gg broski, annoying spot vs you when you busted me w like 50 left or whatevs...glad you used my chips decently at least!

gl rest of series

Wow. Nice score brother. Sorry it wasn't more.

Cheers Josh. As soon as I saw your hand I thought how damn brutal it was for you to hit trips in that spot and not be good. Really tough break. I think given the field as we went deeper I can be pretty pleased with the result. I dont think I totally wasted em

Congrats on your inspirational YTD. I hope you hit big this SCOOP, you deserve it mate. gl!

Cheers, spot on!


Just gg'ed the 215s tonight and might be an early finish. Tomorrow I gotta get some new shoes etc cos im walking bare foot all the time tbh. As soon as the shopping is done il be back OTG tomorrow and ofc sunday to win some seige.

Gym is going well. Updates soon

GL keep us updated

Yesterday I made 2 day 2s of SCOOP. The High and Med 6Max PKOs.

Was a pretty unreal day yesterday and what i'm happy about is how well I prepared for today. I slept well, got up, went to the gym, watch an episode of Homeland and then found myself about as fresh as I could be.

I turned down the chance to load anything additionally as I had stacks of about 40 and 50BB.

Ended up busting super early in the $55 and just this second got 10th in the $530.

I guess it's officially an almost but I can happily say that I did my best. Focusing so hard on just one table for hours gave me the best possible chance to take it down and considering how tough the field was I think i did pretty well.



I wrote all that about 2 hrs ago planning on putting some more detail in but im so shattered now im off to bed.

gnite ppl

made day 2 of 530 kick off with 20bb. could this be it?!?!?!?! 40/48

Life Update:

I've just had over 1 month without playing a single hand of poker. Must be the first time in 8 years. Why?

I just got married!!

CLIFFS:
Got married
Was amazing
So so happy

In this post I have tried to describe to you how the day and the day before the wedding unfolded. I think if I have ever had reason to post something in this blog that isn't poker, this is it and I won't be holding back.

TLDR:
So... about 2 weeks before the wedding it became pretty apparent to me that there was still a fair amount of bits and bobs that needing doing for the wedding, so it became an easy decision to not log in after every day was just filled with doing preparation.

Anyway, the time grew closer and it was finally the Friday the day before getting married. My best man and his girlfriend flew in from the UK my other best man also flew in with his girlfriend and the maid of honour drove to our house to help with the last of the preparation. So many things to print, things to plan, it was crazy, then we had to load up two cars with EVERYTING

Clothes, decorations, suits, dresses and quite a lot of alcohol. To be somewhat precise, we loaded up 300 cans of beer, 150 cans of cider, 100 cans of Lonkerro (Gin Long drink) 12 bottles of white wine, 6 bottles of red, 6 bottles of sparkling wine, 2 boxes of white wine and 1 box of red. There was also, 1 litre of Vodka, 1 litre of Gin, 1 litre of Courvoisier, 1 litre of bailey's and a nice bottle of Laphraig Whiskey. We hoped that would be enough for 40 guests. It took some man power getting that all in 2 little cars.

1 Hour drive to venue, order pizzas for 12 people, drive back 20 mins or so to the supermarket and pick up breakfast things and snacks for the party, more people turned up despite delayed flights, random strangers offering to be taxis (not once but twice) - this evening was a little more hectic than I had been imagining! We ate pizza about 8pm and then it was time to set up the venue. This was a bit of a blur due to crazy nerves, essentially me and wifey went a little manic. Out of the two of us it is probably fair to say that one of us had not prepared as well as they could have in terms of arranging the day. However, now was the time to atone!

Everyone worked like crazy to set up the venue for about 40 people and quite a large chunk of the evening was setting up tables (arranging them a certain way in the room took ages too as we played with different configurations of 3 large tables made up of 6 smaller tables. Very late that night, future wifey drove back with the maid of honour back to our house to be close to the hairdressers' etc for the morning. Now it was me, my best men and some good friends. I was still aware tons had to be done and I ended up going to bed at 4am after deciding it was a good idea to make some chocolate covered breakfast cereal snacks at 3am.

Four hours of good quality sleep later I awoke well before my alarm.



That would be all the sleep I got that night. I had the sense to spend 30 minutes doing guided meditations after waking in order help to settle my nerves. I can't exactly remember right now what I did next, I think it might have been checking the best men were doing some last minute jobs (and they were). Soon, to chill out, I went for a row on the lake with my good friend. It turns out, it is a little harder than it looks! After a while some of us went for a swim and I did a little workout wedding (for the wedding pump obv) with one of the few poker players at the wedding which involved burpees, pressups and swimming about 25 metres in the lake, running back round and doing 3 circuits of that, it wasn't my idea but it was pretty fun!

