Demondoink

Tournaments

On Sunday I played tournaments for the first time in months (bar the odd random Sunday Million entry). It's funny because in tournaments there is so much losing and busting, that you often think you are playing much worse than you actually are. For example after Sundays session I said to myself that I played terrible at tournaments (I was also playing cash at the same time, which I won at) but having reviewed my tagged hands, as well as all of my hands in the $1k 6max, I actually played pretty well.

Of course I am sure there were inevitable mistakes in other tournaments and in other hands that I did not tag, but it's funny how we often allow poor results (or lack of cashes) to talk us in to thinking that we played poorly.

The $1k 6max was a pretty fun tournament actually. I'm not sure if I would have bought in directly or not, but I managed to get in to the tournament from a $55 satellite. Obviously I should have a decent edge over the bulk of the field in this format, at least in a post flop sense, but it was actually nice to see on my review that my pre flop sizings/range construction etc were actually fairly accurate too. There is a decent bit of guesswork in game for me in terms of what goes in to 60bb 3bet ranges, 80bb 3bet ranges and bvb ranges from the sb (what hands I should limp vs raise for example) because I typically play 100bb ante-less poker.

Cash games are obviously an incredibly tough game to master, especially in spots like bvb or when you get deep stacked, but tournaments are so complex in the sense that stack sizes are always changing- which means you have to have vastly different 3bet ranges based on your stack size, and vastly different post flop strategies based on your stack size too. Top pair at 20bb is a fist pump raise/stack off, top pair at 100bb not so much. Then you have icm as well, that can completely alter a typical ChipEV strategy.

My plan during WCOOP is basically to play every Sunday, and then just play some tournaments alongside my regular cash game grind on other days.

I've started to watch Pads course videos again too, and especially the play and explains that help me to get in to the mindset for playing tournaments again. Personally I prefer to just use a solver for studying post flop, but watching an elite player actually playing and giving his thought process is very beneficial imo. Then I use GTO wizard to review hands and check pre flop ranges etc.

I was starting to lose interest in studying tbh. I think this was mostly down to the fact that I was almost always studying the same game (6max cash) and mostly by myself, but recently I've started studying with my friend again (1-2x per week) and mixing up my study- sometimes doing HU, sometimes tournaments, and covering spots at 6max cash that I often overlook.

Today was my day off from grinding, so I studied one spot in 6m for around 1.5 hours with my friend, then later on (after I'd been to the gym etc) I decided to review my hands from the $1k 6max mtt, which took another 30 mins or so. In all honesty I could have easily studied longer in the evening, but I didn't last too long in that tournament so I ran out of hands haha.

So perhaps if other people are struggling with the motivation to study, maybe it could be a good idea to mix up your routine and study a slightly different game or a different spot, or think about studying with other people (or perhaps by yourself if you typically study with others).

In all honesty I feel like I need a proper holiday in order to mentally reset before getting back on the grind for the remainder of the year, but I am getting some work done on the house atm and it's my bday etc soon too, so I'm not sure if I'll have much time this month. I have barely done any travelling this year (only to Germany for the Euros) but I think this will change a lot next year again. Then WCOOP also just started too, which means the cash games should be a little better than recently, and obviously some of the tournaments are worth playing too.

Anyways, this weeks post is probably not the most exciting one in all honesty, but I think this is merely a reflection of where I am mentally and the fact that I need a break.

Oh, and last week I played some $5k again for the first time in a while, so that was fun. Hopefully it runs more this month and I can have some more opportunities to grind it.

GG.

This river tilted me ngl

Fish (who typically 3bets garbage) hero folds! :P

RunItTw1ce This was more just a one off because I am friends with him and he asked me on to his channel. Maybe we will do another video together at some point, but it won't be a regular occurrence. I have no intentions of making a Youtube channel. Maybe I would make a training site at some point but obviously that wouldn't be free content.

I had nothing to do with the audio as it's not my channel. But I think he knows what the issue is now so hopefully there won't be any audio issues if we do another video together in the future.

Personally I'd say the video is still worth watching, even if the audio is poor. You can understand most of what is said if you turn on subtitles and listen carefully.

RunItTw1ce
Personally I would just pure raise ott vs this opponent with 87. Given the way that he just played the other SRP hand on a FD board (xr flop/x jammed ott) we can assume that he is capable of putting nut combos in to his turn x range- which decreases hands like 33 from his betting range. Also, the guy was using massive T sizings and in this instance he goes small.

So for both of these reasons (the non x raise ott and the small T sizing) I am just going to assume he has Kx or a bluff almost always and raise for value. Then if he jams I will just figure it out based on timing etc.

I think its very important against these somewhat erratic players that use lots of multiple different sizings and likely have big imbalances in terms of flop x raise frequency, T barrel frequency, how they split their ranges across multiple sizings etc to make sure we are exploiting/adjusting to them across every single street and not just on the river. So that means 3betting the flop more often vs their flop x raises, raising more ott when they use custom small sizings, calling more ott vs their double barrels etc.

Obviously folding/calling rivers is a good exploit to make against them as well, but I think its just as important to punish them on earlier streets as well so that we let them know they are up to no good and we won't just allow them to get away with murder with over aggression on the flop/turn.

I'm not saying Luke allowed him to do that, I'm just talking generally and how I like to adjust to these types of regs.

Nice video btw, was a fun one to watch!

kakofigueiredo Hey mate. I'm not sure if it's the best idea for me to discuss strategy with my opponents tbh, but if you ever arrive with this combo on the river then I don't mind the call as you obviously block AA/KK which will always take this line in my shoes. You could argue this is a better call than some random pocket pairs like TT/99 etc.

Sorry I haven't gone in to more depth on the hand but I think it's best if I keep strategy discussion with my opponents to a minimum, cos I already play against some guys I'm friends with (who I also discuss strategy with).

It's nice to play with you too and good luck at the tables!

BlankyLion Yeah. As in were you able to understand most of what was said in the video?

Also I don't know why but for the past couple of weeks I have just felt like talking about poker in my posts. I'm not entirely sure why, but hopefully this is a nice change haha :P

Challenging yourself

We all have our poker comfort zones. Some of us are 6max cash game players, and pretty much play this format exclusively. Others are mtt players, who are perhaps very good at normal tournaments but struggle a little more with PKO's (or vice versa). We may even be a heads up player who loves the purity that this one vs one format espouses.

If we are a professional poker player then imo we should have these poker comfort zones. We should have these formats that we specialise in, where we know we will make money in the middle-long term (and hopefully the short term too). The worst thing that we can be is a jack of all trades, master of none. A guy who plays every format but specialises in none. Are we even beating the game with this scattergun approach?

Perhaps that win in the 6max hyper is merely masking the fact that we are a losing player at cash games, spin n go's and heads up SNG's.

For me my poker comfort zone is 6max cash (with no ante's). In the past I would exclusively play zoom (firstly 100z, then 200z and finally 500z, as well as 1kz/2kz whenever they would fun in the future). I stayed away from regular tables and didn't even consider playing them until I had reached 500z and had hundreds of thousands of hands under my belt at this stake.

Why bother playing those slow, boring tables when I can load up 500z at any time of the day, join four tables and play 700-800 hands per hour?

Of course at some point after reaching this stake you have to acknowledge the fact that the only way to move up further is to start playing regular tables, because the frequency that 1kz and 2kz would run was not very high.

So then it was time to learn about seat selection. To become used the the table flow (which you never had at zoom) and how this would perhaps play in to peoples decisions at the table. You could see when the fish would lose several hands in a row (perhaps even a big pot) and you could now smell blood. They were likely playing tilted and so it was time to pounce!

When the reg 3bets you three times in a row are they playing too loose vs you, trying to exploit your preflop tendencies? Are they attempting to induce a spaz? Or did they just get dealt three good hands in a row?

There's only one way to find out I guess... 4bet!

Eventually we get used to these table dynamics. Perhaps we decide to start tables and so now studying bvb becomes of paramount importance- because you can't be weak in this spot when it happens so often three handed. Suddenly there is no fish to exploit. There are no weak regs at the table. It's just us and two other guys of a similar (or perhaps even better) skill level. The rake makes it likely that we are all losing to the house, but our determination to improve at this short handed format, the prospect of getting a seat when the fish joins, and perhaps a little ego thrown in there, means we will continue to battle.

Stacks will fly in. Bluffs will get through and bluffs will be called. Value bets will be snapped by station regs and tank folded by others. This feels like a completely different format to 6max- because it is! We have to learn, improve and adapt in an attempt to get the better of our opponents. The term 'battling' never felt quite right for six handed poker, but never sounded so apt for three handed poker.

Eventually this format becomes comfortable. We may not be the best three handed player in history, but we hold our own and keep spazzing to a minimal.

Our poker comfort zone has expanded, so now the question is...

What next?

In the past year or so I have been playing and studying a little heads up poker. When I say 'little' I definitely mean little as it's far from a priority of mine at the moment. However, what I realised is that by not studying and understanding heads up poker to an okay level, then I was leaving a lot of money on the table when, for example, a whale was playing in the zoom pool.

I have been challenged a reasonable amount of times over the years to random heads up matches from regs with fragile ego's, and not once did I bite or have any interest in playing them. I have nothing to prove at this format and I've never claimed at any point to be an expert at it.

And lets say we are two random 6max regs who are evenly matched in this format, then who wins? The house. We both lose to rake.

