The Best In The Business

[pleno1]

Pads,

You've put a lot into this forum albeit mostly on PHA which I rarely visit and I, like many others here I bet, have watched your progression over the last 4 years or so. I'll guarantee many were of the same initial thoughtline as myself (can assure you no offence meant):

Young, bright but brash/arrogant young lad, possible car crash waiting to happen. The thoughts were all there for a few much wiser and knowledgeable than I, I have no doubt about that.

IMHO I've taken great pleasure in watching you progress through these years, very honest and upfront and when challenged/flamed you've always produced.

Most of all I admire your bravery in being able to say, I've done this, achieved that, I want to move on and try something new. Potentially a huge sacrifice, but one which you firmly believe is right for you.

I am one of probably many on here who had the opportuntity to do similar at some time in our life but bottled it and took the safer, more secure route and whilst being safer in our job never really achieved the same level of satisfaction as it became tedious, repetitive and mundane.

I salute you sir for having the balls to do what I, and many like me, have shied away from.

The very best of British to you and hope all goes well.

Geo

Thanks buddy.

I definitely was and still probably am a bit of a gobshite. I guess I've just grown up abit, the best thing about blonde is that there are people of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life and it's genuinely a great place to call my cyber home.

There's a lot of things I need to sort out when I get to Hungary. I have absolutely no idea what to expect when I get there. I was thinking about going to Vegas this year but 99.9% I'll skip it this year. Ingrid suggested we join some classes like cookery etc to mix in and make some friends. Lien I mentioned previously she has dozens of friends there and I definitely want her to spend as much time as possible with them, im sure they are great people.

Watching 'big fat gypsy wedding' for the first time now. It's crazy! They all dress extremely, well, I guess they don't dress much at all! I find the whole thing actually super interesting.

[Geo the Sarge]

You're welcome sir. You said this in August 2009, from one of your early posts:

Degrees don't mean much these days, but getting out in the world and moving from home, getting life experience is priceless imo, and good value for the 20k debt you get in that you pay back in pennies.

Says a lot about you when today you are sticking to that mantra

Geo

[pleno1]

Ha, I was VERY right about the life experiences and VERY wrong about paying it back in pennies, pay over £200 a month back to those guys!

[mondatoo]

Planning to play ISPT ?

Mid/Long term goals in MTTs ?

[pleno1]

Planning to play ISPT ?

Mid/Long term goals in MTTs ?

Will probably play online leg with a goal of getting a lot of chips

I signed up for MTTs with ze Russians short term goal is to find a good nightly and Sunday schedule.

Mid term goal is to constantly improve.

Second mid to long term goal is to move up stakes.

Long term goal is top 10 uk pocket fives

Super long term goal is número UNO!

#(flex)

[youthnkzR]

Gl with the Russians mate. Top 5 p5s in no time!

[pleno1]

I'm going to be playing every day over SCOOP, so around 12-26th putting in big volume.

May sell for the following package, but not sure yet so not posting it in staking forum, if anybody wants to reserve any then lmk.

[pleno1]

Then full SCOOP schedule..

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtHptstXtxEOdE1DMkRNTmRrWjBqcDZCRDZLTU9abWc#gid=0

#grindonthemind

[Tal]

Planning to play ISPT ?

Mid/Long term goals in MTTs ?

Will probably play online leg with a goal of getting a lot of chips

I signed up for MTTs with ze Russians short term goal is to find a good nightly and Sunday schedule.

Mid term goal is to constantly improve.

Second mid to long term goal is to move up stakes.

Long term goal is top 10 uk pocket fives

Super long term goal is número UNO!

#(flex)

From a basic coaching perspective (not specifically a poker perspective), goals are much better when you have a measurable quality to them.

What is short term? Six months? Medium term? A year? Long term? Two years?

"I want to be in the top ten in the pocket fives list by 1 November 2013" is something you know whether you've achieved.

How do you measure constant improvement?

