Totally. Good luck at the tables man, appreciate it

In Sunday news, I ended up lying in bed unable to sleep till after 4:30 AM. Starting an hour late today but hopefully I'm gonna crush it. GL everyone

So today was a completely unmitigated disaster. 6.5 hour session where I cashed two of thirty tournaments. Just an absolute gongshow. I was playing mad for a bit too which was not good. I don't think it affected my play that much, I really do believe a lot of what happened today was out of my control, but tilt is not good to have. I rented The Mental Game of Poker from the library a few days ago, they just gotta drive in the book. I think it's something I need to work on. Usually it's a strength but it wasn't today. Tomorrow I'm hitting up Pizza Hut buffet with my friend and preparing for my Tuesday webinar, Tuesday I'm golfing with my golf crew. Come back fresh on Wednesday

Easily, yet you've been at it for hundreds of hours, and you can't.......

holy smokes

Shots fired

Yo. Just doing some work today. Did a tournament HH of my deepstack win last week. It was honestly pretty straightforward, not too many interesting spots to look at. Had the intermediate webinar this morning. I feel good about the work I am putting in. Feels like I am doing more than the other students, which probably has to do with me being the only one with a rules of thumb draft and hand examples prepared for today. I’m kind of being like teacher’s pet, but that’s okay. I’m trying to learn lots, and it is pretty cool that my coach is playing some of the highest stakes tournaments in the world. Gonna try getting a one-on-one session with him where I can ask him questions about my progress and maybe what I can do to best prepare myself for being a professional in the future here. I’ve been thinking about maybe getting staked or something so that I can avoid working, but I’m not too sure that’s how it works. I also probably don’t have the resume yet to get set up like that but who knows. I’m sure coach will have advice.

The Mental Game of Poker did get in, I just rented it out. I thought I would get texted when it showed but I decided to just go down and ask and it was here. Only read the introduction so far. I think that I probably have more mental game talent than most people to begin with. I’m usually a pretty relaxed, logical guy and I think that translates well to rolling with poker. If you’ve been reading though my mental game does have its leaks and I’m hoping to identify them and try patching them up. I never made the connection between golf and poker before but I guess this Jared Tendler guy was a golf sports psychologist before he got into poker psychology. It really does make a lot of sense. The best golfers have amazing mental strength. When I go out usually I’m just ****ing around and enjoying my time. I’m not out there trying to win majors, I’m trying to relax and enjoy the day and knock in a few birds along the way. Maybe this book will help my golf game too haha

Hey guys, things are getting pretty serious between me and Holdem Resources Calculator. I think she's pretty special

Had a good but disappointing day. I had an F2T on 888 and a few other pretty nice runs with some pretty big stacks, but I couldn't translate it into a big score. Felt really good about my game and my mental game was doing good too. So it was disappointing, but it was nice to have a good day after a few stinkers in a row.

Something interesting came up. I know I said I was moving up to Saskatoon but my mom just told me the apartment my parents rent out in Swift is opening up August 1. Rent is $400 and then I cover everything else. So basically $250 less than my current apartment, $150 less than Stoon. I honestly think I might just stay here. The main reason for going to Saskatoon was that it was cheaper plus I would have more opportunities to just do stuff. That being said, I will know a lot less people and won't really have the financial wherewithal to experience Saskatoon anyways. If I move up there I would probably just end up grinding full-time, maybe with a part time job, without room for much else. So if I had to choose between that life in Swift or in Saskatoon, I think Swift is my preference especially if it will be cheaper. Still have a few days to think about it but I'm leaning towards staying put. I can get a part-time job here, I can just build my bankroll up, and once I have more financial security I can move on to other places. It would be nice to stick around what I'm familiar with while I'm doing this bankroll building stage. We'll see I guess

I'm a sucker for Saskatchewan sunsets as always. I think that they're good reality checks, something so grand, so beautiful, that I am so lucky to witness. Thankful for friends, family, and the opportunity I have right now. Thankful to still be here, how far I've come, and hopefully how much farther I will still go

“We are no Robin Hoods. We want to take money from the poor.”
-Coach #inspiring

Heyo. As mentioned before I'm reading through my old journal entries dating back to Grade 11. I'm honestly at the end of this recent February, so I'm reading the thread now as well. It's pretty incredible how much material you can get from semi-periodic entries. I just find it endlessly fascinating how I evolved over the years. I decided from the outset to be completely honest in my journal and try to capture my personal truth. That means I wrote a lot of **** that I don't want other people to see haha. It is either cringey, raw, or just dated trash. My first entries were garbage, so I think the journals helped me a lot with finding my writer's voice as well.

