Making Supernova Elite 2013, Adventures in Vancouver, Getting into shape. Thoughts, Stories, Journey of a Poker Player.
Being one of the only; if not the only person making Super Nova Elite in 2013 with majority of volume at 100nl and below!
6 Months 60k. Let's do this !
The downswing is inevitable and just continues going downwards.
Only way to beat it is to slowly grind it out I figure.
Interesting things to notice is that the majority of my downswings are when I am really tired and end of the day grinds as well as when I'm playing 24 tables. 4 tabling zoom with 12 tables of reg speed; or 6 tabling zoom just doesn't seem as mentally strenuous as I don't need to keep track of multiple hands at the same time i figure. ~ Hopefully go on a heater in the last 2 weeks.
The first thing that may come to your notice is the steep drops from hands; 15k to 18k; 20k to 25k, and 31k to 36k. It's not a mere coincidence that these 5-15bi drops are near the end of ever session of each day that I played.
As I mentioned relentlessly in previous posts that I've been falling behind in the Supernova Elite Chase; and as a result I have been attempting to compensate by playing approximately 11-12k hands a day instead of the 7-8k hands.
My Grind Hours are typically 3-4 session; 12pm-->2pm; 2pm-->6pm; 6pm--8pm; 10pm-->2am.(Pacific Standard Time) . The sessions typically get worse and as the later the time goes and the player pool dies out. Whenever the player pool dies out it becomes very natural and obvious to begin starting tables 'Heads-Up' as well as playing a lot of short-handed games which are super high in variance.
Verdict: Although being around 9bi's below ev it is unfair to attribute my downswing 100% to ev. The sample size of 35k hands is also very insufficient in determining if my downswing is 100% attributed to situation based variance.
After thorough hand history reviews today, I've discovered that the resulting downswings occurred 75% of the time while short-handed at full-ring tables and over adjusting ranges to be excessively loose.
Healthy Living/ Bodybuilding
The best way to cope with any downswing is a healthy measure of lots of hearty food =]. I decided to hit the buffet today and feast upon as much food as I can possibly ingest.
Unfortunately there weren't any decent dumplings or fried rice/egg rolls/ any other stereotypical Chinese food . . otherwise I'd jump on that obviously.
The month of August is almost 100% attributed to me bulking up, after a thorough 3 weeks of training with heavy weights and eating regularly between 2600-3500 calories intake a day I've gained a good 3-5lbs of mass.
It's hard to say whether or not the 3-5lbs were muscle or fat or even a 1:1 ratio, however definition has decreased slightly but was exchanged with a significant increase in strength as well as endurance.
I have a tendency to not like doing a ton of ab-work. . . generally speaking it feels very unnatural, rumor also has it abs are made in the kitchen which sounds about right to me.
There's approximately another 2 weeks left in August at which point I will evaluated my strength and muscle mass and decide if cutting down to a very lean, or perhaps bulk up a tad bit more.
I find a lot of people are a lot happier when they are bulking up as it is easier to eat a lot but harder to cut down eating. I find them equally as hard at this point since both phases require discipline whether it is eating a lot or cutting down calories, and of course the food I'm eating has to primarily come from good sources of ''non-Junk'
Session Review Today was broken into 3 sessions of between 2-2.5k hands. The Last 2.5k hands there was a large -10bi dip. I'd like to make it very clear that 10bi downswings in a given session is very atypical and are rarely 100% attributed to pure variance. The pool of players were much more reg-infested during the last session as it was also Happy-Hour, this continues to reinforce my hypothesis that Happy-Hour may not have been a great promotion. Although the increase in VPP and FPP earn rate within the period of time, the games were filled with regs.
Should have Stopped at Hand 4k
Leaks The main leaks in my last session was calling down too lightly in 3bet and 4bet pots, as well as bluffing too frequently the rivers in 3bet and 4bet pots. A couple of times I 5bet-shoved as a bluff and hit the top of my opponents range which usually results in a huge negative dip; whereas against a super wide 4bet range it can be marginally profitable. Thoughts about Happy-Hour For the past-couple days the same trend has also appeared in my other graphs where the last session of everyday has always been a huge downswing. . . perhaps I should start making an adjustment to my time management and schedule my grinds outside of the Happy-Hour period, or avoid playing late at night. Bodybuilding/Working Out
Watermelon =)
Went to the gym today and did a chest/tricep routine, absolutely crowded today for someone reason and had zero chance to get a shot at the bench press, instead I decided to work 80% with Free Weights. Since July I have been gaining a bit of strength in all my major compound lifts and a tad bit in the isolation exercises. After a decent 45-60 mins of working out, a post-workout ice-cream cone. . the grind began.
Fridays High Variance Large Player Pool, Tons of Fish.
You know you're a grinder when the only thing you associate with Friday is a larger pool of recreational players a a softer game.
