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Intro

I have decided to start a blog chronicling my poker journey. I moved to Vietnam about a year ago to teach English earning enough to have a decent lifestyle and still have a lot of free time to work on my own goals.

Poker wise not much success in the past. However I didn’t have coaching nor a structure to learning profitable strategy. Therefore I decided to join a coaching for profits program.

My lifestyle for the past 5-6 years has involved working a hard manual labour job for my family 6 months of the year then going traveling and going abroad to fun cheap countries getting wasted and banging as much girls (for free but I don’t judge) as I could. While often referred to as a degenerate lifestyle I still love that way of life.

However I just recently turned 27 and earning a shitty income isn’t something I want to do for the rest of my life.

I plan on updating this regularly with goals, session reviews, keeping track of and how I manage tilt which has been my main weakness not only with poker but in life. I have a tendency to seek out excitement whenever I experience a negative emotion which can be as trivial as something like boredom. This usually involves then wasting time on porn, videos games or chatting shit with randoms. I have nothing against those things but moderation is key.

I may also post about the lifestyle here, and my other goals which involve getting into great shape and learning some form of combat sport, preferably boxing. I’m in a relationship now which overall should help with productivity but I will just state the dating scene out here is epic. If your a young white guy who isn’t exactly living the most exciting lifestyle and you have a decent grasp of English I highly recommend considering moving you don’t need to be native speaker. Work is pretty easy to come by and the pay in general affords you a decent lifestyle with lots of free time.

Anyway the aim is to post regularly and use the blog as some form of accountability.

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Day 1 goals

1-Effective warm up

2-Proficient session review

3-Daily volume goals

4-Daily study goals

1-The title of my blog has the phrase “profitable machine”. I’ve found focusing on monetary goals is not conducive to emotional stability whether you are winning or losing. Therefore in my warm up routine I envision a version of myself in which at the tables I’m logical, emotionally stable(stoic) and robotic in my execution. I then envision myself as the opposite, a version in which I’m impatient, impulsive and emotionally reactive. I then go back to my ideal and then I begin my grind.

2- After the session while still fresh in my mind I review areas where I lacked understanding, I rate how well I regulated my emotions, was I “triggered” by anything, if so what was it and why. I take notes of all.

3-My daily volume goals involve time rather than total hands as I’m still in process of learning solid strategy. Therefore 3-4 tables will suffice. My aim is to spend 3 hours per session with main goal being remaining in a focused and logical state.

Today due to birthday party and work I will attempt to play for 3 hours in one session.

4-My study goals will involve 1 new vid/topic where I will take notes during then make a concise summary afterwards. I will then prepare questions in regards to my post session notes for my study group. I will get into the routine of posting 1 hand for analysis and attempting to answer 1-3 everyday.

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Day 1: Results

Play rating: 8/10

Played 3 hours like a robot and made back 4 buy ins I lost yesterday on tilt and studied an hour.

Tilt rating: 10/10

Not many tilting situations to be honest I hope the warm up visualising helps.

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Day 2

Played fuck all volume as was drunk last night and really just had a waste of a day. Opened a couple of tables while playing a free roll on stars and definitely noticed an increase in fish on the tables. Will make a note to try get volume around those times.

Started a tilt/mood life journal today to help with planning my days and having alternate plans if things go awry.

Play rating: 10

Fuck all volume but got my kings smashed by AQ all in pre and I felt a little bit of a heat inside but was fully aware these are the types of situations I need to be 100% unreactive too. Continued playing logically, following the strategy and left a couple of buy ins up.



Tilt rating: 10

Was aware of a physiological change (similar feeling to blushing) in a tilting situation. I behaved very well and continued playing but the more aware of that feeling I am the better. It’s when situations that produce that feeling happen in rapid succession that we become susceptible to playing in a tilted state.



Daily productivity rating: 6

Overall shit but left with something of value. I got thinking about all the times I feel the urge to escape reality e.g. using porn, procrastinate lying in bed, pointless internet surfing type shit that you resort to any time you feel boredom/stress/any negative emotion basically.

I came up with a process somewhat inspired by Jordan Peterson’s advice on getting your life together. It’s basic gist is anytime I get thrown off track in life and tend to seek out things that allow you to escape your reality I will recognise what I’m doing. Then..

1. Make sure I’m well fed and hydrated

2. Tidy my room/enviroment

3.Do any chores I know will need done in nearby future

4.Read book 15 mins

5.Watch improvement type vid on YouTube.



Through out I will try to focus fully on task at hand. Then I will reset plan to best suit what time I have left in the day to maximise productivity.

Overall I want to develop ability to recognise when my mood and mindset is heading to a negative place and do things to enhance it to a more ideal state.

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Day 3 goals

1. Play 2-3 sessions with aim of 3 hours each

2. Stick to just 3-5 tables table selecting like mad and focusing on playing in a logical emotionally controlled manner

3. Study 1 vid/topic

4. Start learning Vietnamese pimsleur audio

5. Do a recon of my district and find a closer English Center to teach in.

[semibaron]

Dude, this is RVF not pokerstars.com.

