In for the freeroll if its not too late. I'm estimating you finishing the challenge on December 15th.

Subscribed and greetings from Estonia

Not too late bud. Welcome!

19.9.2018 - Football and poker studying

Yesterday I was playing football, watching football(CL started again) and studying poker.

Poker studying:

I think one great way to learn poker is to watch FT-table videos from youtube(just put the speed to 1,5x or 2x and it's more enjoyable): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCif...a4ulgkQ/videos

and then check what the best regs are doing. It has given me a lot of new ideas for my game now, of course, you have to take into account these guys are playing with ICM, so they are playing more cautious than normal. You don't see too many moves at FT-tables.

GLz

20.9.2018 - Get fit challenge Week 1

All right, so the first week's results are in.

Start weight was 109,1kg, now I'm down to 107,6kg, so -1,5kg.

I have done 5 exercise in the first week, didn't eat any junk so very good results and good motivation so far. I am surprised how much this challenge has helped me. I haven't cut all the carbs in my diet. I have been eating a bit of bread, potatoes, porridge in the morning etc. So It's been a quite enjoyable experience so far, just cut some portion amount, aim for 5 meals per day (no more) and no snacking(which was a problem for me).

21.9.2018 - Last weekend in Finland

Last weekend in Finland. Wow. I've been here for 3 months, but by the next weekend, I'll be in a different country. I'm excited, but at the same time sad. It's not easy to leave your friends and family. I guess you always feel that way first, but I know deep down I need to leave. Time for a new adventure. Life is too short to just do the same things all over again. I am still on my path to find a place where I really want to live forever. I hope I will find that place someday. Maybe Austria is a step closer or further, not sure yet.

22.9.2018 - Winter is coming.. And I don't mean Game Of Thrones

I always like when the winter time is coming. It means NHL is starting soon and the best poker season. I feel like the games get the best during winter months because the recreational players are playing more poker, I guess sitting inside and playing with computer. I don't have to feel guilty playing poker inside the house, because of bad weather. Good weather during the summer is not that motivational. It's kinda messed up, but I like the winter grinding months. I enjoy watching NHL at night, so it adds to my life, so when there's one table I can watch NHL and enjoy. It's some old habit from a long time ago. I still enjoy it, not to same level as 10 years ago, but It's definitely one one of the best things during colder times.

23.9.2018 - Flu and Sunday Grind

All right, I've been a little bit sick last two days, so I haven't done any workout or anything else interesting. Mostly just relaxing and recovering from the flu. Today I feel much better and tomorrow I'll be going for a run again.

Today my game plan is to play. Last days of Powerfest on Party, so hopefully I can get a deep run there. I feel like Party hasn't been good for me in a long time, let's see..

24.9.2018 - Free day

Not much happening. Just went shopping for my parents, because they have given me so much the last few months. I was trying to find something they would need, but there's not much what they need. In the end, we found something they could use, so I'm happy. It's wasn't an easy mission.

This week will be interesting, seeing some old friends, packing, buying a bus ticket, because I figured with a lot of stuff it might be the best idea just to take the bus from Munich Airport to Salzburg. First I thought we should go by train, but when you have a lot of stuff, It would be nice to go straight from Airport to Salzburg, so no hassle at the train station etc.

Running challenge: 25.9-28.9, 30km total

About the running challenge, I have done only 2 sports training this week, because I had the flu for two days, so I will do 3 workouts in 2 days. So my goal would be to run before Salzburg (flight Saturday 29.9), 30 km, so in the next 4 days 30km. 12 km tomorrow(morning and evening run 6km, total 12km) and then Wed 6km, Thurs 6km, and Fri 6km, so total 30 km. 29.9 should be free from exercise.

If I don't finish the runs or 30km in 4 days, I will donate 25€ to a reader.

good luck with your training – I hope you enjoy it!

25.9.2018 - The delusion of being great

Let’s assume we are winning player and we know a winning formula in poker. Does it mean we can play and never improve again? No. I have seen so many players through the years, who used to be good, but nowadays they are retired from poker because they couldn’t win anymore. Poker is a constant improvement. If you are not improving, you’re getting worse. That’s, of course, same with everything you do in your life. If you are not improving, you are getting worse, because other people are getting better.

