Thx guys. Today was really rough, I only played for a short time and dropped like 12 bi. Now i'm off to malta, I might play less than I anticipated. I'll see how I feel.

I was doing some reflection the other night and typed some thoughts up on my phone
-------------

Disassociation.


It’s a word with a strong connotation— it comes with serious emotional consequences whenever it’s used.

Well in my daily life I have a great deal of distance between myself and what I engage in. I live with disassociation as a shadow that casts its shade on all my interactions.. Especially whenever I experience loss or attachment. Although I feel worse when it colors my feelings of the latter because I long for intimacy and closeness while feelings of loss are an ever present constant stemming from my work. I haven't yet learned how to completely negate my emotional response to losing sessions but after hundreds of them my ability to interact with my feelings has been plugged.

I’ve burned out that sector of my emotional availability. It worries me because the end result mirrors sociopathic tendencies from an external perspective, however I’m certain that particular affliction doesn’t trouble me.
Another dimension of the issue is that I don’t know what to value, how to be, or how to feel. So for instance when I lose someone important to me I have no barometer for gauging my reaction to the separation. I know it’s bad but how bad? Is this kind of bad something to simply be endured, internalized and set aside? My journey of accepting stoicism into my world view has tainted me in that I just accept events as they are. Significant life events. Events that other people would cry about or have heartbreak from. And I just take it on the chin briefly and move on.

Okay, she’s not in my life anymore. I shed a tear or three in the moment but shortly afterwards I’m totally reset. Consciously at peace with it but I can’t tell if it’s a lie I’m trying to convince myself of, or worse, if it disturbs my subconscious and I’ll have downward trending mood swings in the days to come because of unresolved emotional knots.
It's entirely possible that the consistent presence of partners in my life has made me value them less, exchangeable commutable replaceable since they're just a swipe away. I want to become better at appreciating the people in my life. I've made an effort to adjust my diction when I talk to my friends to convey that but I'm not sure I've even entirely convinced myself of it.

I'm still trying to work through these feelings.. expand the amplitude of my emotional swings to make myself feel like I did when I was younger before I ever experienced depression or emotional trauma or significant loss in life. Now I'm 'healthy' but I can't help but feel that while pursuing my restoration process I didn't go far enough and stopped when my emotional situation was 'good enough' to move on to attending to other things in life. I don't know if as life goes on you just change and quietly live with the scars of your past and that people just ignore them or don't acknowledge them or hide them away from other people. It's really hard to see past some people's masks. I was catching up with a good friend of mine that I used to date years ago and she mentioned a really hideous reason for wanting to date me at the time, something I hadn't known even for years afterwards. That she dated me because she liked how it made her be perceived by other people, moreso than how she felt about me herself. That's wicked in my book. I'm still friends with her and support her on her journey but damn am I appreciative that she turned me down later on when I suggested getting back together because that is dodging one hell of a bullet.

I have all the money in the world now relative to my life expenses so maybe I should look into going back to therapy. Maybe when I'm in America I'll reach out to the lady I used to speak with. Actually I think that's a really good idea. On paper life is great for me. I have a few issues in the dating world with women not accepting poker as a profession and my fitness isn't what it used to be but otherwise I'm cruising along. The only real issues I have with myself and the life I'm living are deeper down imperfections on my subconscious/my lens for interpreting & interacting with the world and not presently leaving the world a better place than I found it. For the desire to help other people maybe I'll wait until I'm able to help on a larger scale later in life, a la the thrust of effective altruism. For now I think I ought to work on fixing myself or at least trying to evaluate myself in the light to figure out what path to proceed down for personal reconciliation.

This is a poker forum and sadly poker seems to be the culprit for a large portion of these issues as I've just described. I'm sure other players can relate to decreasing the amplitude of their emotional swings or feeling detached from everyday tragedies. Feel free to share if you like.

While I'm on the beach this week I'll be reflecting.

