i'm looking for something that i can use to scrape posts on another forum that fall within certain parameters i set. anyone have any recommendations for this? if not i think i could build it myself in Python, but i'm not that good at programming and just looking to save some time.
Need $160 stars - Paying Paypalby SoC, September 26
Morning All,
Hit my deposit limit on stars and playing the $700 + $215 Wcoops today - Need $160 and can pay paypal - Or I can ship stars $$ tomorrow evening at 5pm as can deposit again then. (Will ship from cashes if I get >$160 in cashes)
The Way of the Peaceful Grinder by makan18, September 25
Being a professional poker player is a career path, a life path even. The road towards being successful in poker, is not much different than a path to success in other areas of life. You need to gain theoretical knowledge, and most importantly put your knowledge into action every day, ceaselessly trying to do your best. Honestly, the knowledge without application is not worth much.
I`ve been in the poker industry for 8 years, however I started to treat it as a career path just 3 years ago. Reading Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt’s ‘Treat Your Poker Like a Business’ has been a major influence on me. After going through it, I realized that in terms of professional approach I’m light years away from the best in the field. I’ve been trying to improve the efficiency of my performance ever since.
What and who this blog is about.
Two things I’m obsessed with the most are healthy lifestyle and mind growth. My site will dedicate a fair amount of space for the topics of diet and the broadly-defined mindset development.
What can you expect? Plenty of citations, be it quotes from the great thinkers of the classicism, or some memorable cinema characters.
Information about efficiency-enhancing strategies, boosting your emotion control both at the poker table and in everyday life, or an oatmeal with apple mousse recipe
Moreover, there will be a ton of curious TED presentations, facts regarding investing capital, and the coverage of business training courses which I am planning to participate in.
Obviously there will be a huge number of poker-related articles as well.
Scorecard
The last 3 months was quite pleasant for me. I`ve changed a lot in my strategy and improved my mindset profoundly compared to the first few month of 2015. (the graph is from NL200-NL1k)
I like to call the place I’m heading to the pinnacle. In my personal dictionary this term symbolizes achieving the maximum of one’s potential. In poker it means being as good as possible, whether in terms of tactical, or mindset capacity. In everyday life it represents the growth in areas which I hold in the highest regard, such as interpersonal relations, physical development and language learning. I strongly feel that life is a never-ending process of self-improvement, and the greatest strength is an ability to consciously experience the present moment.
‘The Journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.’ 'Peaceful warrior'
Finally, I’d like to thank you, dear reader, for the time spent on reading my reflections. I hope it is just the beginning of a long-term relation, which will prove advantageous for both sides. Our journey starts here and now!
‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’ - Lao Tzu
Wasn't going to say anything but fuck it, I'm happy and want to share/brag about it. I received my Purple belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu yesterday at the Charles Gracie Academy in Redding Ca, under my head coach Carlos Zapata. It's been a long road and it's only getting started.
Hello degens. Wanna keep this short and sweet. I recently have been making a lot of progress again after spending 3 months cutting weight. And have started my youtube channel up again. I'm going to commit to 1 video a week. Probably on thursdays. And probably fit one spontaneous one in addition to that somewhere randomly each week. I have 2. YES TWO!! brand spanking new videos up. And now that I have a computer that can actually edit video without freezing on every frame. I should be upping the quality of all of them. So check them out. Make sure to like and subscribe IFFF you like them and want to see more. ALSO! very important if anyone has any questions regarding fitness or possibly dieting. Go ahead and ask. If the question can be beneficial to a lot of people. I might make a video on it. Or at the very least I will answer them. Also know that I dont know everything obviously being mostly just an intermediate at this point. But thats the beauty of it. If I don't think I have a good solid answer for you. I will investigate it and let you know what I find out. So it would help me out and let me broaden my knowledge base quite a bit. Anyway tell me what you fuckers think .
comp programming questionby traxamillion, September 21
I'm teaching myself Java right now, have really just started in earnest these last 2 weeks. My only question is as I practice writing programs should I be using notepad only to make sure I can do all the syntax stuff properly from scratch? Would I be doing myself a disservice to move straight into using Netbeans?
maybe use netbeans mostly and fire up notepad every once in a while just to test myself?
lol I'm too lazy to word out my blog properly, I'm just here to help smarter guys than me who deserve to know what I've realized, Im sure some here will be good at this and just got stuck in the poker boom and cant get out of the rut.
Damn this is 10x better than poker. Less stress, more money and less embarrassing and all that soul searching stuff is never a problem. I've always thought that learning all the technicals or fundamentals and trading like a "genius" of sorts - because at poker we were taught that way, and the best players played like that. A lot of people here are like 100x smarter and more disciplined than I ever was, so I'm thinking if people really got into it, they could make the shift and make a boatload of money, or at least live comfortably. LP give it a try, the tools you need does not need years of digesting information, learning curve is steep but you only get better over time. I lost half my port, but BR management practices and variance from poker really helps a LOT!!!
So far this is what I've learned is true:
*technicals are great, but it's mostly lagging indicators and you dont really need to learn cloud charting, harmonics and flow, all those fucking scientist looking shit. Learn simple SAR, MACD, RSI, FIB retracements, moving averages and STS - that's it.
*KNOW THE MARKET, IT's PLAYERS and OPERATORS - very important to be familiar and good at anticipating the news and making "reads", I play a very small market so the NYSE, NASDAQ is going to be tougher but just know the "latest" . knowing who's buying and why is key.
*Market noise, rumours are a great resource and people telling you it's bullshit is dead wrong. Communities are communites and people in LP are mostly the same helpful people in an x stock trading forum. There's good and honest guys bunched up with retards, just know who is who.
*YOU LEARN 100x more on losing trades, and absolutely nothing when you win. Always remember that.
on't jump into forex and options, commodities are the easiest to enter when still a beginner, trust me. Skillset required is so much less compared to poker, you can make money if you are a 25nl winner I promise you. But you have to be the type of nit who knows when to go full blast when you make a good read or have a lock (of sorts)
*Financial literacy is definitely better for interpreting more complex business transactions and interpreting disclosures which can be tricky. READ DISCLOSURES ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
*Position sizing correctly and making sustainable bets is key to long term success. Ive learned this the hard way losing a third of my port.
