Hi again!

A little bit about my background, Pokerstars nickname: STEROIDhulk, explains the name of the thread. I'm from Finland, but I like traveling and living in other countries, so in the last 7-8 years I haven't been much in Finland. Next, I'm hoping to go to the land of "God runs", so Austria, Salzburg, I hope I will find my Fedor runs there. So Austria should be my new destination and I'll be moving there from Finland after the tournament series are done around 26th of September, but more of it when I actually have a date when I'm moving. Now only the location has been set, nothing else.

I wanted to start a new thread about my projects/challenges. At the moment I am working on building a new company for coaching. I've been playing poker for a long time(7-8 years as a pro), so I'm trying to find new challenges in it. Of course, you can always play higher and higher, but after so many years of playing, I'm interested in doing something else as well, so I figured I should get into coaching. It seems something I could pursue on the side, while playing poker, so it seems a perfect fit. I hope my thread can inspire you to improve your game, improve your life, travel and have some good laughs. I think poker can use some positive influence, so I will try to keep it as positive as possible, even in the dark times (downswings), but sometimes we are allowed meltdown or two.

Playing itself, I've been around low-mid-high stakes for a long time. I think I could always play $109s daily, but mostly my problem's been it takes playing few tables at the same time, instead of grinding my favorite 15 tables. I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so I like playing more tables, but It's tough to beat high stakes these days playing a lot of tables, so that's something I am trying to improve on, playing fewer tables, taking more notes, focusing on 8-10 tables max. It seems so slow compared to playing 15 tables, but I've noticed a big difference in my game when I play 8-10 games at the same time because I can exploit people so much better than playing 15 tables. So, I guess for now my thread should be about MTT stakes $40-$50. I am hoping I could step into high rollers in one year, but It still takes some work and bankroll.

A little bit about my goals.

1. Play in WSOP 2019. I have never been to Vegas and that’s something I need to pursue. I’ve been poker player for too long and never played in Vegas. Time to make my dream come true and visit. Hopefully I could play there the whole summer, but even few weeks would be good. At least play the most smaller buy-in events, like $500-$1,5k. Depending on roll next year.
2. Play high stakes by next year. Average buy-in $80+.
3. Get the coaching business going and help people crush MTTs.
4. Study the game inside and out. Figure out my leaks and identify how I can fix them.
5. Keep working on my fitness. It seems the easiest thing to skip in my schedule, that needs to change.

What my thread should include:
- VLOGS
- Travel stories
- Poker life
- Hand Histories
- PIO calculations
- Life tips
- Stories about general life
- Inspirational challenges
All right.. Time to start doing, not writing.

Sunday 26.8.2018, Standing desk:

Hello guys, I've been experimenting standing desk for 2 months. I've been a professional poker player for 7-8 years and I've gotten quite sick of sitting too many hours per day, that's why my father decided to build me standing desk(poor man's standing desk haha), so I could test it for a few months. Here are my ideas about it:

Standing desk:

+ Good energy levels. I feel like my energy levels are stable, no big changes even after meals and stuff like that. When you're sitting and you eat a big meal, it's easy to feel a bit tired after, but standing you don't feel the same. You always feel quite good energy levels.
+ I feel more healthy. I don't have to sit. I also feel more productive and less lazy.
+ Easier to move things from the table. Eating and drinking are easier.
+ Nice to move all the time
+ I use more calories while standing.
+ It's good for the posture. I think I have improved my posture during these 2 months and I need to lean front less than earlier. It really helps with my posture and that's one of the most important things with the standing desk.

- If you have a perfect sitting position, I think it's easier to play a lot of tables, but not a big concern for me now, because I want to play fewer tables than usual.
- Feet start to hurt, but this is an easy thing to fix. First of all, buy rubber matt under your feet (Takes less effort stand I would say and feels nicer than a normal floor. Normal floor is very tough in general, so matt lower the resistance and makes standing more comfortable.) As long as you take your 5-minute breaks and sit down, I don't see a big problem with my feet hurting. I had one 12 hour session and every 5 minutes I tried to sit down as long as possible, so I could take a break and even after 12 hours I could still stand no problem. You get used to it and as long as you take your breaks, there's no downside with this.
- Standing position can be awkward and I think that could be a problem for me. I like to put my other foot over another one, so If you stand long-time like this, It's hard for me to believe it would be good position long-term because it puts quite a lot of pressure on your hip. So focus on your position and you should be good. Put the matt in a good spot as well, so you can stand nicely on it.




