Hey guys, I decided I'm going to start a new blog.
I'm 34 years old, from Belgium but have been living in Budapest, Hung
Hey guys, I decided I'm going to start a new blog.
I'm 34 years old, from Belgium but have been living in Budapest, Hungary for the past 6 years. I used to play highstakes spins but have been playing PLO since 2022.
I've been playing poker professionally since 2016, so it's my 9th year being a pro now. As expected in this profession, I've had to go through several hurdles and swings. And tbh basically every year since I've started I've took at least 3 months off the year from poker. My longest break was actually in 2021, where I took a full year off from grinding. Poker has been a rollercoaster, and taught me a lot of life lessons. And I wish to share all this with you.
The exception to this pattern of taking long breaks from poker has been these past 12 months. I'm happy to say that in the past 12 months I haven't took any long (over a couple weeks long) breaks from poker. I attribute one of the biggest reasons for this to my current girlfriend, who brings me a lot of balance in life, love and support.
Goals, logistics and the future:
This year's poker goals:
- I want to perfect 12-tabling and possibly 15 table: Adding more tables is a skill and one that anyone can work on. At 12 tables I find a slight lack of performance and it gets hard to keep up with the action but if I keep practicing I'm sure it will get better. Perhaps I could move up to 15 tables. Although perhaps if I move up higher there won't be enough tables running and there wouldn't be much point in playing more tables.
- I want to move up to PLO1k: By the end of this year I'd like to at least take a shot PLO1k. TBH according to some bankroll calculators using the Kelly criterion I may already have the required roll. However as a human I'd like to be a bit less risky, I'm not really in any rush.
Long-term poker goals:
- I want to be a regular in PLO2k+ games: Quite a vague goal, and how I want to move is quite questionable for now. Currently I'd be more than happy if I could play 10/20 as my main stake, but perhaps in the future that would change. Honestly I'm quite focused on reaching PLO2k and then after that it's kind of see where things take us. Perhaps I'd want to keep moving higher, perhaps I'd want to learn a new game such as 5-card or heads up, perhaps I'd want to start coaching again, perhaps I'd want to play live, perhaps I'd want to play on multiple sites rather than only GG. All I know is until I'm playing 10/20+ all of these are kind of just vague ideas of future possibilities.
Tbh poker wise there aren't so many other goals. I have a lot of systems in place to reach these goals, and I guess later in the blog I could explain some of these systems. But my actual goals are not too defined and as the journey continues, some of them are prone to change.
Why I started this blog:
Firstly I enjoy writing. Writing is a form of self-expression and as an introvert I find writing to be one of best forms of it. I'd like to share my poker journey.
It's also about my motivation for poker. If you read my blog, you'll notice that I'm not motivated much by money unless it's simply to get out of a hole. I've done some soul-searching and looked for what truly motivates me. And I've found that my biggest motivation is actually social in addition to the learning aspect.
I love to grow and learn. And this is one of the reasons I chose PLO as my main game. It's such a complex game where I feel I could study it for a lifetime and still find new things in the game.
But loving to learn is not enough. I'm a human with social needs. I got some social outlets. I got my lovely significant other, I got a dog, I got a few good friends I communicate with regularly. But it could be more. This is one of the reasons I started my study group actually. Not only to study poker, but to make studying more fun with others, to learn together with others and share our combined knowledge, combining 2 of my biggest motivations. But I still see there could be more. This is one of my reasons to start this blog now, to share the journey.
In addition it is to set myself up for better opportunities in the future. If i want to play live poker more, perhaps putting my name out there could get me some invites, or perhaps to some apps (I am NOT interested in playing on apps currently). Perhaps I want to start coaching in the future and having a blog could help get some recognition. Regardless, I'm sure until I'm playing PLO2k+ I wouldn't want to do any coaching. If I wanted to coach, I'd want to prove not only to others but also to myself that I'm a solid top reg and in my mind this requires me to be at least beating PLO2k online.
Let's start the blog off with a summary of last month, May 2024.
It was my first month shotting some 500 and it went very well. The volume was quite low, however I was game selecting a bit harder than usual considering it was my first time shotting 500. Also during such a big upswing I kind of lost a bit of motivation to grind. Actually it was my best month in PLO I had so far. My previous best was $11k, so after I hit that amount I kind of wanted to chill a bit. Not exactly the best mindset, but I kind of wanted to book my best month in PLO fearing the upswing may come to an end. Which it kind of did as you will see later this month is a lot tougher.
