Laboriously feeds the squirrel

Hey, i want to ask you, can we trade please? You can be a slightly winning poker player instead of me, and i go for the "good job, having family, winning at life" thing? ♦

On the sidenote, you arent dumb, and the biggest factors to win at poker (or actually anything else) are: taking it more seriously than just a casual hobby and willingness to try harder, learn and improve. So you will probably do fine soon, dont worry.

Welcome to blogs! Very nice first post.

Congratz for your marriage and your son!

Hey HNRoger,
regarding the trade: I must decline.

Hey NutzAreOk,
Thanks!

Hey sftpn,

Welcome to the 'Get Rich or Die Tryin' bankroll challenge. we will be looking forward to your first update which you should post by Monday of each week in Get Rich or Die Tryin' - The Bankroll Challenge - Reporting thread.

You have some nice goals there. You should also consider joining our Goal-Getter: Prove yourself and get rewarded! promotion. ♠_thumbsup:

GL:gl:

Laz

Originally posted by sftpn
I grazed along a burn out for quite some time without realizing that I was.

I think there are so many people on this path that don't realize it. I don't just mean work-wise, it could be any aspect of their life that is unbalanced.

You've got a lot going for you - the realization that change was needed, the mindfulness training, a supportive wife, the joy of a child, and a great poker coach. I look forward to reading about your progress. Best of luck to you!

Hi everybody! Dear diary! ♠_p:

I'm about describe my new, soon to be typical week including my mindset routine, scheduling with family and a session with w34z3l. (Am trying to keep it brief

Disclaimer: exceptions prove the rule.

I start the day usually with some Sun Salutations and then sit down for mindfulness meditation. This consumes 30 of my precious minutes. During my before-work-coffee I play one or two tables. Then it's off to work.
When I return from the about 7 hours of insanity, I really benefit from either a short nap or some mindfulness practice. Then there is managing the so-called real life: Spending time with my wife and son, cooking, taking care of all the stuff that an adult life brings with it. (Raising the question: Does one live his life or vice versa?)
After bedtime there are 3 or so hours of peace and quiet, which is good. I strive to start any session with a further really brief mindfullness exercise and repeat that exercise during the session reguarly. The aim is just to get aware without judging, if I'm tired or angry or in a really good mood or something else. Afterwards I decide what to do with that information.
Usually my poker abilities wear of after a little more than an hour and I end the session half an hour later. I then proudly end the day with highly unproductive activities.

A weekly fix point is the planning of the next week, which we do with the whole family together ( The 7-month-old doesn't get a say atm :f_biggrin:) We plan the usuall stuff [ outgoing ( so far there is any), appointments, sports, and other things we tend not to do otherwise. We try to do this balancing act of respecting everyones needs, getting a helpfull structure without trying to plan to much (and without splitting any skulls), but compromises are nessesscary.

This week was pokerwise best week ever. Had 4 days completely for myself. I learned, slept enough, did all of the stuff I described above and ended with the highest winrate so far. Since it was only over 6000 hands, I'm not ordering a Porsche or so.
Another observation: Winrate went down with the return of my SO. It's not mainly her fault though:f_biggrin: Towards the end of the week, I get more tired, plus I didn't do to my whole mindset routine either.

The third coaching session with w34zl was great. The first two are mainly responsible for my winrate boost and I dind't get over the last session up to now, but this time I needed to explain my reasoning during some hands a lot and my not so fluently spoken english gained some momentum, which facilitated a entertaining and informative session. We will take it a step further with me joining the skool-programm w34z3l is offering. Looking forward!

Next weeks main goals:
6k hands
Extracting last session with w34z3l, also red line rampage 2 and 3 (This goal is doomed already )
Doing my mindset routine

Ending it here to work an my game.
Comments and questions are welcome!

Good games to everbody!

Hi everybody!

I reached last weeks goals.

Son is toothing (is this a word in english?), so me and the misses got not nearly enough sleep. So my first and most fundamental need to think straight, wasn't met and still isn't. :-) I strived to do my mindset routine nevertheless, but it didn't have that calming and focusing effect it usually provides (due to sleep deprivation, I guess). As a topping, there was a lot of fighting with a certain women I know :-), which didn't improve my chances at the tables mindsetwise either. Needless to say, I played real poorly (The lack of hitting a hand wasn't even needed.) and went down 8 buy-ins over three days, which is a lot in my case. It was like I forgot all about that good poker stuff, I called to much and put every overbetttor on a bluff for no good reason.

Then I got one good night of sleep and am up four buy ins at last. Sure there might be variance, but i highly doubt, that e.g. I would call flop raise and turn raise with TPWK, when i'm normally far behind.

Plan for next week has been discussed.