All-in-all. I highly recommend standing desk. I love it. I think the good things outweigh the bad things by far and I feel much better about myself grinding these hours with standing desk than sitting.

27.8.2018, nice start for the Monday!




Nice ship today morning! I had an appointment with a dentist, so I had to leave early in the morning, so I could only sleep one-hour last night. I guess It was worth it now, but I was lucky at the final table and running god mode, so that helped, otherwise would have been nasty. I still need to go through the hands and make sure I made the right plays, but it's not easy to keep playing well 6-8am. I was pretty exhausted at that point, but I assume everyone was.

I hope losing my wisdom teeth is not going to affect my game in any way. I feel now, after eating ice cream and few hours after the operation. I'm happy it's done, so I don't need to think about it for some time now.

28.8.2018 Recovery, sleep etc.

I think sleep is one of those underrated things, which is easy to think "I don't need it", sleep is for losers. At the same time, what makes use perform our best? Sleep and proper recover from sessions. After the all-nighter playing poker, it's great to take a day off and sleep properly the next day, so you can get back to your normal schedules. These irregular schedules effect especially MTT players because sometimes our games go a few hours longer than usual.

My tips for good sleep and recovery:

- Read a book, some fictional book before sleep. Self-help books tend to be too tough to read the middle of the night.
- Meditation, calm your body down. Even 10-minute meditation helps a lot and makes you calmer and less stressed.
- Sauna. As a Fin I love sauna. Just one tip: Don't sleep in it. It's not healthy haha.
- Have a plan for your day-off. If I have a day off, let's say Monday, then I will schedule some things to do. You don't want to get stuck in your flat and do nothing, for example, watch the whole day Netflix. It doesn't really relax you. It's better to leave your flat and go do something, take a hike, go to a movie (better than Netflix home), as long as you leave your house I would say it's a better option.


At the end, sleep is one of those easy things to skip, but It can really mess up your life If you can't sleep properly.

29.8.2018 - Fix all the mental distractions before the session

And what I mean by the distractions? I mean problems, which you could solve before the session, for example, a problem with GF, with your friends, cell phone which is ringing all the time, food, which you didn't prepare for the session, problems with your parents or maybe slight injury, which bothers your mind. All these things should be fixed before the session!

Yesterday I was playing and after a few hours, I noticed I was getting more annoyed all the time and a little bit "spazzy", blowing stacks and not caring. I was thinking about it and it made no sense, why was I getting so upset? Well, of course, my old wisdom teeth were hurting. A doctor took them out a few days ago, so I still have to take painkillers every day, so I don't feel it. I totally forgot to take my pill, so I started to feel the pain again and it made me annoyed. It's good to fix these problems before your session, so it won't bother you during the session. Try to fix all your problems before the session, If possible. It gives your this good ZEN mind, which is good for poker. You don't want extra stress for your sessions. Try to stay as calm as possible and cut these distractions before the session. That's the best way. When your mind is empty of annoying things, it's ready to focus on something else.

In the end, I was able to win one tournament for good bink, which saved my day. Otherwise, It wasn't the best game day, but happy to go home with a win.

Nice binks and cool thread.
Followed your last challenge thread also, im just too lazy to login and comment most of the times tho.

GL!

Thanks for reading!

30.8.2018 Salzburg

God damn football. I was hoping Salzburg would make the CL, so maybe I could see some great team playing in Salzburg, but I guess Serbians deserved it. Crazy game and come back from them. It will be interesting to see the CL draw today. Who will get Liverpool as a #3 choice in the group stage? That could be tough.

