June Update
Played 147 hours of live poker, won small. Played tiny bit online, won small also. Played in the biggest cash game I've ever played, was mostly rec players and I lost big.

2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-Played no tourneys in June
[ ]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-I've been slipping into the bad habit of spending my free time away from the tables doing other things besides this. Having a weekly standing appointment helps a lot. I plan to set smth up after wsop main.
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-Sticking with this
[x]no chair massages at the casino-
[x]update this thread at least once/month-Did bare minimum here. I'll try and do at least one more during July
[x]Do not add any live cash cash game horses-

NSFW:

just looking for an update
or a nice story

Man, clicked and was excited for an update. One of the best threads on here I would say. I'm grinding mostly 2/5, taking some shots at 5/10 and this thread was relatable.

July Update
Played 176 hours of live poker, won a little bit. I ended up having my first losing month this year because of tournaments and online play, lost a few k after everything. My routines got disrupted bc of some IRL commitments that I couldn't avoid and everything kind of eroded. Diet, fitness and sleep are so important to me that once I start to slip it throws me off kilter and messes up my poker game as well as my mental state. Live games only run certain times of day also so if your sleep schedule gets messed up it takes some time to get back on track. I'm finally now getting back into the swing of things but this month will prob be rocky as well.

2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-Played Main Event in Vegas and bricked
[ ]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-Didn't even attempt this. I'm staking one person in cash games, did some light HH discussion here and there. Closer to 2 minutes a week.
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-stuck with this no problem
[x]no chair massages at the casino-
[x]update this thread at least once/month-Did bare minimum here again. I started a write up of smth I think people will find interesting besides the home game stuff, I'll finish that when I have time.
[x]Do not add any live cash cash game horses-

NSFW:

One of my favs. Welcome back!!!

Randy

The first time I had ever met Mitchell he was freestyling in my living room at the townhouse where the stabbing occurred. I thought it was pretty funny that a white kid from a rich family took hip hop so seriously. After getting to know him better I found out he was sort of like the junior member of this rap group Team Demolition. They were local guys who had rapped together when they were younger. At this point they were no longer focused on rapping but had an expensive studio and would make beats, sell studio time to local acts and produce music. Most of them had something else going on to make ends meet.

Jay was the main guy making the beats. He was white but didn't act like it. He had a few kids from a few different baby mamas, didn't believe in using condoms, smoked weed constantly and was about as street as anyone could possibly be. When he owed people money he would say he owed them x amount of dollars in violence. He was in and out of jail for stupid things nothing serious that I know of. They had a DJ who's dad had played for the Harlem globetrotters who worked at the local cell phone store. Their manager was a straight up KP. Zach was the guy who owned the studio I think, he was the hardest working and did nothing but music full time.

Here's a song they produced for Trickstar, they're all featured in the vid:



Couple songs they made when they were still rapping:





I had never met anyone in the music industry and Mitchell was always trying to namedrop to prove they were legitimate players and impress me. He desperately wanted to be part of their inner circle. They had worked with a guy named Lord Digga(who since changed his name to Classic). Digga had worked on the Ready to Die album years before and got credit on 3 of the tracks, two of which got a lot of radio play. Digga was friends with Havoc and Prodigy of Mobb Deep and got them an introduction. When their boy Illa Ghee got out of prison he would spend a lot of time at the studio recording his stuff there. They made beats for him and were even going to produce one of his albums(I had a copy but can't remember if it was a mixtape or what). Havoc and Prodigy signed with G-unit and that gave them a connection with Shady Records. They did some mixtape for them and also had some Shady artists in studio to record. I would go to the studio sometimes and I remember Young Buck and Obie Trice being there on different days. Shady started buying beats from them which finally lead to their big break. 50 cent selected one of their beats to be used on his album "Before I Self Destruct". Mitchell told me they got payed 70k for the beat which was far and away the most they'd ever gotten. This was higher than usual partly because 50 had a deal in place with Call of Duty to be able to use any of his songs from the album in their games and this beat got attached to that deal(I don't know if it ever was used for COD or not). This money had to be split amongst all of them and I'm not sure who got what.

