Bloody brilliant to hear that mate. Chuck us a link to your PGC if you got one yeah?

Daily Review - Wed 27/09

Hours Played: 9.8
Profit: -$151

Notes: Fairly straightforward day. Lost a $700 flip. Made a $50 minor mistake on a river call. Did a cool bluff... Below are some hands if you'd like to leave your thoughts!

Hand 1

EP $15, hero w JJ $45, HJ CCs, EP calls.
Flop $135: Q99r
xxx
Turn $135: 7hh
x, hero bets $60, HJ calls, fold.
River $255: 3o
x, HJ bets $110, hero ???

Hand 2

Hero (not good) calls MP open of $20 in SB w A5hh, BB calls.
Flop $60: Q84hh
xxx
Turn $60: 9o
Hero $40, call, call
River $180: Ko
Hero ???

Hand 3

EP limps, EP+1 $15, MP $45, hero CCs in SB w AQcc, call, call.
Flop $180: 733r (1 club)
xx MP cbets $60, hero peels, fold fold.
Turn $300: 9
xx
River $300: 10
Hero bets $150, villain snapfolds.

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

Monthly Review (Month 2 of PGC 28/08-27/09)

Hours Played: 173.2
Profit: $7,371 ($43 hourly)


Volume:

Pretty happy with anything over 170 hours. That's us still hitting that 40 hours a week mark which is good. Good discipline. Haven't really had any troubles getting the volume in. Once again, I'm amazed at how peaceful it is to "work" 40 hours a week. Easy peasy. In my previous job, I'd get to Wednesday and be counting the days til the end of the week, like this horrible weird meta mental game thing where my mood would fluctuate depending on whether it was before or after Wednesday lol.

Profit:

Obv fairly happy to make $7k this month. Hourly has been good. Feel like we SHOULD be able to get ourselves a 10k month at some stage since, while we've run decently this month, it hasn't been anything spectacular I don't think.

Variance:

Probably good for the most part. Maybe 7-8/10 but I've not really been tracking it that closely.

Mental Game:

Has been FAIRLY good. Definitely made a few mistakes though this month for sure. Still trying to figure out how to rectify these mistakes - not sure there's an easy solution. But yeah, no mental game issues at all. Oversleeping when my circadian rhythms are fcked up is probably the biggest thing... I've had maybe 2-3 days this month where I've slept for like 20 hours. This needs to stop in the forthcoming month.

Gym & Health:

Gym frequency has been good. I've had a few slack sessions in the gym though I'll admit when I've not really felt like it. But for the most part, all is well on this front. Noticed we're getting a little lighter. I was under 90kg for the first time in ages today in the gym (had my shoes off).

So how did we go goals wise???

[X] - Spendings! - This needs to get back under control. I want to spend no more than $500 a week on average, that's $2k a month effectively, a little more. Went crazy re spendings this past month and I can't keep going like that. So we must limit ourselves to the $500. Did a great job re this this month. Tracking our finances and rearranging the budget made things much easier as well!
[ ] - Meditation! - This needs to be way more consistent. Every morning when I get up, I need to do this. Even just 10 minutes. Nope, I've completely stopped doing this. It just really isn't for me. I'm okay with that. I don't think I really ever got much out of it anyway.
[X] - Sleep! - Set an alarm and ****ing stick to it lol... Keep sleeping in every day - yeah it's simply incredible to have the freedom to just stay in bed and not do anything, but I can be more productive with my day by not oversleeping. Ughhhhh this one's contentious. Generally did better at not sleeping in, but when I did, I slept for like a whole day extra. :')
[X] - Volume! - Minimum 175 hours again... Will be stoked if I can get more than that in but I won't force it. 173... 175, same sht. Happy with it.
[X] - Gym! Better consistency! This will come off the back of not oversleeping. If I finish a game at 4am, and have a game starting at 6pm the next day, I can't just get up at 5pm and go to the game and ignore gym like I have done a couple times this past week. Needs to be consistent. 5 times a week minimum. Yup! Has been going well.
[X] - Poker strat! - Immerse myself into the best possible games consistently. If that means I need to play a rotation game (1/2PLO, 2/5NLH) that's full of absolute droolers, even if it means buying in short, then that's what I will endeavour to do. Continue posting hands and asking questions here about pre-flop stuff like the KTo CC from SB situation... I want the focus this month to be on pre-flop strategy... The sooner I figure out what is optimal, the better. I want to practice overlimping more, staying v tight from EP, finding better spots with marginal broadways (KTo/KJo/AJo/ATo type hands that get us into trouble). Feel like my preflop game has come a long way this past month for sure. Fairly happy with the work I've done refining this lately.

