Hey,

Just an everyday blog, focusing on how I'm doing at the Spin n Go's on PokerStars, and hopefully some of the things I do/places I go in life because of it.

I started at the 15s, and was doing OK at them over a 1.5k sample:



Definitely thought a higher ROI was possible, but instead of working on my game, I got a complacent. A small patch of bad hands hit and I just played really poorly, which of course makes a downswing far worse!



Well within the normal boundaries, especially for Spins, but I actually felt terrible about how I was playing. I feel I'm a much better player than the standard opponent, and was mainly annoyed that I let a little patch like this get to me as much as it did.

Anyway, I spent a few days really going over my game, more than I had ever before, and now I'm looking to get back to the grind, move up ASAP, and make a lot more money!

I want to travel to a lot of places around the world, starting with a few cities in europe, so hopefully, if I keep the blog up for long enough, I can post a couple of places I've visited and how I spend some of the freedom that playing poker provides me with.

First though, I need a new computer! I'm grinding on a 6 year old, basic computer that is struggling to still run. I don't have all of the extra software that would make my grind a lot easier, and my wireless adapter can cut out every so often. As a result, I only play two tables at the moment, and stick to the $15s, when I'm certain I can beat the 30s for close to the same ROI.

So, first point of call, we grind up enough for a computer set up I have picked out. It's a little over £800 for the tower, but literally has everything close to top spec, and I will certainly make that money back within a couple of weeks.

And now, I'll leave you to grind!



VAMOS!

glgl will follow. Didn't know you were on the same team :P

Definitely in, kill it bro

$EV doesn't work well for spins on PT4. One bad beat or suckout in a 100x and you're above/below ev for months for example. Chip graph plz

Tyty! Yep, gl with the grind! Hopefully won't see you at the tables too often.



Actually my purple line is a chip EV line. It's just been converted so that I can have it on my $ won page. In that first sample I had both a 100x and a 200x, and got massively coolered in both.


The day didn't pan out how I wanted it EV wise, but I ran g00t so what can you do?




I certainly hit more than my share of coolers, but really happy with how I played for the most part. If I can keep this level up, along with upping the volume a little, more than confident that at the end of the month, I'll have a monster graph to show for it.

Anyway, thanks for the guys!

VAMOS!

Oh okay cool. Looking good then! Gl

Gl bro, kill it

in. Good title

Ok, so got off track with this.

I do some part time work on the side, and my employers just received some really bad press in a national newspaper (which is all bull****) and had to stop working whilst they sort it out. So it's been a weird few days to say the least!

Anyway, I don't need the money from there, and this really just gives me a lot more free time now, so more volume!

On a real positive note, I've changed some of my ranges completely, and feel a lot better about my game already because of it. Hopefully I can get some massive volume in that is all crushing from now on, and we can see some real $ in the thread!



Happy in general with my how I played for the small amount today, really butchered one hand trying to level an aggro idiot, and just leveled myself

But onwards and upwards!

Looking for 100 games tomorrow two tabling and focused,

VAMOS!

Another thread? Guess I'll have to harass you on here too :-)

Gogogogo

good luck. It's time to put in some volume to see where the journey goes.

+1. Gotta VAMOS! the **** out of this thread.


So, been a few weeks since I updated and I have done quite a bit of work in the gap, so that's probably the best place to start.

I was reading a few PG&C threads, partly for entertainment and partly for inspiration for my grind, and I noticed that karamazonk had started a live blog. I hadn't seen him on the forums for a while, but back before Black Friday he was the a big part of why I originally transferred to HUSNG's. I had read his blog about grinding up to $10k, and having already settled on the notion that HU Cash was such a ball ache to get games at, I sent him a few general queries via PM about the game, got some answers I was looking for, and set out to grind HUSNG's.

His new blog, for anybody unfamiliar, is focused solely on Live play, but having enjoyed the writing style of his previous I figured it was well worth a look. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because he recommends a book in it, the Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, and I have to say, it's one of the best books I have ever read. It's probably the fastest I have ever gotten through a book of its type, simply because I enjoyed it so much, and in all honesty, it really makes me wish I could play Chess to a high level (for those unaware, Waitzkin was a chess prodigy, and later a World Tai Chi champion, and the book has large elements of both within it to explain his learning process).

