bedofour 2017: NL200-NL600

short update; i'm already in a decent grindmode, i play on avg 5-6h/day + study a bit. the run looks better, i have over 80BIs for nl200, so i'm trying to open more and more tables of nl200. i'm trying different poker rooms, i've already taught my brain to be able to switch between different softwares, limits, currencies etc and it's kinda fun. i'm really surprised that i'm enjoying things i'd previously hated - i.e. tableselection and playing at different platforms at the same time.

outside of poker it's still not good. until now, there was always some hope that it would get better over time - first it was getting healthy again and after that i was looking forward to living abroad. slovenia and slovakia are not too different, so i didn't expect the move to turn my life upside down and improve it by 100% or sth; but there was hope for a new impulse etc. now that's gone as well and i feel like there is nothing rly awesome ahead of me; i don't even feel like travelling or trying out new stuff etc, i just don't care. i was thinking that i could overcome this through poker - for example shooting higher limits more aggressively; but i think it's not really worth it - the risk is too high. after the last couple of podcasts that i've been listening to (sauce and alexonmoon) i've started considering trying out different poker formats, just because it has to be super fun playing mixed games. in the past i've already tried a bit of PLO and limit 5-card draw, so i guess i will try to get back to that.

I really can't avoid watching results for a whole month when i'm shooting a higher limit; i check it like once a week and recently it always suprises me positively:

+ cca 1k from untracked sites. I feel a bit bad that i write that the run is not that good most of the time and after that i post a graph like this one. It's similiar to schoolmates that always say they didn't study at all and nevertheless always get the best grades.

I feel quite good during sessions, for the first time in my life i sometimes feel like i'm really crushing it; even though the variance definitely helps me atm. I play basically only nl200 and i feel kinda high when there aren't enough reasonable nl200 tables to play on. Obv it's not really a positive thing, but for me it's a sign that i made it quite far in poker.

Whatever, i just have to keep on working + on saturday we will probably go for a small biketrip somewhere in slovenia, so i'm looking forward to that.

Recently everything's quite simple - just steady grind + i suprisingly study quite a lot, too; since oftentimes there aren't enough nl200 tables running, it forces me to study. Yesterday i played only ~1 hour as we were on a biketrip in the mountains close to Ljubljana. The day vefore i skipped my usual afternoon nap, so that i would fall asleep sooner in the evening since we were leaving early the next morning. However it was friday evening and tables were too good to leave them, so i ended up sleeping only ~4 hours. The weather was also quite bad - really cold and foggy, but after the first climb, we got our reward:

After that we went through a couple more crazy downhills and rough climbs, the nature was awesome; all in all, it was one of my best biketrips, i needed sth like this.

I have no upcoming big plans, just wanna put in my volume for october (so far it's fine - almost 40k hands) and have some fun.

Financially, october was the best month so far; the main thing is that i have nice roll for nl200 now, safely over 100 BIs. Sometimes i play a bit of sth like nl300 on one soft site; i'm also thinking about nl400, but i probably need some more time; i've gotta be careful - i went up so quickly that it's easy to fall down quickly too. In the end, only a couple of months back i was close to stepping down to nl50.

Together wirh RB, untracked sites and similiar stuff it's sth over 9k; i don't have the exact number since i have money on many different sites and it would take a long time to count everything exactly. October was a great combination of reasonable volume (around 53k altogether), hotrun, OK game, tableselection and soft playerpool. I don't rly understand it but it seems to me that the playerpool is softer compared to 6 months/1 year ago on all the sites. Maybe it's just my feeling though, because rationally it doesn't make much sense (except stars).

Yesterday we went for another small trip to a couple of towns by the sea. The best one imo was Piran, random photo from the internet:

As i was sitting there and watching all the mediterranean houses with small rooftop terraces i reminded myself of last december. I was sitting in a car going to a training session in the gym; i had a lot of pain in my legs, since i was slowly coming back to training, but mainly in my injured hip that all the doctors were unable to heal... And it was the first time that i wanted all that to be over - all the surgeries, examinations, injuries - and i wanted to just sit on such a terrace, playing cards during the day and enjoying life with a wine in the evening. Even then i didn't want to give up or sth and i knew that trying to get fit again is priority no. 1; but it was a tempting escape from the harsh reality; i would just sit on the terrace and enjoy the moment despite having that bitter feeling. I reminded myself of this only now and i realised i can now do all this and even though it's not gonna compensate for anything, i should do it. I don't know where, when and how yet, but i will definitely do sth like this, maybe only for a couple of weeks, but it doesn't really matter.

