Making it Count; 500nl+ and Life in the 2020s.

Hey amigos - randomly inspired to update this right now with my end of 2023 post from the bitB server 😀

Firstly - the gap since last post here.
I could write so much about my poker experience in 2022. I basically started with an insane downswing, think I lost 8 months in a row whilst winning in bbs. It was never as bad as it looked since I sold so much action 10k+, but it felt awful a lot of the time.
Broke up with a girlfriend I was super into, had insane overload with coaching and managing emotions of life + high stakes poker + downswing.

In a way as with everything, I'm glad I went through it, it's part of the journey, and I learnt so much from this period. I'll kind of leave it at that, with a graph + my podcast with the Wakko and Adam which was a really therapeutic experience for me actually, discussing this kind of period.

I also think I made my best coaching video ever for bitB at the end of it too, reflecting on a whole aspect of poker I didn't consider before. Mental game and stopping results seeping into life quality is really so much bigger than I could ever have imagined.
Ultimately, despite all the pain and variance of the last couple of years I think I crossed the $1.5 million mark in my own action since I started this blog and quit my job 5 years ago, which is a result I'd have been truly thrilled with at the outset.

Graphs of downsing:

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2023

2023 Update:

Firstly, going to have to disappoint you all with no graphs or stats, because on laptop in Thailand and can't access them ��

I think I won approx. $350k all in including jackpots and some app losses - at quite a low EV w/r of 2.1bb/100, and around 350k hands.
I'm happy to have had a decent $ year, but a bit disappointed by w/r I guess. A lot of battling in there though and high rake games on GG.
I also had 3 +$100k months this year, so another reflection for everyone on not putting too much weight on low sample graphs you see on twitter.com etc.

Most importantly, I think I learnt more about myself this year than I ever had before, and enjoying the journey through the world more than ever.

the real EV comes from keeping your head down, improving in mental game, improving technical game, maintaining professionalism for long periods

going to reflect a bit on my year through this snippet I just posted in someone elses blog.

I think that mental game for me has just slipped and slipped the last few years. It always starts as a bit of fun to say random unrealistic things 'my account is cursed' 'Jhon is unbeatable' but all of these things kind of seep into mindset and make playing less enjoyable, seeing through the noise harder. It's something I really want to work on through poker this year tbh, using it as mechanism to test myself and control my thoughts and feelings better. Poker just is one of the hardest environments to avoid toxicity and irrational thoughts in, so if we can remain balanced whilst playing, it can only be good for the rest of life.

Technical game, I think I improved, a lot relative to the 1k/2k field, probably not enough relative to higher. I saw redacted work ethic and precision talking hands here in Thailand and it was quite eye opening to me, didn't quite appreciate how big the difference could be - and also inspiring in terms of what I can work toward in future. I also think it's proabably a good reminder that there are other young fresh kids like redacted out there, and I should be a bit more selective in my battles ��

Professionalism - I think that in general I've always been quite good at showing up, but almost too good sometimes. Days where I'm coaching, prepping, studying, working out, I can probably avoid trying to force volume too nowadays. I also need to work on ego a bit - because I have so many BIs for the stakes I play I kind of often just assume I can out fight everyone for lobbies etc, but have taken it way way too far with infinite tables all regs where I can't really expect a good WR.

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Where to go in 2024:

I think it makes less and less sense for me to be grinding infinite volume at 1k for me. Without being too self indulgent, I really don't think I'll need the money, and if it comes at the expense of life quality (which it often does), it's just not a worthwhile trade off.
That said - I obviously want to remain sharp and in the times where I'm enjoying playing a lot, which does happen for maybe 1/2 the year, show up and have fun.

One of my main priorities tbh is get better at providing good content for the group going forward. I sometimes feel this year in GC I've been a bit lost on which topics can provide the best EV, and squeezing prep in with big playing volume has been to the detriment of both. I have some inspiration for topics in 2024, and think that once I'm back from travelling in Vienna (likely Feb-March time), I'm going to be working a lot on these ideas, probably streaming my play a lot more too like I used to - i find it fun to stream and think it's beneficial for people in here, but as I became more conscious that some guys in the group were actually executing better than me, my ego kind of held me back a bit because I didn't like to make mistakes on stream.

