If I have to choose only one word, to describe what kind of a country Japan is, "specific" seems to be a suitable one. No other place that I`ve visited in the past, differed so much from the "Western World" than Japan - at least in terms of mentality. A country of a spectacular Skyscrapers, although You would find it difficult to comunitacte in English, even in hotels or restaurants. Very kind and friendly people, always willing to help You, yet a little bit aloof. Japan is a very homogenic country, over 98% of it`s population is japaneese. I was amazed, that sometimes I haven`t see
Tokyo has bewitched me for sure. The whole city was very clean and well maintained. I was a little bit surprised that there was not that many cars on the streets. However if You have such great public transportation system, owning a car may seems unnecessary. The system of public transportation the japanese people created, should be a role model for every other country. The kilometers of underground tunnels, allows You to move beetween several train and subway lines located on a single station. Architectural differences were also very interesting. Just dwo minutes long ride by a train was enought, to escape the neighbourhood of 300 feet buildings, I find yourself in the area of single-family homes, where time seemed to goes by slower. To sum things up, the way this gigantic oranism functions is truly remarkable.
Every foodie should definitely put Japan on his or hers bucket list. The sushi in fast service bars is kurwa sensational, the quality of food in average ramen restaurant is exceptional, and last but not least the taste of self-cooked beef takes away a desire to eat european steaks again.
During my voyage I have had a chance to taste at least dozen of ramen soups, and every single one was a little bit different, which turned an ordinary soup into a new culinary experience.
Poker-wise March was another best month in my career. Just one month after the best score in my career, I had even a better one, all the more symbolic the first one with pre-rb score over 30k$. Given the fact that I only managed to play for 70 hours, my adjusted hourly reached almost 500$/h. Not bad, not bad at all...
However it would be probably impossible to achieve a similar score in April. At the time of writing this piece, 1/3 month is gone and I managed to play for only 10 hours. Before I began my journey I knew that it would be impossible to grind full time, so my goal was to play just enough to maintain the mental sharpness. The time zone in Japan isn`t very good for poker. When the clock in the UK pointed 8 PM, it was 4 AM in Japan. I tried to play a bit after eating a solid breakfast ( very solid indeed, it was the best breakfast I`ve ever eaten in the hotel.)
These days it is very hard to find a decent games after 12 AM, and it`s very mentaly exhausting for me to play 150-200 hands per hour. Moreover I smoothly passed from the oging phase ( the period of very high productivity) into the deging phase ( the period of excessive drinking). However I`ve been working very hard since the September 2016, with only a short break for Christmas and New Years Eve, so I feel like I earned a longer break.
I`m in the middle of my trip, I`m gonna spend two more weeks in Thailand, after that I would return to the UK to continue my way of a peaceful grinder. The period of blessed laziness will have to be redeemed both at the gym and at the poker tables.
February was kind of symbolic for many reasons. I played 90 hours in the shortest month of the year! I've spent 20 days at tables, so the average session lasted 4,5 hours. If I remember correctly, also the Post-Rakeback EV result was the best I have ever had. I'm very satisfied with my gameplay, I don't feel any pressure playing NL2k. Of course, as usual I had random speews, according to my calculations I lost 3-4 thousand US dollars in February. (A bit more than in January, however less if converted to ). Nonetheless, month after month I'm working on improving myself and making as few mistakes as possible, though I'm keeping in my mind that every now and then I may as well fuck things up
What's more I had to attend to plenty of bureaucratic matters, which I needed to take care of this year. As leaving the comfortable and snug corner to deal with paperwork always sucks me out of life energy, I've always had a tendency to postpone such unpleasant activities. I have to say that in the end, the level of service at English administrative offices is very high and the whole process was smooth and pleasant (except for the need to get up before noon several times - FML ).
