They say good things come to those who wait.. So I'ma be at least an hour late.

Tough to start a post when it was supposed to come seven days after my last one and now it's coming when the whole month has passed.

Better late than never, huh?

Well, the good news is that I DID play those 5k hands. Problem is, it took me a month instead of a week...

Let me tell you why.

It's quite simple. I just had a bad session (3 BI's, nothing's more standard than that) right off the bat after my last post and that was it. It was enough to make me scared to play again and screwed up my motivation.

The rest of the time, poker-wise, I've been sorting myself out. Thought a lot about why can't I sustain constant motivation levels. Why do I get so affected when things are not going my way, even just for one session.

It's friggin results oriented-ness. Probably my biggest nemesis when it comes to the mental game. I understand how bad is this for a poker player. Yet I still take every loss personally. I still feel worthless as a player if I drop 3 BI's in 1k hands.

But one thing staggered me yesterday. I was reading the chat in my skype group and one guy said that the last time he checked his cashier was 6 months ago. I stopped scrolling down right there, literally stared at my screen for a minute and read it repeatedly for 5 more times or so.

I thought: "how much more close to my true potential could I get if I were like this guy?" Not giving a slightest f*ck about results would definitely make it easier for me to sustain constant volume. I'd be in a better mental state every session I play. In short, I'd be so much better if I were to simply fix this area.

Feel like if I want to become a decent player in 2014, this is my only way. I know I tried it before and could not handle it. But You gotta get up and

Goals for the next week:

Not looking at results in any way, even once.
6000 hands.

I'll post my 2014 graph so you could see how big my problems are when it comes to playing time:

// Life

Things are going fine, still working out regularly. I gained about 5 kg of weight and not too much of bodyfat since I started. People notice changes in me and all the weights are going up, so can't ask for much more.

Job's going okay-ish, really not much to tell about it.

Oh, and Formula 1 starts this weekend! I can't get more excited.

So yeah, really hope I can accomplish those 2 simple goals. Need to get some momentum going. It's been pretty scattered year for me when it comes to poker, lots of ambitions but not much results because of many different reasons, but I'm not turning down.

gl, I think I saw you at the tables last night

Originally posted by Pkrpains

But one thing staggered me yesterday. I was reading the chat in my skype group and one guy said that the last time he checked his cashier was 6 months ago. I stopped scrolling down right there, literally stared at my screen for a minute and read it repeatedly for 5 more times or so.

This! So hard but so beneficial.

Dropped by to say hi, from what I've read we have some stuff in common indeed.
GL w/ life will be following hehe

Daniel

Originally posted by peche025
gl, I think I saw you at the tables last night

Yeah mate, you did, saw you too Chances are we'll meet more often, I should be a more frequent guest at the tables now!

M1rCea > Thanks for stopping by & glad that you're following

Talking about my 2 weekly goals, things are going well so far! I'm now sure I'll play more than 6k hands till the next Thursday, but what I'm even more happy about is the fact that I did not even take a glance at my cashier for whole 3 days! This is quite an achievement as before I used to do that twenty times in a session. ♦

And it's such a relief. Immediately I feel way less pressure, less distractions, can focus on my decisions better and coincidence or not, but I find it easier to put in more hands now. Not going to lie, at times it's really hard not to cast a glance, but I'll have to make a habit of it. It's just so stupid to get affected by short term results as much as I tend to. So plan is to start off by checking once a week and go from there. 4 days remaining till my first success in that regard. ♦

Had some really swingy sessions the last couple of days, quite a lot of run-bad, but today was better. Not a slightest idea whether I'm up or down and how much.

Also made some huge folds (and correct ones, I believe), which is usually a sign that I'm playing okay (to my standards).

