Avg hands goes down a lot once you get to HSNL. I'd say around 250k hands / year.

1) The best times to play poker for me are around 6pm-1am, so I formulate my schedule around that. I spend around 60 minutes mid-day doing studies or drills, play for the night, and spend around 30 minutes reviewing my hands.

It's important for me to leave time in the morning to myself, otherwise I will get burnt out, so I don't do anything of significance with poker for the first 3 hours of the day. A big mistake I've made in the past is burning the candle at both ends, either with checking lobbies during the day, or playing poker at night and scheduling coaching calls when I wake up, and so I needed to give myself more room to breathe at the sake of short term "efficiency".

2) I think it can be very frustrating to manage multiple lobbies at once, and I like 2 at most. When I have 3+ lobbies open, I tend to experience more decision fatigue and deal with context switching.

Context switching is sort've like a micro-fatigue from things like moving from an ACR table to a Coin Poker table, or moving your eyes to check the lobby etc. It's a lot easier if every table is the same site and format because your brain doesn't have to "reset" as much as you fluidly move from table to table.

At HSNL, it becomes unreasonable to single site, so you deal with it basically, but I tend to prioritize simplifying the experience of playing OVER having money on every single site I could, checking every lobby etc. I do my best when I can set my tables into place and basically just grind.

Context switching would occur if you have other things open and are constantly checking it. Ideally, you'd just have your music on in the background and not need to look at it.

First 3 hours is usually focused on relaxing. I go for a lot of walks and listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I leave near the beach so I regularly go for ~90 minute walks along the ocean, or Pat Howard and I have been recently been doing long walk-and-talks and just chat about some combo of poker, business, and our lives.

What content are you keeping up with? Do you mean like random Youtube videos / twitch streams / discords? If so, that's your problem right there haha.

I've had some times over the past 18 months where I completely rework major strategies, in which case I play Beethoven's Nightmare by Dragonland on repeat as I spend hours carefully re-crafting everything I'm doing. But for the most part it's gradual, incremental improvement and I don't need a stopwatch or anything.

What content are you keeping up with? Do you mean like random Youtube videos / twitch streams / discords? If so, that's your problem right there haha.

I'll stop. I already quit discord about a year ago. There is a ton of YT content out there and also just keeping up with Rio videos here. Spend too much time studying and not enough time grinding. Going to switch over to grinding first, then studying after, so I can use most of my energy for making money as most of my blueprint isn't going to change much from the videos I watch. Most of the YT content I unsubscribed to start the year. I found myself going back down that rabbit hole though.

Context switching would occur if you have other things open and are constantly checking it. Ideally, you'd just have your music on in the background and not need to look at it.

Do you put your phone across the room or close social media while you play? What mechanical things are you doing to eliminate these distractions? In The Mental Game of Poker 2 book it briefly talks about why people feel the need to check social media instead of focusing on the task at hand. Usually there is some life imbalances where they are not getting enough social interaction. Having a day off or planning social events helps your level of focus on the other days of the week.

Beethoven's Nightmare by Dragonland

This feels hard to focus! I prefer something like this for drilling on wizard.

I spend hours carefully re-crafting everything I'm doing. But for the most part it's gradual, incremental improvement and I don't need a stopwatch or anything.

Some coaches like Luke Johnson recommend splitting your study days. Where he might only study on Mondays and the rest of the week is dedicated to grinding. I guess it helps balance out the energy levels as well. Not getting burned out before your session even starts through studying. Do you do anything like this?

Thanks IAmNeo for coming back! Also why RIO instead of a site like 2+2?

RunItTw1ce Poker Youtube is fine for entertainment, but not study. The best thing you or anyone else could do is never watch another "OMG look at this Linus hand!" video unless it's just for fun.

I don't think I have any special advice for how to focus or manage your life haha. I'm sure everyone knows what they SHOULD do, it's just a matter of actually doing it.

