Time has come for me to start blogging about my poker journey. I want to share my challenges, my fails and my success. I will post in random intervals when I feel I need to get my thoughts straight. I want to focus on mental side of poker and blog about that. I don't plan to post graphs and results. I stopped looking at them recently because it was affecting my game. Rather than focusing on playing the best game I was constantly checking my results as a sign of 'doing well'. But it was tilting me so I try not to do it. Which is not easy.
Me and poker in a nutshell - I used to play back in around 2008-2012. I was a big fish from today's point of view. Mostly breakeven player on limits up to NL10 but I managed to make some money thanks to lot of deposit bonuses and other promos. I made several hundred bucks couple times in this period which was good for me as a high school student. But I was not playing big volumes or consistenly. I had periods where I played a lot and then stopped and again and again. I stopped playing when I went to university. I did not have any self confidence and I never believed I could ever make it as a poker pro. I was a quitter and I never finished anything. I quit that university as well and another one later on again.
I got back to poker again in 2017. I am a big Liverpool fan and I received an invitation for poker tournament for LFC fans on unibet. I decided to give it a shot. I busted the tournament but I received 10USD promo on Unibet. I only could play NL4 and only withdraw after a couple thousands hands. Luckilly I grinded it up to 200USD in couple weeks. It was at times when I felt lost in live. I did not know what to do with my life. I was at university but I did not reallyy know why. I found my love for poker again and I decided to give it a shot and see how far I can go.
I joined one coaching site and start studying and playing. From NL2. My starting bankroll was 50USD. Over the years I climbed the stakes slowly. I moved to another country and got a job there. I kept playing in my free time and had some time to study poker at work. I shared the profit with a coaching site so that was slowing me down but on the other hand I had access to materials and coaching which was great and I was improving. But I got stucked between NL10 and NL25 I just couldn't move up. I always got crushed.
My current situationI felt the coahcing is not really helping me and I did not like the style so I decided to part ways. I came across w34z3l and I watched couple of his videos. They were amazing for me. I love the way he can explain poker and I decided to get a gold membership here on pokerstrategy recently to study more. Funny thing is that my ps account was still active from 2008 and I made my first forum post more than 10 years after creating the account:f_biggrin:
I can finally say I beat NL25 and I build my bankroll to a level where I start shooting NL50. Last year I saved up some money and move to another country and I started playing full-time. Now I have at least another 5 months for poker and I will see what will happen after. I want to use that time to get as good as possible and move up.
Mental GameThis is where I was struggling most previously. I tend to got lazy and lose discipline. I was tilting a lot and did not really care about mental side of poker. But I got better. I studied this topic and I improved. But I guess this is never ending process and there is always something to improve. I improved my tilt a lot. I don't mind bad beats that much I try to stay positive and keep telling myself that it is ok. I have tools which helps me hande it better mainly from Mental Game of Poker. I keep a journal about my mental game. I still tilt though sometimes. What tilts me most is when fish sucks out on me. I don't mind losing AA when we get it in preflop but when I lose 20BB's pot vs a fish who takes a strange line and gets lucky in the end I am triggered. Not always though but when it happens couple times in a row it is bad. But still I usually keep myself from doing something crazy. I don't handle downswings very well. Luckilly I do not start spewing but I tend to stop playing and then it is hard for me to get back. It used to be that bad that when it happened it could take couple weeks for me to get back which is very costly. It is better now but it still might take couple days before I get back and at the end of the day it is very different if I play 40K hands or I play through the downswing and play 60K hands a month. I want to create a mentality when I say OK I am on a downswing but it is natural and the more I play the faster I get through that. And if it is very bad I want to either move down in stakes for couple of session or spend the time studying insted. It is acceptable to take a day off but I have to get back asap.
Another thing related to this is instant gratification. I am on downswing - I feel bad - so I go for a junk food to make myself feel good which results in feeling even worse. Then I feel bad I have a bad sleep and it is tough for me to get back next day because I am tired - then I feel bad because I know I should be playing but I am not - so the solution is more junk food to make myself feel good which only feed the donward spiral and it is very tough to get out of it. This is also something I've been working on and actually quite improved but there is still lot of space for improvement. I want to avoid proccessed food as much as possible. Mainly on days I am playing. I have a weird metabolism and my body does not really cope well with carbs that are mainly in proccessed food. So I want to avoid it as much as possible and mainly follow real food diet.
My goals for this year
Poker:
- Beat NL100 - Have a positive result on at least 50 000 hands on NL100 (3BB/100)
- Study videos from w34z3l
- Start with GTO - I already got GTO+ so I can start studying
- Move my mental game to another level - Be more mentally tougher as written above
- 400K hands
- Find a poker buddy/study group - If anyone is interested in working together, talking strategy, hands, mental game, life etc. and is a determined person on a similar poker level as me (NL25) or if there is a study group accepting new members - let me know I am open to anything.
Life:
- Start journalling - poker stuff here, private stuff in my own journal
- Food - Avoid processed food as much as possible, follow real food diet as much as possible
- Meditation - Meditate daily for at least 10mins, mix it up with Wim Hof method. Meditate for 30mins once a week.
I really suck with setting up goals and reaching them. I made million spreadsheets, tables and another stuff over the years to help me be productive. What works for me the most is to focus on the process. Do maximum on each day. If I set a goal to play certain amount of hands in a monht I usually fail but If I focus on maximize my efforts from day to day I can even over-achieve. I think the goals above are reasonable and I set them up mainly to have some sort of direction.
I start to blog mainly for myself. To have a space where I can spill my thoughs and clear my head. But if anyone is reading I hope you enjoy it and thanks.
