2.11.2018 - Graphs from the last two months

September:



October:




All right, so I had to post these graphs. Poker is not all the time upswing. You have worse streaks as well. I don't want to give you picture it's all happy happy all the time because it's not. Anyway, posting losing graphs is quite motivational. Just watching these makes me upset, so I hope it can give me some fuel for this month to crush the game!

Anyway, Now that I think about the September, I'm quite happy. I got the biggest satellite score ($5200) and won the ticket to WCOOP ME and played it. I played the biggest tournament I have ever played, so that's exciting and it was a cool experience. I wish next time It will go better, but a great experience nonetheless.

This is probably the biggest losing month I've ever had, so new record from that as well. Not so happy about that one. Haha.

3.11.2018 - GET FIT Challenge

Morning weight, 104,7kg, so still 7,7kg to go. So I need to lose about 1,25kg per week to make it. It's going to be a tough race, but I think If I cut down the carbs even more (skip the morning oatmeal etc and midday banana snack), I think I can make it. It won't be easy.

Exercise going well, poker going well. Everything seems to be on a roll now, so just keep doing..

Otherwise, I am working on MTT coaching package and hopefully, in the next few months It will be finished product. Making all the things at the same time ain't that easy haha, but it gives my life good structure. It's exciting to do something related to business, instead of always poker. Nothing wrong with poker, but after so many years It's nice to do things I have never done before, even though it's related to poker.

4.11.2018 - Good start for the month

Games been going well.




2nd of the month I got another good score, 2nd in 6max tournament for $6488. We made a deal HU.



Sorry about the pics. They look absolute dog poo, because I had to "tune" my monitor to 2560x1440 resolution and it doesn't seem to work well with taking print screens for some reason.

Great blog, awesome read. Keep up good work and grind. Superb reading for me, while im getting back in the game. Nearly 1 year out, play just occasionaly. Last year i got twins, so i have "pocket Q" at home .

Nice start to the month but more dog pics are needed itt!!

8.11.2018 - Deep runs everywhere

Yesterday was quite crazy, I felt like every tournament was running deep and I had a great chance for a 5-fig winning day. At the end ended up making a high 4-fig day, so pretty good result for the day.

Won two tournaments, 5€ rebuy on Ipoker and the 6max club on Stars.ES. Made a deal on 30€ HU hyper, but lost the HU for 400€. Finally, I made it to HU in these Hypers, I think through the years I've had so many deep runs, but never HU.





Save the motivation for later!

Today I feel extremely motivated to play again, but I have scheduled DAY OFF. I believe sometimes it's better to "save" the motivation for the next day instead of burning it away. It sounds a little bit crazy or stupid, but I think when you have this "over-motivation", you should calm down and still do your DAY OFFs, so you keep playing well and you stay refreshed. If I don't take the breaks, after some time my game will suffer, my health will suffer etc. It's just not good long-term. It's easy to forget those things when you're highly motivated and want to play every day, all day.

Thank you! Grinding tastes good now, after such a long break (one month), so I have some energy left. I hope I can focus on other things during my Christmas holiday when I go back home, but I'll be just playing the next month, 5 days a week etc.

Did you play professionally or casually? Congrats on twins! Pocket Q, like that haha.

I will try to take some new pic of Blade!

Enjoying the sun.

10.11.2018 - Obssed. Poker, poker and poker..

Last few days I've been just playing poker, studying poker, figuring things out. It's been very exciting. Yesterday I had two big runs, but FT-table bubbled both of them, which is a shame because the day ended up quite badly result wise, but I am happy the way I played and that's all I can do. Overall things are going very well, though and I received my #1 monitor to Buda, so extremely happy today. I guess I missed my monitor a lot. After playing one month with this old monitor, oh god this 34" curved is a beast and it's so much nicer to look at. Eyes are not bleeding anymore. The curved monitor is just amazing.

11.11.2018 - Saturday's session

All right, I won a few tournaments (small field, small wins), but I played for the first time with my proper setup and it feels great. I hope this new setup will help my grinding, I still have to figure out how to put everything together to maximize the EV.

Bounty tournaments:

One thing bothers me, though. Every site is adding more and more bounty tournaments, that kind of sucks. I know they are super fishy, but it seems more like a rake trap than good and maybe a bit too much gamble. I have to admit, though, they seem to have the best field out of any tournaments online. Fish love bounties.

Agree on this, don´t like where tourney scene is going at the moment. PKO´s are so top heavy that variance increases and bounties make the gameplay more of a lottery too. Most recently 888 poker has increased these and it is getting more difficult to find normal MTT´s to get all table slots filled within session.

Absolutely. They seem fishy, but in the end, you pay a lot of rake. It's a rake trap and concerning development for the games.

13.11.2018 - The beats and life-defining moments in life

Sometimes this game makes you think, "WHAT IF?". Today I had one of those feelings while playing on Pokerstars.ES. I had a pretty good run in the Main Event and ended up 40th or something like that, 170k€ on top. I got around 2k€, so at least I didn't end up losing that much from Sunday, that's positive.

