Hello, and welcome to my blog.
My name is Liam. I'm a 23 year old professional cash game player, who's recently come to a harsh realization in the midst of less than ideal circumstances. Over the course of a few weeks of denial, low energy, and bitterness, I experienced the last stretch of losing ~80% of my roll. After spending a weekend on the verge of tears, rotting in bed and mindlessly watching random videos to distract myself, I officially hit my lowest point: I ran out of chocolate chips.
I really thought I had more left in the bag, so I was pretty shocked when I reached in and there were none left. If I'd only thought ahead and stockpiled a bigger stash from the grocery store I may have been able to stay in bed for another few days. However, sometimes in life you are simply forced to act. It was time to get out of bed, face the path in front of me, and take some steps. Unknowingly, this would be the catalyst for a realization that may prove in time to be worth all my financial losses a hundred times over, or more:
I am, and have been for my entire career, a mental game fish.
About 4.5 years ago I found and fell in love with the game of poker. As for many of us, a fun pass-time turned into a passionate hobby that took up more and more of my time. I started watching Jonathan Little videos on Youtube because I wanted to beat my friends when we'd get together to play. I deposited 20$ or so on Pokerstars a few times in order to practice what I was learning on 1c/2c. Before I knew it, I was in a serious / committed relationship with this beautiful game. I played and learned more, moving up the micros until around 10c/25c where I started to realize you could actually make real money.
While in school and working in a restaurant for minimum wage, I spent as many hours as I could studying poker. I stumbled upon Jarretman's Youtube channel. At the time, he was producing easily the highest quality free content available. I reached out to him for coaching and was blown away at the layers of strategical complexity going on in solvers and in high level professional thought processes. I was engulfed in a newfound appreciation of the depth of poker strategy. With money saved from work, the high of an insane 20bb/100 heater on 50nl, blind faith in myself, and a dream to make it to the top, I quit my job and school to pursue the game full time.
Like a fool blinded by love, I don't think I was fully weighing the risk I was taking. I was just following my heart. Considering the many ways things could have worked out, the following years were nothing short of a wild success. Through a combination of passionate work and a lot of luck, I managed to move up through the stakes to 200z. There, I completed a goal of winning for over 100k hands (3evbb/100). I kept studying and working on my strategy, even playing and beating 500z over a (very) short sample. Around this time, through shear luck, I met one of my now best friends playing live games at a casino near me. We instantly clicked, and he started giving me rides to grind some super soft live games. The hourly was much higher than what I was making online. I built up a decent roll playing 2/5, 5/10, 5/10/20, even getting invited to play in a bigger private game.
I met an incredibly talented and cool group of successful guys through poker, who I consider to be very dear friends. They are all very special people, and have been nothing but supportive and selfless in bestowing on me their years of wisdom. I had the experience of a lifetime watching one of them ship the WPT main event in Vegas, which was one of the most surreal things I've ever gotten to witness. I've had the opportunity to work with many incredibly smart and accomplished poker players, who I've learned so so much from. Being surrounded by successful players and people has only solidified in my mind that the limits of my career are boundless.
So how did I find myself crying over an empty bag of chocolate chips?
The actual chain of events is very simple:
My whole career I put in low volume but ran great when I played. When I felt comfortable financially I played almost no volume. I focused almost all my time on studying. I had needlessly high expenses outside of poker. I was steadily losing money by not playing and spending too much. When I finally felt the urgency to play, I played in games that were too big. I didn't sell action. I ran terribly for the first time "when it mattered". I lost a lot of money very quickly in big swingy games. It was a lot emotionally to handle. I wanted to withdraw from the intense emotions. I wanted something sweet as emotional support. I got a bag of chocolate Hershey's milk chocolate chips from the store. I piled handfuls of them into my mouth while watching YouTube videos of Triton Cash Games where Linus 4B bluffs rich Chinese guys for 6 figures and they call him with 94 off suit. I reached into the bag and realized I was out of chocolate chips. I burst into tears.
In one of my very first coaching sessions with Jarret, he told me that poker is 60% mental, and 40% strategy. He said that of everyone he knew that quit poker, it was never because they weren't smart enough to understand the strategies, it was always because of some kind of mental game issue.
I've never really gotten angry because of bad beats, or was one to freak out over losing a few flips in a row. I'm generally a calm and logical person, and I don't get frustrated easily at the tables. On top of that, my whole career has been pretty steady results wise, with some rough patches but nothing too crazy. Because of this, from the very beginning I overlooked the mental game of poker entirely. It just didn't seem to apply that much to me. I actually really took pride in the fact that I wasn't like the people I would see getting super tilted after losing a hand or getting sucked out on. This, coupled with results, only unconsciously reinforced how "above" the mental game I was. I viewed people dealing with mental game issues as "illogical, overly emotional people". Unknowingly, my ego and ignorance around this subject was growing, which was only helping to hide the real, subtle, and invisible mental game issues that were below my radar the whole time.
What I've come to realize is this:
My ego has become very efficient at rationalizing away mental game issues within myself. I unconsciously convince myself that I'm too smart to fall victim to mental game traps, that I'm too logical for the psychological stress of poker to have any kind of effect on me. And therefor, for the longest time, all the issues I do have went completely overlooked. As I continued to learn more and more complex poker strategies: I would go to the tables with a mental game full of leaks that capped the efficiency of their implementation. Even worse, more and more often, I would find reasons to not go to the tables at all.
My ego and emotions have unconsciously hijacked my career, and are running this entire operation. In essence, this is why I'm a mental game
The first time I ever played in a casino I sat down on a 1/2 table nervously and started talking with someone who had built up a pretty big stack to my right. He told me that poker is a never ending rabbit hole. As soon as you think you know it all, you realize you know very little.
I've always found that to be true about poker, I'm realizing that it's true equally in my relationship with myself. I'm grateful that this experience has brought so much to my attention that I was overlooking. Ego has a cost in poker, and until I couldn't afford it anymore, it may not have been exposed.
I've been ignorant of the actual foundational qualities of elite players, and the gap I have with them. That is, the sophistication and development of their mental game and relationship with themselves. As much as poker is a race to reach the deepest levels of theoretical and exploitative understanding, it's also a race to develop an efficient internal system that pulls from that understanding in real time and combines it with your intuition of what's going on in practice.
I've been trying to win the game of "who knows more about poker", and completely ignoring the game of "who can accurately access what they know in real time, for long periods of time, through the storms of variance and tilt". Poker is a mental war, not only strategically, but an invisible war of emotions, ego, and grit. It's time I treat my mental game with the same respect and dedication towards improvement as I do my theoretical game.
It's operation Mental Takeover, I'm going to do everything in my power to get to the bottom of all my mental game issues, take the reins from my ego, fears, laziness and get back on track towards my dreams. This blog will be an articulation of that process, a place for setting goals, and keeping myself accountable in front everyone.
Since I found poker, I wanted to be one of, if not, the best in the world. I've always had a blind belief in myself and my ability to do so. But I feel now, more than ever that I have everything I need to make it real. Ignoring the mental game of poker my entire career has been a process of hiking up a snowy mountain in flip flops. Now I am a little ball at the top, slowly rolling down - picking up speed and momentum, that will continue to grow into an unstoppable avalanche of success.
Hello, and welcome to my blog.
My name is Liam. I'm a 23 year old professional cash game player, who's recently come to a harsh realization in the midst of less than ideal circumstances. Over the course of a few weeks of denial, low energy, and bitterness, I experienced the last stretch of losing ~80% of my roll. After spending a weekend on the verge of tears, rotting in bed and mindlessly watching random videos to distract myself, I officially hit my lowest point: I ran out of chocolate chips.
I really thought I had more left in the bag, so I was pretty shocked when I reached in and there were none left. If I'd only thought ahead and stockpiled a bigger stash from the grocery store I may have been able to stay in bed for another few days. However, sometimes in life you are simply forced to act. It was time to get out of bed, face the path in front of me, and take some steps. Unknowingly, this would be the catalyst for a realization that may prove in time to be worth all my financial losses a hundred times over, or more:
I am, and have been for my entire career, a mental game fish.
About 4.5 years ago I found and fell in love with the game of poker. As for many of us, a fun pass-time turned into a passionate hobby that took up more and more of my time. I started watching Jonathan Little videos on Youtube because I wanted to beat my friends when we'd get together to play. I deposited 20$ or so on Pokerstars a few times in order to practice what I was learning on 1c/2c. Before I knew it, I was in a serious / committed relationship with this beautiful game. I played and learned more, moving up the micros until around 10c/25c where I started to realize you could actually make real money.
While in school and working in a restaurant for minimum wage, I spent as many hours as I could studying poker. I stumbled upon Jarretman's Youtube channel. At the time, he was producing easily the highest quality free content available. I reached out to him for coaching and was blown away at the layers of strategical complexity going on in solvers and in high level professional thought processes. I was engulfed in a newfound appreciation of the depth of poker strategy. With money saved from work, the high of an insane 20bb/100 heater on 50nl, blind faith in myself, and a dream to make it to the top, I quit my job and school to pursue the game full time.
Like a fool blinded by love, I don't think I was fully weighing the risk I was taking. I was just following my heart. Considering the many ways things could have worked out, the following years were nothing short of a wild success. Through a combination of passionate work and a lot of luck, I managed to move up through the stakes to 200z. There, I completed a goal of winning for over 100k hands (3evbb/100). I kept studying and working on my strategy, even playing and beating 500z over a (very) short sample. Around this time, through shear luck, I met one of my now best friends playing live games at a casino near me. We instantly clicked, and he started giving me rides to grind some super soft live games. The hourly was much higher than what I was making online. I built up a decent roll playing 2/5, 5/10, 5/10/20, even getting invited to play in a bigger private game.
I met an incredibly talented and cool group of successful guys through poker, who I consider to be very dear friends. They are all very special people, and have been nothing but supportive and selfless in bestowing on me their years of wisdom. I had the experience of a lifetime watching one of them ship the WPT main event in Vegas, which was one of the most surreal things I've ever gotten to witness. I've had the opportunity to work with many incredibly smart and accomplished poker players, who I've learned so so much from. Being surrounded by successful players and people has only solidified in my mind that the limits of my career are boundless.
So how did I find myself crying over an empty bag of chocolate chips?
The actual chain of events is very simple:
My whole career I put in low volume but ran great when I played. When I felt comfortable financially I played almost no volume. I focused almost all my time on studying. I had needlessly high expenses outside of poker. I was steadily losing money by not playing and spending too much. When I finally felt the urgency to play, I played in games that were too big. I didn't sell action. I ran terribly for the first time "when it mattered". I lost a lot of money very quickly in big swingy games. It was a lot emotionally to handle. I wanted to withdraw from the intense emotions. I wanted something sweet as emotional support. I got a bag of chocolate Hershey's milk chocolate chips from the store. I piled handfuls of them into my mouth while watching YouTube videos of Triton Cash Games where Linus 4B bluffs rich Chinese guys for 6 figures and they call him with 94 off suit. I reached into the bag and realized I was out of chocolate chips. I burst into tears.
In one of my very first coaching sessions with Jarret, he told me that poker is 60% mental, and 40% strategy. He said that of everyone he knew that quit poker, it was never because they weren't smart enough to understand the strategies, it was always because of some kind of mental game issue.
I've never really gotten angry because of bad beats, or was one to freak out over losing a few flips in a row. I'm generally a calm and logical person, and I don't get frustrated easily at the tables. On top of that, my whole career has been pretty steady results wise, with some rough patches but nothing too crazy. Because of this, from the very beginning I overlooked the mental game of poker entirely. It just didn't seem to apply that much to me. I actually really took pride in the fact that I wasn't like the people I would see getting super tilted after losing a hand or getting sucked out on. This, coupled with results, only unconsciously reinforced how "above" the mental game I was. I viewed people dealing with mental game issues as "illogical, overly emotional people". Unknowingly, my ego and ignorance around this subject was growing, which was only helping to hide the real, subtle, and invisible mental game issues that were below my radar the whole time.
What I've come to realize is this:
My ego has become very efficient at rationalizing away mental game issues within myself. I unconsciously convince myself that I'm too smart to fall victim to mental game traps, that I'm too logical for the psychological stress of poker to have any kind of effect on me. And therefor, for the longest time, all the issues I do have went completely overlooked. As I continued to learn more and more complex poker strategies: I would go to the tables with a mental game full of leaks that capped the efficiency of their implementation. Even worse, more and more often, I would find reasons to not go to the tables at all.
My ego and emotions have unconsciously hijacked my career, and are running this entire operation. In essence, this is why I'm a mental game
The first time I ever played in a casino I sat down on a 1/2 table nervously and started talking with someone who had built up a pretty big stack to my right. He told me that poker is a never ending rabbit hole. As soon as you think you know it all, you realize you know very little.
I've always found that to be true about poker, I'm realizing that it's true equally in my relationship with myself. I'm grateful that this experience has brought so much to my attention that I was overlooking. Ego has a cost in poker, and until I couldn't afford it anymore, it may not have been exposed.
I've been ignorant of the actual foundational qualities of elite players, and the gap I have with them. That is, the sophistication and development of their mental game and relationship with themselves. As much as poker is a race to reach the deepest levels of theoretical and exploitative understanding, it's also a race to develop an efficient internal system that pulls from that understanding in real time and combines it with your intuition of what's going on in practice.
I've been trying to win the game of "who knows more about poker", and completely ignoring the game of "who can accurately access what they know in real time, for long periods of time, through the storms of variance and tilt". Poker is a mental war, not only strategically, but an invisible war of emotions, ego, and grit. It's time I treat my mental game with the same respect and dedication towards improvement as I do my theoretical game.
It's operation Mental Takeover, I'm going to do everything in my power to get to the bottom of all my mental game issues, take the reins from my ego, fears, laziness and get back on track towards my dreams. This blog will be an articulation of that process, a place for setting goals, and keeping myself accountable in front everyone.
Since I found poker, I wanted to be one of, if not, the best in the world. I've always had a blind belief in myself and my ability to do so. But I feel now, more than ever that I have everything I need to make it real. Ignoring the mental game of poker my entire career has been a process of hiking up a snowy mountain in flip flops. Now I am a little ball at the top, slowly rolling down - picking up speed and momentum, that will continue to grow into an unstoppable avalanche of success.