Beginning. Wolverhampton, United Kingdom.
I found out about poker when I was doing my bachelor degree in Wolverhampton, England in 2010 or so. I do not have any specific gaming backgroud or anything in particular that could lead me to poker. At the time I just knew that some of my friends started playing this online cardgame and they were making decent money at the time. I decided to try it out, made a pokerstrategy account and started studying. I didn't have much time for poker at the very beginning, so my skill wasn't really increasing at the time. I treated it more like a hobby, with some money making potential in the future. Never thought that one day I would play this full time and make a living out of it. After finishing my degree I stayed in England for 1 more year working as a bartenter and studying the game/playing when I had time. I also went to local casino and won in my first tournament (we actually chopped HU). That was eye opening, how bad eveyone was (despite the fact that I was playing $1 ABI and knew nothing about strategy) and how easy it was to play against them. I started to see that sky might be a limit and started playing more and studying hard. That was 2013, when I started to treat this more seriously. |
Coming back to home country.
In October 2013 I came back to my hometown, and faced difficult times telling my parents that I started to play poker and I really enjoy doing it. They are very conservative and they wanted me to focus on my masters degree but I decided to take some time off and focus only on poker. I rented my own place, I was young, stupid, full of hopes and dreams and way underrolled for this move. My game was not getting any better in 2014 as my mindset was really bad. Focusing purely on the money and not development and also having my parents talk shit about poker all the time was not an optimal way to go. I was playing $5 sngs at the time, grinding really hard to make a enough to pay rent and bills. At this time I was also in toxic realtionship that surely hurt my motivation and I was not able to believe in myself to the level I do now. I felt that it wasn't a good path to take and decided to go back to Uni.
Masters degree.
The pressure from my parents, girlfriend and myself was very high (at least I felt it was), so I enrolled to business school for masters programme. There was a huge difference in schooling system, compared to the UK. I didn't really feel like I am learning, I felt more like a slave that needs to memorize a ton of chapters to pass the exams. That was it. It was definietely not my world, so I decided to quit.
In October 2013 I came back to my hometown, and faced difficult times telling my parents that I started to play poker and I really enjoy doing it. They are very conservative and they wanted me to focus on my masters degree but I decided to take some time off and focus only on poker. I rented my own place, I was young, stupid, full of hopes and dreams and way underrolled for this move. My game was not getting any better in 2014 as my mindset was really bad. Focusing purely on the money and not development and also having my parents talk shit about poker all the time was not an optimal way to go. I was playing $5 sngs at the time, grinding really hard to make a enough to pay rent and bills. At this time I was also in toxic realtionship that surely hurt my motivation and I was not able to believe in myself to the level I do now. I felt that it wasn't a good path to take and decided to go back to Uni.
Masters degree.
The pressure from my parents, girlfriend and myself was very high (at least I felt it was), so I enrolled to business school for masters programme. There was a huge difference in schooling system, compared to the UK. I didn't really feel like I am learning, I felt more like a slave that needs to memorize a ton of chapters to pass the exams. That was it. It was definietely not my world, so I decided to quit.
Business.
There was one specific benefit about taking business class - I developed a mindset that I can start my own business and be successfull at it. This and some other factors pushed me towards eventually starting my own online business in sales. Im not gonna talk much about it, other then it was OK at the beginning and could be fine in the longrun, if I put more time and energy into it. I also found out that opening a company and putting ideas to work was more exciting then running it. I definietely lacked discipline and fundamental knowledge. Running my own business was very fascinating at the very start, but poker was taking over again. I wanted to get better, I wanted to grind more. I wanted be better player and I wanted it more then anything. Around this time I got away from my toxic long distance relationship (I envy people who can make this work) and was motivated more then ever to acomplish something in this game.
Little turning point.
This is around 2016, I am 26 years old single man living with my parents. I have no masters degree, no work experience, and I have just closed my company as it wasn't profitable anymore. I play card game on the Internet, withdrawing almost every $ I make, playing $2 ABI and feeling like a massive looser. Luckily, I have developed a passion for this game and I am grinding hard, studying, talk poker with friends etc. I am getting better. I work on my mindset, spending habbits etc. In August 2016 my friend called me and said that he came 3rd in the Sunday Million last night and he wants to 'freeze' a part of his bankroll. So, he shipped me some money (shoutout!) and I immediately started to grind higher. We both knew I am profitable in those fields, so he had no problem with that. I am not sure if I would still be playing if it wasn't for him.
