Lemon's blog

Again, awesome posts, really.

Regarding the Mindfulness thing, I'm also a fan for some time, although I stopped doing it a while ago, not sure about the reason, but looking back I'm pretty sure the best poker I've played was when I was meditating every day.

Maybe you want to take a look at some of Tommy Angelo work, he did a series of videos (that are pretty much only audio) called the "Eight fold path to Pker Enlightment", that was pretty goo and introduced me to meditation.

Also, one of my heros, Sam Harris (Neurocientist and Philosopher, known for his critic on religion) has very interesting things to say about these topics, I suggest this book:

And a taste of Sam Harris:

Thanks for the tip, agree with all those points in the video!

So what does Dutton Recommend you do in order to be capable to act more as a psychopath?
Yep. It's pretty much the first mental game material I came across,

I was actually referring to the Eightfold path here, I've listened to every bit at least 4 times, to the part on present some 20 times
It's on a long pretty much dead training site so can't really see how the guys coming into poker can get their hands on it, but it's definitely still relevant.

The reason why I stopped basically was I got involved with the Buddhism part of it, read about buddha and from Kwan Um Zen guys, who were doctors mostly in hospices ... General vegan esoteric do-gooders. And I deemed it incompatible with the real world we live in really, that is build on pursuit of money, maximizing utility, goal setting etc. Because I'm not a monster by any means, but I'm a reasonably selfish modern person
But the psychopath book showed me that mindfulness doesn't have to be by any means tied into goodness or enlightenment, it can be used for completely sinister purposes and it's just a bias of Buddhists who happen to practice it that it leads to enlightenment and altruism, but it's completely applicable to capitalist society with a few tweaks. I've already started using all of the old meditative tricks again and see no reason why I'd stop now ever again

So I'm slowly becoming an experience junkie, letting moments go, it's great during sessions as well I'm just observing when I'm tilted and thoroughly enjoy it.

So anyways for months I have been taking a bus to visit my 91year old great grandaunt , and from afar I have always seen this strange building, wondering what the story behind it is and how to get there

Since I'm living in the present moment a lot more I'm looking for more experiences, there's so many that I most likely won't keep the blog updated anymore - I do something every day from a random midnight run to places I have never been to, to workout in a park where the guard was telling me funny stories about local junkies, festivals... Basically I play poker, take naps, or do some fun stuff. And I've wikipedia'd a list of natural reserves, and searched for one max 40 minutes away from my flat and found Barrandov Terraces.

Basically it's where the sea used to be some 170million years ago, and the cliffs you can see there were at the bottom of it. It's a very popular area for archaeologists it turns out, with trilobites being a common discovery there ( no luck).

So I walk along the path, and then see a tiny pathway leading through the bushes. Unbelievably a whole large area, completely hidden from sight was there, containing an abandoned swimming pool


It was a really overwhelming feeling and I actually shouted out in amazement "what the fuck" with a huge grin on my face. This was how the kids most have felt when they entered the freaking Narnia for the first time.

I snooped around, and a long stairway from on the side of the hill that leads all the way to the main building

I've looked into it, and its a hell of a story. Basically, this complex was build in the 20s, and there is nothing else to compare it with than The Great Gatsby's mansion during the same era. The crème de la crème, the richest and most important people of Czechoslovakia would gather here in a bar open 365 days per year, and dance to the rhythm of swing, there was even a whole orchestra of the world famous R. A. Dvorsky playing there and the pompous guests would party until the morning, often staying for breakfast.

This is how the place looked in the heyday of it's glory

It was destined soon to change hands by none other than the Nazi's during the war. They again used for spoiling the heads of The Reich where they enjoyed their Czech courtesans. They even have build a rail-track to the place, just to to get the guests there more comfortably!

Of course when The Third Reich fell the complex was taken over by communists. Of course they nationalized it, and made a bold proclamation that it shall be returned to the common people. Unsurprisingly, that wasn't the case, and once more it was used to entertain the heads of The Party, and their foreign guests.

