I'm so excited that I finally get to post this. I played the following hand about 3 weeks ago. And it was just around the time when we were having a discussion about my 'dealing with variance' post. And I though to myself - well, I'll wait till I suck on a similar scale and post 2 hands illustrating that variance works both ways and it's up to us to spot the positives.

https://www.weaktight.com/h/5da6c82f...b457c?simple=1

I lost the first one (where I flopped quads and got stacked by turned str8flush) and for 2 weeks I didn't have any hands where I sucked out big time. And finally this happened: https://www.weaktight.com/h/5dbf14ce...b46a4?simple=1

hands are only 2 weeks apart. And needless to say the one that I've won (runner runner quads to beat flopped quads) is just about the biggest setup I've seen. Glad to be on the receiving end, but honestly just witnessing that was already awesome.

And funny how variance works... Because Ben_Apart, who was my opponent in that hand, won the Sunday Million later the very SAME DAY. So congrats to him

Hey guys,

I'm moving to a new place. So I will redesign my office space from scratch. I'll appreciate any tips and best practices from you. Ergonomics, lighting, layout etc. etc. Anything that comes to mind - share your ideas with me. So far I've only bought a new desk - one of those where you can change the height and make it a standing workspace.

i noticed that sound atmospheric is very important in a room for me. I moved my desk to another room but it felt like an empty kitchen oder a butchery because every little noise echoed through the room and the sound scape felt cold and sharp, even my mouseclicks. So i hung up some stuff and made sure it felt a little more comforting for my senses. Probably not too dramatic when using headphones, but might be something you will do anyway when streaming

Got some big news that really fit the Poker Goals and Challenges section. Have you heard about Phil Galfond's new challenge? 50k hands PLO HU at 100-200 to 300-600... Well guess what. I applied We had a short conversation with him, looks like this is going to happen. Lots of people applied already, so he can't guarantee that we do it, but he wanted to play vs a coach. Well I'm a coach, so let's do it Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted.

PS
I finally have a reason to open an account on RIO poker site, great job Phil!

This challenge will be very interesting. Hope both sides will stream it! glgl!

Sounds exciting, gl to you both (I really like Phil and I have railed you in the past)

How much of your action during the challenge will you be selling? What stakes did you apply for?

Yeah most likely we'd both be streaming parts of it

Thanks!

We're still working on stakes etc. There are many details to sort out. Phil has a number of other contenders, so were I'm trying to find terms that are most interesting for him, yet still good for me. Chances of this going ahead are very good, but it's not a done deal yet.

And btw Phil already has a coupe shorter challenges lined up, so rail heaven is arriving before Christmas most likely. I'm going to be streaming my commentary of the highlights. I will keep a very close eye on those other challenges, so might as well share my thoughts with you all on Twitch

Vamooooooooooo

Really great content, thanks for sharing! GL in the challenge.

I had a week away from 2p2. A lot of things going on atm. I still can't give much information about Phil's challenge at this point. But I'll most likely be able to tell you guys more next week. Also I'm making some changes to the youtube channel and all that moving to a new place. Quite a tough schedule

And fyi we have a great guest coming on the Twitch show on Wednseday 6pm CET. She used to be a presenter in Poker After Dark and many other TV shows. We're gonna discuss the entertainment side of the poker business and hopefully hear some of her stories about the rich and famous in poker

Keep up that YouTube Chanel ! Great stuff
I’d love to see more in game videos

Hey guys, I've had about a week away from poker (perhaps even longer than that). Long story. I'll get to it some other time. Anyway, had my first session today and got a good seat in a 10k plo game on PokerStars. Here are the results:

There were a lot of interesting hands in the session. I'll pick one to analyse on video and publish it on YouTube soon.

Hey man.... Maybe you are sworn to secrecy at this point but are you the 2nd matchup vs Galfond?

I’ll assume the canary in the coal mine protocol... no response = you are.

Sounds like he may have backed out according to Galfonds latest tweet

I feel like I need to put my thoughts on paper.

Phil came up with a brilliant idea to make it 5:1 which now makes it his 1M vs my 200k. Great stuff.

First let’s take a step back. I’ve been deliberating about my participation from day one of him issuing the open challenge. My initial enthusiasm progressed to a lot of head scratching once we started digging into details. I might make a longer post or a YT video about this part, but a quick summary would be: 11h difference between our time-zones, logistics of making the money available, securing a team to support me on the challenge etc. And I have to say that Phil has been very forthcoming and flexible in helping iron out most of these issues.

Now one thing that only I can sort out is - my life. I already feel that I’m trying to pack too many things in my schedule and at times all the commitments are getting a bit overwhelming. Playing poker, coaching poker, YouTube channel, Twitch stream podcast and active participation in a non-poker related business venture where I have equity, oh and perhaps the most important - family. I have a 1yo kid. Phil of course is in the same situation and I have tremendous respect for him being able to sort his things out to a point where he’s willing to potentially take up 5 lengthy challenges while juggling all the other stuff.