Yeah man very interesting post. At least personally I've found that my overall happiness correlates pretty well w/ my level of fitness, so maybe that's something to think about. Also regarding girls not accepting poker as a profession.. I think that by the time it's worth convincing a girl of what you do, she'd be willing to take the time to understand it. In fact, it could almost be used as a vetting mechanism -- if she's quick to dismiss it then she's probably not worth pursuing anyway.

It's sad but seems likely - maybe technology is destroying relationships.

Have fun in Malta dude.

I should really look into some kind of exercise routine. Maybe when i'm cranking out hours in the US i'll put running into a time slot.

Yeah but especially for our situation the women we're seeking for partners are very high caliber people. Good career prospects, attractive, from good backgrounds etc. And that demographic in particular finds it difficult to accept. Maybe when I'm another year or two into it and am in a more stable financial position this will naturally go away. Altho fwiw I think I'm in a very stable financial position right now especially with respect to my peers that just graduated. Another point to that is that women generally date older tho so it isn't too relevant. Thanks man.

I've put in 11 hours since I got here, stars is at 31.488. Had a meh tinder date last night so I'm going out solo in St Julians tonight. I can't wait to play on bovada again. 500-1kpl plo regs might as well take the two months off I'm coming for your rolls .

I booked a prop bet with a friend to see who can do more hours between apr 6-20. If we both do 160+ it's a push otherwise loser pays flights/hotels/transportation for two to a beach party in Bulgaria later this year. If it's a push we still go and pay ourselves.

I'm sure this was answered in the thread..

but where would you recommend someone to start if they're wanting to transition to PLO?

Thanks,
T

GL with the 160 hours, seems pretty high for a poker player hah

ya but I want to take advantage of the games while i'm there. I did a similar thing when I came to the UK in february anyway i'm no stranger to it.
If I was as good as you I wouldn't have to run away from stars

Well I always say this but I wouldn't continue playing poker if I wasn't already beating 100pl+ I don't think putting effort into this game with the intention of making money is smart given how the last few years have changed. Anyway I'd play a ton of heads up plo and watch run it once videos with a program for simulating spots to review hands with. Nothing too crazy, that's all it takes to get really good at this game.

Yeah so I had a ****show of a weekend that ended up giving me a ton of time for reflection. I've talked with friends about it a good deal so I don't think I'll put it in writing here but basically trying to live a little more calmly.
I had a distinct moment this weekend when I dropped my phone over the side of a bridge while walking home drunk that could have just as easily been me falling over it to my death. It reminded me of a story of a poker player that died in a freak incident a little while ago and really hit me somewhere deep.
Anyway I'm still getting my bearings and didn't play today. I did have a nice time chatting to a guy living in malta I met thru this blog, it was nice swapping drinks with you man.

I hate money and what it makes people do

super super super frustrating session today.

Last major hand HU 1kpl btn pots I repot AKcQ9c, flats. Flop A92r I 60%, flats turn Tc bdfd I pot @ around spr 1.4 or 1.6, flats. River To I x/c off the last 40bb or so and he has T942cc. Story of the session tbh and the games were incredible too.

I cannot wait to have ignition again and just pound out the hours

Played more with that guy today, it seems like he's here to stay. I won't turn down the action as it drags in some recs and i'm pretty sure I can beat him post rake/rb. If he's still here in april this is going to be a hell of a month

So I go to sit a table and am forbidden from playing. My account has been banned. It says contact the admin. I have a 5 figure balance on this site. They are known to seize balances. I email support. I get an automated reply that their response will take 24 hours. I sweat. I can't focus. I wait. I get an email back. What does it say?

Apologies for what you have experienced. Your access has now however been enabled.
Your understanding and co-operation in this regard is truly appreciated.

Running bad or running good?