Like every other day a good grind session should be started with a large coffee/energy drink, healthy breakfast, and some exercise to get the blood flowing.
I like the idea of reviewing the goals I have set for the month and planning out a tailored schedule for that day in order to reach my goals.
any questions regarding the hands played can be posted in comments. Chances are I may have not played a hand optimally so any insights or critiques is well appreciated-
Overall day wasn't 'too bad' but was not too great either. Ran into a lot of poor/cooler situations where I lost hands as well as lost EV.
Ran into a lot of lucky situations where I won flips but consistently ran QQ into AA/KK AIPF. . .
This just goes to show that in the short run, EV only tells a part of the story, the story of your hand versus their exact hand. Not a terrible day either way. . . on the bright side, shouldn't complain. . as pitabread189 points out here
Should be putting in more hands, however decided against it since the ZOOM player pool died out right after the 3:00am- 4:00am- EST promo ended. . . which by coincidence the parts of my graph with the most amount of variance were played between the Happy Hour Times. . . . perhaps a sign that it's not the greatest promotion.
So after some in-depth thought after my first 4 weeks of cutting down my freshmen 15 and sophomore 25 I figured I will start bulking up a little bit more and throwing on some muscle mass.
I figured since summer is ending soon, as well as my love for food and lack of muscle mass I should work on that. The overall goal is by the end of the year; I will have a 6 month Transformation.
For the time being, will be trying to put on 2-3lbs of solid muscle this month (Realistically 1- 2lbs of fat as well).
For the time being; consuming 2500-3000 calories depending on whether or not I'm working out that day. Lifting weights 3-5x a week. I find that cardio tires me out and doesn't let me perform my best in the gym (depletes glycogen storage) so will be avoiding running and stick to lighter jogs and walks
instead.
The beginning of the month I was primarily out a ton
and didn't really start grinding until about Aug-3.
As you can probably notice there was a significant downswing of approximately 12bi's near hand 31k this was mainly a cause of me playing 24-tables and having over 6-8 of them being HU last night during the Promotion.
I have been running very good lately against some of the regulars... who shall remain nameless. Although there's still a part of me that's deeply saddened by the fact of how many hands I've continued to relentlessly spew. . . a penny saved is a penny earned.
Goal-Re Cap Time! For the remainder of the month I will definitely try to keep up the volume a little bit as with the current pace I will be only on pace for 160k hands. . . half the amount that's required of me for SNE.
Thoughts On Happy Hour Promotion
The Happy-Hours are spaced apart in such a fashion that in order to hit all of them you would have to break up your grinds.
1am-2am
7-8am
5-6pm
The only way to hit is either to grind from 1-2 for 1 hour; sleep 6 hours wake up do 1 hour. It works if my last session ends at 2am, but in order to catch the next happy hour I can sleep a 'maximum' of 6 hours. . . which is unlikely since between ending session to sleeping takes me an hour more or less.
To make matters worse the tables especially reg-speed are riddled with regs at the more unusual hours. On a second note I was glad to see the Full-Ring Zoom tables running at 1-2am despite the fact that they usually die out around 9pm -(PST).
I think the Zoom tables had it a lot better off than the Reg-Tables since the 'best of the best' regs can only 'own me' on a maximum of 4 tables. . . . whereas the on the non-zoom tables this number can be up to 16-24.
Life and Health
After losing a ridiculous amount of weight in July. . I've decided to put on a bit more muscle before going on my 'Body Transformation Journey.' . . . . of course the benefit of putting on muscle means I get indulge in much more food.
For the past week I've gone and worked out approximately 4-5 times and eaten around 2500-3000 calories per day, more on days which I work out of course.
Have been reading a lot of articles and going to the library regularly to just try and get into writing more frequently in my spare time.
It's probably time for me to put in a bit more time for 'work' as I've spent a little less than 25 hours this week grinding. . . not exactly the 'Full-Time Pro'
Had two relatively short sessions today. Nothing particular interesting stood out today.
There were a couple of spots where I could have folded and thereby saving me some money but was just was unable to make those folds.
My volume for the day was cut short by the unexpected;"Wrist Pain". I hear about this 'Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" virtually everywhere especially in this day and age where the computer has become a necessity for lives. Felt like the tendons in my forearm were over-stretched and tight;along with a searing pain starting in my wrist and up to my forearm as I bend my hands. Physically maimed . . . never thought this would be one of the causes that will shorten my session. . . oh well
Did notice that the pool of the full-ring zoom 100nl was a little bit fishier than usual today. . . that or all the regs are attempting to play back at me. . .
Was a beautiful sunny day outside; very rare for Vancouver. . . and decided to take the occasion to go and enjoy a little bit of sunshine. Have been noticing that the amount of volume has diminished in exchange for a rather more balanced life greater overall satisfaction factor.
