Even Stevens eFfortress

As for the title I thought of making this blog as narcissistic as possible. Not like Phil Helmuth, he has a good hateable image. I`d like to go with narcissistic in so pathetic way that people would feel sorry for me even when I`m trying to trash talk at them. But it`d take lots of energy that I should put into evolving as a poker player instead. So I`ll go with evolving instead. Gonna start off with few must-do items:

Took 5h (200$) package with Threads13 and have done 3 hours with him already. So far I feel I haven`t performed as of a keen learner as I should, still I feel I`m getting lot out of these sessions. There are tons of stuff I havent got close to understanding and realising there are so many aspects to poker I don`t understand has motivating side to it. Make a coach review after coaching complete. And I also think about continuing taking coaching so I`ll need to look into it later on also. Likely to  continue with Threads13 though. Also make look budget for it.

So far (09.06.2011) 7484 hands. That leaves 37516 hands. 21 days until the end of the month. That means I must play ~1800 h/day. So far I have played 831h/day, some days I put in 2k hands, some days none at all so I have been inconsistent and need to work on my timeplanning and discipline. Even though it`s summer I think I can pull it off. I play 4 tables of 25NL 6-max (break-eveny) so I got 2 choices to increase my volume:

• Number of tables
• Time I put in
• ...or both

So basically 3 things. I choose time, because I need to build more confidence in my skill first to start adding tables and also train focus and attention to detail to keep learning curve sharp. To elaborate: 1800 hands per day until 1st July 2011 (starting tomorrow).

I want to generate behavioral pattern of playing poker as tiltless, sharp and focused as possible. So it contains a check lists of it`s own:

• Am I hungry? -> eat
• Am I tired? -> sleep
• Am I dizzy? -> jog, make push and pull-ups
• Am I emotionally un-balanced? -> meditate

If I`ve reached stadium where I`m none of the above I start with

• Browse and post on forums
• Time planning (keeping in mind I need 1800 hands per day)
• Prepare to make every hand matter
  
• Basically get into proffessional poker mindset

Then I start with

• Session lasts as long as It needs to (unless any of the current condition checklist items turn into positive)
• Table select
• 1-4 tables (no good tables, then I can study instead)
  
• 25nl 6max

And then

• Go over most winning/losing hands
• Go over marked hands
• Make notes and colormarks on players
  
• Browse forums
• Post a hand (if nescessary)

Some

for all combined

• Post session doesn`t have to be right after session
• Post session is not allowed immediately before pre-session
• There must be 15min break away from CPU between post and pre-session

That`s enough for now. It`s a work in progress, but in order to be disciplined, there must be rules to be followed to start with. I`ll improve the rules as I go to improve my productivity. Check-list is more or less rip-off from articles I read so I`ll just add the things that seem to work for me individually and throw out stuff that don`t.

I believe this blog will not be interesting to read, but then again I really don`t care that much. My hope is that it becomes more of a self awareness thing in the long run

Over and out.