Hey guys,

Ever hear that you should look back to what your dream back when you were 14 years old? I've heard many great people say that's how you figure out what to do in the early stages of your life.

At 14, all I really wanted was to be a successful poker player. I'd watch wsop broadcasts and high stakes poker and dreamed of being in the same position as the players.

Since then I've done it. But without the success I'd imagined. It's never too late to stop giving up on a dream. My challenge is to live it. Live and breathe poker success. My idea of success is to have a near bulletproof mental game, excel in mid- high stakes cash games, and be able to play a few big buy in tournaments per year.

What game? I'll start playing at 1/2 live nl. Live cash games are great to practice and build on poker skills. It's going to take quite a bit of practice to achieve a level of mastery. Some great minds say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. Shortcuts are highly unlikely so I'll grind it up through the stakes.

Let's go!

GL

Thank you.


Played my first session last night. Planned on having it last for 4 hours but was cut short by meeting stop/loss. Got in 2.5 hours of what I'd call A- game.

Only really recall two poor decisions. One being a misclick of making it $20 preflop when meaning to make it $15. The other is was just a preflop call off vs a short stack that is very close and really depends on range (crushed vs tight range and must get in vs loose-average range.)

Everything else was very solid. Felt good about that short practice session.

I'll keep record of wins/losses with Buy Ins. I'm framing almost all near future sessions as practice. Perhaps in the future my thoughts will be explained towards this decision.

Goal for tonight is 6 hours with disciplined play.

2.5 hours ~ -1.5BI

Friday night went all right and I once again fell short of my goal. I played just over 5 hours but left because a certain player sitting $700 deep left as well. Leaving the table 6 handed, playing 350 bb deep with reg (ip but still) + 4-5 $80 stacks. Wasn't really a table to move to as others were mostly full and didn't seem to have the average stack sizes i prefer to play. Felt like I played B game making several small hiccups.

Had a really weird hand. 1 limp, guy from mp makes it $6, one call, I make it $30 in the bu with JJ. Original raiser calls and we go HU to the flop. I'm putting this type of range as really wide, probably as wide as 30-40% (given reads on player as loose) but usually I weight this type of bet sizing towards pockets such as 55-99. Higher parts of the range usually are no gap suited connectors/ Axss. Not likely that he's raising so small with JJ+, AK+ or even AQ~.

Flop comes 744 ($65)

He checks, I bet $25. Feel like this flop misses his range so much, he raises to $50. I call. Makes me pretty confident about initial read that he has an inferior over pair. Probably trying to figure out where he's at. It's very possible he has 77 and maybe even 44 here.

Turn ($165)

4

Well, considering at the time I considered maybe he has a 4, it seems much more unlikely now. I really don't see any 4's in range except for A4s, 54s. He leads for $25. Now I'm feel very, very confident that he has 88-99, or even A7 or some rare other 7 combo. I raise to $75, setting up getting it in on the river. He calls.

River ($315)

8

What an incredible river card. One of the cards that makes a lot of sense towards connecting with his hand. There's also a slim chance of 56 though not really something that's not too realistic. Feel like I can discount 44/77 at this point as they wouldnt really take this line. Villain donk shoves for $157.

Who takes this line as a bluff? Less than 1%?? still possible, I guess. I tank. Then make a nitty fold that I think is good. First instinct is to insta-call based on prior action in hand. But I can comfortably put him on one exact hand. figure if river is brick (like a 2) he would check/call 88-TT, any 7. So he's most likely to c/c his medium strength and shove his nuts. Who really takes the risk of checking a hand like 44/88/56hh?

Obviously, villain shows AQ for a flush. I probably got the most tilted I've ever been at live poker (despite not really changing the way I play). Yeah, I don't really know what happened.

Anyways, some good Friday action. Sad that I skipped out on Saturday but wasn't even confident the games would be normal Saturday good since it was Halloween.

