Hi everyone! The pro poker lifestyle can be very lonely, especially for me as I have no poker pro friends. I hope with this thread I can share my journey and have you guys come along the ride with me. I would love to get feedbacks and constructive criticisms as I progress towards my goal. In return, I will do my best to keep this thread as entertaining as possible!

My Poker Background

- 2014 started trying hard at nl2 treating poker as a game I need to beat from the bottom and not for the money, climbed to nl10 and built $2k roll online from $30 over the course of 6 months playing a nit style. Withdrew and gave my mom 1k for emergency she had. Was unmotivated to grind after that as I was also playing a mmorpg at the time that I got addicted to, and ny roll just got cut in half. Also I didnt feel safe about having too much money online on a poker site at the time.

- 2015 dabbled with live poker whenever I had $300. Probably 5 times in total for the year. Turned another $25 deposit online into $500 playing $nl25 then tilted one day and gambled it all on online black jack. . Didnt play much poker after.

- 2016 ran up a live bankroll of ~5k with $300 to start using aggresive brm playing $1-$3 and $2-$5. I would buyin $2-$5 for 1k so that 5k roll quickly busted after spendings and a few 2 outers for 2k pots. This period last a month

-Early 2017 built up another 3k roll playing strictly $1-$3. But I was playing the deep stack games buyin for $500 so It was not hard for me to go busto again after a few 2 outers for 1k pots.

-Summer of 2017 I manage to scrape up another buyin after driving for uber and built it up to 2k. This time I’m more careful and decided to stick to strictly $300 buyin cap $1-$3 games till i had 10k. I also decided to download a poker tracker app and started logging all my sessions

-August 2017 +5150
- September 2017 +5300 (started moving out of $300 cap into $500/table max games again, stopped playing $300 by the end of month)
- October 2017 +140
- November 2017 + 3400
- December 2017 +11800
- January 2018 +4587
- Febuary 2018 +2535 (was in Asia for vacation, playing smaller home games that runs less frequent then my usual game in the US)
- March 2018 +1500 (Asia home games)
- April 2018 +2978 (Asia home games)
- May 2018 +5200 (back to US)
- June 2018 +3030
- July 2018 +7600
- August 2018 +2078
- September 2018 -320 (first losing month)
- October 2018 +4114

And we are up to date! Will start posting monthly results and recap!

My long term goals moving forward

- To sustain my current $1-$3 winrate ($36/hr over 1400hr sample)
- Move up and beat $2-$5 for $40/hr+ (currently $11/hr over 300hr)
- To continue showing a profit in tournaments, win my first live tournament(chopped for first and got 2nd place a few times in small field small buyins, never out right win one) currently +$9700 in tournament net profit)
- Start beating online poker so I can have the flexibility to make money anywhere in the world as long as I have my laptop. I will start with nl25 - nl50 and low stakes $5-$10 abi MTT, will dedicate more time for online when I travel to Asia again in January. Online is also a great tool to get better quicker (even tho less money in the short run) so I must put effort into this.

Life leaks outside of poker, that I need to fix to play better poker!

- I currently have no excercise routine and am very out of shape, can barely walk for half an hour
- I have a very unhealthy sleep schedule
- I am a heavy addict of weed, cigs and coffee
* I know that if I wan’t to achieve my poker dreams I need to fix atleast 2/3 of these leaks, but it’s been hard. I hope this thread will motivate me to work harder and finally get my life together.

—-///——///——///——///——///—-///——///—-

Since it is almost the end of the month. I will kick this thread off with a weekly challenge, I will have monthly challenges once December kicks in. Today I am taking a day off so the challenge will start on Monday.

First Weekly Challengep

- Play minimum 40 hrs of live cash games (easy)
- Maintain a fix, healthy schedule of waking up early for work and going home early (9 pm latest) so I can prepare for the next day again. (Moderate)
- Excercise 15 minutes a day (hard)
- Meditate for 5 minutes a day (hard)
- spend 30 minutes messing around with equity lab (I need to study more)
- Make $1400 in profit from cash games so I can play $400 worth in tournament
At the end of the week, be able to bust and still profit $1k for the week (stupid monetary goal that can’t be gaureenteed, But still fun to have)
- post atleast 1 interesting and honest hand history where I played bad, got lost in the hand for review

That’s all for now, if you plan on following please leave a comment, it will help boost my motivation a lot. I will update daily(ish?) poker results and hand histories and then recap at the end of the week next sunday after the monthly tournament.

Lets get it! Time to grind and shine!

Hey GL mate, where do you play?

Thanks man. I want to be authentic with my financial situations while staying anonymous as possible so I wont be too specific with my local casino but I grind in california!

