Chow

What Jeff Bezos Taught Me About Poker
Recently, a YouTube video breaking down Jeff Bezos's book caught my attention, and surprisingly, several of his core principles resonated deeply with my poker journey. I don’t agree with a lot of amazon’s decisions, but the core principles in this breakdown are very helpful. The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlN6jzvmjtA
Here's what a youtube video about the world’s richest bald guy in the world inadvertently taught me about combating poker anxiety, climbing stakes, and building a sustainable approach to the game.

Think Long-Term
Bezos has been obsessed with long-term thinking since Amazon's earliest days. From 1997 to 2007, Amazon's stock price barely moved—a decade of flat performance before its explosive growth. His shareholder letters during this period had titles like "It's All About the Long Term" (1997), "Building for the Long Term" (1999), and "Taking the Long View" (2000).
In poker, this principle is transformative:
The correct question isn't "How do I maximize my EV today?" but "What's my highest long-term EV?" This shift in perspective changes everything. Those shitty downswings are temporary, but the skills you're developing are permanent. No one can take those away from you.
Results lag significantly behind skill development. You could be making all the right moves and still lose for weeks or months. The inverse is also true—you could be making fundamental mistakes but running so hot that you think everything's fine.
My recent changes as an example: I'm investing thousands of dollars and many hours into rebuilding my game and study process. In the short term, this means playing lower stakes and possibly seeing worse results as I implement new concepts. But if my goal is NL5K on tough sites, I need to think in terms of years and months, not sessions.
Every hour spent studying is building equity in my future self, even when the immediate payoff isn't visible.

Focus on Big Decisions Only
One of Bezos's most practical concepts is his distinction between "two-way doors" (reversible decisions) and "one-way doors" (irreversible decisions). His advice: save your mental energy for the one-way doors. For poker players, this means big decisions (worth stressing about):
- Long-term coaching investments
- Whether to focus on cash games or tournaments
- Deciding when to go processional.
- How aggressive to be with your bankroll management. (You can’t go back once you need to move down.

Small decisions (don't overthink):
- Details in implementing a baseline strategy. You will always update this later.
- Making adjustments on a read that ended up being wrong.
- Which poker software tools to use. (GTOW vs PIO)
My anxiety stems largely from treating mistakes as life-altering. That thin value bet I missed? That bluff that got called? Using a B25 or B40 on a specific board. In the grand scheme, these are minor data points, not career-defining moments, because I can fix them later.
The players who thrive are those who can recognize which decisions truly matter. They don't waste mental bandwidth on reversible choices. They make the best decision with the information available and move on. One of my study partners can shrug off a punt and learn from it like no other, and he is an absolute monster now.

Strategy is Doing Hard Things
Bezos defines strategy as "doing hard things that competitors won't do." For Amazon, that meant building same-day delivery infrastructure when everyone said it was impossible.
For poker players, the hard things include:
Pushing for deep theoretical understanding—not just memorizing gto but really grasping why certain hands take certain actions and how those actions change based on how people play.
Paying meticulous attention to opponents and crafting creative exploits. Anyone can follow a solver/mda based/ strategy, but truly elite players go beyond this to develop specific counter-strategies against the tendencies they observe.
Making uncomfortable plays and thin value bets when everything in your body is screaming to take the safe route.
Facing anxiety directly rather than avoiding it. When things go wrong, staying engaged rather than disconnecting.
Maintaining physical health through diet and exercise to optimize mental performance. It's easy to neglect this when grinding online, but the edge it creates is substantial.
For the past year, I've been trying to beat variance by avoiding it—playing less, choosing easier games, ducking when things got uncomfortable. That's not strategy; that's hiding. Real strategy means leaning into discomfort because that's where growth happens.

Build a Study Flywheel
The concept I've found most applicable is Bezos's "flywheel"—a self-reinforcing cycle where each step makes the next step easier. The hardest part is starting; you have to "grind" it manually at first before momentum builds.
My poker study flywheel looks like this:
Consistent study → builds confidence in decisions
Confidence → enables more volume without anxiety
More volume → leads to better results
Better results → validate the process and increase confidence
Increased confidence → creates motivation to study more
And the cycle continues, getting easier with each rotation.
The challenge is that first manual push—grinding through study sessions when you're not seeing immediate results, forcing yourself to play volume when confidence is low, trusting the process when variance is crushing you.
I'm still in this manual grinding phase with my new approach. It's uncomfortable and progress feels painfully slow. But I can already see small signs of the flywheel beginning to turn. Sessions where theoretical concepts click, moments where I make an adjustment I wouldn't have seen before, spots where anxiety rises but I play through it anyway.
An old mentor of mine would always tell us to trust the process, and the above flywheel is why we should trust the process.

Why These Principles Matter
These principles are valuable precisely because they're difficult to implement. Most players won't think long-term because immediate gratification is easier. Most won't focus only on big decisions because micromanaging feels productive. Most won't do the hard things because, well, they're hard. Most won't build a study flywheel because the initial push is exhausting.
But that's exactly why implementing them creates an edge.
I'm not claiming I've mastered any of this. I still fight anxiety every time I sit down to play. I still feel the sting of every mistake. I still question whether I have what it takes to reach my goals.
But these principles give me a framework—a way to approach the journey that's sustainable and built on sound thinking rather than emotional reactions. I just need too: Think long-term. Focus on big decisions. Do hard things. Trust your flywheel (process). Everything else is just noise.

That’s it for now.

Good Will hunting is probably my favorite movie of all time. I remember that scene. You could tell the professor, despite his accomplishments, had big ego problems: his issues with Will, and he would keep hitting on students and getting rejected, and the TA that followed him around praising him..it was very powerful.

As someone who 'took the big corporate job' I ended up circling back to what I really wanted to do.

I think you're doing the right thing. Cheers!

Dddogkillah Hey man, yeah I guess it's all relative. My friend is shot taking ACR 2K right now and that feels so much higher than NL200/NL100 on ACR. The swings at those stakes feel like pennies after playing NL1K etc.