Even when I think about my ”winning formula” in poker, It hasn’t been the same last 6-7 years. It has developed every year little bit, either on poker level or outside the poker. I think it’s very important to realize; you will never know everything and the moment you think you know everything, you get bored and stop improving. I would say, always keep your mind curious and question what other people say. You can even question the solvers because it’s up to you what ranges you put there. Other players rarely play like solvers, so even If you check some spot with solver and it shows you are correct, It doesn’t mean you made the correct call, though. Maybe based on that information, but not according to timing tells, bet sizing tells, player tendencies, population tendencies, etc. Take everything into account, not just what the solver says.

Question yourself:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
I would say start to question yourself more. Start questioning what you are doing well, how can I do this better? How can I do everything better? There’s pretty much no limit how good you can be If you start constantly working on your game and life.
It’s easy to watch FT-table videos and trash the people playing badly when you see their hole cards or trash some other fellow who plays higher stakes than you and asking ”why the heck he do that?”. It’s always the easiest thing to criticize, but does it lead to anything positive? I don’t think so. It’s mostly jealousy. We want to feel we are better than others, but most of the time it’s just jealousy because we aren’t playing in the same games or whatever. We all think we have found the magic formula, which is better than others gameplan because we use it. I think the best results come from many sources; rarely one player has it all figured out. The help of other people is quite crucial in making the best ”formula” in poker. When we have a mind of many players combined, I think we get the best result, because you can pick up the best things from every player. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, copy the talents you could use yourself, and I think it adds to your game quite well. Think about what others do well and pick those good habits and leave the worst. No one’s perfect. It can be a leak in the game or outside the poker tables, in life.

Thanks. Old me would say, no way.. I will hate it. Now though, why wouldn't I enjoy bettering myself? Making myself stronger mentally and physically is a great thing. I used to think way too negatively about running.

26.9.2018 - Mental side of poker

It was a tough month. I didn't play my best and I was on semi-tilt all the time after the first week. I'm not sure, but I think I put too much pressure on this to deliver and when I failed my shots, It kinda killed my spirit. This can't happen again and I will try to improve my mental mind by reading about sports physiology books and get down on it, what happened. I want to improve my mental mind because I think it's the most important thing in life, what your thoughts are. It can determine your quality of life as well. If you want to improve as a person, start inside of your mind. When you have a more positive mind and focus on the right things, I think we can achieve so much more.

Of course, I already have quite a bit information about mental coaching(got coached for a few years) and a couple tricks what to do, but I want to get more advanced level. I will start with few books I bought a couple months ago. It's time to get elite in this area. I think it can give you a big edge, in life and poker.

First of all. Great diary and big respect for youre volume. I also suffer from what you describe about the mental game. Do you think part of it has to do with "feeling" of running bad and comparing to past years of grind where people where worse at mtt poker and didnt need to run as good to make as profit. Hm sorry does that make any sense?

BR Silverfang

Thank you for your kind words!

Hmmp, I think from my part, I have been lazy with the mental preparation for the sessions. I know what I should do before every session.

These are the things I should be doing:

Morning:

Meditate 10 min in the morning.

Before the playing session:

- Meditate 5 min
- Listen to the motivational video (5-10 min), you can stretch at the same time, get your mind ready to achieve things and maybe get some good feelings.
- Visualization, which should take around 5 min total(or longer If you want). What we should do with visualization is to picture all the bad things, which can happen to us, picture us playing the perfect game and at last picturing the greatest poker moment you really had and REALLY try to feel it.
- Check 5 hand histories before playing. I think it's very good to check a few hands before the session, so you have poker in your mind and your mind is already working on poker, before you start. Sometimes you end up doing random plays at the start because you're still not ready for the game and skipped the poker warm-up. It wakes you up for poker, basically.

After session:

- Meditate 10 min.(calm yourself down after the session, so you can have good nights sleep.)
- Good song tip, this should reduce your stress levels a lot and feel calmer after ses. I normally listen to this music right before sleep. Just turn it on and you will feel sleepy in few minutes and calmer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYnA9wWFHLI&t=9503s

Marconi Union - Weightless

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...tune-ever.html

VISUALIZATION


First - The bad things: Visualize yourself playing and then getting unlucky, the worst run you can possibly get and then remain calm while visualizing and try to act like you would want to act in the perfect world. Imagine all the possible bad scenarios and imagine how you would act in the perfect world. This will help our mind survive better these bad beats and other problems we will face because you already had them in your mind and remained calm.

