Since my last update my grind has been intense and consistent. I was able to put in my 8 hours every day for 5 days a week until yesterday where I was only able to grind out 6.5 hours. Yesterday was the most apathetic I've felt towards the game in a long time and I believe it is due to my dating life. I have been out and about meeting new people without dating apps and I currently have a promising candidate on my radar. While this is certainly a +ev situation, things are still up in the air and the uncertainty is preoccupying my thoughts and emotions, resulting in a disinterest in poker. I am feeling more focused today and I am confident that I can bang out my hours but I am still sweating over whether or not the tropical storm brewing in the nearby ocean will make landfall on my island.

Anyways

I have been teaching myself how to code. I had a friend leak his web development boot camp to me and I am on the last few sections of the HTML lessons. My schedule is nearly the same only I have been waking up 30 minutes early to study web dev on the weekdays, it's a fun and interesting hobby so far. Do you guys have hobbies outside of poker?

I will not be grinding tomorrow evening and building a new computer instead. Recently I played a hand where I missclick folded the nuts because my machine was lagging. I had been dealing fine with the lag before but this is the last straw.

I am happy to report that my new pc was built successfully. The lag on my old computer was much worse than I thought it was, the new one feels lightning fast. This could literally add a bb to my winrate lol

I must admit that this week has been my least productive week all year. I feel guilty because I went into Monday with the intention of following my schedule as usual but I completely failed to do so. Last Thursday, I injured my foot lifting. Mondays are typically leg days for me but I decided to skip because of my injury. Instead I did a few mobility routines at home but deviating from the norm of hitting the gym that day caused my concentration to falter. That day I could only muster 5 hours of my standard 8 and while playing/ studying I was apathetic so it was truly a drag. I spent time playing a computer game which I find very addicting and I feel guilty for doing so during hours that are dedicated for poker. I had good intentions for Tuesday but when I woke up at 11am I felt inexplicably tired and went back to bed until 3pm. At that point I was doomed for a productive day, instead I went outside and spent time with a few friends until 4am. I am writing this on Wednesday now, today I woke up at 3pm and I am going to hang out with friends today instead of grinding. I feel guilty about this but I am being too hard on myself in my opinion. This week may be a wash but I am confident that I will get back into the grind at a high intensity by Monday.

Another thing I have noticed about my poker is that when I am running well I am more likely to lose focus like I did this week. Since mid October, I have been on a heater and during this time period I have become less engrossed in poker. When I am having a downswing or facing adversity, I tend to double down and work harder to improve my game and get out of my downswing. During times like these I have a tendency to neglect my personal relationships and become a hermit obsessed with improving my poker game and grinding out of my swing. This was the mode I was in between March- mid October. Now that I have been running better and poker has felt like a breeze, my social life has flourished. Not only do I feel like I am strengthening my current friendships but I have met several new people in this time period, however, I have also found it more difficult to grind and steadily improve my poker game. It's a tradeoff. While I feel guilty about poor productivity this week I must be less hard on myself and realize that while I may not be grinding with the same intensity as before, I have made significant progress in my social life and that is very important.

Finally, I have been following a new schedule (when I manage to do so) for the past month. Now I have been splitting up my play throughout all hours of the day so it feels easier to put good volume in as opposed to trying to grind out all the hands in a 6 hour bender.



Do you notice shifts in your motivation during times of rungood/runbad? Thank you for reading.

looking at your schedule makes me sad

it leaves absolutely zero room for dating/socializing and has you on a terrible work schedule

also, there's absolutely no point to try to casually learn mandarin, it's just a huge waste of time and you can do that for years and still be unable to function without relying upon english

i say this from experience as someone who is fluent in the languague

don't mean to be a debbie downer, but you need more work life balance or you'll burnout and be left with major regret over a squandered youth when you're older - also speaking from experience on that as well - you're basically a younger version of me and i feel obligated to warn myself not to repeat the same mistakes

What is a schedule that you recommend? Just the weekend is not enough social time? I have dinner on some weekdays with others.

