Totally agree, it's a tricky thing to balance properly and make the most of though - if you're too into living the good life you'll probably never make it to decent stakes (and might not even hold on to the progress you've made). But yeah I'm with you - can't get jaded

Yeah, I remember when I was in Mexico in June I was getting kinda pissed off that there was just no cold anywhere lol - take a 'cold' shower, step out and dry off and you're sweating again

I'm not sure whether it's best to try and push on from 2 cold showers a week? I know some people get super into it and the Wim Hoff stuff, but idk, feels like the sort of thing that might get kinda bad for you if you do it heaps?

==============================


April is in the books!





Played a heap over the weekend so ended up comfortably hitting my volume target. Month was looking like a disaster at one point, but caught some strong heat especially at 600 and managed to book another 5 fig month. Felt like I was playing really well the last few days and noticing a lot of lines I'd not normally take, but quite possibly went overboard today with a few pretty spewy ones I'd rather not share

Doing something different this week, a while back I signed up to volunteer with a charity called health in mind who provide all sorts of services/support for people with mental health difficulties. I agreed to be a 'befriender' - basically it's for people who've become badly isolated for whatever reason and are looking to build some confidence in social situations. So the charity has 'matched' me with a guy, slightly younger than me, I met him at the office in town a few days ago. He's clearly been having a rough time of it, difficulty making eye contact and super nervous/shy.. just not looking too well, but credit to him he's trying to fix it so pretty hyped to hopefully help him make some baby steps. So I've agreed to hang out with him for an hour once a week basically whenever I'm around and for as long as it takes for him to make some progress (obv either of us can bail whenever we want for whatever reason). I'm guessing, but I think there's quite a lot of young men in particular who get in bad situations of that sort, and I'd doubt there's a heap of young guys volunteering so hopefully I can make some small difference there.

That's about it for now, I'll set some goals for the month:

- 40k hands (this is high, but I'd think Cyprus should be intense grind)
- Beat SMB at table tennis
- Beat Jack at thrice
- Take some photos of Cyprus/Greece
- Continue consistently bossing mornings (this has been going great)

GL out there!

lmao these goals. do people usually go from 0-21 to winning? and even that's still probably more likely than beating ripper at ri3...

seriously, though, I think this volunteering thing is really great. good for you.

Iv always respected ambition in goals, but your attempting the impossible next month

Looking forward to another grind house with the boys. see you then!

haha, great goals and loving the volunteering!

Looking forward to seeing you on the 10th brother <3

The volunteering sounds awesome. Hope it goes well for you and the people you’ll be meeting.

The volunteering sounds really good and a unique way to help out, hopefully it’s fruitful for the both of you.

The volunteering sounds amazing. Do you have any plan how to help him? Maybe you could watch some videos how to treat anxiety that will make your progress faster

Yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

What's going on my brothers, long time no bloggy. Not really sure where to begin but I guess I just fill everyone in on what's been going on.

So, May. Month started well poker wise, IIRC I flew to Cyprus on about the 9th and it basically went downhill from there :/ Was playing quite a few too many tables, adding MTTs on the side here and there and yeah, I certainly went hard but not sure if I can really say I gave it my best effort, idk possibly just being results orientated. Think I made a couple day 2's but nothing big, was mostly just playing 215s, wasn't in the mood to take any shots. I've actually come to realise that my lack of knowledge on ICM stuff at FT's (while irrelevant because I don't make FT's) probably costs or could cost me a massive chunk of EV, so I was quite happy to just avoid that situation and grind cash, which was popping off all series as usual. Had some software problems towards the end of the trip, which meant I didn't close out my volume goal. Played my last real session on the 15th... also possibly a factor was a top 3 worst hangover of my life after going out to celebrate some big scores the boys had We apparently flipped for all the drinks the whole night, which I naturally lost, so I ensured the boys got absolutely wrecked in some random britsabroad pub. Forgot about the heat, didn't drink any water and was still drinking beers and playing table tennis when the sun came up, quite fair to say I was in very poor shape the next day Thankfully had a few days to recover before making my flight to Athens on the final Sunday of SCOOP.

May





Sharkscope has me down $1.7k in 18 MTTs (abi 236), but pretty sure that doesn't count reentries of which there woulda been a few.... w/e. 2.8k hands in the timbey (13evbb, down 1m chips #yeayea #crushersample) so still came a decent chunk short of my volume goal.

===========================

Anyway, after a day to myself in Athens I went and got my friend from the airport. We had a few days in Athens (cool history but meh place, lots of homeless and hustlers and stuff) before getting the ferry to Serifos. We had 4 days there, then 3 days in Milos, 4 days in Santorini before flying back to Athens. Some photos:

Serifos

From port looking up to where we stayed (they built the main town on top of the hill because it was easier to defend from pirates, naturally)


From the top(ish) looking down


Round the other side of the hill (went on a walk one day, path hadn't been cleared in about 10 years )


Milos

Wish we'd had more time here - took a boat trip one day


Taken from my restaurant seat


Hired a car one day and explored some beaches, including this one you had to climb down to lol




Santorini

Hard to do justice with photos - for anyone who doesn't know, it's an almost extinct volcano with traditional houses built on the inside of the cliff. Amazing place, but if you're planning a trip I'd recommend just a short stay here - you don't tire of the view, but that's really all you're paying like 4x the cost of Milos for..

