How goes the grind?

Also do you find HM2 and Note caddy to be > PT4

Not sure about the HM2/PT4 thing since I've never really used PT4. I've been hearing a lot of good things about it though.

As for the grind, I'm finally back in business:



And if you include my MTT winnings I'm currently up around $50 this month.

Been playing well and running ok over the past week. I'm feeling good about my game and I've regained a lot of confidence that I lost during the worst part of the downswing (where I would basically just log on and snap-lose 4-5 buyins every day). What helped me the most was probably looking at some of my older graphs, as I realized that I've gone through similar stretches in the past, and I've managed to grind my way through the variance every single time.

This is a graph from last summer where I lost like $1800 in half a second:



So yeah, things are looking up. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the month up a decent amount. I'm at ~40k hands right now, which isn't exactly great, but I've got nothing to do over the next 13 days but grind 24/7. Breaking 80k won't be a problem.

Still doing pretty well, and there's not really much else to say atm. The last few days haven't been overly eventful, and I'm up around ~$400 for the month, which feels amazing considering I was down $1000000000000 earlier.

I've also started table selecting a lot more when playing higher, which is making things a lot easier for me. While I do love battling regulars, I don't really need the extreme swings at NL100/200 right now. Plus, since the tables are generally quite amazing, it would be pretty insane not to try to maximize my hourly by table selecting/being a little more risk-averse than usual.

And um, I spontaneously booked a trip to Prague & Budapest a few days ago, so I'll be going there in a few weeks' time with a couple of RL/non-poker friends. Should be good since summer in Eastern Europe is absolutely amazing (especially considering the general quality of women there).

So ya, until then I'll just be grinding and playing CSGO basically. After that I'll have to start preparing more seriously for whatever my next move's going to be (prob Thailand still).

Time for a little update. Month to date:



Considering that this month has been relatively tough, I'm pretty happy with where I am results-wise. I've also got a full week left (so around 40 hours of grinding), so I'm hoping I'll be able to break $2k before the month is over.

Alright, time to wrap up the month since I won't be able to play today/tomorrow. First I'll include yesterday's graph since it was quite hilarious in terms of AIEV:



And here's the monthly graph:



This is probably my worst month ever results-wise, but I'm still up ~$2800 from the lowest point in the graph, so I can't be too unhappy about it.

I feel as though this month really tested me in a lot of ways, as I went through an extremely rough stretch at the start of the month. I handled it well at first, but came closer to losing it than I'd like to admit a few times. However, as you can see, I just kept playing and refused to give in, and ended up turning everything around. As I mentioned before, something that really helped me was looking at some of my older graphs, as it made it easier for me to put things in perspective and I was reminded of the fact that I've always managed to turn things around.

When I started winning again I also identified another weak part of my mental game, which was basically just fear of losing. I've never really had this before, but since I'd just grinded my way out of a downswing, I was probably a little more sensitive to the true nature of poker/the idea of variance. I'd basically fire up sessions and feel like snap-quitting as soon as I won $200ish (I never did though obviously, but I still wanted to).

I'll need to work on both these aspects of my mental game over the next few weeks. I'm going to download the MGoP on Monday and start reading it (or listening to it), and try to take it as seriously as I'd take any other poker training material.

Anyway, tonight I'm actually gonna play some live poker with some friends I haven't seen in a very very long time. Should be interesting, but the stakes will probably be quite a bit smaller than the ones I play online (but yeah, the point is getting drunk and having fun, not really winning $/maximizing my hourly). Should be fun either way.

Nice volume/results. Good turn around mate. I've heard good things about the MGoP I'd like to hear if it helps you.

Off to a solid start this month,



Hopefully I won't go on another wonderful 50000 bi downswing after posting this like I did last month. Have mercy one time poker gods.

I'll be leaving for Prague on the 11th, and the plan is to play another 20k hands before I leave (and anything less would pretty much be unacceptable). I've also decided that I'm gonna stop being such a ridiculous nit and upgrade my RIO membership tomorrow or so.



Tyty!

Been giving some serious thought to how far I wanna go in poker, and how much I'm willing to sacrifice, and I've made the decision that I will never play another hand of poker after August unless things change drastically.

The reason for this is tilt/my weak mental game. Like I've said numerous times, playing NL50 is something I can do without any stress and I can make $1500-2300 quite comfortably every month, but as stated in my OP, that's not enough long-term. And in order to make more, I'd have to play higher, and I simply cannot handle the emotional volatility that comes with dropping 10 bis at NL100-200. I can't do it, and I've started to realize that absolutely nothing can help me overcome this problem.

I've gone through a decent portion of the MGoP, and I understand the general concepts very well, but it simply doesn't seem to matter/help. When I go on these stretches where I lose 2-3 buyins every day for a week (which is very standard I'd imagine, even for a 7bb/100 winner like me over ~200k hands), I just turn into an emotional wreck. Something that also needs to be factored in here is the fact that NL100-200 is still quite 'high' for me. Not too high in terms of BR (since I'm overrolled for these stakes), but in relation to my networth it's still quite meaningful money at this point in my life.

Going on a ds and losing ~20% of my networth is just so ridiculously stressful, and losing vs ****ty regs who have absolutely no clue what they're doing over and over again is just not something I'm strong enough to handle mentally.