Where am I at

I'm ahead of schedule. I wanted to be a 500z reg with 100k by August of this year. I've tried out zoom and decided that that path isn't best for me, I'm better off pursuing other games. I took the time to improve a great deal which is what I really was setting out to achieve by setting this goal. I've worked on my game a ton since I arrived in London. I have the bankroll and the ability, now it is time to implement.
That's why I made a prop bet with a friend of mine that is also grinding out of London. Between apr 6 and 20th I will play 150 hours of midstakes plo from US sites. It is part of a larger goal for my time in America, which is from apr 5 to may 30th. 56 days, 52 or so of which I will be able to grind properly. I'd like to achieve around 320 hours or so online during my trip. With a reach goal of $60,000 for the duration. If I accomplish this I will be incredibly satisfied although my results are in the hands of fate, not my own so it is what it is.
If I am very successful on ignition right off the bat after the conclusion of my bet and have a balance of around 30,000 I will play 2kpl until I find it reasonable to stop loss, probably a 20k shot. I'm here to win all the money. This will be more aggressive shot taking than I am used to but I am confident in myself and the quality of the games to make it acceptable.
Upon returning to London, assuming my results are reasonable and my roll is healthy I will resume grinding 500-1kpl. Hopefully I can fit in a trip to Amsterdam in June prior to leaving for Costa Rica mid July.

I played my first hands with my own roll of 2kpl that was 3 handed with button straddles. I'm ready, I can feel it. Battling it out with the regs on stars for 100k+ hands was super important for my development as a player as now I am very comfortable playing bigger on B sites. I have been putting in good volume up to 1kpl battling with tier 2 regs. During my prop bet I'll try to reduce my heads up so it is less tiring and play more ring games. I also will try to avoid playing too much 1kpl as I don't want to make big mistakes from being too tired or worn down by the long hours. I also am going to completely avoid live. That's super important, having consistency clocking in hours in the same games that take the same skillsets against the same player pools will help keep me sane and make the grind smoother.

After a long conversation with my father reviewing some major moments and decisions in my life, I'm very relieved to admit that since I graduated I haven't been depressed at all.
The phrase, 'I'm very glad I did it but it was the wrong place for me' rings true when I think about my time at university. That place is a pressure cooker that compounded stress onto me from all directions. It caused me to be depressed often and for long durations. Depression, at least in my experience, is a symptom of an underlying issue present in life. Either being on the wrong path, in the wrong environment, with the wrong people, or facing an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Thankfully I haven't dealt with depression as a consequence of loss yet.
For me school was an unnatural environment for how I function. I had no choice in life but to attend the one I went to. Sure there was an illusion of freedom and choice but ultimately I was going to go to university and I was going to go to the best one that I got in to. In that sense my school chose me and that was that. When I was picking colleges to apply to, I had no concept of what the differences in campus environments really were. Tours try to give an idea but they can't convey a realistic understanding of the day to day lifestyles or campus cultures and how they differ.
For me, even tho I took time off and subsequently 'chose' to come back, it was never a real choice that I had agency to decline. As such, while I was there I constantly struggled to fulfill all of the obligations imposed on me like assignments readings lectures seminars meetings and deadlines. I enjoyed most of my classes after I came back and worked hard to learn the material that interested me, but as my GPA had tanked prior to leaving due to being depressed for two semesters and failing classes, I didn't maximize for grades. Instead when i came back I maximized for learning. The two are not one and the same as they ought to be. Rather I ignored low impact busywork that would take a long time and focused on extracting as much value as I could from the course materials. For instance in a course on game theory's implementation in political science, I finished the midterm and final in 20 and 30 minutes respectively getting a B+ and A-. While I didn't do several homeworks that I already knew and should have counted for only ~4% of my grade. I learned the class. That's what I cared about. It's really why we should be at higher education.
However in our modern employment environment, grades signal to employers reliability and competency so students obsess over getting higher grades often binging and purging material, cramming for exams. How much do they really retain? I can't condemn them all but I know there is a large section of the student body that gets spit out at the end of school with a 3.6 and tries to enter the job market feeling lost. Now what? What did they really learn how to do?

Well for my sake, instead of doing that busywork I was in my dorm studying to play higher level poker and compete at a level capable of sustaining myself comfortably financially.
I left school and hired myself, doubling my networth in the first 3 months working at my leisure, whenever I felt like it, wherever I wanted.
This lifestyle meshes so cleanly with how I function best, giving me complete freedom to set my own schedule and have total control of my life without an overseer looking over my shoulder preventing me from going off in my own direction. I identified the underlying cause of my depression and systematically worked every day to change the direction of my life and implement a solution to better my well-being. I'm happy. Finally.
Now I'm flying back to London from Malta where I'll see some friends before returning to America for two months to work hard and get my diploma.
This is the life I've made for myself and I'm proud of it.

