[Stevemacpherson]

Day 2/14

So after I posted my update for day 1, I was talking to some buddies on discord and ended up getting a second wind – was super wide awake and so decided to late reg a $5 turbo and play some cash while i was wide awake. I ended up playing for about an hour and a half or so – took 4th in the tourney for $20 (small profit, was in for 2 bullets) and about break-even at cash. Went to bed around 2:00am, and did a little bit of reading before sleep. Had a hard time getting to sleep again, was so physically tired but brain was still going and hard to turn off.

Woke up today at 9:15am because the dog was barking and needed to be taken for a walk around the block to go to the bathroom. Not feeling that tired right now actually, but will see how it goes later. Decided to get my groceries and errands for the next week or so done this morning; picked up dog food and soap/shampoo as well. Grabbed McDonald’s for a quick breakfast on the way home, and then completed my morning routine (shower, brush teeth, meditation) just before lunch time.

I started my first session of the day at 12:15am and ended up in a few fortunate spots against a 95 VPIP (40% 3-Bet) whale at my table. Played for just under 2 hours; ended up hitting $3125, which is 125 BI for PLO25, and I did say that if I ended up hitting this goal that I would start to shot take at PLO50 – so that is what I’m going to do. I will set aside 12 buy-ins ($600) from my roll and use that to shot take at PLO50. If I get back down to $2525 or so, I will stop the shot take and go back to PLO50. My afternoon session went well, playing 4 tables of PLO50 on GG. Ran a few BI under EV, but made 3 big hand jackpots with quads so that made up for it.

Quit around 6:30pm to make supper and take the dog for a walk, then decided to do a short training session with PLO Trainer. Sometimes the pools on GG around 6:00pm-9:00pm my time aren’t great, so if the action is slow sometimes I’ll do some training instead.

I finished eating supper and taking the dog around 8:00pm and ended up playing until 2:00am when the leaderboards for the day was complete. Ended up breaking even in EV after 3000 hands, but down 6 buy-ins in $$ so I decided that I might do a mix of PLO25 and PLO50 tomorrow since I have already lost a big chunk of my shot take buy-ins.

Total Study Hours: 4

Total Play Hours: 10

Steve

[Stevemacpherson]

Day 1/14

The start of the two week adventure! I went to bed at my normal time, but just had a really hard time falling asleep last night. Not 100% sure why, but was tossing and turning most of the night. I normally get up around 8:00am, but at 5:00am I was just wide awake and feeling really itchy so I decided to get up for the day, brush my teeth and take a shower.

Started the day off with 15 minutes of meditation – trying out a new series called “Winning Mindset”. Had some breakfast, then headed off to a doctors appointment I had at 8:30am. Got home just after 9:15am and watched the Live Seminar from the PLO Mastermind hosted by Jnandez. Went over some interesting spots/hands that he played – I am trying to participate more in the chat without fear of being wrong or looking dumb. After this live seminar was done around 11:00am my time, I was super drained for energy from my horrible night of sleep. I had planned to get in a short 1 hour playing session before lunch, but decided to eat a little early and relax to try and recharge.

After lunch I had a 2 hour coaching session where we looked at some footage and reviewed some hands. After that, I was completely exhausted after 4 hours of training and decided to have a 1 hour nap. After my nap, it was time to pickup my wife from work, make dinner, help her pack and make sure she had everything for her trip. We then watched a movie together and I drove her to the airport.

I just got home, and it’s now 11:30pm and it’s already been a long day with about 5 hours of studying and training. I think for my 1st day out of 14 I’m going to get a really good night’s sleep, rest up and have a great start to my challenge!

Total Study Hours: 4

Total Play Hours: 0

Steve

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by  Stevemacpherson.

[Stevemacpherson]

Hello MM Members!

Since my last update, things have been going a lot better. I’ve gotten back to my playing and studying schedule, as well as taking small segments of time for myself almost every day. I have been getting back to the tables and having some good success there, as well as started using the free version of Monker to look into some spots myself over the past while.

After about 70k hands this year, I am almost break-even in EV and $$, winning after RB/LB/Bonuses. I am working hard every day to improve away from the tables and have noticed gradual improvements in my play over time. I have been a member now for about 21 months I believe – and I have noticed massive improvements in my game during that time. I’d like to be further ahead at this point – but looking back on my journey so far, I am very happy with what I’ve accomplished so far.

