Poker Journal Day 32
Day 32, March 26: I woke up and did my morning work out on an empty stomach. Went downstairs and realized I had no bowl or microwave to make the oatmeal I purchased at the store. I dumped some in a cup and just poured on cold water and rolled with it. Immediate protein shake followed.
Decided I'd go out and day game all day. Haven't been out and social for a few weeks having been at the retreat, and I anticipated being rusty. I was, and found myself much more hesitant than normal. However, the third girl I approached things went really well and after about 10 minutes of sidewalk banter we went for coffee. Fuck I drank so much coffee today. I got her talking on dating and she mentioned how she was just out of a 3 1/2 year relationship and wants to find guys to have fun with who don't get clingy. The last guy who was supposed to be a player turned out to not be player enough and wasn't suitable when he suggested some form of weekend away. I told her I'm a polyamorist who discusses the external dating lives of the girls he sleeps with. She dug it, and we agreed to meet up for drinks tonight.
After that I went to get Korean BBQ for the second time that day, because, why not? Then the gym again. Then getting cleaned up to call Brooke and see what he was doing. He was staying in with the wife. I called the girl, who said she was at a bar she wanted to leave and that we should meet up at a bar named Soul at 9:30. I showed up, she didn't, and by 9:50 I bounced. You get used to flaking/stand up variance after long enough of doing cold approach; most numbers turn into flakes in fact, though I know a few guys who are off the charts at it. Went back to the hotel and contemplated my evening. Would I perhaps call around to find some weed, or go out? The night went both directions.
I called some friends looking for a connection. Nothing going. I decided I'd just go walk the streets and cold approach people with the question and after finding some, go play video games at a store I passed that's open 24/7, stoned, making for an excellent evening. I headed into the streets of Auckland and when I walked past any young dudes or girls who looked like they might be the chill type I went over and said "Hey are you guys from Auckland?" If I got a yes I'd say "Ah okay cool, so do you know where a dude can get some weed around here?"
Nobody I asked was offended. The first dudes were like "Oh sweet dude any night of the week it's this guy but he's actually out tonight!"
"Sorry bro" said the chill looking bro who was usually in supply.
Bro was the theme of the evening. The fourth group I asked was two dressed up hot girls walking down the street. They weren't bothered at all and the blonde one started texting her friends to see if she could find any for me. I had never considered it's pick up applications, but it turns out just going up to girls and asking where to find weed is a pretty effective way to get them to stop and have a chat to you with the addition of knowing a prexisting common interest. After bantering a bit the blondes friends replied no and I kept moving. I went into a bar and asked some random people, was immediately made a "bro" and enthusiastically introduced to their one girl, and was given truly heart felt apologies when they were unable to provide. Walked up to another group and they didn't have it. Walked up to some Middle Eastern dudes and one of them exploded with "Yea! I'm the man bro!" The young man and I, Lucky as he prefers to be called, stepped outside and had a conversation. He said we could and get some no problem, so long as I smoked him up. I said that's what weed karmas all about. He called over his boy Omar and we discussed how we would get to it. It was a 15 minutes drive away and they were both heavily intoxicated, and as it turned out, on pills of some kind. It was decided that I would drive Omar's car, as I was sober and the guy they had met at least a few minutes ago.
We walked over to his car while they drunkenly hollared at every girls that walked by with. Omar unparked it, and I got in to drive. Every third word from their moves was "bro". We discussed how I'm an American, and they're Iraqi's, and that's all cool with everyone cause we're all bros. Fuck them governments and shit, this is about weed damn it, we look beyond the political boundaries. I have no idea where I'm going and Lucky directs me. They crank the Neo on the their stereo. We drove well out of the city and into the suburbs, then I was told to U-turn and pull up to a darkened house. Lucky ran in with the $30, and brought back a finger of weed wrapped in foil, which he said had been their last one. Variance upswing! A quick drive back to the city, more walking down the street while the two of them yelled insanity at every girl, and back to the bar we origionally met. Lucky invites me to his friends 21'st tomorrow; we're totally bros now.
The three of us dart around a corner and take a seat on some stairs under a building entryway with what turns out to be two Isreali dudes, who are travelers hanging about drinking cheap wine from the bottle. Lucky rolls it up and the three of us blaze away. Omar is in terrible shape, swaying heavily and having to be up at 8:00am the next day. Everyone hollers at random girls that walk by. Being the random dudes in the alley way who reek of weed is not the place to be hollering from.
We returned to the bar, and I ran into my bros from before who were so apologetic about not having weed. Everyone started hitting it off and it turns out they were navy boys and girls out getting hammered. After some discussion, it was decided between me and one of the Navy guy's, JD, that we really ought to go around the corner and smoke more weed, as we had become such bros and all. We took a seat next to the Isreali boys again and a third had showed up. Upon rolling the joint and having some banter with them, it was decided they should be included in all joint smoking and related activities. Two girls walked by, were hollered at, and promptly mooched a cigarette from one of the Isreali dudes. They didn't want to get high. We start smoking a girl walks by, smells it, turns and attempts to sell us ecstacy. The Isrealis consider it but she gets tired of their bad English and walks.
JD stumbles back to the bar and I wind up hanging with the Isreali's talking to poker. I am introduced to Ben, Tuval, and Guy. We discuss that we should go out in search of more weed, plus Tuval has Isreali girls meeting us out. I'm invited to Tel Aviv, invite them to Melbourne, and everyone is bros. We go for food, then head down near a hostel and start asking around. I talk to some Maori dudes and they profusely apologize to me, but they just can't sell in the city. "You know how it is bro." I tell him it's chill an I'm apologized to twice more.
Tuval's girls show up with three random dudes. When one of them, Maya, hears I have weed she immediately turns on me and flips her eyes on. "You have weed?!" "Hi, how are you?" I reply. Ben meets a guy who says he can get a large quantity of weed. Guy gets into detail with him and it's decided that an ounce is to be purchased that we can all buy from. I grab his number to call him tomorrow about it. It's decided that so long as there will be more, we ought to go smoke the rest of what I got. The dudes the girls brought leave and the six of us walk over to some parking lot and Guy rolls up a multi paper one. I start heavily chatting up the other girl, Elle, who is wearing a giant St Patricks day hat very late. Apparantly she missed it. Her accent is sweet as. We are constantly interrupted by random drunks; the first attempting to exchange his cheesberger for a cigarette, a message that it takes him 5 minutes of yelling to relate, the second a young man who stole a bottle of whiskey from a club, offered it to everyone, and recanted us with his long history of stealing things upon my requesting it. Things reached 2:30 and I figured with a 12:15 start it was time to call it an evening. I made plans to meet up with Guy when the day finishes and get everything sorted.
I never really thought about it before, but you can not only go out for drinks with people, you can go out for weed with people. In one evening of approaching randoms in the street asking where to buy I wound up making more bros than I can remember in some time. Or maybe it's just New Zealand?
Poker Journal Day 31
Day 31, March 25th: We woke up early to catch our flights to Auckland. 10am New Zealand time is 8am Melbourne time, where up until two weeks ago I was used to getting up at noon. Needless to say, I was pretty much fucking useless all day. We had hoped to get me switched on to Lee's flight as his was about 90 minutes earlier than mine but they were full, so I sat around reading a book I'd recently purchased, The 50th Law, by Robert Greene and 50 Cent (seriously.) I've always been a fan of Robert Greene since reading The 48 Laws of Power, but who knew that a collaboration with 50 Cent would produce one of the best books I've ever read. I can't recommend it enough for people interested in poker, pick up, fitness, hell anything dealing with having serious ambition in life outside of doing everything everyone tells you to do.
I met up with Brooke and his friend John when I arrived in Auckland. Turns out the tournament is Saturday and not Friday as I'd thought, so we decided to go out. As a result of my fitness goals I'm not drinking, so I engaged in the ever strange type of night out where you're surrounded by drunks and totally sober. By midnight my body was crashing from the lack of sleep, carbs, and all the travel and I spent the next hour in the club desperately looking for weed. Upon failing to turn anything up I left the club and got into a cab, taking one last shot by asking the driver if he knew where I could get any. He did not.
I've got all day free tomorrow with Brooke working and nobody to hang with, so I figure I'll spend my whole day in the city doing day game.
Poker Journal Day 30
Day 30, March 24th: Got less done on the book than normal yesterday as a result of passing out early from exhaustion. The constant work and working out has my body and mind pushed to full capacity, and without any social interaction, weed, or sex to offer moments of relaxation and release I am strung out. I spend almost all day plugged into my Ipod, trying to keep my brain in off mode whenever possible.
I went into the city today with Lee. I did some work on the couch of the salon while he got his hair cut and tried not to stare too much at the hot girl behind the counter. In the evening I had a bit more work to touch up, the final touches on my writing for the time spent at the retreat. We leave for Auckland tomorrow morning, much too early for my tastes in fact.
Bond18′s guide to getting ripped
Disclaimer: It should be noted at the beginning that I am not a personal trainer or have any legitimate health credentials. The contents from this article are mostly the result of research, discussions with my personal trainer who has been involved in bodybuilding about a decade, and personal experience.
I decided to make one of my 2010 goals to get down to 6% body fat. I had always enjoyed working out, but the idea came to me when I was reading an article in Mens Health about celebrities who had transformed themselves for a film roll. Generally, they had gotten things done in about 3-5 months and made an enormous change in their appearance and health, and naturally I figured “Four months, that’s it? Fuck it, I can do that.”
This led me to hire successful Australian bodybuilder Allister White as my personal trainer, who owns and runs Doherty’s Gym on Flinders street station in Melbourne. I asked him for reading material and wound up reading numerous articles on www.tmuscle.com, as well as doing separate research on bodybuilding forums and having conversations with other guys who shared the interest as well as trainers around the gym. As always in the case of health, there’s a lot of conflicting and confusing information out there, so I’ve tried to boil down what appears to be more or less unanimously agreed upon without getting overly technical.
First off, let’s discuss what the goals are. Your personal fitness goals should depend on the function of your training. Are you training for a specific sport? For aesthetic purposes? To run a marathon? To get much stronger? Are you trying to be huge and look like you could destroy people, or just toned so you fit into clothing well but are sexy without? You might even need to have multiple goals; if you want to look like Gerard Butler in 300 but you’re 510″ and 130 pounds you’re going to have to add weight and lean muscle mass to your frame before you can cut down and get the defined look.
This article is going to focus on toning up, weight loss, and aesthetics. My personal goals were improving general fitness, slowing the physical aging process, and becoming the build that I believed to be optimally aesthetically appealing to women. Obviously, not all women prefer the same look of men, but the closest they have on consensus is that they like a muscular looking guy who is not overly big with well defined abs that still fits into clothing well. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Christian Bale in American Pyscho, or David Beckham at all times. You will find that people generally associate being “buff”, “ripped”, or “fit” with muscle tonality and not necessarily size. Many people find that when they lose weight and overall body fat people actually comment that they look more buff or huge, even though they’ve actually lost size.
Achieving this look generally revolves around bringing your body fat % down to a pretty low number. Some basics on body fat %: There are two kinds of body fat, essential body fat and and storage body fat. Essential body fat is necessary to maintain life and your bodies daily functions. Storage body fat consists of adipose tissue which helps to prevent internal organs and your chest/abdomen. Essential body fat on men is 3-5%, and on women 8-12%. Professional body builders will actually dip below these numbers, but usually only for a few hours leading up to a competition and will look to restore and replenish their body immediately following the contest.
Again, how you will look at certain body fat %’s is going depend on your height, overall lean muscle mass, and genetics. Here’s an excellent link from a bodybuilding forum that contains many links to pictures of guys at various stages of dropping their body fat %: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=20622431&postcount=226
Generally, I’d say the ideal health and aesthetic combination for a man to maintain is 7-10% (though there is a pretty substantial difference between each one percent when you get this low.) Attempting to maintain under 7 is not recommended from a health standpoint, and rising much above 10 will prevent having well defined abdominals.
So, how do you do it? Let’s assume you have enough lean muscle mass on you that you’re ready to do a what many bodybuilders call a “cutting phase” and lose weight in order to tone up. The consensus among bodybuilders seems to be that when it comes to fitness and particularly cutting phases, your results will be 80% diet based and 20% training based. Tons of guys work their ass off in the gym but are very slack on the diet aspect, and never see the results they think they deserve from their long and hard hours of training. As the saying goes, “abs are made in the kitchen”. Let’s break the topics up separately.
Training: Most bodybuilders do a form of training that hits one muscle group hard then gives it a full week to recover. Most guys do 3-5 days of training, breaking things up by muscle groups that are involved in each others lifts. My personal routine goes:
Sunday: Back
Monday: Legs
Tuesday: Biceps/shoulders
Wednesday: HIIT
Thursday: Pecs/triceps
Friday: Off
Saturday: HIIT
I’ve seen some guys be more specific and isolated, some be less. Exactly how you should break yours up should depend on personal preference, time restrictions, and will benefit from a consultation with a professional trainer. Training six days a week is not mandatory, and many guys do 4 or 5. In fact, some bodybuilders don’t even incorporate cardio days for cutting phases, instead making the entire shift about diet. This is because cardio (and cutting phases in general) have the effect of slowly deteriorating muscle fiber. Luckily, the idea is that you lose far more fat than muscle and wind up with a lean, toned, and athletic look.
Your first focus in training should be in maintaining excellent form to prevent injury. You can get lazy on your sets and reps if you really want, but another popular gym saying goes “When you cheat in the gym, the only person you cheat is yourself.” Even if you can’t afford a trainer on a consistent basis, it’s worth consulting with one a few times in order to make sure your form is correct for the exercises he recommends or you’ve decided to do. Second, when doing a cutting phase you’ll want to try and keep rest between sets in the one minute area. This keeps your heart rate elevated during the training and makes lifting sessions more comparable to a cardio session. Third, you’ll want to immediately get an influx of protein in your body within 45 minutes of finishing weight lifting (preferably within 30) in order to help the rebuilding of the muscle fibers torn during lifting. Fourth, you’ll want to be doing sets in the 8-12 sets area and at an intensity that takes you to failure or very close. Don’t be a pussy and not push for that last rep or two, but also don’t be overly proud and risk injury when your body is telling you that it’s at failure. Get a gym buddy to be your spotter to crank out those last couple of reps. If you don’t have a friend to go with you, just ask guys around the gym for a spot and make some conversation, everyone there has a mutual interest and most guys are very easy going and approachable.
Your cardio training should be in the area of moderate intensity and not excessively long. Ideally, your cardio sessions should be about 30-60 minutes, and normally somewhere in the middle there. I normally do 40 or 45 minutes. The point during cardio isn’t to make yourself a bad ass marathon runner or have the worlds best VO2 max, it’s about keeping your heart rate and metabolism elevated so you body is always in fat burning mode.
An excellent way to quicken the entire cutting phase is to add a cardio session to your routine many mornings of the week, and before you eat anything that day. Doing cardio on an empty stomach causes your body to burn fat more efficiently, and it’s a great way to crank your heart rate at the start of your day, which you’ll likely find will increase your focus throughout the morning.
Another type of training to consider is what are known as “HIIT” workouts, High Intensity Interval Training. Recent studies have shown that you can gain the benefit of cardiovascular exercise by instead doing a high intensity type of exercise that has short bouts of active rest in between the strenuous periods. Where as cardio sessions tend to run 30-60 minutes, HIIT workouts are normally recommended to be in the 20 minute area, and some of that will be rest. The difference is that during the active periods of the HIIT workout you’re going all out. Here’s an article with further information and ideas on what you can do to create an excellent HIIT workout: http://www.healthhabits.ca/2008/06/09/4-steps-to-a-great-hiit-workout/
Additionally, here’s an excellent article from www.tmuscle.com that discusses using sprints as this form of workout: http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/sprinting_towards_single_digit_body_fat
Personally, I do two HIIT workouts a week in the form of boxing training. I usually warm up with about 20 minutes on an exercise bike, then move into the boxing hall where I stretch out then do 3 minutes of shadow boxing and moving around in the ring, followed by 1 minute rest, followed by 3 or 4 rounds working the bag and moving around for 3 minutes at a time with a 1 minute rest in between. I’m fucking drenched by the end; it’s nasty, but clearly effective.
Remember that in all forms of training you have to work up to a certain degree of fitness before you can exert yourself to the maximum. If you haven’t exercised in years and hang around 25% body fat don’t think you can just leap into a hardcore routine and not exhaust yourself; you’ll need to build it up more slowly than that. Additionally, when you begin your training be mindful of listening to what you’re body is telling you. Over training is a realistic possibility if you go too far without preparation and will sideline your progress if you force a state of exhaustion or cause an injury. If you’re body is stiff and aches to a degree out of the ordinary, there’s nothing wrong with taking one or two more days off than usual to let it rest. Your body needs time to repair, which is why you should be getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night when attempting something like this, preferably 9, and there’s nothing wrong with getting a bit more than that.
At my current level, I’m doing 4 weight lifting sessions a week, two HIIT sessions, and six sessions of cardio in the morning on an empty stomach. I didn’t start this way and whether I choose to try and maintain it all the way through my cutting phase depends on how I feel. It’s far more work than most guys doing a cutting phase usually engage in, but it suits given I have plenty of free time, flexibility, and an obsessive drive towards achieving my goals.
Diet: As I mentioned previously, your diet is actually going to be more important in the kind of results you see than your training. It’s also the aspect which seems to have more disagreement and discourse amongst professionals so I’m going to try and boil it down to the things that are proven facts or that the majority agree on.
As near everyone knows, to lose weight you need to in take less calories than your body burns over the course of the day. However, it’s not as simple as just reducing calories and suddenly getting jacked. Where those calories come from is equally important if not more so, not to mention how you eat them.
The majority of bodybuilders in a cutting phase undergo an incredibly strict diet that involves very high protein intake and a minimum of fats and carbohydrates. Let’s break down those three groups separately:
Protein: Anyone who’s ever held a dumbell before probably knows that protein is essentially to muscle growth. This is because protein is used help repair he muscle fibers torn during exercise, which is why I early recommended you get it in your system not long after your work out. Your major sources of protein should be from clean sources like lean meat; things like chicken, tuna, salmon, and turkey. Other meats are good too, but not as optimal as those ones. Don’t rely on dairy to get your protein during a cutting phase, it’s high sugar content makes it detrimental. In fact, most bodybuilders won’t even touch dairy during a cutting phase. Additionally, using a supplement form of whey protein is recommended. Mix your shakes with water and if you’re going to eat protein bars, make sure they are very low on carbohydrates and sugars (which few are.) Generally you should lose the bars during a cutting phase, but we all have our weaknesses (I know I do.)
Your main goal for protein intake should be in the area of 1-1.5 grams per pound of bodyweight every day, though some guys shoot as high as two. If you want a long list of articles to read up on protein then here you are: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/category/nutrition/protein
Fat: Not as scary as it sounds. The important part about fat intake during training is that you consume the healthy forms of fat and keep the unhealthy ones to an absolute minimum. The healthy form of fat is known as unsaturated (which is split into two groups, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, though I assume the poly fatties get laid more), the unhealthy known as saturated. Saturated fat is essentially your ultimate enemy in weight loss; just turn over any junk food or candy wrapper and realize that it is loaded with the stuff. Meanwhile, unsaturated fats help reduce cholesterol, maintain healthy skin, helps transport vitamins throughout the body, and are used much more efficiently by the body. Generally, bodybuilders aim to have fats be around 20% of their food intake over the course of the day. Good sources include nuts, alvacado, fish, and cooking oils, especially olive oil.
Carbohydrates: As many know, the loudest debate in health these days seems to stem from carbohydrate intake. The basic idea is this; when losing weight and aiming for a very low body fat % you should avoid processed carbs like the plague and minimize unprocessed carbs. The problem with carbohydrate intake is it causes your body to release insulin, which puts your body into fat storage mode, the opposite of our goal. There are still good sources of carbohydrates that can be incorporated in your diet though including vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, nuts, oatmeal, and whole grain breads or pasta.
However, for attempting something as ambitious as getting to 10% body fat or below, many bodybuilders almost entirely cut carbohydrates out of their diet with the exception of vegetables and in some cases, a small influx of them in the morning to provide energy throughout the day. Other fitness enthusiasts are not quite so strict, but my personal trainer put a major emphasis on reducing my carb intake in order to maximize the efficiency of this process.
Here’s a quick overview of the diet my trainer created for me, which was designed as a combination of attempting to achieve this goal, and prevent me from having to make any food during my hours of work when I only have 5 minute breaks available to me every hour:
Meal 1: Bowl of oatmeal and a protein shake.
Meal 2: Can of chicken and 200g of broccoli.
Meal 3: Can of chicken and a serving of spinach (I don’t recall the exact amount as I don’t have it in front of me and switched it out.)
Meal 4: A protein shake immediately following work out.
Meal 4: 50g of cashews
Meal 5: One medium sized steak and a side of garden salad or vegetables.
All I drink is water, black coffee, and the protein shakes (which are naturally mixed with water.) I was also recommended salmon and flaxseed oil to help balance my in take of healthy fats.
I’ve modified the diet slightly to personal preference and through some trial and error. I replaced the spinach with a carrot, and have removed the 50g of cashews because I found that keeping them around the house caused me to overeat on them. I also generally have two low carb protein bars spaced out over the course of my day to keep me from wanting to kill myself. The consequences of a low carb diet can include feeling lethargic, loss of concentration, and finding yourself increasingly moody. I haven’t experienced much of that yet but it’s only been about a month.
The main goal of your diet should simply be this; many small meals over the course of your day that are high in protein and moderate or low in healthy fats and unprocessed carbohydrates. Eating actually activates your metabolism, so by eating every few hours of the day you keep it constantly working. The end result is that I never feel overly full, rarely feel truly hungry (unless I’m stoned), and miss looking at something as simple as bread and saying “Yea sure, I’ll have some”. If you think you’re going to have diet slips then don’t keep food you’re not allowed around the house. Marajuana use is obviously not recommended for attempting a cutting phase (and from a strictly health point, ever) but I love that shit and when I get bad munchies I simply eat more chicken.
If you follow everything here, train hard, create a diet that you actually follow and don’t slack on, then you can get results surprisingly fast. Good luck with your goals, and see you at 6%.
Poker Journal Day 28
Day 28, March 22st: I had a fairly minor day of work on the book. Lee was very occupied with guests from a travel agency that are examining the retreat, so I just did some work filling in hand example charts on his computer then retired to my room for the evening.
Spent most of my day writing my big ass post on fitness, chatting with friends, reading, and posting on 2+2. I wanted to finish the TJ Cookier script as I found someone to animate it, but I was having huge internet problems and I couldn’t even load the page correctly.
Poker Journal Day 27
Day 27, March 21st: I did a substantial amount of writing today. I went over ElkY’s stuff on metagame and bubble play, as well as reacting to LAG and hyper LAG players. I’m not sure how many pages I’ve written up at this point, but I believe it’s well over 100 now.
Poker Journal Day 26
Day 26, March 20th: I've managed to keep getting up earlier and earlier every day. The days are so routine they all sort of blend together. It's wake up, work out, work on the book, eat, tool around on the computer, eat, work out, work on the book, read, sleep. I read a ton of 2+2 at the moment.
At this stage I've written so much of ElkY's material that I can pretty much permanately read his soul. Not really though, because he's super good at balancing, but there's so much information in my brain I just need to turn it off and listen to my Ipod a lot. I've gotten in contact with more guys to set up coaching when I get home to Melbourne. Looking good at this stage.
Poker Journal Day 25
Day 25, March 19th: Did work on the book in the morning (aka post 2pm, though I wake up at 1pm but spend the first hour working out) and in the evening. I edited and fixed what I wrote last night as much of it was transcribing and rewording ElkY’s stuff and I was typing a mile a minute. In the evening I wrote a section about “having a plan” that took the idea from the “Things it took me a while to learn” article I wrote on it then built upon the idea considerably.
In the evening we went to a basketball game in Nelson, about an hour away. Lately I find that I don’t feel anywhere near as social as usual, and I passed the game (which was a blow out) away mostly spaced out. I spend most of my days alone in my room or the gym and walk around the house with my Ipod in at almost all times. Lee is often busy doing work for the retreat and I’m left to my own devices, but it’s in a state of solitude. Keeping my head so much in my work has a way of, as I described before, “melting my brain”, and when I’m not typing, or thinking about how to phrase something, or debating whether we’re giving optimal advice, or editing, or proof reading, I just want to switch my brain off, not think, and give it some time to rest. I miss my girlfriend quite a bit. I call her in the late evenings some times and do what I can to be an entertaining conversation, but my head is all poker at the moment and she doesn’t play, so I wind up trying to make her do a lot of the talking. One of the ways I can tell my recent conversion to a permanent polyamorous mind set is correct is that I actually feel like calling my girlfriend just to chat. When I was monogamous I never felt like doing that. My thoughts on the subject are enormous and I’m still doing research on the matter, so I’ll write further about it at another time and in a more appropriate place than a poker entry.
I’m majorly looking forward to the tournament in Auckland; I’m so ready to play. I’ve also come up with an idea on how to improve my game over the following months and make some cool videos. I’m on good terms or owed favors with a ton of guys in poker whose game I really respect, so I’ve started asking them if they don’t mind doing a HH review+coaching session with me over Skype while I record it on Camtasia. For some reason my zeal for trying to make myself as sharp as possible for the upcoming WSOP seems to know no bounds. I anticipate showing up cut to shreds, kicking ass at pick up, and with my poker game as modern, aggressive, and focused as I can make it. This is the first time I can remember giving this much of a shit in several years.
Poker Journal Day 24
Day 24, March 18th: Wrote up chapters pertaining to table image and how to use it today. I think the amount of stuff I’ve written up is around the 100 pages mark at this point, though again, a lot of it isn’t my origional ideas, they’re ElkY’s. It’s occured to me that when this is all over, I should probably ask him if he’d be willing to spend a session or two on Skype working on my game, as writing up so much material has given me an even greater respect for him than his results had.
Poker Journal Day 23
Day 23, March 17th: I got pleny of work done on the book. I revised the onlie vs live section to sound less partial to online players and got more work done on the mid stages section, though I am currently awaiting further input rom ElkY in order to shore it up further.
I realized that I have forgotten to keep putting the entries on Pokersavvyplus lately so I’m going back and adding them all today. I also never went over the responses I got on the hands I posted on Day 14, so I’ll go over them now.
On the first hand where I called down with AJ on a 8 9 9 8 A board pretty much every response agreed that my line was standard, particularly since there are plenty of missed draws and counterfeited hands in his range.
Looking back at the second hand, which had me holding 88 in the 100 rebuy, I realize that the suits did not copy/paste correctly into the blog entry. In the actual hand I held the 8h and the flop came T high with three hearts. I check called and the turn was a low heart, prompting me to check/call again. I then check/folded a brick river on the shove. I only got one response on the hand so I’ve gone back and given it a quick bump to see if I can get more input.
On the third hand where I flopped two pair with K5 out of the SB in a UB tournament opinions were highly mixed, but most seemed to think that given odds and that people on UB do really weird and spazzy stuff I should at least call the turn. This was an interesting one as a number of guys I respect had fairly polarized responses, but most seemed okay with the idea of at least calling.
On the fourth hand where I 3 bet J7dd in the Tilt 100/r/a most agreed that it was worth having a move like this in my arsenal pre flop so long as I didn’t start going nuts with it. Most liked the line I took post flop, though some said they would bet all three streets as a bluff. I feel like the line I took is better since that early in the tournament people will almost never fold any pair on the turn and rarely turn many worse pairs into bluffs so getting to showdown is not so hard.