Why haven't I been posting as many reviews?

Well first and foremost I'm lazy. On a serious note...

Although goal-setting is extremely powerful and almost essential imo, the fact that they are required to be set within predetermined time zones like days, weeks, months or years forces us to form bad habits and develop bad thought processes. By that I mean, for example, instead of just looking at our poker goals (like number of hands, strategical improvement, tilt control, hours of study etc) from month to month, we also look at our actual poker progress as broken up into months. I think it's destructive because it pushes us from the position of looking at poker as one big game, and instead we look at the results of smaller chunks of the big game, and as such focus more on the day to day variance. And that kills your tilt.

So instead of looking at each hand individually and separate from others (with metagame considerations obviously), we look at the results of our session; "FUCK, today I lost $X, and it's going to be harder for me to win $Y on the month now". Of course the results of each month are insignificant and arbitrary, and the important thing is simply playing each hand as best you can.

So that's one of the reasons I'm trying to ignore monthly results. That, plus the laziness of course.

So this being the end of month wrap-up, I'll be looking at my poker goals instead of my results, which have obviously been less than stellar.

One of the reasons I shied away from getting mental coaching from Jared in the beginning was that I just didn't feel there was enough time before, after, and during each session for all his warmup/warmdown/breathing exercise stuff. And I think it's partly true, but I could definitely have done better in that area this past month.

I only have 9 entries in my warmup/warmdown booklet for the entire month, and a good chunk of those don't contain a warm-down. This was mostly for the reason that I was so enraged after so many of this month's sessions that I didn't give a shit about writing down "why I felt angry", or "what can I do next time to improve". But therein lied the problem of why I was so tilted every time I started the next session.

How did I get out of the loop without actually adhering to the entire process? I have no idea. I think my desire to hit the ebooks, coaching videos, forums and sweat sessions helped boost my confidence tremendously and I've been on a nice heater for the past few thousand hands because of it.

It's just hard doing the warmup/warmdown every single session. I'll have to revise something, but it's just not going to happen when I decide to play a 1/2 hour-1 hour HU session on Prima with a horrible reg. Maybe it should, but I'm far to impatient and lazy to do so.

I think, before I start really ranting, my month can be summed up as such:

- Played 25k+ hands despite having my internet cut out for 1/4 of the month or more
- Was put to a real test with my tilt control, failed miserably in the beginning, but pushed through like a champ in the end
- Did warmup/warmdown for well under 1/3 of my sessions. Big fail.
- Really improved my work schedule and have been playing far more hours than I ever have. I can now actually visualize playing 4 hours a day.
- Really took a look at my game and studied lots. Very happy about that.
- Even played HU with all my tilt problems.

And although I'm posting a a graph below of my winnings (or lack thereof), I'm doing so purely for entertainment value. It's not any measure of anything except maybe my tilt problems early in the month. Most definitely the swingiest month I've ever had in my poker career, and I hope it will hold that title for years to come.

I mean really. I've made almost $34000 in my career, and this month is but a drop in the ocean. I finished the month ~$1000 under, but what the fuck does that even mean? It means relative to the beginning of the month, another completely insignificant point in time, I've dropped that amount. Relative to the beginning of my poker career, I've won $34k. So what does the month matter?

Obviously results are what we're looking for in poker, but paying attention to the monthly or even daily variance is just going to do nothing but break your brain. That said, here's the horror I've been complaining about all month, along with the slightly depressing all in EV line :p



My goals for next month:

- Play 35k+ hands
- 5k of which HU, 50nl-200nl
- Play at least 3/4 of my sessions with a >5 minute warmup and >5 minute warmdown.
- Get at least one more hours of coaching with Jared even if you feel like you don't need it
- Persue coaching with balugawhale
- Play all the WSOP satties from CC
- Set weekly goals including certain days where you have a certain number of hours to play, starting tomorrow
- Do at least two more sweats with fellow CCers, post videos of them (one of Icemonkey and myself coming soon btw)
- Spend less on sushi
- Go skydiving if you can find someone to go with you
- Get sub to gym before the 5th of the month

Can't think of anything else at the moment, but that's quite a list as it is anyways.

I should probably start making weekly summary/goal setting/review posts from now on. Think I will.

Here's to making progress, gl at the tables guys.