I shouldn't have made that blog update, as we came back strong to online felt and made 3 final tables last night. So now, 2020 summary and results is a big lie. I came 3rd in $30 turbo on GGpoker, 5th in $10 Winter Series on PS.es and 2nd in $33 on demand bounty builder on PS.eu. 5th place for 1k hurts a little as the tournament was obviously top heavy. I played lower stakes, less tables and felt very rusty after Christmas break, so I take it.

Goals for 2021:

- up the volume
I was starting my sessions late very often and I was playing 8-12 tables most days. I would like to increase my volume this year, and in order to do that I will make sure that I start sessions around 17:30 - 18:30 and when the confidence level is high I will play 16 tables.
I will also add some SNGs when I have less tables. I was guilty of scrolling discord and watching YouTube vids while being on 1-4 tables. When the table count is low and I am winding down, I will add couple SNGs to the mix, not to leave EV on the table. It will add up over a year. 

- stick to study routines
It was a good year in that regard, but I need to stick to my study schedule and make sure I don't have days off. We have to work hard if we want to reach the top. I commit to 1 hour HH review per day + play vs solution + pairrd quizzes + poker video as my personal routine as well as being active during webinars from the stable and poker code. I will focus on 1 formation per day. Let's take Monday as the example. On that day I will study both postflop and preflop VPIPs and theory behind playing from EP. Tuesdays will be MP etc. On top of that, we will proceed with our weekly study session with the team.

Additionally, I would like to get into HU and cash games a little more. Playing both helps a lot in tournaments. All the money is up top, so having good understanding of HU is super important. At the beginning of a tournament we play over 100bb deep, and it's a stack size that tournament regs don't study much and recs punt off for infinite chips, so being more familiar with that stack size seems like a good idea. HU is the most important though, as I had 20 wins and 9 loses this year in tournaments and I felt like I could have done better. 

I purchased BBZ ICM course a while back and still didn't watch the content, as I was focusing on the bundle and poker code. I need to make sure I watch that and make notes as well, as very often guys that watched it have different understanding of the situation than I do. Their approach makes a lot of sense and I feel dumb sometimes, as they watched it and I didn't, so I am not so familiar with all concepts and ranges. Luckily over 120k sit and goes played helps when it comes down to understanding ICM. Deep stacked FT however, when there is significant difference in stack sizes I am not so familiar with. In SNGs stacks are quite similar and distribution is easier to understand. In tournaments, not so much. Also, ICM model is different in MTTs then it is in SNGs.
I should also study bounty tournaments strategy. I said that for the last 2 years, so yeah...​

- health
Definitely something I ignored a little bit in the beginning of a year. I started exercising and going for a morning run from September, and I hope I stick to it. I will also try to meditate daily, but it's hard for me to do it everyday for some reason. Some days it helps me and I feel more relaxed and focused, some days it frustrates me as it's very hard to see real results and benefits from meditation. I also get tilted if I can't calm my mind for 10mins. I'm probably doing something wrong. We will learn eventually. Wim Hof breathing method is good though, I can recommend. Make sure you don't panic when you get dizzy. It's normal as too much oxygen enters your cells and the body doesn't know what is going on.

- coaching
I will continue doing it as I really enjoy making others better, but I will make sure to be more selective. I started to value my time a lot more at the end of 2020.
I would like to see all players that I coach move up stakes in 2021 and have positive win rates on there. ​

- hopes and wishes; not goals
Results are something we have very limited control over, but I hope to be playing all 109s by the end of a year and potentially higher. 
I will steadily build up my bankroll and cash out money that I make from coaching only, unless there is a massive emergency or something is really worth investing in. We will live modestly for a year or two, or however long it takes to reach high stakes. 

summary:​

• 10k tournaments in 2021
• continue with study routine. Make sure I study more of: ICM / bounty / HU
• stay healthy
• take it easy with coaching
• start knocking on HS door

Yes, no life goals. No self improvement BS posts. This is what happens when this game is your life. 

​VAMOS

As I mentioned, transition was smooth and I am very happy I did it, as I think SNG are slowly dying and hourly rate is getting worse. MTTs are where the money is, and I am a little bit tilted that I wasn't too eager to play more of them in the past. 

