december - april

Hello guys! It's been a while.

Study
Last 4 months were about studying and improving my game. I feel like I've built very good routines and studying a lot became part of my day.

Usually what I do I try to focus on one spot at the time and break it down. I start by working with aggregated reports for certain situation. After that, I look at reports in more detail and try to spot patterns. I break it down by board categories and/or high cards. I look for outliers and try to understand them. Most importantly, I build Quip documents for all the spots that I study. This helps me to understand spots better and I'm on my way to build very solid library full of notes and key take-aways. After Quip draft (documents are constantly updated with new findings) work is over, I move to drilling. I strongly believe that we have to practice what we've learnt and drilling a lot should be a part of every poker player's routine. I go for 4,000 hands per month as minimum (200 warm-up hands before every session don't count). I use variety of tools, mostly GTO Wizard, DTO and Ruse. 

For more complex spots, I prefer using DTO or Ruse with simplified gametrees. Last month my main focus was on SB vs BTN 3-bet pots and having 7 sizings allowed isn't that great, so I decided to fight for DTO leaderboards for those two.

As you see, no trophy, however I'm very happy with the progress I've made and I moved to different spot already. At the end of a day, what is important for me is to be better at it than most, and I don't need to be the best. It's just important to navigate with confidence on most textures and have a very well structured thought processes and macro strategies. Seeing a progress as I played more and more hands is very encouraging. 

Grind
I play 2-3 times a week but not every week and play 8 tables max. I think it's very difficult to play a lot of volume and many tables when you are constantly learning new concepts. It gets overwhelming and for now, studying is super important, grinding less so. This is year to day graph. The main highlight was finishing 5th in GGmasters. I'm 100% certain more runs will come when I start putting volume and we will finally scoop one of those. SCOOP will be huge for me this year and it's just around the corner.

Seminars
I decided to update this blog mostly because I'd love to announce the promotion that we are running for next month. It's pre SCOOP sale and all the products from Mammoth Seminars are 20% off. 

                                                Get that value!

Live poker

I am writing this blog post from the airport as I am about to board the plane to Madrid. I'm going for Pokercode Festival. I'm sure it will be amazing! I treat this as poker holiday, so less seriously than EPT Prague or Paris. Can't wait to meet the community and Grindhouse crew. Deserved city break :)

Live poker is a grind. There is tons of things 'behind the scenes' that you need to optimize and think through. I gained a lot of respect for players that are travelling the circuit but also play a lot online and win. I guess the entire optimization of schedule comes with practice, but it's way more work than one may think (at least I didn't consider it to be that complicated in the past).

Despite that, I absolutely love it. It's challenging. Maybe that's why I enjoy it. I think live trips overall are amazing and give us a lot of opportunities. Opportunity to meet people that you talk to on daily basis online and opportunity to travel and see new places. I also think that it's way softer compared to online and it's growing as well. A lot of stops are breaking records, so clearly live poker is very far away from dying. 

Next trip after Madrid will be EPT Barcelona unless I change my plans and go somewhere else before that stop. 

If you are in Madrid, don't be shy and say hello. I'd love to meet you guys. I will be playing most events, so you can see me in CASINO GRAN VÍA or at the looser's bar drinking sangria. (What a rhyme. I should consider becoming a poet)

​See ya!
​Greg