As far as we could get

  • As far as we could get

    Posted by Harrrypokerrr on January 11, 2021 at 3:28 pm

    Introduction

    Hello, welcome to my progress log.

    I am 28 years old, currently working for a large corporation in tax advisory services. I have been playing poker for few years now, but I have really never made a breakthrough past low stakes online. I mainly played NLH and probably tried pretty much all formats that are out there. I also went through tones of theory materials, some courses, but my learning path has not been very well structured. I also suffered a lot from not performing at my best, did not really care about good session preparation and also tilted a bunch. Also may people around me, especially my former long time girlfriend, were really against poker, seeing it only as pure gambling, so I really could not find free times to play. So no surprise I could not build a decent bankroll.

    However, 2020, and I know that will look strange, was by far the best year in my life. In particular on personal level (maybe I will not go into details) and I also, for the first time in my life, made a decent side income from poker (not very much, but something on which you can build on). The poker highlight of the year would be for me winning the MTT for my lifetime score (5,5k EUR), where at one point I was left with 1/6bb (no kidding). Anyway, cash games, both online and live, also went quite good results-wise and I also felt that I made some good progress.

    Starting from November I decided that I want to take my poker journey to the next level in order to eventually hopefully turn it into a successful career. I spent a big part of my bankroll for new equipment – in particular new computer on which I can run solvers – as well as strategy and mindset courses.

    In past few months I implemented some significant changes into my life – started eating healthier and planning my meals, exercising more, planning my time, meditating once or twice a day, introduced proper session preparation routines as well as small morning routine, cut out a lot of distractions (deleted Facebook from my phone and turned off the most of notifications from other apps), etc. I really felt those changes had a positive impact on my life and game and I wish to continue that route.

    I also obviously have to work on my game. Recently I focused more on PLO and I really started loving that deep and complicated game. I think that is the way forward for me now as I am eager to work hard and I think you can gain a lot of edge, because getting good at PLO requires a lot of work, dedication and mental control.

    As for now I finished the PLO Launchpad and now I am simultaneously doing 10 week transformation and Crushing Small Stakes PLO. I also spend quite a lot of time in PLO Trainer, deeply exploring preflop ranges, as my main focus now is of course preflop.

    I decided to start this thread, because I want to keep the momentum going and I think with some additional “pressure” to post the updates I will more likely not stop.

    So:

    1. Who I want to become?

    The best version of myself I could be. A feared grinder at high stakes poker scene and a free person who will not have to obey orders of the bosses and work for someone. And in terms of personal life – fitter and healthier person and to be able to control my mind and emotions at the highest level.

    2. Vision statement:

    I am calm, enjoy my life and do not get at all bothered by the things I cannot control and that do not refer to me and my family. I am a professional poker, playing the highest stakes on daily basis, both online and live. I am free person, who can just pack up and travel to any destination I please and I can do whatever I feel like doing, without having to listen to any orders.

    3. Purpose statement:

    I play poker, because I really love and admire that game. I love rivalry, competition, action, as well as its social aspect. I love discovering new things, come up with new concepts and ideas and then prove them in real life. I work on my game daily, because I know that only that way I can move up in stakes and be a rival for other players. That is the first “work” in my life I really enjoy doing and am passionate about. It also gives me a reason to work on my body and mind and to make educated, well thought decisions in my life outside it.

    4. Milestones:

    – Going under 88 kgs of bodyweight

    – Keeping up daily meditation

    – At least 10h/week focused on poker training (courses, solvers)

    – Not checking my results at all for at least 2 weeks

    – Getting a good understanding of preflop game in PLO

    – Keeping my fish buffet status at GG (requires a lot of hands to be played)

    – Winning at least 7bb/100 on PLO100 over at least 100k sample

    – Getting a deep run and decent score (at least 500$) in MTT

    – Quitting my job and starting playing poker for a living

    Good luck and happy grinding!

    • This discussion was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  Harrrypokerrr.
    • This discussion was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  Harrrypokerrr.
    Harrrypokerrr replied 2 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Adelaney

    Member
    January 12, 2021 at 11:02 am

    Hey @harrrypokerrr

    Glad to hear that even through the craziness of last year you were able to make it a good year on both a personal and poker stand point that’s great to hear.

    Looks like you have a good plan and making great changes to yourself outside of poker in order to benefit not only your personal life but the poker life too which is great to see!

    Lets crush these goals and get you to that point where you can potentially quit your job and make poker a living!

    Best of luck and look forward to following along.

  • Harrrypokerrr

    Member
    February 3, 2021 at 11:22 am

    Been a while, but I think updating every few weeks or maybe even once a month at the beginning should be fine. Anyway, I think this has been quite good month of work on my game – I put really a lot of hours and honestly, apart from a New Year’s Day can’t remember another day when I would skip learning time (even as little as 30 minutes, but usually few hours per day). I carry on with 10 weeks transformation program, I broke down in detail about 20 preflop spots as well – I actually go through each of 18 categories (as propossed by Luuk in CSS course) and make detailed notes about each of it, so it takes good few hours to breakdown each spot – it is very time consuming, but probably will be worth it, although I will reap the results probably even in few months when I grasp it really well (but tbf it hurt when I realized I spent few hours breaking down BB defence on a wrong rake level, so results were not accurate – but maybe that will be good to have those notes in the future xD). In the meantime I also started looking at shortstack course and breaking those spots down in the same way as well, but have not yet started to play short stack – I plan to finish the whole course first and then go to the tables super prepared. I finished the 1st part of the Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tandler as well. I think learning the game is as enjoyable as playing it tbf 😉 but sometimes it is overwhelming how much there is to cover in PLO, you can get the feeling that you will never get through it. On the other hand I also sometimes had a feeling that I could and should do even more, given my light schedule at work this month. But after all – I would give myself 8/10 in terms of working on my game.

