Well, I only got one short session in. I was pretty busy all day, and did a bunch of life stuff. I plan to get back on it today. I'm probably not going to blog every day, maybe weekly. This is a little too much to try and keep up with.

Well, overall I think I played pretty good today. I have a few questionable bluffs that I'm still unsure whether or not I'm ok with. I made a mistake in folding a SF draw, but oh well. I definitely felt my self starting to tilt when I started to get sucked out on my last session. This was a lot more challenging than I thought, and I had two sessions that were 11 and 8 minutes long. Tomorrow I'm going to do the same thing, but try to make each session atleast 30 minutes.

Hey guys,

It's been awhile. I'm starting up my blog again mostly for me. I'm writing to keep track of my progress, goals, and something for me to look back on as I continue on my journey. I'm going to be as honest with myself as possible. Here is my graph so far this year.




As you can see, my volume has been pretty pathetic. Also, I'm down around 35 bi. My game is complete shit right now. I do feel I've been getting unlucky, but I really can't change that. The fact is, I am getting crushed. I've been playing weak, straight forward, robotic. It's not surprising. I've been completely lazy with studying and putting in volume. I've probably played less than 100k hands since black friday, and yet somehow I expect that I should be a winning player. Delusional if you ask me.

The thing I wonder is that can people change? I've been stuck at 100 and 200nl for pretty much my entire poker career. Is it realistic to think that I can change? Do people change? Are there people out there that have played a stake for 5 years and then all of a suddenly become crushers in the top games? I don't know of any names, and I think it's rare for people to actually be able to change themselves to do that. I've written so many blog posts stating my goals only to fail within months. I've gotten coaching from Jared Tendler, he gave great advice, but I didn't stick with it long enough to fix my motivational problems. Is it because I don't want it bad enough? Am I satisfied with just being mediocre? My entire life I've always done just enough to get by. I'm tired of it. I've BEEN tired of it. The sad thing is, nothing's really different. I've felt this way before. I'm going to write a list of goals that I will stick to for a week and then fail at. Maybe the realization of how pathetic my "poker career" has been, and how much wasted time and talent will give me the jolt I need. I doubt it.. but maybe.

It's crazy to think things will be different this time, but I have to keep trying. The thing about me, and people in general, is that they enjoy comfort. They enjoy mindlessness. Something to drown out all the things that they could be doing, should be doing. Drown out all the problems, and stresses instead of taking care of what needs to be done. It's time to get shit done. I read something online. "People ask me why I train, and it's simple: I will not allow somebody with half the determination and twice the genetics be better than me" I am that guy that hard working people are being better than. I am very talented at this game, but people are getting ahead of me because they will work harder than I will, plain and simple. It's time to get shit done. This blog will be a journal of my progress. I am going to identify a weakness at the end of each day, and action on how to improve that weakness.

Todays weakness: Shit volume. Play 5 sessions tomorrow. They can be short or long. I want to get used to not making excuses not to open up tables. Common excuses: I'm hungry, I need to go to the gym in 40 minutes, I don't have time to get a session in. If I have more than 30 minutes of free time before I have to do something, I will open up some tables. If I have less, I will work on my game via flopzilla, hand reviews, or watching a video.

So, I have a decent bit of experience with computers, but I built my computer about 3-4 years ago. I have a much better idea of what I'm looking for this time around. So, what's happened in the last 3-4 years in technology that I need to know about? How are the 6 cores? It it better to have more cores or fewer cores that have more processing power? What improvements in graphics cards are there? Are SSD any cheaper? Is it better to have one harddrive, that equals one terabyte, or multiple ones in some kind of Raid 0 configuration? Give me some suggestions on a custom CPU build. My budget is probably around 1000 dollars. I plan to use this computer for poker stuff, and gaming.



Here is what I'm looking at so far. Let me know where you would upgrade and to what. Also, let me know if anything is not compatible.

AMD

Motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402

CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727

Video Card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127510

Ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277 (8gb)


Harddrive: Do I need something better if I'm going to have a huge HEM Database?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284


Power Supply: Do I need more or less power?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

Case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021


Intel

Mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128487

Vid Card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070

PSupply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

Everything else is the same as before.

