How do you measure productivity as a poker player?

yeah I dunno I don't measure this stuff.
Only quantitative measures I use is hours played hand hands played...

N.1 reason for being a poker professional is the freedom is grants you; I found it hard to stick to a monitoring regime long term ( and I tried many times, last time around it lasted for about a month)

i.e. spreadsheet for hours played, exercise done, social time spent.

I mean its dumb not to monitor it it takes like 30 mins to set up a spreadsheet and 10 m minutes per day? My brain is human brain tho, and human brain is dumb

id love to hear arguments for proper monitoring

I think the measure of anyone's performance comes down to efficiency; and the definition of efficiency is the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy.

BTW where's your training site?

The two most important metrics are money made and time spent. Time spent should include time actively improving or training outside of actual play.

It can get complex because a simple calculation of money / hours would show that you shouldn't spend any time training, but that training may actually be going towards future win rate since you could continue to win at the same rate or gradually decrease without it.

To quantitatively figure out how much your efforts outside of direct play benefit your future game requires a different kind of modeling and over a more extended period of time.

If you could figure it out though, you would be able to chart out various projections based on your goals. For example if your goal is to significantly improve your game to reach a certain skill level over increasing a bankroll it may be better to spend the vast majority of your time on education with very little on play, whereas if your goal is to reach some monetary amount over the next 6 months then you may be better off with no education and all play.

The optimal goal is usually somewhere in the middle; to increase bankroll while increasing skill. Neither being better without the bankroll to play higher limits or having a higher bankroll without the skill to jump up are ideal.

If you've been accomplishing one faster than the other (bankroll increase versus skill increase), I would just adjust my time accordingly.

money won doesnt work at all, to get any kind of monitoring meaningful you need to do it frequencty and adjust your activities accordingly.

also how does time studied work for you guys? I still enjoy the game so study/talk poker alot and most improvements come in waves that are hard to schedule rly, much less to actually quantify them

On March 05 2014 18:13 LemOn[5thF] wrote: i.e. spreadsheet for hours played, exercise done, social time spent. I mean its dumb not to monitor it it takes like 30 mins to set up a spreadsheet and 10 m minutes per day? My brain is human brain tho, and human brain is dumb

AHAH!! I just finished Moonwalking with Einstein today, and I beg to differ!! The human brain is not dumb!!

Ok, that's all I had

I'm just going to guess, for you Joe, I think, the best thing is to keep playing as much as you find fun, then force yourself a little, but not too much.

You seem to be really good at it, and you're kinda ahead of the curve, and I think that's where you want to be, and to be there, I think you're fine if you keep doing what you're doing, but keep talking about all the newest trends, the best new video's, look at the best new rising stars, and incorporate whatever they are doing, steal where you can, and keep going like that!!


Oh, and I have something else you might like, I rarely remember this well, but just finished reading a pretty amazing book just a few hours ago. I'll share some of the bits I found most exciting. This book ------> http://www.brainpickings.org/index.ph...oshua-foer-moonwalking-with-einstein/


And it's actually about a Journalist, who reports some memory championships, get's really into it, and practices for a year, and then he also competes and wins the American championship (they newbs compared to Europeans, but still pretty awesome).

Anyway, in one bit, where he's been practicing for awhile, he get coaching and help from 2 people, and one is this amazing phd, chief scientist guy, who's got the leading research is researching experts. So whenever he got stuck, like, he was trying to memorize a deck of cards in under a minute, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do it any faster, and he was just stuck. So he called up the doc, asked him what was wrong, if he hit his max or something.


Ok, and here comes the awesome part!!

It went a little something like this. When you first start to learn stuff, you go through various phases, till it become automatic, what happens then is that you're free to do other things. So if you're learning to drive a car, this is when "you get it", and it's easy, and you just do it.

Most people stop here, in whatever it is they were trying to learn, or get better at, this is the OKplateu, where most people stop, or feel they are stuck, give up, so forth!!

BUT!! You're not really stuck, this is where it get's interesting un dun dunnnn*


Some of the key points:

- Keep challenging yourself in any way, all the time

- Keep track of your your accomplishments, how well you do. Evaluate, rethink it, re-change things, reorganize.

- Imagine that you are someone else, who were facing whatever problem you are facing (good to picture someone who's top or best in the world in what you're trying to get better at). Find out how this person worked through the obstacle.

- Compare your own train of though with this person, or your teacher, coach, whatever (someone much better than you).