I found it amusing you have playing 40 hours of live poker as a "easy" weekly goal whereas simply doing 15 minutes of exercise and meditating for five minutes a day as a hard weekly goal.

I'd advise getting into a routine of doing the exercising and mediating in the morning before you go play poker. Mentally tell yourself you aren't allowed to play until you do! Also if you have the three addictions, I wouldn't recommend trying to quit all three once, pick the one that you think is most problematic and try tackling that first.

Best of luck!

Gl man, you can do it. Stick to the meditation and focus on exercise and health. Sunlight is important.


Best of luck.

Yep, don´t try to climb the Mt. Everest right off the bat. Of those three, I would start by using less cigs. Improves your health even with no exercise at all and would be a good cornerstone building from. Best of luck on your journey!

Haha that’s cause playing 40hrs is not that hard for me, I enjoy the casino life and really don’t have a social life. That not allowed to play until I exercise is a good idea. I will definately tell myself this. Thanks!

Thanks for the reminder! I do need more sunlight as I’m always inside a casino.

Yea I need to set a cig limt for myself or i’ll just smoke more than I need. I’m going to probably set 10 tommorow. Thanks man!

So first day of challenge I failed to wake up early, didn’t meditate but did exercise for 15 minute. I played a game that broke and had to wait another hour before getting to play again so I decided to play longer, got stuck and stayed longer so no sleeping early either >.<. Very bad mental game plan.

I played my B game today for sure.

H1. KK multiway. 1-3.

Utg limps. Hero (utg+1) raises 15 with KK. Loose player calls, tag calls, bb calls, utg calls.

Flop. 986r. Checks all around.
Turn 4 brings bd spade. Utg bets 60. I call everyone folds
River A completes flush. Villian shakes head and goes all in for 100. Hero folds, villian shows a 4.

So I checked flop because I thought this hits calling ranges too much vs 4 players and the loose player on my left is very deep and can raise me with 7x combos and put me in a tough spot. I also thought the players ip players will bet 9x, 1010, JJ,hands for me so I wont lose value and can check call. I dunno if thats a good idea. I probably played it bad and shoulda bet the flop.

H2. AKs facing 4B

7 handed, utg makes it 15, I make it 45 next to act, folds back to utg who 4B to 115. Hero calls.

Flop 1073r villian shoves for 240. Fold.

My in game thoughts when villian 4B is he is not folding and his 4b range here is JJ+, AK so I’m never ahead. If I call and hit a pair I can still stack JJ because he’s the type to bet JJ on A high boards once he has initiative and spr will be 1. However, if he has AK also I will likely lose a chopped pot so maybe jamming is better? OOP i will definately 5B jam. Maybe I can jam with AKo and call with AKs since I can continue on more flops with AKs.

9hrs played today with a -100 loss.

Got some exercise and meditating done today. Got to casino late and played for 7 hrs. Not too many interesting hands. Biggest pot of the day I got it in pre with KK vs AK and lost the $700 pot. Smoked 10 cigs today which was my limit so thats good.

-$30 for the day.

Gl dude. Already really great advice in the thread. Exercise and sunlight will literally double ur winrate!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Took wednesday off. Played 7 hours today. Ran bad and played bad.
-$550. The losing streak continues but I’m use to it, no big deal.
Got exercise done today altho no meditating.

H1.
Hero raises EP with JJ to 15. Button 3b to 45 and we call.
Flop 782r hero check calls 45.
Turn 2 hero check calls all in of 139.
River K villian shows AK.

H2.
Short stack (85) fish limps. Tag reg (750) makes it 20. Button (380) makes it 60.
Hero looks down at AK from sb and calls. Here I don’t mind 4b gii with the button but was deep with the tag so i didnt wanna make it 150 and then have to fold if he jams. Also button wasnt getting out of line so his range here is 1010+ AQs+.
Anyways fish shoves 85. Tag calls. Button calls and i call the 25 extra.

Flop K42 2 spades I have no spades. Action checks through.
Turn Q brings 3 spades. I think one of them could have QQ but i have to protect against one spade hands so i bet 140 into 340. Tag calls.

River 2. I check he shoves all in and I fold. He shows QQ and wins.

Then I made a big mistake in a hand where i bet 5 bucks, some guy raises to 20. I toss in 3 chips to call except i put in 3 green chips instead of red and it is a raise to 80. So i lose another 60 >.<.

I vow to work extra hard this weekend. Still planning to play the weekend tournaments regardless of cash results. Lets turn this week around!