Otherwise not much happening today. I'm getting ready for the tournament series, which are already going, but for me, my work starts 2.9 on Sunday. It will be massive 3 weeks and then be moving to Salzburg, so hopefully, things go well and I have a good run. These tournament series are always exciting and hopefully, I have some deep runs, so I could post a couple funny hands. More to come!

31.8.2018 The August is almost over!

Damn, August went by so fast. I had great time meeting friends, playing poker, spending time with family and some great events (like my friend's wedding and bachelor party) and the company is almost finished, so my poker coaching career is about to start, all in all, a great month and I wish every month was like this. Perfect in many ways and we have been spoiled by good weather in Finland as well. (One of the hottest summers ever). It's been a great pleasure to stay in Finland for 2 months, but now I'm starting to feel I need a new adventure. Salzburg is only one month away and now I need to put the grind mode on for September. More about my August results and September goals tomorrow. Last game day today for August. Let's hope for a few more good scores to finish off the month! Let's do it!!

1.9.2018 - August report/results and the goals for September

Okay, August is finished and it's time to turn the new page. I always look at poker on a monthly level and starting a new month is always a fresh start, which is nice. If you had a good month, it's good to reset your mind and motivate yourself to have big scores again. It's very motivating. At the same time, it's good to reset, If you had a bad month and kinda want it off your mind. It's good to reset the mind every now and then, so monthly periods work very well for me.

August in Graphs:







September goals and other things:

September will be very interesting. I need to move to Salzburg, finish starting the company(should be ready in a few days), play a lot of tournament series and try to keep calm while moving. Moving always seems more stressful than you think. It seems the easiest thing in the world, but it's not and finding a new flat. At the same time interesting, but frustrating, that's why I don't like moving that often. I like to stay in one place for some time, like one year etc. My idea is to focus on poker the next 3 weeks. I will still have 1-2 days off per week because I think constant break days are essential for playing your A-game for longer periods, so I will relax 1-2 day a week give myself a better performance over long-term. When it comes to poker I'm going back to basics and try to reduce the table amount to 9 tables at the same time. Focus on playing well, because I'll be playing higher stakes than usual and every day there will be massive tournaments, so the tournament selection will be interesting. These tournament series have a lot of value, so it's very important to focus 100% on them. This is where the BIG money is made. The steady profit comes from other months when there's no series.

September goals:

- Play 800 tournaments in 3 weeks (good challenge, If you 9 table)
- Average buy-in $40-50
- Play fewer tables, 9max.
- Focus on diet, so I don't eat any garbage (fatty food, sugar etc.)
- Pre-session warm-up, focus to start my sessions on my A-game. Before the session, listen to a motivational video (10 min), then meditate 10 min and after that 5 min visualization for how the session will go, what you do If things go terrible for example, imagine how you react and try to really feel your emotion and control them. Think about the worst case scenario. Then visualize yourself playing the best you ever played, feel the emotions. Visualize when you're playing your best poker, making great calls, great folds, great jams etc.
- Sleep well. I'm always too excited to wake up, so it's tough to stay in bed and keep sleeping, but I struggle with this. I always want to wake up too fast. 7,5h sleep is minimum for recovery.
- Schedule every day, have a schedule for the week.
- Write down my sports activities, so I have some social pressure on it. Goal is to exercise 5x a week, starting from Monday when I can exercise again.

Categories to follow my challenge daily:

Played tournaments at the same time:
Average bin:
Sports:
Pre-session warm-up:
After session cooldown(10 min meditation):
Slept hours:

2.9.2018 Wohoo!!!

Tournament series are starting today! I'm very excited. Big buy-ins, big wins.. It's always exciting. I will try my best, so the next 3 weeks will be very interesting. Bigger games, better focus, and hopefully many deep runs.

Yesterday I had a day off and spent it with my old buddies and big bro. It was a great time off and I feel quite energized after yesterday, even though I had a few beers. Anyway, sometimes mental time off really energizes you again and standing behind the computer desk feels easier. Days off help.