Mid June 2020 as the start of MS MTT journey.
PS had summer series or whatever series that was (it was so many this year) and I was fortunate to final table 1 and came 5 out of 3454 runners. I also won 30 euro PKO series on ES that month and final tabled many other tourneys, which boosted my bankroll significantly and allowed me to jump into mid stakes straight away. This is something I wanted to avoid - playing low stakes tournaments. Fields are massive so is variance, so I didn't want to grind micro/low as I think hourly rate is very low. So I am very grateful for that bankroll boost in June/July 2020. Since then I was focusing mainly on MS MTTs, occasionally playing some 109s as well. I am very strict with my BRM and I didn't want to increase variance, so I was mostly selling action to 109s with couple exceptions. 

Coaching.
I am very happy with the progress that I have made in coaching. I understand better what I should be doing and focusing on. I worked with over 30 players this year, some of them quit poker, some of them made over $50k. It's just the way it is. Because of such a polarising group, I realised that it's not about the quality of my coaching (which I believe is very high right now, and many strong players can confirm that) but it's about approach of the student to studying and working hard. Many players didn't succeed because they didn't put enough effort into it. At the very beginning I was blaming myself a little bit for a lack of results from players. I am not doing it anymore and I get very frustrated when someone is not putting work / doesn't implement things I teach for long period of time. At the end of the day, I can provide tools, but I can't make anyone to use them. That was definitely aha-moment this year when it comes down to coaching. These days, I care less about lazy guys, more about guys that put in work. I feel better psychologically and I don't waste my time. It also resulted in me giving less hours of individual coaching and focusing on players that want to achieve something in this environment. 

I became SNG head coach for Standard Backing and I also do 2 webinars per week for them. On top of that, I do 1 webinar for Global Staking and I am very happy with being able to do both. Working with many players at the same time is very powerful and teaches me how to become a better coach. I'm simply open to more thought processes and approaches, which can give me a better understanding how players think and play, so we can correct their mistakes quicker and more efficiently. 

Studying.
Very good year in terms of hours put into working on my game. Providing coaching helps a little bit, but probably helps less then many people think. It can help if you coach someone that is playing similar stakes and has very strong fundamentals already. Most of the players that I coach are less experienced and play lower, so it doesn't give me as much value as many people expect. It's good for making sure that I understand basic concepts and theory behind a lot of situations in this game, but it's all that it helps with. 

I realised that 2-3 months ago, and forced myself to work on my game a lot more. These days, I try to spend 2 hours per day working on my own. Usually it's a mix of reviewing hands / doing pairrd quizes / creating a preflop spreadsheet with ranges / running sims / watching poker videos from different courses that I purchased or preparing theory sessions for webinars. 

Working in a group is about preparing a topic and presenting it for a group of 6. Everyone knows what he is responsible for and it will be a game changer for us in 2021. Preparing a topic / making notes / brainstorming the ideas during group sessions 3-4 times a week looks like a great mix and I am glad that we started doing it. PokerCode is also doing webinars with Matthias, Simon and Fedor on Sundays. Hopefully they will continue doing that. Also Robbie PlayaPlz is doing some group coaching occasionally for Standard Backing which I always attend. Depending on how many hours per week we will be doing our group sessions, I might join BBZ webinars in the future as well. 

2021.
I am not a goal-setter. However, poker environment is changing and it feels like profitability of this game is going down year after year. It's hard to see it if we only think about 2020, because of small poker boom due to Corona virus, but if you take 2020 out of the equation, poker is getting harder and less profitable. 

This means, that we have limited time to get max value out of that environment.

Which means, I need to set some goals for 2021. I will try to make them well structured and post after NYE.

For all of you reading this, I hope you had successful 2020 and I wish you all the luck on the tables in 2021. Let's hope that 2021 will be a year that history books will refer to as the end of global pandemic. Let's hope that it will all be back to normal soon. 

​All the best! GL

Another mediocre week in terms of volume and results. I had a good chance to win Belgian Poker Championship on PS, but came 3rd after loosing QQ to 99 in 3way all-in for heaps. We take it though.