For example:

$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($78.64) 157bb
UTG+1 ($64.02) 128bb
CO ($49.25) 99bb
Hero (BTN) ($105) 210bb
SB ($118) 236bb
BB ($50) 100bb

Pre-Flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is BTN 4♣ 4♥
UTG raises to $1.25, 2 folds, Hero calls $1.25, SB calls $1, BB calls $0.75

Flop: 4♦ J♦ K♥ ($5, 4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets $3, Hero raises to $10.25, SB folds, BB folds, UTG raises to $27.50, Hero folds

Final Pot: $8.25

UTG wins $58.85 (net +$30.10)

Villain's 17/13 or something like that type of guy, with low AF. I really believe it's only better sets that I am up against. No way he is capable of bluffing like that and even in the most optimistic scenario we have something around 58% here.

So yeah, quite happy with my progress so far. Also today was just super-good day to me in real life but I'm too tired to go ahead and elaborate on that, it's 02:35 AM here and I'm getting up at 07:45 because it's the first Formula 1 race of the season!

Ciao!

Good Saturday morning to everyone

I'm bringing you some good news. I actually reached my goals I set last time! Both of them! To save some words, I'll better show you a graph since my penultimate post:

So as you can see, I played almost 13k hands which is 2x the goal I set. Really happy with that. Have to admit that my job responsibilities took a bit of a hit because of that... But poker's so much more enjoyable for me at the moment! If I somehow managed to play 11k every week, that would be something around 45k a month, which is decent volume! But really, really not sure if I can do that.

Results speak of themselves. All the way until the end I was struggling and ran bad, a couple of sessions were harsh in particular. But luckily on the last day I managed to catch an upswing, won 7.5 Buy ins and finally broke through So happy to turn it around and end up in the green!

Another good thing is that I was able to restrain myself from checking my cashier or session results for the whole week. I did it for the first time in my life. As mentioned, feel like it reduces stress, which is always a good thing as poker naturally is quite stressful. Will have to continue on making this a habit for sure.

For the sake of entertainment, I'll post you my lifetime zoom graph in my current database:

Absolutely standard, but still does not feel good to be treated like that by miss lady luck, cause otherwise I could be shooting NL100 at the moment. Anyway, let's keep fighting!

A couple of things more. I decided that it would be cool sometimes to have an opportunity for a change. Therefore I transferred some of funds to Full Tilt to play some Rush. Wanna find out what the differences between Rush and Zoom are. There's just one problem, I'm still using Holdem manager 1 and seems like I can't get it to work with rush and zoom at once, so probably the time has come to update my tracker. Will go with Poker Tracker 4, because it's easier on my computer. Hopefully next week I'll be able to share my first impressions of the software.

Goals for the next week are similar:

Not looking at results in any way, not even once.
10 000 hands.

Vamooo!

Gratz on reaching your goals! I'm interested to hear your opinion rush vs zoom.
GL, crush them!

Originally posted by dannywratten
Gratz on reaching your goals! I'm interested to hear your opinion rush vs zoom.
GL, crush them!

Thanks my friend, I will let you know as soon as I have some info on that

Just a quick update, decided to play some tourneys today as today is the last day of micromillions

Came 567th out of 49431 for 128.52$ in Sunday Storm Special Edition and still playing ME, 20k players left but at least the registration is closed, I'm above average so maybe can get another nice run.

EDIT: nope, could not make it, lady luck had other plans Down to 10 bb's because of JJ < A9 aipf and then could not bink it A7s v AQo.

Was good fun nonetheless, 567th out of 50k in sunday storm is pretty good for me and I'll take that happily

Hi there, it's been exactly a week since my last update, so let's see how it went.

Actually it was okay. I met my volume goal. First 9k hands were break-evenish but after those managed to win some. Game quality was decent, there were maybe some periods where I was playing sub-optimally, but other than that, I'm pretty happy. Just have to keep improving, which is what I'm trying to do.

// Graph of the week:

So as promised, I have a new tracker. Finally switched from HEM1 to PT4 (thanks again, Craig! ). At first it was pretty strange because I'm not too accustomed to Poker Tracker, but I'm getting there and have to admit that I like it quite a lot, especially compared to HEM2

For convenience purposes, I purged all my database except for NL50 Fast games, so don't have a big database anymore, but I guess it does not matter too much. Lost quite a lot of hands on regs, though.

