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kosiam's picture
Poker, Science and me

#1 Hello, everyone!

My name is Kostya. I play hu hypers on Pokerstars. Frankly speaking, I'm a beginner in this discipline but have some background. It is sit&go, mtt and cash games and also reviewing of different videopacks, books and forums. Probably this has allowed me to join the HU stacking program.

I'm going to start from very beginning, namely, from $7. I hope to beat them by the end of this year.
Here will be everyweek reports about how I'm going.
The volume of play is expected to be about 1200-1500 tourneys per month.
There are a lot of new information for me received from the HU staking, so I plan joining to the working mode in 2 weeks.

I'll try blogging in such way that everyone (especially me) could see the progress in game.

I don't want this topic to be boring, but it seems that I'm not that kind of person who amuses people in everyday life. However I'll post here some moments from my own life. To start with, I'm 27, live in Izhevsk (Russia) with my beautiful wife and working at the scientific Institute. Yep, I'm a doctor of physics and mathematics ;) I'm really interested in science, so let this topic to be some more scientific then other ones) So, if there are any questions about science, I'll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge :) Now you can understand my low expected play volume )

Here you can also find some thoughts about my poker's mental game. Thanks for that to the Jared Tendler's book.

The general goal is to be a winning regular of hu hypers $100-200 or (that is more likely) spin&go $100.

RyPac13's picture
Good luck with the challenge.

Good luck with the challenge. It's tough to reach the highest levels without higher volume, but if you're a doctor of physics and math at age 27, you might be the one to do it!

"I don't want this topic to be boring, but it seems that I'm not that kind of person who amuses people in everyday life."

I found this blunt sentence funny, keep it up!

You should add some pictures as well. Any cool science pics?

kosiam's picture
Thanks

 

127

Thanks. It'lll be tough, but I can reach it. I'll increase my playing's volume and level as well for sure.

Since English is not my native there will be such blunt sentences in excess. Though I'm not sure for all of them to be funny)

I'd love to add some pictures, but I haven't the "browse server" button. I asked google for that but failed. I would ask for that our coder but he sleeps a lot, so any help is welcome.

RyPac13's picture
You don't need to hit "browse

You don't need to hit "browse server" just enter a URL.

You need to upload your pics to a website first, like imgur or photobucket type sites.

kosiam's picture
  391 #2 Dear readers, The

 

391

#2 Dear readers,

The second post will be mostly related to the science side since I have played not so much for posting any results.
The laboratory I'm working at is specialized on the laser optics and laser-matter interaction. It is called "Lаborаtоry оf thе lаsеr studу tеchniquеs". We study photovoltaic properties of different films, optical limiting of various materials and other nonlinear effects arised in matter under the laser excitation. Until recently these studies were fundamental mostly (like almost everywhere in Russia). It means that we investigated new phenomena in well-studied materials or found old ones in unexplored, but did nothing to apply them in the devices that are used in everyday life or at least in some specialized kind of devices. In other countries like US, Finland, France etc the science is more "applied" and we see the benefits of such approach. Now we want our studies to be directed to applying somewhere where it can make life easier.
As for me I'm working mostly at the Rаmаn spectrometer. It is really cool stuff that can determine the authenticity of jewelry in 2 min for example. Another cool feature of this device is opportunity to identify the counterfeit of pharmaceuticals, but unfortunately to deal with that we need to add another laser source in the spectrometer but it costs almost $30.000 :( So I usually deal with carbon materials and thin films - that is my cup of tea)
There is stereotype in Russia that a scientist is an old men with grey hair, staggering, who wears strange O^O type glasses, without any other interests. I think it comes from 80-90th when all young Russian scientists moved either from science or from country (who do you think was Mr. Berezovskiy before?). Now it is the different time but this stereotype is still alive. So people here usually don't believe me when I say where I'm working ) They suppose me to be anyone even a street gang member but not a scientist). I suppose there is the opposite story in other countries, what would you say about that?

teddybloat's picture
A friend of mine went into

A friend of mine went into pharmaceutical science when he left university,the work sounded incredibly interesting but he felt unfulfilled and went into teaching.