Goals:
6k+ hands
Session with w34z3l
working on mindset with enough sleep and mindset routine
rextracting last coaching session,
Using the MBSR-app I got during sessions for STOP-practice
and don't start playing, if I'm not up for it (<-- thats gonna be the hard part)

Off for a nap.

Have a good week!

How ended your poker goals last week?
Further I wish you all the best with your blog

Cheers,
SDK1987

@ SDK1987: Nearly reached them all. :-) Thanks for your good wishes.

Last week was tough. Played my C-game most of the time. Sleep deprivation got the better of me. After a good nights sleep and a session with w34z3l I played better and am back from where I started since my last entry. Gotta adress these sleep issues more sincerly. Although some conjugal quarrels didn't help either. Don't get me wrong, me writing every week about arguing with my wife, doen't mean I'm not in love with her anymore, but kids are changing things (a.k.a. unbelievable stressful) and it's necessary to find a new balance which is hard. We're gonna get there.

I started to read Jared Tendlers "Mental game of poker pt. 1". The concept of the four states of knowing is very interesting. I think it happes a lot, that something I learned isn't deep-seated enough, vanquishes from concious knowing, leaving me with like before knowing behind.

I reached most of last weeks goals. Didn't play the # of hands though, because I stopped due to mindset issue, which met another goal Session with w34z3l was great. I'm now about to position, what he told me/we discussed.

Weekly Family planning took place and these are some of the goals for next week:

play +6k hands
work through last coaching session several times
sleeping more then 7,5 hours on a least 4 out of 7 days
maintaining my mindset routine

Have a good week!

Hi! Hello Anne

Despite reaching learning goals last week I am down some buy-ins. Variance doesn't cover it all. There was a good portion of playing poorly involved. Hard to put my finger on it, but I believe, went down some autopiloting spiral. I mixed up some solid gameplans into some disfigured madness, stopped thinking, or better started thinking in a strange way (misinterpreted hud stats, was all to eager to put someone on a bluff, barrel worst possible turn, river cards). I didn't really learns also. Loosing occupied my mind to much -->Definitively mental probs. Therefore, I stopped playingfor a day, gave Jared Tendlers first book a closer look and am trying to do some of his advice, e.g. warming up.
I'll report next week how that went.

This weeks goals:

Ratio learning/playing 1:3
working through "Mental game of poker"
revisiting the "walkthrough and catching up on some red line rampage videos (man, they came really fast, couldn't keep up :))

Have a good one!

As always: Any feedback is welcome!

Hi Everyone!

I'm long overdue with posting here, so here it goes. Since I moved in a really nice apartment last week, I was quit busy, hence the lack of a post here. Kept up most parts of my mental routine. I even went to some yoga classes during all the chaos. The last apartment was full of mold, which didn't concern my lousy landlord. So we moved and will send him the bill
The work on my mental game continued, guided mostly by Jareds Tendlers first book including a lot of writing during and after session. I e.g. write down, when I'm not sure about a hand, get angry or overwhelmed after wining big. After the session I take a hard look at what might be the causes for that. Tendler wrote a lot of very helpful things. Tilt and anger are not the problems. They show where room for improvement could be. Some time age I hated looking at hands where I tilted or played poorly. At best I analyzed like this: "Yeah, you tilted there. Stupid. Stop that." Which didn't work at all. With the help of the book, I looked a little closer and discovered one of my main contributers for tilt: Being not sure about the best line. That was often followed by poorly played hands, followed by losses, followed by me trying to win some back, followed by tilt. Nowadays, I a) recognize often when I'm not sure about the best gameplan, b) mark hands for later analyzing them, c) tend to fold them. I am nearly tilt-free for a week. Winrate looks really nice. Of course working at the mental game has to continue.
Another eye opener was the free money video by w34z3l. It was suprisingly harder than I thought to implement the 4 provided plans into my game and I still need to consolidate them, but this contributed a lot to my recent red line boost.

I am going to enjoy the hardly affordable great apartment now.
Have a nice week!

Hello Everybody! Hello my dear!:f_cool:

Last week was really intense. I played twice the usual number of hands since my family visited the grandpas and grandmas. After a nice upswing and some improvements on my mental game (much less tiltier, less angry). My attention span also seems to be improving. Until now sessions over 45 minutes were difficult. Over the course of the last weeks, I'm now up to two hours (with small drinking and toilet breaks). I still ran well during the last half of these longer sessions.
Then I got a little cocky. Thought most of my skills reached the level of unconscious competence (spoiler: not all did:)) and added a table. I played 7000 hands on three rush tables in two sessions. Guess it was B-Game mostly, some C-Game may also be involved. Felt like afterwards. I lost a few buy-ins due to tightening up unconsiously in some spot and some bad calls.
When I analyzed the 7000 hands, I first was down, that not all of the stuff I learned had sunk in as well as I thought it had. Then I realized, that, let's say, three month ago, I would go either on insane monkey tilt on three tables after an hour or autopiloting my bankroll away. This put the -5bb/100 in perspective. The bad end of my game improved! Also I learned which skills still need work to become truly integrated! Pure gold!!