Anyways, I am sure there are regs who are experts and can crush other regs in this format and beat the rake, but I have no interest in being one of those guys and so I just want to learn the game to a decent level so that I am +EV in these soft zoom pools and winning vs a random 6max reg when the table breaks and we play a few hands against each other.

The same applies to tournaments. I have done some study on this format in the past year or so, but I will not dedicate the bulk of my study to this game as my main priority (at least for the foreseeable future remains 6max cash). However, it's good to know the basics (such as good pre flop ranges etc) and to slowly increase my understanding of this game, so that I can be +EV in most tournaments that I play- which tend to be big fields with big prizepools and lots of fish in them.

I know that my ROI is good in the $1k SCOOP main event, but perhaps it's not worth playing the $5k Titans on a Sunday.

Last night I ended up hopping in the $2k heads up zoom pool because there was a whale playing in it, another presumed fish (though he may have been a reg I dk) one or two weaker regs and some very good ones. Of course I realise I am losing to the very good ones, but that doesn't matter as I am still +EV in this pool.

I ended up winning a couple stacks in less than 40 hands, which was nice given that this is the highest buy in (of any format) that I play at the moment. I ended up reviewing my hands today with my friend and, surprisingly, my thoughts/plays were mostly in line with the solver- including some nice flop threshold defends which I was proud of as it's easy to over fold in this HU format with the wider pre flop ranges.

Anyways, it's just fun to test my brain and poker knowledge/understanding in different ways. It's pretty cool that many of the theoretical heuristics that I've learned from 6max can also be applied to HU.

Good poker is good poker. Blockers and unblockers will always be vital (unless you take a more exploitative approach of course).

I took today off (as usual) but I'll get back on the grind tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I will even play a little heads up or a tournament on the side!

GG.

$4k pot at HU

BlankyLion were you able to understand most of it?

My Youtube video with GWValueTown

Apologies in advance for the relatively poor audio quality, but we had some technical issues.
Here is the link though

video

Poker

I decided to write a post this week that is focusing on poker, instead of on other topics. I guess you could call it a mid-season breakdown. My volume over the past couple of months has been fairly low, however I planned on taking June/July off completely to travel etc (I only took June off) so I am happy that I've been putting in sessions even when I've not necessarily felt like playing. Every session edges me closer to my hand target for the year of 200-300k hands, even if its just 500 hands or whatever.

As someone who is not a big volume grinder any longer, I tend to focus on quality over quantity. If you have 2x the win rate of a fellow reg, then you can play 50% of the hours and make the same amount of money. Then you can use that spare time to do other things.

At the moment I am focusing a lot on my health, so that means 2-3x gym sessions per week, 1-2x yoga classes and 1x rounds of golf. So in a typical week atm I expect to exercise at least 5x per week, but potentially 6x. Because of the variety of sports I am doing, then I don't think it's possible that this will lead to burnout. However, if I were to go to the gym only 5-6x per week, I know for a fact that I would get burnt out at some point and then lose interest for a while.

Going to the sauna etc afterwards helps motivate me to go to the gym too, because I know I can enjoy that after my workout.

When I came back from Germany I noticed from some pictures that I was just too skinny. As someone who is pretty tall (6 foot 1) I only weighed around 67kg. So I decided to go on a bulk and for the past two months I have been eating between 3000-3500 calories per day, every day. I only missed one day where I didn't hit 3000 calories, and that was because I was on the phone for four hours and by the time I was done it was too late and I wasn't hungry.

So that was an important lesson- don't socialise! :D

I am now up to 70kg but my weight seems to have plateaued a bit which means I will probably have to increase my daily caloric intake to between 3500-4000 calories in order to keep gaining weight. It's cool though cos I got a PR at bench for the first time in like four years. I had slowly been getting worse at bench, or just staying the same. I watched some Jeff Nippard push/pull hypertrophy workouts, and started focusing on higher reps instead of my typical 5x5 strength focused workouts. I think because I am very skinny, that it's more important to focus on building muscle mass so that I can improve my lifts. Because my chest was very flat, and if you have very little muscle then you are never going to be able to bench anything decent.

Don't get me wrong, I am still not strong by any means, but I am in a competition with myself and just want to keep focusing on pushing myself in each workout, getting stronger and putting on weight.

In terms of poker, I will break down my three main goals from the start of the year and discuss how they are progressing.

1. Play 200-300k hands of online cash game hands.

So far I am on track to achieve this goal. In the past it was easy to play 400-500k hands per year when I was grinding 500z and could four table and play around 700-800 hands per hour, however these days I tend to play around 300 hands per hour. This is obviously, mostly, down to the fact that 500z has kind of died and only runs occasionally, so most of the time I am just grinding 4-6 regular tables.

My goal was to hit 120k hands by the end of this month (so that I could play 4x 20k hand months for the remainder of the year) and I literally just hit that hands total, so I am just ahead of pace!

Overall my result have been good so far, with a healthy win rate of over 4.5bb/100 pre rakeback. I tend to aim for 5bb/100, so that is pretty much bang on. Obviously this could increase or decrease by the end of the year, but so long as I am focusing on quality poker and trying to play my A game each time I sit down at the tables, then I should be achieving (roughly) this win rate.

2. Aggressively shot take $5k/$10knl when I am rolled to do so, and sell action if I'm not.

I have only played a few hands at $5k this year, and none at $10k so far. I could obviously sell action for these games and play them, but I always prefer to just play on my own roll. However, having set a 2bi shot take for when I reach x bankroll again, I am pleased to say that I am pretty close to that amount. Hopefully I will get there in the next month or so.

The issue that I have is that $5k rarely runs on Stars, and I'm not overly keen to shot take on GG given the high rake and the (probable) very low WR. So I am hoping that once I hit my target bankroll, there will be some $5k games running on Stars!

I actually done pretty well in my small sample size at $5k, but I just ran shit in even fewer hands at $10k which kind of scarred me a little I guess. I would have the roll to play both these games, but I bought a house etc so I've decided to be a little more careful since then and just move up slowly- once I hit my target BR again.

I should play some $5k, at the very least, before the end of the year.

3. Keep working on my MTT game, get my first six figure score.

This isn't looking promising. I've put literally zero effort in to my MTT game, and have barely played a tournament for the past couple months. I played the Sunday Million yesterday, and that was my first tournament in a while. I think I will start adding a couple tournaments to my grind on a Sunday, and just hope to get a random bink in the process. I think it actually helps me to put in more cash volume if I'm playing mtt's on the side, cos then I know I can't stand up and quit the session until those tournaments are over.

I always say each year I will focus more on mtt's, but then I get engrossed in my cash game grind and tend to just focus my study and playing time on that instead. I'll add a little mtt volume on the side, but I have no intention on giving it any more focus than that.

So there you have it. One is progressing well, the other is on track, and the final one is at the mercy of the poker gods- if they wish to bless me with a random six figure mtt bink! Tbf there are a lot worse players than me who have won a lot more than me at tournaments, so you never know!

I am channeling my inner Chris Moneymaker.

Oh, and I done a poker hand analysis (my first ever public video) which should be released on Youtube within the next week or so. I was a little nervous as I've never done anything like this before, but I think it turned out pretty well and hopefully my analysis was decent. It's on a friends channel, as I don't plan on making my own one- at least for now.

GG.

Bluffing credit in the bank gets you paid

Live_your_dreams85 Thanks mate, I appreciate that :)

Trying to slow down time

Last night I was at my Grans and noticed that James Bond 'Thunderball' was on TV. She doesn't have any wi-fi, and I don't have normal TV, so whenever I visit her it's a good opportunity to get off things like Youtube etc and instead (whenever we are just sitting around) watch a good TV show or a movie.

Ever since I was a kid I have enjoyed watching James Bond films. My Grandad (on the other side of the family) would often watch them, and I remember buying him 'Goldfinger' for a birthday/Christmas on VHS, so we would often watch it together whenever I went down to visit him. He would always sit in the exact same chair, so I had to find an alternate piece of furniture to perch myself on.

Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, and I'm sure that VHS got thrown in the bin when the house was cleared out.

Thunderball was released in 1965, almost sixty years ago. Not far in to the film you are introduced to one of the women that Bond would be trying to seduce over the course of the movie- Domino (Claudine Auger). She is absolutely stunning in the film, is very likeable and does a good job of slowly turning from the 'bad' side over to the 'good' side by the conclusion of the film.

Normally when you watch a film it is from fairly recently, so pretty much every actor is still alive. However, being almost sixty years old, means that many of this cast have passed away. Sean Connery, probably one of Scotland's best ever actors, died a few years ago. I noticed that Claudine Auger has passed away too. It's quite weird watching someone who is young and beautiful in a film, but who has subsequently died from old age.

It kind of brought my own mortality to the fore. She was only around 24 when the film was released, which is younger than I am, but she has grown old and passed away in the subsequent years.

When we look at old people we may think that they have always been old, or perhaps that they have simply been around for an eternity and the gray hairs and wrinkles are an inevitable result. However, they were once babies, they were once high school kids, they turned 18 like us, they turned 30 like us. We have much more in common with them than we think, even if we may take our relative youth for granted as we disregard any worries of growing old in the near future.

A photograph, a recording or a film is amazing in the sense that it freezes us in time. When we get our photograph taken as we turn 18 we are forever 18 years old in that picture. We may grow old, but that picture never changes- unless it is destroyed. Claudine Auger is forever 24 years old in that film, even if she has grown old and moved on.

