Demondoink

Update:

it's amazing what getting up at a reasonable time and getting outside does for the mood! last night me and my friend had a pretty honest discussion with one another about living together etc. it was good to get it out in the open that i am thinking of moving elsewhere, though i'm still not gonna rule out staying here a bit longer, especially if i keep up my hiking and get travelling again. today we went on a hike along the coastal path, which i have now done sections of for the past three weekends. the walk from Burntisland to Kirkcaldy wasn't as nice as there is more walking on busy roads as opposed to the path next to the sea, but it was still great to get outside and in to nature.

the sea is very calming and getting off technology always does good for my mindset. we walked through some small towns, something similar to what i have been considering moving to and my friend said he probably wouldn't move to one until he is retired as he would probably get bored fairly easily. i thought this was a good point because obviously it's fine when the weather is good and you can get outside hiking, swimming in the sea etc but what about on a gloomy night? there aren't any cinemas to go to, probably not a huge array of restaurants etc either. so i guess there are pro's and con's to living in both a town and a city.

i still honestly have no idea what to do, though i recently found out that i can fly to Budapest without a vaccine. so it's cool that i also have the option of moving abroad again if i wish. i loved Budapest when i visited there a couple of years ago, and have a couple of Hungarian friends too. i dunno why, but i seem to get on very easily with Hungarian poker players haha. it's strange how your personality can randomly suit a certain nationalities people. i don't really have any British poker friends, for example, bar one guy that i know through live poker and my old flat mate who doesn't even really play any longer. it's the exact same with girls, i pretty much only seem to ever talk to foreign ones haha. they just seem much more interesting to me.

anyways, in terms of poker i had only played 4k hands after four days of the week, but after getting in almost 3k hands on Friday (and of course taking Saturday off as usual) the plan was to play around 2k this evening and then just accept falling 1k hands short of my weekly target. however, i had a couple of very good tables at 1k and 2k, so i ended up continuing to play for longer before eventually eclipsing the 3k hand mark and making my weekly target! so that was great after a very slow start to the week. i also crushed it in terms of my results this week, and ran better at 2k as well! i think i am establishing myself at that stake now, and feel pretty comfortable playing there. that was one of my goals for this year, so i am happy that i have started off fairly well so far this year (though there is still a long way to go). i was battling 2k 3-4 handed for a while, before a fish joined the table. he wasn't even that bad tbh, but it was good to get in a decent bit of volume at that stake again.

poker is fun when you run well :)

i think the plan going forward is to take Monday's off, so i will likely do that tomorrow and then get back on the grind again on Tuesday. GG.

good hand on a bad board for range

hero calling in small pot

Demondoink punting off

hero folding 'correctly' before discovering i actually had the equity to call off with my FD lol

RoleTide yes pretty much. my sims have both a 75/33% cbet sizing, but i usually just try to stick with the one that is used more often. i think splitting on the flop is a bit of a leak and is far too complicated to play well. the most important streets are turn/river so it's best to arrive there with a range you are aware of, as opposed to one that has already split on the flop.

no problem! i think it's the best way to study so that we don't skip over certain board textures that we may find less interesting etc. we just work from the top down, then move on to the next spot once we have looked at at least a couple different textures of each card rank.

i thought A8s was a good bluff cos it matches up well with his value region. in this spot he improves to rivered 88 (which is effectively the nuts) and he also blocks the odd AT that i may occasionally x back with. though in hindsight i actually don't think he should be playing any jams here cos, as you see, i'm pretty uncapped in my x back range here with two pairs etc. so yeah, i admire the heart but i think that this may not be the correct board to go for the 3x pot jam, needs to be a little dryer.

haha yeah well i guess we are getting to the age where people are starting to settle down etc, but i'm still in the mindset that we are just gonna hang out each weekend. so perhaps i need to simply accept that everyone is going to be less available the older we get as they get a partner, have kids etc.

ah okay that makes sense. tbh i was not really planning on using the programme to analyse my hands, but more to use some of their sims to find optimal bet sizing's without having to run the textures myself. for example i believe that on AKx/AQx we are supposed to over bet cbet, but i haven't included this sizing in my script so obviously it doesn't show up as an option. so if i were to just look through their sims i could find the optimal cbet sizing's and then just run a sim myself using just one bet sizing. hopefully that makes sense haha :P

Update:

on Friday i needed to get in a decent grind after playing just two of the previous four days. it was also the day that i had planned to complete my longest run of the week on. after running in the dark on Wednesday, i wanted to get out during the daylight as i tend to enjoy my runs much more when i do so. for some reason i don't really enjoy 5k's that much, but i really like the longer runs when i can get out in to different parts of the city that i don't walk around etc very often. i feel like with shorter runs they are just kinda rushed, and as you can't go that far you tend to just run in a circle close to the area that you live in. it was a pretty nice day, with the sun shining (albeit it was a little cold, though that didn't stop me stripping down to shorts and a t shirt mid way through haha).

after the run me and my friend cut each others hair. we started this at the beginning of lockdown, and have continued it ever since. it's so much easier doing it at your flat as opposed to finding a decent barber nearby, walking there and then waiting in the queue etc before having small talk as the haircut takes place. you also save like £20 each time you do it yourself and as they say, money saved is money earned! i don't even style my hair or anything, so as long as it looks decent then i am happy enough. i just figured that wax was probably bad for your hair as it would clump together and wouldn't even completely come out after a shower. so now i don't use any products in my hair.

i then had a coaching call, that was supposed to take place earlier on in the day, but we had to delay it until later on in the day as he had something to do. after the coaching it was time to get on the grind! i ended up playing almost 3k hands, which is probably my longest session of the year, but tbh i wasn't completely happy with how i played. i made a couple of questionable plays on the river that were a little spazzy, in spots where my opponents were likely to be under folding as well. so even if my bluffs were fine in theory, they were probably bad in practice. it's strange, cos there are a couple of spots where people tend to over call even though the spot is (imo) massively under bluffed by population. i'm not exactly sure how that works tbh. fortunately another few of my bluffs managed to get folds, so it wasn't a complete disaster!

it's funny though, cos i checked at one point how my session was going, thinking i was around level or perhaps slightly up, and i was winning $6k haha. the session was just swinging all over the place though. some sessions you play there are hardly any big pots and you only get stacked or win a stack a couple times, but in this one that certainly wasn't the case! i then lost back a bunch of the profits, before finishing the session strong.

