Post #2: Atlanta Retreat Reflection
The following is a post about the Poker Detox Team Retreat in Atlanta from March 12-16, and some key takeaways I've learned.
Post #2: Atlanta Retreat Reflections and Updates
Hey, so as you know, the Atlanta Retreat happened over this previous weekend. Without much delay, this was definitely one of the best stints of time I could have had for a variety of reasons that will be discussed through here.
First, we can talk about getting to ATL, my preconceptions, and the reality of the trip. I initially had no worries about anything, because spending a weekend with other poker players is something that I was never worried about. I get to talk some strategy with our coaches, as well as some other players who’ve been in the program for much longer than I have, and have proven some sick win rates at stakes that I aspire to play at as soon as I possibly can (in relation to my work ethic and volume, of course). I get the ability to finally put some faces to the names, if you will. Additionally, being the youngest by a fair bit, it’s great to have everyone serve as a mentor in some way in helping me avoid some of the pitfalls that they could have potentially had at my age, and therefore allowing me to kind of “take their word for it,” in the most beneficial way possible. A funny thing I can remember that struck with me is that Marinelli (Matt) told me about how physically enthusiastic I still was about poker, and I still feel that sense of eagerness when I get 3bet while holding Aces.
It put something in perspective for me. I’ve only been playing “full time” for about 15 months now, while many of the others here have been playing for at least triple that amount of time. Poker still feels extremely fun to me, which is why I’m able to play for many hours on end, and still feel like I just loaded up my tables. From talking to others of the trip, apparently that fades over time and I’m still enamored by the game, that I have enough energy in being young and hungry enough to “level up” through the stakes in order to reach a goal of mine in playing HSNL.
This was evident during our second dinner when Nick asked me a very simple question, “Would I rather save an airplane from terrorism (extreme example, but important), or be the best poker player in the world?” To the surprise of the others at the table, I snap-replied with the second choice. In my world right now, that’s all that matters. I’ve been putting my identity and who I am as a person in a close proximity to my poker prowess. I’ve been seeking validation through my results, and feel like I’m gaining my self-worth and acceptance through poker. While it’s gotten me this far in this short of time, it won’t last. I’ll eventually get to a point where I reach the “top of the mountain,” and think to myself, “Now what?” Logically, it makes sense, but there’s still something within my that can’t particularly internalize this. I’ll have to just have to reach this point to realize the futility of this mindset, and then I’ll be able to make an effective change.
Andrew Graham (OhHeyCindy) also came on the trip, and I had a really good talk with him on our Saturday activity of a hike at a state park. We talked about his up and coming in poker, as well as that he played at a local casino of mine a few years back, and eventually got to the point of him realizing I had a similar path he did when he was up and coming in poker. He told me that I’m tying too much of my self-worth into poker, and it really isn’t as cracked up as I’m making it seem. While poker is my primary goal right now, he helped me realize I still have time in the day to be able to do other things, like go to the gym and start saying “yes,” to more activities that aren’t only poker related. It’s good to have time to reset and think about other things.
I used to not understand when people would tell me, “You’re young, you have so much time,” until this trip. I still have this feeling of rushing because in the moments of playing, I always think to myself about how much I’m trying to prove myself through playing that I always have a need to win during a session, or I have to play a bunch of volume to prove how serious I am about choosing poker as my profession, but talking through it with Andrew and Patrick in a dinner conversation, it makes more sense (and money) to play at an 8bb/100 level in 4 hours than playing at a 3b/100 for 8 hours. We all deteriorate over time when we play, regardless of who we are, and being able to find what times work for me, and being able to take breaks more regularly than I am now is going to get me to HSNL faster than trying to grind my mind off every day for the foreseeable future. The higher the win rate, the downswings will be shorter and less frequent by default. I just have to take my time, put in quality hours, and trust that process.
Lastly, and potentially most importantly, I had to come to terms with something that I didn’t particularly fully understand. I used to think that choosing to follow protocols in every spot possible would lead to deindividuation and that I’m not as “smart” as I think I am. And honestly, at the end of the day it’s true. My win rate before joining Detox was roughly 3bb/100 over about 275k hands ranging from 25z up to 500nl. The win rate of the team over the previous 500k hands is at 7bb/100, ranging from 50nl up to 1knl. I joined Detox for a reason, to be able to effectively calibrate my aggression and bluff catching in order to maximize my win rate. If I chose my own intuition in spots where data proves otherwise, I’m doing myself a disservice, because my win rate would have proven that I was an “anomaly” of sorts that was able to only rely off of my intuition to make the correct plays the majority of the time necessary, on the aggregate. I would be objectively unintelligent to consciously choose a losing strategy over a winning one, in spots where the data leans towards one method of action over another. While my intuition has gotten me this far, I’ve got to take a backseat to the objectivity and clairvoyance of data, in order to efficiently ascend upwards in stakes. There’s still obviously going to be spots of uncertainty, where I get to enter “Wonderland” as Nick calls it, in the sense of I get to use my intuition to ascertain plays I think are good based off of the metagame in regular, non-zoom tables (such as playing back vs regs, or relentlessly attacking recreationals), but in spots where the data clearly has an answer, I have to revert to this as my baseline. For some reason, I had this idea that if I played enough hands, I’d never be “uncertain” of any spot I would be in ever again, but that is never going to be the case. There’s too many nuances in each spot to ever have 100% confidence in all actions, especially with my mental projection in Wonderland that constantly urges me to find a way to win pots, even when I have no business in ever winning it in the first place. Through this lens, and only playing roughly 25k hands in 2 weeks pulling as many triggers as possible as my guide, I’ve been given the task of playing 250k hands, and then revisiting this conversation of using my Wonderland strategy vs. protocol. Given previous track records of “stakees” who have found success using protocols, I’m pretty sure I have a good guess of how these two samples are going to stack up vs. each other over decent sample sizes.
Last post was kind of somber, about going on a quick negative 15bi swing playing stakes I have previously shown a win rate in, and how the way I react is going to define me more than the results of that sample. Obviously 7.5k hands is nothing, and I was more worried about not “feeling bad” about needing a reload off the rip, and looking like I was a losing player. Although I knew that most of this was mostly negative variance, it doesn’t “come across that way,” when you lose roughly 15bi at 200nl in less than a week. So, from this, I had to take a step back down to 100nl, win 20bi there, and then return to the stake in which I’ve already played a little over 100k hands in. Fortunately for me, these past two weeks have been great, and I’ve been able to win back the 20bi at 100nl, and get back into my 200nl streets, in which I’ve been doing very well since returning. The only thing on my mind now is playing these next 250k hands as best as I possibly can, and seeing where I end up during this journey.