Congratulations Graduate Sir !!! ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin:
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Originally posted by nxm13
Congratulations Graduate Sir !!! ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin: ♠_biggrin:
Oh wow, someone finally posted in my thread! 
Thanks a lot man, feel free to come here more often. ♠_thumbsup:
Don't know where to start, really...
Personally, in my point of view, all those 'comeback' posts and stories are pretty lame, but you can't be back without one, so proceed only if you want to find out why didn't I post for nearly 3 months and what am I up to from now on.
I had a horrid downswing. That you might have expected, because usually this is the case when people stop posting 
I lost 30 buy-ins. But this is not the most agonizing part. I got absolutely crushed, beaten, owned mentally. If you used to read my posts and still remember it, just before I quit, I was trying to improve a lot - hired a good coach and paid quite a lot of money (at least to me), studied hard away from the tables, etc. Obviously this is a mental flaw, but when you do that, you expect things to go better, you want to see those results from the work you put in. I really wished to make a huge step forward. But instead, that downswing came. None of the plays worked, regs seemed to own me, fish kept on out-flopping - all those things when a downswing hits... Didn't take a long time and I lost every bit of confidence I had in my game. Started to question every single spot, even the most basic one. You can't play well in such a state, therefore taking a break was the only option left.
A couple of days into that break and my summer changed completely. I got a 2nd job. Me and my parents had a conversation, and the main point we agreed on is that if I wanted to stay in Vilnius, I had to find another job which payed better than my existing one (just a reminder, I was already employed, but just for a minimal wage). 2 weeks later after that conversation, I was on my 1st day at work. 
And this was the day (28th of July) when I said Good Bye to summer, 2014. Even though there was more than a month left of it on the calendar.
From then on, my typical day looked like this. Wake up at 06:15 AM, go to the 1st job, be back at home around 6:00 PM (12 hours of my day gone already), take a shower, eat something and at 7:00 PM, two or three (sometimes even more) hours sacrificed for a 2nd job. Then a free hour to relax, have a dinner and at 00:00 it's bed time.
Then repeat.
Can you find a gap for poker? I certainly couldn't. Without any doubt, this was the busiest time of my life, never before have I worked so hard. And it did exhaust quite a lot. I really wished a day had more than 24 hours at that time. But there's always two sides of things and the reward was/is that I am finally financially independent from my parents. I can pay my rent, buy my food, fuel and still have something left. Not much, but it's a huge step forward compared to the minimal wage I used to be earning.
In early September, one of the jobs (the one which paid less) finished, because it was a temporary project. So I finally have those 3 or so hours back to me. And this is why I am here.
I've been really starting to miss poker because of that busyness. But now I have the chance to play again! At least a bit. I certainly won't be able to treat poker as my full time occupation, though. Which might not be a bad thing...
It's been a trend for 3 or even more years now. When I treat poker as my hobby with a chance to provide side income, when I don't take it too seriously, when I kind of care less - I always do well. I tilt less, think more clearly and results are appropriate. Just when I start to think that I can be a full time player, I overdo things, burnout quickly and things fall apart. Which translates even to my daily life - I get gloomy and look like an unhappy person. I made many attempts to see if I could be living off poker and now can safely say that I cannot. Might not be too pleasant to admit that, but sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I can't be a poker pro, it's not for me. At least at this stage of my life. Maybe 5 years later it'll be a different story because I should be an improved person by then and I don't mean poker here. Who knows, really. But at the moment it is how it is, and I am definitely going to enjoy poker as a hobby.
So the goal now is to enjoy the game and play as much as I can, but only when I want to. Cause that's the time when I play my best. It's just so good to know that I have my main income outside of poker, but poker can be a really nice boost. Relieves A LOT of stress, which is invaluable for a poker player.
Going to start at 25NL (my main stake is 50NL, just for information), because it was a long break and I'm feeling kind of rusty. If everything's okay, will be back at 50NL as soon as I feel ready. Volume's going to be the main problem of course, but unfortunately there's only 24 hours in a day and as mentioned before, I am not going to force playing. That never ends well.
Updates will come weekly or monthly, not decided yet.
I know this might not have been too interesting for the majority of you guys, but there are a couple of people who care for certain and I promised to update this thread. A promise is a promise. 
Finally an update ♦
I knew you were busy, but wow! That daily schedule is ridiculous! No wonder you didn't play at all.
Best of luck getting back into the swing of things, i think treating poker as a hobby will be great for your mental game.
I can relate to so much of what you said about going to pieces when trying to take it so seriously, being a low volume player myself & just playing in my free time.