In other words, I could make enough money per month to live comfortably in SEA or Eastern Europe, but not in the Western world, which is where I want to spend most of 2015.

I'll see how often I'm going to be updating this thread from now on. I'm sure I'll feel differently when I go on another 30 bi+ upswing or whatever, but this is a very important realization that I'm going to have to stick with.

(and needless to say I've obviously been losing quite heavily over the past few days)

you sound exactly like me. i have the same mental game problems.

as for the bolded, it takes time man. some adapt quickly and get use to the swings. others don't. i remember the time i couldn't beat nl25 for the life of me, and i felt the same way you did. same thing happened when i moved up to nl50. and its happening to me again @ nl100/nl200. time heals everything. just give it time.

Hey!

Really like your PGC, and hope you find a way to handle the tilting. You should try not looking at your bankroll. Both before, under and after sessions. This way it is easier to focus on making the right decisions in every spot, and not on the swings of the game. If you loose some BIs to terrible regs, look close at those spots in terms of your decision making process, not in terms of how much you lost or won.

It seems like you have some money saved up, which makes this even better. Because you would still survive if you have a loosing month. You could for example only look at your BR at the end of each month, and say to yourself that everything over B/E is a bonus if you run bad.

Downswings and long break-even stretches are though, but it is a part of the game to handle them. I had my biggest downswing this far this year, but now I know it is the best thing that has happened to me. It made me constantly evaluate my game, and paying really close attention to though spots etc.

Hope you are still motivated to keep working hard! Lets do this!

It's now been several months since my last update, which is pretty depressing considering how motivated I was when I first made this thread. Makes me feel pretty bad. But yeah, I figured I'd make a post and talk a little about what I'm currently doing, how I've done over the summer poker-wise, and my future plans.

So, at the start of the thread my plan was to "climb up the stakes" as fast as possible and crush NL$200+. This didn't happen for a variety of reasons, and I'm still pretty much playing NL$50-100 exclusively. The main reason for this has been my inability to deal with tough stretches/downswings/variance like a sane person. It's actually been a lot worse over these past few months than ever before, and I've even played higher in the past without any problems. I believe (and I've mentioned this before) the reason for this is that my life roll hasn't been too healthy, even if I've technically always been properly rolled for these stakes. Again, as I've mentioned before, losing ~10-15% of your net worth in one session is something I find insanely stressful.

However, if you take a look at my graph, I realize that what I just said sounds absolutely ridiculous. All hands since the start of this thread/April 9th:



While the graph is pretty, I've gone through some really tough stretches. I've had some pretty extreme losing sessions where I've dropped like 12-13 buyins (my 5 biggest losing sessions are all far bigger than my 5 biggest winning sessions since I'm the mayor of tiltville), and I was b/e over ~90k hands at one point. That said, however, I've still run well overall and I'm up quite a bit.

As for my travel plans, they didn't really materialize as I'd hoped. I spent some time in Budapest and Prague in June, and in July I spent a couple of weeks in Rome and Milan. But yeah, unfortunately that's it. I never 'moved' to Thailand, Mexico or the Czech Republic. The reason for this, again, is my unhealthy love-hate relationship with poker. On a good day I'll be like 'sweet, let's book Thailand asap' and I feel like studying/focusing on improving my game 24/7, but on bad days I feel like snap-withdrawing my entire roll and never playing a single hand of poker ever again. So yeah, I ended up having too many of those bad days basically.

Something else that my love-hate relationship with poker has affected incredibly heavily is my approach to study groups/poker friends. Again, on good days I'll reach out to people and I'll make an effor to be very involved/active, but on bad days I just log off and want nothing to do with anybody who plays poker. This is truly a ****ing shame since a lot of competent people have contacted me/wanted to start up study groups (or just discuss poker in general). So yeah, I missed out on a lot of good opportunities just by being a sore loser. So yeah, sorry to everybody who added me on Skype/messaged me on here that I ended up ignoring.

As for the future, I decided that getting a new job would probably be the best thing to do long-term. I made this decision in mid-July or so while I was losing/breaking even a few weeks into the month. So in late July/early August I started applying for interesting jobs in Stockholm, and since then I've been to a total of 16 interviews (all with different companies). And I've got a couple of final interviews coming up tomorrow and on Friday.

Of course August's been ridiculously good poker-wise, since it's the one month where I haven't focused wholeheartedly on poker (lol). So yeah, I've been having some doubts this month. Anyway, I'm sticking with my decision, and I think that having a job and making ~$4k/mo is going to be good for my poker game as well. If I know that I'll be making $4k/mo no matter what, putting in 25-30k hands/mo at 100/200NL shouldn't be a problem. I'm fairly sure that dealing with variance isn't going to be as big of a problem if I know that I'm definitely going to finish the month a "winner".

So, to summarize, my plan is to start working asap/in early September (as long as I don't **** up tomorrow and on Friday, which isn't going to happen), and I'll still keep playing poker on the side. It's far less exciting than what I'd initially planned wrt poker, but making an extra $2k-$5k/mo on top of my fixed $4k would be extremely nice.

Lastly, I'd just like to say that I'm truly impressed by everybody who plays poker for a living. The mental strength required to succeed as a professional poker player is just out of this world (assuming you're not staked or a millionaire).