I play anywhere that I can that has manageable rake. They're fine, nothing special. I know multiple regs that have moved to live because ignitions game quality has deteriorated. What's up with you, saw you've got a thread right

Yea, I am playing live low stakes only. Have recently been considering playing on ignition.

So I'm going to grade myself with a mini report card on my life categories since I got back from my trip, feel free to suggest any I have forgotten:

mental health: A
fitness: A
diet: B-
social: A
long distance social: A-
responsible drug use: B
professional networking: A-
grinding volume: C
mental game: A
dating: B
spending: B-
cleanliness: B
work vs play ratio: B


Just things off the top of my head. So far major things to adjust are playing a little more and eating better. I've really enjoyed every day since I got back which is rare and I hope it continues.

When you think you're amazing at something but don't wanna sound pretentious

I meant relative to my potential/personal expectations fwiw

Hey OP how is it going? Keen to see an update when you have a chance.

I have been trying to figure out my future, how I want to proceed both in life and investing. Deciding my schedule, making a routine, setting goals and planning what steps I need to take to accomplish them.

Right now I'm taking a 40k shot at 2k, I'll see how that goes.

Damn son, go get'em

Thx.

Well this is a big admission on my part because I am surprised it's the case, but I think I need to wait a little while longer before playing 2k online. The swings are pretty substantial and even though i'm only up-stuck, losing a bmw isn't a feeling I'm completely ready for yet. I'm sure that as I play more 1k deep, I'll get used to it and with maybe 20% more in my roll I'll be ready to shot 2k again. I won about 11k at the end of all my sessions but dropped a staggering amount from peak which does not feel good.

I'll see how I feel in a little

any updates?

off to play some bigger games live, not been playing too much. stuck in crypto and down maybe 15k at poker. i've been living life rather than grinding hard, working on hobbies and socializing/networking/learning

Dont' forget to grade erectile function. Gl on your grind. Best way for me is doing a lot of volume online and playing with the drunks at casino on the weekends.

yeah thx dude I need to start jerking off less so that I can stay harder, you're right about that one. I played the biggest game i've done so far on my $ tonight, some 25/25(50)(200) 5 card plo hi. It went well, I played well and ran some bluffs in good spots. I have a guest visiting for a week now so I'll not be playing much.

how many times u jerk off a day?

btw u inspired me to go poker pro. 11 days til i graduate and begin the journey. ty. maybe. ill **** u up in 3 years if my life sucks (haha jk)

I'd say don't go pro but here we are. Good luck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5epuPMf-7Y

Doing a real quick bet that i'll go to the gym daily thru friday and a separate one that I don't masturbate till friday midnight, unpaid girls are allowed. I'm risking $100 on each. A week of self improvement. I've started reading when I'm on the toilet, trying to tackle The Prize by Daniel Yergin right now, a monster of a text. I've been thinking of my 2019 goals and I am going to shoot for 1600 hours. Right now I'm at 1165 on the year and I will try to close out the year at 1300 hours, it'll gear me up for next year. Got two oz of dank kush today tho so that might throw a wrench in things, both the volume and the masturbation prop

I've been thinking about it more and I really need to kick myself into high gear. I've already started this month putting in volume and I need to maintain that strong thru next year. A soft target i'm setting for myself is to hit a 400k net pre-tax by the end of September which is a little more than roughly double what i'm working with right now. I also would like (if I choose this path) to have 3 or 4 single family rentals under my ownership by then. I've been evaluating homes and areas already and have my sights set on a few, speaking with agents now. I should pull the trigger on getting my first one ASAP it's pure laziness and fear that has prevented me from taking this leap. I have money that is just sitting and that is BAD. I can put myself into such a prime position by the end of next summer if I only just apply myself. I'm off to go workout now then will grind afterwards.

Hey guys i'm planning on going to some concerts with a friend jan 18-19, does anyone have suggestions for how to get reasonable room rates for on strip vegas hotels? Thanks

Sick thread, just found it. Glad to see someone planning ahead and trying to reach financial independence through poker. Gl with 2019.

Thanks.

Can anybody connect me with Scotter Clark, one of the Pokermania owners, or someone that knows him? I had a nice conversation with him at the tables previously and I would like to continue speaking about some of the topics with him, but I do not have his information. Thank you

Didn't they exit scam?

My understanding is scotter's partner ran with a chunk of the players funds but I am not intimately familiar with the situation and only played on the site briefly.

