In my most recent post, I spoke about how I had lost all motivation to grind. Well this morning I awoke and have my motivation back, though it came at great cost.

Back in January, only 2 months after I had starting taking poker seriously, I had built my small 3 figure bankroll into almost 5 figures, by grinding small stakes MTTs, and getting some nice scores. But towards the end of January, my dog died at the age of 12, 1 week before his 13th birthday, and this left me devestated, but I still continued to grind. For 2 months, I played just to take my mind off of it, and played badly, I hit a downswing, and wouldn't move down, and eventually busted my entire bankroll, which I had worked hard for.

I had around $100 left in my account, and by the end of May, I had managed to turn it into 5figures again, by grinding smaller stakes MTTs, and again hitting some nice scores. I moved up, and used a 200BI bankroll rule, and 1000BIs for rebuys, meaning I oculd play $50freezeouts, and $11rebuy tournaments. I began to downswing, and after a few sessions my roll had decreased by a large enough sum, meaning that I should have moved down. Determined I could beat the games I was at though, I didn't move down, and continued to play the same schedule. Things began to go wrong again in life, so I was playing poorly, and running below expectation, and me not moving down, has again resulted in me almost busting ym bankroll for the 2nd time.

I don't like to blog when I am using, the reason being for this I don't like to read other people's blogs if they are downswinging, as I find it depressing, so try my best not to do it myself, hence the lack of any updates over the past couple of weeks.

But, determined to make this post happy and optimistic, I'm going to write about my plans and goals for the future, and the ways in which I hope to fullfill them.

I've recently been reading some posts by some mid stakes cash game players on 2+2, and one post in particular stood out to me:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32/beginners-questions/climbing-ladder-5-10nl-448158/index2.html

I know that the downswings were as a result of my bad play, and although I am definitely +EV in the games I play, I must have some huge fundamental leaks.

So I've been left with $608, I plan to grind it up in the following way.

- $6 90man sngs until I reach $1800.
- Then $12 90man sngs until I reach $3600
- Then $24 90man sngs, and micro MTTs until I reach 15k.
- The move back to my old schedule, and grind using a 200BI bankroll rule for MTTs and 150BIs for - SNGs, if I move down to $10k I have to go back and follow the 90man SNG rule steps.

I have set some targets to help keep myself motivated:

- Reach the $24 90man SNG step by the end of August
- Spend at least 1 hour and 30 minutes studying each day, be it reading articles, watching training vids or paying for coaching
- Don't play if I am feeling under the weather/ired/hungry/tilted, or if there are any other emotional factors which may affect my play
- Try and reduce distractions to a minimum when I do play

And I have set some life goals to hopefully help me keep a more positive mindset:

- Eat more healthily, menaing less Subway and other takeaway foods, and more salads/pastas, I prob enjoy them all the same it's just Subway is a little more practical
- Work out more often, at the moment I work out very occasionally, and only when I can be bothered, I want to hopefully get into some kind of routine

So that is all for this post, I will update with my progress as I go along. I realise that this is a long post and no-one will probably want to read it, but I just needed to get a few things off of my chest.

Til next time

Carl

I've recently lost my motivation to grind.

For example a day like today, I have nothing at all to do all day, I've been awake only 20 minutes and I'm bored already. I mean there are a number of things I could do, but all of those things are pointless and achieve nothing, so I don't think I'll bother. I might take a walk to Subway and hang out with some friends, but it's a Thursday, in my opinion the most boring day of the week, and I doubt they will want to do anything.

So why not grind? To be honest I can't be bothered, I've got no motivation what so ever to even open PokerStars. So I need some targets, but target setting is hard.

I don't like setting monetary targets, as all it would take would be an innevitable downswing to make meeting the target impossible, or a heater to make the target too easy, both of which take me back to step 1. I'm not going to set any volume targets until my new computer comes (more about that in a bit) because I've deleted anything that isn't essential from this one as I'm giving it to my dad, so I will have no way of tracking how many games/hands I have played. This results in making target setting very difficult for poker as I can't really think of any other aspects of the game in which I could create targets for.

Maybe all of this will change when I get my new computer, (it's pretty sick actually, custom made, super powerful, dual 24" screens, I'll post pics when it gets here) but I'm not counting on it, and of course that doesn't help me when I am bored right now.

So, what will today bring? I am still unsure, if anything exciting does happen I will prob blog about it.

Till next time

Carl

Hi, my name's Carl and I'm a donkament player, and this will be were I'll be blogging my exploits from now on.

I used to blog on blogspot (http://evertonyorkie.blogspot.com) but I was approached by tworags, and being regular reader of some of the blogs here I was happy to accept.

I plan on putting more thought into my posts now I have a fresh start etc, as some of my posts on my old blog were quite rushed so hopefully this will be a better read.

That's all for now as there is nothing to add atm.

Thanks for reading and GL at the tables.

Carl