Hi all, my name is AggroSquid, a 23 year old grinder from the UK. I'm originally from Nottingham but currently living in London and living the dream.

PhD
I've recently finished my MSc, from which I gained a distinction grade. with this, i'm hoping to get onto a PhD programme and continue studying (Dr AggroSquid has a ring to it).

My area of study is Cancer Biology, and I am hoping to find a programme in this area.

Poker
In terms of Poker, I currently grind 11$ and below MTTs and MTTSNGs, primarily on stars and 888. I'm considering playing on other sites if anybody has any suggestions? but tbh party software is tilting af so we will see.

Fortunately I am in a position currently where I won't need to withdraw from the roll for a while, so can look into running it up without withdrawing.

My results since "turning pro" are as follows. TBH my volume has been a joke and this will hopefully be mediated going forward.





I feel like my general play is good at this stake level, but I need to improve postflop in spots like xr flop and turn, and checking back low equity flops.

Mental Health
So I have had some troubles in the past, culminating semi-recently. I had been really low for a long time, and some personal life events occur that really sucked. Thankfully I managed to drag myself out of this and I am doing a lot better, but I found my coping mechanisms and I need to stay consistent with them.

1) Gym - exercise is probably the best thing you can do for mental health. 4x a week minimum, including cardio. I got in decent shape semi recently, and hopefully I can back to that plus more.

2) Healthy eating- Again, brilliant for mental health. Do meal prep with vegetables for every meal of the week and track macros.

3) Sleep- aim to sleep from 12am - 8am every night. Ensure I wake up before 9am at the latest. This means I will probably have to end up playing the day grind, which suits me fine.

4) drinking- amazing for meeting new people, awful for the next day grind and mental health. Drink 1x a week and try and avoid drinking on saturdays where possible. Ensure only drink in optimal social situations.

5) Social Media- Literally the nut worst thing for mental health, you're gonna see things you don't wanna see, or just see people doing better or happier than you. Aim to avoid during sessions and minimise before bed/sleep.

Looking forward to seeing you in for the journey!

More than happy to chime in on any aspects of the above!

Squid-

November goals

My attempts in November have been awful in terms of volume and life.

so I've set 3 goals for the rest of the month.

1) Achieve stated mental health goals
2) Play 4 4hour+ sessions per week for the rest of the month
3) Log fitness and gym goals
4) Finish PhD applications (currently 2 submitted, 1 written completely, 1 needs to be done)
5) do 2 social things with friends (another good mental health thing)
6) do 3x full tourney reviews and watch 4 videos with Notes

Good luck mate.
About sites you can play on I suggest AmericasCardRooms (or WPN in general) which has good RB and they turny schedule seems to be growing very nicely..
A lot of special events every month or two, timing would be good for you as well.
Cheers

hey man, not sure how serious you want to treat poker in all this, but I tried mixing it with academic life and I cannot recommend it to anyone. Both poker and academic career are extremely exhausting mentally and take a lot of time, so unless you have rock solid mental health AND a perfect work ethic, you will have a very hard time balancing those two things.

I spent 3 years working on my PHD while making most of my money playing poker and eventually had to quit because of the reasons stated above. It is a vicious circle - you need money, so you spend more and more time playing poker, but that hurts your academic performance, so you cant get any decent funding, so you need to spend even more time playing poker, making getting funding completely impossible. At the same time, because of your academic duties, you cant commit fulltime to working on your poker game, so you are making less and less money as the games get progressively harder.

So, I would recommend focusing on your PHD full time, trying to gets as many grants as possible, and treating poker like a slightly profitable hobby. Anyway, whatever you decide, best of luck, hope you dont end up burnt out like me.

Hi All,

Interesting day today.

I slept awfully last night, i've suffered a lot with insomnia over the years, and I had a few things from my personal life on my mind last night and despite trying to get ahead and going to bed at 10pm I was up just lying in bed until ~5am. When I finally got to sleep I woke up approx every 20-30m. Finally woke up shattered at 11 and have been so tired all day. Any insomnia advice?

Despite that managed a good gym session and prepped my meals for the week.

One of Novembers goals ticked off today. Submitted 2 applications, putting the total number at 4. 3 are pretty prestigious institutions in London and one is at probably the most famous university in the world, so tough competition, feeling good though.

Aside from this, studied some theory, and watch one of clutch hero's rio's vids. Feeling very comfortable with my game especially at my stake level, looking forward to a good grind tomorrow!