After the revolution the complex was returned to the descendants of the original mastermind and owner behind the project, but they've failed to take care of it. Soon it was closed forever, taken over by squatters and homeless people who eventually sent the wooden part of the complex, where for so many years people would drink lavishly until the morning on fire.

Now when you walk through the desolate ghost town taken over by foliage and listen just hard enough, you can still hear the rhytm of swing, burlesque parties and moaning of courtesans distantly in the wind.

And that is the story, of Prague's Barrandov Terraces, and a time long gone.

Hey guys, long time no update! I've had loads on my plate

Tankroll
See here: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=2140801#post2140801
I've been playing partypoker in the background, and moved to 888 for mostly SNAP. And it's been hell of a ride, my bankroll went from $150 to $370 to $140 back to $180, it's certainly thrilling razor edge BRM when you play fast forward poker especially. - I ended up playing NL50 and NL10 withing the space of around 30 minutes, and vice versa!

I definitely recommend to at least give it a shot for someone with a job - it's what I've done anyways: Grind steadily on my main bankroll, and then go to Tankroll as a "hobby" on the side where results truly don't matter as you inevitably jump up and down the limits like a kangaroo

LuckyLukePS on Community Show
My girlfriend actually decided to stay over that day, to see my preparation process for the show.
And after watching one video from Luke we both concluded - Wow, this man is impressively smart!
She's even sat next to me during the whole thing, listening intently, she knows nothing of poker, but apparently "he seems to know what he's talking about" when he was talking about poker (;)) and especially other topics like life purpose etc.

I have personally been practicing meditation since 2009 off and on, attended Kwan-Um Zen practices, read "short history of nearly everything" on history of sciences and the universe, several books on buddhism, wisdom of psychopaths that surprisingly ties into it, and on Double2's recommendation now listen to "Waking Up" by Sam Harris. Yet for the first time I had very little to add, as Luke is on another level in relating those to life, and also poker itself. So a lot of the podcast is about those topics, life balance, family, purpose in life - so make sure you check out the podcast when it gets released.

I think Luke's mental game videos are absolute gems hidden from the cash game community, and if you even dabble into thinking about your identity as a poker player, ego, meditation etc. regardless of the game you play, just check out this video, or at lest the podcast when it comes out.
I grind Therefore I am
I am a big fan, and it's been awesome talking to Luke, and I believed in such things it was an act of destiny that I got him on the show right after I've finished Wisdom, restarted meditation practices and started on Sam Harris's book.

Working on game
We had a lengthy discussion on this in yesterday's Tankroll coaching with the guys, and with Stars clipping HUD Features, and Party abolishing tracking software altogether it's now more than ever important to work on solid foundations in the game. I'm actually re-hauling my game, starting with pre-flop since the last time I have done that is over a year ago.
I've actually spent countless hours of conversations with some great people in the last few weeks,started working with Snowie Preflop Advisor, my friends run Pio sims for me and now I'm using my 1.5million hands+database to come up with solid ranges. Maybe even R approximation if I learn how to do that for specific spots, but that's really tricky. Basically I want to have default ranges for tough games with tough regulars, Uknown Zoom pools etc. behind me as I move up since most of my play at NL25 even NL50 is exploitive, and my database is basically playing against players with huge leaks most of the time, so R gotten from Results for specific subsets of hands when I run a global filter is not at all reliable - sometimes it'll be higher, sometimes lower (e.g. if I assume a range of 16% 3b BUvSB and want to look for R of a hand like 64s, my results will probably show a low R at 25 and below even against worse opponents as their ranges will be a lot lower and I play vs a stronger range).

Nevertheless, I'm looking at profitability of hands preflop and will use it for other spots as well to see if I can play ranges that Snowie and my coach recommends somewhat profitably. But especially in spots like BUv Blinds, COvBU, it's more about being able to defend enough%, and if the bottom hands I've been losing money with, I simply have to work on getting better postflop with those, so it should point me towards what I should focus on. I'm actually setting up 2 sets of preflop ranges in power equilab - one for theoretical ones, one for actually profitable ones in my database. And when done, and it might take ages as I want to run some other filters, I will purge my database and start fresh.

