My 2k20 NL50+ Journey: From a Hobby to a (Lucrative) Side-Income

Hello 2p2,

I am a long time lurker on 2p2 and this is my 1st blog ever which I would like to use to define some poker, fitness and life goals for 2020 and keep myself accountable for them. Since I never had any kind of blog I am not sure what the reader can expect, but I hope that at least some of you guys find some interesting stuff while reading it.

Background

I will keep this part a short as possible. I am in my early thirties and have dicovered this beatiful game called poker extremely late (around 6 years ago) compared to most of you guys. During my high school/college time I was never interested in any kind of stategic games. Most of my time during these years was spent on sports (played professionally football) and social activities.

However, in 2013 I was diagnosed with vitiligo which is a long-term skin condition characterized by patches of the skin losing their pigment. This diagnosis changed my life in many aspects. I stopped completely my sport activities and for the most part also the social one. Since my childhood I was always somebody who paid attention to my physical appearance. Under these circumstances I was searching for a hobby to fulfill my time and this is how I have dicovered poker. Tbh the first years I played just occasionally some tournaments, but from 2017 I got really interested in cash games and started for the first time to study the game by watching some vids and having few coaching lessons. And here I am now after several failed NL100 shots trying to reach stakes were I can make a side-income from a game which I currently just consider as a lovely hobby.

Poker Goals

Before I mention my goals for 2020 lets give you guys the most important thing in these blogs: My current graph for 2019 and I now for most of you guys this is the only reason for visiting 2p2 😀

However, this one is neither beautiful nor impressive. My results for 2019 are pretty embarrassing but I want to be honest in all aspects of this blog.

All my hands are played on pokerstars.

Graph 2019:

Stakes Breakdown 2019:

So after posting these embarrassing results lets see what are my main poker goals for 2020:

• Reach NL200 by the end of the year and create a side-income from poker. I do not have any asspirations to go pro since I am in an age where this isn´t realistic anymore and I have a well paid full time job.

• Start to study the game. If I am beeing honest I haven´t reviewed 1 hand, runned 1 sim or talked 1 hand with an another player throughout 2019. I always blame my limited time for that due to my full time job and had always an excuse that I want to use my spare time for playing and not studying. However, this is one of my primary goals for 2020. I am realistic here, I can not compete with full time pros in this area, but I can start to study smart and effectively even with a limited time frame. I have done the first step in this direction by purchasing MMASherdog´s HS course.

• Improve my behaviour regarding beeing extremely results orientated. I think even with my poor study routine I would achieve better results in 2019 if I wouldn´t be that much results orientated. I am a huge fish in this area and struggle a lot to improve on this leak (I check my results in the tracker probably 20+ times during a session and therefore missclick, go on tilt, play longer/shorter sessions depending on results, etc ). In 2020 I want to start to make small steps to do not check results while playing by not checking results for 1 session, 1 day, 1 week until the point were I do check my results just monthly. Lets see how long does it takes me to achieve this goal (tbh I am not sure if I have the discipline to achieve this).

• Dedicate 60-80 hours on average per month for playing and studying and use this time wisely. This should result in a sample size of around 350k hands for 2020.

• Use this blog to get feedback from fellow players by posting regularly hands. This is one of the main purposes of this blog since I do not have any poker friends and I am also not part of any study groups where a knowledge transfer can happen

• And the most important one: Have fun but still try to treat poker as a serious side business which could lead to additional money for other investments.

Fitness Goals

Until my mid twenties I played football 5+ times a week. I was therefore always in a good shape. But after my vitiligo diagnosis I haven´t done any kind of sports for several years mostly caused by some kind of depression probably and the fear to scratch myself (by having vitiligo, scratches can lead to white patches which mostly never repigment).

Such a lifestyle resulted that I became overweight (in April 2019 I had 86kg by beeing 175cm tall). The last 6 months I made great progress (my weigth is currently 79kg) in this area by doing a lot of cardio and I want to continue with this in 2020.

I also want to include some bodyweight exercises which can be done from home. If anybody has a good reference for training plans (something like 3x per week for 30 minutes), please let me know. Appreciate any help regarding this, since it is very difficult to filter for good information. I have bought Mark Laurens book, but didn´t have time to read it.

Life and Social Goals

This is the area in my life which needs definitely the most progression. Not sure if this belongs in such a blog, but I want to set myself several goals for 2020 thru the year.

Until my disease diagnosis I was always very outgoing and had a good social life. After the diagnosis I started to spent a lot of time home and avoid contact to new people (especially women), since I was scared that people would always stare at my white vitiligo patches. This is pretty crazy when you consider that I have a fair skin and compared to other patients my white patches are mostly located just on my hands and even in winter for other people very difficulty visible.

But nevertheless I struggled still a lot under my disease whereby my dating life suffered as well as simple social acitvities like going to the beach.

Over the last 2 years I made good progress by trying to not think what other might think about my disease, but when it comes to women I still have a mental blockade to meet new women while clubbing or thru the internet. I hope really to change this in 2020 and I think this blog could serve as some kind of therapy for me. But enough of this non-poker related stuff.

Hope you guys made it to end 😃. I am not sure how often I will update this blog, but I am planning weekly or bi-weekly updates with some hopefully interesting hands and strategy discussions.

Until then I wish u all GL at the tables for 2020 😀!