There was one specific benefit about taking business class - I developed a mindset that I can start my own business and be successfull at it. This and some other factors pushed me towards eventually starting my own online business in sales. Im not gonna talk much about it, other then it was OK at the beginning and could be fine in the longrun, if I put more time and energy into it. I also found out that opening a company and putting ideas to work was more exciting then running it. I definietely lacked discipline and fundamental knowledge. Running my own business was very fascinating at the very start, but poker was taking over again. I wanted to get better, I wanted to grind more. I wanted be better player and I wanted it more then anything. Around this time I got away from my toxic long distance relationship (I envy people who can make this work) and was motivated more then ever to acomplish something in this game.
Little turning point.
This is around 2016, I am 26 years old single man living with my parents. I have no masters degree, no work experience, and I have just closed my company as it wasn't profitable anymore. I play card game on the Internet, withdrawing almost every $ I make, playing $2 ABI and feeling like a massive looser. Luckily, I have developed a passion for this game and I am grinding hard, studying, talk poker with friends etc. I am getting better. I work on my mindset, spending habbits etc. In August 2016 my friend called me and said that he came 3rd in the Sunday Million last night and he wants to 'freeze' a part of his bankroll. So, he shipped me some money (shoutout!) and I immediately started to grind higher. We both knew I am profitable in those fields, so he had no problem with that. I am not sure if I would still be playing if it wasn't for him.
Law enforcement is the worst.
It is summer/autumn 2016 and the government is introduing potential changes in gaming laws in my home country. Noone knows exactly what it means. Everyone speculates. Some people think that we will be fine, some think that poker will soon be illegal/banned. At first, I didn't know what to think about it. I was grinding sngs with $10 ABI and didn't really care about goverment at this point. Things got a little more clear in the winter 2016/2017 when we knew that they are going to introduce new gambling laws in between April 2017 and June 2017. According to the goverment both poker and sports betting will be illegal, unless played on country-owned sites etc. There were some unclear notes on this, so some people thought it is unlikely that poker will get banned, some already booked one way tickets to Malta, UK, Thailand.
Grind out of here. Bigger turning point.
I was shocked, scared, confused and pissed off. I knew that it was somewhat likely that we only have 6 months left to grind. I personally though that it was close to a coinflip whether or not they will ban poker. This unsure situation turned into the best possible 'push towards ginding my ass off, that I would ever imagine. I was on fire, tilted by the government and ready to play all day everyday. I was grinding. Limited social life, limited time-wasting. Poker was my only activity. I started to climb sng stakes rather quickly (was top 3 in mtt sngs leaderboards for quite some time), started to fire some mtts. First 3 months was very good. I won big 11, big 55, final tabled couple other mtts and was printing in mtt sngs. I built up $20k bankroll and booked my ticket to Malta, as 2 of my friends was already there. I have never been to Malta, but whatever, I knew that I need to move out quickly.
It is summer/autumn 2016 and the government is introduing potential changes in gaming laws in my home country. Noone knows exactly what it means. Everyone speculates. Some people think that we will be fine, some think that poker will soon be illegal/banned. At first, I didn't know what to think about it. I was grinding sngs with $10 ABI and didn't really care about goverment at this point. Things got a little more clear in the winter 2016/2017 when we knew that they are going to introduce new gambling laws in between April 2017 and June 2017. According to the goverment both poker and sports betting will be illegal, unless played on country-owned sites etc. There were some unclear notes on this, so some people thought it is unlikely that poker will get banned, some already booked one way tickets to Malta, UK, Thailand.
Grind out of here. Bigger turning point.