On a related note, while I was reading poker forums I frequently came across a discussion about how to deal with people, either co-workers or significant others, that don't understand poker. In my first few months that isn't the social resistance that I've encountered. Instead it comes in two forms: That I'm wasting my degree or when will I get a real job? It's so frequent that it has reached meme status with my close friends as they witness it being said to me almost anytime we go out.
Well I am at peace with it and thankfully just laugh it off. I don't let it bother me. I brought up to my dad that going to university and getting a liberal arts degree didn't prepare me for the work force in the same way that my brother's engineering degree prepared him for his current engineering job. Instead it taught me different schools of thought, angles for tackling problem solving, lenses for viewing issues and provided a robust foundation of knowledge to base my decisions off of. Every conversation, decision, or thought that I have for the rest of my life will be aided by for four years having stood on the shoulders of giants during the course of my studies.
I don't feel that I am wasting my education by playing poker for a few years, rather I am accelerating my trajectory by using a certain set of skills I've worked on my whole life, after which I'll exit at the age of 27 or 28 with an achievable path towards financial independence prior to raising a family. That's what success looks like to me.

When will I get a real job? Maybe in my 30s when I employ other people.
Since I know how negative my thought processes can be when I'm struggling in life, I think it's important to emphasize positivity when I am in a good place. I love my job, I love my family, I love my friends, I love my life.
Now I'm on the next segment of my journey, established as a midstakes poker player, overrolled and ready to scoop up all the chips. Cheers.

Also here's my prop bet plan
Apr 4
Land and uber to near [mentor]
Meet up, get picked up by dad afterwards.

Apr 5
Do laundry
Go shopping
Get a lot of soups, canned goods, consumables, cereal, milk, canned drinks
Coffee?

Spend time with dad
See friend(s)?

Deposit onto another b site
Get Bitcoin for that

Daily schedule
Wake up at noon, exercise
Shower
Lunch
145-530pm
Dinner
630-10pm
Break
11-230am
Relax, blog, catch up on social
Sleep @330am
10:45 daily x 14 = 150.5 total hours
average of 8 tables 65h/hr is 78k hands

Pace myself, stay calm, weather the swings. Play A game, breathe, don't spew
If I'm behind on time make it up the next day asap
I'm going to post after each day to take note of my progress.
Front load an extra half hour or so each day at the beginning so it's not a sweat? Maybe cut exercise on the last day and play an extra hour if necessary

I smell a prop bet

Good luck!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey Berri,

I've skimmed a bit of what you've written both in OP and your later posts.

I feel you on the poker being a net negative for society. I've made quite a bit of money playing poker, but I really don't like the game as a long-term solution.

But we live in a world where men have to grind. Whatever we do it's a grind. And I've come to accept that in a capitalistic society, I just need to do whatever I need to do to make money so I can live as far away from the system as possible. The system is greater than any individual.

RE: feelings. Meditation and magic mushrooms has helped me feel feelings. It takes practice and sometimes it can be scary to face our sadness and rage and frustration and existential angst.

RE: women. Don't tell them too much. Just keep your work to yourself. They don't need to know everything about you upfront. Read "theredpill" on reddit. It's really transformed my views on the world and women. Women will never be able to love men the way men think it's possible. Women will never sacrifice for you. Keep your options open. Be mysterious. much easier to build new relationships than dig through old ones. seriously, theredpill is going to blow your mind if you are intelligent and open-minded.

RE: life after poker. how have your thoughts evolved over the last few months?

RE: "fixing yourself". This is very deep conditioning. There's nothing to fix. How can the universe in all its perfection be somehow wrong when it comes to us? whatever we are is the result of infinity and eternity. it's just the way things are.

best of luck brother.

Wow.

