Sp(r)in(ts) & Go(als) - SmartSpinning

Week 16

A great week overall. 462 games with 56cev in 30h of play. There was some longer break even stretches in the middle. When I look at the graph and see that I was 15k below EV I like how I dealt with this swing and I kept my head cool and didn't let it influence my play too much. At the end of the week, I started to feel a bit tired, seems like I am not ready to play 5 days in a row, so for this week I will change my schedule, play Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu will be day off and then play for the rest of the week.

At the end of the week, I noticed that my foundation has started to drop a bit, probably because of playing so exploitable all the time I forgot to pay enough attention to it. This week I will try to study more than last week. Today I noticed that in some sense poker feels too easy and I fall back to my old habits and I am not asking myself the right questions while I play. I could try and create a bigger challenge for myself and add 3rd table but I want to test my discipline and see how well I can deal with these problems. The previous intention was to start adding 3rd table only after 18th of July and I want to stick with it but I know that I need to bring my game to next level in order to have good cev while 3 tabling.

Hey. Interesting week so far. Monday and Tuesday were very slow days bad luck did bring down my motivation and confidence. Rewatched few videos about adjusting and worked a bit more on overall game and it paid off on Wednesday where I achieved the best results for a single day in the 30s so far. Today I took a day off to prepare myself for the weekend grind.

In last 2 days attended 4 coachings overall, 2 of them were really awesome about the adjustments in HU and how we should switch our strategy, a lot of new things for me, will try my best to implement them in my game and that should increase my win rate in HU. Looking at this month goal of 2.5k games I am behind schedule for ~250 games currently, so it is not that bad and if I switch to 3 tables in near future I can definitely make up for it. Current Cev atm is 54 for this month, that is slightly more than I expected in the beginning after deciding to go for this volume goal but I see that 60 is definitely achievable while 2 tabling.

Will try to do update after each day for the weekend and not slack even if there is not much to update.

Yesterday and today have been pretty rough days. Both of them finished in red and played ~70 games each day. In last few days since I started running bad, my game has dropped too. I noticed that this downswing has damaged my confidence and I started playing more emotionally, not respecting my opponent bets and their calls, not relying on my skill but trying to trade punches with variance . However, my reads mostly have been on point, I just lack the discipline to go through with them.

One more thing I realized was that while working on the new strategy I forgot to pay enough attention to my main game plan. It seems that I go in circles as it always happens, this time, it was harder to spot it because I got a little bit ignorant after the good start of the month and I didn't think that there is much new stuff to learn.

It always feels good when you think you have hit rock bottom and have gained some perspective on things. Hopefully, this is my rock bottom and I can start making progress again.

After these 2 weeks where I have spent ~80h just grinding I don't think this schedule is sustainable for the long run. I am not a robot yet and playing spins for 6+h and studying 2+h per day takes a bit too much energy once the inspiration is gone.

Next step is adding more tables because Sundays are the softest days I decided that tomorrow I will try and play 3 tables in sets for most of the day. I will be evaluating my play after first few sessions and then take the decision how to move forward.

Think most poker players can relate man, awareness is key, I think we all go in cycles just like everything in the cosmos and each time we find ourselves back where we were its an opportunity to use what we learnt the last time we were there. In my theory anyway, but it seems I need the same lessons over & over haha. #inspirationalstatement

Btw I've applied to smartspin & name dropped you for the referral bonus.

Yeah ofc, I agree with you, as you have seen it's not the first time I am mentioning it here. I just kind of expected to be more aware and notice the problem a bit faster this time but at the same time I know that circumstances are different this time around because of my volume goal etc. so I expect to face problems I have never faced before but it did blind side me a bit.

Thanks for that, send me a PM once you are in, I will help you settle in and add you to my study group if you want.

subbed and greetings from call3high ♦

Week 17

One of the most difficult weeks so far. At first, it seems like there was 2 type of days, either I crushed my opponents or they crushed me. That would be the shorter version that I would usually tell myself but now I know that it is never the case and I can't hide behind that statement.

I know that I need to dig deeper to find the root for those bad results. One of the first things that come to mind, I didn't have the discipline that is required of me to have good results. I lacked awareness of my mental state and I let variance influence my game. I think really big thing was that I lost a sense of progression. I think for most of us it is like that, if we are not moving forward we feel stuck. This time, I didn't even realize that I was stuck.

I think my cautious approach on not adding 3rd table did slow me down a little bit as I felt ready for it but wanted to make sure that I can beat the 30s. I might have gotten burnt in doing so but at least I would have the feeling of progress being made. Not sure if that is the best thing to do but I think that the challenge creates a lot of energy around it.

Today was my first full day trying to play sets of 3 tables. I noticed that I can get 13-16 games per hour atm so it is even better than playing 2 tables continuously. At times, it got a bit hectic when I had still 3 tables open when the blind level was 20/40 but I did manage it nicely.
In future, it will be crucial to be aware of my focus level and spot when a break is needed. Overall had great results - 88 games with 94cev.
Overall for the month I have played 1247 games with 47cev so far.