I am not in a CFP anymore, I just paid for coaching upfront. But I am working hard :).

mike Yeah, it's very true. The improvements I have made so far have got me to see other peoples mistakes. Confident in my ability to improve now, just need to get some confidence in playing.

The Beautiful Broken Compass: Embracing Poker Imperfection

Last week, the ACR client icon stared deep into my soul like Michael Myers would gaze into the eyes of his helpless victims. Silent, patient, knowing that eventually I'd have to confront it—and dreading the moment I would.

My goal this week has been tackling my poker anxiety head-on. As I mentioned in my introduction post, my volume has been far below what it should be despite having the time and resources to play.

Recently, my coach shared a letter from Phil Galfond that perfectly captured my experience. Their insights have given me a new perspective on the mental hurdles limiting my progress.

My Poker Wilderness

Galfond's letter begins with a powerful metaphor about being lost in a forest. Imagine being dropped into dense woodland with an exit somewhere, but no clear path. For weeks, you wander, second-guessing every turn. "Was I walking this way or that way?" Eventually, mental exhaustion sets in, and you surrender to aimless wandering.

This perfectly describes my poker experience over the past year. I was losing confidence in my decision-making abilities. Each hand became an exercise in doubt. The constant uncertainty led to mental fatigue and anxiety. Rather than pushing through these feelings, I avoided them by not playing.

I felt trapped in a forest of poker strategy. I would constantly run bad, then feel like I was the reason for losing money. The paralysis set in when I started to be afraid of making mistakes, which ironically prevented me from finding a way out. The more I worried about making wrong moves, the more stuck I became.

Finding Direction in Imperfection

In Galfond's metaphor, he introduces a broken compass—one that wavers unpredictably yet still provides general direction. Despite its flaws, this imperfect tool allows you to orient yourself and make progress.

Any strategy I use at this point will be "broken" in some way, but finding a new approach at least forces me to move rather than remain paralyzed. I am still bad, but, as my coach bluntly put it, everyone is "playing like shit" until they have retirement money.

I'm not pretending I'm doing great—I'm not, I still suck, and that's okay. The difference now is that I'm accepting this reality instead of fighting it.

I'll still make mistakes, but my new approach allows me to fail faster, learn quicker, and develop actual experience. The mental freedom that comes from accepting imperfection creates the bandwidth to notice opportunities I previously missed.

The Microsoft Lesson: Fail Until You Succeed

My coach had a powerful insight: "The only way to avoid failure is already having failed before enough to understand both failure and success." If you don't want to fail, try failing as quickly as possible to gain the experience needed to succeed.

Even when I play badly, I'm gathering critical information that studying alone could never provide. This reminds me of breaking into AI at Microsoft without a PhD or Masters. I progressed by failing interviews, learning, and repeating. Each failure provided valuable direction about what questions to expect and what knowledge I needed.

These interviews were often embarrassing, but each provided valuable data. Eventually, I secured a software engineering job at Amazon, which led to getting an interview for a machine learning team at Microsoft as a developer, but when they heard my ML expertise they hired me as an applied scientist.

My poker journey follows a similar pattern: with each strategy change, I acknowledge previous methods didn't work while moving forward with greater understanding. I suck, and embracing failure is the fastest path to sucking less.

Charting a New Course

I still have anxiety when I play, and it's going to be there for a while—that's normal. There's no magic trick to make these feelings disappear; I just have to acknowledge them without fighting and keep playing.

An insight from Adam at Poker Athlete has transformed my approach: the voice in my head saying "I'm scared" isn't actually me—I'm the one hearing it. Just because that voice tells me I'm scared doesn't mean I am or must act accordingly. This separation gives me power to acknowledge anxious thoughts while still taking action.

My commitment is playing for a set amount of time each day, not trying to eliminate uncomfortable feelings, but recognizing them as thoughts—not commands. My current strategy might not be perfect, but it's pointing me in a direction, and that's all I need to start making real progress.

The forest is still there. The path is still unclear. But now, instead of standing frozen, I'm moving—sometimes in circles, sometimes wrongly, but always learning and getting closer to finding my way out.

If you're struggling with similar anxieties in poker or any other pursuit, know that you're not alone. The fear of making mistakes, the paralysis that comes with perfectionism, the voice telling you that you're not good enough—we all face these demons. Maybe your broken compass is all you need to start moving forward too.

This Week's Grind: Fixing My River Play

It's been just over a week since I started this new journey, and I wanted to check in with how things are progressing. As I mentioned in my introduction post, I'm essentially relearning poker with a new approach, and I'm starting to identify some key areas that need work.

Rethinking River Decisions

I've spent most of my study time this week focused on river play. Looking back at my results, I discovered a significant flaw in my approach: I was using heuristics to build my river sizings that simply weren't correct. This was causing me to miss value in spots where I should have been extracting more.

My coach figured this out pretty quickly after reviewing some hand histories I posted. It was a big relief to have someone spot this issue so fast.

For the next while, my technical work is centered on fixing this specific issue. I've built a new thought process that allows me to "brain solve" spots more effectively. Instead of relying on flawed heuristics, I'm developing a more precise approach to determine optimal bet sizing on the river. Developing these bet sizings requires that I have better intuition for the equity of different parts of my range.

I won't sugarcoat it – this study process is tedious, boring, and often painful. Working through the equity calculations and developing this intuition is not glamorous work. It's grinding through repetitive scenarios, making mistakes, and correcting them over and over. But I can already see the results starting to emerge. Those moments when a spot that would have confused me before now seems clear – that makes the painful work worth it.

My New Poker Routine

I've established a more structured poker routine that seems to be working well:
- 3-4 hours of playing each day
- 1 hour reviewing my hands and other people's hands
- 1-2 hours of drilling and GTO work

That's it. No more endless study sessions that lead to procrastination on actually playing. I'm finding this balance much more productive and sustainable than my previous approach.

I have to admit that I'm quite excited about all the new concepts I'm learning, which means I'm probably studying more than I should be. It's easy to get carried away when you're seeing poker in a new light. But overall, this routine feels right—enough time to develop skills, with a clear commitment to putting in volume.

Getting Back on Track Physically

On the physical side, I've really fallen out of my routine for diet and gym work. And I can definitely feel the effects. My energy has fallen off a cliff, which impacts my focus and decision-making at the tables.

