Recent PGCs

• How to Be Happy as a Live Pro
• Meale's 2017 | 2/5 Live | Professional Poker Player by Year's End
• 100k Hands at 10NL Zoom

Introduction & Brief background

There are many reasons why I decided to make this thread, as listed below.

A) To show you how I intend on making $100k playing poker in 2018.
B) To illustrate that there's still money in poker.
C) To keep myself accountable.

So I've been playing live poker professionally for the past 8 or so months here in sunny Brisbane playing pretty much exclusively 2/5 and I'm within a hair's breadth of 1,000 hours.



Don't get me wrong, I love live poker. I'm not a very money-oriented person, in that I'm happy grinding LLSNL for $30/hr for the rest of my life. Happiness is what's important to me. But I'm currently not happy with my living situation (really dislike living with other people) and have decided to make a pretty drastic change that should A) improve my living situation and B) hopefully make me a decent chunk more money than $30/hr.

I've come up with some pretty hefty goals for 2018 but I think they'll be doable if things don't turn to sht and I stay disciplined. This will be my avenue for keeping myself accountable mostly but hopefully I can share some stuff with you all along the way.

What to expect

• Hand histories, likely posted daily.
• Daily/Weekly/Monthly results/giraffes, all kept on a publicly accessible spreadsheet. I like to keep my results public because A) it is easier for me to refer someone to a URL than to pull them out of a database each time, and B) offers better transparency if/when seeking staking deals later on down the track.
• Whatever else I decide to bore you all with. I'm big into philosophy and have just moved into an apartment with a bookstore on level 1 - it has a huuuuuuge philosophy section so I'll no doubt be posting some interesting learnings/revelations from my readings ITT as well.

The Setup


New apartment,



The grind station,



Expenses & Bankroll Management

Sooooooo, weekly expenses for me are going to look like the following,

$440 rent
~$37.50 electricity bill
$15 internet bill
$10 phone bill
$15 gym membership
$40 groceries
$35 coffee
$25 cheat meal
$50 social fund
$667.50 total

Now I've already paid my 6 month lease up front, so I won't actually be paying the $440 rent each week. So basically I'm looking at $227.50 coming out of my pocket each week for the next 6 months. Which is excellent because it basically means my life expenses for the next 6 months will be only $5,915.

At the moment my net worth probably sits around the $22.5k mark. Most of which is spread out across various poker clubs and a bit still in crypto.

From this number I need to remove the $5,915 in living expenses for the next 6 months as well as 300 for an internet installation fee next week. This leaves us with a $16,745 bankroll. That's 41 buyins for 400NL or 83 buyins for 200NL. Obviously, 83 buyins is plenty as far as bankroll goes but we'll need to manage the BR a bit better when 400NL is our main game. As I write below, the first two weeks of me grinding these games full time will be solely 200NL, just to familiarise myself with the games. Then we'll look to play mostly 400NL. At that point, we'll do a 6 buyin ($3k) "shot" at 400NL. Meaning of the 41 buyins we start with, if we lose 6 buyins and the remaining bankroll becomes a 35BI roll, we'll switch back to 200NL and regrind to 40BIs and take another 5BI shot, and so on. Once we hit 55 buyins at 400NL, we'll look to consider A) adding more tables to the grind or B) shotting some good 800NL games.

Lastly, I wanted to add that I'm pretty much going to be in "savings mode" for the next 6 months while trying a new format out. That's going to mean I really need to stick to my "$50 social fund" per week. I know for a fact next Friday night, there is 0% chance of that happening. But in general, I think I'll do alright wrt this because my intention is to basically become a hermit for the next 6 months, not go out a lot, and be a tightass.

Tracking & Spreadsheets

https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEhWhFuh5Nj0z2sDoP

That is the link to the spreadsheet I'll be updating constantly all day long. This will be my primary means for tracking results. The main point of the spreadsheet is to get an idea of how many hours I've played, hands I've played, and profit won. I'll also be using Poker Agent for Android as a back up to this.

I'll consider at some stage getting Hand2Note which should mean I'll be able to import Pokermaster hands into HEM2 but at the moment it's not high on my list of priorities.


The weekly grind overview

So below is a list of everything I think will help me achieve my goals. Again, it's time to get really serious re this poker ting - so I'm going to dedicate a minimum of 48 hours a week to all things poker, or rather let's call it "career" because that's what this is at the end of the day. I absolutely must do everything right to begin with as well because if things go badly and I somehow bust this roll, I may struggle to get a LLSNL roll together to resume grinding at the casino. If I go busto here, I have no idea what my next move would be...

BTW, I'm a huge proponent of NOT slogging your guts out working 50 hour weeks. That said, I'm willing to make an exception just this one time because I'm in a very comfortable environment (can do all work from my apartment) and I'm not working for anyone else - so what I put in is what I get out.

