4.1.2019 - Hot run in poker, but cold in real life

Hot start for the year in poker, but our flat is cold. Heating is not working and the temperature keeps dropping. Now we have around 17 Celcius. I already contacted the landlord and he gave me one guy to contact, but he is on holiday in Israel, so he can't do much. He just gave me another phone number I could call, but the guy didn't speak English, so kinda screwed up situation. Now I'm just waiting for the landlord to contact the guy and get him here ASAP. I hope it will happen soon because I heard soon we might have colder times coming to Budapest, so this flat might get very cold. I guess I need to buy some heater If nothing happens.

I am considering leaving the computers open to calculate PIO calculations to keep the flat warmer. I guess it's the poker player's way to warm up an apartment..

haha no harm in leaving stuff on over night for some warmth, need that heating fixed gl.

Yes. No luck fixing the heating, but we went shopping and bought a couple heaters. Hopefully next week we can get the heating fixed properly.

Took me a while but caught myself up on your blog! Looks like you’ve had a decent 2018/start of 2019, looking forward to what 2019 brings us!

Yeah, 2018 was good, compared to how many hours I played. I didn't end up playing so many hours per month (only 100). I study quite a bit and it took a lot of time, but it's something I enjoy. To maximize the profits I should probably play way more and study a bit less. Now the ration is like 100 hours playing and studying 40h per month. This year I'll be playing more for sure, that's where the profit comes from.

Thanks for reading!

7.1.2019 - ICM, FT-table video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH3lo9OGHGw

There's the link. I forgot how to get the YouTube videos to 2+2. Gosh!

8.1.2019 - Lower your standards and play more!

This goes against what I believe because I think you should have very high standards in life, but sometimes having too high standards will slow you down. I will tell you why.

Back in 2011(?), I was living in Barcelona with other grinder and we were playing poker pretty much every day and trying to make some money. It didn't matter our setups were awful, terrible chair, terrible table, terrible monitor etc. I used 17" monitor to grind 21 tables at the same time. Almost ****** level stuff, but It worked out! It didn't matter that much at what stakes we were playing, because we were winning anyway. We didn't have excuses for not playing! That was the key. Nothing mattered and we grinded hard.

Back to the present. These days I can't work or play, If I don't have the perfect setup for myself. It's counterproductive. Sure, when I work I probably work way better, but It doesn't happen often. If I don't feel 100%, I'm not playing and If I don't have the best setup, I'm not playing poker. While having a high standard, in general, IS A GOOD THING, I think it can lower the amount work you do and gives you a great excuse not to work hard.

Basically, what I realized today, I have too many excuses for not playing and working. I don't need the perfect setup. You just adjust to the situation and play fewer tables, If you don't have the best setup or you are tired/a bit sick. Let's stop the excuses and play more poker!

Nice video, thank you! Would be nice some postflop hands we can discuss.

The more competitive become a game, the more details from outside the game become important. (mental game, setup etc) .

Yes, I will be making some post-flop videos as well. It's just the first video.

Oh for sure. I agree. It will be crucial to be mentally stable and keep playing well all the time.

16.1.2019 - PLAY PLAY PLAY

I've been just playing poker for the last two weeks. 5 days a week. I've been scheduling my life more and trying to get the best performance out of myself. It's been working very well. The results are not the best, but I've had some very good runs, so happy for those. In the end, tournament poker is about putting yourself in a lot of good situations and then at some point, you will end winning. You just have to keep pushing and playing more volume to get the results, don't let bad results demotivate you, it's part of the game. Tournaments are one of the most brutal forms of poker (at least I believe) to play professionally, but also one of the best when you win. Nothing better than winning a big tournament! Love it!

My schedule now:

MO: OFF
TU: GAME DAY
WE: GAME DAY
THU: OFF
FRI: GAME DAY
SAT: GAME DAY
SUN: GAME DAY

I've been playing 5 days a week and focusing on playing every single game day. Some days it's been tougher than others, but it's been working well. I am putting in good volume and playing good. It's great to be back after the long break!