I was shocked, scared, confused and pissed off. I knew that it was somewhat likely that we only have 6 months left to grind. I personally though that it was close to a coinflip whether or not they will ban poker. This unsure situation turned into the best possible 'push towards ginding my ass off, that I would ever imagine. I was on fire, tilted by the government and ready to play all day everyday. I was grinding. Limited social life, limited time-wasting. Poker was my only activity. I started to climb sng stakes rather quickly (was top 3 in mtt sngs leaderboards for quite some time), started to fire some mtts. First 3 months was very good. I won big 11, big 55, final tabled couple other mtts and was printing in mtt sngs. I built up $20k bankroll and booked my ticket to Malta, as 2 of my friends was already there. I have never been to Malta, but whatever, I knew that I need to move out quickly.
Malta. April 2017.
I landed on 03.04.2017 in a place I have never been before. My mate was suppose to pick me up from the airport, but was too drunk to bother. I took a cab to their place in the middle of a night with 3 suitcases and little to no clue where the fuck I was. The tension was gone as soon as I arrived and we started drinking etc. That was fun night, meeting theirs friends and socialising from the very first night. They were living in 3 bedroom apartment with one other dude that was going home for Easter holiday, so I had a room for myself to stay in for a week or two. I immediately started looking for my own place and found a nice apartment in the middle of this lovely island. I moved on my own on 14th April.
Malta, settling in.
I quickly settled in my new flat and got used to the climate and Maltese way of thinking. I am very adaptable personality and feel well in almost every setting. For the first couple of weeks I was exploring Malta, going out, hanging out with friends and a girl I met there. Poker was not on the top of my to do list. Over the summer I also had 2 couples visitting me for a week each and I myself went back for a bachelor party and a wedding. When you count all of that time, it's a month without grinding. It had a huge life EV for me of course, but I felt too confident that I can grind it all back by putting more hours in then I used to. I couldn't
I landed on 03.04.2017 in a place I have never been before. My mate was suppose to pick me up from the airport, but was too drunk to bother. I took a cab to their place in the middle of a night with 3 suitcases and little to no clue where the fuck I was. The tension was gone as soon as I arrived and we started drinking etc. That was fun night, meeting theirs friends and socialising from the very first night. They were living in 3 bedroom apartment with one other dude that was going home for Easter holiday, so I had a room for myself to stay in for a week or two. I immediately started looking for my own place and found a nice apartment in the middle of this lovely island. I moved on my own on 14th April.
Malta, settling in.
I quickly settled in my new flat and got used to the climate and Maltese way of thinking. I am very adaptable personality and feel well in almost every setting. For the first couple of weeks I was exploring Malta, going out, hanging out with friends and a girl I met there. Poker was not on the top of my to do list. Over the summer I also had 2 couples visitting me for a week each and I myself went back for a bachelor party and a wedding. When you count all of that time, it's a month without grinding. It had a huge life EV for me of course, but I felt too confident that I can grind it all back by putting more hours in then I used to. I couldn't
Malta, grey days.
I wasn't playing much. I was having fun, chilling and enjoying life. That was obviously a huge mistake and punt of my EV. Playing only 20hours on average per week, downswinging/breaking even in sngs and playing too many scoops and mtts cripled my bankroll significantly. I started to feel financial pressure even though I had money saved for 6months living there. I started to play lower stakes with hopes to grind it back, but time was running out and $EV wasn't so promising.
I decided to grind 50 hours per week or sometimes more, but couldn't stand the pressure and decided to move back home, in December, just before Christmas.
I wasn't playing much. I was having fun, chilling and enjoying life. That was obviously a huge mistake and punt of my EV. Playing only 20hours on average per week, downswinging/breaking even in sngs and playing too many scoops and mtts cripled my bankroll significantly. I started to feel financial pressure even though I had money saved for 6months living there. I started to play lower stakes with hopes to grind it back, but time was running out and $EV wasn't so promising.
I decided to grind 50 hours per week or sometimes more, but couldn't stand the pressure and decided to move back home, in December, just before Christmas.
Moving up again.
