In Jason’s video today, he discussed a number of life experiences, mistakes, and bumps along the way of his last 10 years as a professional poker player. A key refrain was the importance of a network willing to answer questions and help him avoid some of the pitfalls that come with playing poker professionally. In an effort to replicate that network that Jason and many of our other pros had, we wanted to start the discussion here and encourage you to fire away with questions you have and our pros will weigh in with their thoughts and collective decades of experience. Thanks!

Lots of good stuff in here. Thanks Jason.

Great video, thanks Jason. Particularly liked the advice regarding visualization.

Is it true that you need less of a bankroll (in terms of buyins) for live vs. online?

As a pro, do you struggle to find balance in your life? Do you have any hobbies?

Do you think that PLO or short deck is going to become more popular or that playing those games might offer a bigger edge than trying to master NL?

Thank for the awesome video, Jason.

Thank you!

Good stuff man, thanks for the vid. If I could add one piece of advice, it would be to always be self-critical. In this profession it's so easy to lean on the crutch of "I'm just running bad, it will come around." Take extreme ownership of every downswing. Every bump in the road is a chance to learn and grow. If you get 2-outed in a tourney to bust, don't focus on that. Focus on the inconsequential hand where you were lazy about your cbet strategy.

Focus on the things you can improve upon. If you pay attention to yourself, you'll notice them every time you play.

Great video Jason, do you have any tips or tricks on visualization? That's something I really struggle with, like I just have a super hard time visualizing anything.

Also do you have anything to share about how you keep yourself calm / focused at the tables?

Thanks again

I'm passing out and will be on a flight to poker masters in Vegas tomorrow. I'll try to get some more responses in before I play tomorrow.

Great video!

At the 12:45 mark you mentioned sacrificing balance for high volume studying/playing.

What have your study habits been like throughout your career? Have you always invested large amounts of time into studying? Did you study more in the past?

ty for this video jason!! i like this original format when you can teach life experiences from your own past !! really helpful and also inspiring +1

i have some issues whit motivation and finding my self having troubles whit goals in the long term!! what book you would recommend me for this specific situation? or what ever you think can help to improve!

Hey guys!
Jason just messaged me that he posted a new video and asked me to check it out and chime in. I think Jason shares a lot of really valuable advice in this video, a lot of things that personally I have experienced, realized, and agree with.
I'm almost 37 and been playing cards for over 15 years at this point. I've been around and experienced a lot, and very happy to chime in on this thread and share some advice.

If I cold-offer one thing right now, it would be this:
It's super important in poker to strike the balance between being confident and being critical. Think of it as a spectrum:
CONFIDENT <----------------------------------> CRITICAL

Confidence is good in that it allows you to execute what you think is right. It allows you to go play in a game and risk your bankroll because you believe you are +EV and can win.
Being critical is good in that it allows you to analyze yourself and your play honestly to find leaks and through study/discipline/work you can then improve yourself going forward.

If you have too much of one without enough of the other, if you're too far on down one way, you'll have clear problems. If you're too confident and not critical enough, you'll put yourself in bad spots. You probably won't make good quits. And you definitely won't analyze your play, find leaks, and improve. That is unsustainable. If you aren't confident enough and you're too critical, you won't take the risks you should (because they're smart +EV risks), you'll generally be unhappy personally, and you won't perform your best. This sounds silly perhaps, and if I had to pick which way to err, I would choose erring towards the side of being more critical as I believe it to be more important (in poker at least). But don't be mistaken, they are both important.

Because Jason invited me to this thread and I think it's a good idea, I'm going to take the liberty of sharing an experience we had for the betterment of the group here, to make this real, and to reinforce what I'm saying. As Jason mentions in this video, he can be very hard on himself. One day a few years ago when he was really down on himself I told him something along the lines of: that I thought he was a great player, that I had been witnessing him improve a lot, that he needed to maintain confidence, and that no matter where in the tournament he was, just reach back and make the play he knows is right. That he has the tools, he just needs to believe in himself to do it and not let the moment, worries, previous failures, etc... hold him back. The consequences are out of his control. That even if it doesn't work out, it's ok. I believed in him and still would in the next tournament. It often won't work out. But that you need to have the confidence in yourself to make the right play.
This had been a conversation lost to my active memory (and I'm sure Jason remembers more precisely what I said than I do - but I believe it was something like that) and recently when we were talking he told me how he remembered me telling this to him and that it was an impactful moment for him at the time, as it helped perhaps not only with his confidence, but more importantly I think with visioning simply executing what he knows is the right play and not letting the emotional moment-noise enter. There is some practice/experience in this, but also confidence in yourself. This is something that is an issue I think for people who are critical of themselves - a quality I think a lot of people who have grown in to good players have - who haven't yet achieved enough success to be able to obviously tell themselves this... for whatever standard that is for them - maybe there is never enough - maybe this is just something you learn with practice. I don't know, I'm kind of working this out here in this post. It's also hard to tell yourself this, as you can honestly believe you'd be lying to yourself. And perhaps my role was that simple - an outside voice Jason trusted enough to tell him he was ready to put it all on the line if he thought it was the right play. It's hard to say. But regardless of exactly what it was, I believe that it had to do with the balance of these two things that I'm stressing in this post.  It's hard, in a high pressure time-sensitive moment in poker where you're weighing all kinds of logic, thoughts, intuition and calculation... where often times different clues pull in different directions - to narrow it down... and when you do narrow it down, to listen to what you know as an expert is the right play.  There's a lot of potential for interference from yourself.  And without the confidence in yourself, the noise involved in this situation can increase and pull you in the wrong direction.   Since then, I've realized how big a deal this is in poker (where I believe it's accentuated over other things in life because of how important being critical is due to the self-delusion aspect of hidden information in poker, and assessing your EV, skill, etc... and how immediately that impacts your results) - and how important achieving balance on this "spectrum" is. As Jason mentions in this video, and I've said myself many times before: things don't work out, and quite often, in poker and gambling. It can be very easy to lose confidence. But, if you've been working on your game, and if you know you're playing well (admittedly not an easy thing to know) - remember success in MTTs (especially large fields) has a lot of luck and randomness involved - You have to keep getting up to bat, keep giving yourself chances. Success in life is often when hard work meets luck and opportunity and capitalizes. 

