IAmNeo

I'm using the "back to what I do best" as a general heuristic and not interpreting it literally. Most of the money I made on Ignition was from the pre-bot era.

Hey. Yup, I’m alive.

What I’ve Been Up To

I’ve dabbled in a lot of different things this year. I got really into prediction markets for several months, peaking around the Spencer Pratt election in Los Angeles. It’s been fascinating to explore and I made ~100k as a part-time trader, but I decided it’s best to stick to what I do best: 6-max / HU NLH.

I watched a podcast clip from Michael Saylor recently that seemed like he was referring to the exact situation I was in:

https://youtu.be/rPDRTuryW2c?si=UUv3M9dW0T0e20Kn&t=1189 (Paraphrased transcript below)

--

“By my early 30s, I had a company that was successful. We had a good product, we went public, and at that point you start thinking, ‘What’s the next hill to climb?’ So I created a second product, a third product, another company. I tried to launch 10 other businesses because I had 10 other ideas.

After I’d done that, I could have focused 150% of my energy on cultivating that one business. Instead, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just launch this next thing.’ Alarm.com is a multi-billion-dollar public company today. Angel.com sold for about $100 million. I had some singles, some doubles, and some strikeouts.

Here’s a theme I see a lot: entrepreneurs struggle in their 20s, 30s, or maybe their 40s. They get that first big dose of success and think, ‘Now I’ve done this. I’m going to do six other things.’ They go off and start doing other things, and the problem is that you dilute your focus.

The existing business is difficult. You know all of the challenges, and it’s painful to work on it. So you want to create a new business because, when you’re launching the new thing, it’s not difficult yet. You have no customers, no competitors, no problems. You just imagine it will be better. The imaginary future business is always more fun than struggling with the existing mature business.

In my mid-30s to mid-40s, I expanded and did all these things. None of them ended up being more successful than the original MicroStrategy. By the time I was 55, I had been humbled. At 35, you think you can do anything. At 45, it’s not quite working. At 55, you’re thinking, ‘Gosh, I wish I’d focused more when I was 35.’

When I was 34, people older and wiser gave me advice which I promptly ignored. It’s very difficult. But the truth is, the best advice I can give you is: if you’ve got something that’s working, focus.”

--

It’s appealing to use other ventures as an escape from the pain of your main hustle because you’re so well-acquainted with its issues. And poker has a lot of pain points.

The rake is increasing. Sites warn/ban you for no reason. Pools are dwindling. Fewer fish. Lower margins. RTA / Bots.

One thing that jumped out to me as well from Saylor’s story was saying how many of the companies he started were successful, and he “had a lot of singles and doubles”. Previously, I would have thought that someone that diversified into other things would fail and return to their former career after getting a dose of reality, but my experience has been that I’ve made at least 5-figures at whatever I’ve put effort into… but nothing has ever been more successful than just playing NLH.

I’ve cashed out / stopped everything else and feel like I’ve recommitted to the game with a deeper understanding of my path ahead. It feels like I’m married to poker at this point, so I’m going to see it through to the end.

Moving Forward - Poker

Recently, I’ve been playing almost all my volume on Club WPT Gold. You have access to US fish with consistent games at 5/10/20 (5) and periodic games that go off at 25/50 (5).

The issue with ACR and Coin is lack of liquidity. ACR high stakes volume appears to be down by ~40% from the peak of the 2022-2024 post-covid era. A major catalyst seems to be GG closing its doors to high stakes, which slashed HSNL liquidity and median winnings for high stakes pros. It took time for that effect to trickle down, but the end result is poker pros are poorer, fewer high stakes reg battles, and lower average buy-ins. It’s hard to know for sure, but my best estimate is an above-average HSNL pro on ACR wins ~50-60k per year, so naturally that ecosystem is not sustainable.

Coin Poker is a better option than a lot of people give it credit for, but they have their own issues. Winrates after rakeback seem solid, but the problem is there are tons of bad tables that run on that site with either no fish or a weak reg-fish. Many of Coin’s promos have worked and they’ve had a surge in volume and fish liquidity, but the rake suppresses “home-run potential” and there’s a massive drop-off in volume in the jump from 1knl to 2knl.