Out of those 21 months, there was a good 4 months where I basically didn’t play or study poker at all – this was around August 2019, when I got married and had to focus on the wedding/planning/finances all that good stuff. I also took a fair amount of time off last summer during covid – spent some time outside playing Pokemon GO and other games as well, partly due to some incredible run bad from Feb-May that killed my motivation. Since August of last year, I have been completely committed and “all-in” on my journey to become a crusher. I have been playing anywhere from 10-20 hours a week, and studying from 12-15 a week as well since that time (for the most part, except for time taken off as mentioned in a previous post)

I hired and worked with Jan for many sessions spanning about 4 months for my mental game and life optimizations which have helped tremendously. I think it’s very easy to forget how far I’ve come in such a short time – and how long it really does take. Before I had even heard of the Mastermind, i sort of just assumed some people became professional players through feel/reads/ability, and didn’t even know studying was a thing. I thought you could have success almost overnight – that being a good player was just “deciding to be a player” and grinding all the time at the tables. As I continue my own journey – I can see why over 90% of players are losing players long-term, and how hard it can be to reach a stage where you can support yourself from poker.

I have had many ups and downs over the 21 months; but not once have I even considered quitting the game. Sometimes I’ve been beat down pretty hard by life and poker, but always manage to land on my feet and push harder to succeed. I ended up finishing 2020 about 100 buy-ins below EV (note, I wasn’t winning much, but i was getting steamrolled by variance so I was hemorrhaging money to variance.) I invested some of my profits in a new computer, a microphone/webcam, mental training with Jan, and some other coaching as well.

I am grateful for the friends and people I’ve met along the way so far, and can’t wait to see what the future has for me. I am motivated to succeed, and I’m not putting pressure on myself to do so. I am taking the time for myself when I need it, learning to self-talk in a much more positive way, meditation to get more in-touch with my emotions and self, and not attaching a timeline to anything poker related. I will stick to my weekly schedule of playing and studying – and by focusing on the process the results will come.

Until next time, GL at the tables!

Steve

[Stevemacpherson]

Hello Everyone,

It’s been quite a long time since I posted an update – and I want to get back to posting them more regularly. I think it was half forgetfulness, half lack of motivation, half laziness for not sticking to my journal. Going back to my last post around the end of January – me and my Wife had a miscarriage right at the start of February. I don’t mind sharing this because I have learned that they are much more common than people realize – and there seems to be a real stigma around the topic as well. Most importantly – my wife is doing fine and has recovered physically, and we are doing well mentally. There was a few weeks right after it happened it was pretty rough for both of us – she took a week off work and I took the following week off.

I didn’t play or study much poker for about 3 weeks; I didn’t really feel like doing much of anything. I was very hard on myself and don’t think I took the proper time to heal/rest, which made things so much worse. My wife said that I was getting angry at everything, and I ended up booking a session with Jan to talk about things and for some strategies moving forward. Ended up playing a lot of Valheim during this time – which I really enjoyed. I think it was nice to escape to fantasyland and sort of put off life for a little bit and just take a break.

This week I’ve played about 7500 hands and done some studying as well, getting back on my path that I was on before. In the past I was aiming for about 30 hours a week of poker – going to scale this back just a little bit over the next while and take some more “me” time. I was reading this article about rest and relaxation that said when you’re resting (reading, watching TV, playing games, doing something FUN, etc.) if you’re stressing about not working or being productive – it really hurts you on both sides. You aren’t being productive at work, and you aren’t being productive at resting either – so what happens is your body/mind aren’t resting and aren’t working, so you actually accomplish even less.

My goal for the next 8 weeks or so is to scale back to about 22 hours a week (14 play, 8 study) and give myself more of a break. I think I’ve been grinding life too hard between work and poker – and want to take a little bit more time for myself along with hitting my targets. Now I won’t have to feel bad about not getting in 30 hours a week, and I get more time to recover/relax. There’s nothing stopping me from playing/studying MORE when I have the time or feel like it as well!

Looking to post weekly updates from here on out every weekend at some point… have a good weekend 🙂

Steve

[Stevemacpherson]

Hello MM Members,

Whoops – no update for a couple weeks, forgot about that. Nothing that crazy/new going on in my world. I have completed my first 8 sessions with Jan and have a lot of exercises and work to continue working on to improve my quality of life. I realized that I’d been slipping a little bit into some old bad habits from the summer gradually that I didn’t really notice until I took a good hard look on Sunday as I was planning out my next month. Key areas of focus for me are my energy levels and the foods that I am putting into my body – along with a little too much night-time booze. Hockey is back; so I’ve been watching a little more and like to have a few drinks when I do so, but have to be careful to not over-do it. It’s funny, I used to party like crazy when I was 18/19/20/21, and not once have I ever had a hangover in my life – just lucky that way. But I am noticing more and more that if i’ve had a few too many to drink now in the morning, I’m just super tired and fatigued for most of the day, resulting in a pretty unproductive day.