You can do it with every leak you have; let's say mine is getting bored or tired, so just focus in your visualization to your weaknesses and try to picture how you would act in the perfect world, how you would like yourself to act. It will help you in the case it happens during the session.

Second - Playing perfect:
Picture yourself playing perfectly, you're making the correct raises, folds etc. Picture yourself playing perfect poker, enjoying your game and exploiting the **** out of your enemies. Feel the good vibes and the feelings you get from playing great poker. I would stand or sit behind a computer, moving the mouse and imagining the tables on the computer screen, to get a more real feeling.

Third - Picture the best performance you ever had again or the biggest win

Picture the situation where you felt like playing your A-game, the best game you ever played. Get your mind back into this situation and TRY TO FEEL like you are in this moment again. Then picture yourself playing A-game and feel the sensations you had, while doing it. AGAIN Try to feel the REAL emotions you had when you were playing your A-game.



SO in short: I think a lot of my problems comes from lack of preparation and laziness, probably the same for you. That's something I need to fix. When you look at the worlds best athletes, they do visualization a lot. That's something we need to do as well If we want to be the best. Visualize things. Get excited, know what to do, If things go bad etc. It's easier to react when you know how you should react. You can use these things in other things in life as well, not just poker.


BTW:

Now I've been shot taking and the game is more stressful(not as easy to win..). I don't need as much pre-session warmup when I play low stakes. Playing low stakes is stress-free for me, maybe too stress-free to be honest. Playing high stakes, though, Gives me a lot of stress and that's where this preparation would come in handy and stress control is much more important. Preparation is important, but IF you have to play your A-game more often, it becomes crucial. I've been taking these things for granted.

27.9.2018 - Weight Challenge Week 2

Okay, so I got the weight down to 107,3kg, so little bit behind my target weight(107,1kg). Next week going harder with the carbs. Just need to cut more and more. Flu affected my progress last week, I always feel like I need to eat more during flu, I don't know why, but I just can't seem to help it. I guess I miss the taste of food or something.

Did 5 workouts, even with few days out with flu, so very happy. Good effort to end the week.

Running challenge:

Yesterday I did 12km run and the day before 6km, so I have 12km left. Today 6km and tomorrow. Should be easy after a 12km run, that was rough for now. I hope in the future this could be a normal run, for now, a bit too long and tough to do every day.

Very greatfull for youre long and detailed answer.
I will for 100% follow youre advice!!

Wish you all the best in youre challenges and on the tables

28.9.2018 - Packing

Not much else to talk about. Just packing the whole day for the move and then I need to make a 6km run later in the evening. Otherwise goodie goodie..

Thanks! I wish you GL with your new challenge as well.

29.9.2018 - Travel

All right, so everything should be ready for the trip. We had one problem, too many luggages. We both have 2× 23kg luggages and one hand luggage 8kg and one laptop case each and my GF has a small dog as well. It's just too much to carry around. First we checked train, which was quite expensive from Munich to Salzburg, like 44€ per face and you have to switch the train in Munich, which is pain in the ass with so many luggages. So then we checked bus and noticed it goes straight from the Munich airport to Salzburg. Bingo! That could work.. BUT they can't take the dog over border, so it's not possible to go Salzburg with a dog in bus. Then we checked hiring taxi, which would cost 270€ from airport to Salzburg. I was thinking about long time but then we would have to pay first some 20% of the trip by card and the rest cash. It seemed weird to me. Normally I have just paid all in cash, so felt it was a bit weird. I didn't like that option either. Then we started checking rental car option. All right, so first we checked we should take the car for one day from airport to Salzburg but if we leave the car to Salzburg it's super expensive 270e, if you take it for 2 days then it's 190e. It felt too expensive again, so we checked renting car from airport and returning it to same place. Munich airport is only 2 hours from Salzburg so not far. We ended taking a car for 2 weeks for 300€. We can use it in Salzburg and check some places. It felt like the best option for now, but nice mess for the start haha.

