The Best In The Business

[GreekStein]

With BA you can pay £600 for an upgrade to club from economy at the airport on the day. Someone here is saying an extra $1k for club? Is it possible to fly club for just this little? How about virgin? I always thought it cost about £4k return to fly business.

I can get people London-Vegas return in business for £2-2.2k.

[Rexas]

I'm sure Joe Beevers is a very nice chap but I always wanted to dislike him.
"The Elegance"

Come on

My experiences of him at a table haven't been great tbh, found him to be pretty arrogant. All he wanted to do was talk to whoever the most famous person about was, and seemed to get really pissy when someone else said anything. Needless to say I had a great time taking the piss :p

[hhyftrftdr]

With BA you can pay £600 for an upgrade to club from economy at the airport on the day. Someone here is saying an extra $1k for club? Is it possible to fly club for just this little? How about virgin? I always thought it cost about £4k return to fly business.

Can be as 'little' as a grand (ish) if you don't start the journey in London.

Good starting points are Dublin, Scandinavia and Germany. We went biz last year and got return club world flights from Dublin via London and a weeks hotel for £1300pp.

I could certainly get used to having 7 glasses of champagne on every flight

[Doobs]

With BA you can pay £600 for an upgrade to club from economy at the airport on the day. Someone here is saying an extra $1k for club? Is it possible to fly club for just this little? How about virgin? I always thought it cost about £4k return to fly business.

I flew out economy and back upper last year for little more than a grand.  It is just a question of checking whenever the sales are on.  I was originally premium economy coming back but upgraded to upper in the next sale for not much more than £100,  originally booking was January, upgrade a month or two later.  Always check simon galloway's posts in the vegas thread.

[titaniumbean]

yeh some airlines randomise who they offer upgrades too, others base it on fpps and check in timing. always worth it to upgrade

[Tal]

With BA you can pay £600 for an upgrade to club from economy at the airport on the day. Someone here is saying an extra $1k for club? Is it possible to fly club for just this little? How about virgin? I always thought it cost about £4k return to fly business.

I flew out economy and back upper last year for little more than a grand.  It is just a question of checking whenever the sales are on.  I was originally premium economy coming back but upgraded to upper in the next sale for not much more than £100,  originally booking was January, upgrade a month or two later.  Always check simon galloway's posts in the vegas thread.

This. Feels great paying less than everyone else for stuff.

[pleno1]

Have lost a lot of motivation regarding playing. I really really love coaching, it's probably my favourite thing to do, hours go by so quickly and doing reports on people's stats I really get into it and I love trying to help in ways where people can't learn from watching Runitonce videos. Basically I want to be the very personal coach that deals exclusively with players mistakes they are making and rectifying them ASAP rather than making general theory videos as that's not what I excel in.

On the their hand I've just lost so much motivation behind grinding midweek and instead have loved being healthy. Eating well, going to the gym, sleeping abit better, socializing more, going outside in the sunlight, meeting new people, meeting new kinds of people. Really just think I can enjoy life so much better than I have done over the last few years, the way that I play midweek is that I grind tonnes of tournaments like the 8r, 11c, 50 freezesouts on all sites and then 109r, 215 turbos, 320 6max, 500 party's, super Tuesday's, Thursday thrills, basically my results are completely dependent on how well I do in the bigger buy in events that are somewhere between 20-70x the size of other tournaments I'm playing. I actually feel better about my game right now than I ever have, I feel like my evbb/100 and general approach to MTTs is very top tier (alright pal settle down) but I feel myself less and less motivated to register the 22c or the big50 on .fr.

I really see myself in the future changing my shift and focus on poker. I love studying and love speaking about the game, I'm going to go all out on Sunday's and give it 100% (I haven't been doing this recently at all) if I have a football match I won't go, I won't go out Saturday night and drink I'll prepare somewhat, midweek I will do tonnes if self studying, going over almost every tournament from the Sunday and finding as many of the tough spots as possible and solving them using piosolver, HRC etc and then studying with top regs who I class as my best friends. I'll then coach both people in and outside the stable and spend my time midweek learning and studying when I want to and enjoying life, being healthy and being extremely fit. I won't have any excuses.

I will go to Vegas, put everything in, huge schedule and enjoy it and understand the variance and I will play every day during SCOOP and WCOOP.

I feel like this is the best way for me as a professional poker player to be. I will be making myself a better player every single day and spending time make sure I'm at the very top of the game.

I will likely start this after Vegas as I've commited to putting volume in this and next month and then it's SCOOP, but long term I really feel like this is where and what I should be doing.

I can and will be the best tournament player in the entire world, I'm confident of that, I know it won't be easy, but I won't do it from mindlessly regging tournaments, I'll put a lot of work in off the tables both mentally and physcial to and then be fully prepared to play my absolute A game when Sunday comes.

This also gives me other options and time and freedom to spend on working outside of poker, starting new companies, investing, travelling for meeting and just generally networking a lot better than currently.