So let's breakdown this minimum 48 weekly hours...

[ ] - 45 hours grinding/volume
[ ] - 3 hours "tables closed" study/review

I think the best way to do this would be to "work" 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. This includes 30 minutes of study/review right at the end of the day. But of course, half the benefit of working from home and working for yourself is that you get to decide when you work and have flexibility when it comes to social things. Each week I'll plan out the following 7 days (on a Sunday usually) and set weekly goals and pick a day off. Ideally, I'd like to have 1 full day off each week with zero poker whatsoever just to reset and recharge.

Basically that means on average we'll be looking to play for 7.5 hours a session. Because I am dedicating so much of my time to work/poker (48 hours a week), I want to make sure I still have time for exercise and other things in life. So I'm going to be fairly strict on the length I'll allow sessions to go. The minimum I'll play for is 7.5 hours, after which I'll look to quit and review. But of course, if we're in a really good game with a whale spewing, we don't want to leave, so I'll allow myself a 2 hour grace period, meaning I can extend my grind from 7.5 hours to 9.5 hours, but the final two hours are reduced tables, maximum of 3 tables. During this 2 hours, we must also be reviewing/studying on the side. I.e. It's not acceptable to just be grinding YouTube/not focusing fully on poker. After the 9.5 hour mark is met, that's it. Forced session quit because even if a whale is still spewing hard, other things in life like going to the gym, sleeping, and eating are important too.

I will only count sessions as having "started" once I've got a minimum of 5 tables up and running. That should mean we play roughly 2.4k hands a day and about 720k hands in a year just 5 tabling. Hopefully we're able to get comfortable running 6-8 tables though.

So what will I be doing for my review/study portion of the day? Well on particular days (end of week/month), it'll involve posting up larger reviews but on a daily basis we'll usually just be running over a few hands. If I play a hand I want to review later, I'll use the voice recording feature on my phone and verbally retell the hand. I'll then listen to these recordings while lying in bed before sleeping and will think through ranges, lines, and XPLO adjustments. This is to ensure I get closure over hands immediately and don't have to rush through analysis to get it out of the way. Then, the next morning/afternoon, or whenever I'm about to start a session, I'll do a quick write-up of the previous night's spots ITT and run through my findings.

Also, whenever I bag my first $10k month, I'll buy myself Piosolver as a reward. Hoping this happens sooner rather than later!

Fitness

This is something that used to be hugely important in my life. It's no longer AS important as it once was but I still consider it a priority. I could totally just let myself go, grind poker for 10 hours a day, eat ****, etc. But it's so -EV because you feel like ****, you feel weak, you look terrible, and it's really good to maintain a routine - even if that routine is just going to the gym once a day before playing. It also really helps mental game wise. If you're on a downswing and degenning 12 hours a day with no exercise, it's only going to make the situation much worse.

Basically I just go in every day and hit one of either legs, arms, back/shoulders, or chest and then have a rest day every 5 days. Nothing too crazy like it used to be but just enough to maintain and feel good about how I look. After I got back from Aussie Millions in Melbourne, during which I didn't gym once, even though I was only there for a week I had three people comment saying "you've lost weight" when I got back. My little sister simply said "you look like ****". And I felt like **** too so no more slacking!

Diet

So I'm a bit of a foodie and have spent unfathomable amounts of money on breakfast food over the past year. But this has got to be reduced if I want to keep my expenses low. I'll only be doing 1 "cheat meal" a day. I've also been intermittent fasting for the better part of the past year which is something I really like. A typical day for me food-wise will be to wake up, go to the gym, immediately after gym I have a protein smoothie (basically whey protein, bananas, Greek yogurt, and milk). That'll keep me going for a while. At this point I'll begin the grind - but not until I've gone to the coffee shop downstairs for my daily cap. Probably 5-6 hours into the session I'll look to take a break and eat some scrambled eggs on toast (4 eggs, 2 pieces of toast) and then before I go to bed, I'll have a casein protein shake. Casein is basically slow releasing protein and is very +EV before bed. So that's what I imagine my diet will look like for the time being. Basically just 2 meals a day. At some stage I'm going to pay mum to do a proper cook up each week so that I can have some meals I can chuck in the freezer - just to give the eggs and milk a break.