Ultimately, Coin’s rake is high with likely more fish at 1k-2k range, and ACR has low rake but 80% of tables are reg battles and dwindling overall volume. Thus, I’ve landed at Club WPT Gold for the time being.

My favorite times in playing poker were holding the 5k lobby on ACR in maybe 2022-2023 and playing GG nosebleeds in 2024, but I want to be rationale and follow the action. I enjoy playing high stakes more, but I don’t want to send myself on a kamikaze mission, so I’ll continue to monitor the situation for now and chip up playing soft American sites.

Looking Back - Results

Hands on tracked sites since beginning of last year. With untracked it’s probably at like 300k hands at 9evbb/100 or slightly more. I’m currently running around ~70 buy-ins below EV from my peak, which is roughly 430k below EV. It’s probably the worst stretch of EV I’ve ever been on, and it began almost exactly when I created this thread. Starting this was a very predictable doomswitch-activator.

Trying to come up with some different types of data people might be interested in, lifetime reg battle results:

ACR and Coin only (includes both CGWC).

Main game is 25/50, which is over 1/3 of the total volume. Avg rake was 0.77, so CEV edge is ~4.3evbb/100.

All sites (includes 2021+ Ignition & GG),

ACR and Coin are the cleanest because it’s easier to profile with screennames, but the winrate didn’t change much so I guess it’s not off by much. Rake in this sample was 1.1bb/100.

I’ll try to keep this thread updated and check-in from time to time, and maybe hop on a podcast periodically if people are interested in hearing from me. The whole $10M thing is kind’ve a meme goal, but I’m probably gonna be in poker for a while so I might actually hit it. Would be sick.

I listen to music. Just do whatever you feel comfortable with.

The major technical breakthrough was looking at the game scientifically, which I learned from Pat Howard.

Mentally, it was to surround myself with other smart, hard-working people that expected to succeed. You really are the sum of the people you spend the most time with.

Hey, bigswoot. Thanks for the kind words, and I'm happy to have made a contribution.

Yes, I think the most logical thing for you to do is record your your screen and watch back the video. I've done it before, and have found it the most effective logistically. It may be too time intensive to do every day, but if you scheduled it once or twice a week then you would be lightyears ahead of the competition.

Reviewing hands is about exploration and curiousity. Much of my work is about quantifying, measuring, note-taking, drilling, and reports-making, but reviewing hands is an open-ended exercise.

I start in the replayer with my largest lost pots and work my way down. If a hand is totally standard then I skip it. But if I stop and think "huh?" or if there's any aspect of it that I'm unsure about, I pull it up in GTO Wizard AI. Wiz AI is great because I can dial in the exact bet sizes and stacks used in the hand, and it solves instantly.

It's often a quick check like "Is this the bottom of value range?" or "How often do I call with this bluffcatcher?". From there, I focus on the details of the hand and try to draw whatever heuristics I can from it. In the long run, you become really well-versed when you spend literally hours a day studying poker on top of playing.

Sometimes I share thoughts on a couple hands during my review in a private discord. Here's a few examples from the past week or so.

You can see I'm taking a hand that interests me, referencing the sim as a baseline, and investigating various characteristics of the hand in order to estimate their impact on the hand. Essentially, you are sharpening your pattern recognition through deep work, and it can only be accomplished through moving slowly and deeply considering various factors. Alternatively, if you're doing something like a GTO Wizard drills, that's more of a broad and intuitive check on your understanding.

My advice to 200nl-500nl grinders: there is no short-cut to making big money from poker unless you plan on getting lucky. Obsession and professionalism are handsomely rewarded and uniquely rare traits in poker. If you commit yourself to the proposition of achieving at a high level, then the world is yours.