I came back to live with my parents again, and felt awful. I knew I had skills to grind higher but my bankroll was an issue. I had $1k roll and some money saved up. Decided to go all in again and played a lot. After couple of weeks I realised that my parents aren't happy with what I am doing, they don't believe in me at all. It's hard to play your best game with this kind of mental pressure. I decided to move out into my friend's couch and grind with him for 2 weeks. After 2 solid weeks of grinding I rented a room with my other buddy (non poker friend). I was playing a lot, and only thing I could think of was moving out to my own place again. I saved 6 months worth of rent and moved out in July.
New place, new mindset.
I only live here for a week, when I write this post but I know that this place will give me motivation and change in my midset. I had a very eye opening conversation with my friend about treating poker as a normal job. Working hard and developing. Progressing is my biggest motivation right now. Who knows what future will bring.
I came back to live with my parents again, and felt awful. I knew I had skills to grind higher but my bankroll was an issue. I had $1k roll and some money saved up. Decided to go all in again and played a lot. After couple of weeks I realised that my parents aren't happy with what I am doing, they don't believe in me at all. It's hard to play your best game with this kind of mental pressure. I decided to move out into my friend's couch and grind with him for 2 weeks. After 2 solid weeks of grinding I rented a room with my other buddy (non poker friend). I was playing a lot, and only thing I could think of was moving out to my own place again. I saved 6 months worth of rent and moved out in July.
New place, new mindset.
I only live here for a week, when I write this post but I know that this place will give me motivation and change in my midset. I had a very eye opening conversation with my friend about treating poker as a normal job. Working hard and developing. Progressing is my biggest motivation right now. Who knows what future will bring.
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Coaching as a very efficient tool to improve at the game.
In December 2018 I decided to quit social media such as Facebook and Instagram. I think they don't bring any value into my life, as watching someone else's life is just a distraction from our own. Those tools are built on casino models, just to attract customers and make sure they spend as much time online, using apps, as possible. It's been too much and I decided to quit as I was spending way too much time on that BS. Unsurprisingly, only good things followed. I opened my own discord server (link to join under Discord) as well as, because of couple nice words from my poker study buddies, I also decided to apply for a coach position in Standard Backing stable. After sending an application I got contacted by them and interview / hand review session was conducted. They accepted me as a new coach and I have been working for them for over a year now. I am very happy to be part of a team and I found out that I really enjoy making people better at this game. Stable provides me players that I coach on weekly basis. On top of that, I had many, many sessions with individuals that contacted me and wanted to have one on one sessions. Some of the guys, I work with for over 6 months now, and I absolutely love it. I strongly believe that giving coaching helps to improve my game as well. It has added enormous amount of value to my life, I feel the purpose now, as I am helping others. It also provides a very good 'refreshers' and pushes me to work harder on my own game, dive deeper into theory, so I can provide higher quality coaching over and over again. Giving poker advice has given me an option to spend more time on my game and play a little less, as I do not feel such a pressure to grind, because it provides me with additional source of income. I realised how important it is to have this diversification of income streams. It also gives me an opportunity to study a lot and improve at very fast rate. Because of that, I teamed up with couple guys and we run database sims in GTO+ together, and we have accumulated tons of sims now, that we are using to get a better understanding of this beautiful card game. One of the guys, that I have been coaching for quite some time became my go-to man for strategy and hands reviews recently. We try to work together as much as we can, but because of pretty busy schedule of mine, sometimes it's hard. It's not only grinding, coaching and studying. I feel like keeping a healthy balance is very important for me right now as well. I discovered that due to limited amount of time, I should be outsourcing a little to have as much free time as I can. I have been on food catering for over a year now, which saves me a ton of time, that I would have spent on shopping, cooking and cleaning the dishes otherwise. I totally recommend it, as it's all healthy 5 meals a day awesomeness. During the summer, I went for a road trip with 5 friends, and it was the first long road trip that I have ever done. It was absolutely awesome. We travelled to Croatia, staying mainly in Hungary and Italy. We rented a van and stayed in airbnbs and on a campsite. It was super cool experience. After a month, coming back from that trip I went to visit Discord friends in Holland, as there is a lot of Dutchies in my server. I was there for 4 nights only, and weather sucked big time, as it was raining constantly, but we still had fun and I will be back for sure. I am hoping to do much more travelling in the future, when coronavirus is finally gone. I wish you all the best. Please stay healthy and stay at home to save others! |