May 2024: GG PLO200 and PLO500
Hands played: 28782
Hours played: 48
Hands per Hour: 600
Hours studied: 108
Hours worked: 156
Net Won: $8560
Net won + RB: $13,000
Net Won $/hour: $270
EV: $5792
EV+RB: $10,292
EV $/hour: $214
By far my highest $/hour, and I'm sure I couldn't sustain this at PLO500 but I can't complain.
Anyways in my next few posts I'd like to give a bit of background on my poker history, I'll be uploading one post a day until we are up to date. After that, not sure how often I'll update. Definitely monthly updates, but more than that not sure yet. We'll see how much time I have for this.
I think you mean how much I study?
I study a lot, in fact this year I have spent more time studying than grinding. Almost 2/3 of my time have gone to studying and not grinding this year. Studying is very important to me and I see it as a huge form of growth and improvement, however I'm not proud of the fact that I haven't grinded much and I've made some changes in my study routine to put in more hours. I think studying more than you grind is simply too much. Part of the reason why I spent so much time studying was as I said, a result of me spending many hours in spreadsheets, which is in fact not so productive. With my new study routine, I'll have much less spreadsheets to take care of and more focus on deep work and learning.
Regarding methods of study. I like to use monker, lock some nodes based on data or personal assumptions, and then train it using PLO trainer custom sims, I can do quite a bit of training sometimes on various spots sometimes pausing to look deeper into how ranges are constructed.
I'll occasionally watch some training videos, although I don't think that's too useful.
I'll attend my study group meetings 3x a week.
I'll train preflop a bit quite often, maybe only like 15 min/day.
I'll mark some hands I play and quickly review them in GTO. If it's particularly interesting I might run a monker sim.
Hope this answer helps.
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This month I've been running particularly bad. I've never run so bad in PLO.
If we look at my overall graph on GG we a relatively steady climb up with the yellow line (that includes 47% rakeback):
The past 70,000 hands have been quite horrific.
Despite this, my mental feels quite good. I have many other things in life to look forward to and when I judge my own play and performance, I'm overall quite happy. I'm being put in a lot of tough spots and I feel this is making me a much better player. I'm confident this will come to an end soon. However my confidence is lower and I realized I need to set up a few "rules". These rules should help me to stick to my routines, stay off autopilot, and get my confidence back.
Ecology rules:
1. I will play a maximum of 9 tables! I notice that when I play more than 9 tables I start to lose focus, miss some actions and play worse. It's also harder to table select when you constantly have to make a poker decision.
2. I will start by opening up as many tables of PLO200 as I can. Only after that will I look at PLO500 tables and sit into the softest ones! For now I think I should mainly be playing PLO200, after some confidence and roll comes back I'll tackle 500 again as my main stake.
3. Never play any heads up! My heads up winrate is just atrocious, not worth it to play heads up simply to try and get more leaderboard points. The fact is on GG the rake at heads up is way too high, maybe if I specialized in heads up I could beat it, but as a short-handed specialist, it feels like every time I play heads up I burn money.
4. Game selection is important! Pretty general rule, although this is especially important for when I do decide to sit in 500 tables.
5. Never play longer than 3 hours long! After this period of time, my focus dwindles. I need to take a break before resuming the grind.
The 5 core rules or grinding (inspired from Phil Galfond's 5 sticky notes):
1. Always ask WHY!!! Why is he taking this action? Why am I taking this action. Poker is story-telling. Don't autopilot or simply play according to "theory".
2. Patience, some pots are not mine! Don't think about how I can win this pot; think about how I can make the most money! Sometimes that means conceding the pot.
3. Keep it simple! If I have a read, and someone takes an action that is different from my read, don't overadjust!
4. Discipline and Power! This means sticking to our guns. Following through with our plan if we know it is +EV, and making the disciplined folds (or calls/raises)!
5. No protection! People overvalue protection and tend to fast play too much with a merged range. A weak hand on the Flop or Turn is unlikely to become super strong on the turn or river later on.
I grew up a spoilt brat
It's true, in my childhood I grew up a spoilt brat, and it affected so many of my life experiences. Why do I mention this here? In this blog? Because it's affected my current life so much, my upbringing has shaped me, and is a big cause for many of my decisions even now as a poker pro.
