Nice one Mike, Ill be on the rail glgl

glgl tonight!

That was a real nice Ks on the riv.

TID man.

GL! Keep posting, I love this thread.

Congrats on the bracelet errrrrrr WCOOP win!

THAT'S MY BOY

WP! Congrats man!

Beast! Congrats mate!

congrats man.

Congrats dude

thanks for the love everyone i appreciate you guys. i'll respond later this weekend or after WCOOP when I'm not two sheets to the wind.

took the night to celebrate a little and let loose. tomorrow night I have hockey so day off etc. Sunday I'll be back in the mix. Then I think it's time for a nice vacation or possibly go to Vegas for a vacation/play that live series they got at the Wynn.

I'll be back Sunday for the weekly update as per.

May the rungood be with you all this weekend.

Congrats buddy

thanks for the kind words everyone. gonna make a small post to put my mind to ease as I'm wide awake after hockey and I want to map out my mindset for tomorrow.

So in the past I've found the most costly effects of tilt on me are witnessed after my biggest successes in poker. I've never really found that I start spewing or playing very bad when I'm in a downswing or drought...historically speaking, this is when so much of my innovation and development has come. I get this hunger to win which manifests itself in my level of play.

The time where tilt has it's biggest effect on me is after success. Hence, winner's tilt. After finally getting rewarded for my efforts after a long drought it only feels natural to reward myself...to deviate from the game plan. It's ever too common to look at the sharkscope graphs of regs who get a big score and punt it back in higher games or just not playing their best. Not to mention that their increased disposable income might also get punted in sports betting, cash games, life punting etc. These downswings after big scores aren't because of some "doom switch" or "cashout curse"...they are from winner's tilt and deviating from the game plan that made them successful in the first place.

So where does this bring us to? Tomorrow is the biggest day of online poker of the year...the day of the WCOOP Main Event. The fields of battle will be weak, tough, and everything in between. They will be a marathon. Stacks will go up and down, be gained and lost. Bad beats will be given and taken. Winners will be crowned and losers will frown. All we can do is stick to our game plans and stay focused on the task at hand.

I wanted to write this post to cement in my brain that regardless of my score the other day my game plan stays the same as it was 3 days ago, 3 weeks ago, 3 months ago, 3 years ago. I'm going to take a few shots tomorrow and sell/swap responsibly (as I would on this day anyways). Tomorrow my best focus and ability will be brought to the tables. Regardless of how tomorrow goes I look forward to my vacation after this series I refuse to go on winner's tilt like I've been guilty of in the past.

Best of luck tomorrow y'all. I wish you all the best (unless I'm battling you )


Mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn5j0H9kQaM

GL tomorrow sir. Prob not battling you unless ur in $27 L WCOOP

Late congrats , happy for you !- GL w/ the main tommorow finish wcoop xtra strong

Nice score! WP Sir.

Health:

Workouts Completed this week: (2/4)
Times leaving diet guidelines: 4
20 Minute Meditation Session: 4/7
Books Read: 0/1
Body Weight +/-: -28 lbs. (since beginning of year)

Wealth:

Training Videos Watched: 0/1
Hours in the lab: 2/2
Sessions played: 4/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation:1
Weekly Proft: +42 523
Yearly Profit: +66 818 (https://gyazo.com/e896672a863bc3a3d5d0f5fb38e63c3e)
Live Poker Profit This Year: +9 338

Book Review:

I'll have lots of time to read now that coops are done. Looking forward to it. Will post some interesting things I find here.

