1).Yes,check is a right play in that spot probably
2).He made a wide(mistake) call with Q9s
3.)It is useless to analyse a hand that's not supposed to be there at first (96s opening UTG+1???)
4.)It is 3 way spot...u have to be honest...probably a standard play by both.

1).Maybe a right question is :How many value hands do we have in that x/r line?Obviously T is good card in our hand but it is presenting too many bluffs if we take 3 barrel line.
2).Funny thing is u should have not open 87s but u should call a 3 bet everytime.This tricky spot is a proof.
3.)Probably that river call is standard on a blank card but why he didn't 4bet(or jam)turn?He should try to put all the money in before river on that board.
4.)It is pretty clear that Aces r no more good after J on turn(in a cash game probably they r calling one more street but...)

Cheers guys for the thoughts on hands will get around to reading them tomorrow. Just stopping in for a quick post right now whilst the mood is heightened.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's crazy man...one day you're driving home from local small stakes cash game wondering "how is it possible that I'm running this fkn bad?" "How can guys consistently hit their 2 outer over and over?" "Why am I losing 15 hands of blackjack in a row when I'm having a drunk punt with my friends?" "How is it even possible to run this bad in my online sessions for so many weeks?"

The next day despite how bad you've been running you bring yourself to play a Friday night session (when you never play Fridays). A few hours later and the downswing is over and everything starts to make a little bit more sense. You realize that in the long run perserverence and hard work is rewarded.

If you haven't guessed by now I was lucky enough to chop a Turbo Series 7 ways for ~3rd place money and leaving 2nd place money to play for. I'm very happy with the score as things were starting to feel quite difficult.

Why did I deal 7 ways?
-Remaining field was not super fishy, I do think I had a decent edge given
deep run experience/chip stack.
-Locked in 3rd place $ and left some to play for, when stacks were very shallow/structure sucked.
-Sometimes you need to consider variance and BR...would you register a 10k HUSNG if you had a 5% edge on the guy even though it was way out of your BR?


Feels good man. Not a completely massive score but enough to tide me by

"The inflated ego you get (from winning) can create mental turmoil when you are on a downswing. Try not to ride the highs and lows." -James Obst

^one of the wisest poker quotes and possibly my favourite one.

Chopping 7 ways??? You fish!

Gg wp on the score, pretty crazy how MTTs are. Sometimes you feel on top of the world and you can't lose, other times you question your abilities and wonder if you'll ever make money from poker again.

Cheers Trenty

Hey guys, hope the Turbo Series treated you well. Why the fk did they rename it the "Turbo Series" anyways? I'm pretty much done with caring about trying to understand the logic and rationale behind the decisions made by Amaya Gaming. Then lately I've really been putting a lot of faith into another site that decides to have a "server DC" during one of their biggest Sundays ever that happened to be overlaying heaps ;/ Meh, who said being a poker player was easy anyways?

I wanted to come in here and talk about something a little bit different tonight. So I've thought for the last few minutes about what I could randomly blurb onto this page. Unfortunately, I'm not in a very creative mood at the moment so I've decided to just post come cool **** that I've found recently.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/le...lf-mike-bossy/
cool article from an OG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-EPr2B9Hpg
a little bit longer video about nutrition/working out/burning fat

I'll leave those 2 pieces for you guys hopefully you can get a thing or two out of them.

Pretty oi and tired atm so gonna leave it there. Looking forward to this week: hiking tomorrow, grind Tuesday, sensory dep. tank Wednesday, grind thursday, all with steady gym etc in between.

PEACE

Well done on the turbo final table! I did not play a single event but came 4th in a $22 6-Max KO event on partypoker

cheers bud, gg

yoyo,

Just finished a 13 hour session and I am WIPED. After bricking all day ended up 1 tabling the Big 55 until losing HU to a dolt. Score was good to pad the stats by a few more thousand. Feeling really great about my game right now and I've been in the zone for my sessions. A major key in this has been going to the gym and getting all my "to do list" done before the grind. In the past I'd put grind before all and then would feel regret/anxiety about all my incomplete tasks. In other words, time dedicated to poker means that poker is the only thing on my mind. If I know my desire to play will be low/I have other stuff to do I just force myself to take the day off. (I know rough right )

What's new on my end? Not a whole lot really. Went to Buffalo to watch the Leafs play yesterday and they got dusted 5-2. It's nice because tickets there are ~20% of the price of watching the game in Toronto and it's only a 2 hour drive as opposed to 1 hour drive. The gym has been going well and tomorrow will be dedicated to cleaning/errands/and booked another Flowt session. Pretty much done grinding til Sunday now as a lot of stuff to do and home game on Thurs. night. Nutrition has been meh as per usual lately. Gonna try to start using "my fitness pal" again tomorrow to log meals etc because I need to get that under control and measured. (what get's measured gets managed!).