Yesterday I started to play 16 tables while tiling them. I used to grind 15-25 and stack, but since Aurora and Stars Helper not working anymore I am tiling tables. Found it difficult to grind more then 9 at the very beginning, especially mixing 3-4 sites, but I feel like I'm getting better at it now. I played 16 yesterday for a while and it was fine. I strongly believe putting volume is very important, and I will try to stick to 16 tables in 2021. I didn't feel like I am leaving any EV on the tables. Early / mid game on mid stakes is not that important anyway and can be played automatically without paying too much attention IMO. Of course I assume that my autopilot is making more bb per 100 then my opponents A-game, which is mostly true, given how soft fields are these days. 

On Monday, we have Christmas Homegame, it will be a lot of fun. 2 different tournaments, and cash game on the side. I can't wait to have Monday off and grind that while drinking couple beers. 

Group studying is going well. We covered playing from SB vs BB, donk betting ranges on turns out of BB, 3bet pots both as BB 3bettor and BU 3bettor. A lot of new things/strategies came out. I am very excited about this. I think working together in more organised fashion has massive potential.

Today is a community coaching with Pokercode and Matthias Eibinger will talk about red line and how to improve it. Not something that I am struggling with too much, but I am still super excited as I am sure I will get tons of value out of it. Every session reminds me how little I know about this game. I guess it's normal when everyone doing a lecture is just a GOAT. 

Because of pandemic, I am not sure what to do, but I think I will go to Cracow to celebrate New Years with my friends. It's gonna be tough, as the entire country is at lockdown and there will be police hour on 31st. No gamble, no future, I guess.

Partypoker left the market, we can't play on 888poker, Winamax. I think it's time to leave. I would be very surprised if i stayed in here in 2021. Let's play well, study a lot, run good, load up the truck and GTFO. 

I wasn't playing too much lately, I was focusing on studying a lot and developing better, healthier habits. Results are mediocre, EV per 100bb is fine as for this ABI I guess, but I will not be happy until this number is double-digit number. If anyone has over 10bb/100 on ABI $30+, please message me. I would love to compare our statistics. 

I have joined PokerCode and been in the lab a lot. I really enjoy the content, but what I enjoy the most is community and the fact that they want to build something spectacular. There is weekly coaching on Sundays with the best players in the world and this alone is massive value imo.  it's all subscription model right now as well, which makes it even better and more affordable. There is many things that need a little more work, but it's looking great for Fedor and the crew so far. I think this platform will take over other training sites / courses, mainly because how successful coaches are and how dedicated everyone is to make this plafform great. 

For studying, we discussed our new approach and that approach from this week on is to have 4-5 study sessions per week and all those sessions need to be well-prepared and organised. Each of us is responsable for preparing a topic and diving deep into theory / sims. With the team of 5-6 players, we can make 5x more in a week then we could do, working alone. It's looking good so far. 

Results are very mediocre, but it's not a sample size, so it's all good. The more tournaments I play, the less I care about short term results. 

Hello guys, 

I am in the process of changing couple things in my daily schedule as well as long term approach. The most important things at the moment are:

• better structure in learning / reviewing (focus more on things that matter and studying one concept at the time)
• bankroll management and tournament schedule (start to play higher buyins and lower table count. stop checking bankroll most days and review it every monday or so)
  
• spend more time with like minded people and less with ones that bring you less value/joy (switch focus from my discord to pokercode community, work with people that are providing value back, get to know new players and expand the circle of hard working individuals while not loosing a group I am are currently working with)
• watch all  the new content and attend all coaching webinars
  
• continue with taking care of health
• stop spending too much time networking and answering questions / messages. build 2 time-blocks during the day to be on discord / slack / email. it takes too much focus away
• change all group coaching from chatting to talking. ask to un-mute. it's more interactive
• focus on my leaks that have been discovered during stat analysis. (calling too much vs turn bets / check raising too aggressively / not flatting enough IP / 3betting too little / raise folding too much from BU)
• coaching content: focus more on population exploits, less on theory (run new sims)

Topics to study in December/January:

• 3bet pots: both as PFA and PFC
• Blind on blind
• develop simplified PF strategy based on population research
• run simplified sims to study population exploits
• squeeze and cold-calling ranges PF
• turn strategy: c-betting / playing vs c-bets / probe betting / playing vs probe bets

If someone has good notes / researched those topics already in depth before or would like to study together, assuming that both sides can bring something to the table, drop me a PM on discord please. 

Poker is going well, but we get a lot of second and third places which is annoying a little bit. 
Peace!