I've also taken care of most of the stuff regarding my trip to Asia. I'm leaving for Tokyo on 21 March and I will spend there around 2 weeks, and then I'm planning 2 weeks in Thailand (most likely 10 days on Phuket and 4 in Bangkok). Due to the fact that my companion for the Japanese part of my journey is a psycho, it seems that there's going to be lots of moving around from one place to another. At the moment our trip includes:
- 5 days in Tokyo, and sightseeing in major places like Asakusa, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku and Odaiba, all the while trying out as much delicious food as possible
- a stop in Matsumoto to see the black castle there, followed by a stay in a ryokan in Okuhida Onsen, somewhere in Japanese Alps
- 2 days in Takayama, a smaller town, a bit touristy place, but with a traditional Japan vibe to it
- 1 day in Kanazawa, famous for Kenroku-en (one of Japan's top three gardens), a geisha district, and delicious seafood
- 5 days for the Kansai region of Japan, so a bit of Osaka, a marathon through the most beautiful places in Kyoto and a daytrip to Himeji/Hiroshima.
The Castle Black
An opportunity to travel to Vegas for WSOP has also appeared on the horizon. When I was starting out in the poker world, the participation in ME was my biggest dream, however in last several years I haven't felt particularly inclined to visit the city of Sinatra. As I'm a British resident and taxpayer now, I could enjoy no tax from any winnings earned in the city of sin. Not so long ago a news broke out that there have been some unfavorable changes regarding taxes, however, according to the organizers everything has stayed the same.
I think this is a very important subject, with which I've been struggling for many years. In the past, I've often caught myself on changing my goals based on the heater I was experiencing at the time. I've had a pretty sick beginning of February, made shitload of money within the first 3 days (10% of yearly goals in 3 days? Huh.. that's not bad, isn't it?).
But this time it was a little different. This time I could control the sense of immortality, so my ego hasn't gone up through the roof. I just kept on rolling, and tried to play the best poker at any given time. However, as strange as it is, I still made a couple bad decisions, based on the fact that I was running hot, and making a mistake didn't seem to be that hurtful at the time. What's interesting, I did the most bad plays on NL200. If you play NL200-NL2k stakes, sometimes NL200 seems like play money – it happens especially after I grab a big pot on NL2k.
The great technique that helps to keep it all in perspective is making hand history notes, during or after the session. I mark hands that have a big impact on the final score but aren't visible on the adjusted win-rate graph. I analyze:
- how often did I hit my equity in a 4bet pot
- how often I had a positive/negative cooler
- how often my opponents 3betted me
- how often I grabbed a pot pf when 4/5betting
- how often I won 4b/5b pot that was played post flop
- how often my opponents hit their small equity in a big pots
The ultimate goal, is trying to not attach to daily, weekly, or even monthly results. I want to achieve such mindset, that I am able to concentrate only on the big picture. I'm sure this ability would decrease the negative impact the bad periods have on my life, therefore it would increase my overall level of well being. Of course it's just a theory, and the real life verifies it all. I know there would still be periods of both bad and good variance that would have a negative impact on my mood and my productiveness.
That's why I believe the work should never stop. Quoting one of my personal mentors, Sir Richard Branson's 'Life Is A Never Ending Learning Process', 'Many times, when I was at my low, I would lose the urge to learn new stuff. Although when I'm in a positive mental period, I would like to learn something new every day, I'm hungry for knowledge.'
The main conclusion is, don't get fooled by the periods of good variance, which make you feel pretentious about how you have it all figured out. Work hard on a daily basis, and it would eventually get You closer to being the best poker player and the best person You can be. Remember, one brick at a time...
The current year didn't commence in a grand fashion. Possibly due to exhaustion caused by going nuts in the motherland, I caught an unpleasant cold. I felt so bad that I had to postpone my return to the UK by 5 days, which obviously resulted in a need to buy a new ticket (#Polish_badluck).
I have a strong impression that 2017 is going to be the best in my poker career. Even though the past two years were satisfactory as I managed to hit 6-digit marks, I still felt I'm not realizing my potential to the fullest. However, taking into consideration different circumstances beyond my control, I did a great job. Among many things, I learned that blaming issues which I have no way of overseeing, is first and foremost not alright for myself. I decided to set some new goals, financial as well, which I shall tick off by December 31, 2017.
