Grind Heavy May - 200 Hours 4 Tabling 15$ Spins

Originally posted by AlvisR
Eeveryone loves graph of actual money won. Go go show us some!

Hehe, will do, on 15th and then on 31st of May when its all done.
Today climbing back with focus, 2x 2 hour sessions, 2nd session being much better then 1st. Less mistakes and more in the zone. Its going to come along very nicely, I can tell.
Results so far are 405$ pre rb and 180$ in RB so 585$. But running above EV a lot with terrible cEV. Its just 23.92 hours sample, there is 176.08 hours left in the challenge to play solid always not just like in this session that I just finished.

Patience for the graphs

Day 5

Mental game 7.5/10

Today was the day that I am most proud of. I played 2 x 2 hour sessions and 1x1.5 hour session. 1st session I made miss plays and towards the end of 2nd hour was feeling somewhat nervous and drained and wanted to stop the grind. 2nd session was very good. All the things that I have been working on past 5-6 days from theory, math, tendencies and range vs range, I have applied very good. Results didn't matter at all but I am most happy that focus was there through out those 2 hours and that I made solid decisions, didn't feel rushed at any point. This is what I am looking for in the rest of the month as well!!! And final session came after nap. I was literally playing right out of bed and of course it was not ideal start but I caught on with excellent play in HU and there were only several opponents that were difficult to play really which made it easier.

Outside of poker, I had 2nd training session with Sensei which was also great. Had coffee with my best friend Phuketinho and we discussed some PT4 filters as well as hands in live play. I responded also to hands he posted on my private forum only for him. Ate good for most of the day, there was sick rain in the afternoon so I ordered some pasta in which put me on a longer nap. Also, between 1st and 2nd session I went over lost hands to check spews, miss plays, variance and such. Far less spots vs previous 4 days which makes me happy obviously.

Today 5.97 hours grind. Tomorrow instead of 2x2 and 1x1.5 hour I will do 3x2 hours which with cool down adds close to 6.5 hours of grind and I will also add 1x1 hour before bed (like I added now 1.5 hours). Should be lots of fun!

Wandering around, decided to drop a post once again. Poker guys want me back. Black Chip gives me 20$ straight into acc without any strings attached where i won +10$ already, Pokerstars just gave me 10$ spingo ticket where i managed to play 10$ x 6 multiplier and actually won it. Raining money ♦

P.s It is worth to check mailbox now and then as some of those bonuses might be in junkmail.

Originally posted by AlvisR
Wandering around, decided to drop a post once again. Poker guys want me back. Black Chip gives me 20$ straight into acc without any strings attached where i won +10$ already, Pokerstars just gave me 10$ spingo ticket where i managed to play 10$ x 6 multiplier and actually won it. Raining money ♦

P.s It is worth to check mailbox now and then as some of those bonuses might be in junkmail.

Sounds like you are making escort like hourly right there ?
Great job man

Day 6

Mental game for most of the day 7.5/10 but last session activated tilt and I played with emotions super high that I didn't bring down so that brings average down to 4/10

5 hours grind, emotions super high. Watched Vozdovac play and beat Zvezda. Now my team Partizan Belgrade is back in 1st spot games before the end. Decided not to grind last session because I was thrilled with that win and my emotions were up remaining of the day. This morning I feel also very high with emotions, I shouldn't play like this so I will focus on reviewing spews from yesterday and doing thinking process + responding to Phuketinho's hands.

Will do my best to get 7 hours of grind in with 3x2 and 1x1 hour sessions. Lets see what happens!

Day 7

Mental game today was among the best (best focus, fewest miss plays and feeling way less rushed in any spot), would rate it 8.5/10.

Played very little poker, just a bit over 3 hours so that definitely has to do with it. In the morning spent about 15 minutes reviewing 1 spot in PIO and remaining of the day watched Phuketinho grind and discuss hands and spots with him. In the end gave him 3 strategy pointers, how to approach and adjust in future.

BTW, yesterday I took 3 buy ins shot at 100$ limit and busted. My cEV in those 5 games I played was close to 300. Remember loosing JJ vs KQ and AK vs KJ as well as running into top of the range with good play.

On the side note, 7 days of the challenge in a bit less then 5 hours of daily grind average making it 34 hours total now. I need another 166 hours which is 6.92 hours each of the next 24 days.

It is about to get super intense.
Just for the record, I will be very happy with 180 hours but I will not give up on 200 hours goal and will push hard through it even with shorter sessions, breaks, less then optimal sleep, coffeine etc. Hopefully it won't come to that but you never know

Today I played another 25x and won it. Had 4-5 very good hands in that particular game. My HU game plan is coming along now really good. Today BB was spectacular because I tweaked my strategy more and made extra adjustments that noticed were burning me $.

Tomorrow training with Sensei + 1 guitar lesson which will make 6 hours of grind spectacular. On Tuesday another guitar lesson + working on the game with Rocky. Wednesday training with Sensei + 1 guitar lesson. Those next 3 days, 6 hours daily average would be phenomenal in my book.

Your mental game rating is having a serious upswing
Starting from 3 to 8.5!