For myself, I believe I was in different parts of this spectrum at different points in my career. Early in my career, I am sure I was more confident in my abilities than they deserved for the first couple of years. Despite that, I always tried to keep learning what I could - despite the fact that a long time ago there wasn't much in the way of good materials. After being exposed to some really good players on high stakes on line and later coming to Vegas, I became a lot more critical and definitely had a number of times where I thought guys played better than me. I became more careful with my game selection, which helped me win more. I still believed in myself, but wouldn't play in really tough games as much. I just realized that the bottom line was more important to me than battling for my ego. I always felt I handled pressure very well and thought that in big situations I trusted myself. That said, I had a number of bad personal habits - like partying, not being prepared when I played, playing long sessions too many days in a row to where I got frayed, etc... I was never a tournament player early in my career, but at some point I started playing more. I had a number of frustrating exits before having my breakthrough tournament year in 2011. That said, prior to that I believed in myself. I had already had success in cash games, so was easy to not let tournaments define me. For me personally, I found my career turned around the moment I met my wife. I believe it's because I mentally decided to be responsible, care and build a career. I eliminated a lot of bad personal habits like those I mentioned before. It's probably true that the psychological difficulties of playing tournaments are tougher than those of playing cash. You're supposed to fail most of the time in tournaments, and even when you do cash, most of the time you're still failing because you're not going far enough and definitely not winning very much. I thought I was a good player, and I didn't think tournament results were that important. I suppose they weren't that important given that I didn't play that many. But if that's most of what you play (and since then I have played more than I used to), obviously they are as they are your primary results. But that's what you're signing up for with tournaments, and that regular frustration is just a real part that comes along with the occasional glory. To this day, I still find having an accurate idea of where I am in the many different forms of poker and gambling that I do is important. After all I'm risking money to win money, and in order to make that work as a career, I have to be able to identify when I'm +EV and when I'm not. It's not easy, and I question myself a lot. I think this process, the one of analyzing where you're at... your strengths and weaknesses... how you've gotten where you are and where you're going... and being confident in your ability to get yourself there ==> that's a very important process.
You have to be critical of yourself and make sure you're honestly improving your game. As Seth mentions - use your failures as an opportunity to press yourself to work harder. I have done that myself, and I think it's good advice.
But you also have to have the confidence to not only keep trying, but execute to the best of your abilities when it's your time. (The executing thing is hard also... lots of issues like focus, dealing with stress, pressure, tilt, personal emotional issues, etc... but that's for another post) So, I'm sharing this with you all to reinforce this dichotomy I've structured and the importance of finding balance in it.

CONFIDENT <----------------- REAL -----------------> CRITICAL

The goal for any professional gambler is to be right in the middle, where you're just being real. You perceive reality (your EV, other's skill and EV, etc...) for what it is. You see when you play well, when you play badly, when you're balanced, when you're tilting, etc... This is a very difficult place to be. In fact, much of the time you can never be objectively there because it can be very difficult to assess not only your own actual EV in a particular situation, but other player's as well. That is ok though. As long as you are being emotionally honest and doing the best assessment you are capable of, and you have a good idea of how much you know and how much you don't (on say a probabilistic confidence spectrum, to be precise) - in other words, being subjectively there - that's perfect. That's the most you can expect for yourself. That's being real.
We're ultimately super-chimps controlled by our limbic system (reptile brain, whatever you want to call it) before our reason and logic, and only through experience, self-perception, and dedication to improve can we really master ourselves and then what we dedicate ourselves to.

Mastering poker is also mastering yourself. You are running your own business, and making the financial decisions that run your life whether it's the games you play in, the plays you make, when you start, quit... how you eat, exercise, sleep... how much you study and improve... how often you work... etc...

Be the right amount of confident, be the right amount of critical: be real.

Hey Jason,

Thanks a lot for sharing such valuable advice, and thanks as well to Brian, Seth, Mikey, everyone for contributing with such valuable insights as well.

I’ll start with disagreeing with you Jason on the start of your video when you say it’s not a useful video for recreational players, mainly because I find it cool to disagree with a poker pro on Runitonce. :-D

Joke aside, I’m a recreational player with a full-time job, treating MTTs as a passion, really working on the game whenever I have 10mn of time, reviewing my game with PEquilab, HRC, and PIO very soon.

Love and Balance are critical I would say in anything we do, and Eric Sidel’s example is really interesting. I heard once a poker pro saying that whenever he won a significant tournament, he’d use some of the money to buy himself a nice trip on a beach somewhere around the world. It was his reward to himself and a perfect way to reset, focus on the time of now, and planning the future. It was like the price of the plane+hotel to the beach was included as a package and I found it really nice to see things that way.

I often find myself struggling with “how I should use my time”, and MTTs and live tournaments being a real passion, I’m constantly struggling between how and if it is worth it working on it even though I’m not a full-time pro, compared to using it to spend time with my life partner and close ones, or work on developing my business.

At the end of the day, it’s all about balance and I think we should plan the big picture (year, month, weeks, days), and allow time slots for doing thing that we “feel like doing” as you said so well, because there’s no secret that it’s the only way to get the best results.

As regards balance, here is how I approach it between work/passion/close ones. Some of these insights come from books I've read, other come from personal experience.

1. Finding a professional activity you love and spending most of your time developing it with absolute passion. Having dedicated hours written down for it, and commiting 100% on working during your time with love and energy. Finding a personal mission and setting up goals that go beyond money are great, because it gives us a purpose : while chasing a goal like “I’m going to make 1,5M$ this year" doesn’t necessarily make you happier, perhaps a goal like “Im going to buy a 200 sqm house to live with my family in 2021” or “I’m going to create a fund for helping homeless people in my country in 2020, and for that I need 1M$” are goals tied to a personal mission. That goes with visualisation, it is not money just for money, and I find it gives us a purpose.

2. Finding a passion, aligning it with a mission that you write down, and structuring your leisure time to develop it. What's funny is we tend to structure our working time with goals, tasks and deadlines, but we tend to let our leisure time disorganised like it would stress us if it was organised. I believe it is a good thing to use your leisure time (without becoming a control freak about every minute of your leisure time, which would lead to burn out), by structuring it a little bit to achieve passions. This is what makes us feel better and satisfied, because we have a sense of accomplishment.

To me, my mission is to get better at MTTs, perhaps become one of the most successful non-pro tournament player, and my dream is to win the Main Event, regardless how crazy it is. I know it can’t be a goal, because it is partly luck-based and therefore partly out of my hands, many coaches told me that. But goals and dreams have to be crazy, otherwise they don't wake you up in the morning. Why would you get up and work for an average goal? This actually comes from the 10X rule book, which I highly recommend.

This mission and this dream keeps me moving everyday. When I review hands on HEM2, I'm visualizing 3betting A5s at the Main event from the CO vs an agressive MP opener and playing him in position. This is the reason why I am reviewing hands sitting down on a computer. This is “the biggest thing I could dream of happening”, because dreams are importants to get us moving. Assign dreams a deadline and a plan, it becomes a goal. So perhaps my goal is to become the best non-professional live tournament poker player in the next 10 years, my dream is to win the Main Event, and both are essential to me to get me moving.