In the UK science was definitely seen through the lens of stereotypes: white coats, thick glasses and eccentric genius. But through people like Brian Cox - an astrophysicist who was once in a breakthrough acid house group - those stereotypes are being broken down. Not sure about other countries.

Scientists comprise some of the most interesting people: Richard Feynman led an extraordinary life both in and out of science. I love the writings of Dawkins. I'm of the opinion that science increases wonder as well as knowledge. Would love to have had the intelligence and dedication to pursue a career in science.

Kudos, squire.

kosiam's picture
 396#3Hello!While $7s

 

396

#3
Hello!

While $7s regs (don't laugh at this, future me) and I tried to find out who is who, my scientific work was driving pretty rich. A lot of experiments were carried out, one paper was prepared for publishing and a new project for a huge grant was started. Basically it is not so hard to do that all of stuff, it just need time.
I'm happy that I became a member of the HU staking program really. There are a lot of interesting people, nobody speaks with a sence of superiority no matter from the results, age and experience. What it is very important it is not used to complain about bad sessions how it is in some other places. Cool people, cool coaching, respect you, guys!
Here are my first results. Hope the next ones will be better.

adam25185's picture
Hey there kosiam Interested

Hey there kosiam

Interested to hear your post. I too am a condensed matter Physicist! I work on infrared photodetectors, mostly barrier infrared diodes and APDs. I recently started work as an RA at Lancaster University. I submitted my thesis a few weeks ago.

 

Good luck at the tables

Adam

kosiam's picture
  951 Hey Adam Im happy to

 

951

Hey Adam

Im happy to hear your post too! It's always nice to meet someone with the same not poker interests at the poker forum. However what about your poker life? What do  u play and how it affects to your science work?

adam25185's picture
$3.50 - $15 HUSNG and 4-man

$3.50 - $15 HUSNG and 4-man knockouts. Been getting coaching with Pbogz, who I would highly recommend - my game has come on leaps and bounds.

Poker is a bit of a distraction. I tend to play 'till 12 AM which makes me late in the morning. Luckily I have a sympathetic supervisor!

 

:)

kosiam's picture
  385 #4 Hi, The end of the

 

385

#4
Hi,
The end of the year is coming and the volume of the work is increasing. However I'm trying to play as much volume as I can. Here are my lifetime results. Can't wait to play on 2 tables.

RyPac13's picture
Keep working hard here! What

Keep working hard here!

What type of winter holidays do you have for work?

kosiam's picture
I'm note sure that I

I'm note sure that I understood your question. There are two winter holidays in Russia - New Year (1st of January) and The Christmas (7th of January). We don't work usually from 31st of December right to 10th of January. Or you did mean smth else?

 
108

kosiam's picture
#5 Hey, I finally hit 4% EV

#5
Hey,

I finally hit 4% EV ROI on $7s for 1500 games, so now I'm waiting my level up to $15. The first goal to bit $7s by the end of the year is reached.

See you, guys!

kosiam's picture
Heya, I've played not so many

Heya,

I've played not so many games, since moved up to $15, but anyway another 750 games were left.

I know, the main problem is that I'm playing not enough volume, but I'm doing my best really. I get up early at 04:30 a.m. and play for 2-2.5 hours. Then I go to my work, and after that I play another 2-2.5 hours. Ofc, somedays I have to be more with family, so in those days I play even less. However I don't feel that I'm staying in one place. I'm moving towards to my aim. Slowly, but moving)

 

219

 

Baetis X's picture
Nice results. Well done. Are

Nice results. Well done. Are you two tabling now and if so how comfortable do you feel?

kosiam's picture
Thanks! I'm still 1tabling,

Thanks! I'm still 1tabling, but I will go 2tabling asap.

