 Poker in the Philippines |
rdmnick
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#2 – Goals
Published 24/08-11
Why do we setup goals?
I don’t think there is an easy answer to that, because when we setup goals we affect our approach in more than one way. Personally, setting goals is about finding the motivation and discipline I require to reach what I want. Therefore, in my opinion goals should be complemented by a plan on how to actually get there.
How do we setup goals?
Setting goals isn’t as easy as just simply listing a few things we desire. No, in fact, setting up goals can be quite demanding, at least if you want to do it correctly. There is a lot of things you need to consider, for example, it is very important that you set demanding goals but not impossible ones. Because, if we can’t comply with our goals we might hurt our confidence and that is the last thing we want. The confidence is very important for our wellbeing as it affects us in many ways. By completing goals and handling challenges we strengthen our confidence and that will change the way we approach demanding tasks or tough challenge and in its own, it will improve our efficiency on numerous fronts.
Here I will list a few premises that the psychologist Albert Bandura came up with regarding goal setting.
• Our goals should be specifically measurable goals (not ”I’m going to do my best” but instead “I am going to score a perfect score on my spellings test”)
• The goals should be executable and not be based on results (“I’m going to do all my homework”)
• It is important that you only set goals which you can control (not “I’m going to be the best of my class” but instead “I’m not going to make any unnecessary mistakes”)
• The goals should be demanding but not impossible as mentioned earlier.
• The goals should be positive and not negative (not “I’m not going to…” but instead “I’m going to…”)
• It is important that you setup both long and short term goals.
As you can see based on the above, we can’t set goals as the classic: “Within one month I will be playing NL100”. It is just as tricky to say that we’re going to play winning poker at all since we can’t control the immediate outcome of our results.
My goals
Let’s give this a try, I will start by writing my short term goals and continue with the long term ones and then complement with a plan on how to reach it. My goals won’t be solely poker, but also stock trading and physical shape as I am an active soccer player.
Short term
Volume – Play at least 20,000 hands in September.
Studying – Analyze at least 60 hands in September.
Soccer – Attend every soccer practice that I am physically able to.
Workout – Have at least one weekly individual workout session.
Diet – Cook at least one proper meal a day.
Long term
Workout – Have at least two weekly individual workout sessions.
Volume – Play at least 30,000 hands in December.
Diet – Cook at least three proper and varying meals a day, during work days.
Stock trading – Read every number of “Aktiespararna” that I possess and start studying Technical Analyzing on a deeper level until December.
Discipline – Always play with full concentration without becoming result oriented.
As you can see I have only set up executable goals, and I have been very careful not to place too high demands on myself in the beginning. My plan to complete the volume demand is to every day before I go to bed plan the session schedule of the following day. I will mostly play during the evening, but it’s important that the sessions don’t take place during soccer practice. In order not to lose focus during my sessions I have decided to keep them under the duration of 50-60 minutes where I play 4-6 tables at a time which is way below my usual amount, however I will of course continue my sessions a bit further if I deem the tables to be unusually lucrative. To make sure that I do not become result oriented I will do my very best not to peak at my results until the end of the respective month. Regarding the training and diet I believe the key is to create certain routines in order to be able to complete my goals, routines where I have set times for both eating and working out. In the end it’s all about dedication and discipline to go through with it all.
Feel free to comment!
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25 Aug 2011 00:27 |
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gsergiul
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I enjoy your writing style man, will defo keep an eye on this. Good luck man!
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25 Aug 2011 03:31 |
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rdmnick
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Thank you for your reply 
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26 Aug 2011 11:16 |
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rdmnick
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A short update
I thought I would start this post by updating you on what I have been doing the last few days. Poker is what mostly occupied my time, more specifically studying poker but I was able to raise some volume as well even though it’s barely mention worthy. I also decided to stake a friend at NL20 for whom I have big hopes for. Like me, this player has also been on a long break but after analyzing his first session I must say I was happily surprised.
Philippines
For the last few days I have also been planning a bit for October when I and a group of 5-8 other poker players expect to go to the Philippines where we plan on staying for at least 2.5 months. The destination is Davao and the idea is to go there and stay at a hotel for the first few days while we’re searching for houses to rent. A few of us already booked the flight for the 5th October and I myself expect to do the same within a few days. Anyways, more on that later, here’s a nice picture for you.
Regarding goals
I started this month quite late and because of that I haven’t really got any demands on how well I perform my goals or so called requirements yet. I more or less see this month as some sort of warm up for September where it all begins.
Poker
Most of my time has been dedicated towards studying which has led to many hand analyzes and railsessions. I also began watching a poker video series called The thin red line at Deacusedcracked by recommendation of a friend. I will gladly share some of my notes from the instruction videos on a later occasion.
