4.5 hours of live play tonight for a profit of +$245. i was planning on grinding online today, but my schedule has been hectic so far this month and my sleep schedule has been off a bit as well and conditions just weren't right today for an online grind. the next several days will be busy for me as well so i won't be able to settle into a nice grinding rhythm until this weekend. i played well at live and was happy with my grind and also happy that i stopped at the appropriate time and kept the process professional.

did a 2hr coaching session with a student from the stable this afternoon, then got in 3.5 hours of online grinding for a profit of +$540. had some tough negative variance early on, and feel i played at a high level throughout and handled my mental game well also. i wanted to play more but my energy and focus ran low and since my sleep schedule has been a bit off lately i didn't want to push it. that won't change for the next few days either, as i'm taking my dad to the hospital for an outpatient procedure quite early and also have company for the next couple days. i expect to get back into a solid grinding routine on thursday.

played 3 hours of online tonight for a profit of +$200. my schedule has been a mess lately and i haven't been able to much grinding, but i'm looking forward to getting back to the tables. i was feeling tired and unmotivated today but i caught up on some sleep and got to the gym and forced myself to put in a session and i played well and my mental game was good.

Have you ever considered putting in more hours? Or is it too tough to do since you coach also?

productive day today

mowed the lawn and walked the dog and had a short meeting with skraper then got an oil change and went grocery shopping before coming home to grind

played 6 hours online over two sessions for a profit of +$1625. for the most part i played well, although i gave some loose action in a few spots that i perhaps i shouldn't have and i should have quit about an hour before i did. i played ok in the final hour but i was tired and not playing my best and kind of just hoping for a +2k day and i should have stopped 30min to 1hr earlier and it was mild winner's tilt - although on the bright side the tables were good and my game was still pretty good and motivation is important as well.

regarding the loose action, sometimes it is a pretty fine line between making solid calldowns against unknowns based on gto unexpoitable approach and paying off in spots where the meta of the games or very loose reads would allow for a reasonably clear deviation from gto and allow us to fold.

online
14.5 hours
+$1620

live
8.5 hours
+$225

Hey Ben, would you mind answering this? Thanks.

I also only put in like 80-100 hours a month, I've been trying to log more though and was wondering if you ever used to play more hours or do you find playing less hours is better for your psyche/etc?

tough day at the online tables. 6 hours of play for a loss of -$1250. i feel pretty good about my play and process for the day on the whole. i was stuck probably around 2k early on in the day with a run of bad variance, but i managed to keep a healthy mental game and continue to put in quality volume which i am happy with. i got back to about -700 before getting in QQ<KK pre in a spot that i think was standard but perhaps too thin and i was eager to get back to even. i think i again should have stopped about 30min to 1h earlier than i did and AGAIN i extended my second session too long, but on the whole i put in about as good and quality of a grind as i can really expect while working through negative variance.

this month has been tough so far. my grind has been interrupted by various life things, and when i have played i have been swingy. my technical game has been a bit loose/leaky in a few places on the whole so far this month, and i need to get back to putting in some effort towards study/game improvement. my mental game has been strong so far this month though, and i have been able to deal with the swings associated with 2/4 and 3/6 more successfully than i would have in the past.

online
20.5 hours
+$375

live
8.5 hours
+$225

how do you str8 up ignore the dude like 3 times str8 lol. dick move.

i appreciate interest in my thread but his initial posts were just repeating the same screen name/site question i didnt want to answer (which i found a bit off putting tbh), and as for the recent post regarding hours i felt i had clearly detailed my volume goals. this month has been a bit rough and when he was asking if i ever thought of putting in more hours right after i had posted about my schedule being messed up and not allowing me to play as much as i want, i wasn't sure if that or earlier posts were trolling or what so i decided just not to respond

Wasn't a troll, just curious if you've ever played longer weeks in the past and how difficult you found it.

And if you were able to play more hours right now, would you choose to do so? Reason I ask is because I play about the same amount of hours as you do now plus a 30-40 hour a week job and I was thinking of adding more hours. I struggle with playing long sessions though, plus my time is limited but I think I may try to get up to 30 hrs a week.

fwiw i actually didnt see this particular post yesterday and wasn't intentionally ignoring this one (like the others lol)

i think playing fewer hours is better for my psyche i suppose. i find that online grinding can drain me in a very significant way.

if i play 8 hours of live poker in a day its not a big deal, but if i play 8 hours of online my brain feels very weary. if i were to do that for a few days in a row i would feel quite burned out, losing motivation to play and also feeling mentally exhausted and my play would suffer as a result.

there was a time i used to log more hours, and also used to play significantly more tables. i didn't realize it at the time, but my game wasn't nearly as good as i thought it was, and instead of taking meaningful steps to improve my game i just kind of tried to work harder/longer and it resulted in a frustrating tiresome way of life. this led to me experiencing mini burnouts or feeling like giving up on poker at various points over the years.

i think finding a good balance between online play, live play, coaching, and study is important for me. an overall theme to my goals is to strive to improve my grind bit by bit every month. i've been trying to avoid playing when i'm not in the proper state, and when i do grind to keep my sessions to finite lengths to keep the quality of my grind high. when i do grind longer in session than i planned, usually the tail end of my grind is me sitting staring at the monitor with a vacant thought process kind of just hoping for some rungood before i stop.

for my current personal levels of focus/stamina/whatever, i find that i need to take a 2-3 minute break every hour or so, and that i need to take a longer extended break after about 3 hours of grinding. i think playing 2 sessions of roughly 3 hours each is about the max i can do and still play at a high level and avoid motivation or long term fatigue issues.

if you are working a full time job and playing 30 hours a week of poker on top of that, i would first commend you for a strong work ethic but i would also think taking some of that time spent playing and instead turning it into some work away from the tables might be more beneficial to you long term.

played 5 hours live tonight for a profit of +$70. pretty good grinding process and happy with my play and my quit.