We had an airbnb in Oia, took a lame video for my buddies which I'll just share here lol





That's it! Hard to express how much I enjoyed it, probably the best holiday I've ever had. Obv the country has had hard times, but damn the Greek people seem to know how to live - the food is INCREDIBLE, think I ate my own bodyweight in feta cheese, the scenery is awesome, all of it was just sick.

One thing I noticed is that the smaller/less well known the island, the happier locals are to see you - the Santorini tourist trap was pretty inescapable. Right outside our door there was a good photo place, we went out the first night at around 8pm and there was literally more than 200 people waiting to take a photo there - queuing up round the narrow streets, hungry and hot and all just suffering, waiting for their turn to get that sick insta pic... idk, there's something about photo taking/social media that just makes me sick these days, but w/e I'm probably just being a grumpy bastard. Contrast that with Serifos though - there was probably less than 200
foreign tourists on the whole island while we were there in late May, all the locals were super friendly and people would take a heap of time to help you out. We left dinner really late one night and a guy literally re-opened the kitchen for us, plus a dude smiled and waved at me after I was driving down a country road on the wrong side like an idiot lol, stuff like that made it feel like a much more authentic experience. We airbnb'd and arranged all the ferries and **** ourselves/through our airbnb hosts, kinda crazy to contrast that with a Ryanair in/out of Santorini. Anyway, I'm rambling now - cliffs are that the Greek islands/people are awesome

Had just 2 days at home between Greece and heading up the road to Brora. This year was the 10th consecutive year myself and my best/oldest buds from home have had a week up there golfing, we had a blast as usual. I actually played some really solid golf - in 10 rounds over 6 days I shot over 74 just twice. That said, the course was playing easy, wind was calmer than it is normally, plus it was dry/bouncing, which really suits me as something of a scrambler. I enjoyed the golf to the extent that I'm probably going to message the club nearest me here in Edinburgh and see about a trial round. It's ridiculously expensive in the city if you want to play a semi-decent course (place I'm looking at is 1200/year plus 2k joining fee), but the boys were saying that the inter club golf scene here is taken super seriously and most clubs have incentives for under 30s anyway, so w/e we'll see what they say. Kinda have enough to be going on with between ju jitsu and climbing anyway so I'll be feeling free to say no. Anyway, after Brora we were all down to Inverness for the wedding of two schoolfriends who also now live in Edinburgh, that was a riot. Played more golf at Nairn with some other buds the day after, and Castle Stewart the day after that with my Dad as a father's day gift. Thoroughly good times.

Forced myself back into the grind somewhat after getting back, so already back in the thick of it. Games have been pretty quiet with the world cup on but they usually pick up for the end of the month. I've managed to lose about 18 stacks of EV in the last 2 days, hence why I'm finally finding time to update the blog 5 days left till the end of the month and I'm sitting at 14.9k hands, should hit 25k easy.

Will respond to replies and share some future plans another time, been typing for too long!

GL out there

10/10 update, photos are superb.

would love to go there
def on list

gg

Photos look absolutely class. My gf has been bugging me to go to Santorini, might look elsewhere in Greece instead now.

News: SMB stalled out of negotiations on a table tennis propbet during this trip.

Views: He was and is scared of my table tennis prowess.

Gossip: The kid was too scared to even hold a bat the whole trip

You are CHEATING



Volunteering getting a lot of love!

So far I've met the guy 4 times - we went to a museum, played pool (he was actually really decent at this), went bowling and last week we climbed arthur's seat. Probably wouldn't be wise to go into too much detail, but cliffs are he suffers from schizophrenia and takes some medications to help manage his symptoms. I'd obviously love to help him work on some of that, but it's really not my place and honestly it seems like the sort of thing that requires a real professional. If he wants to talk about it that's obv fine with me, he has started to open up about it a little more recently, but I kinda see my role as just being his pal (not his therapist) so I try not to bring it up too often or make some garbled attempt to 'fix' him or something.

Thanks man! Means something coming from the king of 10/10 updates Your thread has been absolute gold recently, keep hammering

So many places, so little time Def go if you get the chance!

Would certainly recommend a short stay in Santorini, but my brother was quite right in the advice he gave me on picking islands - you basically can't miss, they're all sick in their own ways. I literally picked Serifos because it looked like it was about halfway to Santorini, ended up having sick adventure. Probably advantageous to go late/early in the summer season aswel, meant we had leeway to book stuff just 3-4 days in advance and still find availability.

