you cant stop the PROPHET

This could be my breakthrough year.

Trip Results
Day 1: +815
Day 2: -1038
Day 3: +1175
Day 4: +935
Day 5: +109
Day 6: -1300
Day 7: +795
Day 8: +2910

Total: +4401

Promised my girlfriend that I’d have a week off live poker after the trip, assuming that I’d need a week to get over the symptoms of working so hard.

This wasn’t the case. I’ve come out of the trip more motivated that ever. I’ve found some bigger games within a reasonable commute that I know I can definitely crush for 250/night. I’m only grinding about 10/day in EV terms online.

Since discovering this, I just want to get back in the card room and start accruing wealth. We’ve been talking about getting a house and going to the Dominican Republic on holiday, things I’d much rather grind some money out for than use my savings for. We probably need about 30k+ for a first-time buyer’s house, and the holiday we’re looking at is about 4k.

Every night bar my first back, I’ve had this pent-up energy making me super wired, and no clue what to do with it.

I either want to be in the card room grinding at night, or doing an activity. I can’t just sit around, I’m too hyper.

I HAVE BEEN PUT ON EARTH BY GOD TO DESTROY THESE CASH GAMES

I've been travelling a lot for bigger games, and I think this is how I want to operate now. I've played a lot of 2/5/10 in various cities, don't rate any of the players I've come up against.

Lost 5k this week, which brings me to a grand total of -752.14 for the year. I'm entirely unbothered, I lost this in games I'm clearly the best player in, and in hands that I played very well.

I haven't played a hand of online poker in days. I got all the "yeah I'm an online grinder" out of my system by playing 10k hands in a week, and now I'm back to working on improvement.

All I've done for the last week or so is play SB vs BTN 3BP full-hand drills, as only the SB. This is a spot I face a lot, as I 3bet this spot like 20% of the time, and everyone is so tight that I rarely have to play the BTN equivalent. I've just built out some custom trees in GTOWizard AI and am battling the solver all day.

Because so much of my motivation was hinged on getting to a point of beating 100NL and making some money live, now that I've done these things I don't know what direction to take. My goals have become about crushing - crush 100NL for more, then move up to 200NL. Crush 2/5/10 for a while, then move up to 5/10/20 eventually.

After a few months of finding my feet, I'm now into much more of a routine. I've found some bigger games two hours from me in a friend's city, who has been very generous to offer me their spare bedroom a couple nights a week. I'm now going and playing this game two nights weekly, then playing online, studying, working and exercising the other five days. This is going to be at least the way for the next couple of months, and I'll see how things go. I want to keep expenses as low as possible whilst I do this, as I just want to save up and ship out to America for a couple of months.

I've lost 7k in the last couple weeks. I'm not arsed, it's some of the best poker I've ever played, the game has just elected to not reward me for my efforts. I'll post some of the hands below.

I've lost a lot of interest in playing online recently. It just seems like a pointless affair when I can just play against the computer and improve that way. Any money I make playing online is completely diminished by the money I am going to win playing live, the experience isn't super enjoyable, and I don't get as much improvement. The Stars pool is full of a bunch of boring rakeback regs, liquidity is down everywhere else - it's just not been very fun for me.

I'm getting interested in tells and behavioural study. I bought this course about behavioural analytics that I've been watching, and it goes on a lot about deciphering patterns in people's behaviour by designing an incredibly efficient thought process. I find it fascinating, how you can be faced with all this data, and through a framework, hone in on what could potentially be hugely exploitable weaknesses that, for many, never even register mentally. It gives me something more interesting to do with the 75% of the time I'm not playing a poker hand, instead of staring at random things or scrolling BBC news.

My stress level has been high this week. I'm training new hires at the moment, which has put pressure on the "working two full-time jobs" aspect of playing poker alongside a tough corporate job. I feel like every minute lost to work is a minute of progress I'm not making in cards, and I feel the weight and pressure of these minutes as they build up. I can feel it in my forehead like a headache, and it's not enjoyable at all.

I originally didn’t think that playing poker full-time was ever going to be for me, but I don’t think that I can achieve my ambitions by part-timing this gig. I’ve fallen in love with this game as an academic endeavour, and it’s become something I want to hone holistically.

