[Ballerholic]

First month of the new decade is over and I have to say it was a very positive month for me. My poker game improved more in the past month than it did all of last year. I also progressed my mental game a ton and am going to try and push even harder. At the moment I am currently playing 50NL and am very confident with my ability to beat the stake.

Goals for the month:

[] Play 100 hours of poker
[] Study 30 hours of poker
[] Move up to 100NL

These are the main goals I'm trying to hit for the month, but I'm also going to try and increase my discipline and workout more this month. I also plan on doing some stock trading starting with $100. So I'll blog about that in this thread. Basically my goal is to have a $25k bankroll by the start of summer. I think this is a very aggressive goal, but can definitely be achieved if I really work my ass off since I don't have many expenses at the moment and work full time. My plan is to use the bankroll as a cushion when I move back over to Europe so that I have a cushion in place where I can play poker/trade stocks/bet sports while I try and find a career I would be happy in. But sky is the limit and if poker/sports/trading can take off I might never need a conventional job.

What draws me over to Europe is that I went to university over there as an American, but poker income and sports betting income are all tax free. The idea is that since it's legal over there the government want as many people to play so that when they lose they can tax the profits of the gambling companies. It's harder to get people to bet or play when winnings are taxed so higher profits for government by not taxing winning players since there are so few already. Also it's easier to trade stocks over there using high leverage and taxes are much lower so I'll never fully leave America, but it makes sense for what I'm trying to do.

Bet for the Super Bowl tonight is to always play the dog. I thought 49ers were going to be favoured, but somehow the Chiefs are. So 49ers ATS tonight!

[ninjagorn]

Hi, sports betting is not tax free in Europe-it depends in which country you live in and where you bet(national beting provider, internet, casino…). Some have lower odds beceause they include that they pay taxes to the State.

[Ballerholic]

Hi, sports betting is not tax free in Europe-it depends in which country you live in and where you bet(national beting provider, internet, casino…). Some have lower odds beceause they include that they pay taxes to the State.

Sorry Ninja, I meant for where I'm going in Europe which is Ireland poker and sportsbetting winnings are all tax free. But yes other countries in the EU definitely are not.

[Ballerholic]

Update

Bankroll: 2,000

Poker Profit: -$400


The past week as been rough with both my mom and sister in the emergency room. So I haven't played much poker, but when I have you can tell my mind wasn't right and I'm on a 11 BI downswing (6 50NL/ 5 25NL). I was reviewing some hands this morning and it seems that I was really tilted. I had this same scenario happen in December where I went on a 18 buyin downswing when my mom was in the emergency room again so maybe I should not play poker or just shorter sessions and quit whenever my mind isn't right. 50NL I am finding very soft and the players are pretty bad on bovada/ignition. You see a lot of limping and just very fishy play. So I'm confident I have the skill to beat the stake, but that doesn't matter if my mind isn't right.


Goals for this week

[] 20 hours of poker
[] 7 hours of poker study
[] 2x workout

If I don't hit these 50 point freeroll to a random poster in the thread

[Ballerholic]

Update

Bankroll: $2,000

Poker Profit: -$300

So poker isn't going too well results wise this month, but other than that it has been extremely positive. So I started shot taking 50NL and I went on a small downswing. After reviewing my plan I think I had the impression that I would need to play a more advanced style of poker than at 25NL and that really hurt me because if anything 50NL is just as soft as 25NL and plays exactly the same. So there were a lot of spots I thought they could be bluffing or maybe my triple barrel/overbet could get them off an underpair on the flop and it just couldn't.

So now I feel extremely confident after getting some experience in the pool and realizing how poor some of my plays were. Now the biggest issue you'll see is that my bankroll is going in the opposite direction and it's not all from poker. I've been paying off some debts and making some big purchases (Keurig Coffee Machine, Clarisonic Face Wash, gifting money) relative to my bankroll. I just need to stick to a budget and limit spending because I might have spent $250 on food last week alone.

Oh yea hit goals last week and this week I'm trying for:

[] 30 hours of poker
[] 7 hours of poker study
[] 4x workouts

50 point freeroll

[MrSink]

improving plan needs to be more specific , look at your winrates for different position / scenarios . then you will see where you got biggest leakes in your game , then spend some time on imporving thse areas and continue like that .

as always , gl with your journey

[Ballerholic]

Update


I missed an update last Sunday and there for a couple of reasons for that. Basically I pinched a nerve in my arm and even doing stuff like typing on a keyboard puts my arm in a lot of pain. Also, I was helping my family move house and so I had an increase of pain and not much time to do anything besides move, play poker, and workout. Anyway, with regards to two weeks ago I absolutely smashed that week. Now I had a ton of time that week with zero commitments so I knew it was going to be a good week and I even predicted that in this thread. I got 4x workouts in mainly just being a cardio bunny due to my pinched nerve. I also was just spending as much time as I could playing and studying poker. I usually will play max 6 hours a day with the occasional 8. But I had one day I was at 12 hours and the only reason I stopped was because it was a Thursday and I didn’t want to impact my Friday grind.


When I look over the past month I feel bittersweet. On one hand I definitely feel like the month was a huge success. I’m growing my roll at the moment to move up to higher stakes and 50NL was very soft poker. There were very few spots where I felt I like the table wasn’t profitable for me. On pretty much every table there will be at least two fish and a few bad regs. However, one of the biggest areas for me that I feel I failed in was my mental game approach. Basically my mom and sister were both in the emergency room for about a week at the beginning of the month and I remember that week I was just absolutely getting blasted results wise. When I looked over some of the biggest losing hands I didn’t even believe I played them, that’s how poorly they were butchered. I had a span of this in December as well when my mom was having a tough time with her chemo treatment and so I think I’m just life tilting and the stress affected my play. But once they both got out and everything was fine I was playing good poker and beasting my stakes. Also I got very complacent with how easy the grind was that I would load tables without any pregame mediation or studying. I would think to myself it is so easy I could even play C game and dominate so there is no reason to do anything else but put in as much volume as possible. The issue with this is that I just don’t improve my game at all and I begin to form very bad habits. As well, I’m sure my profitability playing A game would make up for any of the lower volume.


So results for the month weren’t great and I actually lost money due to that week where I just tilted in so many spots. But I also ran pretty bad and got sucked out on basically all month long. I don’t mind it since it’s only 50NL so I’ll just keep on grinding away and it will sort itself out.