My Life

I'm happy to inform you that I have not yet had a psychotic break and am still pumping.

I've been recording all my drug intake by dosage and time with the exception of nicotine for the past 18 months. The reason I've excluded nicotine is because my intake has been minimal and it's difficult to keep track of.

I started making a few charts of the various drugs in my system (removing the more illicit ones) based on half-life and dosage, but realized how much time it was taking me and haven't finished them yet. Basic schedule now is exercise daily. Drugs - cycle through caffeine and modafinil with nicotine on the side. Then at least once every 2 months go completely straight edge for a couple weeks to recapture full effectiveness of the drugs.


Results:

Sleep - I'm getting more sleep than ever, at least over the past 7 years of recorded data. I'm averaging around 7 hours 20 minutes a night now. My efficiency unfortunately doesn't seem to be any better. REM and SWS is about the same as when I was getting 6h30m, but light sleep is longer. Lucid dreams have decreased to about 1 in every 6 cycles.

Physical Exercise - Probably the most noticeably positive effect. I've exercised 27.78% of days over the past 18 months. It's been mostly jogging, although I've switched a couple months ago to doing the Insanity workouts which seem more efficient. My resting heart rate has gone from low 70s to low 60s over the past year. I measure it first thing when I wake up. My body fat was gradually increasing and skeletal muscle gradually decreasing until I switched to Insanity. Body fat hit an all time high of 20% and over the past couple months it's declining back and currently at 18% with skeletal muscle at 42%. My weight range over the past 18 months has stayed within a narrow 118-124 lbs range and is currently 122.

Brain Exercise - There are many tools and services out there for improving brain plasticity. Unfortunately most of them are pretty gimmicky or are only good for so long before you just master the games you're playing. My current exercise on this front is: Brain-n-back, Anki (memorized 1600 new items in the past 13 months), learning French, and learning guitar. My progress on all fronts has been awesome and really helps reinforce the practice.

Nicotine - In my last report I hadn't realized any of the benefits. I believe this was because I had such a low tolerance that I would get light headed quickly. After a few weeks of a more deliberate use, my tolerance level increased to a point where I can use it for a quick mental pick-me-up. I use it a couple times daily except during clean weeks.

Modafinil - Still the most effective drug I've ever taken for concentration. It lasts about 7 hours and I take it 3 days in a row (200mg -> 100mg -> 100mg) about once every 2-3 weeks. I do need to have a reminder to eat while on it since my appetite is suppressed. If I don't, then when it begins wearing off I'm extremely hungry.

Diet - I eat 4-5 meal a day. Recently I've began replacing one meal a day with Soylent that would have otherwise been fast food.


Conclusions:

Since I'm putting so much more effort towards all these life health activities (exercise, brain, sleep), my time spent working has taken a hit and I'm averaging closer to 70 hours a week. I take one full weekend off a month and make that a really nice vacation somewhere or attend a big event every 2 or 3 months. Also June I take a lot of time off to play WSOP events and attend EDC. Overall I feel the quality of my work is staying high and productivity hasn't suffered.


Future:

I think for now I'll stick with the Insanity workouts and I think within 6 months I can be down below 14% body fat again. I might try to change it up if I hit a plateau.

The Emotiv Insight I ordered on Kickstarter is scheduled for delivery in December. I plan on wearing that quite a bit and keeping a detailed set of data for analysis. It'll be really nice to correlate drugs and exercise directly to brain performance data over an extended period of time.

A mid-term goal is to get to a conversational level in French where I can find a partner to speak with once a week to maintain that level of fluency and also read some comics in French. Some of my long term stretch goals are learning Japanese, how to play piano, and hitting a billion+ in net worth.


Feedback:

If you have any feedback on exercise with efficiency measured by amount of time spent with the goal being overall brain health I'd like to hear it. It's an important area that my knowledge of is very limited.

Drugs. I've tried most nootropics and related so I've got a good grasp in this area, but I'll still take feedback.

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I've been fairly involved in the crypto-currency and Bitcoin space ever since the discussion of a decentralized online poker room that was held here years ago (still think it's a great idea).

I've also done some mining on and off over the years. With a $3k investment in May I've been doing casual GPU mining on altcoins and have managed to make about $16k profit. I actually lost out on well over $10k in value because I didn't maintain the miner, let it get too hot and then didn't repair for 1.5 months when the fans warped. After undervolting, applying arctic silver, and replacing the fans it was running cooler and faster than ever before while using less electricity.

Thinking out about summer coming and how much higher the electricity costs become with cooling and energy bills I've considered managed colocation so I don't have the same issues that I suffered last summer. I've also just recently built an additional miner. I have friends with miners that face the same issues.

So one of these friends is now actually going to offer some of these colocation services since it's so difficult to find a datacenter that will take miners. He'll offer the services of uptime, redundant internet, cooling, expertise on optimizing hash rate, pool selection, upgrading miners, building miners, etc. He's starting off with an 8,000 sq ft industrial facility that can handle the cooling, electricity needs, and security requirements. It's on the same grid as hospital and fire station next door and located in Las Vegas (a safe-zone from natural disasters in the US) and redundant internet providers.

It'll start off with hosting miners from our immediate circle of friends, but should publicly be offering its services starting in Spring when everyone starts getting nervous about what they're going to do by summer. I'm posting this here because I know there are many who already mine or have an interest in mining.

If any of the above services that I have mentioned interest you and you would to sign up early then send me the following information to be put on the list and have early pricing estimates sent over:
-Email address
-ASIC, FGPA, or GPU?
-How many units of what model? (ASIC or Video card model and how many of them)
-Power supply used? (Goal is to find out wattage and efficiency of PSU)
-Dimensions? (Is it in a computer case, a milk crate, custom design)
-Difficulty to package and ship to the facility?

Value from 1-5 in the following services:
-SLA for uptime (Electricity and internet).
-On-site techs that can offer quick repair and maintenance when needed.
-On-site backup hardware for quickly getting back to hashing when something goes wrong (power supplies, processors, motherboards, risers, fans)
-Year round stable cooling.
-Hash rate optimization services (cgminer/sgminer custom configuration)
-Hardware optimization services (upgraded thermal paste, fans, undervolting, cooling)
-Build a miner services

Any questions/concerns you would first like to be addressed.

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Built a promotional page for LaunchKey that gives free Bitcoins. Check it out and give me your thoughts. https://faucet.launchkey.com

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I've been trying to increase my focus throughout the day and the amount of time I can sustain that focus. I've been recording all the data I reasonably can that probably has a significant correlation for the past 80 days.


Sleep
I actually have about 5.5 years of sleep data, and with more in-depth detail with Zeo since Dec 2011.

My sleep is most efficient when I'm biphasic with a 3-hour cycle approximately every 12 hour period. For the past 9 months I've been on a monophasic sleep pattern and sleeping less efficiently than I used to up until the past couple months. The average amount of time I'm sleeping now (6h52m) per 24-hour period is at the higher end in duration in all the time I've tracked, but my efficiency is higher than it has ever been for that length. I'm measuring efficiency by the quantity of deep and REM sleep. So with the combined increased duration and increased efficiency, the amount of REM (avg. 133 minutes) and SWS (avg. 94 minutes) is at the highest range it has ever been.

The reason biphasic is so efficient is because the most effective sleep is in the first cycle and gradually becomes less efficient each additional cycle. Also, more frequent opportunities for the brain to defrag a bit after intense sets of work seems to help. Performance often dwindles the longer you go, whether you realize it or not. I remember dreams easier in a biphasic schedule as well; it's a lot easier to remember 1 or 2 dreams than 3 or 4. So naturally lucid dreaming is a lot better biphasic.

My best guesses as to why my body is sleeping more efficiently and for longer:
-The increased periods of concentration while I'm awake
-The drugs I'm taking to get that increased concentration
-I'm just getting old.

I fall asleep within 1 minute 62% of the time, less than 3 minutes 72% of the time, and less than 10 minutes 93%. 29% of the time I go into REM rebound which I usually associate with sleep deprivation. Overall, I'm pretty happy about my sleep although I'm sure I could still get better results on a biphasic schedule.


Exercise
My original plan was to exercise every other day. I've slacked a bit and ended up only doing it 37.5% of days. My preferred exercise would be swimming, but I don't have a pool right now so I've been jogging. I'm pretty much trying to elevate my heart rate to about 160 bpm for abut 10 minutes, slow pace until I'm down to 130 and then speed back up for the remainder of the workout. I spend 30 minutes total at this task, about 40 minutes if counting stretching before and after. I've also gradually had to increase the speed at which I run in order to do accomplish my heart rate requirements, so I suppose something is improving on that front.
I should start recording my resting heart rate every once in awhile and see if that's changing. I'm confident I have much room for improving in this category. I don't really know much about exercise and how to optimize towards greater brain efficiency.