The reason I really wanted to share this in the thread is because of the impact it has already had on my game. I don't think I have ever fixed more leaks in my game (especially heads up which I actually consider my strongest) or been more objectively happy with my play than I have since I began the book. Now I hate the world revelation (or worse still, realisation), especially in the context of a poker blog where such grandiose are generally overstating what has happened, but I really feel so happy with how I am playing at the moment.

As an extension of this, it can make you realise just how lucky we are to do what we do. 90% of people lose at poker. Simple fact. Actually, many of you reading this, despite being in the upper echelons of poker ability simply by being active on 2p2, will be losing players. To actually win at a card game, and in fact a computer game to boot, is something that a lot of people would love to be able to say, but very few can.

The harsh truth is however, that these facts are lost on us all the time. The grind really can get you. It got me. I've been frozen in the grind for a long time. For some, that's fine. Being stuck in the grind might be monotonous and boring, but the consistent games we play and money we make inevitably balances out what we lose as our minds numb. Unfortunately, for people like me, it doesn't happen like that. As I need stimulation, my mind wanders. Rather than trying to think through spots, and think on a deeper level in order to make it interesting, I decide to go elsewhere. Being sat at a computer is the utmost worst for this. I literally have everything at my fingertips. How could I not get distracted?

But that's just it. Why do I need to search for something on the internet? I am not the biggest winner in my games. Even though I have one of the highest winrates, that is absolutely irrelevant. If I make $1.50 a game playing the 15s, but only play 500 games in a month, and someone else makes $1.20 at the 30s and plays 4000 games, who's the real winner? Is my 10% ROI really that impressive then? And on a deeper level, think of all the interesting spots the 30s player will have because he's played other 30s guys, leading to the lower ROI, but a far more engaged grind.

This bubble of perfection that I have put around myself is probably the most poisonous thing I have ever done in my life. The worst part of it being that you believe it's a good thing. Being a perfectionist, wanting the winrate to be so high, it got to be commendable. I'd tell myself that others getting lower winrates are just settling. How could anyone be happy with that? But when it becomes so important that you stop grinding, and you're frozen, unable to play anymore in case you lose some EV and it falls below that magic number, then you have a problem. Then it's not perfection that driving you; it's just fear that's getting in the way.

Even though I couldn't really say if I'll be more active in this blog, I wanted to put my thoughts out there. In the same vain, I wouldn't be able to guarantee that my mindset has changed for good, but I can't see myself ever going back to the way I was now. The boredom and disinterest is just too much to handle. Constant distractions are welcomed when you don't enjoy what you're doing. Being bored and getting nowhere in life takes its toll after a while. I'm so tired of being bored. So sick of my finances being in the same position. Topping it up a little every couple of weeks so I'm never in need. Complacency is both dull and frustrating, and rather than some sort of huge motivational drive for a new car or some other monetary goal spurring me forward as I thought it would, it is actually the realisation (I knew it would make an appearance eventually) that being afraid is simultaneously exhausting and mind numbing. That sabotaging my enjoyment of a game I love for the sake a percentage on an EV line is probably the most masochistic thing I could do for my poker game.

So basically, for everyone reading this, thanks. As I said, I can't guarantee that I will regularly update this thread, but I definitely feel a lot better about where I'm headed with poker now than I did before, and I'll try to share that with the people that are interested.

Now I normally attack people for putting quotes in threads/blogs on social media. But that's normally because they are just looking for attention, and actually don't live by the quote in the slightest. I figure, however, because of how much the book inspired this post, it is only right to end with a quote from Waitzkin.



-Jay

brb reading the book

^ Great post, I'm currently facing a lot of the same issues. If you can successfully change your mindset to the one you're describing and have the underlying drive to improve you'll go far.

Will try to get a hold of that book and read it even though leisurely reading isn't my forte. I love seeing quotes and find them inspiring so the one you posted immediately made me think of how I felt in the past when moving up in stakes. I'm planning to move up again in August, so it has been on my mind. As for the complacency, sometimes I feel myself playing sub optimally and making poor choices and for a minute I think about how it will impact my graph. I didn't use to think like that back when I was not as obsessed with tracking results and that is the mentality I have been getting back to. The mentality of trying an unorthodox move because I think it will work regardless of how it will look on a graph. Keep grinding Jay.

Really worth it IMO. Obviously sometimes an author just happens to relate well to a certain type of person and not to others, similar to genre's of music, but regardless I still think that everyone will get a lot from it.

Good luck with it. I found it really hard just to identify the problem, let alone break free of it, but I'm confident that was really the hardest part. Wish you all the luck with the struggle as well.

