Open a tim hortons

haha those things are a gold mine especially if you bought one in like the 80s or 90s. Believe nowadays they are pretty saturated around here and cost around ~600k to open one up. I also don't like how the same company that owns Burger King bought them and it appears their menu keeps getting "fatter and fatter". They seem to be drifting from a coffee/donut quick stop shop to being like more of a fast food type restaurant.

The franchise idea is actually pretty interesting and viable imo some friends and I half-seriously joke about opening up a Subway in the small town we grew up in. It has been growing like crazy and went from having 1 school there to 3 schools in a matter of 15 years and the population has probably tripled. There is no Tim's or Subway or any reasonable food option for that matter-despite the heavy commuter and residential traffic flowing through it. From what I can tell Subway as a company has been going through difficult times and having to close a lot of locations. (Who would have thought when their product is over priced and nothing above mediocre).

This is a newer/"healthier"/trendier franchise that my friend has some ties with, could be a prospect

https://www.freshii.com/ca/en-ca/rosedale

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Sorry for leaving a long-ass response over a small troll-ish suggestion lol

haha only mildly trollish. I find the idea of small business/franchising interesting though and depending on what's available to you it def could make some sense. I've looked into it before but don't think it's something I'd ever do ultimately. Although my friend lives in Hoboken NJ (popular area right outside of NYC) and if property costs weren't so insanely expensive it'd be a perfect place to open a wawa's.

yeah it's definitely quite appealing for a lot of reasons imo but not sure if it's my jam or not haha

A couple hands from live grind tonight:

1.Bought in for 200 and widdled down to approx. 130 or so. Limped AKo UTG and BTN made it 15, SB who is lag kid makes it 47, i jam, BTN calls other kid folds. BTN has AQ I ask him if he wants to run it twice, he says nah, window card Q I didn't improve nhnh.

2. I limp AK again off 130$ stack later in the game, someone makes it 15$ and a bunch of callers, I jam and kid on BTN has tough time making a fold and starts saying stuff about "tournament move etc" everyone folded and I scooped a nice pot only telling this hand as it's relevant later.

3. I do the same thing as previous two hands with KK and double up off the kid who raise called TT for ~70bbs. Doubt I limp jam a worse pocket pair than TT this deep tbh but w/e.

4. I pick up KK and open to 15$ off approx. 250$ stack. Loose guy in cutoff calls, BTN is this "reg" who has been talking hand histories all night so I gain some decent insights into his mindset/skill level etc from that. For w/e reason I think he felt there was some dynamic between him and I while I was just playing value hands like a nit.

Anyways, he squeezes to 55$. Perhaps I should just 4 bet get this in here but really felt like he was light for w/e reason and also feel 4 betting folds out bluffs, although we obv miss value vs. like AK/QQ type stuff. I flatted, cutoff guy folds.

Flop is like 568 rainbow or something goes check check.

Turn brings 4d that brings in a flush draw, I don't hold a diamond. I actually decided to lead 55$ here as I have a lot of bluffs and I think I can get value from flush draws or like A high type holdings. Essentially merging my value range-I didn't think he would have a better hand very often other than like 78ss or 67ss which imo these hands just get called wayyyyy more than 3 bet in live games+when he has to 3 bet to 55 his range should become a lot tighter prob and more blocker heavy (in theory). Felt it was fairly likely I had the best hand and was going to go for another street of value on brick rivers.

River brings off suit K, so I'm only losing to 7x which I slightly discounted combos from his range-felt he has way more A highs or 1 pair hands. Had like ~155 behind or something and jammed for value he snaps with 78o. My hand might play better as a check call on the river in case he does have like A or Kx dd and decides to bluff-but doubt it. Part of a correct value betting strategy is value cutting yourself against better hands occasionally-which I did here. Tbh I like my line and no point dissecting his other than he played it well post flop. Pre flop line is pretty lol but as the live regs say "maybe he had a read and was makin a move". They seem to abandon any type of logic and totally neglect hand strength when they do this making their range completely FOS, I guess I sorta owned him (in a weird way though). He won the $ nh wp sir gg.