Drugs
You can look at my last post to see what my original plan was, but I've deviated quite a bit away from it.
-I take either 200mg of modafinil or 75mg of armodafinil about 3 times a week. These both seem to perform the same function, but the modafinil takes 30-60 minutes to kick in without caffeine and lasts about 6-7 hours. Armodafinil can take 60+ minutes to kick in without caffeine but can last for 12 hours. Armodafinil can just kill my appetite for the first few hours whereas with modafinil I may not realize I'm hungry but I have no difficulty eating. This has been absolutely incredible for long periods of being "in the zone". The most noticeable side effect that could have an impact beyond me is greatly increased impatience. Waiting in a line or even having an unnecessary conversation about small talk can get aggravating quickly.
-I'm taking 80-100mg of caffeine 4-5 times a week. So you can deduce I have to be taking caffeine with modafinil at least sometimes and I'd say that combination hits pretty hard but is very effective. Also, after getting back my 23andme DNA analysis I discovered that my body metabolizes caffeine at a higher rate than average.
-I still do clean days at least once a week where I don't take anything.
-Nicotine I've taken in very small quantities infrequently. Even 0.5mg will make me feel a little light headed so I'm being careful with it. I also haven't noticed any mental performance benefits. It looks like once a week and usually when I'm starting to feel kind of tired.


Diet
I'm really terrible about my diet. I eat rather unhealthy and rather frequently (~5 meals a day). My BMI stays around 20, body fat is ~16%, visceral fat ~4%, and skeletal muscle around 42%. My diet has been something I've been really awful about my entire life and probably the most difficult aspect for me to change. I have ordered some Soylent and am hoping maybe that can kickstart my path towards eating a little better too.


Future
I'll see about using Soylent for meal subsitutes (my batch supposedly ships in September). Research more about exercise and try to optimize that. Start recording resting heart rate. I've also been looking at something called the Avacore CoreControl Glove. There are some schematics online to build something with the same functionality and patent diagrams by the inventors that provide enough understanding to be able to build something that will get the job done. It might be interesting for exercising, but I think it could have possible use in just getting over a mid-day slump when not on any drugs. I also took a deeper look at piracetam which I seemed to initially have the wrong idea about and will see about including that to the regiment. The only thing I'm worried about there is depleting acetylcholine because I seem to get very nauseous when taking acetylcholine boosters.


Thanks for reading! I'd appreciate any tips or feedback.

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Goal:

As someone who works 80+ hours a week regularly where there's a direct correlation to progress and success based on the level at which I'm able to maintain concentration and get things done I'm looking to optimize brain use.


Proposed:

-Exercise a few times a week and on all days when not taking any other substances
-Caffeine no more than once every 3 days (the half-life is about 5.5 hours, and not looking for any dependence or withdrawal symptoms)
-Modafinil no more than once every 3 days (the half-life is 12 hours, but no dependence, just looking for full effect when taking it so want a full day without it in my system)
-Nicotine. Psychologically I feel like it's better to just limit usage to one day every few to ward off addiction, but because the half-life (2 hours) is so short and it could be taken multiple times that day it could still be troublesome. This is the one I'm most worried about because of addictive properties and withdrawal symptops when addicted. If the negatives outweigh the positive or I do get addicted, I'll have to cut it out.
-A nootropic supplement every day (currently Focus Formula)

So over first two weeks it would look like
Day 1: 30 minutes aerobic exercise; 80-100mg caffeine
Day 2: 150mg modafinil
Day 3: 30 minutes aerobic exercise; 2mg nicotine
Day 4: 80-100mg caffeine
Day 5: 30 minutes aerobic exercise; 150 mg modafinil
Day 6: 2mg nicotine
Day 7: 30 minutes aerobic exercise
Day 8: 80-100mg caffeine
Day 9: 30 minutes aerobic exercise; 150 mg modafinil
Day 10: 2mg nicotine
Day 11: 30 minutes aerobic exercise; 80-100mg caffeine
Day 12: 150 mg modafinil
Day 13: 30 minutes aerobic exercise; 2mg nicotine
Day 14: 80-100mg caffeine
Day 15: 30 minutes aerobic exercise


Data:

I've been doing something very similar to what I'm proposing above for the past few weeks, so I do have a little data to go off of.