Using a new HUD too, so I still have things to get used to. In short, a little bit out of the comfort zone. But now I'm able to play Rush, Zoom and whatever I like.

Still have trouble to keep myself from checking the results. Takes an awful lot of will for me to do that. But I guess this is how you improve. The thing is that PT4 shows a graph in the results section, so seems like I won't be able to avoid seeing how I'm doing.

So yeah, that pretty much covers it all, overall a good week and if I could keep the momentum going, that would be great.

My only goals for the week will be another 10k hands of focused play and exploring the PT4 further.

Wow, pretty eventful week and quite a lot to cover this time

I think I'll start from poker. Because of the reasons I'll cover later on, simply could not reach the volume goal of 10k hands. But this is pretty much the only negative thing I can find when talking about poker during the past week. Other than volume, things went really smoothly, the result is sexy and I'm happy with my overall game quality. Made some questionable calls here and there, but no one is perfect, right? You can't learn if you don't make mistakes.

Also played a little 2.20$ Buy in donkament at stars. 4046 players and I finished 17th :f_confused:. Happy because it really is a nice deepish run, but on the other hand, I won only 23$ or so, which is really depressing as I was only 16 places away from 1200$. I'm not a good tournament player though, so cannot complain, I'm sure there were many others who deserved it more than me when it comes down to tournaments. Cash is my favourite.

// Graph of the week:

// March review

I think March was a good starting point towards my yearly goal of reaching NL100 and establishing there. It was the first month in 2014 when I put some tangible effort. Been studying some, so as a result, feel improvements in my game. Also finally switched from HEM1 to PT4 and more or less got used to it. Volume wise, I played 26k hands in March. Not a lot, but still it's the most hands I played in a month this year. Which, again, is a good starting point. Would have wanted to play more, but I mentioned it many times that I do not have all the time in the world for poker. Given my current situation, 26k hands is still a pretty solid number and while I'll be doing what I can to increase it in April, all in all I'm feeling fine about March.

Graph of the month:

// April preview

Just have to keep doing what I'm doing. Feels like I found a nice balance between playing and studying poker. Our skype group helps a lot too, where I try to discuss and talk poker when I have a spare moment. I think the only peace missing in the puzzle right now is volume, I honestly believe that if I could put in 50k hands or so a month, the results should be pretty sexy (under normal circumstances it is, you never know when bad luck can hit you )

Definitely won't be able to play that much, so I think a slight improvement from March, which is at least 30k hands, should be a pretty solid yet achievable goal.

I think this sums everything up about poker, now to the...

// Real life stuff

So I had a little car accident this week. Actually it was my first one as a driver (I'm 22, driving since the first days of 18).

The situation itself is silly. Basically, I was waiting behind a minibus to turn to the right and he was waiting for a gap to turn to left. There was a slight incline into the crossing. I was standing just behind him waiting for his move when suddenly he started rolling backwards straight into me. Despite me using my horn extensively he managed to hit me. He dented my fender and scratched the front bumper. This is how it looks like:

This is of course really minor, but still pretty frustrating because I love my car and it was in a really good condition.

Anyway. The funny part is that the driver of that minibus accused me of crashing into his back! I'm absolutely sure he knew that it was his fault, but maybe he thought that this young man (me) will be scared and willing to take the responsibility. No way mate, no way. So I tried to talk to him nicely and sort it out without police but he denied it. So the only option left for me was to call the police.

Long story short, that old motherfu*ker was convicted as guilty and got a fine. Gotta thank the officers who were pretty solid and suspected that villain is full of sh*t soon enough. Funny thing is, he was born on 1st of April. A fool born on a fool's day, what a coincidence

Even though the damage is minor, the whole process is not pleasant at all. I was 100% sure I'm the one who's right but you never know if policemen will see the same, because to be honest this is not an easy situation for investigators and the only thing that proved me being right and villain lying was the character of the dent.