-------------------

There was maybe 1 or 2 more interesting hands but I like talking about the hands I lost more because it almost feels like I gain some closure on them. Moreover, re-affirming that I played well or screwed up. I try to be objective but it's tough when the wounds are still fresh

Anyways, a garbage man shouldn't complain about picking up garbage. An accountant shouldn't complain about crunching numbers. A stripper shouldn't complain about having to get naked in front of greasy guys. A customer service rep shouldn't complain about getting bitched at by angry customers. A professional poker player shouldn't complain about dealing with variance-it's all part of the job.

-------------------

Really feels like I'm playing well and having a lot of massive edges in these lives games but am just running sick bad. Maybe I'm wrong and I suck and these "high school regs" are takin' ovaaaa!

Day off tomorrow heading to my friend's cottage I'll be back for a nice sunday session. GN fam!

Grats!

Thank You

Wow, I really don't know where to start with this post. I've had so many different things festering in my mind the last few days. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so rather than driveling on I'll begin this post with a picture:

https://gyazo.com/44d293245ed93c65356efc6b963f305a

I guess from the outside looking in this picture might resemble something along the lines of a finished product. You know? At first glance you probably see a 27 year old guy that's decent at poker and ran like a deer in heat in what is seemingly a mine field of a tournament and has finally checked off a major item on his poker dream bucket list. Along with being my biggest ever tournament score this was also my first ever major live tournament win. I can't express how much I've appreciated all of the overwhelming support I've received from everyone from random people stopping to congratulate me while walking through the tournament venue, to my poker and non-poker friends, my family, and just the community as a whole. Oh yeah, I can't forget about all of the support my blogs have received over the last 5 years. Through thick and thin I knew I could always come and splurge out anything that was on my mind and always received great feedback/advice/trolls or just even a little support when things were feeling desolate. When I looked back and saw that one of my blogs in previous years received ~100k views or something I was really quite proud of that. To know that there are that many people out there who give enough ****s to read some of the random stuff I have to talk about or even tell me they can relate or learn from me...it means the world to me. When times are grim in poker very few people have sympathy for you outside of the game. The bank does not care if you lost a massive chip lead flip on FT bubble of the PCA Main event or how long your downswing is. They care that you pay your debts to them. In times of despair and desperation you rely on the community to bring you back up.

I'd be lying if I said this tournament win happened over night. I'd also be lying if I said I did not run like some type of Fedor Holz/Justin Bonomo hybrid machine to win this tournament. I mean, Jamie Gold could have won this tournament with my luck. I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity and to fulfill a seemingly universal poker dream-winning a live tournament. I owe it to every single degen in the struggle to savour every single moment of this upswing. I also owe it to the 18 year old kid 10 years ago who decided he was going to devote everything he had to this game in order to set himself up for a brighter future. That same kid who sacrificed everything to make this work.

In poker it's usually the guys who are running the best who get the spotlight. I want to make it clear that I could not have done any of this without so many people and a lot of run good. However, I think this upswing began a long time before I even played my first hand of poker...

This upswing began with my parents and how they raised me to never give up and to always believe in myself. They raised me to give full devotion to what I believed in. Variance can be a cruel, cruel, cruel mistress and there's been so many times in poker where I've literally felt broken down and ready to throw in the towel. No matter how bad I was running or how defeated I was I always rose to the occasion and did what I had to do to get back on my feet. I was a hair away from quitting this game more times than anybody would ever realize. Even though my parents urged me to quit more times than I can count I owe it to them for raising me to have the tools in my mindset to accomplish this.


This upswing began when my uncle showed me how to play Texas Hold'em at Christmas dinner one night.

This upswing began when I was failing classes early in University and battling a lot of feelings of depression and crippling social anxiety. I owe a lot to my friend who always dragged me to class at 8:30 AM and forced me to study calculus with him. That same friend would always tell me he believed in my poker abilities and funded my Pokerstars account with 50-100$ pre-paid Mastercards every single Sunday so I could play some tournaments. Ironically, one day several years later I called him saying I was stone broke and was ready to fire out resumes and get a job. He told me "GTFO Mike you have your pulse on this game and if you know what's good for you keep fighting. How much money do you need?" I told him I'd need like 2-3k to get back on my feet and he snap lent me 10k no questions asked. I'll never forget that because from there everything turned. Not many people believed in me at that point including myself.

This upswing began with my friends who never once judged me for choosing poker as my early adulthood living. They stood by me since day one and gave me so much support.

