What's up 2p2ers,

It has been a long time and I am badly in need of some goals and structure again. To give a brief history on myself: I am an old guy (37). I've been playing poker for a living for 11 years now and for the past seven years or eight years I have been doing so with a family (of now 4). I have a wife, a four-year-old daughter, a seven-year-old son, and three dogs. I've had a couple of other PGNC threads where I have discussed changes, challenges, and benefits playing poker for a living as a new dad/family guy. It has been a pretty huge lifestyle change for me, as I'm guessing it would be for most pro poker players, but it has been a great ride.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...o-2-a-1284141/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...maths-1341223/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...014-a-1407157/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...015-a-1501203/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...goals-1588379/
def surprising myself to see how many of these I've done now or at least started .


So I wrote up this whole thing about how I've been going through my worst downswing ever, I don't know how to play this game anymore, and I feel like I'll never win again blah blah blah. The "feelings" part there is true but after pulling up graphs and looking at previous PGCs this is clearly not my worst downswing by any measure. I was(am still somewhat), however, pretty tilted and burnt out towards the "end" of it so I decide it would be a good time to finally learn how to play PLO.

Since mid March now, minus a couple weeks for a trip with the family to China, I have been working on PLO exclusively. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to jump right in at 3/6 PLO but, in retrospect, I probably should've started a bit lower as I had no idea what I was doing.

This is my full database up until starting PLO when I had to start a new one for some reason because the hands weren't showing up.
Year to day before PLO 3/17
and all PLO hands so far



Not to far in (1300 hands or so) I dropped 13 buy ins below EV in about a hundred hands. Welcome to PLO variance for me. Other than that it hasn't been too crazy. I've been getting in a fair amount of volume for the limited number of tables I can play and I've been reading and watching loads of PLO videos. I feel like I'm learning pretty quickly but results so far disagree.

Since flaking out on my last pgc, when i went away on a trip and never came back to it for some reason, I've been pretty lazy about exercising or having any specific work goals.

That pretty much brings us up to date. I haven't shown profit in 4 months, negative for the year, and the bankroll is slowly (sometimes quickly) dwindling away, multiple stresses are mounting, and I need to start making some money. Perhaps even more badly needed is to remove the long lingering feeling that I will never win again.

That brings us to the goals. I think part of the reason I flaked out on the last PGC was the monotony of doing the same thing week after week. To avoid that I will be setting new and specific goals each week pertaining to work, study, exercise, and hopefully some fun random stuff to keep me on my toes.

My vague long term goals are to move up to 2k PLO and be switching regularly between PLO and NL, get in better shape, and strengthen my fragile mental game. For now though I will just be taking things one week and one small step at a time.

Week 1
Full PLO immersion ends. I will be working on game selecting PLO (200-600) and NL (400 to 1000). I am very bad at ever quitting anyone, which has had me playing PLO(did I mention I don't know how to play this game?) HU against ppl who are almost certainly better than me, for extended periods of time. I think that this is a great way to learn and I just love the competition BUT as mentioned I need an upswing and some confidence boost so goal number 1 this week is

1. Quit tough games and look for better ones [ ]
I'm going to set an alarm for every 20 minutes to remind myself to reevaluate tables if I find I'm having a problem with this.

2. 5,500 hands [ ]
Doesn't sound like much but 4 tabling on ignition this takes a while and I'll also be studying more than usual still learning PLO which brings me to

3. Five hours of study [ ]
No multitasking allowed if watching vids and must be actively watching i.e. stopping at critical points to ask myself what I would in this situation and why and then comparing and contrasting with vid coach.

4. Three 45+ minute yogas [ ]
I've been super slack on this lately. I enjoy it and it's clearly very helpful for me in multiple ways yet somehow I've just gotten out of the habit. I think I've been getting stressed just grinding more, thinking that I don't have time for yoga when really that's when I need it most.

5. One 3 mile run [ ]
Haven't really ran in a while. I stopped when my knee starting bothering me so this will be a good tester for it's current status. Running has very noticeably helped me with poker and stress in the past as well.

6. Put together a workout for the following week [ ]
We recently got some weights here in the house but I haven't done much with them. I have a friend who is a PT and owns a gym and my wife is pretty fitness savvy too so I am going to try to work with both of them to help design something.

7. Journal for at least 3 min after each session [ ]
Never done this before but my mental game needs some serious repairs so I'm gonna give it a shot.

And DJ Fluid will start us of with this one about someone feeling pushed out of an industry and burnt out but, on top of having no where else to go, they are still in love with it. Yeah for some reason let's start with this one...




