So I finally thought about what it's going to take to mentally focus and prepare myself for the grind thats gonna start. Truth be said, it's what I pretty much do now. But I think over the past year, it has changed from time to time till today which I'm still dealing with. What you really need, I think, is a daily plan, like the game you crush, your bread and butter, which leads to routine. I'm not saying you should follow this for the rest of your life and you can also diverge from the routine if there are obstacles in the way or if you can improve, then by all means, change it.
So what does Mental Prep and Game Focus mean?
To me, it means preparing myself to play my A+++ game over many hands and long hours both short term and long term without stressing myself out doing this. Worrying about hours, hands, and money is the last thing I need to be think about because if I play my A+++ game, then those described will just happen.
Mental Preparation is going to be different for all people. For me, it's a 24/7 thought process. I want to make sure I wake up early without setting my alarm, going to bed at whatever time, but still be able to wake up early, putting in volume and hours without thinking about it, eating healthier without thinking about it, feeling good and staying positive even when times can be rough, planning around everything, etc. Planning your day, weeks, and months are very important. Things come up and things to do, but the thing I have to be aware of is I have to pursuit SNE. So If I have to take the day off or do something in the middle of the day away from grinding, I better have a plan to make up for lost time as a part of my mental game.
Game Focus is something I need to keep working on and is what I struggle with the most. Playing long quality hours and hands is the toughest part. Even when I put in shorter sessions, multiple sessions seem tougher to put it sometimes. Either way I look at it, it decreases my volume dramatically and cuts away from SNE. I need to get over this mountain. Not think about results, winning, losing, but really like I keep saying is play my A+++ game for long long hours over the next year. Taking breaks are good for the game, but coming back reset and ready to go is better. So if I can set myself out to A+++ game in 5 minutes or 10 minutes, I will have a chance at this. Not 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, but short breaks. Why?
Time is valuable. I don't know about you, but I want to enjoy the quality of life still and not spend all my time playing poker 18 hours of the day by playing a few hours here, few hours there, study here, etc. That's why playing quality and quantity over a long period is important. I need time to be with my family, my wife, my babies. That's where I need to balance my time and myself. It's probably something I've been working on since I first started and still to this day, working on. You need to have balance at the tables and away from it.
So my routine I follow as of now:
Wake up early between 6-7:30am
Take a shower, drink coffee, relax, maybe some light house chores
Fire up the computer, read some forums, look over some hand histories, watch a training video
Get ready to start working and fire tables up focused
Focus on poker from the time I start to about 4 or 6:30pm 5 days a week.
That's about it, of course working at home, I stray away from this sometimes. But I have to manage to replace the time missed playing weather it be I put in a session another day or later in the evening. I have to make sure I do that.
If I can improve on everything I discussed, I'll keep adding to my mental prep and game focus. Thanks if anyone reads this. If anyone has any other thoughts or advice, I would love to hear them
Good luck on the journey!!!
Jeff
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Quality n Quantity
There's a thing to be said about Quality and Quantity. I'm sure there's a bunch of mixed feelings and some would say its much better to put in quality, and very few would say quantity. The thing about this is, I need to be able to take the best of both worlds. At least over the next year and a half. Over the first 4 months of grinding, I never had a problem with putting in the volume. That's where it led to being breaking even over those months. So one of the months, I put in shorter sessions, and I started winning, but I didn't put in the volume nearly as much. I look back at it from the beginning over those rough months and know now that I wasn't good enough. I still might not be good enough, but I've been working on my game since then, improving, making better decisions, understanding concepts a lot better.
I remember 24 tabling Full Ring or 16 Tabling 6max and handful of my long sessions led to disaster. Usually ending up in -10-14 buy-in downswing. If anyone reads this, please don't let this happen to you. I want to say, don't try this at home. I use to think I was just running bad, but in reality just playing bad overall. Mixing those two together can really lead to a train wreck. Now I think I'm getting a little bit better with my long sessions. I've noticed that even when I'm running bad, I'm still not down two much in my epic sessions and manage to book a few +bi's for the session.
This leads me back to the topic at hand. I've had trouble with putting in quantity when I'm playing well and winning. I try and not look at my results of my session when I feel I'm running good and playing well, but I do sometimes. I end up quitting my session and take an extended break (1-2 hours) and fire another session and repeat if it goes well and quit. My volume I should be putting in usually gets cut in half if not more for the day. I have always had this problem and trying to fix this leak. This month has probably been the best so far when I'm winning, but I still am having this problem. I need to fix it and overcome it if I want to be SNE. I have to keep telling myself to not be results oriented, not look at my cashier, and just play my A+++ game over an 6-8 hour day. I see people like Nanonoko and Leatherass. These guys are beast when it comes to putting in volume and quality. They don't play 1 hour sessions and quit, they keep playing and playing. They still do till this day and I give them much respect for doing so.