Online poker goals:
- spend 1000+ hours, playing NLH Cash Games
- reach 150k$+ profit
- spend 400 hours on studying new varieties/variants
- put up a coaching offer to a wider public
Personal goals:
- put an '8' digit in front on scales
- lead a healthy lifestyle, don't get provoked by the bad people in my surroundings
- exercise twice a week in the gym
- perfect my skills in squash
- master the basics of playing the guitar
- learn how to dance
- be happy on day to day basis
I'm satisfied with work I've done in January, especially considering that I was fighting with cold for 10 days. I played 83 hours, and so I hit the first milestone out of 12 on my path to 1000 hours. I've planned to not include the game charts here as I thought that in the downswing periods it may create an unnecessary pressure on the results. But, as DS did not occur, I can boast :D
I made an ultimate decision that in the end March I will go on a long-awaited trip to Asia. It's going to be my return to that part of the world as between 2013-2014 I lived for 7 months in Thailand. This time I'm going to start my journey through the Far East in Japan, where I'm planning to spend 12-14 days. Then I will probably visit Thailand for 2 weeks, with short inter-landings in Hong Kong or Singapore. More information about my trip in the upcoming posts. Stay tuned ;]
This blog post is going to be much more personal than the previous ones. I've decided to change the way I do my blogging - I will write a lot more about things which inspire me, and those which are of great importance to me. 2016 turned out to be quite crucial for a variety of reasons. Finally, I emigrated to the UK, which I believe is an optimal solution for a guy like me, a professional poker player. I dealt with the health issues, which had pestered my body and my mind for many years. I achieved the financial goal I was aiming for, despite having played only 713 out of 1000 hours planned. I drank little alcohol, ate healthy, and exercised regularly which allowed me to gain 7 kg. Physically, I haven't felt better in ages, and without a doubt this is my biggest achievement of 2016.
After few years of what-ifs, doubt and plenty of scenarios considered, I ultimately decided to emigrate to the United Kingdom. In the late August I packed some of my belongings, miraculously fitted my 32 in desktop into a 33 inches wide suitcase, and I set off to carry on the road of the professional poker player in the land of Monty Python.
Until the very end I did not know what's going to surprise me in the new place. I certainly wasn't relaxed with the topic of Brexit coming up, and even more so by the news about increasing number of attacks on the Polish people which accompanied the decision of Brits. A local grinder with Polish roots suggested that I should start looking for a place to stay before flying to England, but I decided against it, as I assumed this is no challenge to me. It probably wasn't the smartest decision I undertook. I spewed tons of $ for hotels, lost few precious hairs, and several gaming sessions. The emotional state I was in called for hitting my head against the wall rather than solving logical riddles.
After tens of hours spent on browsing apartment ads, sending emails, going from the office to office to talk with realtors, who despite having a smile straight out of a TV commercial did not give a fuck about me at all, I finally managed to find a place. Generally speaking, after the initial culture shock I was in, I can reintroduce the term 'good life' back in my dictionary.
In November, a good friend of mine who just like me fights against the odds on the Party Poker platform paid me a visit. This occurred around the long-awaited excursion to see Ludovico Einaudi concert. However, as the maestro was performing in Glasgow, we were faced with a dangerous trip up north. At the beginning I planned to make a trip by British rail, though I missed driving a car too much, so I decided to rent a vehicle. Additionally I wanted to see the Lake District, a popular touristy region, abundant in hills and lakes (go figure). What's interesting, this area was visited on many occasions by the 28th President of the United States - Woodrow Wilson. These stopovers have been even included in a book entitled 'A President's Love Affair with the Lake District'. Lake District made quite an impression, with its small, captivating towns which went way beyond the image of England I had in my mind. The concert was a part of a tour called 'Elements'. It was the first, but definitely not the last time I've seen the maestro at the concert. (For years I held a deep conviction that Mercedes is a car for the people over 50. I think I've never been so mistaken. Driving a c200 is a pure pleasure, 8-hour-long journey was almost like a spa visit).
