Once again, gratz on that man - that's a real grind especially without a goal motivating you. Do you have a graph or anything you can post of it? I disagree that it's easy to do, last time we had a lockdown literally only myself and @The_Strategist made it over 10k hands and the competition was open to all forum members with up to 110euros of tourney tickets as prizes up for grabs. Clearly it isn't easy. 2k per day does comfortably make the quota in 15 days - but it's 6hours per day playing and potentially 3-6 hours on top of that studying. I know this because I did it in my first month of staking. Make no mistake, aside from a daily trip to the gym, meals and an hour or so off it took up my entire day everyday.

That's a very great post by @Hitchhiking! Exactly my thoughts but I'm not that good at explaining myself. I mean, I'm close to no-life mode into poker most days except when I go out / hungover days, and the days I have to deal with personal stuff I can't dodge. My play / study ratio is probably close to 50/50 over the last 6 months or so, and that is the reason why I will succeed in poker.

As @CrazyKeri said - you have to take is as a job to fulfill the contract. And therefore - you really expect people to take is as a job? To spend all of their free time to beat NL10? If I was the staker, I'd expect 2 outcomes; 1) Volume goal is not reached; 2) Volume goal is reached with steady downwards green line without any real improvements month to month (aka auto pilot zoom / 10 tabling).

To clarify - I'm not a part of the stable and have never been staked. I just kicked here in because I would barely meet the criteria and I play full time, giving almost all of my time to poker, so I felt bad for stakees here.

Yes mate,It will be on my journey tomorrow with an update.

Think we will have to agree to disagree on this one.Are you one of the staked players by any chance?

I think this is the case for most ofl the past stakees who have had sufficient external demands on their time. If they're in profit they've quit, if they're in make-up they plough on until they're eventually dropped.

Some super interesting posts there and it is nice to see a staked player come in and really give a rundown on the situation so thanks for that @Hitchhiking . I ofc understand where everyone is coming from both the players off pace & not completing the contract and also the members here saying to do more. You are both right. The problem is as a team when i post up some stats and not one person is on pace it looks bad for us and i can understand that.....it actually looks the worst for me as it says maybe a lot about my management of the operation. So when members say cmon lads play more, work harder and at least be on pace i can understand it.....1 person should be in the green zone imo at least.

As for people having holidays and commitments etc like @Hitchhiking says i am very fine with compromising and making plans for this. It really is no problem at all as long as it;s not just someone taking a free pass. I keep being fine with it and doing what i can the problem is it is like taking a kicking when said person then fails again or doesn't come back or just decides its time to not bother after losing loads of my money and taking up more of my time. It sucks as you start to treat all situations the same or just expecting the next person to fail as well. You guys have seen the names which have gone from the list and also now no longer post on the forum. So these guys i spoke to on a personal level, considered a friend and put a lot of time and money into them....they then decide to not bother or just vanish and then throw it back in my face even more by completely leaving the community. I recently let someone go after they got into 550 euros of make up playing 10/20nl due to them not speaking to me for 10 days...i left them a message saying the reasons and i never got one back.....i then see said person on twitch talking to some streamer and when i say "thanks for getting in touch" all i get back is "you made it quite clear in the message i was dropped".......now is it just me or is this the most crazy thing you have ever heard? Anyways i go off topic again just what i am trying to say is i want everyone to achieve and i give everyone so much rope but sometimes it does feel like when no one is crushing or even achieving it demoralizes me. You know €5000 of mine and Jamie's money plus probably twice that amount in our time running it kinda ain't feeling great. So sometimes if i sound negative on here it is because of things like this which i truly apologize for.

Anyways again i keep going back to the negatives. What i want is everyone to be happy playing for us, i want you to have the same feeling you did the day we said YES and you signed the contract. I always feel like people get mad or something or don't feel like we give them enough but i keep saying just ask me for what you want and i'll make it happen. It really is that simple. So if there are any staked players lurking reading this and want something just hit me up on Skype and i'll do my best.

This @mingthemerciless93 competition seems to have powered up a few people for sure which is soooooo sick to see and i knew it would help motivate. I am super pumped to see the results of this and then ofc the video that they make together. It really is a sick prize and Ming is the man at helping people so it was a no brainer for a player to just crush hard for 10 days.

Going forward the staking will continue and we will not stop or give up. We are going to run 2-3 competitions per month now for the staked players and also open some of them up for all members across the forum. This will ensure there is motivation and more coaching for the team. It won't be month long either so don't worry guys there will be some rest breaks for you but hard work will be required when push comes to shove.

The main thing i want to say to end this is the real reason i push and moan and bitch is because i want players to hit their potential and i really feel there is more chance doing that with us than on their own. This is due to all the learning resources available, a daily bankroll and lets face it no one will move players up faster than we do. I am fed up of people throwing their talent away so rather than see it as not having enough time or just wanting to do anything else why not just do an extra 30 minutes per day? We all have that right? Life is a game of inches afterall

BTW i have to say i love our current bunch and i know many of you will achieve your goals and make a lot of money from poker or just learn a lot with us. One thing i will say is just stay at it, do that extra little bit, communicate with me more and be ready for October. I think you are all going to find the motivation you need so tuned for that.