Putting in volume is really tough when you seem to lose or break even. I think I am overcoming this monument slowly but surely. The past 3 months have been so much better than before. I have worked on my game, talked to people, watched a few training site videos, worked on my mental game, and breathing poker. I have a few people who I try and help with there game as well since I've started to understand the game a lot more. Time to start working!!!!
Keep the dream alive,
Jeff
I remember 24 tabling Full Ring or 16 Tabling 6max and handful of my long sessions led to disaster. Usually ending up in -10-14 buy-in downswing. If anyone reads this, please don't let this happen to you. I want to say, don't try this at home. I use to think I was just running bad, but in reality just playing bad overall. Mixing those two together can really lead to a train wreck. Now I think I'm getting a little bit better with my long sessions. I've noticed that even when I'm running bad, I'm still not down two much in my epic sessions and manage to book a few +bi's for the session.
This leads me back to the topic at hand. I've had trouble with putting in quantity when I'm playing well and winning. I try and not look at my results of my session when I feel I'm running good and playing well, but I do sometimes. I end up quitting my session and take an extended break (1-2 hours) and fire another session and repeat if it goes well and quit. My volume I should be putting in usually gets cut in half if not more for the day. I have always had this problem and trying to fix this leak. This month has probably been the best so far when I'm winning, but I still am having this problem. I need to fix it and overcome it if I want to be SNE. I have to keep telling myself to not be results oriented, not look at my cashier, and just play my A+++ game over an 6-8 hour day. I see people like Nanonoko and Leatherass. These guys are beast when it comes to putting in volume and quality. They don't play 1 hour sessions and quit, they keep playing and playing. They still do till this day and I give them much respect for doing so.
Putting in volume is really tough when you seem to lose or break even. I think I am overcoming this monument slowly but surely. The past 3 months have been so much better than before. I have worked on my game, talked to people, watched a few training site videos, worked on my mental game, and breathing poker. I have a few people who I try and help with there game as well since I've started to understand the game a lot more. Time to start working!!!!
Keep the dream alive,
Jeff
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
SNE PREPARATION 1.0
I've been thinking a lot about what I have to do to prepare myself for SNE the past week and realized that it's gonna take a lot of work. I mean a lot!!!
Not only do I have to grind a ton of hands, a ton of tables, and a ton of hours...I have to get ready for a roller coaster of a ride that's going to come along with this.
Since starting to play professionally of January,2010, I've had so much stress and success doing it. But it wasn't the kind of success I had hoped for. I basically broke even the first 4 months of playing, had one winning month, another break even month, and till now where I had an ok month so far. So the progress is improving. So how am I even playing professionally you ask I broke even over those 5 months? I'm not proud of it by no means, but I use the pokerstars supernova bonuses, milestones, stellar rewards, and whatever promotional money they offer to survive. It isn't the worse thing in the world because I'm able to take care of my wife, two babies, and pay the bills. So that alone keeps me motivated to keep on playing.
So the next thing I have to ask myself is why am I playing? Well, you need some motivation and reasons behind doing it. Some have different reasons, but mine is because as I had said before. I'm doing this for my family. That's the first and foremost reason for doing this. I want to be able to take care of them in all ways possible and provide for them. Buy a house one day, take a nice vacation, buy them whatever they want. But the biggest reason I'm doing this for my family is because I want to be able to spend all the TIME in the world with them. If I can put in the work now, I might have that chance to. The second reason is I'm doing it for me. It's something I want to accomplish for myself. This is where success comes in. I feel like I haven't been to successful since I started. I put a lot of effort, time, and commitment into this. The thing about what I do is, I really enjoy playing a ton of tables and a ton of hands. I don't mind 24 tabling Full Ring NL or 16-18 tabling 6max NL. I've always done it since I first started playing online poker and it's something I want to really master which I'm still doing to this day. Most might achieve success playing less tables, but that has never been my game and I'm not going to start any time soon, unless I play the nosebleeds one day.
Which brings me to now. What am I going to do to prepare for the long road ahead of me next year. I have a lot of obstacles to hurdle. The biggest one is I have to win on a consistent basis this year. I have to be able to have a 20K-25K bankroll by the end of this year in winnings. Like I said, I don't use any of the money I receive from pokerstars to add to my bankroll, so that isn't even an option. I might be able to use one of the milestones I recieve to add to my bankroll if I can get to 400K vpp by the end of this year, but we'll have to see if we really need it.
