Grinding Past Mediocrity

Hey guys,

First update of July. After my first battles on the 30$ stake I was forced to move down and play on the 15$ level again. I agreed with that decision as staying on 30s would just mean burning money. I am doing quite well at the 15s and I am over 60 chips per game as you can see in the graph below. Currently I am unemployed and therefore need a cash out at the end of the month so I agreed with SL to play with EV insurance for July, which they normally only allow to winning 30+ players. Really thankful for it as it removes stress and I can focus on bringing my A-game.

Last 3k games

I am experimenting with stacked play, instead of playing tables stacked which for me was getting me distracted too often. I play 3 to 4 tables and playing stacked gives me just one spot at a time, which I can give my full attention and then move to the next spot. Also, if you play by mouse you can grind longer because you don't have to move across the entire screen all the time.

Playing stacked has its negative side too, as I see less play of the opponents. Up until now I don't see myself switching back to tiled play anytime soon

So for July, I have grinded the following hours, which means I am behind schedule. In a sense I am not unhappy about my monthly performance when I look at the time invested in studying. I didn't miss one diamond coaching and I studied with another member for around 8 hours. I also made a good beginning studying the diamond library content, as I wasn't actively watching the video's.

The only thing I recently became aware of is that I tilt more than I thought. When I tilt I start to play faster, "forgetting" the time I have to make decisions and make more spewy calls which I would have folded with a focused mind. Anyway, I am happy I identified one of my tilt issues as it gives me room to improve.

Below is my graph of the first 1k spins and my grinding hours.

1k Spins July

Hours July

Nice month so far man, keep it up.

Nice thoughts on stacked vs tiled. Even tho it all makes sense I never spend time thinking about it.

Not surprised they offer ev insurance to every winning player as it’s just more free money for them in the end.

Sent you a friend request can you accept it?

@Habit - Yeah. I wouldn't take an EV deal on 15s if it wasn't necessary obviously.

@ladyboyrapeme - Yes, accepted it.

Hey guys,

July is over and it has been a rocky road, especially mentally. I set high goals for myself and I am both happy and sad about my results and "findings". I am happy because I once again saw how big of a planning fish I am. This has multiple reasons:

- I have not set any boundaries to my friends or family. They assume I am free all the time and I can be there in 10 minutes if I stop playing now. This is getting heavily out of control and I should set boundaries. It's good to say no.
- I make a planning with unrealistic goals. Falling behind schedule brings anxiety or panic and pushes me further away from my goals.
- I didn't build my grinding muscles. You can't just say I'll grind 175 hours this month while you never done such a thing before. It's a process, they didn't build Rome in a day.

The sad part is that in July I played poker for 134 hours, but only 88 of those hours were spent grinding spins. That means I played MTT's or other crap for 46 hours. Those 46 hours grinding spins would mean an extra 900 games. I am not satisfied at all but it gives room for improvement. Below you can see the two pictures of my grinding hours and the overall graph.

Only spins
https://gyazo.com/ef1ef18db3fae05792ff5368faccf7ff

All games
https://gyazo.com/57e4a52acaa0af4891b8022146742198

15$ spins
https://gyazo.com/21b19a6eda11d9b241a82f666faa003b

Hi, I had a problem with setting and achieving goals for the better part of my young adult life. From 18 to 24 where I had a lot of flexibility with my time. I can of course only speak for myself and I don't have any scientific evidence that it is the right approach. But maybe some of my tips can help you.

- Set more short term goals. Break you monthly goals down to weekly goals. Your weekly goals to down to daily tasks.
It gives you a better overview of what to do.

- Set ranges for your goals. In your case maybe something like 250-400 Spins per week.
Helps to work around the feeling of having "failed", even if you achieved a lot.

- Always add 10-20% more time.
This varies a lot. Depending on the activity. But shit does happen and you will need more time. But as an example, let's say you play 20 spins per hour and you want to do 800 games. So you go ahead and block 10 spots in your week each with 4 hours. It is probably not a bad idea to block each spot for 4 1/2 hours.

- Plan your freetime.
I don't mean "I want 3 hours every day and I want to go to the bar on weekends." I mean actual planning, as in "Tmw evening starting from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. I start cooking and watch a movie."

- Take some time to review the week. In writing. What, Why, Why not. Everything that has to do with your passed goals.
I can not stress enough how much this one helped me. To see what you did is a great feeling and it improves your judgement when it comes to future plannings.

- Consistency
Goes without saying. Every plan only works if you do it for a longer time. That also means, that you don't have to beat yourself up if you fail. Just start over again.

I hope some of this might help you. As I said, this is only what worked for me. I am in no way an expert in this. I still do these things from time to time, but mostly out of habit. If I remember more. I might edit the post.
I wish you good luck with your next month.

Originally posted by BadHabit1989
Will be interesting if you really can hit that volume. from my own experience it’s rather hard to turn to high volume from basically being a lazy pleb ♦

ups missclick.
still nice month! sad to see that you are so far behind EV

@Netgames999 Thanks for your response, highly appreciated! About writing, I started doing that recently and it is quite liberating. Kinda funny, like a diary to go through the day. I will use your tip of adding 10-20% of time, that's brilliant, thanks!

@BadHabit1989 You were right, but I don't think my month was nice. I had no focus, I did not follow my schedule and I did not follow through on any of my goals. My mental game was utter shit too, as I focussed too much of my attention on 150+ BI downswing I am at.

Apart from poker I am getting more healthy and have lost around 6kg (I'm 1.80 and weigh 71kg) in aprox 2 months by simply cutting out crap. I rarely drink anything else than water and I eat my foods without any sauce. Overall I am more conscious with my eating habits.

Overall, not a great month but I can improve in a lot of area's, which means something to me too.

I will set realistic goals on a weekly basis after I get back from Bulgaria, where I visit a friend at the 10th of August. I'll be back at the 20th of August.

Cheers guys

Hey Collins! I started to follow your blog.
Gl at the tables !

Hi,

Another month has passed, time to update.

August was a holiday month, in which I visited a friend in Bulgaria for 10 days. Had lots of fun in Bulgaria, went to the sea to swim and ate lots of good foods. I also went to a dnb party in a forest and a dnb party on a beach at sea. I normally never party but I had lots of fun there :).

I am still playing 15s due to financial "problems". I contacted my old boss and I will start working parttime for 10 to 15 hours a week again to get steady income, instead of this rocky rocky road. I crave regular money as spins is killing my mental. Assuming a worse downswing is yet to come, I am in big trouble if I am not taking regular work. I crossed the 10k game mark playing 15s, where you can see the $BE stretch.

15$ spins past month (low low volume)