Snappievouz

It might be a bit melodramatic. It might make people sad. It might make some happy. It might even make me look stupid if this is not the last one, but I am 99.9% sure it is. It's my last blog post on Deucescracked. I am not intending to post on the forums so this is goodbye. I am leaving. I have nothing to give anymore and I can't learn anything anymore. I have not been playing poker and with all the business going on in my life, I don't see any time soon that I will be. If I ever get back to it, it will be as a recreational player on-line and or in my local casino. The place that poker had in my life will never be filled like that anymore. 

So why all this melodramatic bullshit? Well, time is precious. When I calculated how many hours I am spending on the internet browsing websites, I came to the conclusion I am wasting one of the most precious thing I have in life: Time. I will never get more of it then 24 hours a day. See, it's not just deucescracked. It's also Facebook. It's twitter and with that there are some other sites I still browse because they are from a passed life. Since their is no purpose for them anymore, it's time to go on with life and leave. 

It is melodramatic bullshit. I fully admit that. It's even a bit pathetic, saying goodbye to a website. But, I truly met some great people and learned so much about a game I have loved deeply, that I could not leave it without saying goodbye. I don't feel important for Deucescracked, but I do feel connected to it. The whole community has been a part of my life and any website that is capable of making that happen is one hell of a business. Awesome job. 

I have not been a succes story, as Deucescracked loves to read about. I have been struggling with poker for so long. It learned me that there is a difference between being persistent and stubborn. For some, poker is just not the game. I am a part of that group. I fully admit it and DC is not to blame. Their content and the way they keep their quality high as they do keeps amazing me to this day. In a climax where on-line poker is shaking, they keep steady and going. You notice that the forum has been a bit less active lately but I am sure it will bounce back just because of the love the owners put in their business. Give value, get back. 

With that being said I have not much more to say. Thank you for a great time. Members, Good luck with poker. Deucescracked, keep going with the awesome business you have. 

Greetings,

Snappievouz is out. 

Lately I have been recording poker videos with Inavacuum and BalugaWhale. It was a fun expierence. I did feel kind of stupid in both but I am not going to say no if I can work with such great coaches. I have not been playing in a month now and I have been extremely busy. I can't even believe it has only been a month since my last blog post. I have had so much done that it feels like a half year, atleast. I took action. I finished everything I wanted to get finished. I have 1 month ahead where the same work ethic is needed and then it's time for vacation. 

Because of both poker videos that went well I have been wondering why I never got any higher then 100nl. I did work hard at it. I had awesome (free) coaching, watched every poker video available and really put my time into studying. After some reflecting I came to the conclusion that I don't really care anymore about why I did not succeed. Reality is that I did not met my goals and I quited. The time I wanted to put into poker was not available for me anymore and I didn't want to play just a couple of hours a week so it was time to let it go. Maybe not for good, it's not the first time I went on a very long break from this game. 

I left poker, something I had been doing for atleast 4 hours a day (including studying poker) for over 1 year atleast and with that, I also decided to stay away from forums as much as possible. All of a sudden I had this huge gap where I really had no clue what to do with my time. I would wake up, start working on school. Then, 4 hours later, I would take a break. In that break I looked around in my living room being totally confused and literally searching for things to do. I love working out, but that's something you can only do a couple of hours week. 
This big gap was almost 1/3th of my entire 24 hour day! What the fuck! 
So i had to search for things I enjoy doing besides poker. I love reading, i love movies and I love tv series... but I can't do that all day long. Besides, I also have to study for school. For school I have to read a lot too, so reading for fun was kind of impossible. If I spend too much time on reading I remember jack shit. 
I worked some more for school, and some more. I hate doing nothing. 
I really want to find something I can be engaged in like I was in poker. With the same passion and dedication. But, without letting it interfere with school. I could never combine school and poker. I don't know why.  School is extremely important for me, so is sport. Those have stayed with me, so I will stick to that. Besides school I love giving presentations and I love writing (something I learned from workshops i had to do for school). So I think I need to search in that area. I also enjoyed being in those poker videos a lot (hope u enjoyed them aswell!), so in some way I have to admit I really like to be in the center of attention haha I don't think it's very important to learn a new skill (or build uppon a skill) that is related to what I study at the university. 