- Another secret to getting better at something is to have a certain amount of control whilst you're practicing. Force yourself to not use the autopilot.

For instance, one of the easiest ways to write faster on a keyboard is to write 10 - 15% faster than your max speed, and ignore mistakes and errors, and keep at it like that. If you always stumble on some of the keys, write it down, think about it, look at how other people click on the keys and how they click on that key, practice that key in particular, or write texts that uses that key a lot, only click that key, and keep adding speed, rinse repeat. (oops, a small digression, I get like that sometimes lol).

- Each time you run into something puzzling, difficult, or hard, write it down. Try to understand why

- It means a lot to find out what works and what doesn't work.


And one of the most awesome things in the book was this line:

"As a species, we humans have never reached the plateu in any skill".




Okay, hope any of that helps, or is amusing in some way or another xD

It didn't really say skill, but like in competitions, like, running and stuff. I think the most "famous" example that probably all of you have heard about is the 4 minute mile, people said it was impossible to ever run under 4 minutes, then one guy did it, and not to long after another, then lots of people.

And today, to get into a sports college, I think the minimum requirement is to run it under 4 minute, pretty crazy. And it's like that in most things. People just keep inventing, thinking of new and better ways to do stuff.

I think deep down (often under layers and layers of rationalization) people usually know what they should do / or what it takes to get the results they want. I would measure your productivity by trying to objectively evaluate whether you are doing those things. Some people will figure out what they need to do - and then do a lot more.

The problem in poker is there are people who do a shitload of good things and don't get results. And then there are people who seemingly don't do anything and get amazing results. To be completely honest I don't know why that is. I don't think it's because of talent, I think talent is overrated. All I know is that I recently realized that at the end of the day the only way for me to be happy about my poker life is doing the things I feel I should be doing to get the goals I want to get whether in the end I achieve those goals or not.

Mariuslol sweet input man ! Much appreciated, i'll try and read up, looks interesting.

My 2cents is merging short-term goals with long-term goals and making them meet in the middle somewhere.

Do whatever makes you happy. Reward yourself. Enjoy life.

TLDR

1st world problems

tldr, but talk to the wh00s

Why do you care so much about productivity ?... You have all the time to spend doing others things while winning more money than your average joe, isn't that productive enough ? Hell, I'm not even sure if the average joe are being productive with their salary's job or if they think they're satisfied with their day's work...

Does that help ?

I think you're trying too hard with that subject really.

Joe what would you be if you weren't a poker player??

what's the fullname of that PPT program you mentioned joe?

On March 09 2014 10:22 JosephCalgary wrote: Joe what would you be if you weren't a poker player??

I don't think he'd be one thing, first he'd try hard at something athletic, but he wouldn't do too well in that arena, but he's not unhappy, got fit, and did well with the chicks. Then he hit his crazy phase, and he started doing male stripping, and at the worst a little male giggoloing, but felt ashamed, and decided to drop that for new adventures!!

Next he started studying in college, but lost focus, and started partying too hard, but in his endeavours he met a lot of people, got a lot of connections, so he started in an off sea shipping company, and did surprisingly well there. After awhile got some jobs on one of the ships, and got to travel around and drink and party in new places, to finally stop in Thailand, and snooze around there for a few years!!

Then I imagine he'd get bored of that lifestyle, and want a change of scenery, and he decided to write a book about his crazy life, but the book didn't do as well as he planned, and he was starving for cash, so he had to get a job. He still wanted freedom, but he didn't want no low payed shit job. So he took some offshore courses, and got planted on a really awesome oil rig, with a kind of deal, where you work for 3-4 weeks, then you're free for 3-4 weeks. + You earn a lot of money, and also when the Helicopter comes to pick you of, he hit it off with one of the pilots, and he would let him off in different places!!

I reckon he'd keep that job for 5-6 years, since he kinda enjoyed the hard labor, and being paid around the clock!!

After that... Hmm, let's see... Hard to tell, maybe he'd get a less grease monkey job, or get inspired to learn how to fly Helicoptors... Yes, that seems plausible. Time to maybe, get some kids, do that whole gebang!!

