you cant stop the PROPHET

What site were u holding teh lobby on?

some low-liquidity UK-facing shite. likely no one is playing on it here because **** all people are.

gym is full of crackheads this morning. i reckon i need to start appending hill-walking to the end of resistance training sessions to add to the calories burnt.

so each session would be the benefits of building the muscle PLUS 200-250 calories burnt.

tons of crackheads in the gym today. i wish i’d have gotten here on-time instead of half an hour late.

hard to dig out hands to post without being easily identifiable anymore. only gets harder as time passes. maybe i’ll have to give it more time.

didn’t play a lot today, won about 1.5 buyins in EV. need to get back into studying grind tomorrow.

gym was a relaxed affair, 30 minutes up a steep hill at 4 speed. kept my estimated calorie count under budget and ate a reasonably healthy combination of meals.

chased up some work stuff, read some book, an overall relaxed affair.

football on weekend, we’re away at my girlfriends team. good opportunity to mix with her side of the family again. they’re pretty heavy drinkers the lot of them, but i can hide behind the shield of designated driver. i’m sure they don’t want their daughter mangled in some wreck on the motorway. i don’t want to be mangled either really.

had a nice weekend off. played next to no cards, got the hot tub running, went to the football.

feeling motivated to continue the weight loss grind this week. my weight has at a minimum stagnated, and seems to be slowly climbing up again. I've got some functions to attend over the next two months, and I'd like to be able to turn up with a level of noticeable physical change, both in terms of muscle gain, and fat lost.

this can only really be achieved by longer stints in the gym. I'm still slowly increasing the number of individual exercises i do, so as to not overload my muscles and exhaust myself.

an easy method is going to be to append a 30-minute incline walk to every strength session. this will target a completely different group, and just tack an extra 250 calories burned to every gym session that i do.

this way i can gain muscle (increase daily TDEE), lose more fat (increase deficit) and maintain calorific intake.

i'd like to be 65kg at some point. if i were to lose 1kg a week i think that would be unhealthy, but perhaps i can manage an average of 0.5kg? we shall see.

will try to remember to add music to posts now

I turned 24 a couple of weeks ago, and I've seemed to have developed this melancholy that I can't seem to shake. for whatever reason, it's been tougher to push on for goals, i feel a general malaise in the daytime and lack of focus. it's all very much a can't be arsed feeling. it's 3:45pm and i feel absolutely exhausted.

i haven't taken all steps to overcome this yet - going to the gym when my girlfriend gets off work, only had a couple of days of consistent sleep. one of my clients that i met has fallen ill over the weekend, so perhaps i am experiencing symptoms of this?

spent the majority of today playing the guitar. i want to write a song at some point - I'm a huge fan of the soundscape of Room on Fire by The Strokes, and want to put some time into developing something that can have the same effect that these songs had on me.

I've been playing some terrible poker of late. Ever since I moved up, my balls seem to have shrank when on the defence. i just seem to not be calling enough vs aggression, which may have served me well when facing under-aggressive 50nl players, but with some of the better 200nl regs coming down during the high-stakes drought hours, this heightened cautiousness doesn't achieve very much. I did some studying this morning, playing 3bc spots in the trainer, but I've both not had serious motivation, and am not as receptive to the motivation.

not sure how to locate my spark again as of yet. i want to be able to sit at my desk and churn out hours of study, thousands of hands, and enjoy the process. right now, I'm not.

identified some of the problem. 100 feels kinda hopeless at the minute. i feel like i’m playing my C-Game, i feel like i’m not able to cut my teeth at this level.

feels very much like i’m back at square one, at square six. i learnt all i needed to in order to beat previous stakes, but now i have this massive list of things i need to get good at in order to move up again. it’s like moving up a year in school just to have a seemingly insurmountable amount of work on your plate. it’s defeating.

i need to find whatever i did at 50 to get me past the tasks in front of me, else i’m not going to make progress

drew up a plan today for how I'm going to get my mojo back.

I'm focusing on the most common nodes in the most common spots. we're talking 3-handed games, all the spots where i think it's the most valuable to be perfect. e.g. 4BP SB vs BB Flop Cbet is important within 4BPs, but is infrequent when compared to SB vs BTN 3BP Flop Cbet, or BB vs BTN 2BP facing CBet. Once you factor in the pot sizes, 3BPs become super important to play really well.

Thinking of things this way gives me more guidance in what I'm doing. I often get stuck with decision paralysis when considering what kind of study to do - this will help.