Update:
Hey guys as I was living with another grinder for the last four months of '18 I got to use him as a sounding board for my ideas and poker progress. I'll miss the friends I've made in the area and hope we stay in touch. I've since decided to move out to the west coast grab a car and live on my own near a girl I have started dating. Since I'll be flying solo poker-wise I'm going to bring this thread back to its roots and try to maintain it as a goals thread. After spending a week camping in tents away from an internet connection, I've had a good deal of time to dwell on what I want to get out of this year and to establish a plan of attack.

To update the previous goals I had, I set a rough $X/150k goal to plod towards and 100k hands on ignition to set a milestone at which I'll reward myself with my dream watch. For completion's sake, I'll update my $X/150k when I get back to my laptop from the time I started keeping track, but I don't plan on continuing it. It's totally arbitrary and didn't help me attach onto an anchor to chase. Watch-wise, right now I'm looking at an omega speedmaster day date all black dial, rose gold chronograph (3623.50.01 for reference), a rolex gmt master two tone gold w/ black dial or a rolex gmt master two tone black nipple dial with blue trim. I've got roughly 55k hands left to play on ignition so maybe 150k hands total left before I pull the trigger on it. I anticipate getting it before the wsop.

Last year, my first year of full time play, went well with me winning around 200 or 220k, don't have my records on my mobile rn, which is pretty dope. I made 34k this January and am chomping at the bit to keep running it up.
I'm going to set aggressive goals for 2019 and aim for 1800 hours and 324k of winnings. Even though the US-facing mid/high stakes online poker landscape appears to be dwindling in the last two years I have a strong belief that with a stronger work ethic than last year (1800 hours vs 1350 hours) as well as a higher average big blind ($8 as opposed to $6) less low stakes live (not playing 1/2 with my London flatmate) and more tables (8-10 as opposed to 6-8) without needing to play higher than 5/10 I will be able to achieve these goals.

I also want to include a note on my spending. This past year I estimate that I spent around 60k although I can't really know as my record keeping was pretty sparse but figuring out my net before and after and roughly how much I won minus taxes paid, I have a general idea. Rather than looking at annual totals, I have been reigning in my spending by keeping track of daily allotments for housing+casual expenditure and then being at peace with major expenses but trying to be shrewd about them. Having a daily passive pre-tax in-flow of $40/day (to be covered later) will be quite nice, helping mentally balance out my expenses. I look to spend $70/day or less on housing with a goal of an average of $50, $30/day on food and be generally reasonable with the rest of my expenditures. If I can spend, excluding big ticket items like my car and watch but not my trips, under 55k this year I will be content.

My true attainable hourly will be tainted as my online hourly is likely over $200 yet at 5/5/10 live which will probably be a plurality of my hours live, I doubt I can maintain over $120. Therefore I am striving for an avg hourly of $180 and am using that for my goal setting but am ok with whatever it ends up being; it's just a reflective metric anyway, not something that I use to determine my self worth.
I am in california back and forth between LA and SF for the next week or two then am moving next to a southern florida casino for a month to bootcamp hours both online and live at which point I'll formally move to LA near Commerce until the series.

Assuming my net were to break even between now and the wsop, which is unlikely if I put in decent volume, I will still fire off quite a few events during the series. I am looking at playing events 28, 33, 43, 55, 62, 66, 85, and 92 for $20.6k of buyins where I will take 100% of myself. I personally can't wait for the 10k plo 8max and the 3k plo 6max events as they are both the biggest mtts that are effectively shots and they are likely going to have the toughest competition. Since a few of the smaller ones are hi-lo I'll continue as I've recently started doing of adding in 500&1k plo8 on one of my sites to my daily grind to prep myself and will start to review some study material on the games. If someone wants to put me in the 25k plo event I will consider it but otherwise am happy to grind plo cash. I have tried grinding at the aria bellagio and rio over the last few series and this time I will target the rio as my stomping ground unless I shot take 5kpl.

I previously was expecting to arrive in Boston for the opening of its new casino and to establish myself as a figure within the new poker community there. However after a truly terrifying acid trip at a left wing libertarian full moon raver/hippie convocation in the middle of the desert, where in retrospect I ought to have taken 1/4 of my dosage, I arrived at and established some core truths about myself. One of those being that I do not function well in cold environments which basically rules out Boston as a viable location for a minimum 12 month lease. I'm happy to expand on the experience if you guys want but some cliffs are that I was pared down to my core being and then reassembled myself, including only the aspects of myself that I consented to as well as came to peace with only maintaining relationships that are formed out of my own intentionality. Also notably, so far I do not have an addiction to porn anymore which has been an unachieved goal of mine attempted several times over several years and my sex drive (possibly T levels too?) dropped a great deal to what is probably what other people consider a healthy level. I also started dreaming (or just remembering them?) every night as if a floodgate has opened.
It is tremendous to self-reflect and feel that every component of my life is in a healthy place -- I would like to keep it this way. Taking that much acid was something I'm glad I did once but would not repeat for quite a while. I am at peace.

