I'm not trying to live off this grind. I was in Thailand for the first half of the year, I'm back in Canada now with my GF, running my business (and she works at a hotel/conference centre).

I was suggesting that I spent too much time doing a half measure online of not depositing enough to play the limits I want to play because I was trying to be cautious financially somewhat, but ultimately that was costing me more than simply sucking it up and starting from a small amount and running it up where I don't need to worry about withdrawals in the short term. At least not big ones.

So yes, I'll be playing mostly the SNGs for a while, but I'll also be moving up semi-quickly (say playing about 100 BI type bankroll for each "ABI" I intend to move through until getting to where I want to be)... but I will always drop back down as necessary until I hit $500 and am back grinding the SNGs. This way when I do finally get that good run or bink that gets me to the $4-5K range and I can comfortably grind the afternoon/evening session around $16-$18 ABI that I want to, it will be all winnings and not coming from my savings making me feel like I'm rushing to cash it back out.

As for other grinders in Thailand, I was there with my girl and we ended it prematurely due to family stuff back home, so not sure what others were doing. I was playing about $15 ABI in the morning session, but I traveled a lot as we knew we had to cut it short, so I wouldn't say I grinded as much as I would've liked.

Thanks for reading!

OK, in for an update...

Things have gone well, profit wise (Sharkscope below), though volume has still been poor. I have decided to create a full daily schedule to try to follow starting Sunday.

I've also kind of reset things money wise. Basically when I started I already had $205 US left in my Stars account, but I said I would call my BR $400 intending to load if necessary, but as I have had success so far, my roll online is up to $425. Instead of loading up $195 to get my full roll online, I am simply going to keep that profit and reset things here to $425 and start from there.

My Sharkscope to date:



New Schedule



Going to try to stick to this as closely as possible the rest of the month and see how it feels keeping a real schedule for a while. I have 4 grind days in there that should net me around 35-40 games/day and that should be fine at the MTTSNGs for now. I don't really plan to move out of those games as my base until I can jump into a $12 ABI or so as I have no interest in slogging it out at the huge field Micros. As I have said before I will use a fairly aggressive BRM strategy of moving up to my low end MTT limits with about 100 BIs and then dropping back to grind MTTSNGs if I fall back to $500.

Once I get up to the $16-$18 ABI range, where I intended to stay and grind out for a while, my plan was to play Sunday-Thursday afternoon/evening, but we'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Studying

Truth be told, I won't do much studying while I am at the MTTSNG level as I am the type of person who when I study something, I want to implement it and the play level is quite poor still and ABC poker with reasonable aggression is still the most solid way to grind out a nice ROI and move up, but I will continue to tinker with my HUD for the future and review some HH's and such, just not going to be getting into PioSOLVER or anything more advanced until it is necessary. But I thought putting in some time each week to use for that would make it easier as I move up and do want to study more.

Wrap Up

So I may play a session tomorrow or I may just wait until Sunday, not sure. But I do plan to write in this blog every Tuesday and Saturday morning to recap the previous two sessions and anything non-poker that might be interesting. There aren't too many interesting hands to post yet, but once we get to the MTTs, I will also include some of those.

GL Heroes!

See you Tuesday for my first recap of my new schedule.

I've been doing similar, in trying to be disciplined and grind a small roll on stars up, instead of just depositing. Probably abandon that this week, and deposit more.
Been to Thailand a few times, but didn't grind. I'll need to practice stacking or cascading tables, as I usually tile on two monitors.

Update

Things have been going well. Unfortunately that schedule, although a good idea isn't really working. My GF's schedule is a bit unpredictable and I like to try to schedule my working around hers so we have some time to hang together.

I shipped another $4.50 and I will be sticking exclusively with them for the balance of the month. So far I have played 141 of them with 3 wins, 14 final tables and 23 cashes for $331.22 in profit (I have given some of that back while still trying to figure out exactly what my schedule would include) and a 52.20% ROI.

Clearly I just need to pound out volume in these games for a while and then jump right back in at the Low Stakes in a month or two when my roll is healthier. No worries, I'm ready to do that finally.