/emo self pity party

GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

In, GL!

If it's not too much trouble could you mention some of the material/vids that were most useful in your transition to PLO?
Going to learn it myself and still trying to figure out where is best to start.

Yoooo. I loved allof your previous blogs. Welcome Back.

Why the switch to PLO? Id give anything for the level of consistency in your NL graph. (Mostly HU correct?)

GL GL GL! Curious about the switch from Hunl too. I know it's a declining format ... sucks because my favorite format too

you've had a habit of upswinging when starting a new pgc i think, hopefully the trend continues! glglgl (oh and post more pics of the dogs obv)

[/QUOTE] Thanks, man. RunItOnce PLO videos have been the main source but I picked up a couple books as well. The one that I started with was pretty old school exploitative stuff and the one I'm reading ATM is much more game theory based but I don't have them on me so I can post title/author later. Playing and watching RIO vids for the most part though.


TY! Good to be back.
I've been clicking buttons in NLHE for 12 years now (11 professionally) and was just feeling stagnant. Felt like I hadn't learned anything in a while. I still have tons to learn in NLHE, to clarify, but it just wasn't happening and I had been playing robotically for a while and couldn't get out of that gear.

HU is probably a 3rd of it and the rest shorthanded to 6m. Used to play more hu tables but now its more starting 6m tables.

Thanks Nick! Covered mostly above but, yeah, NL getting tougher while PLO seeming more like a new frontier definitely had something to do with wanting to learn it. I avoided it for a long time because of the variance insanity. So far it's reaaaally fun. Even when I'm not winning

Thanks Ty! That's what I'm hoping for, man. Need that PGC voodoo . Dog pics incoming. The puppy is now a full grown, hyperactive, fluffy butted Aussie. Tripped me out seeing those old puppy pics when I looked over last PGC thread.

GL2U all

very nice holdem results, gl gl

Thanks for this. I had planned on checking out RIO at some point but will put it at the top of the list now.
Also cheers for the incoming book titles.

Engage PG&C rungood 💹

Just finished my first run in a long time for about 3.5 miles. Old man knee confirmed. The rest of me feels pretty good, though.

TY

RIO is great. So the first book was called The Big Play Strategy by Jeff Hwang and it was pretty old school exploitative play with pretty nitty guidelines. It seems like it's written more for live play. I switched to the second one after it was clear that it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I do plan on finishing it later as it has some good ideas and it never hurts to get a clearer picture of how different ppl view the game.

The one that I'm working on now is Mastering Pot-Limit Omaha by Herbert Okolowitz and Wladimir Taschner. Seems good so far but I'm only a quarter in or so. Ill keep you posted.

Cool, cheers man

1. Quit tough games and look for better ones [ ]
Didn't do great at this. Sometimes I would just get sucked into the games and forget to step back and other times, mostly at HU, I would intentionally continue in a tough game because... I don't know. I just want to figure them out or I just enjoy it so much OR because I'm too prideful to quit someone and admit they are better than me, which is clearly the case in this situation.


2. 5,500 hands [X]
Actually was a tiny bit short in the database but I played in a friendly live game one night and probably made up the tiny difference.


3. Five hours of study [X]
Mostly vids with a little bit of reading.


4. Three 45+ minute yogas [X]
Very nice getting back into this.


5. One 3 mile run [X]


6. Put together a workout for the following week [ ]
My PT friend said he could put one together but that I should come in to his gym and be trained for it so I'll be doing that soon.


7. Journal for at least 3 min after each session [ ]
I forgot to do this at all the first several sessions but have done a decent job since starting. Now that I have a pen and pad on desk it's much easier to remember. I need a system for grading myself after each session and I think that will be more helpful than writing post session ramblings like I have been. I know I've seen some good systems in other PGCs before so I will have to look around.

Results

exciting stuff. At least it wasn't a losing week. Doesn't much help the feeling that I'm

How he just gets smacked in the face and continues every 5 seconds just makes it even more perfect of a descriptor for how I've felt at the tables lately

Anyway, Onto week 2

since the game selection thing didn't go so well this week I'm going to...
1. Set alarm for every 30 min to remind myself to step back from games and assess whether or not I should be playing [ ]

2. Another 3+ mile run [ ]
Besides the knee soreness that went away quickly it definitely helped burn some stress away and felt pretty good. Maybe I can push my impending heart attack back a few weeks

3. 3 more 45+ min yoga practices [ ]
I want to be able to do hand stand but August so I'm going to be working on that some during.

4. 5+ hrs study [ ]

5. 5000 hands [ ]
It's going to be a busy week and with less childcare than usual so I'm dropping it down a little bit.

