That's cool. For sure with a degree/field like that your upside is definitely way higher than poker, especially long term. As long as you are reasonably happy with the job you are doing a 9-5 really isn't that bad imo. It's just hard to find something you enjoy with a good group of coworkers/bosses.

Sounds like your job is pretty flexible which is great. Unfortunately a lot aren't but especially nowadays there's starting to be more and more jobs where companies are allowing people to work from home. I'd say the ultimate flexibility/nice part of poker is that no one is depending on you to be there. If you can't work for whatever reason you aren't inconveniencing anyone or causing any issues. No other job will ever have that level of freedom but other jobs will also have a lot of other perks that poker doesn't have. Always tradeoffs with everything.

Def smart to know where your money is going and to have a plan for how much you are saving each year and what your goals are. I think it's something everyone always wishes they started learning about earlier but can't change the past, just gotta make the best choices you can going forward. Important to still remember to have fun/enjoy life though.

Seems like most mtt pros these days don't have higher than 40-50k expectation and have to deal with some pretty sick variance. There's def people who have much higher expectation than that though still, but getting tougher and tougher. Idk how people deal with being tied to their computer/live poker table all day though with no flexibility. And the insane variance on top of it. I'd much rather be in a 9-5 than do that tbh, but to each their own.

There's still some good sunday big guarantee decently soft tourneys online if you ever get the itch to fire off a tourney or two every once and awhile.

Quick update while I have a few min. Things are going a bit better poker wise but still in a small downswing overall the last few weeks. Long stretches of breakevenish play where you are just getting pounded with setups/coolers are def the times I find the least fun. It's not even that it's stressful because it really only is marginally so in a lot of ways. It's that playing becomes so boring and tedious because you feel like no matter what you do the same result is going to happen. I think I've played pretty well over the stretch but def made a couple silly errors at times. Made a couple really good hero folds as well though. Being able to see the cards 24 hours later is obv nice from a strategy standpoint, but honestly I wish it wasn't a thing lol. It bugs me a lot more seeing I made an incorrect fold than it feels good to see a correct fold. All of this previous stuff is my nlhe grind. My plo grind has actually gone decentish over the last few weeks. Nothing crazy but at least some small wins to help the nlhe absurd run bad feel a bit less constant.

Volume of play was okay overall but def suffered at some points. As previously mentioned just felt a bit demotivated with all the negative variance. Actually put in a fair amount of study though watching some RIO vids, working with pio a bit, and just doing some other general study.

Gonna try to crush the volume for the next few days but then am headed off on our honeymoon for a bit over a week. So that should be sweet and will prob update again at the end of the month after all that. Gl all

Have a great honeymoon dude!

I'd take off leading up to the honeymoon and come back strong

gl and enjoy

Always enjoy your posts, never knew you had a pgc -

Have a great Honeymoon! Subbed

Pio?!?!? I thought you never touched the stuff..


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Thanks man! Hope all is well. I gotta catch up on your pgc soon.

Was planning to still grind but ended up pretty much doing this and barely playing before I left. I did catch some heat finally and won like 12 buyins in a couple thousand hands which was nice!

tyty

Thanks! Haven't had one in forever but felt like starting one again this year

Thanks!

Haha gotta keep up with the young whippersnappers somehow! I do actually find it interesting working with it but I hate that it exists lol. Not a good thing for poker but everything naturally works it's way down this path over time.


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Alright guys! I'm in Aruba now so obv barely gonna be on the next week or so. I'll def be on here and there though when relaxing late at night. Trip has been good so far although airline lost my luggage lol. Good thing is it never made it to Aruba somehow so at least someone didn't steal it from the luggage carousel. They should have it tracked down tomorrow and then here to me asap.

Congrats and have fun!
GL with the luggage rofl

Thanks! They finally tracked it down so supposedly it should get here tomorrow. Hopefully they'll give me some sort of voucher for the inconvenience but kinda doubt they'll do anything past reimbursing the the items I had to buy to get through the last couple days. We shall see.