So my schedule until the end of the month will be simply, when my GF works the AM or has the day off (and I don't) I'll be firing from 10 AM until I hit 35 events for the day. When she works the evening, I will start at Noon and fire 35 events. I will play tomorrow, then off Friday, then on from Saturday to Saturday every day, then off Sunday and Monday next week and a final session on Tuesday to end the month with an even 10 sessions and what should be 350 games.

So that's the following dates:

Oct. 19
Oct. 21
Oct. 22
Oct. 23
Oct. 24
Oct. 25
Oct. 26
Oct. 27
Oct. 28
Oct. 31

I am gonna run a FREEROLL to the first five guys who select two separate dates each and pay out $1 for every 7 games (rounded up, so 34 games is $1, 27 games is $2, etc) under 35 I miss on their day to a max of $5 if I miss them all. And if I do skip an entire session, I will make it a $5 bonus for a $10 payout to whomever has that day.

I need to play these sessions and just get through them so I can finally play properly rolled at stuff I will enjoy more. So hopefully this will keep me honest and grinding and it's easily verifiable if I played or not.

OK, GL Heroes!

I will post after each session my results just to establish any freeroll implications and keep the thread active.

Peace

Oh and in honour of my childhood as a good Canadian boy growing up and the Icon who passed today, Gord Downie, we will miss you...

"No dress rehearsal, this is our life... you are ahead by a century and disappointing you is getting me down." Just listen, people of the world.

Ahead By A Century - The Tragically Hip

In for the freerolls at 27 but i do hope i dont win on this one.

Gl man keep, pushing hard!!! I still follow this!

im in and pick Oct. 23, Oct. 27

GL

i'm in, 24 oct & 27 oct

will donate to charity if you dont make it

Good stuff, we got a few interested so far! Given the short notice, I've given my GF today and Friday for the Freeroll. Those days are the most likely to get completed anyway.

So here's what we have:

Oct. 19 - Aurora
Oct. 21 - Aurora
Oct. 22
Oct. 23 - playr
Oct. 24 - Little Goliath
Oct. 25
Oct. 26 - Little Goliath (moved you back one day for the same reason as playr moved forward one day, Scarecrow had 27th already, if you want a different date, just post below)
Oct. 27 - Scarecrow_
Oct. 28 - playr (I moved you back one day as Scarecrow had already taken the 27th, if you want a different date, just post and I'll change it)
Oct. 31

OK. Thanks for the interest and encouragement! Time to eat and shower and such and then get going for 10 AM.

Oh and here is the grind station these days if anyone is interested...





GL Heroes!

October 19

Games: 35
Cashes: 4
Final Tables: 3
Won/Loss: $253.84

First day of the 10 day FREEROLL Challenge in the books and it's a good one!

Played for 7 hours, played well and ran well, especially late. Not so much sucking out horribly (though I won a couple from behind), but just holding in all those spots where normally we see the 2 and 3 and 4 outers crushing our FT plans. Not today, played a really, really fun grinding type game to win my first tourney and then basically laddered my way to a second on a table where one guy was steamrolling and then steamrolled my last game to another victory (from 4.5bb and 9/9, though I never got it in behind until my last hand when my OESD hit v. Top Pair to close it out).

Anyway, good day. Day off tomorrow with the lady and possibly some live pokers in the evening, not sure yet.

And still have October 22, 25 and 31 left available for anyone who wants the FREEROLL.

Giraffe

those days are fine, nice day bud

Nice keep pushing!!

Thanks, boys!

Chill day off yesterday, back at it today. Probably will swap in 5-7 MTTs up to $11 with low field sizes, but will still be getting the 35 games minimum overall.

GL!

in for 25 and 31

glgl

There is a possibility I need to swap the 22nd and Monday the 30th as I may need tomorrow off. But it won't change the overall numbers and I'll simply move Scarecrow_ to the 30th if that happens.

GL all! Starting at Noon ET today.