A Small Ramble:

So I was listening to the Elliot Roe podcast today where he had apestyles on as a guest. Ape was talking about coaching his students etc and said one thing where he had noticed that he was often a few steps ahead of the student and was talking to them on a level they were not on. He said "why am I talking about indifference on the river to a guy who doesn't understand why K10o UTG is usually a bad open?"

I'm not going to talk about ape or the contents of the podcast but more about how I think the biggest mistake a lot of poker players make is trying to study on a level that is over their heads or when they apply the same strategy against a "1 tabling monkey on a cell phone" as they would against Sauce1234 or Ben86 etc.

So how should they be studying? Did you ever play sports as a kid? Let's use hockey as an example. At your first hockey practice was your coach teaching you how to play the 1-2-2 trap? A left-wing lock? No. You were probably being taught the fundamentals of hockey and how to shoot/skate/pass. How can you apply a 1-2-2 neutral zone trap strategy if you don't even know how to skate?

It's ironic hearing about these regs dissecting their GTO frequencies/sizings/ranges on the river when they are playing a monkey on a cell phone. It's absolutely important to study hard and understand GTO but it is even more important to understand WHY and WHEN to employ it. Just because PIO tells us to c-bet 100% range with 33% pot c-bet sizing on AA2r does not mean that we should solely obey that. We should understand 1) Why it chooses this 2) when would this not be GTO 3) are there differences in villains strategy compared to how PIO would assume they would play 4) how should our strategy change to make maximum profit.

The first and most important fundamental of poker is pre-flop play and it's shocking how little effort players seem to put into this. Everyone seems to just open these ball-park/static opening ranges but don't seem to pay attention to reasons why they should deviate from them. Who is in the BB? Who is on the BTN? How does our hand play vs. a 3 bet? What does our 4 bet range look like? Which player types are after us and how does our hand fair vs those player types? These are some of the many factors we should be considering.

Anyways, I'm too tired to keep writing and this is just a complete rambling lol. Maybe some day I'll try to rewrite this post with more clarity/depth.

Just coming in quickly to post a few hands...will be back for a more thorough update after my Sunday session tomorrow.

We'll get things started with a pretty gross bad beat (feel free to skip)
https://www.boomplayer.com/27138166_74CC4113EE

this hand was vs. a v aggro swedish reg. felt like he isnt bluffing with any A highs (which make me beat all his bluffs). its prob bad and not std at all but decided i was gonna call down, luckily i got a v favourable river
https://www.boomplayer.com/27138068_075DBA3225

https://www.boomplayer.com/27136396_54EA44AA2D
super annoying. thoughts on c betting flop? thoughts on 3 barreling given this runout?

https://www.boomplayer.com/27134204_C6F4AFF8D0
vs aggro/punty/good results reg. i dont normally jsut x/r run it with flush draws in these spots but seemed good/could shut down on some run outs. he snaps river.

https://www.boomplayer.com/27117558_5A51E59D5E
puked calling down so seldom to see a bluff here. got 2nd in this one btw


cheers guys. time to head out for the evening. no prisoners tomor.

supsup, gonna keep things quick and to the point here because I'll probably end on a bit of a tangent.

Poker: Played ok this week. Got 2nd in the Big 55 which was nice so a little bit of heat lately. I was a little bit hungover today and sleep deprived which I think hindered my play later in the day. Ran aids in all of my relevant deeps so probably didn't cost much EV. Drinking the night before playing is very -EV and being fresh+prepared for Sunday sessions has always been something that I've always taken a big edge on a lot of opponents.

Health: Just finished up another week of 4x solid workouts + a few walks in between. Nutrition was fine during the week but both Friday and Saturday night I got hammered with friends and a lot of ****ty foods came along for the ride. Did another session in the "Flowt" tank which (possibly placebo) has made me feel quite relaxed irl. Probably in combination with the meditation I've been doing but I feel a big difference in my presence and eye contact in every day conversation.

Relationships: Had a bit of a relapse lately and I don't want to get into very much detail about it. Definitely had a few epiphanies this weekend/lately about what I need to do/what changes need to be made. Won't open up too much about this stuff but jus' know your boy puttin' in work

On a side note I went out to some group outings/parties quite a bit recently and I'm glad I convinced myself to do it...even if it meant a hangover grind. Leaving my social comfort zone/meeting new people/strengthen existing relationships is a priority of mine so I'm ok with compromising some poker EV.