I then had a call saying the bride was 35 minutes away whilst still wearing swimming shorts. I then (correctly for once) managed to prioritise getting ready as quickly as possible. Surprisingly, this was a success and I managed to hide from the bride, and her from me as I ran up from the shower. Best men and BOH crucial here. Thanks guys.

I got dressed, polished my (brand new) shoes (yes that happened) and some of the nerves lifted somehow. I realised that I wasn't going to be late to my wedding, I was ready! The photographer knocked and came in and so did some friends and we started relaxing.

It was time for breakfast - the Laphraig 10 year old whisky seemed appropriate. Damn, it tasted good.

I was of course nervous about the normal things, but mainly about playing the guitar at the ceremony and then my speech. I don't want to get too cheesy but I was also aware, despite the nervous of how happy I was. I started to think that everything was going to be ok, run smoothly, what a perfect wife was waiting for me a few doors down the hall. Everyone around me, my friends, the photographer were doing, oh my god, a ****ing amazing job of keeping me relaxed. Everyone was on their game and it felt good.

Ten minutes before the ceremony started, we were still drinking and it started raining. Sigh. Five minutes before kickoff, it had finished. That was the last of the rain we would see all day.

Suited up, I walked downstairs to the smiles of people I hadn't seen so far that day. I was nervous again. It was go time.



With all honestly and a clear head I cannot describe to you how magical this moment of time was. Everyone was beaming.

The ceremony was short, maybe 10 minutes. We wrote our own vows. I said mine in Finnish and Terhi said hers in English. Then I played "Love is Easy" by Mcfly which I had been practicing a lot. I had messed up a little part so often while practicing, but this was the best I ever played and sang it. The thing I so desperately wanted to "do" well I managed to. Obviously, I am no Noel Gallagher, but this was as good as I was ever going to perform it!




I felt this feeling wash over me, "I'm married to Terhi and it feels ****ing good". That's the only way I can describe it.



Then, it was the toast which was outside,



then we moved inside for the wedding breakfast.



If I remember correctly, it was after the main course that I did my speech which was immediately followed by the best mans'. We decided in the moment who was going to go first and just after I asked him to go first I had a stroke of genius. The best man is an entertainer, he honestly is and also a hilarious guy. I knew his speech was going to be amazing so before the bar was set ridiculously high, I chose to go first. I got it done, pretty much without crying too. Courtesy of the best man the day before I also had one pretty good joke.

Gaz performed and give a brilliant speech.



Then it was cutting of the cake. During this time coffee was served I think and also we had a candy buffet that opened too having some traditional Finnish sweets in. One nice example are these Skulls which are made from salmiakki. Yeh... just try them!

Then Gaz performed, and wow - was he good. Luke even helped him out for an amazing version of Careless Whisper. (as an aside, before I was ever Pete, I was named George for 2 weeks when I was born. My middle name is Michael)




Now it seemed everyone was relaxed and the party started. We had some funny technical difficulties getting the sound system working but one of our friends fixed it in 2 minutes after 5 of us spent over 30mins failing to do so. There was a large sauna (it's Finland after all), a Jacuzzi and best of all - A LAKE.

I don't know what to say really except I am the luckiest man in the world trying to recall the details from the best day of my life. Everyone was just brilliant on the day, they were all helpful x 1000 - and thanks to all my friends and of course to my extraordinary wife I had a day that was more beautiful and magical than I could have had in all my wildest dreams. I cannot stop smiling.

Congratulations bro!

congrats my friend!

thanks guys!!

I will be updating poker and fitness stuff v soon

Just finished a monday session and yesterday was a 13hr long session. Feel like I am back in the swing of things now. Since coming back I have felt so clear headed in many many spots despite initially forgetting many of my preflop ranges. Anyway, feels good to get back to grinding, I have lots of things to look at but at least I am confident overall in most spots. Was hoping to post some sort of FT bink but alas, that will have to wait a while longer


Before I get into my new gym routine, here are some before and after pictures when I started the cutting plan in March.


(Yes, I am facing at different angles and the lighting is a little different due to pictures being taking at different times during the day, BUT there are no filters and I never took a picture after the gym with pump I always took the picture on the way to the gym.)

So, that was me 2 days before the wedding.


Not the most mind blowing results ever given the time scale, however, I set my self a challenge of getting as lean as possible for the wedding and I think I did it. I don't think I have been that lean before. It really did feel good to realise I did what I set out to achieve.