Hands:

https://www.boomplayer.com/25376583_10105E9A16
how to make a brazillian blast off. didn't really matter anyways cuz got dirtied final 25

https://www.boomplayer.com/25375184_CACC234C01
interesting spot vs somewhat aggro reg.

https://www.boomplayer.com/25373448_F38F76D306
vs mjw. tbh id be very suprised if he had a bluff here. although im not even sure if bluffing would be good or not. i guess if im over bet/folding nut flush it would prob print but i also have full houses etc

https://www.boomplayer.com/25353193_F7267248E7
puke spot vs rdcrsn

https://www.boomplayer.com/25355749_51BA8808F3
why cant deoxy follow through on river


Random Rant of the Week


Hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed themselves during these WCOOPs (or at least made some sklanksy EV). It's that time of the week where I put on a nice Bon Iver type album, open a cold Perrier, and spew out some of my thoughts into this blog. But first of all I want to thank everyone for their kind words and support throughout this year (crazy it's almost October!). This year has been a great ride and I've learned so much about myself and the world (and of course the pokerz). It's tough to stay motivated writing in this thread all the time especially when it's just to myself. Knowing that other people read/enjoy it is quite a nice bonus. So thanks for that. Anyways where was I?

One thing that I always find funny in poker is the emphasis on results. Some people (usually who ever is running good) say that poker is all skill and the people who work the hardest win the most. On the other hand, there is the people who say that it's a little bit of skill in MTTs but mostly just whoever runs the best and luckboxes. The funny thing is that both parties are correct in one way or another.

So what is it skill or luck? Well if it's just luck we're just gambling aren't we? If we feel there is no edge then what's the point of playing? But if it's all skill then why do solid regs have losing quarters or years?

I find usually after I've had a big tourney score in the past I start to get some pm's for coaching (don't ask me to coach cuz I suck, have tried it a few times.), the amount of hands I get asked for my opinion goes up about 4 fold, good regs start to ask me for my thoughts on hands way more, and my opinions generally get much more consideration and respect. The funny thing is that I'm still relatively the same poker player I was last week, if I didn't have 4-5 relevant scores in 2017 I'd be having a BE/losing year.

This phenomena of results I believe is very rational. As humans that is how we quantify and evaluate things: on results. The problem with this in tournament poker is that the variance is so outlandish that results can become drastically skewed. I'm not saying that if you haven't made $ in poker it is all because of runbad and variance...that is very likely not to be the sole problem. Is Fedor Holz elite at poker? Yes. Is his EV higher than almost everyone in MTTs? Likely, yes. (my opinion). Has he made more money than his EV over 10 billion sims? I'm assuming so. We almost never will know or achieve our exact EV. I will say one thing though: almost everyone I know in poker who has followed a somewhat GTO path in poker has printed over the last few years.

One fact is that the larger the sample, the more our results gravitate towards the mean. The bigger our edge, the smaller our variance. It's so important to enjoy/respect/plan/execute the process.

By the way, I'm embarassed by how good I ran on that final table I ran way better than I needed to even lol.


Anyways, WCOOP is done and it's time for a little break from poker! So fk it let's get this thread off the poker rails with a small non-poker rant. It's gonna be tough to force my time off of poker but its much needed. Hopefully I can take a 1-2 week break. It's wild how much of my thoughts, energy, and time have been consumed by this game. Absolutely wild. So to begin this time off I want to allocate where I'd like to spend my time over the next few weeks:

1) Health. I absolutely am going to do another prob bet for the gym and nutrition. Starting Tuesday (I have one more live bowl comp tomorrow). Most of the poker work is done for 2017 and now it's time to shift the focus to my primary goal of the year. Will be gyming 4x/week (no exceptions) and also posting my diet in this blog.

2) Relationships. I feel gross when I ghost some of my best friends phone calls/messages for days at a time. My hours are so messed up and in their free hours I'm usually grinding or just don't have the mental capacity to be present in a good conversation. This week and next I'm going to make a good effort to reach out to some friends/family and spend some personal time with them. It's very important to me.

3. Enjoying life. In my time off I want to really focus on happiness and mental well-being. When you really think about the grand scheme of life poker is such a small fraction of it. I just want to detach a little bit from it and focus on other things. Maybe I'll go travel to a new place or something. Maybe some volunteer work. Maybe signing up for a sports league.

It's crazy how short life is when you really think about it. I often think about all of this stuff I want to do/dreams I have but like fk the time to achieve them is only getting shorter everyday. It's time to take some action.