Three songs Lord Digga worked on for Biggie:







Only song I can remember with Illa Ghee on it that got any radio play:



50 cent song they made the beat for:



Remix with Gucci Mane:



Randy was a local rapper named Ransm16 who had gained popularity by winning a bunch of consecutive freestyle contests on the radio week after week. They were working on his debut album and had hoarded some of the best beats they had for it.

One day Jay brought him over to me and Mitchell's apartment and he was dressed up in shirt, pants and a tie. Jay asked me if I would piss in a condom for Randy to give to his parole officer. I laughed and said no but Jay guilted me into it saying Randy was going to go to jail and how he had already spent so much time away from his kids, doesn't know anyone else with clean piss etc. So I went into the bathroom, pissed in the condom and tied it off like a ballon. I washed the outside of it in the sink and handed it to them.

During the time they were working on the album I would see them at my apartment all the time. I noticed that Randy's wife would often be at my place without him and was very friendly with Jay. I suspected that he was ****ing her and probably doing it at my place when I wasn't there. Before the album was complete Randy got locked up. One night he met up with someone and shot him in the face 3 times at close range. The victim had told some people that he was going to meet Randy and cops picked him up soonafter. He was charged with capital murder. What I heard was that he suspected the guy of talking to his wife and thought he was selling weed to her. People I spoke to that knew him closely said that he was caught up in his music and drugs and started to believe he was the person he depicted himself to be in the album.

Song by Randy(Jay is the white dude):

Aug Update
I had planned on playing strictly online during the month of Aug. I got smashed right away and gave up on that. I've always been v uneasy about playing new game types and I have no confidence in my ability to win decent money in online cash at first. At some point I'd like to be able to play online more often mainly for quality of life but now is not the right time for me. I'm under a lot of financial pressure and I simply cannot afford to lose or breakeven for an extended period of time.

Had a good month playing live, played 192 hours. Took a week off too and somehow managed this.

2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-Played no tourneys in Aug
[ ]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-None of this. Most likely going to have to offer some type of freeroll to get back on track. Live poker gives me unlim excuses I can make for myself.
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-
[x]no chair massages at the casino-

[x]update this thread at least once/month-Got two in. I really hate rushing this stuff and I've been super busy lately.
[x]Do not add any live cash cash game horses-

NSFW:

Just a casual 192 hours... NH nh

Strong.... Considering the week off. Nice update OP. I'm sure you'll eventually get there online. It'll be hard to match the live win rate though. Good luck.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

What's the P/L for the month? Did I miss it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sept Update
Biggest losing month ever. Got smashed right away then fought back and got unstuck, finally had a hellish week at the end. Played around 200 hours live, not sure exactly bc ios11 update wiped my results. Finished smth that I’ve been working on since June that’s been taking up a lot of my time/effort and has been a big source of stress for me. Hopefully now with that behind me I can focus on poker for the remainder of the year.


2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-Played 2 tournaments, cashed one bricked the other
[ ]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-
[x]no chair massages at the casino-
[x]update this thread at least once/month-Did min here. Was so caught up in downer didn’t even consider it at any point.
[x]Do not add any live cash cash game horses-

NSFW:

Unlucky mate. What have you been working on? Asian sex dungeon?

All the best re finishing the year strong. I remember your giraffe at this point last year. Hopefully we get something similar later this year!

Oct Update
I was breakevenish this month, not sure hm hours Bc ios11 broke poker journal. I played heaps tho prob over 200 hours. Went deep in a tournament that was piles ut and didn’t hold 3 way ai last two tables. Went on a big uptick in live cash then got in two huge games and gave it all back right before Halloween.


2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-played 1 tournament
[ ]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-actually made some progress here. Went from doing absolutely nothing to smth. Still cannot credit myself for 2 hours a week tho. I did come up with some solutions for problems I’ve had in this area. The problems I’ve had are:
Live poker is cumbersome for note taking and review.
I find it difficult to motivate myself to take the time to do this Bc of how little spare time I have in general.
Live poker games are so fluid that it’s easy to find yourself spending all your time playing and none studying.
The player pool is so small in bigger games that discussing strategy with another player could be detrimental.
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-
[x]no chair massages at the casino-
[x]update this thread at least once/month-Did min smh
[x]Do not add any live cash cash game horses-

NSFW

Nov Update

Played 155 hours of live cash won small. Played ~14k hands of 6max on US facing sites and lost. Ended up having a losing month. Sorry for the lack of info, I’ll do a longer write up when the year is over. Not much interesting happening with me in poker atm.


