Author: heatfan03

April Powerfest WPT 888 Poker Series Wrap Up

Wow! What a month! As the April series approached I was very excited for the series that would be running. It’s a joy to play in tournaments that can make your year and this month featured a ton of them. With that came the need to play almost daily and it wasn’t until the month finished I recognized the effect the past month of play had had on my body until that last tournament finished.

Immediately I fell into a 12-hour sleep followed by a lethargic day and another 12 hours of sleep. Sleeps always a chore for me, with my body stubbornly waking with the sunrise or earlier regardless of what time my last tournament finished.

Partway through the series, I realized I couldn’t fight this and I just had to find a way to make it work for me. It wasn’t a perfect system but I just woke up at 6 or 7 am and got on with things until the need for a nap kicked in (normally by 1 pm). By not worrying about the specifics of that daily routine, I built more efficiency in each day as a whole. About halfway through the series I also packed in my Weightlifting Programming. I couldn’t dedicate the focus and time to it, so I moved to a less intensive mobility-focused shorter workout routine until the series finished.

The hardest thing is realizing in this game you can’t control so much. (I guess many would argue this holds true for life) So much of playing the game well involves leveraging the element of luck in the game. And when you have the biggest online series on you can bet the variance is going to be dramatically higher as the field sizes grew.

Alas, I was not able to compete in the SCOOP Series due to Pokerstars currently having my account under investigation for affordability for the past 8 months. This will be a much larger topic of conversation because if the financial situation I am lucky enough to be in doesn’t grant me affordability then I fail to see how the average person will be able to take a punt in Poker. Even worse it makes me concerned about how we bring new blood into the game. <<< To Be continued…

Takeaways:

But anyway Back to the Month Of grinding, I learned a lot this month and realised how important it is to me that Poker is left in a better way than we found it. Its clear Poker was boosted by the Pandemic situation but that fanfare won’t last unless we do more to have Poker seen more amicably by mainstream society. For now, I will just post these points but might dig into them in full posts further down the line

Poker has an image problem … changing this for the long-term and moving away from the Casino element seems necessary for the industry to thrive… But luck won’t leave Poker so working on its image is very necessary.

Multi-Day 1 Online events … it’s a tough balance for operators. They need to provide large prize pools while still leaving the perception everyone has an equal chance. But for the most part, Multi-Day 1 online events do exactly the opposite and provide more opportunity for the professional player to have multiple attempts at the same prize pool. There are many variations and I think PartyPoker have it right by limiting the entries on any given day. I would also like to see a variant where the bullet you are on is displayed on the table.

Streaming – Streamers are great for the game and bring more people in and I think have the chance to actually make Poker an entertaining sport to watch. Watching 1 live table of poker is boring however you spin it. But watching a streamer playing multiple tables, engaging in 1 to 1 battle or doing fan challenges as Heads Up duels is fucking awesome and exactly what poker is all about. I don’t think its for me but I would love to see a creator/team of creators swoop in and act as an NFL Red Zone for the top players/streamers… this is a long way off but cool to think about

Promotions- The PartyPoker Daily Legends Promotion is top-notch, but they miss the mark on marketing this. All that happens is you receive a ticket into your account. I imagine some casual players might even be unaware if they won a ticket through this promotion. either way, the addition of free tickets to winning a tournament or a close finish is always a nice bonus and obviously advantageous for the operator

Wives, Girlfriends, Boyfriends, Roommates and even neighbours, You guys are da Real MVPs! As I took my dog out for a walk last night I realised my wife had handled everything in our house from 4 pm onwards each day that month and I could not have excelled so well without this support. I am so grateful to have a partner that supports my dreams and aspirations

Tracking – I think this past month has opened my eyes finally to the importance of tracking so that when reviewing you can more accurately see what has led to a positive effect. To further clarify I think Quantitative tracking is a given but actually, the gains can be found in the Qualitative measurements…. mood, sleep quality, anxiety levels etc.

Variance is the number one killer for a poker player, and I think it can be tough for me to recognise this during a tournament. I found this far easier to appreciate during the off-time between multi-day events. Before I kicked off Day 3 of the $109 Party Main event I understood the hard work had been done in the lab and there wasn’t much I could do to control the outcome of that day 3 due to the nature of variance in any individual tournament.

I am itching for some live poker!!! And it certainly seems like the next 12 to 18 months for Poker are going to be a lot of fun. WSOP 2021 in October is pencilled in already!

Results!

I think the biggest accomplishment was making the final table and ultimately finishing 6th in the $109 Mini Main Event on PartyPoker taking place over 3 days. I was really proud of my play over such a long period and even more motivated than ever after coming so close to what I would consider a Major Online Title to continue working towards winning a major online event!

Powerfest 6th place

The biggest Cash of the month was 3rd place in the $525 Opener on 888Poker!

The replay of this final table is actually hosted on Youtube if you would like to watch !

Final Series Numbers:

Number of Tournaments Played: 620

Buyins: $35,500

Winnings: $52,800

Profit: $17,300

Hours Logged: 252

Mindfulness Minutes: 150

Number of Takeaways: 8

What’s Next?