Poker-wise, December was the breakthrough month. I choose to not wait until January with starting out on NL2000 (ultimately, I even timidly looked at NL5k). It was a kind of symbolic decision. When I was taking my first steps in poker back in 2007, NL1000 was a magical border to me. At that moment the perspective of playing on NL1k was but a pipedream of a greenhorn who wants to be the greatest in the world by playing a card game. Looking beyond the wall which goes by the name 'NL1000', was I have built myself in my mind many years ago, once again convinced me that most of limitations exist only in our heads.
After earnestly working for a month, the time for relax came, and I could return to my hometown for Christmas. Meeting people close to my heart was the main theme of that visit, people whom I knew 10-20 years. It's the element I miss the most. I look back at the time I spent in Poland with quite a sentiment, as during the dozen or so days there was never a time of boredom. Unfortunately, the gambling bill which is going to be introduced soon will prevent me from visiting my home country all too often.
The next piece coming very soon. It`s gonna be about my goals and plans for 2017, and my trip to Asia I`m very excited about.
Unfortunately, my break from blogging was longer than I initially anticipated. In the early March I got pretty bad cold, 2 weeks completely taken out of my life. The game during that period was a total disaster, I broke even at best. I felt terrible physically, which in turn led to horrid concentration, despite regularly performing my start-up routine. Add the DS period to the equation, and we have the recipe for a catastrophe.
The 'Don't try this at home' sort of deal ;]
Recent months saw a major improvement, my game was finally back on the right track. My performance is still a bit poorer than expected, however considering my condition in the second half of February and in March, I'm really satisfied that I managed to 'lift up' my game, once again.
Still, the element which continues to lag behind is the volume. In the beginning of the year I was capable of playing 85 hours, and I was on course to reach 1000 hours of playing which was the goal for 2016. Sadly, month after month, it only got worse. From May until August my time spend on poker averaged 47 hours i.e. two times lesser than the pace I should have kept in order to reach my target.
There were several factors which brought this about. I was undoubtedly hit by burn-out, partially caused by weariness with the game, and variance, but also the worries about the process of changing the place of residence. At this point I can I say that I endured and most of the stuff has been dealt with, and in a few days time I will be able to move to a new apartment. I really hope that it will be the stimulus to finally get back to playing the satisfying amount of hours.
In spite of some improvements, my game is surely not at the level I would like it to be. I believe that in April-August period I played 4-5bb poker (closer to 4), while I do think that I can win with wr 6-8, especially on NL400+. Lamentable as it is, I still make way too many simple mistakes and switch to autopilot too often. According to my calculations 90% of those errors result from the bad mindset and different forms of tilt, and only 10% comes from the tactical know-how shortcomings.
Mission mass-building
I'm really happy about the progress I made in the gym. 3 months of training at medium intensity combined with a 3500 kcal diet allowed me to gain almost 7 kilos. I need 10 kilos more to reach my goal, though I'm taking a short break for now - because of the relocation and the well-deserved holidays.
What's more, the pain in the lower back which I suffered from over the last few months disappeared altogether. Squats with kettlebells and other exercises for the lower back done regularly made all the problems go away.
As they say, a sound mind in a sound body.
Another post coming soon. About living in the United Kingdom, and the biggest change in my poker career. Stay tuned!