November started poorly; at first i didn't feel like playing much; i don't wanna give myself big volume goals, because in october it was a bit stressful to me. I wanted to put in those 150 hours and oftentimes i had the classic dilemma - session vs doing sth else. That's fine, but the problem is that even when i choose to do sth else, i was still thinking that i should play poker etc. Plus i still don't enjoy poker that much except for a couple of days when i felt the good old drive, the desire to get to higher stakes. We'll see how november will turn out without any concrete volume goals and with some RL stuff planned.

Moreover i have some problems with my laptop; sometimes the screen randomly turns off; there's probably a problem with my GPU. Whatever, the repair will probably take a few days, until then i will fight with my GF's laptop.

I realised that i started playing a bit too much on autopilot. It's fine to have all these instincts, but recently i started to rely on them too much. I'm too lazy to think about the hands in depth, so i base my decisions on population tendencies and randomization of my ranges too much. I need to realize that thinking hurts, but i have to cope with it. I mean i enjoy some parts of thinking - playing around with piosolver and building some ranges etc; but i dislike others - often basic things in unusual environment - e.g. SB vs BB spot with BB being a 20bb deep aggro fish. I'm always thinking inside my 100bb box made of a mixture of pop tendencies and GTO. I polish the box all the time and neglect the things outside the box - playing with different stacksizes, suprising equity shifts on some turn/river cards, exploitative play vs rare player types... But it's important i realized this and i will work on it.

Book corner: a while ago i finshed Sapiens, which many people have been talking about. Even though i'm not really a history guy, i really liked this one - lots of interesting facts and surprising connections; i'd def recommend it.

It seems that the intervals between my blogposts are slowly increasing; let's do an update.

I still haven't resolved problems with my laptop, so i play on an older one, but i got used to it. I try to see all these things as opportunities, as some kind of an interesting change... For example because of the lagging on my GF's laptop i had to play without background music after a long time and it helped me to get out of the autopilot mode i was writing about recently. Since i played on 3 different machines this month, i don't know exactly how is the month going, but my guess is +2,5k or so.

I also played nl400 a bit; in the begining i was a bit money-scared; it's been over a year since the last time that i took a shot at a limit i had never played before. But i'm glad i have to cope with this as well - another thing to get me out of the stereotype.

I'm not sure what direction to take on the studying front; on one hand, i often need an impulse from somebody else, but on the other hand i usually find out that the other person often has a different playing style/isn't used to playing anonymous tables etc. But i guess i just need the external impulses and i should try harder to get them.

The volume ain't great, november will be like 110-120h probably, but it could have been worse... Especially now, when i'm home in Slovakia, i'm playing more than expected - i thought i would play close to 0 hands, but i've found out that i don't get along with many people here as good as i used to (bc of different attitude towards many things), so i just grind and read more. And i should stop feeling guilty for putting in 'only' 120h; if you add studying and other stuff to that, it's at least as many hours as a guy in 9-5 job puts in (not even considering the quality of those hours).

Hello bedofour,

Enjoyed reading the first few pages so far. Going to continue tomorrow finishing the rest.
Subbed

Regards

Matt

@metalmonkey: thanks, apprieciate that
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atmospheric postrock for the grind:

I've been slowly playing and moving forward - sth like 4h of grind + some studying per day on average; recently the run was great, november is around +6k atm and yesterday i found out that i'm a millionare. Obviously only in former Slovak crowns (1m skk = 33k eur), but it's really funny anyway. As far as studying goes, i've set myself a goal of finally finishing The mathematics of poker (after like 1 year of reading). I'm not completely decided on how deeply i want to go through the book, will find that out later. After that, when i get my original laptop back, i will do some work in pio.

It's been a week since i quit biphasic sleep; i don't have that much physical activity now, so i'm usually not that tired in the afternoon and it's hard to fall asleep. It's possible to solve it by sleeping less at night (6-6.5h), but going through the hard fight of leaving the bed after waking up twice a day is not ideal. The solution to this problem could be a coffeenap, but it gets kinda restricting and complicated then, so i just went back to sleeping normally.

I've been reading a lott recently, i somehow enjoy the solitude as oftentimes i feel like nobody really understands me. And i also had excellent books to read - Fish have no feet and Desolation angels from Kerouac.

enjoy the rest of november

November was fine; i don't have a graph as i played on 3 different latops; but overall results post RB are a bit under +6k after ~115 hours of grind. I could get over 6k, but i lost ~400 usd from one FDB as one microgaming skin suddenly decided to withdraw from Slovenia and close my account without any compensation for the FDB. Whatever, it's only 1-2 BIs; i am just still amazed at how unfair the poker environment is at times.