I know I'm fairly pessimistic in some regards, but I acknowledge my mindset is likely not optimal in terms of being happy, and would never preach to others to follow my lead. I also believe that over time my mindset will be challenged and changed.

I can understand why you might think like this, but to claim it as factual and think it's good advice is a bit overboard m8.

I mean cmon, claiming that no women will sacrifice/love you, and that you should be secretive/mysterious? I genuinely feel sorry for you if you truly believe this.

+1. weird thing to say lol

solid thread, gl op.

Look at divorce rates today. Look at the men who sacrifice for their kids and wives and get most of their assets stripped in a nasty divorce. Think these men didn’t believe that their wives loved them? Think these wives didn’t tell these guys that they love them and will stick by their side forever?

Women will do things for you, like give you whatever you want/everything they have, if they feel you have choice and have women interested in you. If they see you as higher status, they will cling to you. Once you become a provider, that’s what you are in her eyes. A tool for her survival.

It’s not pessimism. It’s just understanding how female biology and psychology are. Women didn’t survive by being loyal. They survived by choosing the biggest winner their looks could acquire them. When men were killed in battle the women became the property of the victors.

She’s not yours, it’s just your turn. Especially nowadays with social media fueling rampant narcissism, women have many more dicks at their disposal. They are going to choose the highest status dick they can get. This is how their genetics work.

So the key for men is to increase their value in the sexual marketplace. Yes it is a marketplace and the forces of economics apply. The more in demand a man is, the more women will want him. Just like men like to chase the hottest women, women like to chase the most powerful men.

lmao

You have an interesting outlook on life. Maybe you should cheer up a little

Being cheerful doesn’t mean being idealistic about how nature works and how relationships between men and women have changed drastically since the proliferation of contraceptives and the idea of independent woman.

To each their own, though. If you find a loyal woman who supports you, I feel really happy for you. If you’re struggling with women and still somehow think they are princesses who have your best interests at heart, I feel for you and hope you can avoid the worst situations that this particular mindset can create in your life.

this lol.


OP; gl broski, ill be expecting daily updates.

Sup man yeah I'll update daily during the prop. For now i'm mostly just chilling playing a few hours online and a few hours live and just mucking about relaxing mentally tbh. How are you doing, recover completely by now? I got my online stuff sorted out for the most part btw.

yeah boiiii. the intention is to grind a lot while ending it with a vacation together so good intentions all around I think. I think i'm basically a lock to play 150 hours unless I drop 40 buyins in my first 20k hands or fall deathly ill so we'll see how it goes.

Thx

Yeah so to the rest of you shaming this guy I get it but i'm not going to address it further.
Life is overall good. Joshua Parker fight was alright and the weekend has been long. I haven't checked my networth in like a week but things are going just fine. Games have been alright on b sites but because of how spotty the action is I'm not consistently putting in long sessions. That'll change when I get 2 more sites in the US.

re: spirit 123 That's deeply misogynistic, even if you hide it under rationality. I'm sure you're not interested in my opinion, so this is for other people's benefits.

Was nice seeing you Sour. I recommend trying psychedelics at some point too, I've found it very useful. Find someone and a space you trust and feel comfortable with, and go slow, and it should be fine. It doesn't always or often end in sharp life changes, I find it more brings awareness to undercurrents of thoughts and emotions. Ultimately life decisions should be made sober with the help of deeper awareness.

what site is this? what was the resolution?

chico, no issue was given access again immediately.

Yeah good to meet you too. I doubt our paths will cross for a while glgl.
I'd consider it.. just seems like the benefits don't outweigh the potential harms for now.


So I am going to start my prop when I wake up tomorrow. My friend is in the UK so has already begun. This is exciting! I have all my sites ready and a good setup. Went shopping today for a bunch of food/drinks. I'm psyched for this. My friend will post his results at the end too so that'll be cool to see. I'm going to keep track each day.
Now that I'm officially off stars while in the US I dunno how to post updates. I guess I can do daily P&L w/ duration. I'm back to being totally hudless tho for all sites so no hands.

glgl on the heavy grind prop