Having my journals the last few years was always a tool for trying to understand everything that was happening to me. It is so easy to see the downswing coming. There were so many flaws in my worldview, thought-process, etc that are just painfully obvious. It's nice to have it all laid out for me so I can understand how I got here. I mean, this thread did start at a time where I was on the upswing. Yknow, with the exception of that time I almost killed myself haha. All of my other journals were just a gradual descent into darkness. Reading my journal from my last year of school is ****ing horrible. That was me at my worst, so when I keep talking about how thankful I am for how far I've come, it's easy to understand why

A quick sidenote. I think I've covered all of my major life events (that were chronicled) up to this point. Obviously I'm going to finish reading, but I've already gotten through most of the juicy stuff. It's really fascinating to me how hard some of it was to read. Like there was just an entry here, an entry there that I was just nervous to relive. I would know what was coming and I would just close the book and try again a few days later. It literally took me an hour tonight to read my February article because it was so ****ing painful. It wasn't necessarily hard in the moment to write, but once that distance is established it becomes very hard to go back and engage again.

I think that's why I'm so dismissive of most of my work I did in the creative writing program. Like, I was on a major descent that entire two year stretch haha. So much of what I wrote ended up being raw. I think I've mentioned these ideas before, but it's just hard for me to even think about some of the stuff I wrote. I shouldn't have been stuck in my own mind like that. Honestly probably the worst thing I could do.

All of this is just for me to get back around to poker. Obviously I still have my moments, but compared to before I am doing much much better. That being said, if I was still trying to be a writer right now I think I would be miserable. The demands of poker and writing are very different. In poker, you are just trying to make the best possible play while making the least amount of mistakes. In writing, you're trying to create something valuable from within yourself. Poker is a very logical, detached game (unless you're on tilt). Writing, at least for me, was very much about getting into the emotions. The toxic thoughts I was living with were what made it so unbearable.

So yeah. Good on poker for being a simple game. You obviously need to deal with the upswings and downswings and frustrations constantly, but at the end of the day it is check, bet, raise, call, or fold. Beautiful

Legit crypto fish question. My friend's dad came out to the driving range while we were screwing around. He's retired, smart guy, helped run our school golf and basketball teams. He was telling me about a new US-based crypto coin he was going to Toronto to meet some people about. He was asking if I wanted to invest, probably jokingly, but he seemed pretty into it. After he left my friend was talking to me about the difference between crypto and real money and how his dad thought crypto was the future but he didn't think so. Obviously I think crypto has potential. Thing is, I don't know nearly enough (literally anything) to have an informed opinion. My feeling is that I'm not going to invest in something I don't understand, but I wouldn't mind trying to educate myself if possible. The poker world seems pretty into crypto, so do you guys have any tips, maybe starting points to look into crypto?

Apartment may or may not be on fire. Alarm went off when i was 12 tablinng, got the **** out of there and am playing 8 tables still at my friend’s place. He is the real MVP

Great news! My apartment was not on fire! Pretty sure it was just my crack addict neighbour that set off the fire alarm by accident (maybe?) and went on to scream and rant and rave unintelligibly that convinced me the apartment was getting hazey. Like I said, I grabbed my laptop, my mouse, my charts, and drove up the street to my friend’s house. Thanks to his heroics I made about a hundred bucks today. Had a small tourney FT bubble and finished around 40th in the Big $22. I’m buzzing around some big scores but haven’t hit one yet.

I am very proud of my week. I haven’t felt very motivated to play poker mainly because I’ve been breakeven on the month. This week I made myself get out of bed and play. My first normal five day work week. I am super happy with the hours I put in and also with my tourney volume. I think I was 30+ MTTs each day and I registered more smaller tourneys I skipped in the past. I’ve finally realized how important it is to put my ass in the chair and keep it there. Even though I haven’t had the results, the volume is something I am very happy about. I feel good about my game too, but that can be worked on as always.

