Background

For those who don't know me my name is Tyler. Crazy to think that it was 4-5 years ago that I started my first PGC on here and now I'm an old withered freshly turned 30 year old. PGC has always been my favorite section of 2p2. It's not what it once was but neither is 2p2 as a whole. There's still many great threads with some great people though and it's a lot of fun to follow people's journeys. No promises on how often I'll update this, but I figured it'd be fun to start updating again and a nice side benefit is that it gives a place to get out thoughts and plan some structure in my life.

2018

Overall 2018 will go down as a decently successful year. Made somewhere around 6 figs at the tables and rocked back and forth throughout the year between being pretty tired of poker/variance and at times feeling more motivated and grinding hard. Most of my volume in 2018 was on a variety of asian apps. Tbh I really hate the hassle of grinding those sites but the games were great so whatever. Games are still good but got a little worse/smaller I assume because a lot of chinese players got shut down at some point halfway thru the year. I got a couple hundred thousand hands in at ignition over the year as well and although their software is ****ty as well it's way more fun than playing on a bunch of emulators and ipads. I prob played an avg stake of ~400nl/500nl on the asian apps and played a mix of 200nl/500nl on ignition. Also played a tiny bit of mixed game live cash during wsop time. The plan for 2018 is mostly the same although maybe a little more focus on ignition than before with the asian apps a bit deader than they used to be. Don't have any graphs of the china apps as they weren't pokermaster and the only way I was able to track them was with a spreadsheet, but will throw in a couple pics of ignition stuff.

https://imgur.com/a/vmprGav

2019

As mentioned above the plan basically remains the same when it comes to poker. I've had good motivation lately and been getting a good amount of hours in so hopefully can keep that up. Have redeveloped some good structure to my day in terms of getting up and going to the gym and then getting some good work/study hours in. Studying is something that I have always struggled with when it comes to poker. I honestly just don't enjoy it a lot of the time and somehow I've been able to maintain strong winrates without much study (games being good helps!). However, I've been doing more of it lately and hope to continue to push myself to do more of it. I think one of my greatest assets over the years has been my ability to adapt and also being pretty good at learning through playing and by learning from watching other good players. However there's no doubt that you're leaving something on the table these days by not studying with all the crazy tools that are available today. I'd like to find a good CFP situation tbh to help use these tools more efficiently/properly, but we'll see what happens there. There's definitely some great options out there, it's just hard to justify giving up pretty large amounts of $ when your winrate has remained strong. If anyone has suggestions from their experiences I'd love to hear it. I know PGC's own bbissick (who has been one of the most interesting pgc's to follow lately imo) worked with BTS and got a lot out of it. But yeah we shall see, all about weighing what you're giving up with what you're getting.

In terms of life goals for 2019 my goal is mainly to continue to eat better and keep up with going to the gym. Only been doing cardio for awhile because of some body pain issues, but plan is to start working back in lifting weights very soon. Overall life is good, got married in October, have the honeymoon to look forward to in March to Aruba. Most likely WSOP for a bit in the summer. Might throw some goals and maybe some freerolls in here from time to time for a bit of extra motivation.

Thanks for following! Gl all in 2019!

1st

Gl bro gratz on getting married!

I really wonder why and how all the regs seem to hit the gym regularly lol. I have 0 motivation to work out, maybe that's cause of all the dr00gs I take haha maybe one day I'll start too.

Also a question: I've played on Stars all my life - If I want to increase my hourly, should I move to Ignition? Chinese apps? A mix of both? What's your take on this?

Wield your new level of fame responsibly.

Thanks! Being active has always been a big part of my life tbh. Grew up playing bunch of diff sports year round all through childhood/high school/college. I miss organized team sports very much. But even for people who don't really like being active as much it's pretty important for good long term health to get some exercise. Lifting is actually pretty fun when you are in a good/consistent pattern of going. Feels good! You def should consider starting at some point. Nothing wrong with starting slow, even going for a 20 min walk each day is a great place to start and just build from there!

Other than a couple small trips to canada for SCOOP I haven't really played on stars in a long time since I'm in the US. So I'm prob not the best to ask when it comes to comparing other sites to stars. My guess based on hearing other people talk is that if you want to be the best player you can be than you will prob learn the most by battling on stars and studying hard. If your goal is to make the most money possible than I think you are better off mixing and choosing between the best sites available to you. GL!

gl

gl man , in for 2019. hope you update a lottt

tyty

haha thx dude. idk if my boring/normal life can provide the same level of entertainment as you degening around mexico and crushing pokerstars but we'll give it the 'ol college try!

GL GL!

Thx! Gl this year, been following your thread, hope you are able to catch some heat and save up enough for an apartment this year!

I've enjoyed your poasts elsewhere but don't think I've followed one of your PGCs yet, lookin forward to it. GL

GL

Thanks! Only had the one pgc, updated for a decently long time but it's been a long time since I had an active pgc. We'll see how long I keep it up lol.

tyty

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Alright started off the day strong with a nice cardio workout at the gym and a good lunch of brown rice/chicken/veggies. Time to put in a session and watch some playoff foooooooooootballllll! Big patriots fan, not looking forward to the end of football season. I love NBA too so that helps but man those few months between end of basketball and the start of football is the worst. Unfortunately I think the Saints are prob gonna win it all, but I'd still give the Pats 10-15% chance of getting it done this year so we shall see!