I agree completely it's just best to do your own thing & play/study whenever suits you without having the pressure of reaching a certain number of hands per week/month.
You'll find it easier to deal with downswings & bad runs when you can just drop down a limit or have a few days off when things aren't going great since you're not relying on the income.
In saying that i'm sure it won't take long to start winning again & be back to NL50 or even NL100 
Gl sir!
Hey Lazza61, thanks for visiting and happy to see you here!
Danny> Epic reply! Yeah, having that pressure off my shoulders now is just so great. I really can't handle the stress of poker when bad times come and I still have to force playing a ton of hands. Maybe I'm not matured enough and in some time it will get easier, but at the moment it is how it is.
I agree completely it's just best to do your own thing & play/study whenever suits you without having the pressure of reaching a certain number of hands per week/month.
I absolutely think this is the case and it's way to go for all of us who don't live out of poker. And I even think this approach is better for volume long-term for such guys. What I mean is, I'd play a lot more hands in a time span, of, say, 1 year by playing whenever I feel like constantly, than forcing myself to play as much as possible for a short period of time and then making long breaks after I simply get sick of poker and can't even think about it for weeks because of it.
And thanks my friend for believing in me, I really appreciate people who try to lift others up instead of bringing them down.
Man oh man...
If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.
Couldn't be more right. Just when everything in my life looked like it was settling down, when I finally established a decent and fairly productive daily routine... I had to move to another city for a whole month! Not going to elaborate much on that, I'll just say that I'm now studying to get a 2nd bachelor degree. Long term real life plans & goals for the future... 
Anyway. That month did get me off my schedule regarding pretty much everything, from poker to workouts. Which is sad, because I was already getting some momentum going. On the other hand, I had tons of fun living with my best friend, so, no regrets at all. I am not going to ever put poker or things like that above true friends.
So long story short... During those 3 months from my last post, I played.... Wait for it.... 9 000 hands. F*ckin nine thousand hands :censored:! Averaging 3000 hands a month. I mean, I expected to be playing poor volume. But this... This is beyond everything. Many of you play more than 10k in a single day! The only good thing is that I kind of crushed my competition. This is NL25, 30 and 50 in one graph.
But seriously, volume is an epic mega ultra fail even if I was the busiest person on planet Earth. But that's not what is concerning me the most.
The thing I'm seriously worried about is that I am not meeting the expectations I had when starting this blog. I mean, many things did change, I've turned from a time-wasting student to a hard-working employee who's also studying for a 2nd bachelor degree, but that does not take away responsibility to work hard at poker too. I definitely could do much more at and off the tables were I more productive and diligent. As hard as poker is nowadays, it can still provide a decent side income and what matters the most, I still love the game. Having said that, I now know 100% that it's not possible for me to play sick amount of hands and be a poker degenerate, but 9000 hands in 3 months is just not acceptable.
Therefore, till the next Sunday, I obligate myself to have 4000 hands on the clock. It's a realistic and doable goal and could make a nice start to some bigger numbers.
To me, the thing that separates boys from men is an ability to finish what you started. Everyone can start something, but finishing strongly is what separates the ordinary from the elite. I know I failed to reach many goals in this blog, but believe me it's not easy for me to balance all these things that are going on in my life at the moment AND be efficient in every one of them. I'm doing my best, though, to keep this thread alive, for the sole reason of not being the one who can only start and never finish.
Hola,
An update after only a week instead of a decade, how cool is that. 
Just been getting back to the poker rhythm. Seems like nothing has changed too much - felt quite comfortable at the tables, regs are the same, even my usual run under EV seems to be there :rage:.
But let's jump to the positives. I crushed my last weeks' goal which was:
Therefore, till the next Sunday, I obligate myself to have 4000 hands on the clock. It's a realistic and doable goal and could make a nice start to some bigger numbers.
I played 9777 hands.
It's 2,4x my goal.
It's actually more than I played during those 3 months of inactivity. 
Which is nice.
So yeah. Quite a nice feeling to reach a goal, no matter how insignificant it is. Apart from that, just been testing out the waters, trying to get a feel of how the games are, what aspects of my game should be reviewed first and simply putting in the volume to reach at least some kind of a VIP status at Full Tilt for some rakeback. Can't believe how much rake I'm paying... ♠_mad:
Been running quite bad. Got 1-outtered once, all-in on the turn :ayfkm:. But at the end of the week got almost everything back, so I guess it's not too bad for a start. This is how it looks like in a graph:
Christmas this week... Won't really set any volume goals, reason being there's going to be way too many things out of my control to play constantly and in a disciplined way. Instead, I'll aim at:
Send and discuss 5 hands with my coach and Danny
Not even a glance at my results till the next update
I know that the 2nd goal has already been here for so many times, yet I could never actually reach it. That's how results-oriented I am. To be honest, I'm scared of even trying this for once more, just because deep inside I'm afraid of one more failure at this. But hey, if dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough. Detaching myself from short term results would be a huge step forward. I'm going to try and implement logic when temptation comes and do everything to resist it. If I somehow succeed, it should get easier later on. I guess this is the case of first week being the hardest.
