Haven't explored that too much, but overall I think there's a ton of potential for management/players at ACR. Because of that, it's probably one of the only sites that I'd be willing to accept a "sponsorship" deal from (if it was ever offered). Would snap reject Stars. But it's not like either has offered anything.

Arrived in Mexico (Puerto Vallarta) on Monday, after spending a week in the US. Usually I'm still required to do a lot re: staking even when on vacation, but my stable manager was able to handle everything so I finally got to take a much deserved break. Did coaching on Tuesday + set up a gym membership, walked around the neighborhood, met up with an old friend, and had TWO burritos from my favorite spot here.



Finally got around to clicking the buttons today, was welcomed back with a few solid scores, including 2nd place in the $215 Builder.



Will do the proper recap post at the end of the month, good news is that unless something disastrous happens it'll be a profitable one.

Update ? Pls?

Oh, update. Right.

Games: 740
Profit: $20,500



The downer at the end made the graph look less pretty, but I was able to recoup all of October's losses + make ~$5k extra. Hard to complain about $20k months.

With one month to go in 2018, it's a good time to revisit the goals I set.

The adjustment part is hardest to quantify, and I could write a novel about that. For most of the year I played MTTs 5+ days a week, but even them 'just' 4 days a week is much more time constraining than the Spin grind ever was. And I was putting in volume 6+ days a week back then. At times it's been difficult to balance that with coaching/the stable, not to mention life off the felt, maintaining friendships/relationships and my own health/nutrition. I'm clearly in worse physical shape than I was last year, although I'm settled in a fantastic routine in Mexico and I imagine I'll be back to where I was by the end of January.





Relationship with my GF is great, it helps that she's also someone who recognizes the value of hard work and doesn't get upset if we end up having dinner a bit later than we planned or if I have to miss social gatherings on the weekends. Despite all the hours I've played this year, I think I've done a decent job at making time for my friends, seeing my family, taking days off to stay fresh, etc. Definitely got better at it in April once I moved out of the SE Asia timezone. Was really rough to grind the night schedule and make time for anything else.

Going to fall short of this by quite a bit. Finished November with ~8500 MTTs under my belt, not counting MTT SNGs, SNGs, Spins, and cash. Of course, my initial goal relied on the estimate of playing five days per week, and that's something I simply don't want to put myself through for the sake of my own mental and physical health. Perhaps if I was younger and had fewer obligations I'd be able to do it, but that's just not the spot I'm in right now.

Haven't done the official tally but I know that I'm not close. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $135k, which is fine, I guess. I'm underwhelmed. The positive news is that 90% of that profit came after April But hey, I still could bink the Sun Mil this month and cross $250k!

I think I've done this. I've continued mixing in other game types when I thought it was appropriate/profitable, mashed the ACR leaderboards a bit and even played a few weeks of CAP cash. Still spend a lot of time studying/reviewing and don't get attached to the idea that any particular play I do is 'optimal.' Always willing to consider different lines/approaches and try to keep my mind as open as possible. Some of my best learning comes from group coaching sessions with my stable when I'm set on a particular line and one of the guys asks, "Well what about this?" I know some guys might get upset because in the coaching relationship it's traditionally teacher/student, but I still consider myself a student as well and don't mind the extra learning. Of course, sometimes a guy says something that's flat-out wrong and I end up spending the better part of an hour convincing him as such. :P It's easy to shrug off spots as bad luck or just say "that reg sucks" instead of trying to figure out why he took that line, or what you could have done better. I'm still guilty of it from time to time but all I can do is make incremental improvements and in time, the equity adds up to significant progress.

That's enough rambly text for now, I'll get back to the grind and hopefully have some pretty graphs to post in the near future.

Played a late session on Thursday night/a proper day session today, and sometime between my last post and those two sessions I started feeling rather down about my recent results.

Since the 29th, I've dropped $9k. It's a meaningless sample (~300 games), not a crazy amount of money to lose given my ABI ($110) , and the EV BB is incredibly high so I'm not exactly sure why this little stretch has bothered me so much.

