Whats up 2p2! I've had a few PGCs that didn't go too well but atm, I've finally "gone pro" and really think that keeping a well documented thread will push my game to the next level!

The Story:

My name is Chris and I just turned 25. Decided at the beginning of 2015 that I would finally take that plunge into LLSNL full time! The original plan was to move to SoFl but ended up settling in MD and have been here since the middle of February. I currently grind full time at MDL and Horseshoe Baltimore! Truth be told, when I moved up I didn't plan very well and actually had a lot less money than I thought I did... Thankfully, the first few months have gone great and I was able to run into some positive variance to bring my roll to a healthy state! I'm currently playing 2/5 NL and am very close to taking shots at 5/T. My main reason for this thread is to improve my game and hopefully help others do the same. I also think this thread will keep me on track my short/long term goals that I like to set!

I currently have 990 hours tracked at 2/5 since the middle of last year (was playing part time up until February). My current winrate is 5.91bb/hr so I have a lot of room for improvement. After filtering my results, my winrate this year over 508 hours is 6.96bb/hr. I made some adjustments to my game at the beginning of March that I think positively affected my winrate. Obv, I don't have much of a sample but I think it's somewhat significant. I honestly think 10-12bb/hr is very attainable in these games even though they are 100bb cap. Nevertheless, I have a lot of work to do and leaks to plug before I even think about moving up to 5/T.

I have also gained some weight over the last 9 months or so, to the tune of 40lbs... So I'm really focused on getting back in shape! I played high school and college football and have lifted on and off since 2004 so I hold the weight I have very well but have a lot of improvements to make. I transferred my Golds Gym membership here and make sure I get in at least 5 days/week. I actually plan on starting a new program on Bodybuilding.com on Monday called "Project Mass". Obv, this program is intended for those who want to add lean mass but if I tailor my diet, I believe this program will help me drop some bodyfat while holding on to the lean mass that I do have! So with that said, I'll also be using this thread to track my weight loss!

This thread is my way to document this awesome journey of playing poker for a living, improve my game, inspire others, and to hopefully give back to the poker community as some point!

Poker Goals:

-Move up to 5/T
-Log minimum of 160 hrs/month at the tables
-Focus more on improving my game away from table
-Post 3 hands/week in LLSNL
-Update this thread atleast bi-weekly

Fitness Goals:

-Lose 50lbs by September 20th
-Improve cardiovascular capacity
-Plan to do a tough mudder at some point this year
-Limit alcohol consumption to twice/month

What would an OP be without a graph!? (More soon to come)

All Hours/Stakes/Locations/Etc.


There are plenty other goals/topics I want to touch on once I get the thread going, until then thanks for any follows!!! Everyone get out there and crush!

Chip Porn (MDL is 100bb cap and Horseshoes is $800 cap, all are winning sessions just not sure how much I'm in for in each... Enjoy):

GL.

Post a hand you played well.
Post a hand you played poorly.
Are you 3-bet squeezing from the SB without premiums?

subd. GL

Thanks fellas!

I just wanted to say good luck to Chris on this endeavor. I met him probably 2 years ago grinding online MTTs--noticed that he was also from North Carolina, and next thing you know we're talking on Skype. Chris is one of the hardest working people I know in the poker community. Both of us focused primarily on MTTs, but he made the decision to transition over to playing cash and it has worked well for him. In the last year or two, out of all the poker players I PERSONALLY know/talk to, Chris has grown the most. I'd say he has the most disciplined bankroll management I've seen. If looking for a cash game player to invest in, I would feel super comfortable investing in him (which is rare for me to say about players).

To answer BradleyT's question, I would venture to say that Chris very rarely 3-bet squeezes from the small blind without a premium. Chris has always played a very disciplined game, and I can't remember discussing many hands with where he started the hand with something out-of-line.

I've been trying to get Chris to play more tournaments, and I'd like to hear feedback from some of the other players/friends he talks to. He's someone that VERY, VERY rarely will touch his bankroll to play an MTT (WPT event, WSOP, etc.; not just some random daily), and I think that may be a small leak. He's at the point where he can play a $250-$570 buy-in MTT every now and then, and not really hurt his roll. That's where you're going to get that big BR boost that will potentially allow you to move from $2/5 to $5/T much quicker.

I wish the best for Chris, like I've said. He's definitely one of the good guys in this community. And it's rare to see guys grinding $2/5 that rake it in like he does.

Loving the chip pron, keep it rolling.

As far as maintaining muscle mass while losing weight - I would definitely look into a branch chain amino acids supplement. Usually marketed as just BCAA.

Is the 5.5g BCAA contained in a serving of ON Whey enough? How many g's per day should we aim for?


As far as OP and MTT's go....it's definitely a players market right now. You have guys with $0 tournament cashes getting paid to play (via 20% markup) in the marketplace right now. People got monies to burn.