It actually made me think of the Black Mirror episode named 'San Junipero', which I would recommend watching if you haven't seen before.

I have just taken a week off of poker, in order to go and see some friends and family. One of my friends recently had a baby, so I went to see him. My parents bought a new house, so I went to see that. I played golf with my friend at his course in Edinburgh, and I went to visit my Gran for a few days. I even managed to go and see a Rangers game with my brother- which was a ridiculous 2-0 loss to Dynamo Kyiv.

Now, I thought there was a reasonable chance that we would get knocked out by them- though I, and the bookmakers, still considered us to be the favourites. However, one of our players was sent off for an absurd second booking, after winning a header and getting booked for an 'elbow'. I really didn't appreciate the way that the Kyiv players were rolling around the floor throughout the match, seemingly attempting to get at least one of our players sent off.

The referee duly obliged, and after that sending off (the tie was evenly poised at this point) it was really only a matter of time before they scored. I was very annoyed after the match, but this year I have decided that I will not allow sport related frustrations to fester for long- because life is too short! Perhaps I will still be pissed off for an hour or so afterwards, but then I will do a meditation and clear my head, then focus on something else. In the past it has ruined the remainder of my day, and perhaps some of the next too, but now I choose to feel the negative emotions, accept them, and then move on.

I think that people who don't truly support a team/player will think that to be this emotionally invested in something that you literally have no control over is absurd, and I'd probably agree, but this is what you sign up for when you choose a sports team- or when they choose you. Pain and elation. Usually more of the former than the latter, but we stick around through blind loyalty and a seemingly never ending faith that our team will succeed.

Throughout this trip, I made sure to make the most of each day and have plans for each and every day. Even on the drive back up to Inverness today, I decided to stop off half way home (the drive takes around three hours) to hike a Munro. It's only the second one I've done this year, but I plan to do a few more before the year is out.

I wrote in a previous post about time, around four months ago, that one of my goals was to waste less time on things like chess (I've never played it since) and try to be more conscious and less on auto pilot. When driving home, example, this means sometimes stopping to hike a mountain, visit a town or just take a couple photos from a nice viewpoint. It's too easy to auto pilot drive home, tell yourself you will stop by those mountains/towns/viewpoints next time, and then never stop the next time either.

I have noticed recently that if you consciously attempt to get out of your unconscious, auto pilot daily/weekly etc decisions, that these conscious 'decisions' will compound. So when I study a new poker topic, I am more likely to do a slightly different gym workout, or walk home a different way, or put on a film instead of watching Youtube, or stop off on my drive home to Inverness to go for a hike.

During the first hour of todays hike, as the path twisted and turned uphill, I was checking my watch every few minutes to see how much time had passed. The watch faces reading didn't please my calves, as it read only 2-3 minutes more than the previous check.

Now perhaps you could argue that I should be more present, and not check my watch, which I agree with, but either way those minutes were drawn out. As my calves ached, the wind pounded my face. I was simultaneously sweating and freezing at the same time (your hands/face get cold from the exposure, but your body often overheats while walking uphill as you wear a jacket/rucksack etc).

There were so many different sensations going on in your body, that you had no option but to be present. Five minutes walking up that hill can feel like an eternity, yet an hour mindlessly scrolling through Instagram or getting in to arguments with (probably) bots can slip by as if it were merely a few seconds.

The seconds, minutes and hours pass by regardless of what we do, but we can, at the very least, try to slow them down as much as possible by being more conscious and having new experiences as often as possible. Oh, and hiking a (small) mountain in very windy conditions will also snap you out of it!

Just make sure to pack your hiking boots with you so you don't have to do it in trainers, then drive home with soggy feet :)

Competition

I remember as a kid reading about how Colin Montgomerie (a Scottish golfer) would just go down to the range and hit balls for hours in an attempt to get better. For some reason, this always inspired me.

When I was at high school I was very lazy- I didn't study at all, I was always late for school and I didn't really have a passion for any subjects. I did quite like English (which is essentially reading books/writing, not learning the language) and History- which was probably because my Dad was a history teacher haha.

In the end my grades were okay. I got some B's and C's, which weren't good enough to get me in to a good University, but were good enough to get me in to a more mediocre one. This led me towards studying a course that I wasn't really interested in, and thus dropping out after a year in order to pursue poker.

So in a sense you could say that my high school laziness was a blessing. Without it, there is very little chance that I would have dropped out of a degree that I actually enjoyed, in order to take a punt on poker.

The degree that I applied to do at the good University (which I didn't get accepted for) was for English. So it's kind of funny how, despite not knowing myself at all at the age of 17/18, I still knew that there was a passion for reading and writing within me. I think that is one of the reasons why I write this blog. I enjoy writing and having to be creative in terms of coming up with knew ideas, while trying to knit everything together in to something that is somewhat enjoyable to read for whomever reads each post.

I don't think it's something that I would like to pursue as a full time career, it's more of a hobby that is fun to do once a week or so. Perhaps one day I would like to write a book, but in my current state I wouldn't be qualified to write one on anything, bar perhaps 500z lol.

So with that inspiration from Colin Montgomerie in mind, I would go down to the range and hit balls myself, in an attempt to improve and (hopefully) cut down my handicap. I remember one time, going down to the golf course when there was around a foot of snow and chipping on to a green. I had to clear the snow so that my balls weren't simply absorbed by the thick blanket of snow. White golf balls won't show up well underneath white snow.

I ended up getting to around a 10 handicap, but towards the end of my playing days as a junior I was regressing and was definitely higher than that- probably 12 or 13. I ended up quitting the game aged (roughly) 16, and only really played once or twice per year for the following 10+ years, until I joined a course this year.

Despite struggling for motivation at high school, it was strange how reading something as simple as a guy going to a driving range and practicing for hours at a time, resonated so much with me. Perhaps it was not so much that I was lazy, it was just that I was uninterested in the subjects at school.

Looking back, this was almost like a seminal moment for me. It was the first time that I derived some sort of excitement about grinding, about practicing, about improving myself so that I could both beat my previous self, and beat others in the process.

Ultimately, I would end up taking this competitive passion and willingness to learn and improve, and apply it to poker. Studying is never something that has felt like a chore to me, I have pretty much always enjoyed it. I love using a solver and learning new concepts that will give me better clarity in game. I enjoy putting in the hours off the table so that I can excel on them when I sit down.

Poker is a game where you are competing not only against your opponents, but against yourself. You may try to adjust to, or exploit your opponents, but you also strive to make fewer punts yourself, and to maintain a better equilibrium with your mood and mindset while playing.

It really is a beautiful game, and has forced me to be introspective in so many ways, which then snowballs in to other facets of your life so that you can improve there too.

The driving range, however, can become a lonely place from a social standpoint. For a while you may have a buddy to practice with, or a sibling or family member. You may just enjoy putting in those hours by yourself, with the company of the birds chirping, or the crackling of an old mp3 playing out of your Sony Ericsson phone.
However, your friends are going out this weekend with some alcohol that their older brother bought them, to find the most solitary field within walking distance that is unlikely to attract the attention of the public or the police. What do you do? Do you continue to put in the hours in the range, or sack the medal this weekend and drink a 2 litre bottle of Strongbow in a field?
The choice is an easy one.
The Strongbow may taste like acidic cat piss, but it does the job. The golf can wait for another day...

At around this age (16) I essentially packed in the golf and the football (though I did start playing five a side football during the week instead). In Scotland we have a big drinking culture, so most people would start drinking with their friends at around age 15 or 16.

Looking back I don't even regret it- it was fun. I think that its important for kids to be kids, to have different experiences and to grow in their own time. From a productivity standpoint, I should have stuck with the football/golf etc and avoided the drinking, but from a social standpoint there was a clear winner. I would play for that football team with two of my best friends, but when they decided to pack it in then I was always going to follow. I would play golf with my friends, who were two years older than me, and my older brother, who is three years older than me. But when they turned 18 they were no longer juniors and thus weren't members any longer. It was time for us all to move on and try out fields, parks and when we eventually turned 18 and could legally drink- bars and clubs.

Some of my favourite memories were going out to a student club on a Tuesday, to a night aptly named 'skint' (skint is a slang Scottish word for having no money), getting drunk, chasing girls, getting in to stupid disagreements or fights, posing for a group photo for the guy walking around with a camera, walking to the nearest kebab/pizza shop for some food then trying to find an after party, heading to the casino for some drunken poker, or calling it a day and getting a taxi back home via the McDonalds drive through.

However, these nights out could not go on forever. We would get older, and soon enough it was too weird going to a night club full of 18-20 year olds. People got in to serious relationships and some had kids young. Others moved away or just lost interest in the clubbing scene. I moved away and left for Aberdeen, and then Edinburgh. These weekly and often bi weekly nights out now became birthday nights out or leaving nights out.

As the social calendar slowly cleared, it was now time to get back on to the proverbial driving range and take things seriously again. No more drinking and no more hangovers. Plenty of time to study and grind, but less time to go to bars and clubs. More time to travel, train for marathons, workout at the gym, read books and listen to podcasts.

