Hey guys, I've done a few of these before and find other threads here rather inspiring. Back on the grind and want to share this journey with anyone else who could possibly get something out of it.

Been playing poker for almost ten years now. Would consider myself a winning player. Would like to challenge myself in life to do something big so why wouldn't I do something I'm already good at and make it great. Hone, Honor, Conquer!

I love talking about ways of philosophy, motivation, and any weird things related to poker so expect a lot of these! Feel free to chime in at any time!

My current status is to grind 1/2 nl until I can play 2/5 or 1/2 plo.

Current goals are to put in strong hours and optimize ways to make it possible. Play with patience and discipline.

Best wishes out to all brave warriors grinding out the brick and mortars!

Looking forward to your journey starting my self one also acually just finish my first session. Idk if I will make a blog. I will be deff following. Where will you be playing ? Good luck at the felt

Thank you. Good luck to you as well Plz.

I'll be playing mostly in the Midwest. Am also likely going to make trips to Vegas and New Orleans within the next couple months.

Suppose starting this generated some disgusting run good. Played in a 1/2 game with more chips on the table than the 2/5 game. Very pleased with play even though I'm not really warmed up to 11.75 hour sessions.

Logged around 40 hours since June 6. Also working a part time job that I'll cut off once I start travelling a bit.


Several times I thought about leaving but one of my recent mind tricks has been to ignore those thoughts. Keep playing while the game is live and leave when it's dead. Keep playing longer to create more strength within you. Create logical reasons to stay and stick to it! Just to do it!

This obviously might not be right if you play really bad when tired or steaming. Know thyself.

Other thought I like is like this: Just go to the casino every day, because you never know when you're going to miss a good game. If the game sucks, at least you went to see, and can leave at any time you please.

Took Tuesday off since I worked till 10. Didn't see the value of going to the casino for 2-3 hours or so. Going to try to start getting earlier hours so this can't happen again.

Played a solid 9 hour session Wednesday. Was a very smooth and calm day. Nothing too crazy yet enough hands to come out a winner.

Humility in poker:

It doesn't matter what stake you've played before, what you think you should be playing, just play what you can! If you can only afford to play 1/2 but consider yourself a 2/5 player... why wouldn't you just play 1/2? It's still profitable. It's not a waste of time. Money to move back to 2/5 isn't going to just come to you waiting around not playing because you don't want to move down. Or maybe you play 2/5 anyways and go broke... now you can't even play 1/2!

If you've ever checked the online lobbies, sometimes you'll find world class players playing 2/4 or 3/6 (despite their regular games being 10/20, 25/50+) They're just playing, bettering themselves. Maybe they're defying the fact that their games aren't running by just sitting down and grinding.

Sam Walton, the genius behind Walmart, got put in a Brazilian jail because he was down on his hands and knees measuring the aisles in a store in Brazil. He was willing to do anything to make his store better.

Why not be willing to do anything to make yourself better?

I'm out here grinding 1/2 out so eventually I'll be able to play 2/5 and so on. Have the flexibility to play a bigger buy in tournament down the road.

Attempting to put in 4-5 hours tonight because of work. Hoping to take a decent trip over the weekend and put in solid hours there! Hopefully some 1/3 action will happen too.

Great points, gl with your poker journey.

Thanks pure_aggression, much appreciated.

Ended up around 4.6 hours last night. Played another solid session. Was a weird game, at first game was playing loads of $50 stacks but loads of multi-way pots. Then stacks got deeper but play ended up tighter (though I do feel like there was much value despite tightness).

Hey guys,

It's been a while. My weekend did not go as planned as I didn't play any poker. Traveled 10 hours round trip to a dodgeball tournament and played about 7 hours of nearly non-stop dodgeball. Did have a blast and would like to keep trying to play a tournament a month.

However, I was back on the grind yesterday. Another Monday of 1/2 fun. Not a big fan of sharing results, but I've never had a day like this. Put in 10.25 hours and lost $3. Mostly card dead all day, best hand was JJ (twice) and those were the only pairs 88+. Very satisfied with my play though. 4 sessions in a row now with in my opinion, mistake-free sessions.

It's not where you could be, it's where you are now.

I could be in Vegas right now, with the WSOP going on in the background, grinding 1/2 + 1/3 in quite the electric atmosphere. But I didn't grind my way into such a trip. I'd have all my eggs in one basket, no possibility for failure. But if one is grinding hard in poker, playing well, it's possible to go anywhere you want to play poker. My grind has just begun.

Also, I'm able to get into a solid routine at home with plans to carry it on with me. Meditate, run, and yoga are becoming staples of a successful poker life. Goal is to do them every day I play poker.

Taking the day off today to get stuff done and work. Planning on 8+ hr day Wednesday. At 63.85 hours since June 6 and am pressing to hit 120 hrs by July 6.

