Taboo Talk

Everyone in the poker world know speaking/moaning/whining about downswings is taboo. Only fish players, noobs and losing regs whine. This blog is not a whine, it's just a small talk about mindset of last 3-4 weeks. I'm doing this mainly to try to remove all the foggy thoughts in my head and have everything cleared up for next weeks/months.

First week of DS was easy. I didn't even felt it. I had just had a 9k upswing the week before so it felt very standard. Kept grinding big volume and grinding my A game. Starting week 2 I had already noticed I was DS but by the last days of the weekend I recovered the losses and transformed it from a DS to a breakeven stretch.

Third week I was exhausted mentally so i took 2-3 days off and decided to come back ready to crush. Surprinsingly (or not at all) my DS was waiting for me at the tables. The last week (currently on it) has been hell. DS so fr is 420bis in abi. 200 of this bis are mtts and 220 are 180s so it's actually super standard. Funny thing was I grabbed a bad swing in both at the same time.

Today is a break point. Downswing got to me out of poker, I had been in a funny/hard to predict mood, I'm sure my friends, girlfriend and even mother have noticed. That was the sign I had to get my mindset right. Poker is poker and swings are part of the job. It's true, biggest DS so far... but to be honest I hope this is not the biggest DS I'll ever get. Plan is to keep moving up and increasing my BR and my skills. If a 5k DS is getting to me I'll never be able to play 1k hyper turbo SNGs or 215usd+ MTTs. I don't want to be stuck in midstakes my whole life, in poker as in everything, my goal is to get better.

Volume wise March is great. 600 games so far and I've taken 2 days off this month. 120 games in average per day I decide to sit in and play. 3.5k VPPs. Goal this month is 12k vpps this month. Easily achievable at this rhythm. Hope i can get 2.4k games in at least this month, but WSOPc San Diego is gonna get in the way.

Getting to it... I'm gonna be playing some event of WSOPc San Diego. Next week I'm gonna be there crushing the tables. I'm selling some action on 2p2 for anyone interested. Made a package with sick low MU with all events I'm playing.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/wsopc-harrahs-rincon-side-mar-15-17-a-1173991/

If anyone is interested hit me up there.

Gonna be giving updates via twitter... @BonzoC.

That's all for today, gonna be pulling an all-nighter for turbo night playing from 2usd all the way to 33usd MTTs. GL on the tables!

Being human

I’ve kind of abandoned this blog, maybe trying to make one entry per week is putting the bar way to up so I’m just going to aim for 2 entries per month. I’ll try to give a quick update on both poker and real life once every 15 days or so.

A lot of people have recently asked me how I have got better in poker over a short span of time. To be honest this goes all the way to life mentality and not just poker itself. Since a long time from now (actually about 8-9 months) I wake up every day knowing I’m human and therefore I’m full of mistakes and defects. Everyone hates being wrong. Waking up with this idea every day opens my eyes and lets me see my mistakes. Knowing I have them makes me want to become a better person than I am. Each day I wake up trying to become a better version of myself.

This translates directly in to poker. Every day I try to be better. Sometimes it’s all about humility. It’s not easy to see your mistakes and sometimes you need feedback from people outside your mind (both for poker and life). If you want to become better at something you must first acknowledge you’re actually bad at it. Look for help! Coaches, forums and poker playing friends are a great way to get you in the correct poker mindset. Lucky me I have all three of them.

Believe me, getting in this way of thinking helps you feel better about yourself day to day.

So updates:

Pokerwise

Couldn’t be happier. I got the chance to join Team Bogan being staked by the Salter brothers. Although I’m pretty comfortable with my game and I can’t wait to play with my own money I’m also really happy with the way things have gone so far since I’m part of the team. Great place to discuss strategy and they’re always there to cheer you up when poker is heartbreaking.

As you know I moved up to 8s and 3+r and started crushing them. I pushed myself to quick to 15s and didn't realize how big of a step it was between games. Needless to say I caught a downswing of over 4k. I didn’t let this get to me and grinded out of it. As for now I’m playing 8s, 15s and MTTs turbo all the way to 27s.

Graphs or it didn’t happen:

15s

 3rs

 8s

 Overall

 MTTs

Lifewise

Same as above. Everything is good. School could be better but I actually don’t care that much about it. I’m going to San Diego to play the WSOPc (I’m going to sell shares of a package with the events I´m going to play). Also I’ve been with my girlfriend for a little above 1 month and I’m very happy. We’re always in the same book and this make the relationship pretty easy going and constructive. She’s very intelligent and just as a plus she is very pretty.

I also wanted to use this blog to tell everyone whose life I’ve impacted in a negative way that I’m really sorry for all trouble I may have caused because of my nervousness, immaturity and fear. There’s no way I can’t  go back but there’s a big pack of people who I owe and apology, you know who you are.

GL at the tables!

First 3 days.

So first 3 days of midstakes have gone by and a huge heater has helped me feel better in them.

ROI is obviously not sustainable but still I feel it's easy to crush since regulars are still pretty bad and easy to play against. Still starting up in this stakes with a nice run feels quite good.