Did a lot of BvB 2BP stuff today - just getting the flop strategies down so I can look at more important nodes. I was able to focus mostly during this work today, and find myself playing 100 as we speak. I feel less "doom and gloom" today about everything.

I dropped my girlfriend off at the train station this morning, I'm alone until Friday. Going to venture into the city near me pretty soon to max late reg the daily tournament there. I just want to get some social time in - and also think it would be funny to turn up and win it. The rake is diabolical (16%!) and the hourly practically nothing on it, this is just for triumph. I'll probably fumble around with the live cash afterwards for a bit.

Made it to the gym for a pull session today, marking two days in a row. As I've done fewer pull sessions I have less tolerance for it, so the session concluded after four exercises. I didn't get on the treadmill as my phone died in the middle of an important conversation with a friend - so I had to go home asap to charge it.

Tomorrow, depending on when I get to bed, I'll wake up and go to the gym. I'll then clean the garden and do some more work on BvB 2BPs.

It's starting to look like I'm not managing 30k hands this month, and not for lack of trying. Right now I've played 20k hands, but with my girlfriend's parents coming up, I'll be losing 3 super important days to the final push.

Hopefully over the next few days, I'll find more enjoyment in the process. I spoke to a few friends today about my struggles with motivation and they told me that the mountain of work/never-ending things to discover are part of the process, and what makes it fun for them. It's what makes it fun for me as well - I love discovering new things in the game tree and being able to apply it in game. I love identifying mistakes from my opponent in-game, where I KNOW in that moment that I've worked harder.

Another factor, that I failed to mention, is that it's not been going well since I moved up. Whilst the result is practically breakeven, this redline is ****ing awful, and suggests that in another 30k hands of 100, I will likely not be winning. My ego is upset by this revelation - and I've struggled to frame it in a healthy way.

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50NL on the other hand has been going fine. Clear winner at this stake.

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I'm just going to try and stay locked in, and hopefully results will come. This jump from 100 to 200 is probably a year in the making, so I need to stay consistent for a year. We shall see.

put up absolute masterclass in ICM. played extremely well, bubbled jamming 66 in the SB and running into KK. seems unfair that i hit a 6 and lose.

the adrenaline for being at a final table is unmatched. the adrenaline of being so much better than the rest of the field is unmatched. i want that feeling every day that i play poker - cash game or tournament.

I'm hungry to chase that feeling down in 100, then 2/5, then 200, then 5/10, then 500, then 10/20/40, then beyond.

it's 3am so not likely I'm getting up at 7am, but i think this night will prove to be a pivotal one in my poker journey. bubbled a tourney and lost 50 quid but gained a fire that will pay serious dividends.

song choice because i can play the solo now

reeling the effects of staying up until 3am this morning. definitely could've done with a bit more sleep.

currently hoovering the house and just made it up to the desk upstairs. I've ordered all the necessary tasks in terms of impact of the cleanliness feeling of the house:

• hoovering the carpets and rugs
  
• cleaning the windows
  
• mopping the floors
  
• raking the garden
  
• cleaning the drive
  
• de-weeding the garden
  
• cleaning the oven
  

i probably won't get all of this done today - but it's a start.

i want to study turns in BvB 2BPs today - this is a key step in turning single-raised pots into 200bb pots and I need to make sure I can identify all the pot/overbet spots when i want to start going crazy with it. haven't really seen much overbetting at 100 so i think it'll print even more based on people's lack of experience.

i should probably also do an hour of treadmill walking in the gym but cleaning is first on the list. I've also got to bake a cake for my girlfriend's parents - they want a victoria sponge which is the most limited test of my ability of a baker ever - might try and find a way to make it more interesting (new jam? triple layer? idk)

Dude just get a woman to do all that ****.

what a disgusting thing to say. it’s shameful that at your age you would say something so full of contempt for women.

Lol ngmi...

Have fun cleaning ur windows bro.

I think he just meant: "Get a cleaning lady/maid" 😀

x-pensive in UK... I would clean myself , for someone to do all that probably costs 500 pounds .

In UK they don't have slaves anymore unlike there in jungle Big-Bananas.

he has a gf. and a mum.

yup but would he make a list to his gf to do these chores , she would say hey bb100 , Fu , I don't need to bcz i can go on Tinder and find 100 dudes who want to bang me , please me , clean my place etc. bcz I'm a woman

It was somewhere 50 years back when you could just work a job there and expect to get some hot food and a bj when you go home and see ur house being cleaned

But that's why we got this passport bros movement too ...

October 1-28 Review

Disaster.

I decided to draw this month to a close early, to allow for some segmentation of my approach to things. I'll start with on-felt.

