read the whole thread today. good luck. i can't relate because i play cash game and plo but i can relate in that i was suicidal last year and i want to play for a living. just lost my job recently, although it was only a $400 a month job. am also a writer like you, or used to be. one book i would recommend is crime and punishment by dostovesky, such a great book, a must read for all writers out there.

Fair enough. It is not wreaking havoc on the liferoll so to say, but it will restrict me from actually making a living playing poker for several months. That is okay with me. I feel like I am learning a lot, even though I have been dissatisfied at times with my program. I am getting a lot of good **** from them, and even though I have experienced some success I also recognize that I am not a good enough player yet to survive on my own. I may reassess options in a little while if I think I can do without cfp, but for now I am happy where I am.

I appreciate it man. And thanks for the recommendation. I haven’t read nearly as much as I’ve wanted to in the past few years, but Crime and Punishment is on my bookshelf to read. Like, I literally own it and it is on my bookshelf. I’ve almost started it a dozen times but haven’t mustered the energy yet. Currently reading a book about competitive Scrabble, but I will definitely look into Crime and Punishment after

Part of why I’ve been dissatisfied with my program is that the head coach has been bad at responding to messages and keeping in touch with the group. He finally got back to me though and he is putting me in the Advanced group

As mentioned in basically every post, I still have a lot of work to do. The advanced players are still way ahead of me, but I am obviously doing some good **** with the amount of deep runs I have been making in the last few weeks. My hope with being in the advanced group is that it will accelerate my learning even more and I will get better much quicker. Even though I haven’t started in it, I already feel a pressure to put in the hours studying. I don’t want to make my coach think he made the wrong choice by moving me up, and I want to prove that I deserve to be there. I wasn’t expecting to feel this way, but I think it will serve as great motivation for me to study my ass off and get better as fast as I possibly can

Had a -105 Euro day to immediately follow up the Bigger $3.30 win. I just moved up buy in levels tho, so it makes sense. The biggest tourneys I were playing were the Big $11 and Sunday Storm. Sometimes I played the Big $7.50, and other than that all of my buy ins were $5 and lower. Now I almost have a $5k USD bankroll online, so my coach said I can play all tourney buy ins up to $11 and the occasional soft $22 tourney. It's a pretty big jump.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud. In November, the biggest tournament I had ever played in was $5. And now I have a roll that I earned to play some $22 tourneys. It's pretty sick.

So I should expect my losing days to be bigger, but my winning days to be bigger as well. I was tired as **** today with a little off felt drama keeping me up late (I'm doing good dw). At the end of the month BPC is taking half of my profit, so I basically have two weeks where I am freerolling. Once they take that chunk, I am gonna be dropping stakes again, so it'd be nice to get a score or two in some of these bigger buy-ins before then.

For off the felt I am heading out to Vancouver at the end of May for my brother's graduation and to see some friends. Once he is done, I really don't know when I would have occasion to go to Vancouver again, so I'm gonna try seeing as many people as I can. I thought that I was gonna meet the last week of SCOOP, but thankfully SCOOP ends the week before. That, along with the tourney series that Party is running, should lead to a pretty busy May. I'm sticking to my schedule for now and I have a few weeks to try studying my ass off before I'm gonna be on the grind. Really looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

miss the last week of SCOOP****** my typo game is embarrassing

I don't know what the **** happened today but my HUD started spitting out error pop-ups that completely froze my screen and cut my day short. I had to restart my computer twice and play my last 10 tournaments with no HUD. I cashed most of them and even got F2T in the $11 Bounty Builder for a pretty decent boost, but I don't know what happened. If it happens again I will have a serious problem, especially if it decides to act up on a Sunday. I am glad that on the felt things still turned out okay, but I'm sure that if I had a HUD things could've been even better.

I have my first one-on-one session with a CFP coach tomorrow at 3:30AM. Gotta love those early start times. The range at the golf course is opening up tomorrow too. So tomorrow is a day to study and hit some balls, which will be very very nice

Thought I would post my profit graph from CFP thru 4/20 #blazeit #jk #soberlife



My lowest point was December 28, 2017 when I was -187 Euros in the hole. Today I am currently +4017 Euros on the poker journey, my highest point. I am +2982 in the last 30 days where my studying started resulting in some deep runs and a huge score. So I'm on a bit of a heater.