Been lacking on the volume. Managed to cap off an outrageous session today by cashing out nearly 4 racks and best 1/2 nl session ever. Flopped Quads and my opponent manager to hit runner runner top full house so based on that my sun run was surely there. Still feel like only mistake was for $10 somewhere. Much better than last session in which I paid off 2 check min raises vs very stationy villains. Did get worried that I wasn't capable of making folds in certain situations that would end up really helping out with profits. Feel confident from now on I can make better decisions based on situations.

Volume is at 78 hours now so it will be quite the effort to hit the 120 goal. Still going to go for it with 1.5~ weeks left.

Wanted to share a few thoughts on playing deepstacked. One thing I've noticed from playing a fair bit of live poker is that I don't really worry as much when my stack is huge. You may think it makes me play looser but seemingly, I only make this adjustment if it's right for the game. At the start of the session when I'm around $200~ it feels painful to lose $100 for example then have to top up. Perhaps it's a product of playing from a place of abundance vs a mindset of scarcity.

With abundance, everyone, including yourself, may view you as untouchable. Always have it, etc. But then when you're starting off and dwindling chips away, I seem to have thoughts of crap, a losing session with some run bad. It's quite illogical but this comfort doesn't happen until I feel a commanding chip stack. It's a lot easier to go from $400 to $200 than $200 - 0.

Scarcity, it's like eating less pretzels because there's not much left in the bag and you want more next time. This is how losing feels for me sometimes, I don't want to make good, profitable risks because I want there to be more for next time. Even if my roll is nearly bulletproof with rounds to fire for days, it still feels like this.

Overall, I really don't think what I've discussed really affects my play too much (except a little bit in scarcity area, which I'll work on growing out of). Maybe sometimes it'll trigger a extra nitty fold in the state of scarcity. But I don't feel like I'm ever near hemorrhaging chips with an abundant stack.

2/5 Shot:

Decided to take a 2/5 shot. It was a Friday, game started with mostly older 5/10 players. Game was dry for a while but picked up nearer that peak night time. Managed to book a multiple BI win after being stuck 66%~ of session. Ended off with a solid 7 hour session.

Would have lost my entire shot if my top set didn't river a boat in a big 3 way all in with some dead money. Guy with baby flush with redraw almost folded which would have let a guy in who turned a higher set. Is this PLO for crying out loud?!?!?!

Going to use this win as a 2/5 bankroll. I've played a fair bit of 2/5 and 5/5 in the past so I'm very confident in playing this stake.

Just reached a running goal on a side note. Started at 10 mins and increased 10 seconds every day. Today I reached 15 mins and according to mostly reliable GPS did 2.18 miles for a 6:52 mile pace. My goal was to start days with 15 minutes of high heart rate workout. Especially on days involving poker grind.

Amazing August is coming up and I'm considering going with no poker goal other than just not talking about it much and doing it. I'll write a bit about it, just not talking to anyone who doesn't love poker.

Amazing August!

Decided to roll out a few goals for the month.

-- 100+ hours of live poker
-- Daily meditation
-- 15x+ runs @ 15 mins each
-- Daily yoga/workout

August theme song :

This is War - 30 Seconds to Mars

August 1 session recap:

Played 9 hours of 2/5. It played as a 2/5/10 for about 3-4 hrs. Probably shouldn't play this big but the game was fun. No regrets, played quite well overall. Picked up AA 7x (it was mono black 6x) and KK 2x, flopped 4 sets, and even made some flushes and boats yet managed to lose half a buy in.

Feels awesome to make 9% progress on day 1 towards major monthly goal. Worked all day 8/2.

August 3 session recap:

7.75 hours. Played very well. Learned not to v bet vs super passive players (more of learned who is a very cautious passive player). Ended up in access of 2 buy ins. Up to 16.75 hours on the month now. I do have a few bigger ideas in mind for when there's more time.

Live poker rake/costs thoughts

My personal thoughts on live poker rake may differ from some. Many online players may find it unreasonable to play such high rake and in some live rooms enjoy close to 0% rakeback. However, a simple factor left out of the equation is winrate. A high winrate lowers variance (just do the calcs thanks to pokerdope for having really nice ones). High winrates and low variance is how you see graphs circa 2006~ that look like a perfect slant upward. This is probably what many 1/2 and 2/5 live nl graphs also look like but you rarely see a long sample of these graphs. Most of the great 1/2 + 2/5 players don't last very long at either stake and are able to climb to 5/10+.

Let's get down to the facts and rough math. Average live poker game's rake in the US sits around $5 with many casinos having a BBJ(Bad Beat Jackpot) of an extra $1. Let's not consider the BBJ since technically this is given back to the players. In the average 2/5 game that 10% $5 cap is reached almost every hand. In an above average 1/2 it's hit nearly every hand as well. Average hands per hour is very debatable but it's likely around 30 (higher hph usually results in crummy games anyways).

