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Ruskin’s Well
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Ruskin’s Well
Hi all,
I’m Josh, AKA Ruskin from Ireland. Writing this blog/intro to say hello to the community as well as to hopefully deal with my accountability issues!
I re-entered the poker scene over the COVID lockdown after being inactive for a long period due to the highly physical nature of my job (cheffing), and my passion for the game was reignited. I rather quickly built up a 2k roll in low stakes NLHE MTTs, a format I am a medium winner in. After having played 10pl zoom in the past like an absolute donk-fish hybrid but having a great time doing it, and getting sick of the inflexibility of the tournament lifestyle/schedule I made the ambitious decision to start playing 25pl zoom. I could see how terribly weak the overall pool was after playing a few thousand hands but I was significantly under-rolled and hadn’t developed the skills to beat it. The most frustrating thing for me was seeing how truly beatable the majority of players were (myself included) and not knowing how I could beat them and exploit their glaringly obvious leaks and highly exploitable tendencies. A month or so later and I had punted through my roll! It was around then I joined the mastermind and have been working through the launchpad, CSS & the 10 week PLO transformation. Since then I have stuck to 10pl zoom and am making fewer crucial mistakes and I’m slowly building back up my roll while improving my game.
The first two weeks of the 10-week transformation really spoke to me, my idea of freedom is also getting to spend time with my girlfriend and having cats in my own place, without the constant financial pressure that so many of us experience on a day to day basis, one bad accident away from financial ruin. That coupled with my deep love of the action-packed game of PLO and overall the great game of poker made me really serious about pursuing PLO as a career.
The dark forces that hold me back are most certainly,
1) Thinking that I am smarter/more gifted/have better intuition than the average player and therefore not being as motivated to put in the work, go through hand histories, and just do the all of the work required to succeed while remaining focused and not just jumping straight into the player pool and putting in volume. I’m working on it, but it’s a process, I want to get to the point where I have a very structured study & play routines instead of random bits here and there on different topics.
2) Self-limiting beliefs that, ironically given the first statement come from a lack of confidence, feeling as though I’m not naturally good at maths, even to the point where calculating the SPR on the fly is difficult even though just practicing these things would make them much easier. Feeling as though it’s impossible for me to focus on studying for a long period. Feeling overwhelmed when it comes to studying stack off charts/equity spots/math spots and then moving on to another topic or jumping back into the player pool. Curse you brain!
My strengths are,
1) My naturally calm disposition is something I am very grateful for, I don’t tilt easily.
2) Game sense/reading the action/their hands/intuition. Probably built up over hundreds of thousands of hands if not over a million hands of NLHE, I like to think that they’re quite strong, but then I call anyway (in PLO only) to prove myself right and often lose money doing so! Hah. That needs to stop…
3) Zero emotional attachment to money. I don’t care when I lose big pots, have losing days, etc. It will be great when the money starts flowing from PLO but right now the feeling of gaining the knowledge and skill to beat my opponents who make these glaringly obvious mistakes would be worth far more to me.
My goals:
1) Become a winning low-stakes PLO player, dream big guys!
2) Build up a 3-5k roll to start playing 25pl zoom WHILE having gained the skills and knowledge required to crush it. From there, gradually move up in stakes BR dependent.
3) Make online PLO my full-time job when I am fully able to.
4) Once I am an established winner with a deeper knowledge of the game I’d love to either create content or stream and do my part in bringing awareness to the best form of poker!
That’s all for now, I’ll update this with certain milestones.
🙂
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2 Replies
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Hey Josh,
Thanks for creating your blog and introducing yourself to the community 🙂
How are things in the work life at the moment being a chef with everything that’s going on?
I can definitely relate to the 2nd point you made in self limiting beliefs due to a lack of confidence and i’d say it’s something many people encounter at some point in life. Especially when it comes to something outside of the comfort zone. I was similar to yourself although relating to different scenarios where whenever i’d come across something I either wasn’t familiar with or was new to me i’d always lack the confidence to attack it head on. This ended up being something I read and watched a lot into to find techniques to manage it. The overwhelming narrative that came from everything was a simple one ‘you’re never expected to be amazing at something at the first attempt, don’t fear ‘failing’ it’s apart of the learning process’ pretty simple right haha but was something I needed to drum into my brain to realise you don’t need to be a perfectionist at everything at the first go. Things such as working SPRs out on the fly etc they will come natural to you eventually but it’s just going to take a bit of time, you’ve got this!
Best of luck with your goals look forward to following along with your progress and seeing you crush it!
If you ever have any questions or want to chat don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Discord 🙂
Ash
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Thanks for the reply Ash.
A little strange for sure, after lockdown my hours were reduced which allows for a lot more balance when it comes to life as well as study/play. Utilising that free time effectively, on the other hand, is something I need to work on.
Much appreciated, I’m sure I will take you up on that.
Cheers, J
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