Really exciting to see how far I've come. Really exciting knowing how far I still have to go. I have a lot of confidence in my game right now. Even though I have definitely had run good on my side, it is not a fluke that I have been having so many consistently deep runs in the last month. That is due to my studying, and the awesome part is that I feel hungry and eager to learn more. I want to crush these stakes and then keep on moving up in the poker world. See how far I can go

Final post of the day. I just re-read my entire thread up to this point. I am very glad I decided to do a PG&C and have been updating regularly. I’ve kept a journal since Grade 11 that I’ve been re-reading for the last couple weeks as well, and I find it super interesting just to see how I have progressed as a person and a character. I am low key at a very painful weekend in my journal, but I’ll work up the courage to read it soon haha. Both of these are really valuable tools just to remember where I’ve been and how far I’ve come. It’s also amazing the tiny memories you forget along the way that reading about brings back to life. I’ve had so many high school flashbacks from my journal that it’s definitely not GTO haha

On another note, I talked with my Vancouver friend a couple of days ago. She was in creative writing with me and we met in a non-fic class September of 2016. That was in the early stages of me really going off the deep end in terms of depression. While we were talking she brought up a time last year when she told me I reminded her of Eeyore (which I faintly remember). Of course, she had no idea how depressed I was back then.

She only brought this up to say that I sounded like a different person now. And I do sound different. I sound like myself. For a long stretch there, basically all of university, I was a very sad person. This poker journey has been about healing and getting back to myself. It is just crazy to think that the person she knew wasn’t really me, you know? I got a degree in creative writing, writing **** in a frame of mind that was completely toxic. And it’s so weird to think that Vancouver people only know me as that Vancouver version of myself. Because that isn’t me, you know?

I thought it was weird. She did too. It was honestly nice to hear that I sounded different from her. It’s a very good thing

Hit some balls at the range today. Super ****ing windy. Was hitting my drives long and straight though! Maybe I can break par once or twice this year. If anyone is driving passing through Swift and wants to play a round, hit me up



I have taken stock of my finances once again. I'm all squared on golf for the year and don't want to spend another cent. I now have 7k CAD left in my bank account. That's not a ton. It probably isn't enough to get me through the summer, maybe get to August and I might be feeling the pressure pretty bad. So I am still open to a job. Obviously, poker has been going really well in the last month. My volume has been very small, so it could be a healthy dose of positive variance. I think if I keep studying and start grinding more consistently, I hopefully have a decent chance of finishing the contract in the next few months. It'd be really nice to run hot in SCOOP and get close to finishing, so we'll see how that goes. I have another 6k CAD in my BR, so if I run out of money I'm not totally ****ed. Ideally I have a large enough bankroll to play with and withdraw from for life by the end. We'll see if that pans out.

Last thing. I know all of this **** cuz I decided to get my finances in order, and this involved me going to the bank. Funnily enough, the teller recognized me. She asked "Did I read an article that you wrote?" Complete stranger, probably saw it from one of my friends that shared on Facebook. I smiled shyly, said that she might have. She told me it was very well written, interesting to get into my head. So that was unexpected but very neat

Hey, just wanted to say good luck with your journey. Read through your whole thread the last couple of days, and you have some really interesting insights.

All the best.

Thanks man, I appreciate it

I decided to go through the Monster Series Schedule on Party and the SCOOP Series Schedule on Stars that will consume three weeks of my life. Which days should I play, which days should I not.

The Monster Series is something I should grind ideally everyday. I should be able to play everything up to $20 and then possibly be able to play some of the bigger buy-ins with guarantees. Biggest buy in in $33, so there is going to be tons of value to be had. Obviously I probably don't have the fortitude yet to grind for a week straight, but I think I'm going to play six of the eight days. Obviously the two Sundays and for sure the two PKO exclusive days (Monday and Friday). I guess I can pick two of the other days but it doesn't matter too much. They are running the same tourneys at the same times for the same buy-ins Monday-Saturday, just with different formats. Pick two, rest and/or study the other two. Need to make sure I don't burn myself out.