The only positive out of this is that I'll get an insurance money and turns out that I'll get more than I expected, so I'll be able to repair that dent easily.

So yeah, this whole thing took a lot of my time and nerves this week, going to police twice for investigations, dealing with insurance companies, etc etc. This is why I could not reach my volume goals

// Gym

Now to the positive things I'm still working out as planned and it goes just fine. Actually at the moment my calves are burning and I have trouble walking because yesterday I literally killed them at the gym. ♦

A couple of days I ago I checked older pages of my blog and saw a post written in September where I wrote some of my personal details. Then my weight was 80 kg and now I'm close to 88 :f_biggrin:. Could have gained more in that time if my diet was more perfect, but you live and learn. At least my body fat gains are minimal and I put on some nice lean muscle mass. 1 more week and I'll start cutting my bodyfat for summer season. I'm curious myself of how will it go. One thing's for sure, if my cutting is going to be at least somewhat successful, in summer 2014 I'll be looking the best I have ever looked.

---

So yeah, doing what I can both at the poker tables and at the gym which gives me the most satisfaction at the current stage of my life. Absolutely enjoying the process. Daydreaming about these things every time before bed. I'm thankful for an opportunity to progress. And I'm happy.

Hey guys, time for a little update

I'm writing after two weeks because during the first seven days after my post I literally had no time for poker. Had to do a lot of job stuff day in and day out and so I put in maybe 3k hands at most that week.

However this week I had way more time and played 14,5k hands, which makes it a total of 17,5k hands since my last update.

Nothing spectacular about it though, in terms of results I'd call it a typical grind. Happy about my game quality, though. Obviously I make mistakes. Lots of them. But I'm not afraid of making them in the first place, because that's how you learn. I try to take some non-standard lines from time to time, to "go for gaps", to experiment and naturally, I don't get it right sometimes, but that's perfectly normal. I don't want to become another robotic typical unimaginative regular. My yearly goal at the poker tables is to become an established NL100 reg and I think this is a correct path to achieve that. To be honest, when I'm playing my best, I'm sure I would be just fine @ 100NL, it's just that my bankroll does not let me to be there. Yet. ♠_love:

Time for a graph I guess...

Last two weeks (since the last update)

So it's obvious that I have not been running all that well, but the most important thing is that the result is positive and that overall, I'm happy with my game. Obviously not 100% happy, but experience is a huge part of skill-acquiring process.

Might be a good time to post my yearly graph, too.

Close to 6bb/100 in EV is a result I'm actually happy about, because in 2013 I had a 100k hands stretch of breaking even at exactly the same games. I really tried to improve hard in late 2013's and early 2014 and it seems to have paid off! Shame that I lost my old DB, but I'm pretty sure that when it comes down to NL50 fast format, in 2014 I already won more than during the whole 2013. Really nice to see that both lines clearly show an upwards trend, something that was not the case last year at 50NL zoom.

Which is an okay start of the year, having in mind that I was able to increase my volume only the last couple of months.

All in all, really enjoying the process, especially when the efforts I put in pay off in one way or another.

That's it for this time, gotta go to get some rest. Tomorrow I'm meeting my old classmates, most of whom I have not seen for 4 years, so it's going to be exciting! And have to get up early because it's another F1 weekend and tomorrow (well, today, actually) is Qualifying!

Oh and in advance, Happy Easter to everyone! Hope your eggs don't let you down.

Love you and poker and life, (just not my studies )
Emis

Nice update good to see you feeling confident & motivated again after a bit of a rough patch not too long ago! Guess i'll see you at NL100 soon then

Originally posted by dannywratten
Nice update good to see you feeling confident & motivated again after a bit of a rough patch not too long ago! Guess i'll see you at NL100 soon then

Always happy to see you here, Danny Don't hesitate to visit me more often! Yeah, things are generally going in the right direction for me. Starting to feel as a well established 50NL player, a huge contrast compared to 2013.