I'll certainly have a look, thanks!

So I feel like i've mislead you slightly here, i'm currently applying for PhDs, I'm not on one as of yet. In the UK (IDK where you're from not being patronising etc) A lot of the early applications are basically all already funded and just looking for their applicants, so it's all about applying.

As soon as I start my PhD (OCT 18), i'd most likely play poker 1 day a week if that, it's just something to make money doing in my year off.

GL HEROES

Throwing it out there but learning Python as opposed to grinding poker might be more plusEV long-term. AI has a big role to play in cancer biology since diagnosis is famously difficult and pro-longed.
Your insomnia will get worse in winter due to SAD factors etc. I take albuterol for ashthma and it really helps me sleep, even though its a stimulant. Since its not absorbed orally has good bioavailability and lower toxicity. Would probably alleviate symptoms of SAD too due its PED effects (heavily, heavily used in olympics by norwegian skiers and one year, the entire US swim team).

Known users of Asthma medication -

Phelps
Radcliffe
Sir. Bradley Wiggins (Used a far more powerful medication than albuterol)

Wouldn't be a huge help but its a drug that works decently well in winter as it increases metabolism and protein synthesis - so less fat gain and more muscle. Limiting factor compared to injections is it causes throat irritation (more severe in the summer).

Final fact- Extremely popular with swimmers due to chlorine's effect on respiratory system. However considering chlorine was a chemical weapon in world war 1 and has significant effects on the endocrine system, it's not unlikely albuterol has a bigger effect on swimmers compared to other olympic athletes.

An interesting day yesterday, was busy in the evening so only played a short session.

took 3rd in a 3.50r and 6th in the 888 blowfish. I felt I played pretty well, just a shame not to close anything but what can you do.

Considering going out tonight then playing Sunday, unsure though, if I don't go out tonight i'll play tomorrow.

Happy friday!

So an interesting weekend, I ended up going out Friday and Saturday, which to be honest I kinda regret because of wanting to play Sunday. Thankfully woke up feeling okay Sunday. Managed to do some good studying on Friday, went through some Tourneys I had gone deep in and ICMized some spots etc.

Whilst going out socialising is obv fun, lying in bed Sunday evening is always depressing af when your body is just drained and hungover.

Thankfully Sunday went really well, I was getting absolutely killed for the entire session and was probably down about 30abi, but then came second in 3.50r and 1st in an $8 180 man for a pretty significant winning day.

giraffe


I have some random stuff to get on with today, then got to go to the gym and stuff then will probably play.

Feelin good at the moment, both in terms of confidence and mental health, and pretty sure that's down to exercise and diet and being productive, so gonna try and keep on top of everything and keep crushing hopefully.

Ended up gyming, eating healthy today, did cardio and played for like 7 hours.

Pretty happy with how I played, ended up loosing a little bit on the day but just had some nice spots I couldn't close.

Unfortunately probably had my worst mental health day since starting the thread, just been feeling really down and anxious, which is so tilting as when I woke up I was feeling very decent.

And usually poker helps with that because it's such a mental focus but just felt pretty difficult to shift my mood today and I wanted to just retreat back to my bed. However we didn't and we completed our stuff today so that's a little victory.

Gonna try and play a giant session tomorrow with a load of cardio and stuff and see if I can pull myself out of this little hole.

Anybody got any tips?

Positives are that despite my evbb/100 being awful recently I'm pretty sure this is just variance and i'm actually crushing decently well, IDK tho.

Good week so far,

played Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today (Saturday).

Focused in the week 6 tabling and making good decisions and did some studying thurs/fri.

Had a good day today, took 3rd in 5.50 PKO, ran pretty gross to not close but all in all pretty happy with how I played.

This hand i'm confused about, any thoughts. Think pre isn't so bad but maybe fold/3bet?







My thinking here is that on river our range is basically AAA minimum, and A9 falls in the bottom portion of our aces in this spot, also I think he is unlikely to have too many worse aces in this spot.

Graph since Saturday:





Played approx 40 hours so really happy with my volume, the only downside being I managed to bust my 888 account so have to grind higher variance on stars tomorrow.

As for mental health and stuff, gymmed 3 times this week, and aside from a few beers thursday eve been pretty much alcohol free. Eating was generally quite good, aside from Friday.

Have been in a really good mood the last few days, and things in my personal life are really amazing atm which is obviously helping a lot. Excited for a big session tomorrow and hopefully some binks!

in terms of studying, does anybody have any resources to work on 3betting ranges, especially 15-40bb stack depth. Confusing myself a lot here, so any pointers would be great.

Hi mate,

I'm kind of on a similar journey as you are. Although I'm much more focus on developing other area of my life than poker (also started a blog recently), I'm also pursuing a PhD at the moment. My field is a mix between microbiology and biotechnology.

I wish you the best for all your goals and will follow your journey.

November
So since starting the thread I feel my volume has been much better, especially in the last 2 weeks.

I managed to play 549 games in November, with 498 of them coming after starting this thread (11th). I am therefore super excited to continue logging for the remaining months and even though I think December will be pretty busy from January I hope I can achieve 800-1000 games a month.

As for results, the month started well, but i'm currently in a gross ~125bi downswing. As as result i've moved down stakes for a while, gonna grind out $6 and below with most of my volume at $2.50 180 mans, just to get some confidence back.

I think my downswing is a result of 3 things:
1) standard variance (OBV)
2) Playing games with too big field sizes
3) Playing too many tables, reducing win rate

I'm really going to focus on 6 tabling for the start of December, and trying to play high value tourneys as opposed to tourneys with a nice bink value (5.50 deepstack over Big7.50 for example). Additionally I need to put some money back on 888 as their field sizes are much smaller and the games are softer. Also I had a lot of final 3 tables and 6,7,8th place finished so going to study a lot of late game work, of course it could be standard variance but it doesn't mean I need to be lazy and not work on this.

It's always disheartening having to move down stakes but being slighty aggressive with BRM it is likely.

Additionally I need to study more, my evbb/100 is sitting around 7, but I don't see why I can't be up there grinding out 9/10 over a decent sample, given how soft the games are.

November results



Evbb/100


Sessions played: 14
Hours played in November: 93.5

Notable results:
3rd 5.50 NLHE 1.5k gtd - $239
3rd 5.50 6max progko 7.5k gtd - $383
2nd 3.50r 180 - $299
1st 8.00 180 - $396
1st 2.50 180 - $123



1) Gym was going well until last week, need to get back on this particular horse.
2) Achieved this
3) again, slacked slightly this last week, but played a lot of poker. No excuse though
4) Done! GL us.
5) Done far too many social things, need to spend more time playing poker.
6) Again managed this, however did not use my study time as productively as I would have liked. Going to really focus on studying more effectively.

As for mental health, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster month. However feeling really really great right now, personal life is going well, and i'm super motivated for poker and life in general. Looking forward to lots of festive fun and poker, and fish at the tables in that weird stretch between xmas and new year.

December goals
1)Play 4 days a week on average
2)Study 1 tournament and 2 videos a week
3)Do not feel bad about taking time off to enjoy festivities

Pretty lax but december is always so up in the air in terms of timing etc it's difficult to schedule too much, I am certain January will be much more productive.

Gl for December.

Hi guys, been super busy recently, and not been much in a posting mood.

Basically December has been just a trash month. I had envisioned starting 2018 ready to go with a healthy roll and interviews and the like lined up.

In fact it has been the opposite, I got rejected from 3/4 of my PhD applications, with no feedback from any. 2/3 didn't even bother to contact me to tell me the outcome, their website just says "if you've been shortlisted we will contact you by X date. Still waiting to hear back from the 4th. If i'm honest it's left a sour taste in my mouth, as it takes hours upon hours of effort to apply for these things.

Secondly, my poker volume was awful in december, I think I managed approx 60 hours. Now to be fair I have been incredibly busy in December but i'm still embarrassed by the number of hours. In addition to this, my results have been awful. I've never let the variance affect me but I can feel it getting to me recently, especially in larger field MTT tournaments. My focus when playing has been poor, i'm definitely not playing in depth as well as I was when I started the thread.

It's quite annoying to have to keep moving down, and not booking any significant wins, and whilst this is really part of an MTT players lifestyle, I was hoping to be playing higher and grinding out that ROI by now.

For mental health, i'm not helping myself currently. Despite one aspect of my personal life going really well at the minute, the stress i'm putting myself under is really not helping. I've not been working out, eating well, or doing really anything to help myself. Need to figure this out and start the year strong.