Finally for SCOOP I've been talking about it like I'm just gonna get in there and crush it no problem. There's only 33 NLHE/PKO tourneys I can play at my stakes, and depending how much BPC takes at the end of April I may not be able to play all of the $22. I could of course devote more of my life roll towards paying BPC so that I will have more poker bankroll to play with during May as well. Not all of these SCOOP tourneys are equak though. There are days where the guarantees are **** for the buy-in compared to other days, so I need to make sure I am playing the highest value days with days of rest on the lousy ones.

Still have a week until the grind happens. I will hit 100 hours and 300 MTTs in the next two days, so I don't need to worry about meeting the Bronze April volume goals. I think priority next week needs to really be on studying. My session this morning went really well. This coach is more focused on exploitative play and was pointing out tons of spots I was missing. Just looking at these spots, these hands, and preparing myself as best I can for these tourneys are the best thing I can do. Afterwards I will be off to Vancouver for my brother's grad, so I will maybe be able to take a week off of poker.

So, study next week, grind hard the three weeks after, and then a break. Sounds good to me

Chopped for first in a smaller Party Tourney. It's not a ton, but a score is a score



Really proud of how I played F2T. I was chipleader for entire FT and used my stack perfectly, applying pressure on all of the shorter stacks. I basically accumulated chips and didn't put myself in harm's way until we got to heads up and then we chopped it up. I maybe could have asked for more money because I think I was the better player, but I'm not as confident in my heads up play and the other guy seemed pretty competent. Happy to lock up a few extra bucks.

I am gonna be off now until Sunday when the Monster Series starts on Party. I had no idea but 888 also has a series running in the next could of weeks. I wrote my schedule on my little dry-erase board and it is a serious cluster**** haha.

Over the next three weeks, I only have three days that are designated as days off. I want to play as many of these tournaments as I can, with my trip to Vancouver right after. I really have been crushing it for the last month. Everyday I seem to be getting at least an F2T and have been consistently netting profitable days. Of course variance has likely been on my side, but my game has improved immensely in the last couple of months.

It's to the point where I think I need to start grinding more full time. My play three days-study the rest isn't as important as it once was. I am going to use the next three days to rest, study and prepare for the upcoming grind. We'll see how it goes.

As far as bankroll goes, I want to play as many $22 tourneys as possible, so I am going to pay BPC with more of my liferoll than I was planning to. I obviously wasn't planning to do it this way, but I see the next couple of weeks as me taking a shot. The more and higher-buy-in tourneys I play, the more money I can win. If I don't win a ton, the plan is to replenish my liferoll a bit with the bankroll after May. I'm not going broke, but the pressure is on to have a very good month and I have faith that I can do it.

The golf course is opening up on Friday for nine holes. I won't be able to play a ton this next month, so I would mind playing Friday and Saturday. Poker night with some of my friends Saturday night as well. We'll probably end up doing a ****ty sit-n-go cuz they want a winner. It'd probably be funner to play low-stakes cash, but I'm not complaining. I would definitely have way too big of an edge haha

congrats. don't downplay the fact that you chopped and that it wasn't much. heck, that's a lot of money haha. when you're going through a downswing you'll look back and wish you could chop a tourney.

also, you might want to play some heads up cash or better yet, very small stakes husngs to improve that area of your game.

Definitely something I should work on. I think I’ve neglected it because I’ve only been in a position to play heads up 3 times I think in the last three months. I know that we have ranges in our MTT course for heads up play, so I might take a look in the next couple of days.

As far as the money thing, I definitely am happy with the score, over 100 buy-ins which is pretty sick. I find it so funny how relative the meaning of money is. I was freaking our when I won the $1.10 Bounty Builder in December when it was like $400 USD. I just casually chopped this tourney for even more money and I was chill the entire time. No screaming at my computer, no feeling of do-or-die this is it. Maybe that’s just a symptom of the CL I had the entire FT, but it felt very casual.