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Becoming SNG HEAD COACH for Standard Backing
In September 2020 I was promoted to SNG HEAD COACH in the Stable I was working for over 18 months. I am very proud of this achievement, it shows that my hard work has been noticed and awarded. I was very active on most group sessions prior to this promotion and I also did a couple on my own. Stable's managers liked it and I was asked to do 2 group sessions per week. Being a head coach also gives me more responsibilities such as comming up with new SNG tiers for players, group coachings, having a 'say' when there is a new application from a player. It's also a good economical change for me, as I got a small raise in hourly rate for both group coaching as well as individual. On top of that I am getting a small % of monthly SNG players' profit. Overall I am very happy with the opportunity and I am sure I will provide good value to the team. Poker wise, I was working a lot on my game, constantly developing and digging deeper and deeper into solvers. I am fortunate that I found a group of players that are on the similar path and want to grow and achieve big things in this game. I am now playing mid stakes comfortably and I recently started to add some 109s to the schedule (mostly selling 50%). I am thinking about getting coaching or joining a community/webinars in the near future, as I hopefully move to high stakes. Life was kinda shit lately, mostly because of COVID and lockdown. It's very sad times and I feel that it affects my mental health a little bit. Going out with friends occasionally was something that I really enjoyed in the past, but these days options are very limited. I've heard in the news that there is a vaccine developed already, so hopefully everything will be back to normal in 6 - 12 months. 
Full transition from sit and goes to tournaments
In mid June 2020, I was fortunate enough to win couple of tournaments and final tabled few big events, which boosted my bankroll significantly and allowed me to play tournaments full time since. It's been almost a year since then when I am writing this blog and I can say with full confidence that I will not be going back to sit and goes. Tournaments are way more complex and more fun for me. Level of play is higher (I'm currently at $50 ABI), which makes me work harder every day. I really enjoy the challenge. I also found daily schedule good fit for my life as well as physical and mental health. Having normal day routine and working in the morning is something that I really enjoy. Fields are smaller and variance is decreased significantly because of that. The quality of life improved as I am back to normal sleep schedule and work schedule as well. I am very glad I made a transition and grateful for how smooth it went. Because of mid to high stakes tournaments are my main game now, I also decided to offer coaching for only professional players, dedicated semi-pros and only for mid stake community. I also started doing some free coaching on Twitch with other low to mid stakes players. I really enjoy the journey and I am grateful for the opportunity the Universe gave me. |
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Becoming a coach in Pokercode
https://www.pokercode.com/blog/meet-mammoththegr8-pokercodes-newest-coach
I was in Pokercode as a member for over a year when I got approached by admin team and Fedor himself about possible future collaboration. They said that they like my inputs on live sessions and enjoyed watching the ones I was a guest on as well. It felt great to be seen as a valuable coach and potential addition to the team. After couple months of waiting for the follow-up to that conversation, Fedor asked me to do 2 trial sessions in May and if everything goes right, we will negotiate me becoming the community coach in the team.
Both sessions got very good feedback from community and we started working together in June 2022. It's a big honour for me to be able to cooparate with the best in the business and help Pokercode achieve greatness in poker coaching industry. Currently I am doing 2 sessions per month and my main focus is PKO tournament strategy as well as 3-way multiway situations.
https://www.pokercode.com/blog/meet-mammoththegr8-pokercodes-newest-coach
I was in Pokercode as a member for over a year when I got approached by admin team and Fedor himself about possible future collaboration. They said that they like my inputs on live sessions and enjoyed watching the ones I was a guest on as well. It felt great to be seen as a valuable coach and potential addition to the team. After couple months of waiting for the follow-up to that conversation, Fedor asked me to do 2 trial sessions in May and if everything goes right, we will negotiate me becoming the community coach in the team.
Both sessions got very good feedback from community and we started working together in June 2022. It's a big honour for me to be able to cooparate with the best in the business and help Pokercode achieve greatness in poker coaching industry. Currently I am doing 2 sessions per month and my main focus is PKO tournament strategy as well as 3-way multiway situations.