So - I guess less hands, more life really.

Life in 2024, as mentioned, was probably at all time peak. Travelled tons, met some awesome people, learnt more about myself than ever before.
I recently read a quote from Matthew McConaughey, about when times are tough which really resonated with what I felt I've learnt:

Don't seek the ship right now, just keep your head above water.

Maintain - hold on, and give yourself a chance to notice the magic, the mystical.

I do believe it's all around us all the time, just are we on a frequency - do we allow ourselves to see it and feel it?

Without going too Charlie Carrell on everyone - I gotta say that yoga, freediving, time in nature and really feeling good connections with friends and family have really given me different lenses on life this year and how much enjoyment there is to be had in the world.

cool update man, gl in 2024

Good job fella, great update, best of luck for 2024

excellent update and great video!

can't believe you caught frank drinking his first ever beer on camera

Very healthy (not sick!) results, man. Good luck / your old skype mate

It’s funny the older we are all getting, the more noble all these post become haha
Glgl in 2024 👍

Great year and gl in 2024.

wp lad

some great nuggets of knowledge in this update, particularly like this one "The real EV comes from keeping your head down, improving in mental game, improving technical game, maintaining professionalism for long periods".

Especially when you've "made it", longevity and enjoying the process becomes quite significantly more important than short term EV.

Good luck crushing it in 2024 and looking forward to making something happen<3

Yeah, had just the same thought while reading this. In 2010s the yearly update was basically '****ed around, made half a mill.', meditation was something the monks in Tibet did.

nice update lad, gratz on turning things around and glad u ve had many good times along the way ♥

Never risk what you have and need for what we don't have and don't need. In pursuit of our goals, we inevitably give up things that matter.

incredible post and video ♥

Loved the video in the end, reminds me why we play poker... to have a better and engaging life.
Best of luck mate

Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed the update as well as your mechanics of poker interview, only one I've listened to the very end for a while!

Well done G !!!

Nice job man , best of luck for 2024!!

nice post, gl in 2024 man

“Old 2+2 guys” really does hit different [emoji23]

Yeah, mental game is king! Legit the most important aspect of the game on pretty much any level, it's so hard to earn bbs and so easy to punt stacks.

Btw, how big is the gap between nl1k/nl2k and higher? What do you think that regs at nl5k/nl10k do different than those on nl1k/nl2k?

Gl man!

2024

So a very belated update for the year.

Let's start with graphs:

Missing January from Thailand where I won a bit, so let's call it $183k.

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Poker:

I played extremely few hours, due to motivational issues we will explore later on.
By my calculations only 285 hours ish last year, which is obviously truly pathetic from a professional POV.
I took February, August, December, January, almost completely off too.

When I did play, I tended very high table count and trying to optimise for leaderboards - and I guess on that front I was quite successful, with really high RB %s

I kind of fluctuated between:

• - OMG there is so much EV to be made from these games on GG right now, must lock in and maximise
  
  to
  
  
• - Why am bothering to put myself through the mental strain of playing such high volume at such low stakes
  

I think that I was kind of between lives a bit, old G would have been completely locked for the chance to play at his favourite stake level with so much liquidity, new G is a bit more focussed on not sacrificing life quality for more money, so the conflict was ever present.
I couldn't really resolve it, at times I was really loving the competition, and enjoying the grind, at other times I was just super annoyed to have 'wasted' a day playing for EV.

I also felt quite some imposter syndrome with coaching as I knew compared to my old self I was putting in less reps, not setting the example of professionalism that I would like to, and also less sharp than I used to be, and having to accept a bit that that is not my role anymore in bitB, I'm more of a 'big picture' coach and less in the trenches.

Forcing myself to play for the sake of it or to 'set an example' was costing me more than it was worth, so I resolved to try to only play when it's fun and I enjoyed it and just be honest about what that will mean for my game in the short term.