Hopefully I haven’t jinxed myself with my no big deal demeanour. The two month downswing I was on before the last 30 days ****ing sucked. I am gratedul and happy for the upswing. Hopefully it never ends

Real talk. If anyone wants to play Scrabble just to play Scrabble, hit me up. There's a legit online Scrabble game you can download and we can play on. The Swift Current Scrabble Club meets at the library every Tuesday but I haven't been able to go just because of studying commitments. Even though I don't have a "real job," I'm getting some good practice at managing my own time effectively. I'd like to memorize the two- and three-letter words, but that'll have to wait until I feel like a super competent poker player. So yeah. Wanna play internet Scrabble? Hit me up

Shot an 11-over 46 on my first nine holes of the season! Forgot my push cart so I had to carry my clubs, but it was still v hype. Here's a pic from above the creek.



I was horrible off the tee today and in general also bad at everything else, but there were a few nice shots to be had. I haven't been able to practice my putting or chipping yet this year because the practice greens haven't been ready. The greens today were insanely slow. This course is known for having nice, relatively fast (for Saskatchewan) greens. Usually it's well-conditioned and I'm sure it will get to that eventually.

Shot of the day was on my third hole. Hit my approach shot to the green into the bunker. As you can see, it was a cratered lie. The sand was very thin grains, so it was not heavy in the bunker. Made a beautiful punch out bunker shot to about three feet for an easy up-and-down bogey (I shanked my drive into a tree twenty yards in front of the teebox lol)



Had a great time. I'm probably going to get another nine holes in tomorrow as well, try to get my fix as much as possible. They only have nine holes open right now, full 18 might be good to go next week. Battled through a paper cut on my right middle finger and a blister on my left hand. A very gutsy 46 hahaha

The plan for the rest of the day is to study. I did an HH of my tourney win yesterday. I know I said I played FT perfectly, but I think it could have been better. I did play it very well, but I think there were several exploitative spots I missed preflop to open-raise wider. Small thing. Gonna go through my recording I had with my coach to take notes on what he was specifically telling me to work on and also go through the webinars I missed in the last week. Would like to look at heads up play before I hit the grind on Sunday as well.

One last thing. I've been begging coach to put me into a gmail hand lines excel group. He has been very bad at replying to messages and I just found out he was playing the super high roller in Monaco. So I can understand if he gave his 100k buy-in tourney priority over adding me to a gmail group haha. I was literally sitting on the couch when I realized I could just take screenshots from the webinars of the lines. That's what I would have done anyways to print them off and have them in physical form. So I really could have solved this problem weeks ago if I was using my head a little more haha

Have a good Friday everyone!

Alright boys no spoilers here because I take movies very seriously. I just saw Infinity War and I just need to say as a movie dude and screenwriting student, I do not like Marvel movies. Superhero movies in general, but Marvel movies especially. I did enjoy Thor Ragnarok (shoutout to my kiwi homeboy Taika Waititi), but by and large I am not a Marvel dude. I have had huge issues with the writing of these movies, especially the humour, for a long time. It’s even started to bring down my beloved Star Wars (The Last Jedi was kinda trash).

And I just gotta say, Avengers Infinity War? Didn’t like it. 2.5/5. I hope I don’t see another superhero movie for two decades.

I’m gonna go watch anime now

Agree, but given that were forced-fed nonstop Superhero movies, I am happy to have certain gems like Logan, Dr Strange, The Nolan Batman's, Thor Ragnarok, The Lego Movies and Watchmen. And, in tv, lest not forget Legion which still amazes me that it is a Marvel production

Alright, great point. There are good superhero movies out there. Thor Ragnarok and The Dark Knight are both great. There are many mediocre superhero movies which I think most Marvel movies have fell under for me. And then there are horrible movies. I used to go to all superhero movies because I felt an artistic/cultural obligation to see them all. Thankfully Batman vs Superman broke me out of that insanity and I have gone to less and less (still need to check out Logan (Watchmen is okay))

I didn’t mean to come off as a conceited dick and say all superhero movies are bad. I am just sick of them at this point and there’s gotta be superhero fatigue coming soon. Obviously I don’t want people to stop going to movies just cuz I don’t like them (especially since I kind of see the movie industry as a whole as being in serious decline).