6. 10 minutes of meditation each day [ ]
Besides using Headspace improperly (laying in bed before sleeping) I don't have any meditation experience. I'll be using Headspace (Take 10) again for this. Hopefully this will help with my mega tilt accumulation issues .

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand go

All strikes for the goals in week 2.

1. Set alarm for every 30 min to remind myself to step back from games and assess whether or not I should be playing [X]
This was surprisingly helpful and in more than just the intended way.

2. 3+ mile run [X]

3. 3 45+ min yoga practices [X]

4. 5+ hrs study [X]

5. 5000 hands [X]

6. 10 minutes of meditation each day [X]
I'm enjoying this so far. For anyone who's been curious about beginning meditation but didn't know where to start I'd recommend the app Headspace. I'm going to keep this going into this next week.

Results


at least 1 line is going the right way.

Week 3

1. 5k hands []
missing childcare for a couple days this week and still trying to study lots so keeping it lowish

2. 5 hrs study []

3. 10 min meditation per day []

4. 3 45+ min yogas []

5. Juggle a soccer ball 500 times in a row []
could do this when a kid but very unlikely I can even physically juggle for that long these days. Gonna try though and if not consecutive I'll make the goal 2k total.



Shes no longer a little ball of puppy like here


Here she is with one of my other dogs, Sake the wild dingo.


These days, like most Aussies she is very happy to run 30-50 miles but here is her finally exhausted after 9 hrs of discgolf while shes running mad the whole time with other dogs



Off to a ****ty start of the week so far. So ****ing tired of losing. I remember feeling bored with winning last year. Sighhhh

damn that's a cute dog. i just bought a condo the other day (assuming inspection and crap all goes through alright) and hopefully by the end of this year will be getting a dog, cant wait. sorry to hear things are still going mediocre at the tables, hope it turns around asap, glgl

sick.

good luck man, will be following.

Week 3

1. 5k hands [X]
got in a fair amount of untracked hands (b/e) from a new site on top of the ones below.

2. 5 hrs study []
got in a little under 4 hrs but I also had a 1 hr coaching session with a student who is probably going to be teaching me more than vice versa soooo [X?]

3. 10 min meditation per day [X]

4. 3 45+ min yogas [X]

5. Juggle a soccer ball 500 times in a row []
goal was to do 500 in a row or 2000 non consecutive. I got around 900 then forgot about it at the end of the week. It was kind of meant as a fun way to replace run since my knee was a little off but I ended up running 4.5 miles so I don't feel so bad about being short. I also just wanted to see if I could still do it and no, no I can't. Using mostly knees same as I used to my legs could barely get past 100 before being completely toast.

Feel pretty good about my effort since starting this. Results still pretty ****e for this week


On a bright-ish note my PLO results since starting IF at EV are not terrible. Kind of meaningless sample size or winning amount but I'm looking for something to cling to here.



Kids are out of school, nanny is out of town still, wife is at work so I'm hanging with the kids all day today. One napping and eldest minecrafting for a bit while I do this. Going to be tough to get in much volume again this week. Since starting this and for a couple weeks before, I have been waking up at 530 or 6 in order to get a session in, study, or get some exercise in before the kids wake. I've always been a night owl but it has been kinda nice.

On top of being short on childcare this week my youngest is also turning 4 so I'm going to keep the goals very simple and seemingly easy. I'm fairly exhausted ATM.

[]Game select. Swallow your stupid pride and game select, you monkey. Really really need an upswing. Not getting that PGC voodoo yet. Did you hear me poker gods? I STARTED A PEEE GEEE SEEEE!

[] 3 45+ min yogas

[] 3 hrs study

[] get full headspace subscription

easy peasy



Thanks man. Congrats on the homeownership if all went through. Don't get an Aussie unless you want a dog with a lottttt of energy and you can get it out often. Otherwise they are great but we've had good luck with our mutts too.

Doesn't even seem like its mine anymore but thanks! Welcome aboard.

Let's be dramatic and do another (good) one about not being able to make a living at your job anymore. Originally meant for napster/pirating but works well for poker bot invasion or just sucking

How many months can one start the mornings optimistic just to get beat down again and again without losing it? Experiment in progress.
I guess I'm doing OK overall but despair has definitely reared it's head
a few times.

Last weeks goals which were super minimal b/c I knew I was gonna be on childcare much more than usual still proved to be too much. Forgot to take into account multiple family birthday events along with Father's day.