It wasn't all glory though. I told people I was aiming to lose weight AND get stronger or at least maintain. This didn't happen.

It is most definitely possible, but your diet needs to be SO SO SO perfect to do this. Mine was very good, just not that good. Unfortunately, the high rep work, chasing the pump, piss poor flexibility saw me lose a lot of strength in my lower body. My deadlift got weaker and I only had the flexibility to front squat as opposed to back squat. I am squatting less than I flat bench, need I say more. I'd say all my lifts got weaker or maintained at best so it's definitely time to try something new! (more on this later)


After the wedding we felt pretty busto, weddings are pretty expensive as you know. With the exception of eloping, you will not get married without spending a ton of $$$. We both got back from the minimoon and agreed how poor we felt so in order to try and turn things back the other way we have started an open ended challenge as living as cheaply as possible.

Since living in Finland I had scorned at the idea as it seemed like an oxymoron. However, I am coming round to thinking differently. Here are some rather specific goals:

• Save for small Lapland holiday in December ($1kish)
• Save for Maldives Honeymoon ($3kish)
• Regularly put money into savings

So to do this I will need to be a smart with money as possible. First things first, if we cook all our own food we eliminate eating out. Restaurants and bars really are some of the most expensive things here relatively speaking. So going for drinks in a bar after a nice meal in a restaurant and then getting a taxi home is a really easy way to burn through $100-200.

After hearing that "food is basically free" somewhere on Youtube I thought what a stupid remark that was. Then after a few days of looking at exactly how much I spent on food I realised, food really is cheap. So this challenge is tying in with my fitness goals as I am trying to eat well obviously. For instance, you could go to a shop and pay $4 for a branded milkshake which while tasting damn good isn't exactly healthy and also pretty expensive when compared to normal food.

So in the last 2 weeks both wifey and me have spent $230 in TOTAL. On everything! Food, busses, a bit of clothing, going to play pool, gym admission, literally everything. That's about $8 euros a day - which probably comes to $6/day for food! So maybe living in Finland ISNT that expensive!!

This is an example of my cheap eating plan:

Monday - Friday:

• 500g-1kg sweet potato
• 300-400g chicken breast
• 100-200g Lingonberries
• Some apples/peaches

I will eat all this food in 5-6 hours and fast for the rest of the day. Season with salt and pepper, some margarine on the sweet potato and this tastes pretty great. Any meat source is going to be fine really, and sometimes I will add some eggs if I only have 300g of meat.

These foods are chosen because:

• Ideally 4x as much veg/fruit as meat
• Pretty well rounded meal.
• Getting potassium in
• Allow me to progress at gym

With sweet potatoes sometimes 1$/kg, I can pay a few euros for the meat and one or two for the fruit and I have a very cheap meal. It comes to around 1800 calories which is about right for me.

Saturday and Sunday:

I go to Lidl and buy as much delicious food as I can shove in my mouth lol. Choc muffins, cinnamon buns, pastries, carrot cake etc etc. I just stuff my face for two days and it feels really good. After the discipline of eating essentially 5 meals all week the weekend is a nice treat and it stokes me up for the week again.

So that is my basic eating plan right now. I don't really care what happens to my weight - I am married after all now I do except that working out often combined with eating very well for 5 days will see overall positive change. But if it doesn't work out I can simply re-access.


NEW GYM PLAN

I am starting a powerlifting routine because I need to get my strength back as I really want a 2x bodyweight deadlift for a 2RM. Here is what I will do:

• FULL BODY WORKOUT 6-7 DAYS A WEEK (4-6 weeks)
• 3X UPPER BODY, 3X LOWER BODY (4-6 weeks)

I will aim to squat, deadlift and bench every day. Regardless, I will aim to hit all the muscle groups somehow. In order to prevent overtraining I have to have the discipline to lift medium weight for low reps and low intensity EVERY DAY. The goal here is to maximise MPS as it only really lasts for 24-48 hours.

At the moment I am simply doing roughly 3 sets of 4 reps for each of Squat, Deadlift and Bench. That's just 12 reps a day which is nothing and it is at a rough RPE of 8-9 meaning I never max out. There should always be one more rep in the tank and you should never perform a grinder and you should never get DOMS. Form has to be perfect. So every day I am stimulating all the muscles and in turn MPS without performing anything close to failure. I am sleeping and recovering well and so far so good.

I have been doing this for about 2 weeks and so far it feels really good. I am still getting used to the idea of leaving reps in the tank in every set, even when performing doubles for example. It's really different. My squat form has always been pretty poor so getting to squat every day is really helping. How can you not improve in something if you do it every day right?

