It has been too long since I have updated you guys about what is up with my poker life. Things are hectic around here. I have been enjoying life a lot, training and having some of the best moments of my life with someone very special I met here. This blog will be divided in two parts. First some pictures to show how fun life is here, and then I’ll go into details about how poker is going.
That’s me, taking Muay Thaï seriously!
SonKran, Thaïland’s new year is a hole lot of fun. People throwing ice cold water and paint at you left and right. It was an awesome day.
We are happy to welcome Denis, another poker player, that arrived to live with us. He already had his first scooter crash and decided that he’ll never leave his helmet again.
Bartek is enjoying this waterfall we found while cruising around the island
There can be some pretty crazy views from our terasse. Seriously, I did not change the colors on that picture on the left. No filters! On the right is a picture of the begining of rainy season, you can see the wall of rain slowly approaching.
I’ll use this picture of me getting massaged while playing poker as a transition for the next part of this blog to keep you updated with what is going on in my poker life.
I have been thinking a lot about poker and working on my game a lot. And even so I am very pleased with how my poker game is evolving, I am miserably failing at putting in enough volume. It saddens me because I am sure that if I could find a way to put in the volume, I would be much closer to where I wish to be financially then where I am now.
As my title suggests, and it is an idea that I first heard from skyervoy and that I have already mentioned before, the biggest leak that pollutes most poker players is the lack of volume. This has officially become my biggest leak.
This month I have played less than 15000 hands, which is a disgrace for any professional poker player. Such little volume is giving variance a blank check to do what she does best with you.
There is a funny saying in online poker that says something around those lines: “happiness in ‘real life’ comes with a price at the poker tables”. It is based on the idea that life is taking over your focus, your time, your drive to get better, your drive to play. I intend to prove it wrong in the next months to come. And even more so, I intend to show that poker can be a mean to enjoy life even more, which was actually the point of my becoming professional poker player. I will have to change a lot of things to make this happen.
My ongoing goal now is to find a way to put more than 1000 hands/day. I am currently playing 500h/day. I would like that number to reach 1750 by the end of the year. I am not sure how to tackle this task as I have quite a few problems that I am facing. One thing I am sure of is that the first step to take is defining those problems that I am facing. So here we go.
First and foremost: motivation. I often find myself opening lobbies, screen the tables that are running and seeing always the same names playing. Even though I do think there is money to be made in those games, I don’t feel like my edge is enormous, and as such I often find myself not even sitting and thinking that I can do other things that will be more worth my while. My first idea to prevent that would be by working on my game and on my opponent’s game/tendencies. This would up my edge and stimulate my willingness to play with them.
Second problem I’m facing: after a session of 700+ hands, I usually feel tired, or my focus is weakening. My mind doesn’t work as fast and I feel kind of numb. My first idea to tackle this problem would be through physical wellness. I need to attend more training, eat better, sleep better…
My third problem is very simple and there is a lot of possible solutions for it. I was not sure if I was even going to mention it but since I am sure others are facing the same problem, I will mention it too: the lack of games. Living in Thaïland and playing on eurosites like I do means that most of your action will happen in the “low action” period, while europeans are at work or still sleeping. I already have simple solutions to this problem. It is all about habit: I need to change my sleeping schedule one way or another (waking up much much earlier, or going to sleep much much later). I am experiencing with the latter at the moment, and I must say that I am very unconvinced with results, as it leaves me quite tired and unable to attend training as much as I’d like to. Another obvious solution is playing on pokerstars, where game runs pretty much 24/7. I will try that soon.
So, I outlined my very first thoughts about how to tackle those problems while I am writing this and haven’t put enough thought into yet. I am sure there is a lot more to be done. My first step will be to discuss with some of my friends and fellow online players that went through the same problem or that are good at putting in the work, because there is no better thing than experience. On the top of my head I can think about fellow nutbloker blogger/admin napsus; or someone like Godlikeroy. I will seek their advice and update this blog with how things are going.
Also, if any of you have any questions or, even better, any advice, please post them or contact me! I’ll be all ears!