Post some quality content about Vietnamese girls / Saigon or stop bumping this thread.

[kiwi12]

(08-18-2018 08:47 AM)semibaron Wrote:  

Dude, this is RVF not pokerstars.com.

Post some quality content about Vietnamese girls / Saigon or stop bumping this thread.

I disagree. We have various threads where members documenting their journey in fitness, health, game, moneymaking and even sports betting. Why would thread about playing poker be different.

Keep on grinding op.

[roberto]

Was there not an option to start managing this family buisiness rather than be a labourer for it?

[BoomorBust]

This is an interesting thread. I also want to work on tilt control and understanding variance better. I've started reading The Grinder's Manual. It's a poker textbook that clearly explains the basics and gradually moves on to more complex concepts. The author of that book also recommends The Mental Game of Poker for understanding how to deal with tilt. I'm going to read that book while I work my way through The Grinder's Manual.

You said you joined a coaching for profits program. If you don't mind answering: What program did you join, and would you recommend it?

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Ok I think there is some interest on the poker side of things so I will keep posting unless forum mods have a problem with it. I think mentioning the program could possibly be seen as being a shill for some form of advertising. So if your really curious then maybe PM would be more appropriate.

Girl wise as I said I have been in a relationship for heading on a year. However while I was single for first month here I fucked 10 girls mainly through online but also from lush. Shoring was not involved something which is an annoyance in surrounding countries( I don’t have anything against it and have done it a tonne in the past but I’d rather not have to). Quality wise on average I’d say better than what I’m used to in the Phils or Thailand.

If I end up single again I will post regularly about it. I pretty much arrange a date every other night and love the process. I do not find dating to be the drag that it can be in the West but rather enjoyable.

I will say what held me back from Vietnam was reports that it was overly conservative and ONSs were hard to come by. I had a completely different experience and all but 2 were SNLs. If I had known how good the dating scene is IMO in Saigon I’d have come much younger.

@roberto not really it’s more of contract work and I’m just not that passionate about it.

@boomorbust I have read that but it was all over my head I’m starting at the 1/2c games and something I appreciate about the structure I’m learning is that it only teaches you what’s necessary to win at my limit. If you try the stuff in that book in the lower games I don’t think it will go well.

[Stay]

Ok I won’t bother posting daily poker results and goals as most people won’t be interested instead I will do weekly goals and post a monthly graph of my volume and success or failure over the month from poker tracker.

I will start posting my fitness related goals. I’ve always wanted to learn to fight and had planned on taking up boxing here. I’ve done a boxing camp in the phils in the past and I learned my cardio is shit and my technique was terrible and I would get beyond exhausted sparring despite having visible abs and looking like I had a fairly fit physique.

This led me to Joel Jamieson of 8 weeks out. Coach of many UFC fighters and a lot of decent coaches in combat sports follow what he’s teaching. I decided to follow his strength and conditioning program and really start studying fighting (boxing mainly at the moment but I’m pretty interested in all combat sports) through YouTube vids breaking down techniques and also film studies breaking down the strategies behind what’s going on in the fights that normal people just dont see. There are a tonne of quality channels on this.

As of now I’m on the general endurance block which was my biggest weakness. The design of the general endurance 8 week block program involves testing 3 main factors. You need a heart rate monitor for all and it’s pretty essential in nearly all your training. The tests and my results

1- Your resting heart rate (sitting) = 56 bpm
2- Your anaerobic threshold (run as far as you can on a treadmill for 6mins) take distance and average hr = 171 beats (my weakness) you want this as high as possible giving you a bigger window to use aerobic energy
3- Max heart rate 1 minute break test how far it falls= 192 1min 152 (also very weak) you want this below 130 within a minute.

I’m 5 weeks into training which has involved for me attempting to stretch the left ventricle and lower my resting heart rate. Long distance running fucks with your knees so I worked my way up to 23, 4 minutes rounds, no breaks of 1 round shadow boxing/1 round skipping.

This approach has improved my technique more than any pad sessions in actual gyms did. I got so bored shadow boxing I was watching vids on different techniques. I normally spend a round on each punch incorporating slips into them then move into combos and really visualise when I’d use them reacting to an opponent. In a lot of gyms they really don’t focus much on technique and I just feel that they want to exhaust me.

About to move into anaerobic threshold stage with focus being on shifting the upper window from 171 to nearer my max heart rate so I can use aerobic energy system more and not gas.

Main methods for this will be building up to 5 x 10mins -5mins rest periods on treadmill with heart rate within -/+ 5 beats of 171.

I will also work on explosive repeat methods. Developing my ability to explode again and again over long duration.

I intend on joining boxing or Muay Thai gym once I start the strength block and my money situation is doing better.