Crushing those volume goals! Well done sir! 
If you have some interesting hands you can send them to me on skype & we'll go over them if you like?
GL not checking results, stay strong!!
Hey bro, thanks for visiting ♠_drink:
Yeah, did not really expect to go over that goal so easily... Probably the desire to play after such a break played its' part!
Sure man, no doubts I will. Matter of fact, let me fix my goal:
Send and discuss 5 hands with my coach and Danny
And we'll definitely arrange that sweat, remember mate, I still owe you one! Bloody time zones... 
// Change of direction
As you may already now, 99% of my poker career, I was a cash game player. When I took my first steps in poker, this was the format I decided to go with. I did pretty well, building a bankroll from 75$ to my first hundred dollars, then to my first 500, then 1k (I remember up until now what a great feeling that was), then 2k, 3k, 4k. Up until 2012, results were coming to me steadily, I was running well, together with my EV line. I loved the format and did not even think about playing something else.
But since 2012, it was never the same. I don't know what changed. Was it competition getting better, me getting worse, lady luck parting ways with me... No idea. But it was never the same. From then on, my cash game career was a hard fight and a struggle. There were moments of light of course, but for the most part, I'd even go as far as saying that negatives were bigger than positives. Sure, I won a couple thousand dollars during that time. But honestly, it was probably not worth my hours which I could have used for other activities, billions of my nerve cells and moments of desperation. I won't lie, there were a couple of moments were I was just lying on my bed after sessions, looking at the ceiling and feeling tears running through my cheeks because I so desperately wanted to succeed, to get the results out of the work I put in, but Instead I knew that the next time I open up my PokerTracker, I am going to see a line showing 10 buy ins lost in 2 days.
I tried training sites, I tried coaches, I tried everything. But I could not get back on track and be a steady winner again. I believe my biggest issue was mental game... 3 straight years of running well below EV did its' part.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.
After another downswing, which hit exactly after my last post, I realized that it's been too long since I'm going nowhere. Countless attempts, long breaks from poker, comebacks, but things did not get any better. Then I asked myself, do I want to keep going that way? And the answer was a clear no. I was sick and tired of cash games, constant stress and tension. After some thought and considerations, I came up with two scenarios I could go with. Either give up on poker or switch to MTT's. But how can I give up on a game I actually love? How can I give up on so many goals and dreams , how can I let so many hours I've put in this game to go to waste? Finally, how can I let this deal go unfinished? Deep in my heart I knew there's no way I'm backing down. If I do, I'll hate myself. And finally, since my early days at poker, I dreamed about winning a tournament.
So there's only way to go. And here I am. A newly born multi table tournament player. Together with a start of 2015, I think it's a great time so start a new campaign, a new era for me as a poker player.
The start was fairly slow. Could not get a deep run, mincashing or busting out before money.
But then...
5th out of 664 for 160 Eur;
3rd out of 500 for 335 Usd;
6th out of 767 for 467 Usd
and finally.... 
I SHIPPED a tourney with 5300 enterants! 
All those scores came in first two weeks of 2015. Already, I've won more than in 2014. And I reached a small dream I always had. I won a huge field MTT. The feeling was awesome to say the least. To know that you left 5327 people behind and have all the chips and especially for me, a guy just starting out at mtt's... It's hard to put into words. It's just such a fresh feeling after all those cash game struggles. My poker bankroll is at its' highest point ever. I'm finally feeling that luck is on my side again, something I have not felt for the last 3 years. I'm in love with the game again. Motivation to improve is sky high. To do what I've done in the last two weeks... It's such a feel of achievement. 
Also after such a successful run, decided to award myself with this:
Spoiler
The goals are now to keep a steep learning curve in mtt's, keep playing them and climb up the rankings in pocketfives! I want to be as high as possible, at least in Lithuania rankings.
While so happy with things that happened to me the past two weeks, I of course realize that variance in mtt's is just huge. I know I ran hot. But you know what, after those 3 years of disappointment in cash games, I don't really think I did not deserve it.
Also, Mtt players are not even expected to win month by month, so that takes a lot of stress away.
And if my struggles at cash games were only to point me to mtt's where I can hopefully shine, then I don't regret those 3 years one bit. Everything happens for a reason. Vamoooos!
