Hear me out.
Over the past few weeks I've been putting in some real work away from the tables. Stoving ranges, tweaking frequencies, blah blah. It's paid off; I've grinded through the levels to 25NL, and consider myself something of a "high stakes micros" boss. But poker is all about edges, and while mine is enormous versus my current opposition, I know the villains will be a bit more wily as I move through the ranks. I'm starting to search for and consider thin edges through unorthodox and/or ambiguous means.
While doing my GTO homework I isolated myself into a being hermit. I'd just put in my time in the (set)mines, review, sleep, and repeat. Occasionally I'd eat, occasionally I'd take a walk, but never did I fornicate. It was a bleak cycle of existence, and I was starting to get a bit burnt out. Then something happened: my W$WSF and non-showdown increased dramatically; I don't have any stats, but I say this with ~98.6% certainty.
At first I didn't consider the significance; I know how sample sizes work. But as I got to 5k hands, then 10k hands, without it dropping, I realized I'd stumbled onto something potentially huge.
I started using my prodigious skill in pattern recognition to discover a correlation. I poured over the history of the nosebleeds; from the "Godfather of LAG" Gustaf Hanson, to the Ship It Holler Ballers, to duuurrr and beyond. I noticed a glaring trend, and found my breakthrough: these guys all crushed their way up when they weren't getting laid. I mean eventually they got hookers/groupies, ldo, but by then they had internalized a lucratively optimal incel approach to the game.
It's so simple; the most primal, intrinsic urge of the human species. It's the root of virtually all fiscal motivation; why would poker be any different? Winning poker is aggressive poker. A celibate man is an aggressive man. Ipso facto, a celibate man is winning poker.
Relatable equivalence: Guy 1 is "oversexed, blasé, 'no big deal.'" Guy 2 is "2am in the club lot, looking for a fight or a chubby 5." Replace "club lot" with "lobby" and "fight" with "squeeze." Which would you rather have at your table?
It's nothing new; boxers have abstained before their hand-to-hand fights for decades. Poker is a mind-to-mind fight; why would we not treat it with the same respect and severity?
I've started experimenting with a "rewards system" of sorts. My target is 8bb/100; if I'm there at the end of a session, I treat myself (literally). If I'm there at the end of the week, I treat myself to a full lay. If I bink a tourney I will treat myself to a belle of the night <=15% of the score. Breakeven is hand and mouth stuff. I've never wanted to grind more in my life.
I haven't yet corroborated the inverse of this theorem, but I'm fairly certain there's a link between this:
and this:
Reporting live from the tip of an iceberg.
I apologize to mods if this should be in the theory section.