But man. I have issues with Infinity War. And I don’t want to articulate them in great detail for fear of spoiling for other people. If you like superhero movies, go out and watch them. I just think there are so many other amazing and worthwhile projects out there that people are not seeing and I think it’s a shame. Hell, I am going to the new Han Solo movie cuz I kind of have to as a Star Wars fan. I can tell you that I am not anticipating great things.

I’m just gonna stick to my small, character-driven indie corner of the movie marketplace I think haha

Gotcha and agree ; I have been watching Latino movies lately to practice my Spanish (and being from Quebec, visited pretty much all movies made prior to 2000). This said, I really enjoy tv shows (2017 seriously sucked in movies ). Stuff like Mr Robot, Westworld, Legion, True Detective etc. are simply the shyt. It is stuff to match 1 to 5 seasons of character development to a 90 movie and its not even close . End of derail.

TV has definitely surpassed movies in quality in the last couple of years and I think that gap will only grow. I think I’ll always be a movie person cuz I like self-contained stories with a beginning-middle-end. TV shows can go on indefinitely and so many of them lose their way at certain points or (more often) I lose interest at some point.

Perhaps my biggest gripe against Marvel movies is that they simply exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Granted, the MCU is by far the best cinematic universe out there. Now it’s just an issue of universes and remakes and reboots tho and so few Hollywood movies have really great, original material. Going through screenwriting classes and learning how movies work has really made me appreciate the well-written movies a lot more. There is a place for formulaic movies, but I don’t care for them as much. Perhaps that is my deal with MCU.

I just needed to talk about it cuz even tho I don’t give a **** about Marvel I am still fuming for some reason after that move haha. Rant over, goodnight 👍🏻

Did my taxes for the first time today. Safeway has one final gift for me coming in the near future.

I did not take my tax refund into account but it actually is pretty significant for me living wise. It's not life changing but it does give me slightly more maneuverability than I had. I didn't file taxes on my poker winnings because my understanding is that I don't have to. Apparently I can only file if my poker winnings qualify as business income. Seeing as how I am not living off of them/withdrawing/consistently crushing, I can't in good conscience claim that I am running a business.

...yet

I'll get 'em next year lol

So I have had a couple days to stew over Avengers. I think I should admit that my initial response to it was not particularly impartial, which I think has mostly to do with me not liking Marvel movies or the MCU in general. I'm still not super hot on the movie and I think it's because I don't really care for any of the characters which is a huge problem if the success and impact of the movie depends entirely on your investment in the characters. I can at least acknowledge that it was a well-made movie for what it was and I respect them for what they did with the movie. And I feel compelled to continue watching Marvel movies to find out how it wraps up... :/

Sunday grind was interesting today. I won like $150 bucks which was cool. I ran so bad at the start of the day but got a string of decent cashes (including a $27 and $22 buy-in tourney cash) that I ended up in the black. I downloaded Starshelper yesterday and I can't believe I was not using it before. Seriously, what was I thinking? How much time did I spend shrinking and moving table windows around my two displays while I was twelve-tabling? Life could have been so much easier if I had just been using Starshelper since the start. No hard feelings tho

Still have one day left in April but it looks like I am going to finish with a very substantial profit. I was first in my program when I finished playing, but I am currently railing the other CFP student who crushed April. He is currently chipleading three handed with $3k locked up and $6.1k for first. So I might finish second this month barring some insane run good tomorrow, but that is okay

I think I am going to update my PT4 out of the strictly low-stakes version. The Monster Series has several buy-ins larger than $22 and I therefore was flying with no hud on a few tourneys. My BR is going to go down when I pay CFP, but the idea is that I am going to move on a steady trajectory up the stakes. If I play the occasionally higher stake tourney, it'd be nice to have a HUD.

He is now heads up with $4.3k locked up. Hit a Barry Greenstein on the river to knock off another dude's pocket eights. I am v happy for him