I’m motivated by the concept of success in poker. Success to me looks like holding my own in the toughest games, winning tournaments and POY awards, for numbers to go up continuously.

Money is of course a motivator as well - but I could make money easier on the corporate ladder if that were my primary focus. I want to be playing a lot on circuits, in cash games, at events, and travelling the world over. I don’t like the idea of coming out once a year to just the biggest events - I want to be in the field, battling my heart out constantly. I’ve concluded that once I have a good financial buffer zone built up (2 years?), I want to take time out of work, fight my ass off, and take it to the streets.

A friend of mine lives in a Grindhouse with a few other poker players in a very expensive part of London, and I had the opportunity to visit a while ago as we were getting lunch. They have this super cluttered shelving unit, with loads of board games and stationery on it, but at the top, they have all their cumulative trophies - EPTs GUKPT, EAPT, i’m envious. I want something I can physically hold as a testament to my ability.

I think the minimum amount I’d want to have saved is 50k. Gives me a year. At 5/10 I reckon this is about 1k to 2k hours (1 to 2 years).

I managed to find my old live poker spreadsheet today and combined it with my current one. I spent about 1500 hours in 2022 and 2023 at University, playing low stakes wherever I could find it. I had no idea that I’d won 23k over that time. I’ve pissed all of that away on alcohol and cigarettes.

In my ideal world, I’d be studying every afternoon and playing live every night, but logistically that just isn’t possible. I don’t want to move out of my nice large fancy house into some shipping container for the same price, I can’t afford 8k a month rent in Central London just so I can have a set of stairs. I also don’t want to abandon my family, so until I’m raking it in, or have one big score, I’m stuck with this. I’m only playing 90 hours next month when I’m hungry enough to play 200.

I need this big break to come.

Another month in the books. Lost -3032.47 despite good volume, good games, and hard work.

Next month there are a few themes that I am focusing hard on

Professionalism: I'm travelling to play games now because the cost/time to travel is far outweighed by the potential winrate. I've negotiated places to stay, figured out how to travel amongst cities cheaply, and learned how to maintain a healthy diet and exercise regimen. Now that I'm more grounded with regular travel, I want to focus on ensuring that I'm always performing my best.

My sleep suffered heavily last month on trips, as I found myself pushing to play 12 hours daily, make breakfast appointments with local colleagues/friends, and catch some sunlight for mental health purposes. I spent most of my live volume operating at a low-to-medium fatigue level as a result, which I noticed in hindsight caused my process to get sloppy.

I'm now at the point where I'm beginning to bake everything I do in poker into a system or routine. I'm aiming for everything to become second nature, where I'm no longer thinking "What do I do next?", and instead my energy is going into just execution. We all have a battery capacity daily, and this will inevitably run out when playing 10-12 hour days, but with a better-defended sleep routine, I will be able to operate at 100% efficiency for longer.

Live Stuff: Poker has become a real academic endeavour for me in the past month, and I'm interested in all kinds of strategies available to me at the felt now. One of which has become the behaviour that people exhibit at the table. I've started working on Blake Eastman's Beyond Tells course and I'm finding it fascinating. I'm not far enough into it to remember and apply all the content, but it has opened my eyes to an area of poker that I had never considered before. Even after a short introduction, I have been able to think more critically about behaviour at the poker table, and am drawing some of my own conclusions using the systems Eastman has designed.

I am eager to finish this course as soon as possible so I can begin looking at mastering the application of it. It feels like an incredibly overlooked and misunderstood element of the game that I can find a significant edge in. Any era of study that is largely unconsidered is a huge opportunity for edge, in what seems an ever-narrowing game.

Online Stuff: I have been disinterested in playing online poker this month. I played 13.5K hands this month, my highest volume of the year, but a lot of this was me forcing myself to have a 3/4-hour day, especially when I didn't want to. I suppose that this would fall under Professionalism and that I need to expect to not always want to put volume in - I just have to.

