hmmm feels like we need a vomiting smiling face to adequately fill the void between and

Day 87 - show goes on. 3871$. The second losing week of challenge in a row, and the biggest one. -650$ week, almost all from the -600 day. I'm mixing in just 1 NL100 table, and obv had to get a PF cooler for 100bb on that one.

1) Everyone is just too fkn solid



2) Got this one tho



3) Not this tho



--------------------------------

Having a weekend off, gonna travel to my home village to play 3:3 hockey tournament on pond. We got 4 more work days left in 4th month of challenge, and currently we are down ~100$. FML.

hey man! any updates? Are you back on track with 5K in your BR?

I'm alive!

I took a week off as my mental state was really nut low, depressed AF and really wanting to quit this challenge. Didn't play/watch a single hand for a full week. Played 2h of NL25 yesterday, lost 8$. Today I played full day and my target for NL25 was 3.8k until I can play NL50 - I managed to reach that. For the first time I had PLO on stream! 2x PLO10, ran good there and won 2.5 BI's.

Day 86- 4027$
Day 87 - 3871$
Day 88 - 3752$
Day 89 - 3744$
Day 90 - 3804$

Btw I lost ~200$ in 4th month of challenge. Up a bit EV wise though. I succeeded in every single goal I set for that month, so what can I do, poker is cruel.

So tomorrow I'll play only NL50 and I am allowed to mix in NL100 only when reach 4k mark.

I must see this challenge thru. I got like 500 eur left in my life roll, I can survive of ~250/month. My brother said he could lend me smth if I'm close, so let's fkn do it, failure is not an option anymore!

Month 5 goals:

1) No less hands played than month 4;
2) Minimum 4 trainings per week (gonna start once a week swimming pool from March), at least 1 core strength training;
3) Read a book 2.5h/week;
4) Minimum 2.5h/week study with Equilab, run the whole ranges all the way for common spots;
5) Annnd a hard one - wake up 8:30am and have a solid 9:30-17:30 work schedule.

--------------------------------------

Looks like I'm going to do 1/2 Ironman triathlon in September - in Hungary near Balaton lake. It's 1.9km swim, 90km cycling, 21km run. I did one back in 2014 where I failed to do it sub 5h due to flat tire, so my target is set - under 5h! It will not be easy, in 2014 I had quit my "pro athlete's" career just 4 month prior, so I still had massive physical abilities in me. There is no chance I'll be able to come close to my half marathon time, but in 2014 I did just 4-5 cycling trainings and my swimming performance was weak as well. I got 6 month's to go now, and I can certainly improve my bike/swim skill's more than I'll lose in running part.

Day 91 - 3955$. One flip away from NL100. Played a bit of PLO again, this time I lost a flip, but chipped up a bit and lost just 0.5 BI or so, fun game!

Keep it up, Milf

Day 92 - long day, small profit. BR 4002$, so I'm allowed to whale hunt NL100 again.

1) This is like 5th time already this happens lately - a limp, iso, I 3bet QQ and limper or raiser shows up with KK+, so annoying.

Nice to see you hit the $4k mark.

Honestly when I see the limp re-raise to a crazy amount I fold most of my range unless I have a sick read on the fish. From my own exp it doesn't matter if it's 2nl or 200nl, they always do this with AA (sometimes KK). Lost enough 100bb stacks this way to buy me a house.

^ Yeah I fold most of my range too, can't really let go QQ though.

Day 93 - overtime morning session in my day off, BR 4176$. I've decided that I'll do more overtime sessions, like gonna throw in 30-60 min sessions in evenings or so, but gonna do it in lower stakes to keep them stress free.

1) Slowrolled this one so hard, guy snap sat me HU at stake higher

I'm glad to see that you managed to stabilize after that rough patch. As you said above, poker can be cruel but the worst thing you can possibly do in the face of said cruelty is to become undisciplined and let your goals slip away even further. #prayforMG

Day 94 - 4221$

Day 95 - 3890$. Fkn ridiculous day, I didn't win a single pot in 2k hands bigger than 50bb eff. Lost many. It really feels like I've been doomswitched for good.

1) Snap quit after this one, villain is aggro thinking Polish reg who doesn't like folding.




#FML

Day 96 - was up close to 300, lost most of it back and BR 3928$.

Day 97 - decided to play 2xNL100 even though below 4k I wanted to have before going back there. BR 4256$. Could have been 500+ day but I still can't catch a break in cruicial 3bet/4bet pots. Luckily biggest whale of pool showed up at final 20 min to make it a meaningful win.

1) I guess I got lucky. Wonder if I can fold the flop?

Its now more important than ever that you stick to BR management. The time to take shots is not when you run bad and are in a rut, and maybe have a bit lower acceptance of variance.