I`m very pleased with my poker form in February. I managed to play 85 hours, and achieved nice profit. The First half of the month was one of the best periods in my poker career and for sure the best period within the last few months. I`m pretty sure I`ve played 8bb/100 hand Adjusted Winrate poker. I practically didn`t tilt, I was starting evey session with a great focus, 5 hour sessions seemed to last 5 minutes, and I was finally able to achieve the Flow state. The second part of the month was a lot worse, a lot more mistakes and tilted $, my concentration was malfunctioning. Of course working on mindset isn`t any different than learning the theoretical aspects of the game, therefore I`m quite happy with the progress I`ve made. The final goal is to play every session as good as I used to do it at the beginning of the February. One day at the time
Aside from poker, it was an even greater month. I`ve been working out regularly, I`ve tailored a diet for mass gain ( aka. eating shitload of food) and after many years of postponing it I finally started to perform Krav Maga. Furthermore I was a regular visitor at a shooting range. I`ve already tested a Kalasznikow, M16 and the Glock pistol. In brief it was lots of fun. The next 3 months are going to be a very busy period. I would like to play 270-300 hours of online poker, and maybe play a little bit of a live cash games. It`s a lot harder to grind during the summertime, plus the games are usually a little bit worse. Besides there is a Euro2016 starting on June 10th, and I`m hoping I will spend seven evenings, to cheer for my team.
" Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies".
Sadly the quality of the games wasn`t as good as I would like it to be, especially in the second part of the month It probably had some impact on my form. A lot of new regulars came on Party Poker, both very good and average, which caused the reg/fish ratio to worsen up a lot. It was particularly visible in the second part of February when recrational players were showing up less often to recreate. I`m hoping this is just a temporary stagnation, and not the beginning of the pre-summer trend. That situation isn`t very motivating, and it makes me question the future of our industry. Of course there is no value in complaining, I have to work even harder to achieve the biggest advantage versus the field.
The Hand
Although it`s a poker blog, I`ve never posted a single poker hand in here. That changes today.
UTG is a 70/10 Fish, CO is a very solid aggressive regular. After a standard 3b isolation, and 2 calls we are on the flop. Based on the history, the metagame and the positional situation I`ve decided that checking is going to be the optimal play. I`ve expected that the gentlemen on the UTG is willing to do something extraordinary, and EV of my hand would be the highest if I play x/shove on the flop. Likewise I thought that if the UTG would play the way he did, CO is going to have a very tough call without a Qx, because he would expect me to play my top range by checking the flop.
I’ve shared my monthly charts on several occasions, and so I chose to include my yearly graph in here as well. As shown, I’ve played 173 days last year, which translates to roughly 800 hours. The goal for this year is 200 days of grind, which will hopefully result in over 1000 hours. I was hoping that maybe I could play even 1200 hours, however this would require from me playing afternoon sessions. In the end I concluded that I want to focus on some other projects this year, e.g. offering more coaching lessons, because I’ve realized that this form of career development can give me lots of enjoyment and a sense of achievement.
January was the month when I’ve finally got back on the right track. I played very decently, tilt happened far less frequently than in previous months (still too often in my opinion) – the poker gods were really gracious to me. I managed to play 90 hours, which is quite a success, considering that poker-wise January began only on the 5th, and half of that time I was fighting with very pesky cold (garlic + lemon + cistus = the omnipresent oging (debilne_ucho®).
The end of the year was not particularly pleasant. The variance definitely wasn’t my ally however the beginning of 2016 proved that the poker gods are looking after me again.
One of my New Year’s resolutions was blogging more actively. In my very first post I’d promised that all kinds of information regarding finances, diet or work ergonomics would have appeared, but each consequent post failed to deliver such info. The goal for this month is at least 1 post per week. My new motto is: ‘shorter, but more frequent’ :D Furthermore I invite everyone to chip in to the discussion and halt my monologue. If you agree with any statements write down why, if you don’t, I’m even more eager to know your argumentation.
Sleep
A topic which I find extremely curious, for three main reasons:
1. It’s interesting…
2. We spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, so the way we sleep has an enormous impact on the quality of life.
3. I have a pretty serious sleep disorder, which I couldn’t get rid of for years
Probably the majority of you had a problem with falling asleep at some point after a several-hour-long grind. The brain worked at full capacity for hours, and it’s difficult to suddenly switch it to the rest mode. Over the last couple of months my daily functioning has been absolutely pathological. I usually go to sleep around 5 or 6 am, and falling asleep takes me another 2-4 hours. Naturally, my wake-up time has got readjusted as well, and it falls between 2 and 3 pm. I wish to get up before noon, but it’s easier said than done. Even though I could go to sleep at 2 am, it wouldn’t help much as I would still need several hours to fall asleep. So I have a favor to ask you: if you had/have similar issues, please tell me what helps you with falling asleep after a session.