Now if I commit to this, I must put everything else aside for about 3 months (including the prep time). I told Phil that I’d prefer to make my final decision on Dec 15 as I’m going for a short vacation trip end of next week and I’m hoping to clear my mind and think this through thoroughly. Sounded like a good plan until the next morning I wake up to the news that Phil made it 5:1 with a 72h deadline for making decision. Brilliant move. It looks like this guy is playing poker even when he’s not playing poker. You see what I mean?

Anyway, as to the challenge itself… I’m not a HU player. Main bulk of my HU volume comes from starting tables, so I’d be getting into this as an underdog vs Phil. However, 1 month of theory prep work would be enough to make it a very good EV proposition especially with what now is a 5:1 side bet (tbh 3:1 was good enough already).

I did Supernova Elite back in the day and that was all about planning your routine, sticking to schedule, full focus on the process. This thing is a different type of test. And Phil’s experience of playing a ton of HU is bound to play a big role. 50k challenge is likely to have a lot of swings. And pretty much every day I’d have to play long hours against 1 guy, rain or snow kind of thing. Strong mental game is absolute key. My own routine of dealing with variance and staying focused on the game would be compromised here as I’d be out of my comfort zone, not being able to take breaks just whenever I please and I’d have to play much longer sessions than I normally like to while playing in a time of the day when I normally don’t. There are so many components to this is challenge beyond just purely making decisions along the lines of bet, fold, call and raise.

Anyway, I suppose I have another 50 or so hours left to make my decision. Flexibility is what I love the most about poker as a career. Well this challenge clearly goes against it, but I need to quickly figure out if this new offer of 5:1 provides a strong enough financial incentive to put everything else aside for a while and jump onto this potential rollercoaster ride.

PS
Initially I wasn’t writing this to publish it, but now that I read it again, I suppose why not. Treat it as a page out of my journal. And I’ll appreciate if you want to share your opinions and suggestions on this.

Sounds reasonable to think about. But in general there is a tremendous +EV doing this challenge ( Getting 5:1). Overall family priorities comes first imo.

Thanks for sharing!

I think what it comes to is whether or not you think you can have an edge or overcome his edge. If it’s overall +EV for you, then I think it would tip the balance as this is essentially a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you win, then you will make your mark in the poker world, people like me would be lining up for CFP, and of course there’s the money. Lots of good things will happen.

Tough decision, best of luck.

+1. No gamble, no future. Good luck with whatever you choose.

First why is Phil, who hasnt played seriously in years, offering 5:1 to someone who is currently playing the highest stakes online? And why in the world are you not snap accepting it? The money alone should be enough for you to accept, plus all the publicity you will get for CFP and your future career. I could be hugely underestimating Phil but still with these odds seems like a no brainer.

Hey guys, thanks for your input on Galfond’s challenge. I might make a longer post about this one day. And we’ll probably talk more about this on Twitch tomorrow (on bluffthespot channel). Just wanted to say that I decided not to go for it at this moment. We might revisit the idea of the challenge with Phil at some point later next year after he’s done battling the other guys.

As many of you have said, challenge is +EV for me on paper. But it’s not all just about the money. Timing is not good. I'm moving to a new house end of this month. I can't predict how we'll settle in (mostly concerned about my baby boy). With all the other things going on in my life, constricting my schedule and putting extra stress just ain't right. This thing would be a huge commitment of time, stealing all of my focus from everything else for a long period. Investing the same amount of time and effort in my regular game and other business ventures yields equally nice return without additional stress or opportunity costs. So money wise I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. Of course there is that extra value of publicity that we’d gain as coaching company. But I recon we’ll do just fine without it. After all my participation would not be any indication of my abilities as a coach and our students wouldn’t much appreciate me taking about 3 months off from active coaching.

Regardless, I’m very excited to rail these challenges and I’ll be rooting for Phil (and taking a lot of notes as we still might battle one day). He is an extremely talented player who's been in the industry for a very long time. The fact that he "hasn't played poker for a while" sounds cute, but he's been preparing for the challenge behind the scenes and he has a very strong team behind him, so I expect to see some very good poker from his side, so let’s bring out our pop corn.

PS
I just heard that JNandez jumped onto the challenge last minute. Best of luck to him! It’s great that somebody is representing the coaching community as there aren’t many of us out there

Love your podcasts on YT!

Thanks, I appreciate it

And speaking of YT, I've expanded on the Galfond challenge in my last week's podcast episode. We start talking about it around 50 min mark. You guys can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKtpP9AeMgk&t=3030s if you're interested.

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I'm not doing my regular Twitch podcast today nor next Wednesday (Jan 1). Meanwhile I'll be posting some videos exclusively for YouTube over the weekend.

Merry Christmas

and btw, if you haven't seen the last podcast episode already, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNNg...KwCJzK&index=8

Our guest was Performance and Mindset coach Adam Carmichael. It was a great conversation, we covered so many important ideas