30.9.2018 - Salzburg

All right. We arrived to Salzburg late in the evening and went to sleep. It was amazing to walk around Salzburg in the morning and notice the big mountains around us. Driving at night you had no idea you were surrounded by big mountains. Today was very beautiful day and we went to check Eagles nest(Hitlers place during WW2), but we didn't know you would have to hike up for 3 hours, one way so we decided to do it on another day. It seems like everyone has holiday on Sunday so it was very busy as well. We went to check this beautiful lake near to Eagles nest and it was gorgeous. Green/Blueish lake. Unbelievable. Germany/Austria has impressed with it's beauty.

Today evening we will go explore the Salzburg center for the first time. I hope something will be open because most of the things are closed during Sunday. Everything opens again on Monday.

1.10.2018 Flat hunting

It's been tough to a find flat here. It seems like they don't have too many furnished flats available and that's a problem. I don't want to buy new sofa and other things, because it will be tough to move in the future. I guess we are considering Vienna now, because I think they have better options when it comes to flats. I guess we'll see what happens.

2.10.2018 - Fire?!

Great wake up today. We had to wake up 6am to fire alarm. Middle of sleep we hear loud noise and wake up. What the hell is happening? We call the reception and hear there's fire and we need to leave ASAP the hotel. So we quickly grab jacket, laptops. I tell my GF to pick the most important things and she takes dog food with her, so the dog will be at least fine. Haha. I guess we were a bit in panic but at the end it felt unrealistic. I always thought these things only happen in movies. I guess not. We walk outside from the stairs and wait with rest of the people for the firemen. They go in and come out in 5 minutes. I only saw one rolling up "Fire blanket" so I assume there was a small fire but they got it under contr9l immediately. So nothing bigger.. Funny start for the day though.

Flat hunting.

It's not easy. No furnished flats available, so we probably have to take empty flat and furnish it with some IKEA stuff. More news tomorrow.. Hopefully we will have couple flats to see tomorrow.

2.10-7.10 Wall of text, write everyday ffs

All right. A lot of things to write about. Sorry about the long break. I've been a bit down about mission Salzburg. It doesn't look like things will go down as I liked, so tomorrow we are driving to Hungary... Read more lower:

Football: It was a great week of Football, 2-4.10. Champions League is always joy to watch and I'm glad after these rounds there's plenty of interesting games left. I'm glad Valencia got draw vs United. Makes their group very interesting. Barca beating Tottenham puts them in very tough spot. I'm not sure if they will recover from this. Losing to Inter away was a tough beat for Tottenham. Losing home to Barca was no surprise, because they have so many injuries right now. Barca hasn't impressed in LaLiga at all but I guess even their entitled and old crew gets sometimes excited by big CL games. Messi showed up and that's enough most of the times for Barca. Rest of the team played good as well.

Thursday we had opportunity to go watch Europe League game, Salzburg vs Celtic. I just remember it was a very busy day and at the end we were just happy to stay at hotel and watch the match. Celtic fought well but lost at the end, I thought the ref gave quite harsh red card to Celtic, which basically ended the match to Salzburgs win. It was fun to follow Celtic fans coming up our hotel in Salzburg. Normally so quiet Salzburg got a lot of action. Police was ready outside the Irish pubs for possible fights(match day). Gotta love the passion Celtic fans showed and boy do they love drinking. The hotel lobby smelled even in the morning after their nightly drinking.

Renting a flat in Salzburg/Austria:

Not an easy task. We wanted to find a furnished flat in Salzburg. Not an easy tas. first of All, almost all flats are not furnished, so not many options. Then we have a small dog, it cut few options as well. Then we had language barrier while asking on a phone if they speak English: "nein" and call ends. Rental length was also not optimal, apparently here they make only 3-4 year rental contracts, but you can leave after one year, If you want. So min. Rental time is one year. We never wanted to commit here longterm(3-4 years), maybe one year. It seems the best most of the time, them move on. Then we also had problem with bureaucracy(which we found out later), that we would have to get longterm residency permission after 3-4 months. Good note to myself, always check these facts before you travel and try to move somewhere. Hah.