Thanks Justin for the kind words and I have a huge respect for your game so it's nice coming from you! As far as the MTTs go, I did play a $350 40k so I am taking a little bit of that advice! Knocked out 23rd out of 149 (top 18 pay). Was pretty happy with my play but did make a few notable mistakes. That was my first live MTT in a while so from now on I do plan on staying a little more fresh on my MTT game.... I also plan on playing some of the PPC with you in August which should be fun!

@Agorophob I'm currently taking Xtend by Scivation which is a BCAA supplement as well as the BCAA in my protein powder (BSN Syntha 6) and I'll keep the chip porn coming! Really want to get some HHs typed up but still trying to figure out how to format them on 2p2. It was easy when I directly imported them from my Holdem manager but as far as typing them up by hand, not quite sure how to format them yet.

@BradleyT I'm definitely going to start playing a MTT here and there and possibly look into selling action in the marketplace, thanks for the suggestion!

As far as my goals. I'm way off here recently... Been drinking too much and not getting in the hours I should be. I'm having a great time going out with friends but it has to be limited from now on. Currently only up 1.8k on the month over 130 hours (includes tourney BI and a dumb drunk spew of $300 in the pits one night). Really not too upset though since I started the month -4.3k. This week I'm going to focus on getting in a ton of hours. Have family coming next weekend so wont be playing. It's time that I get back in touch with my goals and light the fire again! I'll most likely be playing Monday-Friday this week so there will be an update with chip porn and hopefully some HHs if I can figure out this formatting issue. That's it for now, kind of drained from the weekend. I plan to do a monthly review of some sort so I'll decide how I want to do that and get it posted in the next week or so!!

Will be following closely good luck sir !

Thanks bro!

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Starting my "Project Mass" plan today, pretty excited! Today is going to be the "leg strength" day so it's gonna be a tough one... Plan is to do 20 mins before and after lifts on stairmaster. Keeping my lifts intense are vital to my weightloss but the cardio is essential as well which is one thing I tend to neglect. This time around I plan to put a huge emphasis on getting my cardio done! Plan is to note the weights I use for each lift and document them here so I can hopefully add weight every week.


As far as poker is concerned, I plan on getting at least 50 hours in this week before Friday. As stated before, I have family coming up this weekend and don't plan on playing while they're here. Did some reading and note taking on "Poker Math that Matters" this morning since poker math isn't the strongest aspect of my game. Tbh, I have no idea how my hourly is where it's at given my knowledge of the math behind the game. I believe if I take the time to actually study the math it will help a ton in increasing my hourly. I will be finishing this book before moving to another but I do plan on getting to the Mental Game books directly after. Although I feel like my mental game is one of my stronger points, I already have both books so it wouldn't hurt reading/taking notes on some of the topics! Overall improvement is what I'm going for! I also wanted to some feedback from the community on "Beyond Tells". It's an online website that claims to have had the largest study on human poker psychology. I cant find many unbiased reviews on the site but would like to hear from anyone who knows anything about it.

Workout: Leg Strength

3 minutes of rest between sets

**20 mins on stairmaster**

-Barbell Squat Barbell Squat Barbell Squat
4 sets of 3 reps

-Barbell Deadlift Barbell Deadlift Barbell Deadlift
4 sets of 3 reps

-Leg Press Leg Press Leg Press
4 sets of 3 reps

-Romanian Deadlift Romanian Deadlift Romanian Deadlift
4 sets of 3 reps

**20 mins on stairmaster**

All the lifts on strength days should be a high percentage of my 1RM. Each lift will have a couple of warm up sets before the working sets are performed. I will also be weighing myself today before I workout but only to get a starting number. Since I'll be lifting so frequently, I don't plan on getting on the scale too often (probably every 2 weeks). I shouldn't really be focused on the scale since I'm looking to drop bodyfat and hopefully maintain/add muscle mass during this cut.

I'll probably be shooting a short update later tonight on my numbers a gym today and my poker session!

I've run across "Beyond Tells." I'm not going to say you can't get valuable information from there, but as I'm sure you know, "good" information usually costs money. Nick Wealthall has a similar web-based "improve your poker game online platform" that I think is just a ploy to send you more and more emails. I got the vibe that's what "Beyond Tells" is for--a way to start an email subscription type thing that will just end up bombarding your inbox.

I'm looking forward to the PPC up at MD Live! My best advice in familiarizing with live tournaments is to play some of the dailies up at Live or the Horseshoe. They have to have some decent deepstack tournaments for $100-200 buy-ins.

Yea I got the same vibe after looking over the site... And yea PPC should be pretty awesome! As far as dailies, I'd rather play cash with most of the hours I spend playing throughout the month. I'm really only playing MTTs where I think there may be an overlay or just some other good value tourneys. Will most likely play some of the PPC events with you though!