===============================

Soooooooooooo, grind has been going reasonably well in all but results . Decided recently that my mental game could use strengthening once again, so I played with around the StayFocusd chrome extension I use (to limit my FB time to 5mins/day) and figured out how the 'nuclear option' could be used while grinding so that I'm not casually on BBC/2p2/email/whatever in session. It's actually amazing, if you'd have asked me how often I've got an internet tab open while grinding I'd have said basically never, maybe once every few sessions, but the reality is I find myself absent mindedly opening a tab probably 2-3 times/hour average (especially when I'm playing 9 tables or less). On a similar note, I've also stopped checking results mid-session, but I find myself just going to click on it ridiculously often. Amazing to see how much things can slide if you're not paying close attention, I wasn't even aware this was a substantial issue. The mental energy I free up by not half reading garbage I can use to pay more attention to spots, timing, marking more hands for review, making notes.. so yeah I've set the 'nuclear option' window to my home page, definitely given myself a positive nudge there, and I'll be looking for other ways to tighten up the mental game from here.

Let's be real though, sometimes it's not about any stupid 'mental game', it's about ****ING HEART





Will update results once the month is out, hopefully I can turn it around in the last 3 days.

Going to try and give this a go myself. I'm very guilty of keeping tabs open. YouTube being the main site for me to be on, perhaps the nut worst!?


Good luck closing out the month, son!

such awesome pics. looking forward to next month. quick couple when i'm there? <3

ya greece is rly cool. we made a round trip with school when I was still in high school which I really enjoyed. can confirm everything you said, just an all-round beautiful country, with amazing food and very friendly locals, also plenty of things to do ranging from cultural masterpieces to climbing mountains or just enjoying the beach.

...Or you could just grind & watch SKTvKZ at the same time like some people

holiday looks fockin clean lad.

lmao. still salty from slipping down the table tennis power rankings I see.

lmaaaaao

Thanks brother! Unfortunately it's not going so well just now, but the StayFocusd thing has been a big success, 2-3 times/hour was probably a significant underestimate. Saw you sit 400fr today and swiftly GTFO of there

Ahhhhhh I wish we had time for you to lose some more of your money to me on the baize!

Yeah for sure - didn't realise it was so sick tbh. I spent a lot of my mid-early 20s basically going to places basically as far away from the UK as possible, but Europe has sooooooo much to offer. Good thing I'll soon need a visa to go there lol

Teemo mains not allowed to comment ITT, sorry bud x

Bud you've forgotten all about the f0ckin dispatcher! Point+click one shot ulti, 3s cooldown ggwp #OPisbrokenchamp

==========================


Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

So, things have not been going that well. Just checked, and I've managed to win >$400 in 1 of my last 16 sessions.



Not exactly ideal lol.

Here's June:





Not much to say about it really - last two months have obviously been tiny volume, and even then I shouldn't complain about breaking even, can get much worse than this! Halfway through the year and I've played 247k hands with 4.7evbb - basically on track with both those goals and I'd certainly expect the second half of the year to be higher volume than the first given I had basically a clear month off.

One of the goals I will fail though - I once again won't be making it to Barcelona This is now the fourth year in a row I've expected to make it and ended up not. I've been planning for a while to put my place on airbnb for the month of august, can get pretty ridiculous rent (200/night at the weekends for my 1bed near the city centre ) and while I like the festival, I'm more than happy to take the 3-4k gbp and go travel for august instead. I've found someone to co-host (basically they host and arrange turnovers but my account also gets the feedback), had professional photos done etc, the demand is absolutely enormous that month so should have no trouble filling it. Had intended to go to Barcelona for the second half of august, but now going to be heading back to Mexico for the month instead. Going to be staying in Playa again near the bball court, feel free to PM if you're out there and fancy a beer/chez celine

Another thing I'm just going to throw out there - following the earth-shattering success of my crypto ventures , I'm going to make my first stock market trade tomorrow Probably won't be of interest to that many people here, so spoilering my lol_justification.



That's about it from me, enjoying the heatwave but focused on the grind and fixing this downswing before too long. Shooting for 60k hands this month, and keeping up the good habits I've been working at (reviewing hands daily, morning workout, better focus ingame etc)

Peace!

what the ****kk

I have a good buddy from grad school who is also convinced TSLA is a 0. The problem is timing and solvency. That stock can do anything.

I'm pretty bearish on crypto, real estate faang and TSLA but think taking a stand is not a good idea.

Bet you were ****ting it this morning when the TSLA premarkets were released and the share price was up 6 points. Nice retrace since then, however.

Glgl with the stock ventures, that's where a lot of my attention has been over the past 2 months.

Me telling myself I wouldn't check the share price every 2m:



It appears to be going quite well though :O



#noobgains #inb4wipeout

My old man has been a trader for 30+ years before computers started manipulating the market. Naturally I’ve made a number of trades, mainly ipos and speculative mining stocks and have been slammed.

To be successful I believe you need to read non stop and research like there is no tomorrow, because trading without knowledge is suicide.

Gl mate


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

if i had to short any stock it would without any doubt be tesla. the thing about shorting is that the upside is at max 100%, while the downside. when you invest in microcaps the upside can be 10000%+.

and ofc betting against tesla is also a bet against the american economy, which is the strongest economy in history

i started trading stocks 5 years ago or so and at one point i was shorting some companies, in retrospect i think it was a mistake for a bunch of different reasons. i think it's better to find very cheap companies amid all the thrash stocks there are.