Lemon's blog

Living fully the poker player live (Parties, girls, travel, sport and also crushing the stakes) GG:s_drink:

Low volumes so far this week - I won't hit my goal cause so much stuff is happening. The community show will come back after Easter though so if you think you will pull ahead in the Challenge Confidant, you can forget it - I will have almost 2 weeks of uninterrupted grind after this

had a Podcast with Katie
She is so much fun, Colin's a lucky guy indeed :).
Thanks all of you for coming in and asking some great MTT specific questions - we had some good technical content because of that too on top of the usual fun and mental game topics.

back to uni (for a day)

On Wednesday I went to a "day with science" at Charles university. One great lecture on rationality and emotion - nothing groundbreaking, but nice refresh of what I've studied at university.
Basically point is that
Our actions and emotions are driven by the automatic part of our brain, only then with a delay re-evaluated by the rational part of it (input=>emotional system=>delay=>cognitive system).
All emotional behavior is rational in a sense that it was developed to be "EV Maximising" through evolution/natural selection. It only seems irrational often because our environment has changed so fast and our "hardware and software" has not adapted yet.

Then I took one chick that knows I don't want anything serious and is kinda fine with it (redhead, has load of tatoos, loves piercings...:) And we went to utterly hilarious lecture on

"Chemistry of love".
Basically the first law of thermodynamics says that complex orderly things naturally move towards simplicity. We as humans are very complex, but our cells destroy and simplify themselves until eventually we dissolve into basic elements and become a pile of carbon and water (in other words, we die :)). And the only way to keep that complexity is by replicating our DNA, and reproducing to keep that complexity (kids). And the thing that drives us to do this is... you guessed it...Love.

There are 2 types of love - the "lust" caused by estrogen and teststerone. Activated and moving us towards towards action by neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine. . .)
These neurotransmitters are very simple chemicals, they are produced quickly but dissolve just as fast. They are derived from fats - this is why Katie Dozier recommended a high fat low carb diet in our podcast I am sure

And the long term "love" - caused by Oxytocin and Vasopressin. That make us stay with one partner.
These are much more complex chemicals and take longer time to synthesize but then stay for longer.

Neither is really a choice but mere chemical reactios.
For example a male of one breed of hamster is monogamous, staying with one partner for life. And another breed is a Total James bond, doing the nasty with 4 hamster ladies per day and then moving on into the sunset.

It just means that receptors for vasopressin are stronger with the monogamous one, and weak with the James bond one. When they increased the levels of vasopressin in the whore hamster he became monogamous and vice versa

So next time you cheat on your wife with that bimbo you saw from a poker table at Vegas, just tell the wife it's not your fault but something in your food made your testosterone levels high and vasopressin temporarily low and you had no conscious choice on the matter.

Then Yesterday I went on a date with this real smart girl that studies economics. She's always testing you with making up stories, and is really a challenge, but a lot of fun. It's like playing poker with her really -,-

And today after long 5 or so months I go back to my hometown to see my family, friends, and going to a university ball - booze, friends and girls in princess dresses - yes please! I planned on visiting a lot more often, but then Prague swept me away with so much stuff to do and so many great people to meet that I never found the time.

I end this update with a pic of me that paparazzi took at Prague International film festival. While I was promoting the exciting new awesome project
Build your bankroll at Pokerstrategy:The Movie

Good luck pokerstrategy, looking forward to seeing your updates too

Hillarious topic.

Following. Did we have a Poker Show with the guest LemOn36? That would be pretty cool.

LemOn36 one man show!

Hah great Idea guys, it'd be kinda self absorbing asking myself questions tho

Last week:
Main site: 2:07hrs 765 hands +46.31

Side site 5:54hrs 2140 hands -$14.21

TOTAL: 2905 hands +$32.1

Pics from weekend:
University Ball - didn't get to dance even, just went around talking to girls. It was us 2 friends there and no offense to him, but he was weighting me down a bit Heard some nice stories tho.