Had an hours skype call with Sam Grafton tonight and he speaks a lot of wise words, was good to speak about stuff and different approaches towards poker, thanks again brother.

Not sure what people's opinions on this are? Happy to hear thoughts, criticism, ideas etc

[Tal]

I have read your diary for a while and I get the impression you swing from being relaxed and content (which then turns into boredom and guilt for not working harder) to being dedicated and empowered (which then turns into excessive self-criticism and intolerance of variance, so you take a break) and so the cycle carries on...

Where I'm from, we'd say you don't do things by half.

Do you find the extremes are less extreme these days? Do you build more "Patrick Time" into your schedules? Do you allow yourself the chance to tap out if you're feeling you need a break? Are you able to give yourself encouragement rather than a rollicking if you miss a few days to do something unpokery?

Just interested as to how you feel you've improved, not at goal setting  (which you've seemingly always been excellent at), but at coping with the journey.

Always a heck of a read, Mr Pleno.

[booder]

Always a heck of a read, Mr Pleno.

[tonytats]

Instead of striving to be " the best in the business "
Why not just settle for being a winning player without all the stress for striving to be number 1 ?
Who decides who is the world number 1 ??
The GPi ?
Your tourney winnings ??
Pocket 5 s
?
Do what you enjoy then it never feels like work and if you make $$ or better still $$$$$?$ ? It's even more enjoyable,surely ?
Same as live pokers play some then chill a bit , don't play till your you're so tired n pissed off its not enjoyable !
Good luck tho it's a good read most of the time on here

On a seperate note I liked tikays post too ,virtually summed me up too !

[bergeroo]

The hours that a euro MTT grinder have to put in really are a killer. If you put in any kind of volume you not only are playing when almost everyone else has leisure time (evenings) but your sleep schedule of going to bed when the sun is coming up and waking up late afternoon is really unhealthy and can leave you feeling sluggish even on your days off. Not to mention if you have a girlfriend/partner it can be completely out of step with their schedule if they have any kind of regular job.

I've wrestled for answers on to a healthy way to approach it for many years (I'm sure you have too) and I couldn't find a solution. Occasionally I go into a period of playing some day time sessions in a James Atkin/Buffyslayer1 style and that works out ok, but daytime tournaments are quite small midweek and I always struggle in managing to time the session to finish at a certain time, so it is difficult to make a social engagement at a certain time in case you make a final table and that defeats the whole object of playing in daytime in the first place.

I see some British players spending extended periods in Canada or Mexico and that time schedule is way better for life ev. You can finish your sessions in early/mid evening and still go out and have something of a social life and keep regular hours. But of course, for most people it isn't possible to up sticks and go there for any length of time. I actually really loved it when I lived in Japan for a while. Waking up at around 4am and then playing until noon worked really well for me.

I have a lot of respect for the players that you see day in and day out at the table grinding. I can't really do that anymore every day as I feel it is too unhealthy for me physically and mentally and have increasingly been looking into other income streams, which is something smart that you are already doing.

Basically I started trying to make money at poker to give me freedom and more and more I'm looking at things from a life ev perspective rather than what my hourly might or might not be.

So I'd say if you can play probably a max three days a week outside of big series (Sun, Tue, Thurs or Sat?), spend other time studying, maybe playing a bit of cash, coaching, running the stable, and then going to play selected live tournaments and series but not being on the circuit all the time, then if you are disciplined you could still have scope to make a bunch of money and also have an active social life/other interests.

Can you be number one in poker with the schedule above? Maybe or maybe not. I'd rather be number one at using poker to give me freedom and a great life, rather than being the absolute end boss and best poker player out there - but then I'm older than most online poker players and certainly not playing anywhere near the top level.

Good luck and thanks for writing. Always enjoy your honesty and candour.

[pleno1]

Instead of striving to be " the best in the business "
Why not just settle for being a winning player without all the stress for striving to be number 1 ?
Who decides who is the world number 1 ??
The GPi ?
Your tourney winnings ??
Pocket 5 s
?
Do what you enjoy then it never feels like work and if you make $$ or better still $$$$$?$ ? It's even more enjoyable,surely ?
Same as live pokers play some then chill a bit , don't play till your you're so tired n pissed off its not enjoyable !
Good luck tho it's a good read most of the time on here

On a seperate note I liked tikays post too ,virtually summed me up too !

Hey

It's not actually so much about me doubting myself or not handling the variance in terms of poker I don't think but more so of life. I devoted years and years and years playing through big downswings, big upswings etc but my life was very static, I tried to create wealth so that one day I could enjoy life better and not play 5 days a week and thus at this last 12 months in my career I have the opportunity to make decisions how I'll go about moving forward.

Ironically the thing that was holding me back a lot of time was ego. I wanted to be recognized as the best rather than be the best. As apotheosis rightly pointed out, perception is based all on results orientated things from short term variance. It took me a long time and it wasn't until very recently that I stopped caring about pocket fives, stopped caring what random regs thought of me and didn't take lines or general playing styles to impress others and now solely only care what I think.