This upswing began with stealing toonies/loonies/quarters out of my dad's change collection and exchanging them for 20$ bills so I could sneak into the local bar when I was 18 and play in the weekly tournament there. (Don't worry dad I've since replaced all of that). Shoutout to all the guys in the local home games I've played in over the years who always gave me a lot of kind encouragement and good fun whenever I played with them. These games were a great training ground for live poker.

Lastly, I want to shoutout everybody along the journey who has supported me in any type of way. In poker emotions always tend to flair and it's easy to get out of control and say some things that can be out of line. I've definitely been guilty of this from time to time and it's something I've been working on. In tournaments everything feels like life or death but at the end of the day this is only a stupid card game and possibly the best advice I ever took at the poker table was when I was 19 years old playing 1/2 and an old man told me "son, you don't take money to the grave with you." Just like everybody else I make mistakes and am working to be my best self every single day. The money doesn't mean much when it's all said and done.

This tournament win is dedicated to everybody who's believed in me and supported me since day one. It also goes out to my good friend Mackenzie who passed away shortly after high school and I know would be very proud to see this. I'll be donating some money to a cause related to her at some point and would encourage anybody who invested in this score to do the same (even if just a small piece).

So yeah, I'm just another fish on a heater but I couldn't have done it without you all! I will sleep a happy man tonight.

Thank you, Mike, WalmartCNXN.

----------------------

PS

I've really come to realize how much I've undervalued my health in the past. The month of march will feature 0 poker for me and will be strictly focused on health and rebuilding. This tourney run took a lot out of me. Maybe one day I'll talk about it more in specific but for now I'm exhausted and this post is already quite long winded!

PPS

I was in a pretty big pot just after the money bubble burst on day 2 and this recreational player who was having a blast and having fun showed quite a bit of heart in a lot of hands just doing like crazy air ball bluffs etc. Long story short I got into a ridiculous pot with him and faced a massive river bet where i was like fairly sure he was bluffing (in a spot nobody bluffs ever). I decided my stack utility was too corrupted on such a soft table by calling and losing, whereas folding and losing minimal and having a big stack was very nice EV. I tank folded and moved on.

When I was on final table that same player came and found me and congratulated me on getting deep and said it was fun playing with me and commented on how well he thought I played. He told me "great fold buddy I can't believe you folded that hand I had the nut boat". This kinda gave me a boost of confidence lol.

The next day he came up to me and said "hey buddy I actually did bluff you there I had AQ (total airball), I didn't want to spin you out of control or put you on tilt I wanted you to keep on your A game and have the confidence cuz I wanted you to win the FT."


(Not sure why I told this story but it kinda made me feel a bit warm and fuzzy inside lol)


ANYWAYS FO REAL THIS TIME GOOD NIGHT AND THANK YOU FOR READING. I'LL ALSO TAKE MARCH OFF OF UPDATING THIS BLOG AND POKER AS A WHOLE TO FOCUS STRICTLY ON LIFE AND HEALTH.

-Mike

Congrats dude, hope you had a big piece of it and hope the upswing continues!

Congrats, Mike! Enjoy your March off and look forward to more poker and updates in April.

one for the good guys!!! longtime reader, absolutely delighted for you, onwards and upwards!!! <3 <3 <3

Congrats man, that's incredible

<3

Wow man, that is awesome. Enjoy the big score. Good on you for focusing on health in the coming weeks.

that's fvcking amazing. so happy for you mate

grtaz !

very nice post, congrats on the score!

congrats bro
enjoy your winnings <3

Thanks so much guys! I appreciate all the love Been a loooooong last few days and I'm still trying to get back into homeostasis.

Like I said before I'm taking the month of March totally away from poker to focus just on fitness/nutrition/life loving/meditation/mental health etc. I might update the blog from time to time but I'm going to try avoid talking about poker too much. I just want a decent sized break from this game-one that I haven't ever had since I started playing.

-----------------------

Next few days I'm doing a prop-bet with my friend Egption for the month and will also have a better idea of anything special I'll be doing over the course of the month. Hopefully I get some cool non-poker stuff to talk about for once


GNGN andGLLG

Sup d00ds?

As previously mentioned I'm taking a 1 month hiatus away from poker from March 1st @ 10 A.M. until April 1st. I'm sorta doing like a farewell for a month final home game tomorrow and then will disappear into the abyss until April 1st.