Friday was a nightmare. I won 350 at nl and lost 320 at PLO. What sucks really bad is I was going to book a 1k win then ended up losing all my profit in the last hand where i check raised pot with qqxx. on Q64 2 hearts turn was 8 and pot was 550. I pot and call off for 900 total and lose to 57hh. I shoulda check folded the turb. Im so mad and tilted at myself

Lost 150 in tournament and won 150 in cash game today so broke even for the day.

Tournament we ran extremely bad losing half our stack with KK vs 97s ai pre (he 3b bluff jam bb vs my button for 15bb, i snap and flops 97x gg) then shoving K2 for 10bb from sb and bb tanks tanks and calls with...... 47s. Best we can ask for when called but we couldnt win the flip.

Cash game I played pretty well. One interesting hand I raise ep 88 and call a 3B From the SB. I was calling purely to set mine as i Know this player is not 3betting me with less than AK, JJ+.

Flop comes A73r and he checks. We check behind obviously cause he can still have AA. Turn brick and he checks again. I’m pretty sure at this point he has JJ-KK so i turn my pair into a bluff and bet 80 into 120. As he is cutting chips out to call I am staring at him thinking I need to put in another big bet on the river if he calls. He looks up at me and decides on a fold. Phew

CRAI essentially said what I was going to. I would like to add drink more water!

Also consider drinking green tea in afternoons/night instead of coffee. To lower caffeine intake with something that still has some caffeine. While getting the added health benefits of green tea in your life.

Goodluck! (:

What’s the total bankroll on? You should add Apps onto your schedule

Thanks for the suggestion. Green tea as a sub at night sounds good.

My total live poker bankroll is 30k. What do u mean by add apps onto my schedule? I’m a little slow sorry

Sunday

I late regged the $300 tourney at lvl 5 with blinds at 200/400/400 bb ante. My 20000 starting stack went down to 17500 when this hand happened.

I open to 1k with Red AA on CO and whale calls on button, BB calls.

Flop Ac10s6s (3600) i cbet 1600 and whale calls.
Turn 6d (6800) i bet 3000 and get called
River 9s (12800) completes flush, I jam ~12000 for pot size bet and get called by K2s for a rivered flush.

After this hand I won a couple smaller pots and then went completely card dead for like 3 levels. Blinds were at 600/1200/1200 bb ante when I played my next interesting hand.

CO who is chip leader raises to 2500, SB who is 2nd chip leader calls and I look down at 97s in BB (48k stack). Obviously calling is standard here but The chipleader has been raising 3x-3.5x with his premiums, limping some weaker hands aswell so when he minraised on CO I picked this off as a weak sizing tell and made it 10k expecting a fold 95% of the time. The CO does quickly fold but to my surprised the SB starts tanking and calls. I immediately put him on a range of 88+, big suited broadways like AJs AQs KQs.

Flop K95r. (23700) check check
Turn 5. Check bet 7500, tank folds AQs (me and sb were friendly and he shows me his hand)

The tournament had a total of 140 entries with 20 being ITM but my local casino usually votes to pay bubble so 22th place is the real bubble boy. We were down to 23 players when the UTG player limps (he limps a lot so I’m not concerned he’s trapping with AA) I’m UTG + 1 and llook down at 99 with 18BB and Jam all in. Next player rejams with AA and we couldn’t pull the 2 outer, out in 23rd

Over all I am very happy with my tournament play. The only thing I am unhappy about was that I couldn’t wake up earlier to play the early lvls. With my experience in deepstack cash games, I should be playing lvl 1 where stacks are 200bbs deep to take the most advantage out of this great structured tournament. Next month I will play at lvl 1, no excuses.

I played a total of 5 hours for the tournament. After busting out, I played another 6 hours of cash game. The last 3 hours of the session I ran extremely card dead and could not win 1 single pot, not even 1 hand where I raise and take down blinds. I called it quits after being stuck another -330.

All in total today I played 11hrs and lost -$660.
Poker, the only job where u work extra hard, overtime and come home with less money

Weekly challenge recap

- played a total of 40hrs worth of cash game which met my goals + 10hr in tournaments
- maintaining a fix schedule was a complete failure. I ended up never leaving the casino before 9 p.m. and usually stayed till 12. My excuses at night is the games get good and I needed to put hours in, but that should not be my priority, it’s stupid because if I can fix my health my long term EV is much more.
- I didn’t quite exercise everyday but managed to do 4/7 days for 15 or more minutes. All in all it was a minor success.
- I only meditated once this whole week for 5 minutes.
- I lost -$530 in cash games and -$450 in tournaments which means -1k for the week. Exactly the opposite of my goal of +1k week.