One from a girl who works in a beauty salon. Naturally the conversation steered swiftly towards depilation of male private areas (guess who was asking :]) And she proceeded to tell us about a self proclaimed porn star that goes to her salon for a few years, and once he brought "an assistant" with him, to "help out" with the process, because apparently when she performs stuff on you during the hair removal the procedure becomes less painful. The girl asked for more money, and still even now I am not so sure if there really was "an assistant" coming in with the guy after all or if it's her alter ego.

Visited the legendary "Single" Bar. On a sunday night. It's called the single bar because there was a single female there - the waitress.

May 1st I'll run spartan race and I need to cut booze, get in shape in the next month. here's a me having fun doing it last year:

Next week is really only about pokering
After so much distraction last week I am oozing to get stuck into the tables, play huge focused sessions - only thing besides poker I'll do is 2 dates and exercise. And 40 hrs should be the bare minimum I'll play.

Goals for next week
[ ] 40 hours 4 tabling
[ ] 5 excercise units 30min+

tough day. After heavy 2hr gym Friday and drinking whole weekend I wasn't there mentally.
4hrs:40 2070 hands

To follow. Good luck!

found a great free Chrome App - "StayFocusd"
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en
Basically you put as many sites as you want, and then give yourself X amount of minutes per day that you can visit them. After the time passes, they get completely blocked for the day.

I've set 30 minutes for facebook.com, Liquiddota and youtube per day (combined)

My Goal is now 40hrs poker, 5 Excercise Units and Don't try to reset or bypass stayfocusd

My ideal life and day to day will be only about either productive stuff, or wholesome relaxation like exploring new parts of town, women, excercise, and time spent with friends - this should be one of the small steps towards that aim

yeah stayfocused is super. The best thing is nuclear option. I use it when i start a session i set nuclear option for an hour so it blocks all websites. You can make a list of website which it doesnt block for example youtube or something if u are using it to play a music during a session or what ever you want

oh that's hardcore!
Challenge accepted - nuclear option for all my sessions

yeah, it is hardcore, i struggle to use it for every session as well, some prop bet?

First law of thermodynamics ?

or whatever it's called - I think the lecturer did say that, however I might be translating wrongly.

4,5 hrs today 1981 hands - i was still not recovered physically and mentally from the weekend, so reacted badly to the swings

Threw the mouse, and yelled at the screen at one point - I've met so many people, did so much stuff, excercised, drank so much over the weekend in my hometown I just lied down at 4pm, closed my eyes and went for a nap. I'm still attached to results and it shows when I'm not in my peak physically and mentally, although 4 tabling helps a lot to keep spewing down to minimum even when I happen to ragetilt as I have a time to collect my thoughts, feel what I feel and then inject logic as opposed to playing loads of tables and getting more and more tilted.

stayfocusd
dude I can't do the nuclear option just yet noway. Need to take small steps so it becomes part of my habits - right now even focusing on 30mins facebook/liquiddota/popular czech news portal I was procrastinating on was hard. I saw myself jump to those like 25 times per day without even realizing, but then saw red light, realized consciously what I'm doing and closed them - still have 5 minutes left out of thirty.

So prob bet on nuclear maybe after a week

Instead of visiting those sites I watched Uri Peleg's video though
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/video/37025/
Good stuff as usual that shows the value of low tabling

Date
got a date tonight, usual routine of
-cleaning the room
-shower/shave
-cook (tonight) as she's coming over
-watching a vid or two from Corey Wayne to get warmed up
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQTAVxA4dNBCoPdHhX9nnoQ

it's much like poker in terms of learning. I found that dating actually works great for mental game as long as you avoid too much alcohol and don't cut on sleep too much - just gives something to take your mind off the grind, and gives you neurotransmitter release for greater emotional stability. And, of course, also the exercise if the night goes well
This works of course if you follow the advice that dating coaches give out anyways - close to 0 texting, 1 date per week on average, and focusing on your life goals and purpose in the meantime so girls just don't become another source of immediate distraction. I was in a relationship where we were in contact daily, had her on skype and Whatsapp and it became really detrimental to my ability to focus on poker. And it was bad for the relationship too while always tried to text something clever and did it to achieve the opposite!
Now I simply always wait for them to contact me first and then use that to set a date right there whenever poker and work on podcast allows, or just call 1x per week to set a date myself and focus on productive stuff in the meantime.

dude I can't do the nuclear option just yet noway

Gogogo dont be a pussy I ve just setted this as my personal challenge for april, hope i will make it since i will reward myself.

