New challenge. New mindset. New beginning...

If a younger me could see me now he'd probably have a thing or 2 to say. I'd always assumed as a kid that as an adult I'd be happy and successful but life didn't quite turn out as expected. I experienced more loss throughout my childhood and adolescence than most people do in their entire lives and I pretty much just gave up altogether for a while. I've been on the mend these past couple of years and now depression and self pity have been replaced by frustration. It's like I've suddenly woke up to a **** life am now faced with repairing all the damage caused by my self dustructive habits/thoughts over the past decade. From here on out, I'm gonna work my ****ing arse off until I become the person my younger self aspired to be.

That's the waffle out of the way now on to the schedule. This is going to be my daily routine which I'll be following every day, except on Mondays where I won't be playing any poker.



I'll be starting out at 10nl zoom with $480 and I'll be looking to grind it up with the distant goal of turning pro. I've used semi-aggro BRM in the past and so I thought I'd slow it down this time around and adopt a more conservative one. Here's the plan:

$480 - $640 : 10nl
$640 - $1k : 16nl
$1k - $2k : 25nl
$2k+ : 50nl

I'll stop there at the risk of getting ahead of myself. They'll be 10 BI shots so I'll move up to 16nl when I hit $640 and back down to 10nl at $480. I'm going to be mostly 2 tabling this time around as opposed to 4. I'll be adding a 3rd table when, and ONLY when, I feel like I'm playing my A game - no exceptions and never 4 tables. I want to improve and move up when I'm ready, not just rakeback whore my way up the ladder. There'll be plenty of time for that in years to come

Here's my new lil' setup:



And here's me (excuse my ginger bumfluff ):



I'm going to be updating daily with a screenshot of the day's checklist, and then weekly with poker results/graphs (sunday evening's most likely). I can't promise spectacular results because I've still got a lot to learn but if nothing else, I'm committed. As my desktop background says "I will win. Not immediately, but definitely"



Be back tomorrow with the first update!

First day out of the way. Woke up an hour late (not used to getting up pre 10am) but made most of it up during the 2 hour lunch/workout slot, not that it matters too much so long as everything gets done. I also wasn't sure which language I wanted to start learning so spent the hour doing some research and trying to decide. I had my heart set on Thai initially because I'd like to move there later in life. Turns out it's one of the harder languages to learn as a native English speaker and given I'd be learning by myself (noone to correct pronounciations) and can only invest a few hours per week, I decided to go with something a little simpler. I studied french for a few years during school and surprisingly still remember a fair bit so that's what I'm gonna go with. Hopefully I'll be proficient before long and then I can move on to a fresh language, probably Thai if I can afford a skype tutor by then.

On days when my brain feels fried I'll learn to play the guitar instead. I've dabbled in the past but never really got good (like most things I do). Jack of all trades, master of none! Gonna spend half hour or so reviewing the hands I've marked from today and then gonna chill out. I'm not used to doing, well, anything really so it's a bit of a shock to the system. I'm considering changing the 2 3 hour sessions to 3 2 hour sessions but I'll see how I feel about it when the week's up. I lose concentration a bit towards that last half hour and find myself checking the clock every minute or so. Hoping meditation will help with this in time.

See y'all same time tomorrow

Hey Flawz, looks like a solid plan to get you to where you want to be. The schedule you got set up doesn't leave much room for time for relaxing or social interactions though. What do you usually do for fun? I'm in a similar boat as you, i'm 22 years old now and thought i would be at a much different place in my life than i am. I'm grinding my way up the zoom stakes. About to take my first shot at 25nl, but using a slightly more aggressive bankroll management. Subbed dude, Good luck on the grind!

Hi mate, thanks. Ye it's true but it was kind of by design. I've actually taken some pretty drastic measures, one being moving away from London in a bid to distance myself from my social group/temptation. Me and my pals just smoked all day every day, got on it occasionally/regularly and generally just wasted time. That's fine of course, that's what fun's all about but I just wanted more for myself and it was becoming like ground hog day - doing the same **** day in day out.