I’m sharing a TED video below, authored by neurobiologist Russell Foster. It’s one of my favorite presentations; it contains tons of interesting info about why we sleep and how important it is for our lives.
The end of the year usually is the time for the review and summing things up. Taking into consideration my goals as I saw them before this year started, I should regard 2015 as a failure. However, many events took place which were completely beyond my control and, in turn, these occurrences often resulted in huge lack of concentration, which is why ultimately I believe this year was a success. The results are pretty solid, I improved mindset-wise, despite the fact that my A-game manifested itself fewer times than in 2014 (one of my poker friends thinks otherwise, as he suggests that I’m the most consistent A-game player he’s competing with – thanks for kind words ;]). I played 800 hours, but I estimate that my A-game amounts to max. 30-40% of that time. What’s more, my C to Z-game reared its ugly head way too often. 2 most important lessons I learned this year, or more precisely two things I finally fully accepted are:
1. The quality is more important than quantity
2. You can’t always fulfill all of your objectives.
What the future holds.
I assume that no one really knows that for certain (apart from the policymakers). There are rumors that Pokerstars is planning to ban HUDs.
If it wasn’t enough, they also officially intend to remove the possibility of importing games to your HDD.
When I was starting out my adventure on Party, in the busiest hours there was 25-30 fish tables on average at NL200. Currently, the average is probably around 15 tables at NL200-NL1k. As shown, the decline is enormous.
As long as PP doesn’t go ahead and remove HH, I will most likely stay on this platform. Additionally, I want to throw in 2-3 additional softwares, in order to increase my volume on stakes 2/4+, and to be able to play the afternoon sessions with a decent number of games. For a while I considered adding NL2k-NL5k, but I rejected the idea in the end, as my mindset is not ready for such move just yet. I was thinking about the bumhunting on NL400+ on all of the biggest soft sites, but I gave up on this notion quite quickly as well. One of my strongest points is the skill of multi-tabling without losing much of the game quality. As a matter of fact my game suffers when there isn’t enough action going on – to keep my concentration on high I require the constant grind.
Coaching
2015 was the beginning of my venture into the world of coaching. For years I’ve never contemplated pushing my career into this direction because I thought I wasn’t good enough to teach other people. Furthermore, in a moment of my ego getting the better of me I will quote myself, I felt that ‘the amount of time I can spend on poker throughout the year is limited’. Taking into account that my ‘hourly’ is very decent and my conviction that the pay for coaching should be at least 2-3 times higher, I’ve never thought that it’s a good decision from the business point of view. Until very recently I based my knowledge about coaching on instructional videos. Oftentimes I was trying to grasp whether the author knowingly misleads and fools the listeners, or he’s just wrong about certain conceptions (or maybe, just maybe, he or she is on a higher level of comprehension, which I have not reached yet).
Most definitely the biggest advantage the coaching offers is the chance to look at your own game from a different angle. In addition, there are times when we’re not absolutely certain about the answer to a given question, what leads us to revising our views about the matter at hand. I believe that the main goal of coaching should be finding the aspects of a player’s game which can be improved upon and nurturing those which may bring the best results. Sometimes a gamer may have very strong tactical backbone, but his approach to poker is detrimental and his results are unsatisfactory because of it. A player with a mental monk kind of mindset who lacks any skills won’t find success, positive thinking is not enough. On the other hand even an adept person, who explodes after every little mistake or bad beat will lose a large part of his winnings. In order to proficient in poker, one needs to work on many levels.
