4 hours.. another 5.5k... the heater is so real. I recovered from a nice -10 buyin swing or so earlier today so ending the day so high in the green was unexpected and quite nice.

Looking at 53.6k/40k. Holla holla. Also at all-time high liferoll despite shelling out some expenses.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day of grinding; I'll add in some mtts if I can stomach the volume.

Really enjoy the posts man - I think documenting this not only for yourself but also for the entire poker community is a very good idea. Definitely can be something nice to look back on in a few years.

I'd be curious to see what your thoughts/approach to the whole mental and emotional aspect to the game has been. I saw a Galfond podcast on it a while back, and it was actually very interesting to see how he thought about swings, tilt, etc - in particular with confidence (which when low, can directly lead to not taking thin +ev spots, and effecting winrate) incorrectly being determined by run-good or run-bad..

Thanks, yeah I hope to stick with it.. by the end it should be something pretty significant.

I actually have become much more detached to the money and results in my daily life and have been incredibly happy recently even when I was losing. The last three weeks of my life have been my happiest of the last 9 years or so which is just so so so wonderful.
On top of that my wellbeing and happiness has been pretty much completely separated from my swing within the last month. I think playing full time and having 100% of myself has caused me to advance more quickly to this stage of detachment whereas being part time or not having 100% of myself in the past meant it didn't fully develop to the state I currently am in. I don't feel my wins or losses at all right now which is great.

Although on that note I have spoken with several high stakes pros that are so detached from life and have slowed down/dulled their feelings to such an extent that they take longer to respond and have difficulty in their relationships. One of these examples was explained to me by a girl that I am friends with who is dating a live high stakes NL crusher. And that sometimes he'll take a minute or two (she calls it tanking) before he replies on sensitive emotional/relationship issues which she interprets as unfair or guarded since she replies quickly (with the subtext of: and truthfully)

I have tried to keep conscious of this and make sure that I don't deteriorate into a state this degraded.

Anyway more on that later if you want.
Today was a double win! The first win was that during 5 hours & 45 minutes at the times I won to the tune of about 2.5k which puts me at ~56.1k/40k.
The second win was that in tallying my networth I'd forgotten about $800 I had in an account so I feel like I won 3.3k today lol. Still all time peaking.. this has to stop eventually, that's just the rules -- so I'm actually looking forward to it. To be fair I did get it in on the flop with 2% today for a soooooo it's not like my sessions are just stacks raining down from the sky with people donating to me. I go through a lot of swing each day including the days that end in the green.

Although today I played sloppily in some spots which is NOT GOOD. I really try hard to play A+ game at all times and today I was playing maybe B+ game. I'm going to try to focus more in the next few days and really grind out some A+ hours.

Tomorrow I will be playing a few hours shifted earlier in the day as I'll be gaming with a college friend in the evening for some time. The rest of the day will be figuring out some details for my move and taxes with my dad and then the rest for poker.
Peace

Today I went running outside and caught up with friends for a bit. I fell ill yesterday with a terrible runny nose and a cough. By now I feel absolutely wrecked, the grind today was quite a struggle. I still managed to put in 5:50 and am up a little over 3.3k putting me at 59.5k/40k. I ran really well today, moreso than even days when I won a lot more.

I'm going to get some rest tonight and put in more hands tomorrow. I've got some taxes to work out and dinner with a school friend in the evening so my hands will be in the afternoon and after I'm back from dinner.

I wanted to put more volume in today but I just feel too wrecked. Tomorrow should be about 6 hours as well -- not as many as i'd like but I'll just wait for England to be putting in consistent high volume. There are a lot of distractions here. When I get settled into my place in London I'll also revisit my goals and figure out what my next short/mid-term goals will be.

Oh and the girl I've been seeing brought me pizza tonight! We had a nice chat after she finished up at work. I'm off to the beach with her on Wednesday, that'll be really enjoyable.

I didn't play that much today only 4:50. I lost $6. It was fine I guess, I definitely punted off a stack or two to a spot headsup that could have been avoided but it's hard to know what's "good" in those situations when someone's playing such an unpredictably bad strat.

Tomorrow I won't be playing much as I have some administrative stuff to do and then I'm off to overnight at the beach with the girl I've been seeing.

I had dinner this evening with a friend from school and really enjoyed the conversation. I will miss her when I am overseas.

Games look pretty good right now but I'm going to relax and have a beer instead. Choices, choices, choices.

Oh I played a good hand today::

3 handed, 2/5
btn folds, I open 9754sshh to pot (15) in sb and get 3b (45) by bb I peel.
Flop KJ7ssd I check bb bets 45 into 90, I call
Turn 8s I check bb bets 100 into 180, I call
River Ko I check bb bets 260 into 380, I jam for 580 total and get a fold.