Again, thanks for reading everyone. Sorry if this rant got a lil' rambly/off topic (as per usual). This is the best place for me to map out some of my thoughts/document them/hold myself accountable. I think next week I'll try to change things up a little bit. Instead of writing a big blurb as it comes to me...I'll try to do some organized writing for once. Not sure what to write about though.


Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53EJ...=RD53EJiCMzJuw
had this one on repeat for my COOP FT haha. some british rap.

Quote: "So utterly at variance is destiny with all the little plans for me." HG Wells.


Peace guys. Much love.

Cheers dude enjoy your time off. Love this thread. Nice WCOOP for ya.

thanks glad to hear you enjoy! wasn't too bad but the vacation is gonna be nicer

Long time lurker here, just wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoy your rants on life and would love if you didn't stop posting any time soon!

GG WCOOP and see you at the tables!

grats in the bink

thanks guys ^


So Monday I played a bowl 90 person live tourney (the one I got 3rd in a few weeks ago). Ended up getting 5th yesterday. Was annoying cuz a few super short stacks on FT and I had 66 in SB and ripped 18bbs into chipleading BB who had AA. My vacation/time off officially started today. Actually had numerous small things happen that put me on tilt today: main road was closed to get to my parents house for a visit and ended up taking probably 2x longer to get home, some personal issues with a friend (just a little WCOOP cooldown that got slightly out of hand lol), and to top it all off at the end of the day Tim Horton's drive thru screwed up my coffee...after waiting for the person in front of me for 20 mins because they ordered a house full of food.

But hey, these are such small problems and don't even deserve any degree of my tilt. Just variance in every day life. Remember at the start of this year when I talked about my car spinning out in a snow storm when I was going a decent rate of speed? Miraculously I was able to keep my car and myself from being damaged. Probably playing a lot of racing simulators when I was younger helped me know how to control it lol. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that could have been a real problem very easily. So could a million other horrible things in the world. But hey, I'm healthy and things are going reasonably well so far...I'm thankful for that.

I almost feel sometimes like the human mind is just designed to create problems for itself. It's like it always wants us to be constantly problem solving and innovating...like we can never be at ease.

Here's some of the micro problems I've created for myself during my vacation:
1. Fix my fish tank. (Stop reading this bullet now if you aren't into fish). About a year ago I purchased a 60 gallon aquarium for my place. I've always really enjoyed fish and I find they are a great hobby. I don't really like dogs/cats etc that much and they are too much maintenance for me. The goal for the aquarium was and is to look something like this: https://gyazo.com/a88d7f069957c5719e3b79842df3f81c

This is where it is at currently: https://gyazo.com/93cc5b4d39635ac6918abc3dba5d6e6e

The goal is to have a very visually appealing aqua plant scaped tank. To have live underwater plants growing/reproducing which in turn results in very healthy water parameters for the fish, and also basically results in 0 algae (because it can't compete with that many plants.)

This is actually far more maintenance than one would expect for a few reasons:
-The plants need intensive lighting 7-10 hours per day
-Nutrients need to be added to the water roughly every other day
-These species of fish require a much more acidic water PH than what the taps have here. So I need to buy reverse osmosis water from a water store here about once per week.
-Here's the main issue: I screwed up and the plants can't really grow well in this type of gravel in the tank. Somehow I now need to remove all the water and fish, and replace all of this gravel with plant substrate and soil. The main problem with this is that it will throw all my water parameters out of whack and will likely kill everything (because a lot of the healthy bacteria is in the gravel that controls nitrate levels etc)
-The solution: I'm thinking about treating myself to a whole elaborate setup and then setting it all up GTO. Then selling this current tank on kijiji when I'm done. Gonna be so much work but meh I enjoy it and it's nice to have a little underwater oasis to take care of/watch after a tilting session.