After finishing my last game today, I immediately left to go workout, but I felt distracted in the gym. Usually lifting clears my mind but not today. Thought that perhaps a good meal would do the trick and I settled on going to two places -- Bacon tacos at a nearby food truck and then seafood tacos at Tuna Azul (pics in the post above). But after eating the first course I wasn't super hungry and just went for a walk along the Malecon.

I feel slightly better now, but this general malaise/cloud is still hanging over me a bit. Fingers crossed that a good night's sleep is the answer, as I'll need to grind bigggg Saturday/Sunday and obviously being in the right mindset is super important. That said, I do realize if I was in Vancouver instead of Mexico, I'd likely take a different course of action -- I'd consider taking Saturday off, doing something fun/social, or just relaxing at home. But my non-poker options in Puerto Vallarta are fairly limited and while that's great for putting in volume, it does make it harder for me to recharge the ol' batteries.

As I went through and proof-read this post, I actually started feeling much better. It's amazing how expressing negative thoughts/emotions has such a profound effect, it's almost as if once I wrote them down, I was able to release them from my psyche. At least temporarily. Going to grind some Netflix for the remainder of night, hoping to wake up fresh tomorrow and ready for the swings.

great pictures and graph, and its great that sharing your feelings is cathardic because its also a great read. being a rec player it is interesting to get a glimpse of the pro's life.

thanks for sharing and good luck

Gracias amigo!

I'm often afraid it's too much of a word salad to to speak, so I'm glad that there's at least someone out there who is enjoying the read.

I think there's this idea among recreational players that professionals either don't have to deal with the variance and/or that they've become accustomed to it. Neither of those things are true for me. My tolerance level for variance is higher than it used to be because I've played millions of hands and went through several reasonably large downswings. Through losing, I've basically conditioned myself to better accept future losses. Show me a poker player who handles swings well I'll guarantee you that they've went through some pretty sick ones.



That pain/frustration/angst never really goes away but without that feeling, I doubt I'd put in the same effort that I do now. I spend far more time studying during downswings and each time I come out the other end a stronger, smarter player. So in a weird way, the downers are actually a net positive. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Had an ominous start to the day. Woke up around 9 AM, grabbed a coffee, and the power went out as soon as I got back home.



I hadn't started yet and thought about what I'd do for the day. Played on my iPad a bit and I still wanted to grind, so I decided to wait ~30 minutes and see if the power came back. Heard my neighbor talking to someone on the phone about the power issue, and seemingly seconds later the electricity was back on. Score! I still gave it another fifteen or so before I felt comfortable. Thought I had dodged a bullet and then, my internet went out.

Huh. Weird. It's been solid for the past two weeks and then suddenly I couldn't load PokerStars. Webpages? Sure, easy. But zero poker clients were working. Been using the lobby wifi as my backup internet and that didn't work either.

As I walked out my door, I met my neighbor (Who introduced himself as Larry) and one of the staff members of my condo (Jose). We exchanged pleasantries and then I told them about my situation. Larry was surprised someone would even consider paying money for backup internet, let alone backup backup internet, and in my haste I let it slip that I play poker for a living. He gave me that 'ORLY' look and offered his Wifi code to see if that would have more success. I quickly made it to my laptop and he followed, then watched in awe as I loaded up the clients.

I thanked him, fully expecting him to leave but he just stood there as I tried to catch up/organize my tables.

There was a long pause, and honestly I wasn't sure he was still here. I had been super focused on clicking the buttons. Then, after some time had passed, could have been ten seconds or ten minutes, he asked one more question.

That was the extent of our the poker strategy discussion, glad I didn't have to remind him of the 'one player to a hand rule.' He left a few minutes later and I thanked him profusely on the way out. At the time where my internet went down, I'd guess I had about $2000 worth of buy-ins on the table/registered. Ended the day in about $500 of profit (first profitable day in two weeks, actually) so I think it's fair to say that Larry's act of kindness was effectively worth $2500. The tequila shop I frequent was closed after I finished with work today, but on Monday I plan on going in there and buying him a nice bottle. He'll almost assuredly never read this, but thanks again Larry!

Hot Take: The Sunday Million provides the biggest disappointment of any tournament on Stars.