2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-played 1 tournament and bricked
[x]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-finally got this squared away. Pretty absurd that I struggled with this as long as I did.
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-
[x]no chair massages at the casino-
[x]update this thread at least once/month-
[x]Do not add any live horses-


NSFW

I like that one

Just coming to this thread right now. Great read.

Out of curiosity, what is your financial stress related to? Poker players are notoriously bad bankroll managers, but you seem to have your **** together. Not looking for specifics, but "Real Estate," or "Six kids by six different baby mommas" is sufficient.

I guess I look at your 2016 results and think how can this person be financially stressed? Then again, I make over $100k at my day job and have financial stress, so what do I know?

I searched “financial stress” and the only thing that came up is your post so I’m not sure what you’re referring to specifically. I def do not have bad BRM and never really have outside of the days where I had passive income and I was just getting into poker. If I’m guilty of anything it’s being too cautious and missing out too often or getting a smaller piece of the pie than I could be getting.

I’ve dealt with some serious financial stress as a professional so much so that I’ve been unable to sleep. I’ve been broke or nearly broke a number of times esp at the beginning. When I first started out I didn’t really know anyone, didn’t have a bankroll and was quite awful at poker. On top of that my monthly expenses were way too high and I was too stubborn and stuck in my ways to consider changing my lifestyle. My net worth was negative and I drove an expensive car and rented a 2-BR apartment in a nice area. Looking back on it it seems absurd that I put myself through so much unnecessarily but without proper guidance I’m sure a lot of guys in their 20s would make similiar mistakes.

These days I’ve almost exited staking completely save 1 guy who’s been with me for a while. Having a bunch of money tied up in people not knowing if you’ll ever get it back is quite stressful. Having to determine when to continue chasing losses and when to pull the plug on it is as well. Suspecting people are stealing from you, investigating these matters, finding out people you thought were your friends are thieves really takes its toll. I have so little skin in the game rn I hardly even think about it.

The majority of my financial stress now comes from prolonged downswings, large increases in monthly expenses and major purchases(cars, homes). Some shottaking stuff can be stressful too but it’s infrequent. If I get an opportunity to play in a massive live game and take a big loss I sometimes feel down for days afterwards. I also have intrusive thoughts thinking about the amount of time it will take me to recoup such a large amount of money.

I used the wrong phrase. I meant to reference your post from September 13th citing pressure. Not meant in any disparaging way. I’m a finance nerd so I get curious about what plagues people on the money front. Hope you continue to do well and fall under less and less stress.

That’s pretty funny going back and reading that post now. I was basically just being a little ***** Bc I started losing. Little did I know I was about to incinerate a bunch and really feel some pain.

Dec Update

Played 65 hours of live poker and lost a fair bit, mostly in one session. Played 18k hands on US sites and ran good, won 13bb/100 at 1k NL+. Really enjoyed playing online again. My daily routine is much more enjoyable than going to the casino all the time ainec.


2017 Goals
[x]maximum 10 MTTs-played 1 tournament and bricked
[x]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study-
[x]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-
[x]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-
[x]no chair massages at the casino-
[x]update this thread at least once/month-
[x]Do not add any live horses-

NSFW

2017 Wrap-up

Unfortunately I lost alot of my live poker data bc of Ios update and Poker Journal. I prob played over 2k hours and wouldve really crushed previous years volume had I not been playing online alot during Nov. and Dec. I played ~30k hands of six-max towards the end of the year with ~5bb/100 WR, 2/3 of that volume was 1k NL+. For Mtt's I didn't do anything noteworthy this year again, I was a small winner online and small loser live. I can say I game selected well and didn't spend too much time with them. I basically only played Sundays online during ACR series and live I only played main events and nothing below $2,500.

