Just to introduce myself, my name's Dan and I play 2-5 Zoom as my main game. I've been a professional since the beginning of 2009. My earnings in 2009 were around $165k (before RB), before I stagnated badly and earned almost exactly $40k in each of 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Weird how the number was so similar (give or take a couple of K) in each year but there you go.

The first 6 months of this year carried on in the same vain, but worse:

The last 4 months have been much better.

The past month though has been relatively disappointing. I've still done very well at 2-5, but I can feel some trepidation when I dip into the 5-10 Zoom games. Over-thinking and giving too much respect to the high stakes regs who frequent it, mainly. Also in September I played a lot of tournaments with a poor mindset. I'd previously had several decent (for me) scores, won the Saturday 6max for $12.5k, couple of $5ks etc. Those occurred around the time I had a big epiphany about tournaments and the type of mentality required. Unfortunately in September that mentality was missing and I lost around $12k in buyins.

So, I've decided to concentrate on my bread and butter for a while, at least until have like 75 buyins for 5-10 again. I've emailed Stars to exclude me from 5-10 for a month, and when playing tournaments I am completely banning myself from late regging more than 15 minutes into it, and will write another blog devoted entirely to tournament mindset before playing any more.

It's very important that I don't let my current cash mindset slip either. I've always been a devotee of MGOP, but find that so long as you're thinking about the hand in a correct technical manner, that mental problems disappear. As an example, those spots were you call a set on the turn in a 3bet pot then your opponent rivers a flush and you're all like 'fuckkkk I shoulda raised turn I KNEW IT'....... well basically, thinking about the hand correctly means you're always thinking a street ahead and are prepared for all possibilities before they happen. So we call turn knowing we're calling river 3flush and knowing we're going to lose sometimes, and that's fine- next hand.

I've rambled a little bit but just wanted to get all this down before I start playing for the month.

Goals: lots of quality 2-5 hands, fewer tournaments with a better mindset and lower BIs, post in the midstakes forum a lot, watch videos of my opponents.

Ta for reading