    Can’t really brag on my results though, in fact I had some really bad days and even the worst day of my life at the tables (results wise). Had few down moments and tilt stroke me sometimes while playing, with negative thoughts that I must be quite bad or really stupid, given that I work on my game hard and there was a streak of loss after loss on low stakes where people play really bad. Running bad in big flips does not help here either 😉 Anyway, after summing up the whole month it actually turned out that I lost only few BIs – can live with that, so probably was not that bad after all 🙂

    Anyway, things I have to focus on the most are: getting longer and more consistent sleep, better time management and more physical exercises (or rather – breaking through the times when I can’t be bothered to do them – I struggled here tbf). I should also analyse my own game more, because for now I mainly focus on courses and PLO Trainer – I blocked myself a time for it this Saturday, but I probably have to make it a consistent thing in my schedule.

    So, I keep going with the hope this month will be better. Until the next time 😉

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by  Harrrypokerrr.
    • This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by  Harrrypokerrr.
  • Harrrypokerrr

    Member
    March 11, 2021 at 10:34 am

    Been a while, which I think shows my biggest leak/problem atm – discipline and self organization/time management – I think I have not done much progress in those departments in recent weeks, probably partly due to the fact that I spend like 110 hrs per week at home and each day is pretty much the same, so I have few habits, which include: work, work on the game, playing, meditation, physical exercices, but because I sometimes do not write down my daily plans/to do lists I am from time to time disorganised.

    Anyway, I feel like I made really good progress in understanding the game, finished 10 weeks PLO Transformation, I watched each video and made notes, took me 10,5 weeks tbf 😀 I planned to now carry on with CSS PLO and shortstack bootcamp (which I go through also “in the meantime”), but given upcoming MTT session on GG I will focus on those first and definitely play in some, see how it goes. I also started playing PLO50, sooner than I planned given my bankroll – I decided that instead of strictly sticking to 100-150 BIs for a given limit I will rather try to put some bankroll on PLO50 and see how it goes – so far it is going OK, will see how what the future brings 🙂

    • Harrrypokerrr

      Member
      April 23, 2021 at 9:45 am

      Again been a while since my last update – maybe that is actually good milestone to give myself that I will start to update a blog more regularly. Ok, I will try – on the first weekend of each month, I think that I should be able to almost always find a time slot to do it and that could be a good summary of a month.

      Anyway, since a last update a lot of things actually happened:

      1) I think I finally learned that cards and alcohol are not a good connection 😀 but had to have pretty bad and unlucky live session to realize that 😀
      2) Omaholic festival went quite well – I shipped one, made one FT and few deep runs (including that lower BI Main Event) – that really boosted my bankroll – so one of original milestones is done

      3) I also maintained my fish buffet status and switched to fixed RB setting – another original milestones is done

      4) thanks to the above (good MTT session) I started to play PLO50 comfortably and I even started some shots on PLO100 if the tables are fine – I think that is going quite well

      5) I had few really wild sessions/runs/days – the best session/week online, one of the best months (March), then at the start of April the worst week ever since I have started playing, basically some pretty “hard” swings and since I started playing higher I can “feel” them more (both in good and bad way) financially. But the point is those are valuable experiences which let me better handle those swings and in general I think I slowly become less and less emotional about the game and I do not tilt/spew as much – I will eventually get there.

      6) I learned a lot of new theory (CSS/MTT series, Leakbuster, workshops, play and explain, work with PLO Trainer) and actually gained some more confidence about my play in general. I feel that thanks to ongoing and regular work I become better at the game for sure and still enjoy learning 🙂

      7) I also recently improved my sleep patterns and thus energy levels + I started to exercise pretty much everyday (not a hard workouts, just to get moving for at least an hour a day). Plus one really great tip which I learned by accident from my GF is to switch to dark instead of white coffee (at least if you drink it not at the same time as eating, that has something to do with digesting processes in your body) – and wow, I don’t know if it is a placebo effect or what but it really works

      Still a lot room to improvement, both in terms of a game and mindset, but I think it is going in a good direction in general. Sometimes I feel I could improve though and will try to achieve that for sure, I can tell that the higher I play, the more will I have to do it and do it well.

      All the best!

  • Harrrypokerrr

    Member
    May 3, 2021 at 10:50 am

    OK, so for me it is like the first weekemd of the month (although it is Monday), because I have a long weekend and in fact I even have a weej off my work. So I am gonna spend upcoming week mostly on grinding and learning.

    Last week I actually haven’t played a single minute of online poker – I think for the first time in like 6 months or more. Just did not have time for it, being busy with other activities and also a bit lazy. But I still managed to put some time to study, finished 1 PLO Mastermind course and played 1 longer live session.

    I also have a new goal, which I hope to turn into a habit: I am actually gonna log my study and playing hours, starting from today. Hopefully this will help me to better see where my time reserves are for the future.

    Anyway, hopefully this is gonna be a good month and I wish you all the best 🙂

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