When I say I want to be the best I guess I don't mean I want to be the best player in the world, I just want to maximize my own potential. Let's say I am a 65/100 complete poker player in March 2016 and in June I'm a 68 and in November I'm a 73. Maybe I could get to 73 quicker if I worked harder, maybe I should already have been a 73 but didn't work hard enough over the last 1 year.

The two most important things for me right now are pretty simple and attainable goals, they aren't winning bracelets, they aren't winning millions of dollars, they are simply:

1) win at life
2) maximize my potential as a complete tournament player

I think these will be longer term goals then ones I've set previously simply because I'm able to work on them every single day and there is not much variance. I can go to bed every night and really look at myself in the mirror and ask myself how I did today, I can give myself an honest green tick or Red Cross in my calendar. Contrastingly when I want to "crush online tournaments" or "crush live tournaments" then every day when I go to bed I'll have a lot more emotions and they will likely be down to variance. I win the Sunday 530, omfg I'm the goat. I brick a $15k Sunday, Jesus maybe I'm not so good after all? I don't want to sleep thinking I'm the unluckiest, best, worst poker player. I just want to go to sleep knowing that I've done things throughout the day to make myself better at my profession whilst really enjoying life.

I should appreciate life way more than I currently do and I should do a lot more smaller things to make myself happy. Waking up and rushing to get into the b82 and working out if/when you should eat/shower/go outside isn't why I played poker for the last 8 years. There will be times to grind hard like during series, on Sunday's and in Vegas when it will all be super competitive, but there HAS to be a lot more time for me to better myself mentally, physically, psychologically and socially.

[pleno1]

The hours that a euro MTT grinder have to put in really are a killer. If you put in any kind of volume you not only are playing when almost everyone else has leisure time (evenings) but your sleep schedule of going to bed when the sun is coming up and waking up late afternoon is really unhealthy and can leave you feeling sluggish even on your days off. Not to mention if you have a girlfriend/partner it can be completely out of step with their schedule if they have any kind of regular job.

I've wrestled for answers on to a healthy way to approach it for many years (I'm sure you have too) and I couldn't find a solution. Occasionally I go into a period of playing some day time sessions in a James Atkin/Buffyslayer1 style and that works out ok, but daytime tournaments are quite small midweek and I always struggle in managing to time the session to finish at a certain time, so it is difficult to make a social engagement at a certain time in case you make a final table and that defeats the whole object of playing in daytime in the first place.

I see some British players spending extended periods in Canada or Mexico and that time schedule is way better for life ev. You can finish your sessions in early/mid evening and still go out and have something of a social life and keep regular hours. But of course, for most people it isn't possible to up sticks and go there for any length of time. I actually really loved it when I lived in Japan for a while. Waking up at around 4am and then playing until noon worked really well for me.

I have a lot of respect for the players that you see day in and day out at the table grinding. I can't really do that anymore every day as I feel it is too unhealthy for me physically and mentally and have increasingly been looking into other income streams, which is something smart that you are already doing.

Basically I started trying to make money at poker to give me freedom and more and more I'm looking at things from a life ev perspective rather than what my hourly might or might not be.

So I'd say if you can play probably a max three days a week outside of big series (Sun, Tue, Thurs or Sat?), spend other time studying, maybe playing a bit of cash, coaching, running the stable, and then going to play selected live tournaments and series but not being on the circuit all the time, then if you are disciplined you could still have scope to make a bunch of money and also have an active social life/other interests.

Can you be number one in poker with the schedule above? Maybe or maybe not. I'd rather be number one at using poker to give me freedom and a great life, rather than being the absolute end boss and best poker player out there - but then I'm older than most online poker players and certainly not playing anywhere near the top level.

Good luck and thanks for writing. Always enjoy your honesty and candour.

Hey, really nice post.

Not really much to say except that I agree with everything you said

[pleno1]

Was a really nice Sunday, I woke up late, did some exercise, made some healthy food:

Click to see full-size image.

Went for a massage, went for a walk around the city (this is at like 8pm, weather was really nice, not caring about rushing back for the Sunday Warm Up or wte.

Played a really good quality session, was really in control of emotions and exercised every break, nothing huge, just a few exercises and did a little bit of meditation.

Won two tournaments for really nice amounts of $ not going to go into details on winnings or losses in the blog right now, not really my motivation or what I am bothered about. I had best Sunday for a long time in results, but I was happy because of the way I played.

Don't think I'll play at all for the rest of the week really, isn't a priority right now for me. I'm going to try and do some really good quality coaching, some nice things outside, some exercise and keep going to bed smiling.

Have a meeting about starting a real estate company this week with my current landlord of all people, will update with progression for that, but I have good hopes.

I also bought a standing desk so that I can stand up and be healthier whilst playing and coaching and bought a really nice chair that will be way better for my back long term too.

In before KFC on Wednesday LDO.

btw food pics, yay/nay?

[titaniumbean]

food pics yes.


slipper pics too oh yes