The Drive to $10K

[jyms]

Ok, I mentioned I have to put down some things that I need to work on if I am going to move ahead in this game. I want to start with my problems.

Problem 1, I play too much. I don't study, review or post enough in the strat sections. Basically, I start back doing this when I run poor and then as soon as I win a bit I go right back to playing a ton. If I run well, I jump to play first chance after the house shuts down. If I lose a session I jump back to play even though we know I tend to play too long to get back to even a lot, and am usually too tired to be playing at my best. this could possibly cause a lot of my bad streaks. I don't take breaks. Here's what I mean



this is just my session tab since moving my $400 BR to Party (I had more in RB and race payments to come) as you can see, I haven't taken a night off. I have played every day since the 8th of June actually. I haven't taken 2 days off in I don't know how long, I would guess since a camping trip last Aug. 08. If your saying "so what", I also work full time, have a 5 year old and I am married.

Problem 2, I don't enjoy gambling. I don't play blackjack or roulette, I have never played craps and I despise lotteries. I have been gambling far too much with my health, time, and family life. It's not the poker playing, it's the time that I spend doing it for nothing these days. I need to actually be making some cash for me and my family or I will go back to playing part time for fun.

Problem 3, I love playing poker, if I could I would be doing this full time, and have no problem playing Leatherass type hours and grinding a measly $3K+ months income if that's what it took. I am 45, I've worked my whole life and this is a golden opportunity for me to move ahead, yes ahead. Long story short, I missed out on my potential and went to work right out of high school to earn a living. I have worked for a decent income and have no money behind and live pretty much check to check these days with a little savings. Wife makes good money and we have no issues financially. Right now, I have no career just a job and somehting needs to change.

On to goals.

I need to make money doing this. either I need to be making some withdrawals in the near future or what the hell am I doing this for. Look at the pic, I have a second job and it's barely minimum wage, (actually less since I haven't withdrawn since Xmas).

I would like to play full time for a bit, my wife has good income, benefits and is in the mid-stages of moving up in here career for where she would like to be. My son starts full time school in September 2010. As of now I pay $1K a month in daycare fees. I would like to find something to do with my time and be available for him, ie: drop him off, pick him up and take him places during summer vacation. Otherwise we need to maintain full time care for year round childcare.

Poker is not all that and I know I can't probably do that realistically so, I am in the process of getting my license again, so I can go back to working in the gym and have my own schedule. That's the plan. So I have some goals, I need to get to $5K first. Then I can take a little when I feel like it. I then need to grind to $10K, because I can feel comfortable at that amount playing $1/$2 and making decent withdrawals, then I can decide on things from there. But for now I need to get a schedule, find study and review time, not just playing time. I need to get comfortable with my game and grind the shit out of it. And I need some free time, any suggestions? Any thoughts?

[bigspenda73]

Here he is at his first Blue Jays game (Visor day). It's his 5th birthday tomorrow, 7/7/09

niiiiiice <3 summer bball games

[swiggidy]

$17/hr is quite a bit better than minimum wage.

GoGoGo

[jyms]

So, this month I am still running about $17/hr which is one of the stats I am watching for reasons stated farther back in the thread. I plan on taking this back to playing for income and once I am making double my income for a significant amount of hours I will up the hours and stop going to the shitty job. For now I continue to treat this as a training course (thanks Ben).

I have had some brutal days this week.



July 10 I was up 3.5 BI's and ended up down 3/4 of a BI
July 11 I got up another 2.5 BI's and saved almost a BI
July 13 I wa again up over 3.5 BI's and managed to lose all but 1/4 of a BI.

This has to be a lack of concentration and fatigue. The brain is quitting on me before the will to play. It has always been an issue with me, I will play whenever there is time, and will play when tired, hungry or supposed to be doing something else. I need to work this schedule so that I have gym time, sleep time and obviously family time. Most of the playing comes at the sacrifice of sleep, and lately again to the expense of the gym. I need to look at these graphs long and hard and realize, playing less is more. I could be up another $1K this month and could have had 4 or 5 hours more sleep or gym time.

I really think I am not staying fit enough mentally for the game. Look at my graph since I started back at party. First 14K is $50NL, the rest is $100NL



I am getting called down a little lighter obv, but I am bet/folding a lot more. the adjustment they seem to have made is not folding as often, so I need to adjust my ranges a little stronger and have it more often I think. I also may need to pay attention to bet sizing again, I may be losing a bit there. Any other thoughts on why the Showdown still climbs up but the non showdown is starting to drop off? Here are the stats for the first 24K and the last 8K. I haven't even looked myself so I will hold most judgment until there is some feedback to not jump to conclusions in my own mind.



LOL at griffey going on tilt because of the call 3bet starting to rise.
It appears my aggression is slipping more than I thought. I am obviously playing more passive and most of the preflop stats would definitely translate to postflop.

