Zankas poker-journal

[Zanka]

My GF keep telling me that "if you do things that you know are good for you even tho you do not feel like it, you will come up better in the end". And it sure is true. Normaly I believe this would have been a pretty tough time for me, but I am doing so many things that are good for me that even tho I kinda feel bad, I have so many things to be gratefull for and so many things that are moving in the direction I want.

So car is still not fixed, and I do not know if it will be. So as for now I am biking everywhere and thus saving 230 a month of budget $. This feels very good and it will def get me out of debt faster, and as a bonus I am feeling much better physicaly and mentaly. Poker has been going very well and I am up over 400 even tho I barely have played this month. And another big thing is that I believe that I will be earning a little more than I expected (just started to get my salary the way it should be) due to working some weekends and whatnot.

If I am able to squeeze a decent amount of poker into my schedule last weeks of august I might be able to pay of a little more debt than I expected.

[Zanka]

Poker update:

Monday
Hours: 4
Result: +120


Tuseday
Hours: 4
Result: +310

I have done some things to improve my game, the biggest is that I have sat down and realy gone trough the very basics and done some work to minimize simple errors early in hands. This has made it so much easier to play and I can focus my mental energy on more complex situations when they come up. Today was the biggest day in a long long time. Awesome progress.

I did my own out-milk today, results was 3/10 but it will work for morning porrage and pancake. Will try up my flavouring game and see if I can make it a little better in the future. Ill cut the cost by something like 98% instead of buying in store and it is super simple.

[just]

I'm currently drinking cow milk (about a liter every three days), but have thought about switching to home made oat milk to save money and for the climate. I've never tried oat milk actually - can you compare it to normal milk?

What do you mean your results were 3/10? Bad taste? Compared to regular milk or store bought oat milk? Did separate (don't know if that's the right term)?

Good job on the poker side!

[Zanka]

yeah, so it is different from regular milk and it takes som getting used to in my experience. But try it for a couple of days or a week. I mostly use it for cooking or on porrage, very rarely drink it straight up.

yeah 3/10 was for taste, a bit too.. oaty and some aftertaste. But will try cinamon and cardamom (?) and see how it tastes. Yeah it separates but I just shake it before using it Let me know what you think after you try it!

[ajcoleman22]

Excited to follow this journal. I played a ton of poker for years during and after college until they shut down the US sites.

[Zanka]

Thanks! I am very motivated right now and hopefully I can keep it interesting

[Family father]

Hi Zanka!

I've started following your journal: thanks for sharing!

If you don't mind, I wonder what kind of games you use to play.. ¿cash?¿sit'n'go?¿mtt? at what blinds/buy-in levels?

Ty!

[ItsALongStory]

Fellow former poker player here as well, we aren't so uncommon after all

I have been toying with the idea of starting to play a bit again, I live in one of the few jurisdictions where it is legal in the US and player pools being merged has certainly helped with traffic. Hopefully when PA comes online they too will merge and we can see a half way decent pool.

My goal would be to build up a bit extra money for savings and perhaps expedite my time to cut the cord ever so slightly, mostly thanks to confidence that poker can add a bit of income post-FIRE rather than the actual dollars involved.

[Zanka]

I play mosttly holdem cashgames. Stakes are small, usualy 10c/20c with a deep 40$buy in. But I am certainly overqualified for those stakes with a gigantic winrate. I am happy to have a decent hourly taxfree and to pay of debt and build some safety for now. Ill probably move up or at least expand to play multiple stakes in the following months.

Nice to see some more (former) poker players here, IMO it is a great source of income together with the ERE mindset as it is easily scalable and even tho it is not so obvious, there are a direct correlation between effort and payout. And on top of that, all you need is a stable internet connection and a working computer.

[ajcoleman22]

I have noticed Hold'em games getting increasingly difficult to beat by wide margins. I have been playing a lot more 8-game, HORSE, HOSE or any other mixed game to up my win rate. Does anyone else play mixed games?

[Zanka]

Yeah it is way harder now than a few years ago but still beatable if you are crazy enough to really try

Ok I am starting to realize that I can cut my food-budget if I just get a bit smarter. This month I have spent 270 so far and a huge part of it is eating out. I will focus a bit more on this next month and see what is possible to do. I do not like to set hard and fast rules since I have found it to only work temporarily. Also I do not focus so much on the eating out, bc that is not what needs fixing, I am very good at eating out. What I need to be better at is prepairing meals, shopping the right food and making more things by myself (like my own oatmilk). If I just do these things the food-budget might even be cut in half.

What I want to do the coming weeks:
Pick a huge amount of mushrooms.
Get hold of as many apples (for free) that I can, maybe even pears.
Become awesome at making oatmilk.
Use the app I just found that lists cheap prices in local stores in my town.
Learn how to store potatoes, carrots and kale (they will soon be very cheap).


Poker Wednesday:
Hours: 4
Result: -30

[Family father]

Thanks Zanka!

I never met a pro (I just read a pair of books, learnt the basic maths and play sit'n'go online from time to time)

You said you track every single hand you play.. I assume you don't do it in excel, no?

Do you use one of these poker programs that also give you a lot of indicators about your opponents?

