Malta countdown!!

It's time to start counting down for Malta. I will be leaving october 5th so that's just 9 days away.
I rewatched the dvd "The Secret" again, which is about the power of positive thinking. I'm a pretty straightforward guy, I'm like "seeing is believing" before I take anything from anyone.

When I was still working at my last job, the whole company policy was based on the power of positive thinking. I had a seminar where the manager told me to visualize my goals, by getting a whiteboard and writing goals down, put up pictures of my goals, etc. So I did, I wrote down my short term goals and put up pictures for my longterm goals.
The first picture which I put on my whiteboard was this one:

That is almost 2 years ago. When I quit working I hung my whiteboard on the wall above my computer, still having that picture on it. Now, that dream is coming true. I'm moving to a place where I can relax, living the life I've always wanted. It's not exactly Bora Bora, where the picture is from, but it's close.

So now I will take the power of positive thinking even more seriously, since it's definately working for me. 

Yesterday I got crushed at the 18s, resulting in a little loss. That's okay, I need to get in some volume to make a for it again. I set a goal for myself to play 2K games from the 27th to the 4th, dates where  can play with a bit because I have the excuse that I need to do other stuff as well for moving, so maybe the date will be somewhat later then the 4th.

Anyway, I'm so not on track, I've played only 70 games so far, which is quite bad. I had a pretty rough weekend by having no time at all to play and not being home much. So I will have to make up for it in the coming days for this week.

Haven't had much time for the forum as well, so that needs a bit more attention as well. We have a new MTT coach who is doing quite well at the moment so the community is growing bigger and bigger everyday.

That's it for now, will update soon!

Malta is so in my head right now that I completey forgot to talk about poker in my last post lol.

The games are going guite well at the moment, I'm up way above the goal I've set for these next two weeks so therefore no complaints.

I'm feeling well, eating a bit better and playing well so I'm sure I can hit my goal for the end of the month.

I haven't played as much as I wanted to yesterday because I went out to but some sporting clothes and a new mp3 player. As soon as I got home I had to test out the new products off course so decided to go for a run. I knew it was gonna get though because I havent done anything regarding to sports in the last 3 years. I ended my running session after about 15 minutes because I had to catch my breath again. 

Today I can hardly walk because of the muscular pain in my legs. I'm not complaining about it though because it's good to have something to do in the outside air and get my mind off of poker for at least a few minutes a day. My health is going to get a lot better as well and after a few running sessions my muscles will get used to it.

I got another book recommended by my coahc called Peak Performance Poker, which I will order as soon as I get to Malta, otherwise it will be delivered at my old address so that won't be any good. My coach told me it was a great add-on for The Poker Mindset so I'm quite curious about the book.

Regarding tiltcontrol I'm working in the right direction. I downloaded a bunch of relaxation music, like ocean waves, rainforest rain, all kind of animal sound and rain-and thunderstorms sounds. I also got a collection of Asian relax music, which is often used in yoga exercises. To give some idea about it:

Maybe it's a bit weird, but I find it helps me a lot to see the game in a better perspective and to get my tilt under control.

Running way above average ROI atm so proof that it works for me has been shown :)

Dreams....

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today" (James Dean)

These words have been in my mind for several years now. I've done a lot of things in my life which I wouldn't have if I haven't thought about these particular words.
One of the people on my msn stated in his nickname: "If you want dreams....Take a nap"
I responded to that by saying: "I will never sleep again"
I don't want to "achieve" my dreams by going too sleep and live the life I really want when I'm dreaming. I want it to happen in real life.
A lot of times you will have a talk with someone and you're telling them about what you would want to happen in your life. A lot of times people will laugh and say: Yeah, just keep on dreaming man....
But why should that be a dream? Why can't it be achievable? It's all up to yourself and what you do about it. You control your own life. There is no one in the world who will set up your life the way you want it to be.
lol, I feel like some internet scheme sales man by writing this to be honest :)

A few years ago I was on vacation in Spain and had the chance to do a bungee jump. This was one of the things I just had to do because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. If I haven't done it then, I would regret it for the rest of my life and probably dreaming about taking the jump...

The same thing goes for moving to Malta. There are certain things I'd like to see different in my life and have thought about that for a long long time and it's just not going to change if I stay.
It's clear to me that I won't be living a happy life when I'm at home. People here are satified what they've got, they don't care or simply don't want to know what's more out there.
I've always dreamed about seeing the world, visit other places, meeting new people, live a life where I actually find myself happy with. It's time to stop dreaming and start doing.

Malta is coming closer and closer and I've set some goals for myself when I get there. The first thing would be to stop smoking and stop drinking so much cafeine. Next thing will be to go running and/or do some other sport activity. I'm on a diet of coffee and cigarettes for the past 3 years, haven't done anything regarding sports so my psychical health isn't at its top to say the least.

I will change my life drastically to make myself feel good and Malta is going to help achieve that a lot. I know these goals are hard and they won't happen overnight, but it's something to work on. People can do so much by themselves, that I know I can do it too.

I'll keep you updated. Thanks everyone for reading

-Tune

Need to gain more confidence in my games and in life

"If you have low confidence, then it can be a real barrier to success"


This is so true. I see it in my own life and in my own games. By being low confident at the moment, it's just impossible for me to play poker in a decent way and move up in stakes. The same thing goes for my life, although I'm extremely excited to move to Malta, I'm a little scared to make it when I'm there. Every day it's coming closer, I'm thinking more and more about what will happen if I can't make it when I'm there, while at first I was overconfident about moving and even a bit cocky about it to my friends.


I talked about this with a mental coach for a bit and she realy put things in perspective for me by giving a few examples about another poker player how to deal with everything. 


I never have had any problems giving up everything I have here and move on to start something new elsewhere, and I still don't, but I have a little doubt about how things will go when I'm actually over there. I have some expectations and I'm a little worried about what will happen when they don't come out are if things are completely different when I get there. I have no idea why I'm thinking like that and I really should just get it out of my system. I'm feeling a lot of pressure since everyone will be watching me but I really shouldn't care about other people's opinion. 
So I guess I will come over that as soon as I get there, I'm just not sure anymore what to expect and what is expected from me. Then again, I shouldn't be thinking about other people. If Malta isn't the way to be, I can always move on or go back and I won't ever have to think about the "what if..."


I'm getting the book Dusty "leatherass" Schmidt wrote about treat your poker like a business, because I need to get to that point where I really can see poker as my business.
I've been self-employed before and at that time I have had losing days as well, it just didn't affect me as much as poker does. I'm sure I can deal with losses in poker much much better when I'm thinking about it as a business, which will result in better play, less variance, less gross downswings, more profits and more confidence. 


The confidence is extremely important to have, as well in life as in poker, because it's affecting both factors the other way around. 


What I need to do for myself as well is setting some mid- and long term goals and actually take them in account the day I set them. I really need to stop focusing on my short term goals and short term poker. A losing day or even a losing week is nothing compared to the long run in poker. I wrote this down actually so this is at my attention every day. 


The forum is up and running and people are subscribing every day. I need to fine tune it still a bit so I've got enough to do related to poker, without actually playing.


I should be getting back to my games though cause putting time in the website and the forum didn't do any good to my hourly poker goal, so I will have to put in some extra time to make up for it and hit the weekly goal for this week.


I'll keep you updated, thanks for reading

New website is live!

I've been working on a website, which went live this week.
It's basically a rakeback site, but in the forum players can get coaching and staking deals as well.
Still a lot of work to do regarding the site and the forum, but that's gonna be allright. Put in some time to fine tune everything so it all looks slick and neat.
The website can be found here and the forum can be found here

Malta is coming coser and closer, I've started giving away a lot of my stuff which I'm notta gonna bring anyways, so might as well mae someone else happy with it. Although I'm excited about it, it's not on my mind a lot. I guess that will come when the end of the month is nearing and I really have to go.

My pokergame has been terribly off, resulting in bad play plus a little bit of variance so my graph went down. Have done a lot of studying the past few days and had a session with my coach yesterday to put some things in perspective again. Have confidence in my game again and it went pretty well yesterday.

I went in "lockdown" mode yesterday to get in some hours and make up for the games I've been missing while I was studying. Lockdown will continue for the rest of this week, including the weekend and maybe some days next week as well.

That's it for now, will be back soon. Thanks for reading :)

It's been a while

Well here I am again, it's been a few days since I posted and I promised  keep this blog up to date.

Me movig to Malta will be at the end of this month, I had contact with some brokers and need to check for living space soon. It will be in the Sliema area and I think I'm in love with the appartments at the beach, where you can dive into the sea just by openen your balcony doors :)

My friend got married the past week and we had a huge party to celebrate it and I'm having a housewarming party from another friend this weekend, so I haven't had much time to play poker the past few weeks, including this week. My results for the past week are terrible, variance has a lot to do with it, but therefore I'm playing bad as well and I have to find my A-game to get things up and running again. It shouldn't be very hard, but I'm having trouble concentration at the moment, so maybe it's a good idea to take a little break and do something fun.

The concentration problems are als due to the fact that I still have a lot to do before I can move, so I'm constantly thinking about all kinds of stuff, instead of thinking poker at the tables. Maybe I'll drive to the beach today or tomorrow to make a long walk just to clear my head a bit. That has been working for me in the past when I had my brains working against me this way.

Anyway, I just have to find my pokergame and play my best, fully focussed. I will keep you guys updated.

Cheers