Oct. 19 - Aurora
Oct. 21 - Aurora
Oct. 22 - Scarecrow_ (only picked one date, but I'm giving you this one)
Oct. 23 - playr
Oct. 24 - Little Goliath
Oct. 25 - 20101996
Oct. 26 - Little Goliath
Oct. 27 - Scarecrow_
Oct. 28 - playr
Oct. 31 - 20101996

Hero got in 40 games today, so cleared that goal and is currently 5/7 in $11 The Open trying to scoop $950. Have about 26bbs...

Busted in 7th obviously. 99 from BTN, jammed over an open, BB woke up with KK and the original raiser had AQ which hit a Q anyway... so I was never winning the pot.

Such a sigh day, 3 more final tables today and I still lose $10 for the day. Sigh, guess yesterday was an aberration on the finding good spots and holding deep: two 7ths and a 9th. All flips lost and then the 99 into the KK. Shrug.

Full post in the morning with results and graph and shiz.

subbed

Thanks bud, glad to have you on board!

----

Update

So not much else to say about yesterday, we played well, made some runs and finished in 7th, 7th and 9th unfortunately. But it can't always be 1st, 1st and 2nd so not going to sweat it too much.

My GF and I made a schedule for the end of the month and as I thought, it makes more sense for me to take today off rather than back to back days at the end of the month. So I'll be chilling today and then on the grind from tomorrow through Sunday. Then off Monday and on Tuesday to close out the month.

Graph



As for the Freeroll, it is still 8 sessions, just swapping today's session for next Sunday's, which means Scarecrow_ has his dates switched to 27 and 29 and it looks likes this:

Oct. 19 - Aurora
Oct. 21 - Aurora
Oct. 23 - playr
Oct. 24 - Little Goliath
Oct. 25 - 20101996
Oct. 26 - Little Goliath
Oct. 27 - Scarecrow_
Oct. 28 - playr
Oct. 29 - Scarecrow_
Oct. 31 - 20101996

Hey Guys,

Been enjoying my day off, completely cleaned up my PT4 and got it all accurate finally and adjusted my tagging system so tomorrow I can better tag all the Villains. Also, simplified my HUD a bit as there are just too many stats that are out that I'm not needing enough for right now, things that I can easily check under the HUD when the occasional spot comes up.

I also kind of really like the new schedule for my purposes. As of now I am going to fire 30 x $4.50 On Demands per day and 10 MTTs (Tuesday may be an exception, I have some traveling I might need to do for my business in the AM, that might mean the session is only a half, so someone might be getting $3, but we'll see). As you can see no Turbos or Knockouts for now and I added in the $16.50 as the new structure looks great.

So I'll be firing from 10 AM to 4 PM (SNGs until 4:30 PM) each day and I'm pretty pumped.

Anyway thought you guys might like to see the schedule filtered out and the actual graph and stats I keep on my Results page for PT4. My BB/100 is still a bit off from the first day as I've yet to really have any horrible beats early on to offset some nice flips and a 2 outer I hit in the early stages of some events on Day 1 (as well as having sexy Top 3 distribution, which is another spot where I could've suffered, but haven't). But since that day I have basically run at expectation and been around 3 BB/100. Finding it difficult to get it much higher with the shallow stacks in the majority of my events. It was always more like 5.5-6/100 when I was exclusively playing MTTs. So it should start going up some with the addition of MTTs each day I think.

Anyway, good luck anyone who is crushing a Sunday session and see you tomorrow!

Graph & Schedule

Played 40 games yesterday and got one 2nd in a SNG, but unfortunately also got stuck with 7th, 10th and 10th in my other deep runs and took a $70 loss while mostly bricking my non-SNGs for the day. Played fine, just one of those days where I didn't win a lot of flips and so on. I had some business stuff to take care of today, so I have yet to fire a session. I may fire an evening session, but it won't be 35 tourneys as the SNGs don't fire fast enough by when I'll start. Technically I still have one off day left that I can swap in a session on to replace today's shortfall, but for now LittleGoliath will be getting $3-$5, but we'll wait and see if I manage to fire 7 straight days to end the month and save myself that massive sum of money.