I think my childhood has had a deep effect on my relationship with money, and how I deal with my personal finances. I just watched the newest Mechanics of Poker podcast with Pieter Aerts:
.
It's a great watch, one of my favorite podcast episodes ever because it touches on many of my struggles.
Currently, I'm going through a spell of learning more about personal finances and improving upon that area of my life. Over the past few months I've been reading many books about this topic, including:
- The Bitcoin Standard
- I can teach you to be Rich
- The millionaire fastlane
- The millionaire next door
I plan to keep reading about Personal Finance, and improving upon this area of my life is actually one of my biggest goals this year. Not necessarily finding ways to increase my income (although that could be nice), but mainly more about how to build my wealth no matter what my income is through methods such as investing, frugalism, budgeting, etc.
The Millionaire Next Door is the current book I'm reading. And it's a great book. It has several chapters on how to raise children, and how spoiling your children can lead them to become big UAW's or "under accumulators of wealth". I've realized, that I'm a UAW! And when I think of my childhood, this makes a ton sense.
Let me tell you guys some things about my childhood. I didn't grow up some broke guy living a hard life. Now my childhood wasn't all sunshine and rainbows and I wouldn't call my parents "wealthy", but certainly I grew up upper middleclass. I'm an only child. And my entire childhood I got a taste of living a grand luxurious lifestyle. Why is this? Because my dad was a diplomat, and not just any diplomat, but the ambassador of Belgium.
This is one of the reasons, why English is my first language. My mother came from South Korea and so we always spoke English at home. Every 2-4 years we would move countries, I've never lived in Belgium for longer than 4 years, in fact at this point, Hungary is the country that I've lived the longest time in. I've lived in 9 countries throughout my life, and wouldn't be surprised if I live in more countries.
Now as the ambassador's son, you can imagine, that whenever we lived abroad (which was for the majority of my childhood), we would live in some amazing house (some of my houses were literally castles). With the insane house, came the maids who would take care of our cleaning and laundry daily. We'd have a personal chef, we'd have a chauffeur or maybe 2. Security guards to guard the estate. I would go to private schools my entire childhood and meet other children of "wealthy" people. We'd have 2 luxury cars. This was my socialization as a child.
The caveat to all of this, is that we come back to Belgium to live for a couple years, and I realize how "middle class" we truly were. The Belgian government would pay for all expenses whenever we were abroad. They'd pay for our house, car, education, healthcare, servants, etc. Every time I lived abroad I was living some sort of a "fake" life. Reality hit whenever I went back to Belgium. We'd live in some average small apartment, not much bigger than the one I currently live in right now with my fiancé. And we'd no longer have any servers helping with the housework. And our car would be some basic Toyota or something.
It was crazy, to go back and forth between living some super luxurious superstar lifestyle, to all of a sudden being completely "average". There were several pros and cons to this childhood of mine, it was an extremely unique experience. And I grew up extremely open-minded, with a strong education, and healthy without any mental problems. However there were some downsides. Firstly on the social side, I'd always say goodbye to friends I'd made within 4 years, it got extremely isolating, I haven't kept in touch with anyone I knew since before I was 20. I think another big downside, was my relationship with money that developed out of living like a king whenever abroad.
I developed a consumer mindset, that if you had money, it was there to be spent to buy the nicest things, not to save, invest and build wealth. It's took me going broke 3 times to learn this lesson, I'm hoping that now, having gone through what I've gone through I've learnt my lessons and I won't go broke a 4th time. But we'll see.
I went to college in the states. I went to the University of Tampa. Not a particularly prestigious university, but hey I didn't care about my education, I just wanted to get wasted, do drugs, get laid, have fun as a young adult. It's funny but my roommate at the time, was the son of a multimillionaire (or even billionaire) who owned a huge company. This roommate of mine owned a brand new $100k+ Benz and wore nothing but designer clothes from Gucci or LV. I felt this pressure to keep up with him. It seemed like looking cool and rich (even if the money wasn't mine and I didn't earn it) could bring more fun, more girls, more friends, higher status, etc. I felt like my parents money was my money, afterall they fully paid for my college education with their hard-earned money and I could buy a ton of designer clothes with it and go out and rent tables at the night clubs and spend $1000 at the stripclub or whatever, all this while my parents kept living their frugal lifestyles they built in Belgium.
