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Poker Professional in a hunt for Mad Lab

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

ilidek

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Poker Professional in a hunt for Mad Lab. Lets start with title.
I am playing poker professionally for last 5.5 year.
Why Mad Lab? With wife we don't have big money needs. Here and there we travel to USA, Japan, Hong Kong or different places and usually it cost around 5k USD, once the trip was for 10k USD (of course to USA ;)) but beside travels we are more than fine with simple life. We enjoy good food and doing active stuff but since eating out got old for us and sauna, gym, squash, zoo, parks aren't that expensive we don't worry about anything.
While thinking about title I had a idea that made crazy smile on my face. I am gonna earn money to buy apartment from neighbors, destroy the wall, and do Mad Lab in one of the rooms inside. I am going to save 10% of earnings for equipment there, and 40% for apartment. I am gonna put there Cryo Chamber inside, infrared sauna, maybe some red lights and many other weird stuff that I'd like to test. Cryo chamber itself is going to motivate me to earn additional 750 000 usd.

I was thinking for more than two years about creating blog here. I was blogging from the begging of my poker journey. I was super lucky because, I've meet fantastic people and got motivated by keeping blog as a form of public journal. I set one rule: if readers in any way, are going to slows me down, from transforming into person that I want to be, I am going to stop doing it. Life is amazing because usually you have more choices than you realize. Like I did realize two years ago that poker forum helped me grow as the old me, new me needs different kind of readers to being challenged, understood and point out on BS'ing myself. I started to fell it two years ago, when I was in a happy relationship, long after meaningless sex and one night stands got old. Same was with money, I didn't want to post graphs where I was 2.5k$ up for day and missing posts where I was playing a week to earn 50 euro or even worse. Or graph where I was working 3 weeks to lose 4k usd. Saying that from 2013-2017 I did not have a losing 30 days straight for which I am very grateful and happy. In 2018 I did have losing months because I did work less and my life was turned upside down more than once. Anyway I saw that reaction to execution was bad, because for audience it was boring that I was posting excels with 100 days challenges and progress with them.

I am lucky enough that even though I am the person who started from underachiever in every area: relationships, strength, being attractive to other sex, education, health when I was 18 I achieved 100% of my 10 years goals before my 28th birthdays (though I failed 100% of my yearly goals along the way). After I read email about: A physicist's guide to learning hard things I've realize I did over-complicated everything and lost momentum I used to have.

My biggest daemons are my emotions, that I have to deal with. While fighting with my emotional problems, after trying many, many things, at the December of 2017 I went to Peru for Ayahuasca ceremony. Week before friend of mine told me he's not going and he can give me refund 100% of costs if I won't go. It was 24h flight, to do strongest psychedelics in the world, in the jungle, on my own, not knowing Spanish, while I never did anything beside weed and alcohol. How could I give up? I treat Ayahuasca more like brain surgery than anything else. It was next time when someone chicken out on the ceremony. I told myself "F*ck it, you gotta do, what you gotta do. You've been preparing for it for last two months" and I went. I expected fighting daemons and having bad trip. First and only time I did it I had very good trip with super strong visions. I've learned that my fiance is my soulmate and our goal is to be good parents and good husband / wife for each other. I've heard that I am gonna be father of 3 daughters, and that we are going to have good big impact on world, either by us or daughters and it doesn't matter who's going to do it because if not one person than the other will. I've also heard that I have to pack my shit and go back to home.

Next day I was fling home I gave up another 6 days of Ayahuasca ceremony, Machu Picchu and everything else that was planed and prepaid. I've got way more than I wanted from that trip so I didn't mind paying 2k euro more for going back home at the very next day (my Aya trip ended at 00:30 local time and there were no transport before). I came back home to learn that first pregnancy test failed and we are gonna be a parents. At the same time I had visions about having daughters my fiance, did 2nd test where she saw that it's positive this time. Weird? Creepy? You bet! Especially that for some reason she told no one about it because she was waiting for something - me going back home 10 days earlier as a surprise for her.

Not only I had spiritual revolution (even though I went there for other reasons and I was expecting bad trips) we also move out, got married, bought apartament, got daughter (3 months old now). I also almost died at 30ties of October when car hit me while riding a bike. I didn't see my whole life between my eyes I just felt soo bad for leaving my wife and daughter on their own, no flashbacks no nothing. When I was bouncing from window to the asphalt I've heard voice, same way like I've heard on Aya trip - "Your time is not done yet, you have mission to do". As creepy as it sounds and as lucky as I was. I had less than coin flip for surviving, car was quite fast and I was on a bike, I could been paralyzed, dead or other bad things could happen. Yet I was perfect, doing pushups next day and improving my record on handstand 10 days after that. (In the meantime had some nosebleeds, spliting blood, spend tons of time on emergency hospital but everything seemed fine). Friends making fun of me because I used to be very pragmatic person, if something didn't impact my life I did not touch it, read about it, think about it. All of the sudden I receive spiritual fulfillment (even though I wasn't looking for one, could be because I was meditating for more than 660 days straight or something).