I have a link to the book online that I can send to you on Skype. Remind me and I'll ship it to you. (That offer goes to anyone else as well btw)


So, day one. Had a fair amount of real life things to do today, but most importantly the time I spent at the computer was, within reason, pure grind.

Overall, I don't think I've had many days where I have felt so dominant playing against others. Especially when I got Heads Up in my games, I really feel I have such a massive edge on the players I'm against that it is hard to imagine what it was that made me feel so insecure about this area of my game just a few weeks ago. Luckily, despite a tonne of coolers and just generally bad Card Distribution, I was able to get a decent EVROI, and make a great profit for the day.



As you can see, ran really well in terms of winning the big multipliers (and getting them in the first place!) but it certainly wasn't the easiest day I'v ever had. I got pretty frustrated, despite the profit, because of the hands I was running into, but I can't expect to just be completely rid of my bad habits in one go. More importantly, it didn't negatively affect my decisions for long enough to have a real impact on the graph, so I'm happy with how I handled it in general.

Overall, ecstatic to have make sure my time spent at the computer was well used, obviously thrilled to run good, and pretty excited to see how I can do over the next few weeks if I keep up the focus, improve the volume, and keep working on my game.

Thanks to everyone for the read, and hope your grind can go as well as mine!

Jay

Damn booked a nice day bro

GL with the challenge! That book sounds awesome, will add you on Skype.

Your Skype name the same as on here?

I'm in the same stable as you as well.

Thanks! Will do another update later tonight after the grind.

Skype: Antagonistical

So I completely forgot about doing a review on yesterday. However, rather than just picking up and filling it in with a slightly larger review, I found a nice little opportunity to talk a little bit more about some of the mental issues I have with regards to motivation.

Earlier today, towards the start of the grind, I went through a slightly bad patch of variance. Nothing major. Certainly nothing that could be construed as out of the ordinary. However, it forced me to slip a little bit back into the mindset I've been working to try to get out of.

This mindset, as I'm sure anyone who read my earlier post, is where I fear failing. My instant reaction is to look at my EVROI, and get worried about it going down. Now just to show you how ridiculous it can get, this is the patch in question:



To give myself a little credit, the patch was worse than my EVROI suggests. I ran into a hell of a lot of "coolers" (pocket pair vs bigger pocket pair, Ax vs higher Ax etc) but the standard of opponent I encountered really helped me to offset it. But I think it's really important for me to show anybody reading just how badly things like this can get if you let them fester.

What this really boils down to, in my case, is a fair of failure. So, naturally, I decided to have a search around for any sort of help with fair of failure on the internet, and I came across this article:

http://believeperform.com/performanc...ar-of-failure/

It's a really nice little read, but it has a particularly good sentence that really sums up what I'm trying to battle with here. The article talks about moving from an ego oriented motivation (that of trying to impress people) to a task oriented approach, explaining "they also do not fear embarrassment or social criticism as they do not take part in the activity for social gratification but play for the satisfaction and enjoyment of trying to improve their own performance". This is pretty much key to what I'm trying to achieve. Trying to really ensure that everything I do is focused on improvement and reaching a level of poker where I enjoy the challenge as well as the monetary rewards. But naturally, as shown by a relapse that can be described at best as an overreaction, it isn't that easy.

This mindset has been with me for a few years now. It has been Constantly there. And it's become so ingrained into my mentality, that my natural response has now been to resort to it. The moment anything comes up that can be considered "tilting", rather than me making loose calls or overly aggressive shoves as some would, my natural instinct is to "preserve" my graph. And I have done that for so long, that it has become a habit.

Anybody that has read around the subject of habits knows that breaking a habit (or in this case, remolding the habit) is extremely difficult. Just as they are built up over time, they have to be broken down over time as well, and of course as this is now my default position, my mind will automatically want to take the path of least resistance.

Now, as someone with a new found love of learning (purposefully being over the top here ) I figure it's only right to make sure this is my major focus and the first thing I fix. So........... I've read it takes 21 days to make a new habit stick, so I'm going for 21 days, to set a volume goal the day and not check my EV at all whilst playing. Focus on every decision, not the outcome, and adjust best I can each time.

So, we start it off with the intent to build up over the 21 days, tomorrow I'm going for 50 games, and hopefully, if all goes as planned, I don't know my EV until I post the graph here.

Anyway, thanks again to everything for the support, and I hope some people reading this get a little something from what I'm talking about. If you find yourself getting into similar habits, really try to put a stop to them early. They are real bastards to get rid of if you don't!