I'm not here to take prisoners

I'll have converted HHs in a couple days when I'm on stars, that'll be hype for sure

Got in a quick 2 hours and now I'm off to the beach. Can't wait!

Up 1.8k today after a very very swingy session so now I'm at 61.3k/40k.

Really enjoyed the trip. Brought some edibles and snacks, had an oversized tub with a bath bomb. Dinner on the pier, crab melt & clam chowder. Definitely relaxing.

Today I put in a lot of hours. 7 hours straight then a massage and another 3 for a total of 9:59 holla holla.

I hit n ran some 5/10 but otherwise stuck to my 1.5/3-3/6 games.

I won 7.1k today which puts me at 68.4k/40k. It's amazing that I'm even up considering the middle few hours were pure death but I powered through it.

Alright alright I had a bit of a pullback playing bigger than 2/5. I lost about 12k that puts me at 56.5k/40k. No more poker for me till I'm in London. Overall I'm very pleased with what I was able to pull together prior to leaving the US.

Here is my graph from my first month of full-time play:


I'm flying out tomorrow to begin the next stage of my life and it hasn't quite hit me yet.

There are a bunch of things I have to get sorted out:
health insurance
2 4k monitors, adapter, power strip dongle w/ ethernet port
open a bank account (to anyone reading this in the UK, is there a particular bank that is online poker friendly?)
gym membership
phone
wifi
get stars xfer
update hud
set up partypoker, microgaming, stars accounts
xfer $$ from coinbase to bank
go shopping for some clothes, pants casual shoes etc
subway card?

And i'm sure a whole bunch of other things. It's happening!
The plan is 500plz quickly then grind that till 150k and start firing 1kpl on other sites. Adding in 10/20 around 200-250k and 25/50 around 400k or so.

My first goal will be to hit a new +65k by May 1st. I think this should be achievable without issue.
My second goal for this year will be to hit +165k by October 1st. This will be tougher but still possible.
My final goal is +315k by Christmas. This is my stretch goal and if I accomplish this, I will be so incredibly pleased. It will set me up to get exactly what I want out of poker.

I know that in context of this sub-forum these goals are much larger than most but I have supreme confidence in myself and my abilities. I also feel that I have a good grasp for the abilities of midstakes and highstakes players and that my perception of my place within them is accurate. As such the primary constraint of whether I can reach these goals will not be my mechanics, intuition, or choices at the tables but rather how many hours I can put in this year. How consistently I can grind, the quality of my lifestyle and how it enables or detracts from my game.

To get to where I want to be in such a short time will take a lot of sacrifices. I'm not going to no-life it, but I will be putting poker first before anything else. In the past I've maintained a balanced life with respect to poker. I'm still going to try and socialize, play my instrument, and work out but girls will have to be a distant priority.

Right now I'm figuring out my monitor setup with a cousin in law; I'm looking at 2x 28" 4k monitors. I have to get used to using a HUD again, drilling it till I learn it. Also updating it for certain stats I've found I need that I didn't have in it last time around.

The real grind is about to begin!

p.s. I watched The Darkest Hour the other night with my father and this quote stuck with me:
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts" --Churchill

I'm very proud of myself for managing to recover from a pretty bad downswing (-22k from peak) thru late Nov and early Jan. It isn't a lot in the scheme of things but starting out and being smacked with that immediately was definitely a hurdle to overcome.

To any 500plz regs... buckle up, I'm coming

Good luck with the move and the rest of 2018. Solid January sir! I enjoy following. Looking forward to seeing you shot take 25/50 by the end of the year!

How's zoom

Thanks BAEVentures. I'm quite pleased with my progress so far as well. Yeah! Hopefully I'll run it up hugely before years end.

Ya steve no zoom yet because my guy hasn't transferred me the 10k yet.. he's been having difficulties for some unknown reason. Hrmph.
I'm considering just grinding out 2/5 PLO live till it arrives. Just cruise for a bit with some fishies.

I've put in 15 hours on B sites and one live session since I got here and am down 2.1k or so. I'm not worried, I played some bigger games and lost a chunk and won a lot at smaller games, at 21evbb/100 for the entire (small) sample since I got here so not sweating anything whatsoever.

I'm licking my lips for the zoom games, I've been sweating them a good bit.
Settling in hasn't been the easiest although I've done a bunch of the basics and will run some more errands this weekend that should finalize most things.
Not a bad start.