2+2 is too much of a zoo. I'd rather have a site like RIO basically "host" the blog, but I'm saving all my key posts in case I want to repost / x-post it somewhere else at some point. It might be good to also put something in Mobius discord for people if they wanted to interact. It's 2025, so blogs are kinda 30 years old lol, but it's nice to have something sort've permanent up that people can reference.

Matt commented on this hand in one of the Mobius podcasts. Highly recommend to check that out.

Yeah, I discussed it on the Mobius podcast in depth if you're curious. But at that time Linus and I had no dynamic / he had no real reason to think I'd call light. If anything it's ultra high stakes and I'm not known for these stakes, so he'd prob be more likely to overbluff than underbluff in this vacuum scenario.

If the same hand happened again though I'd just fold. I think he saw what he needed to see and I won't be able to get away with such a huge exploit again.

Mobius Poker Podcast

In case anyone is interested. That's the latest podcast I've been on.

Awesome thanks guys I’ll listen to it today

Thank you for sharing this! Looks neat.

Have you tried onenote? if yes does notion have anything better?

cant5t0p Haven't tried it. I'm sure there's different types of software like this because there's a whole market for collaborative workspace products, but the real win was getting away from Evernote because that was just buggy garbage for me.

cool thanks, btw Beethoven's nightmare is dope! my version of that is cemetary gates by pantera :)

Any chance you can share these notes with us? I'm very bad at bookkeeping. Very typical of me to not ever have taken a note out of all the hours I studied.

ICCARD Good question, but I'm going to keep the notes private.

Any tips on getting the most out of notion? I've been looking for a better way to organize my personal study, so just curious if there are any tutorials/videos you found useful in getting the most out of the software.

Thanks

1) ClubWPT Gold, Apps, ACR, Ignition, Coin

2) Yes. I think sites that have high rake / high bumhunt models will progress to be more of the norm. I don't think it's the end of the world if you have the discipline to grind and game select, but it does degrade a bit from the integrity of the game.

3) Depends who you ask. Statistically, the games have gotten closer to GTO with the help of stuff like GTO Wizard and the like. It's just easier to get closer to correct frequencies.

It's pretty rough to get a sample of top 10 players and see them win for >2bb/100 in 6-max reg battles, partially because they just battle each other a lot. I think the main reason to reg battle is that it keeps you at the top of your game for when softer games go off, and you have to love the competition.

Also, the biggest reg battlers basically don't have a choice. They love doing it and have the capacity to win. Any rationalization they give for why it makes sense is basically bullshit / delusion. They do it because they love it and are obsessed with the game, and trust the rest will work itself out.

Personally, I'm a bit in the middle. Right now, the games for upper-midstakes to lower-high stakes are INSANELY good. Across every site and format I'm literally winning at 20bb/100 in over 50k hands on the year. If things dry up I'll probably find myself back in the ACR battle streets, or will clean up for (potentially) this years Online Poker Championship. But overall the life EV of just crushing limits I'm overrolled for and significantly outclass the competition is very tempting, but my competitive side has a hard time with that. Still working out the balance tbh.

I could probably not study, play 10/20, and make a quite good living, but I don't want to do that. Relying on winning without studying would "prove" I had talent at poker, but that's not the way I want to play the game.

It has the potential to be an incredible site if they offer some kind of rewards and multi-tabling. They are taping into the US market where recreationals don't need to deposit with Bitcoin, and they have a competent marketing department that reaches people.

US regulated cash is the softest environment in online poker. The US has an insanely high GDP with a culture that isn't shy to gamble, and there's very few top regs. I don't know as much about MTT, but cash is great for small to midstakes.

Why are you thinking about switching? Personally, I recommend committing to something you're passionate about and finding a way to navigate that, if you can. If you switch to cash half-heartedly you'll probably get crushed no matter how soft the game is, so I think it can be a good idea to pick a lane and move up vertically through that.

What a fantastic post thank you

Amazing post!