Will likely wait and do my next update on Thursday morning with the small session I play tonight and my proper session tomorrow.

Graph



Peace Kids

Sup,

OK, so some big news has been developing over here, my GF and I run a business that I inherited from my grandmother and had been involved in for 5 years prior. We sell specialty products to people with an ostomy (we are called Weir Comfees if anyone cares).

Anyway, the business has been declining for several years as we catered mainly to older people and well, they die off and there has been no major push to get younger or modernize. Unfortunately, when we took it over, my GF and I had just spent a whack of our savings traveling and really didn't have the funds to invest. So we've been limping along, making a small profit monthly trying to figure out how to rebrand with almost no money. So we decided to sell off the business, get a lump sum in after a month of liquidating the inventory for a further cash grab and then do two things: 1) invest back into my poker, so I can move up to a more reasonable limit with a proper bankroll and the time to spend focusing on it again and 2) start a new business from scratch using the best parts of Weir Comfees as nothing was patented and we'll be able to take our time and brand ourselves as we wish as well as have a more stable financial situation.


Anyway, this development has lead me to miss some sessions and possibly more until November. So here is how things sit:

Oct. 19 - Aurora
Oct. 21 - Aurora
Oct. 23 - playr
Oct. 24 - Little Goliath - $10
Oct. 25 - 20101996 - 30 Games ($1)
Oct. 26 - Little Goliath
Oct. 27 - Scarecrow_
Oct. 28 - playr
Oct. 29 - Scarecrow_
Oct. 31 - 20101996

So technically, if I skip a session, I'm supposed to pay out $10, but as I can remove $5 of that payment simply by entering 1 event, I'd like to propose we call off the FREEROLL, so I don't feel obligated to either force sessions in when my mind is elsewhere or be lame and enter 1 event each day to bring the total payout down artificially and suggest, as there is technically 6 sessions left, I simply made a donation of $30 ($5 per day) to charity, you could each choose which one you'd like me to donate to for your allotment of days if you like. Would everyone consider that fair?

I'm not quitting my blog, or poker. If anything, I will be back in November (and maybe even once or twice before) for some more small limit sessions to keep playing and practicing and then once the sale is finalized and the business is gone, I will likely move up to at least a $10, maybe $15 ABI in the end of peak/beginning of off peak time frame. So the thread will remain plenty active.

Let me know what you guys think and which charities you'd like your donation made to, I'll post proof of payment in here.

Peace

I like your dedication and how you keep us up to date about the balance of poker and the business. Keep it up!

Thanks buddy!

It's been a hectic week, since my last post, we've changed again. We've decided to keep the business, but made the difficult decision to drop our flagship product line as although they still sell, as it stands we make little to no money on them and the only way to change that is to bring production in house and have the sewing done here by my GF. Which is the plan long term, but it's expensive and time consuming for her (an amateur sewer) to upgrade her skills enough to be able to sew professionally.

So we dropped the line and are giving people one last chance this month to stock up, which has lead to a flood of orders (nice sales boost, but crazy workload). On top of that we have our usual yearly Clearance Items up for sale this month and Cyber Monday is coming at the end of the month. So it's busy.

As for poker, I am getting back to it today or tomorrow. I am gonna play only SNGs this month as I need to start generating some income and volume and as much as I want to be playing MTTs, I just can't until December. If I had played only SNGs last month, based on my results I'd have likely made an extra $1k US, this is what I need to be doing. A few months of that and I'd be playing my late prime/early off peak schedule (perhaps selling 25%) by January.

My grind will be simple, I am gonna grind Monday to Friday, work in the morning until 11 AM, then grind SNGs from 12-4 (reg speeds until 3 and then 2.50 turbos from 3-4). Sundays will be up in the air, I may end up grinding if the girl is working anyway, or I may end up taking it off if she has the day off.

I will likely stick with that until December and then see where I'm at financially and what my timing will look like with a smaller, nimbler business model to run.

Peace.

Good luck with the grind and check your pm its about a studygroup