We are constantly told that we need to prioritise productivity, to become better versions of ourself and make more money than we did last year. We may follow inspirational guys like David Goggins or Jocko Willink, which inspires us to put in that extra hour of study, head to the gym even when we don't feel like going, avoid that pizza when it is calling our name or snub that invitation to go with your friends to the club on Saturday- cos you have to stay fresh for that Sunday mtt grind!

We write 5-10 goals for 2024 and almost all of them are monetarily focused, health focused or productivity focused. How many of them are socially focused? Do we just forget about our long term friends now we are in a serious relationship, now we have kids to look after? Do we set out to meet new people and make new friends? Do we set out to work on our social skills?

I feel like I am at the point in my life where it's time to prioritise my social life again. Imo this game, at least for me, is not sustainable long term. I don't think it's healthy to work from home by yourself for 30-40 years. Sure if you live with someone it will be better, but then you might get sick of one another. Humans are social creatures and it's important to remember that.

When I look back on my life thus far, the best memories I have are with other people- not from grinding online poker and winning a big tournament or a big cash game pot. Sure, I love this game and always will, but it's still a mean to an end. The money that I have earned from poker is so that I can travel, have new experiences, go to sporting events, hang out with friends and family and play golf (or yoga/football/tennis/hiking etc).

Currently I am looking in to going back to University next year, and I think that it's highly likely that I will go through with this. I am not saying it's 100% certain, but within the past few weeks it's become abundantly clear to myself that I need to make a lifestyle/career change for my overall happiness. Even if I commit to doing something else, I obviously won't quit poker, it will just become more of a hobby again, or something I do when I have time off- perhaps playing live poker for a couple months when I have time off over the Summer. I'm not sure.

My intention with this post is not to attempt to talk anybody out of pursuing poker as a career, or telling anybody that them playing professionally is wrong or a bad idea. I think it has probably been the best possible job for me over the past 10+ years, however, that doesn't mean that it's the best job for me for the following 10+ years.

When I look towards the future, I get excited about meeting new people, making new friends, finding a girlfriend, travelling, learning new skills, hiking and camping in the mountains, playing golf in the sun (my days of chipping in the snow are behind me) and having new experiences.

I am much less concerned about winning x amount of money at poker or shipping the WSOP main event- though I would obviously not turn that down!

I am not going to completely rule out sticking with poker, or coming back to it full time if I do decide to pursue something else for a while, but these are my thoughts at the moment. I won't mention this topic again for the remainder of the year now, so that I avoid sounding negative or like a broken record- cos I do look forward to grinding online full time for the remainder of the year.

This quote always sticks with me, from one of my favourite films 'in to the wild'-

Happiness is only real when shared.

GG.

Winning a stack at $2k

I almost timed out here so had to just jam lol

Yeah I might share a photo of me in my kilt haha :P

I think that we will always have highlights in our lives that we are able to recall much easier than the more mundane weeks that we spend at home playing poker etc.

However, that doesn't mean that we cannot break out of autopilot and create some more memorable moments today or this week. We probably remember the weddings first and formost because they are rare events. If taking out the bins only happened once every five years, then this would become an extremely memorable moment too.

Of course there are other reasons that make weddings memorable (such as two people committing to spend their lives together, seeing friends that you haven't seen in years, great food, fun dancing etc).

What I cant remember is what I have done on the job last week or on
the poker sessions I have played.

This is why I don't want to do the same career for 30-40 years, cos it can just become a blur and you feel like you are living the same day or week on repeat. However, if you change occupation every ten years or so, then things will always remain fairly novel and interesting.

Lol I just spent over an hour writing a post and then accidentally clicked back and lost it all. Brutal bad beat. Might write another post tomorrow or just skip it this week now.

Callum Ross

I do think though that assuming QQ and JJ would fold to the jam after
4betting is a touch ambitious

Yeah tbh I never even thought about these hands getting 4bet if I'm being honest. I'd be surprised if he ever 4bet JJ here, being in position, and QQ seems pretty wide too, but given what both players showed up with then perhaps he starts to expand his 4bet for value region too. I guess there's no real way to know this unless he 4bet QQ/JJ in a very similar spot. I do agree that if he ever 4bet QQ then I doubt he's folding. JJ seems pretty optimistic unless you are trying to induce this sort of play, but even then I'd probably just fold as even his bluffs like KQo are flipping and I'm dead vs most of the remaining range, bar AK.

In defense of my criticism of this play, as a coach, I feel like it
would be pretty wrong for me to advocate 5b jamming what I guess is
the literal bottom of our 3b sqz range

Yes that's a completely fair point. Don't get me wrong, this is a terrible play at equilibrium, but I'm pretty sure that Robl knows this is never a jam in a million years, hence why I decided to explore whether it could actually be okay or not. If a fish done this then I'd just put it down as a massive punt and take no notice.

RunItTw1ce True, but there's also a chance he has done the math away from the tables/ran some node locked sims to see how to counter exploit live regs who 4bet too often.

Either way I just wanted to explain why, even without a live read, that it could be a good play. Even if I would probably much prefer to jam a hand like A5s>KQo.

Also, I forgot to mention blocker effects. With KQo we are blocking both AK and KK, meaning that his KK combos drop to 3 and AK combos drop to 12. As people tend to 4bet bluff with Ax more than Kx, then actually we do quite a good job of blocking value and unblocking bluffs, especially if he tends to use more of the A9-A2s region as opposed to the AQ-ATo region.

@43:00

I don't like labelling Robl's play as a massive punt. In a spot like this, the IP player has to 4bet/call off so tight that it's very easy to overdo the 4bet bluffs. If this is the case then it simply becomes a question of math- can he effectively jam any two cards and make them profitable?

I played a spot recently against one of the most aggressive fish I've ever seen (pre flop at least) where he would 5bet insanely wide. As a result I cold 4bet/6bet jammed 200bb with AJo. Now if the fish snapped and had AA/KK then I would have looked dumb and if anyone ever seen the hand history then they would think I am a whale. However, I was almost certain that 6bet jamming this hand was printing so I went for it.

Also the big blinds you are risking are irrelevant. In a tournament you are told to open jam hands like A9o on the button with 20bb even when there is only 3-4bb of dead money in the middle. So if we say there is 4bb dead money, then that means we are risking 5x the pot to win the pot.

In this case, Robl is risking 205bb to win 72bb. So actually you are 'risking' much less than you are when you make a standard open jam with A9o off 20bb. You are only risking 2.85x the pot. Of course you could argue that it's different cos your equity when called in an mtt with A9o is probably around 50%, where as your equity when called with KQo in this cash game is probably 10-20%.

If we give IP a 4bet/call range of AA/KK/AK then KQo has 19% equity when called. So that means Robl will win $175,000 of the $919,000 pot (if called). Or 87bb.

As Robl is jamming almost 3x pot, then (without any equity) the jam needs to work 74% of the time to be profitable (72bb in the pot + 205bb jam is 277bb, 205/277=0.74 or 74%. Unless they are 4betting half the deck, then this is obviously never going to be profitable to jam. However, with the additional 87bb equity when called, now the jam only needs to work 56% of the time ((72bb+205bb+87bb) is 364bb. 205/364=0.56. Or 56%.

Assuming IP has 28 value combos then 28/44=0.63*100=63 overall combos. 63-28=35 bluff combos. So if IP 4bets 35> combos then we can profitably jam KQo here. AQ-ATo is already 36 combos, and we can assume they use a bunch of random suited Ax/Kx as bluffs too, and might not even 4bet/call off with AKo. So it becomes quite clear why Robl made a play like this once you factor in all of this.

Plus, it's worth mentioning he may have just had a live read and wasn't solely relying on math. Btw, if any of my math here is incorrect here then please point it out, cos I'm far from an expert mathematician so I might have been wrong at some point.

Weddings and poker

I had not been to a wedding in around eight or nine years, before last weekend. Me and my friends were young guys back then, in our early twenties and having no real idea what kind of life would unfold before us in the coming years. I was chosen by my friend to be his best man, an honour that means I would have to organise the stag do, as well as performing a speech at his wedding- amongst other things. I would use alcohol to help me perform both of these tasks to a (decent) level.

Thankfully the speech went well and it was a good ceremony, but I would never see that 'best friend' again as he would move away and get on with his new life.

However, I do owe him a lot as he would be the guy who introduced me to poker. One day we were sitting at his Grans house (it was basically vacated so he lived there) and he pulled out a pack of cards and said we should 'play poker'. This was shortly after the conclusion of high school, when I was seventeen and not yet old enough to grace a casino.

I knew literally nothing about the game, and so he taught me some of the basic concepts such as hand strength and what hand beats what hand etc. Once me and my friends were all eighteen (I would be the last to turn eighteen) we started to go to the casino, and the rest is history. Ironically, I was probably the worst out of all of us in the beginning. My two best friends were more aggressive players, and I was a bit more passive (soon that would be eradicated from my game forever). However, I was able to learn and adapt my game over time, where as they would be stuck in the same gear all of the time and never shift out of this aggressive default mode.

Aggression is great in poker, but it has to be tempered with passivity. We have to give up sometimes, whether that be to control our frequencies a little, to exploit a calling station/fish, or to simply prove that we are a player capable of playing in several different ways. We do not want to be predictable at the poker table. Unpredictability will both confuse our opponents, whilst simultaneously keeping them on their toes whenever we enter a pot against them.

