“It is not my experience that we are here to fix the world, that we are here to change anything at all. I think we are here so the world can change us. And if part of that change is that the suffering of the world moves us to compassion, to awareness, to sympathy, to love, that is a very good thing.” – Cheri Huber

Think about all the attributes it takes to be a good poker player: equanimity (emotional balance), acceptance, self-trust, courage, focus/presence, empathy, logic, and a slew of other things I’m forgetting at the moment. These are all things humans inherently possess, right lol? Right…But what i’ve come to realize in my late 30’s is that poker is not only a mirror showing us all our shortcomings with regard to all the aforementioned attributes, but it is also the vehicle we can us to reconcile those things. Josh Waitzkin, former chess champion and author of The Art of Learning (the most important book in helping me improve in poker on a macro level), just like Bruce Lee before him, says that the goal of anything is uninhibited, honest self-expression and what better method to achieve that then a game that not only reveals to you all of your impurities, but also accelerates the process for reform, if you let it. I was watching an interview of Fedor Holz the other day and he was talking about quitting poker because becoming good leads to a certain stoicism where you no longer react to the ups and downs because to remain sane you have to develop that equanimity and he didn’t like that he was losing the “highs and lows” of life. But the way I see it, that is exactly the goal...unattachment and acceptance.

My name is David and I have had this sometimes unhealthy infatuation with poker for close to a decade now. I started off playing 1-2 in my early 20’s at a not-so-nearby Indian Casino in addition to playing sporadically on Party Poker when that was a thing. Yes, for all you youngins, Party Poker was available to Americans back in the day and every time you’d win a pot fireworks would go off on the screen. Anyone else?? I quickly moved up to 2-5 and 5-10 at local poker rooms. I built up a nice roll and started flying to L.A. and Vegas where I would play 5-10 and 10-20 (underrolled for both). Then Black Friday hit and I also started going through some personal challenges. That, coupled with playing bad, led me to going broke and leaving poker for a few years where I have since started a family and got a 9 to 5 in addition to growing personally and spiritually. Walking away was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Just like walking away from a losing session, walking away from poker altogether meant coming to terms with the possibility (and probability) that I was not as good as I thought I was or that I was responsible for my own demise. And for a person who saw big things in his poker future back then, this was a big hit to my ego. I found my way back to poker about a year ago and now I grind small stakes ($5-10) HU and 6-max sngs. But I have completely re-immersed myself into poker and have started to uncover so much about myself because of it.

I always knew that poker was just a microcosm for life, magnifying all of my fears and biases, drudging up all of my insecurities and aversions every time I played. But it wasn’t until recently that I really started to use this mirror to delve into all of the darkness within in an effort to grow. I remember back in the day, when I would have a bad session filled with mistakes, I would log into my CardRunners account and watch videos all day to study technical aspects of the game, not understanding that the majority of my mistakes were symptoms of fear or cognitive bias and that no technical manual was going to help me with that. It has only recently occured to me that the patterns I see in my poker game are patterns i’ve seen all my life; my tendency to project my own thoughts and feelings onto others, my aversion to risk, my tendency to either be overly passive or overly aggressive, my desire to stand up to ppl I thought were threatening or taking advantage of me, my tendency to concern myself with the end more so than the means (results oriented). Knowledge of self has ultimately led to the biggest, fasted leaps in my game so I know I am on the right path.

I have always taken an independent approach to learning, watching vids, reading, grinding solvers, and trying to close the gap between my process/understanding of the game and those players that I admire. But recently I have been more open to building a network and joining the discussion and this journal is a way for me to fish for like minds. Much like Josh Waitzkin, I think that everything is fractal and that there are inherent themes that encompass all disciplines. And while I think understanding theory and math is vital to building a solid foundation, I adopt what Josh calls "numbers to leave numbers" or what Nick Howard might phrase "understanding how the equilibrium shifts" because the nuances of this game are so subtle and dynamic that there is no place for rigidity. This is why the best players have always had an understanding of theory but also incorporate intuition, empathy, and psychology.

I, now, am a person who does everything in his power to improve himself and gain an edge. I workout daily, meditate for an hour+/day, study poker while at work lol, and I also try to deepen my understanding of things like performance psychology, learning efficiency, and cognitive bias. If you have anything to share please do. I am open to all perspectives. If this goes unread then I’ll chalk it up to variance and go on my happy way.