Furthermore my game has been feeling quite good and I must say I am pleased, I have been a lot more table selective than usual and that has led me to a lot more profitable situations than I would usually get myself into. If we look at the result I must say that even if I do not have an approximate of how much I have made I am fairly certain that we’ll be looking at a green month sheet for August tomorrow. However it would be wrong of me to make any assumptions regarding my play based on the results, especially with so few hands. Though I must say a good start sure doesn’t hurt!
I thought I’d include two hands which I have analyzed, you’ll find the actual analyze in the commentary fields. Feel free to argue against what I have written, but make sure you write your argument here in the forum else there’s a big risk I might miss it.
Hand analyze: Q9o - http://weaktight.com/3891458
Hand analyze: 66 - http://weaktight.com/3873918
Tomorrow an update with the monthly graph will follow.
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31 Aug 2011 21:43 |
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rdmnick
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Philippines
Tomorrow I plan on booking the tickets, and if you’re interested I could sum up the cost of the trip on a later occasion so that if you plan something similar you’ve got something to go on while deciding on a budget.
Poker graph
Here’s the graph as promised for the month of August. I am aware of the low hand count and so there’s no use in commenting on it as I do understand that it doesn’t tell us anything in this case and rarely ever does. I do however still want to document my results every month even if the actual challenge doesn’t take shape until now in September.
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01 Sep 2011 23:13 |
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rdmnick
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Not so great
That’s what it all sums up to, not so great. Poker has been real bad for the last week or so where I nearly always ended up against the top of my opponents range. I am not even sure if I have the guts to check my results even if I would allow myself. Because even though I can only estimate the result, not knowing does offer some portion of comfort as it means that it doesn’t have to be as bad as I expect it to be.
Nevertheless, I feel fairly indifferent in terms of mindset and I will continue as before to make sure I reach my goal in volume for September. I have played about 7k hands so far this month which means I still have a long way to go, but 7k is despite the fact that I have had quite a bad cold for the last few days and because of it have lacked the energy to play. However, colds usually go away fairly quickly and I can only hope that the same thing applies in my case. Still, I have planned on playing a session or two later tonight as I feel alright for now.
Philippines
With only a little more than two weeks left before the flight takes off I have a lot of things to do. First I have to make sure to get my laptop repaired as I busted a few keys on it a while back and am currently waiting for the new keyboard to be delivered so that I can replace the old one. I am also thinking of equipping my laptop with a new HDD. A few months ago I ordered a SSD HDD which caused me a lot of problems which was common with harddrives using Sandforce-controllers. I sent it back though and now I am planning on ordering a slower but more stable harddrive. I can’t claim I have any needs on upgrading the laptop but since I am planning on ordering one soon enough for my desktop pc I figured I might as well order it a bit earlier and take use of it with the laptop until I am back in Sweden.
Enough about computers, my “to-do list” is way longer than that. Before I can fly to Philippines I have to among other things buy travel insurance, get additional vaccine, buy malaria prophylaxis and order some other stuff which I require.
Speaking of the flight, I have been loading up on magazines regarding stock trading and what not to pass the time, hopefully making the total 24 hours of traveling a bit easier to get through, though that is probably just wishful thinking. : )
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16 Sep 2011 18:39 |
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rdmnick
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School of fish?
I managed to get a few hours of playing despite a fever and I must say things went pretty well where I managed to profit at least a couple of buy-ins, which isn’t very surprising if you take in account the amount of fish I encountered between 01:00 and 03:00. I mean, how can one complain when there is at least a 55+vpip player at each table?
Either way, it all resulted in a fairly long session as it was hard to get away from the tables when it was so lucrative playing. However, such a long session resulted in a total of roughly 1,200 hands and which is exactly what I need right now, volume!
Here’s a hand where I managed to get it in with AK against a 15/11 nit. You don’t want to miss it!
http://weaktight.com/3947967
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17 Sep 2011 13:14 |
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rdmnick
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#8
Hand Volume,
With about 17.5k hands played for the month I can be pretty sure to reach my goal. Lately I’ve also made sure to only play at tables where I have an enormous edge, so even if the month didn’t start out too great I believe I have recovered quite well. Of course I can’t do much more than guess as I will not be looking at my results until the end of the month.
Now don’t take this wrong, it might seem as I am extremely result oriented and if I were to say that “not looking” at your result is easy, well then I’d be lying because it isn’t. It is extremely tough to resist all those impulses to only as much as “peak” at one’s monthly graph. Not knowing where you can expect yourself to be in terms of results is hard, but nor does it really bother me, the mind is simply curious and I believe that is what all the fuzz is about because I do dare to say that I have been playing long enough to be able to accept the variance of poker and the insignificance of one’s result.