Recently i found out that i go to a point where i didn't wanna be. I was thinking about my plans for 2017, what i wanna do etc; like maybe i will just take my bike and go traveling for half a year or something... And i've found out that one of the things that keeps me from doing that is the fear of not playing poker. That would be perfectly fine if it was because of the game itself; but it's because of the opportunity to make really nice money. And that's stupid, i hate this attitude, i don't need the money, i don't wanna do this for money. I don't need much and moreover i know it wouldn't be fun for me to lie on a beach somewhere all day and do nothing; therefore hoarding money is pointless for me. I mean i don't think that in 2017 i will make such a radical decision - to quit poker - but i need to leave this option open and not be dependent on the money.

In december i will write down how many hours i invest into poker every day. Until now i was always looking only at the grinding hours and it motivates to play more at the expense of studying. Again, i don't have any big goals (moreover, it's december), but i need to watch my hours a bit and motivate myself to study. I really enjoy reading The mathematics of poker; during the last 50 pages (~1 week) i learned more about game theory than during a whole semester at uni. And that's way i probably won't go back to school... Sure, my effort is much bigger when it comes to poker than a degree; but it's because poker forces me to work harder, school didn't - i overslept my game theory exam, because i was drunk and i got a D anyway. It hurts a bit to get through all the math in the book, but i really need it.

Short update: December is ~BE so far; i'd probably like to put in 150 hours this month (currently at 47), but we'll see. Recently i played/studied a bit less, my roommates' friends came to Ljubljana for a visit, so i took a break. And it was on of the best weekends of my life, i had soo much fun + we've also been on a trip to Maribor. However, now comes that dumb feeling that it's over and maybe i'll never see those people again and maybe i'll never go to Maribor again, even though i liked it there. It's horrible how many people and places cross my lifepath just for a moment and then they just disappea. And there is no satisfying solution to this - i have to simply deal with the fact that i won't be able to do and see even 1% of the things that i'd like to do in this short life.

Hopefully i'll grind quite a bit in the following ~4 days; after that i'm going back to Slovakia and there will be less time for poker; but i'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

Update time!
everything's ok; i'm not sure, whether i'll be able to put in those 150 hours this month, but whatever. The weekend was once again really funny, i can't complain. I looked at the results today, i won a bit, but nothing huge (maybe like 1,5k).

My laptop is still broken, it's unbelievable that they returned it to me twice with the same problem as before - and it was in the service center of dell itself. Both times they just replaced the motherboard, which didn't solve anything; so i fight with my old laptop a bit, but i think i can handle it a while longer. It was a really tough day mentally, because at the same time i found out that somebody got into my account at Red Star Poker (microgaming) and changed my password & e-mail address. Fortunately all of his withdrawal request were declined and in the end i got into my account via support. Obviously now i'm withdrawing everything from there, so let's hope this story will get a happy end. I had sth over 3k there and for a short period of time i was even at peace with losing it all.

It was just recently that i was considering putting some time into making my accounts more secure - better passwords, 2-step authentications and so on.. I dont know whether i could have done something differently here, i think the mistake was probably on the room's side (therefore i don't recommend it); but anyway i did take some actions to lower the risk of this happening again.

So the plan is to mix nl200 and nl400, think about what i wanna do with my life (& ignore the "advice" from my family); plus i'd like to try skiing after 4 years. Finally there is a winter where i don't have to spend my time recovering from a surgery, so i should take advantage of that.

For some reason i feel like playing less and less. There are two options - 1. take a break for a couple of weeks - i didn't take a break longer than 4 days for the whole year; 2. continue playing, but less hours. I don't know yet, which option i will take, but i will probably start by 2 and we'll see how it goes. I want a bit less of that stereotype; i feel like the less i play, the happier i am. Ofc, afterwards i am a bit sad that i don't work as much as i'd like to; that others are improving and moving up the limits and i do nothing. I probably simply don't enjoy poker that much. But anyway, looking back at 2016, i worked much more than i'd expect; and in the end, the results were excellent, too.

have a nice rest of the year

2016 was extreme:
- overall the worst year in my life
- pokerwise the best year

the rest of december was more or less BE, so overall the result for the month is around +1,5k. i didn't play much recently; i wanted to take a break from poker completely, nevertheless i ended up playing a few sessions due to boredom. i put in 115 hours, but in the end, it didn't really matter. the plan for january is not to force anything, try to enjoy the break and come back when i start to really miss the game and the grind.