Looking back on my goals for 2017 it really stands out to me how easy these goals should've been to accomplish and how I failed in the most important one. As a professional poker player working on your game off the table is extremely important and smth I essentially neglected entirely. If I had to priotize the goals I set for myself this would be #1 on the list far ahead of #2. It also being the most difficult and time consuming it's understandable how this got neglected. For me personally I find it much easier to spend time in this area playing 6-max vs live poker. I feel I get alot more accomplished in the time I spend and the nature of the game means more recurring scenarios. All the other goals I set were quite simple and easy to achieve.

My choice to change my main game is smth I've wanted for quite some time. For those of you who've been reading you know that I tried this in Aug and gave up quickly after some poor results. Like anything there's pros and cons but at this point I can say with confidence that I prefer playing online over live poker. The convenience of being able to play from home and being able to select the people I interact with are huge. I find FR quite boring overall and spend the majority of my time reading on my phone, making conversation and watching hands in progress. 6-max forces you to play a higher % of hands and is just a better game in general. Live poker is also kind of restrictive in the times you're able to play if you want to get into the biggest games. I was also forced to play lower stakes for at least 10% of my total volume last year bc of regs unwillingness to table start. There was a handful of people who would but some played different games besides NL, some wouldnt play often and for one reason or another things just wouldn't always come together. I don't hold it against people who game select and I feel strongly that people have a choice in what they want to do with their own money. Be that as it may it's hard for me to not get annoyed when our interests aren't aligned and it forces me to choose between playing lower limit FR games or going home. Looking back on the last 4 years of my life some of the games I enjoyed the most were short-handed all reg games even tho I was either losing or making almost nothing in some of those instances. One of the major pros of live poker is that games can become quite big on occasion and its fun to gamble that high. On the flipside when I run bad in those games I really feel down and it sticks with me for days and weeks sometimes. 6-max is much more even keel in that regard. I also like how I can take periodic breaks during my session instead of going to the casino and having to stay until the game breaks. I will not miss having to constantly watch out for dealer errors and similar type things that can cost me money. I did enjoy the comradery and value some of the connections I made over the years, time will tell if I miss that or not. For now I've filled that void with chatting online with friends. I'd like to expand my circle of contacts to include more 6-max players as well.

Goals for 2018

-250k hands of 6-max at 1kNL+-I generally don't like volume based goals but seems appropriate. This may seem like v low volume to anyone who plays 6-max as their main game but I have been mostly playing 3 tables lately and never playing more than 4. Since I'm just starting out I wanna focus on quality decision making and add tables as I get more comfortable.
-Do not open chat box under any circumstances-I have never really been into chatting but I've noticed that in the last few months I picked up the bad habit of reading chat sometimes. Most sites give you the option to not even view it, which I'm going to do going forward. You have to wade through a sea of messages to find any useful info there and I don't think the benefit is worth the investment in time.
-Do not watch vids when playing-This is a bad habit I kicked a long time ago and I've picked up again recently. Sometimes it's tempting but vids are v distracting and take too much of my attention away from the table. If I need something I'll use audio only, music or podcasts/etc.
-Before I buy anything ask myself two questions, Is it necessary? Can I postpone this purchase?-Last year I made strides in my spending habits but I want to take this even further. If there's an item I need to purchase but do not need it immediately there's a chance I will no longer need it in the future or it will become cheaper. I will only make exceptions for inexpensive media purchases such as subs, books, movies, television etc. These items over the course of the year total to v little and I want to enjoy my free time as much as possible.
-Update thread and post monthly graph no matter what-This will aid in self reflection
-One day per week where I do nothing related to poker
-One day per week where I dedicate time to off the table work
-At least one week of vacation where I do nothing related to poker
-Add 3 new goals for 2018

GLA in the near year

NSFW

Shame to see you stopping/reducing the live grind but I'm always interested in HS 6max grinds too. All the best mate!