Charlie Carrel often says 'fuck GTO' and how it's much better to exploit your opponents instead. however, imo the best players are able to have a fundamentally sound strategy (that is somewhat GTO) but are ALSO able to exploit their opponents. so in certain situations i deviate a lot from GTO based on some sort of read etc, but without that i just try to stick to an optimal strategy and use PIO approved sizing's etc. so personally i don't see there being a GTO vs Exploitative debate, the way we should be playing is both ways. it's like in politics, the left are unreasonable in some regards, as are the right. so the 'best' way to run a country most likely lies somewhere in the middle of both extremes.

even the most exploitative of players are still playing GTO to a certain extent. if they have top pair top kicker they probably bet big to get value. so that is a solver approved line. so you can't really pretend that you play purely exploitative otherwise you would start 5bet jamming 76o instead of A5s cos you see that your opponent folds a little too often once they 4bet. if you are purely playing exploitative, then the combo doesn't matter does it? even Linus plays exploitative to a certain extent, and he is, at least as far as i am aware, one of the most solver focused players in the game today (though i haven't really played with him to be able to know whether this is true or not).

anyways, this is kind of a random tangent, but it's cos i watched some of his 500z footage last night so it popped in to my mind. there is no GTO vs Exploitative, there is GTO AND Exploitative.

on Saturday i had planned to take the day off from both poker and exercise. in all honesty i have completely wasted the day, getting up far too late and playing chess for 2-3 hours. at least on a positive note i feel that i am improving again and i feel like i've come up with this kinda cool opening strategy that opens up the middle of the board and allows me in behind their pawns. i use the solver after each game, but i just kinda figured this play out by myself by accident i guess. so i think i won like 5 of the last 6 matches (and the one i lost i completely punted off at the end).

after that i watched the Rugby, where Glasgow Warriors played La Rochelle in the Champions Cup. Glasgow were destroyed last week by Exeter, but were better this week (though they still lost by eight points in the end). i think they just lack a little bit of quality in certain areas, such as the backline. in the past 5-10 years Glasgow have had some world class backs (such as Hogg, Russel, Seymour etc) but they have moved on or retired, and i don't think the money has been invested back in to the squad fully. so some of the players are a little mediocre and lacking the creativity to slice open top teams such as La Rochelle.

apart from that, i've not actually been in the best of moods today. i guess i am a bit annoyed cos me and my flat mate/best friend would usually always do something every Saturday, whether that be watching sports, going in to town, for a hike etc. however, he has been seeing this girl and it seems like i've been replaced by some random that he has known for a month. obviously it's cool that people get partners etc, but it seems like they almost end up ditching their mates in the process. almost all of my friends have done this to a certain extent over the years whenever they have gotten in to a relationship. even if/when get in to a relationship, i won't forget the people who i was friends with beforehand, but it seems like other people do not hold the same views. i'm currently staying with him and my brother (albeit he is only here temporarily) and i'm questioning whether there is much point staying together any longer.

i try not to complain as much as possible, but i'm also trying to be honest in this thread as well. so even though we all try to be as rational as possible as professional poker players, when your best friend starts treating you like an option, then i guess it's a bit of a kick in the balls.

regardless, poker has been going pretty well so far this year. so it's best to just focus on the things that we can control. disappointment is simply when we attach too high expectations to certain situations, people etc. expect nothing, and you will never be disappointed and only grateful :)

Friday's session

when you almost fold with a hand that is beating a value bet

very good bluff from my opponent imo

i should retire from bluffing

bobby peru that is a very good analogy! it is the paradox of choice (i believe) that dictates when we have too many options, we become overwhelmed and either regret the option we chose, or don't select any at all. i got a sub to Netflix in the past couple months and have done that a few time; look through a bunch of films and then end up giving up and going on to Youtube instead. where as if i only had a couple options (like if you go to the cinema) you are much more likely to be happy with your decision.

if you are looking for a suggestion as to where to start with your study, i always suggest button vs bb, as this is the most common spot that we play. so start on that, perhaps on A high boards, and work through them until you get to the low boards. then you can do similar for something like sb vs btn 3bet pot, or bvb. so in that sense it's pretty easy. you just look at some Ax boards one day, then perhaps continue that study the following day, or move on to Kx and so on.

okay that's fair enough, thank you for clearing that up as i am not aware exactly how the programme works. obviously it seems like a very good site overall, but i just thought that the 90 odd % metric was not a great way to give feedback to the player cos it can be very misleading. like i said, everyone is making a bunch of mistakes, but i guess perhaps if the programme were to say we are playing at 40-50% accuracy, then we might be a little downhearted :D

it's just cos i watched one streamer and he really seemed to take to heart about playing with 95% accuracy, before mentioning how he thought certain regs in the 500z pool were playing close to perfect (which is very far from reality).

nonetheless, i have actually been considering trying out the site. overall it's probably quite bad for online poker, cos it makes it easy for people to study and means that they don't even have to run their own sims etc. but poker is so complicated anyways, so just gotta accept that this is the way poker has gone ever since solvers were introduced. and i would be a hypocrite if i were to denounce solver's in any way, cos i have gone from like 200z when i started using PIO up to being a regular at 2k. where as obviously people have gone in the other direction, despite also having the ability to use them. so it's all about how you learn from the solver, because two people can look at the exact same sim and one will get little from it, where as the other will learn a little. then those incremental improvements compound over time in to large improvements.

hey Aquila i think in an ideal world you wouldn't really need to listen to music at all, unless you are literally only listening to music and simply want to enjoy it by itself. but i guess we have relatively finite attention spans, and have become accustomed to the stimulation that we get from listening to music, so i can't see myself stopping listening to it any time soon when it comes to playing/studying. personally i don't find it distracting, and even if you are correct about it being a slight distraction, i think i would be more distracted/bored if i didn't listen to anything whilst playing etc. i would still say that i am pretty good for being able to detach from technology. i have started to leave my phone at the flat when i go to the gym (so that's around two hours without any form of technology). if i am walking around then i'd say over 95% of the time i won't be wearing any headphones or looking at my phone. and as i also mentioned, i don't run with any music ever. even when i attempted the marathon, i wasn't listening to any music.

so for now, i am going to keep the poker music, but try to further limit my mobile use away from the online tables :)

we plan to go to Rømø in Denmark

sick, i am sure that will be fun! when are you booked to go there? i was in Copenhagen just over four years ago (iirc) and i really enjoyed my trip through Scandinavia, though we went in October, so that was a bit of a mistake haha. you live in Germany right? it's pretty cool that you can just drive to these countries, i guess that's the downside of living on an island! it's not that i don't like seafood, it's just that i don't eat it :P it's funny cos i never really tried Tuna steaks before, but started eating them when i was Pescatarian for a month or so (before going vege) and i loved them. Swordfish was probably my all time favourite though i only had it a couple of times when i was on holiday as a kid.

