Diary of a MTT Grinder Wannabe

[Ant040689]

Down tonight.

Don't know by how much because i haven't looked at the balances out of annoyance but it is nothing too harrowing and i also didn't play that many tournaments because i wasn't feeling the best.

I am concerned about my endurance playing these games, it is becoming a bit of a joke.

Before say for the last three years, i could quite happily sit in front of the computer for 12 hour sessions and keep relatively high concentration throughout, but now it feels like i am hitting old age. I cannot play poker any more with the routine i have of only doing poker in the day. Rolling out of bed, eating some food, preparing food for teh grind and then sitting down for a 12 hour stretch. What i will need to work out, and will note on these entries shortly is the very best prep to do a grind and to feel on top for as long as possible.

Will be a trial and error thing until eventually in my 18 hour day of being awake i have crammed in all i can do to make the big 8-12 grind as easy as possible. Obv this is mainly by exercising and eating well in the times not playing poker but i need to see how much i should be running/weight training when i need to grind to make sure i am not too tired or too underworked. I am going to give you entries of how i feel each day after trying something new to improve my concentration levels through the grind and tell you what works for me and what doesn't.

Going to be pretty boring i know but it is what it is. Hopefully it will help others grind more effectively as i try once and for all to eventually have the perfect set up to grind and to have no excuses afterwards of feeling too tired or i just weren't feeling right. When this routine is set up i will be chomping at the bit to be playing as i will be continuously buzzing, but at the moment i am limp. So best not to play now for a while until i really am prepared to knock some heads on the virtual felt instead of wanting to call time 20 mins in after an early beat hits me a little too hard emotionally and i throw all the toys out of the pram.

[Ant040689]

Won about £1000 tonight.

(Btw you have probably seen the length of this post and been immediately put off from reading, comment me if you need me to half and half this across two posts to increase the allure of less reading. K cheers ty.)

It means i can move up to much nicer limits.

Got the prof by winning two tournaments outright for £650 and £550 each in a 350 and 100 man tournies alike.

Got redic lucky in spots but it wasn't through any false play on my part just that hands held and when i rightly shoved all in and got called by better, i caught up.

Heads up in one of these tourns i was 240k versus the other guy's 1.3 mill and i got 3 hands in a row and it went all in pre flop each time at 10000/20000 blinds for me to take the tournament down. 88>A3 AJ>A7 and AK>A8.

Heads up in the other tourn i became 2/3 chip leader and got it all in with him having 12 bbs with KJ and he calls with AJ, board runs Q10249

With the difference in prof between second and first costing me £500 if i lost in both, these instances of good fortune may be just what i need to sensibly start my rebuild.

Before these two tourns completely changed the profit outlook of the night i was relatively glum i must say. Very unhappy with my performance. I am a little out of touch with the mid game in tourney poker nowadays and finding it a little hard to adjust to the influx of the min bet.

It happens all the time, whether it be if the bb has called your raise and open min bets the pot. Sometimes this is a cheap way to see if you are interested but with the favourable pot odds is he luring you in? Does he just want you to rr so he can call, making you commit so much more chips than you wanted then on the turn check to you to bluff more chips off, so effectively is he playing super weak looking for the rr from you? Or is it a cheeky feeler bet whereby any resistance from you he is done with the pot.

The min bet from mid pos when you are on the dealer as well can be a little confusing when you have a hand like AQ, and the raiser has 12 bigs at the start and you have about 10 and you have no real idea whether to reshove as you have no prior info on this man. I am not properly accustomed to this. Also i think i just need to make sure i am not too spewy at the start of my game in a tourney

Should get the HUD set up but i think this is continually going to be the thing i always say but yet never sort out, gonna develop notes on players though and log hands so that if Holdem manager does magically work one day i can have the hands imported so what i am doing now isn't wasted.

I changed my set up today btw.

I was on my 15.4' laptop and on the sofa with it on my knees playing 12/13 tables, glasses at the ready because the tabs are so small! The family just walking by asking things like hows it going or are you winning and i just say its alright instead of boring them with the logistics of it all.

"I can't tell just yet until all tourns are finished"

is my response sometimes and when my dad hears that from me he's quite often of the belief i am losing and covering my tracks, quite often the case tbf! Need to sit them down one day and explain exactly what goes on in an MTT because both of them still think its all a little bingo-ish, again they are not too far wrong!

I changed my grinding set up today btw. Location, as i explained as i am normally in my room with the two external monitors attached but also i added some eye drops before the session. During the other sessions i was becoming really irritable and was just thinking its because of stress or me not being able to properly deal with tilt or whatever, but then realised i was blinking a lot and my eyes were always sore. Put some drops in for dry eyes and had no such concentration problems tonight and can say i was doing well in staying in all of the games, but obv admitting im a little rusty and in need of revision and possibly that HUD to be set up! ha.