WesM Great minds think alike ;)

Personally, I'd say 2/5 is more the dream crusher limit. The jump from 1/2 to 2/5 is very scary for people because it's a 2.5x jump in stakes, and it's the limit that essentially "separates the men from the boys" and you can make a serious living if you stick the landing.

I don't think 10/20 is the limit defined by those that run good online. There's a significant amount of 2knl action online across all networks, so you can get a sample there. Realistically, I'd say 10knl+ is more the "run good" stake because very few hands get played there and it has a disproportionate impact on your yearly winnings.

I'd suggest you try a lot of different things and see what resonates with you. Eventually, you'll find a coach and/or content that "feels" right and you're excited to implement.

One tip to know you're on the right track: you remain dedicated to following that coach. Generally, coaching is very "sticky" in that people follow you for YEARS when your content resonates with them. If you find yourself seeking out a particular person's content or revisiting particular ideas consistently over time, then you're probably on the right track.

I also think what RunItTw1ce is right and you should scroll up for that post.

Results - Ignition Lifetime

Graph Link

I bought a new PC and backed up my lifetime Ignition graph. It's insane to take perspective and look back at my progress through the lens of one site, and you can see I worked my way up from 100nl starting in 2018 with Poker Detox CFP. I'm very satisfied with what I've accomplished and have found it wholeheartedly worthwhile.

Even though I've diversified into other games, I've made it a hard rule: NEVER CASH OUT OF IGNITION. You will never find 90% VPIP recs with 1.3bb/100 rake anywhere else. <3

The Impact of Asking for Help

I've often said that getting a coach is +EV for your career, and I practice what I preach. You can't succeed alone, and it's wise to set your ego aside and ask for help when you need it. This approach is not only more well-adjusted, but also more effective. I'd like to take a moment to share some of the investments in coaching I've made in recent years that have had a positive impact on my life:

Performance Coaches -

Adrienne Carter (https://primedmind.com/adriennecarter/) - Adrienne is just a GOAT. She works as a part of Elliot Roe's team, and I worked with her for ~6 months in 2024. She was extremely personable, professional, and always went the extra mile. I specifically remember hitting a 40 buy-in downswing, not being overly affected by it, and winning it all back and more by the time our work was complete.

Jan Philippi (https://www.jan-philippi.com/poker) - I just started working with Jan in 2026. I was curious to try someone that works with a CBT-style approach, and so far I've been pleased with the direction of it. I'll have to give an update when our work is complete.

Poker Coaches -

Pat Howard (https://www.mobiuspoker.com/) - Pat has been the single-most impactful influence on my poker career over the past 8 years, and we work closely together on a daily basis. He's taken a recent interest in AI and software development, and has spent the past year coding custom software for the most effective poker study and research possible. Basically, I tell Pat what I need and he builds it.

Recently, he's been working on a custom trainer. I've been beta-testing and offering feedback at every step, and I believe his plan to to release it on the public market.

Izzy Orca206 (https://www.runitonce.com/chatter/orca206-beats-5nl-on-acr/) - I read Izzy's blog last year, decided this guy was insanely talented, and hired him as my Ignition coach immediately. He has not disappointed. He's the single-most impressive coach / player I've ever seen, and I've never received this standard of customer service or witnessed this level of sustained dedication from anyone.

RunItOnce Team - Thank you to the RIO team for gifting me a year-long subscription for Vision and Elite Tier RIO videos! I spoke with Eldora recently about my recent dabbling in high stakes PLO, and they generously gifted me the subs as a thank you for my contribution to the RIO community.

39 evbb/100! Totally sustainable. Thanks, RIO! :P

Giving Back

Many poker players are lone wolves that struggle with the isolation of privately playing this zero-sum game on the internet, despite being evolved as social creatures designed to work as a team. This tension is the driving force between many poker players perpetually seeking their "tribe", but also a sense of emptiness that their work has no larger impact.

We know networking in poker typically requires offering something of value, but that's counter-intuitive in a zero-sum game where most people are parked on their own islands, and you know that offering up EV without getting something explicit in return is bound to get taken advantage of.

In spite of that, I've decided to habitually give back and share my hard-earned lessons with others in the hope they may better themselves or make more money. To some extent, I think it's better to live your life in accordance with positive values: life is not zero sum and you subscribe to an abundance mindset. But also, it's healthier and more congruent with our nature as humans to help others.

A quote from Mr. Rogers:

Deep down we know that what matters in this life is much more than
winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too,
even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.

Letting go of caring only about winning for yourself is the first step towards making a positive impact on others, making connections, and finding your tribe. This not only helps your poker career, but makes you a better person overall.

My way of navigating this in poker is by following this heuristic: Be a good neighbor. I'm not giving away all strategies for free or donating egregious amounts of my time to the faceless mob, but I make an effort to treat online poker as the community I have right now, and to make a positive contribution to the personal development of those in this community. So I keep a blog on a site with minimal toxic behavior, answer every question I receive, and share some key information of value without expectation.

Being a good neighbor is compelling because it describes an appropriate level of personal investment and civility, while still communicating you have boundaries. It's also universal; everyone knows what it means to be a good neighbor. Be kind, be considerate, help when appropriate, contribute. Also, keep your doors locked and save your highest generosity and care for the people close to you that have earned it.

Heroes

Making money and being successful are extremely important in our society, and I see it as commendable to be highly professional, effective, and well-paid in your career. But there's other values that don't get talked about as much, but are still extremely important to uphold in the pursuit of living a good life.

I'll end with one final Mr. Rogers' quote:

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.

If you're reading this and have struggled with feelings of isolation or lack of impact, consider how you can give back in your poker and personal life. Taking this into consideration will be better for both you and society.

lol prob not

Nice video, Pedro! Props to you for sharing a big losing session, and for going into the solves blind. I know you risk looking like you don't know everything, but that makes it more authentic.

One of the main takeaways from the A5 hand to me is that GTO is incomprehensibly complex and not worth studying this granularly.

For instance, the entire analysis should be over once we see the turn completely shocked you. In reality, you are not checking the turn anywhere near that much, would have no way recognizing the pattern of why it checks so much on that turn anyway, and every node after that doesn't relate to real play because you're probably overbarreling by 20%+. Given you're significantly overbarreling turn, the river sim you looked at will be much less relevant.

Another thing I'd point out is you confidently said "on this turn I'd bet my hand at a very, very, high frequency, if not pure". That didn't turn out to be right, and would have been even more wrong if you had 56s. You should always take checking the nuts seriously on the turn because you should threaten the check-raise. You seemed to think he's very likely to fast-play vs turn pot, but I'd also consider whether or not he'd be likely to fastplay/overstab vs check on this board. It seems you didn't consider that.

This feeds into your QJ hand. If you have the mentality of fastplaying nutted hands OTT, then you're very easy to read for this player profile. He probably reads it as: Too capped, pair+draw all day. Aggro midstakes players are very level-one thinkers and pounce on aggression at every sign of weakness, and checking QT here would have literally left him drawing dead OTT.

I'm unclear what that piece of data was that you pulled up, but it's useless without bet-sizes. What does "GTO" mean? Does that include 30%-50% XR? Because even in the video you seemed surprised and confused that Wizard used a small size, but that could be why solvers fold less and humans more (assuming humans tend to XR pot+ irl). Also, the initial size humans use to stab relative to bots will dictate the turn bet-fold. Basically, I'm skeptical of the scientific rigor with that piece of data and would want more confidence in its accuracy before application.

Thanks again, Pedro! Nice job and I appreciate you sharing!

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I've never read Jim Rohn, but I'm aware of him. I'll have to check his stuff out.

I'll keep a seat warm for you.

There's not a lot of GOOD spots to play 5knl+. You can reg battle, but that's not an easy proposition.

Tbh, I just have faith. There's enough high stakes playing across all networks that it seems just out of reach, while still being feasible. Maybe I'll mass grind 2k some months, maybe reg battle others, catch a couple whales at nosebleeds, and hope for a miracle.

Typically, I drill by "spot" (flop c-bet, turn double barrel etc). The difference for me is I drill extensively and regularly, and I like to drill with the sizes I actually use in situations (no pre-baked GTO Wiz sims). I use PIO 3's trainer with custom-built ranges for that, along with some custom trainers made by Mobius.

I think for the average guy, drilling in GTO Wizard will suffice and I wouldn't overthink it.

It's simple, @Zoty79. Just play 100knl and win 10 buy-ins. I'm already 5% of the way to my goal after this hand!

Seriously though, having a successful poker career is as much about playing cards as it is about exercising good judgement over and over again. You're looking for the marriage between spots that are high EV with good asymmetry, but are also fun and interesting to you. Your poker career should be exciting! That just means its not always clear from the beginning of the year which games and stakes you'll play because you don't know where things will go.

Last year I played more 10/20 than I would have liked, but I shared in this blog that HSNL/Nosebleeds was in a lul and low-highstakes was where the money was at. Coin Poker has been picking up speed, and I'd love to get back into grinding 5knl+, but we'll just have to see how their development plays out.

Hi Koony17,

It's tough for me to give you insightful advice on this because I don't play those stakes, and I played Ignition on the come-up, which had enough recreationals to make it worthwhile to always battle.

The problem with battling at 200nl-500nl is that a recreational may join the table soon, but the rake is really high in the meantime. Not sure if you get good rakeback or volume-based rewards, but that seems pretty critical.

Personally, I've seen people do what you're doing with great success. It's possible there's no way to improve on this situation without improving at poker and increasing your winrate, or perhaps you need to be patient and trust you're on the right path.

It's hard to give personalized advice on a blog site where I don't know you at all, but I guess I can tell you what I would do if I was playing SSNL-MSNL right now. We're different people with different goals and values, but it's at least something I can share with confidence:

#1 - Play the highest stakes I can - I enjoy playing poker on a big stage and want the opportunity to win as much money as possible. I have faith I'll be able to build it back if I lose, but I'm playing my career on offense.

#2 - Annihilate my opponents - I chose poker as an expression of my competitiveness and a means to get super rich. If I wanted to be an accountant, I'd be an accountant. But I'm a shark, and so I must do shark things. That means achieving victory by conquest / annihilation.

#3 - Invest in getting better. Throughout my career, I've ALWAYS had intelligent people that I've collaborated with or bought coaching from. I don't care about doing it myself, I'm psychotically fixated on being as good as I can possibly be at the game, and that's always come with getting assistance on my weaknesses sooner rather than later.

So my path would be: win money by getting better > bumhunting. But that's just me and I respect there's many different ways to approach a career.

Jusc I could give you little tactics to study, but I don't think it'll help much. Instead, I'll focus on your approach here.

An important part of being successful is being proactive and seeing yourself as having agency in your life. If you read back to your post and reply, I think you'll see that it comes off a bit helpless or like you're a victim of circumstance. "It's hard to do." "I don't have a vision for how it could work" "I do things I know are fairly useless but I persist in doing it anyway".

You're in control.

You can devise a way to study and implement more effective strategies if you wanted to. You may have to get creative, but if you're looking for inspiration then just look at this post from 3 months ago: Blog Link

No one ever told me to study in those outside-the-box ways at any point, but I believe I am fully responsible for the outcome of my career, I have the capacity to learn and improve, and I have an obligation to myself to get the job done. So if you take your career seriously, then be the type of person that takes it seriously.

Good luck, buddy. :)

Hi, Jusc. Thanks for the kind words, and I'm glad you've taken away something of value. :)

What does your ideal study process look like, and what's stopping you from doing that now?

In b4 milly in profit.

Hi! It's nice to meet you too, and I'm glad you've enjoyed the blog so far.

I think your assessment of the coaching situation for 1k+ is accurate; most high stakes coaches focus primarily on running boutique CFPs. I think the reasons for this are:

1- If you're a good player, playing poker >>> coaching poker in terms of $ hourly.
2- The average guy off the street wants to book 2 hours with you to get as much info as possible for the lowest possible investment. That's not a scaleable business, and it's highly transactional, thus not fun.
3- The main value from the HS coach perspective is that it's fun to talk about the game and you get to socialize a bit. Having the other person invest in a relationship is a part of the appeal. Look at someone like Prodigy with his coaching @ Guerrilla; he would obviously make more money by playing. He's prob doing it for the love of the game and to meet people. The BitB guys are all going to weddings together now. Pat Howard lives a block away from me and we talk daily, and we met at Poker Detox ~7 years ago. etc.

Regarding high stakes: I think online poker is actually in a secret golden age, but social media makes it seem like it's game over. Losing GG VIP lobby was a major blow, but the average winrate for 10/20 across basically every network is 3evbb/100 for a decent pro (including rb), which is quite a lot of money. I also think over the next 24 months, one of these two things will happen: Coin Poker will make a surge once they get new software and continue to grow, competing directly with GG and replacing the previous GG VIP lobby, or GG Poker will bring back VIP lobby themselves. Perhaps both could happen.

Meanwhile, ACR winrates are actually really good with a recent resurgence of high stakes VIPs and big-ante live regs creating a lot of action. I don't think you can play 150k+ hands of nosebleeds per year or anything, but there is a steady amount of action available at 3knl+ with recreational players / weaker players if you combine sites.

My goal each year is to make $1M+ online, and I've yet to accomplish that goal, but I think 2026 it'll be actually highly achievable for anyone willing to grind and play at an impeccably high level. 2026 will be my first $1M year.

I'm not sure if that directly answers your question about whether high stakes coaches can help you meet amazing financial goals, but the opportunity to win big is certainly still there, so it's up to the individual to decide if assistance is +EV to them.

Addressing your situation specifically: I think you have a pretty solid assessment of the poker coaching landscape, and you know your own needs better than anyone else. Best of luck with whatever you decide.

The most common problem is lack of direction. Lack of direction in how they study, approach the game, handle game selection etc. They're either bouncing all over the place from MTT, HU, 6-max, Ante, Live etc. and never get good at anything in particular, or they don't have a consistent framework for how they approach the game and sort've freestyle everything they do.

I can't give you one thing like, "the key to everything was flop check-raise", but it's more like taking someone that's aimless and giving them direction.

FearOne It was really tough to go through mentally, but deciding to continue went like this:

1- I took care of any personal issues that would get in the way. I talked to my wife about the situation and she agreed I should reload and keep playing. Making sure my spouse had my back and was prepared to lose more allowed me to feel safe in pressing on.

2 - I did an in-depth database review of my own play. I reviewed every big pot I played and counted the total bb mistakes I made manually, and it looked to be around 0.2% of the pot in mistakes for big hands. I tried to be harsh with myself and made sure to include an entire -40bb play I made where I overvalued a boat and raised on the river when I should have called, but it still wasn't much overall.

3 - I did a stat check of myself and my opponents. I was confident I was playing my game: here's a snippet of my stats at ~20k hand point when I was down heaps. (The yellow numbers reflect the GTO baseline as determined by how GTO bots play vs each other. Typically, fold vs flop should be 35 because humans range bet small a lot. The white numbers under "weak" are the GTO baseline, and the histogram to the left of that are my stats from that sample)

One of my strengths as a player is I'm a big time "stat guy". Give me enough time and I'll get all my stats to GTO frequencies for every line and size, and I'm also very aware of when my opponents' stats are off, and keep track of changes they make as they adjust.

To help confirm I was running bad, I looked at the pool's overall checking range on the river (left) compared to their betting range (right). The top # is the pool's stat, and the bottom is "vs hero", and it looks like the pool just happened to have better hands when they bet, but weak % was same when they checked. This tells me the pool on average was just running hot on the river vs me, because if they were underbluffing I'd expect to see their checking range weaker. The Coin event was also helpful for getting samples quicker because of show tables.

