Less YOLO, More Carpe Diem

Oh man, kept planning to update this blog months ago, but it seems I'm a chronic procrastinator.

Update on stuff: 

- Stable : Aaaand it's gone. It was incredibly taxing for my overall emotions, too many scumbags everywhere, bad decisions here and there, constant stress, etc. Lesson learned... oh well. It was definitely for the best tho. My witheredness ratio is so low right now. Poor-ish and Happy > Poor//buncha money owed/maybe broke in a month if these fuckers keep running bad.

- LifeFail : Yeah, my plans are not panning out as envisioned. I think I covered this before. I suck at multi-tasking life. Like..... I either grind......... or drink.......... or try to slooot here or there (and I don't mean slot machines, I don't like gambling).......... or try to exercise........or try to eat better. New plan consists of approaching each individual problem, making it a habit, then approaching the next life leak. This plan might work! This is around the 6th plan I've made since reaching playa. They have all crashed and burned hard. Baby steps one timeeee.

- Poker = Been clicking so many less buttons lately. It's so nice. 5 final tables in last 5 sessions. Been talking a bunch of hands with my roommates and other poker friends, mindset adjustment, sucking less at life, etc. Feel I've learned so much. Hoping something clicked. Keeping it at 15 tables (3rs+mtts), not misclicking on "folding-flurries" (stacked tables), finding ATC spots when playing versus scared fish or non-capable regs, etc. It's great. Hopefully good things to come on this area.

- On Motivation = Urgently need to work on this. I'm the type that binks something small, or has a few positive days and I feel entitled to binge for days. Asked for some advice from a friend that lives here, sicko high stakes poker player named Kyle. Thought it was pretty interesting/enlightening.

Chavarov: How do you find the motivation to, like, keep playing? Do you feel there will be other fuckers that will surpass you..... or do you feel like you're so ahead of the curve RIGHT NOW that you have to play more...... or wug. Like, obv we have different minds, but, like, i win 2k and I'm like "Gotem! SUCKERS!" So, what's your...... goal?

Kyle: That's a really good question. I am 100% certain that people will be better than me.  Nothing lasts forever.   Everyday we play I think our edges get smaller. As for my motivation... What I realized that, for me, money is a really poor motivator.  I don't have expensive tastes or get a lot of enjoyment from just having a bunch of nice stuff, so just playing to make money isn't enough reason to put in a ton of hours.  At first when I was a broke college kid, it was definitely a motivator but as time goes on each dollar won gives less and less enjoyment.  I think I am fortunate enough that I really enjoy learning about the game.  THAT is my primary motivator.  As long as I can keep learning and getting better I am usually having a good bit of fun.  I have gone through periods before, and I am sure I will again in the future, where I feel like I am just going through the motions of playing.  Those are the worst periods for me.  As long as I can continue learning new stuff ....as long as I can keep learning new stuff I think I will be motivated.  That is subject to change I am sure as I get a little bit older.

(He also linked me this pretty good video, must watch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc


That's it for now, I'll try to update soon. Gl at the tables


Chavarov

Playa Update!!

Oh man, having the time of my life. Playa experience has completely surpassed my expectations. I was a little hesitant before coming here, but now I know it was one of the best decisions of my life.

The people: We have a really good group over here. I somehow thought I was special and that every other poker player would be a geek or strange or whatever, but that's definitely not the case. Even the most successful guys here are completely normal. Low stakes grinders, high stakes ballers, we get along just fine, and that's obv great.

The Stable: It's moving along very well. We had a horse ship a Scoop Low for 42k (insert "Like a Boss" video here). We're expanding into mtt's because that's where we wanted to go all along.

On Solving Life: Well, maybe not completely solved, but I'm getting there. Finally plugging some life-long leaks.

     - Never go out clubbing if you're tired.

     - Never start drinking during the day.

     - Never worry too much about money.

     - Never worry too much about the short term.

     - Never underestimate anyone.

     - Alcohol is means to an end, not the end itself.

     - Never dwell on the past. What's done is done. No regrets.... EVER.

     - Don't play poker if your mind's not quite there.

About MTT heartbreak:

Sigh, I've had three deep runs lately

   A) 90th out of 37k in the huge Sunday Storm.
   B) 22nd out of 7k in the Scoop Sunday Million.
   C) 42nd out of fuck knows in the Big $11

Every time, it hurt less. As Rowniwn would say, "Man up". It's such a gruesoe life, the MTT grind, but I do want to do that eventually, so I gotta keep trying. Every dog has his day, and it'll be MY DAY soon enough, leggoooooo.

