Quote Originally Posted by Xo_Sirk_oX
2 +/- hours later, I have finished this post (including the original Phase I post) This was more addicting than the Twilight book series I swear!
So needless to say, incredible discipline on the BRM aspect of the game. Reading this from start to finish has shown me a couple things.

A) Discipline is ESSENTIAL
B) BREAKS/Vacation are ESSENTIAL
C) Acknowledging when to “walk away” is something I need to work on.

I don’t post all that often, but I felt the urge to do so, for whatever reason. Keep up the amazing work!
Glad you enjoyed the read. You'd be amazed at how much of a factor discipline is to success. It's taken me awhile to realize this myself..I've struggled hard with it at times but I take steps to become more powerful in that area every day. I love poker because of the continuous cycle of improvement required to compete, and this cycle is pretty much what keeps me going. You begin to better discipline yourself after fucking up and learning from it. I've fucked up so much, yet I'm still here.

The vacations point is an intersting one. From my experience so far, anytime we're going through unusually stressfull situations, taking some sort of vacation will be the best way to regain that positive productive state we were once in. For me this is what has worked.

Update:

I just completed my first 5 day scheduled work week of poker. I only played 27 hours, which I think is a pretty good start, since I'll still play on the weekends. However, I'd like to get 30 hours of grinding in Mon-Fri, and then do as I please regarding my volume/study on weekends. 30 hours/5 days works out to 6 hours/day so that should leave me a couple hours each day to do whatever I feel is necessary to study/review etc. My schedule is pretty flexible, I usually am off by an hour or two due to other things happening and so on, but I think that's best for my game so I don't feel like I 'must grind' from 'time x' to 'time y'.

When I get my new computer I'll have everything set up to make multitabling best for me so I should be able to get about 850 hands per hour easily, which is roughly 25k/week, equating to 100k hands a month. I'd like to make this my target for September perhaps. Weekends will be used to fill in any missed volume due to needing to take days off/break etc. This will ensure the pace isn't rushed. Reaching 100k would still be considered optimistic, I can look at 85k being likely achievable and 70k definately achievable. So I'd be happy with 85k - but I'll shoot for 100. I'll settle for 70k if a ton of crazy stressfull real life shit happens (like earlier this month - graph will be posted soon)

Going to the gym 5 days/week has kept me in line. Spew is definately under good control - but can always improve of course.

This week I played 14,388 hands for 27 hours and finished +$569.13 (I lost 3 buyins really quick right at the end too :P) Here's the graph, showing it because my red line finished out above $0 so ship that for a change (Obviously ran hot, now bracing myself for the epic doomswitch)



I only played about 4000 hands of 50nl. I'm starting to get a grip at it, I find the game is noticeably tougher so I need to make sure I'm really on my A game, as my B game there results in negative expection. I'll try and get at least 25k+ hands in for 50nl within the next few weeks and if things don't pick up I may look into some coaching. Aside from that I'll just keep up with the videos/reading/review etc. I'm sure it will eventually click, though getting a sweat by someone who can beat 50nl wouldn't hurt. The last time I had a sweat when I was struggling with 25nl I had a few leaks pointed out and instantly started playing better and begain to see results.

Alright this was too long, I'm going to bed. It's been a busy week, have a good weekend guys.

-m2m