This year is really challenging for me. I was ill like three times this year (even though in last 5 years I was ill 2 times) Yet it's the most lucky year of all years. I did survive. I am fine. I am healthy. I've realized how much I've achieved and how much further I can go.

I've order once again "awake the gigant within" by Tony Robins because of him I did made this 10 year plan, even though I am not thrilled about thinking 10 years ahead I am gonna do that because it worked, even though sample is 1. I got tiered of my poker format, heads up, it's the dirtiest of all formats, most cheaters, most ego wars, etc. I am learning new format, 6max. This year it all went very messy, I am finding out myself in new circumstances and I am getting lost more often than not. I am being very challenged and it's a perfect time for starting writing and going deeper into myself.
 
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MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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I'm having trouble comprehending your introduction. Is English your second language?

On my way to fight with my emotional daemons at the December I went to Peru for Ayahuasca ceremony. Friend week before it told me he's quiting and he won't go but he can refund me 100% things for me if I won't go. So I was going to go on my own for like 24h flight (ended up as 35h) to do strongest psychedelics in the world in the jungle, on my own, while I never did anything beside weed and alcohol and I treated Ayahuasca more like brain surgery than anything else. It was next time when someone chicken out on that and I've though: "f*ck it, you got to do it, you've been preparing for it for last two months" and I went. I expected fighting daemons and the first time I had super strong visions, very good trips where I've learned about my fiance at the time that she's my soulmate and our goal is to be good parents and good husband / wife for each other. I've heard that I am gonna be father of 3 daughters, we or they are gonna have good big impact on world and I gotta pack my sh*t and go back to home. Next day I was fling home (another 30h to go) I gave up another 6 days of Ayahuasca ceremony, Machu Picchu and everything else that was prepaid. I've got way more than I wanted from that trip so I didn't mind paying 2k euro more for going back home at the very next day (my Aya trip ended at 00:30 local time and there were no transport). I cam home to just learn that pregnancy failed before my trip and we are gonna have child. At the same time I had visions about having daughters my fiance at the time realized we're going to have a child. Weird? Creepy? You bet! Especially that for some reason she told no one because she was waiting for something - me going back home - it was surprice I did not told her.

There's a pretty in-depth discussion on Ayahuasca on the INSIDE, it's becoming more known as a way to bust through some tough mental barriers.
 

ilidek

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I'm having trouble comprehending your introduction. Is English your second language?
Yes it is, but it's not an excuse for me. I write it wrong and confusing. I hope that after I wrote it again, it's more clear now.

There's a pretty in-depth discussion on Ayahuasca on the INSIDE, it's becoming more known as a way to bust through some tough mental barriers.
Great! I can't wait to go into it. Now I have to deal with some stuff that are blocking me with work and I have to execute them, the faster I deal with them, the faster I can go there.

BTW I am supper happy to see how your forum improved in last 2 years. It looked kind of empty 2/3 years ago and now it's seems like full of life and great topis!
 

PersianCub

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Sounds like a pretty wild story. DMT is a hell of a substance ;)
Glad you're alright from the crash.

Did you primarily play heads up, or were tourneys apart of your strategy as well?
I noticed you ended with "starting writing", do you plan on building income outside of poker?

(I briefly dabbled in studying micro stakes and played on Ignition. Quickly realized it's best to get my main income stream going before seriously pursuing the game.)
 
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ilidek

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@PersianCub
Hello! Yeah Aya was super, hyper strong experience. I am super happy that it impacted me in such a huge way and it helped me to be more humble.

I did play only heads up. My goal is to write here and see what happens. On my previous blogs people helped me find the BS I was telling myself, I've meet many awesome people and it was important part of my growth / better self awarness. I plan to do the same thing here. Especially that here is bigger variety of people.

I am not looking for other income streams but I am not close for them. I used to do few coaching for profit deals, I invested in business and had some profits from it and did some other things but it was always something that seemed like good oportunity at the time both financially and growth wise.

Ignition is amazing. Those are weakest games on the market and people pay 1000$/month to play there. (More 6m players than Heads up) but you have very nice site. You have to find what suits you best ;)




I look like guy who starts something than quit. Guy who made first post and he's gone till new year resolutions, come again and five minutes latter he's gone again. I am aware of it. It's hard to find myself in all that is going on lately. I do not like to pity myself. Yet something keep happening. First guy who hit me with a car, were blackmailing me to give him 5k rather than 3.2 that company said he should receive or he's gonna sue me. I was more than furious, almost killing me than trying to win more money on it, on farting old honda (we also drive old car but it's not like we pretend that everything is great in old car, like the guy who hit me and tried to have everything new from my money). Than at the black Friday changing my PC to Server was pain in the a$$ because many stuff didn't work. Those all are bearable things and small problems. It's like combination of this and emotional baggage of fighting with my wife and changing formats in poker (somehow equivalent of switching jobs) is super challenging, which is fine because I am gonna rise, the process is not super nice thought.

We are fighting because she understand a partner in a realtionship as someone who spend same hours with newborn as she. I am F*cking around, playing computer games here and there (like 14h in last month) and doing other shit because I feel ashamed of because of my emotional threshold and I have to be emotionally still to work. I was like 6 times ill this year (previous 4 years twice) and today while being on rehabilitation I had nosebleeds from body that is overworked. The moment I started counting family time, my time with kid, helping with clean or other stuff it showed me like 34h weekly. I was relieved when I told her but it made it even worse, because yesterday at my free day we had four fights. I asked friends with simple question "were you fighting more at that time with your newborns?" They all said it was pain in the a$$, it was terrible, yet they became very supportive and gave me few tips to try like hiring a nanny, start looking what she really wants not what she says because she's not herself now (kinda cpt obvious when you love, with whom you were living in one house for 5 years but still I got to hold that thought in my mind) and gave some other tips.

On top of that I started doing from yesterday, from day of 4 fights what I was always doing during extremely challenging times in my job, eg. losing money 80% of days for 30 days or something. I went back to gratitude (gonna practice it twice daily), I am going to start journaling. I am writing here about my struggles for that particular reason. I am gonna start personal journals. What I am happy to say is I was installing computer game during writing it I canceled it. I have to spend more time with friends because even though I don't like pitting myself, for us (me and wife and kid) I have to find support somewhere else for a while. It's a new thing because she always had my back, but as long as she says stuff like: you have to be ready to stop meditating, stop working out or we don't find compromise I have to get all the support I can have and luckily I always did my best to be good friend. I love writing because I wouldn't think about just spending more time with friends if I wouldn't write.

I have to realize that I am on biggest fight of my life. Being bullied in school or other stuff don't even come close because the emotional burden of fighting with someone close to you, fighting with yourself when all you want to do is quit, pack your stuff and don't give a F*ck is huge. I see how much emotionally it touch me because today I almost destroyed storage unit. I was putting something back to storage unit, and rather than close a door, something snapped I started to slamming with big force multiple times those doors. Every single emotion from unjustice, frustration, helplessness, overwhelmed, betrayed, sadness all fight for my attention and every one of them is screaming, and fighting for control over my well-being, my productivity. I've never realized how hard it is to learn something new while feeling all those emotions bombing at your mind. I forcing myself to remember you do this with that part of range and this with that and when I try to recall it all I think of is our fights, than I go back to recalling ranges, than again our fights. It's gonna be ride, especially that I have to be at top of my game, I have to thrive in a shitstorm of century because every second matters, everything matter like hell.
 

Private Witt

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Former poker player here. You said you blogged for poker, was that on your own site or on Two Plus Two?

I gave it up as I can be a massive fish at times and have a serious blackjack issue. I found quitting gambling has made a big improvement in my life but love reading poker stories and sure miss the hell out of PLO.
 

ilidek

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@Private Witt
Hello poker fellow! Both actually, I used to have www.ilidek.com and blogs on two plus two, poker strategy and some smaller poker forums.

Every one of your inner deamons let you know, he's here, once you are playing poker. It's the thing I love about it. It force you to either quit or learn to thrive with them ;)



What a way to end the year! Last year at new year Eve we felt asleep earlier I got woked up by fireworks and since we didn't go anywhere or did anything I started work and it was magic. I've made like 2.5-3k Euro in a single 6h session. The traffic was terrific, this year traffic was also terrific, those were also big games with big earnings so I doubled the last year day, however I also reversed it. Which is less cool. I was very active at holidays and we had great holidays and I said I want New Year's Eve free so I can work, and I did. I woke up around 22:40, F*cked around like hour on tablet (was kinda sleepy after 3-3.5h of sleep) and wake up to do the job.
First coffee split on my white long sleeve - "ah it doesn't matter, it's gotta be good day" I sat down and it was like my first hand, at least first I remember.
904129eeb06bc377527252ceb1b8f25b.png
Than at next big pot my PC restarted. It ended up that the server I've build made my PC vulnerable for some reasons I wasn't able to figure out, yet. I've lost some big pots that wasn't tracked because of memory error. I told myself "it doesn't matter, it's gotta be good day" I removed half of it memory, just in case and started grinding again, when I came back:

cdf7fc4a4b4b9ab2965b0da4f5a86495.png

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I assume I did lose like 6k euro overall but it's always tricky with mind. It make your loses bigger, your impact bigger and variance smaller. Anyway it hurted like hell during the session. I was amazed by my performance. By me being disciplined to quit once table became not as good, by ability of opening nl50 for the first time in like 3 years to cut losses short and win some money back. I was playing very good session. I was keep telling myself, even if you do not feel like you play bad, treat spots like you play bad, since variance doing a shitstorm take umbrealla and assume that people aren't as aggressive at it appears because they just have it all the time. I checked some more hands and I saw yesterday:
b0778dec648ffdd1715570fb5f744191.png


And yeah some of those hands are debatable. There is no iffs about it. The thing with big pots and close spots is, they are always debatable. You do not gain big edges on it. I could quit from those spots I agree, it could be smarter way of approaching or it could be worse because people tendencies were way off. Like x/r Flop 40% of time or 3beting 30% over large sample, over many players, it seemed they were drunk (daaa) then close spots becomes better as aggressive calls or thin bets.

I also see some mistakes and tilts. I was pathentic with those cbets at some point and was did cbet wrong part of my range against agro strategy I should xb and I see lack of balls to Jam A9 hand that is super standard, it just seemed as yeah well I am gonna jam and lose again gg. This spot was slam Jam.
2a03f75c21516bc1d838f5f72546e9d0.png


So I checked other room, seems similar:
afa42b8925c9c3e9a4ebfca5609a58f9.png

9de8a4f6b3ff0819fe3e61e079f6aa96.png


Won't spam those spots anymore. Those are big, some arguable hands, non of which super weird seeing super aggressive tendencies of players, over big sample. I did made some amazing folds. The things I didn't saw are won pots. There weren't many of them. It could be as wrong as I've thought but I guess I exaggerate it to feel better. Anyway I still believe in "it doesn't matter, it's gotta be good day" I just have to learn some lessons from it. I just have to find a way to thrive. Since I've paid very expensive fee for those lessons I have to do everything in my power for them to be good. Since I want to go into deep stuff about my life that I do not want to filter to change my thought process I am gonna stop here and wish you amazing new year, and I am gonna end with two quotes I like:
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we-cannot-solve-our-problems-with-the-same-thinking-einstein-miscopono-com_-1024x576.jpg
 
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ilidek

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Damn on non poker forum I put poker hands... Don't know why, reagdless I had very insightfull yet very short converstaion with friend of mine.

A little background. I am helping one of my best friends building his app (not only his but he has some shares, he designed it, etc.). I did offer other friend of mine a job for testing app because we needed help. I offered him better deal than I have. He would earn 200 usd more than he does at his current job, job he hates and he said he's going to quit it by december because he's learning to switch for IT. I even managed to make him offer to have sure job till Jan. So he would earn 200 usd more, work from home, does soemething he doesn't hate and something new (he's hourly would be even bigger when you count, dressing up for job and 1h in traffic). He said he won't quit it becuase he might get some bonus (in earlier conversation he said it's unposibble to hit bonus standards).

I was on phone call with him. He asked me how I am doing I told him I a bit overworked. He asked why I told him I had one free day in last three weeks. We've been working non stop and I barely sleep for more than 5h a night. He told me "Wow they got to give u a big share from that app". I told him: "Nope I am just doing the best I can for 1000 usd a month, while working shitload of hours, which is between 6-8 times less than I do monthly working way less than that." He replayed "I don't get it" I told him "I know". I was thinking about it more and more and it still amaze me.

For me reasoning is quite simple. I don't care about how much I am earning now. I don't care that I am working way more and reciving way less. I know my worth and I know I can increase their profit a lot. I know that I am fast learner and I am a streetsmart and I know I am giving them amazing value. The way I see it, I don't mind risking like 3 months or so and seeing where I am at. I know that my friend will make it up to me one way or the other and I know that guy who manage programers put him in turbo shitty spot and he should start doing it 3 months ago. Not sooo close to release time.... He works with quite sucesfull people with good connection. If they like my work they will want to put me in their other businesses or make other businesses with me. If they like my work but they won't feel a need to make up for extra value they recived it's their choice. I can always go back to good living with poker. I can also switch to computer programing because I used to be good at that, even though I didn't pursue it because I liked poker better, or I can go for some business I have plenty of choices and options and I am fine with that. What still amaze me is approach from friend of mine that they have to throw tons of money at me before I give them value.

I was always chosing professions where how much I earn depended purely on me. Even when I was working as waiter I was doing 3times my salary in tips, I am shocked when I see people who I consider smartish think such dumb concept as big sallary for showing up. The one who takes the risk is the one who makes more money, as simple as that. If you want that someone else takes risk he will take it from your salary if your not after sallary you can make nice money...
 

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