3.9.2018 Sunday feelings

Sunday was very interesting. Very big buy-ins and ended up having couple good runs in big tournaments, so it's always nice. Sunday kickoff finished 26th place. So very close to huge score, but I guess I will have to wait for it a bit longer. I still have two other DAY 2s going today, so hopefully, I can bink one of those and get a proper score. Otherwise, Sunday went quite well but made a mistake 4-handed on Ipoker major and jammed too wide vs SB limper, who woke up with AQo and busted me. It was a bit reckless play.

4.9.2018 Emotional attachment in MTTs, mental recovery, and big tournaments

I had three Day 2s yesterday and I had to play two of the biggest tournaments during the day, I finished in positions 26 and 70. The 26th place had $50k first prize and 70th place around $100k. It's not usual for me to play for such big amounts, so after dropping out from these two, I started another session, which was a mistake. I just took a nap and started playing again, but mentally I wasn't there. I was still thinking about earlier tournaments and how I busted and so on. I wasn't mentally ready to play another session and start from ZERO to grind up. I think it's good to take mental breaks when you need them and us humans need mental breaks as well, not just physical breaks. When you feel a bit tilted and were in a big stressful situation, it's good to sit back and take a break. After the break, you will feel so much more positive and better about everything, poker, life whatever. I think I forgot this lesson yesterday and I tried to push some more volume, but it wasn't working. I was still annoyed by earlier tournaments(the emotional attachment you have for the tournament you played for 20h+ is quite big), so I wasn't ready for the second session the same day, I was just tilted. I should have just taken a break and play one small DAY 2 I had for the rest of the day and be done with it. Sometimes taking a break is a better idea than pushing through. Try to understand how you feel and your body, you will know when you shouldn't play more.

I guess my point was, take a break when you need it. There's no shame taking a break after a huge tournament and big effort. We don't just need the physical break, but mental break as well. In the end, poker is more mental than a physical game, but we rarely talk about mental health or mental state.(not to say good physical form doesn't help)

5.9 Free day!

Today was just mental break from poker. I feel more refreshed. Went over few hands on PIO but otherwise no poker. Sometimes it's good to have a day without any poker. It helps you relax and think about other things.

I have struggled through 3 game days with FOMO (fear of missing out), there are so many tournament series going and it's tough to choose which tournaments to play because I would like to play all of them. I guess I can't do that, at least not with good winrate haha. I just need to be more strict what I play and choose only the best ones.. Tomorrow is another game day so hopefully I will improve on this.

Hi Steroid!
Thanks for a great diary, its very motivating to read pre grind.
Ive noticed you are a multi tabler.
How did you get insight about how many tables you can play in parallel. What is really optimal do you think?
18 tables at abi 15$, or 9 tables $30 abi.
Has previously played 25+ tabling, but has big problems with knowing where to stay today. Sometimes feel 18 gto, sometimes 4.

Also I recogn the mental breakdowns, very mad at my self in middle of grind and notice that im very far from A-game and prob shouldnt have register..
But hard to tell sometime =)

Kudos for you!

Thank you for your kind words.

I think it all comes down to how you feel. Sometimes playing 8-10 tables is nice, sometimes putting 15 tables and playing lower stakes is nice. It comes down how you feel mentally and physically, If you are a bit tired I wouldn't recommend always putting the max. volume in, because you will be missing spots and not playing as sharp as usual, I think that's good spot to drop few tables and focus on playing as well as you can because even that might be tough If you don't feel great. I would say the general good tip is, If you are timing out all the time, cut the table amount because you're not playing well. At that point, you should never add more tables, rather focus on the ones you have left till you hit the comfortable amount of tables left.

You should always ask this question before registering to a tournament:

"Am I going to play this tournament to my best abilities until the end?" If the answer is no, don't register to it. You will probably spew it or play badly at the end because you registered to a tournament too late, either you played too long session and you're tired or you were too tilted to continue. When you're tired or tilted poker is no fun, try to reduce those hours as much as possible.

At the moment I'm trying to mix my table amounts(8 to 15). Some days I feel like challenging the higher stakes players, so I play fewer tables and play higher buy-ins, some days I load the max. 15 tables and play lower stakes, because I do enjoy the grind and the constant action. It depends on the mood I am.