Not really sure what I'm going to do today. Will attempt to play some to work into getting into more of a grinding habit. Looking to hit the road soon as well. So frustrating to play in a casino that has $7 max rake and the average person buys in for $50-$100. Could drive an extra hour for $100 min BI +$5 rake but the gas wouldn't really be worth it (coupled with the pain of driving back and forth for 3-3.5 hours). Targeting casinos with $100 min BI's in the future. For now, this will do just fine for practice.

5 hours ~ +1.73 BI

GL keep at it, starting my own journey come the new year and we are close to the same age so I will follow yours as well,

Had one more live session after this and it was -2,5BI at 1/3. Was fantastic to finally play in a good semi-deep stacked game.

Took some time off to collect myself. Been playing sngs on Bovada for the past 1-2 weeks. Thinking the overall value in driving to casino etc is very taxing, not valuable, and hinders many of my goals.

Currently, I'm plotting a 2015 review + 2016 goals.

Happy Holidays yall

Happy New Years!,

Celebrating something that doesn't truly exist is amazing. Invaluable, I'll give time that much credit. Guess now it's time to be cliche and make a year's worth of goals just like everyone else. Only way to stop me is crashing and burning just like the majority.

Been researching about some charities and feel you'd just be a scrooge to deny helpless people of a few dollars (also non existent ) after being born into a life of fast food, the Kardashians, and greedy ceos. Was born in the United States of America if you didn't notice. How many people do you think are grateful that we have clean drinking water? Maybe they were too busy drowning in booze. I've decided on a plan to afford sharing some wealth for those who are born in an area they may have to walk days just to fill the bucket with water that isn't even clean.

Plan is to add a dollar to the charity goal cycle box (pictures will be coming) every time reaching a smaller goal that is part of a great goal. There will also be a few bonuses if certain harder challenges are completed. Kind of like how much more interesting regular sports seasons would be if players were paid based on their performance throughout the season.

Every time I reach a goal, the charity wins too. Win - win, isn't that what this world was created for? Before next Christmas I'll gather, count, and send the money to the charity. Suppose it's a possibility I'll keep being a giant sloth and stop right now. Guess how much money would be in the box then? $2! But why create an ending where everyone loses? It is the land of happy ever after, after all.

Larger goals:

- Work out 5 days/week
- Grind 1-8 sessions/ day (at the moment a session is 1-1,5 hours but in the - future it could be live cash)
- Eat healthy/Cook my own meals
- Play Dodgeball 1-3x/wk or find substitute if not in a dodgeball area
- Become more social (haven't really figured out an action plan for this)
- Read Books (52 for the year is goal, $1 after each book read)
- Travel and keep exploring new culutures

Here's an example of what smaller daily goals could look like:

- 4 sessions of poker
- Do 1 workout video and go to dodgeball open gym. Must be engaged and really getting into it to count. Raised heart rate. I dont use heart rate monitors, pretty easy to tell if I can barely breathe or not.
- Make a smoothie in the morning and make a gluten free dinner with a salad

Days are considered from the time I wake up until time I go to bed.
So if I complete all 3 tasks for the day I'll put in a total of $3 to the box.
If only 2 are completed I'll put in $2.
etc

Bonus goals: These are things that I'd really like to do but it's possible I won't get to all of them.

- Win the Detroit Dodgeball Cup ($100)
- Speak language other than English fluently ($50)
- Play 30+ songs on any musical instrument (guitar maybe) ($50)
- Make $200,000 playing poker ($10,000)
- Make final table in $1500 2-7 triple draw WSOP event ($100)
- Take a trip outside the US for a combined 1 month ($50)

That about wraps up the goals section. Good luck to all.

Ps

2015 review.

Started out pretty lazily not really getting any volume in until April~. Got mugged of all the stuff I had on me (suitcases,computer,monitors,money,etc) trying to fly home from Peru on my birthday. Kept riding low motivation/confidence/down swings and really struggled trying to play poker. Decided to get a job at Chipotle and it was awful. Worked my butt off only to be told I wasn't fast enough and get paid $10/hr. Finally decided to save my sanity and quit. Lazed around a bit more played a little poker. Tried depositing on Bovada 5 times~ before they finally accepted my deposit around mid-dec. Grinded that roll up a little bit and that's where I'm at now. Playing $20~ sngs or so.

psx2

Oh the charity I'm starting with is charitywater. I think their website has a .org at the end. Actually feel safe about sending them money because of the over and above guarantees they do so you can see what the money goes towards.

psx3

Kind of sad how much I've considered time in this post.