I hope to play about 20,000 hands in April. This would equate to playing 66 hours of online, or about 4 hours a day for half the month. This is a more than attainable goal given my calendar, and will help my sample for the year in coming along, so I can start looking at the database in H2. All the headline figures are convincingly positive - my WWSF remains above 50%, and I consistently outperform every player in my pool. I'm not at the point of firing 200NL yet but that's also because I'm unsure what that point looks like - with the game becoming much more nuanced, I don't have as concrete an idea of when I'll take the shot - do I need to be winning 5bb/100 over 100k hands? Do I need to go on an upswing so great even PrimeDope can't deny I'm the king of 100?

Whatever the answer, it's grow up time in the online streets. I need to just force myself to sit down and take what's mine, even if it's no longer engaging.

Study Stuff: In contrast, I ****ing love learning. I've broken through another barrier of understanding, and am now able to find and comprehend lots more patterns in the game. I always wanted to get to a stage where I felt able to brainsolve, and I am starting to get better at this skill. It's all come together through drilling and review - I have played more hours against the solver this month than I have the Eastern Europeans and a lot of it comes down to the fact that the solver is interesting to play against.

I want to increase the efficiency of my study next month - mainly by applying more structure in my scheduling and sleep.

Conclusion: I continue to sharpen my skills and increase my work output, but the results aren't going my way yet. I see no other explanation than that I am on a downswing, and with my planned volume of only 80 live hours and 20k hands a month, it is possible that this could last until the end of the year and beyond. I can only control my levels of ability and execution, so my efforts are focused there. Once the results come, I'll be able to up the volume and realise more edge. For now, I'm locked to only building that edge.

Online Results

Spoiler

Show

Combined

100NL

50NL

My purpose on this planet is to play this ****ing card game

The grind has taken a blow today, as I found out that it’s unlikely I’ll be able to continue staying over where I normally do when I travel. There’s no drama, just some unforeseen circumstances that have changed the situation.

Travelled down to play yesterday, and got into a great 1/3 game. My focus in these games has been to just pay attention when I’m not in a hand. People leak all sorts of information about what they’re doing, but everyone is too distracted nowadays to notice. They’re either on their phone, staring into space, watching the TV or ogling some poor woman that works here.

Games died quite fast last night however, so I phoned a friend to see how the lists were at the other casino. Open seating - so I took an e-bike and booked it over. Managed 20 minutes door-to-door which has to be a new record.

Bumped into an old University friend as I walked in which took me aback, he’d gone for steak and ended up winning £1100 on roulette. Just kept betting some guy’s birthday and it kept coming in. We caught up over a pint and made some plans for a barbecue in a few weeks, and then my seat came in for a 1/2.

Played two hands of 1/2, managed to have a short stack all-in in both, and lost both. 3bet someone light and had to call off the 4bet jam for £30 more, and the other guy i check-jammed a flush draw and two overs. Brick both and move to 1/3.

1/3 was playing crazy deep, so I bought in for as much as I could. The 6 was mandatory, and the 12 was on occasionally. In the only 25 straddle hand of the night, I flop top pair on a low board, get check-raised by a recreational, and call down. He’s got 4th pair and a flush draw when I call his jam on the turn, but he makes two pair on the river for another stack blown.

The game dies pretty soon after this as the list gets called for higher stakes. I could’ve played the 2/5 game, but there were two good online players and a heap of stain regs. 5/10/25 had 3 or 4 guys winning at high stakes online and no mega spots. I just gave up and ****ed off home.

Currently back for a second day of playing, took another e-bike to get the blood pumping and catch some sun. Probably play about twelve hours today.

I feel like doing some actual narrative makes the blog more interesting - but I’d rather try and keep my anonymity so I’m not sure how specific I’ll be if I continue this.

Another trip, another defeat. -2707.

I’ve realised now that you can just stare at people at the table. Everyone is so socially anxious that they hate making eye contact with you, so you can just watch whoever you want, whatever you want, with impunity.

Yesterday I made a conscious effort to start practicing picking people apart. My process begins by sitting down at the table and just deciding who interests me. Some of the things I look for include

• Checking their cards preflop for extended amounts of time, or with obvious variations in the time they check
  
• Placing chips on their cards
  
• Obvious strategy mistakes
  
• Players who are openly conversational and smiling
  
• High levels of facial movement
  

I generally tend to ignore regs unless I’m definitely going to be playing with them a lot. I find that they VPIP way too little to get a good sample quickly, and there’s always going to be higher-value players to study. Generally, there will be two or three players who catch my attention.