Since starting to play this game in ~2009 or so I don't think I've ever had a full 1 month break. This seems like a fitting time to take a step back and re-evaluate where I am and pay some attention to my health as a whole. There's definitely been times where my physical and mental health took a back seat to my poker ambitions. I've had some epiphanies about that and it's time to just focus on "me" for a month. Here's some guidelines:

1. Gym minimum 4x/week, and the 3 other days must at least have: sports, walks, physical activity that boosts heart rate.

2. Fix the diet again. Things have fell off the rails last 2 months. 6 days/week I'm going to follow my personal diet regime. 1 day per week is a freebie and I can eat whatever I want (or drink).

3. 30 minutes of meditation per day-no exception. Something I want to get back into and have widely abandoned it last year or so.

4. Sensory deprivation tank 90 minutes per week for the month of March.

5. Read 2 books during the month. Surely will find lots of free time in absence of pokerz and will need productive things in replacement.

6. Take in everything and think about wtf my plan is.

PS: Might post in this blog a couple times over the month but I will avoid talking about anything poker related.

-----------------------------

It's funny man, every time my back is against the wall in poker I pull a miracle out of my ass. Just a few weeks ago I was so close to quitting this game and every bit of me was finally beginning to be at peace with it. You know? Just a clean break from the game. I don't think I could ever play poker recreationally because I've always had an obsessive/addictive feeling to the game. Simply put, I couldn't do this half assed.

Very few people quit poker on a high note. Actually, very few people quit poker in general. Quite often people quit playing poker for a living when their hands are forced-they can't stay afloat any longer. Eventually, this game draws them back in whether it's flicking a few tournaments on a Sunday, playing a home game, or full-fledged grinding.

For better or for worse this game will always be a big part of me. So much of who I've shaped into (literally and figuratively) is the result of playing poker for a living for 10 years. Honestly, I have some tough questions to ask myself over the next month because 100% I'm certain I don't want to spend another 10 years grinding poker...for so many reasons.

--------------------

Not really sure what the purpose of this passage was but yolo. I'll be back to check in on this thread a few times over the course of March. Hope you guys are all doing well and ready to have a nice month as well

Til next time

book suggestion : Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

****ing congrats man, it was about time!

ty my dude. somewhere down the line maybe

ty!

Hey guys,

Month off poker has been fairly satisfying thus far. There's a lot more time in the day where I'll be pondering how I can spend some time and instead of just resorting to poker I've been allocating that time to things deserving of my attention instead. Only 4 days into the month and I've already got several errands off my plate that I've been putting aside for months. Overall, things have been quite productive on my end and it's been nice to just take a step outside of the poker realm and not feel obliged to grind day in and day out.

I know I said I would try to avoid talking about poker during the month of March but here's a little bit of an "epiphany" that I've had recently (Charlie Carrel pun for those who get it). Will try my best not to talk too much about GTO and actually relate this to irl bs too.

------------

In my final year of University there is this class called "Policy" which is a mandatory summative course for all Business students. The course is taken very seriously by all of the students because the course is cumulative of everything you've learned throughout your time studying. At the beginning of the semester you have to pick a team of 6 people and do various challenges throughout. At the very end of the year you have to prepare a 1 hour presentation on a "case" given out at the start of the semester and compete against all other graduates in front of judges. The case we were given was basically on McDonald's restaurants recent struggles (at the time) and to provide strategic recommendations for the company moving forward. I believe they had just had 2-3 consecutive losing quarters at the time.

Upon being assigned this case we had about ~4 months to work on it. My team spent so many hours researching, debating, planning, preparing etc. I can think of a few times where we debated hard and came up with a plan only to change it a few days later.

Obviously, the problem was that times were changing and McDonalds is such a massive company that large scale changes are very costly and difficult to implement. For example there has been trends moving towards healthy eating, or having a "cafe experience", or having a "gourmet experience". I guess when we looked at the case it was evident that McDonald's was trying to cater to several different target groups.

Our first instinct was to think "how can we boost sales?" We discussed everything from promotions to structural changes to marketing changes to menu changes that appeal to many target groups. Everyone was sort of stumped and we spent so much time debating and eventually decided on a plan, only to scrap all of our work a few weeks later.