Let me see if I can get some hands in this thread. These are from a session I just played against a Russian reg:

Not in love with river but I checked flop so I could do this--



This one wouldn't convert:
WPN, $2/$4 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 2 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

BB: $642 (160.5 bb)
Hero (SB): $746.60 (186.7 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 5h 8c Ks 8h
Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $36, Hero calls $24

Flop: ($72) 5s 6d 3c (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $32, BB raises to $112, Hero calls $80

Turn: ($296) Ts (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($296) 3d (2 players)
BB bets $147.50, Hero raises to $598.60 and is all-in, BB folds



Nor this one:
WPN, $2/$4 Pot Limit Omaha Cash, 2 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

Hero (BB): $938 (187.6 bb)
SB: $459 (91.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ah 8c Jc Kc
SB raises to $12, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($24) Ad Jd 3h (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $16, Hero calls $16

Turn: ($56) 9h (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $44, Hero raises to $168, SB raises to $431 and is all-in, Hero folds


Where's his heart? Folding river for sure


Oh and one more from a session against a terrible reg:
***** Hand History for Game 1111111111 ***** (WPN)
$200.00 USD PL Omaha - Wednesday, January 31, 12:30:02 ET 2018
Table Asakku 2 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ( $621.36 USD ) - VPIP: 41, PFR: 27, 3B: 9, AF: 2.9, Hands: 35159 [lol it includes my 6max stats in this]
Seat 2: Player2 ( $210.50 USD ) - VPIP: 52, PFR: 46, 3B: 29, AF: 3.0, Hands: 256 [but these are just his HU stats ]
Hero posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
Player2 posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 3c 2h 5d Ad ]
Hero raises [$5.00 USD]
Player2 raises [$16.00 USD]
Hero calls [$12.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, Qh, 3s ]
Player2 checks
Hero checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9d ]
Player2 bets [$28.00 USD]
Hero calls [$28.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 4s ]
Player2 bets [$45.75 USD]
Hero calls [$45.75 USD]
Hero wins $183.00 USD from main pot
Hero shows [3c, 2h 5d Ad ]
Player2 shows [Tc, Kh 6h As ]

I need to figure out this hand history posting business quick

Put in 9 hours today, lost $1400 online today, 2k under ev woo now that i have a hud i see these things. Won 620 pounds live.

I'm playing my first 500plz 6max & hu tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. Once i'm settled in i'll figure out short term goals n such

Had transfer issues but put in a lot of volume. 20 hours during these last two days. Up 5.5k online and down 1k pounds live. Lost a 3.5k 5/10 plo pot with K758ddhh on A96ddhKh.

I put in 5k hands on stars today 99% at 200plz. I tickled 500plz but will ease into it, probably doing 4 200plz tables and 1 500plz table until I'm more comfortable at 500plz. More to come tomorrow. I'm going to fire off the sunday millys tomorrow too.

Some hands:

Came to punt for sure



Seriously considered folding turn but villain was too big a fish



My first 500plz punt



Got owned by a brazilian



And my first 500plz hero (altho it's a terrible bluff imo)


Tomorrow will be huge! So psyched

Wow. That turn raise with midpair no blockers no draw to bink the river and then (thin?) value bet. Maximum rekt.

Most of your T8 also has a wrap or top pair and will bet flop (T98, JT8, etc), so your line looks suspicious perhaps? Maybe thats what he was thinking given his light call down.

Subbed. Great to see a PLO player in the mix. Questions for you:

-How did you build your initial roll?
-How do you study the game?
-How long are you going to be able to stay in London on your visa? What's the plan after that?

Why England?
Where in England?
How much is cost of living?

More info!

I don't play any PLO but the intro to the thread was very inspirational and loved reading every word of it haha also love the way you write/type your updates idk why lol, GL btw!

Whatup steve. Ya some gnarly spots for sure. I should have bet flop in the KT24 hand or not fired river.

Here's some answers guys
-How did you build your initial roll?
6max plo online

-How do you study the game?
I don't study much anymore.. the RIO plo coaches aren't very good and I've run the sims that I needed to to understand the basic frequencies of the game. With that said I still get in about half an hour a day of assorted content.

-How long are you going to be able to stay in London on your visa? What's the plan after that?
I do not need a visa. I will see where I am at when my lease expires in a year and go from there.

Why England?
I'm a citizen

Where in England?
London

How much is cost of living?
$1400USD/month for housing and its related bills then food is more on top. My roommate spends a lot, especially on food, but I try not to.

I put in 9:18 today which came out to about 6k hands + maybe 500-1k hands from a B site and mtts. I roughly broke even on my mtts with one cash. I'm on the fence about firing off the high roller plo mtt each sunday. On the one hand it seems like great value but on the other I had too much emotional attachment to it which distracted me from my zen state I get into when I grind cash. That alone might be enough to justify cutting it out.