-We exchanged on our house last week so the next month I will just be playing 1 or 2 days a week, probably just Sunday with a focus on reviewing my play as well as making some changes to my processes and set up in order to increase my edges further.

-I use a HUD but rarely make use of it which I would like to do more of. My plan is to target a few specific stats I can use to make exploits from. If anyone has any resources in this regard please give me a shout

-I want to create some sort of overview page for staking purposes for Poker. Starting this venture I did not want to sell action or be staked in any way so I could focus on my play. This will be helpful for reducing the variance particularly if I can look for some similar players to swap pieces in moving forward.

-Depending on if I can make room for it I am pretty set on picking up PLO cash in the next year or two. I think working on my cash game will be fun as I look to get back to live cash around tournament stops in the future

If you made it this far thanks for reading! If you want to get in touch just give reach out on Twitter!

GG Bagels & Burritos – Caught in Red Tape

So Bagels and Burritos was really seeming like a viable startup restaurant to get off the ground but I have hit a small snag with working with the delivery options available in London. Although the local council allows you to operate with a tentative health and safety rating this is no longer possible via Deliveroo, UberEats or JustEat. Not the worst thing in the world but I really was aiming for convienence being a focus for Bagels&Burritos which will take a bit more time to move forward with. Back to the drawing board as they say as I have seen quite a few “food startups” going through Instagram for their ordering process but that will require a slightly different approach.

The latest lockdown also throws a snag in looking at catering to co-working spaces where many from my initial research and phone calls are running a much lighter version of their in-house cafes. I thought it could have been viable to do a daily sale at each of these venues but that door is shut at least temporarily.

Poker Update and Restaurant Startup Bagels & Burritos

I write daily in my Notion Journal but publishing and posting has been quite a miss. That being said I find it truly therapeutic and ultimately as much as I hope my writing can be useful for others in order to do that I have to put myself and whats of use to me first. I think that becomes a lot easier writing about what I have done rather than publicly posting what I would like to do.

My journey back into Poker has been very succesful by my own measures although the bottom line has not been. Anyone with an understanding of the variance in Poker knows though there are far more valuable numbers in the short term that matter such as win rates and the improvement of certain metrics indicating you are playing an unexploitable strategy. But thats also a big misconception I have seen right now in the Poker space.

You see a few years ago a few pieces of software were developed that helped “solve” poker hands for how a hand can be played optimally taking into account position, stacks, raise sizes, the community cards, and your starting hand. But as much as these programs can solve specific spots the game itself has not been solved entirely. These softwares (spell check says this isn’t a word but it should be) work by creating certain constraints that allow the machine to actually reach a conclusion but if you were to give the machine unlimited bet sizes (as you have in poker) there isn’t a powerful enough computer anywhere to solve these in a reasonable amount of time. And even then if every spot was solved it would be beyond a human’s capability to learn the “GTO” strategy.

So instead we build reasonable constraints into the software and this allows us to have a reasonable understanding of the “GTO” strategy most of the time. But ultimately it is unlikely we are ever able to know fully what strategy our opponent is going to be playing so again we are working on assumptions. Which is what makes the game so damn exciting to me. And in a strange way, I think as more and more players work with these programs I find the opportunities in poker could expand. Granted this is under the assumption that the sites are able to ensure players are not using these programs in real-time. But the reality is players will cheat the same way cheating continues to occur in the highest level of athletics. You have to accept that and work around it and bring this into your evaluation of your game.

I have currently challenged myself to study 100 hours over the next few weeks (14.75 down, 85.25 to go !) simply as a way to really focus on making changes to my thought process which I haven’t found possible yet while playing consistently. I think its the same way as a tennis player in the crucial points going for the shots they know they can hit (crosscourt forehand generally been seen as most players most reliable stroke) rather than attempting often a “harder” down the line forehand (the nets are slightly higher at the sides compared to the middle of the net for one thing) And so I have seen in crucial situations I am still reverting to things I know and trust within the game rather than developing additional skills and plays. The best fix for this in my view is practice practice practice.

In other news, I have decided to start a “restaurant.” I say restaurant in quotations because I am taking an MVP approach with this. What does that look like you may ask? Quite simply Bagels & Burritos is set up from my home kitchen and will offer 6 to 8 Bagels & Burritos to my local area. It really is incredible how many tools and resources are built purely for helping others start their business.

I first launched an Instagram page and in turn, set up my website in Notion while publicly hosting it on Super.so for just $4 a month. I bought the URL at NameCheap for $3.88 for 12 months and to date, these are the costs incurred. I have registered with the council but as far as I can tell I can begin operating right away. I hope to be fully onboarded with Deliveroo in less than 5 days from putting pen to paper with Bagels & Burritos and start selling. For now, the focus is purely on breakfast. I do think headed into a second coronavirus lockdown during winter will bring real demand for tasty healthy (relatively) comfort food for the many stuck to the confines of their home offices.