Random Rant:

Freedom.

It's something that most people only talk about vaguely in a "what if" scenario. Most people talk vaguely about the things they want to achieve but often imply that there is some type of barrier stopping them from achieving it. Maybe it's their parents, government, education (or lack thereof), country, physical or mental pre-disposition, money, upbringing, or whatever other type of shackles they may believe have been placed upon them.

All I want to say is that these types of "imaginary barriers" often only exist as a fragment of your imagination. Sometimes our brains can trick us into resisting change and discomfort. Deep down I knew going to the gym was the most important change I needed to make in order to achieve my long term goals. For so long I'd give myself any ****ing excuse under the sun not to get my ass in the gym: the roads are too icy, It will take me forever to get in shape, gym memberships are too expensive, I'll start Monday etc. Was it comfortable never going to the gym? Hell yeah... for a bit. At one point the discomfort of being out of shape was far more uncomfortable in almost every aspect of life. Not saying I'm Jason Koon yet but trending in a positive direction and taking care of myself feels damn good...

Logically, would you rather sacrifice 1 hour per day and eat a little cleaner in order to feel good about yourself, prolong your life expectancy/quality of life, increase confidence, increase your health? Seems so easy on paper. If we were such logical beings Coca-Cola would not be the number one selling beverage on the planet...

The next time you are thinking about your freedom or maybe you believe you should be doing greater things than the school you attend or the job you work, remember that it's as easy as a simply decision. If you want to move to another country-buy a plane ticket. If you want to start your own business-save up money and do it. If you want to get in shape-get a trainer and a gym membership.

****, what's the worst thing that could happen? Your leap of faith fails and you have to go back to living at home for a bit? Well the job you left can always come back...you had the skills to get it in the first place. The worst thing that can happen is the regret of not trying to do something you dreamed of. If you died tomorrow would you be satisfied with never trying? It's amazing how quick our priorities change in the face of death.
-I know I wouldn't give 2 ****s about getting 2 outed deep in the Sunday Million.


Anyways guys, today was a pretty tough day for me. Was tired and hungover all day listening to music that matched my mood. Again, don't want to get into too much detail but all this stuff is really just minor BS that shouldn't concern me. I made this post to hopefully spur some motivation in one or two readers and also to help cement these ideas into my own mind. Life is short and I want to live it to the fullest. Hope you guys could resonate with this one. Cheers.

PS here's some of my emo music from today haha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5THbA_MLLc

Still here, still reading, still fighting.

Best of luck amigo!

@scarecrow: thanks my dude good to hear!
-------------------------------------

Hey guys just wanted to come in for some advice...might just make a post on 2p2 to reach a wider audience.

Anyways, I ****ed with the idea of ketogenic diet/intermittent fasting in the past but never really got around to it.

Recently a friend started it and has been preaching it to me. Here's an example of a video he sent me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnyF...ature=youtu.be

I've been doing a lot more research and reading and definitely think I'm going to start this. I need to be honest with myself that my workouts have been great and I've nailed that facet of health but my diet simply sucks and I think that's why I haven't been getting the results I want.

My questions to you guys:

1. What doe the typical keto diet look like and what hours of the day are you eating during IF? Everyone says it's a high fat low carb diet and the ratios but what is an example of like say a weekly diet? What are these people eating for their meals/snacks? How do they measure how much carbs/fats/ etc are in each meal?

2. Should keto be combined with Intermittent fasting?

Any advice or knowledge would be appreciated.

So next Wednesday I'm flying to a secret destination for some live poker tourneys. Gotta keep it a secret because I don't think many regs know about it haha. I'll be there for 5 days in a hotel and wondering if maybe I should hold off on starting the diet until then. It may be too difficult to find all the exact foods etc when living out of a hotel room (or maybe thats easier than it seems?)

Thanks!

Yoyo,

Received a few PMs about information on keto. Thanks very much to those who reached out. I'll be starting keto next Monday (the day I return from my live grind.) In the mean time gonna do my best to eat healthy on the road+prepare/research more about keto.

