13 Years of Poker Journey and Lessons in 37 Mins
My Decade in Poker: A Journey of Grit, Strategy, Survival, Fighting through all those hardships, and Lessons about EGO.
First Encounter with Poker
I was 16 years old when I first encountered poker during my time in a boarding house in high school. Lucas, a German exchange student, introduced me to No Limit Texas Hold'em in 2007, sparking an obsession that has lasted since. I played poker during and after school hours, often sneaking games past the 10 PM lights-out period until 3-5 AM. Sometimes, we got caught and our chips were confiscated.
It's okay, I had more poker chips set at home.
I was really obsessed with the game. I watched poker videos such as High Stakes Poker, Million Dollar Cash Games, and Poker After Dark. Back then, players like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, and Patrick Antonius were my heroes.I watched them closely and studied how they approached each hand and took all notes in google doc. Back then a lot of old school guys like Doyle Brunson and Howard Lederer got crushed by these young generations playing LAG (Loose aggressive style).
Although I spent many hours obsessing over poker, I did alright in high school.
Aiming to get into top UK Universities
Oxford PPE and LSE Econ were my only 2 choices. To land the offers from these 2 unis, you would need an A*AA in A-Level exam. Typically, in the UK curriculum, students will take 3 to 4 A level subjects. My grades were exceptional hat I was allowed to take 5 subjects and averaged over 90% in every subject. By the first semester of my high school senior year, I already had the grades needed for Oxford PPE and LSE Econ, and got an offer from LSE Econ.
The night before my Chemistry A-level exam, I played poker from 8 PM to 8 AM. I ran deep in some tournaments. Time flew super fast. Yes, I did not sleep and went to an exam in the morning. Of course the exam did not go well. This was the only B, I have got in school.
LSE Pre-Departure
We had an LSE pre-departure event in Thailand. This was when accepted students came and gathered to talk to alumni. Alumni gave talks about life at the University and things to do in London. For me, the first thing I ask about London is all about Casinos and Poker. I did so much research and pretty much knew all the locations of all poker games and tournaments in London. Then I met with some alumni to play poker in Bangkok. Because gambling is illegal in Thailand, I still remember we rented a 5 star hotel and played poker for around 14 hours straight. No dealer, we have to deal ourselves.
Before London
I had never been to London before. My mom and I were going to London for the very first time. My mom wanted to explore the city, the university, and my dormitory.
My mom asked me if there is any specific place that I want to go? I told her "Mom, I'm free all morning and noon for you, I will accompany you anywhere, just point a finger and I will go with you. Just that from 8pm sharp, I have all the plans I wanted to go to play these poker tournaments. First day I am going to the Golden Nugget Casino. Second, I wanted to go to Fox Poker Club. Third, I wanted to go to an Empire Casino".
LSE days
I was studying BSc. Philosophy and Economics. LSE has a very convenient system compared to almost every university around the world. LSE puts a lot of emphasis on self-studying. We only have around 7 hours of lectures and 4 hours of seminars (most seminars you must do a lot of reading otherwise, you will not understand a thing and cant do any meaningful discussion). Lecture attendance is not required. So I pretty much skipped most of the lectures. I studied for around 5 hours a week.
First year
My attendance was extremely low. I skipped around 80% of lectures and 50% of seminars. In my first year I lived in High Holborn Hall. It was about 10 minutes walking distance to the Uni and 20 mins from the Empire Casino. So of course, I walked to the casino. Most of the first year students party around 2+ times a week. I did not find partying that fun. I was really obsessed with poker and spent around 12 hours a day in the casino. I did play some tournaments here and there at the Fox Poker Club. I only played around 15 tournaments and the final table once. I did not know what I was doing. Still remembered, I went all in with 22 UTG in a 9 handed final table. I didn't even know what ICM was. I found cash games to be a lot more exciting. I mostly played 1/2 Pound with the buy-in ranging around 300-400 Pound.
The game was actually very easy back then. You can just win simply by playing really tight. People were playing way too loose. The average opening size was 15 pounds (7.5bb). This might sound ridiculous but back then you get around 2-3 callers every hand.
The key to win in this low stake is to just play tight and overfold in spots where people have zero bluffs. Almost no one bluff the dry flop, you can simply fold your over pairs to just a single flop check-raise.