[] 3 45+ min yogas
Ended up an hr short

[X] 3 hrs study

[X] get full headspace subscription
nailed this one

Little volume as expected

hey a winning week! but I lost 3.5kish on untracked site playing NL. Keeping in theme with the past 4 months of 1 step forward two steps back.


This week will be full bust ass bootcamp mode. Enough with the slacking.

[] 7k hands
This is a lot for me

[] 3 hrs yoga
ideally breaking it into around 30 min per day but whatever it takes

[] 1 3+ mile run
Old man knee be damned

[] 3 hrs study
RIO vids and still working on Mastering PLO, The Modern Aggressive Approach.

[] 10 min meditation per day
I'm hoping to keep this going permanantly

I've dropped down stakes somewhat making 2/4 more of the average for plo but playing 1/2 and 3/6 some and possibly a little higher for my NL hands depending on the games.

annnnnnnnnnnnd GO!

All checkmarks and somehow a positive week


[X] 7k hands
Graph shows 5600 but I probably got in 1400 at my other untracked site (break even or up a tiny bit).

[X] 3 hrs yoga
almost got in 4

[X] 1 3+ mile run


[X] 3 hrs study


[X] 10 min meditation per day




Sticking to the same for this week but will only shoot for 6k hands as we have a couple things going on that will cut my work week short.

Off for a 4 mile run. GL all this week!

Hey man,

Insane results. Are you playing all of your volume on Ignition? How do you rate the players there compared to other sites, in-regards to PLO?


Have you ever coached younger PLO players?

Thanks man!

Very nice week! Hopefully the new normal!

Boom

Hey Thanks. The big graph at the beginning is all NLHE hands. I've only been playing PLO for a few months now so I wouldn't at all feel comfortable coaching PLO yet. I'm still insecure in my NLHE coaching abilities after doing that for 11 years or so but I have coached 1 student previously and have recently started coaching another.

The vast majority has been on ignition so I couldn't make a good comparison of players from site to site. Ive recently started on another very small site where the action is pretty similar to ignition.

Thanks Nick!

Boom-ish but Ill happily take it at this point

/Week 6



Plus $3k or so on untracked site.

[] 6k hands
Not sure how many hands I got on my untracked site but probably not enough to make up the difference.

[X] 3 hrs yoga


[X] 1 3+ mile run


[X] 3 hrs study


[] 10 min meditation per day
I did for every workday and was at 12 days in a row but I sadly didn't work out continuing it when I went on vacation.

Feeling super unfocused back at work today. Went for a run to try to kick my brain into gear but with little success. I put in decent volume but probably shouldn't have. Off to do some yoga with the main purpose to wear me out so that I can get to bed early tonight, get some good sleep, and try to get to work early tomorrow before the kids wake. I only have Wed, Thurs, Friday to work this week and then heading out of town again for the weekend.

Goals for my 3 work days this week

[] 1 run

[] 2 hrs study

[] 45 min yoga per day

[] 10 min meditation per day

not putting any volume requirements up this week as I don't want to push it if I'm feeling this way again tomorrow. Maybe better would be...

[] no playing when tired/unfocused

Not that I can objectively measure those but I will do my best.

Who would've thought that sleeping in a tent with 3 kids would result in fatigue?

GL all this week

Looks like Photobucket which has gotten worse and worse since I started using it 11 years ago and is now basically a virus is requiring $40 per month to enable 3rd party hosting so I will need to look into other ways to post graphs.

-4700/-3700ev but made 1k or so on my untracked site.


[x] 1 run

[x] 2 hrs study

[] 45 min yoga per day
came up a little short but hiked 16 miles with a biggass pack this weekend on the Appalachian Trail so I got plenty of exercise.

[x] 10 min meditation per day


This week is off to a pretty bad start as well. I don't know if I am meant for PLO variance. I'm really enjoying learning the game and I'm enjoying it most of the time that I'm playing but I just can't stop losing flips/dropping below EV and I feel like I'm going to snap. I know it can get much much worse than this too. I am kind of at a loss for what to do now. BR is getting super low. Life roll is getting super low. I have a massive amount of accumulated tilt.

Going to think on the weeks goals but the plan for the immediate future is

Hey enjoy reading your updates , mostly just lurk -

For your pictures try downloading 'sharex' and use the 'region (light)' mode under 'capture' and it auto uploads to IMGUR and you can post your pic of graph/sessions etc practically instantly instead of fighting with ancient hosting websites like tinypic / photobucket etc

Also from what I remember download is super tiny aswell / won't cause any issues even if your pc is slow


gl @ the tables things will turn around !

any thoughts of going back to mostly nl, or just too burnt out on nl after a decade+ of it? glgl, you'll turn it around!