From there, it’s just like watching television. I used to spend hours scrolling social media, texting people hoping for replies, and grinding Wikipedia/BBC News, but now I am much more motivated to put the phone down when I can increase my winrate. I will sit and just study players, making notes of anything they do with their hands, posture, face, keeping note of hands so I can try and identify routines. I’ll use a player from my table yesterday as an example.

This guy was strategically weak, he VPIP’d about 40%, his hands and face moved a lot and he was pretty conversational. He clearly had experience in the game, as he had no issue handling chips and cards. I was going to be able to interact with him easily, and track his movements.

The first thing that I was interested in was his preflop routine. He had two distinct card check lengths - two or 4+ seconds. Generally his two second peel was followed by a snap decision - suggesting it was obvious. His longer peels were much more interesting however, as they often came alongside some different deviations

• Putting a chip on his cards immediately, or just before the flop
  
• Sometimes re-checking as the flop was being dealt, other times checking very quickly after
  
• Holding his cards quite tightly with both hands, or being very withdrawn with his hands
  

There were answers in here about his perception of his hand. This is one of the fun parts of this field of study - some players look at J9o on the BTN and think it’s a perfectly fine open, others labour much more over the decision as they feel like it’s a bad hand. Some players don’t even consider it a hand at all and snap much it - these people need to grow up. You can understand that they think they have a marginal hand, but without the context of what they think a marginal hand is, this information can be much less helpful.

As time went on, and we all became more tired, this guy became lazier. He started mixing two open sizes, after using just one all evening. He spent a lot more time on his phone to keep himself entertained, which allowed me to perfectly gauge his interest level in multi-way pots. He started mixing vocalised and silent actions at the table - announcing when he felt more cavalier about his action, and staying silent when he felt a greater pressure to conceal his hand strength.

I became obsessed with cracking this guy. Every time I wasn’t in a pot and he was, I was locked in. He started doing this routine where he stared at his cards for a very long time, then audibly annoucne his raise. Every time he did this, he would continue large on drier boards, so I have reason to suspect he had a good hand. However, we were on opposite sides of the table so I couldn’t see a ton of strategic benefits. I suppose if we were closer, I could tighten my 3bet range vs his opens whenever he peeled like, but I was rather helpless where I was.

The real thing I picked up was a lot more nuanced. All day, he’d been mixing this action of holding his cards postflop. Sometimes, he’d be a lot more hunched over his cards, holding quite tightly with both hands. I don’t think that it was tied to interest level, he’d played lots of pots where he was sat further back, not holding his cards, or indicating a lack of interest by using his phone, gazing at the television. I hypothesised that the reason he did this is because he was clearly interested in his hand strength, but felt that his cards were vulnerable, which is why he was subconsciously physically protecting his hand. I felt like I’d gone full schizo with this one, so paid attention to his lines when exhibiting this behaviour to try and validate/disprove this idea. I never ended up getting the sample I wanted, but he did make two cbets in 3bet pots with second pair exhibiting the exact same behaviour, so perhaps I was right.

This was very fun to do. I’ve never been more focused for the duration of a 14-hour session, and I’ve never felt more purpose consistently when playing live. The only time I have ever seen people use behaviour is when they will themselves into making a bad call at the table. Computers are able to use software to perform facial analysis on emotions, and I imagine in this AI age, we can also train a model to predict whether someone thinks they’re value betting or bluffing, along with a probabilistic function of the likelihood. That implies to me that it’s a repeatable endeavour, which means it’s something you can very good at. Given that I can’t do much productive at the poker table when I’m not in a hand, I’m happy to dedicate some of this time to attempting this. It’s also completely free to practice, I just continue playing as I normally would, and test my ability with every showdown.

Back to online this week. Losing my accommodation is going to be tough on the bankroll, I falsely assumed that this was going to be a long-term arrangement, but the building works are looking more extensive by the way, and it’s just completely unliveable. I stayed somewhere else this week, but that’s not a long-term solution - it’s much tougher to get proper rest and feel clean in the morning, and I frankly just don’t want to work like that.

Come May, when I lose my accommodation, I have a couple options:

• Go back to commuting in the car. Every game near me is much smaller than what I’ve been playing, the drives are long and dangerous when I’m really fatigued, and it really ****s my sleep schedule.
  