I tried one once, but got lost in the myriad of indicators and never really analized my own game

[Zanka]

Haha

Nah I do not use any programs, thankfully the site Im playing at is doing all they can to prevent it. I assume some computer-wizard have made a program to do it but most players are probably playing without it. I have used them before but I definately prefer to do without. It shifts the game more towards looking at numbers and more robotic styles of play which are; A, boring and B, Very unfair to those that cant afford/lack the time to learn the programs.

I do not track every single hand anymore, and are relying more on studying the game while not playing. Using different calculators and learning how to adjust vs different strategies basically. I realy heavily on my experience and creativity and are not very up to date with the latest programs and trends but Im doing better and better.

[ItsALongStory]

I have noticed Hold'em games getting increasingly difficult to beat by wide margins. I have been playing a lot more 8-game, HORSE, HOSE or any other mixed game to up my win rate. Does anyone else play mixed games?

Never really got into mixed games other than very very minimal Omaha. I started playing many moons ago, like 2004 or 2005. Those were the days when they were giving away tons of $$ for sign up bonuses that were ridiculously easy. I never actually deposited any money but got $10 for free somewhere and ran that up. I then did deposit $50 once I was up to like $1k just to unlock the ability to cash out and started moving money around (them bonus whoring days were great) to play through a multi-hundred $$ bonus in a matter of weeks.

If I look back my hourly rate was never really all that amazing but I enjoyed myself and made some cash from it so I'm not complaining. I also ran an online poker forum with 2 buddies and unfortunately I'm the only one that didn't make at least 1 WSOP event final table. Goes to show that they knew what they were doing (and also more dedicated) and I was just messing around a bit.

[ItsALongStory]

Haha

Nah I do not use any programs, thankfully the site Im playing at is doing all they can to prevent it. I assume some computer-wizard have made a program to do it but most players are probably playing without it. I have used them before but I definately prefer to do without. It shifts the game more towards looking at numbers and more robotic styles of play which are; A, boring and B, Very unfair to those that cant afford/lack the time to learn the programs.

I do not track every single hand anymore, and are relying more on studying the game while not playing. Using different calculators and learning how to adjust vs different strategies basically. I realy heavily on my experience and creativity and are not very up to date with the latest programs and trends but Im doing better and better.

I read today that beloved PokerStars decided to limit max tables to just 4 moving forward, this could make a big impact for a lot of pro's out there that were just grinding low winrates at high volume.

[ajcoleman22]

That would be a huge change to move to a four table max. Do you know would that be just for cash games or for tournaments as well? For awhile I was 12 tabling MTT's and cashed out a couple $10k cashes over a couple of years. That will definitely limit the volume of MTT's they run.

[Zanka]

PS had made the rake so high that the game is barely playable if you are a recreational player. The rake is so high that the correct strategy is to fold 85% of hands on average, at least if you play lowstakes. Must be so Boeing to log in and wanna play some hands and do some bluffs etc but always running into good hands, or everyone is folding.

[Zanka]

To be able to not think about something, you first need to think real hard on it.

The way I am going about this whole thing is to be very specific with my behaviour and by changing the behaviour I get results. I am not that fixated with numbers, even tho they are sometimes nice to look at and they sort of guide me in some sense, but they are not really important for the actuall process.

I look at it like this: I use the numbers as start and stop signs (even tho I do not have a clear number to stop at). So for example, I look at a number, say 300 for food, this is my starting point. Then I look at the behaviours for this number, it is so and so much snacks, restaurants, groceries etc. Then I do some thinking, as I did with my oatmilk consumption, and go, "I wonder if I can do this myself", find out that it is super easy, and then change my behaviour from buying oatmilk to making it myself.

That is the important part.

Then at the end of the month I can look at the numbers again, aha, now it is 280 instead of 300 due to my change of milkgetting behaviour.
Next month I will look at my pizzagetting-behaviour. I like pizza, so how can I eat pizza a couple of times a month in the best possible way, can I make it myself, what is the best way to do it? Ill keep you updated


Poker Thursday:
Hours: 4
Result: -60

[Family father]

]Thanks!

The rake is so high that the correct strategy is to fold 85% of hands on average, at least if you play lowstakes.

Can you unpack the logic behind this calculation?

Besides.. you journey is a lot more than poker....

My GF keep telling me that "if you do things that you know are good for you even tho you do not feel like it, you will come up better in the end"

Smart girl!

Ok I am starting to realize that I can cut my food-budget if I just get a bit smarter. This month I have spent 270 so far and a huge part of it is eating out. I will focus a bit more on this next month and see what is possible to do. I do not like to set hard and fast rules since I have found it to only work temporarily. Also I do not focus so much on the eating out, bc that is not what needs fixing, I am very good at eating out. What I need to be better at is prepairing meals, shopping the right food and making more things by myself (like my own oatmilk). If I just do these things the food-budget might even be cut in half.

Keep rocking!!

[Zanka]

Thanks!
Yes gf is very smart indeed:)

Ok so the way it works is that once a hand goes to the flop, the site takes x% of the pot (if it folds before the flop, no charge is taken). The more the site charges, the more edge (stronger hand) you need to play a hand to the flop since there will be less in the pot for you when you win a hand.

People adjust to this correctly by being tighter and when they play, more money is made by making people fold before the flop than to actually “play poker”.

This is to put it very simple. I can expand on it if you want:)