A few notes:

Grind: Has been going meh. After those ships in last few weeks I think I started auto-piloting a little bit more. Haven't felt too bad when grinding but more playing too many tables/not thinking enough/making bad call offs when I should be hero folding. Gonna be nice to have a few days break from online to regroup and refocus. Have been slacking with my lab work hard and that needs to improve. Looking forward to the live grind and checking out a new Canadian city/province...will get rich in EV and hopefully rich in reality on this trip too

Gym: Has been really good. ~8 weeks now have consistently went minimum 4x/week and put in solid intensity workouts every single time. Overall muscle mass is improving along with the amount of weight I've been lifting. Really coming into a great routine and rythym+feeling awesome about it. Started working out in the morning now which has had huge impacts on the rest of my day to day life by osmosis (increased energy+mood levels, positivity etc). Have been taking a few supplements: pre-workout blend, protein, ZMA tablets, vitamin D+C tablets, sometimes melatonin before bed.

Nutrition: Still pretty bad overall but like I said official keto will start Monday morning when I get home. This is like 80% of losing weight and slimming down but also like 80% harder for me than gyming. No doubt in my mind that fat gonna burn pretty quick for me because I've built some decent muscle mass and metabolism will increase along with that.

Rant: This is gonna be completely just off the top of my head with likely no research or anything just a disclaimer.

Life is like the game of poker. We're given a series of incomplete information and we need to deduce the information in order to make the highest $EV yielding decisions. Poker is much like life in the sense that is it an ever-going battle with the "crocodile" sides of our brains. (referencing the caveman parts of our brains that were developed thousands of years ago and make irrational decisions etc).

It is times such as when our opponent has the top of their range over and over that we almost want to throw in the towel and make an irrational decision out of spite/frustration. All of a sudden A10o is looking quite attractive to our crocodile brain when deep down we know this nitty villain has just had value hands the last 2 times they've 3 bet us.

Or maybe we've been on the grind for 16 hours and getting sleepy. Our crocodile brain wants us to just make a bad call off and call it a cooler so we can bust and go to bed.

As much as our crocodile brain tries to influence us the people that can tune it out and make the best logical deductions are the ones who will succeed in poker. The guys who avoid playing drunken pit games with their friends after a tilting session. The guys who sacrifice an extra hour of sleep so they can get to the gym before their Sunday session. The guys who show up day after day and grind out the highest EV regardless of how tough the going gets.

I'm really not sure where I was going with this.

Oh yeah, life is like poker. However, the decision matrix in life becomes infinitely more difficult because there exist several more dimensions outside of just "Dollar EV". In poker, the solutions we derive almost always equate to some type of $EV. In life the $EV is just one small facet of our decision matrix. We need to worry about life expectancy EV, health EV, friend EV, not getting ran over by a car EV, relationship EV, happiness EV, family EV, and basically almost every other type of EV under the sun.

The reason I wanted to compare life and poker is mostly because I wanted to talk about choice and how the croc brain is inefficient in today's society.

As humans we dictate so many of our decisions based on emotions and various other nuances. Quite often a person can tell you exactly what they should be doing and why...but why do they so often deviate from this? For example I could tell you an optimal diet that I should be eating and I want to be eating...but why do I constantly make bad choices time after time?

Why is McDonalds one of the most successful businesses ever created? Why is Coca-Cola the most popular beverage on the planet? Why did I sleep in through math class every Monday morning for an entire semester? Why does the Brazillian monkey raise/call off a 30bb re shove with T9s? Why do people hang out with "friends" who **** them over time after time?

What I'm trying to get at here is that so often we make horrific decisions even though we know the correct answer. Our decision matrix is so driven by emotion, feeling, and habit that we will repeatedly make poor decisions. The definition of a degenerate is someone who constantly makes decisions/actions that they are aware are destructive to their well-being.

Much like in poker, the guys who can tune out the croc brain and make better decisions are the guys who will have the highest quality of life.

Anyways, felt like rambling a bit hopefully it made some type of sense/hope it triggered some thoughts.

Quality post cnxn!

hey guys,

Sorry it's been a long time since my last update. Things on my end have been pretty hectic last few weeks, and to be honest, I really haven't felt like talking/ranting about the same stuff as I think there are often better uses of my time. Instead of talking about exercising more, I've been exercising more in that same time. I gotta say I'm quite happy with my effort and resilience to get up and go to the gym with regularity lately. Instead of feeling like a chore every morning it's become more therapeutic and a necessary part of my routine.

Saskatchewan Trip:

Picture this. You book flights/hotels for a very random/boring part of the country to play 4 tournaments ranging from 500-1.1k buy ins. You're very excited because you get to take a few days to just focus on poker and print a lot of EV in very soft fields and cash games.

After the 5 hours of travel you arrive at the hotel and swiftly make your way to the poker room to register. Although sleep deprived, you sit down and grind through the early stages of the tournament. After BB1k you notice something weird...there are no antes so far. After another level you inquire only to find out that there are NO ANTES in the whole series.