I've still got a lot to decide here really, but hopefully this year I can put in a bit more present volume, and optimise for enjoyment rather than $$.
The previous 5 years it's been kind of one of my core personality traits to look at myself as someone who maximises the opportunity and doesn't let it slip by, so it's probably going to continue to be a tough ask, will keep you posted on how it goes.

As an aside, although it's now taking a lot of therapy and effort to break, I definitely don't regret my approach and would reccomend old self and most 20 yo guys in poker to do the exact same as I did , which is partly why I was reluctant to write about this in the blog.

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Life:

In general life was very good, tons of travelling and new experiences, got stronger, learnt a lot more about myself.

Among other things I:

• kind of learnt to surf
  
• learnt handstands, did a muscle up, infinite increase in flexibility
  
• improved and enjoyed playing loads of padel
  
• rented a villa for my mums 60th, invited all her friends as a complete surprise, took tons of 60 year olds climbing in the mountains
  
• climbed my first european 4000mer
  
• organised tons of trips and hopefully improved others happiness on agregate too
  
• even met a girl
  

As I alluded to above, I also reflected a lot on what the point of it all was, and remembered a lot of the things I wanted to play poker to be able to do.
I still started to realise that if I maybe want kids, and will get older, less strong, I should probably start thinking about doing some of this stuff.

I once read in Steffens blog ironically that once you achieve 'financial freedom', whatever that may mean to you, it's hard to really grind without getting accumulated tilt because your subconscious recognises that the point isn't there anymore, and it really resonated with me that on my whole 'journey' up it didn't feel hard to show up every day, i was sometimes tilted but I always had this kind of strong north star, raison d'etre.
Last year or two I've felt the frustration and paralysis way way more, and think it can definitely be due to this.

So overall just a lot of trying to deal with the space left over from not being driven to spend every waking minute on either fitness or poker/bitB ��

Equally I'm prescient that poker and bitB are ridiculously fun and rewarding ways to fill time a lot of the time, and that the best solution is almost certainly just continuing to be relatively balanced and happy with it.

I read my goals from last year: guess less hands, more life really., and will give myself a tick on that.

I won't lie, there have been times this year where I've kind of been lying around in bed or the sofa paralysed by complete lack of purpose/ mission �� but there's been many more times cycling round vienna with the sun on my face, just feeling like all is good in the world.

So I'm looking forward to whatever 2025 brings, I'm sure it involves reasonable amounts of poker, but hopefully a bit more present and leaving the leaderboard to others instead of waking up in the morning��

Godspeed everyone

Really nice update! As someone who has also been playing online for a long time, I can relate a lot to what you wrote about in this post. Best of luck to you in 2025!

FWIW, I’m not sure if there is a “right” or “wrong” way to approach life in your position. From my own experiences, the grind has become less appealing as I have aged. I’m not sure if it’s due to the financial stability/reaching goals I initially set out for myself a long time age or having a family now or priorities/interests changing, but I tend to think this plays a big part in it. Grinding out every last bit of $$EV in front of a computer while sacrificing other areas in life and life continues to pass you by… is not attractive. Maybe this is my own laziness coping for lack of effort, but a more balanced approach towards life has definitely resulted in more peace/happiness. It definitely is frustrating at times to not be as sharp or good at the game relative to the competition as I once was, but that’s a trade off I knew was going to happen.

Everyone’s story will turn out differently and as long as you are happy with things, just continue to do what you’re doing in my opinion. You’re clearly a very smart person. You can shift gears at any point in time and money is only one aspect of life.

Apologies for the unsolicited rambling, but what you wrote resonated with me and wanted to try and provide some positive feedback for the choices you are making but seem unsure? of being correct/optimal or not.

Great read, do you perhaps want to share a stake breakdown?

amazing update mate and happy to have spent some time with you in 2024.

the quoted bit is legit the age-old retirement risk vs reward and something i need to give a lot of thought to too.

sure your 2025 is gunna be epic too <3