So yesterday.... I completely forgot it was Memorial Day. The gym ended up closing early so when I finally made it there I have about 40 mins to get something done. I couldn't finish my lift that quick so just ended up doing cardio. I'll be heading to the gym shortly to hopefully start the program!

As for poker, I played a short session yesterday. Ended up meeting some friends at a park yesterday to hang out and afterwards was really tired but I had to get a little volume in. I'm living in Baltimore so I'm really close to Horseshoe. Decided to do that last night instead of making the drive to Live! Ended up sitting at 1/3 while waiting for a seat in the must move game. 1/3 was uneventful but I finally got over to the 2/5 must move. I have a couple interesting hands, one of which I got numerous different opinions about. After this post I'm going to play around and see if I can figure out how to get a few hands posted. As for results, I only got in 4 hours but ended up finishing +690. I never got over to the main game, which was fine bc the must move ended up being great!

I plan on playing later today. Got up pretty early to get some things done around the house and now I'm about to go workout. Really plan on getting more than 4 hours in today, but we shall see!

The suggestion to play the dailies at Live! is leading more to the experience/acclimating yourself. Not necessarily a suggestion on how to make money.

Can you not use the same type of hand converter similar to the ones guys use to post hands played online?

I know I have said this in the past but I feel it needs to be mentioned again. You have one of the sexiest graphs I have ever seen. It is pure sex. It reminds me of the face of a steep mountain side, one in which would surely be impossible to climb. Mine resembles a heart monitor of an ER patient suffering from a cartiac arrest.

LOL.

That's hilarious. Thanks though! Lol

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Chris,

I ran into an ad for this site on SharkScope last night:

http://www.sharemypair.com/.

Maybe this could be an option for posting hands, since it seems to be geared towards posting "Live" hands.

Where ya been? Haven't seen you in about a week. Gotta keep the thread going

Yea I have this app on my phone but didn't even think about using it... Great suggestion! And yea, I'm writing up an update now to recap last month and list goals for June!

Been a few days... I haven't been putting in the hours I should be and it had a lot to do with not having the motivation after having a less than exciting May...

May Recap:





**I feel ok about these results since I had my biggest downswing yet at the beginning of the month (-4.3k). I was really happy to be able to keep my head clear and recover from that!

June:

Yesterday I had another MDL reg approach me about a profit bet this month. I decided it was a good time to make a bet, mainly for motivation purposes. This guy just came off a 15k month at 2/5 in May so I have some great competition here! I don't make profit goals for the most part so just plan on getting in some quality hours this month and seeing what happens!

Goals this month:

[]160 hours 2/5
[]One good value MTT
[]Post 2 hands/week ITT
[]Finish reading "Poker Math That Matters"

Fitness:

My fitness goals had taken a backseat but I plan on getting back on the train! I'm having a hard time figuring out an ideal schedule to workout and play everyday. I'm currently experimenting with different times to see what works best for me. I am still enjoying the "Project Mass" workout so I will continue that but the main problem is my diet. While losing weight before, I was using MyFitnessPal and just tracked all of my calorie intake. I lost a lot of weight twice before using this so the plan this month is to get back on this.

Life:

I currently have 2 months left on the lease at my current residence. I will be looking for a new place in MD and hope to move in around 15th of August. I'm going back home to NC for the first two weeks of August for my parents birthday then I'll be back on the grind. As for the next couple of months, I'm debating on either staying here until July 31st or maybe meeting JMiclett in Cherokee, NC on July 23rd-Aug 2nd for the WSOPc National Championship stop. Def plan on speaking about this more with him in the next few weeks. As far as finding a new place, I'm really excited to get out of Baltimore and be closer to Live! and my gym! Currently looking in Glen Burnie and Ellicott City. If anyone in the area knows of decent complexes please let me know!

I played my first session of the month yesterday and finished +$802.00. Very please with how I played even though I only got in 4 hours... Also, JMiclett just mentioned shairmypair for posting HHs on here. I'm going to look into it and see if I can get it going. I have some pretty good HHs from the last few weeks that I'd really like to get some feedback on! Anyways, hope everyone has a great June. Will update again soon!!

Quick update...

Currently on stairmaster at Golds. Just finished session, -$60. Very uneventful. Finding up cardio, hitting chest/tris, then going home to shower/crash.

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Any interesting hands from the first 2 sessions of June? Is the profit bet going to be significant to you?

Gl in June, hope it is better for you then May. (although 3.3k seems pretty good for a month containing your worst downswing ever)

Let me know ShareMyPair works. I'm also curious to hear how it works.

- - -

As far as the value MTT goes... I took a look at the tourneys in June in the Baltimore area. What do you think about the Live 500? I know the buy-in may be a little higher than what you'd like, but (1) it has a $50K guarantee, and (2) they are running a bunch of $80 satellites.

https://www.marylandlivecasino.com/a...e-500-June.pdf

There are obviously some decent MTTs on WPN and Bovada this month, but I assumed you were referring to a live MTT.