Other Stuff
I've actually quit the gym for a bit. As I've found a playground with bars, a swing where dips are possible etc. with a basketball court freely accessible, and I run there 4-5 times per week, shoot some hoops, do some pull ups, dips, ab raises, sit down at a bench to do some meditation and then run back home. Or e.g. before a date I'd just get off the bus, sneak in 30 pull ups, some dips and bring that confident pump to my lady instead of flowers. And I'll go there before it gets too cold, then it's back to the church of Iron again.

I've also went to "the Night of Scientists" where they pointed a laser at the night sky and shared stories about constellations planetarium was freely accessible (I've seen the moon up close yay!) with lots of geeky stuff like a scale where you can see how much you weight on earth, the Moon, even the Sun. Of course most girls starting to take off their coats, handbags and anything heavy before walking on that thing
Here's some pictures:

Tomorrow we're going to a student festival - crappy music, cheap beer, and a few thousand people at an outdoor and a few indoor stages. Needless to say, getting drunk is a pre-requisite for enjoying that and that's what we shall do. I don't really drink, but It'll be her first proper concert, and I want to take her closer to the experiences from my youth.

I'm ending with this shot of Prague from it's most well known vineyard, Havlickovy Sady I've made a few days back

Originally posted by LemOn36
Of course most girls starting to take off their coats, handbags and anything heavy before walking on that thing ♦

Haha, my general impression of Prague 10 years ago was that Czech girls were way too thin on average, too conscious about diets

Too conscious about diets, wow that is funny, but yes - too thin is also not good. Stay healthy, my friends!

it was mostly the girls that weighted 50kG with clothes on too

Oh and by the way. I am no longer the reigning champion of Pokerstrategy HUSNG Championship
We have a new king Kamil13151
What's really hilarious in my opinion that he has used my video of my early unlucky exit to get reads on his opponent in the semi-finals, I've even given him the strategy to beat him right there.
Read the interview where he mentions that here:
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/content/kamil13151-wins-our-HUSNG-Championship_93796/
And you can watch the video in question here:

Well the time has come. Purging some of my older hands.
I did a backup so might come back to them, but my game has changed so much and it takes so long that running filters on all of them would pretty much be a waste of time.

Here goes the graphs:

By the way busy week, No Limit Starter course started on Monday, tomorrow we have KTU on community show (it'll be a great one for sure, I want you to all come along! :))

Also I went check out this gym for free with the lady And joined an aerobics class with her. They pretty much do stuff like this

Needless to say, I was the only man there, the main lady was shoutings things such as us as "that's right ladies, keep your tushies tight!" "Thrust in, thrust out, thrust in, thrust out ..."

After that Sauna and we also went to an all you can eat running sushi. And between the two of us consumed 54 plates, and I'm not sure if we'll ever be allowed back

See you tomorrow 20:00 guys at
https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=328850

Oh and can't forget a fun hand I played before Monday's coaching. It was a webcam table too, too bad I started recording only a couple minutes after I played it.

Eh, busy times!
First off I want to share a great app - Jefit

https://www.jefit.com/

Basically it's a workout app for smartphones with pre-build workout routines, custom ones shared by people, and even excercises with GIFs by body part. You can take progress pictures, it gives you rest times even with a 3,2,1 BEEP between sets so you feel like a freaking skier at the top of the slop (but going for those 10 last sloppy crunches ;P). Basically it takes away the need to think about fitness ever again, like a personal trainer.

I've gone for a 3 month from fat to fit routine (cardio=> focus onbody part+abs =>cardio, every day) and it's fun when it show3s you new exercises.

I'm having a schedule now
(Sleep=>breakfast+ supplements, grind, gym, lunch,nap, grind)
and invested in protein, creatine and BCAAs and am back to working out seriously.

Attached to it is a need for shitloads of sleep - I had 10 hours and a nap today and especially at first it will be a must. I'm not out of shape by any means, in fact I might be in the strongest form of my life, but my fat percentage is at relatively high levels which takes it's toll on recovery times, so I'll have to work hard, sleep hard

podcast with jared
great session, large attendance, lots I've learned and some solid questions from the chat - one of the best podcasts yet. Had to turn off Jared's webcam as some people were complaining about lags so there's only audio + images to illustrate, but I definitely recommend you check the podcast out when it comes out!