What made you stop drinking alcohol? Do you feel like you have
benefited a lot from it (quitting)?

basically i was getting multiple day hangovers, and it was negatively impacting my mood too much the following day. if i drank on the Saturday night, then on the Sunday evening i would 'crash' and almost feel depressed. i guess it's kind of like a comedown from that high that you get from drinking. also, it was obviously impacting my poker negatively. how can i play well on Sunday if i am hungover?

so yes, i think it's been a great decision. literally the only downside is how much easier it was talking to girls on nights out haha. but personally i don't even really fancy those kind of girls any longer (ones who go clubbing often) so i would be unlikely to meet anyone that way anyways. apart from that, everything else has been positive!

i already have a running watch that i got during late 2020, but thanks for the suggestion! it's the Garmin Tactical. i wanted a watch that wasn't a fancy touch screen, but was fairly durable for if i went hiking, camping etc. so this more than does the job. it's funny cos both my Dad and my best friend have the exact same one, only different colours haha. imitation is the best form of flattery, as they say :P

RIO should add a counter on how many views your blog gets.

i guess that could work either way. if your blog gets a lot of views but not as much likes, it could provide extra motivation. but if you got some likes (from a few loyal people) but not many views, it might have the opposite effect. i guess we have to decide what we are doing these blogs for. perhaps i was doing it for some of the wrong reasons, so i just have to enjoy posting and not care how many likes/comments etc my posts get. i am probably still comparing this thread to my first one (which got lots of interactions cos nobody really knew me at the time, but seen me playing high stakes) and it's not a healthy approach.

ultimately, if we enjoy posting and chat to some cool and interesting people along the way, then that's all that matters!

hey man. yeah that milestone has already passed a couple of weeks ago i believe. i'm still on the fence about posting it, cos whilst it would be good to get some exposure for my results, i dunno if i wanna out myself quite yet haha. so i am going to keep mulling it over, but i will post it in the thread if i decide to share my results :)

Update:

it has been a weird kind of week. in some ways i have been very productive, but in other ways i find myself beginning to slack a little. last week i was really motivated to play poker and get on the grind, but it has not been the case this week. i played on Tuesday and Wednesday, getting in just over 4k hands across the two days, but didn't play at all today. so i am a little behind pace for my weekly 10k hands target, though i still think i should get there as i'm playing (at the very least) tomorrow evening and Sunday. after last Sunday, i really enjoyed playing a few tournaments on the side, so i am going to stick with that.

i think going forward i am going to take both Monday's and Saturday's off. on Monday's i do a study call at night during the time that i usually play, so i don't mind taking that day off (not from studying, but from playing) and then Saturday's off completely. obviously this week i have taken a Thursday off randomly, but i felt pretty tired tonight and was almost falling asleep during my study. i think it's because i have started my marathon training, and also simultaneously got back in to a consistent gym routine. so this week i ran a 5k on Monday, done a full body workout (including squats) on Tuesday, 5k run on Wednesday and then a body weight workout at the gym on Thursday. last week i went to the gym maybe only once or twice, so i think that all the exercise is catching up with me a little as my body isn't used to it. then tomorrow i have a 10k planned, and on Saturday i am going for a hike. so with my current marathon training plan, i am likely to be doing some form of exercise 6/7 days per week. i'm really enjoying getting up early on Saturday's, kinda resetting my sleep pattern (for a day or so before it goes back to normal) hopping on a train and getting out in to nature on a hike. i've done it for the past two weeks, and plan on doing more of the coastal path again this weekend.

on a negative note, i have had to scrap the weekly new sport/activity challenge. realistically, i don't really have any days left of the week to do it. i'm running Mon/Wed/Fri, going to the gym Tues/Thurs and hiking on a Saturday. so unless i want to workout seven days per week, i don't have any time left to do it. though i guess it's served it's purpose, as i have just signed up for a marathon and started hiking on the weekends, which is out with my usual routine. usually i would only hike when my friend/flat mate wanted to as he drove us there and back, but i am happy to just get the train and go myself. the first week i went myself, and last week with my other friend. whilst i obviously enjoyed his company, i was equally happy going myself cos then you talk to more people when you aren't with someone else. i think it's important to feel comfortable being alone, and it's something that i am only just able to do happily. before i would kinda get anxious and feel a bit like a loser doing something by myself, but now i see it as an opportunity to chat to random people instead!

in terms of poker, when i have been playing i think i've been playing really well. as the saying goes 'repetition is the mother of skill'. so each day i just try to learn something new from my studies, keep an open mind and try it out in game. i feel like the more i study, the more clarity and enjoyment i can get whilst playing poker. it's very satisfying when you study something and then it comes up in game and you know you probably have a small edge over your opponent from your work away from the tables. conversely, when you see them make certain plays, you know that they are losing a little EV compared to equilibrium over to you. so really, there is no substitute for study! poker is such a complex game, that even those who are 'elite' are still making TONS of mistakes. when someone does that stupid game analysis on GTO wizard and get 95% accuracy and think that they are actually playing anything close to 95% of a solver, then they are completely disillusioned. as a guess, i would say that even someone like Linus is playing somewhere between 60-70% accuracy (not according to some misleading programme, but if they were to actually mimic the correct frequencies, sizing's, find the correct bluff combos etc). so some random 500z regular isn't even getting close to 50% imo. this isn't a slight on them, but if you look at a bunch of sims then you realise that on the vast majority of them we aren't finding the correct bluff combos, are probably not mixing with our value (just pure betting with those combos) and are using inaccurate, imbalanced sizing's. for example, putting too many strong combos in the big bet range, and too many weak combos in the small sizing.

so there is good news- poker is a million miles away from being solved by ANY player! at least at 6max, i cannot speak for HU. i play in some of the toughest games on Stars (that actually run, obv not $10k+) and me and my opponents are all making plenty of mistakes at the tables. however, poker is not about being perfect, it's about being better than your opponents. so in that regard, i am very confident in my game at the moment :) i ended up playing a couple tables of $2k reg only 6max tables the other evening, and won a buy in or so. i really like the challenge of playing that stake, cos i know that playing anything other than my A game is not going to lead to good outcomes.

anyways, it's almost 2am here so i'm not playing today. i have a coaching call tomorrow, then gonna go on a run and grind in the evening. big day tomorrow, though it's a big day EVERY day when you don't know what tomorrow will bring :)

GG.

fold equity

thin value bet

also, that was a great photo of the cake! i can see how you had some criticism's for my photography skills haha :P

Still considering to give GTO Wizard a try, but there's just other
more important real life stuff up right now.

this seems like a classic case of procrastination. if you get a free trial then there is literally no reason why you shouldn't have already joined and given it a shot. if you are serious about improving at poker, then you have to take steps to improve your learning process. incorporating a solver in to your game (even if the ranges aren't perfect for your stake level) is going to be literally the biggest contributing factor to your poker improvement.