ON-FELT

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All Stakes

100NL

50NL

50NL continues to go well, I feel completely comfortable at this stake. If I wanted to, I could happily start farming volume at this stake, but it wouldn't prove very beneficial. There isn't much more to say other than that I will do my best to keep up the performance.

100NL has been underwhelming. Whilst I'm practically breakeven after 8000 hands, the redline death I've experienced for the last 5000 has been disappointing. I've never experienced redline death for this long being "variance", normally it just means I'm not playing well enough in the pool.

And that's to be expected - 100NL seems to have a lot more good/great regs coming down when the liquidity is poor at higher stakes, so games are of course much tougher than 50NL will be.

Like when I struggled at 50, it's a case of consistent work until I start to see results. And that's where we come to off-felt...

OFF-FELT

Off-felt started well this month. I was eating well, exercising regularly, and not drinking much at all. However, things started falling apart after about a week, as I had some friend and work visits which involved some pretty heavy drinking. From here, the discipline just fell apart.

The travelling and regular 1000-calorie surpluses (entirely composed of lager) caused some impressive weight gain. I haven't been over 71kg in 4 months, and the trend is suggesting that I'm starting to gain weight.

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My sleep has also been pretty diabolical. I've consistently been going to bed at later times, whilst still waking up at 7 am.

BACK ON THE WAGON
My calendar is looking pretty empty for the next month - which will allow me to focus on myself and the work. I've edited my plans for the gym, fleshed out a meal plan, and re-designed how I'm studying.

As always, it comes back to the consistency and quality of work that I am performing. If I can maintain the discipline I've had previously, things will be fine.

There's some alternate timeline where I quit drinking for life also, and it's probably insanely +EV to do so. I've already limited my planned consumption to a party with friends mid-month, and a Christmas party at the end - I don't plan to drink any other days.

Nice update! Keep up the good work!

Keeping this blog updated day-to-day took up a lot of mental space. I decided it wasn't healthy for me to post every thought I had, and stay glued to this platform.

It hasn’t gone very well since my last post four weeks ago.

-13bb for 20k hands, redline tanking, and blue line tanking.

In terms of online, this is the worst period I’ve ever faced. I had a rough two days last week, losing 14 buyins in less than 2k hands. I dumped a bag super quick, and it really rocked me.

I moped around the house, feeling very depressed, for about a day and a half. The night of the second session, I tossed and turned in bed for over an hour, lamenting my woes as a wasted player, stressing over the financials and how my dreams were shattered. What would I do now that I’ve failed as a player? Maybe curling? Not a lot of money in that.

I took the weekend off. I dusted off my bookshelf and dug out The Mental Game of Poker. I had read it before in the past, half-understanding information as I blitzed through the pages, ”oh, I don’t have a tilt problem so this doesn’t apply to me”, ”i’m not afraid to lose money so i don’t have any fear issues”, I’d say as I flipped through the sections I couldn’t be bothered to read. Safe to say, on my first runs when I bought the book last year, I got nothing out of it.

I like to think I’m a bit wiser now, and the approach I took this time was extremely academic. I treated this book like a tome, studying it down to the fine details. It’s ironic, I put more effort into this book than any of my University textbooks (one day I may live to regret my inertia on that front). I read every word, condensed every concept, and generated 30 pages of written notes - anger, fear, confidence, burnout, resolution, inchworm model. I like to think I am more clued up on this book now than 99% of players.

This took me to Sunday afternoon. From there, I began typing instead. I wanted to identify what concepts from the book could be applied to my own poker career. What mental games issues did I have? What was I too blind/incredulous to admit to myself? Here’s what I’ve figured out so far:

CONFIDENCE
It’s quite difficult to consider myself as someone who is lacking in confidence. When I think of the term, my head always considers it in a social context, an unconfident person being someone afraid to speak up or out. I have always been ready to work hard, take on new challenges, revel in competitive success, talk to new people.

For me to be “underconfident” came as a surprise. TMGP has a list of thoughts/feelings associated with each “condition” to aid in self-diagnosis, and as I read each quote, it painted a picture near identical to that of mine. Long nights stressed awake in bed, hopelessness about ever turning results around.

This underconfidence never seems to harm me (consciously at least) at the table, but I can see how it may present as that niggling doubt, as I attempt to convince myself into a river jam. For me, it shows up as embarrassment around peers and poker playing friends, unwillingness to discuss strategy for fear of being wrong.

MISTAKE TILT
This one came as less of a surprise. I remember being seven years old, my parents brought into school to discuss my engagement in class.