As hockey was quite a distraction for me in the past – I’ve started scheduling 2 nights a week where I allow myself to watch a game guilt free, and do my studying in the day-time so that I am still putting in the hours, but also taking time for myself which is important. Local rinks are still closed (thanks covid), but I’ve been getting out about once a week on the outdoor rink with my goalie gear and some buddies to take shots, so it’s been nice to get something like that back in my life.

Have been on a pretty bad run lately, down about 20 BI or so, think it’s a combination of a lot of things but the sample isn’t large enough so I’m not going to sweat it at the moment. I’ve been working like crazy on my c-betting OOP SB vs BU in 3-Bet pots, as I felt like I was over c-betting with the wrong type of hands and over-playing certain hands, and this is where I’m going to continue my focus for the moment. I think that it will help my overall OOP game in 3B pots because the preflop ranges will be a little different – but the concepts are going to be pretty universal with board textures and our range/hands that we can have, and what we want to do.

Oh yeah, I also had my first stream after an amazing coaching session with Fabian last week – that was very nerve wracking but also very fun. Was fantastic getting to talk 1:1 with him because I’ve messaged him quite a bit on discord and twitch chat, but never met face to face so it was a really cool experience for me. I am eternally grateful for all the support from the MM coaches and how open/available they are for questions/feedback and just general help.

GL at the tables,

Steve

[Stevemacpherson]

Jan 6th – Mid-Week Update

Played all weekend, and had a decent Saturday and a terrible Sunday. Ended up losing about 10 BI on Sunday, and it was really hard to tell during if I was punting or playing bad, or maybe both. I played a long session and finished higher on the PLO25 Leaderboards for GG than ever before, so that was nice. Ended up reviewing the hands I marked along with suspected punts on Monday, and yeah I ran fairly bad but also played quite poorly.

I got way too sucked into playing the loose aggro style with the guys who RFI every hand from every position, 3B like mad, and just want to SO often. I limp/re-raised Aces to see an OOP flop of 776 holding the Aces with the NFB, c-bet small and got jammed on – which had I been paying closer attention, even though the guy never folded pre, he only stacked off post when he actually had a strong hand post. He had flopped bottom boat with 66, and in retrospect when I c-bet small holding the NFB and a straight blocker, it’s an easy fold. But because this guy had already stacked me twice, I wanted to win – instead, I called it off with like 15% equity and was in terrible shape.

There was several other hands where I felt like I really over-played my hand in some MW pots, think it was just one of those days where i lost a few flips early, and sort of didn’t realize I was punting a bit. Not a big deal, the loss stung a little bit but I decided to take yesterday off to watch the 2020 World Junior Bronze and Gold medal games. Instead of being treated to a win, I had to watch Canada get shutout by the USA after putting up such an incredible performance for the past couple weeks – that stung more than the poker lol.

Today in the morning I watched a few videos on downswings on YouTube, and then GTO Bits Episodes 6&7 from Ferrari Fabi about Blockers. Really interesting stuff – and some good content that I’m really going to have to watch several times. I took 3 pages worth of notes to review as well. Looking to get back on the GG tables tonight for a couple hours after supper, hoping it goes well!

Steve

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by  Stevemacpherson.

[Stevemacpherson]

Hello Everyone,

Posting my first weekly update. This week was a good week – spent a lot of time with my Wife relaxing and watching movies as I had some time off from my 9-5 with the holidays. We went ice skating one night which was an adventure because our car got stuck in the deep snow on the way to the rink – but some neighbors were able to help get us going. Also was able to get one day in my full goalie gear and had a few buddies taking some shots on me for a couple hours – this was the first action I’d had in a month, so it felt great to get back out there and just feel the puck a little bit. Speaking of Hockey, Team Canada is rolling in the World Juniors and I’m hoping they bring home another gold medal this year! Sorry we wrecked Germany 16-2 LOL.