And there you have it!!

marius start blogging again plz

marius honestly I read your original reply to my post right after you did it, started reading the book you mentioned, had a conversation about what you said with someone else and my original question became so much clearer to me that I spent the last 10 days barely online and decided to have some more fun (rage) with my life instead of stressing myself out

Thank you very much for your post, seriously it was fucking awesome and was just about exactly what I was hoping for when I made wrote my blog


As far as your adventure for me if I wasn't a poker player if i did life like 10 times I think that is probably pretty fucking close to how one of them goes


I'm pretty sure I'm moving to Oslo in the summer time as well, where do you live at?

On March 05 2014 18:43 NewbSaibot wrote: I think the measure of anyone's performance comes down to efficiency; and the definition of efficiency is the ability to do something or produce something without wasting materials, time, or energy. BTW where's your training site?

First sentence is something good to think about as well

Also my site isn't going to be anything training but something different. Where it is? Deep in my head

On March 05 2014 18:51 jchysk wrote: The two most important metrics are money made and time spent. Time spent should include time actively improving or training outside of actual play. It can get complex because a simple calculation of money / hours would show that you shouldn't spend any time training, but that training may actually be going towards future win rate since you could continue to win at the same rate or gradually decrease without it. To quantitatively figure out how much your efforts outside of direct play benefit your future game requires a different kind of modeling and over a more extended period of time. If you could figure it out though, you would be able to chart out various projections based on your goals. For example if your goal is to significantly improve your game to reach a certain skill level over increasing a bankroll it may be better to spend the vast majority of your time on education with very little on play, whereas if your goal is to reach some monetary amount over the next 6 months then you may be better off with no education and all play. The optimal goal is usually somewhere in the middle; to increase bankroll while increasing skill. Neither being better without the bankroll to play higher limits or having a higher bankroll without the skill to jump up are ideal. If you've been accomplishing one faster than the other (bankroll increase versus skill increase), I would just adjust my time accordingly.

When I was doing a heavy amount of hallucinations I would have been able to understand this

You inspired me to do them again last weekend

Thank you

On March 07 2014 23:40 RaiZ wrote: Why do you care so much about productivity ?... You have all the time to spend doing others things while winning more money than your average joe, isn't that productive enough ? Hell, I'm not even sure if the average joe are being productive with their salary's job or if they think they're satisfied with their day's work... Does that help ? I think you're trying too hard with that subject really.

I think because I think I waste too much fucking time to the point where in a bunch of years I will look back and be sad that I did.

I think I might be trying too hard with the subject as well, but I also think I might not be trying hard enough lol

On March 09 2014 13:09 MysticJoey wrote: what's the fullname of that PPT program you mentioned joe?

It is pro poker tools, odds oracle

On March 09 2014 10:22 JosephCalgary wrote: Joe what would you be if you weren't a poker player??

Honestly no idea really, I was on the path of being in the bartending/service industry before I started poker. I would have most likely ended up with an older woman I met living in the city who did well for herself if I stayed on that path

On March 06 2014 14:36 tomson wrote: I think deep down (often under layers and layers of rationalization) people usually know what they should do / or what it takes to get the results they want. I would measure your productivity by trying to objectively evaluate whether you are doing those things. Some people will figure out what they need to do - and then do a lot more. The problem in poker is there are people who do a shitload of good things and don't get results. And then there are people who seemingly don't do anything and get amazing results. To be completely honest I don't know why that is. I don't think it's because of talent, I think talent is overrated. All I know is that I recently realized that at the end of the day the only way for me to be happy about my poker life is doing the things I feel I should be doing to get the goals I want to get whether in the end I achieve those goals or not.

I think your last sentence is to answer I've been getting closer to thinking for myself as well. Good post tomson Thank you

On March 13 2014 08:04 Joeingram1 wrote: Thank you very much for your post, seriously it was fucking awesome and was just about exactly what I was hoping for when I made wrote my blog

Awesome, I'm happy to contribute xD

The book is just a really good read I found, but didn't mean to "put a book" on you, most people don't even like getting told to click a youtube link, and it can get more stressful to have a lot of things lined up that you're suppose to go through.

But I think that from time to time, to read is good for everyone, especially when you're a little bored.

My favorite kinds of books is the kinds of books where people really go deep into something, or someone who's spent their whole life on something, then put those stories, or that knowledge in a book.

When you read that, your perspective kinda changes, you start thinking a little differently, or on different things, at least for a little while, so what I do when I get really bored, I go to this link:

http://bookpickings.brainpickings.org/tagged/creativity

And all the books here are amazing, I click on psychology and my mouth starts to water, so many good ones lol. Not for everyone, but an excellent bookmark to have whenever you feel like you might want to read something.