Finally a PGC of a US online midstakes grinder. Your a beast and inspiration. GL. Subbed.

played live again last night. 6.5 hours of play for a profit of $0. i didn't play longer than i wanted to really, which has been a bit of a leak for me recently. this time i planned to play a bit longer as i knew i couldnt play today or tomorrow since im going up to buffalo to visit my gf for a couple days. played pretty well, got hit with some negative variance early but was able to just work through it. the grind hasn't been too profitable lately but i feel my mental game has been pretty strong in helping me work through this and avoid too much unnecessary spew.

just some random life stuff - the power steering pump on my car seems to have broken. it makes these awful noises and the power steering on my car for the last couple days now randomly seems to cut in and out. so, sometimes when im driving it gets VERY hard to turn to wheel (if you've ever turned the wheel to a car with the engine off or had a car stall out on you while turning you know what i mean). i'm driving to buffalo with this thing anyways so hopefully i make it safely. the part is on order and its going to be fixed at the end of the month. my girlfriend usually comes here and stays a couple days about 4x a month, but this time she is dog sitting for her mom so i need to go up there. i'm bringing copper (my yellow lab) and her mom's dog parker is a little terrier who basically spazzes around 24/7 and last time kept biting copper, so this should be fun.

my brother lives in NH and is moving at the end of the month, so im carpooling up from the 30th-1st with my dad to help him move. im leaving my car behind to be fixed at that time. its a hoopty lol its got 100k miles and has other issues and is past due for inspection. most of my friends dont have dogs, and with parker at my gf's and my parents going up to NH to help move i don't really have a good place to leave copper at the end of the month. my sister was supposed to watch him, but she has been acting very sketchy lately, and unfortunately tbh i dont really trust her with him right now. so, i investigated boarding him and found Camp Bow Wow. i need to get him up to dates on his shots and get him in for a pre boarding interview, but it looks like a safe and clean and happy place to leave a dog for a few days so i'm looking forward to trying them out.

online
20.5 hours
+$375

live
20 hours
+$295

im about to go out of town for a couple days, so this is going to represent the first half of my month. quite low volume and marginal results, but sometimes things come up and mess up our schedule and there's not a lot we can do it about it except deal with it and move forward. looking forward to getting after the grind in earnest the second half of this month.

after being out of town a couple days im back home. didn't really feel motivated to play today but i got 3 solid hours of grinding in to help get myself back into the routine. i finished the session -$300 but feel happy with the grind. i was up a few hundred early and had thoughts of wanting to just book it, but i stuck to the plan. i played pretty well and just ran poorly at the end and finished loser, but instead of chasing it im again just sticking to the plan and quitting at the scheduled goal time. its frustrating to not be making money so far this month, but on the bright side im not stuck and there's plenty of time in the month left, but more importantly im continuing to improve and refine my grind.

just put in a quality session online. 2.5 hours of play for a profit of +$240. more importantly my mental game was spot on this session and although i made a few minor technical mistakes i felt like i was able to objectively think about the mistake and move on and generally go about the grinding process at a high level all around.

things away from the tables continue to be a distraction. there's a bit of family drama im caught in the middle of which isnt pleasant and tbh has been occupying too many mental cycles lately. i took my dog to the vet to get him all up to date before boarding at the end of the month, and unfortunately he seems to have lyme disease. i had to be up early for the vet today and i have to take him back tomorrow, but not until noon so i should be able to get back to a better grinding/sleep schedule now. also did study group with skraper today, had lunch with my mom, got a haircut, and snuck in an hour nap. im going to do a sweat with skraper soon to help him get back into the groove and settled in after his big move to vegas.

thanks

Thanks for the response, and sorry for the confusion earlier about what site you play on. The only reason I asked is because I also play on bovada, but I respect you not wanting to comment on what sites you play on/etc.

long day of online grinding

took my dog back to the vet again this morning to get more bloodwork done for his lyme disease and to get antibiotics, then took him for a walk before settling in for a day of online grinding. played 7 total hours for a loss of -$775. felt pretty good about my play throughout the day. i was getting beat up all day, and i'm not sure how much i was stuck at the worst of it but probably about 1.5k or so. there were a few hands i marked for later review where i may have lost less if i had taken a different line, but i felt like i thought through what i was doing in each case and my decisions werent based on tilt but on what i felt was a good strategy. on the bright side, im getting more used to losing a thousand and not feeling too torn up about it. on the not so bright side, i'm just not winning this month. however, i know im continuing to slowly improve my overall process and sooner or later the results will be there.

Gl buddy sub

just played a session of midstakes online, 2.5 hours of play for a profit of +$1600. skraper gave me a sweat for most of the session, and i ran hot throughout. i feel i played well and also picked up a few tidbits from the sweat. gonna head to the gym before heading out to play live this evening.

4 hours of live play tonight for a profit of +$150. played well and quit well, not a lot of interesting hands just the usual grind.

4 more hours of live play tonight. finished with a loss of -$700. tough negative variance all night, got my money in good and played well and didnt feel too tilty or frustrated about things. however, my final hand did frustrate me a bit and it was about time to quit anyways so i just wrapped up the session there. if nothing else, this month has been a good opportunity to improve my mental game and my tolerance to losing big pots. although i've certainly made some mistakes along the way, on the whole i feel i've done a pretty good job making the best of it and keeping with a professional process.

36 hours online
+$1100

28 hours live
-$255

things have not been going according to plan this month but im dealing with life and variance as they happen and going to keep pushing forward