93 Reasons I Failed At Poker
I played poker for 10+ years as my job. I failed. Now I know why.
  1. I forgot why I started. | The Story |
  2. I chased the graph.
  3. I set goals and forgot them by lunch.
  4. I planned but rarely executed.
  5. I thought planning was doing.
  6. I grinded hard, then studied hard. Never both.
  7. I procrastinated for too long.
  8. I made to-do lists I never finished.
  9. I missed deadlines and felt sorry for myself.
  10. I treated everything as urgent.
  11. I did tasks unrelated to my goals.
  12. I had no system.
  13. I learned, forgot, and relearned.
  14. I context-switched nonstop.
  15. I was jealous of winners.
  16. I compared myself to others.
  17. I never asked what was stopping me.
  18. I walked into the same barriers repeatedly.
  19. I started every day lost.
  20. I never reflected.
  21. I warmed up randomly.
  22. I never repeated a warm-up.
  23. I ignored how I felt before sessions.
  24. I stopped warming up.
  25. I let the graph define "playing well."
  26. I never defined my A-game.
  27. I never defined my B-game.
  28. I never defined my C-game.
  29. I judged myself differently every session.
  30. I tagged hands but ignored context.
  31. I played to win, not to learn.
  32. I let the same distractions win.
  33. I only saw variance when I lost.
  34. I never saw bad sessions coming.
  35. I played to recover.
  36. I quit early when winning.
  37. I played too few tables.
  38. I played too many tables.
  39. I made decisions on emotion.
  40. I skipped cooldowns.
  41. I called hand review a cooldown.
  42. I waited for the perfect course.
  43. I hoarded materials.
  44. I consumed more and more.
  45. I trusted Full Tilt.
  46. I trusted the wrong people.
  47. I failed the good ones.
  48. I cheated.
  49. I played not to lose.
  50. I was the best off the felt.
  51. I was brainless on the felt.
  52. I played for volume.
  53. I laughed at fish.
  54. I called regs fish.
  55. I studied too much.
  56. I implemented too little.
  57. I ran the wrong sims.
  58. I got bored with what mattered.
  59. I created game plans and never stuck to them.
  60. I listened to every coach.
  61. I rarely played what they said.
  62. I played under financial pressure.
  63. I played under financial pressure and got staked.
  64. I played under financial pressure, staked, deep in makeup.
  65. My study didn't feed my play.
  66. My play didn't feed my study.
  67. I treated Poker After Dark as a learning session.
  68. I studied sims to remember frequencies.
  69. I blamed variance.
  70. I ran bad.
  71. I ran good.
  72. I didn't run at all.
  73. I let my son's birth affect how I played.
  74. I played sleep-deprived.
  75. I let my daughter's birth affect how much I played.
  76. I cared too much about opinions of irrelevant people.
  77. I didn't listen to those I should have.
  78. I went pro too fast.
  79. I cashed out too big.
  80. I cashed out too often.
  81. I never played live.
  82. I played online too much.
  83. I joined too many study groups.
  84. I did only one public challenge.
  85. I burned out three times.
  86. I played on autopilot.
  87. I played for rakeback.
  88. I called vs check-raise bet bet all-in too often.
  89. I folded vs one street aggression too often.
  90. I was surprised by villain's action too often.
  91. I played regfests because of ego.
  92. I bumhunted too long.
  93. I quit.
If you want to make poker your main source of income, for the love of God, please, please, don't make my mistakes.
P.S.
I spent the last two years thinking harder about my so-called "poker career" than I ever did while playing.
Each mistake on this list became its own story. Its own lesson. Something I need to unpack.
The raw reflections are written. Now I'm turning them into something digestible. Something that might actually help someone avoid the same traps.
Why am I doing this? Honestly, I don't know. But I feel a need to share it.
So I will.
P.S.2
Which one is yours? Which one do you fix first?
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Kacper Krzyżaniak
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93 Reasons I Failed At Poker
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