Most of the money that I lost was by me myself doing some stupid fancy stuff like 3b light with suited connectors and weaker hands to "balance" my range. Play tight and dont do anything stupid is a far superior strategy.
In My first year, I was a break-even player. I gave back most of my winnings by doing a lot of fancy shit.
Second and Third year
Here I got more serious. I started practicing low stakes on pokerstars. I completely got crushed as I mainly played live. Its about remembering ranges at first. I did study some more poker with youtube, cardrunner ,and runitonce videos. But still not as serious as I should.
I made some money from 1/2. So I moved up the stake to play 2/5 deepstack where everyone each had around 1500-2000 pounds on the table. 2/5 is a lot tougher than 1/2. There were a lot of 3b, 4b bluffs. It is much harder to put someone on a hand and people are also capable of doing a big bluff postflop.
Surprisingly, there were so many smart people in poker. Back then in 2012, 2/5 was the biggest stake you can find at Empire Casino. At my table, all the people have great education.
-Cheeq was doing Master in Maths LSE
-Pinky went to Oxford
-James was doing Maths at Cambridge, but now almost play poker full time
Its a game of smart people battling each other.
I still remembered I met two of the UK poker legends. Back then no one knew who they were: Matt Moss, Charlie Carrel.
Met Matt Moss
-first met him at the empire. I was playing 2/5 and everyone was sitting with around a 2000 Pound stack. He was just a kid who brought in a bunch of cash. He asked "What's max?". Dealer said 2500 pound. Okay he bought in max.
-I played 2/5 and 5/10 with him at the Vic (Grosvenor Victoria Casino). Saw this guy was playing a huge stake 50/100. Had some chats with him and played a few hours with him.
I still remembered a hand that I played with him:
HAND
Some guy opened the early position, he 3b middle position, then I cold 4b in position with AK. Original raiser fold. Matt Moss almost snap folded and then he showed QQ to me.
Wow, a very quick fold. Tournament players will at least take 2 minutes with this for sure! Luckily cash game players know how valuable the time is, they dont wanna waste any.
Met Charlie Carrel
He just won a Sunday Million so he was like 19 year olds and he had over 1M bankroll. He is a tournament player, most cash game players really look down on them as we think they are calling stations and dont adjust well to deepstack games. Okay, the first few times that I played with him, he did so many fancy shits. he 3b and 4b way too much. I thought it was cool, but most cash game pros said this guy is a fish and he just burns money doing dumb shit. I used to do 3b,4b battling him and ended up losing to him. A better strategy is just to play solid and let him kill himself. It was a fun experience tho with all the ego battling and preflop battling dynamics.
Met with Punnat Punsri first time
Still in 2013, I had heard that another Thai guy is a friend of a friend to me and also in my year is interested in Poker. His name is Punnat Punsri. He studied at Bristol and came to London occasionally. People said this guy is good. Okay let's do it. We are the only two thai guys playing poker back then.
At Hippodrome Casino, we were playing 1/2 Deepstack where you can buy in as much as 1000 Pounds (500bb). Okay I dont know Punnat that much but I trust him that this guy is decent so we decided to make a 50% action swap. This means that whatever I make or lose, he will take 50% of my action and the same for me.
3 hours or more, I play pretty solid and my stack is around the same. Somehow, Punnat lost 400bb+. I was like "Hey WTF how did you lose so much in 3 hours?". He made a huge blunder getting AK all in for 300bb+ and then tilt a lot after that. I still remembered that he just make a bunch of excuses, but in short he is tilting and cant play his A game anymore.
I am like "Hey bro get the fuck out, you need to stop playing".
Okay I learned my lesson that I must do some due diligence in any kind of investment including investing in poker players.
Met Zahari Petrov
-In 2013 This bulgarian gangster from Vratza (gangster town in Bulgaria). Back then Zahari did not have much money. We are playing 1/2 at the Hippodrome and at Aspers. We were sharing some information. We talked a lot about poker.
-One spot I was playing at the same table with him at the Hippodrome. Knowing that he will not make stupid moves against me. One time I cold 4b KK, and he 5b me. I tanked and decided to fold KK preflop. This was the very first time I folded KK preflop in my life!
And it turned out to be right! He showed me AA and I thought to myself "Wow what a genius!"