• Play online exclusively, and try to make big events when they come near me. This was the original plan before this current opportunity opened up. I think that I would achieve the greatest rate of improvement by doing this, and I would also have the cleanest routine, and most free time (no travelling or vomit horus). However, the money would be much, much slower (I average about 300 hph). I don’t know how long it would take to get to 500NL+, but for that stretch of time I would be likely still in the red.
  
• Take single-day trips to play, with late trains back in the evening. I can get action all-day, but the final train leaves at about midnight. This equates to half the volume for double the travel expense.
  

I think a mix of all three of these is the best solution. Not locking myself down months in advance and not wasting time is going to be the key.

Oh, and going full schizo.

Pensive day. I'm hurting - I thought I'd finally found the path to breaking out and growing a bankroll. That's probably why I've been so productive on the blog this weekend.

The combination of taking the biggest nominal downswing of my career, combined with being locked out of the games in which I created this downswing, has gotten to me. I failed in assuming that my temporary solution was going to be, at least for the next 6 months, permanent - and in doing so set myself up for this inevitable moment.

The reality of my situation is that I have dug myself a hole to get out of. I still have about 60 hours of bigger game volume in my schedule, and things could improve for me. I only need 2 or 3 great days and my entire year looks a lot different. In that respect, I suppose it is pointless for me to be stressing what I'm going to do in May. I'm trying to predict what I need to do without knowing what situation I'm going to be in.

I'm going to have to keep battling online, I'm going to have to get some live volume in these lower-stake games, and I'm going to have to have some commute days. I can't just cross my arms and sit in a huff because my situation has changed. It's just a hurdle on my journey that I will have to overcome if I want to make progress. I need to dispel the idea that I'm too good to have to move down.

I've realised now that I need to overhaul my strategy if I'm going to

• 1. Improve beyond my current level at the game
  
• 2. Dig me out of this fat hole I've put myself in
  

My eyes have been entirely opened recently to some new things. In live poker, I've realised that I can sit for hours and study individual players for their physical behaviours, and more nuance in their strategy, to try and pull off large deviations to counter their style of play.

In Online, my goal is a little bit different. I am not concerned with my results, I am only using online poker to further my understanding of GTO strategy. My long-term goal is to be able to play very accurate GTO poker, off which I can base my deviations. Frankly, my approach so far has been pretty rudimentary and, whilst it's got me to beating 100NL comfortably, it isn't going to take me any higher.

I need to fall in love with RNG. Most of my postflop decisions are very much hand play, and this leads me to have exploitable nodes where my strategy lacks the nuance to keep my range protected. We're reaching the point where I'm facing players with much more balanced and accurate strategies, and I need to start implementing the same.

This comes about as a result of two actions from myself

• 1. Fall in love with the randomiser. Establish a habit of using it in every decision, like I do when training so that I have a much more accurate set of frequencies. This will probably reduce the amount of time I can focus, as it is considerably more mental work when playing.
  
• 2. When training, take considerable note of the detail in frequencies. Understand where and why we have this balance, and over time implement it into having a more controlled strategy.
  

This essentially means re-writing the book again. I'm going to have to tear some pages out in order to rectify them, but I expect that down the line, I will be a fundamentally better player.

Reading back through the early days of this blog. It's incredibly cringe. I wish I could wipe all the unintelligent stuff.

I still agree with this though.

Another trip down. 2 days, 25 hours, -363 result. Was up about 1.5k on the week at one point, until a preflop spot.

I’d had a hand about 30 minutes prior with this player, it went something along the lines of

This player was incredibly aggressive, and I think a bit too used to just putting lots of money in the pot. Private game regs are frequently like this, they’re not actually any good, they’re just so used to being better than the players they have access to that they just stick money in dead a lot.

I had the idea to try and replicate this situation, as I got the vibe this guy was going to convince himself I was “making a move”. Hand went like this

It’s frustrating to continue downswinging depsite working so hard, but this is the brutal truth of the game. I just have to grit my teeth and bear it. I put 25 solid hours in this time, and will be back to put another 50 hours in over the course of the month. I’m not considering my options for the future until I get to that point.