It's just shame when this happens and it's easy to feel bad about yourself, but I think now I finally realized it's pointless. Nobody wants to hear your bad beat stories anyway and self-pity is not pretty. Okay, you didn't win now and maybe won't win in the next 2000 tournaments you play for 6-figs, but who cares? There was a good chance and I should be happy about that. I made a good run and got some money for it, that's not bad.

I used to get very depressed about these things because I would take the loss too personally. Now I've finally realized, losing is fine and it doesn't matter that much. Yes, winning this tournament would have been one of the best moments in my life, but it was fun anyway. We as a poker player LIVE for these type of tournaments, life-changing money or money, which gives you a lot of opportunities in many ways. This is why we play poker, for the big amounts and it's still exciting after 7-8 years of being a professional. That's the best.


Let your EGO get used to losing, it's good. I've had to learn it the hard way. Life is so much easier when you care less about losing.

14.11.2018 - FREE MTT-COACHING

Please contact me for free coaching(contact info lower). I will give free coaching for a bit of information. I would prefer players who are struggling to win from MTTs or are breakeven and need some help winning in the game. Why I need such a information? Well, I want to know what people are struggling with and what I can help with them. I am working on a coaching package, so I need a bit more data to know what I should put in it and which could help the population the most. I would give 60-minute coaching session and then after the session I would ask a few questions, so it might take extra 10-15 minutes. I will make the questions ready before the sessions, so don't worry.

WHAT YOU NEED TO HAVE:

- STABLE INTERNET
- HEADSET (so we can talk clearly and both sides will hear well)
- YOU HAVE TO SPEAK ENGLISH or FINNISH (Sorry my limitations here)
- SKYPE

Contact me here, If you want free coaching lesson (60+ 15 min):

pokeronsteroids@gmail.com

BE QUICK, because I will take the first 3 people sending a message to my EMAIL. Thank you!

Free Coaching finished. Thank you for everyone who sent an email.

17.11.2018 - Weight and poker

Morning weight 103,4kg. Only couple weeks left, so I'm still far from my goal weight, 97kg. I have cut all the carbs now from my diet, so I can reach the 97kg by the 13th of December. Not sure If I will make it, but I will give a shot and try my hardest. Only a few weeks left, so I got nothing to lose. Bet looking very good for the readers right now!

Poker:

Finally some score today. First place in $88 tournament. Tastes good.



It's been quite tough last week, I've been playing a lot, studying a lot and coaching a lot, so It's been insane, but the results are poor for the last 10 days. I feel very motivated, though and poker seems to go well and I am learning a lot of new things every day. Good good!

18.11.2018 - Lack of focus while playing

It's one interesting topic I wanted to write about. A lot of people seem to lack focus while playing or they can't handle longer sessions. I think a lot of it comes down to few things:

1. Lack of goals
2. Lack of session goals
3. Lack of standards
4. Lack of sleep
5. Lack of tilt control
6. Lack of controlling yourself

Okay, let's start with Lack of goals.

1. Lack of goals:

Why this is so important? Well, If you haven't set goals for poker, then you will have a hard time putting in the hours you need to. Make sure you have poker goals you want to reach. Not everyone has to become the best player in the world, but think about what would make you more motivated on poker and start working on that.

2. Lack of session goals

What is the goal of your sessions? To play a marathon session? Short sessions? Think about what you are trying to accomplish before you start your session. Do you want to play for a few hours or longer? Think about it before you start your session and mentally prepare yourself for it!

3. Lack of standards

You just don't have high enough standards for yourself. In the end, everything we do comes from our standards. If your standards are to play not focused, not well etc. Then that's how you're going to play. Expect the highest standards from yourself and the results will be totally different. Always expect the best from yourself, but I would say this works with everything in life. Have high standards, expect things from yourself!

4. Lack of sleep

Without proper rest, it's tough to play well. Last week I didn't sleep well and my sleep was quite irregular, so my game suffered from that. Always have a good sleep and good recovery DAYS. Proper breaks are important, especially when you're playing a lot. Poker is much more mentally exhausting on your body and mind than you think. Take breaks and feel better.

5. Lack of tilt control

Sometimes I have to end sessions because I am tilted. This can happen to anyone, but make sure you have visualized and meditated before the session, you will feel calmer and are ready to take the poker swings for the day. It's easy to lose your focus while on tilt and when that happens, most of the time you want to do anything else, but poker. I would say it's important to remain calm, take a few deep breaths and just tell yourself, I can take more of this, it's not the end of the world and so on. Deep breaths go a long way to kill tilt.

6. Lack of controlling yourself

I hear a lot of people have a problem browsing the internet, watching Twitch at the same time while playing. You can use a program called "Cold Turkey Blocker" and block the websites you like to visit during your poker sessions, which are not beneficial. I like to block these sites till the end of the day(around 2 am) and when I reach 2 am, It's basically my treat for the day to start NHL.com and watch some hockey, while one tabling tournaments etc. It's a good way to block some websites and stuff. If you have a problem using some programs (like playing PC game) at the same time, maybe you can find a program to block those as well. Just focus on poker, when you're playing poker. You can do things after playing session.