The seating is also different obv, with my desk chair atm my back always hurts as i am scrunching forward and annoying myself in that way which makes me more susceptible to tilt and my arrangement with the desk and desk chair is awful tbh. Its automatic annoyance before i even start playing. With it though i can play about 20 tables if i am calm enough to do so, but i never will be if im always slightly disgruntled!

Think i am sticking to the sofa for now as i am comfortable and more than able to withstand the very long grinding hours, as soon as i have an atmosphere like that with my desk and external monitors i could be a little bit dangerous. However, thus far i have never been too comfortable there so my results and concentration have been a little bit all over the place.

If you think that my over analysis of the very littlest of things is a little bit too much and its a sign of a lack of girlfriend especially on a firday night, you are very correct. Maybe with some more money and a much better physique, which is coming along very nicely because i am a stone down from when i started and getting fitter, I can go ahead and attract the pumtang.

[Eso Kral]

Hi Ant,
I love your diary probs because i play ssmtts again mainly on euro sites but not the same number due to working as well and really want you to do well but i am concerned.
I know you feel your playing too low in stakes atm and this is not YOU but your last posts have been about disappointing sessions one where we lose $230 in one night and then on the back of one night where we profit$1000 immediately we want to step back up.

As you are finding your feet again on the perfect grind are you not better staying the level you are and build br a bit more before you step back up??

[Ant040689]

Cheers eso.

Well I just have more money now meaning I can add the 22f$ to  the very low stakes I am playing. The $10r I still cannot afford and thus won't be playing. Every time i have had a rise back up the stakes I haven't bankroll managed properly but now I am making sure I will. This involves finding out what the br is, then looking at what 10-5% of it is and make sure I don't surpass that in buy ins for the night.

It is best I divide that amount by the amount of tourns I intend to play and then try to stick to that as the average buy in. I am taking the Michael a little by pushing at playing 10% nightly but hopefully it works out alright for me.

You are right to be concerned btw because previously I have just thrown caution to the wind and just gone a little mental with what I have played after a nice session, but for no longer. If I think there is any future in this at all I have to contain the demons telling me to play higher too soon and then hopefully bask in the glory of a much more comfortable roll in the near future. Plus I cannot stress the importance of these eye drops which have calmed me because Im basically no longer a stressed mess playing because I am no longer constantly uncomfortable.

Also this may sound like complete bull, but I am making sure I never get carried away again with any night's results. The only reason I will have a very good night is because I was lucky with variance so I will never take for granted nights like last night because I know how hard it is to play long hours with no result. I did have a few fist pumps though yesterday I must say. Won two tourns in one night twice now and long may that continue!

[Eso Kral]

Oh cool i thought you were gonna be adding 50f and 100f straight back in. Avg buyin thing looks sensible and sure it wont be long before your moving up again.

If you dont mind please pm me your s/n for sites so i can look out for you and rail sometimes.

[Ant040689]

$1775 up tonight

Pretty much pwned all of tonight. Made the money across a lot of tourns which always feels nicer than getting just one huge saviour win.

Didn't keep to the br plan i have stringently i was swaying a tiny bit towards 15% of my br being played tonight, maybe 20%, i dunno. I have to make sure i realise my outlay each night and get out of the habit of just registering what i think will be ok, and actually make sure what i am doing is ok.

Played for 12 hours straight. 14.00-02.00 and was 8-12 tabling mostly, not sure of how many tourns. My best cashes were $650 in second place and a $550 in another second place, but i also min cashed in a biggie for $300 when i satellited in for $15 and i had various final table appearances that got me up into the profit.

[Marky147]

Nice work buddy, glad that you're starting to kick back into gear and maybe it's that healthy eating giving your more focus

[Ant040689]

Believe it or not I had a macdonalds for lunch!

[dreenie]

nice work, let me know the secret of winnning mtt's on a sunday pls! kindly appreciated :-)

[Ant040689]

Sundays are normally awful. Debating wheather or not to blow my mates off tonight to play poker instead because I'm on a roll I shouldn't really look to stop.

[Ant040689]

Well I'm at a mates and about to consume my body weight in pizza. Had a baaaaaaaaad couple of days on the careful calorie front. Gym tomoz.

[Ant040689]

$837 up tonight

Did well but faded towards the end. Won two tourns, albeit small ones. Feeling good. Going to be including $33f into my grinds now so this should start to get really interesting.

[Ant040689]

Starting a grind for tonight now.

I am getting rid of nearly all of the turbos as i always seem to disregard how to play them properly when i have all of the other standard structure tourns on the go.