At the end we started lowering our expectations and started looking for 1 bedroom places(basically I need one bedroom for my office), so one bedroom is not ideal but we wanted to give it all and check flats without furniture as well. It gave us more options.
As someone moving around a lot. You don't want to own furniture. It's simply annoying. I feel like I have too much already with me, so I wonder what kind of burden big amount of furniture would be. Normally I leave my tables/chairs to whoever rented the place to me or take those to charities. I think it's fine way. A bit of a waste but I don't see myself moving this stuff around Europe, unless I had truck and truck license.. Then it would be fine. I hate the idea of buying furniture, building them up, then selling them/throwing away after one year.

BTW I like IKEAs idea of taking back old furniture and giving you discount on a new one. It seems a quite good system and we can keep these old furniture going to use again instead of junkyard. Our resources in the world are not unlimited.

Exercise/moving/Diet/weight

Exercise:

We have been walking here on Average 11km per day, so few hours a day. I count that as an exercise, because I don't feel bad about not moving more. We've been exploring the nature, flats, salzburg etc. At the end quite satisfied with the movement. I want to get back to regular exercising though, but living in hotel never feels like your own home and having same routines seems tougher to keep up. Also this feels like semiholiday trip. Weird trip.

Diet:

It's been tricky. We are staying at hotel, so we have been eating at restaurant for a one week. I think my restaurant choices been quite excellent, outside of local beer what I have tried. Certainly beer is not something you want to have too much if you are losing weight. I think drinking beer has slowed down my progress(if I still have progress!??), but otherwise I'm quite happy.

Restaurants are full of temptations but we have been trying to stick to as much as possible to health Restaurants, vegetarian etc and if you go to Austrian restaurant choose the healthiest meal you can. Basically every restaurant today offers salad. Few times I had steak with salad, quite good as well. I don't want to eat too much red meat, though.

Weight:

I'm curious about my weight because I have no idea if I am gaining or losing. I think I should be at least at the same when we left but it's tough to say. It would be crushing if I would be back at the start weight. First thing when we find a flat in Budapest, I will go buy a scale. I need to see my weight daily to push myself. It's a great reminder. I am a bit scared to see the scale number. I hope I have done okay. I don't want to make the rest of the challenge torture for myself. I will give my All, though, till the end.. I still believe I will lose the weight. It's a great challenge.

Eagles nest hiking trip:

Last Friday we had a great weather here and we decided to hike the mountain up to Eagles nest (history of it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehlsteinhaus). It was a good idea but bad reading skills of signs led us to follow googlemaps, which was a big mistake. We walked first somewhere one kilometer and then started hiking up, googlemaps said the trip would take 1,5 hours. For someone who doesn't hike that much(basically never), that sounded just fine. 1,5 hours is not that bad. The truth was something else..

Anyway, even the start of our journey was a bit sketchy because googlemaps was showing us to go way, which had earlier some red tape crossing the road but someone had cut it. We decided to take the road anyway, because that's where the googlemaps is saying and it could be an good adventure. We also took our Chihuahua with us and his bag, so we could carry him time to time.(Small dogs get tired).

The road was not well maintained. My GF was a bit scared and the lack of other people was a bit weird as well. I guess this wasn't the main road to Eagles nest. We were a bit worried but googlemaps was still showing us forward so we just kept going. After 30 mins we saw some old house. It was like straight from horror movies. My internet stopped working at the same time. Thank God it was day time because at night these forests would be scary as ****. Human mind is powerful coming up with ****ed up stories. Anyway, we just quickly walked past the house(I think the front door was open), but we didn't see anyone. It just felt unreal, internet stops working when the creepy house shows up. I just wanted to see if we were still on the right way. We were. Internet started working again for a bit and I was able to check our location. We kept walking and the signs were saying 3 hours to top, 4 hours to top, 2,5 hours to top(EN). I guess someone was trolling us with changing the signs. It made no sense. Googlemaps was telling us 1 hour, signs 2,5 - 4 hours. What to believe??

We just kept walking and after 1,5 hours, when we're supposed to arrive at the location or be near it, I couldn't get my internet working again. So technically googlemaps was right. It knew at what point the internet would crash(and googlemaps trip is over), but we were not even close to end. We still had to hike few more hours to get to the top. Normally i trust googlemaps quite a bit but not as much after this trip, at least not on my hikes. Lesson learned in that regard as well.