I know Saturday 3 AM is beginner webinar, but I decided to skip this week. Just because. The beginner webinars have begun feeling redundant as they’re usually just tournament hand histories. Going to the webinar usually means I am too tired to play and I just lose a day effectively. I’m not playing tomorrow, going to the kite festival in town instead. Next week I think I’ll probably go to the fair on Saturday. But after that, Saturday can become a regular play day. I’m feeling motivated to grind and put in that volume. I want to succeed, so it’s something I just have to do. Here’s hoping the results aren’t far behind

New PB today on tourneys played (46) and I clocked in at 11.5 hours. Really happy with my Sunday session and how I played even though I lost $100. I made a super small 888 FT and other than that I didn't have any deep runs. It didn't even feel like my fault, but it hasn't for a while so I'm starting to question whether I'm just unable to see what I'm doing wrong. I feel like I'm playing my best poker and I'm the most knowledgeable I've been so it sucks to be breakeven on the month. Parents are finally back from their trip, haven't seen them in three and a half weeks. Lunch is on them tomorrow

Heyo. Had a fun supper with my dad tonight where he lectured me about how I need to quit playing poker and start thinking about getting a career. I hate to say his advice was useless, but it wasn't very helpful. Also, it was terribly misinformed. He's spouting off how I'm not making money playing poker, the $1500/month I need to live (a little on the high side). I tell him that yes, I'm not making that money. I'm building my bankroll. Everything that's happened so far has gone pretty much how I expected it to. But he keeps saying I need to get a real job, cuz soon I'll be 25 and then 30 and then 40 and what are you gonna put on your resume? Poker player?

Obviously his comments are completely off base. I went to school for creative writing. My career would involve building a portfolio first, not getting a job as he thinks a career should be. I don't like ****ting on my dad either, but he has had like ten different careers. Seeing him be so indecisive and, in my mind, unenthusiastic about all of his jobs made me value doing something I want to do. So the "quit poker and get a career" line didn't really do it for me.

Dad kept telling me that I will go broke, everyone goes broke eventually, because it all comes down to luck. "You're gambling. One time you're gonna go all-in and the other guy will call and have four aces and you'll be broke." If anyone sees me with a double rye and coke slurring my words with my entire bankroll on the table, you have permission to walk over and punch me in the dick. This scenario will never happen, but it's honestly pointless trying to explain why because he's not interested in listening. He's not interested in listening, I'm not interested in explaining.

As mentioned before, I understand why my parents don't support this. Honestly, I don't think many wannabe poker players are probably cut out for it. Obviously, I am not a poker pro. Maybe I'm not qualified to say I have what it takes. But I know my heart is in the right place, my goals are good, and my bankroll management is legit. I tossed out the word bankroll management and Dad just rolled his eyes. Whatever haha

Was supposed to have a 5AM webinar today but coach neglected to tell any of us that he was flying to Vegas for the WSOP. Waste of a day. Honestly getting fed up with the lack of communication I've been having with coach. He just doesn't answer our messages, doesn't keep us in the loop. How hard is it to tell us there won't be a webinar on Tuesday, don't wake up at 5AM so you can play instead. I'm not sure when the coaching for profits program costs more than what it's worth to me. Maybe it's already at that point. I'm thinking of leaving, but I'm gonna stick with it for now.

So that's all the poker stuff. In case you wanna know my tentative goals at the moment, it's finish my contract by December, win 30k in the next year, and be at the WSOP two years from now. Dad also doesn't have a great grasp on how staking or poker shares work either. It's fine. He doesn't have to. Good material for my TV show haha

Whenever people used to ask "should I go pro?" threads here, the default answer always used to be "If you have to ask, then no." The reason for that was that asking meant you needed some kind of positive reinforcement to make the decision, and your friends and family usually won't support you. Being successful at this requires a kind of "I don't care what anyone else says, I have to try this" attitude to succeed, and it sounds like you have that attitude.

Regarding the career, poker won't kill your chance at "a real job" if you ever need to go back to one. I quit an IT career and played online poker for 6 years until Black Friday. A 6 year experience gap is an eternity in IT. I found a new IT job, during a recession, in 2 weeks, and yes I had poker on my resume. I knew that most big corps wouldn't be interested, so I focused on smaller companies and found a startup run by younger people who saw my poker experience as a plus.

I've been following you from the beginning, and I think you definitely have the right attitude and skills to be successful at this.

Nice post Tappy, and will second the following

edit : If you did not have the right mentality to make it - and such is the nature of 2 + 2, unfortunately... - you would have a bunch of posters trolling you!!!

Appreciate the kind words man. It goes without saying but I'm not locking myself into poker for life. I see poker as the thing I need to do right now, and I see it as providing a ton of life experience and possible ins to all other kinds of opportunities if I'm successful. Pretty sure the parents will be uneasy until (if) I begin doing well for myself. Could be a while yet, but I'm working my way there

I have definitely noticed the lack of trollers compared to some other threads I've seen. Happy to know what that means haha


It sucks that I followed up a really productive week last week with a 2 day work-week this one. The fair is in town this weekend, I've been seeing some friends, and I've also felt like ****. The early morning webinars are tough to negotiate sometimes. Maybe I just gotta gut it out and start a little later some days to get my volume in.