So I basically failed my first weeks challenge pretty horribly and am very embarrassed about it. As many in the thread have suggested I shouldn’t try to tackle too many leaks at once as it would be too overwhelming.

Poker has given me the ability to be my own boss which is great. But I am a horribly irresponsible person. Today is monday and I am back at it again with a horrible start. It’s 4:45 pm and I havent even had breakfast or shower for the day. I am out of weed which I can see clearly has effects on my over all motivation. My happiness is also greatly impacted due to a very long losing week. I have no attributes of a true professional who takes care of his body for his demanding job. I am embarrassed to call myself a pro poker player. I feel more like a degen who has had a good upswing year. The only thing I can be somewhat proud of is my volumn at the poker tables, but is it really that impressive for a degen to be in a casino all day? Not really. I feel like ****. I probably will have to go get some weed today but I am unsure if I should go to the casino as it’s late and I will probably play till midnight and **** everything up for tommorow.

Anyways there’s less than a week left till Decemebr. I am not going to have any goals or challenges that I can miserably fail on till the beginning of next month. I am just going to try my best from now till the end of this month with my previous goals and really think about what I want to accomplish in December, and set goals that are more achievable

Mid session update

Today i woke up early(ish) at 9:30 and exercised for a good 25 minutes. Playing my A+ game right now. Many interesting hands already.

Hero covers all in this hand. opens AcQc utg and get called by mp, button, sb and bb.

Flop 9c10sJc checks to mp who bets 35 (350 stack), button (210 calls) sb (600 stack) check raises to 110. Hero tanks...........fold. Mp folds button calls
Turn 5h they get it in
River 5d sb shows KcQh for the flopped nut straight

My reasoning for the fold dispite having a massive combo draw is the sb is a tight player and wouldn’t check raise 2 pair, and would check call sets sometimes aswell. His range is Straight heavy so our straight draw might be no good if we hit the 8. Obviously we have the nuts on K or Club but the sb is good enough to check fold bad turns so we have no implied odds. Also the fact that mp and button can still shove and open betting for sb makes it easier to fold

You're welcome. Best of luck!

November 2018 results

HRs played 167
profit: +3053

some hand histories where I think I played well.

H1.
MP limps, Hero in CO with AsKh raises to 15. SB (550) 3bets to 55. all fold, hero calls

Flop Ks8s5s. sb bets 50. hero calls

turn 3x sb bets 55. hero calls

river Qx. sb bets 75. hero calls. sb shows Ac10c.

Villain sees heros hand and gets mad at himself saying I can't believe I just gave you all that money lol

H2
HJ (~300) raises to 15, hero calls button with KhQc. BB calls.

Flop Ah10d5h HJ bets 25, hero calls, bb folds

Turn 8c. HJ checks, hero bets 50, HJ calls

River 3h. HJ checks, hero goes all in HJ folds.


H3.

UTG Straddles 10. folds to sb who completes, Hero in BB raises to 30, straddle folds, sb calls.

Flop: 2h4c6h. check, check

Turn 3h. sb leads 35 hero calls

river 6x. sb bets 65, hero calls and he announces Q high.

December 2018 goals

I will be travelling next month so I want to play as much as I can before that. The challenge i set for this month is to wake up early everyday, meditate, exercise and get to the casino for the first 1-3 game they open and play for 8 hrs minimum. I will also take no off days so I expect to book 250hrs this month. Lets go!

Day 1
Played 4 hours of tournament and bubbled. Lost $200 there.
Played 5 hours of cash and won $75
Couldn’t get in any exercise today. I’ll try to meditate before bed to save the day.

Total hrs played : 9hr
Total profit: -$125

Day 2

I woke up at 9 am and got in some needed excercise. I have been shadow boxing in the house as my exercise, I want to get some outdoor walking going on but it’s been really cold and I haven’t got the needed sunlight yet . Still no real meditation done, it’s really hard to sit for 5 minute. I’m going to set smaller meditation goals of 1 minute for now and gradually move up.

I got to the casino at 11:30 and there was no 1-3 game running yet, however there was a $100 turbo tournament going on so I decided to hop into that. Played for 3 hours and busted near money again. 3/3 bubble for my last 3 tourneys.

After tournament it was on to the real cash game grind. I played for 7 more hours in the cash game and was ready to book a small win for the day. I was sitting on table 5 when I noticed another semi-pro who smokes me out sometimes at table 6. I texted him asking to smoke me out and he agrees. We go out for a smoke and he tells me to immediately get a table change to his table, that there is a massive whale there. I took his advice and came to the game with the seat immediate to the left of the whale, what a dream spot. I scope around the table and there are multiple 1k+, some action players i know other than the mentioned whale. Very good 1/3 game indeed. I had initially ran up my $500 buyin to $750 when I sat down at this table.