Goals For October!

[ ] - 180 Hours Volume - I want to up the volume a bit over the coming few months if possible to stockpile "holiday" leave, if you will. In case I want to take an extended break later in the year/next year.
[ ] - Blog Consistency - @ harveymeale.com, once per week on a new and entertaining philosophical piece to hopefully start growing my email list.
[ ] - Keep focus at an all-time high
[ ] - No stupid 20 hour slumber sessions, get up and grind.

That's it really. If I put in the volume and play my best poker, stay focused, hopefully we'll have another good month in October. Ofc I want to keep on top of my spendings... I'll be tracking this every week from now on so I don't feel the need to specifically outline it here.

With one day left in the week, I've got about 10 hours left to play to hit my volume target. Can he do it? Find out next time on... meale's PGC.

Full Results & Giraffe: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...7C8876B842!334

Sick volume. If you can keep that up you will certainly increase your chance at long term success. Love it.

H1 x turn, AP fold

H2 don't mind the stab, give up now tho

H3 probably folding in the SB against most villains, can def call IP tho. Seems like he had AK there lol wp

What happened with your QQ in hand 4?

this

H2 Readless, I'm never here. If I'm tempted into the pot pre for w/e reason, I'm probably just playing my equity passively from that point: logic it would an XPLO spot and I don't bluff much XPLO, unless i'm XPLO a weak nit ofc

H3 wp

all changes with read ofc

Meale you beast, keep it up.

I don't know if this will help and anyway you will have to adapt to the live game, coz i work of my hud settings...anyway

18 months or so ago I did a TON of work on my preflop ranges. Off the back of that (sort of concurrently) I advanced my optimal theory knowledge (by reading Janda applications. I realised that it is pretty simple to set your hud up to tell you preflop whether you should be balanced or XPLO. I did awy with the all the fancy colours and now my hud just reads red or green for 9-10 basic stats

red = balanced (or optimal, fk saying GTO)
green = XPLO

I find knowing before the hand starts whether I'm going to be balanced or XPLO and therefore what my ranges are really simplifies preflop play, which is always to the benefit of postflop as many will tell you.

Finally you can work non-hud reads into this strat (like a micro zoom 50nlz down short stack = fish = XPLO).

Don't know if there is anything in that for you, but onwards and upwards mate.

Do you think being up $7K for the month has anything to do with that easy peasy feeling?

I kinda realize some of my posts have me pissing on your parade, but I also think it is important to maintain a realistic viewpoint regarding this sorta thing. Although admittedly I've never attempted this (I'm only a once-a-week NL player, although I'm on 7.5 years of that now), so what do I know. But I think it helps to have the occasional devil (angel?) on your shoulder at times.

Obviously kudos to your volume and results this month; they are both impressive.

GgoodluckG

Agree with all hands. ty

Uuughhh, I decided to "call" in the end. Had a weird "read", he'd kinda "head down bet bet bet" the pot and it just looked full of ****? End up chopping with ATcc. Suuuuuuuper weird/terrible way for him to play his hand.

Agree with your synopsis. I should prob just fold pre since the PFR was a v solid reg in h2.

<3 <3 <3

Wish I got to play with a hud. :') Careful though when using colours for large ranges of stats. Remeber a 24/19 and a 21/16 are VERRRY different players over a big sample. If you play vs them the same because your hud has traffic light colours, you can get into some trouble. What I found was really good re the HUD was turning off ALL colours. This forces you to look at the actual individual numbers and then really think about what a 19% range looks like as opposed to a 16% range.

