strong name to topic ratio

dankness - thx a lot bro, don't tell everybody at the tables that i am blogging tho!

Karl - i had an agenda when i rated those names. I actually quite like Karl.

Waffle - relax bra! you're going nuts! We already have a hijacker, but you're definitely my favorite passenger so far, you're hitting the sweet spot with your borderline-crazy rambling for sure.

I actually don't know very much about Rachmaninov, i always found Prokofiev and Shostakovich to be more interesting, and it seems like they struggled a lot more with the sovjet regime, and were a lot more critical in their music as well. But feel free to enlighten me.

TouchofEvil - I can see why you got that screen name. Stop it.

We'll go back to my old routine today, just cause it was such an amazing day.

PRE-SESSION
___________________________________________
I set my alarm for 04:30.
We need some more information here, otherwise i can just imagine how you read the above line, lean back in your comfy chair, wrinkle your face (not sure which part of your face, i don't know you that well), shake your head and think "Simon, Simon, why would you set your alarm for 04:30? What's going on there buddy?"
So, it all started with a video about time management.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

This video.
Like a true poker player, i watched it while playing poker.
I closed it around 10 minutes before it was over, and i hadn't taken in much at all of what it was about. Yea, that's how we poker players do it.
And we call that self development.

Anyway, i rewatched it later. I sat by the sauna with my laptop, a piece of paper and a pen, and i watched it and took notes.
And i watched all of it, and i enjoyed it hugely. And now i am into to-do lists, and into being efficient about my time, and getting as much out of every day as i can.
So, yesterday, i really wanted to work out, and while i enjoy the work out, i don't enjoy the "get up, close laptop, change, move,....". It's such a hassle. So working out was on top of my to-do list, and i did it.
I had 3 items on my list, and i did them all. I didn't end up playing poker, so i know that playing poker was the most important thing for today.
That's why i set my alarm for 04:30, and that's when i got up, had breakfast, read, drank coffee and sat down to play.

SESSION
___________________________________________
I played for around 3 hours with a break in between, in which i worked out and got another coffee.

POST-SESSION
___________________________________________
That's now. I had some random thoughts in my session about single hands that annoyed me, but i am really happy with my play, and i always go from being annoyed to making fun of myself for being annoyed pretty quickly.
I am happy with how the day went so far, and i am very focused on maximizing what i can get out of today. So that's what i am gonna do.
I am also trying to respect every reg i play against, and to make myself think that they are probably amazing (until proven otherwise). We'll see whether i'll survive this approach. The emergency strategy is to change my hotkeys so that i am able to chat, and insult everybody at my table. Bear with me on that one.



I've been searching for cool hands for 15 minutes now, and i can't find one. I guess this one outlines the twisted plo logic that i still have to get used to.
Essentially, he makes a "protection" bet on the dryest turn card in the deck, narrowing my range to wraps and made hands.
And then once he's achieved that, he decides to check call the river (quickly) against that really narrow range, giving me the opportunity to vbet extremely well and bluff accordingly. And he does all that instead of checking the turn, which would give me the chance to cap my range, or give me the chance to bluff with a much wider range (which will include some one-stabs).
Oh, he also got himself into this spot with a tight range to begin with, meaning that his hand is by no means a three street hand here.

Now the question is whether i anticipated this kind of strategy and played accordingly, or whether my perception of this spot was that after calling this turn bet i couldn't possibly have many river bluffs, and he couldn't possibly call me with the type of hand that he had. I won't tell you for obvious reasons.

liked the video. Wonder how do you decide what is important and what not. I mean for the to do list. I so agree with the speaker, that not important things should just not be done. Wonder why only Russian composers. Need to spend some more time to understand your hand.

Where can I buy The Big Bad Book? I don't care what it's about. Is there a Vlog that goes with it? A Twitch channel? A Twitter account? An Instagram at least? Thanks.

I figured i'd go ahead and steal Fatcat's blog back. Let's do that.

Lapka - Well, i decide every day what's important and what isn't, based on what i've done the day before (and what i haven't done).
Russian composers cause Waffle rambled about Rachmaninov and i was surprised that he seemed to know a bit about him, because when it comes to russian composers i always found the others more interesting.

shootaa - Even IF it was buyable, you sure as hell wouldn't get it. I'd only sell it to people who would see the book as proof of my superior intellect, and you aren't one of those, and you can't fake well enough.
I don't use twitter, i've been threatened into appearing on twitch in the past but that was a mistake, and i honestly don't even know what instagram does.
I could do vlogs, but why would anybody want to see my face?
How about you do one instead, that sounds like a better idea..

POKER
__________________________________
I started watching videos on procrastination, because i feel like i got enough input on time management for now. I will stick to both of those topics for the next 1-2 weeks and try and really get a precise idea of what i need to do.
I've had this idea of focusing on one reg while i play, i feel like that's giving me additional focus. We'll see how that goes, it's fun so far.