Have a great week!

Hello there!

Very inspiring to see a person with family, full time job etc. finding time to put in 30ishK hands per month! From Your last post I presume it's fast format of poker (rush), 2 tabling? Or am I wrong?
Me and my Mrs are expecting a baby boy in about a month, so it would be nice to hear a comparison of poker mindset and play before and after baby arrived?
With mighty w34z3l as coach, You can't do wrong, it sometimes just takes time to put everything in its place. Guess reading Mental game of poker helps a lot (putting it on my list for personal poker improvement)
Maybe You should include results in these posts on Your blog, so people don't need to search for them in the reporting thread of GRODT.
Keep it strong and
GL @ the tables

@ nmilan84:
Yes, I play Rush Poker at two tables (with attempts on three tables)
I wish the three of you all the best and stable nerves and the strenght to adapt to the new situation!

Since the work on my mindset started two month ago, I didn't really know I had a mindset before the birth.
The difference before and after the birth: There was a lot more tilting and playing my C-Game. The sleep deprivation also took its toll. So much had changed and we needed to adapt.. that took a lot of work. The quiet time for myself during Poker was than more important as the game itself. (Btw, took 40 minutes to write this so far due to feeding and keeping my boy alive That's how it is now. :f_smile:) Good thing pokerwise was, that this pressure was simply to much and I had to do something (took a Mindfulness course, started with w34z3l and he recommended Jared Tendlers books, which did a lot for me, as l as I do the work that needs to be done.)
Have a good one!

Hello Everybody!

week 10 into the GRODT-Challenge and this are last weeks results:

# of hands: 5800
current bankroll: $348
weekly bankroll movement: -$46

I found a new mental leak of mine, which I was kind of aware before, but now I'm trying to address it the best way I can. What happened: I was up really nice ten days ago, partly due to variance, but also because of good play and then I stopped working at my game, even at the new stuff that still wasn't really hooked. I lost a few buy-ins and there it was: The convincement that I should add one more table instead of buckling up and have long hard look at what went wrong and were to improve. Guess how it went? Exactly!:f_o: With adding that table I autopiloted even harder and my old friend Tilt came for a visit. Not sure, if I'm gonna find a technique in Jared Tendlers first book, that applies here. Either I think of something myself or I'll buy the second book also and get some new ideas about improving mentally. I'll let you know how it went.

I still don't get, why the mental game in poker is kind of a stepchild to the poker community. I'm sure it's a huge part of the game for the most and wonder, if it's because poker is a male-dominated game (and guys think talking about the mental game is girlish, (which, even if it was, would be fine)) or there is a good part of unawareness for the topic or there are more people who mastered everything than I expected

Have a nice week and good thinking at the tables!

Hi Everyone!

Due to illness all around my family, I wasn't well, hence there was no blog for a while. Sorry for that.

Pokerwise: There were a few ups and downs plus my usual problems with sleep deprivation, lack of time and some lazyness was also involved and I should have been down some buy-ins... But I'm not! After a really badly played session I wanted to confront myself with the cashier and I was up $1000 After some mails with the full tilt support I learned, that I somehow won in their rush games promotion. Didn't even know they had cash prizes.?
Regretably, I withdrew most of it, otherwise I would have matched my GROTD-goal. :-|
Had another great session with w34z3l, worked through the 4bet vid from his red line rampage series (whish made me realize, that me 4betting skills are very improvable).
Thanks to my well deserved $1000 (did I mention that already?:f_biggrin: ) , I tried the next limit. So far (4k hands), I feel like a fish in the water there, but wait till the regs get to know me better, then they'll pluck my feathers.
Hopefully, you can't read about that in next week's entry.
Regarding the promised info about the mental issues I mentioned last week: I tried to work out a system involving a check list. The idea is, I either do the check list, which should mean I get some poker work done or I don't, which I shouldn't. Atm it's to early to say how it worked. Will let you know.

So far, so good!

Have a great week!

Hopefully everything is now going better with illness in your family
How it’s going with the check list and your poker adventure?

Good luck in May

Cheers,
SDK1987

He sftpn,

how is it going? We did not hear from you in a long time and still have you marked as "on holidays" in our https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=1953483#post1953483
Would be nice to hear from you!

CU,SvenBe