The easy peasy comment was with regards to getting in volume. I find it very easy to sit at a poker table for 40 hours a week, regardless of the results. I practically lost all of month 1 and it was just as easy if not easier to get the volume in. I think considering my casino is an absolute joke, this is probably one of the things I'm happiest with of my journey so far.

Always always always appreciate you stopping in mate. It's good to have someone to kick my ass if it needs kicking and keep me focused.

GpreciateitG.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...grind-1690384/

Here's the link. I don't think my thread will ever really compare to this one but I'd appreciate it if you or anyone else could ever stop by and give me advice on any hands that I post or just general advice based on my plans and goals I'd really appreciate it.

All the best man!

Will definitely check it out, cheers man.

Daily Update - 28/09

Hours played: 9.4
Profit: -$422

Notes: Didn't play any big hands tonight. Just a bunch of folding pre and then losing small/mid size pots while winning small/tiny pots. Felt as though focus was possibly lacking a bit. Just felt like I played a blarrgh B game at best. Good news is we basically rostucko'd the week volume wise which is dope.

No interesting hands. Week review soon.

Weekly Update - 21/09-28/09

Hours played: 40.5
Profit: $658

So overall I think this week was fairly uninspiring. We slept way longer than we should have on multiple occasions causing us to jam volume in on the last two days just to reach quota. The positives are that A) we made money (only 2 winning sessions in the week though) and B) we got our new blog up and running. www.harveymeale.com - this week's article was about the profundity of the DMT experience. Funny, I received a very angry email from mum after she read that article - she thinks I'm some sort of hippy drug addict now. :')

We also went out to brekky with a girlie a couple times this week. We've hooked up previously but I kind of think I might really sorta like this girl? Like of all the girls I know, she's the only one I think it's possibly +EV to get into a relationship with. Just love being around her. We're hanging out again on Saturday, we'll see what happens I guess.

Let's quickly run through finances for the week...

Haircut - $22 - It's not really anywhere in the budget but I guess it's an unavoidable occasional expense. Should probably add it in somewhere.
Social - $38 - Fine.
Groceries - $37.78 - Too much, spent too much on junky/unncessary sht for the casino. Need to cut down.
Cheat meal - $33 - Fine.
Coffee - $23.50 - Fine.
Blog Template - $70.95 - Had to spend some unforecasted cash on a new blog template. Not ideal but kinda had to happen.
Book - $14.99 - I'm over my book allocation $ wise for the month. I bought Meditations by Marcus Aurelius which is fairly dense and should last me for a bit though.

Forthcoming Week's Goals

[ ] - Don't go over budget this week.
[ ] - 40 hours volume.
[ ] - Improve quality of play from where it was this week. Focus on slow decisions and maintaining alertness during long sessions.

This Saturday is Riverfire which is basically just a bunch of fireworks and then the "dump n burn" where a fighter jet (or 2?) flies over the Brisbane river. Generally gets a pretty huge turnout and will go down 2 mins walk from my apartment...



The Penthouse will be running a game during riverfire which will be the sickest view in the city by a long shot. Alternatively, I might just hang out with this girl if she's available but will sus that out on the day. So basically I might not get much if any volume in on Sat - which is why I've made it only 40 hour target for the coming week.

Honestly hoping we can resume playing some A+ poker and that we'll start winning money again!

XPLO sounds like some rake trap crap Stars is going to introduce to get recs in PLO and leech their money away,

I'd play.

Daily Update - Fri 29/09

Hours Played: 4.7
Profit: $230

Notes: Short session today. Typically get a game up at the Penthouse on a Friday but it didn't happen today so a bunch of the Penthouse regs and I went to the casino. Time actually flies by when you're not card dead in that place. Enjoyable night talking strat/smack with another reg and managed to make some money too. Only 5 hours but the whole notion of "something is better than nothing" will make chasing volume later in the week much easier than should I have taken the night off completely.