Graph for week 17

Yesterday was my day off. I did want to break the habit of wasting my last few day offs in from of laptop. This time, the goal was to spend at least 5h away from the laptop. I think overall I did even more than that, main things I focused was :
Reading a book for ~2.5h
Usual running and workout for 1.5h
Doing sudoku puzzles for at least 1h.
Then some not so important activities and ended the day at the laptop. Interesting thing was that I start to learn and understand how to play chess. For me, it always has been an ultimate challenge, I knew how complicated it gets and it seemed so difficult because there was no luck involved just pure skill and my ego doesn't like that idea in general, so I was afraid of even start learning it but it has always fascinated me so I finally decided to give it a try. Started with basics and the rules and tried some random simulations vs computer. I don't have too much time to spend on it but will try to do some stuff every few days. If any of the readers have suggestions about this stuff and what would be the most beneficial things to do, your suggestions are welcomed.

Today got back to the tables, felt quite refreshed and ready to get back to the 3 table grind. Overall I think I played quite good, there were times when my mind got really distracted and wandered totally off but every time I came aware of it I just slowly brought it back. Today I had limited time frame when I could play so I did rush a bit more at the end and didn't take a proper break in the middle.

Yesterday was a quite good day overall, maybe dropped the ball at the end but I wanted to put in extra volume after the workout. Seemed so casual day that I decided to not make a blog post because nothing too important was happening. Each day I did attend 1 coaching from founders, both were about HU BB, saw several spots that I am definitely making mistakes.
Today was a weird day. I did wake up at 8am so I can start my day early but didn't gain the results I expected. For some reason when I watch strategy video in the morning before I have played any games, I do perform very poorly in the first session. This was the case today so I did end up grinding back the EV I lost in the beginning. Later after the dinner, I tried going back to the tables but my mind was just not there so ended causing more harm than good probably but those were the consequences of not planning my day properly.
Today crossed 1.5k game mark, I am currently ~300 games behind schedule but I am already 300 past last months volume so still need to keep that in mind.

Week 18

A Few days ago I achieved Diamond status on pokerstrategy for the first time. :f_cool:

This week started off really great and from there it went slightly downwards poker wise. Wasn't able to put in the volume and cev also was shit. Volume wise there were decent reasons for this low number. Friday I had to coach a fellow smartspin member who is playing 7$ stakes, it was an interesting experience to share my knowledge with somebody and I saw how far I have come in last 3 months because I know that I had exactly the same problems back when I started.

Later I went out with friends, we attended Cesis 810 year anniversary, great music with great friends and few drinks, really enjoyed the night out, it was quite refreshing to change things up and let loose for a bit. Saturday I took a full day off as I wanted to see what is happening in the city and just enjoy the atmosphere this time without drinking because I wanted to be ready to play on Sunday morning. Watched live Frank Turner, amazing artist, he even did sing a song in decent Latvian, that is quite an achievement in my eyes and deserves my respect as I know how hard it is for others to pronounce stuff correctly. Quite magical performance.

Today I was quite sleepy in the morning because I went to bed later than usual.The First session was good one, 2nd session went not so great and my confidence dropped quite a bit so I did get back to my notebook and check my notes and see which things I am doing and which I have totally forgotten. There were few things that I was not using at all.

Later I talked with one of the smartspin coaches to prep for my coaching with him and it came clear to me that my weakest part of the game definitely is HU BB. As well as I re-watched a Mindset talk with Elliot Roe and made myself a schedule for tomorrow and planned my week a little bit.

A Very productive day started with study session ~40 mins -> meditation -> grind 2 tabling for 50 min -> 10 min break -> 50min grind -> rewatching video about HU BB -> 40min break (lunch) -> 2 sessions of 50 min grind -> 1h study session with ss member about HU BB spots -> running+ work out -> dinner -> 1h coaching session for one ss memeber.

Volume wise it was quite a low day but I compensated with great Cev while 2 tabling + a lot of studying. Will put together a plan for tomorrow. It seems like it will look similar only will try to get one more session in and I have coaching session at the end of the day.

Week 19

This was a difficult week, one of the worst results wise. I do think that it was mainly because of the variance but big part of it was my own fault. I think this week's bad results are in result of things that I did change after Week 17. I did talk about lacking progression in my game and my solution was to add the 3rd table. Now looking at it closer I didn't dig deep enough and found the wrong root for a problem. I think the main problem was that I lacked structure in my study process. I knew a little bit of everything but I wasn't a master of any of those skills. Once I added 3rd table my game started getting worse even at a faster pace.

This week after really bad 2 days (Tue and Thu) I was asked to move back to 15s for a week to regrind some confidence and EV. It seemed like a logical step after this run and my results lately. I know that I can play 30s, but probably not at the level, I would like currently. I will do my best to get back at 30s as fast as possible.