I am getting better at my ability to read and identify behavioural tendencies from players. I had a super interesting pot yesterday where I had the opportunity to put my skills into action.

I am considering doing some coaching in the meantime just to increase my monthly stable income. I see some people offering coaching for microstakes and low stakes live for $50+/hr, i could easily dedicate 8-10 hours a month for this and just increase that side of income. I’m a bit anxious about not being able to provide enough valuable insight, but I’m a good player and capable of explaining my thoughts well.

Journey back was hell. I missed my connecting train originally, due to the first leg of the journey having to wait behind another service. I arrived after the time for the scheduled connection, but when I got in, the train was still there, with around 50 people bunched at every door. For whatever reason, every service was incredibly oversubscribed, and I didn’t make it on.

I’d travelled with a friend who was getting picked up his boyfriend, so chose to run to the supermarket with them to kill some time. We’re hosting an Italian-themed dinner party this evening at ours, so I bought some digestivos for our guests, and some wine for the first course. I have to clean and start warming our wood-fired hot tub this afternoon in preparation. The sun is out, it’s around 21 degrees, so it’s prime weather for it.

I’m back to the grind on Tuesday, which is terribly exciting. Hopefully I’ll get to put another 25 hours in, and this time results will go the way they’re supposed to. All I can do is continue playing well.

Huh? He 4bet/called off AJs for 400bbs? That aint a reg dude. Thats just a ******.

Yeah, I used incorrect terminology. He was not a reg, but he gave the vibe of someone who was there way too regularly. There are lots of terrible PLO players out there that the Yellow Line hasn't caught up to.

21 hours play, +6516 the result.

I’ve never had a session like I had on Tuesday. Hitting when in hands, hitting when out of hands - image of a maniac because I’m in practically every pot. Dishing out cooler on cooler, stacking up. I won +4597 that day at ⅓. 1500 big blinds is an insane swing for nine hours.

It’s not like this was a mindless collection of money. Playing 300+ big blinds deep, it’s very easy to autopilot and not get all the money in. Winning the maximum was constantly at the forefront of my mind in every spot; otherwise, all these 2k pot coolers would have ended up as 800 pot coolers or worse.

Here’s an example

Wednesday was a lot slower. I had two similar cooler spots early on in the session to get up about 2500, but the hot run concluded, and I spent the next eight hours sitting around, just trying to get something going.

I’ve started getting more aggressive in multiway pots. I think live players are way too weak-passive in these pots, and there are lots of opportunities to pick spots. Players overcall too much preflop, so you end up against ranges that contain a lot of trash, ranges that fold a lot to a double barrel, and such.

I’ve also just become way more aggressive in general. I think the results of the session brought about more confidence to go with what I thought was right, and a lot of it ended up paying off.

Example:

I still haven’t figured out how not to feel like **** doing these regular trips. I’m still not guarding my sleep properly (7hr and 6hr, the goal is 8hr), so I feel very tired as I write this on the train back. I’m still quite phlegmy and unwell, but I can’t tell if this is the result of illness or hayfever. I didn’t bring any allergy tablets down with me this time. Today is going to be a write-off at home, likely.

Thumb is in ****ing pieces. Very aware that I’m currently on a path to carpal tunnel and arthritis. I’ve gotten very good at not touching my phone when I’m off the felt, but when I’m at the felt, I’m holding it a lot. There’s not even anything interesting to look at. The combination of travelling, playing 12+ hour days, and having to employ not just a theoretical, but now a behavioural strategy in my game, my level of fatigue is very high. Keeping constant focus when not in hands, regulating phone usage, and my behaviour fell off this week. I don’t know what the solution is, to be honest, but I’ve got a good start this weekend.

I’m driving up North this week to spend time with some old friends from my teenage years. I don’t talk to anyone that I went to school with anymore - I put no effort into maintaining these bridges whilst at University and I think that, although it wasn’t intentional, I was a bit of dickhead at school, so I can see why people haven’t jumped at the idea of reconnecting with me now that we’re all grown up. I think we’re going to the beach and doing some barbecuing, as we’re celebrating one of our group members moving into a new apartment with his partner. As such, no poker this weekend. Very grateful to have the opportunity to get some rest.

