PrickselFish

I've been in your spot, extremely ambitious and eager to grind like crazy. You're vastly underestimating your biggest enemy: burn-out (and/or hating the game).

I tried this, and I found it very suboptimal. It's the fastest way to burn out. Instead of having a very specific schedule, I'd recommend setting slightly longer term goals like x hours of total grinding per week or month. That way if you're tilted or unfocused from lack of sleep or something, you won't be forcing yourself to play that day, and you can grind some more when you're feeling great at another day/time to make up. This will lead to more A-game, and thus better results, leading to even more A-game, etc. It is fine however to keep track of how many hours ahead/behind of schedule you are when you use this looser method.

I'd also recommend setting a maximum session length, and actually setting a timer (like the one from your kitchen or one on your phone) and playing multiple shorter sessions rather 1 or 2 monster sessions (I found 4 90 minute sessions a day being very sustainable while 2 3 hour sessions were not). At first the monster sessions will be easy, but your focus during them will be lower near the end, leading to a lower winrate, and it'll also be a bigger burn-out. At some point you'll inevitably go on a downswing regardless of what you do, and if you're feeling a bit burned out from the game and you haven't been winning as much as you hoped before that either, you're gonna start hating poker. It also has as added benefit that you're making it impossible for yourself to chase losses.

I would also strongly recommend scheduling in things like work-outs, laundry, eating healthy, etc, as most professional poker players seriously lack in those aspects. And make some kind of prop bet/agreement with your friend for some punishment if one of you fails to do something. For example, me and my roommate alternate cooking (which includes doing the shopping and the cleaning everything up afterwards etc), and if one of us skips a work-out he has to cook 3 times in a row, making skipping a work-out because you're feeling lazy kinda pointless as it takes about as much time as the extra house-hold duties but you don't benefit from those while working out keeps you in shape.

Oh and make sure your workspace is good, and do hand/finger/arm stretches to prevent injury. Check out this entire thread:

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/4-General-Discussion/360781-Your-poker-office-

Thank you very much GC. I found some very interesting and analyze worth spots to think about.

I know that I and my friends defenetly would not like to burn ourselves out. Instead of that we want to keep everything in balance. After all, balance is everything.

As a day plan, i thougth exactly to make it all fully balanced. It def including work out, eating healthy do homework etc.

I still hope to get some more feedback w/ tips and its perfect when some of you have been on this road and know what to avoid and what to look for.

Good reply GC. Enjoyed reading that.

I'm all for scheduled non-poker stuff. But give yourself some room for the grinding times. Forcing yourself to play has a very negative long term effect.

So you say that even if im supermotivated to grind and don't feel like im forcing myself i still should balance it and forcing myself to do something else instead?

hmm agree with GC on this one...im just building up my volume now im playing fulltime and im having to force myself to do it at times...which is detremental to results compared to when i feel like putting a session in.

The motivation you have is a very valuable thing. If you'd end each day a bit early despite you still wanting to play, it'll be a bit frustrating and you can't wait till you can play again the next day. This will keep the actual playing fun for a long time. If you end up playing 8 hours a day for 2 weeks straight and get sick of it, you might never get that same drive to play back.

Sure you can play some more when you're motivated. That's the entire point of having the more free poker schedule. You play more when you feel like playing, and less when you feel like not playing. But if you force fixed hours on yourself, you're gonna burn out from when you don't want to play but play anyway. So instead just set x hours/week or month (or even a minimum and a maximum amount of hours per week/month), and fill the days in as you see fit in terms of poker.

Keeping your motivation intact is like being tiltless. It's so much more valuable than being extremely good at the game. There are a lot of players out there that are very good at playing, but very bad at grinding. At the end of the year, it's the marginal winrate high volume (as in hours) players that have won more than the high winrate 1-2 hours a day players.

Also a +EV scheduling tip... Plan your sessions around peak hours (EU evenings, weekens, etc) and do stuff like working out and watching videos etc during the dead hours. Ie, planning a monster grind on every Sunday is fine. Just don't actually monstergrind if you don't feel like playing that Sunday.