A passion could be fishing, helping poor kids or homeless people, teaching kids from difficult neighborhoods to read, or traveling around the world to discover people and cultures. It’s completely personal, this doesn't have to be "useful" in some way, and no one has to judge it.

3. Spending a decent amount of leisure time with your life partner, family, close friends and keeping them happy. They are the ones that keep you sane. Right now, I'm writing from my parent's home, eventhough I have a home myself, because I felt like I hadn't connected with them in a while. Keeping your close ones happy makes you feel happy and truly gives you a life purpose as soon as your figure out how your presence helps people (to smile, laugh, be creative, be stronger, be dreamers, be joyful).

From my personal example, I found that I’ve always made my close friends and family laugh since I was a kid, because I’ve always loved to reflect on how life is, what the current news are, how people behave, and gently make fun of it. Seeing people laugh, smile and enjoy life while I’m around is the biggest gift life gives me, and it gives me a purpose.

4. Treating your body and your mind like your own child.
Whenever we are experiencing significant levels of stress, the temptation is great to go "outside" (which is actually going "inside" clubs and bars, not outside) and try to release our stress by drinking, buying expensive bottles, staying until 5am, and waking up late to eat bad food. Going the other way around and developing an exercising habit is a great way of getting mentally stronger, with a personal coach if you can afford it, because a personal coach will push you further and will not tolerate excuses.

I found out that establishing an exercising habit has positive effects on the amount and quality of meals I take, the amount of alcohol I drink, and on my overall mindset. It makes you more positive, your body is more fit, you like yourself, and your partner likes yourself.

Establishing an exercising habit for the mind as well is key. There are many meditation techniques, and if you decide to start meditating, which one you choose is entirely personal. The main benefit of training your mind this way is that it allows you to :
- pause
- focus on now, not the past, not the future, just... now, how things are now, how you are now, where you are now, how you feel like now
- slow down your mind
- consolidate all the data and emotions you've accumulated during the day, and making sense of it, like solving puzzles

The best part is that you don't actually need any app or book to do that. You just need to accept to take 10mn out of your day (which is 1% of your day), sit down, open or close your eyes, let your mind wander without any control, and sometimes focus on parts of your body and how this body part feels at the moment (this is called the body scan).

5. Spending time to read non-fiction books to accumulate knowledge of other successful people. Reading gives us perspectives, methodologies for organising time, thoughts, developing businesses, making less mistakes, setting up priorities, viewing the world and viewing life as a whole. Reading accumulated knowledge of others is the best way to improve our modest contribution on earth. Perhaps even planning on writing your own book someday is a great goal, because it would force you to put down your thoughts.

This is a personal approach and anyone can feel free to disagree with it, I don't mind :) This is my system, which I found valuable to share as a side insight because you actually inspired me, Jason, with your video.

As regards the final parts, scheduling parts and backing parts of your video, this is highly interesting and applicable to any business.

Keeping track of every transaction is critical, and I recommend using a tracking method that has legal value. Nowadays, emails have a legal value, so sending an email with a reading confirmation while asking the other party to confirm by replying to the email - with a date stamp, an amount, a subject and being specific about the transaction - is a good protection as well.

Diversification is also key, and it is also applicable to backing. While I am not a poker pro and I absolutely never backed someone, I would find it really smart to only back someone for 1 tournament and a small amount if he has no history with you, establish a spreadsheet grading the quality of people backed with repayment histories, delays, dates between which they said the would repay and actual dates where they repaid, and giving them an overall backing score. Also, regardless of your backing history with someone, I would recommend never backing someone for more than X transactions (X to be determined by your bankroll), because you would be exposing yourself to a risk on a single individual with no absolute certainty to be repaid.

I think I have said a lot of things there and I did not expect this post to be that long :)

I hope you'll find some value here, and I'm glad if it contributed.

Will

nice video and nice idea with the comments.

I personally can't give any better advice than the one im still going by in rough times that doesn't come from me:

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

really good video man, I like when the coaches vary up their content and do stuff like this.

I would have some advice as well:

1-probably the main thing I have struggled over the years is comparing myself to other poker players, I was always thinking 'I am at least as good as this guy, if not better, why has he won 5x as much as me' or whatever. this thinking is completely pointless and not productive at all. 99.9% of us are extremely fortunate to be living in affluent and well developed societies, so even if one person runs slightly better than us at tournaments, we can't really whine and complain about it when there are people starving or don't have access to clean drinking water. have some perspective and once you have a new appreciation for what you have, then WORK HARDER than them and your results will come in the next couple of years and you will surpass them.

2-kind of linked to the first point but it is extremely important to play without ego. I still play with a little bit of ego every so often, but this has improved immeasurably from a couple of years ago. your aim at poker is to make money, it isn't to dick swing and prove to the other aggro reg at the table that you are 'better' than him. because often this leads to you making stupid ego plays that are completely un-necessary, as there would be most likely 2/3/4+ much weaker spots at the table that you could make much more EV from and with much less variance. you don't have to prove to anyone how good you are, let your results speak for themselves and let the tournament egotists battle it out whilst you just collect the $. I have noticed in cash that most regs play without ego, for the most part, but that it is rife in people plays/thinking when it comes to tournament regs. so we all have the opportunity to exploit this if we play with a clear head.

3-again, kind of linked to the previous point. our aim in poker is to play with a clear head. personally I achieve this through a mixture of meditation, exercise and socialising. if you enter a session with an already slightly tilted outlook, then you are going to play worse than you should be and be setting EV on fire. you will react much worse to negative variance, and will not be able to make big folds etc that you would be capable of if you played whilst in a great mood. exercise is similarly effective, if you are ever in a bad headspace and go to exercise, I will guarantee that you will feel much better afterwards. if you are playing football(soccer to you Americans haha) or tennis or rugby or whatever then you don't have the opportunity to think about a mis-played hand, or a blown opportunity with a girl or whatever because you are simply trying to win the ball back from your opponent, get to your opponents return, or beat that last defender. you are essentially living in the moment. so you should exercise. talking to other people helps me as well, humans are social creatures (whether we are introverts or not) and enjoy other peoples company. get out of the house, chat to the person at the shop, say hi to some random on the street, smile at a stranger, meet a friend for lunch. just do something! again, this will take our mind off of poker and give us a more rounded personality/life.

4-if you want to be the best poker player you can't just settle for mediocrity. Jason touched on exercise but I feel like you should be eating healthily as well. your brain relies on Glucose to function properly, so what the hell are you eating a cheese burger for?? these kind of foods will make you feel slow and sleepy, eat a clean diet and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. drink lots of water whilst playing as well to stay hydrated. if you want to eat cheeseburgers all day then don't complain when you are playing your C game and feeling like crap. if you want to be the best poker player you can be you can't just watch a couple RIO videos and feel like that is you all set.

5-work on your weaknesses. you may have tilt issues/bankroll management issues/fear issues on a big FT. you need to work on these problems. I would suggest reading self-help books on your particular issues and continue to do so until these are no longer weaknesses but strengths.

I could go on. but I need to study before my session today haha. GL at the tables.

The video is gold.. worth 1 month of elite membership alone. Thank you Jason.
For me, I would advise a few things:
1. that even for really introverted poker players such as myself, having a support group of friends of at least a decent standard to talk through and thrash out some hands and even moan over really bad beats for a while is invaluable. I learned that bottling up everything can be really bad for you especially in a game that gives you anxiety and stress on every turn and river card.
2. On the same note, you really don't want to be hanging out with poker people all the time. Try and keep an active network of non-poker friends, and when you do get the chance to meet up with them, really try not to bring your work into it (unless they ask you to). I learned this the hard way when I bored a friend out of her mind discussing my poker career.
3. One of the beauties of poker for me is that as much as I train in football, I will never get the chance to play against a famous international / Premier league player. At an event at my first WSOP this year, I was at the same table with several famous tournament pros. It was a real motivating factor for me and even though I busted out of the money, I was able to go back and tell my friends that I was here because I worked hard in poker, I am now playing at the same table as many famous pros I used to watch on televised EPTs and WSOPs and such.
P. S. Brian I actually saw you at the Bellagio in Bobby's Room this summer but I didn't dare say hi. But it was really cool to see you. The hand in partypoker premier league where you called an 8x pot against Phil Laak with Ahigh is still one of the most memorable poker TV spots in my life.

Man, such a great video, Jason Koon - in part, because of how well you distilled over a decade of experience into some simple, valuable advice, but I mostly because you delivered it in a way that both reminds and inspires us to reflect on the important areas of playing poker for a living that we so often forget to think about.

What spoke to me most, especially these days, where I don't play as often as I used to, were your thoughts on being prepared before going to play - especially in some huge spots. This past year or two, I've often gone from not playing for months to grinding nonstop, during WSOP, or like right now, when I made a last minute decision to play WCOOP and find myself grinding 14hrs a day.

I've come into these periods expecting to be a little bit rusty strategically, of course, but I have always done well (again, strategically speaking) when starting fresh and thinking really hard about every spot. Playing is what motivates me to obsess and study - I've never been able to do it in the opposite order :).

What I failed to prepare myself for, on almost every occasion, is the emotional aspect of playing - focus, excitement, fear. I hop into a game I know how to play, but then within 20 minutes, I find myself in a situation where I am supposed to make a massive bluff. I'd be capable of figuring it out, but I'm too busy making sure I'm counting the pot correctly, trying to remember what kind of reads I had on this player, worrying that I might be giving off tells because I've been lazy about it on earlier streets (and wow, my heart is racing - I haven't played a big pot in 5 months!), so I end up not making the right play simply due to not being ready to.

When I come back to playing online, I just see the games running that I'd normally play and I hop in. Pretty soon I'm playing more tables than I can handle because I'm out of practice, I don't have my normal setup, and I didn't make any kind of plan to acclimate myself.

My situation is a little bit unique, so I don't know how much of a lesson is there for other people - that was more for a little self-therapy and to share what helped me most from watching this.

Our good friend, Hac, always used to talk to me about the 80/20 rule - that 80% of our EV comes from 20% of our play, which is especially true at nosebleeds (it may even be closer to 90/10 for some of us!) but also is true for many poker players due to WSOP or WCOOP or whatever other unusually large poker event in their year.

Watching this video made me think about, for the first time, the opposite side of 80/20 - those times that we show up unprepared, or that we make a really bad decision - either during a hand, or with things like playing underrolled, tilted, or (often) both at the same time, or other lazy career decisions like you talked about.

I've always been a proponent of battling tough players and challenging yourself in tough games (within your bankroll), but many of my biggest losing sessions have come from playing in these spots at the wrong time. I've had bad sleep, a 14-hour online session, and then a tough reg that I'd usually feel okay battling sits me at nosebleeds, and I don't even actively make the decision - I just start playing.

I don't expect everyone's version of this mistake to match my own, but we all have things we struggle with. It could be tilt issues, it could be bankroll management, playing drunk... whatever.

We've been fortunate to survive the worst 20% of our poker and career decisions, but I'm sure that countless players have blown up their career with stuff like this. You could be a 15bb/100 winner in your normal game, but if every once in a while you have massive tilting issues, a bad pit habit, make poor spending or investing decisions, take a huge shot in a spot and get cheated, etc., you can be net -EV.

This is actually the most important part of bankroll management.

A lot of players think BR management is so that they can withstand a bottom 2% downswing, which, sure, it is. The key aspect of it, though, is that the big mistakes that you'll inevitably make won't be career-ending ones.

The other big takeaway here is that reducing the frequency and severity of these mistakes will have a bigger impact than almost any of us assume they will, which is why this video is so great, and why these lessons can only be learned from experience, or from really taking to heart the advice from someone who's been there.

I also absolutely love the idea to turn this thread into a well of advice and experience for RIO members (and pros!), and I'm really excited about how it's shaping up!

Our old friend, Brian Rast, absolutely nailed another key to poker as a career - finding the right balance of confidence. I actually had typed out a lot more about it and then deleted it after realizing I basically just repeated everything he said. Well put, Brian :)

It's such a tough topic to give advice on because everyone's struggle to find the right middle-ground is unique. I am pretty far on the side of self-critical. Fortunately, I've had enough success that it's hard to doubt myself completely, but I honestly think that if I'd had a fine/mediocre poker career, I probably would not have survived it, so I know that there are others like me who are doing just okay in poker who will likely not make it due specifically to our shared predisposition.

Even though I've done well, I seriously have no doubt that I'd have, at a minimum, doubled my career earnings if I'd gotten myself to the place Brian is talking about. I only say this because if some of you disregard Brian's advice after thinking, "well, Phil said he never mastered this so I don't have to," you're doing yourself a huge disservice.

I may have more to respond to and say later, but I should go get mentally prepared before hopping into the action today. Thank you, Jason!

From a poker pro who went into finance post Black Friday who just came back to poker full time, this video and thread are both super impactful. Thanks to Jason, Brian and Phil for the solid content and input. Many of us have watched you guys play and teach for years and our games are infinitely better for it. Vids like this one that are real, genuine and delve into career lessons for pros are the f’ing nuts.

Great idea Jason Koon

I've only been playing for a living for roughly 5 years so I won't pretend I have anywhere near the expertise or experience as some of the preceding speakers, but I'll share what I find to be the most important thing in being a professional.

Because of the type of personality and character that gets mostly attracted to poker (specifically online poker) I think there is a lot of drive these days to become as emotion rid and "robotic" as possible. It seems to me that the "awkward online kid" is seen as the ultimate money making machine and many up-and-coming players are striving to be as separated from the rest of the world and "addicted" to poker as possible. I've gone through that stage myself where I was obsessed with studying and playing as much as possible to become a player I pictured myself to be as quickly as I could. I think at some point, especially in today's games, you're gonna need to do that to get up there, but I think it's important to snap out of it eventually so you don't become a life "cripple".

I think many players fail to realize that success in poker isn't going to taste anywhere near as good when you have nobody to share it with, and your only satisfaction becomes the fact that others are trying to be where you are. Luxuries and "bought" experiences will never be able to replace true natural memories with your good friends, and finding true friends becomes more and more difficult as you get older.

There was recently a podcast with cumicon after he released his, insane, graph from the last few years. The guy has made millions online and was arguably one of the most successful poker players within the last few years, but to me it was very depressing watching the podcast as it felt like the guy became a shell of a person. He seemed bleak and joyless despite achieving what I would imagine everyone in online poker hopes to one day achieve.

Bill Perkins came up with an awesome theory about making money which I would strongly recommend everyone to research. The jist of it is that when you die you ideally want to have $0 in your bank account (after you've left your family however much you want), and every additional dollar in your account means you've worked too much and did not find enough time to enjoy the things you worked for.

I guess in summary what I'm trying to say is don't feel guilty about not playing or studying at every possible opportunity. Find time for your family, friends, trips, dumb ideas, exercise or whatever other reason you started playing poker for. Happiness and balance outside of poker will make your smaller successes more appreciable than being the best player alone in a room with nobody around, and if you do fail you will have something to fall back on.

Cheers ;)

Fantastic content. Here's a tax blunder I made in 2016:

I was using the withdrawal method here in the US which means that I only pay taxes on the money I withdraw from online poker sites. This protects me in the case that one of the American sites does something shady and my online roll evaporates. The blunder I made was withdrawing too early and too often in a year. I ended withdrawing 210k, but went on a 60k downswing at the end of the year (including facing collusion) so I really only made 150k. Unfortunately, I was stuck paying taxes on 210k which hurt a lot (we don't get to count our losses as professional gamblers). Being strategic about when you withdraw money can help you avoid paying taxes on money you didn't actually earn.

Great video and concept.

I’ve been making a living from poker since 2010 and my story is a lot different (and less successful) than most of the pros posting in here. However, maybe some of the things I feel have held me back may help others so here goes.

1) Having a group of friends/players to discuss poker with is a really important part of improving and motivating. I’m 35 and have been playing poker for 13 years now but still don’t have a group of poker buddies to chat with and bounce ideas off. There are a few reasons for this like not feeling comfortable putting myself out there, not playing live much and more recently not having much time due to having a young family. Pretty much all my poker knowledge has come from my own study which is fine to a point. The problem with having no one to study with or just chat poker with is that there are going to be tonnes of leaks in your game that you just don’t realise you are making. With no one to question your thinking it’s a lot harder to identify flaws in your logic. Even when you do identify leaks yourself you have to find the solution to them which is fine but much more time consuming than chatting the leak through with someone who has already overcome it. Basically what I’m trying to get across is that self study is great but if you want to really excel I think your highest chance of achieving that is within a group of like minded people who can push and challenge you. I never had that and that’s one of my biggest regrets. Also one I’m trying to actively change.

2) Pressure! I’m a really positive person in general. In normal life situations where others are complaining, stressed or feeling under pressure I’m usually the one saying oh well and looking for a solution instead. I guess it comes from having a pretty crappy childhood with a dad that turned any tiny situation into a massive argument. It was like walking on eggshells never knowing when the slightest thing would blow up into this massive situation. Anyway I guess because of that I’ve never understood how small everyday life situations can stress people out so much. I remember reading a Doyle Brunson quote which really resonated with me. I think his was about losing sessions but it really works for real life too. It goes something like ‘if you won’t remember it in 3 years why make a big deal of it now?’. So in normal life situations I can naturally apply that philosophy but when it comes to poker I often struggle to apply it. The reason I struggle with it is pressure. Since 2012 I’ve been the sole provider for first my wife and I and now our two kids. The prospect of failing to provide has slowly gotten more and more daunting and it can be really difficult to deal with. A pressure hand deep in a tournament or taking a beat in that spot is essentially a small everyday life situation for me as a tournament professional. But the pressure I feel in it compared to other life situations is completely different. Becoming negative in or after these situations, which we’ve all done, leads to a loss of focus, anger and tilt. Those are things which really don’t fit well with playing professionally.

So how do I/we deal with it? The solution I’m afraid will take some trial and error on your part. I’ve tried various things like forcing myself to wait 20 seconds before acting deep in trnys in big pots so I don’t snap make the wrong decision, statements to read when playing to refocus me and various things to make me try and focus just on playing, not what winning/not winning means to me. Some of these worked ok, some didn’t. What’s really helped me is meditation away from the table. I use primed mind for poker specific meditation but I also do others which focus on releasing negativity and complaining. The second thing which is a must for me is playing confident and the only thing which gives me true confidence is regular study. Winning always gives me confidence but it’s always false confidence and is easily destroyed by a downswing. True confidence comes from knowing that you are as prepared as you can possibly be right now for this tournament or session. It’s getting late so I’m gonna stop this here.

Sorry if this got a bit ramble but hopefully something in it can help someone down the line.

Jason, what are your thoughts on dealing with negative self talk while playing or going on emotional spirals after the third beat of the day?

My two tacts have been:

1. Listening to an MP3 my girlfriend made for me which just repeats the word "breathe" every 6 seconds with soft music in the background.
2. Asking myself "what can I learn strategically from the way he played his hand?" If I got it in good and lost, "what does this hand say about his stack off range? He must be getting it in too light and I should expand the value portion of my x/r range"

Both of these help, but everyday I'm going to war internally between the part of myself that wants to be a victim of variance and the part of myself that wants to be #1. Any other weapons come to your mind to give the latter guy the upper hand?

fantastic, authentic video ...would love to see more content from you in any format thanks

Holy shit this thread keeps getting better and better.

Poker is just too hard to do as the only vocation for an entire lifetime for almost anyone. I can provide a slightly different perhaps future perspective for young professionals. I am a professional scientist and professor in my early fifties. I play poker at a professional level and can provide some perspective.

In order to survive as an academic scientist, I have to compete successfully with literally the brightest and often hardest working people in the world. My grant proposals compete with National Academy members and Nobel Prize winners and success rates are often in the single digits. Nonetheless, poker is harder than science.

I think the main reason is the human brains is programmed for loss aversion. The wins rarely feel as good as the losses hurt. This is magnified when one’s primary vocation is poker. It is very hard to feel great about yourself when your results are not great or even good over a period of time. Conversely, when you are doing well, you are just a professional that is doing what they are supposed to do. It is a maddening trap that I think most, if not all, humans are programmed to face.

Further, downswings can lead to self-doubt and luck plays a huge role in all aspects of life that is hard to disentangle from performance. The difference is that science, for example, is a highly positive sum game and poker is not. The worst professional scientists can have a huge positive effect of the world by simply spreading the scientific method to many young minds. Just successfully accomplishing this can have a bigger impact on the world than even an Einstein can through individual discoveries. The science world is mostly a healthy intellectual environment where everyone contributes through open discourse, and knowledge builds incrementally together to make world changing discoveries.

Poker is often a cut-throat environment where people rarely share their knowledge and are literally fighting for survival. If I have a bad month at work as professor my pay check still arrives, and my students still grow and make progress. I have a body of work to look back upon, many papers published and former students flourishing in the world. If I make mistakes in poker, or just lose a few large pots in live poker, my entire year of “accomplishments” may be at risk. There is often little to show tangibly for a body of work in poker other than perhaps some highly fungible currency.

Poker is just too hard to do as the only vocation for an entire lifetime for almost anyone. I am not sure I have met a successful professional that did not want to get out of poker in one way or another. They might have a number in mind to “retire” or want another profession so poker can be supplemental income. Worse, we generally see the luckiest folks in poker as our role models. Those who have been fortunate can’t share that magic with anyone. That is not to say that the amazing minds and people that represent, for example, RIO are not remarkable. They are among the best and the brightest. Luck plays a role in all professions. In poker, because only monetary results define success, there is almost no other metric so the top of the heap will also be among the luckiest, at least at some part of their journey. Luck is out of anyone’s control and it is more important than skill. Don’t get me wrong, skill keeps you afloat long enough to get lucky, if you get lucky.

Making things more difficult, I am the kind of person that always feels like they need to improve. This is common among high achievers. I am programmed to focus on things I need to improve on perpetually. I talk to my therapist (something I recommend for all serious poker players) about the asymmetry in personal perception. If I am asked how good I am at something I see my deficiencies. This is not the same as not having a substantial ego or even a realistic view of the world. If I am asked about another accomplished scientist or poker player that I may be better than in some ways, I can see that clearly and answer honestly. Nonetheless, if I am asked how that poker player plays, I would answer honestly that I admire how they play and handle themselves, while still considering my play needs a lot of work. There can be significant logical fallacies in perception that are rooted in our emotions: I can believe that others are terrific while I need a lot of work, and I am somewhat better than they at the same time. The problem is one cannot improve their luck by force of will.

This makes poker especially hard because there will always, by definition, be the luckiest folks playing around you, acting as they are on top of the world. Roughly 5-10% of any player pool will have exceptional results each year. It is unlikely to be you in any given year and over a lifetime may never be. Someone else might be above average in fortune every year. This is how the law of large numbers works, things are normally distributed with significant groups of positive and negative outliers. This makes for a tough way to make a living. In poker we don't see the negative outliers as they disappear.

This also results in income that varies dramatically over time. This is also difficult for people to adapt to and causes stress and confusion. Remember, even people with a regular, defined income often struggle with their finances. This is another significant challenge.

All this said, poker is the most personally fascinating activity I have ever found. It requires intellectual insight and exquisite emotional control. One sees that best of and worst of most people at the poker table at some point as fate drags our emotions up and down. Poker requires a continuous struggle for objectivity and an insane ability to perform at the table. One has to make the next right decision under the duress of distraction, adulation, dejection and boredom. Further, you can always grow as a poker player and I find when I do I improve as a person too.

Life is short. Anyone who is thoughtful and disciplined enough to be successful at poker can be hugely successful in any number of professions. To those in their 20s and 30s especially, I recommend working on developing skills for another vocation to enrich your life. Like scientists, I believe most successful poker players are drawn to the job by more than the money. The personal and intellectual freedom are alluring. Poker is not a way to get rich – if that is your goal and you can win at poker over time, then you are making a serious mistake as there are many far easier paths for the talented, dedicated and ambitious. Lastly, I have not seen that the poker environment can sustain many for a lifetime without seeking other reliable income producing and wellness inducing activities as a supplement.

As an aside, I have an interest in poker theory. I believe that the nature of the optimal solutions is not yet completely understood. It seems to me from an information theoretic perspective that bet sizing should draw from distributions, providing information hiding. Solver work suggests this might be right. I also see an analogy between (statistical) mechanical energy and expected value in that the solution space of poker is a surface of constant expected value. Lastly, I have noted that the game theoretical optimal strategy is the one the requires no information of the opponents play suggesting a Shannon entropy tie in. All of this suggests to me a statistical mechanical approach to poker solutions that I have not formulated. If anyone is interested pursuing this feel free to get in touch.

Good stuff Jason. The idea to create this video is excellent, and I fee like the delivery was even better. I liked how your tone was conversational. It came across as very genuine and honest. I like that you made straightforward points, and left it at that. The result is a bunch of points that are easy to digest. You've also induced some extremely thoughtful posts from the community here, so nice hand well played.

My favorite point from the video was you discussing how valuable it is to have memories and experiences to access, whether that be a specific hand, or a general situation. You can have all the technical knowledge you want, but being in a spot deep in a MTT (or in a big cash game) and actually executing properly, is another matter entirely, because there are so many unique aspects to such situations. Sure you've played a million hands in your career, but very few of them have been under these conditions. Those conditions can meaningfully change things. They can change what you view as the perfect actions to take. Therefore, there is no substitute for experience.

Experience helps in another crucial aspect of playing good poker: stress/emotional response to outcomes of poker hands. I'm mostly talking about tilt. I've found that a good way to not be bothered by bad beats and the like is to just play so many hands that those outcomes happen enough that it becomes a totally ordinary thing. You just become indifferent to the feeling, numb to it I suppose. I think this holds true for many things in life. If you go on a vacation to a wonderful destination like Hawaii or Cancun, it's usually amazing the first time around. But would you feel the same way if you've been there 100 times? I would argue that experience has lessened the emotional response here. Experience -- with a bit of mindfulness about what you're aiming for here -- can go a long way in reducing the negative emotional responses to undesirable outcomes in poker.

Playing poker hands pays dividends. You make your EV on each hand, MTT, session, etc., you also add to this mental and instinctual database with every hand you play. I can't emphasize enough how valuable I think this is. It can also help motivate you for a typical session, because you know that you are adding value to your skills and your future EV.

I'll share a quick anecdote on the topic of experience in poker. This will also be some food for thought on the general path or trajectory you can set for yourself in your poker career. I've known Jason for 11 years now. The entire time he has always pushed himself to play higher stakes. He was always aiming for the next level. This wasn't some reckless pursuit of the excitement of playing higher stakes, rather it was a healthy approach to a career. Jason just figured if he was going to spend his time playing poker, he may as well give it everything he's got, and aim for the top.

As he and I progressed within poker, there were constantly moments where I would take a more conservative route, and he would push himself out of his comfort zone. Again, doing so in a healthy manner. Sure there were risky bankroll decisions along the way, but Jason would accepts those risks, in exchange for the reward of developing his skills at higher stakes and vs tougher competition. He'd sell lots of action, get backing, risk a fair amount of his personal bankroll -- whatever it took -- to get a seat in challenging games. He was always gaining experience, and the dividends from that experience multiplied quickly. Eleven years of that approach, with constant study the entire way, and we all see the results. It sure has been a treat for me, seeing this progression over the years.

Hopefully that anecdote wasn't just an enjoyable moment of reflection for me alone, and that there is some value for everyone in the story. Please let me know any questions you have. I feel like I have a fairly unique view here, and I'm happy to share it.

As a player still trying to find my way, I really appreciate videos like this. I love the idea of making this a forum. I think we could all benefit from better networking. I for one, don’t have as strong of a network as I’d like.

Any advice for players like me that want to work with others, but struggle finding players that are anywhere near as dedicated to the game, or committed to getting better?

Thanks for the vid Jason. You’re one of the players I’ve always tried to immulate so your advice seems to go a lot farther for me. Lol

http://www.philgalfond.com/sometimes-i-lose/
Watching this video that Jason has recommended, hearing the things that Phil talks about, seeing where he got in today in 2018 is really inspiring.

Hey Everyone,

Firstly, thank you Jason for such an honest and open video.

I would like to bring up the topic of poker and how it affects loved ones close to you. I currently have a girlfriend who is very against poker. She does not understand the game well enough, and thinks of it as a "hobby or pure gambling" rather than something you can work at for a living. I'm sure many of you have been through this exact situation.

I'm sure I think I'm better than I actually am, but I do think I have the combination of skill and work ethic to make it as a professional poker player. I've been grinding MTTs for the past 6-8 months as my sole profession. It has not gone well but I still feel the breakthrough is coming and I think i'm a winning player. My issue is that I am being told I should not pursue this career path by others and it makes it very difficult to grind day in, day out, with this kind of outside pressure. Poker is the one thing in my life I feel a true passion for. It is the one thing I can sit down and study/play non-stop without thinking twice.

My question to the 'Run It Once' community is:

How do you deal with family members/societal pressure when you first decide to pursue poker as your career? Does it get easier?

Sorry for the long post but lastly, did many of you go through a phase where you just kept on registering tournaments, grinding away, losing mostly, and then one day it clicked? What I mean by clicked, is how Jason refers to it, one day you wake up and you've made it. I would love to hear some player's stories on this point.

Thanks, everyone!

Hi guys thanks for the thread. Few questions for Jason or Brian -

A. About playing full time on the poker tour, do you have an idea of how many people actually play it full time over the past year? What about the past 5 or 10 years.

B. Can you share how hard it is to have an annual profit playing in the big buy in events, and also, how the variance is. For example, if you played for 10 years on the live tournament circuit, how many of those years would be profitable or unprofitable. How many events do you usually play, etc.

C. Hopefully I'm not getting too off topic but you had chatted a little bit about not making big mistakes in the tournaments from the video. Does the Hyper aggro style of play work very well these days at all?

D. Who are you're favorite poker players on the Poker tour 2018? Most fun to watch or the best overall players.

Thanks

without that passion your drawing dead

Damn that video was inspiring. I'm really new to the site, but it was really nice to hear just a calm honest tone. Just so pleasant to watch and the things that Brian, Jason, Seth, Phil, and all the others talk about was very inspiring and provided some helpful and needed perspective. I'm a college kid who has loved the game for not as long as most, but has watched it, studied it and has attempted to get better at it over time.
1. Do you think that the best way for younger Americans with no means of going out of country to work on their skills in the shadier online sites? or by means of local Casino/Charity Tournaments
2. If you were to build up an ok bankroll as an MTT player what is the tour/series you would recommend trying out first?
Just a few quick questions and I apologize if these were answered previously.
Thank you for your time
-Liam

Hey Jason and all,

Thanks for the great video and platform for discussion.

I've been a pro for about 10 years. I'm comfortably beating 6-max NLHE at 5/10 and below. I have a healthy BR that allows me to take some shots, but I'm having trouble winning in the bigger games (10/20, 25/50). I just don't feel like I have an edge against the tough HSNL lineups. I've tried some battling but it hasn't felt helpful, so I have been sticking to bum hunting those games.

I'm considering private coaching and/or starting to work with Piosolver. I'm not really sold on either of these options though. Most coaches are charging 1k+/hour, and for Pio I feel like I'm late to the party, plus it seems like a big time investment and highly technical program.

Does anyone have any tips for breaking into the higher stakes games?

Sabiam,

Thanks for your response. I really appreciate it. I think you have some really good points. I have been exposed to a lot of Pio concepts and some sims from RIO videos. Perhaps it's not as difficult as I previously thought to run my own sims. I'll give it a try.

I am referring to online games. I'm playing on soft American sites, and frankly I've been playing 6maxNL full-time for about 4 years, so it's not exactly a groundbreaking achievement (5/10 winrate is 7.75bb/100). Ive watched most of the Elite videos on RIO, so like you said, I have had exposure to many of the solver ideas.

Thanks again for your reply. Just having someone else weigh in gives me confidence to give it a try.

I also think it could be that I have the technical skills to beat 10/20, but I'm held back by some of my life habits like Jason outlined in his video. I'm going to try to start hitting the gym once a day, and eating healthier, and see if that has an impact on my poker game. (tbh i'm a bit of a skeptic here, but I'd love to be wrong).

Great video, give me a big boost - Thank-you.
What percentage of your bankroll would you commit to one session or tournment?
I ask because I had been dedicated to only committing 1% of my roll for each tourney I enter since January 2018. Which has been good for me as I have not invested any more money and it’s hard to go broke. The bad thing is it means playing lower stakes than I think my game is iat and high level plays really only work on high level thinking players. I find myself in a punt fest trying to play the game and not join the bingo circus that is low stakes. Not being harsh on low ball players it’s just more of a grind and when I do final table and win like $800 it’s not enough to take me to the next level buy in. I’m gaining experience playing 5000 hands a week but I not really getting far in terms of career on paper. If you could post more videos on here that would be wicked. Glgl

I have to say, there are a lot of things that are universal in your video. I would like to thank you for sharing your journey. It seems a lot of people who have made it one way or another are moving to mentoring, which is great!

I think it is very important to understand where you are planning to be 10 or 15 years from the start, what principles and values you are governed by as this takes poker out of its gambling image and into a normal career beside sports betting, stock trading or investing. In the end, all of your decisions are risk dependent.

I think what hit me most was poker players are all under-clocked or overclocked in some way! Great observation! Something I have noticed for sure. Yet, it speaks on how deep the psychology in poker can go, as most of the decisions are either over analysed or under analysed training that muscle of decision making and coming within percent or five percent or 10 percent is not easy, but it has been done for ages in other professions. Just not known to the general public. It takes a special breed of people to dive deep down into a rabbit hole and still understand you know very little to base a truly confident decision or opinion about anything you observe. At the same time it is in a way very liberating as you detach yourself from normal social constructs you are in a way become free minded. I will await a book on how people do get themselves into that enlightened flow/zone state grasping so much more than a regular recreational player can or a beginner.

On visualization, it is not only a real thing it makes you so much more confident and it connects your subconscious to your conscious apparatus. Thus creating space where you have solved this scenario or thought about it and the decision will arise without you being aware of it. (Blink, Flow, Master, Endure and bunch of other books talk about these states) . I have experienced this first hand, I have played professionally water polo as a goalie there was not a game when I would not visualize myself stopping the ball, getting that crucial stop, or making that perfect pass for the win of the game. We have 4 breaks and each break, not only I would listen to head coach but visualize how the next period will go, how can I exploit over confident or not confident enough players. Main thing was to win! Every game I was not there defending because I like to stop the ball, I was there to help my team to win! Moreover, when I looked at International video tapes of games, I was not just passively watching, I was actually stopping that ball in that game in my mind, be it a Hungarian, a Spanish or a USA goalie. I would think about it deeply why did he move there, what angles is he trying to cut, what risks is he taking and would I do the same. At last, I would read all the literature I can find on how to defend my net, the drills, not only of goalies but players as well.

As for coaching it has a huge part in any competitive game, the one-one has something that is completely different than just training sites. Not to take away from content here which has immense value. It has a more deeper connection. I have to point out that most of our lives we live unconscious, we are automatically cruising. Only certain events, partners or new relationships that are extremely hard find will bring you out of the Matrix. That is why personal coaching is irreplaceable in my opinion.

As for poker in general, I think high stakes poker will grow to global scales and opportunities will grow with it. A little contrary to what Jason was saying I think, maybe it is something I tell myself so I don't rush to things.

Here are my reasons: there are so many addictive, gambling nations around the World that they will start moving more and more into poker as the popularity grows. Internet, blockchain, crypto and tech that we don't even know yet exist will make this possible.

If you had to travel to find good games and live tournaments a lot of it will be digitized. (PartyPoker, PokerStars) The simplicity and code will be out there and even if you don't know how to code or hire professionals there will be platforms that will give you room space for you to build your own following. Kind of like a youtube or twitch but for poker. I consider poker at the stage of Altavista search engine and Netscape. For someone over 30 probably know what I am talking about. Any ventures start off slow, but than gain hyperbolic movements, take a look at stock market, crypto or startups in general.

My view on it the fight against gambling is over, and there is just too much money to pass up. Coming from X-USSR continue to have black market just makes no logical sense for governments. Although it will be there no doubt.

Good luck, Jason! Truly inspiring video! Thank you!

Jason, somewhat related, I am currently going through undergrad debating if it's worth it or not. I know you have lots of higher level education to your name, do you think it is worth it? Thanks.

Not sure I am providing any advice or wisdom, more adding to the experiences and perspectives.
From the very start of my career, I have decided its imperative that I work to add supplemental income to my poker income. My original plan was to just use savings from good years of poker to buy rental properties. I started that process about 5 years ago with a multi family purchase but since then even though I've had money to invest I never did because the numbers of the RE market didn't look good to me. As it turns out, I was right and wrong, but bottom line wrong. The cash flow numbers made no sense to purchase but the appreciation of property values would have made purchasing very profitable.
So in the last 5 years, I've been growing savings and have made some investments like a house flip, a few hard money loans, but nothing that significantly has lessened the burden of having poker provide the vast majority of my income. My poker results in the last few years were strong so I allowed myself to worry about it less than I would have otherwise. I just kept playing and saving. I recognized that the games were less available, the pros were tougher, the recs less recreational and it would worry me some but I didn't get too concerned because my results were improving year over year.
In 2018, I've experienced that outlier type of variance. The kind that yes some pros also have experienced but also the kind that when many other pros say "Yeah, been there. I totally get it. I feel for you", They really haven't. Its been to a magnitude and longevity that fortunately most people won't encounter. It has significantly affected my outlook and perspective on poker and my career. Itsd been stressful and its been very tough emotionally as well. It is very difficult for me to take breaks beyond a couple days. I typically once clear headed feel too idle and get back to the tables to earn. My BR is fine, smaller but fine. And that's dually a result of very strong prior years, not overspending/ increasing lifestyle, and the limited work I had completed to supplement income.
This time I am taking a forced longer break to do some catch-up on the work to supplement the poker income. It was put on the back burner too long. But, wow is it tough. This last 6 months most of my work away from the tables has been on running monker solves, and better learning GTO poker for multiple variants and game conditions of Omaha. Its complex and its high level but its so much easier and more comfortable than sitting and thinking about how to make money at something new or different. The big picture stuff is daunting.
Besides the variance of poker, I think part of the reason that it's important to supplement or even transition out entirely at some point is the overall market of poker and the effects of inflation. Except for some outlier huge games, the highest stakes being played have dropped over the years. Also due to inflation a 400/800 game in 1998 would now have to be a 620/1240 game to have the same purchasing power. A thing that I think pros overlook often is the deflationary WR they have. If you are a 5/10NL grinder and make $100/hr, every year you are going to have an income drop of 1-5% due to inflation. There are no raises. People don't start playing $6/$12NL to make up for it.
As I write this, I am in the early steps of a dedicated break to find new income streams. If I find something that takes a ton of my playing hours away for a long time that's fine. If its just a couple months to make a solid investment and then back to grinding that's not ideal but ok as well. I just hope I make some progress; whether its a totally new business venture, or just an investment. I see clearly how its both difficult and important to make sure there is an advancement on that front. Hopefully, this severe hit of variance which is an overall negative can produce a positive result.

One of the best away from the table videos I have seen...thank you.

I think Phil took down the "Sometimes I Lose" vlog or I just can't find it anymore. Does anyone have a link?

great video showing a great attitude from
a real poker player

Great video

I love you <3

you are the man bro

http://www.philgalfond.com/sometimes-i-lose/

Link doesnt work anymore, any where else to watch this video?

The "sometimes I lose" video link is dead. Is there a working link?

Almost 5y from this video, and still PURE gold. Not just the video, the comentaries are dope.

Thank you for this vide, Jason!