i'm glad i finished the mathematics of poker; most of the things aren't instantly applicable to my game, but the thinking about the relations between different parts of the game helped me a lot and it was fun, too.

i read a lot of non-poker stuff recently, from fiction i enjoyed The Purple Land. From non-fiction i didn't enjoy anything that much; i feel like during the last ~5 years (since i went to uni and started to read during lessons) i cleared up a lot of things regarding life philosophy etc. in my mind. therefore i no longer find those self-help books to be that interesting. on the other hand, atm i don't really know, what direction to take regarding many things... but there is no book that can solve that for me, i have to work on it myself. i try not to take it negatively - that i seriously don't know anything - but do the only thing that i can do - work on figuring it out everyday.

maybe there was one book that seemed fine, even though i read only the summary - The Four Agreements. there seems to be a lot of useless stuff, but also many things that i have to use to stop caring about what others think about me. i didn't make a huge leap forward regarding this, but i definitely made a small progress in recent weeks.

all the best in 2017

Had a nice read about the four agreements. Even though the first one is marked the most important one - I like the 2nd one most.
Just give a shit about what others gossip about you and your life will be so much easier.
You don't need to worry to not have a nice status-representing car, not the most fashionable clothes... Just be!

Originally posted by SvenBe
Had a nice read about the four agreements. Even though the first one is marked the most important one - I like the 2nd one most.
Just give a shit about what others gossip about you and your life will be so much easier.
You don't need to worry to not have a nice status-representing car, not the most fashionable clothes... Just be!

def agree, i think 2nd one is the most important, too.

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music from one of my favourite films and a short update:
i'm back in Ljubljana, i wanted to escape the freezing cold in Slovakia, but it didn't work out and it's already snowing here as well. yesterday i had first real session after the break and i got a really nice run. moreover, i played quite well given that i basically hadn't played NLHE for 2 weeks before that.

during the break i spent time with my friends & family and read a lott. i probably won't post so many books here - i think that there aren't that many people interested in that; i'll probably post it only when sth mindblowing comes along.

i played a bit of omaha and 7-card stud recently... i don't like PLO that much so far - the principles of the game are similar to NLHE, but it's worse since i basically just play my equity and there is the pot limit (correct me if i'm wrong - i'd be happy). on the other hand, i like 7-card stud; when i'm back in Slovakia and can play on stars (stud doesn't run elsewhere much afaik), i wanna play it a bit + i'll pay a few bucks for some training site and will watch some videos.

haha, comes to SLO to escape cold...bumps into -13 degrees + snow

happy new year mate, hope to see you again for a coffee/time sometime in 2017!

yeah, i failed a bit

but today i'm leaving for italy for a couple of days, it should be like +10 degrees there. hopefully the next try to escape the cold turns out better

i am in LJ till the end of january, i will write to you on skype next week.

ciao,
the progress is slow so far, i've put in only 36 hours and am a couple of BIs down for january. on the other hand, i feel a bit motivated to work again; for some reason i enjoy analytical thinking, finding new lines, day-to-day self-improvement etc again. it's nothing brutal, i don't have an ambition to be a no-lifer and get to high stakes by having 12-hour workdays... but i like the work, especially when i switch back and forth between the comfortable NLHE environment and the uknown waters of PLO/stud.

i've been thinking about my NLHE studying; except a couple of things that i wanna check out in piosolver once i have my laptop back, i don't have that many new impulses once again. therefore i'm considering private coaching again + for the first time it's possible that i will coach other people. but i'll have to think deeper about it.

i've also taken a short trip to italy with my gf - we've been to Milan (which we didn't like at all) and to Cinque Terre, our favourite destination. it was quite a peaceful trip - we didn't sleep mainly on trains/buses, as we usually do - but we had booked a couple of nights via airbnb. it wasn't as interesting as moving from place to place every night, but it's great that we tried this as well. the most beautiful place was definitely Manarola:

nice thing, was the airbnb paid by Poker?
i am also looking to travel around with airbnb, it is a bit more special than random hotels.
Last year have been on a goat farm and was herding goats, turkeys, pigs :-)

Originally posted by SvenBe
nice thing, was the airbnb paid by Poker?
i am also looking to travel around with airbnb, it is a bit more special than random hotels.
Last year have been on a goat farm and was herding goats, turkeys, pigs :-)

sure, i dont have any other sources of income for over a year now.

airbnb can be fun sometimes; nobody speaks reasonable english in italy, so we ended up trying to understand what the fuck does that 70yo friend of our host mean as he was speaking italglish with mouth full of food.