I'm pretty sure I'm moving to Oslo in the summer time as well, where do you live at?

Oh, I live at the stupid place in Norway, up north, it's around 1250km further north.

You should really check around before you decide to move to Oslo, if you got friends there, or a gf or something I guess that's cool. But I don't think I've heard anyone say anything good about, and the few time's I've been there was nu uh, not that cool of a place.

Highest crime rate in Norway, if you look at statistic for all of Norway, most of it is just Oslo. Very expensive, and a lot of the people are kind of stuck up and arrogant.

Not 100% sure on this, just hearsay from people I known.

When I was a kid, I went there by train, to play Starcraft at a lan...

First thing I meet was a giant transvestite, I think I started to follow him for a bit, was intrigued, but a smart friend made me stop, then when trying to find out where we were, we saw prostitues hanging around lol!!

When we got close to the lan place I met some homeless people sleeping in an underground. In the actual lan, I didn't know that the woman who invited us did porn for a living. I remember we were all fighting about the best places to sleep there, first I lost the bed, then I lost the couch, then I didn't even get a pillow, I was angry, but not super angry, just mildly annoyed.

But a few weeks later when she revealed the porn thingy, we got to see some, and this guy was squirting all over the bed and the pillows, so I was well happy.

But I just have one story (so kinda low sample size), maybe it's not that bad lol

(At least I've heard that if you live 1 hour outside Oslo it can be pretty awesome).

Thanks for the input on Oslo Marius. Most everyone I have talked to so far has actually had mostly good things to say about it. I have one PLO friend that lives in the downtown there and a couple other poker friends and some friends I've made traveling that life downtown there also. I wanted to choose either sweden or norway and preferably somewhere around some other PLO regs so that I might be able to put some good time in working on my game with another person. I've always had the best results over my career that way


I didn't take your first reply as putting a book on me but i know what you mean when you say that. Most people don't want to hear someone tell them to read a 500 page book or anything like that lol, and as you said most don't want to click on anything you might link.

I've never really approached reading with any type of logic but how you put it actually sounds like a really great way to go about it and a way to maximize your learning experience if you read to learn. I think most just read to be entertained or escape for a bit of time. Thanks again for another good link

Back to Oslo, I will probably end up getting a place in the best area that they have so I don't really have much to worry about in terms of those things you mentioned lol. I think you can take almost any big city and say if you move to this part of it your experience is going to be bad and you will see these type of people and experience these types of bad things along the way.

If you were to recommend somewhere else in Norway or even Sweden what would you think? I am probably going to spend time traveling to other parts of northern europe and visiting plo friends while I am there so I don't really anticipate spending soooo much time in one place (i hope). I always say that but then I always end up spending all my time grinding lol

Well if you have a lot of friends you can hang with that changes it quite a bit, and if it's in a good area. I have a mate who just moved down there 6 months ago, to work on his phd, and he moved in with a girl he met online. Anyway, they moved to a new location, like 45 minutes outside of Oslo, and loved it there(when he got away from the scarier places).

I know VanDerMeyde on liquid says it's chill and nice 1 hour from where he lives as well.

I'm not sure if it's true, but A LOT of people say that in Sweden, there's something about most of the guys there, they just, uhm, a little different (boring lol). And there are TONS of hot blondes(females), and they go nuts if a guy is just a little social, or funny, relaxed. It's so "bad" that one of the highlight at the different schools I went to was during short breaks, everyone would go to Sweden, to party there, since so many attractive girls. So might be worth looking into. Heard great things about many of the big cities in Sweden as well.

But it's a little weird for me to recommend good places in Norway, since I live here. I'm most happy when I'm somewhere else, and when I'm alone somewhere else lol. When I wasn't sick, I'd go to London 2-3 times a year, for a few years straight, love it there lol. It's just so fun and different, and I get to go around and talk English with my accent, and I feel people are much more open, sociable. I feel people in general are more boring in Norway. Might not be 100% accurate, since I spend a lot of time on my own. But I love the clash of diversity I found in London xD

And I don't know what kind of interests you have, if you're an outdoorsy kind of guy, you might love Norway, climbing mountains, skiing, snowboarding, stuff like that, a lot of options like that, but that kind of thing isn't quite for me.


Since I spend way to much time inside, and is kinda introverted, I got you this, it's a must watch if you're thinking about going Norway. It's a quick 3 min guide on what goes on in Norway: