January 2024

January Challenge Goals:

1) At least 80% Gameplay Grade.

2) Take a maximum of 4 gym rest days. This goal is a little more intense than usual since I was recovering from the flu until January 13, leaving me less days to train in the month.

3) Report 1 new thing you’ve learned from study per day.

After the past 2 months of disappointing results, I decided to TOTALLY switch things up!

I already had in my head that I was going to make big changes to how I set goals for my challenges this month, but after I went over my results from the entire year of 2023, it became obvious what I had to do.

PLAY MORE TOURNAMENTS.

Even though MTT’s only made up 12% of the volume I played last year, they made up 48% of my profits. It seemed obvious to me that I should spend much more time in these games, even if only to gather more data on how profitable they really are in the long run.

So that’s exactly what I did this month. I exclusively played cash on Fridays & high hand promo days, ALL the other hours I played in January were in live MTT’s.

I fired 13 bullets in different MTT’s over the course of January. Including two separate trips out to Daytona Beach, which is the first time I’ve traveled to play since February 2023!

As a result of my increased focus on MTT’s I decided NOT to set a volume goal at all for the month, and keep my goals centered around the quality of my play.

Unfortunately, this didn’t result in me actually playing poker any better than the previous month. In fact, I lost my monthly challenge due to poor performances.

Now, I could make excuses about how my wife & I got sick w the flu for a long stretch at the start of the month, or how the long drives out to Daytona tilted me, or how I’m inexperienced and understudied when it comes to live MTT’s.

However, the truth is, those excuses are bullshit!

I didn’t play my best this month because there was NUMEROUS high EV spots where I was completely undisciplined and either played too aggressive or paid someone off too lite!

No matter how much things change with poker, they stay the same. Discipline is just as important in MTT’s as it is in cash games.

This is by far the most important issue effecting my game that I need to work on going into February 2024.

I will continue my live MTT data collection, but this time I really need to make an effort to play my best at the tables, with a specific focus on being disciplined.

Despite all the negatives this month, I will say that I did learn a lot this month. Even though I missed my study goal of learning 1 new thing each day, I did at least learn a bunch of stuff in my effort to complete that part of the challenge. Additionally, I got a bunch more reps in playing live MTT’s which is great experience I can pull on going forward. Also, especially in the last week of the month, I’ve done a great job of grinding hard at the gym and bouncing back from my flu induced lost gains.

January Challenge Results:

1) 72.8% Gameplay Grade.

2) 4 gym rest days from January 13-31.

3) Learned/posted something I learned 12/18 days.