On the grind, one more time

Hi,

Half way through January seems like a good time to make a goals thread for 2025 to help keep motivation. Long term goal for year is to be beating low stakes comfortably - I'm not sure this is a mechanical/game theory problem rather a mental block when climbing stakes as I've attempted this multiple times in the past. I've setup a mini gym this year and decided to quit some time consuming non productive activities ( drinking, competitive gaming etc ). Two things that for whatever reason go hand in hand for me.

Here's NL graph and results from 2024 where I started in Jan and quit in April of last year. I also played some over winter. After April I got sucked into gaming and lost the motivation for poker, for like 6 months I didn't play at all. Also starting drinking a bit too regularly too on weekends and as everyone knows that has a profound negative impact on mental health and motivation. If I take anything from the year it's that I should have just played much more volume at 50nl and alcohol is pure poison for the soul. General anxiety and performance related issues overcame the drive to succeed. Rakeback I didn't keep track of but it wasn't hugely significant.

2024 NL Graph

Results by Stake

Here's the graph so far this year. I believe I'm up around 150e~ in RB

And results by stake

Sometime down the line I might make a discord server with the intention of helping people at struggling at micros as it's something I used to do regularly in the past, but if I do end up going that route it won't be a while and I want to be sure mentally I'm in a good place with a solid life routine. For now it's just getting into a good mindset and not procrastinating about moving up in stakes. Volume/Monetary goals are secondary to me this month. I've started some light training and bought a big dip station over xmas but I've yet to set it up 😃 I'll get to that over the next few days.

Light training ( once dip station setup will be able to do a lot more )

I'll try post some regular updates and some interesting/exploit type stuff when it comes to micro stakes. In my opinion there's not a tonne of good content out there for beginners or for people who are struggling to do well at the lowest stakes. Most of the content is too advanced and overwhelming and not super applicable to the meta of how people play down there. I'll try to follow most of the other NL threads on this forum as it helps keeps me motivated. GL on the grind!