Lets go team!

I can see both sides also. For myself I played around 20k hands per month over the sumner with a full-time job and cricket on the weekends. The cricket probably knocks a good 2k-4k hands off/week so I'm confident that over the winter months I will be looking at about 30k hands. I 6-9 table and get I think 400hands/hour (not sure why it is so low) and also put in a lot of time to study. I would say on average right now I spend 2 hours/week watching videos, 2 hours looking at hand histories on here and other forums not always chirping in, but thinking what I would do on each street and why, 2 hours on my own stats and 2 hours using other study programmes. I watch the videos and look at hands on my comute to and from work and will glance over hands when it gets quiet at work also. I study my own game by going through marked hands and looking over my stats maybe 4 times a week before a session or if I only have 30mins before dinner or going out somewhere and the other software before some sessions and after some sessions. So I don't think many excuses are acceptable.

I still have time to do everything else I want to do in life, which granted isn't loads ATM, but I see a lot of players put in their journey they want to be a pro one day and then slack and spend more time moaning about bad beats than they do studying. That time is wasted that could be playing or studying time and if you do want to be a pro you need to make sacrifices.

So for me I think if you sign that contract you should only do so if you are committed and able to hit the target as well as improve your game. I would use it as a 3 month project where my aim would be to move up stakes as you don't need to build up x amount of buy ins for a shot. To do that you need to grind a fair few hands and study a lot as well so taking on the contract then saying I have a full time job at night when I would play my poker is stupid. I just think of it as if I said to my boss I couldn't finish that project on time because of xyz thenthe next and the next how many times before I'm fired? If you arent able to play 30k hands you don't meet the requirements like if I send my CV to the ceo position without a degree and 1years working experience in a junior marketing role. I'm not applicable am I :')

So in conclusion, if you can't meet the 30k hands you shouldn't have signed up and now making excuses is bullshit tbh.

The results are in for the @mingthemerciless93 competition!

Will be put up shortly.....so far it is a 2 horse race. Such a sweat!

The Results

First of all i have to say as a first time competition for coaching i think this went really well. 2 players really went for it, a couple were in-between and some did not bother at all. We will continue to run these going forward and hope for improved results. But for everyone who took part and put their all into it congratulations.

I will now break down each category into points and show the overall winner:

Volume:

.


Profit:




Hands Posted




Hands Replied To:




End Points Standings:




So a well deserved win for MikeRoss aka OloBury. You will now be setup with @mingthemerciless93 to arrange your 1-1 and i will personally be sat here with popcorn in hand ready to watch the video you guys produce. I will hope this helps further your poker learning and also comes at great timing as....CONGRATULATIONS you have now been moved up to 20nl :). Hard work pays off

Have to mention Grinder6 aka PWLL for his triumph effort also. Incredibly sick performance dude and it won't go unnoticed.

Until next time

Nice post up there Jon - respect

So here's the opinion of someone who would love to be staked (just ain't good enough I'm afraid):

At no point would I assume fulfilling the commitments of a staked player would be easy. I think some people are exaggerating hands per hour. When I play I normally aim for 1000 hands in a session. 2 tabling speed this normally takes up to 2.5 hrs. 4-6 tabling reg (it's hard to keep a consistent 6 tables at 4NL as there isn't much action most of the week) it takes best part of 3 hrs. My usual day is getting up at 6am for work, getting back about 5.30. Eat dinner, check the pokerVIP forum and see what new vids/articles there are. Quick chat with the mrs (about the only real contact during the week) as she heads off to work not back til late. So I do the dishes, tidy up, hoover etc, bath the kids, help with homework, all the usual parent stuff. Around 8.30pm I'm done, that's my time. And that's without any lunchbreak at work or a trip to the gym which would extend the day. So I have about 3 hours to play/study, or watch tv. Sometimes I make the right choice and get 1k hands played or good study done, sometimes I don't. Would it be easy to make the right choice every night? No. Would it be easy to do that every day, then make up the rest of the quota, plus study time, analysis etc at the weekends when there are still so many other responsibilities to take car of, let alone overtime at work? No. Personally I'd find it difficult. I'm not making excuses for anyone, but I think one person's busy is another person's holiday. BUT... I haven't applied for staking. I haven't signed a contract, or made promises. I'm not being given the money to play. But you can bet when the day comes that I do apply, and if I get accepted, you can scrap everything I've just said. I don't care how hard it is, you get an opportunity like that you grab it and run. Lose sleep, fall behind on whatever Netflix series you're watching. Hell put on a few pounds cos you haven't got time for the gym. I sympathize with everyone who doesn't have time to do the things they want to do. But I do not sympathize with the stakees. You took it on. You asked for the opportunity, and were lucky enough to get it. So step up and make the most of it. There are plenty of people waiting to take your place.

Interesting how your top money winners were 1-2 in hands posted and 1-3 in hands replied to.

Who knew right?!?!