I know this sounds over-dramatic etc but I was soooo tilted. All of a sudden it was tough for me to take this series seriously. Anyways, I got over it and still played the events...bricked every single one and lost every all in. Man, tournaments without antes takes away soo much edge from regs (don't believe me, try it out).

Interesting Hands: There wasn't really even one hand I'd consider overly interesting. Here's a fun one from 2/5 (well not really, more of just a gross beat):

VERY drunk guy sitting to my left (apparently getting hammered and grinding these games is standard in SK from both the regs and fish, let alone @ 1 pm). Various players on the table are swapping out dinner buttons as they are taking turns visiting the "rub n tug" across the street from the casino (maybe some questions about sanitation arise but we won't go there), so we're playing 8 handed.

Our drunk villiain to my left goes to raise to 30$, before the dealer tells him that he is the big blind. He retracts his 30$ and puts in 5$ for his blind. There is 5 limpers to 5$, and I wake up to KK in the small blind. Instead of raising I notice the BB is reaching for his original raising chips so I decide to limp. As per my inkling, he raises to 30$, 4 callers. I raise to 180$, our drunken friend jams for ~1500$. I have the effective stack and call. He has 66...we lose.

On the bright side of things I got quite rich in Sklansky $ in live poker over the weekend. Not to mention, I had 4/4 winning online sessions and shipped the Big 33+3rd Big 27 and a few other small scores. Ended up profing on the trip (after selling action to live games).

The Diet: Was supposed to have started ketogenic diet today but meh. Don't feel ready yet. Ate fairly well on the road (suprisingly). My hotel had a decent breakfast buffet every morning with limited options so I was able to eat decent amounts every day to tide my by until dinner. The casino offered a very nice buffet to tournament players which allowed me to make reasonable choices for good whole foods most days.

Now that I'm home stocked up on lots of healthy groceries/whole foods and 6 days of the week will only be eating here. Allowing 1 cheat day.

What's Going on Next Few Weeks:

-Party Poker Millions N. America in Montreal in April. Will do my best to satty online for that+grind as hard as I can in the events there.
-SCOOP. Ideally will go to Alberta or somewhere nice again where I can focus solely on poker and get a break from my current surroundings.
-Vegas: Still a few months away but need to start booking a place and working on a schedule for myself/selling action/getting some type of backing deal for the series. Found it quite stressful there last year so gonna change a few things up. I want to grind like a mad man and I think under a backing deal is the least stressful way to go about it. If anyone is interested to talk with me about this I'd love to (but don't want makeup after the series).
-Float Tank: Bought 10 more sessions there. Going 1x per week and really loving that as part of my weekly routine.

Other than that just continuing the self-improvement and poker grind. Loving it.


Rant:

It was late 2015 and I was on the biggest downswing of my poker career. I was berating
another reg in group chat saying how bad he was etc. It was at that time when a friend in the stable said "you were nothing but a mediocre reg on a heater, get off your high horse and start working harder. you'll get out of your downswing."

This was a big blow to my ego at the time because it hurt quite a bit...because I knew deep down it was true. I knew deep down I wasn't playing my A game and I was just tilted in many aspects of life and poker. I knew I couldn't blame variance/backers/amaya anymore and that my recent downswing was because I was just a mediocre reg at the time. A lot of frustrations in my life and I started taking it out on other guys in the stable to feel better about it. It hurt because it was true, I was just a miserable mediocre reg (at best).

I decided to remove myself from the chat and decided to start focusing more on myself and not being concerned with what other friends/regs were doing in poker. I didn't feel good about MY game and MY mindset and it was on ME to change it. Instead of trying to feel better about knocking others down I decided to work on bringing myself up and bringing others up with me.

Although I was very angry at the time for the unkind words of the friend, I'm mature enough now to be thankful for it. Maybe because I think I'm better than a mediocre reg now, but more so because he spoke the truth and told me how I was acting at face value.

It feels like a long time since that altercation occurred but I've definitely matured a lot since then. What I wanted to outline is that sometimes the thing we need to hear the most is the toughest for us to hear. So often people will beat around the bush or avoid the elephant in the room around us to avoid hurting our feelings or to please us.

However, I think "real talk" should be respected and welcomed. Ideally, it's in a friendly and constructive type of way but a good friend will let you know if you are ****ing up. Instead of talking behind your back they will straight up tell you "you are ****ing xyz up, you need to fix it."

So often we're so close with our own egos that we fail to see what everyone else does. Sometimes we need some tough love from our close friends to see and understand our weaknesses.