so stop making excuses and go sign up! :)

yes i agree with RoleTide if you don't currently have the poker budget for PIO then i would suggest getting a sub to GTO wizard, as you need to be using some form of post flop poker study to review your own hands etc. i don't know how much it costs tbh, but you also have to factor in the amount of time you save from not having to run your own sims.

personally i still think it's much better to buy PIO and run your own sims, but i realise this isn't possible for some people. just because you want to be using sizing's in your PIO sims that you actually use, as opposed to multiple different random sizing's on GTO wizard that you don't even use in game. also, the sims won't be extremely accurate unless they have sims for every different stake level (which i highly doubt). so looking at a 500z sim isn't hugely beneficial when you are playing with much tighter 10nl ranges. so the way around that is to create your own pre flop sim for your own rake structure, then create a script for a bunch of different flops and then study that way.

so it's fine to use GTO wizard in the short term, but if you are serious about this game then imo you need to be buying both PIO (doesn't need to be the most expensive version, but make sure you can run a script) and a pre flop solver. that way you can have accurate ranges and thus accurate sims to study with.

Update:

on Monday it was time to correct my sleeping pattern, so i scheduled a study call with a friend for 12pm as i have now decided to get out of my bed no later than 12pm each day. i will often lay in my bed being 'productive' by playing chess for hours etc, but in reality i am being lazy and it's not necessary to play a game that i am only doing for fun, for such a long period of time.

often we humans like to use the illusion of action as a form of procrastination. so for example in poker, we might study for three hours a day, instead of playing poker. or we might watch four 500z play and explains, then say that we have studied for multiple hours. of course i think studying is VITAL in poker, because we can play much less often when we have a higher WR (and thus have more free time to do things with friends etc). however there needs to be a balance between play and study. in the past mines was weighted in favour of studying, though this was largely because i was studying inefficiently and i could get much more in an hour or an hour and a half compared to two or three hours of mediocre study. also, whilst watching training videos are beneficial, you can get much more from studying with PIO by yourself, or with a friend. so when someone watches three to four videos per day, this can also be a form of procrastination as you are giving the impression that you are studying, when in fact you just enjoy watching poker content and thus it is more a form of entertainment than anything else.

so be honest with yourself. do you talk a good game, or do you play one? it's all good saying i am going to get to x or y stake by the end of the year, but talk is cheap. make your actions do the talking. when you study efficiently and consistently each and every day, but when you also put in volume at the tables, then you will improve and move up. but when you say how you are going to get to high stakes but then spend most of your 'study' time watching training videos, taking too many days off poker and not doing the boring, tedious study that is vital to notice patterns and form heuristics, then don't be surprised when you results reflect this lack of effort.

EVERYONE in poker wants to get to high stakes, so you are no different in this regard. the only way to stand out from the crowd is to do what they aren't willing to do. so for me that meant cutting out drinking, exercising a lot, studying each day using PIO and continuously acknowledging and working on my mental flaws (such as how i get annoyed when playing poker sometimes, for example). other peoples habits are catching up now though, so i need to step up my game. so now i am going to run a marathon. are you willing to do the same? if you are, then i guess i will have to do an Iron Man instead!

with that being said, it was actually my first day of marathon training today. my plan just now is to begin slowly, running three days per week and doing a short run on Monday, short run on Wednesday and a longer run on Friday. this week i am easing in to it, so i done a 5k today, and will do the same again on Wednesday and a 10k on Friday. then next week i will increase each run by 1-2k. i could obviously run much further than this, but it's about getting miles in the legs. i'm also trying to run slower, so that i can keep my heartrate down and thus i will be more used to running in this zone for the marathon. so today i was aiming for around 5 mins per 1k, which is pretty slow given my fastest 5k time is like 19:30 or so (though this was over a year ago tbf, so i wouldn't be that fast just now).

before the run i done a study call with my friend, though we began half an hour later as i woke up at 12:30pm. however, i'm gonna cut myself some slack here and i was very happy that i got out of my bed at a reasonable time for once. after doing around two hours of study, i went of a run. then after the run i made food, before having to get back on the study grind AGAIN in preparation for my weekly study call with my other friend. we are discussing bvb just now, and it's pretty cool as we have been studying it for a while so now the patterns we have noticed are beginning to form heuristics in both our minds. bvb is the most complicated spot in poker, so if i can continuously improve my understanding of this spot, then i should be doing pretty well! after staring at T93r for roughly an hour, it was then time for our session. we discussed bvb for another, roughly, one and a half hours. so in total i studied for around four and a half hours on Monday, which is a little much but it just happened that i had two calls today, so it is what it is. my brain was pretty fried, so i didn't play poker today and will make up for it during the rest of the week.

i did go and make a banging lasagne for dinner afterwards, though. i made a double portion, so tomorrow i will save some time on cooking my dinner! as i've also studied a ton today, i don't really need to do so tomorrow. so there are literally no excuses as to why i can't get in a big grind tomorrow. hopefully the games are running and they are nice and juicy!

i also just finished watching the Jeffrey Epstein documentary on Netflix, as well as completed both the Steven Pinker podcasts on Joe Rogan in the past couple of days. he is a psychologist, and i like how thought provoking some of the concepts he discusses are.

anyways, gonna try and get to sleep now! GG.

hey Aquila thanks for the comment, and great insight as usual!

I guess you need to find posting rewarding by itself and not because
other people comment.

yes that is true. i do enjoy posting on here, but i guess i had started to rate the quality of my posts by the number of likes, comments etc they got. it's not so much for the validation, but for the feedback that what i am writing about and discussing is interesting for other people as well. when you are writing a blog, it is not like having a normal discussion when you can gauge the other persons interest in the conversation by their body language, tone of voice, length of replies etc. so without this 'natural' feedback, something like a blog can feel uncomfortable as it's basically just a one way 'discussion'. we wouldn't talk to a wall for an hour at a time, because we get no feedback from the wall in any way and thus it's pointless to do so.

so that's why i have highlighted the importance of the people that comment on here regularly throughout all of my threads. some of my friends, for example, read this pretty much every day but don't comment, so i know there are many others like them that do the same. so even leaving a random comment to say you are enjoying the blog, perhaps suggesting some ways that i could improve it, would be very much appreciated to any of the lurkers out there!