Overcoming sickness

Certainly we're all sickos on the table. But I'm talking about the physical ailment. Seems like every time I try to make big changes someone's there to swat my shot away.

Just a few days after starting it struck. It was after our quarterly local dodgeball tournament and stepping outside all sweaty, into the frigid cold. My throat started to feel a bit funky and a few hours later my head throbbed and I couldn't find enough blankets to keep warm.

Thankfully, only about 16 hours was lost due to this (8 of them I'd normally be sleeping anyways). But I'm still a bit under the weather and still a bit attached to an old mindset.

When I was young being sick meant laying down, eating soup, and Jell-o/Pudding (Why this was, heavens knows). But there was this idea that you be a vegetable until you start feeling better. Couldn't go outside, couldn't play. You laid down watching TV. But when you have **** to get done there's no laying around. Goals can still be met. Workouts must be done. Work must be put in.

Well there's my point. My family cared for me but that doesn't mean it can't still create some petty, ridiculous problems from it. We get to choose which way we want to think about things and that's what makes us so damn great species of the kingdom.

So far since the challenge started I've completed all my workout days but one and completed two grind challenges. Another strange monetary challenge made was that if I don't make $2k in January I'm getting a part-time job. Already well on pace for meeting the lavish milestone of $2k.

Pokerwise confidence is building and feeling that very few mistakes are being made. Not too concerned about making mistakes cause I'm human unlike the Bovada bots. HAH, some games people actually complain about bots. If there actually are bots they are bad and probably need the game to be quite good to even profit.

Stay sick guys!

Charity

Charity is a really interesting concept. The concept at it's core is really pure. Yet it's easy to corrupt anything pure in this world.

On one end of the spectrum you have the people that give to charity for the wrong reasons. "My dock neighbor at the yacht club donated $1 million this year? Well, I'll donate $2 million this year! Shove it down his throat, what a better human being I am!" Or there's the guy at the party that starts every conversation about how he's giving thousands of dollars to cancer here, hundreds to St. Judes, and a million dollars to the animal clinic because of how much he loves his darn cat, Tigger. Do you guys see what's wrong here? It's a status booster. Makes yourself feel better while possibly putting others down over something that's just supposed to help an unfortunate cause.

Then you slide to the other end. You mean John Doe, the CEO of the donate money cause I'm greedy foundation is raking in access of $1 million/year?!?! So out of the money we donate, half goes to the cause and half goes to John?! Wouldn't surprise me if psychopaths have it set up so the charity is fake and somehow fake it and keep all the money. Looks like we can get conned trying to do something amazing in life.

Everything about these two paragraphs above really tear me up and make me angry. It's sad that there's people like these people roaming around. Just give it for the purity of helping people.

Here's a definition:

the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need.

It's vague so based on that definition, John could be in need of $1 million to feed his insane brain. Even if you talk about it everywhere and one up your neighbor, you are still voluntarily giving help in the form of money.

And now as it relates to the thread. Is it a little flashy to talk about donating to charity in this thread? Yes and No. I would like nothing more for my story to inspire you to do the same. I will not shove it down your throat that you aren't donating your hard earned cash. But it's there and making people aware. It's what I want to do and at the end of the day I'm going to do what I want to do. We're altruistic breeds. See what I did there?

However, this is also an experiment with motivation. If I'm finding it hard to get motivated within myself, why not create a way to help others while staying motivated?

This will likely be the last discussion about charity unless anyone else wants to discuss it.

As for poker goes I've logged around 26 hours for the year. Bovada just did an update which makes things slower. Huds are broke as well. I have a monitor on the way from amazon to start adding in mtts. Going to wait until hud problem is solved to start mtts. Games also loaded wayyyyy slower today. I think there really was BAD, TERRIBLE bots that no way were profitable that don't work anymore. Not really sure if it's good or bad yet.