Thanks for reading and best of luck. Don't think I'm gonna be updating very often anymore as like I said, I don't think it's the most productive use of my time. Gonna keep it to when I feel posts are relevant or if I really just feel like getting stuff off my chest.

PEACE

Just got back from local 1/2 game I play @ some Thursday nights. I sort of like it for a few reasons:

1) Super soft and highly +EV to play. I'd assume my hourly is somewhere around ~30$ long run which is probably similar to my online EV.

2) Enjoy changing it up from online poker once in a while.

3) The guys there are all fun/it's a nice social outlet.

4) Get the day off to just run errands or relax.

-------------------------------

So how could this go wrong?

In theory all of the above seems all fine and dandy like sour candy. However, when I'm deviating from my A/B/even C game it just becomes a huge punt of EV and waste of time. Lately the game has been played 11 handed which is quite tilting for obvious reasons and in a loose passive 1/2 game it is quite painful.

I started out the session playing very well and disciplined. Here is 2 hands that I think exemplify this:

1. I open to 20$ pre flop from UTG with AcAs. Get called by UTG 1, MP1, MP3, BTN. Flop is 7d4d2d. I bet 50$ and UTG1 jams ~230. He is a pretty tight player and even vs his bluffs I think I have relatively mediocre equity+dead against his value range. Deduced that he isn't the type of player to jam TT/JJ hands here that don't contain a diamond (or at all). I made the laydown and he shows 44 for a set.

2. I open AKo to 20$ from MP2. Called by MP3 and BTN. Flop is 973r. Checks around. Turn is 2 and i bet 20$ for protection/value. Both players called. River brings a blank 7 and I checked. UTG3 jams for ~100% pot BTN folds. I decided to call for a few reasons and he showed J8.

After withering away my stack for quite a bit I got it in good a few times and got grossed out and started to get really tilted. It sucks going 7 ways to a flop so many times and missing everything. After getting Middle pair in vs a flush draw all in on turn and losing I rebought for 300$ more (even though tilted and tired.).

The Punt:

NIT old guy limps to 2$ and so do a few more people. I iso QJo to 20$, 3 people call. Old guy jams all in for ~140 more. I just flick it in cuz bored and tired/stuck. He has KK (big suprise) and I brick.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mindset Leaks in Live Cash:

1. Whenever I get stuck a little bit I often just quit the game. No matter how soft the game is I always just get tilted and leave. I need to teach myself it's not about being up or down it's about playing A game in games which will yield high return of EV in the long run.

2. I find I gamble way too much in the lower stakes live games. Mostly because I feel the money doesn't mean that much to me (even though it does really), I use it as an excuse to punt off/made bad calls/bluffs.

These are obviously two very big mindset leaks that are unacceptable from a professional player. To be honest it's grounds for having your poker career go the way of the dodo.

It's no ****ing wonder you see so many players disappear from the games over the years. For example think of all the guys with 5M earnings who are busto now. There's a reason not many people can play this game long term for a living and be successful...

IT'S ****ING DIFFICULT AND A CONSTANT BATTLE WITH YOUR CROCODILE/DEGEN BRAIN

I totally agree, I had same difficulties playing local 1/2$. It's all about mindset, it's pretty tough when you come from online background where you play 10-15 tables and have action constantly vs sitting in the live environment and not being able to play many hands. It's about getting your priorities straight. If you play it for fun then clear your mind about it, go there and have fun and dont think about money - punt it or whatever. On the other hand if you want to play those limpy games you gotta think about adjusting. For example I found that having limping range from early positions is very strong in those games since if we limp AK utg, somebody ISO and get 4 cold calls - just pump it up now and u ll find yourself picking up big pot / being in heads up pot with big advantage. Dont care about balancing or whatever, it's all about isolating yourself with one or two players since they are transparently bad. I'm crushing that game since they simply do not adjust and play their own game. Point is to get your head straight about why are you playing the game - is it to make money or to have fun.

thanks man 100% agree with everything you said. I guess it's mostly just too small of a game really and too many handed for me to take it overly serious lol

Good news: 2nd in the kickoff after dealing for approx. 11.2 monetary units.
Good news: Been on diet I started for a few days now and feeling really good about it. Dealing with a lot of cravings and temptations but I can only assume/hope those will go away after my body gets more acclimated to this type of diet. I do get one day per week where I can eat whatever I want which is really nice.

To read more about the diet: https://lifehealthhq.com/slow-carb-diet-food-list/
(This is the diet recommended by Tim Ferriss in the "4 Hour Body".