P.S A special thanks to:
Dannywratten for being the best poker buddy, for all the faith and support in good or bad times. Cheers mate!
And a couple of my friends who don't care much about poker, but always check this thread, wish me good things and want me to succeed. They know who they are.
Thanks man, you too. What format/stakes are you playing?
Yesterdays deepest run:
Spoiler
Ran fairly well, were to close to going v. deep again, but my clutch table happened to be really tough, 3 very aggressive players on my left, could not steal blinds and sustain my stack.
But it's fair that I did not go deeper, felt like I was outplayed in some spots, also made some slight mistakes. But this revealed me which areas of my game need some work, so I'll address those things for sure The final result, even with all those things, is not that bad after all. 
So today my first lecture (for those who don't know yet - I'm employed and also studying to get a 2nd bachelor degree) finished early and I had about 5 hours until my next one. Decided to give some tourneys a go. ♠_ugly: But since my time was limited, decided to go with small field ones. Fired up six, ended up getting to the final table of two - stars 180man 3.5r and winamax 4max 5€ buy-in 1000€ guaranteed, 324 entrants. Took 2nd places in both and made it to the lecture right on time. :profit::
Honestly, I did not expect such a good start after switching to tourneys. I'm up almost 3000$ in January alone, playing micro stakes mtt's. Really, I did not even dream about a result like that. Up until this month, I haven't even final tabled a decent tourney. Now, if I wanted to count how many times I reached a final table, I'd have to use fingers on my both hands! I'm so happy I pulled the trigger and made a switch. ♠_love:
Now, obviously, I know I am running very well.
But I also improved as a player. If before, when cash games was my main type, I was feeling lost and had no idea what I was doing in an occasional tourney I played, now I'm feeling fairly confident playing various stack sizes in different stages of a tournament. Still lots to learn, tho.
It's just so good to see results coming at me again. Knowing the variance of tournaments... It's probably better not to know 
But for know, I'm really enjoying the ride. 
Hey ho,
So it's been a tournament-player-like period since my last update. Did not get any meaningful scores. Quite a lot of deepish ~top 20-30 runs, but could not capitalize and deliver. Knowing the nature of big field mtt's - nothing to be surprised about.
But yesterday I came very very close to a nice bink:
Spoiler
Really happy with the way I played the whole tourney, except for the last hand where I was in a huge coughin spot and ended up making a wrong decision. Up until then I would not change a thing had I another chance to start that tourney over again.
Bittersweet result, really. It's my 2nd highest score so far this year in my early career as an mtt player, but on the other hand I was so close to a top3 finish. Well, I guess the only rational way of dealing with this is to take a lesson and move on.
Funny thing is that being a big field tournament player is a bit like the Pinky and the Brain - every night I'm trying to do the same - trying to take over a tourney! Hope it goes a little bit better for me than for them.
good stuff keep it coming (metu vidury turetume susitik prie stalu as irgi mastau switchint formata :f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup:)
Thanks man, I'm doing my best (malonu, kad lietuviai užsuką į blogą - jei ką, galim susikaipint, visada į naudą papliurpt apie pokerį )
So it's been quite a meh time since my last update. No major scores, but...
10th in an oridinary FTP 10 or so dollar freezout for 50$ when 1st place gets 1k$. And...
10th. And I repeat, 10th! place in.... the big 11 at pokerstars. Can you fkin believe it? I was 9 (7000 entrants), only 9 players away from 11 thousand dollars and won 400$ instead.
I final table bubbled TWICE. And what actually hurts the most... In both instances, it was mostly my own fault. Which is so, so tough to swallow for a person like me. I so freakin hate losing... This is the result of "celebrating" that glorious 10th place
Yeah, sometimes life gets tough for a tournament player, even if I'm not playing for a living. And I don't have much to lean on when tough times come in poker, except for my roommate and Danny ♠_thumbsup:.
For the first time in my whole life I drank alone and with nothing to chase down like a fkin degen... So unbelievably tough to accept that I've literally just wasted my opportunity that comes up so rarely. Sometimes being a competitive person is not a good thing for your own mind and body. 
Anyway. Positives are that I've been working on my game decently well. Despite those painful bust outs, my motivation is really high. To be honest, I actually dream about poker. Last night I had a dream that I won 16k thousand dollars.
I hope my subconsciousness knows what it's doing... That felt great in a dream, must feel even better in reality.
Seriously, though, I firmly believe experience is a huge thing and next time I'm on that final table bubble, I'll handle things better.
Graph of the year so far:
Spoiler
Good things are yet to come. Thank you for reading, by the way.