”He’s brilliant on the homework and solo exercises, we just wish he’d contribute more”

I haven’t thought about being a child for a long time until recently. It has helped to contextualise some of the problems i’m facing, but it’s also pleasant to rediscover things/people/places i’ve enjoyed.

I’ve always struggled with getting things wrong. “Failing”, which eventually manifests into a feeling of failure within myself. Most things in my life have come relatively naturally, falling into place. Jobs just fell into the palm of my hand, ”of course” my school grades were among the top in the country. My lack of experience with failure has finally began to haunt me, as the last two years of my life have been more fraught with it.

My response, however, has been insolence. So afraid of failure that I’ve been that I’ve not worked hard for much without seeing early success. It’s pretty common among gifted students who were never faced with failure, to become overloaded when real life hits them.

I’ve had to completely reshape the process of learning in my head. I’ve had to realise that mistakes and failure aren’t something to fear, they are merely signposts on the way to success. This has been very uncomfortable to do, as it involves unpicking years worth of “mistake rot” - it’s for a good reason. I am finding ****ing up to be less bothersome already. I’m not riddled with anxiety asking for help with a hand history, or talking to poker friends about strategy.

Symbiotically, this has aided my confidence as well. Not walking around with the weight of every mistake in my life has been freeing. I’m not currently depressed about poker, and feel even a bit optimistic about the future.

BURNOUT
It turns out that I’m not the lazy slob I’ve always considered myself to be. I’m not supposed to be going all guns blazing 24/7, always doing something productive or contributory to my goals, restricting myself of any rest/junk food/sleep.

My motivation is a blessing and a curse. A blessing that inspires me to write this blog, produce music, start a business, pursue poker and exercise, all at blistering speeds. A curse that does not take itself, taking every ounce of my energy until I am left a husk for days at a time, self-loathing and pitiful.

Curbing my motivation is a diligent exercise. The idea of having one day off from poker a week was laughable when I read it, but paired with the experience of taking rest days, I can see the logic. I feel less pressure, less stressed, and more able-bodied on my six “GO” days. That tactical pit stop weekly is doing wonders for my physical and mental health, and my performance.

I have no idea what to do on rest days. I had one yesterday, getting up at 8am instead of 7am, moping round the house looking at my art and my pictures. I watched three hours of daytime TV (i rarely ever have it on), taking naps. I couldn’t be bothered to leave the house. I had this feeling all day of not making the most of it - but I had no motivation to. It was like being in an airport lounge, just waiting for my flight so I could go back to what I wanted to be doing - working my arse off.

I need to work on my rest days a bit more.

FEAR OF FAILURE
Again, I never considered “fear of failure” to be an issue of mine. I had such an expectation in my head that I was going to succeed, and no real plan of how I was going to do that. As you can start to see, many of these issues are very intertwined. Any mistake I made was considered a threat to that expectation, and setback a life-altering incident that would shatter my long-term plans. This would lead to confidence issues, anxiety at night, and an overall lower quality of life.

This issue was caused by how I structured my plans. I had ”goals”, but without any meaningful strategy behind them, I just expected them to happen if I kept horsing around enough. ”I should be a high stakes player by now”, I would think to myself, the setting in of reality dulling my motivation to work ever further.

Another issue was that all my goals were “result” goals. Everything was written as it was supposed to end up, not how I was going to get there. I can’t just wake up and crush 1KNL, I have to study six days a week for four hours, for years. By understanding the process behind the achievements I want, I produced “process” goals, like studying and playing certain volumes, that will guarantee the result goals if I remain consistent with them.

I also had to rewrite all my goals out in a different way:

• Goal Title (e.g. WIN AT 100NL)
  
• Why do I want to achieve this goal?
  
• How am I going to achieve this goal?
  
• What could potentially distract me from this?
  
• How am I going to mitigate these distractions?
  

I’ve done this for over 20 of my goals now, decomposing them further and further into actionable tasks that I can now track my performance in daily. I am seeing daily success because it is no longer measured in single gigantic events but in small wins daily. I feel much better.

There is a litany of other smaller mental game issues that I discovered on this week-long journey, but I only have so much effort to write a dissertation on them. I’ve been fully converted into a “mental game”-believer, putting in regular time weekly to assess the state of things, work on improvements and measure success. It involves a lot of typing into documents. I’ve become a lot more professional in my approach to the game also. I’ve built pre- and post-game forms to fill in, where I reflect on my strategy’s strengths and weaknesses, how I felt during the session, and other things like being able to recognize variance and the skill of myself/my opponents. That helps me put poker down at the end of the day and relax better.

