December 2023

December Challenge Goals:

1) 160hrs of play minimum.

2) At least 79% Gameplay Grade on my Instagram ratings.

3) Take a maximum of 9 rest days from the gym.

Besides Christmas week, my December schedule looked pretty free. So I began this month still wanting to grind out a lot of volume. HOWEVER we learned last month, the “snow bird season” in Florida just hasn’t improved the quality of these 2/5 games like it did my previous 2 years in Tampa. So I decided to lower the volume goal for the month slightly, from 175hrs to 160hrs, in an effort to sit in bad games less frequently.

This strategy didn’t work and I was in bad games all month. Especially in the first 3 weeks where I went on the worst downswing I’ve EVER had in Florida! About -$6,000 in the first 100hrs.

Now, as tempting as it is to blame a downswing on “mY GaYMz iZ BaHD BruV”, I definitely made more than my fair share of mistakes in hands these few weeks. Specifically I had issues with a lack of discipline, when it came to making big folds or holding back on bad bluffs. Which I’m sure was heavily influenced by TILT. I really do try my best to not focus on results and remain level headed whether things are going my way or not at the poker tables. Clearly I still need to work on this aspect of my game though, because my game was definitely effected during this period of time.

After those woeful first 3 weeks, I was looking forward to taking some time off over the Christmas weekend.

Now I’m not sure whether it was the time off allowing me to recharge my batteries and come back stronger, or if it was some type of post-Christmas bump where the casino was filled with a bunch more gamblers, or if Santa had secretly gifted me some magic run good… probably some combination of the 3, but I went on a massive HEATER in the final week of the year.

So even though I think the volume challenge backfired at the start of the month when things were slow, I’m still really glad I did it because it got my lazy ass in the casino that final week when I didn’t feel like gambling.

So if there’s one thing I learned from this month, it’s that I need to be more flexible with my goal setting. When games are good and I’ve got an edge over the field, it’s VERY important I grind as much volume as I can manage, and I think setting these volume goals is a great way to ensure I get that volume in. However, these goals can backfire when games are slow and I force myself to sit in games where I had a small or no edge at all.

I think moving forward I’m going to experiment with the idea of setting volume goals around specific times when games are good, or perhaps not setting any volume goal until there’s a clear turnaround in the quality of the games in my casino. I don’t think the post-holiday bump is going to last through most of January, so we’ll start the experiment there and report back how that went in my next blog update!

December Challenge Results:

1) 160:40 hrs played.

2) 79.8% Gameplay Grade.

3) 9 gym rest days.