Super late to the thread but I think if you are studying through training materials or even watching how other winning players are playing, you are indirectly reaping the benefits of people who have done solver work. Hands-on obviously has it's benefits but yeah, it can also be more time-efficient to focus on what others think are the most important takeaways

@TheTyman9 how has being married affected poker for you? And share pics from Aruba

Def agree with this. As long as you are watching people who actually play well and explain things well those tools are still very useful imo. Tyler Forrester vids on RIO are good ones in terms of theoretical learning imo. I think one of the most important things to do no matter how you are studying is to make sure you are thinking critically about stuff and not just blindly accepting things as good/bad. Especially if you are say watching vids of someone playing 500z on stars but you are playing live or asian apps or whatever. Not everything that is good or bad in one game is going to be good or bad in a diff player pool that plays very differently.

Hmmm it's only been 5 months of marriage so sample size is small but nothing is any different than pre marriage tbh. In terms of how poker has been affected between when I was single and then being in a serious relationship, I'd say the biggest difference has just been the amount of available time. I feel like there's a lot more things that come up that get in the way of my grind time. Not necessarily bad things or things I don't wanna do. But social outings with her friends/parents or just wanting to spend time with her. Her dad was also diagnosed with an aggressive cancer right before our wedding and her mom can be a handful so life has been especially hectic since the wedding. But yeah in general I don't think marriage is likely to change much for most poker players when it comes to balancing poker. I'm guessing kids will be a huuuuuuuge difference though lol.

My life is really normal tbh which I think helps. I just try to work decently hard, get in decent hours, save up as much money as I can, and enjoy life. I don't really struggle with any of the degen tendencies that seem to get in the way for a lot of poker players. My wife doesn't understand much about poker but she trusts that I make smart decisions. She's overall very supportive of me playing poker and if I'm still playing when we have a kid in a couple years I think the flexibility of poker is gonna fit amazing with becoming a parent. The only downside, which I think is a natural one, is that she definitely is mildly jealous sometimes of the flexibility that I have. Flexibility is pokers greatest gift imo.

Will try to remember to post pics when I'm home!

Yeah I obviously agree you indirectly reap the benefits of other's solver work if you're picking up things from other good regs and copying/incorporating into your own game. But a few things: (1) I believe he said very little actual study at all! As well as zero solver work, (2) even if he's reaped benefits, it's still more impressive than if he'd done his own solver work, since games are harder as a result of other's solver work, (3) 10bb/100 is an accomplishment regardless.

Does anybody have a few hundred stars they want to sell for btc or something? I kinda wanna click a few buttons on beautiful stars software while I’m out of the country. Leaving tmrw and have no other way to deposit besides buy off someone lol

Lol I know that feeeling

Congrats Tyman!

I can give you PS for Paypal, just hit me up on FB if you end up needing it.

Edit: Actually I can take BTC too I believe

Haha yeah unfortunately very very little study in the last few years. Def happy with my results and ability to adapt over time thus far, but also wish I was someone who enjoyed study more. Personally the idea of locking myself in a room and studying poker sounds super boring but there seems to be a fair few around here who say they greatly enjoy spending a ton of time in the lab.

haha US sites not exactly up to par when it comes to software quality.

thx!

Appreciate it dude. Ended up finding some! If I end up going for some of scoop in a few weeks though I'll prob hit you up to see if you have any.

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I have arrived back in the US of A. Got one last short flight taking off in about an hour and then will be home. Can't wait to see my pup, get back in my routine, and of course waste some time playing fortnite/rocket league lol. Aruba was sweet, weather was incredible. Will try to post a few pics next time I update.

Unfortunately don't have many great pics to show from Aruba trip but here's a few I grabbed off my phone. Was beautiful weather the entire time, no shock there. Took me a few days to get back into the groove of the grind poker wise, although was able to get back in the gym basically right away. Time to start lifting in the gym again, looking forward to that although not looking forward to the first week or so with lots of extra soreness!

