Hey guys, first off to those that may know me (not many) will know I used to play under the sn 'Poka_face222' but now I play under the sn '-its problem' long story short the poka_face acc was created when I was underage in my dads name and after several emails back and forth with pokerstars and a phone call, I'm now playing in my own name. If you want to know more details/full story PM me.
I decided I would make this thread to try and keep me motivated and on track of whats really important to me and what I need to do in poker and life i.e grinding, working on my game, keeping up a healthy lifestyle and staying out of trouble! I'm sure there's more which I will probably go over as this thread progresses aswell but first and foremost, this is what I see as the most important things to me as of now, aswell as keeping a good balance with my social life.
The last year and a half has been really up and down for me, on one hand I could say it's been the best time of my life and on the other hand I could say it's been the worst time of my life and there are strong arguments for both. Basically (will try and keep this as short as possible) in feruary of 2013 I went on a night out with friends and got into a fight/brawl, was arrested and was granted bail. This messed me up a little bit at first, the possiblity of me going to jail were I guess 50/50 at the time in my eyes and this scared me.
I was living at uni with friends at the time, I had already dropped out to play poker full time but continued to live there. After this incident I moved back to my parents' house and proceeded to grind like never before and train harder than ever. I am currently in the best shape of my life (down to under 12st from around 15ish) and personally think I'm playing better poker than ever. Had this incident not happened I'm not sure what I'd be like today because I was always lazy with the grind and study and never really worked out too much, just small gym sessions here and there, nothing compared to what I do now. Anyways I was on bail for 9 months, having court cases adjourned a few times and several visits with my solicitor etc then on November 4th 2013 I was senteced to 16 months in prison and at the moment the words "take em down" came out of the judges mouth I became weak, started shaking a little bit and for a few days after it actually felt like my whole world had just ended. I only ended up serving 4 and a half months, I say only but it's still quite a long time away from friends, family and reality. I was released on a tag which will end on the 4th July then I will be on licence for a further 8 months. That's partly another reason I'm making this thread, now that I'm due to have my tag taken off, I worry that I will lose track and grind less/work less and just be going out alot. I obviously will go out some but I need to stay focused on what is really important and try my best to become the best poker player I can be and lead a good lifestyle along with that.
Since I have been released from prison I have just been playing alot and studying alot plus receiving a fair bit of coaching. I started on a downswing/BE stretch and I was questioning whether I can even beat the games anymore but with constant reviews I actually felt I was playing better than ever but results clouded my judgement a bit. I kept at it anyways and the last month or so I have been on the biggest heater of my life chopping the sunday mill 4 way for $98k, shipped the big 162 for ~$20k, 8th in the warm up for ~$7k, chopped hotter 33 3 way for ~$8k, 4th big 22 for ~$4k and quite a few others including smaller field wins in mtts like $331R1A 3x and the $33+R etc again my judgement can be clouded on how I'm actually playing now that I'm heating but I stand by thoughts of when I wasn't winning that I am at the top of my game and playing better than ever and I want to continue to improve further.
I'm not going to make monetary goals because this will just add unnecessary pressure. My immediate goals I guess will be to keep playing at least 4 times a week, review at least 3 times a week, receive more coaching, continue to workout 6+ times per week and stick to a good diet. The latter will be hard at first because I will inevitably be going out to celebrate my full freedom back again but afterwards this is what I aim to do. I guess my long term goals will still be the same as my short term but I hope to become good enough to be regularly playing in mid to high stakes mtt's.
I will try to update this thread as often as I can with my progress and I will post graphs from time to time to and maybe some interesting hands along the way. I hope with the existence of this thread it will keep me focused of what I really want to do.
Sorry for the tl;dr hope you didn't get too bored
glgl!