It's amazing how 1 change in life can lead to changes on all fronts. It really feels like I am building a new life. I closed one door and I am searching for another door to enter. I am really excited to finish this schoolyear and to get to summer where I plan to be doing not much at all. Also super excited in finding 'my new thing'. 

Good luck with poker! And stay open for other things if you feel like you are in a rut. You might just settle for less then possible while your goals already past uppon you. That comfort zone is one scary motherfucker that needs to be the enemy at all times to reach a life-level of awesomeness!

Last week I had a interview with Canon. They asked me to think about working for them to develop a trainingsplan for their employers. Since I am only 3 years in my HRM education, it's not hard to believe how excited I am.

I will still be in school, for another year, but will work for Canon next to school. This leaves me to reconsider poker and I came to the conclusion to put in on a hold, I would be crazy not to. First of all, my education takes me 30 hours a week, minimal. Now with canon in the picture, it's going to be even more. Just playing once in a while is not my thing, since I don't want to become more of a fish then I already am ;-)

It feels weird to leave it, but I am not sure how I can even fit poker in my program. If you are not playing professionally, you can't really act like a pro. With that, I mean: A pro can play a shit ton of hands and study the game, because it's his job to do so. If it's not your job, you should not act like it is and you shouldnt put others things off that are way more important for your future. Thats what I have been doing. Not a lot, but I did. My future lays in HRM. I want to climb the ladder and see where it brings me. I finally understand what they mean with 'if you are climbing the ladder, make sure it's on the right wall'. Poker is not the right wall, for now. 

 Poker learned me to work hard for things, and that's what I am going to do at Canon. I also want to put my education on the place where it belongs: Top 3. I am still in dubio if my family should be 1, or my education. Personally, I think education, because education makes it possible for me to give my family what they really need. I will probably not end up being the man that never sees his children, but I want to make some sacrifices now (seeing my mother, friends etc a bit less) to give me the best change of going far with this. My 3th is for personal health, development & fitness. 

I have been playing poker for a couple of years, it brought me lots of frustration and pain. I have felt misserable because of this game, but the logical input from poker made me into a more logical person. This logical side lead me to this conclusion, this logical side made me understand systematics of HRM way more. It thought me way more then I could ever expect. I have been really serious about poker and I feel great to put all this willpower I had for this game into my carreer. I do feel kind of dumb that i opened my eyes now, when I am in the 3th year of my education, but lets look ahead instead of back.

Poker also made me some on-line friends where I had great talks with. The sweat sessions always where so much fun for me. Being in Yin Yang was an amazingly fun expierence too. Looking back, I think I always enjoyed talking poker way more then I did playing it. Discussing hands is still something I am open for. Because I think it's like doing a sudoku. Training the brain!

This might be my last post on DC, i dont know. I really want to focus on the right things and I am not really sure what DC can bring me. It's a great community, i love it. On the other hand, there are not many discussions I need to get into. I probably shouldn't even have the time to get into 'useless' discussions about conspiracy's, nutrition and what not. 

Something else I have been asking myself is: Yeah right Niels, how many times have you quited poker and started again? And, the answer is that I am not quiting, I am on a break. I planned my break for 1.5 year. After that, I can always play again. Will it be easy to stay away? No. The difference this time is that I am not quiting out of frustration for the game. Not for the hate of the game. Not because I am totally burnout by playing. The only reason is that what I just described: It's time to get as serious at HRM as WiltonTilt at poker (i always admire his work ethic having kids). Plus I am not quiting, I am putting a hold on it.

Wish me luck! I am still available on skype if you want to chat :) (haha i shouldnt have time for that neither, but a hand review once in a while.... i should also have some fun in my life, right? ;-)) 

Also: Tips on great books to read about becoming a better employers, a better student, how to become more efficient with studying.. etc are highly appreciated! 

I am cleaning my house and I dislike it. On the other hand, I become a bit ZEN and I start to evaluate things that are going on.