Jan Update

I almost exclusively played 10/20 and only added 5/10 when I needed more tables. I would game select within that stake by playing a maximum of 4 tables. If I sat another one I would pick the worst game to sitout after free hands. I won 20 buyins or so right away and then gave it back, ended up breakeven. I noticed some complacency start to set in when I went on uptick, I would find excuses not to play or take more frequent breaks Bc of game quality. The majority of my play was on untracked sites so I have no idea hm hands I played, EV or anything. No graph to post, maybe next month I’ll post just the tracked results or smth, seems kind of meaningless tho.

I was able to stay on track with all of my goals so far. Not reading the toxic chat has helped my mood during play quite a bit. The day off followed by a day of study is a great idea and I look forward to it every week. I get annoyed when that routine gets disrupted by whales and I have to put the study session off but the only way to change that is to not monitor lobbies and I don’t have enough money to be passing up on those games yet. Studying poker is less stressful than playing and it’s sometimes more fulfilling than having a big session. The guy I was working with is unable to do private coaching anymore bc of restrictions from stable he’s working with. I am looking at alternatives.

I started cooking all my own food and I really enjoy eating a lot more than the casino food. I’ve got it down to 1 shopping trip per week and about 2 hours total cooking time with two meal preps. I’m sure I’ll get faster as I practice more. I’m eating oatmeal for breakfast with a scoop of protein powder and almonds. The rest of the meals are chicken with brown rice and broccoli. I use different rubs and dipping sauces for variety. Most snacks I eat between meals are either fresh fruit or protein bars.

I got into a schedule where I was waking up v late and starting to play around 10pm or so. There is v little action overnight in comparison so I got less hands in than I did last year and prob got to play a slightly higher game quality and had an easier time getting seats. I’m going to experiment with playing different times of the day, more tables and so forth.

I’m essentially using the same setup I had in 2013-2015 when I was playing MTTs online. The only upgrades I purchased were two new portrait monitors, an ergonomic chair and some cable management stuff.

3 monitor setup has been v helpful. I use one for lobbies, one for everything else and tables on center monitor. I used a two monitor setup for years and I def notice a difference in neck strain from moving my head a lot less. I highly recommend this to anyone who’s never tried. Here’s everything I have:

Computer-This is a i5 Dell with 24g RAM that I got for ~1k in 2015. I wouldn’t mind replacing this soon but not necessary atm and it’s a huge pain moving everything over.

Monitors-The main one is a Nixeus 30” which is ~5 years old. Wouldn’t mind replacing this either, nice ones are a lot cheaper now than last time I was looking at them. Two smaller ones are Dell 21” that I just bought and were quite cheap. When I was looking at them I mainly wanted ones that came out of the box with adjustable arm for portrait so kind of rushed into it. I regret not shelling out a little more for higher refresh rate but oh well.

Keyboards- I’m using Razer mechanical keyboards. The main one is a Black Widow that I use for typing and number pad and the smaller one is an Orbweaver which is for hotkeys. If you’ve never used a mechanical keyboard I would urge you to try it. When you press a key it makes an audible click and I think it’s greatly reduced misclicks with typing betting amounts for me. You can hear and feel each time the key is pressed much better than a traditional membrane keyboard.

Mouse-Logitech G502. Hands down the best mouse I’ve ever owned. It has weights inside so you can control how heavy/light it is. I removed them all and it’s just excellent all around. It’s got a chord so you never run out of battery or have to worry about charging it. It’s a lightweight rope chord so you don’t even notice it. Cannot recommend this enough.

Chair-Steelcase Leap V2. This is the first ergonomic chair I’ve ever owned and I spent a great deal of time researching them. My previous chair was a random $100 leather office chair. I would be squirming and slouching near the tail end of long sessions in it and this is a big improvement. I’m happy with it but not sure I’m going to stick with it longterm. I wanted to get an embody but couldn’t pull the trigger on $1500. I might revisit when they have semiannual sale

Desk-This is just a cheap desk I got from office retail store in 2010. Really needs to be replaced it’s old and small.



NSFW:

I was enjoying this thread until I got to the Jason section. What sort of person are you to prey on someone else like that? You express no remorse just the cold recounting and justifications of a psychopath. I can only assume the rest of your thread is filled with this sort of garbage. Nothing to see here folks, move it along.

I can only assume you haven't clicked on the spoilers.