Of course, I might be biased. Just busted the Mil Ball in 80th place, was 8/89 or so and then out within an orbit. Yuck. Already reviewed the hands, feel pretty good about them and so all I can do is shrug/move onto the next one. My Sunday got off to a terrible start but I managed to hit a few small scores and so despite being in for ~$6500 worth of buy-ins, I'm close-ish to break-even.

Did make a Day 2 on Winamax. I thought it was on Monday, turns out it's actually on Tuesday which throws a wrench into my plans. Usually I take Tuesdays off completely but obviously now I'll be playing a session centered around that Day 2. So, umm, maybe I'll take tomorrow off? Wednesday? I dunno yet. Part of me wants to take ALL THE DAYS OFF and the other part wants to grind every single goddamn day until I'm out of this downer.

The downswing continues, but I'm putting myself in good spots to get out of it. Finished 13th in the Day 2, 18th in $530 Builder, and 20th in the $109 Builder. Those three tournaments had $60k combined up top and so if a few things go my way, I could be looking at a $50k+ month right now instead of being down $7500.



Feels like I've only been posting whines in this thread lately, but that's surely a result of this recent stretch. In the past two weeks, I've only had two profitable days and the consistency of losing is getting to me a bit. Proud of myself for continuing to put in volume, despite the fact that my enthusiasm for doing so dims after each day in the red, almost like an old light bulb on it's last legs.

And it's not like these posts about negative variance encourage others to chime in. I know from personal experience that I'm more likely to comment on threads when there are positive updates, I think that's just basic human nature -- We don't want to involve ourselves in the negativity of others, especially when we're trying to avoid it in our own lives.

During difficult times like this, I do my best to remember to focus on what I can control -- Not only on the felt by studying/grinding, but off the felt to keep myself sane and somewhat well-rounded. I've gotten into the habit of hitting the gym in the morning, before my grind, and eating reasonably well in terms of caloric intake. The results are two-fold; 1) I feel better during my grind, mentally clearer and 2) I wake up in better physical health the following day. I know it's ridiculous, but I've always thought that if for some reason I can't make a living at this game anymore, I should be in peak physical condition. Gotta give the GF some incentive to stay with me, right? The irony is that she doesn't seem to care about that sort of stuff, loves me for who I am, and all that sappy stuff.

Don't have much of a conclusion for this post, but wanted to write something before I loaded up. Starting the workday now and will provide updates (Either good or bad) before the weekend begins.

Hope downswing ends soon man! Seems like making other healthy habits around poker helps when variance hits, when I was sleeping terribly/eating like ****/not exercising/doing nothing outside poker, downswings came way more brutal than now(although they still suck a lot ). Gl!

Whatever gives you incentive to keep healthy seems like a good thing even if it's just a mind trick you are playing on yourself. Gl with the downswing, mtt are brutal.

So true, all that stuff helps keep the mindset in better shape.

Immediately thought of this. #mindtricks



Thanks again to both of you guys, seeing others post in here is also very therapeutic. Made a bit of progress the last couple of days, but let's get the painful stuff out of the way first.

https://www.winamax.fr/replayer/repl...6b2&lang=en_US

Won this flip to be HU in the 200 Battle Royale, with a 30-1 chiplead. Somehow didn't close it out. Lost the next five all-ins, four of which with the best hand and two of those I just had to fade six outers on the river. Spoiler: I didn't.



Was a difference of ~$3500 between first and second places and I've never been less happy about winning several thousand dollars. Later that day I managed two more top 20 finishes in tournaments with $10k+ up top (in addition to the $109 and $530 Builders from the previous day) but no dice. It's promising tho that I keep putting myself in those spots, sooner or later I'm gonna hit some serious heat.



So not out of the downer yet, but the graph is trending in the right direction. EV BB for this sample is ~12.5 over 50,000+ hands. That's also promising. Weekend grind begins in 12 hours, going to get a workout in first and then buckle down for a big Saturday and an even bigger Sunday.

Well, it could have been worse.

That's what I told myself at the end of Sunday's long session, capping off a weekend where I played ~22 hours. Wasn't a very fun 22 hours. Built stacks on Saturday, only to lose a handful of super high equity spots for effective chipleads. And then Sunday was worse.