I won about 7k which was about 6k over EV,,,, nice life yeah?

Tough spot, maybe can fold because people don't really bluff here:



Yesterday when I was playing 800bb effective with regs at 200plz I realized that I don't have that much deep online experience. In this hand I was thinking mid-hand that playing deep plo is something I need more experience with. No other way than to just do it tho. I think the river bet is -EV for this single combo but increases the EV of my range such that it's a +ev play:



I'm a punter? For CO v BB I should probably just bet this flop when checked to an absurd amount instead of checking a hand like this back to fire some runouts

tbf it's not a spot where blockers are relevant, also with no fd ott there aren't many draws present, and for Villain, one pair has pretty decent equity as a bluff against Hero's range (overpairs).

but yeah that whole hand is pretty interesting, preflop seems clearly bad, I guess bc Hero is new to the pool people are going after the new unknown SN


yeah 987X would make a better call down for V but 9764 does make sense unblocking all the T,Q,K bluffing cards.

Yeah so today was a slog. I put in 5.1k hands over 9:33 hours. I lost around 1.7k and was again over EV. I fired off some 10/20 and 5/10 hu which had spots I'd been playing at 2/5. I don't think I'll do that again for a very long time. I lost about 4k there I think. Not that that kind of loss is a big deal but I should just drive the speed limit with respect to bankroll management and chill out. 3x 500plz 6m & 1x 500plz hu seems like the grind that I'll stick to for a few months.

I need to make a bunch of adjustments that I am mulling over.

Stationed off Jnandez here. Hate that guy so much this felt quite nice tbh



Just went for it seemed like thin value, vs a top reg



I'm a non-believer for sure


Getting ready to pull off some real hood sht tbf



I have a lot of thinking to do. Tomorrow i'm going to try a very different approach in some major spots. I have to give jnandez credit tho his solver work is absolutely unique, no other player in the pool plays like him. I'm learning a lot from playing him and assimilating a lot of it into my toolbox.

jk I didnt include my rakeback from stars Im only down like 1.2k and thats before starscoins which is another $125/day or so.

I'm stewing on my goal right now. I'm toying with the idea of averaging 4000 hands/day this month as my target. 112,000 hands. With an evbb/100 winrate goal of 6 for my 6 handed 2/5 play but whatever it is I can't do anything about it so that idea is really just to say playing A game.

Damn you may have found a spot where Jnandez is overbluffing the river. This combo stations nicely


Clearly not afraid to play a 700bb pot with the backdoors

Yeah for real Steve i'm here for the loot i'm not going to nit it up for the next million hands and pray the fish chooses me. Speaking of the fish choosing me, I got top boat < quads vs the biggest spot in the pool today. So it goes.

Jnandez is actually a very solid nit tag. I have a lot more respect for his game now than I did a few months ago. I still despise the guy for sharing quality plo content on youtube for free but I'll learn from him just like the rest of the community/pool.

Today I put in 9:43 and lost 1.2k. I've decided since i'm having trouble figuring out sessions in HEM2 for how many hands I've played each day that i'm doing 20 (platinum?) chests/day. It works out to the duration I intended.

I've made so many adjustments in the last 20k hands it's crazy. Oh and I cut out the headsup table that was stupid. I'm just doing a 4th 500plz table. I came from pretty soft games with mediocre regs where you had to max exploit and gto wasn't a thing. I'm mimicking the lines that regs I respect are taking and my game looks totally different from hand 1 till now.

Also re:studying, you guys asked about that. I'm going back thru all the actually good runitonce plo content and going back into the lab with pokerjuice because I am not where I want to be. Right now I'm not in the top 3 regs in the zoom pool and that is 100% TEMPORARY.

On to the hands-
I made a tight fold here:


Vs fish I do some janky lines:


#Bluffthespot



Should find a fold here. Later in my session I folded in a similar spot:


I don't think I should be folding here but I'm not sure:



Over the last few sessions this guy has donked into me on so many rivers and I've done it right back at him so when I show up with these blockers I think it slips into a sigh call... but maybe I'm just a donk:

I got wrecked today. And almost all of it was in spots that I know are normal/standard/fine etc so really nothing to be done about it. A few lines I'll change in the future too tho. I lost like 5k not sure exactly how much, like 3k under ev which doesn't reflect coolers etc so really it's pointless. I'll survive and grind again tomorrow.
I ordered my monitors which is awesome.
And while I was opening a package of salt today with a knife (i'm dumb) I cut myself so that's healing. The chicken was good tho.. baby steps. I got in like 7 hours I'd have to check my spreadsheet but I'm going to watch something mindless and pass out. peace