But I have to say, don't be too harsh on yourself. Almost no MTTer plays A-game all the time. We tilt, we are tired etc. Just try to reduce those times and you're better than the others. In the end, we don't have to do things perfectly to beat the others, we just have to do things better than them.

6.9.2018 No painkillers, Routines..

No painkillers today! I guess my teeth finally healed and I didn't have to take any painkillers today. It's such a relieve.

Routines/habits:

I wanted to talk about routines today. Why I update the thread every day, is because I want to build my life's routines. My goal is to start with my blog, then move on to exercise, poker and so on. I want to create a clear routine for all parts of my life, so I will work/live more optimally. I think we as poker players, tend to enjoy the freedom a bit too much and In a way, it's blessing and a curse. I see the freedom as a huge perk of course, but sometimes, for example, If I am on holiday I lose my routines and it's tough to get back from the holiday because I don't have to do anything at home, so my holidays always last too long. Normal people go to work, I don't have to. I know a lot of normal people wouldn't go to work right after the holiday, but they have to, so they get back to the habit of going to work. In the end, it's easy to continue doing something you just do every day or you're used to it.

That's the thing, you don't need so-called motivation If it's part of your routine and things you do every day. Build some routines/habits and you will be doing very well in life, in general, and you don't have to struggle with motivation, because you do these things automatically. It works with everything, exercise, poker learning, poker playing etc. When your mind knows what you will be working on every day, it's easier to do. If you don't plan anything, you will do random things and end up hoping to find your "motivation", which you will find only now and then. Don't wait for motivation, make a habit instead!

nvm

7.9.2018 - Yesterday's session and Saturday Football match

All right, yesterday was a tough day, but I was able to keep playing through the terrible start and then the day kept going the same way till the end, but I think it's important to keep pushing and trying to play your best, even If things go bad. That's how you learn to withstand those beats, because If you always quit after a few beats, then you end up playing so small volume. It's just something you have to get used to.

Football match in Tampere(Finland vs Hungary):

I'm glad I will have my last Finland trip before moving to Salzburg because Finland is nice country and I rarely travel here anymore, which is a shame because it's so beautiful and plenty of things to see especially nature.

I will go watch Nation League's game vs Hungary. Finland never plays well vs Hungary, so my expectations are low. Hopefully, we will have few goals, though. I think normally these games end up 1-1, 0-0.. That would be my bet for the game.

Nice thread man. I am trying out MTT-s myself. How long is your average playing session? Do you have a preset time you register for tournies? (I am going to open new tournaments from 17-21 for example).

nice binks mans will def be following, keep it going!

I think my average session is around 8 hours. I don't have an exact plan for every day, because I think every day is different and how much you have energy. If I don't feel like energized I will just play a shorter session. Sundays I will try to grind the longest days, over 10 hours usually and Sundays normally go longer than other days, but what I have found these super long sessions really drain you and it's hard to play multiple days in a row 12+ hours, so I think playing this steady 8 hours per day is quite good, because you can play good quality poker for many days in a row.

Thank you very much. I hope I can provide more binks soon! Sunday perhaps..

8.9.2018 Free day

Going to watch Finland vs Hungary football match today. Hungary gave us the biggest upset in the football history. In 1998 we almost made it to World Cup qualifier stage, but because we couldn't beat Hungary in the last game of the group stage(draw), we didn't make it to qualifier stage, which would have been the greatest achievement in Finnish football. I hope today we can have some sort of payback for it. Hungary, in general, is a very tough opponent for us, I feel like we lose every time we play vs them.

Please, have mercy on us Hungary..

9.9.2018 - Finland vs Hungary and more football

Okay, the game was great and Finland ended up winning 1-0, which was like the first win vs Hungary since 1978(on the home ground). I will send later couple pics and one video from yesterday when Dropbox updates my files to computer.

About today, I have a 6th division football game and after that, I will have a nap and start grinding poker. Hopefully some bigger scores today, because this week has been quite a struggle and bad results, so I'm hoping today we will hit some jackpot, but we'll see.