21.11.2018 - Old friend


Interesting. My old friend contacted me after reading my blog and noticed I was living in Budapest. Their group was visiting Budapest for the Nations League football game Hungary vs Finland. They also visited Greece for the other Finnish national team game, So they had proper road trip of Football.


I know my friend from Cyprus times, which was maybe six years ago. It was very fun to talk about old things, Cyprus etc. Very heartwarming actually. Small amount of nostalgi is always great. It's good to remember where you come from and what you have done, even if it wasn't the proudest things. At the end, time golden's every memory, I have only good memories from every place I ever lived and remembering these things is plain fun now. It's funny how much I have changed, our lifes had changed since the Cyprus time.


What I realized:


Like they say, people overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can achieve in five years. Six years feels like a forever. We can achieve great things in five year period but sometimes we try to push things too much. Give it time and it will be all right. So I will try to remember this and not force things to happen in two year period. Things take time and it's okay, live in the present. Not in the future. All these days we have are precious and should be enjoyed.

Very good post , thanks , make me think about the relation goals focus.

22.11.2018 - Free day and Bohemian Rhapsody

I closed the computers for 36 hours and I have to admit, it helps a lot. Closing yourself 100% from your work is so important, b3cause you can think about something else and do other things and enjoy your life. It gives you nice mental break from the work tasks. Highly recommend turning off your computer for a day or two. It gives me so much more energy and I feel re-energized!


Bohemian Rhapsody

We went to see Bohemian Rhapsody today and I have to admit, amazing film. I'm not even hard core Queen fan, but I still loved the movie. Soundtrack is fantastic and the movie is quite touching. I would say any rock fan would enjoy the movie a lot. Good stuff..

25.11.2018 - The Weekend

I had few coachings on Friday and started playing around 20:00 Budapest time, but things went very bad. I couldn't think about any spots and I felt like everyone was beating me. It was odd and I decided to quit after a few hours. Saturday morning I woke up and felt ****. I felt like a car hit me Friday or something similar. Absolutely wrecked. I guess I had some stomach flu, so I've been just under the blanket for most of the weekend, which sucks. I hate being sick and laying doing nothing.

At least during the weekend, I was able to sleep well, which is nice, because I haven't been sleeping very well this month because my workload has been a bit too much. Anyway, I should focus on relaxing and recovering more than what I am at the moment.

Today I am tempted to play the PartyPoker $5k $20 million guarantees, but the month hasn't been that great. If I was up $20k I think I would just take a shot, but now it would be pretty much the whole profits, so I'm just going to nit it up and hope I will get tickets from some satellite or not play at all because I don't feel so good. Today playing a bit lower stakes than usual because I don't feel 100%.

Agreed. Thanks for the post OP

27.11.2018 - Fasting, weight bet

All right, so the morning weight was about 102kg today, so I am 5 kilograms from the goal. I have only a few weeks left, so I decided to make some radical change: Not easy anything. Fasting for as many days as I need to.


I've been doing it for 24 hours now and I feel pretty good. I would say the worst thing is, food was my way to get out of boredom and sometimes when you have nothing to do, you get the worst cravings. My advice: Keep yourself busy. Keep studying poker, reading books, watching a movie. Don't stand still, because that's when the hunger is going to get you and don't visit too good restaurants. Haha.

My fasting diet:

No eating.
Max 3 liters of water during the day.
One soup spoon of Apple Cider Vinegar with the morning glass of water
Magnesium tablet (once a day)
2x 300mg C-vitamin tablets per day.

Mentally?

It's been a challenge, but a good one! I think I enjoy not eating. This is probably the first time in my life I haven't eaten for 24 hours and I can't believe how good I feel. I never knew you could live without food for this long. Anyway, It has taught me a lot of things already. I used to eat a lot for boredom and lack of activities! I can't believe I would go to the fridge and grab something, because I was bored. Now I try to fill every moment in my life with some activity, so I don't have to think about eating.

Today I had one of those moments "LET'S GO FOR LUNCH MY DEAR!!!" and then I wake up from my day dream: "**** I can't eat", so we just went for a walk instead, which was very nice!

Is this madness?

I think in some sense yes, some sense no. Fasting can teach us valuable lessons, that we don't need as much as we think and my attitude towards food has certainly changed. I think I always overestimated how much I actually needed food, not that much, especially when you're poker player, sitting on a chair and moving at gym 5 hours a week, you don't need much energy to sustain your body.

I do enjoy the challenge fasting gives me and I hope it will give me the results I want, but If not then I'm done with the challenge and I will pay the price. I feel extremely motivated to get this done. I expect worse struggling to come soon, though!

To be continued..

You're welcome guys!