Hello Guys,

My name is John and I have been in love with the game of NL Hold'em for several years now. I have had ups and many downs lol. I am a 45 year old married man with 5 kids and 6 grandkids. I play in the United States and have only played online. I desire to take my hobby to a level where it is a profitable hobby. I am not trying to become the next poker prodigy or even a professional. I just want to become better. I have started a journal on my own, but I have never been consistent with writing due to not having accountability.

I have build a decent BR, but I always end up going on tilt and donking off all my wins. I have also been bad about cashing out my BR and then trying to play too high and losing what I leave on it. I am too undisciplined in a lot of areas of my life. I am a diabetic that is overweight and I am not active much at all.

This will be an account of my growth as a poker player and my weight loss as well. I don't want to set monetary goals, because I am not on a timetable to move up in stakes. I work a full-time job, so I don't have a lot of time to play. I want to focus on volume as much as possible. I want to play 10,000 hands per month. I am playing on ACR and I have Poker Tracker 4 and Flopzilla. I am a member of Tournament Poker Edge as well. I am starting playing at 5NL because I can reload at any time. I will welcome any advice and critique with open arms.

My current weight is 271
My current BR is $42.91

GL with your weight loss, more important imho. Start maybe from 2nl, it might be better? Just for a while.

I definitely believe that the weight loss is the more important of the two goals. Thanks for the advice too! I believe that 2NL is probably the better place for me to start too.

Good luck OP!

I'm a big believer in better physical/mental health leads to better poker play.

I can tell the difference when I am in a better physical/mental place when I play. Mental is something that I am working really hard on due to that being one of if not the biggest leak that I know I have right now. I have issues when I get it in "good" and someone hits the 2 outer to beat me. I know it's just poker, but I have really struggled with it. The past week has been tremendously better with that problem. Thanks so much!!!

I spent some time playing yesterday and ran pretty well. I felt that I didn't allow the times where I got out drawn to affect my mental state. I am joining a gym this week to help with the weight loss and the diabetes control. I feel that I am heading in a good direction and I plan on working through the process. Thanks for the encouragement and advice!

BR $58.78
Weight 271

GL with the weight.

As for the poker, if you have other options than ACR, I would go there. Even at micros, it is NIT and reg infested for the Beast rake race. Global, Bovada, etc will have much looser games and considering the rakeback at the micros won't be a factor, it will be a much better option.

Hi jpurcell, I have a tilt problem as well. I did something that has completely eliminated my tilt issues, and that is live streaming. Knowing that even one person is watching me play, is enough to keep me from tilting and moving up in stakes when I am having a bad session. Anyway, good luck and please keep us updated!

Thanks for the advice! I have really considered streaming, but I guess I just don't have the confidence to do that yet. I probably just need to get over my fear and do it.

I've really been working on not calling off when I am pretty sure I'm beat, and it has really helped me stop leaking so much money. I've played pretty well these past few days and I'm spending a tremendous amount of time just studying. I started walking to increase my exercise routine as well. I'm only weighing once a week, so I'll update that when that takes places. I'll also post a few hands and see if you guys can help me out.

Current weight 271
Current BR $88.93

I'll watch if you create a stream. Make sure you enable a four minute delay!

Awesome! I'll check into getting that set up! I appreciate the encouragement!

I've had a tremendously successful week playing cards and working on the weight loss. I feel like I'm getting better at making correct reads and exploiting weaknesses and folding when I know I'm beat. I'm spending more time than ever before with off the table studies as well and I can see that paying off.

Current weight 267
Current BR $163.59

Great week so far!!!

Remember, no poker graph or weight loss challenge has straight lines (up or down)

Be mentally prepared that each week will have challenges!

Good luck!

The week has continued to be really good! This is the first time that I've really spent time working on my game off the table. If I was running bad or playing bad, I would just keep playing and hope that I would win back some of the money that I lost. I've worked on dedicating specific amounts of time to just study, and I can see it affecting my play. Thanks for all the encouraging words!

Weight- 267
Bankroll- $238.70

How are things going on the virtual felt tables?