Hopefully on next podcast we'll get my pal from my Skype group, Viktor Malinowski. A handball professional athlete who moved up the limits so fast people in polish pokerstrategy community started saying he just can't be a real person. That one will be fun for sure!

Mini-date
This one was fun - both parties were busy, so I've set up a one hour minidate
- mini flower bouquet
- children's meals at a restaurant with small lemonade drinks
- small dessert
- tiny 50ml liquor bottle with tiny shots
- miniature playing cards in a tiny box

it was hilarious
Pokering
I've learned a lot, especially in terms of flop sizings+overbetting turns. Especially when tired I'm prone to making mistakes as I'm trying teh new concepts out, but that's something that should be expected and is natural.
I keep using Snowie for session reviews, and have a great skype group with high stakes players, one even shipped a $100k wpt event yesterday, I'm getting some great advice there.
October was great results wise really at some 10-11bb/100, but volume could have been better. But because I learned so much I don't really mind.

Podcasts
One thing we agreed with Jared on is that poker players ignore the awesome non-poker sources out there.
He and barry are including non-poker authors in their podcast and relating the material to poker - I definitely recommend you check out his October 28th podcast with some great points like men needing to compete and poker being an outlet towards that.
http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/instruction/mentalgameradio/

I personally listen very frequently to this podcast:
http://www.menprovement.com/category/podcast/
and actually have been popping in one during weightlifting in the gym (and music during cardio, because I can't cardio without some house music pumping :P) and would definitely recommend that, especially for poker pros who don't have the practice in social skills and global life view.

Other things I love is US late-night: Colbert, Trevor Noah, Kimmel, Stewart, Craig Ferguson, US presidential debates. I have an excuse to watch those to improve my community show skills but I guess for anyone else they would just be a waste of time -,-

I also didn't finish waking up yet but it's in my bucket list - I'm about 1/3 through only

Do not think I m not watching you ...
Just because I cannot use the chat doesn't means I'm not present, so, be careful what you say as I'm watching you!:evil:

Spoiler

invested in protein, creatine and BCAAs

your cat gonna be super strong , if u feed it with that ♦

Btw gl with your bodybuliding goals. For better regenaration and increase in mobility i highly recommend daily use of foam roller. I bought one couple of moths ago and it is pretty good.

You can even make one buy yourself and save some money.

Yeah I need to start doing some form of stretching - I do some basic yoga routine and stretch in the shower, but that's not enough.

And I need to seriously change my diet - my body tells me to eat huge and I wasn't doing it in a healthy way. All I want to do is eat and sleep, and especially my legs are screwed. Still, from a leg day 3 days ago (I keep doing sprints/elyptical every day tho).

But It does feel awesome overall - my posture's changed, stopped masturbating (Just like Lackoo I haven't watched porn in some 5 months, imagination is strong with this one tho :)) I guess because my muscles are working out and feel better about myself

Hi Lemon,

maybe you could try the Paleo Diat. I do it since 3 days or 4, and i feel a lot better since then, I have more endurance throughout the day,

Here is a Link, where you can start to collect information.

x.videos BLOCKED = increase WR +2bb/100

redtube BLOCKED = increase WR +2bb/100

increase WR @ LIFE, priceless

Originally posted by zoty79
Hi Lemon,

maybe you could try the Paleo Diat. I do it since 3 days or 4, and i feel a lot better since then, I have more endurance throughout the day,

Here is a Link, where you can start to collect information.
Thanks!