Poker wise since I had been running suuuuuuper terrible the few weeks leading up to Aruba I guess it was kind of nice to get away for a bit. I super rarely ever take days off so it felt weird not playing any poker for basically a week straight. Even when I'm traveling I usually end up playing a couple hours late at night. I believe downswing was around 17 buyins when I left. Since getting back I mostly have continued running awful, although I think I'm up small since getting back. Tbh I don't actually know though because I've just been grinding and not looking at balances or results at all. I find it kind of nice to just play and not pay any attention to the short term swings, especially when running poorly. I actually had a pretty nice night last night getting some donations and for sure had a decently big win. Unfortunately tonight was an absolute massacre. Lost soooo many 80/20+'s which was pretty frustrating tbh. Had two separate whales just straight up jam or call off with trash into my AA and bink. One cold 4b to 25bb and then called off his remaining 100bb with 89o and the other just opened jammed 50bb for some reason with J5s. Right before the 89o hand a whale 3b jammed 75bb into 6bb when I had KK and he ended up having AA. So yeah between those and a few other suckouts in big hands I for sure must have lost a tidy chunk of buyins. Such is the life of a poker player though. I appreciate their attempted donations and hope they continue I actually genuinely could care less about the money, but as someone who greatly dislikes losing at things that is the part that gets to me during these kinds of stretches. Sometimes you just wanna realize your ev and not get kicked in the nads over and over :P

I feel like I have a bunch of random topics that I want to talk about when it comes to life/poker/etc. I think sometime soon I'm just gonna word vomit them in here one after the other. We shall see. glgl to all.

Glad you had a nice little vacay, glgl this weekend and hope you run better!

Thank you kind sir. Although its a frustrating last few weeks of volume, big picture wise I've still had a fine start to the year that is far from the bottom end of possible results. So all is good. Hope your year starts to turn around soon, seems like you are an absurd amount of buyins below ev at those middling sats. Glad the printing has at least started for your lower buyins that you have more of the action of! They're saving your run good for the higher hourly scoop sat grind I'm sure.

Yea for sure, $50-$100 25bb (and higher ofc) and $15+ 16mans and $37.50+ 6max really haven't cooperated at all yet this year.

The nice part for both of us is that it seems like our 'downswings' are more like extended b/e stretches. Means we are likely doing something correct and just have to keep on keepin on

Did you play on stars.com while you were on vacation? If so, how'd it go?

Haha so managed to get a few hundred bucks the night before I left (wish I would have thought about the fact I was out of the country sooner, didn't think of it til the last night) and just ****ed around at low stakes 8game/limit games for a couple hours. Obv crushed and made $20 The rare times I'm on stars it always saddens me how dead it all is though compared to how it used to be. I can't believe it's been 8 years since black friday. I miss $3/$5 rebuys with 8k+ up top. Random $26 tourneys with 5 fig to first. That turbo showdown thing where first place got a bunch of money and a porsche or something like that. Typing all this is making me feel so nostalgic for the days of watching SBrugby/cole south/taylor caby/etc playing hu 300/600 v Ivey/Antonius/Hansen. Poker used to be so exciting and there was so much promise and glory/money to chase. There's still good money to be made obv but everything seems so dead and so far from what it used to be

Going to post a bunch of jumbled thoughts on life/poker tips and thoughts. If anyone wants to discuss any of them further I'm happy to, but just thought it'd be nice to just pop out a list of a bunch of stuff that imo is useful for life in general and life as a poker pro.

Poker

- Being able to adapt is one of the best skills to have. Things change so much over time whether it's legislation/average skill increasing/technology/new sites/new game types. Don't be rigid. Be open to learning new games or moving sites or grinding live or whatever it is. Constantly analyze what your options are and which path you think has the highest ev.
- Try and focus on your own grind and not compare how things are going for you to how things are going for others. You see it in a variety of pgc's where there's a few people getting angry and hating on other peoples recent positive results or taking joy in their failures. This does nothing good for your life. Everyone is going to go through stretches where they run amazing and stretches where they run like death. 100 guys with the exact same winrate are going to all end up with a wide variety of results and swings. Variance is why we make money. It's okay to feel emotions about variance but don't let it influence your mood and how you treat people.
- Past results don't guarantee you the same in the future. There's things both in and out of your control that can have a significant effect on your winrates and what games are available to you. Don't get attached to having a certain winrate (especially since you'll never actually know for sure what your true winrate is).