I would say scheduling is one of the key skills when it comes to being professional poker player. Yes, you can live your life without any schedule, but then it can be a big mess. I like scheduling everything now and doing the best what I can. I highly recommend scheduling your days. I know it sounds like a pain in the ass, but after a while, you get used to it and it actually makes your life better. It sounds funny, but I think people work the best with certain scheduling. I don't schedule every minute of the day, but every day should have some guideline, which to follow.

Hey mate. Gl with your progress i think we battled a bit at the tables.
I think it will be better if you schedule your whole day and plan what hours you wake up - eat - exercise-play etc.
Its crucial for you to also program the free days (or better specific hours during the day) what you want to do because otherwise you will end up playing if you dont have anything better at your free time.
It worked for me last year i tried it.
Best regards

What is your name on a poker site?

Oh absolutely! I had to take the physical trainer to next level and decided to hire a personal trainer. I was surprised how cheap it is here because PT will cost you about 13€ per hour. 30k forints for 8 sessions. It feels way too cheap to even think about training by myself and It's a lot more fun with PT and better work out.

PT will also plan your workouts and things, so it will simplify your life, which is nice. Now I don't have to think about that part of my life and I can focus my energy on something else. I was always lacking in this part of my life, so I'm good it's solved now.

25.1.2019 - New YouTUBE video, What to do when facing flop c-bet from BB vs two different villains

25.1.2019 PioSOLVER, BB defend and facing flop c-bet

https://youtu.be/7uuPhy-2eXY

Enjoy!

27.1.2019 - Don't try to be great for a week, month, but all the time

My realization for 2019. Being constantly good will make you the best. We have plenty of time and what I believe makes people the best in their industries is consistency!

Earlier I would always have these months when I tried to push myself to big volume, a lot of studying etc. Then after one month or two I would just burn out and lose the "passion" for the game, but truly I was just tired (lack of sleep, too much in too short time etc). We need to be patient with our development and nothing great is done in two weeks. Give yourself time to produce results, don't force it.

I realized that we have to be great all the time, not just one week/month at the time. Who performs the best in sports? Business? It's all the same people/companies. The people/companies who produce consistent results. This is what I am aiming now as well. I make a schedule and stick to it. I just need to make sure I get enough rest to keep my schedule, so I have found free days to be extremely important, so remember those 1-2 days off per week, because you will need them. I have two day offs per week to help myself stay sane. It's a crucial mental break.

31.1.2019 - January finished

All right, so January is finished and it's time to move on.. I worked very hard in January, but the results were bad, very frustrating month result wise, but I'm very happy with the work ethic. A game is good and I learned a lot of new things in January, so very positive going forward. I expect February to be a breakthrough month for 2019, so we'll see how it goes!



New 40 day project coming up:

I will tell you tomorrow more about the upcoming project for the next 40 days. It should be exciting and have a lot of good stuff to read/watch/listen.

February - March Challenge 1.2.2019 - 11.3.2019:


- Play 198,000 hands in 38 days. 36,000 hands per week. Six game days per week.
- First coaching package ready by the 20.2.2019.

All right, let's start the challenge! \/ :-D

First week:

Friday: Game day
Saturday: Game day
Sunday: Game day

1.2.2019 - Analyzing three marked hands

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXJi...ature=youtu.be

1.2.2019 - First day (1 out of 39)

Day 1:

Tournmanets played: 86
Played hours: 11,5h

FULL KO Bounty tournaments: 1st vs 2nd place. Wow!

I wanted to show you guys the difference between winning and the second place in FULL KO bounty tournaments. It's kind of crazy how much winning the HU is worth. My advice in FULL KO: Go for the win. Try to always have stack covering others. Taking risks is a good idea.

2.2.2019 - How to play in multiway pots, 4 players

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-zQFJKEtk

Enjoy! Have a good weekend!