@pitabread189 congratulations for succeeding in the challenge who hit (40k hands with profit) with in a 24 hour period of time!
In this day and age we have the great use of 'Stats' and 'HUD'; although it gives a general idea and consensus of our opponents, it can be detrimental for us to over-analyze them sometimes.
Take for example: a player happens to be playing "12/10" at Full-Ring, your impression can be that he's a very tight player and also must be very tight post-flop.
In reality, the face-value of our information "12/10" merely means he plays 12% of his hands and raises 10% of them. Whether or not we associate this type of player as 'never-folding' or 'never hero-calling' should be hugely dependent on his post-flop tendencies, and not pre-flop.
In Life, we live by social 'standards' and stereotypes. I don't mean the racial, ethnic, stereotypes that may already exist I mean the 'Perspective, Views, Outlook,' on life. Stereotypes can hinder your success whether it be in 'Health, Career, Friendships by causing you to avoid certain paths and 'strategies' in dealing with situations in an unorthodox fashion. At the end of the day it's often the 'Exception', the ones who break the general stereotypes that make it out there as exceptional.
2. You don't have to always win, just more than you lose
In poker; a profitable player only has to win more than he/she loses. Sometimes we get caught up in the affect of variance and a downswing that it affects our mental capability to make good choices.
Our conscious mindset/skill and strategy at the given moment should be independent of the 'uncontrollable' variance.
"It's not your fault". We have all heard it before, but do we recall how we felt when that was being said? More often than not there are aspects of life which we are unable to control, however that should not let that impede on our ability to make good decisions and choices throughout.
Learning to understand what we 'can' and 'can't' control in life is the first step to understanding variance.
Knowing what the 'best decision is' is hardly important if you are unable to execute it at the crucial moments in life.
3. Short-Shortsightedness creates inconsistency Understanding your long-term goals, as well what short-term obstacles you may meet is important.
The first biggest downswing always hurts the most, because players are consciously 'aware' of the fact of variance.
Everyone 'knows' sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, however you must continue to make the best plays. How often do we come up with a game-plan and strategy for mental recovery after such an event?
The matter of the fact is, for the majority of players, losing a large amount can hurt from either an 'Ego, Doubt, or Monetary' perspective. If the long-term goal is set, you must understand that you will face obstacles and by practicing and making a game-plan of 'How to deal with a Down-swing' for yourself it will shorten if not eliminate the period of time when you're not 'Playing your A-Game'
For weight-loss/ bodybuilding, it's easy to give up after several days or even weeks without seeing significant progress. It's often the daily choices, [calories, exercises, food] we can see the change in and not the belly fat starting to shrink or the arms starting to grow. Especially in the post-secondary education; choosing a 'education path' and aiming to achieve that goal means understanding that there can be unexpected difficulties in material and studying; but that should not impede the passion and motivation for the goal at the end.
As I have mentioned at the end of my post a couple days ago I decided to write a post regarding this particular topic in question.
A lack of time-management can easily result in depression and regret from not meeting the standards of our potential.
Realistically speaking 24-hours sounds like a very reasonable amount of time; taking account for 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, 3 hours for each meal of the day; this leaves roughly 13 uninterrupted hours for the average person working at home.
Typically speaking; I like to allocate between 1-2 hours a day consciously exercising; in the case where ''power-walking outside'' would be constitute as exercising, whereas walking to the kitchen and back would not. This still leaves me and others alike 10 hours of time to spend.
Time has a tendency to slip away when we are not consciously aware of how much time has gone by; being mentally unaware of what we were doing at a 'specific' time is a key component that lends itself to wasting time. The first an improvement at anything including time management is to just look it up: a simple google-search of 'Time Management Tips' is effective. Although sometimes we have a rough idea of how to improve a simple thing such as time management, an article that comes into our sight can help re-emphasize the necessity of the issue.
As being 'Good' at anything requires one to be 'borderline obsessed' with that certain topic, professional poker players can easily lend themselves into a wreck of the 'workaholic'.
At the end of the day, we spend time in a manner to bring the maximum amount of happiness per value of time. Being able to manage time well, and make the most efficiency out of it is a key to leading a satisfying journey ; whether it be in 'Life, Poker, Education'.
It's time for us to re-think our old ideas and ways of using/balancing time: . .
Perhaps, that 9th hour of grinding is better spent on studying. . .
Perhaps that 3rd hour of watching a T.V series will be better spent on exercise. . .
Perhaps accomplishing Supernova Elite is more achievable than you realize one would think. . .
Volume has been very poor so far for the month. After running a horrendous session yesterday I decided to call it a day and went out bowling/kareoke
with couple friends. Ended up sleeping at around 4:30am yesterday and waking up at 12pm today.
