Some thoughts i had this morning regarding some poker related things, no real structure and still my first coffee so excuse me if i ramble...

What makes a long term winner in poker ?

* The ability to make less mistakes than your opponents in spots that everyone encounters. The tough thing about this is there are tons of close spots that come along rarely enough to make it important to be able to break down the spot in game.

* The possession of superior strategies to use against your opponents. The ability to correctly identify spots that these are best used in.

I think a combo of both these tends to make a very tough player who will move up to higher stakes. Lots of lower stakes players either play a strategy that has lots of leaks but they're solid and don't tilt much, or they're a really good thinking player but can't play well enough of the time. This is especially true when running bad.

Mental game review for 9th May.

Prepared by listening to a meditation clip i have. Didn't fully embrace the thing and wasn't completely immersed. Still it reminded me of the right path and i played a session for 50 mins. Ran lol sooo good. Its obviously an interesting mindset when your up 3-4 buyins quickly for how your game gets effected.I felt i didn't slacken off too many spots although one spot came up where i should have potted river maybe vs a 90/2 fish





Overall i definitely suffered from procrastination, lack of focus yesterday. It will be the days where everything goes terribly wrong that test my mental side. I am looking forward to the test. I want to face it head on. I want to lose every hand and just focus on making the best decision. Make myself stronger and better for the swings in the future. Lets do this

Yoyoyo

sick intro - a beach lifeguard? I just imagine this to be a super cold 10 months of the year and not much happening. Craziest story?

Ha yeah i can imagine it seeming like a shitty place to be a beach lifeguard, but actually i really love the job. Its warm in the uk water from end of may till early december actually, the seasons are definitely moving forward (summer starts later finishes later on average imo). Wetsuits are so good nowadays that i can surf on the coldest in Feb and come out toastee and warm. I get to go in the sea everyday at work and its really beautiful down here.

Craziest story is a tough one, i guess my highlight last yr was saving a 25ish yr old rugby player canoe guy who thought he was invincible. He disregarded all advice given to him (very standard unfortunately) was swept out to sea, lost his canoe, got swept into a cliff by the surf, so i am on my rescue board getting smashed by waves against the cliff telling him to stay calm. Then his 60 yr old dad tries to go full hero mode and scale the cliff to save him. Ended up getting them both out safely after swearing quite a lot at his dad lol. His dad made a large donantion to the RNLI which was pretty good result. Even got his canoe back after the tide went out, he runs good!

Mental Game Review May10th

Yesterday i was struggling getting my new internet up and running smooth, i have these booster for the wifi but they are a mission to get setup, so ended up wasting time doing that and not playing focused poker. Anyway i did manage to get some hands in eventually. My preparation wasn't up to standard. I am now aware that preparation is time well spent. You never know when your gonna start a session and face multiple tough spots back to back. Its important to be ready. Today i will use my pregame warmup routine before every session, plus write down what area's i will work on when playing.

I have been trying to work on taking 5-10s before every preflop decision to visualise my range. It helps me navigate the tough postflop spots i get lost in sometimes. So that is something i will work on today. Its a new habit and tough to build and make second nature.

Also work on bet sizing today, since it accounts for such a huge leap in winrate. Thats all for now GLLGLGL

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat that is one crazy story and straight out of a movie. How scared were you?

Ha yeah a bit but wasn't too bad, some of the guys have some proper savage stories from back in the day - will try and find out the best one and post it here sometime

Mental Game review 12 May

Felt a bit unfocused overall while i was playing yesterday, i think it was a mix of wanting to play, do coaching and learn all at the same time.

Took a coaching session with Adam Jones today, definitely found some spots where i have been playing badly. My strategy is pretty poor for the micro's it seems, so hoping to get everything tuned up in next two months and move on up. Also took a shot at 50NL - as usual it went poorly. Lost 4 buyins, so will be moving on down again. More soon GLLGLGLLL

Which spots were you playing incorrectly?

nearly all of them haha. Lots more exploit is getting dialled in, hoping to crush hard at 20nl and really fine tune lots of small details in the process. Been working lots in the beach so not had tons of time to play lately but will play this arvo if I can, more soon GLGLGL

Are you more of an exploitative playing style or GTO based?

not sure really - i thought i was a decent mix of the two (i studied some gto stuff in last 6 months) but i found lots of area's i was playing wayyyy suboptimal, mix that with a nice bit of tilty spew and you have the perfect recipe for a low winrate / break even regfish