I'm so tired of reading the constant pessimism in the poker community. This was an amazing breath of fresh air.

There's nothing to it.

Yeah, I had my own version of that when dealing with some of the nosebleed games that ran last year. There were 3 whales playing 40k-100knl at various times, and I was playing them any time day or night. Was frequently up till 6:30am and just waking up and going to sleep at random times. I don't quite regret it because it was very profitable, but it felt extremely unhealthy, and I think I'd opt for a more healthy and consistent grind instead. That definitely plays into my decision to de-stress things this year and play limits I'm more over-rolled for on a consistent schedule.

I recently took Tim Urban's idea of using a "chess clock" to help me manage my work days, and I've liked it a lot so far.

I set it to 8 hours of work, which includes study and play, and 5 hours of rest, and the clock starts after my 3 hours to myself in the morning. If I'm playing and stop to eat, go to the bathroom, watch TV, or click over to youtube etc., I press the clock. It forces me to consider the opportunity cost of everything I'm doing, and objectively track how much work I've accomplished. When the 8 hours is up, I'm done unless there's a major whale playing high stakes or something, but so far I've always stopped at 8 hours.

Here's the link of a deeper explanation for it to anyone interested. I bought the clock on Amazon for ~$20.

Tim Urban Explanation

Orca206
Oback2
TRUEPOWER

Thanks! Much appreciated.

I can see how it could give someone anxiety, in which case obviously don't do that. It doesn't really bother me, personally. Fwiw, I don't do it every day, just work days.

As far as videos, you never know. No plans at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'd rather put it out on Youtube for free than be an essential coach, though.

I don't think redline matters and deliberately trying to win at non-showdown doesn't seem like the best thing to focus on. There's already plenty of SSNL-MSNL "redliners" on youtube / twitch, and I generally don't find them to be good players.

I think it's better to be OBSESSED with the fundamentals and dedicate yourself to playing great poker. I spend a ludicrous amount of time reviewing every little thing and never leaving a question unanswered. Winning in red line is sexy and highly arbitrary, but diligently finding your leaks, drilling them, creating detailed notes about a spot, staying up till late in the night and checking every postflop spot in Wiz AI to make sure you understood your range, that's the type of dedication that will make a difference for people.

Yes, some people are still risk adverse at low stakes, but I don't think a random YT video will change that. You can tell those people to loosen up and they'll say "I know, I know" and then continue to nit it up. Taking someone from nit to hero usually requires the type of mentorship that comes from long-term coaching, but maybe could come from a public course as well if its lengthy and the player feels immersed in it. I just find it's a very emotional topic for them deep down, and having a solid relationship with a coach is key to avoid them regressing when they hit the inevitable 20 buy-in downswing.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'd rather put it out on Youtube for free than be an essential coach, though.

I'm pre-subscribed! LFG!

You can tell those people to loosen up and they'll say "I know, I know" and then continue to nit it up.

This is where your videos will help! Telling them something and showing them at least for me changes things drastically. I have a friend who moved up from 50NL to 10/20 and has been telling me this for a long time. There are several things I can't wrap my head around though. Mainly for live cash.

Higher rake
shallower stacks
They cold call a ton
Multiway pots.

I don't see how opening hands like KTo QJo from LJ/HJ is going to help. There are usually 1-2+ limpers and when you try to ISO 7bb you just end up going MW still. So it doesn't make sense to ISO a wide range and play a bloated pot with a low SPR with marginal hands. Feels almost handcuffed at lower stakes. GTO wizard charts are too tight. There are so many questions your videos could shed some light on.

Would love to see if you would apply some of the same things you did on ignition i.e. MOP pod you mentioned you were 3 betting something like 30% of hands from all positions at 500NL.

I tried loosening up taking all the mixes for RFI ranges and making them pure, a lot of the 3bet ranges making them pure for the linear section. Yesterday I was playing vs a maniac raising dark, so I was 3 betting A3s, A5s, QTs, and a bunch of premiums. I LOST to a guy cold calling 3bets Q9o, calling 3bets K9o, 43s, and even 62o on one hand.

The main question I had at the end of my session was are these preflop wars even worth it? Should I just be calling and keeping the SPR at a higher level or continue to play these 3-4 SPR pots? I don't know if I'm just complaining about variance and I'm on the right track or if something is wrong with my strategy.

Please please please! Make some videos!

Taking someone from nit to hero usually requires the type of mentorship that comes from long-term coaching, but maybe could come from a public course as well if its lengthy and the player feels immersed in it. I just find it's a very emotional topic for them deep down, and having a solid relationship with a coach is key to avoid them regressing when they hit the inevitable 20 buy-in downswing.

I 100% concur to this. I'm a very open book and have addressed a lot of the issues I've had with variance stemming from childhood. Even though I'm aware of these risk averse emotions it's still a lot of lack of confirmation on whether or not I'm adjusting correctly.

I did some work in night vision a long time ago…. Is this what that evolved too I’m assuming the yellow blur is solver land strategies?
Also what does your study to play ratio look like. Very inetersestin g how you break your play up into seasons.
The onset of trainers seems to be a great help to the boredom and mundane study that that comes with working with solver.

I guess you could say that it's the very long-tail end game of those early H2N courses, yes. Yeah, the blur are the optimal frequencies.

The off-season usually has time to focus on strategy development, which is nice because I can't really think that deeply about new things when I'm in the midst of the grind. But on a daily basis I'd say it's around 5:1 play:study ratio, then when I'm on my breaks I can be way more creative and it's 100% study.

It definitely has made everything easier.

I think people will read anything that adds value to their life; poker
forum or not. If you're reading poker blogs on the internet, you're
likely looking for something you can take away, whether it be
inspiration or insight.

I think that is true, but at the same time this is a poker training site so the vast majority of people have signed up to RIO with the goal of improving at poker and on moving up in stakes as opposed to reading about travelling or achieving spiritual enlightenment. I am sure there are much better places to read about these sorts of topics than on RIO.

Which is why I also try to have some sort of balance in my blog of life/travel/self improvement stuff but also poker focused posts as well as hand histories.

So ultimately, no, they don't care about your graph; they care about
their graph.

They do care about your graph and results though. If you look at the most popular blogs on RIO (Freenachos, Neo, Demondoink, CD9 and Onklebs before us) then these are also the guys that are playing the highest stakes and have at one point or another shared graphs, results and hand histories.

Now you could argue that these guys are simply the best writers, or have the best ideas, but I know people more intelligent than myself (for example the guy I used to study with who played 200nl) who likely wouldn't get a fraction of the readers were he to start his own blog on RIO.

The fact that you shared a picture of your poker profits gives you the credibility to share your thoughts and have people believe that what you are telling them is the truth, or at the very least is pointing in the right direction.

If someone playing $50nl makes the exact same blog, comments etc but is down $10k lifetime in cash games then he will get almost no interaction, and even if he does, it will likely be tinged with distrust due to the nature of his poker results.

The poker players in this thread trust you to help them to move up in stakes simply because you have shown to be a crusher in poker.

That's why my blog is written in the way it is. I'm doing my best to
speak directly to people actually reading it, and I don't feel like I
really need to share my results aside from post 1, which only really
establishes my credibility.

But doesn't the fact that you titled the thread 'making ten million' suggest that you will be sharing your poker results throughout the thread?

I don't think it's likely you have a relevant sample to make a decision based purely off your results. Remember, 10 buy-ins in this is also less than 10 buy-ins on a normal site because you're basically short stacking. Before the ante increase, 5/10/20 (2) puts $51 in the pot preflop compared to $30 at normal 10/20. Now with $5 ante, the variance will be even higher.

Longterm, they will add some kind of rakeback system. I emailed support when they launched, and got a reply:

"Currently, we do not have an active rake back program during this phase of our launch. However, we are excited to share that we are developing a competitive rewards program, which we hope to implement later this year."

So we'll see what that does, though it may be offset by multitabling being added, which will dilute the reg:fish ratio. Further, the deposit limit skews things by making it so that fish can't reload easily.

Big picture, my take is that a serious online pro should stomp these games. They'll sprinkle in a little rakeback, but largely it comes from the fish and whales that will ultimately be allowed to reload, and all the shit regs that will pay you their tithe through horrendous preflop play and bad fundamentals. If anything, it should actually excite people to work to become an elite player, because the payoff is high considering there is little competition.

One main drawback I believe will be any regulatory / legal issues they run into with the sweepstakes model, but I don't know what'll happen with that. At the least, US regulated is making progress overall with PA finalizing plans to integrate into MSIGA, so I think North America has some of the best options for online poker in a very long time and good players have an opportunity for very high salaries if they can manage it all well.

TL;DR: The pool is soft. Just reload, keep working on your shit, and the domination will come.

Oback2 I have no plans to join a MSIGA pool... yet! :o

jumpfreak888 Overall, I think the best thing a person could do to jumpstart their career if they're stuck at low stakes is get coaching. If it were any other career where someone aspired to make 6-figures, they'd have to study for 4-8 years in school and pay 6-figures for an education, but poker players can't stand to approach it with even 1% of that level of time or financial investment.

Basically, if you've tried to get better at poker on your own and haven't succeeded at that yet, then resisting help will only extend your frustration.

My main piece of advice for picking the right coach or public pack is to find someone that resonates with you. It's better to have a coach that wins at 5/10 that's a great fit for you then a 25/50 coach that doesn't vibe with your style. Using talk therapy as a comparison, research consistently shows that the quality of the therapeutic alliance is the single most important factor in achieving positive outcomes in therapy. The quality of your connection to the coach & material will be more important than going with who has the most enticing graph.

If you're interested in individual coaches and some CFPs, you could check out this link on 2+2: Coaches & Schools

Recommended CFPs:*
https://bitbcash.com/ - A roster of crushers and great track record that operates with integrity. They're the gold standard and my go-to recommendation for CFPs. Youtube Link

https://www.nachospoker.com/ - Patrick is very active in the community, so you have tons of free content to make your decision from. Historically, they've done quite well on Ignition and GG Rush & Cash. Youtube Link

https://www.pokerwithriske.com/ - Roster of legitimate high stakes coaches running a respectable operation. Particularly, Armin and Conor are legit top players, and Armin told me he's an active coach and the program is solid. Also, they don't just recruit people in regulated pools, so definitely consider them no matter where you're from. Youtube Link

Expert Coaching (For Established Midstakes Winners+)

https://www.mobiuspoker.com/ - Pat Howard has had an incredible impact on my poker career. He and I have worked together in various capacities for 5 years, and I've always been privy to the latest version of his content. Pat has a background in Physics, and reading his work is like a peer-reviewed research paper, and seeing his students results makes me wonder why anyone thinks poker is dying. (Seriously, why don't I have Code Matt?) Youtube Link

Guerilla Poker - Anyone that knows high stakes cash knows Guerilla. The reputation of these players precedes themselves as it seems like a huge chunk of nosebleed players are connected with them in some capacity, and Uri is a well-known and respected coach in the industry. Youtube Link

Reasons to Not Get Coaching

The above is far from an exhaustive list, so you may accidentally join a CFP that is more of a "factory". While CFP's have the illusion of aligning incentives, "we only make money if you make money", the reality is that CFPs can have an incentive to add as many students as possible and freeroll it.

The reason is that the marginal cost of adding additional students is low once the infrastructure is established. For instance, adding students #1-#5 is more costly than adding students #75-#80. What's another 5 players added to the google drive? Why not just throw another body or two into the group chat? If you succeed, great! They make money and can tout your results. If you fail, they drop and/or blame you. We have plenty of other winning players, so if you didn't succeed its on you!

One of the main things I'd look for is how involved the founder / head coach is. If they're more pre-occupied with admin stuff or seem more interested in being a CEO than a coach, then it's probably not a good system. Mentorship is the lifeblood of a good CFP, and the entire community and experience of the CFP will disintegrate without it. If people just provide you with only videos and workbooks, then that's not likely to help you. Strategy is a commodity at this point, and "content" is extremely inert. Mentorship and community is what endows the strategy with significance, as well as providing the guidance to implement it with confidence.

That's why the "canary in the coalmine" is if the founder seems detached from the original mission. The community and underlying coaches will mirror the effort of the CEO. If the CEO is detached, then everyone will subconsciously fall in-line with an opportunistic "every man for himself" mentality where everyone will stay in their own little islands, take what they can get from the company or situation, and leave at their first opportunity. If the CEO is actively engaged, then people will tend to be happier, more willing to contribute, and more invested in what's going on overall.

For anyone else curious about joining a CFP but having heard bad things, the main benefit of flying solo is avoiding having to give up so much of your profits. If you can get to the finish line without needing to pay a "tax" to coaches along the way, then that lifts an incredible financial burden off your journey.

Generally, I find those people to be exceptions and not the rule, but I wouldn't want to impose on anyone that they "have to" get coaching to excel. It's just, from my vantage point, that seems to be the most advantageous thing a person could try, so it's the first thing I suggest.

--

PS - To answer your other questions, I have played very little fast fold, but my results on 500z on Ignition were insanely good. For most people, though winrates in zoom are very low and you need to be prepared for a grind.

Saying I'm not a talented player means I rely on study, preparation, and process over just showing up and relying on "out-thinking" people. It's more the essence of treating mastery as a practice, and a practice takes dedication, refinement, and iterative improvements in order to build subconscious competence.

In terms of the specifics, I think I've laid out to the best of my ability how I study, at least as far as what I want to share publicly.

Q1: I think you really need to find some way to get to 2/5. Personally, I think you should be able to make way more playing WSOP.com online than 1/3, so I'd prefer to build up a roll that way. The 300 hour in a month thing feels like its too likely to lead to burnout / poor play to me, so I'd avoid that. I asked some guys in my network that I respect with more live experience, and the overall sentiment was to not be afraid to shot take and be aggressive with shots in some of the better games, because staying at 1/3 could just be a trap to making uber driver money and not being able to move up.

Q2: You have a baseline strategy and deviate in proportion to how strong the read is. If it's a very strong read then you can throw theory out the window, especially in a big pot vacuum scenario. If it's a hunch, then make gradient plays.

So I look at the hand and think, if you feel very strongly he's overbluffing on this, then its just a call. It's probably not -EV enough of a call in theory that a strong overbluff read wouldn't overturn that. The art of poker is being able to study the theory and balance that with intuition. There's always going to be edge cases that keep you up at night, but that's why it's a game with pursuing.

Navigating unique spots like this may seem costly in the short run because it hurts when you lose, but it's way more costly to pursue your poker career without self-trust.

In short, if you think you've got him beat, then there's only one option:

Grind 1/3 for living in states and you living in car xD, interesting hand

I just listen to my body. If I'm tired then I take the day off; one of the perks of succeeding in poker and being your own boss is you can take a personal day whenever you need it. My current system is Monday is always off, and one more flex day during the week if I'm tired or have plans.

It doesn't seem right for me to speak about other players' study routines. You'll have to ask them.

I think talent / natural ability plays a comparable role in poker as it would in any sport; you can't play in the NBA if you're 5'9". Still, poker is a lot more doable than a lot of other careers because there's recreational players, so the ability to bumhunt can bolster a lot of people up, and makes it so that it's not a "winner-take-all" scenario like other competitive sports or creative arenas.

When I was in college, I had a film professor say on this subject: "The best advice I could give for your career is just keep making stuff. Most people will give up and do something else, but even if I see someone whose work is initially not that great, I see them 10 years later and found they carved out some niche or made a way for something to work for them. Usually, people that stick to this long term and keep trying will find at least some kind of success."

I basically agree with this sentiment for poker. Not everyone can make it to high stakes, and there's going to be plenty of people whose natural ceiling would be mid-stakes, but I've also seen plenty of people over the course of 7+ years who I thought weren't that good and were doomed to SSNL who I stumble across now and see they're playing 5/10 - 10/20 and doing well. They're usually not battling world's best, but they found a way to approach poker that works for them and lets them win at a steady rate, usually involving crushing some soft games without self-sabotaging.

I focus on deliberate practice and discipline because that's what worked for me, and I share this process in case like-minded people are inspired to do the same. I'm not naïve to the importance of talent, but focusing on that can have the effect of demoralizing people, and I don't like myself or others to feel disempowered. I've found more success in life embracing a bit of "healthy delusion", focusing on controllable factors, and embracing whichever outcome comes for me.

Not everyone can make it to high stakes, and there's going to be plenty of people whose natural ceiling would be mid-stakes

IAmNeo I just wanted to share this podcast from Mechanics of Poker Mr Builderman who's ceiling was 500NL - 2KNL and just played millions of hands at these midstakes and with his work ethic was able to make millions and retire early. Even though he had a lower ceiling than other people's ambition, he was still able to achieve financial freedom through hard work.

Thanks, George. I'm sure you and I could go on for a long time just talking about the poker coaching industry, haha.

A B I'd say Grit by Angela Duckworth. I think everyone knows working hard is important, but she goes through the specifics and makes a science out of high performance.

Hey Matt,

Thanks for the breakdown of your weekly routine. In the past I used to think that if I played the highest stake in the room- that I had to stay there. Your approach of 4 days normal grind and 1 day of reg battling really helps change my view to shot taking.

My local card room runs 1/3 and 2/5 (no 5/10) and the next highest stake after that is the biggest game in the house (10/20 deep stack). How would you go about mentally attacking the higher stake game when the buy ins are 4-6x more than your usual daily grind ? Its definitely been a mental barrier as one "rough day" at the higher stake game can take away many hours of profits at our regular game.

BoldPlayer I'd avoid words like "attacking" higher stakes when you're taking big shots. Playing high stakes is a major investment decision, and it's better to think rationally about the risk mentally and financially then code it with language that indicates there's some kind of bravado or "No Gamble No Future" sentiment about moving up.

My suggestion for dealing with it is to be compassionate with yourself and understanding that playing high stakes is stressful, and you're not doing anything wrong by feeling that way. It's better to put up guardrails so you feel as safe as possible, so that could mean a combination of a keeping a stop loss in mind that you honor, while also being selective and jumping in when the games are at their best. Basically, given its impact on you, don't jump in the game if the lineup is tougher than usual just because you want action.

Pat Howard wrote an article about this with his experience moving up to 10/20 online, maybe you or others could relate.

Mobius Link

I just go into HEM, select every hand that was +/- 10bbs, and click through. Hands that are pretty standard you can just click through, but if something catches my attention I will run it in Wiz AI. I also mark hands while playing if it's a small pot, stuff like "is this a fold vs cbet?" or a preflop threshold question. Basically, if I don't feel confident I understand something, I check it.

I'm drawn to it because everything else in my routine is very optimized and purposeful, where this gives me time to be creative and pursue rabbit holes / my curiosities. The reason it's so effective for me is because it feeds my obsession with poker and consider my plays from both an analytical and explo perspective, but also emotionally helps me "close the loop" on the uncertainty that accumulates throughout the day of grinding, which helps me disconnect after. I can't say what will help others, but I've heard from many others that have adopted this practice and enjoy it.