Hey I'm looking to play some 1/2 2/4 live games in the Indianapolis area. If anyone hosts or knows of any games, I'd love to join. PM me if you know of a game. Thanks

2010 is in the books. I improved a ton as a player thanks to my friends and coach. I played in my first WSOP events, and even got to play in the ME which was an incredible experience. I even got deep in the 2500 6m. It was down to the wire, but I made Supernova on pokerstars.

It still amazes me how many mistakes I make in a session. I currently have a plan to improve on my mistakes. I honestly think about 4-6 bb/100 lost due to mistakes, and quite possibly more. I'm currently working with Jared Tendler, and hopefully I will improve a lot of my mental game weaknesses such as tilt, and work ethic.

I would like to work with a few more students, so I'm going to lower my coaching rate to 75/hr. I primarily want to focus on players that are playing 50 and 100nl. I will work with students playing lower, but I feel at these limits, I can fix a lot of the common mistakes that are preventing them from moving higher.

2011 Jan Goals:

I want to start playing 2/4 soon.
60 hrs of poker in January
5hrs of undivided attention of video watching

2011 Year goals:

5/10 6m Reg.
Learn PLO
Play a ton more Headsup.

Good luck everyone. Hope everyone has a successful 2011. I would have made this blog post longer, but everytime I press enter, it scrolls my damn page back to the top.

So, I have always tried to get motivated and stick to my goals, but I always seem to not be able to follow through. Anyway, I'm gonna try to thing called Don't Break the Chain, and see what happens.

Hey everyone, I have my own private coaching forum. www.zaitsevcoaching.com I admittedly stole this idea from Grant. I've been looking to be more active in the forums in posting HH advice, so I have created my own forum, for my friends and students. This forum is available to all my current students as well as former students who have had 5 lessons or more. I will be very active in this forum and try to respond to as many questions as possible. I hope everyone that is a part of this will be extremely active. This is going to be a place to learn, have fun, and grow as a player. The site still needs some tweaking but it is running as of now. Anyone is welcome to come visit and view threads, but only students/friends are able to post. Oh and mad props goes out to gretchtastic who helped me a ton with this site.

What do you guys think? Am I running good or bad? Obviously I feel like I'm running bad, but maybe I'm not. Just want to see what you guys think.

So after a disastrous start to the month, I have made a nice comeback, thanks to the help of my coach. Seriously, if you are a struggling poker player, get a coach. Most people think they are over priced etc. but can you afford not to get coaching? I'm not selling myself by any means, I'm just extremely happy with where my game has gone and how I have improved as a player since getting lessons.

As many of you know I have struggled for awhile at poker. Part mental, Part spew, Part run bad. The worse I ran, the more I spewed, the more I spewed, the more I tilted. The worst part about it was that I was in denial about all of it. I remember saying retarded stuff like playing against too many fish is hard, or like he's so bad for calling down second pair for three streets which was probably correct given how much a spewtard I was. For some reason I was stupid enough to think that I didn't need coaching that I fell into the same trap many of you who refuse to get coaching. "What can a coach teach me that a video can't" "I have a really good group of friends to talk poker with" "Coaches are too expensive, I can't justify paying a coach x/hr" My students were smarter than I was. They were honest enough to know where they fell short and that a coach would help them improve. Meanwhile, I was being completely ignorant of my leaks letting my ego get in the way of seeking help.

I look back at this link and smile about it now. http://www.cardrunners.com/cr_forums/showthread.php?72164-This-guy-is-a-pro-Really&p=524879#post524879 Maybe we should change the title of the thread to: This guy is a pro!!!! Really!!!!! :) At the time, it really hurt, and stressed me out. It made me lose confidence in my coaching ability, and my place with the CR team. I smile about it now because I see the people who had my back, and I realize it was just a bump in the road. All successful people fail at some point. I persevered and I won't be surprised if another thread about how terrible I am at poker starts up again. Anyway, time for the brag.