After having one of those beautiful days 2 days ago where you can do no wrong and hold every meaningful hand and win a bunch effortlessly, yesterday we had the exact opposite and just could not win a pot lol. Hoping to go back to god mode today!

Was quite pleased to spot this thread today. I've always thought you are among the highest quality posters on 2p2 and I enjoyed your previous PGC a lot. Subbed and looking forward to it, gl!

Thanks I appreciate that. I enjoyed your thread a lot as well, hopefully you'll still throw an update in there from time to time if you're still playing!

Glgl, will be following! (Even though you’re a pats fan)

How do you typically go about studying? Just reviewing HHs? Ever think of joining some training site?

Haha thx

Honestly the vast majority of the time over my career I've done very little study. Definitely very little focused study. Most of my study over the years has been watching videos on training sites/reviewing my own hand histories/and discussing hands and strat with other winning players. I've had a RIO sub at times over the past couple years but I mostly end up only watching the Sauces/Koon/Galfond videos. To be perfectly honest after over a decade of playing a lotttttt of poker I don't have the same passion for it anymore and I honestly always preferred learning while playing anyways. I do want to do more study this year but it's unlikely that I go super hard with solver work etc. With what the future outlook looks like for online poker I think considering I've maintained strong winrates (10bb/100ish regular tables, 7bb/100ish zone) that $ev wise I'm prob better off mostly grinding with a bit of study when feeling motivated. If the goal is to become the greatest that you can at the game vs making the most money though I think you'd have to spend tons of time working with these solvers.

Thanks, Tyler, had been thinking about writing an update and your request inspired me to finally do it. Congrats btw on the very successful year, particularly getting married!

Very solid first week of the year. Put in something like 45ish hours grinding at the tables and did a little bit of general study.

https://imgur.com/dZvCMSX

Always nice to be over ev, although I think in $ I'm actually down a little ev. Meaningless amounts though and meaninless sample. Felt really good to have a productive first week of the year. I'm settling into a really nice routine where I wake up, take the dog out, meet my wife at the gym on her work break, and then come back and grind until she gets home. Then break for dinner and I get in the bulk of my volume for the day when the games are best at night. I've also been playing on a new app that has just ridiculously soft plo games. I haven't played much plo and tbh I never cared to as I prefer the lower variance grind. But these games are too good to not play and so far it's been going really well despite some run bad in the bigger pots/stakes. I suppose it's also nice to break up the monotony of the nlhe grind a bit as well.

I want to set some more concrete goals at some point in terms of my goals for the gym. Will prob do that once I start lifting again in a couple weeks.

**No clue why all of a sudden I'm unable to embed these images, if someone has any idea why it's not working lemme know thx**

GL dude!

Good luck with this year dude, poker wise you seem to have it covered.

Ref gym goals I think it depends on what motivates you while you're in there. Sometimes little goals that are achievable in 8-10 weeks are good then you can shift to another focus afterwards. At the same time I know people who set insane goals for the year and really push themselves throughout so just got to think what is most likely to keep you interested. Can be easy to lose motivation/slip out of the routine if you cannot see the results.

Lifting weights on a regular basis releases some chemicals in our brain that makes us feel great, like some sort of powerful drug, some people are so addicted to it that they end up hurting themselves by going to the gym too much.

I wasn't active for 4 years, but it has been nice to go to the gym in the last year, feels great! Also helps sleeping a lot and there's the health stuff. I think at the start it's hard to go to the gym, but after 6 months of doing it regularly it's hard to quit.

innnnn
glgl!

Damn man, 10bb/100 winrates with little study and no solver work!? That's pretty ridiculous and really impressive! And you think games are dying or at least really deteriorating that much? What did you used to win at a few years ago?

Is the 10bb/100 win rate from ignition, or is that from apps? What stakes do you play on ignition?

Btw, I responded to your posts from the other night over in my thread.

thx dude, hope everything is going well with you in vegas!

Thx! A couple years back I had a really great routine. I was living with my friends and we would all go together after they got out of work and it was great to have that structure and motivate each other. Unfortunately when I moved in with my gf/now wife that kinda threw me out of the routine and once I fell off it was easy to keep pushing off getting started again. I've been really good about consistent cardio over this time but not the lifting weights. I think once I get back into a good lifting routine it will be easy to keep it going, it's just important not to fall off completely when inevitably the routine gets interrupted at some point. I may also end up working out with one of my friends again which would help with the motivation while starting up again.

tyty!


Thx, I honestly don't think it's super impressive though. It's very solid obviously but we are talking about pretty good games. I'd obviously have nowhere near that winrate if I was grinding pokerstars or something.

Haha well obv certain sites have maintained a pretty good level of softness over time. I think it's more obvious when looking at a variety of sites/games that overall there's less easy money around and winrates are in a downward trend. Winrate was always around that for bovada, actually slightly higher for 1/2 back in the day but prob was just in upper tier of results over the sample.

10bb/100 is ignition regular tables. 7bb/100ish for ignition zone but only a couple hundred thousand hands there. I can't download hh from any of these chinese apps so no clue what winrate is but I'd expect it's actually higher. Those apps pop up and disappear and change quickly though, and obv the whole environment is pretty sketchy so who the f knows how things will look there in the future. My avg stake is prob around 400nl.

Thx ill check it out!

So no 2knl ever on ignition I assume....how come not much 1knl with your edge/win rate?