This is $150~ taken from the table per hour. At a 9 handed table, the average player contributes $15/hr in rake. This brings a rakeless winrate of $30/hr down to $15/hr and a $60/hr winrate down to $40/hr. This sounds like it sucks when you hear it, right? If every pot is exactly $50, the casino is making 10%, giving the players a 90% return. My casino says the slots pay back something like 89.5%. So we might as well play slots?!?!

You may forget that pots are not likely to average at $50. Your game stinks, move tables or move to another location or something! In 2/5, the average pot is probably between $150-$200 (random guess off top of head) In a $200 pot, the casino only takes 2.5% of the pot. Now, the casino edge is lowered quite a bit and the players are exchanging lots of money among each other. It may only be lower playing gto blackjack/baccarat. Quite more often than you may think, the pot is far over the rake cap.

It gets better. OMG freak out! My casino has a rake cap of $10-25!! How can I ever beat this game??!?!? There must be no way!!!!! Well friends, the players make the game, not the rake structure. I'm sure loads of guys are killing absurdly high rake home games around the nation. Imagine getting to handpick a line up of any players you've ever played poker with, give them all at least 10 bullets, and play $25 rake cap. I'll bet at 2/5, the game will probably have a fair bit of straddling, and many pots blowing away the 2.5% casino cut discussed above. $1000 pot is all it would take. A winrate in this game would also be so astronomical, I wouldn't even want to take a stab at what it would be. Perhaps $300/hr+? Some may be led to think, my cookie cutter $40/hr win rate is all I make. Now I'm paying 5x my usualy rake or $750/hr/9 = $83.3 rake/hr. For a whopping -$23.3/hr winrate. Game unbeatable, yeah? There's no way you're winrate sticks at $40/hr in the best, most action packed game ever imaginable.

The example above is quite exaggerated, I know. At times however I do rate games on 1-10 scale. I think the best game I've ever rated was 9-9.5 and sometimes just 2 players can make it so good. But if you look at terms of a 5 game making you $40/hr. Then yeah, in your crappy nitty game it might be difficult to beat a $25 rake cap game. But what if it is nitty? Then how often do you have to even meet the rake cap? Given it's not filled with strong tight players and weaker nits, it's possible to rarely pay much rake at all and take down many pots preflop (if your casino is no flop no drop). Even if it's not, I'd be willing to bet a game constantly surpassing the $25 10% rake cap is worth playing. AVG pots $250+ sounds like a fun game to me. Even a 4% no max structure like France sounds alright if the game is action (worst part could be all the time spent calculating rake!)

To sum things up, I think a game really needs several top tier players (which just doesn't really exist at 2/5 or lower) to make it unprofitable, regardless of rake structures. Would it be great to pay no rake? Sure. Is it reasonable? No, casinos already take up a fair bit of table space with a game that surely cuts into their profit margins if they could have a different game there instead. Casinos has to make money or they don't operate.

On costs. I like to reduce things as much as possible. I bring and refill my own water bottle so I don't spend $10+/session on water. Eat my own meals so I don't overpay for casino food. Only tip every other small pot and every medium sized + pots. I hate tipping dealers that suck (though I do) because there's so many good ones it's amazing how the same dealers make multiple mistakes per half hour and still have a job (and literally all the reg players complain about them!!). I'll tip $2 if I cooler someone in a huge pot just to act like a donk and make it feel like it was dealer's fault.

Why should one posts actual winnings on here?

Is it truly more exciting for the read to constantly be updated with the amounts the starter of the PG&C is earning? Or is it vain showing off and saying: "Look how awesome I am at poker and all the money I'm making everyone!"? Or is there another reason?

Personally, I feel that none of my goals are really about making money in a way. I've dreamed about being a successful, top tier poker player. Everything I compete at, I want to be the best. I feel like now's the time to put the skills I've been honing for years to the test and see how far I can take them. Money is just something to have more of in a bankroll so you can reasonably afford to play a stake in which you think you have an edge at. It's also something necessary to keep living in a very individualistic society.

Well, looking forward to a Friday game. May all your games be action packed (cause who wants to sit around in boredom for hours on end!)

8/5:

Played 8.75 hours of great poker. Always fun to have an image where everyone thinks you always have it and not always have it. Games were slow for a Friday and played at a very reggy table (though still a good table).

August: 25.5/100 hrs. Staying on track.

Took a few days off. Been feeling really drained lately despite being on one of biggest heaters of career. Still grateful that my $200 shot at 1/2 turned into a 2/5 roll so quickly.

Found out my back problems are worse than I figured they were. Always assumed that most westerners have fairly bad back problems. It's just a minor form of scoliosis so my poker plans are to bring my travel pillow to give back better support and work on my back off the table. My local casino must have one of the most uncomfortable chair-table set up of all! But I know playing somewhere comfy like Aria would cut into my winrate like crazy!

Wednesday is one of the most lively days in local casino as well and am looking forward to the grind!