Poker

Things have been going pretty well with the mental game on the whole lately. I've been a bit more diligent about game selection, which has helped, and I've also made an effort towards trying to be even more relaxed at the table, and taking the view of how live poker is really almost a bit goofy/silly at times with the way people act all seriously. Acting a bit more quickly has helped as well. It's important to be thinking through spots and ranges and strategy fully, but there's a lot of times where in live it's easy to tank an extra bit too long in some spots for no real good reason other than other people are doing it, and avoiding this seems to help me stay more loose. I've also been trying to remind myself regularly to stay upbeat and positive because I should be thankful at all times that I'm able to come and play this game I enjoy and make money at it and have a good time, and to reframe my mindset towards this the times I get frustrated or annoyed.

I've played a few tournaments recently ($500-$1500 buyin range) and got a couple mincashes - nothing to speak of really. I don't have a ton of tournament experience, and it's surprising to me just how soft many of these tournament fields are. It's very rare that I encounter a player I think would be a winning 5/10 live cash player or a winning small/midstakes online cash player. The problem is it's very hard to capitalize on my edge vs these players when stacks are so short and I'm spending a lot of time in push/fold mode preflop and rarely encountering spots where the stacks of both players allow for multiple streets of postflop action. Nonetheless, I may play another few tournaments this summer, as I believe there is more value there than I may have previously thought.

One last thought on the poker front is that I also want to stay diligent on good game selection. At times this month I've found myself grinding in high stakes games against a lineup full of out of town pros. Although this is good practice and helps me stay current with the general meta of the games, it's not something I want to make a habit of, and if there are times I can't find any good 5/10+ action I need to be fine with releasing the ego and simply grinding even some 2/5 if that's where the juicy action is.

Fitness

My eating has been terrible lately. I'm not sticking to my macros on many days, I'm eating late at night, and on the whole just not doing a good job or putting forth a good effort. I want to redouble my efforts here. Some of the tournaments I've played haven't helped, as with the long days and my other commitments it's caused me to end up short on sleep, as well as miss some gym time, and when I'm tired I end up pigging out at night most of the time, as my mental resolve is weakened when I'm tired.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give myself a 20-day challenge, where I come in here and record my body weight, body fat percentage, calories consumed, and exercise log every single day for 20 days in a row. I know that If I can do this for 20 straight days, I will absolutely see some results, and this will also help me strengthen some good habits and build some positive momentum. I'm not putting a starting weight today, as I know I'm a bit falsely bloated from yesterday's eating, but I'll start with the measurements tomorrow.

These are from today:





Dropping 15-20 pounds will cut a lot of body fat around my midsection and give me much more of the tapered V look that I'm looking for. I really do want to get lean, it's something I value and it would give me a good sense of accomplishment, and then I'd have a better baseline to start bulking from there as well. Getting lean will also make me look more muscular than I actually am simply by adding muscle definition. I am going to get fired up to attack this challenge, and putting a finite start and end to being diligent about my fitness is a good process to help me get on track to reach my goals. Let's go!

Poker

Good comeback session of cards yesterday at Wynn. I was stuck several thousand playing 5/10, and ended up getting moved to a new table which was a good game and everyone was straddling. We ended up changing the plaque to make it an official 5/10/20 game, and it was a social, fun game and people were drinking and such. I don't usually drink while I play, but I'll sip on a bourbon from time to time when the situation calls for it, and in a game like that it's really important to keep a fun social gambley vibe going and not act like some jerky stick in the mud pro that's there to ruin everyone's fun and take up all the money. Similarly, doing some small money flips or neutral EV gambles can really help keep the game good. So many times I've seen live pros take hard line stances and refuse to straddle even if the entire rest of the table wants to, or refuse to participate in some silly small money neutral EV flip/gamble and it drives me nuts and boggles the mind. It's of course never the top winners that do this, but some people just don't get the fact that it's important to the long term health of the game to remember that it is in fact a GAME and it's OK for poker to be fun once in a while. There's a line and of course I wouldn't suggest everyone should always be willing to straddle in every situation, and most of the time I'd pass on a flip of any sort, etc., but live pros need to have some sort of flexibility and have a little give and take on the issue as well at times. Anyways, I did a good job on the whole of staying on my game despite the runbad, and did end up running well down the stretch and booking a winner by the end which was very fortunate. There was one hand where after losing a few pots I faced a flop raise while holding the nut flush draw, and after thinking it through realized I wasn't quite getting the right price to continue but I called anyways kind of knowing it was a little -EV in hopes of binking. Not thrilled about that decision but I was able to nip things in the bud and stay on track and play well for the most part.