Grats on the 25x, they dont come that often so its always awesome to ship it

why you have only 1 video on your twich i zasto si tako skup za couching heheeh

Originally posted by Tichwich85
Your mental game rating is having a serious upswing
Starting from 3 to 8.5!

Grats on the 25x, they dont come that often so its always awesome to ship it

Yeah, you are right!
That's why I setup this challenge in the 1st place, to check how my mental game will be like during those longer sessions and overall more hours of grind. So far I am not happy because I practically in each day had at least 1 session where I was playing C- game or worse, and that of course affects results a ton.

Thank you for your congrats. Its 2nd 25x this month and I won them both. Its what keeps me in profit in this month really ♦

Originally posted by doomsd
why you have only 1 video on your twich i zasto si tako skup za couching heheeh

There was a ton of videos ( I saved most of my past broadcasts) but Twitch took them away after some time.

For coaching I will not say much except if you find somewhere for cheaper and better value - go for it.

Day 8

Mental game rating 8.5/10

I played 6.4 hours today, 3x2 hours sessions. In each of the sessions, I didn't feel rushed nor tilt. There were hands that I could have played differently but with overall level of play I am very happy.

As I am doing this grind, I am noticing more and more spots for edges and increase of cEV and hourly. Today I was testing 1 more approach and I checked the results of it, seems very strong and good - which is always nice.

The most positive thing about current grind in May is improvement in my SB HU win rate. I have it back at ev15bb/100 right now. I worked the most on it past several weeks and all the edges are starting to show which is great.
On the other hand, there are some strategy adjustments that I am testing which are not working out as well so will either need to re-adapt, keep testing, or revert back to profitable strategy.

The most important thing is that I am getting that hunger to grind and to work on my game on areas that need help. I somewhat feel I am just scratching the game of Spins and that I have ton of more cool things to learn and improve - which is excellent news considering that April was 30-35$ post RB month with grind stress free approach.

I found this as excellent read and something that I will apply in my future challenges.

Check out the article about better way to set strategic priorities HERE

For this month, critical priority is VOLUME or 200 hours of grind. Important priority is testing adjustments for different positions to monitor progress of win rate for further tweaking. Desirable priority is 30$+ post RB hourly.

For future months I see this as a pattern definitely, although I will set as important priority study/analysis in PIO as daily thing as well.

Very interesting challenge! Will be reading this one, looking forward to see some graphs halfway!

Originally posted by Tim128
Very interesting challenge! Will be reading this one, looking forward to see some graphs halfway!

Thanks!
For the graph you will see a lot of winnings but terrible cEV. At least that is what the theme was these past 9 days where I won 3 times 25x and I believe once or twice 10x. Other then that lots of miss plays and variance

Day 9

I would rank mental game 5.5/10 for today
The reason why this is the case is despite playing 7+ hours today, I was not playing B game and I was making bad plays especially toward end of 2 hour session mark. The focus was simply not happening and some bad auto pilot kicked in.
Despite all of this, I made over 500$ pre RB today but I am more putting pressure on me to keep calm and cool and just grind. Idea that I have is to take those 6k+ games from May once its all done and to go through HH for each position and check very specific filters for them. I already know what caused me most to drop win rate past week, the position I was experimenting with and still do. So it is something that I will work on the most in future study sessions to bring back my win rate.

Tomorrow very difficult day ahead of me. Training with Sensei + 2 guitar and music lessons and I need to play 7 hours of poker while going out twice to get food and eat. Should be very interesting, especially for the focus!

Good luck in your challenge!Will be following your progress!7hours a day 4tabeling must be exauthing.Im currently only 2 tabeling and i can see after 4hours that my focus and concetration drops alot.

Originally posted by justmrwn
Good luck in your challenge!Will be following your progress!7hours a day 4tabeling must be exauthing.Im currently only 2 tabeling and i can see after 4hours that my focus and concetration drops alot.

Thanks man, really appreciate the support.

Yes, definitely it is very difficult to maintain solid level of play while 4 tabling with such high volume. For me it is non negotiable when it comes to May grind - I will put down 200 hours in no matter what happens. However, focus and mental game is entirely different story. I am playing wayyyyy worse then I did in April when I played 60+ hours 4 tabling. At that time I had full control, far less spews, less miss plays overall then now. And also, when you play less volume with less pressure, you can take foot off the gas and relax chill regenerate get back to your strong game. For me that is not an option now.
The whole purpose of the challenge is to see how I will do mentally with this grind. Since I have been out of heavy grind for about 2 years or even more (last time I had 180+ hours per month was in 2014-2015 I believe???), this challenge is showing me how out of shape I am playing such long sessions and under mental pressure.
So , the obvious approaches from May on are following:
- Keep playing high volume until it becomes new/old normal again when the B game average will happen more and more through repetition and practice
- Decrease volume goal to something more normal such as 150 hours per month but invest 60 hours in range vs range, PIO, db analysis, exercises for hand reading etc
- Decrease volume even more down to 100-120 hours ( to number that brings way less mental pressure) for optimal performance (B game or better) while investing as much time as possible to go over HH review from May challenge where there were tons of miss plays from which I can learn a lot for future grind!

