motivation

For the past month I've been playing the best poker of my life. It seemed to relate directly with needing to raise more and more money for college. I developed specific needs for winning, rather than broad goals and wants of having more money or hitting milestone bonuses.

Not long after I began playing full time I felt like I was wondering. Poker and trying to win money that had no purpose was the only thing in my life. The problem is that there is no amount of money I could win that would satisfy me. Trying to reach that satisfaction level was daunting.

Certain periods along my journey have certainly helped, such as my stint in 6 max and dropping levels to work on my game, but the money has to mean something for me to play well. Having no real direction and being able to live comfortably on rakeback left me playing without thinking most of the time.

And yesterday, labor day, is my best day to date. $1250 with fpps
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warm up

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For the past few days I've been starting my afternoon off 24 tabling nl50fr. Then I'd do 2 or 3 16 table nl100fr sessions. I'd end up break even or slightly down at nl50 and have been running at around 10ptbb/100 at nl100 for 10k hands. Obviously some of that is run good but the win rate is big enough over enough hands to know that I'm playing very well.

I've pretty much only been playing during prime time hours from 6-midnight central time and the games have been very good. The main point though is I'm able to make a lot of dumb calls and some dumb moves to get it out of my system. I get a base rate on my stats to get a feel for what is or isn't working so I can hopefully adjust. Then I'm ready to play my A game without the risk or playing against better skill. So many times I would start off the day badly only to have a nice solid A game session neutralize the losses and all I would be left with was fpps.

When I was working I'd have the entire day to think about the previous nights sessions. Since I've been playing full time I had no way of getting mentally prepared to play and I'd end up starting during the afternoon against 90% regs and shortstacks getting in way too many big pots.

it never stops

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im running very hot right now but it certainly doesnt feel like it. over the past week... tuition more than expected, gotta win x amount. done. oh i've gotta pay app fee, administration fee, and deposit even though we are just applying for the apartment. need x amount for parking pass, oil change, car payment. done. need x amount for books. done. still have ~$4k left on car loan and need x amount for next months bills/rent. mo money mo problems