If you are going to see this out. Stick to what you set out in the first place and grind on. You couldnt have thought that this was just going to be a straight way to 10k?

See the bad run as an oppertunity to be better then the rest of the field. Most players can play well when things are going well but most players also play much worse when facing bad variance. So right here is where you can get a big edge on the field if you can play your best even when you run bad.

Best of luck at the tables

A very good comment, thank you for that!

I knew very well that this kind of stretch was possible, but in the same time I hoped I would avoid it. Not having a full RB really hurts now as I could be pulling in close to 100$/day in RB alone and that would sustain winnings even when in break even stretch. I expected to have a small income from twitch as well, but unfortunately that was optimistic and my savings aren't fueling, and that therefore affect's my life quality not in a good way.

I've been mixing NL100 since 2.5k roll and there really isn't a reason why I shouldn't mix it now as well apart from me being scared to lose. Rake is also better at NL100 as you can actually cap it without all in. I'll keep NL100 limit to 2x tables. Variance hasn't been my friend in that stake as over 1k below EV, but what can I do, I don't want to live in fear.

I would really want to know how my stats and red line looks at the moment. I've always been a strict blue line player (nit) but I think I've opened up my game quite bit and I'm battling for pots more. Maybe that's a mistake but else I feel I'm getting ran over by aggressive NL100 population. I've worked on my HU game quite a bit too as I play a lot of HU and I had lacked working on that format at all. I do enjoy HU more than 6-max to be honest. I started to battle anyone who'd sit me to reserve a right to table start. Apart from 1 annoying fukker I've achieved that. I'll work on HU play more and create a solid strategy to crush that one player. We've battled quite a bit and I'm not sure who's up on who, probably we both are down due to rake.

I had a really long day yesterday and we lost 330 (200 below EV) and today I had morning session and won 100 (50 below EV). So BR is 4018$. I'll spend today and tomorrow mainly working on my HU game.

I'll add that games at Natural8 have gotten much worse since I started the challenge. Mostly due to PokerVIP aggressive marketing (thanks @Jon-PokerVIP ) and also due to twitch streamers like myself. I'm pretty sure that evening NL games are not beatable pre RB (NL50/100) unless you're a true beast. This month I set a goal to wake up 8:30 (I've gotten down to 8:45 yeeey) but I probably should drop it even lower to avoid East block grinders more. My volume also has increased as I start earlier, I was struggling to get in even 5h of pure play per day, but now I can get in 7-8h till 6pm and hand per month will be close to 2x as they were in 1st month. Gotta do that as game quality is decreasing.

1) A cool hand from today that has happy ending for a change. I started to implement random number generator to my play and it payed off in this case.

Nice blog man although it feels sad to see how hard it is for you. I mean I honestly think that for you continuing the challenge is just silly.I mean without a HUD and no table ninja etc. you play like 4-6 tables tops? On top of that this software is so fucking slow. I mean don't you think it isn't worth it anymore?? I mean if you put the same amount of hours on other sites you would probably make easily a lot more money. Not to mention that the Eastern Europeans etc. play with like 45%+ rakeback (a lot of skins fight for grinders on gg network now) and you don't. But even with it the rake is so atrocious you all still probably better off playing elswhere tbh.

I mean as someone who has been poker pro for several years I still can't understand why people don't take it into account. It doesn't matter that your long term winrate is 2x of what it would be on P* if you play 1/3 of the volume you would be able to play on P*. It is as easy as that. Quality of the software and the amount of tables you can play on at the poker room matters A LOT ( and for example rake on Microgaming is like 1/3 what you pay on natural8....) and software is like 3 times faster.

I think you've missed the point that I get 10k prize at the end, so at this point I have to win 6k to get 16k. I know I can get higher relative hourly at other networks, but with the 10k extra prize - I expected it to cover the RB I miss out and value I'd get somewhere else.

Yeah but the network is getting progressively worse in terms of softness and you clearly aren't top end boss. I mean if I am not mistaken this is like first or 2nd time you play nl100 with a reasonable volume?? (at least thats what I got from reading your blog little bit). And your financial situation is grim too at this points in terms of money saved etc.

No offence Mate I wish you all the best it is just a really rough path to climb. Kudos if you are able to make it.

I never even played NL100 before this challenge and got maybe 20k hands of NL100 to my name.

I've been eyeing Microgaming lately as I just recently got access to that network. I'll certainly evaluate the challenge if I keep breaking even, but I really hope there is no need to quit it.

Which skin is it you can play on @MilfGrinder ??? Have you been blocked for a while?

I'm pretty sure that we have discussed that earlier, Jon. Now I can play on Triobet now as they are licensed to operate here and I don't need to VPN (which is not allowed on other skins).