Originally posted by alonohara
x.videos BLOCKED = increase WR +2bb/100

redtube BLOCKED = increase WR +2bb/100

increase WR @ LIFE, priceless
Yeah pretty much, I doubt I'll ever go back to porn

Anyways Update
I was hardcore gym-going, pretty much every day, 15min cardio-40mins lifting-25mins cardio. While studying poker loads (database of highstakes players, snowie, skype groups, videos, reviews)
And then we went on a fly a kite date and retro gaming arcade bar

And while I was flying Keith The Kite (That's what we've christened him) I got a really bad cold, even walking home after the date was a hard effort, made the mistake (again, just like a year back :]) of not slowing down at all with playing+learning+gym and I pretty much burned out, it all ended with one -8bi spew session where I tilted like I didn't since forever. This time around I've taken the sign early, took some 5 days off, just lying in bed doing nothing eating junk food watching shows, seeing my gf - it was my first 3+days off in like.... I can't even remember

I've dipped into Fine dining creation,even flambe'd for the first time in my life. And my apartment didn't even burn down!
witness my Roast Beef with blueberry thyme bourbon sauteed sauce served with bourbon infused sweet potato mash and arugula salad
behold:

Recovery mode
Since I've been just slightly above breakeven this month (as opposed to running hot in the previous 3-4), burned out + mental game strenght's low after being ill I've set some simple rules for next 8 days that I'll follow
- Goal of 40 sessions
- 45 minutes each, measured by Tomighty. 4 Tabling majority of the time with plenty of thinking time, just music for distractions. Taking notes, maximising EV.
- 4x gym
- 8x review of hands
modest goals that I'll stick to. Especially breaking grind down into 45 minute focused low tabling session, then resetting is something I didn't do for ages, and just went for YOLO mode as many tables as I can handle as long as I can as the winrate's have been great without taking any notes, it's fitting that I polish my exploitive low-tabling game anyways since that's what I teach the guys in "beyond the first strategy".
I'll clock in next Monday and show you guys how the low-volume graph looks like

Vicktor Podcast
Definitely catch the recording when it comes out, it's great to hear that someone can still get to high stakes easily even these days. It was pretty amusing to hear that his biggest downswing came at NL10

So imagine this...you leave FPPS in Pokerstars account, they get transferred to starcoins, but not rounded up and you're small amount short of a cash bonus...You curse and write it off as bad beat, and keep the un-rounded up amount in there right?
Well, I sent this to support instead

and well, this is their response:

We've already seen the movie, girlfriend didn't leave me, we've lived happily ever after and spoilers: There was a big plot twist in this Tarantino movie too who would have thought!

Originally posted by LemOn36
So imagine this...you leave FPPS in Pokerstars account, they get transferred to starcoins, but not rounded up and you're small amount short of a cash bonus...You curse and write it off as bad beat, and keep the un-rounded up amount in there right?
Well, I sent this to support instead

and well, this is their response:

We've already seen the movie, girlfriend didn't leave me, we've lived happily ever after and spoilers: There was a big plot twist in this Tarantino movie too who would have thought!

hahaha this make my day.

the pokerstars support are just amazing.

Hey lemon,
i have a question for you,
i just registred to a fishy room with 35% players per hand.
what is the best play there.
most of them cant beat nl2 at pokerstars, they just limp limp and limp, and if 3limps the 4ones raise to 2bb lol. so how to beat those players who call always preflop.
and postflop they call 1bb 2bb or pot , normal play lol, sowhat is the best play and i dont wanna scares them too much, wanna stay a little invisible.

Originally posted by rewfrew
Hey lemon,
i have a question for you,
i just registred to a fishy room with 35% players per hand.
what is the best play there.
most of them cant beat nl2 at pokerstars, they just limp limp and limp, and if 3limps the 4ones raise to 2bb lol. so how to beat those players who call always preflop.
and postflop they call 1bb 2bb or pot , normal play lol, sowhat is the best play and i dont wanna scares them too much, wanna stay a little invisible.

It's still poker but general advice is play ABC Starter Course style, bet large for value, don't bluff past flop, and against the worst ones straight up change your bet sizing according to your hands strength and their range on specific boards, ignoring what you represent. I assume on a smaller site you can't play a lot of tables because of software limitations too - so make sure you use the extra time you have to take notes and exploit the big mistakes and blatant tells these guys with inevitably have and deviate from ABC tight play when you get these reads.