Unfortunately no hands of interest. I made 1 minor mistake, cbetting when I prob shouldn't have. No idea whether I'll be playing tomorrow or not - leaning largely towards not at the moment but who knows.

Full Results & Giraffe: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...7C8876B842!334

GTO

Hands Meale, hands.

WE NEED HANDS.

Hopefully get some spots if I play tomorrow!

Heya Meale. Just found this thread of yours. It's great. Just wanted to pat you on the back for all this work. On ya!

Cheers mate, much appreciated!

Daily Update - Sat 01/10/17

Hours Played: ~4-8
Profit: $638
Game Type: PPPoker 1/2 NLH
Notes: Didn't end up heading to the live game last night, heard it was pretty bad anyway. I had made plans to meet up with a friend for drinks during the fireworks but that ended up falling through. All the while I just played PPPoker in bed. Was a stupidly easy game and I definitely need to be playing more when NLH runs. Unfortunately, holdem probably only gets up a few times a week - and during those times I'm usually playing live so I'm not sure how useful it'd be. I think I'll just cash out from PPP and then if I find myself in a spot like I did last night, not playing live but wanting to get some volume in, I will redeposit. I'm not tracking PPPoker results because technically it's "online poker" - even if it's all live players and on a mobile app.

Today is Sunday. It's about 12pm now and I'm about to get out of bed. Will Head straight to the gym and smash legs & some back: deadlifts, bent over barbell rows, leg extensions, and maybe some GHRs. After that, I'll come home, smash a protein shake, eat some oatmeal, and head to the casino to get some volume in.

Daily Update - Sun 01/10/17

Hours Played: 7.3
Profit: -$672

Notes: Got 4 outed 3 times on the river in fairly substantial pots tonight. Had I won each of those, I'd have posted a win. That said, there was some bad play by me tonight for sure. Also got JJ in pre vs QQ $170 deep. Just blegh session - won zero big pots all night again.

Hero isos JsJh to $30 over a limper, 2 callers.
Flop $90: T56dd
Hero cbets $65, call.
Turn: Addd
Hero checks behind.
River $225: Brick.
V bets $100, hero?

Honestly it feels as though he's turning middle pairs like 77-99 and maybe even random Tx into a bluff fairly often. Turn is such a bad card for me and I feel like he picked up on that. How many flushes does he really have? His value range should be fairly narrow: AT or a flush.

I set a focus objective for myself today of "Is this bluff +EV, if so, why?" - which would force myself to think over bluffs before executing. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that today and failed pretty miserably with the following spot:

Few limpers, hero also limps A2s otb. BB raises to $20, one caller, hero calls.
Flop TT5r
V cbets $15, call, hero raises to $50, fold, call.
Turn: brick
X, hero bets $100...

My snap-logic at the time was that maybe if I bet again on the turn, I can get v to fold some smaller pairs. The point is that I didn't slow down and think through things and I didn't ask myself the question I quoted in the focus objective. Pretty disappointing overall this hand - torched like $150 when I just simply didn't need to. Have GOT to be better in future.

Could have stayed longer but my table was pretty meh and tbh, there's a fairly juicy 1/2 NLH on PPPoker I'm going to play for a bit now instead of continue at the casino.

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...7C8876B842!334

Looking like we'll get the day off tomorrow. Will probably spend it reading, will try to write a blog post as well. There's a rotation game tomorrow night so if that gets up, i'll play it. But if not I'll take all of Monday off.

I fold the JJ on the river

I stopped trying to bluff raise paired board a long time ago. Someone always seems to call. Most people who have a T on that TT5 board just call the flop bet because they dont want the other guy to fold so when you raise, nobody believes you. If youre going to take the pot away, just call the flop and raise the turn. Because thats what people with a T do.

When I started playing live poker full time I felt this way for roughly a year. Then it got really difficult and draining to even put in 25 hours in a week. I don't believe I am alone in this psychological erosion either.

Cherish your motivation while you have it, and I'd also recommend thinking ahead about how you are going to preserve this motivation. (Diet and exercise work pretty well for me)