Over the last few months I entered a partnership with my friend. I suppose I’ll come to regret the decision to undertake this endeavor in a year or so Oh well, for now the results seem promising and considering his diligence I believe he can make it big. (brag)
Before
After
After fixing up few leaks and errors in the game approach, the results showed up immediately. In my opinion, when it comes to coaching, it’s the student who should be working the hardest, and try to get the most out of coaching. If someone thinks that taking up 5 hours of coaching will suddenly turn his life around, he’s in for a big disappointment. It is possibly the reason for the popularity of all kinds of personal growth shamans. It leads to situations as shown in the clip below.
I wonder when will the personal trainers appear who would teach ‘the character’ to people?
Goals for 2016
What are my objectives for 2016? My goals include playing 1000 hours online and the constant work on my game and the mindset. Also, I would like to participate in at least 1 live event. Year after year it was always a goal which persistently I skipped. In order to treat live games as a paid work, I would have to take part in tournaments like EPT, but thinking carefully, the variance in MTT live is too great, which is why at the current state of my career and the poker economy I’m simply not ready for it. My live results by far also lead me to conclusion that I run way above the EV and the correction is unavoidable :D For now I plan on planning professionally online for another 4 years, and regard live game as a form of work retreat.
As far as my goals unrelated to poker go, I wish to improve my physical condition the most. The correlation between the body disposition and mental capability is obviously significant. In particular over the last few months I suffered from intense back pain – years of ‘playing the game’ begin to speak up. May and June were the months when I felt great physically. I can totally affirm that it was also the time when my game was the best quality. The reason for this was the fact that I played soccer once or twice a week. For years after giving up on amateur football kicking, I was trying to find a good alternative, but the gym, running or table tennis were not capable of giving me the kind of buzz the good old football did. Unfortunately, in June I ended up tearing the ligaments in my ankle and my short comeback came to quick halt. Thankfully, my leg is getting better, which is why I’m hoping that after a short preparation I will still be able to become an MVP of the local football field.
What’s more, I would like to spend more time on learning how to manage my finances more efficiently. Once my poker career comes to an end, I’d like to become a professional investor. To be successful in this field I need to acquire knowledge which would help me to smartly invest my capital – just like in poker.
Something for the soul.
I wrote about perfecting the body and the mind, now it’s time for the spirit. In recent weeks my fascination with a certain popular music giant re-awakened. The legend in question is Johnny Cash. Extremely curious figure, on one hand music genius, on the other quite an ordinary man. Cash was a brilliant individual, but also quite controversial. Despite many obstacles the man reached the top, but throughout most of his life he had to fight his inner demons. The movie Walk the Line, where Johnny is portrayed by the amazing Joaquin Phoenix, is one of the best biographical pictures I had a chance to watch.
Good luck in New Year, 6-digit wins, satisfaction out of living day by day. May the A-game be with you!
November was another month when my volume wasn’t really up to par. Once again I had only 60 hours of play, although I’m still very satisfied with the work I’ve done over that period.
I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing and working on my game and my mindset. It wasn’t until now that I fully realized how much I needed it. At the beginning of last month I had huge problems with achieving a sufficient level of concentration before the session. Additionally I got a little cold, so physically I wasn’t feeling that great either. I’ve ended up making few stupid decisions, and my session was over before it even began. After the poor start, and losing a couple of BIs due to many types of tilt, I realized that playing in such state doesn’t make any sense. After taking some days off I returned ‘to the battlefield’, with the assumption that I’m gonna focus on working off the tables, and play only when I absolutely feel like doing it. With each consequent analysis the hunger for playing was rising.
Working on the game theory
For years, I have been spending very little time evaluating my game. I felt, that the amount of time I can allocate for poker over the year is somewhat limited, so I can’t ‘waste’ it on theory. I’m a type of player who learns a lot during the live play. I try to invent new concepts and statistical correlations, which will enable me to go even deeper into my opponents’ thought process. On the other hand, one of the reasons why I avoided working on my game was that I did not have the certain amount of know-how. Throughout all those years, I`ve developed a game plan that was very profitable, despite the fact that my game had a lot of basic leaks (folding too much vs. 3bets, auto-opening PF against aggressive opponents). By constantly putting away working on the game theory until ‘someday’, I’ve reached the point where my arrears were so overwhelming, that I didn`t really know where to start anymore.
Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of mindset-related podcasts by Jared Tendler, joined by Martin Jacobson, Max Stainberg and in particular Phil Galfond (2012). It caught my attention that Phil has been using a system of learning similar to mine for a very long time. Every now and then I was mad at myself for not focusing well enough on the mathematics behind it all, not examining my performance with CRev or Flopzilla. Nonetheless, the fact that of the best poker players in the world uses (used to) a system which resembles mine, allowed me to accept that there is no universal method and that creating new conceptions or game plans is just as meaningful as the in-depth analysis of range.
‘Actually I’m not somebody that does as much away from the table, sitting down, number crunching, HH reviewing. I do however think about a game at the table maybe more than almost everybody, and then away from the table as I’m finished with the session I just continue to think about the hands I`ve played.’
Dealing with the downswing
Over the course of my career I had several periods of DS/BE which lasted more than 2-3 months (the longer was around 200k deals). During those moments there was always a worry that I got left behind, my opponents started to take advantage of my leaks, or I was simply ‘lucky’ and the time came to give away some wins. Apart from the fact that variance was not in my favor, I need to add that the condition of my performance was also quite dreadful, and the lion’s share of $$$ was wasted away by the tilt. If the quality of my decision-making was closer to the optimal level, the adjusted win-rate would have been higher, which would most likely result in shorter DS/BE periods.
The daily revision of the game allows for building confidence and stability, which rely on quality of the decisions, and not variance. Confidence that depends on the latter can be really tricky. When variance swings our way, we might feel overly-confident and not even realize that the game is in fact sub-optimal. On the other hand, losing may lead to the exaggerated perception of the negative emotions: a huge dip in confidence, discouragement, and the fear of not winning in future.
‘When there is a kind of extended downswing, and you are not only obviously losing money, and just losing at the game for such a long time. You worry about the future and, if there is something, maybe you’ve lost something, maybe your opponents are getting better. And you kind of question, whether you gonna be able to win, and be as successful as you were before.’ Phil Galfond
In the end, the thorough analysis let me reach the conclusion that ‘I know that I know nothing’. I acknowledged that my game is far off from the perfect poker (if such a notion even exists) and there will always be some imperfections. Thanks to that, I know which things I can improve upon, and what my weak points are. With a sufficient amount of work I can take my A-game to a brand new level.
New Organization
I’ve also decided to change my timetable and its different variants, which I’ve been using for the last couple of years. In the past I always planned when I play, and when I have my days off. Last year I worked 4 days a week (5 in cases I had no arrangements for Saturday). Possibly it was one of the reasons which contributed to my burnout, as sometimes I felt like a robot. Very often I had days when I completely didn’t want to play and I had to spend like 2-3 hours on concentrating before the session. What’s more, I chose to return to the mode of playing one session a day. What does it entail? I will have to spend more days on reaching the set goals. My main ambition for the next few months is to spend time on poker only when I really want it, and accept that sometimes it’s better to give up on grind and do something entirely different. Of course, I do hope that I will be eager to play more often than not, and that wish goes to all the players out there ;]
Entertainment
Adele is one of my favorite singers. Even though her latest album ‘25’ is in my opinion, her weakest, there are few gems on it – below you can find one of them:
Recently I also saw a film which happened to be on my to-watch list for months. I’m talking about a Polish movie ‘Bogowie’, where Tomasz Kot stars as Doctor Zbigniew Religa. Undoubtedly, it was one of the greatest Polish productions of the last several years, and if Religa’s characterization in the film was anywhere close to the real deal, then he was a truly extraordinary man.
Another Polish movie I really wish to watch is ‘Pod mocnym anio?em’, however, as it is a movie by Wojciech Smarzowski, I need to prepare my mental state for it.
] 
).