GL on the tables.

Moving up

Tomorrow I'm moving up stakes. Going to start grinding only 8s, 15s and 3rs. I will be on a stake deal. I'm pretty excited, let the highroller tourney begin.

A step forward.

I'll start this blog with my graph of this month so far:

Playing fpps sats I caught a huge heater and this means it's time to move up. I have to make a huge cashout to pay school by the end of the month so I was willing to stop having social life to try and win 2k this month. After this delicious heater I decided to take 3 days off poker (3rd day today) to feel the air for a while. Now I only want to grind because I finally have a healthy enough BR for 8s and 3rs. Since my coach says I'm ready for those stakes I'll be moving up this week.

Wish me luck! I'm pretty excited about this!

A thank you note and recommendation...

So I haven't shared it with you people but the 29th of September I got a coach. Not my first one tbh, my first coach was "ihaterivers" great player... not so great student. He managed to make me think ABC poker in sngs and made me a winning player.

When I came back to Torreon, after playing live poker for a while, I had lost some level in this games and that was very obvious when after a 3k sample I was only winning 60c per game (20% roi).

I decided to stop the "mega high volume" bullshit and start playing a better game. I contacted Bfizz11 via his e mail and tried to get him interested in me. Lucky me he was. So far the game he is teaching me makes me think a lot more than I used to. I used to play 30 tables without a single timebank issue, now i can only play 18 and sometimes I timeout when I'm thinking a hand.

All this has been directly translated to my roi.

PICS

180s before Brian Fite (Bfizz11)

180s after Brian Fite (Bfizz11)

ROI comparison chart:

I recommend contacting Brian if your struggling, his fee is very low in comparison to results and time it takes to get results. Unique poker resume, he is in fact a bluefirepoker coach atm. Great coach, great friend.

Contact: http://www.bluefirepoker.com/blogs/members/brianfite/

So this blog is a Thank you note to Brian, gonna make it to midstakes sooner thanks to him and now I'm sure I'll be able to crush them. Thanks for believing man, I won't let you down.

Going through my old blog...

I started playing and immediately found it was a way to make money and be free, I just didn't know how much money was there to be made.

I left my city the first time to give a shot at poker and "play for a living". Today I read my old blog and found this comment in the blog that talked about me decided to leave my life and take a shot at something else.

Spanish 

A que Gonzoberto tan aventao. Mira cabrón, la vida esta llena de gente-zombie que vive amargada y arrepentida de no haber seguido sus sueños. Gente que tuvo alguna pasión y que por alguna razón u otra la dejo por un "trabajo seguro".

La verdad es que no hay nada seguro y por eso es importante tener la mayor cantidad de puertas abiertas conforme avanzamos en la vida. Entonces, lo único que si te recomiendo es que tengas esto presente conforme vas avanzando en este proceso. Trata de tener opciones y diferentes recursos; en términos pocarescos: Trata de Tener Outs. Este asunto de la vida no tiene que ser todo o nada, hay muchos puntos intermedios que al mismo tiempo nos ayudan a lograr nuestros objetivos.

No se bien los detalles de tu decisión, pero el simple hecho de que busques seguir lo que en realidad te apasiona me da gusto por ti. Todas las grandes historias comienzan con un sueño. Nadie te puede negar la oportunidad de seguir el tuyo. Estoy seguro que esta ha sido una decisión muy pensada, ya tienes bastante tiempo mencionándola. Te deseo lo mejor y no tengo la menor duda de que siendo respetuoso de tu proceso y tomando cada paso que des con seriedad y profesionalismo cumplirás tus metas.

-3dgar

English

Oh what a daring Bonzo. Look man, life is full of zombie people who live their lives in bitterness and regret of not pursuing their dreams. People that once had a passion and for some reason let it slip away for a "safe job".

The truth is there is nothing that's safe and because of that it's important to have the highest quantity of doors open while we're walking through life. Then, the only thing I recommend to you is to have this in your mind while you're advancing through this process. Try to have options and different resources... in poker terms: Try to have outs. Life is not about everything or nothing, we have a lot of intermediate spots that in the meanwhile help us achieve our objectives. 

I don't really know the details of your decision, but the simple fact that you're trying to follow what really makes you passionate makes me be happy for you. All big stories start with a dream. No one can deny you the chance to follow yours. I'm sure that this decision has been thought over, you've been bringing it up for a long time now. I wish you the best and have no doubt that being respectful in your process and taking every step you take with seriousness and professionalism you'll achieve your goals. 

-3dgar

I barely know 3dgar and in fact I don't know him at all IRL. Even though this guy has been the one I choose to talk to whenever I hit a dead end or a crossroad in my life. I've noticed he is always there to give advice and try to help me clear my mind. He is a great writer and a hell of a friend. That small speech helped me out a lot during the transition of my old life to what I like to call my "new life".

Maybe it might sound kind of tribal to you since you were not in my shoes when I first read it but still I'll share it here with everyone and this way I'm sure I won't forget how important this was once to me.

Here is a link to his blog which I widely recommend: http://www.pokerwithzen.com/

Thanks a lot man!