I'm gonna keep on grinding at 50NL for the next few months and see how I do. If I can have a few winning months, I think I might be able to start playing 100NL again. So my goal as of now is to play minimum of 125k-175k hands the next 2 months. I going to grind 6-8 hours a day 24 tabling 50NL. In between that, I'm going to study, review my sessions, go over some hands, check out the poker forums, talk poker, do some live sweats, and help my friend to become SNE as well. If I can help someone else be successful, then I might be doing something right and help with my confidence in my own game.
With that being said, this is my journey, and I'm ready to go to war. If anyone wants to follow my blog, give me any support, advice, or anything, that would be amazing!!!!
Best of luck to everyone!!!
Jeff
Not only do I have to grind a ton of hands, a ton of tables, and a ton of hours...I have to get ready for a roller coaster of a ride that's going to come along with this.
Since starting to play professionally of January,2010, I've had so much stress and success doing it. But it wasn't the kind of success I had hoped for. I basically broke even the first 4 months of playing, had one winning month, another break even month, and till now where I had an ok month so far. So the progress is improving. So how am I even playing professionally you ask I broke even over those 5 months? I'm not proud of it by no means, but I use the pokerstars supernova bonuses, milestones, stellar rewards, and whatever promotional money they offer to survive. It isn't the worse thing in the world because I'm able to take care of my wife, two babies, and pay the bills. So that alone keeps me motivated to keep on playing.
So the next thing I have to ask myself is why am I playing? Well, you need some motivation and reasons behind doing it. Some have different reasons, but mine is because as I had said before. I'm doing this for my family. That's the first and foremost reason for doing this. I want to be able to take care of them in all ways possible and provide for them. Buy a house one day, take a nice vacation, buy them whatever they want. But the biggest reason I'm doing this for my family is because I want to be able to spend all the TIME in the world with them. If I can put in the work now, I might have that chance to. The second reason is I'm doing it for me. It's something I want to accomplish for myself. This is where success comes in. I feel like I haven't been to successful since I started. I put a lot of effort, time, and commitment into this. The thing about what I do is, I really enjoy playing a ton of tables and a ton of hands. I don't mind 24 tabling Full Ring NL or 16-18 tabling 6max NL. I've always done it since I first started playing online poker and it's something I want to really master which I'm still doing to this day. Most might achieve success playing less tables, but that has never been my game and I'm not going to start any time soon, unless I play the nosebleeds one day.
Which brings me to now. What am I going to do to prepare for the long road ahead of me next year. I have a lot of obstacles to hurdle. The biggest one is I have to win on a consistent basis this year. I have to be able to have a 20K-25K bankroll by the end of this year in winnings. Like I said, I don't use any of the money I receive from pokerstars to add to my bankroll, so that isn't even an option. I might be able to use one of the milestones I recieve to add to my bankroll if I can get to 400K vpp by the end of this year, but we'll have to see if we really need it.
I'm gonna keep on grinding at 50NL for the next few months and see how I do. If I can have a few winning months, I think I might be able to start playing 100NL again. So my goal as of now is to play minimum of 125k-175k hands the next 2 months. I going to grind 6-8 hours a day 24 tabling 50NL. In between that, I'm going to study, review my sessions, go over some hands, check out the poker forums, talk poker, do some live sweats, and help my friend to become SNE as well. If I can help someone else be successful, then I might be doing something right and help with my confidence in my own game.
With that being said, this is my journey, and I'm ready to go to war. If anyone wants to follow my blog, give me any support, advice, or anything, that would be amazing!!!!
Best of luck to everyone!!!
Jeff
Saturday, July 17, 2010
SNE Pursuit Here I Come!!!!
So I've been thinking a lot lately about what I really what to accomplish next year and that is to become Supernova Elite on Pokerstars. It's going to take a lot of work, a lot of hours, a lot of hands, a lot of tables, a lot of studying, a lot of mental brain work, and a lot of dedication to make this happen. Over this past year, I've logged in close to a million hands, so I think I have what it takes to become SNE. So from now till the end of the year, I'm going to try and work on my game playing many tables and many hours. I'm gonna try and work my way up to hopefully 1/2 NL by the end of this year is going to be my goal and to have a pretty healthy bankroll for 1/2 NL. Roughly 20K sounds good. That way, I can still take care of my family and bills still. So with that being said, I'm going to try and update this blog ever so often with my pursuit for next year and hopefully give some helpful advice and hopefully some of your support to make this happen.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Reset
I had written a post right before I hit some button on my laptop and erased everything.