At the moment, I don't have any poker money on-line. I witdraw my money from my pokerclient to play somewhere else. So inbetween I am just not playing and waiting for my money to arrive. Then I play again. I have always done it like this. 

So I am cleaning my house and hear myself say: "Man, I would love to play a session right now". That would mean, that poker would interfere in me cleaning my house. It would mean I would be playing a session while I should be cleaning my house. If I had the chance to play poker, I would play a session. Cleaning would come later. Prioritys.

This got me thinking. A year ago I was obsessed about poker. I start to wonder how many times poker got in the way for doing something else. Something else I also might enjoy. Something else that might even be more important? I hate to admit that I skipped a class or two for poker (or atleast where to late in class). I hate to admit that I played a session instead of giving that extra hour for an exam. I even got late for family dinners because I could not quit my session. 

This is bad. Back to the now, it's not like that anymore. I prefer sport above poker, i prefer studying above poker. And family is priceless. Nothing can take me away from seeing my niece growing up. Maybe I don't even prefer, but I see what's more important. It got me thinking about something else: What did poker bring to me that is positive?

It learned me how to work. I never really worked as hard as I do now. I spend my times studying (school and poker). I am doing my homework. Whenever I don't feel like going to the gym I still go. Life is a grind. For every moment of succes, there are so many hours of sickening, boring hard work. Is it fun to do your ev calculations? Well, I don't enjoy it all the time. Is it fun to row 2000 meters every freaking time when I hit the gym? Same thing, I don't enjoy it all the time.

All the time.. but I still go. It's about the big picture. Poker learned me to look at the big picture. And to get to that big picture, I need to work. Sure I would rather wach another episode of Burn notice, but is it going to get me where I want to be? Watch another youtube video about a kid that hits his balls into a brick is not going to get me where I want to be. Hell no. Fuck no! Poker made me from a lazy fuck into somebody that works hard. Every day i just try to do a small piece, like 0,00001%... I don't care .. See my progress in 10 years.

People overestimate what they can achieve in a year. People underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years.

I rather spend 2 hours a day playing poker for a year straight, then 1 monster session once in a while. I am pretty sure I will have put more volume at the end of the year. 

Without poker, I would probably never got the work ethic I have now. I would have stayed home when I didn't feel like training. I would have watched another episode of Burn Notice instead of writing another page for my paper. I would have slept until 12 in the afternoon instead of getting up and BEING PRODUCTIVE.

I love how poker got in the way, but got me on my way at the same time. I think that's the biggest thing poker brought me. And, in the long run, that's way more valueable than any money can ever give me.

"If you want MORE of anything in your life, it all starts with LESS of the other stuff. Stop dreaming and start doing" - Jim Reese

I am not afraid of being jinxed. That would mean I believe in a cause and effect that doesn't excist. I am a poker player. I am in the moment. This moment is all there ever is. 

I moved up to 50nl. For some that known me longer then today know it has been a tough battle. I never understood poker, and I still don't. I do understand it better, and I understand myself better aswell. I started at the freerolls. FTP had them back in the days. I build up a small roll with that. On one magical day I mis clicked in the FTP lobby and I found the cashgames. Before this, I only heard about poker tournaments and all I played was with buddys. 

I ran like god. I payed a coach 90$ while playing 25nl FR and I crushed it. Quads, sets, flush that got there where I got it in bad... All of it. It was a terrible way for me to start poker. I became overconfident. FR was boring. I was playing 13/10, and played solid. Solid was boring. Thank god there was 6-max. With a buddy of mine, i hopped on my first 6-max expierence and crushed it again. Not caring. Not thinking. Just, betting and staying aggro. Thats how poker is being played.

When I found DC, i was amazed. Poker can be learned, and Harrington sucks. I sucked. It was a period of tilt and playing way to fancy. My understanding of the game was: "If Krantz raises in this situation, I should too. I should remember the way he plays." I was dead wrong. For a long time I blamed everybody but myself for not crushing it, for not understanding 6-max. I would watch another video because I could not understand I lost another session. I would send PMs to guys like Tecmo who where willing to help me. They where willing to help me but I insulted them by not listening or disagreeing. I never listened. I knew it all, i had seen a video. They would tell me I should consider playing tighter, but I would disagree. They would tell me I should probably fold the hand because my equity sucked, but I would call anyhow. 

I have had so many tips and so many upportunitys because of DC, its only right to make this post and give them my sincere respect. I want to thank them to give me the chance to improve. For giving me some of their time, while they really didn't have too. 

I kept struggling. I had coaching from wonderful people, but I would stay stubborn and do it my way. If I had the balls to do it my way for 100%, I could find the respect for the old me. But I kept asking for advice from others, while pretty much ignoring what they where trying to tell me.

In poker, me myself has been my biggest road block to conquer. Everybody knows they should fold to a raise from a passive dude. But knowing yourself and really facing that mirror is the hard part. I suck at poker. But I can get better.

lot of DC members I have known are now bitter because of the mindset that they are less lucky then a guy like I3bet. They stopped playing and poker is a scam. DC is a scam too. Those lucky-variance guys are now teaching things that are just based on a long period of luck. Poker is maybe the only sport where you can fool yourself so fucking hard. If you see a skinny guy at the gym trying to pull a lot of weight he will break something. 

you just need to see the truth of it. There is tons of luck in poker, but lot of that luck can be highly reduced by making the right play. I heard boywonder say in his video: The best players are the players that do not get themselves in bad spots. Or something like that. I got myself in tons of bad spots, and I did that by myself. Thats not variance. 

Variance is such an easy way to fool yourself. If you really believe the only reason you are stuck at the micros for more then a year because of variance, then fuck you. You suck dude. If you think that guys that moved up quickly where just lucky. Then fuck you. They most of the time grinded a shit ton of hands and learned poker while we at the forums and/or skype where whining about how unlucky we where.

Most poker players are lazy as fuck. I was too. I would say I worked hard on my game because I watched 'never tell me the odds'  and 'the coaching tree'  in one day, but did I do everything in my own power to chance my outcome? no. Most poker players want the high stakes, they want the big money that can be made possible because of poker. They see themselves on two 30 screen inch playing poker or driving in their sick car pimping it up. The micro stakes are boring. They dont want to be there. They dont want to pay the dues. They just want the event. They just want the big 200k pots and all they need is a bit more lucky variance.

The thing is. For me moving up was a very big thing. Now I am at 50nl I realise, it really doesn't matter at all. Its still the same game. I still need to work away from the tables and I still need to grind it out. I still need to get a lot better. I still need to be disciplined and I still will be card dead. Love the process. Love poker. There is no reason to be in this game if you don't love it. There are easier ways to make money. Its all for the love of the game, no matter if thats 2nl or 1knl. If you play professionaly, this might be different, but i never see a 25nl poker pro. At the micros, play poker because you love it, not because of some vague dream in the far future. The grind is too long to not enjoy the process. You will fail. 

Tecmo made a great post how you can get better at poker, so listen to that dude. Watch the HAJ school so you know how you need to learn poker. Don't whine there are not enough microstakes videos out there. You will learn a ton from a player like Krantz if you just learn how to listen to the thought process. Listen to the people that give you advice. Get a coach if you want a coach. Don't get a coach if you just want to fool yourself that because you have a coach it means you are now working on your game. Stay disciplined. Become open minded. Poker is not to be played inside a little box where you need to raise A8o in the CO, but always fold A7o. Play a lot, but keep in touch with yourself. If you don't feel like playing, its probably better not too. Poker is a part of your life, its not your life. Just don't get lazy and don't stop working at it. If you go away from the gym for 2 weeks, you will feel weaker. If you don't play the guitar for some time, it will weaken. If you have not written in a while, you need to learn to write again. Don't let poker slip.

This game is beautiful. There is a reason why guys like Ansky keep winning over and over. It's not just luck. Its not just variance. Every hand you win or lose, just ask yourself: How did I fuck up this hand? Maybe you didn't. But its to easy to fool yourself that you didn't. ' Just variance', 'standard', 'cooler'. Avoid those words at all time. Saying you are just unlucky is actually a big insult for guys that worked fucking hard to be where they are. They don't care tho, they are laughing while they drive to the bank.

Don't make the same mistakes as I did if you are playing the micros now. It took me 2 fucking years to get to 50nl, which is ridicolous long. Thats how bad I sucked. I still do. But less. Tilt less. Suck less. Get better. Get good.

I played +/- 23k hands and I am starting to feel pretty confident about my game. Especially how I aproach 'my game'. Its all about learning, and I am tackeling things I never tackled before in poker. Partly being very stubborn and partly just taking a long time to really understand things clearly.

I can say I love poker. I have come back to it so many times that there is no way I don't love it. I would have stayed away from it a long time ago, since I wasn't really winning and it has cost me lots of frustration and depression in the past. I do feel tilted sometimes, but I let the tilt happen and it goes away like a wave. I think I am going to coach people within a year, and I am going to lay my focus on the mental aspect of the game. Most mental coaches cost a shit ton of money, and I am confident I can coach well enough for a pair price. Another big plus is that I have been a huge tilt monkey myself and have been breaken even for a very long time before I became a winner. I can relate.

For now, I am thinking about getting coaching myself. Not to become a winner, but to win more. I think it's nice to have somebody that you can trust skill-wise to talk poker with and if the price is fair, I don't think its any loss at all. I also dont have many people on my skype anymore when it comes to poker. Lots of them have quited poker of have changed games, which makes it harder to discuss poker and do the sweat sessions like I used too. I do want to move up, so a to high of a price I am just not going to pay for coaching. Then again, if the coach is able to make me a 8 bb/100 winner, I probably move up quicker. It's something I have on my mind and I am going to see how things flow. I did contact some people about their price, and tbh, I might just get back to work with Threads13, since he explains things really well and is a very competent coach and player. The reason I might go to another coach is because it might be good for me to have a real fresh start. Not sure yet. 

Things in life are going well too. I have been training hard lately. I am training with a guy who is a pro motor cross. He trains insanely hard at the gym and i have never felt so good after training, and never felt so gross while training. The same thing I always felt when I was boxing, but, I never expected that you could change your weight lifting regime in a way that alters that way of training. Its a lot of high intensity work outs, lots of fast sprints on the rowing machine and just very little rest. My body is hurting, its damaged and I feel great.

Less is more. I really try to work on having more fun, and having less work. Poker is fun, working out is fun, school is work. But the more fun I add to my life, the less I procrastinate when it comes to school. I am reading 'the now habit' and its really helping me a shit ton about doing my work and getting to it.

With that being said, I still want to write my blog once in a while (which is fun!) to keep a track of myself :) My goal with this blog has always been the same: I want to track myself and if somebody can learn from my mistakes, thats awesome :)

Thats it for now 

There was a time where I really believed I would like to have my days packed. I was sitting at home, depressed, smoking my weed and doing nothing. Doing nothing and using drugs makes me go into my head even more and I always came to the conclusion: I really want to get busy!

On the other side, I am a big hippy. Flower power. I am 29 years old and still in school, have partied a lot, had fun with a lot of women, and have the craziest moments with my friends. I am still in school, because I never did much at all living a crazy, insane life. I should have worked harder back then, but oh well. Its all good. No biggie.

I guess I got my wish. I work from 8 till 5 at the moment with a traineeship I have to do for school and when I get home, I have to make assignments and getting busy with building websites. I train way less then before, and had to change my goals from keeping a rock solid body into a 'just doing sports for the health benefits'. I eat well to stay fit, and train whenever I can.

The money I had witdraw from my poker account after black friday is still in my bank account and I really miss poker. I miss the days where I grinded my whole evening away and studied poker obsessively. So obsessively that even my coach said I really need to chill a bit more to make poker work for me.

I never lost money with poker, but I never got higher then 100nl. I would dive into sick work ethic, just to get burned out and not play at all. Witdraw, deposit, rinse, repeat.

I find it amazing that I can be so sucked into something, completely lost in it just to find out, a year later, that my life has flipped completely in a way i would never anticipated without the thing I was so completely obsessed about. It happened with music, It happened with poker. Goal setting is great, but it seems to me life partly happens, and is completely unpredictable. I have the power of choice, and choices seem to be the most important thing on the big journey. I set goals to aim, but in the end, its about the journey.

Still, I really miss poker. There has been several times the past month where I wanted to put my money back into my poker account and start grinding again only to realise I really dont have the time to get to the grind again. Its 21.57 now and I did not have a moment for myself until I started to write this blog.

Its not to whine, because i love making progress. Its grinding, but on a different level. Its grinding, because I am working harder then ever. Getting to it, eventho I really want to chill out. Reading another page, while I really would like to play some xbox. Getting of the threadmill, because I know I still have to read or work some more. Then going to bed, only to repeat the process at 7 o clock in the morning. There was a time where I wished that I was busy for +/- 16 hours a day and I finally got to that point.

Its nothing compared to mineworkers. Its nothing compared to parents of newborn babys so fuck it. I get to it, and do it. I just really miss poker. But I can't. If I play poker, I want to grind it, hard. Playing a sick amount and really getting at it, and doing it. Impossible. But damn, I miss it.

Go grind, you low life, and enjoy it.

“Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.”

So what is my position? Am I a poker player? Today I played a small session, lost 1.5 buy-in within 5 minutes and realised that the fact I haven't played in 1.5 months already made me rusty as fuck. What you don't train, goes away. For a long time I believed being persistent means continueing what you do no matter what. On the other hand I believed you need to set goals for yourself. It's not about the goal, it's about the person you become when you are working towards that goal.

Poker made me a hard worker. I think I never worked so hard to become good at something as at poker. Making music came naturally to me, I had a basic talent for it, and developed until I became good. I have become better at poker, but it took me hours of studying, coaching and talking to people on the interwebs to get a grasp of the basics. I am not dumb, but my capabilities are not geared towards poker. I am not as analytical as I wanted to believe in my poker days, I really don't like losing which is a great attitude to have in the boxing world, great in the business I am studying towards but horrible in poker haha

But I worked, I worked hard. I never was a great forum poster altho I think I did make some good posts that where more about the mental aspect of poker. I watched and learn from tons of videos and poker friends/coaches and I never been so dedicated to something. I worked hard and became a break even/small winning poker player. Mission accomplished. Now I am very ambitious to become extremely good in my education, and I like the fact that there is no variance.

Variance learned me I should just chill the fuck out in traffic, in interaction with people, during presentations, during boxing when my sparring partner is better.... well, it learned me that life can not be controlled. It learned me that the only thing I control is me. I control myself, I can get the most out of myself. I can achieve goals, I can decide to do or not do. I can choose my own lifestyle and how I fly myself thru life.

The dedication I now have with my education and with sports is because of poker, and I love it. The pain has come from the fact that I saw myself as a poker player rather then somebody that plays poker. The distinction seems small, but to me it's huge.

I am not a poker player. I am a human being. Poker is something I do. I am not a human doing.

Lately there has been a lot going on and I like the way everything is developing around me.

At the moment I am playing 20nl, both because of goals I have been setting about my learning process but also bankroll management. Things have been going rough since I am playing Ipoker. Downswinging and playing bad + tilt. Had a pretty big roll for 50nl, but now I am at the point where I don't feel comfortable anymore playing that level, so I decided to play 20nl. Not to gain back confidence, just because of brm and goal settings.

One of my biggest changes is that I am playing without a HUD. I made my decisions based on stats, and not on gameflow and dynamics. The hud is doing more harm then good in my game, so I decided to ditch it. I might bring it back in the future, but so far I like what it's doing to my game. If I bring it back, it will probably only have VPIP/PFR in there. It's the only 2 stats I really miss so far. I have trouble recognizning if the regular is a nit, a tag or a lag. I do think this might be an observing skill that gets better over time.

Getting forced to think deeper about situations is great for my game which has slipped into a weird form of auto-piloting. Check raising from the blinds because somebody has a high c-bet %, or calling a 3-bet because of stats... it has all come to the consious incompetence level (for the Jared Tendler freaks among us).

I think I played with a system while thinking I was not. Not sure how I got into that, but at this point its not really important. More important is to see how everything has developed in my game so far, and why I have been a break even/slightly winner at low stakes for a relative long time (compared too other players on DC who sky rocket the stakes while I joined earlier then them). I have to do this for myself, and I want to be open about it.

I was eager to learn and I was eager to get better. I wanted to be the best regular at my stakes and I worked really hard on my game. The way I was learning was by adding new knowledge. I learned more and more about the game, and never really worked on 1 particulair part of my game. If i decided to focus on 1 part, it would be for a week and I would go to the next thing to focus on (adhd). After reading 'the mental game of poker', I can tell you I am a typical example of somebody that plays really well when I am on my a-game (where things are on consious competence level), but plays really bad when I am on my B-game or C-game (unconsious competence). I am not solid, I have not build a solid foundation.

I have some parts in my poker house where it's solid, but there a lot of parts in my poker house where it is shaky.

I kept adding stuff to my poker knowledge, which all ends up in consious competence. Which means that I needed to be completely focussed and full of energy to play well to be able to think about all those things I was adding to the CC level. Once I was not on my a-game anymore (this could be for 20 minutes, days, or weeks), I would fall back into my b-game or c-game, and since my game was not solid on the Onconsious Competence level and since it's really hard to be on your a-game all the time it makes sense that I never have been a big winning player. Add that to my ADHD which made it really hard to concentrate well, and other side-effects + my tilt issues... Its a wonder I am still alive as a poker player. I have been running really well, so in a way, this 'downswing' is the best thing that happened to my game. I had to face facts.

Tilt always has been an issue, and the way I tilt is because of mistakes I make. If I make a mistake, I tilt. Especially if it's an mistake I think I should not be making because I know its stupid. I would tilt, and make 10 more. What I never really understood till now, was that the fact I make the mistake means that its not in my unconsious competence level. Its still on consious level, so its not integrated in my game yet. A mistake is a sign of a part of my game that is not solid yet. I never gave myself the change of learning from my mistakes because I would keep tilting about it. Never looked at mistakes with a clear view, but always fully loaded with emotion.

If I made a "terrible mistake" and started tilting after that, I always ended up being down on myself, asking myself things like "how can I be so fucking stupid" or "If I keep making mistakes like this I will never become a winning player". After the fire of aggression I would end up feeling terrible, then It would turn into inspiration by talking myself out of the 'feeling terrible'. Then I would come to DC to start a poker video to learn more poker, because the inspiration made me eager to get better. So more was added to the consious competence and incompetence level, and I never gave myself a shot to really correct the flaws in my game. Atleast way way slower then possible.

Because of all the learning, and because I worked so hard on my game, every time I had a (big) winning session it would feel normal (i am learning hard so I should be winning), and every time I was losing because of those obv. mistakes, it felt completely gross. I could not believe I was making that mistake again, I could not believe I was still not a better player etc.

I also felt like variance was not fair to me, guys like illbetyoudie who moved up in stakes like it was nothing while I was working so hard felt like such an unfair thing. I was entilteld to win. I earned it. I worked so hard on poker, and I was still this break even player while others where playing way higher that were not even that much better then me.

Most regulars at my stakes sucked, I could never admit i got out played and I was the best at my tables. Guys that move up in stakes deal with good variance, but besides that, they do things very well that I am not doing. They also deal with bad variance, just like me. There is also no way in telling how hard somebody is working, and I just wanted to believe I worked harder or atleast as hard. They might also already have known how to use DC and how to learn poker the right way. I just didnt want to face the reality of me not being the player I think I was.

I was over condifent. I needed a reality check which would show me that I am not as good as I think I am when I am winning, and not as terrible as I think I am when losing. I got that reality check this summer.

I am still eager to learn, but I want to do it the right way. I want to pay my dues. I have some great people on skype and have some great discussions with them. My dreams in poker have made place for goals. Goals that can be achieved, and goals I can work on right away.

My mental game was my weak link in poker and it prevented me from achieving my potential.

I highly suggest to buy Jared Tendler - The mental game of poker. It might be that one thing you really need.