Schedule for today was relatively brief; wake-up; went to the gym; came home grind; went out for a walk; last session. Nothing particular struck me today except for a little bit of reg-wars going on. . .
Not to say that fighting with other regs at the table is a bad thing, just perhaps whilst 24-tabling it'd not be the smartest idea to play against other regs.
The small downswing near the middle portion of my graph is a clear result of what happens when I try to actively battle regs while playing a ton of tables. There's only so much mental energy and physical dexterity that I can exert into this game. . . It's much easier to win an extra 10$(random figure) from a weaker player/ fish, than 10$(random figure) from a good regular at this game.
Graph For The Day
Interesting Hands of Today
Hand 1: This hand occurred with a reg today, given that there was a lot of dynamic going on prior to this hand I figured he could be light on the flop/turn/river here.
Was very happily surprised when I saw the 'Happy Hours' being introduced to Poker Stars, typically these promotions either target recreational players or professional grinders. Like many others like me where VPP's make up a bulk of their profits every month this was a very exciting surprise. . . or is it?
VIP Club Month Happy Hours run at the following times every day from August 5-11 (Monday-Sunday):
* Calculations based on 'Continuing year as Supernova* more or less same except for 100k VPP mark where it's approximately 25% difference. 0.068 v 0.051
100 Billion Hands Celebration: Win with the Greatest Poker Hand
Simply play any real money No Limit Hold’em Zoom game at any stake between June 24-30. If you are dealt Ks-Kc and manage to win with it post-flop.
600$ Bonus Given you hit every single Boom hand.
Verdict
The Boom Promotions was a better promotion to players who made 600 VPP/ Hour or less and was not on pace for SNE, assuming that they were able to win with KcKs once each day throughout the duration.
During the period the Pool sizes of ZooM Games were almost doubled throughout the period, with the 100nl- Full Ring Zoom games running close to if not 24/7.
This definitely was a result of an influx of recreational players moving towards these games as the 'Professionals' played irregardless of the promotions.
VIP Club Month- Happy Hours promotion is a better promotion to players who are able to reap in more than 600 VPP/Hour at the ring games and are on pace or already at the super nova elite status.
The Promotion's intention was to give recreational players a chance to meet a VPP goal in order to qualify for the 1M $ Giveaways in the upcoming month of WCOOP, whether or not the games will get softer??
So you have probably read some blogs/ threads, seen some graphs, heard some stories of great success stories of people in poker. Although there is the occasional case of an unknown person that went went from not knowing how to play the game to millionaire by winning a tournament; the majority of professionals strive on consistency.
Like with any sport, game, activity there are clearly sets of skills that apply to them.
So how does one become a successful Poker Player?
Persistence. Unlike many sports out there poker is a game of incomplete information. You make the 'best choices' given each situation ; the results are affected by variance.
Unlike a game of Basketball
, if you missed a shot you can practice until you have the right angle/control at which point you can get it in.
More often than not one does not anticipate to have poor results with good decisions; one simply does not anticipate losing money whilst believing their play is good.
This leads to hesitance. Unlike school, sports, work, we are often granted immediate gratification. If you studied hard for a particular exam, it is likely you would have done well on that exam, if you practiced the sport you're interested in you're likely to do well. . . etc.
Variance. A new player entering the world of poker will be shocked by how much variance there is within the game itself,
Certain game types such as MTT's (Multi-Table Tournaments), a professional wining player may only make it in the money 10% of the time. On top of that, winning professionals can make the right plays and deal with weeks if not months of losing/break even stretches.
Discipline & Hard Work. The 2012 Olympics last year reminded me of what it really takes to succeed at anything.
Take any gymnastics for example; thousands of hours of preparation and careful dieting is required to have just an opportunity to compete.
When we see the pro's on TV such as 'Negreneau, Phil Ivey' or the new upcoming players ' Galfond, Dwan' it's easy for us to think that some are just born with a natural ability to play poker; when in reality the amount of hard work behind the screens is immense.
In this Interview with Phil Galfond by Jared Tendler (author of Mental Game), Galfond expresses how talent though is important is only a segment of what makes one successful; even he himself must put in a lot of effort.
Finally ; Grit. It's a word that doesn't belong to colloquial speech nowadays. It's time to re-emphasize this new term.
Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait, based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or end state coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective.- Wikipedia
The video featured on Ted-Talks is a great example explaining grit and its' relevance to success.
So at the end of the day. Don't worry if you lack talent.
As Long as you have Grit, Persistence, Determination ; you'll do well in poker.
Though you might not make ten's of millions a year, but 6-figures is a very do-able standard today.
7
A
A
J
Like every other day a good grind session should be started with a large coffee
/energy drink
Understanding your long-term goals, as well what short-term obstacles you may meet is important.
with couple friends. Ended up sleeping at around 4:30am yesterday and waking up at 12pm today.