The plan to scrap it came when a heated debate arose between our team and one guy just stopped and said "Guys, every other team is going to be fighting over the same ball meanwhile there is a ball off in the distance that is all ours. Look, the answer is right in front of our faces but we've been way over-complicating this whole thing." He wrote out the core-competencies of McDonald's on the black board which were something like: speed, convenience, consistency, and price. He then explained how everything the company was currently implementing hurt their core competencies. (McDonald's was experimenting with gourmet burgers, building cafes within their stores, expanding their menu etc)...all of this increased prices, decreased speed, and decreased convenience.

All of us had some major epiphanies about this and instantly our case presentation became extremely easy. Scrap all of these fancy additions and focus strictly on speed, price, consistency, and convenience. Sure you might not be able to appeal to the vegan soccer mom-but you don't hurt valuable customers by catering to her. (Obviously our case was much more in depth but for the lack of boring the fk out of everybody I'll keep it at that).

Our final presentation came and we blew the judges out of the water. The one professor said this was the best Policy presentation he'd seen in all of his years teaching the course. I remember in the award ceremony our team got announced as the winners and all of the other teams scoffed at us and couldn't believe why "adding organic options to the menu" couldn't have won them the competition.

So, how does this random anecdote apply to poker?

I spent so much time chasing this "GTO" ball. In the last 2 years or so I was constantly studying hands in pio solver and really focusing on implementing a theoretically sound strategy. Much like in the case above, I've realized the answers aren't in running millions of pio sims and developing a perfectly unexploitable strategy. The answer was right in front of my face the whole time and was so simple...but I was too distracted by the "GTO" ball to see it.

The thing is as humans we're always looking for definite answers that come out of the solver as black and white, or right or wrong. We like to think "oh, well pio checks this hand on this flop 80% of the time, so we need to check this hand 80% of the time and that is correct." I mean, I wish poker was this simple, where you could just have a clear cut decision every time. The reality is that NOBODY is playing theoretically perfect. Why are we trying to create a strategy that breaks even against another perfect strategy? Why are we not choosing a strategy that wins the most against an unbalanced strategy?

On another tangent I think assuming that pio solver plays perfect in MTTs is also a massive misconception. The solvers seem to miss some massively important factors: stack utility, edge of x option compared to edge of remaining stack when lose/edge of stack when win, how many hands until the blinds increase, strength of remaining field.

When I was deep in that live tournament there was an occasion where 2 short stack players jammed all in and I folded AKo, a spot where SB jammed 15bbs and I folded ATo in the BB, and a spot SB jammed 12bbs and I folded KJss in the BB. Under every theoretical calculator these spots are clear calls. However, do the calculators factor in that you're able to open almost every hand and take the blinds down with very little resistance? Do they factor in that players are jamming much tighter than optimal? Do they factor in that your stack getting corrupted by losing an all in drastically hurts your EV?

In a hypothetical example: if you are playing heads up and can steal a player's big blind every time you're on the button with 100% efficiency-why would you give him the chance to take all of your chips when he jams from the SB and you have pocket aces in the big blind? Why would you give him any chance to get your stack when you know you can wither it down hand by hand eventually?

In tournaments why are we caring about being unexploitable? We should be asking ourselves what is the highest EV option against our opponent's strategy. Understanding this is the easy part: calculating it is the hard/impossible part

DISCLAIMER: By no means am I saying FK GTO. It is actually extremely useful to know what optimal solutions are because you can understand how much you need to deviate exploitatively. Obviously, if our opponent plays perfect GTO poker...we need to play perfect GTO poker to break even...if we see too many perfect GTO players...it's time to retire from poker.

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Can you tell I've had a lot of free time today? I could be completely wrong here and maybe GTO is the way forward and playing a perfect GTO strategy will win you more money than an exploitative strategy.

All I'm saying is that the masses seem to be fighting over one ball...but there's another one right in the open that is all ours...in school competitions, in poker, and in life. Just because a belief is popularly held does not mean it's correct.

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Same **** I've been finding out about life. Contrary to popular belief the masses are often extremely uneducated and misinformed. I probably sound like some wack job conspiracy theorist here but we'll talk about some misbeliefs another day


Back to vacation I go, hope someone out there enjoyed the rant (if you all didn't fall asleep).

Peace!

I don't disagree with a fair bit of that. I do think you need to be careful not to be results oriented though. I don't think winning this one specific tourney is really evidence of these folds being correct. I think you are for sure correct though that you can make some significant deviation explo folds based on likely human behaviors.