i am going to start discussing my marathon training, as i just started that today actually :)

that's a good point about the music thing. i heard David Goggins saying that listening to music whilst running is 'cheating'. so since then i have never go on a run and taken my headphones with me. personally i don't need them as i really enjoy getting outside, and i am so focused on the run that i don't really need any external motivation from music etc. so i'm unsure why i 'need' it for poker play and study. i guess it's also 'cheating' to an extent, though i would argue that playing poker for hours on end takes much more mental focus than going on a run for an hour, so if music helps us to achieve this, then it is for sure beneficial. in an ideal world i guess i wouldn't need it, but honestly the prospect of playing poker for four hours without any music seems kinda scary to me haha. however, the music i listen to is often less about the lyrics and more about the sounds of the music itself. so sometimes i listen to a playlist on spotify called 'cinematic chillout'. or 'deep focus'. those playlists don't really contain any lyrics, so are more about focus over escapism. it's the same with my meditation. ideally i could meditate without any music, but listening to a calming meditation playlist enables me to 'get in to the zone' much easier and meditate to a better degree than i am able to do without any music.

so yeah, perhaps i am rationalising and i am just scared of grinding without music haha. but in all honesty i think i play close to my A game most of the time when i sit down, and can play for like 3-4 hours basically without any breaks. so personally i don't feel like my focus is much of an issue, and if anything is actually a strength (as i know that many poker players have to take breaks ever hour or so or they lose focus etc).

i would like to travel this Summer, but i am not sure how easy that is going to be with all of the restrictions etc. last year was the first year in ages that i didn't go abroad at all. even during 2020 i managed to get away to Poland, then come back via Germany. then later on in the Summer i went to both Austria and Switzerland (two of my favourite countries, though it seems like Austria has gone a little mad recently which is a great shame).

how about yourself? what are your plans for this year?

Update:

to be honest i have been thinking about scrapping this thread, though i have decided to continue with it for now. i guess the initial interest of me posting during my first challenge is unsustainable as people get used to what i have to say etc, but as a result i end up questioning whether the effort i put in to posting in here regularly is worth it. each post can take thirty minutes to an hour, and i like to post regularly as that is the way that i keep myself accountable and have to justify why i have taken certain days off etc. so it's kind of all or nothing, and thus i am doubting how much longer i am going to keep this up for.

i think it's also less interesting for the average reader as i have stopped posting my graphs on a daily basis, so not having that daily visual update makes it less exciting as we all like to see other peoples results.

regardless, i still really appreciate the people who comment in here regularly and i certainly do not take you guys for granted!

anyways, in terms of poker i managed to make my daily 10k hands target total earlier on today! i actually only played four days this week, yet still managed to hit the target. on Friday, for example, i was going to play but ended up studying for two hours instead, and then after that it was like 1 or 2am so it was too late to play at that point. last year i was setting a timer for an hour for each study session, but i have stopped doing this because i was treating study as a means to an end. when you are effectively counting down time until you finish, then you are skipping ahead to the future and not enjoying the actual activity and experience. so i have stopped timing my study, and instead just do it for as long as i wish to. so on Friday that was just over two hours, and the entirety of some house playlist on Youtube. study is very important, but it's about QUALITY not quantity! so imo it's much better to study a few different board textures in great depth as opposed to twenty in no depth at all. if you think you can study twenty flop textures in depth, then you are kidding yourself. there are so many nodes, different turn/river cards etc that you will end up just glossing over the hand in order to get on to the next one.

so if someone says that they have studied fifty hands during their study session, then all they have done is check if they played the hand 'correctly' and then just moved on to the next one. this is nothing more than stroking your own ego. it's a lot cooler to say that you have studied fifty hands than it is to say that you studied three.

so quality> quantity.

it's fine to disagree with me here, but then i would be more than happy to quiz you on the fifty different flop textures you just studied and then you can relay all the various nodes strategies across the different turn and river cards to disprove me :) so that's also why i don't like some of the training videos that give you 'all of the answers'. what good is it that i know what to do with one exact combo in a vacuum when i have no idea what to do with the other 99% of my range? it's impossible to form heuristics off the back of a random sim without comparing it to other, similar spots or situations. once we notice patterns, we can formulate heuristics and THIS is how we improve and gain a better understanding of how PIO works.

again, this is just my opinion and i am sure different things work for different people.

on Saturday i took the day off as usual and met my friend for a walk. we hiked more of the coastal path, walking for roughly three hours along the coast before stopping in Burntisland (yes this is the name of a real town in Scotland haha) and getting some food. we went to this burger place and the woman there was really nice, and i was impressed with here because she asked for my feedback on the Vegan burger (they had just brought it it this month). i feel like this if the kind of 'tactic' that Dale Carnegie would have been proud of and championed in his famous book 'how to win friends and influence people'. when you value other people's opinions and ask for their feedback, it makes them feel important. this then makes them like you more as a result, and thus you have 'won a friend' haha. so even if the burger was imperfect, you always remember the service and are much more likely to go back as a result.

i am starting to appreciate Scotland as a country more and more ever since the beginning of lockdown. don't get me wrong, i am not a big fan of our government (or indeed the vast majority of them in other countries as well) but the country itself is really amazing, and i love meeting and interacting with other kind and friendly people. it really is what life is all about! getting outside, and meeting new people. but i do like balance, so i also like being by myself and playing poker for multiple hours, perhaps not even leaving the flat for a day or so haha.

on Sunday i got up far, far too late. if anything my sleep pattern has gotten worse this year. i've started to play chess again, and i can often end up playing for like two hours or so whilst i lay in my bed. so i wrote up on my board that i have to get out of my bed at 12pm each day, at the latest. even if i get up and play from my desk, this is much healthier imo. though i think i am going to have to put chess on the backburner again, cos it's taking up too much time. i got pretty annoyed at myself earlier on today cos i was playing terribly, and must have lost five or six matches in a row. however, it's amazing what a cold shower can do for you! i got up in a crappy mood (we were out for my brother's bday on Saturday night) as the flat was a mess and nobody had tidied up at all and had just played horribly at chess. after the shower, though, it was like both my body and mind reset and i was in a good mood again. it's actually pretty awesome what something so simple can do for you!

i got on the grind a little later on, and decided to play some tournaments alongside my cash games. i had to play just over 2500 hands to reach my weekly target (cash game hands, not counting mtt hands in the total) and i actually played really well, though in all honesty i ran very hot so that made things much easier for myself. at one point i called a guy down vs a triple barrel in the tournament with A high, and i will link the hand to show you guys :) i went relatively deep in the $109 Sunday Million, but lost a really big pot for 70bb with AKo vs TT and then bust a couple of hands later. it was a two day event, but i still cashed for like $600 so i'll take it as at least it means i don't have to play any more tournaments tomorrow! haha. though in all honesty i actually had fun playing them, and i'm going to try play them again alongside my cash games on Sunday's. they are very soft and i am for sure leaving money on the table by not playing them, as i am a lot better post flop than most of the people in them.

my poker volume this week was good and i hit my goals. my sleeping pattern was terrible and i regularly got up when it was almost dark already. my workout routine was good, but somewhat sporadic as i went to the gym, played football and went hiking. i'm beginning my marathon training tomorrow, so gotta be consistent in that regard again too.