One of my friends uses the term 'draft horse.' It can refer to a tournament where he has a big stack, an above average stack in one of my higher buy-ins, or a deep run regardless of stack size. In short, it's hope.



For much of Sunday, I didn't have any of that. Wasn't doing a fantastic job accumulating chips, was in for multiple bullets in all of my higher buy-ins, and the losses kept piling up. It stung. I hoped over the weekend I would bink my way out of this downer and instead, I added to that crooked number.

In truth, this is the Jekyll/Hyde of Sundays. Everyone gets excited about significantly larger prize pools, but that's accompanied by significantly larger variance. More players. Better opponents. Is the ROI of a winning regular actually higher? Or is he/she just chasing the thrill? I'm honestly not sure. On this past Sunday, I kept chasing. Continued loading a bit later than I usually would, managed to win back all of the losses in one of my highest variance/lowest edges games -- a mid-stakes turbo with a field size over 1000.



Still ended the weekend poorer than I started it, but I was extremely happy to make a deep run and end up with a decent score. I honestly think it did more for my mindset than my portfolio. Hoping to build on both this week.

Don't want to celebrate too early, but we did it fam. Sorta.



Was down $12k for the month, but now up nearly $34. People always say "don't spend it all in one place" but I happened to just buy myself a 640 peso dinner. Oops. I'm actually not completely out of the downer but it's been a while since I've made a post that's overwhelmingly positive, so....



How'd it happen? Started last night, when I final tabled the Xtase €100 and €50 Prime Time on Winamax, then finished 3rd in the $162 Builder for $3400. Was somewhat dejected about that outcome because I held the chiplead 3-handed and winning that MTT would have got me in the black for December. Turns out I just had to wait another 24 hours. At the time, I consoled myself with some incredible al pastor shish-kabob tacos from a local place that happens to be a block away and open until 6 AM. I'm about to be a reg there.

Fast forward to today, I final tabled the Xtase again but went in with the shortest stack (18 BBs). Shoved 99 over a loose player's open, got called by AK and then original raiser reshoved QQ. Nothing to fear, as I flopped a set, turned quads, became the new chipleader, and never looked back. Ultimatey took it down for €3700. You can be sure I'll be defending that title tomorrow.

Am I the child and that house is my bankroll? Story checks out.

Poker

Another long weekend grind is in the books and this time was far less disappointing. Wasn't able to go back-to-back in the XTASE on Winamax, lost a big flip 3-handed and finished third. Such a shame. The $$ difference wasn't too big but I really wanted to have a reason to post this.



Bricked a lot of the big stuff on Sunday and had the day saved by one of my lowest buy-ins, the $16.50 Deepstack PKO. With 20-25 left, I went from slightly below average stack to dominating chipleader in the span of a single orbit and rode that to victory. There are some interesting hands at the FT, I gave it a quick run through last night and will look more in depth today. Was happy with not only how I played hands, but how I identified my opponents/their tendencies. Much easier to do that when one tabling, huh?



Xmas/Holiday Plans

I was raised in a Jewish household and currently only pray to poker gods, so I've never been big on Christmas. Most years I don't do much. In the past I can only remember seeing a movie, eating Chinese food, and going to the casino. But this year I was invited to my neighbor's Christmas party so I'll be hanging out with them tomorrow. Was told all I have to do is show up and answer questions about the poker/travel life that I have, and if there's one thing I can do, it's chit-chat.

Merry Xmas/Happy Belated Hanukkah/Happy Early Kwanza!

Ho ho ho

Spoke to my neighbors early this morning and found out the Christmas party/dinner was starting at 4 PM and being held on the patio directly outside my apartment. Well, that's later than I expected. Now what? Gym was closed. Not much else to do, except load some tables and see if Santa could bring me some binks.

Ran deep in the Battle Royale on Winamax and before I knew it, it was 4 PM. Oops. Opened my door at the break, introduced myself to a few of the people who were gathering outside, and realized the WiFi from my apartment reached the patio.