Btw just set it before every session just for a session or for how long u play to play a session. I dont use the stay focused all day long as well. Still like to procratine a lot ♦

Yeah I'll give it a shot - tomorrow I'll do 45 minute sessions and see what happens, shouldnt be hard
3hrs 1096 hands today

Girls out of the way, now it's grind time for the rest of the week (with some exercise).

Cheers
Enjoy reading your blog :-)
The 2nd law of thermodynamics relates to entropy ( or chaos if you like ).
It states that things never get simpler. (Chaos Rules !)
Regards GoOnCal1

Oh thanks GoOnCal1, your're right!

That's something he said I recall it now - he said that orderly things naturally move towards chaos? I went on 3 dates with a girl that studies chemistry, she was boring as hell though so won't get it explained again ♦

6:48 hours 3191 hands today
A lot of hands you say compared to hours?
Yeah played more tables, unfocused really, no nuclear option for me today - tomorrow is the day tho

I defo need to tighten up when I dont play my 4 tabling A game - I opened more tables, but kept playing the ranges I'm used to from 4 tabling for a month, which is inherently wrong.

When 4 tabling I In effect realize more equity as I have a lot more
- reads/figure out more imbalances in people's play AND
- My own game is better with more precise sizings, more thought out decisions, way faster adjustments. . .

So next time I lose a lot of pots in a row or fire up more tables I either quit OR simply fold marginal hands I'd otherwise play as they turn into -EV hands. Same concept applies for number of tables - basically as long as you take good reads when low tabling, the more tables you play, the tighter preflop you should be really as the equity you realize with hands you play will be lower

Tomorrow I will grind during the day and actually have a NL1K reg doing a sweat of me, and I promised we'll go pickup some chicks in town in return. I know - breaking my goal of only grinding. But it's defo +ev poker wise with the value of the coaching taken into consideration - things I wouldn't do for poker :/

Update: getting swole
Being a proper gym goer I showed heart and commitment today by getting swole, and went for a nice cheek pump:

spent 2.5 hrs waiting at the emergency dentist, got anesthesia and they cut+drained my gum. It still hurt as hell and my face looks like a balloon, cool start to the day - I feel really relaxed grinding tho now
btw I had no idea but you can drag and drop images to the box here on the forum and they get automatically uploaded+put into forum format

Sweat Sesh
Turns out my game is not completely perfect? (!!!???). And besides timing tells I fold the BB way too much. I got around 19% call any PFR in BB when 4 tabling, and it drops to around 14 or less multi-tabling. And the best playersare all around the 30 mark. Sure there's rake so I can play tighter, but at the same time I raise otb very wide as an exploit, why not play at least correctly wide in the BB?

I know I call a lot BBvBU but am tight vs all other positions and want to get reasonable ranges
The way I go around this is basically this:
1) Fire up power equilab, open playability editor( blue pen):
2)
Blatantly steal their heads up play ability OOP(percentage of equity realizations)

3) holding CTRL on one number lower the R for all hands at the same time. save as new profile

I've looked into this before and for crap hands like K2o the R is around the 50-60 mark , and I trust the weights of the HU ranges between hands (equilab team derived it from a discussion on german forum for HU, think this will be somewhat reasonable for 6max) so just lower the numbers globally as in HU it'll be easier to realize equity. I might need to change it for specific hands based on database - but this should do for now.

4) put in range for CO (I have all ranges saved for my default game - just click this:

if you don't have them copy paste from here
https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=309916
and save them.