Including more 6 max because i won one yesterday and came second in one the day before and generally just am a much better 6 max player.

Gone back into my room to grind where the two external monitors are because i want to play more than 12 tables and i can't really do that on the laptop alone. Trying a stiffer chair to help my back out.

Don't look to me if you want an interesting blog, look elsewhere, atm this is just me taking care of business.

[Ant040689]

atm this is just me taking care of business.

Knew this comment would come back to haunt me.

As i said i went back to my old grind station in my room today and my back was killing me throughout because of the stance i have to adapt because of my desk and chair. This led me to be slightly stressed throughout play and i wasn't concentrating as well as i could have. I registered for about 14 tourns between 18.30 and 20.00 before i realised to gtfo of all the rest because i wasn't in the right frame of mind.

I also realised that i had no food prepared for the grind which was a rookie error, as i had just had a haircut and came back at 6.20pm and all i could think about was getting registered for the 6.30pm tourns and when i did that 3 tourns soon became 6 or 7 by 7pm then i was in a position where i couldn't move all night. Think you all know what happened next.

In my haste i ordered a dominos pizza. Now, i did so in a bit of an angry manner as i wasn't very happy and i think that is why i called in the first place as it was a comfort food order. I probably could have taken the 5 mins hit to make a sandwich and come back to playing but no i get suckered into the £9.99 buy any pizza any size deal which i did, but when you go dominos you have to also buy chicken dippers and their cookies as well. GG waistline.

I realised i had made a mistake 2 slices in and thought i will eat as much as i can tonight to put myself off pizza for the rest of my life. This logic is clearly for the win obv. I now lie in bed with redic indigestion and i hate my life. Any guesses to how much of the large pizza 6 chicken strips and 4 cookies that i had eaten before i could take nor more?

Realised tonight that i can never really use a desk chair for any sort of poker play because my back can't handle it. I need to be in a really soft sinking chair and in a leaning back position to really relive the lower back. The sofa chair i have in the other room really is super comfortable and something like that is what i need to be grinding from because when i am on that i seem to have no excuses about any of my plays, i am just contented and playing some awesome poker. I then have to have a shoe box to elevate the laptop higher on my lap so i can see the poker tables clearly.

In the three nights on the sofa chair i have won £2500/$4049 winning 4 tourns and cashing heads up twice and other high final table spots. I was playing 12 tables as if i was playing one such was my comfort and control and i was really enjoying myself. However when i am back at the desk i am erratic, i make plays i shouldn't and i am always quick to find an excuse about something.

Well now i know for the first time that i need to be sitting on a chair similar to the one in my living room and need to try and build, or get someone to build a custom desk around a low lying sofa chair that can support a laptop and two external monitors. I have tried just using chairs to have around the sofa chair to hold the laptpop and monitors but they are annoyingly too far for me to comfortably see the tables. I need something to be holding the monitors quite close to my face when grinding so the tables are clear to see and most importantly i need them on eye level. Very hard to get when you are on a chair so low.

Maybe i can look into higher seated sofa chairs and still try to use my desk set up? I don't know. All i do know is that i can't play more than 12 tables with the current set up i have with the sofa chair as i need the external monitors to support more and would like to know in that comfort how many i could play well. Got a lot of work to sort out on that front before i next attempt a 16 table grind, but until then i can comfortably play on 12 tables, so definitely not the end of the world.

My love for the game has been revived recently because of the comfort i have been getting on that chair, of which i have mentioned a redic amount of times in this piece but i want you to know about it because i hope for great things with it. Its sooooo comfortable, i just never want to get up when i sit on it. It is something that has been missing in my life and now i have found it i feel complete.

[Coggy]

You looked into those hospital type trolley desk things (I think I mentioned these a while ago on here ?) that have adjustable height and could slide under the sofa.  also, what is wrong with your back ? would getting fit, doing some yoga help It would defo help with the state of mind if nothing else.   However, do pizza's get covered in that shizz that makes them morish ?? As I'm also a sicko for pizza once I start.....It is the food of the gods imo !!!!

The other thing from the above....Why the Fk rush to start not like there aint enough tournies gonna kick off.  rushing is a back thing.  I have really tried to stop that myself and even tougher as my sessions are short and 180 manners anyway (I work and play evenings), but I would prefer to play an hour less but get a run in and some munch in a relaxed manner rather than not exercise and eat something shit just to eat.  No idea if that actually helps my poker playing, but I feel mentally better for it.

GL with the grind....Get a proper life/poker schedule imo, including meals and exercise and even say a 3 hour window in there for chilling or summin.

BTW, imo, a schedule is up there in importance levels with most things in poker yet is probably the most overlooked