I took four days off in total and began playing 4 days ago. Safe to say, it’s not gone much better.

But my consideration of this result is much different. I’m not stressed, I know that I am attempting a difficult thing, and will face setbacks. I know that the hands I punt are opportunities for improvement, and have already made considerably more progress than I had the rest of the month.

I have a plan, with actionable steps and measurable goals, which makes knowing the next move much easier when doing the work. I’m not tired all the time, because I’m taking regular rest breaks during sessions and in the week.

This looks and smells like progress. I feel like I have a lot more longevity in my new approach.

I looked at the logistics of taking some trips or playing more live this weekend. Safe to say, it’s not looking likely just yet. I think my plan, at least until the end of 2025, is to stay at home, work hard to improve, and play online. I doubt I’ll make a heap of money doing it, but I have a job, who cares? It’s been so long since I grinded live poker properly (2022), I can rock up to the live scene a fresh face, crushing 200NL, able to take on the world.

Let’s be having you.

EDIT: Blog updates are likely only going to be once or twice a month now. It takes a lot of time to write everything up, and although I enjoy it, it's very tiresome on the brain, especially after 11 hour days. With larger gaps, I can also show larger changes in results, and give more condense insight.

One month into playing 100nl and it has been a ****ing disaster.

I feel confident that I have a place at this stake. The regs here are not playing great poker and I can see it. I can pick out lots of mistakes. However, the results have become hard to argue with.

Whilst I am all for maintaining a stable confidence level, when the results are like this it becomes tough to argue against. Confidence should be influenced by hard sample.

Knowing that I have boxed out 2025 for an entirely online grind, I have nothing but time on my hands now.

I'm accepting defeat at 100NL for now, and moving back to 50NL for a month. Study and playing volumes will remain the exact same, and I intend to put out the best 25k hands that I can. I reckon I'll play about 20 days (Christmas and all) next month. I'll see how things have gone at the end of the month, and move back to January if I'm happy with the results.

I'm determined to not let this beat me - I want to establish myself at 100NL, but it seems that right now isn't the time yet. It hurts to have to admit defeat, but I will be back.

took the rest of the month off to prepare some christmas stuff. found a new football team, did a diabolical leg day. no chance i’m walking tomorrow so it’s back in the grind for december.

looking at my schedule with work and family, looks like i’m missing 7 days this month minimum. this isn’t the end of the world, if i stay focused on playing well i will remain on target.

mental game is a whole new frontier now. i explained it to my girlfriend as “i’m now fighting a war on two fronts”. now conscious of my propensity to tilt and become depressed about my game, my workload has increased as i now see a means to an end for these problems.

i’ve actually made significant progress already, solving smaller issues I had such as:

• mistake tilt
  
• burnout
  
• stabilising my motivation
  
• developing healthier habits
  

but i foresee more issues on the horizon, namely:

• underconfidence
  
• feeling like money is lost forever
  
• allowing results to affect my believed edge
  
• feeling like i should be winning by now
  
• understanding my own strengths and weaknesses
  
• remaining fully focused for long periods of time
  

poker has become one long chain. if i stay up until 12:30am and go full throttle the next day, i tilt much easier and have a worse session. my underconfidence makes me more desperate, which leads to anxiety when losing. if i eat poorly, i feel sluggish, and miss nuanced check-raises/probes i before would find with ease.

at my best, i’m playing really good strategy. at my worst, i hate myself, i don’t think things through properly and lose lots more than i need to. thankfully my worst will prove easy to improve.

funny how i actually ended up where i began this thread in august, eating super cleanly, eating really well and exercising lots. it’s a diligent routine that will provide incredible results if i stay up to date with it.

i likely won’t post until the end of the month, but i am committed to playing my best. hopefully i’ll report that i’ve managed it, and that the results are favourable.

war starts tomorrow.

Nice updates. I can relate a lot to the fear of failure, and on top of that fear of success. What if I succeed and have to live with the pressure of continuing my success?

You are not alone with any of those thoughts, and I'm very impressed by how you are approaching and acknowledging everything.

Glad to hear that you share your thoughts with your gf. I think it's very common to be stubborn and go through the struggles alone and never look vulnerable to the outside. Being vulnerable and transparent to the right person, just once, can do wonders!

I'm sure you will win a lot of your wars, not all of them but at least the ones that matter the most for your success and well being. And if you don't succeed as a poker player, or decide you don't want to, that's also ok. Don't lose yourself, the person that is much more than just a poker player.

Good luck!