Managed to get myself in a scrappy place to end December, but i'm hoping I can see this as an opportunity to refocus and begin January in a new light.

Start of thread to now ("Pro" 2017) results



Hours: 261

So i'm pretty impressed by my evbb/100 over a large sample for the year. The graph is pretty misleading IMO but i'd estimate my downswing to be between 200-250bi. Obviously sucks but I think we can get back out there shortly.

Finally for some motivation, my lifetime 180 man turbo graph to now. Just to show to myself I can beat these games over a good sample! Positivity




I feel if I can keep working on my game and grinding hard, i'm on the cusp of some really really good results. Lets go!

Will post 2018 goals probs Jan 2nd.

Happy new year all.

2018 Goals

Happy new year! I am truly stoked for this year, it's gonna be fun.

I am going to align my poker, life goals etc here.

2018

Poker
[ ] Play a running average of 40hrs a week for the entire of 2018
[ ] Make $20,000 profit by year end
[ ] Study 1 day a week
[ ] prioritise playing Sundays
[ ] Wake up earlier to play earlier in the day

PhD
[ ] Secure a PhD

Lifestyle
[ ] Gym a rolling average of 3 days a week for 2018
[ ] Drink an average of 1 night a week for 2018
[ ] Generally have a better diet (more cooking!)

So the year started okay, played 8 hours today and felt I played well, ran bad deep in stuff but what can you do.

Played approx 70 tourneys, and shipped a 180 man for a pretty much BE day.

My lifestyle is a complete mess though, I had planned to gym today, go shopping for something and do some other stuff, and I did none of these. I ate awfully, and it showed at the end of my session i was super tired.

Really need to get a grip of this now while 2018 is young.

Plan is to study and do some errands tomorrow, then chill in the evening, have some fun stuff planned (without alcohol!). Then grind hard saturday and sunday.

#LFG #GloryBoys

GL man, subbed

So some super good news, got a PhD interview! It's next week and i'm super excited, nervous and anxious all at the same time.

It's at probably the most famous (and prestigious) university in the world, so i'm stoked I even got an interview. Hoping it goes well!

As for poker, the year has started well.

Played 45 hours so far, and expecting to add another 25ish this weekend.

results




In addition i've been studying a lot, and I feel i've been improving a ton.

My plan for the rest of January is as follows:

Study for interview, I am very busy next week so can't see myself playing much poker.

Deposit on other sites, and play many more smaller field tournaments. My average filed size including 180 mans is 933! This makes the variance just insane and if I can mitigate that then I will try to do so.

Long term, i'm hoping to build a roll to play live cash. Does anybody have any advice on bank roll considerations, studying etc for live cash?

GL all!

Thanks!

Hi Guys,

Long post!

Mid month update:

Poker

Poker is going very well, we finally got a score!

Took second in the big 5.50 for 1.35k!

Ran pretty gross HU running KK into AA, but overall super happy with how I played.



Played Sunday but was super tired and didn't feel I played overly well.

Need to put some more studying in, but feel like i'm playing very well at the minute, especially when i'm in "the zone"

Hours played: 70.7
MTD:



Hoping I can hit 1000 games by end of Jan but won't be playing any this week (will explain below), so that may set be back. Will hopefully be able to play Sunday.

PHD

So we've been rejected from 3 PhDs straight up, and have an interview (with the one I really want) on Friday. I got rejected from my alma mater without an interview, and was given the explanation "there were stronger applicants". This really tilted me as I graduated with distinction (the highest grade), and gained a distinction in the research part of my masters, so it seems kinda OOL for them to give these degrees out but then make it so difficult to get back in for a PhD.

However I suppose these things happen, you can't dwell on them. I will continue to apply for PhDs, but I am super keen to get one sorted ASAP, as if I want to play poker "professionally" (until September when a phd would start), I would need to get one sorted. So it's looming on my mind. Will fire some applications next week.

I'm thinking more and more these PhDs are a lot like poker, you need to put in good quality applications but ultimately you need to get lucky you're the right applicant for the position and that the school and PhD are right for you.

The entire process is very draining though, and it seems designed (not intentionally) to drain the passion you have for your subject from you by putting so many arduous loopholes up.

Mental Health

So i've been struggling a little bit recently, i've decided to put this in spoilers cause it's kinda meh so read if you want.