I've also been inspired by a few people these past months. Watched an interview with a Belarussian HS guy who went from freerolls to the highest stakes in around 2 years and his work ethic was just incredible at such a young age. I've also watched a lot of Fenix's streams too and again, amazing work ethic. They always left me with a question burning in the back of my mind: "If these guys can do it, then why can't I". The answer is in the question itself. It's exactly this kind of negative self talk that seperates us. The truth is I CAN do it. It just takes a lot of hard work and discipline - qualities I've fallen out of touch with over the years.

I'm not gonna lie it's tough. I miss getting stoned. I miss my friends. I miss doing what I wanna do when I wanna do it. But I also miss winning at life, it's been a while. The plan's to make sacrifices now and then reap the rewards later. As the vinyl on my wall says - "Suffer now & live the rest of your life as a champion"

(Wrote this while easting breakfast, I'm not cheating )

Feel free to drop me a PM if you're up for doing any sweats/reviews on Skype.

Another day another struggle. 1st session went well but 2nd one was a bastard. Dropped like 5 BI's within 300 hands and then the next 2.5 hours felt like eternity. That's one of the issues with having a rigid schedule is that it forces me to play at times I would otherwise quit the session. Works both ways though I suppose in that I also play longer sessions when I'm winning. Also good for my mental game having to just plough on through the ****.

Started with the French today and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I'm using Duolingo to begin with and supposedly I'm 3% fluent after my first day Quite surprised by how much I still remember from school to be honest.

In other news, I watched moonlight last night. Don't. IMDB gave it good reviews but I thought it was the most pointless film ever. There was a few moments where I thought it was gonna get going but it never did, and then it ended...

Today bore witness to the first "failures" of the challenge. I couldn't get to sleep until gone 3am (side effect of giving up weed) so there was no way I was gonna be up for 7:30am. It was really stressing me out that it was getting so late and probably was half the reason I couldn't nod off. Anyway, rolled out of bed about 10:30 and started cracking on with my day. I didn't do the workout or study French but I did everything else.

I'm gonna make some changes to the schedule based on the past few days. First off, I'm going to do away with the set times for each activity. I thought that the structure would motivate me but in reality it's having the adverse effect. I'm still going to be doing everything (with one exception I'll talk about below), and in the same order, just not at set times. This accomplishes a couple of things. First of all it means there won't be any pressure on me to get to sleep or wake up at a certain time. Secondly it means that my 4 hours free time a day can be used wherever it's most needed. I could take 2 hours between my sessions to go shopping for instance and then another 2 hours at the end of my day to watch a film. Or I could lay in bed for another hour and take an extended lunch, the sky's the limit! :P

I'm also going to be dropping the hour's French per day. This isn't because I don't want to do it, but when I think about it it just doesn't make sense at the minute. The people whose habits I sought to mimic are in a very different place in their lives to me. As it stands, I feel as though that time would be better spent playing/studying poker as that contributes directly to the main goal (turning pro). So I'm doing exactly that and extending my first session by an hour instead.

I strive to be totally honest in this thread so I'll also confess to picking up a bag of weed not long ago. It's the 4th or 5th time in a couple of months that I've caved in. Not happy about it to be honest but not gonna beat myself up too bad either. It's the addiction itself that bothers me, not so much the weed. All delusions aside, I actually really enjoy getting stoned. I'd love to get to a point where I could go the whole day without smoking anything, and then light a fat spliff in the evening to chill out with. "I'd love to get to a point". That's the great thing with CBT is that you become a lot more aware of this sort of negative **** you tell yourself. "I need to...". "I wish I...". "Next year I'll". It's this sort of self-talk that defines us as people. It's ultimately me who decides whether I'm at that point or not. So, I'm gonna get my day done tomorrow and ONLY when I've done everything will I roll a joint. Maybe I'll wait until after I update the thread this time to spare anybody who might be reading this any more of my endless ramblings

Amended schedule:

Wake up -> Shower -> Meditate -> Breakfast -> Hour Poker Study -> 4 Hour Session -> Workout -> Lunch -> 3 Hour Session -> Update

An actual poker update coming tomorrow. Stay tuned

First things first, I forgot to update the initial post with the amended bankroll. I was meant to start with $480 but due to the **** exchange rate (and me being poor) I only ended up with $438.72. I was gonna top it up to the $480 but given I've got over 40 BI's there's not really much point.

