Greetings fellow strategists,
I am starting this challenge thread to chronicle my new challenge and also to enable me to become more involved with the community here. I have realised lately that the thing that attracts me to this game more than anything else is the demand it places on me to conquer myself. I am not a natural when it comes to the mental game of poker, far from it. Which is surprising because in my day to day dealings with people, and back when I worked in an office, I had great inter-personal skills, and pretty decent emotional management.
Yet on the online poker table something changes in me. I have to be totally on my guard to ensure that I do not tilt when I am playing. My tilt manifests in moving up in stakes or just monkey spewing in chips after having played for hours following a winning strategy.
Take my most recent session just a week or so ago, I was playing 20nl and on a nice heater for the day, had been 4 tabling for about 5 hours and was up 6 stacks. I knew this was a heater but still nice. During all this time I was totally focussed on what I was doing. I knew I had to be. Then I quit my session, watched a poker documentary and came back, yes I love this game! I didnt feel quite as grounded as I did at the start of the day, but I knew volume was key to doing well in poker so I wanted to get another session in. I started playing did OK, ebbed and flowed, then I got complacent, I started multi-tasking in chat etc. This resulted in me stacking off for 160BBs vs an obvious full house when i just had TPTK. In hindsight a really terrible move.
:f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad::f_mad:
Then i became tilted (at myself for being so retarded!), spewed a few stacks and gambled the rest of my profits away on sports.
Wider than this though in my personal life I am a very all or nothing person. I party hard or I work hard, never any in between. When I party there is a high chance I will spend all of my money in the space of a few days no matter how much I have. The experiences are OK at the time, but after I always regret having done this, these evenings are always alcohol fuelled.
Poker really is a microcosm for the world at large it strips us bare I believe. If a man or woman are successful in life, given the right study and application they are likely to be successful in the world of online poker I would say. A person who has deficiencies managing themselves or their money in the real world, are likely to encounter the same ill effects on the virtual felt as they do in the physical world.
For what it's worth, I don't mind the crazy party side of my personality in itself, it's the detrimental effect it has on other parts of my life that is the real problem. For instance the reckless spending of money, the regret at certain of my actions while under the influence of alcohol etc.
So I decided to really work on myself for the rest of the year. It really isn't sensible to go out for a long weekend and blow every penny I have, then spend the rest of the month or longer, without enough money for the basic things in life. It also isn't on that I am not as successful with poker as I would like to be, as poker is something I really enjoy trying to conquer.
OK long intro over... here's on to the challenge!
I've decided to practice real simplicity and peace and focus as much as possible on this for the rest of the year.
The party animal in me, I am going to tame, and put away until next year. By which point I should be on my way to having a bit of financial security and more independance which will make for an all around healthier experience when I do let loose out on the town.
I have no money now for a month or so , but my rent is paid and I have some food. My plan for the next 4-6 weeks is to just work hard while I'm working, relax when I'm relaxing, and also to play about 4 hour of poker each day.
I can't afford to play any meaninful poker (limit wise) at the moment so I thought I would start this challenge.
I had £9.98 disposable income left for the rest of the month, I just deposited that, and my challenge is going to be to build this up over the coming months. When i start back at higher limits i'll keep this challenge going still.
So the main point of this challenge is to give me a positive vehicle to experience poker with on a budget, and to interact with some of the community.
I will be playing on Ipoker.
A key part of this challenge is going to be practicing mindfulness and mental discipline. After all I enjoy playing poker, but as I'm playing for pennies I need to find something to give the game an extra edge, that extra edge will be implementing a spiritual text while I play!
A famous buddhist text is the Dhammapada it is a collection of writings by the Buddha in short verses, they are really clever and seem to have a lot to say about how we manage ourselves and our mind. I am going to focus on 10 a day, and reflect in my blog when I update here, about how I found they related to my poker journey for the day (and also if relevent my life in the day).
The challenge:
Starting with £10.26 build this up playing a winning poker strategy. I'm going to take shots at the limit above when I have 10 stacks for that limit, and drop down when I have 15 stacks for the limit below.
Each day I will post 10 verses from the Dhamapadda (that I'm learning myself never read the book before!) and then in my session review for the day I'll post how I think any of them related to my game. There are 350 verses, so it will take me a little over a month to complete the first run through of the text in my challenge!
Thanks for reading!! 