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a meeting with my school classmates. That was one hell of a fun! Reminiscing old times, having lots and lots of laughs, seeing how everyone is doing was really awesome. The weather was superb too, warm and sunny day of April, smell of barbecue in the air, a couple of cold beers and a hookah... Amazing. It's sick how fast things are changing, though... We already have a couple of engaged folks, few others are in serious relationships... Glad for them. So had a great great time.

In addition to that, just played a short little session on the occasion of Easter and luck treated me nicely!

This put me above 5 bb/100 for the month and even though sample is only 22k hands, still feels good to be doing fine.

Now leaving home and going for another great evening outdoors.

So yeah, can't really ask for more! In a great mood right now and once again, I wish you happy and enjoyable Easter!

Oh and once more, Happy Birthday, B. I know you are reading, love you sister.

Haven't had a day like this for a while!

3 hours 20 minutes of play.

#10BI! Well, I just want to enjoy it while it lasts, because I am just a...

My favourite image ever, congrats on the day!!

Originally posted by peche025
My favourite image ever, congrats on the day!!

Hey buddy! Yeah, that picture is nothing but priceless when it comes to poker ♦ Thank you for stopping by! How are things going for you? Just drop me a line in skype whenever you feel like, mate.

Alright, so it's 2 weeks since my last proper update which means I should put a new post in, covering those 14 days and the whole April as well!

Ask any student and every one of them will say that this is the time of the year when Uni strikes pretty hard. Me being no exception. In case you're new to my blog or simply forgot what I wrote some time ago, I'm on my final year and this is going to be my last exam session, which automatically means that I'm preparing my final term paper, or whatever you wanna call it.

You have no idea how hard it is for me to force myself and work on it...

Anyway, a man's got to do what a man's got to do and this is starting to steal my focus off poker. Kind of hard to play when you see your paper on the table and know that there's still a lot to do and you just can't fail this time.

Not only that. Since Thursday I basically had no internet connection. It just did not work, and even if it did, it was so painfully slow that I could not open youtube and watch videos in lowest quality. Pretty tilting as I really wanted to play some hands...

Therefore my volume sucked the last two weeks. On the other hand, results @ NL50 were satisfying. Had a pretty nice heater which you guys are already familiar with and after that got brought to the ground, which was expected to be honest. I did not even expect to continue winning that hard. Still, I'll gladly take that result and go from there. This is how it looks in a graph.

Last 2 weeks:

That covers NL50. But I took a 5 BI shot @ 100nl! And... Lost them in a session.

Could I have won and not lose? No way. Could I have limited my losses? Absolutely. I faced many tough spots where I most likely did not make best decisions. But I don't bash myself for that. It's a new stake, increased amounts of money, tougher opponents and a place out of my comfort zone. I'm actually happy that I tried. Establishing myself as a winning NL100 player is my goal for this year and how can I achieve it if not by trying?

There are some things, though, which I am going to change when the time comes to give it another go. So it was a negative, but pretty beneficial experience. And I swear I'm going to make it, sooner or later.

// April review

Another small step forward. I think this is the best way to put it. If in March I played 26k hands, in April I did 31k. If in March I won 518$, in April I won 897$, which is a pretty solid winrate of 5.8 bb/100 (I mean NL50).

The only negative was that terrible 100NL attempt, but like mentioned, if you never try, you'll never know. Lesson learnt and next time I should be more prepared.

Overall graph of April (nl50+nl100)

Rakeback & bonuses: 434.41$
Overall result: 793.77$

So even if it was not the smoothest ride and variance is still not really on my side, I treat it as a pretty solid month. Could have been better, could have been way worse. Rome was not built overnight, right?

// May preview

As much as I hate saying this, my volume is likely to decrease compared to April and even to March. Reasons are mentioned above. Obviously I'll try to play as much as I can without hurting other priorities too much. Frankly, I don't know what to expect and what to aim for. Anything above 20k hands is a nice result for me, and if I can win at least a buck, that's fine. The main priority to work on is my issue of being results oriented. I just have to stop caring.