The shape of May is looking a lot different now, compared to how it was a week ago. I’ve got a couple of opportunities to make further progress. I have about 30 hours more of volume in these ⅓ games, and it’s not impossible that the upswing continues and we win another 5k. I’ve also won an entry online to a 500 tournament, so I have the opportunity to spin that up from 1k-25k. Planning to put my best foot forward for these opportunities, and we’ll see how it goes.

I spent the weekend drinking, relaxing, and planning for the next month. I meant to clean the garden and the car but it's pissing wet and I can't be bothered.

My brain is fried, so the quality of my writing will be reduced for this post.

I've realised that I can't work an 8-hour job, play 12-hour sessions, go to the gym, sleep 8 hours and eat a healthy diet. There are not enough hours in the day. I've played like 70 strong hours this month, on top of 24 hours travelling, and it's had detrimental effects. I spent most of the month unwell and overtired. My productivity and availability have been a lot lower at work, and I have become anxious that it has become very noticeable. I have appreciated the ability to win at a much higher rate, but it's proven tough to sustain in the long run. I need to find an alternative way of approaching the problem.

For May, then, I'm going back to basics. I'm returning to the system I was operating in March, this time with a bit more structure in my schedule and clarity on my priorities.

The first problem I'm fixing in March is my flexibility. I built in rigid times for myself, and this system was unable to handle interrupts such as last-minute work tasks, my girlfriend needing things, phone calls or having to go to the bank. This time around, I have time goals for each of the important tasks in my life, instead of rigid start and stop times. This way, everything can move about without me stressing or panicking.

The next problem was my health. This month, my sleep schedule has been all over the place, and at lots of different times. 10-7, 2-7, 4-9, and my productivity and health have tanked as a result. I want to get back into a vaguely consistent sleep routine, be at home a lot so I can exercise and eat healthy meals, and get back to 100%. It sucks walking round feeling like a zombie all the time and getting nothing done.

I'm returning to the original idea that I founded this blog upon, last year in Mexico, but without all the arrogance. I've learnt a lot in the last nine months and made some significant progress, not least in my understanding of how difficult this process is. I have to remain humble and disciplined in my pursuits.

Starting the 28th, we're playing online four days a week, live two days a week, and taking a full rest day at least one day a week. Normally, this rest day will be Saturday, as my girlfriend is still working a conventional work schedule, and these playing days will be Thursday and Friday, the other two of the three best days for poker. These live days will comprise about eight hours each, played within an hour's drive, so I can still guard my sleep. I have to be awake for work 9-5 Mon-Fri, so I will be tanking my sleep on Friday morning, but this is the least damaging day I could pick as no one does much work then anyway.

These online days (normally Sun-Wed) will start with a gym session, followed by all outstanding work calls and tasks, then by some deep poker study, and then playing whatever time I have left. Rest time is sacred, I will need to maximise whatever I can get. My gym plans and meal plans are already made, and I follow them when at home, so I've not put any work in there.

For now, I need to be defensive with my bankroll. I'm close to digging out of the hole, with two tournament shots this week (I satellited into another) and around 20-30 hours of live cash yet to be played. I think it is wise to just dig out of the downswing and focus on improvement.

I'm very excited to return to a routine. I am healthier, happier, and more productive when I'm in one. Home is very much the best base for my operation. The flexibility of my schedule is due to be tested a few times this month due to things I already have planned, but I'm confident that I can rise to the challenge. I want to take more steps now on my journey to 200NL.

Bricked first tournament. I had a super stressful day at work and then had a stressful journey, going one way to my accommodation and another to the cardroom.

Frankly, the room was grim. The people weren't pleasant, there were no waitstaff for water/food, the place was hot and stank of men. I could just feel the level of stress within me, and just couldn't handle it, playing terribly.

Was going to go and play a few late-night hours of cash before returning home, but instead made the great decision to hang it up and go home. I've woken up with 8 hours of sleep, feeling great and ready for the day. I've got a meeting 11-12, a quick move to a different flat, and then a 12-hour session. I think I can get about 30 hours of poker in over the next three days, on top of the next tournament on Friday.

update?

Exhausted and unwell all month. Need to be more efficient with my time and put more energy into my physical/mental health to keep this business sustainable. Live poker got in the way.

May 2025

All of 2025