I was looking forward to posting a nice winning graph yesterday but of course the poker gods had other ideas. Got off to a good start with 3 winning days and was 5 BI's up on the 4th. Then came the doomswitch and I dropped 15 BI's within a few hours. I wanna try and keep whining to a minimum but it was legitimately one of the worst days I can remember having played. Definitely tilted me a little and I probably should've lost half of what I did but there we are. I've witnessed many a time how brutal variance can be and my focus should instead be on the buyins lost as a result of poor play towards the end. If nothing else, yesterday served as a reminder of how important it is to stay focused and emotionally detached during sessions.

Here's the sessions by day:



Graph so far:


My baller silverstar status has earnt me a whopping $40 in RB so I'll probably cash that in and then I'm back to where I started. Overall, a disappointing first few days back at the tables but I guess it could've been worse. I've got today off so I'm gonna reset myself mentally, do a bit of studying this evening, and then back at it tomorrow.

Lastly, I don't feel like I'm doing Ali's quote justice with the current schedule so I'm gonna be upping the stakes a bit. I'll now be playing 3 x 3 hour sessions per day as well as all the other stuff. I was gonna do away with my day off too but I've been advised against it so I'll hold off (for now ).

BR: $400.52

hey mate nice thread

where did you you get your poster/lettering thats on your wall?
looks sick

gl gl

Cheers mate. I got it from amazon was only like a fiver I think and they do 100's of 'em, just search for "wall sticker". Let me know if you find any good'ens!

Hey dude, you got a really strict schedule, I hope you can be disciplined enough to follow that. I love the fact that you put an instrument and a language in there. For the guitar learning if you are really beginner I suggest you to learn some basic chords from the internet first, so you can play some basic songs which really motivates you to keep learning. As for the language, je crois que le français est une belle langue. N'arrête pas de le pratiquer I wish you a good luck in your new life style buddy Happy grinding.

Thanks for the kind words and advice sir. I actually begrudgingly cut the language/instrument slot from my schedule recently in place of more session time but I'll definitely be adding it back in though as soon as it makes sense to do so. For now I just want to establish myself as a winner at 100nl and then I'll have some breathing room to better myself in other ways. However, I will still be doing the odd bit of learning guitar in my free time as not only is it fun, but I also find it really therapeutic.

Over 60 hours per week of poker/studying now so discipline's certainly going to be an issue for me. I've just got to remember why I'm doing it and do my best to work through any problems as they arise. I don't think I'll struggle to motivate myself to put in the hours, it's just the playing well part that tends to elude me

Sigh, I just typed out like 3 paragraphs, only for them to go missing after logging in. I haven't got it in me to type it all out again lol, it's been a long day. I fell a little short on the 9 hours and played a measly 7.5 but I got some other poker related stuff done so I'll let myself off the hook. A fellow 2+2er kindly offered to review a live play video of mine so I've spent the last couple of hours getting that together. All in all it was a good day. I stayed focused throughout and there's only a few hands I'm not happy with how I played. Looking forward to chilling out and watching a film, and then back on it bright and early tomorrow.

Just gotta keep on moving forward...

Yo Flawz, that's sick to have a friend go over your play footage. I've never gotten coaching but heard if you get the right person it can drastically and almost instantly improve your game. My shot didn't go so well so i'm goina sit at 10nl for awhile here. I also have major leaks in my mental game, so just recently picked up Jared Tendler's Mental Game of Poker. I think this book could be the best piece of poker material for me that I've read. On your session stats that one -$90 day were you chasing your losses playing 2x as many hands? If you haven't read his book I think it could come in handy for you too. I'm also dealing with some bad smoking habits that I've been trying to clear up for awhile now.. I can't sleep without the weed tho. Cool to have someone who's dealing with some similar situations. GL on the grind!