Quickly I would figure out when my friend would decide (seemingly before the flop) that it was time to barrel off three streets and either go home, or pick up a healthy pot at some point with the fold equity that multiple bets should bring. Even though there was no such thing as node locking and we didn't county combo's, it just seemed intuitive that a guy would likely be overdoing his bluffing frequencies when (essentially) betting blind post flop across multiple streets.

So perhaps, after high school concluded, it was my friends job to introduce me to poker, and it was my job to help him step in to the next stage of his life as a married man. He actually met his wife to be on a night out that we had together. Either way I will forever be grateful for our friendship and for him introducing me to this great game.

I was invited to another wedding at the weekend, which would be my first since the aforementioned wedding. A lot had changed in this period for myself. I had stopped drinking (though thankfully I had no speeches to perform this time), poker had ceased to become such a volatile income, and had instead become a relatively consistent one. I had travelled a lot, moved around cities and eventually bought a place of my own. I had started to prioritise both my mental and physical health, by doing things such as daily meditation and forging a pretty consistent workout/exercise routine.

Of course there were some downsides too, some things were better eight/nine years ago than they are now, but this is to be expected. Our lives are not a linear progression, but instead consist of peaks and valleys.

Overall it was a very good day out and nice to catch up with several people who I had not seen in years. We even got in a little Scottish country dancing, which was fun! I wouldn't say I am a massive wedding fan tbh, but the thing that I do like about them is that they can bring together people that would, almost certainly, never be brought together through any other circumstances. It's crazy the amount of time, effort and planning that go in to weddings, only to have them concluded over the span of less than half a day. I guess that ephemeral nature is not only applicable to weddings, but also to life. We think that weeks are slow, months are slower and years take an age, but in reality, weeks and months pass by within the blink of an eye, and years can fly by almost as quickly!

It may only seem like yesterday when our friend was teaching us the rules of poker, but in reality over a decade has passed since then.

Ironically I have another wedding this coming weekend. The idiom of London buses really is true! Of course there is something to be said about the fact that I am thirty, so this is a fairly common age where people will ger married etc, but either way it's still funny not to have attended one in so long and then have two in the space of a week.

I want to find a way of slowing life down, so that another decade doesn't fly by. Whether that be spending less time on technology, or getting up earlier, or shifting career path, or focusing more on relationships, or travelling more, or switching back to grinding live poker (like in my teenage years), I am not sure.

Either way, these weddings will simultaneously wrap up one chapter in our friends lives, whilst also beginning a new, exciting chapter for them. So even if we struggle to fully get on board with the clamour of seeing the brides wedding dress, or for catching the flowers as they are tossed in to the crowd, at the very least we can appreciate the beauty in life whereby one specific day is bookmarked forever in our friends lives. The worst thing we can do is to have every day meld in to one another, without ever being able to identify one day being any different to the last.

July 22nd 2024 may have just been another day for me, when I travelled home after a long and busy weekend, but July 20th 2024 will be a day forever engrained in to my friends memory, and by proxy, in to mine as well.

Tomorrow I will get back on to the grind. GG.

Lausbub Haha cheers mate, I really appreciate that! Maybe the other post was my best one up to that point, so I guess it's good to continue to improve and be able to outdo my old posts :P

Tbh I was a little nervous about writing about this subject, but I try to be honest in this blog and these thoughts were on my mind, so I wrote about it regardless. I guess it's quite a vulnerable admission to make. Either way I am glad that people got some benefit from my post and enjoyed it :)

I used to play football a lot as a kid, but wouldn't really want to get back in to playing for an actual team nowadays, just cos I feel like it can get a little bit too dirty/aggressive/serious at amatuer level. However, I would be open to playing five a side or seven a side again, as it's competitive but not overly serious. I prefer to remain injury free as much as possible so that I can continue to do my other sports too.

How about you, what sports are you in to?

Are you interested in a subject and go to uni?

That's actually a great question. At my yoga class tonight it suddenly dawned on me halfway through the class. I was thinking- wouldn't it be cool to go back to Uni and get a degree in something like Psychology, and that way I could move to Glasgow for the duration of my degree (going to Rangers games, being closer to friends/family etc) cos there isn't a Uni here in Inverness- well there is but it's more like a college tbh.

However, that wouldn't be until September 2025 at the earliest, as;
1- I wanna play poker full time for the remainder of the year.
2- I wanna redecorate and fix up my house.
3- I wanna stay in Inverness for a couple years at least so that I can fully experience living here.

I'm not saying I'm definitely doing this, but it seems like a decent idea to me. I think long term that living in Inverness/up in the Highlands is a good idea, but I've noticed that the average age of people up here is higher- as more people tend to move up here to retire/have families, and younger people tend to move away to go to bigger cities and to Uni etc. I'm not quite at that stage of life yet, so perhaps it would be best to go back to a big city and go to Uni etc.

Anyways this is just an idea. Like I said, I will be staying here for at least another year, but just because I bought a house here doesn't mean I need to stay put here. It will be easy to rent out- whether that be as a holiday home/airbnb (there are tons of tourists in Inverness) or just as a general rental. Buying a house, at least for me, is more of a mid-long term investment- as opposed to a place that I will stay in for the next 30+ years.

You were at Uni recently right? Did you enjoy your time there? Maybe I am misremembering what you told me, but I thought you said you were at Uni not long ago.

Daniel Clemente Hey man, thanks for the kind comment! I have time to reply now haha :)

Ah that's sick I never realised you were Scottish too! There aren't many of us kicking around on these RIO forums haha. Though there are actually some other really good high stakes cash regs from Scotland like DeanoSupremo and BigBlindBets. Gazzy seems to have improved a lot in the past year or so too. So in that sense, we probably punch above our weight haha.

I completely agree with your comment about those other similarly 'small' football nations continuously doing well, where as whenever we qualify for a major finals it's a miracle. Hopefully, after qualifying for two of the past three tournaments, it can now become the norm, and then we can go on to the next level and actually qualify out of a group. Hungary were very mediocre tbh, and we could have easily won that game. The Armstrong challenge seemed like a stone wall penalty, and I thought that in the stadium too when I seen that challenge come in.

I feel like the problem is Clarke though. He is very good at being the under dog- whether that be getting Killie up to third place in the SPL, or getting Scotland to qualify for a first major finals in 23 years. However, can he create a team that expects to win and go to the next level? I doubt that. There is no plan B from the turgid football of 5-4-1. Sure, it has worked well in the past, but teams figure you out and adjust vs your tactics and formations. So at a certain point he needs to see it no longer works for us, and create a new system/formation/style of football. Playing without wingers, in todays game, is extremely questionable. Having no pace means teams can press you high and have zero fear about you counter attacking- which is pretty much exactly what Germany done against us. Then you look at Spain in the final, and how they literally won the game cos their two wingers created so much, and combined together for the first goal- one getting the goal and the other the assist.

Anyways we will see what happens in the upcoming Nations League matches. Hopefully he tries something new cos otherwise it'll be the exact same results, were we to qualify for the WC in two years time.

Glad to hear you've gotten your smarphone habits under control. I
think your point regarding how smartphones are literally designed to
grab our attention in the maximum way possible, that billions of
dollars go into this is an important consideration. Often we can feel
bad that we are personally failing if we get lost in a smartphone
doomscrolling rabbit hole.

Yes I think those are some great points. I think it's very important that we take accountability in our lives, but sometimes we just have to accept that- hey I'm a human, and I am able to be manipulated in certain ways. Phones are the ultimate manipulation tool, cos it's not as if we have instant negative (or slightly slower) feedback, that we may get from having other negative habits. For example if we drink alcohol, the next day we get instant negative feedback in the shape of a hangover. If we eat unhealthily, we might feel bad in the aftermath of a pizza, but if we don't, we will see slower, negative feedback when we look in the mirror after six months of eating crap and see we have put on two stone.

However, with phones, we can scroll mindlessly for years, but not really see any negative feedback. We are not getting a hangover and throwing up down the toilet, and we are not putting on several stone and staring at ourselves in the mirror in disgust. Perhaps we may feel slightly down/depressed, or that we don't have time to do certain things (due to our excessive phone use) but other than that, there is no clear negative side effects of phone usage. But in reality, we know there are a ton of them.

That's a good idea about the safe, I will look in to that- thanks for sharing! I have always thought it would be a cool idea to have a little box in your hallway for guests to put their phones in whenever they visited you- so that you were 'forced' to actually talk instead of someone just drifting off and using their phone or whatever.

I often think that when I'm established at high stakes, I will make a
big effort to take willpower out of the equation: order meal prep or
batch cook to ensure that I don't have to think about what to eat and
always have a healthy option, book personal trainers so that I don't
have to force myself to go to the gym at varying schedules, book
coachings/study sessions with other pros so I don't miss them and have
better focus, etc. All of these things add up over time, and repay the
initial cost imo.

That sounds like a good idea. Personally I really like cooking, so I wouldn't want to outsource that to someone else. I would maybe get a PT at some point, at the very least to teach me to deadlift (I never deadlift cos I feel like my form isn't good), but it would probably be fun to have your own PT pushing you. I don't mind doing workouts alone though. However, I got to yoga classes, so perhaps you could class this as having a 'PT' cos I could easily just go stretches at home by myself, or by watching a random yoga video on Youtube. But by going to classes, the teacher is able to correct your form etc, which is essentially what a PT would be doing. I got golf lessons a couple years ago, and would definitely get more this year- if I actually liked the pro at my golf club (which I don't haha). Today he was very rude to me for no reason, so that excludes me from ever taking lessons from him. Coaching is a good idea, and probably something that I should have done at some point. However, I have gotten some 'coaching' this year in terms of from a stats/data perspective, cos that's not my strong suit. Having a mental game coach is also something I'd be open to getting in the future. I feel like from a theoretical perspective, that I wouldn't get coaching though as I like my study process and still feel like I can improve a ton doing so by myself.