In terms of poker, I had the best rungood I’ve had for a single week, which was nice. EV was about flat for the week, and won 10 buy-ins, won more of my flips this week so it was nice. Decided to go through my database this morning and take a look into some stats as I’ve found I’m not playing as well lately. Discovered that I had made a few small changes in the way I was playing the SB/BB which was bringing my win-rate way down in those areas. Not going to go into detail – but I have a specific plan for SB and how I defend BB vs specific positions on GG at PLO25 and I’d started to get away from that a little bit. I also realized I was calling a little too often OTT/OTR from the OOP c-bet when firing 2nd/3rd barrel’s and not having great success river bluff catching. Was calling all 3 streets about 60% of the time and only winning about 40% of the time, so want to tighten up there a little bit for the future.

I have a session with Jan tomorrow morning, I’ve been working with him now for a couple months and seen a huge improvement in my game – even though everything we’ve done so far has been to optimize parts of my life away from the table. I really enjoy these sessions and would recommend that anyone who is struggling to take the next step look into some external help/coaching. The biggest jumps that I’ve seen for myself have been with a little bit of help – always helps to have another person take a look at what you’re doing!

I ended up doing about 10 hours of study and playing for 30 hours this week, I had a couple extra days off because of New Year’s so I used that time as a split between poker and my wife. Looking forward to getting back at it next week, I have a fairly light work week so should be able to do some studying during the day and then playing at night time. Hope everyone had a great New Year’s and is ready to destroy 2021. I’m hoping that this is the year I really see a jump up the stakes and can grow my bankroll – but I’m also trying to not put too much pressure on myself. Want to enjoy the journey and everything that comes along the way!

Steve

[Stevemacpherson]

Thank you 🙂

Yes for sure, one of my goals for 2021 is to be more open/sharing with some of my hands that I’ve played and not be so self-conscious about my play! Happy 2021 to you as well

[Stevemacpherson]

Thanks for the kind words Ash <3 we are doing much better now that some time has passed 🙂

[Stevemacpherson]

Hey! Thanks for the kind words, and reaching out. I am sorry for your loss as well 🙁

Yeah I think it sort of hit me harder than I was expecting, and I just sort of lost the drive for a couple weeks to do much of anything, i think it sort of worked out that I didn’t really play much as I’m sure I wouldn’t have been playing anywhere close to my A game.

GL on the tables :)!

[Stevemacpherson]

I’ve just done the one so far; apparently I had my settings so that it didn’t save but for my future ones I’ll have them saved so anyone can watch them!

[Stevemacpherson]

Have you considered doing a little more focused training with the buckets? Like you could probably remove all the Aces categories, and then just really focus in on the ones you have the most problems with? Just target 1-2 buckets at a time, and get the preflop ranges dialed in for thousands and thousands of hands, then move onto another category?

[Stevemacpherson]

Yeah it was silly – but oh so fun at times lol. I can remember a few massive pots now, playing 500bb deep on Rush on Full Tilt and stacking the other massive stack, just the sheer raw excitement lol.

Really appreciate the messages and kind words, It was such a strange year. Felt like my mental game and strategical game grew an amount I can’t even measure, yet my results got worse and worse haha. Starting to even out now, although I punted pretty hard this Sunday unfortunately. But I think I have a much clearer goal/vision now along with realistic expectations for 2021, so that should really help! Happy new year, all the best for 2021 🙂

[Stevemacpherson]

Totally agree with that – she’s been very supportive of my journey so far so I want to keep her happy lol.

I would say overall Ignition is softer than GG, but the downside is all of the soft players typically min-buy. On the plus, min is 30bb (GG is 10) so they have to start with a big more – but you can spot the recs instantly even though the tables are anonymous. Anyone who buys in for 30bb or open-limps, which in my experience is a very large majority of the field. There’s not really any rakeback, which is why I’ve been playing on GG – so I guess the field is slightly tougher because there’s more leaderboard regs on there, but then you get more rakeback so kind of depends what you’re looking for there.

Thanks, GL to you as well 🙂

[Stevemacpherson]

Thank you :)! Yeah it’s tough at times – I have a very set/particular schedule every day of the week that is very planned, but I still try and take at least an hour for myself everyday to just chill and de-stress, and some time for my wife as well. Saturday night 5:00pm is date night, we usually order take out and popcorn and rent a movie or something.

Some weeks it’s hard to find the motivation, others it’s a breeze – just sort of comes in waves I find. Finding ways to adjust and push through the tough times make you stronger, and it makes the next tough times easier as well