Here I go again
So, I've been thing a lot about poker and my life lately which equates to my family and music. Anyways over the past 5 months since I started taking poker to the next level by playing full time online, I have to say, it wasn't what I expected. After putting in over 700K hands, seen every beat possible, trying a ton of different things while multitabling, watching a ton of training videos, posting of forums, talking with friends about poker, getting a few coaching lessons, in the end I'm just a marginal, to break even, to slightly losing. It's been really mentally draining on me. What i'm not going to do is complain or say that I ran bad. I think I just over did it by forcing myself to put in to many hours, play to many tables, and really a lot of bad play in my opinion. I mean, 1 or 2 mistakes can really really cost you day in and day out. I mean there would be a lot of days where I would play for 8 hours and be down 10+buy-ins. And I really felt I was playing well, but just coolered a bunch. I would be down for that day and my ev difference would be still positive. But then again, somedays, my ev difference would be negative. I really thought that I would be able to take care of my family in a good way through poker and possibly have more time and quit my part time job and maybe some more time to get my band going again, but from then till now, it's just not working out. I think my whole idea was skewed, and playing for those bonuses on stars was just the wrong way to go. I mean, I set out to what I wanted to do and the bonuses were like my paychecks to take care of bills which it has been doing. But my poker bankroll is just slowly and slowly decreasing.
What I'm not going to do is quit poker. What I'm still going to do, is take it seriously and play to support my family. What I'm not going to do is play countless hours without taking any breaks. What I'm not going to do is play 18-24 tables.
So, for this month, I'm going to keep my sessions short to around 600-1400 hands depending on how I feel. Really, no more than an hour to an hour and a half max. Up or down, i'm going to stop. I'm gonna stick to 6max so, I'm going to play 12 tables max and try and play the best games and exit tables that are just bad. This is how I started and built my roll when I was playing for the fun of it. The only difference is i'm going a to put in a few more sessions in the day. Around 4-6 sessions throughout the day withing a 8 hour period. Take a 15-30 minute break after each session and come back fresh and RESET. I've been doing this the past week and so far my results have been more optimal and in the green instead of red for each session.
I'll have to see how this pans out and I really hope this will help. I've been at 50NL way to long, but really have to crush it before even thinking about moving up. I need to build my bankroll back up and hopefully set out to why I'm playing this game, for the financial freedom in the future and to enjoy the things that have meaning in my life, my wife and my two babies and maybe throw in some time to get back into music if I have time. Maybe own a house of my own one day, go on roadtrips and vacations without worrying about money.
Well I hope all is well and good luck on the journey!!!
Jeff
Here I go again
So, I've been thing a lot about poker and my life lately which equates to my family and music. Anyways over the past 5 months since I started taking poker to the next level by playing full time online, I have to say, it wasn't what I expected. After putting in over 700K hands, seen every beat possible, trying a ton of different things while multitabling, watching a ton of training videos, posting of forums, talking with friends about poker, getting a few coaching lessons, in the end I'm just a marginal, to break even, to slightly losing. It's been really mentally draining on me. What i'm not going to do is complain or say that I ran bad. I think I just over did it by forcing myself to put in to many hours, play to many tables, and really a lot of bad play in my opinion. I mean, 1 or 2 mistakes can really really cost you day in and day out. I mean there would be a lot of days where I would play for 8 hours and be down 10+buy-ins. And I really felt I was playing well, but just coolered a bunch. I would be down for that day and my ev difference would be still positive. But then again, somedays, my ev difference would be negative. I really thought that I would be able to take care of my family in a good way through poker and possibly have more time and quit my part time job and maybe some more time to get my band going again, but from then till now, it's just not working out. I think my whole idea was skewed, and playing for those bonuses on stars was just the wrong way to go. I mean, I set out to what I wanted to do and the bonuses were like my paychecks to take care of bills which it has been doing. But my poker bankroll is just slowly and slowly decreasing.
What I'm not going to do is quit poker. What I'm still going to do, is take it seriously and play to support my family. What I'm not going to do is play countless hours without taking any breaks. What I'm not going to do is play 18-24 tables.
So, for this month, I'm going to keep my sessions short to around 600-1400 hands depending on how I feel. Really, no more than an hour to an hour and a half max. Up or down, i'm going to stop. I'm gonna stick to 6max so, I'm going to play 12 tables max and try and play the best games and exit tables that are just bad. This is how I started and built my roll when I was playing for the fun of it. The only difference is i'm going a to put in a few more sessions in the day. Around 4-6 sessions throughout the day withing a 8 hour period. Take a 15-30 minute break after each session and come back fresh and RESET. I've been doing this the past week and so far my results have been more optimal and in the green instead of red for each session.