So yes I agree with you, except about the cooking :D

Going to use your inspiration to get back into it and hit the gym
today after my first session.

Nice one mate, great to hear! I was struggling with this just a couple of months ago, but now I am bitten by the exercise bug and I'm doing something almost every day. For example this week- on Monday I went to yoga, Tuesday to the gym/sauna etc, Wednesday to golf then yoga (first time this year prob doing 2x forms of exercise in a day) and tomorrow I'll be going to the gym before heading back to my parents. Then 1x more workout before the end of the week (leg day) and I think I'm playing golf again on Sunday with my friend. So hopefully the same happens to you too. It's easier exercising in the Summer too, when you can walk to the gym or whatever in shorts and a t shirt.

That second hand is wild. WP. Don't understand his flop donk much at
all tbh.

He's just some random fish, so I guess if you have an overpair on a dry board and you're a fish, then donking always seems reasonable haha. The river donk was the very questionable play imo haha. Either way, I'm not complaining :P

Cheers mate, GL to you too!

Paul Gough Yeah Bale seemed to be injured a lot, at least for Madrid, but always seemed to play for Wales- or at least in games that he was badly needed in.

I think that for countries like each of ours, you need your most talented players (because we will probably only have a couple) to be in forward areas. So in that sense Wales were blessed because your best players were a wide forward (Bale), and a creative midfielder (Ramsey). Sure there were other good players in that team like Ashley Williams at centre back, Joe Allen in midfield etc, but ultimately the difference makers are in forward areas.

However, for Scotland our best players are left backs (Robbo and Tierney) and in central midfield- where we have McGinn, McTominay, Gilmour, Ferguson, McGregor etc. We don't have any good strikers and almost no wingers in the squad. Which means we have to play a 5-4-1 and shoe horn in as many central midfielders and left backs in to that team as possible, simply because they are our best players.

So I would say that there wasn't a huge difference in terms of quality between peak Wales and current Scotland (you had Bale/Ramsey, we have Robbo/McGinn) but the key difference is that your best players score goals and ours don't play in those forward positions, even though McGinn does score quite a lot for a central midfielder tbf.

Haha nice one, at least you managed to run that $600 up to a healthy profit! The weird thing with live poker is that you have to factor in flights, accommodation etc to figure out if the trip is even worth making. Where as when we are grinding online then essentially the only 'expense' we have is electricity, cos we already have an internet connection, laptop etc.

$1/3/10 sounds like fun though. At EPT Barcelona last year I played in some $5/10 games, and the highest I played was in a $10/20 game. I seen a bunch of mediocre regs on $50/100 games, but I wasn't that comfortable with live yet and also its very awkward taking out that amount of money and then having to take it back to the UK with you. Are you able to put Dollars/Euros back in to your bank accounts when it's time for you to go home? Or you have to take the cash back with you? Cos I'm never sure what to do with it, were I to have a bunch of cash left over in a foreign currency.

Haha yeah man, should be fun :) GL.

Starting from nothing

In poker most of us started with nothing. Sure, there are the people who were gifted $10k by a relative, decided to hop in to poker and managed to build a career out of it. Or the people with rich parents, who could afford to go busto several times and get bailed out by their parents each and every time. Then there were the guys, like most of us, who started off with freerolls and the micro stakes, and slowly progressed from there. We remain humble because we know what it was like when $100 in your poker account felt like the world.

I recall managing to satellite in to the Sunday Storm from a freeroll, then I proceeded to go relatively deep in it and cash for $35 or so. I sat at the top of the stairs in my parents house on my laptop, as I was finally knocked out of the tournament. A refresh of my cashier promptly informed me that I was now the proud owner of 35 American Dollars- not bad for an evenings work!

We all remember hearing the stories of 'no home Jerome' (aka Phil Ivey) back in the day. For some reason there is a certain allure about hearing the initial struggles of someone, be that a poker player, a professional athlete, an actor etc who had their struggles in the beginning but managed to come out on top in the end. Perhaps it is because we can relate to those struggles, while we aim to mimic their eventual successes.

Four homes Jerome just doesn't have the same ring to it.

What I have noticed in my own life is that it is easy to become too fixated on one aspect of your life, and end up overlooking the others. For example, let's say we are striving to become the best poker player in the world.

Well, then we need to work harder than almost every other poker player. We need to study daily, and do so efficiently. We need to prepare better for every session than our opponents. We need to make sure we play our A game each and every time we sit down at the tables. Our willingness to both embrace and accept variance is a necessity. We have to cut out bad habits that are inhibiting our poker game, and we have to cultivate better, more productive habits.

Poker has transcended being a game, and is now our life.

However, this also has it's downsides. Do we now have time to exercise? Do we have time to travel and see new places? Do we have time to spend with our friends and family? Do we have time to start new hobbies and have new experiences?

Documentaries like 'The Last Dance' may inspire us, at least temporarily, to hunker down, put in the hours in the solver and on the tables, and meditate pre and post session. But is this kind of lifestyle sustainable for the long term? We hear about how important balance in poker is off the tables, but is 'balance' just another term for mediocrity? Michael Jordan certainly didn't become the best basketball player in the world by living a 'balanced' life!

This is the dilemma that I have been faced with, since I moved to Inverness at the end of September last year. When I moved up here I knew literally nobody. I had no friends and no family within two hours of me. I also knew nobody from poker that lived in this area. When I was in Budapest for two months in 2022, I had a good poker friend who lived there, and also knew of a couple of other people (from RIO) who were going to be over there too. So even though I spent plenty of time alone while being over there, I also spent time with poker friends, and new poker friends that I made while on that trip.

When I first moved out of my parents house and up to Aberdeen, I moved in with one of my long term friends from school and in to his student accommodation. When I next moved to Edinburgh, I moved in with a poker friend (that I met through RIO). Then afterwards I moved in to a flat in Edinburgh with my best friend.

Having grown up in a family with my parents, two brothers and golden retriever, I never really spent much time alone. There would always be friends coming and going in the house, and I would hang out with both my brothers friends, as well as my own ones.

However, time moves on. We all moved out and went our own ways.

Poker is a game that I love, and probably will do so for the rest of my life. There are many positive aspects of playing the game, however, it's also important to acknowledge the negatives. For me, the main downside (by far) is the lack of socialness. Despite being an introvert, I like talking to people and hanging out with people. I definitely have a certain social battery that, when drained, needs to be recharged, but I am not someone who is happy to walk around all day without talking to one person.

Throughout my life I have always been surrounded by people. In the past five or so years that may just be one or two people for most of the time, and then more people at the weekends or when we are going on hikes or whatever. However, there were always people around who were willing to hang out, go on hikes, go to the gym, cook a meal together or kick a ball around in the park.

In the past couple years, however, this has dwindled away. My friends are getting married, having kids and are suddenly much less available. You go from seeing them every day to once a month. You go from seeing them a couple times a week to a couple times a year. In the past it didn't matter if you spent all day grinding in the house alone, because your brothers or your friends would come home and you could hang out with them. It didn't matter if you spent Monday-Friday in grind mode, cos you knew your friends were heading out this weekend and you could use your (fully charged) social battery over the course of those two days.

Poker was the perfect job for a guy in his teens and in his twenties, but is it the perfect job for a guy in his thirties and beyond?

This is the dilemma that I am now wrestling with. I wouldn't change one thing about what I have done in poker for the past 10+ years (other than, perhaps, be more aggressive when shot taking $5k+). However, is this a suitable lifestyle and occupation for the next ten years? My days of having roommates are over. I'll probably get a girlfriend at some point, but other than that, you are working in your house alone.

I knew this day would come. I always accepted that the one main flaw in terms of grinding online poker was the lack of being around other people and the lack of social interactions. I have met tons of cool people in poker, but almost everyone lives in a different country and thus you almost never see any of them. I have lots of virtual poker friends and acquaintances, but how many of them can you go and watch the football at the pub with? Or play a round of golf with? Where as when you are working in an office, then everybody is in the same area and thus it's easy to physically spend time together and go for a coffee or a pint or whatever.

Anyways, I am 100% grinding full time for the remainder of the year, and then I will reassess from there. Next year I might switch to grinding online part time, or I might start grinding more live poker- perhaps going to Vegas or Texas for a couple months at a time, then coming back to Scotland and taking a couple months off to just travel around and do my own thing. I'm not sure. Maybe I just need a complete break from the game and have to focus 100% on my social life, perhaps for six months or a year. Who knows.

However, what I do know for certain is that now is the time to make a change. Online poker will remain my career priority for the remainder of the year, at the very least, but now I have to start prioritising my social life. I can't rely on hanging out with my brothers. I can't rely on a flat mate or a close friend to spend weeknights with. I can't rely on a couple of friends, or a group of friends to hang out with on weekends. They now have other priorities- be that their kids, their marriage or their careers. They now live hours away, or several plane journeys away.