This life of mine, made me lose all respect for money. To be honest, there's some benefits in poker, such as not caring about losing as much, dealing with variance better, not being too worried when shot-taking higher, etc. Some other benefits from this, was realizing eventually that I no longer wanted to be "fake". I no longer wanted "fake" friends with a person just because he could increase my status, "fake" relationships with a girl just because she's hot, "fake" clothes to prove my worth to others, etc. Another benefit was simply realizing that money has never been, and will never be the thing that makes me happy. I was equally happy in Belgium being a normal middleclass kid than I was living like a superstar in foreign countries. As long as I can sustain some baseline lifestyle, anything extra won't give me much extra happiness. The most important things to me, are in the end things that money cannot buy. Namely great relationships, my health, and great experiences.
But there's still some big downsides and lessons I had to learn. The only thing I wanted as a child and young adult in my early 20s was to fit in and live that high consumer lifestyle. The lifestyle of a UAW who thinks the person wearing the expensive clothes, watch and driving the lambo must be rich. Hint hint from The Millionaire Next Door books: To increase your wealth you got to live below your means, it doesn't matter if you make $200k a year if you spend almost as much, while a guy making $50k a year could still become a millionaire if he uses his money wisely. In fact most millionaires live far below their means, while most of the guys with the expensive cars and nice houses are living above their means and not in fact millionaires.
It wasn't until after college, when finally my parents decided to (mostly) stop supporting me financially that I had to deal with my own ways of getting money. Poker was my first job, I've never had a real job. I wasn't a good student, I didn't get particularly good grades. I just finished school because well, I didn't want to fail, but at the same time I never knew what I wanted to do next. So naturally when I picked up poker, I actually got into it because I loved the game, and not just to make money. But I wasn't disciplined. Maybe I was talented, maybe I enjoyed the theory and strategy, but I took way too many long breaks for several months for example to play some videogame that came out. Whenever I had a great month in poker, it was a great opportunity to spend all that money on some stupid **** and take a nice long vacation!
Poker is the thing that taught me discipline. Going broke 3x in my poker career is the thing that taught me discipline. Because when you're broke and you know that if you don't work, then you're ****ed and going to go live in your parents basement again, it's easy to get that motivation to grind. I can't believe that I've actually survived this long, with such a huge mental leak, being able to go broke 3 times (literally less than $10k to my name) and come back. Actually in some ways, I can say, I enjoyed that survival form of motivation. It's the easiest form of motivation to know and experience, although I hadn't really felt this until I started playing poker and wasn't relying on my parents financially. And tbh, with my increased living costs with inflation, and living with my fiancé, this survival type of motivation has stayed with me for basically the entire time since playing PLO.
But now, I've had a great month, and slowly, I'm starting to feel like I'm no longer in survival mode. And what happens when I'm no longer in survival mode? I don't need to grind anymore, I can come up with excuses. I'm about to enter a big test in my phase in this life. Have my previous experiences of being broke and getting out of survivor mode built enough discipline in me finally? This is one of the reasons, one of my biggest goals this year, is to learn more about and improve my personal finances, regardless of how my "income" changes. In some ways, I loved the motivation being survivor mode gives, maybe I'm addicted to it, living on the edge. For some reason, I always manage to make it out, somehow god always gives me another chance in poker and in life. But I think I've made enough huge mistakes. I've suffered enough, and I know being in survivor mode all the time, it's not a good way to live. Especially the older I get, I can't live on the edge anymore, not if I want more peace in my life, if I want more stability, if I want to build and support a family. One day I'll be so old, I won't have the power or energy, mentally or physically to keep doing this over and over. I should take advantage of what's been given to me, stop wasting my potential.
I've had to find other ways to get motivation other than simply survival. I've had to develop discipline. I've had to look deep inside myself to find what truly motivates me, and keep me going, when I don't need to make money to pay for the bills. Poker has forced me to do this. Maybe I grew up a spoilt brat, but poker doesn't care about that, it will still strip you down, and teach you the lessons you need to learn if you want to make it in this game. And if you don't follow its advice, and you don't understand the lessons, then one day, your punishment is that you won't be able to play this game again. I hope I have learnt my lessons, and that I keep grinding, and stay disciplined over the next year and ensure I never go broke again.
This year has potential to be an amazing one.
Thanks for reading.