5)Click hand range calculator
Use your new play ability profile
Enter equity from X to 100
for 3bb: 30.8% (2/(2+3+1+.5))
for 2.5bb: 27.3% (1.5/(1.5+1+2.5+.5)

Out comes a range I can call
for 3bb:
55+, A4s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J8s+, T7s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, ATo+, KJo+, QJo, JTo, T9o
2.5bb: 22+,A2s+,K6s+,Q7s+,J7s+,T7s+,96s+,86s+,75s+,64s+,54s,A8o+,KTo+,QTo+,J9o+,T9o,98o

I'll use this as a basis, and change it qualitatively (some low suited hands should play better as 3bets etc.) but you get the jist. I'd like to get to around 25% in April when in comes to call any in BB

jackpot baby DIngDIngDIng

Power-Equilab Store reply:

Hi Vaclav,
we apologize our technical problems.
We can fullfill your subscription at tuesday. We will give you an extra month.
Best regards, Power-Equilab Support Team

Ok week recap

Week3
13393 hands
+312
BR 1060

Grind
with the health issues I came short of my 40 hr goal by some 8.5hrs and 3 excercise units

Side site 4.30 HRS 1898 hands 12bb/100 +$41.25
graph:

Main site: 27:05 HRS 11.495 hands 9.85bb/100 +238.26 +33T$
graph:

Excercise
-1workout sesh at home
-1x 1hr gym
Social stuff
- went out to town with a poker pal, went to some 7 bars that night crazy stuff
- minor dental emergency surgery, chest infection came back pffft. feeling messed up a bit.
- 2 dates (dinner at home for 1st one rock concert+walk in Prague with 2nd. Even had Famous grouse whisky at a bar, it's my favorite Whisky I always ordered it in Scoland :))
That girl I went to a concert with is a massive troll

- she speaks english fluently but her main language with Ukrainian is Czech.
- She dated a czech dude for 3 weeks pretending she only speaks English before revealing she speaks Czech. She saw him almost every day. At one point he was talking about her to his mates on the phone in front of her in Czech thinking she doesn't understand him ♦

And she was telling me a bout a drunk Spanish guy who talked to her at 2 am in a club.
And starting telling her his gf broke up with him.
She put her palm on his, and kept sliding hers slightly up so it looked like her fingers are a lot longer. Then told him she understands why his gf broke up with him now because everyone knows what a man with short fingers means.

Of course when I met her she was pretending she's from Finland and made me believe it
She's basically your typical clever internet troll, only with a hot body, I might be in love

Poker learning
- sweat sesh lessons:
- Call a lot more in BB, get it close to 30mark for call any2 PFR in BB (14-19 now)
- don't snap act in obvious spots (timing tell, don't think stuff through)
- don't be afraid to 3 barrel very high VPIP fish a lot more, they have air most of the time
- you don't exploit people as well as you think you do. Stick to playing by equity+blockers more.

-watched New Uri peleg's videoalso Internet's "coaching with internet 2 " (some fun hhs there with a guy from polish community) and some of his live play at 500z.
Uri's video is great for cbetting strategy and using delayed cbet a lot with weaker hands (he doesn't say "I give up here" but "I go for a delayed cbet" and does so with good success on a lot of dry boards where people expect him to cbet air most of the time.) In Internet's video it was great to watch his systematic approach and the students exploitive donkamenting ("Sure it's not great from good correct poker perspective, but what about playing vs an average nl200 player, surely I can just donk shove here even when it doesn't make much sense, he'll fold ♦") he got some serious berating for folding AQdd on AXXXdd in a squeeze pot ott vs a shove etc

Power equilab
- worked out BB calling ranges, bought a 2 month licence (binked extra month for technical issues, have to wait 2 days tho ♦)

Goals for next week
- 30 hours with 25%+ call any PFR in BB. minimum 10 hrs with focusd nuclear
- 2 exercise units
- Community show
- 1 date
- 1x attend Slovakian night (1.5k people party)
- get health stuff sorted
- get faster internet for HU championship commentary (I'm really excited about that and we'll have some fun matches - make sure you guys register here still have 20 minutes left ;))
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/content/Hurry-to-join-the-PokerStrategy-Heads-up-Cash-Championships_90654/)