Goals

[ ] - $100k profit by 1 January 2019. In 2017 I made a little over $30k from playing full time for 7-8 months. I decided this year that I want to make $100k. I'll discuss briefly why I've picked this number and my greater financial goals. Basically, I want to make big money while A) I'm young, and B) there's money still to be made. The reason is because if I'm able to save/invest enough now while I'm 23, by the time I'm 30, that $100k I made in 2018 is worth a lot more by then as investments compound. I don't know anyone my age who has the opportunity to make $100k after tax this year so I figured I'd be pretty stupid not to give it my best effort and see if I can pull it off. So how do I intend on making $100k playing poker? First of all, I want to play 2,000 hours of online poker between now and the end of the year. Because it's already February, I'm basically down 8 weeks which means I'm going to want to average around the 45 hour mark for the rest of the year (with 2 weeks off). If we hit the 2,000 hours volume, obviously that means we need to win at $50/hr to make $100k. How do we make $50/hr? Well I intend on playing mostly 400NL but starting initially from 200NL on Pokermaster and PPPoker. If on average I'm averaging 5 tables and each of those 5 tables give me 60 hands per hour (rough estimate), then I'm looking at roughly 300 hands per hour of volume. If we can win at 200NL at 5bb/100, then we're looking at $30/hr 5 tabling 200NL. Of course, I expect my winrate to be somewhat higher and to be playing closer to 6-8 tables concurrently. But I always like to use conservative numbers when working out stuff like this. When I'm able to make 400NL my main game, using the same winrate, each table should net us $12/hr, which means 5 tables of 400NL (5/10/20RMB) should net us $60/hr. Of course, if the winrate is >5bb/100, then that's excellent. If I'm able to play more than 5 tables of 400NL on average, then that's also excellent. But for now, my mission is to A) make sure I'm bankrolled for 400NL to be my main game, B) win at 5bb/100 or more, and C) play 45 hours a week. Those are the three things I'll be focusing on massively over the next few weeks.
[ ] - 2,000 grind hours before 1 January 2019. As above basically. This will look like 45 hours a week of volume. I realise that's high but I think it's very doable considering I will be working from the comfort of my own home and don't have to worry about sitting on waitlists for hours at the casino etc.
[ ] - $90,000 net worth by 1 January 2019. Basically this just means I want to keep my spendings in check. If I spend $850 a week in living expenses, assuming we reach the $100k profit goal, that should see my net worth close to that figure. Earlier this year, I set a goal that is completely arbitrary, unrealistic, and probably worthless: to increase my net worth by 50% each year until I'm 30. This would mean financial independence and passive income very quickly. 50% is a crazy number because while your net worth increases, usually your salary won't - at least not proportionally. For instance, a doctor who has a net worth of $1m won't be able to increase his net worth 50% in a year because he only makes $200k as a salary. Where does that other $300k come from? For me, whatever I don't make from poker will come from investing. Now obviously, you're not going to print money investing in stocks on average. Crypto is super volatile and mightn't offer that sort of yield for that much longer. So I think I really want to be getting into real estate. As soon as I have some spare capital, I'll be trying to get my foot in that door.

Initial Challenge, Volume Degen Month

[ ] - 60 hours of poker a week for a full month, i.e. 240 hours between 12/02 and 14/03. I think it's generally pretty unhealthy to be "working" 60 hours a week and that includes playing poker as well... but I'm making an exception this month. I don't have a ton of experience with these apps and I really want to throw myself in the deep end and get as much EXP as possible as soon as possible. I want to figure the games out. I want to spend plenty of time reviewing hands/spots and coming up with a solid overall strategy for these games. I also want to establish myself at 400NL as soon as possible as well. So of the 60 poker hours a week, at least 50 of those have to be volume. I imagine I probably won't do more than 10 hours study per week initially but I just wanted to make sure there was no way for me to avoid playing, slacking basically.
[ ] - First two weeks only 200NL. If up 10BIs ($2,000) after end of first week, this restriction is lifted. Even though I'm rolled to play 400NL, my focus intitially is to get more familiar with the software as well as the assistance software I'm using. I also need to figure out my strategy and maybe experiment a bit - and I'd rather do that at 200NL than at 400NL.

Conrtingency Plan - What if it all goes wrong?

So I know what success looks like: achieving the 3 goals I've outlined above. If I don't make $100k profit or net worth is lower than $90k at the end of the year, this doesn't necessarily mean failure as such but it means there's clearly plenty of work to be done. Failure would mean basically going busto. I honestly cannot see that happening, but there's always a possibility that I run in the worst 1% of distribution, play bad, spew, tilt, etc and end up in very bad shape. So I've come up with a contingency plan in case things do go south really quickly.

Of the 83 initial buyins for 200NL that I start with, if that number drops to 50 (i.e. 33BI downswing), I'll basically be left with a $10k bankroll. At that point, I'll spend $2k on coaching immediately. That'll leave me with a 40BI roll for 200NL to attempt to salvage things.