Fitness

Off to a good start on Day 1 of my 20 day challenge. Day 1's are always great, full of enthusiasm and ready to run through a brick wall, ha.

193.0 lbs
17.7% bf

Yesterday I ate 1965 calories and got 168g of protein, so not quite my ideal macros but pretty good. I was a bit tired from lack of sleep and hadn't been to the gym for several days, so I was feeling a bit weak and sluggish and didn't get my best workout in, but I showed up and tried and that's the main thing.

Flat bench 155 x 8,8,7
Incline bench 135 x 8,8,8
Shoulder fly 17.5 x 8,8,8 (slight form cheat at end)
Tricep cable press down 80 x 12,12,10
Cable fly slight lower 50 x 8,8
Cable fly slight upper 50 x 6,6
Incline situp 10,10

I realize this isn't a fitness forum and people aren't hear to read about my workouts, but nonetheless posting the daily details of my eating and exercise for 20 days is a way to put some accountability to my actions and help motivate me to give a strong consistent effort towards my fitness during this challenge period - so bear with me guys!

Fitness

Day 2 complete

192.4 lbs 17.6% bf

1825 calories 178g protein

Cable lat pulldown 150 x 8,8,8 slight form cheat at end
Dumbell shrug 70 x 12,12,12 slight cheat
Seated cable row 135 x 8,8,8 slight cheat
Plate side bends 45 x 20 each side
Barbell curl 60 x 10,8
Dumbell curl 35 x 5,5
Cable lat pushdown 90 x 8,8,8
Hanging ab leg raise 15,15

Good workouts the last couple days, I feel a comfortable amount of soreness still in my chest today from two days ago and also in my back today from yesterday. First leg day in a good long while is on the docket for today. I've been skipping leg day a fair amount lately so I'll need to come back in a bit light with the compound movements but I'm fired up to get back on the leg day horse.

I'm subbed. I'm currently working on my post which will be the start of my PG&C. Have not utilized this part of the site near enough. You seem to have the same flaws in your game that I do(getting emotional and blasting off buy ins in an attempt to satisfy our inner urge to stack an opponent making a less than optimal play). I will be following and wish you the best of luck.

Poker

Good and bad yesterday. Bad in the sense that I ran quite poorly and lost 5k. Good in the sense that I did pretty well mentally. Saw a couple recreational players I recognized in the 10/25 game and played there for a few hours. The game was reasonably good for a 10/25. I was mostly card dead and losing all the small and medium pots I played, and found myself down a few thousand. I was doing a pretty good job mentally of just playing my best and not worrying about results. I did flat a 3bet OOP on one hand with Q9s where I knew I shouldn't, and quickly realized what was I was doing mentally and was able to shake that off and get back on track, so only a minor misstep. I made a bit of a comeback, and as I was getting near the end of my session I got it in on the flop with trips vs a flush draw for a 7k pot and we ran it once and I lost. I thought about it for a moment, and ended up deciding to just get up and go home and not rebuy, which is something I often have a hard time doing after losing a pot like that, but in retrospect was a wise decision. Never fun to lose, but on the whole I think I did a good job of managing the situation and improving my variance tolerance and professionalism about the whole thing. I think I'm firing a bullet into the Wynn $1600 main event tomorrow, so wish me luck boys!


Fitness
Sunday I lifted legs, and in my second set of squats my hamstrings felt a bit tweaky and I had to skip my third set. I also ended up overworking my calves, as they were too sore both yesterday and today. Having been lazy about leg day and skipping it often, I need to on my next leg day just focus on light weight and proper technique and allow my body to get more accustomed to it and accept that it will take a few sessions to get back up to where I left off. Yesterday I took a day off because my legs were quite sore and my upper body had a tiny bit of lingering soreness as well so I thought it wise to give my body a rest day to try to maximize my muscle gains, and I'll be back in there with a push day today. I've been tracking my calories diligently in MyFitnessPal, and sticking to about 2000 calories per day. So far I haven't lost any weight really. Today I'm at 193 lbs and 17.6% bf so no real change. I'm going to try to pare down to 1800 calories per day to give my body a change and try to produce some results. I don't want to go too crazy with my calorie reduction to avoid losing muscle mass, but I think I need to push it a bit harder if I'm serious about getting lean. Onwards we go.

update?