Conclusion:

- Playa = Awesome

- Life   = Goooooood

- Poker = Not complaining



Till next time. Next blog = My biggest score yet (which only needs to be bigger than 3.5k, so very soon, hopefully)

Playa, Sway, Poker

Ok, I had to delete the last post because it was awful. The more I read it, the more I hated it. Just lacked originality and looked like it was done in a hurry. I'm taking my time with this one, haha.

Playa del Carmen: There's a bit of a back story for this. When I was with my now ex-girlfriend, some horses of mine had expressed some interest on living in a mexican grindhouse. Couldn't do it, because I would've obviously gotten dumped, lol. So, as luck would have it, I got dumped anyways for other stuff, haha, so that opened up the possibility of actually setting it up. I thought about all the pros and cons, and the only real Con is that my fixed costs will increase, perhaps about 1.5k/month, so that's definitely reasonable. As to the Pros, there's just so many: Living with other pros, living with people that share the same interests/goals as me, not being by myself grinding all day, living in a city with a beach, better nightlife, etc etc. So, we're all getting there on the 6th of january (6 guys), looking for a house/condo for a week, then on to grinding and shipping heaps. So, getting there on january 6, 6 guys, 6 months. That's obviously a good omen, lol. Soooo excited. I haven't lived away from my city for 7 years now (semester in Madrid was the only other time).

Playa Bucket List:

- Deep sea fishing
- Skydiving
- Visit Xcaret
- Go scuba diving
- Go on a booze cruise
- Stay in Cancun for a weekend

Book Recommendation and real life applications (and "in before tl;dr") :    

"Sway: The irresistible pull of rational behavior"

Loss aversion: It's our tendency to prefer avoiding losses, than maximizing gains.
   
Real life: Me playing the 2-180's for so fucking long. I always found an excuse. "Oh, I'm a life nit", "My life roll is too small", etc etc. Fuck that. Play the games that your bankroll and skill allow you.

Diagnosis bias: It's sort of like judging a book by its cover.

Real life: Pfff, I've done this countless times. Someone rubs me the wrong way initially, and that's it. I've made my mind and they can go fuck themselves, lol. I've changed a bit in the last few years, but still got some work to do there. Some people just give off bad first impressions and then you find out they're actually pretty cool.

Commitment: Not in regards to settling down, but more along the lines of getting "pot-commited". Sometimes, you'll have invested time, money, your emotions on something that's clearly not working out, but people have a tendency to feel committed.

Real life: We've wrongly felt commited with various of our horses, when they were clearly not working out from the start.

Real life: Also, I was commited on a doomed relationship that had so few good moments towards the end. We should have been over from way back.

Value attribution: In other words, "The value that we attribute to something fundamentally changes how we perceive it". This one blew my mind, haha.

Real life: Recently got together (for drinks, not, like, you know what I mean) with this girl that I've always considered "the one that got away". Funny how practically everyone has one of those. Ok, well, I placed soooo much value in seeing her again (after about 6 years), that anything that wasn't a total failure, I would consider it a success/win. So, I did have a good time, but I was so "swayed" from the start, that I incorrectly judged the interaction. Got infatuated and shit, hahaa, but the book helped me realize what had actually happened. So it's all good. Peter Lassiter said it best on Family Man: "Leave it in the past. Old flames are like old tax returns... put 'em in a file cabinet for three years, and then you cut 'em loose."

There's more cases of people getting swayed in our everyday lives, but that's the gist of it. Thanks to Ben Reasons for recommending me that book.


The Staking Business: It's going well. We got bogan as administrator doing an awesome job, an mtt sicko owning souls and coaching our horses, and also outsource some coaching from other mtt beasts. Everything's goooooooot. 2012 will be amazing.

My poker: 

Chavarov

1,541

$6.4

$10

64%

$9,870

Super Tilt

N/A

PokerStars

11/10/2011 12/22/2011 E180-180 Rebuys Only SNG Only

Pretty nice heater. I don't think it's a coincidence that I changed a bunch of things in my game. Seems I reached the huge downswing and ensuing b/e RIGHT AFTER getting coached and changing my game towards more aggression. I was pretty clearly doing it wrong. So, good things to come there imo. I'm thinking of completely erradicating freezeout 180's, and just focusing on 3rs + Mtts in 2012. It will be awesome.


Well, that's it for now. Will update when I'm settled in Playa del Carmen....weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Merry Christmas,

Chavarov

Epic Fail

Okay, this post will probably be all over the place, not as structured as usual, I just have a bunch of thoughts bouncing around in my head right now.

Sigh, I delayed updating this blog till things straightened out a bit. I had a truly terrible month. Lost 1.2k. First month I've ever lost $$ as a grinder. I over-tweaked some stuff in my game and suffered the consequences. I'm not completely to blame, don't think it was greed, I just wanted to get better and have a better ROI (like jabracada, who is arguably the best 180's player in the world), but I wasn't doing it right, lol. Not really sure if I'm running good or I'm playing better, but things have gotten better this month.

About my July goals: The only word that really comes to mind is "Sigh". There's a mexican saying that goes "El que mucho abarca, poco aprieta". The literal translation would be "He who covers too much, can't squeeze". It's obviously metaphorical, but, like, if you over extend your arms, you can't really squeeze too hard. So that's what happened. I crashed and burned really hard. Couldn't accomplish shit, even when I put in many 10+ hour days. Oh well, live and learn. I did read 1 entire book, 1k pages long (A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, sequel to A Game of Thrones). It's fucking awesome. It's HBO's Rome meets Lord of the Rings. And there's dragons and shit. One thing that affected me was that I broke up with my girlfriend. If your brain's not in the game, it's pretty hard to own souls.

Stable: Really glad that I teamed up with Gavin555. We complement each other pretty well (no homo, lol). We've made some mistakes, as was to be expected, but I think the business is coming along pretty well. Very happy with it. At the start, I was thinking that if we ever reached 100 students, I'd quit poker to manage the stable + coach, but not anymore. I just love the grind too much. I may well play all my life, hahahaa. I'm throwing a huge party when I reach 1 million (with my future kids and their wives and shit).  EVEN with a truly ghastly month (July), and me busting my ass off to lose money, I still loved my life for the most part. Absolutely no one I know irl loves his job as much as I do. I gladly not go out on a friday, in order to be healthy to play on saturdays. A professional player in a recreational atmosphere. Can't beat that. If I could be earning a living by playing Nintendo, I'd probably do it, hahaha.

Poker skills in real life: mrpaintball asked in a recent group conversation "what are some positive skills acquired by professional poker players". My snap response was "Work Ethic, Increased Pattern Recognition, Mathematical Reasoning". I did underestimate the most important thing tho, which is Problem Solving. Poker is a constantly changing endeavor. Like life, it's full of challenging things that you need to overcome along the way. Poker has taught me not to give up EVER. I'm not talking about a chip and a chair here. I'm talking about having the confidence to pull through whatever it is that's holding you back. Here's a good story. I was 8 years old, playing my first tennis tournament. I reached the finals versus a kid much better than me. I was down 6-1, 3-1 (so 3 games from losing), and it started raining and it was postponed 2 hours. I was practically bawling on the ride back, since I'd never lost and really hate losing at anything. My dad was really helpful. He told me that I wasn't adjusting to the bounce correctly (top spin). We practiced about half an hour in my house, and I started to anticipate the bounce better. After our session, he showed me a picture. It was a stork with a frog in its mouth. BUT, the frog somehow had its hands out and was choking the stork. The stork had eyes as if it was dying. The caption read "NEVER EVER GIVE UP". It was such an awesome picture. Long story short, I ended up winning the match 3-6, 6-4, 6-0. Such a sick lesson I learned then, and I never forgot it. Dad = hero obv.

Well, that's it for now. Will probably update today again, but need to socialize a bit for now. All work and no play makes Chavarov a dull boy, hahaha.

July Goals!

A) 3,000 games at least.
B) $10 ABI minimum.
C) Read 2 books.
D) Train tennis 15 times.
E) Coach 40 hours.
F) Smoke no more than 5 cigarettes on weekdays, 10 cigarettes on weekends.
G) Not get drunk.
H) Do 40 hand history reviews.
I) Watch tv maximum 2 hours per day.

If I can somehow accomplish all 9, I'll have to change my name to Superman. hahaha. Didn't want to include a profits clause because I wanted my goals to be about things that I can control. This way, it's well within my power to do everything.

A) 3k games: I think this is definitely achievable by playing on weekends too. Since I started playing poker seriously, I've taken weekends off, but not anymore. Some beasts that are way better than me, play every day, why can't I?

B) $10 ABI: My friend/ex-backer, Benjamin Reason, finally convinced me to drop the damn 2.50-180's from my schedule. He made me realize that I'm basically losing my time with so much variance control, instead of just trying to win a bunch of money at the stakes I should be playing. Big props to him, because I'm really stubborn. Thanks for showing me the light! hahaha.

C) Read 2 books: Shouldn't be that hard. Once I start reading one, I usually finish it that same week. Just kinda been hypnotized by so many good series on the tube.

D) Tennis: I took June off because I thought I wouldn't have enough time to grind/coach, but that's nonsense. There should always be time to try to stay healthy. It's not just that. There's an ulterior motive. My game has struggled due to lack of exercise. I've made some mistakes recently that I never did before. Just outright idiotic folds and shoves. Healthy mind in healthy body imo.

E) Coach 40 hours: Just 10 hours per week sounds very doable. Just going to try to schedule 2 hour classes at end of grinds, and it's on. Obviously, very +EV to coach as much as I can. Absolute must.

F) Smoking: I'm such a cigarette fiend. It's unbelievable. If I buy a pack, gg the pack that same day. I've spent countless 5 minute breaks just scrambling for loose cigarettes, in the drawers, couch, between the linens and shit. Such a nasty addiction. I'm going to cut down all through July. If I can do that, I'll cut down even more in August. Going cold-turkey has never worked for me, so maybe this will. Vamoooooooooooooo!

G) Getting drunk: I've actually been able to pinpoint the exact cause for when I get lazy; It's being hungover. I just don't care about anything but laying in bed feeling sorry for myself, lol. But, I mean, there's so much money to be made by massive grinding, with the right mindset, that it's just so unprofitable to get drunk/be hungover. I'll still drink obv, but not too much. I think this is the most important aspect of the goals. If I don't get drunk, these goals should be ez game.

H) 40 hand history reviews: Not easy, but I'll certainly try. I'll have to really commit to this one. Gotta make each one count. Hopefully, each hand history review get our students closer to crushing, so they're crucial for the success of our business.

I) TV: Such a zombie. Every time I'm done for the day, I watch tv for endless hours. I can almost feel my brain turning off. Well, that's the end of that. BUT, I still/always will love laying in bed watching good television, so I'm allowing myself to watch 2 hours (or if it's a long movie, well, however long it takes, hahaa, can't nitpick there).

Conclusion: Well, that's it for now. I'm really looking forward to a month of hard work. I've always had trouble implementing drastic changes in my day-to-day life, but I'm really motivated and excited. Wish me luck :)

Good luck at the tables,


Chavarov

Backing/Coaching for Pokerstars' 180's

It's on!

I teamed up with a good friend of mine (Gavin555), and the business is up and going. We're still in the process of setting up a website, but the important thing is we're ready. We got a few students alraedy. Still taking applications.  (Skype: Chavarov , Skype: Gavin_555)

http://forum.parttimepoker.com/coaching-forum/837542-180s-coaching-staking-spanish-english-speaking.html

copy/pasted here:

Myself (gavin555) and Chavarov are offering coaching/staking at Pokerstars' 180s. Chavarov will be conducting coaching sessions in spanish and english. I will be doing sessions in english. Players will be staked $1 and above.

Coaching will be strictly 1 on 1 with HH reviews. I will also review hhs for spanish speaking students so the student can get 2 different perspectives. Students will be able to discuss hh's with either coach on skype and organize weekly coaching sessions. There is an 8 hour time difference between myself and Chavarov, so one of us will usually be available for coaching/spot discussions.

All students must agree to be coached and staked, not one or the other, and play at a level we believe they will be most profitable. 




Bah, I was going to paste some graphs and stuff, but I suck at the internets. 






Gotta go analyze some hand histories right about now. 




Have a good day,




Chava

Third Blog entry = Coaching and Backing / Supernova / Translating / Fitness / Smoking

Coaching and Backing: 

I've gotten a few coaching requests already, and complied with a couple students. I'm also going to establish a staking business, but I'm still figuring out the terms and conditions. I'm confident I'll be ready in a few weeks. It's just that I'm a little anal retentive, and I want everything to be perfect. I bought the www.chavarov.com domain already. When the business is up and running, we'll have a forum, use dropbox, have group coaching sessions, etc etc.

So, if anyone's interested, hit me up on Skype. I'm usually there grinding. If I don't reply, I'll get back to you when I finish my session. 

Supernova

Pffffff, being a supernova has never been my goal, but I think it would be a sweeeeeeet end of year bonus. I'm at 23k points right now. The supernova rate should be about 34k. To offset this difference, some mass-tabling microlimit cash is in order. By my calculations, I'd need to play about 100 extra hours of 25NL, so it seems very doable. I know, I know, I said in a past blog that cash games are tedious, but it's all about the money, baby! (or the bonuses, anyways)

Translating

Yeah, I'm gonna translate this blog eventually. It will be available at the website. I just haven't gotten around to doing it. 

Fitness

I'm going to try doing the P90X workout. My back is completely sore right now, from doing 20.... count them, 20 pushups two days ago. That's sooooooooo pitiful. Hopefully it'll motivate me to work on my body and not just on my game. I do train tennis about 3 times per week, but my core strength is so disgusting. Need to do some serious work there. Of course, I won't just jump into the workout. I'll be doing situps, pushups and ab crunches for a few weeks. By the time I can do 100 of each, without feeling like I'm in the seventh circle of hell the next day, I'll start the P90X. 

Alright, have a good time at the tables,

Chavarov