After my first 100k hand sample, which will be at around the 300-350 hour mark, depending on how many tables I average, if my hourly is lower than $20, I'll also look to spend some money on coaching. I haven't been coached in a while and I don't feel like these games will necessarily require me to work a whole lot on my game to beat for a good clip, but I could simply be just plain wrong. If I'm unhappy with my results, yeah a lot of it could be variance, but chances are I could do a bit of work to improve still - so I have to recognize that that's the case and make sure I seek help before it's too late.

App Disclaimer

I want to make it clear from the get go that I'm not looking to discuss the state of the games at PPP/PM/PF in much detail. I'm not going to share much about my overall approach to the games or my adjustments. I've also decided I don't want to assist people finding agents or getting set up with PM or any of the apps - partly because the whole process is a bit of a fk around to begin with and I don't want to waste time on Skype/dealing with PMs if possible, but also because I would rather not make the games any tougher than they are. As far as the strategy stuff posted ITT goes, it'll really only be discussion of specific HHs.

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

So welcome aboard. Here's to a prosperous 2018 and may you all run well on the felt!

Innnnn. Nice pad mate. GLGL.

In again although cg not my format!!

Best of luck amigo!!

In. Gl. Smart process and achievable goals!

Glgl crush it

Gl bud, loved your last thread and will definitely follow along

You're a very interesting person and quite impressive for a 23 year old. My hat is off to you.
Congrats on getting most of your money out of Crypto at a smart time.

$35 per week on coffee? Surely you can cut back there especially if you're playing from home.

The smartest (luckiest?) thing to do was get out at 19k and get back in at 6k, nothing else Mike

Looks like a solid plan laid out, I'd get PIO right off the bat if I was you though, you'll find the time you spend reviewing your sessions is way more productive. Also less casein, more plant proteins please

Glgl man. Will be following.

Glgl

Glgl!

Imho the obvious best approach here is to bite the bullet on coaching and setting up a good pio routine right out of the gate. It's a bit of a pita to part with some cash ofc but I don't need to tell someone interested in investments how huge it is to make sure you improve as early as possible if you plan to put in good volume over the next couple of years. Just my 2c ofc, but I think it's more rational and smart than risking slipping into a place where playing meh to "ok" will suffice in soft games and make you pleased with way less than what could have been.

Nobody times it perfectly. Especially both ways (and we dont yet know if $6000 is the low).

Besides in Meale's current situation, getting a chunk of money back into Crypto isnt a great idea at all. He got in and out at good times. Now if he crushes online right off the bat, putting a percentage of that profit back into Bitcoin would be acceptable but I would only do it below $7000.

BTW....I would rather stick a hot poker in my eye than grind online poker full time. Staring at a computer and glancing back and forth between 4-6+ tables for hours on end. Waiting and waiting for people to act because they are playing way more tables than they can keep up with. Playing super tight ranges and hardly ever getting to play creative hands. UGH! Not for me.

I hope it works out for you and I hope you are happy with it, but I suspect you'll tire of it quickly.

I play plenty of "creative" hands online, I don't consider whales punting money in a weird way to be creative though, dunno if that's what you mean

The biggest of lols.

in and gl

highly disagree with the pio thing. it's not going to help you vs the pool. best thing u can do is get the hand converter asap and review heaps of HH from your sessions and figure out the best ways to play against population. if it turns out the population is actually pretty good then pio might be a good idea but i highly doubt it

I don't think anyone is suggesting sitting down to memorize reasonable equilibria strats baannii.

LETS GET IT

Well, this could be interesting!
Good luck

Subbed. Plan on eating any greens? Anyhow, much respect for how you’re putting your ideas into motion. GL.

That's not what I meant. I havent played much online in the past 5 years but when I have it seems most people are playing super TAG stats like 15/12. Most hands are very similar. Lots of preflop raises and everyone folding. Sometimes one guy calls and folds to a Cbet. From what Ive seen, that's probably 75% of hands right there unless things have changed recently.

Some people seem to misunderstand how PIO should be used, I mostly use it to get an idea of the EV of certain of my combos in different situations so that I can better know how much I can deviate when I go full explo, you can use nodelock if you have very precise read on population. Anyway I'm not a fan of having a super exploitative approach as default, I think being somewhat balanced to start off and then adjusting against a specific player (not population) is a lot better.

Subbed. Good luck

Well the games he plays have antes, pretty big antes, so the games are naturally going to be a lot more loose, playing significantly looser than that on a fullring table without antes is probably not a great plan for what it's worth

i did not imply that?

OP using PIO vs chinese fish would be the same as me opening my laptop at a 1/3 live game and running sims on my river bet/call range vs a nit

PIO can be useful if OP wants to get better at poker theory on the side and he might even get some benefit from node locking certain pop tendencies but his goal is profit and his time will be spent WAY more efficiently actually analysing HH and stats