I will put this up tomorrow, thanks for the request.

I have watched a few of LAs videos, but in all honesty I must say that I am the wrong person for this question and I will tell you why.

I believe that the training videos are very good for some people, but for myself, I believe that I can spend that one hour of poker study more wisely (at this stage of my poker development). They are obviously an invaluable tool for learning the game, although I personally didn´t use them coming up.
I purchased a Stox-subscription due to my curiousity about a player who seemed to be able to log 100k+ hands every month, at a steady pace, and maintain a decent quality of play. I had a Cardrunners subscription that I purchased in order to be able to watch a coupke of CTS / Brian Townsend videos due to the hype created by this forum. Other than that, I have not watched many videos. I am very careful of the different influences on my game. I have a long-term plan that does not involve the 200-400 plo games on FT.

I believe in leading a balanced life where your job must always be secondary to your soul and family, regardles of the amount of money you make. Therefor I spend my time wisely (as you can tell right now ), and if I have an hour left over for studies I much prefer opening my PT database and start picking apart the regulars. I will choose one player whose play has been bothering me, or whom I instinctively think might have a leak, and go through every single significant hand he´s played in my database. I will get as familiar as I can with his preflop ranges from different positions, his creativity, try to asses if we actually have any metagame or if it is all in my head, how often and with what type of betsizing he isolates limpers, betsizing on the river (bluff, value, blocker, fake blocker, etc.). Then I try to sit at this players table for a week or two. And I keep on doing this with the regulars.

Wether or not this actually teaches me something about this player, I have found, is secondary. I have noticed that the benefits are 75 % emotional. I become more confident in my reads. I am able to apply pressure with certainty. I develop a plan for the hand before the hand plays out. In short, it puts me in a positive state, and gets me thinking about the game. I start my session, and I am no longer concerned with being up or down. I rarely feel outplayed (even though in reality, I might be). I feel I know more about him, than he does about me (again, perhaps not even true). It keeps me alert, and hinders the autopilot mode.

This, of course, can be boring at times, especially compared to watching CTS 10 table 25-50 If that works for you that is fine too. But this, I have found, works better for me mainly from an emotional perspective.

You advocate not using a HUD, which I can see many reasons for, and other good players have stated this same opinion. However, at low/micro stakes (i'm playing nl50 atm) do you think it is better to use it, since most players are unknowns and without any stats it is not as easy to identify their player types and tendencies? Maybe you answered this, I didn't see. I would like to try not using a HUD but I think I might be better off with it at this level, to gather information on new players.

Also, you don't use it, but you play 6-8 tables. Ryan Fees is another player who doesn't use a HUD, but he said he plays around 4 tables, and feels that playing more is sort of like autopilot. Do you feel that playing more tables without it causes you to make some robotic decisions, or do you play with a bunch of regulars on every table that you already know really well? I don't know how it is at higher levels, but how did you choose your number of tables?

Thank you, and thank you everybody for the nice comments. I have to reiterate however, that I am not interested in coaching at this point for reasons stated earlier in the thread. Thank you for your pms. Most of you guys don´t really need coaches anyway, you just think you do.
Perhaps at some point in the future, when the money is insignificant (I could never dream of charging somebody what I make per hour playing poker today) I will get involved with a very, very specific few players who feel that they have reached a certain level where their biggest barrier is their negative emotional state.
I would, as I have stated before, find an inexpensive way for you guys to view my play or recieve my help, for instance an article or perhaps a video if there is interest. For now, feel free to ask your questions in this thread and I will try to answer as many of them as possible.

I think there are quite many players beating 600nl at more than 5ptbb/100

That maybe true. But if you read the whole thread you will see that OP is extremely down to earth, and in no way does he deserve you trolling him.Show me gaph of you beating midstakes for more than 3ptbb please, if not *****.

He has answered every question in this thread very well, so plz give the man some creds.


OP, you are awesome, and you answer everything so well. Im gonna copy everythiing you answer in this well and read read. You have so many good points. Never seen anybody so brutally honest before.

Thanks alot for your great answer, i really do believe it will help me alot on my way.

Thank you.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...d.php?t=287744
yw


btw, never mean to offend the OP, sorry you understood it that way. i did read his posts and he deserves his respect for spending his time trying to give advice to BBV

What "excercises" do you recommend to start thinking and being aware of our feelings/actions/state of mind/thinking at ALL times?

Also, recommended general literature about this? buddhism maybe?

Im VERY interested in this

great thread op, nice to see that decent people win at poker too. Congrats to both.

i play plo only but what you said about being aware of yourself, self control, and pretty much everything else applies there as well. i suck in that department, and would love a video from you.

I know its nothing that can just be copied, but any inspiriation, like the one given in this thread, is helpful.

Anyway, good luck too you when you move up, and please keep posting those gems.

i was thinking the same thing lol. either way well done OP.

i beat 5/10 for 5bb/100 6tabling without a hud.

op
nice post.

Agreed Prima is full of regs but:

1) they're there not because of anyone being european or american, they're there because you can get such sick rakeback deals on many prima skins.

2) they suck for the most part. I can just picture them sitting there watching sopranos, family guy or football whilst 12 tabling the same dull game making 35/hr in rakeback alone and being content with that.

3) of course it'd be great to sit with 4 fish and one weak reg at 5/10 like in the "old party poker days" some talk about all the time.. but those old party poker days are gone. and they're gone on party poker, too.

I like OPs approach, props..

ive actually thought alot about these concepts and try applying them on my bad days... OP have you read any books or anything that helps keep your mindstate in the right place.. id like to find something to help keep these thoughts on my mind before playing pokers

also id be interested in seeing a video from your 3/6 6max crushings

after reading this thread today i put 50% of my bankroll into a tournament and came 5th for 2k$

I'm sure there are, but 5ptbb/100 longterm at 3/6+ you are in the top echelon of online poker players imo.