// Real life

The last couple of weeks the weather in Lithuania was really gorgeous. Warm and sunny. To the extent that I jumped into the lake for the first time this year! It's my personal record to do that this early in a year... And I did not stay in the water too long as you can imagine It's still friggin cold! But still happy that I did that. Gotta take everything from every single beautiful day. That's what life is all about, especially when we're still young. I did not make the most out of my life when I was a teen, so have to catch up, but that's another story.

I'm still working my a$$ of at the gym. Started my cutting phase... Again, I feel like I'm so limited by my diet, but let's just see what happens. Results is one thing, but I'm really happy about my commitment to exercising, not skipping workouts and not making excuses.

Not much more to add for this time guys, hope you are all enjoying the process (both, in life and at the poker tables) as much as I do and feel free to post whatever you have to say, let it be a wall of text about life, poker or a simple hello!

This evening I felt like I just wanted to chill and don't do much. Therefore logged in to Stars and checked out the tourney section. Saw the 2.75$ satellite to the 27$ SCOOP ZOOM tourney and jumped in, leaving that as my only table. The satellite had 1.8k runners, top 166 get the entry. Managed to get that one.

I got into the tourney when it was already running. 11.6k runners. I started with 20bb's only. But played and ran pretty good. Was around 30-ish/400 or so when I found out that QQ<JJ AIPF. Had I won that, I'd have been in TOP 5 or so and in a really good position to go deep. That loss left me short-stacked, but still managed to hold on a bit and eventually busted out in 138th place for 170.92$, QT<55.

Still a nice return for an investment of only 2.75$ and it was my very first scoop tourney

To be honest I did not feel too comfortable in the late stages, most probably because I'm a cash game player and not used to tourneys, esp when going deep.

Bittersweet taste in the mouth now, on one hand it's still a nice deepish run while 1-tabling a donkament for fun, but on the other hand, I was 137 guys away from 40k $ and a pretty ugly suckout ruined my chances.

___

Talking about cash games, not really much to cover. Don't have much time to play as expected, only 4.7k hands played since my last post and down 88$. Game quality was not perfect, felt kind of rusty in a couple of sessions and faced some spots where I should have folded but didn't. That usually goes away when I am putting in decent volume, though.

So ironically, rakeback and tonight's win put me into the green for this month.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to play more hands and get back to my A-game or somewhere whereabouts so there's more to cover.

Till the next time,
take care.

Hey guys,

Another week, another update

Still pretty poor volume, but at least a step forward from the previous one. Other than that, everything's just fine. Ran slightly above EV which is always nice ♠_love:

Fairly happy with game quality. I made a note regarding my mental game issues which I see in front of me every time I play and it definitely helps to think about things that really matter. Felt less results oriented, managed to put in longer sessions (my whole week's volume is played in the last two days). Did not forget studying poker, too. Oh and yesterday I played 1$ Rebuy 3x turbo donkament on stars ♦ 4,7k runners, I ended up 50th for a profit 57$, so some nice unexpected rakeback.

Graph of the week:

Another positive thing is that I recovered from that terrible 100NL shot . Therefore planning to make a 2nd attempt, which most likely will happen later today. Learned a couple of lessons from the last time, so maybe this time it'll be at least a tiny bit smoother. Feeling okay about myself atm, so let's just hope I can run okay-ish.

And this one goes to those who say everyone is solid nowadays ♠_biggrin:

Full Tilt - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 69.3 BB (VPIP: 9.09, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
Hero (MP): 204 BB
CO: 104.2 BB (VPIP: 21.22, PFR: 15.87, 3Bet Preflop: 5.91, Hands: 537)
BTN: 147 BB (VPIP: 42.11, PFR: 21.05, 3Bet Preflop: 22.22, Hands: 21)
SB: 143.6 BB (VPIP: 16.09, PFR: 9.77, 3Bet Preflop: 5.13, Hands: 179)
BB: 66.6 BB (VPIP: 31.28, PFR: 26.75, 3Bet Preflop: 17.39, Hands: 248)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K♥ K♦