I'll have to see how this pans out and I really hope this will help. I've been at 50NL way to long, but really have to crush it before even thinking about moving up. I need to build my bankroll back up and hopefully set out to why I'm playing this game, for the financial freedom in the future and to enjoy the things that have meaning in my life, my wife and my two babies and maybe throw in some time to get back into music if I have time. Maybe own a house of my own one day, go on roadtrips and vacations without worrying about money.
Well I hope all is well and good luck on the journey!!!
Jeff
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Almost 27K hands this month
So, I told myself this month I'm gonna try and put in some heavy heavy volume and quality play as well. I think I've managed to do so pretty well. I hadn't looked at my results until yesterday, but only because it was accidental and was looking through my reports and I guess it shows how much i'm down or up at the bottom. Well I looked and I guess I was running well my first couple days up like 10 Buy Ins but the last day I played I guess I lost close to 8 buy ins. That day I had put in heavy volume and lost pretty much like 6 buy ins with KK and AA. 3 hands were KK vs AA, and the other KK hand was a rough beat against 77 post flop on a 653r board and villain minraised by cb and I shoved, he called and hit a 4 on the river for the straight. My AA hand ran into a set Blind vs. Blind. And I forget the other. I guess that's poker.
I guess that's OK number of hands put in, but I really wanted to get about 10-11K hands a day in and the first week of April has come to an end. I really like the mix between 6max and full ring. Sometimes I fill like when I'm playing Full Ring, every is just so damn nitty and just waiting around for the nuts and it ends up that I start playing nitty as well I hate it. Well I still have 3 weeks left. My goal was to achieve around 40K vpp on stars for april and i'm about at 5600vpp thus far. So I got a long long way to go but I still want to put in quality hands in. I pretty excited about my first milestone bonus coming up for $1000 bucks, cash that out and put in the bank!!! Yeah
Keep up the grind and good luck on the journey!!!!
Jeff
I guess that's OK number of hands put in, but I really wanted to get about 10-11K hands a day in and the first week of April has come to an end. I really like the mix between 6max and full ring. Sometimes I fill like when I'm playing Full Ring, every is just so damn nitty and just waiting around for the nuts and it ends up that I start playing nitty as well I hate it. Well I still have 3 weeks left. My goal was to achieve around 40K vpp on stars for april and i'm about at 5600vpp thus far. So I got a long long way to go but I still want to put in quality hands in. I pretty excited about my first milestone bonus coming up for $1000 bucks, cash that out and put in the bank!!! Yeah
Keep up the grind and good luck on the journey!!!!
Jeff
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Music Music Music
So, I haven't yet to post anything about music. Maybe because I've been to consumed with poker. I thought it be nice to write a little about what I've been doing and listening to lately.
I went to hot topic last week looking for some new music. I found The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis and bought the album. I've been a long time fan of there's and have seen them in concert a few times and own all their albums and really really excited to find they put out a new album. All I have to say is it is effing amazing!! As good as "Miss Machine" they put out a few years ago. Another album I thought was pretty incredible that came out this year was Between The Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect. Really sick stuff you all should check out if you are into heavy music.
I've also been working on a solo project. I've written about 5 songs kinda complete, but not. Have to write a few more lyrics and finish up with some parts, but all in all, I'm really happy with the results as of now. Now only if I could sing well, that would make everything so much better...haha. It's going to be a music project about me and my life up until now and possibly future. I have no real plans on when the project is going to be finished, but I plan on writing 12 songs on my acoustic guitar. Maybe put in some keys and drum loops. I was thinking I can have my band mate Greg sing the songs since he has a good voice.
As of my band, I hope we will get back together soon once I move back to cali!!!
Best of Luck on the Journey!!
Jeff
I went to hot topic last week looking for some new music. I found The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis and bought the album. I've been a long time fan of there's and have seen them in concert a few times and own all their albums and really really excited to find they put out a new album. All I have to say is it is effing amazing!! As good as "Miss Machine" they put out a few years ago. Another album I thought was pretty incredible that came out this year was Between The Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect. Really sick stuff you all should check out if you are into heavy music.
I've also been working on a solo project. I've written about 5 songs kinda complete, but not. Have to write a few more lyrics and finish up with some parts, but all in all, I'm really happy with the results as of now. Now only if I could sing well, that would make everything so much better...haha. It's going to be a music project about me and my life up until now and possibly future. I have no real plans on when the project is going to be finished, but I plan on writing 12 songs on my acoustic guitar. Maybe put in some keys and drum loops. I was thinking I can have my band mate Greg sing the songs since he has a good voice.
As of my band, I hope we will get back together soon once I move back to cali!!!
Best of Luck on the Journey!!
Jeff
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)