Tl;Dr:

Down
Stressed
Can't sleep
Not working out
Not eating healthy

My plan is pretty simple. Socialise more, work out more. Not sure what I can WRT sleep but i'm hoping it will settle down. I still really need to play poker at the weekends, so i'm gonna try and fit things in in the week and perhaps Saturday and Sunday mornings?

Thankfully I can take like most friday nights off, and i'll take some saturdays off where I can / have to. Although it just kills your potential earnings, so I need to avoid this where possible, especially when building a roll.

THis is why i'm keen to play more volume live, I could do things friday and saturday evening before heading to play, which would be a nice balance.

Just need to balance doing the thing I love as a job vs seeing the people that make my life happy and fulfilling I suppose.

This week I have uni graduation, and then this interview friday. Super stoked to get back grinding Sunday, missing playing already!

Gonna try super hard to enjoy this week, then get back to important life stuff and making plus EV decisions.

GL!

GL man, can relate to the issues you are going through.

Hey guys!

Just a quick update.

Poker

Poker is going pretty well this month so far. Been grinding in between a lot of PhD stuff and been pretty much crushing.

Time played Jan: 93 hours
Games played: 587
Profit: +$1975

Stats and graph:



So we've been pretty much crushing. Hoping we can hit 120ish hours and 750-800 games by the end of the month. It would be really sick if we could have a 2k month!

I've mainly been 6 tabling, not 9-12 as usual, hence reduction in games. Think i'll probs up this over the weekend, though.

Just been feeling pretty ****ty and fuzzy in my head cause of life stuff, so finding my concentration struggling slightly.

That said, feel like my FT game this month has been fire, long may it continue.

Gonna try and play like 3-12 tomorrow, 12-12 saturday and then like 4-2 sunday.


Life/Phd/everything else

Not going very well basically, will update after the weekend as I don't wanna tilt myself.

Gl!

January update:

So tbh, January poker wise wasn't too bad. Nowhere near enough volume but I had a lot on life wise.

Pretty happy with how I played, and did a decent amount of studying.

Took second in the big 5.50 for 1.3k which was nice.

Total hours played: 104
Ev bb: 4.99
Games played: 705
Results: +$1427



Life/PhD stuff/ mental health

January was quite honestly awful for everything else.



Tl;dr
Personal life not going well
PhD not going well
Fitness/mental health not going well

February

Okay so i'm super stoked for February. Planning on playing loads of poker, getting in great shape, meeting new people and having fun. I've been playing higher, and game selecting I think fairly well, so pretty excited for this month. I have a PhD interview (online) tomorrow, so after that i'm stoked for grinding hard.

Poker goals:
Buy ICMIZER (done)
5 hours of studying a week minimum
130 hours play
1000 games minimum
Listen to Jared Tendlers book on audible

Life goals
Gym 3x a week
Drink 1x per week

PhD
Apply for 3 PhDs

Hi all,

sorry for the lack of updates. Had a lot going on life wise.

So February wasn't great. I ended up playing a bunch of online and live. Live cash was super super fun and I really enjoyed it, and think i'll be playing a lot more in the future. Results:

Online tourneys:



Live cash:


Time played: 112 hours
Profit: approx £700.

goals below:

So despite the goals not being hit, I feel like it went well.

I had a lot on in terms of real life stuff, and it wasn't too great. i'll sum it up below.

However i'm very optimistic for March. I am planning on playing a chunk of online cash, live cash, and online tourneys. With most of my studying being based on cash. The reason being I'm just super enjoying cash atm, and the part of my tourney game that needs work is my deeper stacked range construction.

I've decided to move back home for a few weeks, so gonna play some online. That said have two massive poker rooms near me, so live cash is "on the cards".

However currently snowed in, thank the lord for online poker!

I was gonna write a large paragraph about mental health, but i'm feeling so so low and down atm I really don't wanna write it. Just feel like the people closest to me are putting so much pressure on me and I just need time to sort my head out without being under so much pressure.

So forget that.

Also gonna not set any specific goals for this month. Just focus on playing good poker and studying well.

I have had enough of run it once, I will still keep the subscription for the live play videos given I pay the old rate for their videos. But I messaged Phil and got no reply, the learning paths section for essential members is absolutely awful. Like super bad. No structure and no videos for essential stuff like 3betting, 4betting in tourneys etc.

Gonna fire an upswing subscription, and see how that goes.

Nice thread man, let me know if you want to talk poker/strat via skype. I"m playing same level. Glgl mate