Original: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=58856413&postcount=651
So, a very belated update for the year.
Let's start with graphs:
Missing January from Thailand where I won a bit, so let's call it $183k.
Poker:
I played extremely few hours, due to motivational issues we will explore later on.
By my calculations only 285 hours ish last year, which is obviously truly pathetic from a professional POV.
I took February, August, December, January, almost completely off too.
When I did play, I tended very high table count and trying to optimise for leaderboards – and I guess on that front I was quite successful, with really high RB %s
I kind of fluctuated between:
- – OMG there is so much EV to be made from these games on GG right now, must lock in and maximize
to - – Why am bothering to put myself through the mental strain of playing such high volume at such low stakes
I think that I was kind of between lives a bit, old G would have been completely locked for the chance to play at his favourite stake level with so much liquidity, new G is a bit more focussed on not sacrificing life quality for more money, so the conflict was ever present.
I couldn't really resolve it, at times I was really loving the competition, and enjoying the grind, at other times I was just super annoyed to have 'wasted' a day playing for EV.
I also felt quite some imposter syndrome with coaching as I knew compared to my old self I was putting in less reps, not setting the example of professionalism that I would like to, and also less sharp than I used to be, and having to accept a bit that that is not my role anymore in bitB, I'm more of a 'big picture' coach and less in the trenches.
Forcing myself to play for the sake of it or to 'set an example' was costing me more than it was worth, so I resolved to try to only play when it's fun and I enjoyed it and just be honest about what that will mean for my game in the short term.
I've still got a lot to decide here really, but hopefully this year I can put in a bit more present volume, and optimise for enjoyment rather than $$.
The previous 5 years it's been kind of one of my core personality traits to look at myself as someone who maximises the opportunity and doesn't let it slip by, so it's probably going to continue to be a tough ask, will keep you posted on how it goes.
As an aside, although it's now taking a lot of therapy and effort to break, I definitely don't regret my approach and would reccomend old self and most 20 yo guys in poker to do the exact same as I did , which is partly why I was reluctant to write about this in the blog.
Life:
In general life was very good, tons of travelling and new experiences, got stronger, learnt a lot more about myself.
Among other things I:
- kind of learnt to surf
- learnt handstands, did a muscle up, infinite increase in flexibility
- improved and enjoyed playing loads of padel
- rented a villa for my mums 60th, invited all her friends as a complete surprise, took tons of 60 year olds climbing in the mountains
- climbed my first European 4000mer
- organized tons of trips and hopefully improved others happiness on aggregate too
- even met a girl
As I alluded to above, I also reflected a lot on what the point of it all was, and remembered a lot of the things I wanted to play poker to be able to do.
I still started to realise that if I maybe want kids, and will get older, less strong, I should probably start thinking about doing some of this stuff.
I once read in Steffens blog ironically that once you achieve 'financial freedom', whatever that may mean to you, it's hard to really grind without getting accumulated tilt because your subconscious recognises that the point isn't there anymore, and it really resonated with me that on my whole 'journey' up it didn't feel hard to show up every day, i was sometimes tilted but I always had this kind of strong north star, raison d'etre.
Last year or two I've felt the frustration and paralysis way way more, and think it can definitely be due to this.
- Increased first deposit bonus
- Increased rakeback and reloads
- Help with deposits and cashouts
- Access to private freerolls
- Round-the-clock support
The first reason is rooted in false goals, those goals that the essence of a person does not really see as significant, for example, the goal of becoming a top regular at NL5K. Why? Why live in this paradigm for years, ignoring life entirely, if nothing will change when the goal is achieved? The essence of a person easily understands this and calculates everything in advance, therefore it sabotages the process through laziness, boredom, anger, tilt, irritability, thus resisting the stupidity of the ego, which has shackled the soul of a person in these frameworks. Ask all high rollers if anything has changed in their lives after they became high rollers? I guarantee you, you will receive in response approximately the same self-ironic smile and a joke like the one where you no longer need to wash the dishes, even if they offer $ 500! Because there is nothing more to say. Money itself means nothing unless you use it as power, or better yet, as a brush to paint a reality where everyone is fucking awesome.
So overall just a lot of trying to deal with the space left over from not being driven to spend every waking minute on either fitness or poker/bitB.
Equally I'm prescient that poker and bitB are ridiculously fun and rewarding ways to fill time a lot of the time, and that the best solution is almost certainly just continuing to be relatively balanced and happy with it.
I read my goals from last year: guess less hands, more life really., and will give myself a tick on that.
I won't lie, there have been times this year where I've kind of been lying around in bed or the sofa paralysed by complete lack of purpose/ mission, but there's been many more times cycling round vienna with the sun on my face, just feeling like all is good in the world.
So I'm looking forward to whatever 2025 brings, I'm sure it involves reasonable amounts of poker, but hopefully a bit more present and leaving the leaderboard to others instead of waking up in the morning.
Godspeed everyone.