All 3 options how their positive and negative sides. I would say 3rd option is the best because grind still happens (for example 2x2 hour sessions per day) while daily studying ratio is also 2 hours so its 2/1 study to grind ratio which would bring future EV the most. 4 hours grinding, 2 hours studying HH, PIO, DB analysis, Math and Theory spots that are applicable to any limit.

I still haven't made the decision which way I will go in June simply because just grinding and making money is excellent comfort zone and allows me to make money that I set as target for this year. Also, I am following RB situation changes on Stars. I am not 100% sure if I will stay to play Spins on Stars or switch to another network which again would bring different grind times, limits, hourly etc.

So those are some variables that I don't have worked out but from 10 days into the challenge I can definitely say that things I am testing/experimenting/applying are bringing all kinds of swings (which is expected) and that I am getting more used to grinding like I used to in 2013,2014 (150-180+ hours monthly grind + studying and HH reviews). This is in my opinion ideal way to grow as poker player - studying hard and grind heavy. Brings money very soon and improvement.
I am looking to set up this 7+ hours poker with very serious and detailed schedule for both grinding and studying as well as ticking off my study list and progress as regular thing.

Once again, thanks for following, I will make sure to check your progress as well - GL HF

Day 10

I would rank my mental game as 6/10 today.

Played a bit over 6 hours and had a training with Sensei which killed me. Needed to regenerate for 2 hours in a bath tub, was feeling dizzy from tough work out and couldn't sit to play before regaining energy. That took 1 hour for my extra grind but I am not worried, I am still on track if all days I do 7 hours in. Since I resumed training BTW, I dropped 2kgs and I started a week ago so proper nutrition, walking to pick up food daily back and forth + 3 trainings per week are paying off.

For poker, today was another interesting day. 1st session in the morning I played VERY BAD. I had at least 5 spew plays and I was just very unhappy with how unnecessary I played those hands. Instead of playing 2 hours I did 1 hour 20 or so and decided to take a break. Then remaining sessions of the day were OK to GOOD, hence 6/10 rating. Tonight last 4 hours (2x2 hour sessions) I had moments of A game where I was testing 3 MORE EDGES which were giving me immediate results.
Lots of work needs to follow of the tables for DB analysis + PIO to check scenarios and adjust/re-adjust but I am overall very pleased what I got from tonight as a lesson.

Tomorrow I will be out of home for at least 3 hours which will make grinding more difficult. I will aim to put 2 hours in the morning and remaining 5 hours from 1-2pm until 10pm.

On the side note, on 15th I finish deal with my friend crusher Rocky. Today I lost 555$ pre RB which is close to what I am down right now from starting balance since our last split. I hope to make us some more money by 15th since I want him to print cash as he deserves it with his approach to our friendship and working together.

Tomorrow 7 hours with emphasis on 3 edges from today while working hard not to spew/rush/get tilted by some miss or light play from opponent.

Day 11

Mental game for today was 7/10.

Initially, I planned to take the whole day off but ended up playing 3.5 hours or so. I am very happy with how I regained focus in that time and how testing/experimenting/applying new concepts is coming along.
My SB in HU seems much better then it was in 2016 for sure (now evbb is 15/100) but on the other hand some other positions that I fix got messed up again (BB hu a lot, BB vs SB can be higher but its okayish, SB vs BTN decreased, SB vs BB can be much higher decreased in May, BB vs BTN variance but I can improve it also).
Yesterday spent about half an hour also going through DB analysis of 900k hands on that I have from this year or so where I checked some tendencies of overall population for specific things that were on my mind as I am grinding day in and day out. What I saw just confirmed my belief and doubts in regards to how I need to change my game plan in future sessions and study.
So, while I am happy with SB in HU, other positions suffered and I need to work smarter in study sessions and also while grinding to keep that active studying going in every hand, range vs range analysis is the key.

20 days to end of the challenge, have 57.23 hours in. Will need a bit over 7 hours of daily grind to make 200 hours mark. I talked to my Sensei and very likely we will tone down training sessions because last one took me away from grind. I will also decrease break times to 20 minutes maximum and go right into 2 hour sessions. Idea is to stick to 3x2 hours and 1x1 hour.

Lets see whats up remaining of the challenge with new edges and implementing them!

Guys, this is graph from 2 sessions combined this morning:

I am finally feeling that 5+ edges I have been testing are coming along as well as DB analysis that I did yesterday only for 30ish minutes. There is a lot more edges to reveal practice and apply, but seeing this red line go up high like this is really sweat feeling. Mental game super strong but tactical needs a lot of work still but I am excited about progress I am making and direction I am heading into.

I also want to share with you what I have been listening in the background as I am grinding - it is a must watch/listen/study/apply to any serious poker professional.
Been listening to part 2 today but in past month went over Part 1 several times as reminder for what progress I made with mental game when MGP book came out and I did tilt triggers, injecting logic,inchworm and focusing on unconscious competence as well as what are other things I can improve on.

Part 1:

Part 2: