Grind Heavy May - 200 Hours 4 Tabling 15$ Spins

Day 12

I would grade mental game 7/10 today.

In the morning sessions I played were super strong with great focus, hand reading and playing close to my A game with A game at best. As day went on, energy and focus was not the same and it is a pattern that i keep seeing and analyzed in previous month as well. The way that will change is to get volume 1st thing in the day with very little brakes or simply increase work outs to regain that energy and focus while playing. It is something I will test and follow up with results.
Reason why I dropped 7/10 for grade today is there was a time where I felt I was auto piloting for 5 minutes 10 minutes. For me auto pilot is going into opposite specters of either being super tight or super aggro (leveling). Super tight happens way more though when I auto pilot because I go to some C- game in that auto pilot post flop and that has consequences.

I can already say that in June I will set up another challenge but it will have less grind hours but have also way more studying involved. Something like 120 hours of play 60 of studying sounds perfect to me with all the things I have done so far and continue to do when it comes to work on my game.

Very positive thing about today btw is that I put in over 7 hours of grind in (7.15) but this was possible since I didn't teach any guitar and music lesson and my training with Sensei got canceled due to rain. So it felt normal to put in 7 hours of grind. On the days when I have lessons (like tomorrow) that will be more difficult and I look forward to see how I will push through that.

Already too late, waking up at 5am, 6 hours sleep and less now...
On 16th will post graph for half of the month - running super good on multipliers and spewed my way 10+ days in May with BB HU play where I was testing some strategy that away from tables was not clear 100% which makes it super hard to test while 4 tabling ofc (I turned it down now only to spots that I am absolutely sure its +EV to do) and outside of that super happy with 6+ edges and approaches I am testing/experimenting/applying because my A game is growing which will grow auto pilot as well with work on C- game as well.

That is one sick graph sir, for 4tabeling :), wait why 15$ why not higher limits?

Originally posted by justmrwn
That is one sick graph sir, for 4tabeling :), wait why 15$ why not higher limits?

Thanks but its just 1-2 hours of grind. My total graph for May so far has cEV of 29 and is not that good. I wrote in previous updates, I have been experimenting and testing over 6 new approaches from which 2 of them have proven to be successful and had great impact on my current and future cEV and evBB in games while other 4 edges I have been not using properly and that lead to extra chips being given/spewed. Outside of these things, the point of challenge is to track mental game and tilt, see what tilts me and how often it happens, how focused I am playing, when does auto pilot happen most etc and learn from it.

From what I have seen so far is there is specific textures as well as pre flop spots that cause me to feel nervous and rushed when 4 tabling and this is sign for me that I need to do work of the tables more. So I want to finish strong May with 200 hours no matter what happens with results - keep tracking mental game and keep experimenting with new edges added to existing game plan. But, for June I will set 60 hours study and 120 hours of play which is 1/2 or 2/1 ratio. I already made a list for study (besides those textures) and most study in June will cover DB analysis for all the edges I have spotted in Spins on the 15s and higher and where additional cEV can be gained by large margin. Doing DB analysis will help me adjust my game plan to the field right away and then step away from it (re-adjust) facing opponent with more hands and very specific reads.

Your question is valid though. I played 15s Spins since last year but I spent very little time studying them and without much study I had 25$ post RB hourly. In this year my goal is to study improve and become better player while increasing hourly and hitting some monetary targets as well. So far things have been going great with studying and improvement as well as money part but in May due to this challenge and pressure I put on myself I have played average of C game first 10 days or so with lots of marked hands and miss played spots. I am now feeling more in control though, still make mistakes playing 6+ hours per day but I am getting to know myself mentally much better thanks to those long grinds which is why in order to avoid future tilt I will switch focus from 200 to 120 (and more if possible!!!) but keep major focus on improving 2 hours per day going through DB analysis for tendencies as well as marked hands and PIO running textures for range vs range.

30s and higher limits are around the corner. I feel I will start mixing 2 limits maybe from July or so (depending on my BR at that moment) but goal is to improve win rate 4 tabling 15s for whole year to have it minimum at 58 cEV which is 30ish$ post RB vs 25$ post RB which I had in the last year. Learning all these new things will take time to implement correctly and for knowledge to click with playing experience, in the meanwhile I expect results to swing because its a learning curve and I am improving both my C- and A game at the same time.

Guys, I am somewhat SAD to tell you but I decided to pull the trigger and quit the 200 hours grind challenge.

There is other life things in May that I didn't predict that I want to do which are taking me away from grinding. Also, after 68 hours of grind in 13 days in May, it is very clear to me what I need to do remaining of May on.

I just want to mention couple of very important life things and events that I will do in May:
- Meet with my friend Rocky in Sofia (go there) to celebrate our successful completion of the deal around 15th of May
- Go to football game in my town between Radnicki and Partizan this Wednesday 17th
- Go to Belgrade on Saturday to celebrate league trophy (hopefully!) with Partizan Belgrade fans
- Arrange to meet my friend troll in Belgrade or some other city in next 5+ days
- Go to cup final game between Partizan and Zvezda
- See my relatives in Belgrade when I go for Partizan game
- Hook up with 1 girl while in Belgrade (she has been waiting to see me for a month+ now)
- Accept another guitar student that I have put on hold due to challenge
- Let my Sensei know about more flexible grinding and time management where we can go HARDER in training sessions
- Work with Phuketinho twice per week vs doing sweets in coffee shop and responding to hands
- See couple of girls during this lovely sunny weather have some coffee and hook up

So a lot of activities all happening before end of this month. Quitting on challenge will allow me to do all these great things that I have been putting aside.

As far as poker goes, I will aim to play on days that I play at least 4 hours and study the things that I have made the list for (DB Analysis for tendencies, Specific Textures for specific position and depths, and hh reviews from this month!!!). Studying will happen in the morning before training and in the afternoon after coffee, making it 2 hours per day. Grinding 4 hours with idea to do 4 x 1 hour sessions. I want to set this up so that in future months I bring my EV up and start mixing 30s and eventually move there to 4 table as well. Idea btw is to still stay on 4 tables but with less grinding to maintain strong and solid game in those 100-120 hours of poker. After a month or two of steady 100+ hours grind, I may bring it up to 150 hours and then head to 180. I doubt it because I definitely see myself on 30s within a month or two (as soon as I increase my BR by 4k more and put aside money at least 2.7k$ outside of it).

So that is what I decided tonight. At 1st I was sad to quit but making this decision actually gave me huge relief because I can continue to do life things and poker at pace that is natural for my overall life and poker EV. I noticed that due to challenge my performance in training is suffering. My focus is getting worse and I am playing more nervous day in and day out in some sessions. Tilt triggers get activated faster. All these things are indications for me that I need to step down from what I am doing, re-evaluate my overall time management, grind, study ratios, focus on life things with poker that bring me overall +EV in a long run.

I will update blog frequently with what I did in terms of hours of study and play but idea is to keep 2/1 grind to study ratio in future and see where it takes me while playing 1 hour sessions 3-4 sessions per day in June and then re-evaluate, check progress and keep going from there. From 100+ hours of poker from now, I am confident I can increase my EV even further on and off the tables and that in future months profit will come as a prize especially on 30s and taking shots at higher stakes with specific stop loss.

Sorry to disappoint everyone following but this is for me one of the best decisions I made when it comes to quiting something once I evaluated things I am missing due to challenge in May and how much stress levels have risen up in my life (unnecessarily).

I will post a graph for the challenge so far soon and then at the end of the month I will post whole sample for May.

This is the graph for May on 68.08 Hours and 2202 games:

The actual money I won in those 13 days is:
PRE RB 870$
RB 565$
Total 1335$

Thanks to winning twice 25x and several 10x games, I caught higher part of variance aka UPSWING and made nice money despite playing bad.
When it comes to actual win rates by position, I am most proud of my SB HU improved strategy which is now 15evbb/100. I am not however happy with how I messed up my BB in HU and how I started applying new edges in wrong spots vs wrong types of opponents. This is something that will take me more time outside of tables to analyze and do HH reviews in May and June (from this sample!) and take important lessons from miss plays or late stack offs of any sort.
I am also very happy that I discovered 6+ edges in May for Spins on any limit as well as found what I find troubling for me as I grind. In other words, when I was putting these hours in I saw what texture or range vs range I was most in doubt or thinking about so that is something that I will cover in PIO with both GTO and Node Locking feature.

I will update this thread by the end of May at least once more- with full volume. I hope to get to 100 hours this month as I shifted priorities to other life things as well in May and there will be travel involved with at least 3-4 days outside of my home town and poker. Regardless I will post the graph by the end of the month be assured.

For June I have idea of 2/1 ratio of grind vs study and that I hope to get to 120-60 hours in but I have to consider life things such as friend visiting or going to live poker event as potential trouble for such goals. I will regardless of what happens aim for those numbers while focusing on doing DB Analysis for 15s and 30s in depth, HH reviews from this month (lost hands, spews, miss played edges applied incorectly) and PIO work with specific effective blinds, pot type and texture for range vs range.

I want to thank you for following and supporting me and I am very sorry to dissappoint you for quiting on the challenge but I am positive before end of this year there will be at least 1 more chance when I will attempt it and succeed it (when its cold outside, where other life things will be put to minimum priority, when bankroll is such that it can suffer 200-300 buy ins swings while pushing 6-7 hours of volume in and most important when I connect several months of 120-150 hours of grind then 200 will be easier to reach vs now where I went from 60-70 hours to 200 !!!).