PRE-SESSION, SESSION, POST-SESSION

Well, well, well. I played two sessions. I was playing well in both of them. I am already really focused and concentrated, but i strive for even more focus and concentration while playing.
I will keep this up, and the fact that i am downswinging right now is an additional challenge. How focused can i be? How motivated can i be despite running bad? Can i run even worse and be even more focused?
I think this is what i need to focus on.

I run bad. The only problem that i have with that is that it keeps me from moving up. Why do i need to move up? Because i am looking for a challenge. Oh boy, but i already got a challenge, right in front of my nose.
So let's accept this one first. I'll keep running bad, and i'll baffle myself and those around me because i'll be so positive, so focused and so motivated.
I realize those words come up a lot, but that's what it's really all about.

I also realize that being able to find motivation despite runbad (and turning that into "motivation BECAUSE OF runbad" or "motivation through runbad") is a really valuable skill, and one that i will be able to put to good use for the rest of my life, especially if i am planning on being successful.

"4 hour body", "the ultramind solution", "fourhourworkweek.com/blog", "healthy at 100".
Those are books and a blog in which healthy sleep are discussed (according to my source).

subbed! gl simon gogogo!

good luck simon crush while running bad and move up anyways to face your challenge !

THE PERFECT COACHING SESSION

- PREPARATION

When it comes to poker coaching, there are a couple of problems.
No 1, Coaches aren't very professional. You can see that in the way they make videos. The general approach to making a poker video is "Record - ramble for 45 minutes into a random mic - Stop Record". I think many coaches take the same approach to coaching.

In order to get in that perfect coaching session, both coach and student need to prepare.

For example, the student could record a video of himself playing a session. Then, the student could review that session and do some work on interesting spots. And then the student would call the coach, and they would review that same session together. This kind of double-review will make the student ask better questions, and will also make it stand out more when the coach will focus on spots that the student didn't focus on (not even in his review).

How does the coach prepare?

A questionnaire will help:
What would you say is the weakest part of your game?
What's the strongest part of your game?
How much work do you do pre and post session, and how many topics do you cover (or try to cover) per day/per week/per month?
How long do you spend on figuring out a single concept/topic/spot/type of spot?
What kind of poker video do you enjoy, and how do you envision a coaching session should go?

The student needs to answer these questions, and the coach needs to read the answers, and think about them.

- THE AMAZING SESSION

Alright, let's assume we got in that one amazing coaching session.

- IT'S OVER. WHAT NOW?

Coaching should follow a progression. Sometimes, the first session is a general leak finder. The second session might focus on preflop, and the third session on raising cbets.
That's a mistake. Pick one thing that you wanna improve at. That can be a broad topic, like cbetting, or turn play, or 3betting preflop. It can also be something that's very specific, like playing second pair as the preflop raiser on boards that are bad for our range.
Stick with that topic. Keep sticking with it. And when you're REALLY good at it, then you can discuss focusing on something else.
You might not be able to cover that many topics, but you'll learn how to work, you'll be able to focus on precision, and you'll be able to learn exactly what that one topic is about.
Compare that to jumping back and forth between random things that come up.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Obviously, i took a lot of these ideas from videos about time management and productivity. Still, i figured applying them to poker coaching is a good idea. Sometimes, i need to remind myself how to coach, and part of that is making people understand what they should expect from their coach. After all, if you coach poker, it's likely that people are paying a LOT for it.

Have a good one!

Ty for making the poker landscape tougher old man

Great post except for the fact that 99% of poker coaches are losing players which is why they coach instead of actually play poker

^^ +1

I don't care what they are or aren't, as long as they take coaching seriously and try and get people to improve. You could teach somebody how to work really effectively, and that could be exactly what that person needed in order to improve at poker. Losing players could be great coaches. Winning players who don't take coaching seriously will almost certainly be bad coaches.

Opened an account here so I could post in your blog. Good luck and will be looking forward to updates.

I'll update this thing.
While reading this, maybe you wanna listen to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAtx578yaZ8

let's get going. Those are string i imagine.
I've taken a break from focusing on time management and productivity.
I am not abandoning it. Just for a couple of days, i do what i wanna do.

(Strings unisono now. The amazing melody started in the celli (i think))

I am really, really productive.
I do a lot of coaching, and that's going amazing.
I do a lot of leak finding, which is so so so hard.
Most of the times, you work on your game, but you don't find a "leak" in that sense. Rather, you tweak a little here and there, and you might have a small revelation like "wow, i shouldn't really bet this board very often".
That's small.
The stuff that i've been finding out lately is big.
How did i find out, you might ask?

(Melody melody melody, high strings mostly)

Sometimes, you get some hints that you didn't expect. People tell you to filter for something, and you find out that you're leaking.
You might do a random sim, and get really unexpected results. The key to success (when it comes to leak finding) is INPUT.

(Quiet. Not so string heavy. Back to strings, back to quiet. Melody reappears)

I coach because i want to do 2 things: Build a network of amazing people, and get input.

(Those huge masses of instruments almost sound like an organ sometimes)

If you work with people, you get better. There's something that i used to tell my students.

"OK, student. Here is the coaching questionnaire, and i want you to fill it out and send it back. Notice that i wanna know what you think your leaks are.
Once i know them, i'll probably ignore them and we'll work on something else.
Here's why: If you think that you're bad at something, you won't need me to focus on it. You'll focus on it. I will point out the things that you didn't see, and we'll work on the stuff that you wouldn't focus on by yourself."

And this is what needs to happen. Sometimes, people send you a spot that you think is boring. But those are the spots where you really get surprised, and where doing some work can really pay off.
For example, i had a routine where i would analyze 3 hands per day.
3 hands per day is a LOT. I ran out of interesting hands between hand 0 and hand 1, so then i had to pick 2 random hands.
Now here's the thing:

Analyzing a random spot that you thought you played really well, and finding out that you played it really well feels AWESOME. This confirms that you can trust your instincts. That's some insane **** right there.

(Back to tutti but different melody, some kind of climax that's dragging a bit)

I also played poker (i might have mentioned that, but i can't scroll up now).

(ok this is pretty intense. High strings, low strings, getting BIG)

I didn't wanna check results, but i had to look at something, and i wanna share it with you.
This graph is 90% me 8 tabling zoom 500, 4xnlh, 4xplo, and 10% me playing random sessions that could be anything between 4 tabling and 8 tabling of any mix.
I filtered for no limit holdem.



(Back to quiet. Before that was some INSANE beautiful melody. Now it's some back and forth between solo violin and solo cello)

I looked at this because i wanted to know whether my plo downswing affects my no limit game. That would be logical, because i mix a LOT.
Looks like it doesn't really, or that i run really well. I don't care which one it is as long as it keeps happening.

(Quiet, or "piano" as we call it. Probably nearing the end)

I'll go back to my PRE-, SESSION, and POST- routine for my next update. But it wouldn't reflect the way i am approaching life right now, so i can't do it.
But i'll go back to that approach, because i am just taking a break.

(The End)

It was a treat, both visual and auditory. It might help if one was to muse in between some of the lines in order so the whole experience is in sync.

Awesome post! Really enjoy your writing style.

That is why the pokermind is such an amazing book. The differences between unconcious incompetence and concious competence are widely seperated by being able to get input, be it from outside through coaching and talking to other players or by changing the view and approach to a certain situation and being able to reflect on it. Players who cannot always stall in their progress and development at one point.
I agree that coaching should always target unconcious incompetence and rarely improve concious incompetence.
I don't know what it is, but I can talk and talk poker without getting bored, but I can get burned out on playing poker in anguishly short intervals that always seem to be my achilles heel. It is not really quitting tilt, even if I run good I have to sometimes strongly reinforce my will to play. I don't know if it is a form of self sabotage, or just my brain wanting to be occupied with a daunting task, because playing poker sometimes gets very non-interactive and bland. I have carried that with me through my whole poker development and envy everyone who is just able to play and play seemingly unfaced from boredom.

Killing nlhe got get my butt back to studying!

99% of people are like this. Just force yourself to play. Think about what you'd be doing for a living otherwise and just suck it up

I agree with that statement plenty of times ive moaned and complained about how crappy poker is then i take a small break re-energize and realize how liberating the game really is and how much life really would suck without it

Addressing this specific issue, it could very well boil down to how we/you see poker. What is it to you? What is running in the back of your head when you sit down to play? If that is addressed and then accepted then the recurrence of these mental swings will be very occasional.

lmao i can see why you got into coaching, nice river raise bro

At least i tank folded.

PRE-SESSION
________________________________________

I started the day by watching a video about the Sedona method. I noticed that i am sometimes anxious before playing a session, and i wanted to think about the reasons.
So, my thought process before this session went like this:

Could i play a 5 10 reg session ("session" - big scary term)?
No.

What am i afraid of?
Running bad. Losing in tilting spots. Being unhappy post session. Because after the session i want to relax and take a day off.

Could i play 1 table of 5 10?
Yes. Of course.

Could i play 2 tables of 5 10?
Yes. Sure.

... (etc)

SESSION
________________________________________

I allowed myself to play as few tables as i want. So this is what ended up happening:
5 10 plo zoom was running. So i debated between sitting down at 2 or 4 tables. Playing 2 felt like such a weak move, so i laughed a bit and ended up doing that.
Then i opened one 10 20 table of no limit 6 max.

...[20 minutes later]...

I played 4 tables of 5 10 plo zoom, and between 6 and 8 reg tables of 5 10 and 10 20 nl.

For 2.5 hours.

POST-SESSION
________________________________________

I was really in control. I was relaxed, and decided fairly well what i wanted to do in most spots (There are still some spots that i am generally not relaxed in, but why in heaven would i share those with you sharks).
I obviously didn't check results, because seeing a number creates a certain attachment. But what ever number that is, i am very happy with my play.
Let the day begin and a nice weekend to y'all !

I guess that's what i did pre-session, now that i think about it. I hadn't even read your post before. Whoever you are, keep posting.