Starting a restaurant has always been on my bucket list and this seems the perfect time to do this on a very low scale. Maybe I am onto sometihng and there will be an opportunity to expand this to a dark kitchen or a full fledged restaurant but I don’t see the need to go big with this right away. Instead I want to get it off the ground and get my feet wet and see where it takes me.

So if you made it this far, please like the instagram page and sign up to our mailing list if you are in SW London and you will be first notified of when we go live !

Thanks as always

Chris

Fuck it Just Ship it – Chasing the Dream of Becoming a Professional Poker Player

Life has changed dramatically for all of us in 2020 and it’s unlikely those changes won’t continue. I just watched a video that summed up my current dilemma perfectly. When to bloody Publish! You can view the video from Jack Conte, Founder of Patreon, here. In it, he discusses the critical difference between Finishing and Publishing.

Jack explains its a vocabulary problem that leads to this because the reality is creative work does not finish the same way we finish a meal or a sporting event. There is no clear final end to the creative work. Instead, it could and can go on forever. So how then are the most prolific creators “finishing” their work?

These prolific publishers are working to publish and not working for pleasure. As Jack explains in the video below by working to publish you are focused on results, giving back and contributing to the world. It’s not about making it perfect for you, rather it’s about creating something that others can engage with. I actually touched on this in one of my published posts on my newsletter back in July.

” I want others to leverage the creative word because that’s what it is and it’s not just for me to hold in my head it seems far more enjoyable to share and be built off that’s how the greatest things are achieved. [With]many coming together for a coming mutual effort.”- Myself

So with that in mind, I want to clearly publish what I am going to be focusing my heart soul and everything else I have at my disposal for the next 3 years. Poker. Specifically I have made it my goal to “be regarded as the player you least want sat at your poker table by 2023”

This all came to light a few weeks ago when a friend shared this video with me as I continued to be in turmoil about what I did next with my life. You see, 3 months ago I lost my job working as an investment manager for a Sports Tech Fund and I took it incredibly hard. There was nothing that could be done; the company, like all of us, had to take a drastically different direction in their business strategy for the COVID and Post COVID World. It was a company I put my heart into and so I felt apart of it and if anything I wanted to be apart of the process to help it survive the COVID situation. But alas it was not meant to be.

After that tough situation, I had to take some time to heal and also to relax and find myself again. I hadn’t taken a proper holiday from the role in the 18 months I was working there and had 3 weeks lined up away in April and May anyway.

So by this point in late August, I had explored quite a few paths. Computer Science Degree, MBA, Investment Manager roles, starting a consulting business for startups on their processes and no-code tools, and probably a few other ideas I put some time into before dropping off because of lack of passion.

And then I watched that video before bed and woke up in the morning and sent this to my mate the morning after.

Since then it has been all about executing and putting the pieces in place to make this happen!

The first step was to cut out all the fucking noise. The top performers in any space are rarely the most talented. Instead, they consistently put in the work. It’s that fucking simple. They work harder than anybody else. Don’t get me wrong there is a need for athletic ability in some capacity. You can’t be 5ft 3 and compete in the NBA. But actually you fucking can! Remember Mugsy Bogues? Did he found a way and how was that? Confidence Belief Determination Resilience and Hard Fucking Work.

Cutting out the noise for me was dropping most if not all of the other opportunities I have in my life right now, which was hard for me. I have always tried to do many things at once because I felt each contributes to others but for this, to compete with the best in the world some day. I know I need another level of focus.

The Second Step was creating a clearly definable and measurable goal. In 3 years time, I can easily poll the top players in the game and find out if I have achieved my goal of being the most feared. Also, just a good time to jump in here and say currently I am seen as one of the players they want most at their table because I am not currently educated on the changes to the game fundamentals over the past 8 years… (when I last studied and played the game at anywhere close to a professional level )

The third step is publishing this. Putting my goal out in public and learning in public. I will use this blog to record my regular learnings over this time both specifically about Poker but more importantly about high performance. You see I am fortunate enough through my time in the Sports Tech Space to be privy to the forefront of innovation for our physical and mental health and I aim to leverage that access to some of the top sports scientists to really take an analytical approach to put myself in the best position for the hard work I do in studying the game itself coming to fruition.

You see that was something I have and continue to learn as I spend time with high performers and the minds that have created extremely high performers. The separation is rarely down to one person having the physical ability to do so and another not. Instead, it comes down to the mind and being able to execute and pull the trigger on the correct play often facing injury failure or death.

In fact, we saw a great example of exactly this here in the NBA Eastern Conference finals. Now don’t get me wrong this takes extremely gifted physical ability to make this block happen. But I would argue many NBA starting players could also make the same physical play. But instead, it was down to one thing. The mind. He had the determination to put the fear of injury or embarrassment behind him and make that play.

The fourth step, well I am figuring that out as it goes but publishing this at this time just seemed like a must because I have seen so many people I look up to publicly voice their goals and publicly learn in public. So this is me taking that leap and seeing what happens.

For now the Fourth Step for me is get better every single day.