GG.

trapping the nuts

trying to bluff me

punting it in pre

hero call with A high

don't bluff people in tournaments

Sunday's session

hahah i know. in fairness i think i had a flush draw or something so i guess he got me :D

Update:

Wednesday, January 12th-

it was my brothers birthday on Wednesday, so we went out for a walk with my parents and the dog in Edinburgh. i haven't been getting out that much during the day due to my sleep/work schedule, so it's always nice to get out in the daylight. we then went out for a meal and i had Vegetarian Haggis and potatoes. Haggis is a Scottish dish that tends to be made from a sheeps organs mixed with a bunch of spices etc, but obviously i don't eat that any longer, but my version still tasted very similar. it sounds disgusting, but it's honestly very good! i do find it a little strange how many people who eat meat think it's normal to eat the meat/flesh of an animal, but that it's weird or disgusting to eat the blood/organs. it seems to me that they are both very similar, so i don't really see why you would want to eat one part but not the other.

after the meal and when my parents had headed off home, it was time to get in some study and look over some of the hands from the previous session. personally i really enjoy studying because i think PIO is a great tool and i enjoy learning new concepts etc from it. so even if i make a mistake in game, it's not a big deal because i can then go and rectify it in PIO and improve my understanding of the situation, so that i am much less likely to make the same mistake again in the future.

mistakes are the key to improvement.

post study i was just going to get in around 1k hands or so, as that would take me up to 4k for the week and roughly on pace to make my 10k hands target. however, i couldn't quit cos the games were very good and i was in the mood to play, so those 1k hands turned in to roughly 2,200 instead. over the past two day's i've got in 5k hands, which is quite a lot for me, and i have every intention of playing again this evening after football. the session was pretty swingy, but i managed to win in the end despite one or two questionable plays. i will find out just how questionable they are as i am about to begin my study now!

tbh at the moment i am really enjoying playing poker, despite the swings that comes from playing vs good players. there is a pretty massive difference between $2k and 500z, as even just in yesterday's session many of the 500z done random plays that were just -EV or never a thing. not sure if there is any logic there or it's just pure button clicking. either way, those who think 500z is unbeatable could not be further from the truth. to make it clear i still think they are good players (anyone who beats 500z+ is a good player imo, i don't play lower so i can't really comment on them) but that there seems to be a bit of a knowledge gap on certain lines that leads to them just doing random button clicking with very strange combos. for example yesterday some guy xr AJ on Kxx and then bet the turn when he hit a jack for 75%. not sure about that one.

anyways, not shitting on players because i probably done worse when i just moved up to 500z, as i was a complete button clicker haha. better get in some study now before i go to football!

GG.

Merry Christmas

slightly random line, but tough spot otr

i guess my 4bet was a little optimistic haha

tbh i have hardly been running in the past six months or so. i've just done so very sporadically, though i have been playing five a side football and also walking a lot, so my fitness is still decent (i ran a 12km fairly easily after not running in two months, just a couple of weeks ago). so yeah for sure i need to start upping the distances and get some miles in the legs.

when i attempted my own marathon just over a year ago i was aiming for four hours. so if i was to break that i would be very happy. 4-4.5 hours would be fine as well though. i have never really tracked my heart rate, and tend to push myself in my runs and probably run too fast. so i am going to try to slow down my runs and aim for roughly a five minute per km pace, as that will be more the kind of pace i will be running come marathon time. obviously it will be a bit slower during the marathon, but i don't think i could allow myself to run any slower unless it was at least a half marathon as i would get bored haha.

i'll probably attempt a 30-35km run before the marathon, but mostly train with a couple of shorter runs at the beginning of the week, then roughly a half marathon at the weekend (or something like that). obviously at the start i will build up though, and probably just go 5k/5k/10k, then add on each week. my brothers friend is a PT, so he gave him a rough marathon guide, so i am just going to copy that to a certain extent haha.

have you done a marathon before? you mentioned about completing a triathlon as well, but i dunno what distance that is.

haha well both games are good warmups for poker cos they get our brain thinking and those logical juices flowing. i'll probably go back to brain training games at some point as well, though i done very similar games for 1-2 years so taking a bit of a break from that (though they were very fun).

i think to make something in to a habit you have to do it daily for at least 3 weeks or so. so you could try out chess each day before you play poker, as it does serve as a great warmup and stops you from going in to sessions cold (thus making more errors at the beginning of your sessions).

Update:

Tuesday, January 11th-

yesterday i got mashed, though the bulk of these losses were from $2k where i continue to run like crap there. i just checked what my results were lifetime for that stake (albeit it's only a 12k sample size) and my EV is winning $800, but i am down $16k :P so that's not great when it's effectively the highest stake that i play on a regular basis. i probably don't play in the best games, for example doing lot's of reg battling etc, but despite this i'm still 'winning' a little overall (i focus on EV not actual winnings) and have not ran well at all at the stake. so i guess that's a positive! it does hurt a bit more to lose a few buy ins though, cos its 4x 500z and it's not as if i am getting in any $1k/$2k action on any other sites (though i probably should be).

conversely i seem to run really well at $1k. so it's funny how that works :D in reality both are small sample sizes and thus relatively irrelevant, but the issue is that at regular tables i cannot play 300k hands per year like i can easily at zoom, so your perspective on a specific stake is going to be somewhat warped by the high variance that a small sample inevitably brings. of course some people can play 300k hands per year at regular tables, but when you are capped to 4 tables and the high stakes action only runs sometimes, then imo that's basically impossible unless you are sitting at your computer all day and happy to battle regs all of the time.

i also lost a 800bb pot at 500z with set over set. in reality i probably should have never called on the river as i rarely see regulars bluffing when deep stacked, but as usual i talk myself in to a call despite my intuition telling me otherwise. i did run a sim for the hand, and in one sim it was mixing between call/fold otr, and the other one it was winning like $1200 to call. so i guess that's the issue with trying to replicate a 400bb deep spot haha. also, i don't really know what a 400bb deep 4bet bluffing range is either, so i had to just kinda guess what that was as well. in short, i probably could have saved myself 200bb's or so on the river, but if my opponent can ever bluff there then the call is either 0EV, or winning a bunch. so i can't really say that was a mistake, even if my irrational mind is telling me that it was. i also rolled aggro, it's not as if i was pure calling either in game.

away from the poker tables i signed up for the Brighton Marathon. i decided at the beginning of the year to run a marathon, but wanted to do one that wasn't in Edinburgh and a little further afield. the Brighton one was ranked in the top 21 marathons in the UK in an article that i read, so i decided to opt for that one. you run beside the sea, so it should be pretty cool! also, i have never been there before, so it's another new place that i will have been to. my training is either going to begin at the end of this week, but more likely the start of next week (i just done legs at the gym yesterday and have 5's tomorrow, so i probably won't be able to walk on Friday haha).

despite my bad session yesterday, i am feeling positive about playing and about my game, so i'm jumping straight back on the horse again tonight!