Part of me is saying this to you as I understand you do coaching so know this stuff already. The other part of me is voyeuristic and wants to see how you (as an obviously very able player) performs against these objectives ITT.

Hope you don't mind the feedback.

[pleno1]

Hey buddy,

Ofc not, any advice is very appreciated.

So my short term goal was basically "find a nightly schedule in 3 days"

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtHptstXtxEOdG1wLUMwcDFfNURXMmowT0duWGpGSUE#gid=0

Next thing was a 5 hour deadline to sort SCOOP, which I did this afternoon:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtHptstXtxEOdE1DMkRNTmRrWjBqcDZCRDZLTU9abWc#gid=0

In terms of your post I absolutely agree, I made a blog on 2p2: "I will be in top 10 of P5's for UK by this time next year" easy one for me to remember as I just have to check the OP.

Measuring constantly improving is very hard, firstly because variance in MTT's is such that you can have 12 month downswing, or you could improve your results every single month for 1 year. I guess I will just *hope* it happens and I *feel* it, no matter what the results are.

To do I will do the following:

- Watch 10 videos/week
- Do 3 full HH's/week of my 3 deepest runs of the previous week
- Swap 2 HH's/week with my friend who also grinds MTT's and make notes
- Do 2 group sessions/week

In terms of grind targets, I'll play a minimum of 3 sessions of the above schedule. Whenever there is SCOOP/WCOOP etc on I'll play minimum 5 sessions/week.

It would be so easy to move to Hungary and bumhunt 200-1knl or something, but that really doesn't turn me on or make me hungry. I want to challenge myself, I want to step into my uncomfort zone and I want to be the best in the business!

[Tal]

Great answer. Thank you for the response.

[rfgqqabc]

22 days until I'm joining you on the grind. MTTs get me going also, its just so much more like a video game. 3 Nights a week plus sunday?

Do you feel structuring sessions should be mandatory for mtt players? I often set out a schedule then just flick in the random 11-27 turbos at the end of the session until I decide to stop grinding, and wind down on skype/watching tv when my table count is low.

Do you feel your $ per year is as close as it would be on cash? I was reading a PG+C by a guy whose playing 2k-5k NLHE atm and he is probably going to have a year around the 7 figure mark. Is this even possible in MTTs?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/174/poker-goals-challenges/destroying-500nl-zoom-minichallenge-1245943/

How many of the MS-HSMTTers could earn that and how many are backed, constantly in makeup and depressed as fuck. Seeing someone like TheLipoFund, someone I really respect and see around a lot in 80k of makeup scares the living shit out of me. I want to grind and I want to hit those stakes, but at the moment it all just seems so scary and virtually impossible to reach on my own.

Why did you choose a backer? I'm obviously not after too much financial detail but I struggle to see the benefit of a backer for a player of your calibre. Currently I just sell pieces whenever I feel underrolled and/or am taking a shot, and this feels great, when I see a good 5/10 Stud game running I can hop in, when I feel like playing some zoom for a few hours I can jump into that no bother. Will you miss the freedom or does your deal allow you the freedom to do this sort of thing?

How big of an achievement is top 10 P5? P5s is a forum I've never used tbh, but its the only real form of ranking poker has. OPR ranking is slowly becoming an addiction of mine, which is never good. Does the variance involved mean they aren't v.important (p.s i have no idea how they work)

edit: Thanks as always mate- this sort of thing was why I needed a long convo with a few beers involved.

[pleno1]

oioi mate

22 days until I'm joining you on the grind. MTTs get me going also, its just so much more like a video game. 3 Nights a week plus sunday?

Ha, wiiiii. For setting a goal, I think 3 nights a week and not failing is good. Maybe we change it to 3+Sunday in the future.