All right. I think this became too long post already. I will post tomorrow more after we arrive to Budapest. Cya!

8.10-12.10 Budapest

Okay, so after the rocky start in Salzburg, we decided to move to Budapest. We first had to book a hotel in Budapest, then drive to Budapest, which takes about 5 hours driving. Budapest felt massive compared to Salzburg. Salzburg is a beautiful small city, so clean, elegant, etc. Budapest is very big, dirty and massive, in every way. Budapest has beautiful architecture and a lot of history. So many things to do, but it’s quite contrast compared to Salzburg. I like Salzburg more because these days I’m quite happy with quiet life, I prefer quiet streets, etc. So I would rather live in Salzburg, but I guess sometimes life throws you a curve ball.

Returning the rental car

Gosh, this was a mess. I had to drive back from Budapest to Munich Aiport. It was massive drive, and we had to return the car before 15:30, so we had to leave super early, at least for our standards. We had to wake up 04:30 in the morning and start driving 05:00 to Munich. The drive was nice, but when you’re lacking sleep driving can be quite dangerous, and I had to drive myself the whole way because we didn’t take extra driver because we thought we would only stay in Salzburg (which is only 2-hour drive from Munich, easy-peasy..). No point paying the extra driver, If you drive few hours. The drive from Budapest to Munich takes about 7 hours. I was so happy to arrive at the Munich airport after the drive. I was exhausted, dead tired. Half asleep. Train ride back (which took 6-7 hours) was very easy. You just lay there half-dead and hope the trip is over.

We had 12 min time to change the train in Vienna to one going to Budapest. We got lucky, because the train was right next to where our stopped, so we had plenty of time to change the train. Next train was old as **** though. Maybe from the 60s. I have to admit, paying for these train tickets ~300€ is a bit outrageous(total for two train rides). The train from Munich to Vienna was nice, but Vienna to Budapest was quite low quality. At least we had our four-person room(for two) because the train wasn’t full so it was OK, but I think the train experience is getting too expensive in Europe. Same in Finland as well. Train used to be cheap way to travel, at least compared to airplanes, but I can’t say the same anymore. Of course some ways, the train is more convenient than airplanes, because you can hop in and that’s it. Waiting at airports is boring. Anyway, 15 kilometers before Budapest we stopped for 40 mins because something was not working. Not sure what happened to train, but at the end, we ended up arriving to Budapest 00:00, so about 40 minutes late from the scheduled time. It was very long 40 minutes. I was dead tired after the day and just wanted to give up, go to sleep, but I didn’t want to end up in Bucharest. Hah.

Budapest

First I was a bit sad we had to leave Austria and move to Hungary, but at the same time, when one door closes, other opens. Budapest is not what I had in my mind when I had planned move to Austria. I guess both cities have their problems and good things. Salzburg everyone looked like they had nice life, good life, but at the same time, it’s not “buzzing” city, where things happen, and people are ambitious. I have big goals for life, and I want to achieve them. I think living in small city, might make me lazy. Vibrant and energized environment is probably better for now.

Expenses: wow

It’s so much cheaper in Budapest than Salzburg. It’s insane. You go to restaurant, shop, etc. It’s 50% cheaper. It’s mental difference. I used to live in Malta for one year, and during that time, I got used to local prices. Malta and especially Sliema is getting very expensive and now living here in Budapest, things are dirt cheap. It’s quite hard to understand how cheap this city is. I guess it works well with my goal to save money and invest, so that’s not bad. I can live very good quality here for less money. I would have spent so much more money in Salzburg for rent, restaurants and everything else. We are probably talking about 40%-50% savings per month when it comes to living, that’s massive! Expense wise it makes a lot of sense to live here and that’s good.

I hope Budapest works out because otherwise, I have no idea what to do. Move back to Finland? Nah, don’t want that. Move back to Czech? Complicated. You can’t play on many sites there. Malta? Nah, a bit bored with it. Not too great options in Europe left If you want to play on most of the poker sites.

Go Pukki, Go Finland BTW!! Big win yesterday vs Estonia in Football.