GG.

800bb pot at 500z

max value

running pure

haha tbh i scrapped that a while ago, it was taking far too long and it was too tilting when i couldn't figure it out for myself :D where as with chess the games are limited to 20 mins per match, and it's easier to learn and improve by using the solver to analyse each of my matches.

do you still play it? you are on OG, referencing this from my first thread haha.

Update:

Monday, January 10th-

i am trying to remain consistent in posting on here, even if each post gets less likes etc because the main aim of this thread is to remain accountable and provide some entertainment to people who are interested enough to read it. so i think by posting once per week it's a bit lazy as then i can just give a bunch of highlights for my week and pretend as if things are going well, even if they aren't. life is happening every moment, every single day. it's not a highlights reel come the end of the week. in reality you spent most of your time watching TV and scrolling through Instagram when you weren't bungee jumping or eating out at a fancy restaurant, but talking about those kinda things wouldn't bring in the likes, nor the validation!

today i didn't play poker, but it's okay. my aim each week is to play 10k hands, so sometimes i am going to try and play Mon-Fri, and others i am going to bump up the volume and try to play four days instead. however, for sure i am achieving my target this week and i am definitely going to be playing tomorrow. RunItTw1ce likes to highlight the importance of being assured in the words you say and not using 'maybe's' etc. so here i am. i have already ticked off the 10k hands this week, now its just time to play them out!

i have had a pretty productive day, though. it started off as usual with my meditation, followed by chess and then as usual once i decide to play one game i play multiple. i think a long term goal in chess is to become a grandmaster, because my brain is very logical and thus i am suited well to the game. i am not good at things like general knowledge, but i am really good at working things out myself and problem solving, so that bodes quite well for chess. if i can get to high stakes in poker, then i don't see a reason why i can't do the same in chess. for example, the last game i played i played with 94.5% accuracy, and i'm still a relative noob to the game. i've been kinda destroying some of my opponents recently as well, so it seems like something has kinda clicked recently as i had stagnated for a while. every single day i do the puzzles on chess.com, so i think they have been effectively my chess 'study' and it has been paying off when i am on the tables (or in this case, the board).

people might think that i am being cocky or whatever, but i think that so long as you remain humble to the fact that you can ALWAYS improve, then you can never really become cocky. i am just very confident with my goals because if i am not confident in myself, who will be? the only reason that we are not confident is because our thoughts are self sabotaging. how can you get anxious when you are devoid of anxious thoughts? you cannot be. so EVERYONE is truly confident, we just allow our thoughts to talk us out of this state.

honestly, if you haven't read the power of now, GO ORDER IT NOW!

if you get anxious about asking out a girl, are you getting anxious to ask out the girl, or because your thoughts are making you anxious about asking out the girl? of course it's the latter, because we are humans and we are just interacting with another human. this is why people need alcohol to chat up people, because then you are brought in to the moment and your anxious thoughts are temporarily silenced until the following morning, when you inevitably wake up with a sore head and a hangover. the only reason that people drink, do drugs etc is to be brought in to the moment and forget about their life situation (at least temporarily). it's why we play sports, it's why we play poker, it's why we watch a movie. we want to be so absorbed in the activity that for a short moment we experience true happiness and contentment. i am not trying to preach anything, and i still experience lots of negative/self sabotaging thoughts, but they are not who i am, they are just random thoughts :)

anyways, enough philosophical/spiritual chat! i concluded a block of coaching with one of my students, and i was really impressed by his work rate throughout as he would always ask lots of follow up questions etc post session. sometimes i would struggle to reply (cos i have many other things to do) but i admire the determination to improve! i really enjoy coaching, and it's cool when your student sends you hand examples of concepts that you have previously discussed during a session. i also got in a study call with my friend. we planned on doing bvb but ended up discussing a completely unrelated 3bet pot and uncovered a really concept about how small differences in flop textures can affect flop/turn sizing's. i think at the moment my study is very niche, seemingly looking at 'unimportant' things that are unlikely to yield a ton of EV, but all help to knit together the picture that PIO is painting in my mind. it's easy to gloss over things and put them down to PIO randomising etc, when in reality it has an ulterior motive for selecting a particular action.

going to chill for a bit and watch some Youtube, then hit the sack. GG.

Ceelightly haha that's pretty sick that you managed to play a million hands in one year. i think a few years ago i played like 150k hands of cash in a year, so i've upped that in the past couple years to over 2x, but i still think that i can get to 400k+ with a bit more consistency. still, we need to hit the sweet spot where we have a high WR but also maintain good volume. i would much rather play half the hands with double the WR by studying often and having a life away from the tables. so imo 1 million hands is way too many and you (or almost anyone) would start to play worse towards the end of their sessions, would struggle with burnout or would not be studying enough.

so, like you said, it's about finding the balance that allows us to remain close to our A game whilst getting in enough hands to bring in a good income come the end of the year.

Ceelightly ah cool, that makes sense. i guess it's often easy to miss me when i play, because it's not very often! haha. six days a week is a solid schedule though. do you play a set amount of hours or aim for a certain number of hands per week?

Update:

Sunday, January 9th-

i woke up this morning feeling completely drained and as a result just kinda lazed around in my bed for a couple of hours until roughly 2:30pm. sometimes i am too harsh on myself and fail to realise that it's fine to sometimes sleep in late, or not do a lot of productive activities on a particular day. for many 'normal' people they spend the weekends getting drunk, watching movies/TV shows and eating takeaways. so even if i get up at 2:30pm on a Sunday, at least it's without a hangover and i can make the most of the remaining day.

i was running low on food, and it was long overdue that i went and done a big shop. i often go to one of the big supermarkets on the outskirts of Edinburgh as he drives as there and back, but he didn't need to go, so i went to one around a 15 minute walk from my flat. the only downside of this is you have to carry 15-20kg of shopping back home with you, though it's good physical and mental training so i don't mind! i'm trying to buy different foods, and experiment with new recipes etc as i am really enjoying cooking just now. i think if you offered me any other job right now outside of poker, it would probably be a chef (though just a chilled one in a food van working for myself, i wouldn't like the stress of working in a restaurant under someone). i don't usually eat junk food but my friend had three donuts left over from the movie last night. after eating one of them i then decided to have another, until all three were gone. this is why it's so important to NOT have crappy junk food in your flat/house, because it's so tempting and easy to eat it when it's in the fridge, or the cupboard etc. if you only buy healthy food, you will probably only really eat healthy food. even the most determined and disciplined eater will fall at some point to cookies, cakes, burgers etc if they are lying around the kitchen.