AA in a straddled pot
Blinds $1-$3 and the UTG ($650 eff) reg/fish/action player straddles to $10. I open AsAd in CO to $30 and only straddler defends. I know this player is the type who “defends his straddle” very wide.

Flop Q106 2 spades. He checks and I bet 30, he calls.
Turn 3 brick. Perfect blank and I bet 75. To my surprise, my opponent check raises me to 275 leaving himself with 300 ish left.

This put me in a very weird spot. It was very tough because my gut told me he is not bluffing but I couldn’t figure out what he had for value that didn’t check raise the flop. With flush and straight draws out there, all his sets and 2 pair combos are check raising flop with high frequency. The only semi bluff I see him having here could be 54s that pick up the perfect turn card to check raise. Ultimately I decided that he doesn’t have much bluffs and is the type of player that may pick up some weird 2 pair like Q3s on the turn so i folded. He sheepishly tells me he got lucky and picked up 2 pair with 63 later. I can confirm he is not lying due to history of him being very honest and genuine when talking about his hands from previous sessions we’ve played.

QdJd vs aggresive drunk unknown

Prior to this hand I’ve never played with this villian before. 2 showdowns I’ve seen him 3b 66 squeeze ep raise and 1 caller and cbet KQ9 board. The other hand he 3b squeezed 107s and check raise jam on Q44 with flopped flush draw.
My stack is at $560 in this hand after losing with AA.

Hero opens QdJd in EP and get called by CO. Villian 3b to 45 and we both call.

Flop 9s8d3c (135) villian bets 50. We call with gutshot to nuts, overs and bd flushdraw. Co folds

Turn 3d (235) Villian bets 100 and hero tank calls.

River 5d villian jams all in and we call ($365 left) and win vs KhKc.

So this aggresive villian was not the whale I was bum hunting but ended up being the one who whaled off the most to us. In this hand he showed up with a very strong legit hand though. But His real sign of a whale is in this next hand.

Flopping the joint in a multiwaypot super deepstacked

$1-$3 no straddle, utg opens to 21 and gets 3 calls (you know game is crazy when someone 7x and gets 3 callers) I look down at Ac6c in button and find an easy call. If stacks are 100bb I can see a case for folding but with 350bb stacks it’s very profitable to call with suited Ax hands on the button due to nut potential and over flushing opponents multiway inpostion when super deep stacked.

Flop: Jc5c4c (105) OR checks to villian in hand 2(who had kk vs our QJ) and he leads for $25 folds to me and I call and everyone else folds. Heads up to

Turn: 6x. Villian bets half pot for $75 (we both have $1000 behind), I think about raising to get stacks in vs smaller flushes/sets that might slow down on bad rivers but ultimately decided to flat to keep his bluffs in and if he has a smaller flush, there’s less clubs in the deck to roll off on the river anyways.

River 8x. What a beautiful card. We have the nuts on the river facing an aggresive opponent who has been betting the whole way and we still have $1000 left to play. The pot is $300 and our opponent shoves all in. Is this real? I had to double check my cards and make sure i had the nuts before “snap callling”. Whaled showed 9c3c for flopped flush. What’s sick about this hand is if I had a smaller flush like 10-K I would have probably folded the best hand lol.

Top set vs same whale and my mistake

I look down at KK and quickly threw out 3 red chips for my standard raise, except I threw out the wrong colors for 2 of my chips and ended up raising to 7. Same whale in previous hand calls button and SB (passive) calls aswell. We are all over $1200 deep in this hand.

Flop 89K rainbow checks to me and I bet $20 and both opponents call.
Turn J brings bd flush. Check, I check and whale on button bets 25, passive fish check raises to 85. I’m pretty sure he has a straight and flat call hoping to boat up since I will have position on river and lots of implied odds. Whale on button Jams all in for a huge overbet. SB doesn’t look too happy and call it off. I show my semi-pro neighbor before folding and he is in disbelief thinking I must have the best hand.

Whale shows up with 710o for turned straight, sb shows up with the same 107 except hes freerolljng the bd flush draw. Brick city on river (no flush, no boat) and they chop up my 110 bucks.

I ended up leaving the casino at 4 a.m. in the morning. I had to sacrifice my daily routine for this juicy game and ended up booking a +1950 session, at 1-3 which all came from my last 4 hrs of my 12hr session.

Total day results: 3hrs tournament, 11hrs cash for a total of 14hrs
Profit: 1950 - 100 = +1850