Why didn't I choose keto? Well, a few reasons:

1) The ketogenic diet is quite complex and requires a tonne of maintenance and preparation. For a guy that is already fairly lazy with food prep etc this seemed a bit of a stretch. There is a tonne of monitoring and supplements needed on keto.

2) You are either in ketosis or you are not. I felt like I needed the occasional cheat meal which I really couldn't do much of on keto.

3) The results of slow carb vs ketogenic involve higher compliance and success rates.

4) The slow carb diet involves a lot of foods that I already eat/know how to cook.

Really excited about seeing/feeling some results!

The bad news: Well, there isn't really any bad news...I guess things are going pretty swell all in all


Thought I'd keep things short and sweet this week, let me see if I can dig out a few hands:

https://www.boomplayer.com/27374973_675C8A4BA4
how to rek a spazz reg. tbf I think im quite value heavy here. perhaps some good bluffs I could add in would be Q10ss A5cc type hands.

https://www.boomplayer.com/27343402_A1702D032D
lol

That's all I can find for now...I've also tried to stop booming hands that involve legit strat/I could get exploited in the future from people seeing them.


PS: Any recommendations for a cheap place near the RIO for WSOP?

gold coast is right next to rio and cheap clean. obv not fancy but it gets the job done and has a 24 hour tgi fridays and amazing chinese food at ping pang pong. flamingo condos right across the street is solid too but more expensive.

Cheers man will check it out tomorrow

Bored and need to lul myself to sleep.

Have a nice day off planned tomorrow with float tank+workout+walk+day off poker. I gotta say I've been doing this float tank once per week for about 6 weeks now and (possibly placebo) but I've noticed some big changes in my stress levels and overall mental clarity. Have been far calmer during my grind sessions+everyday life. Even if it's gimmicky or whatever (imo it's not), it sets aside 90 minutes per week where I strictly focus on meditation and being alone in peace with my thoughts...meditation on steroids.

Diet Tingz: 3 days into the diet and it feels like 3 months I noticed today my cravings were not nearly as bad as they were on day 1 or 2. Re-stocked with some very good/solid/healthy/diet approved foods. I really like this diet because it is mostly comprised of just good quality foods that are easy for the body to process+aid in the fat burning process. There is ~6 main rules of the diet that you are either following or you are not...no grey area. I think staying well fed on the appropriate foods will keep cravings down along with consistent good decisions will build will power and control will become easier going forward. I bought a case of diet coke in the cases where I feel I want to treat myself or craving (not that I think drinking stuff with aspartame is a +EV choice), but for now it's better than the options I'd resort to if failing my diet.


The Easiest/Most Common Ways to Burn $ as a Poker Player

I wanted to make this quick post mostly to do some self-reflection and to cement some things in my mindset going forward. Making a living (in a 1st world country) playing poker is not as easy as it once was. Instead of making a million dollars a year in EV with a C grade effort and all of the pre-requisite requirements...having a pulse, poker has become much more cut-throat. It's not possible anymore to crush poker if you are regularly playing without a HUD, high, drunk, sleep-deprived, game-selecting well, etc etc.

The sad reality is that in a stategy game environment where money can be made...the competition will gradually improve over time (as we've obviously seen). The pie that we all make our living from has become smaller and smaller. Partly because of regulations/legislation, partly because of the natural inclination of skill/knowledge available, partly because of the main provider of online poker leveling the playing field and skimming much more off the top.

The bottom line is: if you aren't willing to put in the work there is thousands of regs that will happily take your spot. This is an atmosphere where the fittest survive.

In Canada the cost of living is much higher than a country such as Lithuania. Nowadays, I'd say the average MTT reg probably makes about ~40k USD in EV per year. If they're backed? 20k per year. It's so easy as a tournament reg when things are going well to go on vacations or spend lavishly. However, when the downswing comes you need to have the means to support yourself...you don't want to be like a squirrel going to hibernation with no nuts saved up. I feel I've punted fairly hard lately and don't feel great about it...I've worked so fkn hard in poker for everything I've earned and I need to stop punting. I've been fortunate enough to make a living from this game for the past 6 years and still have a strong position going forward...excessive punting is unacceptable.