Brought the laptop outside, grabbed a place at the banquet table, and continued 1-tabling the Battle Royale. Was fairly short entering the FT after JJ < TT, then spun it up with 99 > AJ and got to work. Won a ton of pots without showdown, kept adding to the stack, all the while having small talk and a couple Coronas. Got HU and then this happened:

https://www.winamax.fr/replayer/repl...06d&lang=en_US

Don't think it's a super standard call, but certainly helps that I block JT, block spades, block some 2p combos, and don't block clubs. Can't remember the last time I hero called to win a tournament, I imagine I either fist pumped or made some sort of audible celebration. This time though, I was in public. I smiled, closed down the laptop, returned it to my desk, and grabbed another beer. Then spent the rest of the night eating and drinking with the neighbors. Good food, great conversation, lots of laughs, and even a piñata! Such a fantastic way to celebrate Christmas.

little better than coal

Haha gg

Def better than coal, which is what I fully expected. Not that I'm someone who buys into superstition, but I have a long history of running terribly on Christmas. I distinctly recall spending one Christmas playing live cash at the casino and some dude sucked out on me for a massive pot. He then proceeded to stand up, slam the table, and yell 'Thank you Jesus' at the top of his lungs.

Had a rough last couple of days but I think I still finished (barely) in the positive and given that I was down $12k at the half-way point, I'm gonna go glass half full and call it a win.



Now I'm going to dive into the yearly recap. Let's not bury the lead, most people are here for a graph and I will oblige.

2018 MTTs


Like my other graphs, it's not entirely accurate and missing some profit from SNGs, Spins, Cash, and other stuff. Total profit is just shy of $145,000. And that's not bad. It's lower than I was hoping for, but it's a high number and surely enough to provide a very comfortable living. But without getting too first world problem-y here, allow me to say the following:

To some extent I can say it's because I didn't reach my profit goal. Before you hammer me for it, I know that's a very dumb/hot take. I can't control variance. Ended year with a ~10 (9.89) EV BB/100 and if I keep accumulating this well, there will be binks. Upon reviewing my results for 2018, I didn't have any scores over $17,500 which seems terrible given my stakes. But in a year arguably devoid of binks, I still posted six figures of profit. That's gotta be good.

I also know that I should be proud of my efforts, of the journey I took to get to this spot -- and I am.

Brief history, tl;dr



I came into 2018 with only a handful of MTTs under my belt, and after initially struggling the first few months, I was able to make necessary adjustments. All of my profit is post-April 1st; after I moved back to Vancouver, played in a far better time zone for my physical health, and set a better work/life schedule. Game selection was also key. Could write for days about that, but the bottom line is that I was regging a ton of low edge games, playing too many tables at once, and that combination opened myself up to some nasty swings.



Because of the changes I've made, I'm really excited for next year. Don't have any concrete plans for volume but I do know that it'll be lower than the 9500 MTTs I played in 2018. I *could* certainly repeat it and/or play more games, but obviously the goal is to make the most money possible and not just mash. It's a different approach than I took in Spins/SNGs, but both of those had ample RB that made voluming more important than making optimal decisions. MTTs are different, especially in this current climate. For one, MTTs are less mindless than SNGs. They're certainly not as mentally taxing as Spins, but the table count was drastically different. In Spins, 4-6. In MTTs? I started with 25-30. Yeesh. Now that I'm armed with better game selection, a stronger skillset, and a plan of action -- Look out, 2019!

Won't be partying tonight, will spend the rest of the day relaxing, reviewing, and hitting the gym for a late night workout. Want to be fully rested and ready to start the year off right. Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

Great first full year in timbeys bro, gl next year

Superb results, nice one!

Best wishes for 2019, may the implied odds be ever in your favour!

More food pics this year please!

Have to be proud of this year imo. Not only rly good results but gained a lot of experience and showed consistency. 2019 year of the huge bink

nice year!

Good job this year. Hope you have a bigger 2019 tho!

One of the few blogs I still read. Thx for all the foodpics abd giraffes .
GL in 2019!
Also I fully agree on the brainpower part. 10 tabling mtts takes like the same brainpower as onetaing spins / hus