When I was looking at places to live, Glasgow was my first priority. It was close to my brother, close to my Gran, and close to one of my best friends. My other best friend works there fairly often, too. This was the relatively safe option, at least from a social standpoint. Ultimately, however, I kept getting priced out of buying a home, so Inverness was next on the list- a lot more affordable, but up North and not close to anyone that I knew.

Maybe I am just a masochist, but I think that part of the reason that I wanted to move here was to start afresh- to rely on nobody but myself. In poker coaching I stress the importance of having solid foundations to your game. You shouldn't be studying stupid, obscure spots in poker if you are massively under bluffing almost every line, or if you don't know how to bluff catch, or you don't understand the importance of blockers and unblockers. I am taking the exact same approach with redecorating my house. First I get a new boiler, new radiators, new fuse board, electrics tested etc before I even think about painting or about sanding the floor. It doesn't matter how nice your home looks if you have a thirty year old boiler that stops working in the middle of Winter (which happened in January).

Ultimately, while I always had friends from high school, from my hometown and from poker, I never really put any effort in to meeting people 'in the real world'. In poker it's kind of easy because there is so much to talk about to a fellow poker pro or even a more casual poker enthusiast. So, while I have improved and practiced my social skills over the past five years since quitting drinking, I still need to work on my social foundations so that I can become better at being around people more often and making more new friends in my new area.

If you have a group of friends from your hometown you always hang around with, or a girlfriend or wife who you spend most of your free time with, then you are probably in the exact same scenario- you are screwed if you either move away or if you split up with your partner. There are so many books about how not to procrastinate, how to be more productive, how to learn a new language, how to be more present and mindful- but very few on how to make new friends, especially as you get older. Steven Bartlett 'Diary of a CEO' podcaster, says this is one of his most frequent questions from young men- 'how do I make friends'?

In the era of digital communication, we have forgotten how to socialise and make new connections. We spend more and more time indoors and in front of screens, and less and less time outdoors, face to face with fellow human beings.

So, I am essentially starting from nothing. I may not have gone busto at poker, but I have moved to an area where I know nobody and where I need to get out of my comfort zone, spend more time around people in new settings and make new friends- and who knows, maybe even meet a nice girl along the way!

I gotta admit, on Saturday I kind of felt at a bit of a low point. I never get depressed or anything, but I just felt low. I was like- I am living in this great city, it's the Summer and I'm just sitting around at home by myself on a Saturday night. Then I made a decision, I'm not going to be a victim, I am going to take ownership and create my own destiny. In the words of Jocko Willink- I will take Extreme Ownership over my life, and especially of my social life.

I have done pretty well at poker, and got to a pretty high standard. My next challenge is trying to achieve that same standard in my social life, in a new area where I knew nobody prior to moving. I don't find talking to people a problem, but I need to be around people more often, and be around the same people enough times so that we can create some sort of connection(s). So I will do more exercise classes, continue with yoga, start volunteering again, get out to coffee shops during the day etc and continue to chat to my neighbours as I do the gardening (nobody else in my flat block is willing to do any of it haha).

I am happy with my poker game, I am happy with my health and nutrition, but I can definitely work on my social life. That is my next target. It's time to get out of the comfort zone, meet cool people and have new experiences.

We started off in poker with nothing. We played the freerolls, before progressing on to the micros and beyond. We dedicated our lives to this great game, and we reaped the benefits of that. Now it's time to apply this same process to other areas that we are lacking in- be that socially, health/fitness wise etc.

I may be grinding the social freerolls for now, but I will arrive at high stakes eventually :)

GG.

People call you here

Cos of what you do here

ZaiahJJ Exactly. Most of the battle is just getting to the gym in the first place, the workout is the easy bit. It's often easier to make excuses on why we shouldn't go today, instead of putting on our shoes and heading out the door.

Hey man, good luck in your poker journey!

what I realized is, if you play more than 100,000 hands a month,
you'll be able to do almost nothing other than related to the poker.

I think this is one of the biggest leaks for lower stakes players- they prioritise volume too much. Of course you need to build up a roll to begin with, so that you can withstand variance, pay bills etc, but if you have 2x the WR then you can play 50% of the volume. So imo it's just as important to study than it is to grind.

Also, the longer the hours you play, the lower your WR will become (especially towards the end of a session). Your WR isn't static, it fluctuates based on tiredness, fatigue, mood, how your session is going etc. So if your database WR says 3bb/100, well maybe you are winning at 4/5bb/100 for the first four hours of your session and 1-2bb/100 for the last four, or perhaps you aren't even winning on the last hour of your session.

Having a social life is important in life, as is being healthy. You keep referencing how you want to start exercising regularly but don't, this is simply procrastination. You just need to join a gym (or join a running club, whatever exercise you want to do) and decide what days you will go on per week. I read in a book about planning your social/health etc activities FIRST and then filling in your work life around them- not the other way around, which is what most people do. They plan out their work week and then are shocked when they have no willpower to go to the gym after grinding for eight hours and studying for two hours.

However, if you have told yourself- I will exercise Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I will see my friend on Saturday, then those events are set in stone, meaning you will now play poker/study around them. So perhaps that means on Monday you wake up, study and then go to the gym and play poker afterwards. Maybe you can only play six hours because you spent two hours of time heading to the gym and commuting there and back. Then on Saturday perhaps you take it as a day off, or get in some study/grinding in the afternoon before meeting your friend in the evening.

What I'm trying to say is that you have to make your health and social life a priority, instead of an afterthought. Ultimately we earn money (in our case from poker) so that we can enjoy our lives. Sitting indoors all day, not exercising and never seeing your friends isn't exactly the definition of a fulfilling life.

Ever since I read the suggestion to plan social events, exercise etc first, and fit your work in around them, it has made a massive difference. For example I have two weddings this month, both marked on my calendar, so now I have to figure out when to grind around those events. Obviously weddings are big events, so they are easy to justify taking a day off poker, but so should be seeing your friends, or exercising and taking care of your health.

I didn't post it on my blog, but I decided to get rid of two bad
habits myself during April.

1-Listening music during the session

2-check the graph frequently during the session

I wouldn't say either of these are a bad habit, I would say neglecting your social life and health are much bigger issues than listening to music while you grind or checking your results. Fwiw I do both, but I make sure to listen to music that doesn't have lyrics (or if they do, then they have to be very relaxing playlists). I check my graph throughout the session too. Some people swear by not checking their results, but imo it's better if we can see our results and continue to play well, than to play well but not check our results. The first scenario means that, despite knowing we are losing a bunch, we can still play our A game. The second means that we can only play our A game when we pretend like we don't know we are losing.

Of course you could say 'results don't matter' but in reality they do. We want to constantly review hands, check problem areas in our game (perhaps through database filters) so that we can improve. Closing our eyes during an all in isn't a good way to develop mental resilience. We want to see our AA losing against KK and continue to play well after that suckout. Cos what happens when we play live and we lose several all ins and have to keep rebuying physical chips? Then we KNOW we have lost x number of buy ins, but online we have pretended like this has never happened, so it's likely we don't have any mental resilience towards losses and thus we (probably) play worse in the live game as a result.

So personally I would rephrase these 'bad habits' as-

1. Not exercising
2. Not socialising

Fwiw I have to continue to improve the second option as well, as I don't know many people in my new city. So it's also something that I have to consciously work on in the coming months! I have a good exercise routine, though.

Good luck for the rest of the year.

Offline

I finished reading the book 'offline' on the weekend. Having done the one week with no phone challenge earlier this year (or more accurately, using it for 30 mins< per day) I realised that this was becoming an issue for me. I would often wake up, start playing chess as part of my 'productive' morning routine (which also involved a meditation) and still be lying in my bed hours later, deeply engrossed in a chess binge.

So when my annual subscription of chess.com was up, I decided not to renew it. Sometimes we have the discipline to cut out things with sheer will power alone. Sometimes we can look at a burger in the fridge, but pick up the healthier option sitting next to it instead. However, sometimes we lack this mental discipline, thus meaning that our only option is to take away the temptation. That means, in this instance, not buying burgers at the supermarket so that you don't have that temptation when raiding the fridge for food in the evening. Or, in my case, cancelling my chess subscription and deleting the app off my phone.

You can put a pint of beer or a joint in front of me and I will turn up my nose, but put down a smartphone with chess.com installed and you likely won't see me for a while.

This issue is not only related to chess, but also to smartphones in general. They are designed in such a way, as are the apps we frequently use like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc, to become addictive to the point where we are subconsciously reaching for our phones without us even realising. The phone buzzes and we see who sent us a message. We are standing in line at the supermarket and we check the news as we wait. We are out for a walk and we phone a friend or a family member for a catch up. Perhaps we are simply maximising our time. We weren't doing anything else in the queue, so why not catch up with the news? We were just on a walk by ourselves, with our dog, so why not phone our friend who we've not spoken to for a month?

We can always rationalise reasons to use our phones, and these companies know this. Our phones used to be for phoning (or perhaps texting), but nowadays we almost never use them for those functions. We use them for taking pictures, for posting on social media, for checking the news, for taking notes, for watching videos, for using maps, for ordering off Amazon, for dating. It's like our entire lives are wrapped within this small, handheld device.