fresh from eating three jam donuts, i decided that it was the perfect time to get back on the grind! i was going to take today off as well, as a means to reset so that i could attempt to play Mon-Fri, but i wasn't doing a whole lot else and felt like playing so i hopped on some tables. despite only played three days this week i have managed to get in 7k hands. so i am really happy about that as i got back late on Tuesday evening and basically only had five days of potential grinding this week (which included Saturday, which i always take off). it's been nice that this week $1k has been running really regularly and i've been able to get in almost a third of my volume at stakes >500z. the same can't be said for $2k though, as i've played just 18 hands this week of that stake! Gazzy was determined to get $1k zoom running, so i hopped in the pool and that was going as well (which is pretty unusual as it rarely runs nowadays). it wasn't the softest pool tbh, so was barely even worth playing in all honesty, though i still played for a while at it and just one tabled it alongside my other tables. unfortunately i got stacked bvb at it though, rivering two pair vs a guy jamming 2x pot, but who is more than capable of bluffing so i had to unhappily call. he had the straight, so i was drawing head on the flop haha.

apart from that it wasn't a hugely eventful session. i rivered a higher straight vs the low end of a straight at $1k regular tables, and managed to get a bluff through OTR at $1k zoom in a 3bet pot as well. so it's always nice to get a fold when you are bluffing! it's just not as fun when you have value :P the tables were pretty chatty as well amongst the regulars. normally i talk a bit at the tables cos you are playing vs these guys every day and often nobody says a thing to each other, so i just try to have some banter with them. it can also get a little boring just sitting by yourself for hours on end, so it's good to have a little social interaction as well. even that's just through some random messages in chat haha :D

i managed to book another winning session, so i'm happy about that. i've just gotta keep grinding, playing well and studying and the results will come. trust the process, and enjoy it as much as possible too!

after poker i decided to make a Lentil Dhal, which turned out to be really good as well. recently i've started making 2x the portion sizes that i would normally make, so that the following day i don't have to make dinner all over again and also because it saves using more energy from gas/electric. so it's a win win! the only slightly annoying thing is weighing out the food so that you split the portions fairly accurately in to two, but it only takes a couple of minutes so i don't mind. after eating those donuts earlier on i had to finish with a healthy meal, so i also threw some spinach in to it at the end for good measure. curry is on the menu again tomorrow, but that hour or so that i will save from cooking tomorrow can be put to good use.

GG.

good players bluffing

good players not bluffing

when you should have 100% equity in theory, but manage to lose the hand

don't try to get people to fold flushes

Update:

Friday, January 7th-

after not playing poker the previous day, i was definitely getting back on the horse on Friday. i have basically put going back to the gym etc on hold for this week as i attempt to get back in to my poker routine, as poker has to take priority until i get back in to the swing of routines and daily habits etc. me and my friend/flat mate decided the night before to go out for a coffee (actually i don't it, so i got a chai tea instead) as i've hardly seen any sunlight for the past month or so. when you get up between 1-2pm and by the time you have washed the dishes, perhaps got in some study etc then it's already dark.

so we left just after 12pm and even though it was only roughly a 10 minute walk each way, it was good to get out and see the sun. despite this, my mood didn't really improve afterwards. i think i have had a little seasonal depression this week, just lacking motivation and feeling a bit down. however, i didn't let this stop me and read a little of the power of now, before getting on the study grind. i didn't really need to study because i had done so the previous night, but i decided to do some sb vs btn 3bet pot, as i just ran a new script for that spot recently to reflect the $1k rake structure. even though this is a fairly standard spot, there is always something new to learn!

i was planning to take a break for an hour or so before starting my session, but i pretty much hopped straight in the pool after studying cos the games looked too good to miss out on. they pretty much sustained their juiciness throughout, and i was able to book another nice, winning session. it was still a very swingy session, at one point i was up like five buy ins at 500z and then lost seven back haha, before finishing pretty much exactly level at this stake (though i won a couple buy ins in EV). i managed to win a couple of buy ins at $1k, and played my first hands of the year at $2k before the game broke. i got in big volume in this regard- 18 hands! i'm not sure that i played my absolute best, but i was still pretty happy overall with how i played.

Saturday, January 8th-

both my friend and brother were leaving on Saturday for the weekend, so i decided to get out of the flat instead of lying around by myself. i decided spontaneously to go and go a hike along the coastline, on a route that is called the Fife Coastal Path. even though i have hiked a lot of Munro's over the past couple years, i personally enjoy walks along the coastline much more. going up a mountain is nice, but there is something about walking along beside the sea that cannot be topped. it's so therapeutic, and i like how you see the old remains of little fishing ports etc that are being taken back by the sea as they rust away.

the only problem was that i completely underestimate the time it took to walk from my starting point to the place i was supposed to get the train back from. i looked in google maps before and it said two hours, but i think this was the direct route (so not along the coastal path) and thus i was an hour away from Aberdour when i realised that i needed to head back to Edinburgh as i was supposed to be meeting my friend in 1.5 hours. at the same time my phone battery died, so i had to ask where the bus station was (there wasn't one) and then one extremely helpful lady mapped out the bus route back for me on her phone, then showed me to the correct bus stop. so shout out to her! it's amazing how helpful and kind people can be if you give them the opportunity to be so. we miss out on these kind of interactions on a daily basis because we use Google Maps instead, which is a great shame. so i might just leave my phone at home, or 'forget' to charge it again in the future so that i can have more of these interactions, because even though we see all of these people around us on a daily basis, they are effectively non playing characters as we never interact with them. i also got talking to a woman who was a Philosophy lecturer at Edinburgh Uni on the walk, and another couple friendly people. i think my time in the city is going to be limited, as i like these kind of people much more than the zombies that inhabit the cities with their apple air pods glued to their ears 24/7.

i managed to finally make it back to the flat, but realised that we weren't meeting in 30 mins but were supposed to meet in 5 minutes. so i had to abandon the shower, throw on some slightly nicer clothes and head out the door. we went for sushi and then to see The Kingsman, which i actually thought was a really good film and would definitely recommend it. it was kinda funny though cos my friend is Serbian and i am of course Scottish, and they were the 'baddies' in the film. so we were going along with the film and rooting for the English to defeat our own countrymen haha.

tbh it was the best day i have had in a while, and i plan on doing more of that coastal path again very soon (i might even do some tomorrow). needless to say i didn't play poker as it was a Saturday, but i might have to get in a grind tomorrow to make up for this weeks lack of volume. anyways, there is more to life than work!

GG.

catching bluffs

my opponents never believe me

i was more concerned about the flush completing turn than quads

thanks man! where have you been? not seen you at the tables recently. GL to yourself as well of course!