This was also confirmed in HEM3 when I looked at my W$SD in pots >20bbs: it was 42%, which is extremely low. In short, I needed better cards.

4 - It was logical to continue playing. There were a lot of retired pros, recreationals, and live regs that played this event. If it was just Llama, Jasam, Owen, Davy, and Kevin playing then I would have tapped out at that point, but it was clear this event was +EV. My alternative was to pay 1.3bb/100 and play 10/20, or I could play some pretty solid line-ups with no rake, so it seemed obvious to endure the swings and keep firing.

5 - Mentally, I had some fun with it at least. I already mentioned my music choices, but I also was watching a lot of "comeback" videos. I watched a lot of random "best comebacks in sports" videos, The Miracle at the Meadowlands 2 on youtube (I'm from Philly), and "The Comeback" on Netflix. I was in the state of mind to make a comeback.

Essentially, I accounted for everything interpersonally, strategically, and mentally. I then weighed the alternatives and found them less valuable, so I decided to continue.

--

To anyone interested, I'm getting back into coaching. I plan on taking a low single-digit # of students over the next year as a part of the Mobius Mentor Program, so you can check that out here: Mobius Poker. The only way to get coaching with me is through joining Mobius Cash and applying for the "Mentored" option detailed on the site.

EnzoRTS

I also had another question on a topic I haven’t seen discussed much here, but which I think is fundamental: stress management

Poker is going to be stressful: we're doing something for a living that people are addicted to. We're subject to the same dopamine swings and adrenaline rushes that anyone would be, so there's no way to play stakes that feel high to you without stress.

My best advice is to work on building a healthy life first, and the career will feel easier. That means prioritizing sleep, regular exercise, making time for connection with others, spending time on hobbies unrelated to poker etc.

That may sound basic, but your efforts will go much further by focusing on being a happy, healthy person rather than trying to get blood from a turnip in making poker less stressful.

Thanks! It's not what I was hoping for in the event, but I'll take it. I had to dig deep and play "You Should've Killed Me When You Had The Chance" on repeat 'till we got it back.

Literally. It was my #1 most-played song for the year as a result.

Hey SwingzFR,

I think it's sensible to have a side format you study for the reasons you stated. At various times I've mixed 6-max in with learning HU, big ante, bomb pots etc. There's an inescapable part of being a poker pro that is hunting for the highest EV scenarios, and being overly married to one thing can limit your access to good games.

Having a main game and a side format you study is +EV, and you'll find a balance where you don't spread yourself too thin.

The people that make it in poker are unreasonably obsessed with the format they're taking on. If you even have to ask if you should switch, then it's probably a no. It should be more like "I'm burning EV to play NLH cash, but I can't help myself!"

The landscape is the same. Winrates for established regulars on ACR mid-stakes is 3.8bb/100 for 2025, and you can get 40%+ rakeback if you grind it and get supernova+ rakeback. That's a whole lot of money to make for many, many people.

RTA and botting isn't as big a deal as you'd think because the feedback you read about online is distorted. Losers are very loud, and winners tend to be quiet.

My default advice is stick to your format. If you reasonably enjoy what you're doing and making good money then I think you'll be happier and healthier staying the course and not giving into the FOMO of "what if I played cash?".

And if you're meant to be a cash game crusher then the above statement will not discourage you.

Best of luck!

You're welcome. :)

I'm glad you've enjoyed the blog so far. I'll have to take a look at the quick links section when I have more free time.

Regarding maintaining motivation: To be a great painter, you first have to love the smell of paint. We're motivated to do things we enjoy, so find a format you find both satisfying and interesting, and the motivation will take care of itself.

I mostly drill street by street to isolate what I'm working on. Unfortunately, I don't know what a good GTO Score is.

Your drilling should focus on two key things: Specificity and Immediate Feedback

Make sure you do 1 table at a time and click "Action" for how often it pauses. The advantage training has over real play is you can drill specific spots, and you get immediate feedback. Even if you use other trainers or take a different learning approach, these two factors should be some part of your process.