Also some hand histories on tricky spots would be nice to see. You should toss a couple of your tagged hands on here after your session

Ye I've had a few coaches, the most recent one opened up my eyes up a lot in a really short space of time. And ye the mental game is crucial, especially in the games current climate. I've read TMGOP a couple of times and it's for sure one of the best pieces of writing on the mental game, even after all this time. I've probably overcome 90% of my tilt issues over the past year. A couple of years ago I'd have been lucky to go a few hours without tilting off my roll and now I can play 50+ hours per week for months on end and know in myself that it's safe, which is a nice feeling. What helped me a lot was just quitting sessions when I wasn't playing well. Like 20 minutes of playing tilted can literally wipe out a day's grind so being able to recognise it at the start can be a lifesaver. Now when I'm playing, usually after I lose a big pot or make a bad call/bluff, I'll pay extra attention to my thoughts for a minute or so after just to make sure I'm thinking straight. You're right, the other night I played longer trying to make it into the green and ultimately ended up a good few buyins worse off than had I just quit. That kind of B game tilt is dangerous too cos it's harder to spot. Sometimes I think I just ran bad and then I do a session review the following day and spot loads of misplays.

Drop me a pm with your skype if you like. I'm always online if you wanna talk through any hands or do any sweats. That goes for anyone else that might be reading this too.

Ye this is a real problem for me too. Didn't get to sleep until gone 2am last night despite being in bed with the TV off at midnight. Was meant to be up at 7.30 but didn't manage to wake up until almost 9. Frustrating for sure...

Sure, I'll upload some highlights from the past week after today's session.

Also, check out "Tilt Breaker" mate. That programme literally saved my bankroll more times than I care to remember in the early days and it still save me a few buyins every now and then. It basically just closes all tables and kicks you off when you hit whatever limit you've set, and there's no way to bypass it so you just have to wait it out. I used to have it set for -5BI's from my peak. So if I was up 5 BI's and I dropped back down to 0 it would close my tables and not let me play anything for half an hour. That was usually enough time for me to recompose myself and start playing again. It can also be set to block you from playing certain games or stakes.

Played around 8.5 hours today. I'm blaming the missing half hour on stars' server reset as it cut an hour out of my day . Still making a few silly mistakes but pleased with how I'm playing for the most part. I was gonna do a decent little update today with some highlights from this week, but I've literally just finished playing and I wanted at least an hour or 2 to chill before I go to bed so you'll have to excuse me .

I'll do a proper update in the morning in place of my morning studying slot. Got a few crazy hands I'm looking forward to sharing.

As promised, here's some hands from the past week.

The good:










The bad:







The ugly:






PokerStars Zoom Hand #166105478968: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2017/02/12 18:37:39 WET [2017/02/12 13:37:39 ET]
Table 'Aludra' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: G.David$on ($10.77 in chips)
Seat 2: bizkit100 ($18.59 in chips)
Seat 3: Amirez90 ($11.79 in chips)
Seat 4: GerDaTobe ($19.97 in chips)
Seat 5: Mihail T ($5.24 in chips)
Seat 6: Luxas85 ($10.23 in chips)
bizkit100: posts small blind $0.05
Amirez90: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to G.David$on [Qs Qh]
GerDaTobe: raises $0.15 to $0.25
Mihail T: folds
Luxas85: raises $0.45 to $0.70
G.David$on: calls $0.70
bizkit100: folds
Amirez90: folds
GerDaTobe: calls $0.45
*** FLOP *** [2h 5s 8d]
GerDaTobe: checks
Luxas85: bets $0.70
G.David$on: calls $0.70
GerDaTobe: calls $0.70
*** TURN *** [2h 5s 8d] [Td]
GerDaTobe: checks
Luxas85: bets $2
G.David$on: calls $2
GerDaTobe: folds
*** RIVER *** [2h 5s 8d Td] [Qd]
Luxas85: bets $6.83 and is all-in
G.David$on: calls $6.83
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Luxas85: shows [Kd Ad] (a flush, Ace high)
G.David$on: shows [Qs Qh] (three of a kind, Queens)
Luxas85 collected $21.02 from pot
G.David$on said, "ooh cmon"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $22.01 | Rake $0.99
Board [2h 5s 8d Td Qd]
Seat 1: G.David$on (button) showed [Qs Qh] and lost with three of a kind, Queens
Seat 2: bizkit100 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Amirez90 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: GerDaTobe folded on the Turn
Seat 5: Mihail T folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Luxas85 showed [Kd Ad] and won ($21.02) with a flush, Ace high