To finish the Boston thought, there are many other reasons for me to want to move there-- a good friend of mine offered to live together and we are presently attempting to launch a company. Another of my closest friends lives down the street from him, the building has quality amenities and is in a prime location downtown. There is a high density of motivated young working professionals and quality potential partners.
As it stands tho I will try living in LA in my relationship until the wsop and see how it goes.

For the renter to real estate aspect of my blog, in the last few months I have sought out as well as coincidentally met a variety of people that work in the real estate industry which has led to a few investing opportunities. I've decided to park 64k into a man that lends to flippers that returns a monthly dividend of 2% up to 100k and 3% for investment over 100k. I am in the process of investigating the legal strength of his promissory notes and my ability to sue across the US/Canadian border in case of term violations and will be flying to meet him shortly at which point I'll decide whether to scale in to match a certain % of my net for the degree of consistent exposure I am comfortable with or to pull my $$ out. His minimums for investing thru him are 5k for 3 months. If you would like to learn more or be connected to him, feel free to pm me as any additional investment he receives marginally benefits the safety of mine. As always the returns of an investment match the risk and I have surmised that within a sub 3 year timeframe the marginal rewards greatly exceed the additional risk. After our conversations and researching his digital footprint I do not believe he thinks he is trying to scam me.

Further, re: owning multi-family real estate. After much reflection and self-education I have restricted it to an aspiration for only a portion of my net not my primary goal, which thus necessitates me to hold off on pursuing acqusition of quadplexes or a complex for at least 18 months. After exploring a combination of financing options and market prices, a reasonable spread of cash on cash returns after management fees, cap ex, taxes, insurance etc, and the amount of time I would have to personally dedicate to its acquisition and higher level maintenance, it just isn't the avenue I ought to explore in the near future. I do still intend on controlling a significant number of units within a decade but now is not the time. I've thus decided to take a chunk of my net that still leaves me with plenty of money to use as a bankroll and liferoll and stick it into this investor. How will it turn out? We will see. From my conversations with him it instills a level of confidence in me such that I expect to receive somewhere around 90 cents on the dollar of my total invested capital when I try to pull out and will receive my dividend for at least three or four years without interruption, at which point global macroeconomic indicators as well as region specific ones can preemptively inform me of when to exit and protect my principal. This estimation makes it outperform other passive investment vehicles on a risk-adjusted basis by a great deal. After visiting him it will probably move the needle one way or the other in which case I will proceed accordingly.
One of my goals after the new years was to have a higher degree of financial cleanliness-- managing my net more responsibly, both in terms of acquiring an accountant for tax purposes and investing as much as possible with a reasonable spread of risks and returns. I would enjoy discussing particular etfs and their relative portfolio distribution if anyone has input on the subject. I am intending on a 10+ year timeframe of maintaining investments that are not denominated in dollars but for now and until inflation hits over certain levels I will pursue primarily USD denominated biotech, emerging markets, large cap & growth etfs. I'm also looking at sticking a sliver of my investments into gold & silver for a hedge and since they appear underpriced with an expectation to increase in EV as the probability of a looming significant equities pullback increases.

I'm excited to be honest. The other participants on this vacation I'm on, which has justifiably been very unique and enjoyable, are griping about having to return to their retiree lives across the US. I'm really happy to return tho. The vacation was nice and I'm glad I did it but I have crafted a life for myself that I am truly happy to live and can't wait to sink my teeth into my path this year.
Cheers boys

Nice update, best wishes. Maybe lunch when after you move to LA.

why do u think ur test levels might be lowered? isn't this kind of a bad thing? even if it's "healthy levels" more t is always better, no?

anyway sick update, gl gl

Not getting riled up by simple things that used to arouse me. Not having gymed in 2 weeks, stopped boxing. Not being able to get it up for long albeit with a condom in contrast to never having an issue for extended durations. Not needing to masturbate. Generally less aggro. Maybe when I return to lifting it'll naturally fall back into place. Some of these things may have been caused by using molly 2 days in a row in the days before I dropped acid, i read that can have some effects that last even for weeks or months on some people.

Thanks, sure what's your background?