I'm heading back to the gym tomorrow right after I play for 3 hours. No more excuses or delays. There's a direct relationship between how I feel physically and how I perform at the tables, so this is a priority.

Now that I have my process for improvement sorted out, I'm actually looking forward to setting some new gym goals. Having something concrete to work toward outside of poker helps maintain balance and prevents burnout.

Moving Forward

I'm maintaining realistic expectations during this rebuilding phase. There are going to be adjustments and learning curves as I implement these changes, but I'm confident that addressing these fundamental issues will lead to better results over time.

For next week, I'll be continuing my river work but also focusing on getting my physical routine back on track. The small habits compound over time, and right now, building those habits feels more important than any short-term results.

As always, I appreciate everyone's support. Thank you for following along on this journey, and I'll check back next week with another update.

Hey Dddogkillah, yeah I have a notion I use where I write things down.

The in depth has really changed, back when I didn't understand what was going on I was writing down combos to try and make sense of patterns. I would spend hours trying to map out what was going on, but without getting some hint into why those combos are doing what they are doing it wasn't very helpful.

Now I have a few more concepts / tactics understood so I more or less have a very general explanation, and what the size is attempting to achieve, with some explanations of what is going on on other streets.

I leave the low level stuff for drilling understanding the what line my combo has the best EV in.

Folding a Winning Hand: How Perfectionism Undermines Confidence

Throughout my life, I've heard the same feedback: "You need more confidence." Teachers wrote it on my report cards, bosses mentioned it during reviews, and even my parents, who express pride in my accomplishments, notice it. Despite clear success and outside praise, I still feel I'm not good enough.

The Roots of My Confidence Issue

My confidence struggles stem from perfectionism. I believe everyone else operates at nearly perfect levels, which makes me feel I am always behind, and sets unreasonably high standards. This mindset creates a gap I constantly try to close.

I'm very aware of what I don't know. When my intuition suggests something but I can't explain exactly why, I don't trust it. I need a clear mental map of how things work before feeling confident in my decisions. Without this understanding, I feel uncertain.

My background in math, physics, computer science, and machine learning trained me to seek clear, provable solutions. Real-world situations rarely offer this certainty, which leaves me feeling unsure.

The Real-World Impact

This lack of confidence affects me in several ways. At work, I struggle to highlight my contributions, making it difficult for supervisors to recognize the quality of my work. In relationships, I downplay my abilities, creating false impressions about what I bring to the table.

I avoid taking risks even when they might pay off. The doubt about my abilities prevents me from seizing opportunities. In poker, this manifests as anxiety during important hands and questioning moves that are strategically sound. If I am pretty sure I need a thin value jam, or something just smells like bullshit I struggle to pull the trigger.

Perhaps most harmful is how low confidence makes me prone to quitting. When facing setbacks, I see them as confirmation that I'm not good enough rather than temporary obstacles. This leads me to abandon pursuits too early, creating a pattern of unfinished projects.

The Silver Lining

My confidence issues do have some benefits. My need to understand "why" pushes me to develop deeper knowledge than many others. I'm rarely satisfied with surface explanations – I dig until I find fundamental principles.

This approach helps me simplify complex concepts and identify core fundamentals that others might miss. When I do gain confidence in a subject, it's built on solid understanding rather than false pride – I know things thoroughly.

Strategies for Overcoming Self-Doubt

Moving forward requires changing my perspective. I need to accept that most people aren't as perfect as I imagine, and that’s all in my head. Instead of comparing myself to these imaginary people, I'm focusing on measuring my progress.

Managing anxiety has become important, as I've recognized the cycle between stress and diminished confidence. When anxiety rises, performance suffers, which further erodes confidence.

Understanding my learning style has been crucial. I thrive with approaches that establish big concepts before details. Finding mentors who teach fundamental principles rather than quick fixes has greatly improved both my skills and my confidence.

My Current Approach

I've implemented several specific strategies. I now have a coach whose teaching style matches my need to understand the "why" behind decisions. Rather than memorizing specific situations, I'm building an approach based on principles that work across different scenarios.

I've created a more reasonable schedule that accepts I can't know everything immediately. My previous habit of excessive studying was counterproductive – it reinforced my insecurities rather than building genuine competence.

Lifting weights, meditation, and proper nutrition have become essential parts of my routine. The progressive nature of weight training helps maintain emotional stability and manage performance anxiety, especially during high-pressure poker sessions. There's something powerful about consistently adding weight to the bar that translates to confidence in other areas of life.

A perspective shift from my coach has been transformative: there are no mistakes, only actions within your current ability level. This removes the harsh judgment I often attach to errors and repositions them as valuable information for growth.

Finally, I've come to accept that struggle is universal. In poker and in life, discomfort often signals growth rather than failure. Recognizing that everyone experiences self-doubt has actually increased my confidence.

The most powerful realization has been seeing my capacity for hard work. When I find the right learning approach, persistence becomes my advantage. While others might have natural talent or show more confidence, my willingness to do the deep work that others avoid produces results that speak louder than my self-doubt ever could.

Oh I see, MOP is a poker course that really encourages you to push for holistic understanding for why, which is what I was referring to in my post, but I can see how I missed the mark on this.

I really like going deep into understanding games like this, and being able to really sharpen the technical sword. When I played video games I always liked PVP, and competition. Poker seems like the ultimate for that because it's played for money, and you can support yourself with it.

I know things are changing now, but online at least feels like a meritocracy, where if you become good you can just play, and your skill will determine how high you can play, and there isn't anywhere to hide. If you don't sit you don't sit.

Looking forward to your journey, Matt!

Hey man, pretty cool the first comment on my blog is you.

1 - I really value improvement and technical excellence. I really want to be good at poker. If I had to choose making $300,000 a year, but can only play in soft pools and can't improve or $50,000 a year playing in tougher pools with good players but I get the chance to improve, coaching from the best I would take the $50,000 a year. If I can hang at NL5k on ACR then I know I made it to a good level, and the accomplishment of that is what I really want. I am living in Asia and my cost of living is quite low, and if I don't turbo off my savings / investments my retirement is taken care of. I am also not going to avoid soft pools, or think I can climb to 5k directly reg battling ACR or something. Eventually more volume will go to them, but for now I just want to fix my broken fundamentals for a few months then will diversify again.

2 - Mechanics is really big on holistic understanding, and it really helped my execution. Things like why is A9 a high frequency check on so many textures in BTN vs BB SRP. He talked a lot about setting yourself up to clean up your own outs, and taint villian's outs etc. It can also be a pain in the ass to figure out what's going on, but getting that permission to really push for 'why' a strategy splits, uses certain sizing's or why a certain combo prefers a certain size /action really helped with execution, and adjusting based on tendencies. This info just fits in my brain better.

I still do simplify quite a bit on top of this, but I really enjoyed pushing to understand why things are happening, and how to use that tactic or strategy vs someone if they play badly vs it.

After thinking more about this I don't feel I am putting out any high quality blog posts. It's a lot of rambling every 2 months.

I think I am going to leave it for now. I am not really a life nit anymore. I might make another one with a more focused goal / interesting posts later.

I am not really a life nit anymore.

I am still here
Been a while since my last blog post, and I really did want to post another negative post until I got my shit together. Overall things have improved. I am out of the downswing, and ran super hot. I am close to shooting NL500 now. Overall that was quite long and brutal, but if anything it was helpful.

Things I did right
- I kept studying a lot.
- I got help when I knew I needed it.
- I didn't really quit.

Things I did wrong
-Panicked
-Self blame.
-Punted some stacks off near the end of the 4 month shit run.

Overall just having that experience this early in my career was likely very good, and when the next one comes I will do better.

Everyone fucks up, and everyone gets worse, gets confused, runs bad etc. At some point I realized these things are normal.

The Poker Athlete Program
Just thought I would give props to Adam with his program. He breaks down performance into 8 skills, and gives you practice tools to improve. It really helped me work on my mental game issues, and it was well worth the money. I have a lot of strategies to improve my performance and mindset. It's just another skill to improve now.

Plans for now
I have been to a bunch of different countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philipeans, and the internet wasn't the best in the last two of them, so I am going to hunker down in thailand for two months to get some real grinding in. This month has been mostly study as I cannot seem to hold an internet connection for more than 5 minutes. I am going to really focus on getting some volume in on soft sites and then really push for getting establish at NL500. Once I hit this stake I am not longer relaying on savings.

Not much else is going to change but will keep working hard and grinding out a bankroll.

Plans for future
Working in Tech and saving as hard as I did really helped with financial freedom. In the future I plan to play more in tougher pools, and use softer ones to pay the bills. If I can find soft tables at 500/1k and then try and compete in the tougher pools and try and move up the ranks I am ok. But for now I am still developing a lot, so I can still apply what I am learning to other pools.

My retirement is pretty much taken care of now, so I really just need enough to cover the bills.

I will have a "money making" bankroll, and the "competition bankroll" and I will keep them separate so running like shit on tougher pools doesn't hurt my actual income. I don't need a lot of $ to cover the bills here, so it should be okay.

My end goal is to battle at 5k. For this I need to be good, so I will keep studying and grinding, and embrace the rough ride ahead.

Will try to be better keeping this blog going as well.

Excited for this chapter in your life.

The nice thing about having a blog is you can go back and read your past posts.

I broke into AI in big tech without a PhD, or Masters in the subject, and I was the only one on my team to do this. Given you start at 6 figures there and lots of people end their careers with 7 figures it's hyper competitive.

When I was a summer student I taught myself an advanced subject called 'Non-linear Inversion theory' and applied it to an advanced electromagnetic problem that only one other person solved. (They did a better job, but they had 20+ years experience and was a professor). I was a 3rd year undergrad. To be fair I want standing on the sholders of giants on this one. I read his papers, and wouldn't have figured it out without them.

I feel the above data point is enough evidence to show that I can get good at the game I love.

But now for taking a growth mindset approach to the game my weakness is mental game, so I am going to take steps to attack this weakness now.

Specially, self confidence and putting to much pressure on myself, and probably some lack of patience.

I decided to invest in some mental game help. I would rather do it earlier than later. I am in this for the long haul and I think having some strategy for this will really help.

I joined Adam Carmichael's 'Poker Athlete' program. It's 8 weeks, and I think it will really help with my mental game. His approach is very strucutured and makes a lot of sense to me.

Over the next year I am hoping to see an improvement in my narrative from my posts.

December Results

Unfortunately I continued to run pretty poor and it made me quite emotional. I really didn't expect things to be this crazy.

I had another session with Patrick, and aside from not turn barreling enough (was easy to fix) he couldn't find too much else.

I need to take accountability here as near Christmas I did start engaging in avoidant behavior. Would only play a bit, then quit when I am up to have a 'non frustrating day', or just say "i'll make it up later" and go out and party / tinder whatever. So needless to say I only put up 15k hands or so. I really don't want to repeat this for another month. I want to be successful, and this is the path to not being successful.

You know people I admire in poker...don't do this shit. Patrick, for example, or if you look at the podcast with limitless, Marenelli, or whatever they don't do this. They just work on improving and get back at it. They don't whine on their shitty blog. I am not going to do that anymore either.

I am sure all of them would get pissed or tilted or whatever, and this is the first really fucking weird downswing I had. In general for the past years I just feel frustrated, and this is something I am going to get through.

I looking at getting some mindset help.

For the positive I am a much better player than I was even a few weeks ago. I review all my 6bb and lower pots, find mistakes, make anki cards, I drill in the trainer a lot, I map out my simplified strategy, and it all really helps...in fact it keeps me going. Knowing where ever I am at right now..my skill will be higher in a few weeks does help. Also knowing that whatever I am going through results wise now will only help me at 1k+.

Going forward I am going to just set the brm shot takes and not think about it. Going to just go in with the mindset of trying to execute my strategy, and use the outcome as data points for the future. Easier said than done, but I am a real fan of simplified strategies, and simplifying even what my goal is on a day to day basis should help.

I switched up my schedule to be:
Drill Anki cards / trainer 2 hours
Warm up.
Grind 4 Hours.
Gym
Dinner out
Review / make anki cards / strategy development for 2-3 hours

Then Weekends
Warm up
Grind 6-8 hours
Dinner
Review

This is simpler and feels more sustainable. I only grind 5 days a week now, and on days off I can study if I want, but it's up to how I feel.

Anyway here is the graph, hopefully better days around the corner.

I thought I would write a bit of a post here while this is happening.

Run bad has continued and it really started to affect my mindset. I was starting to panic one night. It felt like I was just punting somewhere and just didn't understand why. I haven't really had runs like this that continued for so long.

After the 20BI downswing last month and the not so great run this month I don't think it would be this bad. At some point I just started to blame myself.

I did start to develop some leak at some point. My stats really started to trend passive, and I did notice I some spots I was missing so I did set an intention to keep up the aggression, but I am not sure if that was an issue. I am playing a lot more aggressive now, and I do feel better about my play in general.

The real leak was my mindset leak. I felt pretty frustrated, and just in general stressed out about it. Not about losing money, and not about being unlucky from running bad, but just the idea that I might actually be a terrible player and I have all these things to do, and no real way to fix it.

I felt pretty frustrated, and had a lot of negative emotions from Microsoft/Amazon bubble back up, and to be perfectly honest there was a few hours of 'what have I done'.

I put to much pressure on myself. I was building myself up that I needed to be perfect, play great etc, but this is silly. Everything I did I needed to fix right away, and feelings of uncertainty at the tables really started to bother me.

Wild how quickly this started to affect me.

Eventually I started to realize I was turning into scared money at the tables. Waiting for the run good to come etc, and I think this is what made me trend passive.

When I started running like shit at NL200 again, I started to really question what I was doing. The money didn't phase me at all, but I just had a lot of doubt creeping in, and every decision I made, I would get a bad result, and after the result I could think of all the other reasons to pick the other decision. Just started to become results orientated.

This kind of thought process will wear you down, and it's just shitty.

Eventually I realized..you can't be scare to lose. I used to not have this issue and it was when I was crushing, but when I 'snapped out of it' become more engaged, took the driver seat I felt like I played a lot better. I hit the spots I needed to hit, and just made a plan and stuck with it. Still probably have a lot of leaks, but at least I am doing things with conviction.

So lesson learned: stay engaged.

Patrick made a nice post in my discord about focusing on the process. He is completely right and this was my main plan starting this, but I think the previous post with goals / aspirations for getting to 1k quickly kind of put me in this bad mindset, and I distracted myself with whatever stake /

At this point the main war I need to win is the one with myself. I have a good process, and more importantly I like the process. I really like improving, studying and reviewing. I can openly point out all the things I have improved in the the past few weeks, and the experience that I am getting. So I am glad this shitty run bad / whatever is happening. (I am telling myself this anyway). It's a good way to build resilience for the next one, the one after that, etc. I learned a lot from this.

I have always been sensitive (you can see it in this blog) and I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself for whatever reason. I did it at my old job, and I am doing it now. I don't really want to do this anymore. I like to succeed, achieve, improve, but the standard I set for myself is to do it all quickly and perfectly. It just can't be done.

I asked myself the question: "If you have 20 million in the bank right now what would you do?"

The answer is the same thing I am doing now, but would probably rent nicer places in asia, and then just take it a little more chill on the improving / volume goals. Still work hard, but just less pressure.

Well, I don't want to spend a lot of money on rent just yet, but I will do the other thing, and I am going to chill out on this idea of trying to get to high stakes ASAP.

My Schedule has kind of got shifted around. I don't really like playing 6 days a week right now, and I don't think making poker my complete life right now is going well.

So new schedule:
- Wednsday / Thursday / Sunday 1250 hands a day ~ 5 hours of play. Then 2-3 hours for review / drilling .
- Friday / Saturday 1500-2000 hands a day and review / some drilling if I want.
- Monday / Tuesday no grinding just study / strategy development.

6750 - 7750 hands a week. Roughly 4.3 weeks a month ~30k hands.

I don't mind doing poker stuff every day, I like it, but two days off without having to grind will give me a little more freedom.

I also decided to split my sessions up, so I play a session in the morning, take a break, then play one before lunch, eat, gym, come back for an hour. I tended to just like doing it more in the morning and that is easier.

With the mindset issues I actually took a day off today, and there was some other volume misses, so the next month my goals will be simple: 'be more consistent than last month'. I hit the stop loss a lot, so volume likely won't be 30k again this month, but will be higher than last.

That's all I can control. Play -> Gather data -> use to improve -> test with playing. The infinite process.

Anyway that is it for now. Going to keep this a lot more chill, and I want to post more theory / solver / poker ideas on this blog again.

I did some interesting research with solvers that might be very interesting.

Hey man I think I read your blog three or 4 times, but never posted. GL GL this is a great read.

Subscribed! GL GL

Doctor_Strangelove

All I mean is I will use 2 5 BIs shots at seperate times instead of 1 10 BI shot. Just to keep fresh.

Monthly Wrap up.

Rough month to come back to poker here is the loss porn:

Patrick was an absolute gem of a human and went through hands with me for about 2 hours last night. He gave me a lot of confidence in my game, and we had a pretty good talk. He said he is very confident I am winning in these games.

Despite the rough month I am going to just start playing NL200 this month. I am just going to trust the coach, continue to improve, and take some risk. I am on my own bankroll, and with my financial situation I can go for it.

My goals for my time at nachos is to turn into an absolute killer, and I worked out a plan with Patrick to get there. I want to be aggressive with this goal and work hard, so I am going to plan for this. He suggested to try and get to 1k in the next 3 – 6 months. Which is tough, but lets go for it. I seem to like getting a little crazy.

My schedule is basically 30 hours of grinding and 20-25 hours of study a week, so I will put in 30k hands next month and study enough to hopefully flush out some of the more major nodes.
My studying is more efficient. I do the following on weekdays:
• Warm up with preflop, defence vs cbet, defence with cbet raise, 20 minutes each.
• Grind 4 hours
• Session Review 6bb+ pots and make anki cards from mistakes
• Drill Anki cards
• Strategy development
On weekends I put more time into grinding:
• Warm up with one of preflop, defence vs cbet, defence with cbet raise, 20 minutes.
• Grind 6-8 hours
• Session Review 6bb+ pots and make anki cards from mistakes

Tuesdays are my day off from grinding and I will study 4 – 8 hours depending on how I feel. Mostly this day I work on strategy development so I can just do the busy work during the shorter study time on the week. For now, I just feel like going into hardcore mode.

I feel if I am consistent with this process then success is inevitable. Matt Marenelli's podcast on mechanic of poker has been my bible recently.

Long term I want to move into tough pools and participate in sport poker, but for now I need to build a foundation, and have some money coming in.

In my previous posts I was working through the nodes, but now I am so much better at building / learning a new strategy that I am starting over again, so I am working at IP PFR, and going to focus on getting these nodes flushed out. I will try and do them in this order:
• IP SRP PFR - Almost done.
• OOP SRP PFC
• OOP 3PB PFR
• IP 3BP PFC
• IP 3BP PFR
• OOP 3BP PFC
• OOP SRP PFR
• IP SRP PFC

There are 8 nodes for this iteration of improvement and 6 months, so I need to clear 1.5 nodes a month, which might be a little tricky, but lets see how this goes. I won’t try and force this, just go at a pace where I can continue to do quality study. I will focus on the nodes that are common, I can’t work out every possible node combination. Lucky this is what baseline strategies are for.

The lifestyle right now is great. I basically can work as hard as I want, I can take a few days off here and there and I don’t have to ask. I am going to get out what I put in long term. Nacho’s is a great CFP, you have lots of resources and freedom. The guys in here are great. No complaints.

My main source of fulfilment comes from just getting better at something and doing it my own way. I am really enjoying this process of improving at poker.

Over the next 3-6 months, that will be 90-180k hands. If my true winrate is 4bb/100 then my EV is 36 – 72 Bis. My current last 100k hands..at the bottom of another 20 bi downswing suggest 6-8, but I am gonna be conservative here and think 4-5.

I will use the following BRM plan. My BRM is going to be very aggressive:
• Win 30 Bis at NL200 -> take a 5BI shot at NL500 on weekends. Have 2 shots in the chamber.
• Win 30 Bis at NL500 -> Take a 5BI shot at NL1k on weekends. Have 2 shots in the chamber.

I don’t need to withdraw for a long time. My cost of living is low, so lets just mash it in there. Might go swimmingly. Might be a repeat of the Kelly criterion experiment. Who knows.

I just need 60 Bis to get to 1k with this plan. It’s aggressive, and going to swing a lot, but fuck being a life nit.

Let me know what you think. Should be for an entertaining ride.

Been a while since I posted, but I am currently in Thailand. I have been doing the full time grind for a little while now.

I have been playing NL100 while I integrate the strategy. It's been good. I have preflop down, and some upgrades to c-betting.

My daily routine during the week right now is like this:
1 - Wake up, go to the store get coffee, water, and a protein drink.
2 - Warm up routine
3 - Grind for 2 hours.
4 - 30 to 60 minute break.
5 - Grind for 2 hours.
6 - Gym
7 - Session review
8 - Study 2 - 3 hours.

On the weekend I do this.
1 - Wake up, go to the store get coffee, water, and a protein drink.
2 - Grind for 2 hours.
3 - 30 to 60 minute break.
4 - Grind for 2 hours.
5 - 30 to 60 minute break.
6 - Grind for 2 hours.
7 - 30 to 60 minute break.
8 - Grind for 2 hours.
9 - Session review

I also have a pure study / strategy development day.

I ran into some logistical issues in the beginning getting everything set up, but I am aiming to put in a lot of time during most weeks so I can afford to take time off late.

January 1st I will go to Vietnam or Malaysia for a month.

My first few weeks have been rough results wise, but I feel improvement, so I am still optimistic. My c-betting defense has improved as I drill it every day, and my pre-flop has improved a lot as well.

I am going to go through my own playbook and re-do some things. I have learned enough new things and ways of doing things now, where I think I can improve quickly with enough work. I have a new way of building a strategy and learning spots that is easier for me to learn. I still use Anki, but I take a 25 flop subset (from Matt Marenelli podcast of MOP) and for whatever node I split it up into general sizings following the 1-1-2 framework. Then through the subset I break them up into seperate simple strategies for sizings, using GTO wizard AI.

I really try and keep the number of sizings I need to use small. Really I try to only use 25, 50, 75, 150 in my whole game tree. After this, I go through the subset, and note betting / raising %, value thresholds, bluffing thresholds, the bulk of villans defending hand classes and some examples for blockers. I like having villan's defending range because it helps me understand blocker effects better.

After doing this through different subsets that are strategically different usually you can see a pattern, and you can build some set of heuristics. You have some idea of worst hands to bet for value, best hands you can bluff with, how good a run out is for you overall.

After this then I drill in the trainer and if something seems way off, or I want to remember something I run the sim in GTOW AI, and then make anki cards to drill later.

The sizings I want to pick in a spot generally depend on the MDA from nachos. I usually run some sims with some node locks and see what sizing GTOW AI / PIO prefers. If that sizing isn't exploitable for much then I favor it. This keeps my strategies on the simpler side, and they should squeeze out some extra EV.

Lets see how this goes. I will post my graph at the end of November, but it's not too pretty right now.

Once I am up 10 BIs at NL100 I will fire at NL200.

Overall I am really liking this life style. Life is pretty good right now.

I need to work my river raise too. Lets goo my fellow nacho.

It's weird how much has changed in the past. On tuesday I fly out to Italy for a Vacation with my family, and then from Italy I will move on to BKK and start the next phase of the poker journey.

Recently I joined Nachos CFP, and I regret not doing it sooner. The content is amazing, people are great, and there is a real culture around helping you improve. It's not just poker strategy, but the guidance with the logistical side is great. There are some real high stakes monsters in there. It's quite motivating to talk to everyone.

The past few weeks have mostly been around studying and filling in some gaps in my knowledge with their basic strategy. I mostly drilled pre-flop, their guide lines, and then really making sure flop defence is solid. I tried to do too much at once and it got a little overwhelming, but after todays session I feel pretty good about it.

If you read Patrick Howards blog on logistics here he talks about players who can't been low stakes being stuck at the logistical level. I think this is true. A lot of players I interact with who are stuck at low / microstakes are focusing on the wrong things, or not studying at all. They worry about having a leading range in four bet pots, when their fold to turn probe is 75%, or they are folding 50% to a 33% cbet on the flop. It's not their fault, they just don't understand where the money is coming from. They also don't understand just how much these things matter. It's important to study the foundational things, and do them really well. There is an analogy in jiu jitsu.

In jiu jitsu the people who are absolute monsters have amazing defence and pin escapes. Being on the bottom sucks. You can't submit anyone, it's uncomfortable, it tires you out, and that is where you get tapped out. The trap a lot of newer jiu jitsu players fall into is just avoid them all together. They learn the escape, do 5 or 10 reps, and then try it in sparing and find to be uncomfortable. So they find some success in becoming risk adverse, and not going to the bottom at all. People who are not confident in escapes spend a lot of energy trying to avoid it, they spazz out, and use too much strength and once they end up on the bottom they lose.

More skilled practitioners lean into it..they put themselves in bad positions..practicing over and over and over again. Let me tell you it doesn't take as long as you think to start getting a rhythm for it. Once you can get out, you spend less energy, you don't panic, and you become confident. The worst case scenario is now not as bad. Obviously people way better than you are going to pin you to the mat, but they were going to get there regardless. If you can't be held down by people at your level then you can work the sweep or pass you want to do. If you practice the sweep first, you won't get nearly as many chances when you are rolling for real. You need to deliberately work the technique in sparring / positional sparing to make progress.

I think this analogy translates to flop defence. Vs a c-bet, a stab, a raise, all of them. If you're leaking here the upgrades from the turn and the river won't help you very much. Let me explain why. If your fold to flop is suppose to be 30% at some node, but really it's 50%. You will see the turn / river a lot less. Upgrading the turn or river, after they cbet (think river probe..is really important) will give you 20% less win rate cause you're forfeiting it on the turn. It will also give you 20% less hands to review for that line when you are studying. Logistically speaking getting this node sharp is super important. (My math here might be a little off but you get the point.)

So this is what I am going to make sure is sharp. Every day I am going to study flop defence in some form or another. Skills will degrade over time, so maintaining them is the most efficient way to keep moving forward. Now that I am doing this full time my study blocks will look like this.

1. 15 minutes drilling some preflop position (rotate through them each day).
2. 30 minutes drilling some node in flop defence (rotate through them every day.)
3. 15-30 minutes drilling the anki cards from mistakes in last weeks review.
4. 60-75 minutes on strategy development
5. break
6. 120 minutes on strategy development / drilling some post flop node.

In order to constantly maintain my weaknesses I am going to compile a anki deck, with some mistakes from my base level of knowledge..if I missed a value bet, or something I will put it in this deck, and then next week I will drill it every day for a week. Then once the week is done I will have a new deck compiled of my a new set of mistakes.

My hope is this will balance a set of developing new skills while maintaining old ones. It's easier to maintain skills than it is to re-form them so let see if this works logistically.

For now I will split play and study into 25 hours/week play and 25 hours/week study..roughly. Weekends I will play mostly, but then slower weekdays I will study mostly. For now I just want to continue to develop, to get to high stakes at a good clip.

I am going to be in Italy with my family most of October, but I start playing full time for real in November, so I set a goal to try and get to 1k, in a year. So November 2024 I am hoping to be at least have shotted 1k. I will stick to softer sites for now, and when the skill / winrate dictates so I will move to bigger sites.

Big goal, but now that I can put 40 - 50 hours a week into something then I feel like this is completely doable.

I also want to get back into jiu jitsu regularly. This might be hard with being in a different place every few months, but we will try. Not going to put a belt / skill goal on anything yet, but have some ideas for next year.

For now let's just improve until we start knocking on the door to 1k.

Peace.

Finally resigned!
I am done most of the hand off stuff and my last day is friday.

Still going to the gym a lot, but anxiety has been really bad. Not sure what is going on with me, but I don't have a lot of energy. Hoping getting out of here is the problem.

I have a plan ticket to Italy on October 2nd, then BKK in 25.

Holy shit I am actually doing it.

I joined Nachos CFP and spent most of this week studying their materials and filling holes in my basic knowledge. Pretty impressive stuff.

I really start grinding in november after italy. This Kelly challenge is kind of useless now. My BR is 10k usd and ill shoot 500 after 30 or so bis, but not in a huge rush for moving up there.

Lots of studying to do.

Hoping to make this blog a little more active in the future.

Since the last post was a rough one. I went on (another?) 20bi downswing. I think the damage in total was great than 25 bis. HM3 when on the fritz for a while so I am not sure how far I really fell.

I decided it wasn't worth my time to drop below NL50, but with the above BRM my bankroll got cut all the way down to like $650. The second downswing really messed with me, maybe because it happened so fast I am not sure.

Anyway, I seem to be crawling out of it slowly now. Going full Kelly is pretty painful when you swing 25BIs down. I was pretty convinced I was just doing everything wrong. Somehow my EV BB/100 is still 7.5 or something dumb. (It's actually lower cause I didn't have Hm3 for a while and there is probably 4 bis down that HM3 missed, but even 6.5...still not back for the bottom of a 25 bi downswing). So this gives me confidence....now..for a while there I had no clue what I was doing.

I am committed to this full Kelly BRM, because I can't quit now when it's the worst..it would be terrible for my EV.

I am going to be putting in my notice when I come back from the last of my vacation from work. To add insult in injury they didn't make good on a deal from a year ago, and so I am out a lot of extra money. A lesson to young professionals out there: get any sort of deals/adjustments in writing and signed by your boss's boss. I am out like $25,000. I was pretty mad for like 3 weeks. Running bad in poker was nothing compared to this.

I will be going to Italy on October 2nd, and then Bangkok on October 25th. I am pretty excited for this to be happening. I have been dreaming about this for a long time. Being able to just put my efforts into this will be nice.

I am also 99% sure I am going to join Nachos Poker CFP...will share what happens in my next post.

Update for the last two weeks

This BRM is swingy as shit. I was in the NL200 pool on friday saturday and it started to feel better. I made some mistakes, and there is some mindset issues still with 200, but I am pretty confident we will break through eventually. I had some issues with wanting to force results, and I think I made a few mistakes. Wasn't my best poker is I am honest. Volume could have been better, so next time around we will be aware of the feelings we had last time and we will do better this time.

As for the bankroll, I ran ok at NL200, but ate shit at NL100. I lost 6 or 7 BIs today, which is not fun. So we are back to $1550, and back to NL50 for the week.

I think for the BRM to work you are just going to float between 2-3 stakes until you hit a big sun run and your out of there.

Tempting to just fund myself for NL200, but I think going through this will be good for future me. I want to get to nosebleeds and fuck shit up, so there will need to be a lot of humility here.

Schedule wise has been pretty hectic. The gym is in another city an hour away, so going has been a three hour adventure, plus 8 hours of work, then trying to study in the morning and play at night. Only two more weeks until I tell work to go away so this will be over soon.

Study wise has been good. I figured a few things out, and I am getting smarter about the game. The session today actually got me pretty rattled, like more rattled than the 20BI downswing before. My confidence is kind of shaken for now. Will review that hands in the morning and figure out what went wrong.

I am looking forward to being able to get a more concrete schedule with poker, so I can study more in a day.

The Matt Marinelli podcast was pretty inspiring. I am really looking forward to getting into a poker groove, similar to what he did and just keep improving at a good pace. Review your hands, take honest points about what to improve, improve, and rinse and repeat.

Can't keep the good ones down. I am not one of the good ones yet, but I will be.

Eventually I am hoping to find a good group with a similar thirst to break into the higher pools, and really is interested in being intense about it. The tribe feels like the only thing I am missing right now.

Will figure this out eventually.

Overall feeling a little shaken confidence wise, but this is normal I think. I am sure this time next year I wont even remember this post.

Hey man I am a private coaching student of Freenachos, he mentioned your name in a call the other day, so I thought I would check out your blog!

Great stuff.

It's very impressive you manage to run your own CFP, private coaching, father of two kids, and play high stakes/nosebleeds.

I am seeing a trend where people venture into coaching / strategy or playing full time, so I think you should be very proud of yourself for doing both, plus being a dad and husband.

I hope you're giving yourself a pat on the back at the end of a week. You do a lot.

BTW - Sick month :)

Well this has been wild haha.

The bankroll has been all over the place from this run. I have played every limit from NL50 to NL200 since my last post.

I went down then up then back down from NL200 again and I am back to a roll of about $1850. I will play NL100 until $1550 during the week, and then if I run it back over $2150 then we are back at NL200 next weekend.

Since tomorrow is Sunday I go back to the weekly bankroll plan, which means I can still be at NL100 for a while. NL100 feels softer than NL50 to be honest. Easy to find fishy tables. NL50 it was tougher.

NL200 didn't go very well I busted the 3 BI shot in about 500 hands (RIP $600), but here is some observations. (Keep in mind this is Bovada/Igition/Bodog)

1. The regs were a little more aggressive but pretty much the same.
2. There are fish, but it felt like less whales. Even on a Saturday I had to table select quite hard.
3. I am improving everyday and it's not that hard here.

I couldn't find tables with a lot of 60/20 type guys like I could at NL100. They still exist but they aren't everywhere. Something I realized is the punts are starting to go, and I am going to have to work really hard to keep my edge in a pool. Fighting the best I can for every pot is going to become more important here.

This mindset change actually put me into a predator mode. I was missing some river raises and bluff catching spots, but not anymore. There was a shift in my brain to where "taking no risks" means play solid and stick to your plan. Before when nervous I would trend pasive. Uri had a video about this and I was aware you need to become a predator, but it was just today I felt myself change. Put them in bad spots, and let them deal with it.

I also appear to have overcame some mindset issues with volume. This challenge got me into the NL200 pool, and now I just am thinking about getting to 10k, and not worried about 'losing progress'. I know that isn't a think, but with the BRM plan your roll is so all over the place any idea of progress is killed pretty quick.

Having more confidence in my heuristics / game now is also super helpful.

I think if you're at low stakes, with a solid winrate, you should do this to midstakes because you just get so use to shit going wrong.

Pretty happy I did this BRM challenge. I got some exposure to the NL200 pool faster, and with having to move up and down all the time I think it will help kill any sort of risk aversion. With this BRM I think we just need a decent run and since you shoot fast the tail end of your run good will always be at NL200 and hopefully it's timed well enough where you have a good escape velocity.

First attempted failed, but I am not worried.

I have watched this podcast about 10 times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNfUjUIWXYs

I have a lot of respect for Marinelli and I am also a very process orientated person. A lot of how I work / study is how he works and studies. It's good hear someone talk about this for my confidence. I also was reviewing every pot, and planning out my strategy development on a notion pad. It's pretty nice now. When I forget things I can always re-visit them, and I also make Anki flash cards to keep the thresholds in my mind every morning. As long as I work at this I will make it to high stakes.

After I get my whole template mapped out there are spots I will need to go back, re-visting some nodes, and flush some things out with better heuristics. I am getting better at studying and I think some of these nodes can get re-worked.

In terms of strategy development I worked on being the IP PFC in SRP this week. I completely read some MDA wrong and built a whole plan on bad data haha, but I worked out my own strategy from this dataset.

I have to work through august and now that I am back home the gym is an hour away, and then I spent 60-90 there then an hour back, so time is going to be constricted again. I am only staying there to wait out some financial obligations, so need to do the bare minimum for august and then I am pretty much done, and will be onto the full poker pro life. I am going to try and just get the minimum done for them.

I will have 35k for a 'life / travel roll' so which should give me just over a year of living expenses in countries with a low cost of living. I am hoping to have poker pay for it quite soon, but at least this way I will have very little financial pressure on me to do this.