hey. im posting this here because idk what else to do, and thought that someone out there could possibly help, or that my story could help someone avoid mistakes i've made
i started playing poker professionally in mid 2017, and for a while it was pretty great. i started out grinding live 1-2 at a local casino while living at home, quickly spun up a roll, and eventually moved to one of the bigger 2-5 NL hubs in the u.s.
my first month there was arguably the worst month of my life. my girlfriend of 4 years had just broken up with me, and that coincided with my biggest career downswing (almost 10k, probably had 55k at start of downswing). dealing with all of these external stressors was not easy for me. I have a history of depression, and all of these things lining up together threw me into one of the deepest holes i've been. there were days (prob less than 5) i spent 20+ hours in bed; only getting up to smoke some weed or find some shit food to eat.
i took some steps to pull myself out of this zone. hired a therapist, regular exercise, attempting to eat healthier, self-help books, etc. all of this, and some run-good on the poker tables, had me back to a fully-functional (and arguably stronger) 2-5 grinder.
i basically god-moded for the next 6 months or so. I prob made 45k with one or two 5-8k downswings thrown in along the way. I'd begun playing 1-2 on ignition (initially for practice/ studying, but then continued bc games were good my hourly there was comparable to my hourly grinding live 2-5) and consequently got my hands on some bitcoin. i was already somewhat familiar with what it was and was generally bullish (still am) so figured i'd hold on to a couple of the fuckers since the roll was so healthy and it seemed like a decent mid-long term investment. well, what fucking timing this turned out to be, as price soared from 4k to rougly 8k by end of may. it was around this time that i think my success began to go to my head a bit. i mean, not that i had done anything particularly grand, but i def had a somewhat constant euphoric buzz going on basically around the clock. I was 25, had over 100k nw, had investments that seemingly were going to be worth millions in the not-so distant future (/s), and worked my dream job in which i was able to get away with whatever the fuck i wanted. "Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta," was like my life theme song, playing wherever i went. is this kind of phenomenon experienced by other pros when upswinging?
it's summer now, and the dreams of shipping a tournament are abundant. i create a ~15k package, and sell about a 1/3 of myself to maintain sanity in case things go poorly (net worth >100k at this point, abi mtt is probably 1100). my lease expires at my current spot, so i'm off to vegas to bluff johnny chan or something.
...or something indeed! i cashed just 1 out of probably 12 tournaments and broke even in cash. it felt not good, but I think i had/have a better understanding as to how big variance is (especially in mtts) relative to most, so I was pretty ok with this. not to mention, btc had topped at 14k, which def made dealing with the negative mtt variance a bit easier.
the highlight of my wsop was day 1 of the main event (didnt initially plan on playing, but I was able to sell 75% and it'd been a dream of mine to play since i was a kid, so fuck it, ill take a shot). my table is a joke. it is unfathomable to me that these types of players both exist AND somehow have $10k to light on fire in a poker tournament. one of my table mates felt the need to heavily exemplify the lack of fucks he gave about this $10k. the dude showed up for the tournament pretty drunk (started at 10am, LOL). first, he has this weird interaction with the dealer where he sits down in seat 5 and dealer tells him he's in the wrong seat, and to move to 6. it takes the guy an abnormal amount of time to understand, but eventually he figures it out and moves over. ok, let's run it. few hands go by and the drunk guy scoops a small pot (probably less than 1k chips and we started with 50k). the seat next to him is unoccupied but there is a stack in front of the seat that is blinding out. as drunk guy scoops his pot, he "accidentally" scoops the chips next to him, in what appeared to either be an extremely slick (/s) attempt to find an early double, or an attempt at a bad joke. imo, it was most likely either a poorly timed joke or the dude was just so fucked up that he just didn't realize what he was doing, but we will never know for sure. either way, jack effel promptly dq'd the guy, which i think was absolutely too harsh. i still regret not jumping to this guy's defense, as i really doubt there were any truly ill intentions behind his actions.
one more quick highlight from my day 1 : i mentioned my table being a dream, and it was, with the exception of one player. a former main event champ, joe mckeehen. i didn't know much about him prior to this except that he was a part of chance's Chip Leader Coaching team, which made me think he was prob a beast. and i was right... the guy undoubtedly had an edge on me (and ofc rest of table) and both played and carried himself extremely well. i played one hand vs him that was noteworthy, particularly because of what he said to me afterwords.
cant remember exact sizing's so bear with me: joe opens hj 2.2x, button call, i call bb with td8h. flop: q67r. i check, joe cbet 1/3 pot, button fold, i call. turn: 4x (i think i could do some leading on this card since i improve to straights and 2p at higher frequency than joe, but who tf am i to just lead into the former champ??) i check, joe bets 2/3. i think x/c and x/r are both fine, but decide on x/r this time. sizing was something where i'd set myself up for 80-90% jam on the river if he called. joe takes a few seconds, and as he's picking up his cards to throw them into the muck, says something like, "i really don't believe you, but i'm not going to call you down. don't do that again, kid." what a thing to fkn say man, absolutely legendary. he folds. i think to myself, "i've bluffed the champ! call me mike mcd mother fkers."
in all seriousness though, he obv did pick up on some sort of live read, but even with whatever that was, i think over-folding a high-variance, bluff-catching spot vs the only other competent player at the table makes a lot of sense given this is day 1 of the main event and our table is a complete and total joke. wp joe, and thank you for the story. a true legened, imo.
anyway.. fast forward to day 3 of the main and i'm out a few hours before making the money. talk about maximum pain, man. i felt i'd basically avoided any real feelings of tilt/ disappointment prior to this despite a pretty brutal summer, but busting the main was a scratch on the surface of the negative emotions/ tilt i'd buried during the bad downswing i had after my initial move away from home.
the roll is still healthy. the price of btc is falling, but my nw is still around 95k. even though i still have plenty of money and am well-rolled for the main game i want to play (1500 cap 5/t), i have this weird psychological block where it feels like i dont have enough. i think i began to feel this more so when i dipped below 100k. it's like my brain has this weird obsession or belief that i need to be over 100 to be complete (i know, sounds insane, but again, im curious if others experience this kinda thing?) somewhat dejected, i head back home to spend a few weeks with the family before i head out to LA to set up a new home-base.
fast forward to now: i've been renting a room at an air bnb for a little over a month. i'm breakeven over my last 700 hours of live poker (about 175 of those are me losing ~15k at mtt's). i've played about 135 hours of 5-t since moving to LA and an stuck about 6k. pretty normal i think. btc price back down to 8k though, so that + life expenses has brought the networth down to about 85k (70k liquid). i know, i know... plenty of money, even for playing 5-t. but holy fuck man, it does not feel that way. i feel like i did a year and a half ago when i first moved to the 2-5 hub and was dealing with downswing + major breakup. it's quite difficult to even get out of bed and take a shower. forget getting my ass down to the casino and actually putting in some volume in the volatility-chamber. it simply doesnt feel possible. it feels especially risky. like i want to avoid even giving myself the chance to book another losing session because i know how much it'd hurt. do other pros deal with shit like this? if so, what kinds of techniques do you use to combat these feelings? is there a way i can trick my brain into thinking more rationally?
idk how i feel about actually posting this shit. i'm pretty self-concision in general. i will say that writing this out has been therapeutic in some way, and i do feel a bit better. maybe tomorrow will try and do a low-volatility online session. going to try to get outside and get some sun while i still can today. enjoy the spew/ wsop main event weirdness