Coach recommended we watch FT replays from the High Roller SCOOP events. I'm about halfway through my first one and it is pretty informative. I understand what he means about trying to learn from the best. It's really helpful being able to practice ICM situations with all of the hole cards available too. If any of you wanna watch a replay the Youtube account is Kalipoker TV. It's good sh**

Just discovered a PartyPoker promotion that gives $109 MTT tickets to people that write articles which get published on Party’s Live News feed. I was reading some of them just to get a feel for it. Really not sure if they want anything I’d write, and I don’t really want to be a cheery poker propagandist, but $109 tourney tickets are no joke. I sold out and wrote an article for an online casino blog back in December. The first and only time I was paid for my writing ($35). I felt horrible because I wasn’t morally okay talking up roulette as fun and exciting and harmless. Maybe writing about poker will be different. Might send in a few articles and hope they hook me up

Here are my stats for the month of June. I'm not playing today due to Saturday webinar fatigue/fair/golf commitments, so June is a wrap.

JUNE STATS

• Profit: -65 Euros
• MTTs Played: 452
• Hours Played: 111

Like I said, I've been breakeven now for a month and a half, still stuck close to 5k Euro profit overall on the journey. I think I am playing well but I need to take some responsibility for the poor results. I was looking at some of my BvB play and I think that is an area I can improve a lot in. Also doing some Pio stuff for cbetting OOP. Interesting stuff where I can definitely do a lot more.

As far as volume goes, I broke my monthly record for MTTs despite playing very few days. Like I said, this week was a two day work week and I got off to a very poor start at the start of June as well. Wouldn't have been as big of a deal if I was studying a lot but that wasn't the case. Despite wasting all of that time, when I did play I was consistently putting in 9+ hour and 30+ MTT days, even hitting 43 on a random Wednesday. It's really important I hit some bigger volume goals and I like my chances when I consistently play more. It'd be really nice to hit 700+ MTTs in July. We'll see if I can get there

Even par thru 10 on the course today. I had four birdies on the front nine and missed an easy 8-foot birdie putt on number 8 to go to -3. I then proceeded to double bogey #9. Hoping to break par on the back and get my sub-par round I so desperately need haha

6-over 78. I blew it

So today was the best day I’ve had in a long time. It was just good and wholesome and fun. It started with sleeping in after my webinar. Once I woke up, I just took it easy. I wrote an article for the PartyPoker people and sent it to them (hopefully I’ll bag that ticket). After that it was an early afternoon round of golf with my friend. I like golf just as a chill sport and I like having her to play with because I like talking to her, like hanging out with her. She’s been a good friend to have since I moved back home.

She ditched after nine holes and I had to keep going cuz I wanted to break par. I played horrible, but I ended up playing with the two ladies in front of us on the front. Just two chill people, out to have a good time, got to talk about poker a bit which was fun. My legs were sore because it was just so much walking, it had already been a full day. But then me and my friend went to Frontier Days, the local fair, and met up with two other people. And it was just a group of people I haven’t had in my life since high school, people I have real connections and history with, and I got to hang with them all night. I saw my crew too, they were heading to the saloon to party (they’re there right now). I said I would join them earlier this week, but I didn’t. I have the Sunday grind tomorrow, and I like being low key, avoiding the drinking and the drugs and stuff. And me and my friends didn’t even go on the rides, we just walked around the fair a few times. And it was so ****ing beautiful. Especially once it got dark, and the carnival lights start glowing, and everything’s spinning and people are laughing and there are just so many good vibes and I was just so glad to be in that moment and have this day.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m always aware of where I came from. This is so much better. I remember last Canada Day, I spent it working at Safeway. I got off work, drove to a creative writing person’s BBQ I was invited to. He was the only person I knew there and we didn’t talk at all except for when I walked in. To be fair, I never really knew him that well, we were never really close in any way even though I looked up to him and loved his writing. Him and his roommates spent a couple hundred dollars on a maple leaf ice sculpture with tubes you could drink alcohol out of. I sat inside on his couch for an hour, hour and a half, playing four tables of Zoom poker trying to get Card Match. And I did! And when I got Card Match I left and I walked home and I could hear fireworks going off in the night and I was so alone.

This was just such an amazing day. I am so, so thankful

read through your entire thread over the last week or so. glad to hear how much things have improved for you since one year ago. wishing you the best going forward!