$/year immediately, no probably not. However as I said last week, cash games will probably not be here in the future, at least not like they are now. Look at party (splitting player pools with regs vs fish, look at ipoker (two tiers), look at 888 (taking away all affiliate rb) stars is pretty tough + waiting lists, full tilt (basically dead/no traffic)... theres not many left. Now look at all those sites and their MTT's, Full Tilt with FTOPS still huge and pretty frequently, Stars always having huge tournaments, 888/party decent, iPoker even have ok stuff and even implemented proper late reg!

In summary, sites want to focus on fish/recreational players, and fish/recreational players 1) Prefer MTT's and 2) Are being restricted to regs by the sites

7 figure mark. Is this even possible in MTTs?

7 figure mark. Is this even possible in MTTs?

I dunno, but if you're stuck 10bis/lost 10 flips its easier to win it back in MTT's

Why did you choose a backer? I'm obviously not after too much financial detail but I struggle to see the benefit of a backer for a player of your calibre. Currently I just sell pieces whenever I feel underrolled and/or am taking a shot, and this feels great, when I see a good 5/10 Stud game running I can hop in, when I feel like playing some zoom for a few hours I can jump into that no bother. Will you miss the freedom or does your deal allow you the freedom to do this sort of thing?

I've always tried to be sensible and not jump into anything stupid. If theres a chance something can go very bad and I can take a safer option then I'll always do it. The deal is good, I will still be playing cash games seperately and doing a lot of private coaching + PokerStrategy.com stuff so I'm pretty ok about things. As things get more serious in Hungary I would like to start buying more property and generally if I want to play HSMTT's reguarly in the not so distant future having irl things holding you back can be difficult. The deal also comes with MTT coaching and will work very hard with the coach and get value out of him focusing primarily on my 10-30bbs play.

How big of an achievement is top 10 P5? P5s is a forum I've never used tbh, but its the only real form of ranking poker has. OPR ranking is slowly becoming an addiction of mine, which is never good. Does the variance involved mean they aren't v.important (p.s i have no idea how they work)

tbh, I don't really know , this might very well change to Stars TLB or something, I dunno, at the moment its not super important.

edit: Thanks as always mate- this sort of thing was why I needed a long convo with a few beers involved.

always, always welcome obv.

[pleno1]

suggestions for new avartar on Stars for SCOOP?

[rfgqqabc]

$/year immediately, no probably not. However as I said last week, cash games will probably not be here in the future, at least not like they are now. Look at party (splitting player pools with regs vs fish, look at ipoker (two tiers), look at 888 (taking away all affiliate rb) stars is pretty tough + waiting lists, full tilt (basically dead/no traffic)... theres not many left. Now look at all those sites and their MTT's, Full Tilt with FTOPS still huge and pretty frequently, Stars always having huge tournaments, 888/party decent, iPoker even have ok stuff and even implemented proper late reg!

In summary, sites want to focus on fish/recreational players, and fish/recreational players 1) Prefer MTT's and 2) Are being restricted to regs by the sites

Most MSMTT guys seem to take 50/50 with some coaching but the coaching is rarely what it is cracked up to be imo, the feeling of a group helps morale and inter horse sweats and the like will always help improve your game. Maybe I'm just biased through hanging around MTTc and talking to some guys, but they never ever seem to be happy/winning and it just seems like a brutal life.

I'm not sure if 7 figure years are possible for MTT grinders, but how else are people rolled for 5/10ks? I mean even if they are selling action it has to be to someone, who the hell is buying all the action. I can't imagine someone like John Eames, who i know little about apart from some mild chatter at the MC, playing super underrolled, but the roll needed for some of these guys WSOP action is just ridiculous. I mean they obviously aren't going to blow the last 100k or whatever but still, you get my point.

I agree cash games are going to die online. A few months ago I had some $$$ on Paddy Power and I couldn't find a HUNL game at 100nl for love nor money. I really just wanted to play and think about the game, but everyone seemed to quit inside twenty hands unless i spent my time limping about to begin with.

Stars TLB is ridiculous, those sickos late reg all the $2.20 turbos with 8k players and hope to bink, while playing a full schedule, its just insane.

edit: Stato_1 Top 5