if you're taking breaks from that stuff to meet up with others then that's good, also good you're taking weekends off (seeing you were grinding evenings and even scheduling showers i just assumed you were also playing weekends and being very rigid about it)

main thing i'd recommend is for you to continue to take breaks and join friends for stuff like dinners/drinks even when it's normal working hours for you - no matter how many times you explain that those are your work hours, people will still feel like you just don't like hanging out with them and slowly stop making an effort to reach out - also why it'll be very helpful for you to be making the initial contact to do stuff on the weekends

it was concerning seeing you say that you were deleting dating apps because they were too distracting - now is the exact time to be distracted with dating - it's only going to get worse

right now most women your age are attractive, single, & without kids - the older you get the more and more attractive ones get married out of the dating pool and you're left with the scraps who usually are not attractive and already have children of their own

when you're in your 40s, you are not going to regret missing a tuesday of grinding because of a date but you will regret all the women you didn't date

i'd also consider what the ev of grinding a more traditional 9-5 would be - if not significantly different then your life becomes incredibly easy

when i was doing dfs abroad it was great because my busiest hours were in the mornings when all my friends were at work anyway - doing here in the usa is a soul sucking existence - nothing worse than bringing a laptop with you wherever you go in the event a work emergcency pops up and you need to edit some lineups due to last minute injury/game cancellations

If he dates, he cannot focus on poker. He starts to fantasize about women mid-hand.

He said it himself.

Keep in mind all weeks aren't equal. If poker is in a busy phase or some new whale is dumping it's the time to grind. If it's a bit slow taking it easy from time to time will keep you fresh when things get going again.

Remember too you grind to live. Not the other way around. Living your life and taking time off is important for longevity. Maybe you should plan a real vacation. Two weeks off to do something fun.

all the more reason to date, that's an issue that should be addressed and solved rather than ignored and allowed to fester

This is facts. When I am on dating apps I am very apathetic towards poker. Rick has a point though, I have come to realize that it is important for me to date and try to meet someone at this time in my life and in my post about dating apps months ago I under rated this importance. However, recently I have been involved with someone and I have two other candidates so I can do without the apps for now. If all my prospects dry up though I should definitely consider shifting my focus towards dating.

As for the 9-5 idea, I could not imagine quitting poker. I have found nothing in life more fulfilling than overcoming hardship in poker by studying hard and gradually improving. Not only is it very fulfilling, I also find that as a career it fits my skillset very well. I do not think I would have great success attempting to climb the corporate ladder nor do I think I would enjoy that process as much as the process of improving at poker. I still have a stake ladder to climb and still have a lot of improvements to make to my poker game so I am (usually) very motivated to continue grinding. Getting a 9-5 is out of the question. Also I would make a lot less.

Finally, the last 2 times I took a vacation I just wanted to go home the majority of the time. I remember sitting somewhere in Puerto Rico looking at a map of my neighborhood on my phone, wishing I was there instead. I consider the trips I have taken as positive experiences, however, nothing compares to the feeling of satisfaction that I have after a long day of disciplined and focused grinding. This week I was not disciplined and spent the down time with friends, while this was fun in the moment, this has been one of my unhappiest weeks of the year. The purpose of this accountability thread is to keep me on a disciplined, and relentless grind. I find that I am the most happy during stretches of strong productivity.

Now if I were able to take time off and allow myself to relax without feeling guilty that would be powerful. I do not know how to cultivate that though.

i'm in the ozarks staying at a fishing camp owned by good friends

in the drive over here, i needed to pull over 3 different times and do some impromptu dfs work, the night before, i missed a deadline because I didn't realize i'd crossed timezones and lost some ev

right now, i'm exhausted but need to stay up and work to prep for tomorrow's nfl season and my buddy wants to take me out rainbow trout fishing in the morning - fishing was my life when i ws growing up, it was my favorite thing in the world, i should be sleeping now and ecstatic about what awaits me tomorrow but instead i'm up and running sims for the nfl and thinking to myself about all the ev i'm going to miss tomorrow while out of the lake during what are traditionally the peak dfs work hours

this sucks, if i had a regular job i could just be taking paid time off, already asleep and enjoy tomorrow without a care in the world but now I'm going to be thinking about lost ev

Sorry to hear this Rick, idk what dfs are but I imagine you are a sportsbettor. What would you prefer to do instead?

I had an epiphany recently and decided that I am going to approach things differently for 2024. During 2023 I worked very hard, improved at lot a poker and earned decent money, but I feel as though my social life was declining for much of this year. In 2024 I am going to focus more on my social life. My poker skills are better than my social skills and I should work to improve my weaknesses. I will not be abandoning my schedule, rather it will serve as a guidline to follow on the days I intend to work. As for the days that I work, I will not follow the rigid weekdays format, instead I will commit to 150 hrs of poker per month and take days off or play half days to accomodate social plans. Previously I was hitting 180+ hrs per month which I now believe is overkill at this point in my career. I have bought myself a queen sized bed for christmas in wake of this lifestyle change.

I gotta say, buying yourself a bigger bed so you can bang more in the new year is one hell of a resolution.