I'm not saying that I've like gambled away my house or anything but mostly just degening with friends 200$ here/200$ there adds up over time. Being careful of my spending is something that really needs to improve. Something I did this week was make a google sheet of all my expenses/accounts that automatically tallies up my cash flow. Anyways I'm tired so rant over GN

Howdy,

Gonna keep things straight to the point here as I'm pretty tilted at time of writing. Spun up a massive stack with bounties in BB 162 and then just kept losing every all in + insane coolers vs. fish etc. Also got 6th in the Sunday Rebuy to save the day. Vinkyy decided to do this on FT bubble: https://www.boomplayer.com/27447466_4311AE91CB

FWIW maybe that play isn't as bad as I thought at the time it happened. IMO it's still pretty bad vs. my personal button opening range...perhaps villain had some reason to believe I'm opening very liberally there etc which would make that jam a lot better. I saw him opening absurdly wide and I guess he assumed that I'm a reg and I do the same. That jam prints vs. a range of someone who opens a tonne but starts to be quite bad vs. a tighter opening range. Anyways, I salvaged my stack and managed to ladder to 6th so can't complain.

Health: So that's about 10 weeks now of consistent workouts 4x/week without one exception and about 8 days now on my diet plan. I'm confident that I'm gonna get some really nice results in the next few weeks but for now I'm just having faith in the process. Not gonna lie the first few days on the diet were really difficult and I was craving mostly carbohydrate dense foods a bunch. My diet in the past has been far too many carbs/sugars which make it VERY difficult to be burning fat.

I've been looking into different foods and their nutritional properties+whether or not they are allowed on the diet. Have put together a super solid list/plan of foods that will be much more sustainable for me than I originally figured. Here's a few samples:

Breakfast:
-Turkey Bacon. Much more lean than normal bacon and adheres to the diet.
-Canadian/Peameal Bacon.
-Egg whites. Normally have been doing 1-2 whole eggs for flavour mixed in with some egg whites.
-Beans. Not used to eating beans for breakfast but the legumes/protein are an essential part of this diet in order to feel satiated/not have cravings all the time.
-Cinnamon in coffee as opposed to milk (not allowed). This helps with flavour and Tim also says this controls cravings throughout the day somehow.
-Avocado.

I've been basically having some combination of the above foods within 30 minutes of waking up.

Other Meals:

These meals are more standard basically just chicken breast/steak/beef/pork/fish along with some type of vegetable and sometimes beans. Have been experimenting with a few different combinations of stuff but mostly all meals are going to be meat+vegetables+legumes sometimes.

Snacks:

Have felt fairly satiated throughout the day. There isn't too much room for snack type foods as most do not qualify for the diet. When hungry between meals I've been eating celery/5-10 almonds/other nuts/avocado etc. I've been mixing in a diet Coke occasionally.

Cheat Day:

This day is anything goes to regulate hormones/keep the metabolism up to speed (I'm not scientist but this is a loose regurgitation of what Tim talks about). My breakfasts are the same as my normal days but other meals are what I'm craving throughout the week (maybe pizza/burrito/bread/whatever).

Eating Out: I really like burritos/mexican food so today I experimented a bit with possible meals that are allowed for the diet. I found if I get a burrito bowl with just: lettuce base, refried beans, black beans, salsa, double chicken, guacomole, green onions, corn etc it works.

So yeah, I wanted to say I'm happy I've found some routine that I think is going to be tolerable to adhere to. Already noticed a much more stable mood/more energy/and far less cravings for carbs or bad food. Look forward to getting some results!

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I'm not sure how reported this was in other countries outside of Canada but there was a tragic accident this weekend involving a Jr. A hockey team of 16-21 year olds + their team staff. I believe 15 were killed when a transport truck collided with their bus and left many others in critical condition. The members were all part of the team called the"Humboldt Broncos" from Saskatchewan (province I just visited).

This really hit close to home with me as when I was a teenager playing hockey I can remember dozens of bus trips with the teams I played on. So many of my fondest memories playing hockey came from playing cards or joking around on those buses. It's such a tragedy because everyone on that bus was just on route to a game that they loved and all bonded together from.

That bus could have had any hockey team on it, ****, it could have been my team from when I played. It's mind boggling when you realize your bus can just be driving along the highway and your life is ended within a fraction of a second. So many people are going to be touched by this tragedy and will have a very difficult time in healing from it.

In moments like this you really begin to see just how fragile life can be. Outside of wishing the best for everyone involved with this accident there isn't much I can do. Hopefully for whoever reads this they can reflect on their own life and maybe realize there is someone they need to talk to, or a dream they want to fulfil etc.

The next time you take a bad beat in poker or life is a little bit tough on you just remember that our time here is limited and there are no second chances.

Hey op. Gl with your journey.
if i may ask what is your body weight ? Why are u interesteed in ketogenic diet ?
I can send you some info basically why i dont recommend it in most cases. If u are interested pm me.