2. Book a flight and go on a mini vacay. So this is actually pretty funny. I realized my credit card collects aeroplan miles. I haven't redeemed a single point ever on this card. Figured I'd have heaps of points on it by now as I use my card for almost every purchase. When I tried to log onto my account I was denied access. After jumping through several flaming hoops I finally got on call with a lady whom I'm guessing had english as her ~4th strongest language. After bickering for half an hour she deduced that I was not who I say I was because my name matches the account but everything else does not. I got tilted and could not deal with the conversation anymore.

After cooling down for ~30 minutes I dialed up again. To my fortune, I had someone who was proficient in English. After explaining to her the whole scenario she investigated a little further. She said the name matches but nothing else does. It was then that I realized there was a guy in my town, on the next street over with the exact same name as me. That ****er has been enjoying my aeroplan points for about 12 months now I guess. We deduced that when I signed up for the card the bank person just assumed I already had an aeroplan account in the system, and signed me up under this guys account. She told me I need to call my bank and tell them to sort it all out and to contact aeroplan.

After sitting on hold with my bank for an hour I was put on the line with another lady who it didn't take more than 2 minutes of explaining for her to think I was crazy. She basically started saying I need to contact aeroplan or visa (anyone under the sun except her), and that it is not the banks fault etc. I started losing my patience and there was an inverse relationship between my tone of voice and my mannerisms. She was saying I need to contact an aeroplan supervisor or whatever and that I do not understand. I couldn't handle it anymore and briskly ended the call.

I then jumped through a few more flaming hoops and my temper caught fire along the way. Climbing the ranks of the call center, and listening to elevator music and repeated messages for what seemed like an eternity, I was on call with someone who could help me. She understands my problem thoroughly and is gonna call up my bank tomorrow and get it all sorted for me. What an angel. Anyways, hopefully they refund my account with all the miles this guy may have spent and I can book a nice lil vacation

Here's a few more things on the agenda (without ridiculous ranting explanations)

3. Fitness/gym work. Have thought about signing up for a boxing class or some type of sport. Hockey twice per month isn't enough.

4. Decorate my place and clean it thoroughly. Things got a lil neglected during the WCOOP grind.

5. Do a lot of work on this thread and work on helping it end the year in a good note. Gonna try to write some poker content, some life content, and make it a fun read along the way. Will start trying to incorporate less words and more pictures.



Phew that was a long and probably needless post haha. Oh yeah....forgot one more....

6. Find something to do with my time as I'm not grinding 16 hours a day 7 days a week now. Maybe that's why I just killed an hour writing this


Peace, enjoy whatever you maf'ks get up to this week!

Its impossible to not focus on results where one year you can make 100k and the next year make nothing. A good mate of mine is friends with the former nz mtt reg "akasherin". His first year as a pro he made around 100K, the next year he made nothing. I believe he quit because he just didn't want to handle that sort of variance with a partner and young family.

enjoy ur time off m8 <3

it's weird that everyone is so transfixed on results but at the same time so logical and understandable. when a guy wins a big tourney everyone starts wanting his advice on hands or to buy his action etc.

i remember being in stables a couple times where my relationship with my backer was drastically influenced based on my makeup tab or recent profit chops. when in substantial amounts of MU it was always "you aren't working hard enough", "you made x y z adjustments and thats why you're losing" "your game selection is bad" type stuff. However, when winning its "you're finally getting rewarded for your hard work" "you are really playing well" etc...it's just natural...we like to assign causality to results. the tricky part is being able to tell when to draw the line that determines running below expectation vs. running @ expectation, that happens to be losing.

When a guy who wins @ 10bb/100 and has been a consistent winner for 5 years has a 3k losing stretch it could easily be run bad. If a guy with 2bb/100 and has been breakeven/losing for years is on a 3k losing stretch, it's likely they are just running @ EV (that is losing in the long run).

In regards to the guy you mentioned above he does not sound familiar to me. Seems like a very respectable decision nonetheless. I have a lot of respect for anyone who is able to leave the game whether they were winning players or not.

ty my son. let's get some lab work going later this week