*Trading like a brokerage(day trading like some genius, making tons of small ball winning trades is not the right way if you want wealth accumulation). you will be incorrect so many times you will just be like an FPP pro at stars without any rakeback lol. Making small bets is correct, but knowing when to buy on dips and tranches is vital, just set a budget.
*Money is always at the sitting, not trading like a genius. Dont think you need to be gordon gecko and waste all that money on charges that will build up like a mofo. Less is more, you WILL lose 6 out of 10 trades, break even in 2 hit homers in 1 and double or triple your bankroll. You make money during sideways markets, but don't aim for those, eventually it will frustrate you. Know when to bet BIG. Paper gains and losses dont matter.
*Linear thinking by CFAs or geniuses are not always correct, but they have some good solid points on market digestion of disclosures and hidden gems. The most successful traders never went and got finance degrees from wharton, they never made money from trading their own money but from salaries and commissions from big fat clients with dirty money. They go into losing trades just to ramp up commissions.
*Remember this is legal and can be your lifetime "career" that you can tell your friends and family. The skillset for position trading is so much less than what is needed for say, beating 100nl at stars especially today. I will not bullshit people here and as long as you are sure you will put half the dedication you put in stars, you WILL be ok. Theres no linear path to being successful here, and there's weird ways to make money, unlike poker wherein you have to be as consistent as inhumanly possible to keep up. Bull markets give you the opportunities to sell since everything you hold is going to make money, Bear markets give you opportunities to create wealth.
*only downside I see is capital, you have to have capital 100%, this is not something easy to grind since you are diving head first where everyone plays. this is the only way i see poker being better than stocks, but hey you people here have got money so thats alright.
*It's not completely zero sum and you will make money eventually, staying in the game long enough to build dat trading gene is more important than making money to buy a car when you get lucky in a bull market. Embracing Chaos is what you have to train for, build that thick armored skin for battles you will be waging daily, poker has given me a headstart on BR management and variance, all I need now is that chaos gene to be ingrained in my DNA.
Books: ONly stuff that you need to start
*Reminiscence of a stock operator - it's the "ace on the river" of stock market trading
"Welcome to my trading room" By Elder
*Securities Analysis - Ben Graham (Too long didn't read lol) Still the best resource for computing various valuations in different aspects
*Technical Analysis Explained - Martin Pring
*CFA books on fundamental analysis, or step by step investopedia.com, learn the terms like tender offers, stock splits, SRO, listing by introduction etc etc it wont take a month and you'll know the most useful ones
If you get the hang of it all, use metastock, chartnexus or amibroker as an EOD stock screener, much like holdem manager only tougher to understand. there's tons of other options out there that are web based, i like the end of day offline software better though.
Good luck LP! Ask me anything in this thread. I'll be 100% honest and simple with my answers. Not a brag, but I know I will do very well as I will be doing this till I'm dead, and yes, it is sustainable. U.S. Markets now are going to shit, it's the best time to learn stuff in trading experience points for Americans here lol
A massive followup to my 11 month old post.by longple, September 19
Pre intro.
Hi guys, it's been awhile.
I've gotten a decent amount of PMs here and there with people asking me what's up and how my little "adventure" went and I've told them all that I'll probably write something up when i feel like writing a blogpost. The thing is that so much has changed and happened that everytime I've thought about writing something I just didn't know if at all or where i wanted to start. Some days thoughts has popped up about what (if) I were to write something, what i wanted to touch etc. I have a few pages now of just notes on what to write about so we'll see where that takes us.
Today and over the last days my activity/reading/catching up on LP in general has been alittle more frequent then previously this year and more and more I've felt a blogpost creeping up. I'll probably end up throwing the notes over my shoulder and just take it as it comes as usual (wich also is something i expect this blog to be alot about, dum dum duuuum). Often when I write in my "journal/diary" or longer blogs/posts it feels like writing itself takes control over me and just takes me places I didn't expect to end up in the first place so lets go!
Intro intro.
Almost a year ago now I made my last blogpost wich were about kind of putting poker and the daily routine on hold to do some solotraveling without no real plans on where or for how long, other then starting off with going to Sydney, Australia and take it from there. I was really scared and nervous about going and many times I thought if I maybe was just going crazy under some psychosis. Wich probably is perfectly normal and something ive experienced again and again after that moment aswell with maybe a touch of humour added to the worries compared to a year ago and previously. The only thing I felt i had with me and was holding on to when anxiety came around was that my goal was to travel and train BJJ (Brazilian jiu jitsu) wich calmed me a bit knowing that, atleast I have something to aim for when lost or alone, hitting up some BJJ gyms!
So lets do a classic tripreport and see where that takes us.
Scurred in a big world.
I left Sweden early november and met a swedish guy at the airport in Hong Kong who I recognized all the way from Stockholm. He was alot younger then me (19 I think, I'm 27) and he looked (and was) really scared and nervous going all on his own aswell, wich calmed the both of us alot i think. Especially me as I naturally took the (placebo?)role of the wiser, older, calmer more experienced person that he could lean on and talk to. He was kind of the guy who would worry out loud about pretty much everything (wich fascinates me to this day how sick it was for him to do what he did at his age). I'll give u an example. He would all the time say things like "oh, we will probably miss the bus, what are we gonna do then.." I would calmly answer with a smile, then we take the next bus, dont worry , etc. I helped him find his hostel in the central parts of Sydney and we spent most of that first day in Australia together until i had to find my own hostel down in the eastern parts of Sydney by the famous Bondibeach. I got there in the evening and the feeling of how alone I was slowly crept back on me and the first night at the hostel I was this wierd jetlagged overly social guy talking to everyone desperately trying to find a friend during a BBQevent they had at the hostel that evening without much success. I ended up going to bed the first few nights insecure with the feeling of wtf am I gonna do for all these months.
When i woke up the 2nd day I felt that I had catched a cold from the long flight but I ignored it and went to a BJJgym i had scouted out on my phone called "Miller Tannuri Jiu Jitsu Bondi Beach Acadamy" to show my face to the instructor and ask if it was cool for me to train with them and ask a bit about their timetable etc. The gym was pretty close to my hostel, only a 20min walk or so and I was met by this sceptical kind of angry looking blackbelt (Ben) asking me about my experience and how much I wanted to train. I answered everyday if possible and he gave me a sceptical look; "Everyday? Okey well u can start tomorrow I'm haveing a class at 11am". The rest of the day, and many of days to come, I wandered around looking at stuff, reading my book trying at all cost to avoid the awkwardness of hanging around alone at the hostel feeling like everyones eyes caught my nervous presence.
The next day i woke up with a fever and felt very sick and thought god damn it now he's gonna think that I'm a pussy not showing up for class after telling him I wanted to train everyday. I walked there to show my face and made my voice sound alittle sicker then it actually was to tell him that I'm sick and he just seemed to think it was random for me to show up giveing me a, ”okkeyyyyy well obviously u shouldnt train with a fever gl stranger” kind of feel to his answer wich was pretty much in reality just "ok". I ended up being sick for 3 weeks but started training alittlebit after the first week as soon as the fever dissapeared cuz I really wanted to show how hard i was willing to work asap without complaints to be accepted by him and his students. Wich probably was why I didnt get rid of the nasty cough that kept me awake every night in the first place, but jiujitsuclass was kind of the only thing i had the first few weeks and i got tired of sitting in parks reading my books for 12 hours each day before I got more and more chilled out with the hostellife. I had also prepared for this sort of by leaving Sweden without my laptop with intentions to not go back to comfortzone in playing poker all the time and I often reminded myself with nope, im gonna stick to no laptop for the first part of this journey and then maybe start mixxing in some poker to support myself later on if and when money started to become more of an issue.
The tides are changeing.
After those first few weeks everything kind of changed tho and feels like a very very important period to go through for me personally. I stopped careing more and more about being seen alone, eating alone (a big one) etc and I noticed, wich is kind of obvious, that I had just had bad luck with my roommates in the hostel (shared a 2 bunk bed 4ppl room) and that I was trying way to hard to make friends with people that I just naturally didnt click with. It kind of started with a Scottish lad, Theo, moveing into my room for a few weeks who was kind of a 0 fucks given backpacker who was really down to earth doing his own thing. Connecting with him together with me starting to chill more and going back to my regular persona I just started makeing friends naturally. Like, all the time, everywhere both inside and outside of the hostel and I ended up meeting some truly amazing people, him included. Hes now in Vietnam i think working at an orphanage for children in need.
I also contacted Tochminator from stars (NL HS crusher and one of the topdawgs in NL today, dont get to cocky for reading that I wrote that) from randomly finding out thru skype that he lived in Bondi aswell. We clicked instantly and today I regard him as one of my closer buddies. I think we both fed eachother and grew as people overall from some amazing discussion. (and still are)
Ok. So I'm healthy and well again and I started to feel better and happier then I'd felt in a long long time, training hard and forming some strong bonds with the people at the BJJ acadamy and coach Ben, who started to take the role of a father/bigbrothertype figure that u could always have a beer with and ask for advice that I atleast from my end formed some memorable bonds with and I truly felt like a member of the Miller Tannuri tribe and I really didn't want to leave so I ended up staying there for much longer then I intended from the start, little over ~2 months or so. The hostel slowly felt like home with all its people working/liveing there as I started to become a local wich every1 kind of knew. I had even gotten a request from the boss to take care of reception and start working for the hostel with a salary free of livingexpences in one of the better singlerooms. I felt flattered and parts of me wanted to just stay there but I had poker in mind by that time aswell as seeing a bit more of Australia before my Visa runs out. Myself and Tochminator had been talking a bit about going to Melbourne together to see whats up over there before his Visa ran out and time for him to get back to Denmark.
I said my goodbyes to Bondi and flew down to Melbourne with Toch and we had some amazing times over there together. Melbourne is a very big city but I got the feeling that it was much more chilled out then Sydney. People were walking slower on the streets and idk the entire wibe of the city was more chill and less businessy. I started training Jiu Jitsu there at "CIA Paulistas" with the very famous 3rd degree blackbelt Carlos "Portugues" Vieira and I even got the chance to roll with him wich was a cool experience but tbh I missed the small gang in Bondi as Paulistas was a huge Acadamy with many people traveling through all the time.
Toch left after some weeks in Melbourne and I stayed there alone for a while, mostly grinding as I had started to play alittlebit of Poker again on a Surface Pro 3 I'd bought on the road as poker started to feel kind of fun again. Many discussions with Toch about life and poker surely led me wanting to persue a more balanced approach to poker, if it was possible and as Dogmeat stated in a few comments in my last blog that he thought that I was retarded for dropping poker and escapeing my problems. He thought I should strive towards finding balance with the grind rather then giveing up/escapeing the overworking burnoutish that poker had led to for me to suck it up for a few more years while theres money to be made. Surely there was some truth to it but most of you already know about my feelings about money and a friendly poster on LP made a good point about why sacrifice today for a better tomorrow might not be for everyone still echoes in my mind. In highnsight it was very good to just drop poker and go into the unknown like I did with the drastic change of how i lived out my days with going on this journey. Wich is also how I've gone about changeing my life many times that's how I seem to make things happen for myself, to throw myself out there and see what happends, kind of. Naivly not knowing what to expect really and it's an approach I think works fairly good for me personally, to get me to do things. I talked about this alittlebit in the last blogpost aswell, about takeing action over trying to think ur way to something. You just gotta do it, and I'm a believer in that now more then ever before. If anything the most important thing I've really come to realise on this trip is that the trigger is never gonna get pulled by itself and its something I think i will write more about later on in this blog as it became very relevant during another adventure I had this year, more recently then the Australia (spoiler) > Thailandtrip.
I'm gonna try to keep things shorter now as I think I got to a few things I wanted to mention about how hard and scary everything was in the beginning but how I kind of grew into it all day by day. Even though it seems to be hard to stop me when I've well started to write.
Ok! Toch left and I spent a while alone in Melbourne. I then went back to Sydney, showed my face in the hostel and went back to the gym for a few rolls before I moved on to the famous hippiesurfertown Byron bay about 1 hour by plane north of Sydney on the eastcoast for some more BJJ and more experiences. I'm not gonna mention this too much in this blog out of respect but at this point I had been rubbing off some yolo on my ish girlfriend/ex from Sweden and we decided that she would quit her job in Stockholm and I would support her travels as I felt more as a giver now with different priorities (yeah..) too see if we could make it work together more as a real couple on the road together. She came with me to Byron bay and we had some amazing times together. Byron bay was just the nuts and the good old weedsmokerhippiedude inside me really felt like Byron was a place I could just stay forever aswell. I started training as soon as i got there at a gym called "Extreme MMA - Byron bay" with yet another amazing coach, 3rd degree blackbelt Daniel "Jacaré" Almeida filled with just amazing friendly people. I really liked it there and I again made many good friends on the mats in Byron.
My Visa was comeing to an end, and poker had been going really bad tbh as I was in a pretty rough DS over the ~50k hands I've played up to that point on the road, and expences got doubled pretty much as there was two of us to support with my saveings now we had to bail on the plans we had initially to go to Hawaii and train with BJ Penn (arghh) to instead go to Thailand where we could visit her family. (she's born in Thailand but grew up in Sweden) Where we could live for free with them, we decided to do that. I would also get a chance to hit up Phuket Top Team where my BJJ journey began about 2 years ago to say hi to the legendary oldschool professor Olavo Abreu (4th degree blackbelt under carlson gracie) who also, u guessed it, is just an amazing human being.
I walked to the gym pretty much the first day after we'd landed in Phuket with expectations that he probably wouldn't recognize me as he has thousands and thousands of students traveling through there every year and I hadn't seen him for a long time, I was met by a brazilian accent "Eyyyy brooo ur baaack" together with a big smile and a hug and I just felt, wow.
We stayed in Phuket for about 1 week and again I learned alot from Olavo even tho it was just a short visit and we flew to Bangkok to meet up with a childhoodfriend of my company, she has a hairsaloon in BKK and she gave us some new haircuts and then we took their car to a small farmertown outside of Nakhon Sawan in the middleing parts of Thailand where I was welcomed as a member instantly by her beautiful big and loveing family. The experience I had in the little village in Thailand has been one of the most powerful experiences in my life and something that I will never forget. For most of the people there I was the absolute first white person they had ever seen or met in real life and it was just sick how welcomed they all made me feel. All the kids, the kids were just amazing words can not express the memorys I'm haveing right now as I'm writing about it.
I ended up helping out with the daily work and stuff from time to time and I'm very thankful they let me be a part and get a glimps of their lives for the weeks we spent there. It gave me alot to reflect over how differently we live here and there. I'm gonna try to stay out of going on a long rant about that right now so lets leave it there. We have much to learn from eachother tho.
Saying goodbye to everyone in her family got alittle bit teary, especially with the family whos house we stayed at as they took extra care of us, the kids and the 95 year old stereotypical asiangrandma who was nothing but a badass and someone I got to practice my Thai with everyday in the mornings as we ate together.
After Thailand we had to go back to Sweden and my appartment as we were running out of money and felt like I must take some responsibility now over the economical situation that was starting to be alittlebit panicky, even tho It didnt feel too bad tbh but it caused alittlebit of stress, I must admit. As we got back to Sweden I felt a bit empty about how all these months had been so drastically different and how still everything stood at home. I really don't want to come off like a know it all hippie but for me personally I already knew that I needed to get back out there again.
As mentioned I dont want this post to be about our relationship but within a few months at home old patterns started to emerge between us and we wanted different things and with me slowly realiseing that this is probably what I want to do continue doing with my life, traveling around alone training Jiu Jitsu we came to the conclusion that it's not gonna work out, the timeing is just not right.
Lets just leave it there before I make it too wierd, lets change subject to poker instead.
As I got back home I was unsure about if I wanted to continue down the PLOpath since thats probably what (if) I will be playing in the future I got approached by some people who saw me grinding smallstakes what was up and if I was interested in some kind of stakeing deal.
I felt at first that I defenetely did not want that and that I would rather just grind my way up again, PLO swings fucked a bit with my head tho and together with some offered coaching and good conversations and generally a great personal chemistry and gut feeling about those people I finally decided that I was interesting in working together with them and I dont regret that today!
We started off doing some PLO but for economical and stressrelated reasons I had to go back to plan B wich all along was to play NL again until I atleast have a solid bankroll for myself, so we decided to do that.
We switched by my demand back to my roots playing NL on the swedish site Svenskaspel wich I grinded alot on as many as you know back in the day. Long story short I've had amazing results over the past 4 months of NL:ing and we've been playing resonably "big" games again (hmid/hs) relatively to what I've been playing in the past 2-3 years atleast, thinly veiled brag I guess but I'll let the graph speak for itself.
My approach since going back to NL has been much less volume/hour oriented and more honest/listen to my body and mind to try and achieve that long lost balanced relationship with poker and I think I'm on a path that is much healthier for myself right now with much focus on being honest with my focus while playing, when I start to lose focus and when maybe my mood is effected by poker and why. I do some offtable work almost everyday, if only many days for no longer then 5 minutes I feel very much intune and my goals now are more about only putting in quality (poker and life maximized EV volume) with playing a little bit less unless I really truly feel like I can uphold my A game in the zone type game for long hours wich happends from time to time.
Pretty much my only goals with the day now is to meditate followed by some short reflection on what I want to make of the day and as long as I keep that up I feel like everything else like, eating healthy, going to BJJ, seeing friends, going outside everyday, playing good poker, going to bed earlier valueing good sleep more etc often falls into place naturally as long as I meditate in the morning. I'm not gonna preach to much about it if anyone has more questions about that feel free to ask in the comments or shoot a PM. I made a few posts about it in RiKDs thread about Yoga/stretching/meditation here: + Show Spoiler +
U can always do more, play more, win more but do I really need more? I know myself that playing more and winning more wont make me satisfied so I'm in search of trying to find an alternative relationship to poker that works better for me then the past few years of playing way to much and working way to hard in pretty ineffective ways. I'm starting to even be convinced that the quality of play that I'm putting in right now, even if it's only half as many hands as I would have put in as my old self I think even the networth won bottomline might be higher with the less volume, more study better quality route.
Maybe I'm just running hot as fuck tho, who knows really when it comes to poker. I would argue tho that my theoretical understanding of NL these days and how to find answers through all the OP programs that are out today that I'm playing quite well.
The plans alltho since I still enjoy PLO, and as we're now up quite alot of money on the stake and with my backers pretty much trusting me completely and letting me play pretty much what ever I want aslong as I can argue any resonable reason to why I'd play this or that PLO is back on the map again and it's much more fun now minus the economical stress I had when I first got back to Sweden. NL is fun again aswell tho, and It's always fun to play in big games so I'll keep on doing that as long as it makes sense but I still feel like my future lies with PLO. We'll see what happends tho, building a roll again is prio A for now.
Into the wild, hike
Before I wrap this up I wanted to touch alittlebit (in before wall of text) on a hike I did a few weeks ago in the "wild" northeren parts of Sweden, turns out its pretty much Alaska up there. As It ended up being one of the hardest things I've done but also one of the most powerful things I've done. I know ive said that about alot of things in this blog but I told you in the beginning that alot has happened in the last year so stay with me. One of the many discussions I had in my head in Australia was that I had traveled around Asia alot etc and now Australia with plans on going to Hawaii and the US (wich didn't happen as you know) but I had never been to Norway, Finland and many places in Europe like Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia etc. I hadn't even been traveling in Sweden much for that matter. So I stumpled into that subject with a friend in my hometown in Sweden and he recommended doing some Hikeing and that I could lend some of his gear and I was drunk so I took water over my head and shook his hand and said deal!
The more I started to research the more interesting and scary it got as I hadn't even slept outside in a tent before nor even started a fire before, yeah I know. Together tho we mapped out a route I could walk that would take me approxx between 5-8 days depending on weather and how my body would feel during the hike. The closer I got to it the same type of anxiety before I left for Australia of the unknown started to creep up on me and I started bullshitting myself alot trying to find reasons of why I wouldn't do it this year because of weather or timeing or blahh. I can sum up the entire experience as it was 90% pure hell and 10% golden legendary wich weighed the entire experience to something amazing, even the pure hell stuff was a positive experience in the end.
I didn't get much sleep the night before I jumped on the train at 6AM and began the 11 hour trainride up to Abisko wich pretty much is the northest part of all of Sweden and its mountains. For the first few days I followed a bigger trail along the famous "Kungsleden" and for the last 3 days by a smaller trail through a looong vally between some of the biggest mountains of Sweden (and Scandinavia) where I pretty much didn't stumple upon a single person during those days.
It was very interesting to observe my own thoughts for those days and how much I bullshitting I did and how much internal complaint there was and how they progressively dissapeared more or less after a few days. It all started before the hike even began I tryed to talk myself out of going because of this or that as previously mentioned and it continued on the train and I had thoughts like; "well I can get off on the next station and take the train home cuz i forgot X or Y" but I didnt. Followed by "well now that I'm here I can camp for 1 night and then If i feel like shit I can just go home tomorrow". Wich turned into "fuck it, I can walk for 1 day alittlebit in the nationalpark and see how it feels, if I dont feel good I can just turn around and take the train home tomorrow". As I started walking my feet pretty quickly started to sore up with the blisters quickly turning into wounds even tho I had massive amounts of tape and I started to have thoughts of how this is really gonna suck massive balls to walk all day up to 8 days straight and I had a good internal whine about that for a good part of the first day.
For some reason I kept on walking tho telling myself to reach where I wanted ish to camp for the first night to be on phase for 5 days (wich was best case scenario if I held a high tempo and covered alot of ground everyday). I managed to set up camp for the first night and my feet was already destroyed but at the same time as I got my tent up and sat naked in the 0 degree water creek washing my balls I started laughing realiseing how it must have looked like if anyone where there to see me and I started feeling pretty amazing like wow this is something else. I ate some food and put on some dry cloths and slept through the insanely cold night wearing every piece of cloathing I had brought thinking that I can turn around tomorrow and just walk back and still be pretty satisfied with going for a smaller hike of 2 days in the nationalpark.
The next day my body was sore but I started walking again with intentions to just keep on going even tho the bullshitting and internal whineing didn't go away but the things that was annoying the first day like, sweat, sore feet and mozquitos swarming me constantly I had more important stuff to whine about like the fleshwounds (Im overextending alittlebit) that started to get a bit infected on my feet and that I pretty much would be fucked if I all of a sudden couldnt walk anymore when I was in the middle of nowhere was starting to worry me but I kept on going with intentions to go past a cabin where I knew there was atleast 1 person where stationed where I intended to ask for advice and eat lunch and reevaluate. Lesson of the day: there's a big difference in km and km, it took me about double the time to get there based on the distance I covered during day 1. Stubborn as I am I ended up eating lunch around 5PM as i got to that cabin and takeing a little break and eating a good meal I felt like meh fuck it I've gotten this far worse case scenario someone will walk past me at some point if something happends and some rescue team will be sent after and I have food for many days to come so I continued on a bit after ”lunch” to kind of not slack behind schedual to much.
Camp day2 was very similair to day 1 and washing my balls with no one around kinda was the highlight of the day along side of some truly amazing views that silenced the mind if only for a short time. I tryed to do some meditation and I felt less paranoid about the upcomeing days even tho my feet were really bad at this point.
Day 3 everything really started to change since I was pretty aware of how much I was complaining about the pains and all I was worrying about, even tho I feel like it was pretty legit stuff to worry about it probably wouldnt kill me and trying to feel sorry for myself isn't really gonna help so as I hit the halfwaypoint of the hike there was pretty much no turning back either and I just had to make the best out of it and from there on out it was just amazing.
I made it down by the 5th evening and this is gonna sound a bit coco but I really had like a superhuman type experience almost where I just walked, ate and was present without really suffering that much from all the pain where it just wasnt that the pain wasn't felt it just wasn't too relevant anymore since theres not much I can do about it at that point anyways other then takeing a few days break wich I kind of had accepted that if it comes to that I'll do that but until then I'll just push on.
It's really wierd to think back on and I've reflected alot about those days in the mountains and I just want to end this with saying that it's very interesting how relative everything is in life as perspectives change. How quickly I left everything that kind of was bothering me at home as I changed enviorment. I'm sure this sounds a bit cliché and all that but I still wanted to mention it a bit before wrapping up this blog.
Theres been so much more that has happened that I didnt mention in this blog together with many people I've met that I never mentioned either that made big impacts on me.
I'll end this with saying that I feel alot better this time around then the last time I made a blogpost here on LP. I still struggle with things as any other human but I think my mindset has gotten alot better at how to deal with myself and my mind, relative to myself ofcourse. Doing some, atleast for me, scary and a bit crazy stuff has made me grow an insane amount this year. I'm gonna sound like a broken record soon here on LP but I know that meditation and trying to take more breaks in the day to reflect, remind and ask myself whats important really has been an important tool for me. I'm not talking about finding god or any mumbojumbo I'm talking about getting better at connecting with the present moment together with creating a greater awareness of what actually goes on in our mind. I'm not saying that I've figured it all out I'm just saying that I feel like I'm on a pretty good path right now. I'm sure I will get lost many times in life to come but thats not something to worry about right now .
Thank YOU for reading! This ended up being pretty long as expected. Today was just one of those days I felt like writeing all day.
I hope some of you who read all of it found it interesting and I wouldnt blame anyone for not reading or careing at all .
Put in my 2 weeks today. Of course boss freaked out because I am the only person in IT so it kinda fucks them. I'm very well regarded and liked though, even take flying lessons with the owner of the company, so there's no bad blood in me leaving the company hanging like that. Asked me what it would take to get me to stay. I threw an absurd number out there and even told him I knew it was absurd, but hey money is money. I currently make 64k and told him 90k and I'll stay. Reason being is that I need a strong incentive to stay if I'm going to sacrifice poker dream and work a job I no longer enjoy (obviously didnt tell him about poker). Plus my company is currently struggling so I need the added income insurance in case I lose my job in 6 months anyway. They've laid off so many people there is easily 2 million in salary they have saved. My boss himself makes 230k as a "director of IT" which just means he signs the checks to order new phone systems and tells me to do the work. Fuck em, they can easily pitch 25k my way after firing everyone in IT but me. He said he'll talk to the president and get back to me Monday with a counter.
Someone just bought my house, and I just sold my Orange mustang. Already went apartment hunting in Jacksonville so I know all the good places. Hopefully they can squeeze me in within 2 weeks since I dont want to waste any time after unemployment. I dont know what my real bankroll will be after home sale and all, but I'm hoping to have about 8k in the checking account when I touchdown in Florida (plus $0 balances on my credit cards netting me 20-30k as a parachute). I will immediately begin scouting new jobs as a backup just to get the ball rolling in case I go on instant poker downswing. Granted I'm only giving myself a 2 week headstart but it's better than nothing.
The guy I stayed with through Airbnb is an "IT project manager" of some sort, and he told me to give him my resume so hopefully that can jumpstart things. If I hit it off playing poker I'll postpone any interviews. Or maybe I'll go on them anyway, get a job locked up, and then depending upon my risk tolerance just bail at the last second.
I figure worst case scenario is that since I stand a good chance of losing my current job anyway, I might as well be unemployed and fully relocated to a new city so that poker is within arm's reach so I can keep that opportunity available to me in the future.
Longterm objective is to crush 2/5, gross 80k as poker salary, then look at moving to vegas or SoCal so I can take it to the next level and play 5/10. Going to florida is just easier logistically right now since I live in SC.
After listening to the book in my last post I recently come back to (non-strict by any means, more like mindfulness practices) meditations - reasons why I stopped in the first place are here: + Show Spoiler +
The reason why I stopped basically was I got involved with the Buddhism part of it, read about buddha and from Kwan Um Zen guys, who were doctors mostly in hospices ... General vegan esoteric do-gooders. And I deemed it incompatible with the real world we live in really, that is build on pursuit of money, maximizing utility, goal setting etc. Because I'm not a monster by any means, but I'm a reasonably selfish modern person
But the psychopath book showed me that mindfulness doesn't have to be by any means tied into goodness or enlightenment, it can be used for completely sinister purposes and it's just a bias of Buddhists who happen to practice it that it leads to enlightenment and altruism, but it's completely applicable to capitalist society with a few tweaks. I've already started using all of the old meditative tricks again and see no reason why I'd stop now ever again
Anyways for months I have been taking a bus to visit my 91year old great grandaunt , and from afar I have always seen this strange building, wondering what the story behind it is and how to get there http://media.novinky.cz/662/316621-original1-640r8.jpg
Since I'm living in the present moment a lot more I'm looking for more experiences, and I've wikipedia'd a list of natural reserves, and searched for one max 40 minutes away from my flat to not disrupt my grind too much and found Barrandov Terraces.
Basically it's where the sea used to be some 170million years ago, and the cliffs you can see there were at the bottom of it. It's a very popular area for archaeologists it turns out, with trilobites being a common discovery there ( no luck).
I've looked into it, and its a hell of a story. Basically, this complex was build in the 20s, and there is nothing else to compare it with than The Great Gatsby's mansion during the same era. The crème de la crème, the richest and most important people of Czechoslovakia would gather here in a bar open 365 days per year, and dance to the rhythm of swing, there was even a whole orchestra of the world famous R. A. Dvorsky playing there and the pompous guests would party until the morning, often staying for breakfast.
This is how the place looked in the heyday of it's glory
Of course when The Third Reich fell the complex was taken over by communists. Of course they nationalized it, and made a bold proclamation that it shall be returned to the common people. Unsurprisingly, that wasn't the case, and once more it was used to entertain the heads of The Party, and their foreign guests.
After the revolution the complex was returned to the descendants of the original mastermind and owner behind the project, Vaclav M. Havel (whom I personally imagine as The Czech Gatsby) but they've failed to take care of it. Soon it was closed forever, taken over by squatters and homeless people who eventually sent the wooden part of the complex, where for so many years people would drink lavishly until the morning, on fire.
Now when you walk through the desolate ghost town taken over by foliage and listen just hard enough, you can still hear the rhytm of swing, burlesque parties and moaning of courtesans distantly in the wind.
And that is the story, of Prague's Barrandov Terraces, and a time long gone.
So, I stopped blogging lately becouse some strange symptoms that disrupted my overall performance for the last 3 months or so. I'm listing the worst of them first from 1 month ago. They all started progressively since March:
1. Bad quality sleep (6hs max with a few awakenings). Cant nap during my active times
2. Overall painless muscle weakness. Usually lower back and legs
3. phantom burning/cold burning/nerve pinching sensations in most active muscles (abs, leg adductors, lower back)
4. High pulse rate perceived when facing any activity like eating, watching an action video, walking more than 1 Km, etc
After lot of medical test and advice. I've been basically told by a psychiatrist that I had pannic attacks (strange since I never lost my mind) and should start psychotherapy (no medication needed). I accepted to start therapy (at least I think its good long term), to change my habits to always trying to sleep at night at the same time and avoid coffee after lunch. On this process I discarded the following
a. Muscle/tendon/cartilage damage
b. heart arrhytmia
c. Mg deficiency
But still have some pending checks with
d. Endocrinologist: Becouse I have high T4 hormone
e. Neurologist: I fear some type of neuropaty or nerve damage in a critical zone
Today Im feeling better. Im eating more, sleeping better (not as good as I want). Started to play poker, read books and exercise again. Just need to get rid off this strange burning sensations in my muscles.
No poker updates. Just went break even from my last post or maybe I won just a little like 1K.
Inspired from last Floofy's post.
So yesterday was my last day in the hidden poker mecca known as Jacksonville FL. The only new thing I got to do tonight was spend 8 hours waiting for a fish to donate $400 to me that never came. I eventually retired from hunger and called it quits. Still had a few lolworthy moments where I bet $200 into a $75 pot and got tank called, so on and so forth. It feels so unnatural not to balance yet the more I get used to it the easier poker seems. "Like really? I just tell you how much money I want you to give me, and you do it?" Fascinating how live fish have not even considered what the implications of pot odds are. The only time I hear the term is when someone raises $40 pre, gets 1 call, and the BB says he has to come along too, heh.
So where does this leave me? A dead end job that I'm seriously thinking about putting in my 2 weeks notice with. I have 40k in available credit card debt should I have to let my expenses/rent ride and a healthy skillset to land a new job if things get really bad. Should I do it? Should I make the move?
Lifetime earnings since I began tracking in November: $8000 @ 256 hours. What could possibly go wrong? :D :D :D
"To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences. Economists are all too often preoccupied with petty mathematical problems of interest only to themselves. This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientifically without having to answer the far more complex questions posed by the world we live in."
- Thomas Piketty, Adbusters, Blueprint for a New World V: Politico, Nov/Dec 2014 - #116 - Vol. 22 No. 6
I caught my reflection in the window walking towards the card room tonight, and my how handsome and confident I looked. I had quite the swagger due to my ability to crush donks like you've never seen. I sit down, and within 45 minutes manage to dust off $1500 to my opponents. Dafuq just happened. Oh yeah I know, because I am god's greatest gift to poker I can sniff out every bluff. Whats that you say? You're value betting a 6699T runout? I PUT YOU ON AIR SIR. Oh, A6o. Yeah that makes sense.
Luckily I came to my senses and just stopped with all the hero call bullshit and won it back
See my last blog, where I (and most people) are driven mostly by fear of loss, are anxious all the time, and actually need anxiety to perform at optimal levels, some more than others. This is my notes from last couple chapters from his book http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/0...7817-1BC2C122000005DC-320_233x423.jpg
In the book , Dutton outlined "7 Deadly winds" of psychopaths:
1) Ruthlessness
2) Charm
3) Focus
4) Mental Toughness
5) Fearlessness
6) Mindfulness
7) Action
People spend too much time thinking about what might go wrong, that they don't really live in the present moment. Living in the past or too much in the future makes the present decisions sub-optimal. E.g. people were faced with 20 coin flips where the payouts were -$1 and +$1.5. Normal people stopped taking flips most of the time at some point to "preserve winnings". Psychopaths took all 20 flips, and didn't have issues with e.g. killing one person to save 3 others etc.
He argues that psychopathy is very useful in the stressful modern world, more so in professions like: Surgeon, Lawyer, Stock Broker, Poker player...
The key is becoming a Method Psychopath Capable of stepping into these qualities when required, but still being capable of restraint so you don't end up chopping random virgins into pieces yet can navigate in the stressful modern world.
He draws the parallel with sports psychology and flow, where top golfers state e.g.
Play like it is nothing when it means everything. Let go of mistakes in your head, even good shots, just focus on the next one. And forget about consequences as well
That's why athletes set e.g. process goals - it forces them to focus on the present moment and forget about the distractions of the past and the future.
Psychopaths have a natural talent for such things. For example, when they are faced with an extreme situation their heart rate goes DOWN slightly, and so do other tests - they are gearing themselves up to the challenge. They also solely focus on the task at hand, not even seeing the threats they could be fearful of - they are not courageous as they have nothing to fear, they just see the things needed to do in order to get what they want.
THE FULL CIRCLE
So what does Dutton Recommend you do in order to be capable to act more as a psychopath?
Yep. It's pretty much the first mental game material I came across, and what tons of nosebleed players are doing According to Ike Haxton - mindfulness and meditation.
The practice of right mindfullness constitutes the sevenths step of the noble path, one of the teachings of Buddha written some 2500 years ago.
The Mind is deliberately capped at the level of bare attention, a detached observation of what is happening within us and around us in the present moment. In the practice of right mindfulness the mind is trained to remained in the present, open, quiet and alert contemplating the present event. All judgments and interpretations have to be suspended, or if they occur, just registered and dropped. Such training consistently applied eventually leads to the arising of insight and the qualities of dispassion, non-clinging and release. Psychopaths possess such qualities naturally.
Mindfulness based intervention has been shown to be a particularly effective meta-cognitive strategy when dealing with the symptoms of anxiety and depression, two conditions that psychopaths are singularly immune to. The therapy uses Buddhist teachings, but adds a kind-of Naive child like inquisitiveness which is strongly reminiscent of the core "openness to Experience" factor of the big 5 personality structure of which psychopaths score very high on. Anchor the thoughts entirely in the present, screen out the chatter of the past and the elusive future and anxiety begins to subside, perception begins to sharpen, and the question becomes one of utility, what we do with this NOW, this enormous, emphatic present, once we have it. Do we savor the moment like a saint or seize it like a psychopath. Do we reflect on the nature of experience or do we focus our focus entirely on ourselves, the the pursuit of instant gratification.
See Wh00zel' quote here:
On September 03 2015 03:56 thewh00sel wrote:
Agree with approaching like an 8 year old. Be excited and intrigued at every option in every street of poker like a video game with no consequences except that if you die you reset your 100bb or w/e and start again. I definitely have all my best sessions with this mindset.
A study was mentioned of an emotional response test, where they simulated an explosion next to you. There was a reaction in every person, but hardcore Buddhist monks performing one of their meditation techniques - they were able to observe the thought, even notice it more clearly than others, but the measured reaction was miles lower than anyone else.
So the solution to be able to acquire the positive qualities of psychopaths seems to be mindfulness, living in the present moment - being aware of your emotions but merely observing them I see it now where I got hit by the largest 1 week downswing ever since I remember, clocking at some 24buy ins. The biggest effect is in that has is that it throws me off the focus on the present moment, on playing my hand as well as I can with distracting thoughts of past and projecting fear into the future - something a psychopath or a skilled Buddhist monk would never do. And it's the same when interacting with people, (chicks especially - In a podcast a PUA from "The Game" itself recommended meditation leading to aware situational openers as a way to go) Failing that, the last piece of advice came from a psychopath in a mental institution: The trick is mindfulness, or ,failing that, abusing your imagination into "What if I didn't feel this fearful way" and do the right thing anyway.
notes and little bits from the book as I typed them in my phone:
wisdom
sad people rember more
surgeons are psychopaths. in alternative universe murderer can be a surgeon or world leadee
disorders can be helpful - nash psychotic
women were physically weaker- evolutionary thet had to develop emotional radar to recognise dangerous ppl like psychopats.
they unedrstand and recognise emotion, but dont feel it.
utalitarian(stuart mill, bentham) people - psychopaths. fat guy train dillema
inhaling sweat from 1st time skydivers made fear part of brain 40pct more active in testee ppl uner rmri scanner. psychopaths are unaffected. they dont have anxiety and are unaffected by what others think.
buddhist monks might be psychopaths -unaffected by others, only filled with compassion.
emotion by numbers
full longboat wreck- ps. decidef fast.
herding - animals when threatened huddled up together, so do ppl. stock - go "irrationally" vs the herd
bond - psychopath
self disclosure meets reciprocity.
distracting quickly will make the person forget they told us stuff
psychopaths are driven by reward, learn slower when threaten by punishment than normal people, (reverse of behavioral value function curve?!!). dopamine reward 4x higher induced by promise of reward. true psychopaths seek reward at any cost, with intense focus.
psychopaths have talent at recognising emotion. they know what it is not what it's like. they dont feel anxiety.
moderate psychopathic traits most succesfull
extreme persuasion radio show
give rejection the finge and rejection gives it back - pickup, racking up rejection.
mental toughness - what if you dont need courage as you dont have fear. courage is just emotional blood doping.
people spend too much time thinking about what might go wrong, that they don't really live in the present moment.
the trick is mindfullness, or use imagination " what if I didnt feel this fearful way, and do it anyways".
living in the past makes present sub optimal - e.g. the plus ev coimflip where people preserve winnings instead of maxing ev
paychopaths never procrastinate as they don't project fear of future
Method psychopath- capable of stepping into these qualities as needed.
st paul psychopath- changing to jews, law, outlaws,poor...
stoicism is coveted under pressure
play like it is nothing when it means everything. let go of mistakes or good shots just focus on the next one. forget about consequences.
process goals force athlete to focus and forget about other things.
they focus on task, not seeing a threat. ropes, focused on climbing, ignored fear.
P.S. I'm glad I finished this thing. It was a great listen, but there's loads of moral dilemmas like "would you strangle your own infant if it's crying, you and other jews are in a basement and if you don't the Nazi's are sure to found you out and kill the whole group" and I'm all about trying to feed my mind with constructive and positive thoughts, and it was pretty draining.
Just to mention: I got the tip from the book from this podcast on confidence and Anxiety, that changed my approach towards life to a very large degree: http://www.menprovement.com/mpp024/
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on't jump into forex and options, commodities are the easiest to enter when still a beginner, trust me. Skillset required is so much less compared to poker, you can make money if you are a 25nl winner I promise you. But you have to be the type of nit who knows when to go full blast when you make a good read or have a lock (of sorts)