The authors of offline talk about some of the ways in which we are manipulated by these giant tech companies, about how they use addictive technology based off of slot machines in order to keep our attention on our phones for as much of the day as possible. Things such as the 'infinite scroll' mean that we will never, ever run out of videos, photos or products to scroll through. We are the product, not the consumer, and our time and focus is an extremely valuable commodity. Cookies and data sharing are used in order to tailor web searches for us so that we see advertisements that suit our wants and needs. Algorithms know us better than our familes do, so we keep seeing things we like, and hearing things that reinforce our opinions and enhance the echo chambers that we live within.

One good point that the authors made was that by living within this echo chamber (usually we would discuss these types of things, for example politics, with other people in real life- meaning we would be fairly centrist and neutral as a result of hearing a variety of different opinions) we are becoming more polarised. The left hates the right and the right hates the left. Then we are suggested another video to further reinforce our polar beliefs.

Essentially smartphones, and technology in general, has been used to hack the subconscious parts of our brains- meaning that we kind of just auto pilot on to our phones, or towards the TV or computer without thinking too much about why we are actually picking up that phone, or turning on the TV etc.

However, like the chess dilemma, I also find myself becoming engrossed with my phone too often and being unable to fully control my subconscious urges to pick it up and see what's going on in the world. Which is why I was left with no option than to remove the stimulus.

Now, I think I am much better than the average person at staying off my phone- at least in terms of when I am out with friends/family, when I am walking around, when I am at the gym or at a sporting event etc. However, when I am lying around at home then I often find myself picking up my phone too often and not being present in my life enough of the time. Hours can easily slip by and you have nothing to show for it.

So what I've started to do is to leave my phone at home when I head off to the gym. Typically this means I spend around 3 hours off of all technology- as it takes 30-35 mins to walk each way to the gym, and around 45-50 mins of workout and around the same amount of time in the sauna/steam room etc area. Sometimes I even take a book with me and read in the spa area, after I am done with my 15 mins in the sauna. Reading is probably my favourite hobby atm. Today, for example, I read 60 pages of a book about Edward Snowden (it's very interesting so far). I usually don't read that many pages in a day, but sometimes I enjoy it so much that I do. I can easily spend hours watching TV or Youtube etc, so why not spend an hour reading a book instead?

I actually ended up exercising for ten days in a row. After returning from Germany on the Wednesday, I got back to the gym on the Friday, played golf on the Saturday and then went to the gym again on the Sunday. On Sunday I decided I was switching to a push/pull/legs weekly split, instead of an upper/lower one, so that meant going to the gym on Monday/Wednesday and Friday the following week. In between, on Tuesday/Thursday, I went to yoga classes, and then on Saturday and Sunday I played golf.

I think that exercising once per day is very reasonable, though I'm not saying that I will do so going forward. I think that 5x per week is the minimum, but 7x per week is attainable if you have a good balance of different sports to do. Yoga is obviously quite restorative instead of intense. Golf is good in terms of getting off technology for 3-4 hours, getting outside and getting some Vitamin D, and of course the gym is good for building muscle and maintaining a healthy body. However, I would quickly burn out if I went to the gym 7x per week, or if I tried to run 7x per week or something stupid.

I played poker four times last week too, albeit they were short sessions- apart from on Sunday. I had to sleep on the sofa over the weekend, as my brothers were up to visit, so I think that my sleep wasn't the best. Coupled with the fact that I had to get up at 7am on Sunday morning so that we made our 8am tee time. Despite the afternoon nap, I was clearly not mentally sharp and not rested enough, and probably played my worst session of the year. Granted, I also ran terrible, but I made so many sloppy, avoidable mistakes throughout the session. I don't mind losing money, it happens in poker, but I hate playing crap and gifting money to other players.

So today (Monday) I decided to take a day off the exercise and rest- I had planned to take Sunday as my rest day, before we decided to play golf again. However, that didn't mean time off poker. I locked myself in my study and got in 2+ hours of study on SRP, a spot which I've been neglecting recently. Then, later on in the evening, I even got in a short 1.5 hours session- where I managed to win a couple buy ins. It felt good after yesterdays shit show, and more importantly I played much better and with a much clearer thought process and game plan.

Tomorrow I will get back to the gym and do a push workout. I'm not sure if I'll play poker or not, I'll just see if I'm in the mood to grind and if I have time to do so.

GG.

Winning a stack at $2k

I was legit concerned about him having AA otr- obv still snapping though

Sam Crowe Hey man, apologies about the slow reply. Your comments take a little more time to reply to than the average one haha :P

Yeah that's true. Yoga is pretty expensive, though I remember when I was in Budapest I managed to get like four classes for £10 or something crazy haha. So I guess it just depends on where you live. Actually those classes in Budapest were my favourite ones I've done so far. I remember after one particular class I experienced an almost euphoric high afterwards. I like the classes in Inverness, but I do not have the same post class feelings that I got while in Budapest. I actually became friends with that yoga teacher too. So perhaps it takes that 'friendship' connection in order to truly experience the highs that yoga has to offer. It's a different experience when you are getting taught by a teacher that you are indifferent towards.

That sounds interesting about the type(s) of yoga you do. Have you ever thought about becoming a part time teacher or something? I get the impression that you would be good at it, and it would enable you to learn even more about the different practices etc. I've been thinking about getting a part time job too. I don't think it's very healthy to work indoors by yourself, we are social creatures and should be around people quite a lot of the time. Several psychologists etc also stress the importance on health and longevity of having friends and close relationships. Either that or I'll get back in to volunteering, which is probably more likely.

Yeah it's funny cos my brothers were over at the weekend and we played golf twice. I'm a late riser, but I even forced myself to get up at 7am on Sunday so we could squeeze in a second round before they left. It's a good sport, but I think one that is much more enjoyable when you are playing with friends/family. Where as the gym, imo, isn't any better or more enjoyable when you are with other people. If anything it distracts me and I take too long in between sets.

Whatever we pursue in yoga, it is ancient knowledge, from a different
society and cultures than ours. Cultures that were simpler, much more
patient, they measured time in generations. Cultures that have more
nuanced relationships with crafts and people, than to design
everything around achievement. There is great wisdom to learn from and
nicely balances this terrible relationship with immediacy and
achievement our culture/generation has.

Great points! Yes I think that we have become far too integrated with technology etc, and too disconnected from people and to nature. We spend the weekends in doors watching TV instead of hiking, or running, or camping or whatever. We work from home instead of on a farm. Life has improved in many ways with the advances in technology, medicine etc, but essentially us humans are simple creatures- we need good relationships, sunshine, good food and exercise in order to thrive and be happy in life. However, society and conditioning dictates that, instead of prioritising these things, we should chase money, social media followings, hookups and become engrossed within the latest technology- whether that be virtual reality or simply the new iPhone.

So we have to, essentially, simplify our lives again in order to achieve happiness and fulfillment on a more consistent basis- instead of on a sporadic basis when we get a new Tinder match or a promotion at work. Which is why you see, as you alluded to, so many Europeans etc going to India and (I assume) trying to 'find themselves' by practicing yoga whilst over there. At a certain point we realise that technology, whilst it can be a useful tool, will never ever provide us with happiness- except on a very fleeting and surface level basis.

Cool thanks, I will check out that video you sent! Sometimes when I watch videos (on YT) with voiceovers, a cool background and nice music it kind of transports me to some place else, where I feel alive and present. I love finding a playlist, or a short video that does this. Some of the AI generated images are very cool and match the emotions of the playlist very well. So I think that technology, in this sense, can be a positive. It's just that we are addicted to so much other crap haha. For example there are playlists/mixes that incorporate Alan Watts snippets in to their music, which works very well imo.

Yes that's a good point about the reflexes, I never thought about that actually! I used to be a good goalkeeper as a youth, and was quite good at ping pong whenever we played it on holiday etc. It's a weird 'brag', but I think that one of my strongest things is my reflexes, even though I never really use them. For example, whenever things fall out the cupboard I catch them before they hit the ground/work top 90%+ of the time. I've never really looked in to seeing if this could be translated in to some sort of useful skill though, other than avoiding smashing jars falling out of cupboards haha. It's pretty fun whenever I catch something falling though.

Nah Stag Do's are basically guys nights out, so 99% of the time they are just all boys and the girls go on a Hen Do instead. They are basically just piss ups where everyone is getting as drunk as possible. So she could, perhaps, have been my +1 to the wedding(s), but not the Stag Do haha. Either way I'm going to the two weddings this month, as my other friend confirmed the other day that I was still invited haha.

That's cool that you bought a house that needed a lot of work too. I think that it's boring to just buy one that is new where every room looks the same as one another, and where the house is basically just a carbon copy of the other 99 homes in the block. However, from a practical standpoint it's much, much easier to buy a new home- where you don't have to worry about replacing boilers, ripping out bathrooms and kitchens or digging up the garden. I just bought a lawnmower the other day actually (just a manual one as it's a small, shared one) so I will try to get in to gardening more often for the remainder of the Summer. Do you grow any vegetables etc? Yes I agree, I like minimalism too. Perhaps not to the extent of a proper minimalist, I still have more than five t shirts etc, but everything I buy needs to have a purpose. Less is more imo. My house is still relatively bare inside, but I'd prefer slowly adding furniture, decorating etc instead of buying a load of crap and paying someone to paint and plaster every room. I'd rather learn as much as I can myself, then outsource whatever I can't do (or I'm not willing to do) to someone else.

The spare room will likely just be used for friends/family, though perhaps I might rent it out on airbnb. I've not decided yet tbh.