Hi there,

Feeling pretty bummed out right now - my shot take at NL10 did not go as well as I wanted it to and I have lost 10BI in about 2,500 hands. "10BI is nothing" I hear you say and that's true, I know that's true because I've been in an extended 50BI downswing since the tail end of 2017. 2019 has gone well for me thus far though and I managed to climb about 30BI out of that hole. My bankroll was the highest it's ever been, peaking past where I was in October 2017 but the last few days have been horrendous and I feel like I am right back down there where I know they have the goods and when I try to take myself out of that mindset and say that maybe they are overvaluing that TP or maybe they have that busted draw but of course they have the goods.

I stuck £10 on stars back in August 2016 and ran up 100BI at NL2 before switching to NL5 ($200). I grinded away and took some shots at NL10 that didn't work, rebuilt and did it again and then my severe downswing happened. I think I had 1 winning month in the entirety of 2018 but only played about 100,000 hands because I felt as though no matter what I did I couldn't win. 2019 rolls around and I finally feel as though I am making progress but then the last few days have happened that have just thrown me back down to earth and this is the first time I have seriously considered throwing in the towel.

I have spent thousands of hours playing and studying the game and for what? If I can't beat NL10 after thousands of hours then what chance do I have beating NL100 in the next decade? or NL500? I have made mistakes that cost me a few BI I know that but you would think that somebody who has studied and played as much as me should be able to beat the button clickers on the lowest stakes. I look at some of the bad regs in my pool (who have very exploitable stats and are not good at the game) and they crush at 5bb/100+ over hundreds of thousands of hands and I wonder what they are doing differently.

I feel like this game is not for me. If I get pissed off losing $90 how would I handle losing $5000 at NL500? I can't help feeling that I am completely wasting my time with this game and that it is not good for my health and my happiness but then I have spent so much time on it that I feel like any day could be a breakthrough (sunk cost fallacy right) but of course it never is because I take 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

How is it possible that somebody can spend thousands of hours on something and not make progress? I know this is a rant post but I don't have any poker friends to discuss this with and I am seriously considering quitting.