UTG raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, BTN calls 9 BB, SB calls 8.5 BB, fold, UTG calls 6 BB

Flop: (37 BB, 4 players) 9♥ 7♥ Q♥
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets 23.5 BB, BTN raises to 52.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 195 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 85.5 BB and is all-in

Turn: (313 BB, 2 players) 5♣

River: (313 BB, 2 players) A♠

Hero shows K♥ K♦ (One Pair, Kings) (Pre 82%, Flop 93%, Turn 95%)
BTN shows 4♦ 4♥ (One Pair, Fours) (Pre 18%, Flop 7%, Turn 5%)
Hero wins 307 BB

One last thing. Seems like I'll treat poker as my side job during the whole summer, so undoubtedly I'll have to play more. I'm thinking about at least 50k hands every month, but that's the bare minimum. If I can sustain at least 3bb winrate, that would be a really nice boost financially. Add rakeback, my real job and I would earn more than enough to sustain my needs, but of course you cannot plan things like that in poker. It's just my assumptions which I'm sharing with all of you. So far this year it's been a preparation for that and it's been pretty successful, therefore let's stay positive and make things happen!

A cup of coffee is right in front of me, I'm feeling comfy in my chair, time for an update!

It's been a while! 3 weeks is a pretty big gap between updates. So in a way, I'm sorry for that, but I did warn you that I might go inactive for some time. Keep reading and I'll tell you why I took so long, and to make it more organised for you, I'll split things into separate topics. So let's go!

:heart:I finished University! This is one of the main reasons why I could not focus on poker. I've been preparing my final thesis and it takes time. And the best thing is, I got the best grade possible! Which was surprising for my colleagues, surprising to my relatives and probably the most surprised person was me. I was never good at speaking fluently while doing presentations, but this time, when it mattered the most, I got a grip on myself, really performed at my best and there you go! Honestly, the thing I'm most happy about is not the grade, it's the fact that I overcame myself and did what I thought I could not do. It was a really sweet victory against myself and definitely a boost to my confidence. Then goes all the parties and celebrations, which was lots of fun, but stole my time for poker.

:spade:Failed another shot at NL100. Not much to add, this stake has been really terrible for me so far, I'm sure no player in the world could have ended up in profit if they were in my shoes. I mean of course they could have lost less, but that's it. Last month's shot at NL100:

Still, no excuses, not whining and not giving up, if I can't win here, there has to be a reason and I'll try to find out what that reason is.

:club:Continue beating NL50. This is something I'm really proud of, because last year I was a breakeven reg, and this year my graph at NL50 looks like this:

This shows that I must have improved pretty much, and lastly, Pleno described this graph as a "graph of a crusher", which was pure music to my ears.

:diamond: Made a slight profit in May. Because of that terrible run at NL100, I lost some money at the tables, but rakeback covered it all up and all in all, I won 114 dollars in May. Played 27k hands, which was something around what I was predicting when writing May preview post in the end of April.

:heart:Thought a lot about myself. You know, I heard a lot of people say that I am good at many things. When I think about it, they have a point. Not to sound cocky, but the most things I do, I do them pretty well. Some even say I'm good at everything ♦ Which is obviously not true. But out of all these things, poker, in my eyes, is an area which could have the biggest impact on my living at the current stage of my life. I mean, it's something I want to excel at. It's something I want to be proud of. None of my friends nor acquaintances are good at this game. So I want to be special, I want to prove that you can make good money out of this. I want to prove that I can be very successful. I want my friends to see me and say "oh look, this is the guy who earned it all by himself by hard work and refusal to give up". I want to make other people envy! Which leads to...

:spade: Knuckle down and play poker. As mentioned in my last post, I'll try to treat poker as my side job during this summer and I'm really motivated to make it a success. I'm aware that I'll have to play much more, but if I want to reach these things I wrote in a previous topic, there's no other way. Time to finally get serious and forget all the excuses.