OP, your post has inspired me to sit with a table of regs and try to outlevel and outplay them and make a profit from it. I am one of those 2ptbb/100 regs making money off the fish but I want more. I'm rolling off my ass right now but it makes sense.

Great thread and really nice replies from OP.

Pleasure to read and very informative.

One of the best threads i've ever read, many thanks to the OP

boy wonder, do you smoke weed? After every bad session I consider smoking and make it a point to do so at least twice a year. Then when I'm high my mood is uplifted and also I become overly analytical while reviewing my hands and eating brownies.

It is this single bi-yearly ritual of mine that has led me to be similar to you.

[ ] has taken and applied any of the advice in this thread properly.

SICK OMGZ!

My story;

I was basically introduced to poker whilst on a 6-month sabbatical from my university studies in 2005. I took a job on a cruiseline,
and in the evenings the casino crew would come off their shift and host an unauthorized secret game in one of the cabins. Basically
having no clue what I was doing along with everybody else in the game, I was lucky enough to win a couple of thousand, which at the
time was a lot of money to a poor student like myself. There was a pirate DVD-copy of Rounders floatong about on the ship as well.
When I came back home, I soon got back into my normal routine of life and started working a good job in a financial securities firm.
The only exposure I had to poker was basically online freerolls every other weekend and "The World Wrestling Federation but with poker players" (WPT) on TV.

Around sept. of 2006, I read an interview with some random online player that claimed he made x amount of dollars every year. It caught my interest, and I
kept reading accounts of succesful young guys who where making a decent living playing a game. However, what was interesting was that almost unlike any other endeavour,
many of these guys who were at the top of their profession didn´t seem to be working or studying very hard or, in some cases, even understand what it was that they
specifically were doing so right. Perhaps it had all come so fast to most of them. It basically seemed to me that very average people, like myself, who had not necessarily
been excellent at anything else in life were making large sums of money somehow. I deposited 50 dollars into an online account, and started grinding the sng´s. I grinded the smallest ones
and ran it up to 250 to 300 bucks within a couple of weeks. And then, in one night, I lost it. Although 250 dollars was not a lot of money to me, I came to bed that night
feeling like i had been hit by a bulldozer. Feelings of humiliation, extreme fatigue and above all guilt were haunting me. And all this, for 250 dollars.

For a few years, I had been very intrigued by the buddhist concepts of mindfullness and presence. These days, I try to apply them to every aspect of my life, big or small,
which is a story for another post. But a loss of a measly 250 dollars had caused me to become unconscious and trapped in a stream of negative thinking to the point that
I could not sleep for an entire night. I was suffering badly.

The next time I deposited 50 bucks, I promised myself to never make that same mistake again. I was trying to consciously recollect what had happened that night that I
had lost all my money, making one bad decision after another. In theory, even at that early stage, I knew enough about bankroll management to know that I should not put it
all in action at once. And yet, that was exactly what I had done, as if in trance. I was so fortunate to have this experience; I realized very early on that knowing something
and applying it are two different worlds in poker, and that emotional control is what will merge the two together. This in my opinion is more true of poker than any other game
due to its emotional nature and the fact you always have imperfect information and can delude yourself endlessly.

I have never deposited another cent online. I played roughly 5000 sngs til the end of December, playing in the evenings after work, and made almost exactly 5000 dollars.
The hurdle of transforming my 4900 dollar bankroll into a 5000 dollar bankroll, even now 350 k dollars later, is by far the most challenging memory I have of playing poker
and I will not forget it. It took weeks. It killed me. It was inhuman. When I reached that point, I decided to take a break from the SNGs and have a two week hiatus playing
cash. I started at the 0,5-1 level in january of 2007. I made 980 dollars that month. I decided to keep with the cash. The next month I made 2218. The third; 14 459.
My first year of playing part time in the evenings and weekends, I made 138 468 dolars playing 210 756 hands (excluding rakeback). I played mostly 1-2 and 2-4 on a small laptop,
and ended up not having a losing month.

In 2008, I gradually decided to move up from the 2-4 to the 3-6. During all this time, I was always MUCH more focused on learning techniques to control my emotions and tilt
rather than the technical aspects of the game. I would make different papernotes and tag them all over the place, use meditation, use different routines etc. My year so far:

Jan: 23 660 $ (17 952 hands)
Feb: 15 800 $ (29 839 hands)

At this point, I decided to go pro, and quit my job.

Mar: 37 538 $ (42 169 hands)
Apr: 21 900 $ (44 684 hands)
May: 14 569 $ (58 451 hands)
Jun: 58 156 $ (67 633 hands)
Jul: 12 202 $ (35 381 hands)
Aug: 32 202 $ (52 451 hands)

Now, I am about to move up to 5/10. I believe I will do this at the beginning of October. Some people in this thread have commented that my poker journey is nothing special. They are right.
I have done nothing out of the ordinary. And to make a living playing this game, in this climate, you don´t have to do anthing out of the ordinary or be somebody extraordinary. Most of you already know the right plays.
Most of you already know, deep within yourselves, who you are in the food chain, and thus who to avoid. Work on your emotional game. You might not make it to the nosebleeds (actually
, you probably won´t), but you might be able to provide a living or a side income to ease your lives and the lives of your family members.

good god

Thanks a lot for posting that, it was an interesting read Your advice has been great.

May I ask what country you're from? Also, I am have always been interested in Buddhism, do you recommend any books or online resources to introduce it?