There were also few good things this week. I think I realized what I was missing - a structure of my study process. This week I set myself a study plan, mainly working atm on my weakest area - HU BB and 3w BB vs BTN because they are quite similar and a great video about this position just came out. Atm my daily schedule involves 4-5h of playing and 2-3h of studying. It was really great that I found a good study partner to review my hands with.

Next week will be a challenge. I am doing good at 15s but I want to do great, so I will need to find and fix the leaks that I am making in order to get back to 30s at the end of the week. It seems an easy task but I know that I need to treat it correctly otherwise I won't make it.

Good Luck guys.

Week 20

"Hard work and discipline" is the title for the last week. I realized that there was a problem, I found it and I worked hard to fix it and I did it. Overall a great week, a first half of the week was slow and I still wasn't able to play at the level I knew I could. On the last day (Thursday) before the deadline of a trial period at 15s I had 53cev in last 6 days, so I went to the work and started crushing, I got my overall cev for the week up to 64 after that and pretty much never looked back and my confidence was really high after achieving this small milestone.

I got the green light for going back to 30s but I made the decision that I will keep playing 15s for another week because of my study plan. For last week I had been working only on HU BB and 3way BB, this week I am switching my focus towards HU SB.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. - Benjamin Franklin

This quote has stuck with me for past week and is the main reason why I want to work on HU SB before going back to 30s. I want to work and fix my leaks in this position before the real fight.

Not too much other stuff going on, just trying my best to have discipline and being as consistent as possible. Volume is not the best but cev is finally there so need to keep working.

Week 21&22

It has been almost 2 weeks since the last update. Week 21 was a quite productive one, grind wise and studying wise. I did put in regular hours of playing and studying and I found several leaks in my HU SB game, but to be honest I didn't find any really big mistakes so the progress was less satisfying. Analyzing my statistics I saw a lot of small mistakes that ends up costing me a lot when I play 13bb+ from HU SB. So it was more about fine-tuning rather than learnings something from the scratch as it was with HU BB.

This week was quite interesting and difficult. I did start the week badly that damaged my confidence a little, every time I tried playing 30s I got beaten up in different ways. There were good sessions, but for some reason, I was not able to learn from my mistakes as effective as I would have liked. After that, I felt a bit ill and slightly burnt out so I had to take Tue and Wed off, Thursday was my birthday, but I felt great so I did put in the hours of grind and had really good sessions. On Friday my mind was not into grinding as I had to prepare for Saturday. It was the big finals in our beach volleyball championship league, that I and one of my friends organized over the summer. Really liked the level of the quality we were able to create this event. We had a lot of fun. After that, I organized a little birthday celebration with my friends.

This week was quite packed and because of not feeling great I did skip several running sessions. The Plan is to pick them up starting from Monday and get back into the rhythm. Atm, it looks like I will be able to play 5 days next week, so the goal will be at least 350 games and I will try to post at least 2 times next week here.

Week 21

Week 22

Happy Bday Rufus

how's going?

Your blog makes me feel inspired. Keep up the good work, you have another fan. Can't wait for the next update. GL on the tables and I'm pretty sure you will be playing 100s in no time. Cheers.

Thank you, Shrader
Hey 4s4s
Thanks, Bukma, it was my pleasure to coach you yesterday.

This week has been a lot of fun. Poker wise started off a bit cautiously, on Monday 70% 15s and 30% 30s. Tuesday 50/50 both stakes, and results over has been great. Wednesday was a bit different because I attended one of the founder coachings and Pokerstars decided to do a server restart so it interrupted my grind and I ended the day with low volume but a lot of studying.

Yesterday I had to give a coaching to a lower stake player (Bukma) because I am taking a part in a program called Take and Share, where we receive a coaching from someone who is playing higher stakes and we need to give a private coaching to someone who is playing lower stakes. It was real nice time woking with someone who is eager to learn and have prepared a lot of questions. We spent ~2h just talking about stuff and I realized a lot of things about my approach that I was using subconsciously.

One of the questions were. "what is the most important thing to achieve progress and success in poker?"
Answer that surprisingly float on top was - Awareness. If I have to name only one thing, then it is def the most important one. Main reason is because if you don't know where you are currently, you won't be able to reach your destination. Awareness is the first step in solving any problem you face if you can't recognize the problem you can't solve it.

At the same time, I am in control of most aspects of my life, so there are fewer struggles these days, so not much to write about. I have developed most of the habits I wanted and have talked about here. One of the gifts I got for my birthday was a book "The Facebook Effect"by David Kirkpatrick. Not the newest book, but a great read. Really like the story, it's so crazy and for that reason, it is so fun to read. I have read only half of the book, but I can recommend it for sure.

Thx Rufus433, the pleasure was all mine. I have learned a lot in those 2 hours. You are definitely good material for a coach. Maybe one day I will be able to return a favor