I have 3weeks until vacation which is a poker vacation. I have BFP now and will be trying a dry run of how I could live with poker as a living again but this time with actual upgrading my skills during the week and not just grinding the shit out of hands. I will do a small separate OP for that week, and see what I can learn.

[BooG690]

Amazing to see this comeback. I love it.

It never hurts to sit out when the blinds come around to you, sit out, and go get a snack to eat and a drink. I would also play hungry and fatigued and this hurt my game. And when you think about it...taking a quick 10-20 minute break can fix all this and save you quite a few buy-ins. Basically, it's very -EV to NOT take that break and reboot your mental and physical being.

[dev]

There's a discussion in 'The Art of Learning' by Josh Waitzkin about interval training. The book is really really good, so it's worth a read anyway, but the short version of interval training is that you train yourself to max out, then rest. You perform for longer periods at higher levels and rest for shorter and shorter periods.

I think Daven mentioned this earlier in the thread. When you're tapped, you're tapped, but if you can take a 2 minute break and come right back at 100%, you should be able to get much better results. (Your overall results aren't that bad anyway)

[jyms]

Thanks guys, and your right I do need more long term and short term breaks. i am failing to think longer term when I have good seats and have time to play but should still be taking breaks.

Dev, thanks for that. I still recommend interval training for Cardio when talking to people about exercise. I never thought of it as far as poker is concerned but when I trained people it was something I always did. This could really be a help to my thought process..

[jyms]

Update



I had a moment there over the last 2weeks that my redline started to dip and my showdowns started to climb. I was playing a very high variance again. I think I found some problems and my bluffing frequency's were way out of whack. I mellowed and now things seem to be back on the rails. More to come, it's late. Suffice to say, watching some of the biggest winners in your database go to showdown will help get things on track on the site you play. Not to mention get some insight into the regs.

[XTR1000]

update me where that strike comes from

[bjsaust]

wheres all the run bad you mentioned?

[Keith]

can you expand a bit on that Jyms? .At the moment I'm looking at individual players that I have the most hands on so that I look at every hand they have takn to showdown to try and get an idea of what there different betting lines mean , do they chase flushes , gutshots , what the'yre prepared to stack of with , etc. but they aren't necessarily big winning players. Since I'm still at 10NL with about 53k hands total , probably about 39k of those at 10NL ,I have masses amounts of players with very low numbers of hands , in fact only 23 with more than 400 hands and of those only 3 are up more than 2 buyins.

[dev]

tbh, that kind of analysis probably wouldn't be worth it in your situation unless there's some particular player you're having trouble with. It sounds like the player pool at 10nl is just too big. 400 hands is nowhere near enough to find out if a player is a winner or not.

[jyms]

Yea, I have close to 100 guys w/5K hands. I have 5 with more than 10K. All are winners and I looked at a ton of hands and plays they make. Being on a site that allows mining and buying 400K blocks of hands before moving up will give you a ton of histories. It won't take place of notes playing them but between the active player window and watching their play will help me understand what is beating the stakes and how to beat them. If you've never used the active player details window then maybe you should try it. If you are on a site that forbids datamining buy hands for your stake here. http://www.handhq.com/

[kmind]

Sweet graph man! Keep up the good work.

I also feel like I should recommend http://hhdealer.com/index.php . Better prices and I had no problems with them.

[jyms]

wheres all the run bad you mentioned?

garph is three days. Before that things whnt horribly wrong with laziness and a reversion to my old self, feet up on the desk and surfing, chatting and eating while playing. I have to get back to lockdown when playing. Discussing HH's and such is fine but enough casual stuff needs to stop. Poker time is poker time.

update me where that strike comes from

Obvious if you spend anytime in the commune. I need to keep the personal stuff off FTR and stop worrying so much about other people and focus on Poker.

[Da GOAT]

theres pretty much no point in viewing the hands on what anyone is doing below 200nl imo. Regs below definitely have too many leaks. just datamine a site that allows it.

[jyms]

BR hit $3K today, so I took out $200 to buy the new bed frame we need. Wife's happy, I keep playing unfettered almost every night. Win/win

[Galapogos]

update me where that strike comes from

Obvious if you spend anytime in the commune. I need to keep the personal stuff off FTR and stop worrying so much about other people and focus on Poker.

Why? You still have 2 strikes left you nit.

[jyms]

Not a nit, I just need to attain them a little more wisely. Why waste them on the stupid little things. If I am getting anymore strikes, they damn well better be for something people will remember.

[donkbee]

congrats on the comeback!

[jyms]

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...09.html#917783

Quick little mini OP today for fun.

[Keith]

BR hit $3K today, so I took out $200 to buy the new bed frame we need. Wife's happy, I keep playing unfettered almost every night. Win/win

Is this is an intentional double entrendre,

[jyms]

As sung by the Boomtown rats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yteMugRAc0

I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays, I want to shoot the whole day down.