Thanks for the videos, in the multiway one, 987s, why do you prefer bet JJ with bd fd?
Yes you have stronger hand, but you block more draw, and you are less scary of the turn flush, and usually have an easy second check call.
Doest it make sense, or it is a leak to prefere bet JJ without backdoor?
Thank you

Sent from my Redmi 3 using Tapatalk

2.2.2019 - Results

Okay, so I got in another good day of playing, but not great results.

Played tournaments: 104
Played hours: 10

Total of the challenge:

Total tournaments played: 190
Total player hours: 21



2.2.2019 - Super Bowl!

I guess today will be a bit shorter grind. I think I will watch the Super Bowl, so I'm not going to have as much time to play, so I hope I can finish the 6000 hands in 8 hours or something. Sucks to skip the Sunday short, but it's one day of the week, so I'm not going to run out of time to play poker. Hah!

I wouldn't consider it a leak, though, but If you want to play well-balanced poker, you can't bet every overpair etc. on this flop. Otherwise your check-call/check-range gets super weak and easy to play against. Try to have some good hands in every range, check-call, check-raise, and bet. Make it tough for your opponents by mixing up your value ranges.

Well, first of all, all the big pairs need less protection(in general), because of less scary cards. (AA, KK, QQ compared to JJ, TT for example.) When it comes to PioSolver, it really likes to bet big with vulnerable hands, which are excellent hands, like overpair to 258 board (99, TT etc). It just denies so much equity from the opponent and making them fold the overcards is a great result for us.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think you're correct. I usually study multiway pots with PokerSnowie, because I'm just starting with MonkerSolver, so I think my logic here is, that when you have the backdoor you will have so much easier times on turn when the flush card hits, that it's fine to bet and make the pot bigger. I guess other hands it makes more sense to check, because basically what we are hoping is just to take the hand to showdown. When the flop is 789hh and you have TT without H, it's a bad situation and you don't want to bloat the pot too big, because we don't want to put an insane amount of money in on this flop with TT without any backdoor. (Bit different flop texture than 258 board, where big bet would be a quite good option.)

You should always consider who you're playing against. If you are playing against huge calling stations, then you can just bet all the value combos and check with worse. When playing with recreational players, you can do a lot of crazy things. Be totally out of balance, because they are too passive of taking advantage of your weak range etc. I usually even bet the second pair with good kicker vs calling stations at least twice because they will still call with all the draws and worse second pairs(HU POT, though). Against better player, remember to check those AA, KK, QQ etc. Hands in multi-way pots, so you have something in your check-calling range as well and some set-combos and maybe bottom two pairs (789 board 78 for example, because you don't want to build huge pot 4-way with 78, bottom two pairs, but it works great as a bluff catcher.)

2.2.2019 - Challenge results after Day 2

dark poems by famous poets

6.2.2019 - 4 game days done



Blah. Blah blah. A bit frustrating start for the year. I've put in very good volume through the year, but ZERO results. Poker can be such a frustrating game, but also a very easy game when the wins are coming in. It takes great mental strength to keep playing this game for years, It ain't easy.

A migraine:

I was playing the last two tables yesterday and I started having these problems with a headache and vision, so I think it's time for a break. I will have a day off from intensive playing and hope to be back for Thursday. I never had an issue like this before, so I'm surprised when it happened.

9.2.2019 - Results after 7 days(6 game days):

Okay, so after 6 days I should have played 36k hands, but I'm only at hand number #28532. Okay, so I am quite a bit behind my schedule, but no worries. Today I will put a good effort and see how things go.




2019 has been extremely rough. I've tried extremely hard, but only big misses so far. Extremely frustrating and this is really testing my mental game. Poker can be so hard and sometimes so easy, it's ridiculous. Oh well, I just need to keep playing well and things will fall into a place.. I hope!

Grinding 5+ days a week over a year:

I have to respect anyone who plays on average 5 days a week poker. It's extremely tough. It's a grind, mental grind and keeping it together is the hardest part. Poker itself is going quite well, but mentally it would be easy to give up. I want to learn to grind, though. I want to be able to play good poker for 5 days a week. I think it's all up to practice.