vs the recs. The games are definitely a million times softer than stars. On the flip side, hands/hr is lower. Prob partly the slower software but also the passivity of the games. Way more hands going to the streets with all the limping and cold-calling recs. Not complaining though it's jolly good fun.


Didn't quite hit the hourly volume goal. I think the plan tomorrow is to stick to 4-tables to get my head around the 3b sizes, but also to give me a bit more time to get to grips with a new HUD I've been using. I actually noticed earlier that one of the stats might be wrong so I'm going to go through and check all of them - which has the added bonus of allowing me to find all the hidden popups.


Anyway, volume won't be huge tomorrow because I've got a load of **** to do off tables, but I'll push myself to do as much as possible and then will set some long-term goals once the day is done.



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Goals for Tue 7/5/19

[ ] check all HUD stats to make sure no errors

[ ] sort through all saved hands from previous session

[ ] complete PF spots before grinding

[ ] Lumosity workout before grinding

[ ] 5hrs+ total grind 20NL

[ ] review these daily goals before day is done

[ ] new long-term goals before day is done