My first goal is to play 40k hands in June. This is the most I aimed for so far this year. A week is already gone and I have not played a single hand, so it will be a bit out of my comfort zone. I just hope I can keep up beating NL50 the way I've been beating it until now. If that's the case, I'm gonna be good.

If you made it this far, I really appreciate it. Talk soon!

Here I am with another weekly update

Rollercoaster. That sums up my week at the tables. Started really well, then hit a pretty bad stretch (actually played really bad then, was pissed off about myself... Pretty sure it was more of a bad play than bad luck :() but then managed to turn it around. Overall, an okay week, obviously can't complain because I'm up pre-rakeback, but made a handful of mistakes that an ambitious poker player (which is what I aim for) cannot make.

Graph:

Volume. Probably for the first time I'm writing this word and feeling good about it. Put in 20k hands this week which is presumably the most I have played in a week so far this year and it has not been all that tough, frankly. Looking to carry on like that for as much as I can this month. My job is going to kick in later in a month though, so we'll see if this volume is sustainable. One thing's for sure, I'll try my best to find a good balance.

Improvement. I mentioned it many times that getting better is what I want and today I made another step forward. I booked 5 hours of private coaching with one of the best coaches of pokerstrategy. Super excited about it, because there is no doubt that after those 5 hours I am going to walk away a better poker player. Lately I've been feeling a little bit stuck in a way that I did not know how to improve effectively. This should be a major, major +ev decision long-term, because his approach to poker, from what I've seen, is pretty unique and he's really good at things that I suck at, so that's just perfect for me. I mean, I was doing okay-ish so far this year, beating 50nl fast fold games for 4bb/100 which is the higher tier of regulars at any stake, but hopefully there's more to come from me. It was quite a hit to my bankroll, but I don't regret it one bit because sometimes to make four steps forward you have to make two steps back!

Hope you all are well and talk to you soon.

Hey folks, I'm here with another update

Sorry for the fact that it's coming after a little bit more than a week, but I suppose not many of you really care. ♠_biggrin:

Poker. Going step by step. Slowly, but in a right direction and this is the most important thing.

Had 2 hours of private coaching and I'm so happy with that decision. Before I was so unsure of how to carry on with my improvement, and now I know a couple of my trouble spots already, with 3 more hours of coaching yet to come.

Graph since my last post:

That downer in the middle is a result of me over-doing things after first coaching session. I tried to change things too fast, forced everything too much instead of taking a more organised approach. Never mind, I was lucky enough to catch a little heater in the end and everything is now okay, damage eliminated and now I'm better than before.

Volume is my problem once again. It's really hard to place so many things in a day. My goal for June was 40k hands, but most likely I won't be able to reach it. 14k hands left and only 6 days to go, so I'd have to play around 2.5k hands a day... And now when I'm implementing new things I learn in coachings, the number of tables is reduced to 3 instead of 4, which makes it even harder. Then goes my job, other daily duties, world cup matches and there you go... So I guess I'll try to play as much as I can, but not going to bash myself if I can't reach 40k.

Real life. I graduated.

What a weird feeling. Time went by so fast. And I remember it so well, after my first month at uni I was already dreaming about this. And now... I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. Not that I'm going to miss my studies, absolutely not, but I'm going to miss that status of being a student, that atmosphere in university.
I met a couple of really good people there. They influenced me in a positive way and I hope I did the same to them too. I was never a perfect student. Quite opposite, actually. Usually I was pain in the ass for my uni mates, who tried hard, and I was just careless, light-headed lad hanging by. Even though they still don't admit that, I know it too well. However I tried to return favor in other ways. Not so sure if I succeeded, but undoubtedly some of them made me a better man and I'm going to miss them.

But life goes on and from the moment I left uni for the last time, another stage immediately began, arguably the most crucial one. Now is the time when there is no room for laziness, inactivity and passiveness, every single day has to bring something productive, something that has value either for me or my loved ones. It's never easy, but there's no other option. One thing's for sure, it's going to be fun knowing that your only limitation is you. ♠_grin: