After a 2nd massive downswing in April, I am back on track, and according to Sharkscope, I am on a good trajectory and “might be good enough to play at a professional level” – whatever that means. Back in the day, when I was a student, I was semi-professional, since I had financed part of my studies with playing poker, mainly on Pokerstars playing for the rake and 5-10% ROI at the tables.
As a student, this used to be enough money to make ends meet. But would I ever consider myself being or even having the potential to be or become a professional poker player? I dont´t know. And honestly, I never liked that idea. But of course, I am not unhappy about the data that seems to show that I have at least the potential to be a professional.
But I know how stressful it can be to being dependent on good runs, wanting to win too much and running into the danger of tilting. Down swings will always come, and this is where things can get really tricky. I seem to play much better now without “having to win“.
I play because I want to train making better decisions, even in tough times where Aces get cracked, where I lose against 2-outers on the river, where I lose as a favourite 10 times in a row – since this can happen and is absolutely part of the variance!
I went through downswings over 1000 tournaments and really know what I am talking / writing about. And this is why it is super important to have a very strong bankroll management as the screenshot from Sharkscope also suggests:
My Tuesdays are bad poker days
Another interesting fact is that Tuesdays seem to be losing days for me. I don´t know whether I should try to break that pattern or just not play on Tuesdays…but I will certainly keep track of this.
I think this is also just variance but in fact, today is a Tuesday, and my Aces lost to random hands, I burst several times on the bubble and made only min cash finishes in the tournaments, if ever.
But: the trend is positive again, and I do feel that I am playing better again. The most important learning of the past weeks for me was to create an environment that is increasing the probability of being successful. This encompasses:
- listening to classical music and / or Gregorian chants in the morning while playing
- limiting my sessions to either 10-12 buy-ins OR 2-3 hours during the week (mostly less than that), and sometimes playing longer on weekends – but intentionally
- keeping track important KPI
- keeping on learing from poker pros by watching their videos and reading their books
- reviewing key hands (at least every now and then)
- but most importantly: being confident, having no fear of losing, managing a good bankroll and HAVING FUN playing the arguably best game in the world!