Cheers,

Jay

Joshua Waitzkin? Searching for Bobby Fischer? Might have to check that out myself.

Will send the link on skype, well worth the read.


So I did my first day of not looking at the graph and just trying to grind for the sake of grinding. Quite frankly, I feel like a crack addict. Constantly wanting to check, having to fight myself to stay away from the graph tab, it is ridiculous just how comforting my mind finds the EV line, and how much validation I draw from it. Sounds so weird to say, but this was genuinely the hardest grind I have ever done in my life. Whilst playing I was getting quite agitated, I felt like my EV was massively negative all the way through. I was getting coolered at every opportunity, and this was not the start that I needed to a challenge that was supposed to completely change my outlook on poker, and possibly many other areas of my life. Or so I thought:



As you can see, nothing my mind was thinking was reality. Even though looking back through the hands, I probably did run into more than my share of coolers against rather than for, my EV certainly is not bad. It's certainly not the -$150 I was expecting when I checked at the end.

I think this is probably the best thing that could have happened to me. A real reality check on how much my mind can focus on the negatives, rather than simply be objective. Just how little my mind can keep track of what sort of EV I might have, over such a small sample, really is quite an eye opener for somebody going through this sort of change in perspective.

At the end of my session, I genuinely thought this was going to be one of the worst outcomes I could have hoped for. In actual fact, I probably rank this as one of my best days in poker, and undoubtedly my biggest accomplishment in terms of mental game. It wasn't just about making it through the games without looking, or simply about having a better perception of how subjective my mind is mid-grind (although both of these are extremely important lessons). One of the surprise benefits of this was how much it improved my review of my game.

With no EV line to check in on, I was a lot more willing to send hands around to get opinions on lines I had taken, and focused a lot more energy on trying to make sure I plugged any leak as fast as possible. Rather than accepting how a hand played out because the day was going well, I was instead really trying to make sure the day ended as well as possible, regardless of how I was performing at the present. Admittedly, I probably made some errors from tilt that I wouldn't have made (after assuming I was running worse than I was) but I can't imagine that to be an issue going forwards knowing what I know now.

As such, I think I made about 5-6 river calls, that, after getting opinions from others, were certain folds. And it's glaring errors like this that I'm happiest about fixing. If I can find massive errors like these, I can only imagine that I'm making many smaller ones at the same time. Hopefully, this new mental approach doesn't just improve my motivation and drive, but also helps me keep my game fresh and on top form going into the future.

Anyway, this post is a little over the place because, as embarrassing as it sounds, those 51 games have completely taken it out of me. The addiction is real, but I have to admit, after realising just how wrong my mind can be, I feel really excited about grinding tomorrow and fixing some more leaks in my game. Hopefully I keep improve, both mentally and technically, and we can get a real good graph going for the 21 days, which I'm sure is why most people read these threads!

Thanks again,

Jay

Great post mate

So for 21 days your goal is to not check graph at all or to only check at the end of each session?

Enjoy your thread too, especially the travelling etc. Hoping to eventually get a bit of that in myself. Keep crushing!

Of course, as with yesterday, the graph has to be checked at the end when I post it. But during the day I don't want to be checking my graph at all.


So, another day. I didn't get the 50 games I was shooting for, which isn't ideal, but my computer was having problems so I don't really consider it a failure.



With regards to my other aims though, successful again. Didn't look at my graph a single time, and really didn't have the urges to look like I did yesterday, which I'm really happy about. Did tilt a little unfortunately, but it's already less frequently and for shorter amounts of time than I used to, so already massive improvements in that aspect.

Felt extremely comfortable in games once again today. The spots that we troubling me yesterday had been mistakes so obvious that once I had gotten opinions on them there was no need to repeat them in the future. The primary focus now, outside of breaking the dependency on my EV line and therefore this whole fair of failure, is to stop any more of these glaring leaks I might have lying around, and then focus my efforts in game to finding as many of the smaller leaks as I can. Even though a lot of the spots can be kind of close in the fast pace games we play, getting on the right side and squeezing the edge we have in enough spots can make a good amount of difference to the winrate. Of course it's going to be much more difficult to spot these problems, but if I can keep improving my mental game, I'm confident my energy won't be so wasted during the grind, and my concentration can be put to better use.

Back to 50 games tomorrow, and then we can start upping the volume over the weekend.

Cheers,

Jay