Life

- SAVE MONEY FOR THE FUTURE!!! Money isn't the end all be all of life, but it gives you flexibility and choice. This is a problem for most people not just poker players, but it's especially important for poker players because of the volatile nature and the potential resume gap. It can literally be as simple as just buying low cost index funds on vanguard/fidelity/whatever.
- Similar to the last point, don't put off saving money because you are young. Doing it early is just more time for your investments to compound and grow. You don't want to be the 40 year old who hasn't prepared for their retirement or is living paycheck to paycheck.
- Keep expenses reasonable. Your life will be so much less stressful. Doesn't mean you can't splurge on things you want if it's a well thought out purchase. But lifestyle growth can be a real problem but is so easily avoided. This is especially prevalent with poker players sometimes because it's so easy to have results above your expectation. You may grind out an ev of 50k but actually make 100k. Then when you start spending like you make 100k and your results fall back to earth you have now ****ed yourself. You aren't ever going to know your true winrate and your true ev on any given year, but as long as you are making reasonable estimates you'll be fine. Personally I make plans based on a number significantly less than what I actually expect to make and even based on that much lower number there's still room for saving decent money. That way everything past that is just gravy and more money saved to set me up for the future.
- Have a backup plan. Back when I was coming up in poker there were actually a fair number of people dropping out of school to play poker full time. Just because it worked out for phil galfond doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Could it work out? Sure. But college can be done at a slower pace if you want to give more time to poker. It's really not that hard to balance both. You will never regret having skill/a degree to fall back on if the poker economy continues to worsen. You also don't know how you'll feel about poker down the line. Personally I no longer love poker the same way I did a decade ago and that's the how the majority tend to feel over time. There are definitely a few out there who still love poker a ton a decade later but they are rare.
- General money saving tip, take the time to compare insurance rates and stuff between different companies. I wasted so much money on car insurance years ago just out of not realizing I should check around for diff quotes. For something that takes a few mins of your time you can potentially save a substantial amount of money.
- For people who can responsibly handle lines of credit/finances, credit card bonuses/bank account bonuses are just free money lying out there for the taking. They are essentially rakeback for life expenses. Getting back 5-10k a year from these things is not hard to do and obviously adds significantly to your bottom line even if you are making six figures a year.

Hope these thoughts are helpful to some people.

Sorry for lack of updates lately, life has been super hectic lately in a lot of different ways. I haven't been getting in a ton of volume lately as I haven't felt like playing much. Still been doing mediocre at nl, mostly just breaking even. Haven't played my best at times and made some plays I'm not happy with at all, but running like **** hasn't helped either. My head hasn't been all the way in it with so much life stuff going on, but that's just the way things go sometimes so can't use that as an excuse. So despite the nl run bad, still been going relatively smoothly in plo. It's funny because I'm way worse at plo than nl for the obvious reason that I've put very little time into plo in the past. But these games are just so good that my winrate is likely larger than in the nl games.

New casino is opening up next month in Boston. Thinking about putting some decent volume in there as I assume there will be a fair bit of dead money there for a bit. I'm curious to see what games will be running. May explore looking for a backer or selling some action if there's some soft bigger games that end up going. If some 100/200+ mixed games go somehow that would be just wonderful.

On the studying nlhe side of things I've been doing alright with it but could be better. I've done some coaching sessions with Downandunder this year and would def recommend him for anyone looking for coaching. Theory/PIO work is still new to me so it's been helpful to have someone who knows what they're doing to make sure I'm working through things the right way. Other than that I've been watching some tyler forrester vids on run it once.

gl all

Encore opening up should be sick. Seems like a lot of people are going to be moving to the area just for it which tells you a lot about the hype.

BOL when it opens. Should def e some big games.


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