End of the season,
Yesterday we played our last soccer game for the season which didn’t go all too well as the opposing team managed to score two goals within two minutes from match start. The match ended in 3-6 which is sad but I have never felt upset over a match, no matter the outcome, I simply play because I think it’s fun and although I might seem somewhat ambitious when it comes to my own performance, I long ago gave up any so called “dreams” of playing the sport as a professional. The actual sad part of yesterday’s game would be the fact that I somehow hurt my Achilles tendon. I can’t explain how as I have no recollection of actually taking a hit somewhere near the area but by half of the 2nd half I had to step out as I was unable to continue playing due to the injury. Fortunately, it has dramatically improved over the night so I am guessing I will be fully recovered within a week or two.
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This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by rdmnick: 03 Oct 2011 03:44.
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25 Sep 2011 15:12 |
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rdmnick
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A long journey
It sure was, we arrived last night around 4PM roughly a day after our flight left Kastrup, CPH. When we arrived, Mathias, a Swedish poker player who has lived here for about 5 years met us at the airport along with our chauffer that will drive us around during our stay.
The plan was for the chauffer to drive the whole group to a city called Cagayan de oro, a city which Mathias knew very well due to the fact that he had spent 4 out of 5 years in this very city. The drive was supposed to take 3 to 4 hours but somewhere along the road something went wrong as it took more than 9 hours for us to arrive in Cagayan de oro. Somehow the driver must have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the dark, and it doesn’t help that his English is really bad which makes it hard to communicate, which fortunately is not the case with most Philippines as it is one of their official languages.
Now we’re finally checked in at a small but pleasant hotel that doesn’t go for more than 25$/night. Tomorrow a trip to the beach awaits us followed by house hunting.
The real downside with Phili I must say is the time zone, the poker peak time doesn’t start until around 3AM which makes it hard to accumulate any real volume. Ohh well, it’s not all bad, giving the fact that we can’t play as much means that there will be way more time to study and develop which I’m sure in the end will pay of a lot more than playing a little extra does. If that isn’t comforting enough there are always a few local poker clubs to visit whereas the winrate would be spectacular from what I have understood. We’ve also made sure that we’ll get a bodyguard available if we plan on bringing a healthy amount of cash down to the club some night.
We’re currently three people + mathias in the group, but in roughly a week another 2-3 players are expected to arrive as well which I am sure will result in loads of fun.
Update
Tomorrow you’ll get an update with the first week’s result of the month, unfortunately I haven’t had much time to play as you can imagine, but 2-4k hands is always something.
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07 Oct 2011 20:26 |
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purplefizz
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wow all these poker players coming to the country!
welcome and i hope you have a wonderful time.
did you go white water rafting in cagayan? i've never been there personally. i heard white guys sunburn their knees 
zomg at 9 hrs groping around in the dark. what an unfortunate situation. take care of yourselves guys.
i'll skype one of our mtt grinders who live in davao so he can drop by this thread
keep updating pls! now i have to read your blog. ^^
smiles,
wendy
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07 Oct 2011 20:49 |
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rdmnick
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09 Oct 2011 00:11 |
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rdmnick
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Update,
We’ve been very busy down here so there hasn’t been much time for writing. The first two weeks mainly consisted of partying and house hunting. Well, we finally found a nice house of roughly 400Sqm with 5bedrooms minus 1 which goes to our maid as well as our private driver.
The internet is still an issue and so is the difference in time zone, but it could’ve been worse I guess. We also find a decent gym nearby and so it is nice to get back on with the training, feeling like it isn’t all vacation and partying. We’ve all got a bunch of stories to tell and there is a lot more to come.
It is amazing how girls treat you here. It’s not like in Sweden where the beautiful girl gets all the attention, no, here the roles are switched and it is you who becomes that “girl”. I suppose it has to do with the fact that we’re all white, somehow it seems most people here are brought up to believe that if you’re white, you’re also rich. That is based on observations and the fact that every white man I meet here, even 60 year old ones always walk around with a beautiful girlfriend around the age of 20 to 30.
Pokerish,
Been hard to play as we’ve been so busy and the internet is a real downer in Philippines although we tried several solutions. Either way, due to that I have not been able to play much and so I wont be posting my results just yet since they only differ from week 1 by 400-500 hands. Nevertheless it is time we get things going and start playing as intended and with that said me and Alex plan on staying up late tonight to grind.
A picture of the house
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This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by rdmnick: 21 Oct 2011 16:01.
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21 Oct 2011 16:00 |
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firebullgr
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21 Oct 2011 16:19 |
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rdmnick
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| quote: |
Originally posted by firebullgr
gl dude! |
Thanks
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22 Oct 2011 05:31 |
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Phgrinder
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welcome to PI
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22 Oct 2011 08:35 |
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