 
237

mrvicrill's picture
Hi kosiam! ​First of all I am

Hi kosiam!

​First of all I am following your thread from the beginning your are results a pretty nice:) Good Luck in the future ! I would like to ask you some questions. Do you select tables at 7 or 15 dollar or play everyone? What was your previous experience in poker before move to HU sngs? 

kosiam's picture
  139 Hi, mrvicrill! Thanks

 

139

Hi, mrvicrill!

Thanks for supporting me all time I'm here though it is not so long)

Yeah, I use sharkystrator, and try to avoid regular players.

Previous experience was mainly in cash and 9max sit&go. I played hu's and mtt's as well but not in regular base.

kosiam's picture
  137 Heya, Happy New Year,

 

137

Heya,

Happy New Year, everyone, wish you doing your best, always be in a good mood!

My trip to $15 is very bumpy, but EV is going up, so everything is ok.

I'm still onetabling but I'm expecting going 2tabling in next 500 tourneys.

There are no new goals to 2016, they all are just the same. Moving up, getting more money, be a wise man.

As to the science I won a grant for my research, so 2016 is going to be hardworking one. It's pleasant when best of scientists support what you do and give money for that ;)

And 2016 is going to be majestic for my family, but I can't say the details yet.

By the way, if you are interested follow my instagram: @kosmikheew

See you soon,

Bye)

kosiam's picture
  68 Heya, Making an

 

68

Heya,

Making an experience at $15. Sometimes I begin to understand what I'm doing and why. But, nevertheless, I don't happy with the results. I can do it much better, and I will, but I have to work on that. The thing that hurts most of all is that I got my EV line down during just 2-3 days. Now I know this feeling and will be better prepared to the same one in future.

RyPac13's picture
What's your Chip EV look

What's your Chip EV look like?

kosiam's picture
  39 Is it informative?

 

39

Is it informative?

kosiam's picture
Hello, everyone! I'm ready to

Hello, everyone!

I'm ready to 2tabling finally!

As to the science now I'm dealing with some kind of experiments connected to the effect of laser radiation to the film materials, constructing optical scheme etc. I'll post here some pictures later, perhaps.

At the gym I began to use one cool exercise. It is a push up standing on the hands with the legs up (near the wall ofc). In the beginning I could only stand for 15-30sec, and now I can do push ups 7x3. 

That's it for today. See you, guys!

213

kosiam's picture
 127Heya,I've come to

 

127

Heya,

I've come to realize that I've been waking up early at each morning not in vain.

Definitely significant result for me. Now I more or less 2tabling comfortably, that is nice too. The next goal is to move to spins $15s or to hu $30s.

kosiam's picture
Hello, everyone!There are

Hello, everyone!

There are some news. I completed another block of 750 tournaments, playing 2 tables. EV ROI is not so cool, but I'm working on it.

To describe my  progress I'd like to tell the citation (unfortunately don't know the author):

"Knowledge is a spot of light, while the lack of knowledge is the border of this spot. The bigger the spot the bigger its border - the more one knows the more he doesn't know."

I hope that by the end of this month I'll be able to move to $15 spins.

I began go to the fighting courses. It was my dream from very early childhood, because I was kind of sick boy, who was afraid of any fighting even with classmates. And the dream is to block this fear. I'm a man and I have to know how to fight to be able to defend my family, friends and myself. I found the experienced trainer in my gym club and asked him to train me, and fortunately, he agreed. So, now I'm training 4 days a week: 3 are for general training and 1 is for fighting. Btw the general training contains mostly of the exercises with my own weight, not including additional weights (there are few ones).

That's it for today, thank you for reading this,bye-bye)

313

kosiam's picture
  197 And this is me

 

197

And this is me again)

Another 750 tourneys block is completed for only 10 days. This is a good result for me) I'm going straight to the $15s spins! Hope this goal will be done during next 750 tourneys.

 

kosiam's picture
Moving up

Finally! I achieved 3.5% evroi at $15s, so I'm waiting to move up. Definitely moving up to spins.

Good luck to you all!

326

Vadiu's picture
wow thats impressive! Gl at

wow thats impressive! Gl at spins

vadiu

kosiam's picture
  332 Ty, Vadiu!

 

332

Ty, Vadiu!

justmrw's picture
Hi! Nice work man,your doing

Hi!

Nice work man,your doing great,keep on crushing! I grind 1$spins and hope to move up to 3$ soon, i the near future i would also like to apply to coaching to help my game go up some lvls.Will follow your blog and progress GL!

kosiam's picture
  423 Ty, justmrw! Coaching

 

423

Ty, justmrw! Coaching is always needed, and the sooner you do it, the faster you will see the result!

kosiam's picture
  331 Heya, Have played first

 

331

Heya,

Have played first 750 spins. At first it was very difficult, I didn't know what to do in 3 handed play) There were even thoughts to move back to hypers, and it was a weakness of mine. Reminding my final goal and 12k multi possibility returned my thoughts in the right way. Theory work improved them a little bit, so now they are more or less ok. 

kosiam's picture
Hi! Have played first 1500

Hi!

Have played first 1500 games at spins. Results are the following:

EV ROI = 1.75

 

274

 

kosiam's picture
Hi, guys, Meanwhile results

Hi, guys,

Meanwhile results are not wonderful, so I lifted down to $7s spins. EVROI is about zero for the last 1k games. So I should work, work, work and study, study, study...

I'm still not playing $100 spins so there are no reasons to stop the show.

339

kosiam's picture
  71Uhh Uhh, shitty results

 

71Uhh

Uhh, shitty results this month.( EV ROI -1.28%

kosiam's picture
 692FinalFinally, I'm ready

 

692Final

Finally, I'm ready to move up to $15 spins, just waiting for confirmation to that. It was tough and I couldn't even believe my eyes when saw the EVROI being above the needed one.

Meanwhile I was on a short vacation when I visited my parent's house. It wasn't an easy walk since I had to work hard there helping my parents to built a new house.  I told you that you can read here about science a little bit, so here it is. My father is a doctor of technical sciences. Can I call him as a smart person? Sure. But.

Once we were discussing about the theory of evolution, and I was shocked that he believe that it is wrong!!! When I asked him how mankind did appear, he told me that most likely we were grown by aliens! "wtf, you,a doctor of sciences, say me?" But it is only a top of the iceberg. I know really a few people who are sure that the theory of evolution is not a hypothesis. I wonder what the situation is in other countries? I know that our country has a special group of people that fight against the pseudoscience, but TV and huge fantasy of internet "writers" significantly eliminates that. But in general it was funny to hear about the aliens from my father)

 

 

Vadiu's picture
The thing about evolution is

The thing about evolution is that we use to so many things, like improvement... it should has a name like genotipic derivation and people would acept more : )

 

gl at $15s sir

vadiu

CalvinLinus's picture
Hey great progress! Sorry to

Hey great progress!

Sorry to bug you but how did you get the EV Profit v7 (spin) stat to show up on your graph?

I am searching around but can't seem to find an answer anywhere.

kosiam's picture
Hey guys,Sorry for late

Hey guys,

Sorry for late reply, I made eyes laser correction, so I wasn't able to answer.

Vadiu, I'm not sure that I understand it rightly, but people don;t accept the theory of evolution mainly because they can't realize/imagine that they came from the monkeys. thanks for the luck)

CalvinLinus, as I said before, I'm in the staking group, so, this is a custom stat from here.

 

235

 

kosiam's picture
Made statistical analysis of

Made statistical analysis of the game and came to to the result that the most "EV days" are Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday. Sunday as well, but it's super unhappy) And better not to grind on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Though one can argue that the sample is small, for me the tendency is super clear.

294

kosiam's picture
  72 Hi guys, You can congrat

 

72

Hi guys,

You can congrat me, I hit the top prize in my life!)

We've got a baby!!! I'm super happy father! Her name is Alexandra, she is cute and she loves to sleep)

I easily escaped from all tilt problems, since the only thing I'm worry about now is she. I understand that life is life and it will not last long, and I hope on it basically - I want to worry about many different things) So I try to memorize this moment, these feelings they are incredible I should say.

I'm at 15s now, EV is negative for 1k games (hope it is a variance) and I suspect that I'm going NOT under EV and I'm happy to say, that I almost don't care. Didn't have much time to analyze the game, will do that asap.

Ok. time for grind now, gl guys, take care!

 

justmrw's picture
Congratulations :))

Congratulations :))

8runo's picture
Congrats Kostya - fantastic

Congrats Kostya - fantastic news :)

kosiam's picture
Hey, guys! Thank all of you

Hey, guys!

Thank all of you for congrats! I really appreciate that.

Meanwhile September was one of the worst month in my poker career. The volume was about 1k games, so I didn't reach platinum star, EV was below zero, profit was below zero. The positive thing that I got from it is that it could be worse. And also I understood that while grinding I should keep poker face (what a news!) literally. Sometimes I start mimic(not even crying))), and somehow it gets me to tilt. For example, when I dissapointly (interesting if there is such word in English) close my eyes, the some process launches that results in the swearing and other bad things. In contrast to that, when I sit with poker face, i.e. don't react to any kind of shit or suckout, it results to nothing. Nice notice as for me.

To another news with one sentence.

Seems that eye surgery went ok, so now I see super clear world without any glasses or lenses!

The book of Feynman "You are kidding, mr Feynman" (not sure that it sounds precisely so) is super, recommend it to any who are crazy about interesting people.

Alexandra can sleep all day long and cry all the night, uffff.

coffeeyay's picture
Congrats!Regarding "keeping

Congrats!

Regarding "keeping your cool" at the tables, I've found doing Zen meditation before sessions and during breaks in my session helps tremendously with this. I do eyes open, counting my exhales (count to 10, restart), and focusing on my breath trying to avoid following thoughts and refocusing on my breath.

The book in English is "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and is indeed a wonderful read :) Another similar book I'd recommend about Feynman is "Feynman's Rainbow" by Leonard Mlodinow.

Keep up the hard work, and enjoy being a father :)

kosiam's picture
  255 Thank you, Adam! That

 

255

Thank you, Adam!

That book is already in the queue. )

 Technique seems very simple, will try to do it, thnx!

kosiam's picture
  279Ther There are different

 

279Ther

There are different ways to motivate yourself for grind, my way is visualization of the process. I planned for this month 101 hours of grinding. More than half of the month has passed already, while I did exactly 50% of the plan. From this visualization one can see that I should grind more on Mondays and Fridays.

Here is the visualization of the last month

I screwed up mostly at weekends.

Yesterday, btw was a good day, there were a lot of 6x and I lost only one of them.This day would be the best in this month, likely.

You can be surprised, but my daughter is already listed in the kinder garden. It is common for us to list a child in the kinder garden right after the birth, just to be in that list and have the place there guaranteed.

kosiam's picture
  272When When did I get

 

272When

When did I get crazy making this stuff?

 

kosiam's picture
 142FotFor those, who are

 

142Fot

For those, who are crazy about making plans as I am, I decided to share personally made plan, which I use. Don't know if you will find it useful or not though. As for me it is very helpful in achieving the volume goals.

If you decide to use it, you should copy it and fill the columns @planned and @played (after you play it obv). All other stuff will be calc automatically, and the diagram also will be plotted automatically.

Feel free to use it, guys.

 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bOExOzz4KuGYx5x_Tz445HAKRqgFfjEe...

kosiam's picture
Found a few mistakes, updated

Found a few mistakes, updated it.

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