Played 11.5 hours today. In case it wasn't obvious, I was trying to get unstuck for most of that. Played bad and ran worse BUT, I did manage to finish up in the green so it wasn't all in vain. I clearly have a problem with just accepting losing days so I'll have to do a bit of research and come up with a plan to fix it. I get really stressed out on losing days and it's not healthy. If I'm to have any success in this game then I need to treat it like a professional in all aspects.

I think then, from now, I'm going to play 8 hours per day - 2 x 4 hour sessions. If I feel like I'm being a spazz then I'll allow myself to cut a session short, but I'll never extend a session. Hopefully, in time, this'll help to build up my resilience to the losses. As it stands, when I finish a session down, I can't switch off and I end up playing into my free time to try and make some back. This maximum session length will nip that in the bud. So, if you see me play any more than 8 hours in a given day, then pull me up on it. I'm gonna check out TiltBreaker as well as it goes, it may even have an option to set a maximum session length, that'd be handy.

I also broke another rule I set myself previously and opened up a 4th table today. Couldn't make a pair, had a moment of weakness, not much else to say. Just thought I'd come clean anyways. Back on 2 tomorrow morning and 3 when I'm in my groove.

P.S. I'm gonna try and save all results related news until Sundays but I thought I'd share the rollercoaster graph from today. I think it's gotta be one of the most swingy graphs I've ever produced. I'd win a stack and then 10 minutes later get coolered or sucked out on for another. This went on pretty much all day. And yes, I played 11.5 hours in one session



Back tomorrow - different time, same place

I've cut my day short today cos I'm playing like a prick. Obviously haven't sorted out my tilt issues as much as I'd thought. Just got it in pre 3 times against a smaller pair and lost all 3, 2 of em on the river. Other than that just been flopping the nuts vs fish and bet bet bet/folding. Set over setted and 2 rivered flushes losing to a better flush. Blah blah blah. Started just clicking buttons so it's probably best I call it a day for today. Really need to get over this entitlement tilt, it's just hard when you're getting consistently rivered by absolute ******s. Might play a little later on tonight, I'll see if I've calmed down by then. Sigh...

I loved the opening to this thread OP - very cool!

GL!

Cheers pal. Just seen you've started another of your own. I'll be following along, enjoyed the last one. Hopefully see you at 100z soon it's been a while since I played ya

I generally don't like the threads with all the quotes and the associated stuff. But you seem to be at the top of that particular range. Gl I'm in

3betting J6s and K9s from SB won't end well for you. You seem to be overplaying and bluffing too much for this limit. To win at 10NLz on Stars, you need to play tight and more or less ABC. It's about value extraction, exploiting fish, and making folds.

GL man, I'll be railing.

Cheers bud!

Thanks mate. I think K9s from the SB is fairly standard tbh. Of course the J6s is nowhere near standard after the initial 3b pre but I had some notes on the guy and was planning to take the hand down on good runouts. I 3b from the BB v SB, not from the SB. I think that's pretty standard too, depending on how you construct your ranges of course. We can't all be nits meale

You're right about me bluffing too much though and what's needed to beat 10nlz. I've got a note stuck to my screen saying "Don't bluff rivers, don't ch/c 3 streets" Don't forget that the hands I post are some of the weirder ones. It's strange that you pulled me up on the 3bets pre though cos again, I think they're both pretty standard.