Here is where I am right now: 2 sets of 4 reps and then one set of 3 reps at 60kg:



So that's the non poker update all wrapped up, hope it was interesting at least a little to at least a few of you! I will try and relay gym progress here as recording progress somewhere is useful for plotting a trend and also to make yourself accountable to do what you say your gunna do!

As Noely G once said, "you gotta make it happen"!

Hope you are all well

AK<A2 aipf to bust 7th

Hey fellow poker player,

Read about trying to live as cheap as possible. If you wanna read more about early retirement through cost saving early on, I recommend you google Mr Money Moustache.

Cheers and gl on the poker front,

Joeri.

Sure, i can google that. cheers
gl in your games to!

I was going to bring up the topic of time-restricted eating and then I saw you are already on it. I've had some decent results in terms of fat loss and increased fitness, though whenever I'm doing TRE I'm also eating clean so it's hard to know exactly how positive the effects are.

My windows tend to be much bigger than yours though. At the moment I'm aiming for <12hrs a day. It's difficult with coffee but, on really good days, I'll try to get at least an hour of chores done in the morning before having coffee. (which activates the digestive system btw so takes you out of fast mode)


Sweet potatoes are the nuts btw! Always use them in my soups, way tastier than regular potatoes.

Only just saw this pete.

Absolutely thrilled for you and your wife. The wedding looked truly magnificent. Smashed it!

Obviously subbed!

Hehe yeh I know what you mean, is it the TRE or is it just decent diet and exercise. I guess it's nice to hope that the TRE helps a little towards body comp and other things.

12 Hour a day seems good really. Easy to do and helps stop a fatty liver developing and keeping the liver glycogen from over spilling all the time.

Sweet potato soup - mmmmmmhmmmmmmhhmmmmm! Yeh, its a great food for sure! Today my big meal is actually: pork, white rice, eggs, veg and fruit, about 1800 cal worth.

Thanks a ton Ben yeah!!


Had some nice stacks today in a small number of tournies, a fired up a stream.

Had this wierd hand early on in Big $109 v an unknown... needless to say I wasn't too sure what to do but despite having a "strong hand" I think folding rvr is ok. But sure interested to see what you guys think:

https://www.boomplayer.com/28409682_513C3D5C42

Anyway, the decision was obviously correct because this happened:



Finland Gold and Silver

See ya soon guys!

Today I made FIVE Final Tables

was a good winning day!

1st in the 4Max turbo for $750, 2nd in the $33 PKO for about the same were the highlights!

I hope the heat continues








I do have to study PKOs a lot tbh. I will make sure I review some of the spots tomorrow

Bring on sunday tho!

GL all!!

Congratz on the wedding bud, looks like you had a fantastic day

Nice F*cking thread mate and congrats!

thanks LG I really did thanks

cheers Dikkie!

V quick update...

Did grind hard this week. Sunday was well... you all know ><

But i showed some heart and ground Tuesday and today. Been playing morning sessions as the routine is suiting me. I will also grind tomorrow

I wanted to do a little update with regards to goals/volume.

I think at the start of the thread I said I wanted to play 10k tournies overall this year. While tough to do, its not altogether impossible with some SNGs mixed in.

Right now I am way behind "on pace" for obvious reasons. Maybe the goal was not realistic enough, probably was the case. However, my volume has been way better than 2017 pace wise, I am enjoying the grind more and I still have almost 5 months left of the year to grind. AND I love grinding in winter. So with good volume and work ethic, I expect to play way more than double what I played last year (which was horrendously low tbh )

so yeh, everything is heading in the right direction I think. I will keep plugging away, more or less studying on the job and put in some good numbers and I hope the binks are coming cos well - WCOOP and all

Back to the grind tomorrow morning!

GL all

Solidthought

nice.

I'm really really tired right now, but don't want to lose my screen shot of the win

Won the Big $109 again



I woke up at 10am after 7 hrs sleep. Ran 3 sims, and loaded a later than normal session. Got like 22/2k or smth in the $11 Battle Royale and had a bunch of other nice runs too and eventually closed out the 109 after a SUPER long FT.

I think we were 2hours 3 handed or something. Streamed it all too which was fun. You guys can all watch it back there I think.

Back sunday for bigger binks

I just started my eating window for the day which is considering of 2 burgers, chips, beer and probably an ice cream and a doughnut.

I don't recommend this, but I am enjoying the burgers, sooo

gl all, cya sunday

Woot. Nice score brother. Hope you enjoyed the post-session feast!