[daven]

As sung by the Boomtown rats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yteMugRAc0

I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays, I want to shoot the whole day down.

take the winning day and bank it. Better than a lot of days - nice recovery

[BooG690]

As sung by the Boomtown rats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yteMugRAc0

I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays, I don't like Mondays, I want to shoot the whole day down.

These are the days where I'm happy to breakeven. Remember, every day can't be a winner! As Daven said, SHIP THE WINNING DAY!

[jyms]

Yea it was one of those "I am not going to sleep till I grind this back." I didn't need a win but I was going to get a lot closer to it than I was. It worked out well that the calling station fish never left the tables I gave them the money on.

[jyms]

Withdrew $300 for our long weekend camping trip so I needed a good night.




BR is at $3K still. So far this month:

withdrawn $170, $200 and $285 US.
$249 on BFP
$28 @ Tiltbusters for cards and table skins
$40 on HH's
$40 on Spadeeye

So total $1010 taken from the BR and I still sit at $3K. I'll take it. I still want to grind $100NL for a bit and work on some things so I don't mind a little spending out of the roll. Couple days in the month and I am going away this weekend, so this Friday will be the first day of 3 full days without playing and that will be the longest streak this year. I think I haven't missed two days in a row.

[jyms]

since June 1st

I am off for the week. I have 4 days to grind, hit the gym and either play a round of golf or play some B&M. I am going do some daily posting of some hands this week since time is not a factor.

I will start my first of what hopes to be a 40 hour poker week tonight. This is lofty I know but I will include videos, sweats and anything poker related like reading SSNLHE as hours towards this goal. FTR and MSN/AIM doesn't count.

[jyms]

0 hours

OK mini OP started. I am shooting for 40 hrs of poker related activity this week which may or may not happen because of all the things I have to get done while home. I never get real vacations where I get to go away, I always have these working vacations where I rebuild bathrooms or shop for a new home. This week I have a ton of odd jobs to catch up on.

I was just to tired from our trip to play last night so my grind will start today right after I watch a vid. Something from BFP

[jyms]

2 hours

Watched Giggys microp maniac and Samo's protege series vid #5

[jyms]

2 hours/40

Watched Giggy's micro maniac and Samo's protege series vid #5

[jyms]

5 hours/40

3 hours of play so far and down 2 BI's. I was sucked out on a bit early in the session and never really recovered much yet. Not worried, it's early and Ido my best work at night.

[jyms]

10 hours/40

2 hours ghosting griffey and another 3+ hours of play

Comeback FTW! only 4 sets in 2500 hands not including AA sets twice.

[jyms]

16 hours/40

4:40 hours of play
1:20 watching Giggy vid's

Stop the rollercoaster, I want to get off.



Some brutal catches for stacks. Pretty sure I am getting it in ahead most of the time. Still far too many river calls where FPS gets the best of me. I have a bad habit of checking turns IP to get river bets from second best hands that tend to catch up a lot. I think I need to fire more 2nd barrels and check behind more rivers. I either let them hit, or a card kills the action. There are a ton of stations at this stake on Party, so I need to take advantage with good hands and bluff less.

More to come tonight. About 4 hours I hope.

[jyms]

21:45 hours/40

5:45 hours play

I'm gonna puke if I have one more session like that.

Graph so far



My went to showdown is too high. I still call way too many 3bets and I need to focus on there hands and not mine. Nothing new, just fighting old habits.

[Da GOAT]

Just a thought but I think you dwell on stats way too much, I never think of stats. You should just concentrate on each hand at a time.

[jyms]

32 hours/40

One hour vid of Samo's protege series
1:30 railing Dagoat
3 sessions totaling 7:45

Bet I can make all three of them them meet again.

Sorry about the EV line I checked it by accident and actually had a laugh so I left it in. It's no excuse. I am playing horrible in large pots, and way too much FPS coupled with aggressive streaks of trying to make stations fold. I am working on cetain spots in my game and I think it's evidenced by the higher variance and climbing redline. Short term maybe but I will try to settle in.

[XTR1000]

You sir are a grafoholic

[jyms]

/thread

[Micro2Macro]

You sir are a grafoholic

yeah I agree, and this definately can't be good for your game.

[spoonitnow]

I think he thinks he quit poker idk.

[Da GOAT]

u seriously need to work on your game and u dunno how but you must have some tilt problems. 12 buyins in 2k hands is crazy

[griffey24]

I just put a post-it note on my monitor that says "4 buy-in stop loss!"

DOOO IT.

[Keith]

u seriously need to work on your game and u dunno how but you must have some tilt problems. 12 buyins in 750 hands is crazy

FYP

On a brighter side though , we know you can do it ,buckle down , put it behind you and get back into the mindset when you recovered last time. Your red line stayed relatively healthy , did you just get hyper agressive and do the villains betting for them?