I'll keep track of everything that's easily trackable each day along with any notes I have. I have a few EEG headsets, so I'll try to capture a bunch of my brain data as well to hopefully find a bit more substantial evidence that certain drugs have higher correlations with sustained concentration.

I also keep track of my sleep and have over a year's worth of data to compare to so I can see if there are any changes there.
I eat 4-5 meals a day and will try to keep track of that as well.


I welcome any constructive feedback or other peoples' results having done similar experiments.

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Comments (19)

I'm out in Vegas for the summer and I've decided to play the WSOP Main. I'm cutting it pretty close but I want to sell out up to 50% of my action at $125 per 1%.
I've played over 10k tournaments online with marginal results. Maybe 80-100k profit lifetime. Screennames are:
jchysk on FTP
jchysk3027 on Stars
jchysk on Cake
I've had a couple WSOP cashes, and various other cashes in other tournament series, but nothing ever significant. I have quite a bit of experience with live play and I've got a really solid combination of reading players and live tournament understanding. Also, my mathematical abilities + knowledge are of the highest tier in the poker community.

As far as reputation goes: I've been a long time member of the LP community. thewh00sel or shAAArk can vouch for me on LP, and half a dozen well known pros would also be willing to vouch for my trustworthiness IRL.
I live in the US so I can't accept online money and will only take cash from people also here in Vegas.
PM or post if you're interested. TY.

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Recently, after talking to woodbrave and firah, who both wanted something pretty similar I started scripting what I thought would be a simple enough calculator.
Here's the php version for just card removal: http://www.jchysk.com/testing/flophands.php
About an hour into scripting I realized the big problem I was facing was computational time and switched over to C++. Another hour in I realized this was going to be extremely slow.
The basic idea is take any preflop hand and use card removal to figure out opponent hands. Based on the range you select them having it goes through all their hands in that range (not nPr 48,5 but nCr 48,5 or nCr 45,2 if there's a flop)
Use a 7-card evaluator on every board to figure out win, loss, or tie.
Loop through the steps to accumulate all wins, losses, and ties until each opponent's hand in range has been accounted for.
The numbers start getting big, but still doable, until an additional player and range is included.
After I realized this wasn't going to be practical for any use at all simply because computers are too slow and it would take me forever to optimize and tweak it full of shortcuts to speed the process up I decided to look online and see what has already been developed. Too bad I didn't make that step 1, because I definitely wasted a lot of time on something that wasn't going to happen.

I suppose I'm just so used to thinking hardware is cheap and incredibly fast these days that you can write inefficient brute force code to get what you want without much consequence. It's yet another big punch in the face wake up call to be reminded how voluminous the permutations in poker really are.

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I've been playing tournaments in a virtualbox dual 24" for over a year now on my linux box. I do too many things on my linux box to consider dual boot windows, so I just played poker in a Windows XP VM. I've finally decided to build a new computer for just poker and trading, which is really wh00sel's old computer upgraded.
Note: Getting a really nice motherboard when you first build a computer can save you a grand when you can upgrade it instead of building new when that time comes.

Right now I have triple monitor set up with 2 of them on a dual DVI KVM, but I'll be adding 3 more for 6 monitor display. I'll take a pic when I have all of them. If I play poker today it'll be my first session on the new rig. Hopefully things are faster than they are in a virtual machine.

Installed HEM, PT3, PS, FTP, Cake, Lightspeed, and imported all my configurations and hand archives.
w00t!

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11/16/05 Party Poker
01/02/06 Absolute Poker
02/09/06 Eurobet
02/12/06 Pacific Poker
03/06/06 CD Poker
03/23/06 Hollywood Poker
04/14/06 Titan Poker
06/01/06 Noble Poker
06/13/06 Bodog
09/08/06 Atomik Poker
11/17/06 Poker Stars
12/22/06 Full Tilt Poker
10/19/07 Duplicate Poker
04/15/08 Eurolinx
09/01/08 Poker Nordica
10/05/08 Cake Poker
03/28/09 Pitbull Poker

Can't find Doyles Room, Ultimatebet, or Mansion.

poker poker bleh
I hope I can do SNE next year on PS!

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