@jongordon84 awesome post, Rocky!!

Just had 17 tables of NL10 open, didn't see any crew.
Games looked pretty juicy too, quite a few loose players I hadn't seen before and less of the usual regs.

flip side is more shocking .....2 players each losing 10+buyins only found 1 hand between them worth getting feedback on .

They will be attacking the anon games

What you're describing here would be awesome if the staking project was some kind of summer bootcamp where people with a couple of spare months go to train 24/7 to become Poker gods (I would still be applying if this was the drill).
In this case you would be right, there should be no excuses, all other commitments must take a backseat since this is what the stakees have signed up for.


However, that's not what's being offered here - when you join the staking team you're supposedly joining to stay with the team for the long term, many months even years ideally I think @Jon-PokerVIP would agree. You can hype people up to go crazy for a month or two, but long term goals and motivation are a lot different. It would be totally within the site's right to state that they want only members who are willing to devote their life to studying and playing poker in exchange for the resources Jon and the site can provide, but once again this is not what is being asked for - otherwise all the guys with college/work would have to leave, leaving the staking team at around 0 I believe.

You fail to understand that some of the examples you point out of sacrifices you "would" be willing to undertake "if" you decide to join the staking team at some point are simply unsustainable in the long term. Gaining weight and getting inadequate sleep are pretty much 101 to fucking your mental game. That is why I think @Jon-PokerVIP has it spot on with a mix of long term goals as well as short challenges such as the @mingthemerciless93 challenge recently where stakees can show off their short term work rate.



Shout out to @Jon-PokerVIP

Recommended Background Music to lighten the mood



Your final point is about the fact that

Indeed there are, people join the team and leave the team all the time and so far a grand total of 0 of them have been able to stick out the staking project for a long, successful period of time. Like literally, I only joined the staking team at the beginning of this summer and not a single member in the team at the time (and the team was much larger back then) are still around now. Each time this happens it's disheartening for Jon who feels he's wasted his time and money.



Jon after another disappointment

I remember back when I was just a forum member during my exams rearing for a chance to get involved with staking,




I thought the solution for the site was to harshen the requirements for new stakees to join. But are we really going to conclude that 100% of past stakees were bad applicants? Statistically unlikely at the very least. Were they all just uninspired? Certainly not, this is one of the criteria Jon looks for when selecting new stakees and also tries to instil in them throughout. Is there enough support from the stakers? Yes, from my experience. So Are these people just lazy then? It's a possibility, but it would seem strange that all of the lazy people are the ones who decide to take up staking, whereas the hard working guys are observing while sipping cups of tea on the forum.

Note: I'm not trying to make excuses for people missing the contract. A contract has the benefit of being clear cut, you either sign it and agree to it or you don't. My point is simply that there are side effects of being unrealistic with your expectations either from stakees or as a stakee. I believe that if you're going to have success in the long term it's going to be from having smart, pragmatic goals - recognising that there will be ups and downs along the way and when the spots come along for a spark of extraordinary endeavour, to have the energy and mindset to seize them with better preparation and support than the guys who don't have the benefits that staking provides.

Those are my thoughts anyway.




Edit: Added some chicks and background music to make this post a little lighter.

I could write another long post on the subject, but I feel like I managed to exhaust it already without the use of the emotional arguments. I'll just add one more thing. Far less constructive, definitely not objective, but it might speak to someone. Maybe I've lost touch, but I really can't relate to the idea of 30k hands per month taking a toll on one's personal life, I also can't relate to the idea of playing poker professionally or semi-professionally (i. e. while working a full-time job) and not hitting that 30k per month mark. I can, however, relate to the idea of going to great lengths to justify or intellectualize laziness. I did that myself more times than I care to remember. I'm still doing it to be honest. It's really easy and that's why I try to focus on what's measurable and quantifiable when I tackle a certain subject.

With so much content relying on the good mood of the readers to make a profit it's really easy to find narratives that will enable you to feel good about yourself and justify your actions no matter what those actions might be. There's this great quote... I'm not sure who said it, but it went something like this: "Self-love is really important. Self-awareness... much more so.".

2 very nice posts there from @Hitchhiking and @MattVIP

All i will say is October is going to rock and i just hope people take note of Will Smith. When you can say this you have truly mastered hard work and insane work ethic.

Ok I'm actually gonna cancel what I sad about volume as I looked at my hands wrong. Yesterday I got home at about 7 from work had a quick work out put together a video for a new series I'm doing (very exciting :P) then studied for 30 mins and had time to play 500 hands before dinner and then help my gf set up some antivirus software. Ok I was 6-9 tableing for 50 minutes to get this but comon! If I can get 500 hands in with all of that then how can people not hit their targets?! The video alone takes about 1 hour to record and prepare so if I played then I would have got 1k hands in easy. For those staked who won't be making videos then I'm sorry but pull your fucking finger out. One weekend of solid grinig and you can get 4-5k hands in easyyyyy thrn 4k during the week and 3k on every other weekend and your there.

If I was running the staking you'd get one chance then you'd be out.