2/5 game was much tougher than 1/2. I played at the Vic mostly. People are so competitive. There were lots of preflop battling and some checkraise bluffs. When you are unbalanced, people can exploit you pretty quickly.
Play high stakes game 5:10 at the Palm Beach Casino
I was fortunate to be able to play at 5/10. Back then it's considered to be high stakes and all the top players in London were playing there. So many top players I played against including Matthew Frankland, Chuck Clark, Nic Markoo.
Games were super competitive. I had to be on my A game all the time. People were super aggressive. All the best players in Europe were here i.e. English, French, Swedish, German, Spanish, Russian players. The preflop battling dynamic was really crazy. When 3b bluff was normal, people started to do more cold 4b bluff and sometimes even 5b bluff. Player pool was really small, you had to play again this small group of <30 regs for many hours, you were forced to balance and pay closer to GTO. For example, you can get away 4b only value hands in 1/2, but cant do this here. You must put in some bluffs. Games got so aggressive that when I had AJo in the hj, I feel like I dont wanna open that. I knew that I will face 3b around >40% of the time and I had to either fold or 4b my AJo.
Fish dynamic:
The pros like to isolate fish i.e. when weaker player open with a wide range, the pro tends to 3b them with a wider range to play 1v1 against them in a big pot. There was really normal in every game. In 1/2, no one adjusted. You will see a pro keep 3b weaker players with shit hands like JTo, QJo, 67s all these garbage. At the Vic or Palm beach, if a good pro see you do this once, you will constantly get 4b and punished you. Preflop battling was really crazy.
There was one hand when the Spanish reg 5b Nick Markow, and Nick decided to 6b jam AKo with 400bb. That reg snapped the fold. And Nick smiled. This play only work against someone where you have history and dynamic with. IF you do this in 1/2, you are burning money.
Okay I was fortunate to play about 5 sessions. Then there was this huge ban waves against pros. A lot of politics were involved where they dont want outsiders or anyone good to play. I heard that the regs there were very close to the dealer and manager. They were even playing golf together and tip the dealers a lot. They won! They kick out a bunch of non-fish people out. Around 35 people got ban from this including me.
My biggest hands so far
Remembered two of the most painful sessions in my life.
HAND 1
One session, I was up around 1000 Pounds up to this point. I had AK. I open got 3b, I call. Flop KT3 he bet big I call
Turn blank he bet I call
River he bet I call
I lost he had TT. This was huge back then I lost around 1500 Pound in one hand. Very painful.
HAND 2
The other session. I played against a very good player named "Gaz" this guy crushed 2/5 zoom back then and crushed the whole table. He straddle. I open JJ preflop he call.
QJTr he check, I bet he checkraise I call
Turn 3r he bet I call
River 2 he bet I call
Okay I lost, he had K9!
Lost my entire stack here around 2000+ Pounds. This was brutal. I was like hey this guy is bluffing a lot and I have a set. He cant have AK,QQ,TT, I only lost to K9 and 89. My analysis was flawed. I was driven by greed. In this spot, its very hard to come up with bluffs against an unknown.
I was still obsessed with poker. London casinos were open 24/7 except a Christmas day. I still remember that there was nothing to do on Christmas day. 95%+ of all the restaurant and things were close. Hippodrome Casino has this cool promotion where they were giving out a yellow jersey "Rake free card" everyday if you were here at 2PM. Normally around 6-20 people showed up and they will give up 2 cards. IF you get the card, you will pay no rake for the next 24 hours - roughly it will save you like 20 Pound per hour. At 11.45PM on the Christmas day, there was a long queue of around 50 people outside the Casino. I was there. It was a fun.
Huge conviction bet with my dad after I graduated
Fast forward to 2014. I worked at Futex (futures trading company, I trade mainly Bund 10Y German Bond) and I finished my Master degree in Math Trading and Finance from Cass Business School.
I just finished school and I really enjoy poker and made decent money from poker. I remembered I googled how much first year investment bankers making was like 60K Pounds only. I was like Hey , I think I can even make more money than an investment banker by just playing poker. Also, I wanna challenge myself that I can I do this as a career.
I had a very strong conviction that I can do it, turning a game that I love into a career. Okay so I made this bet with my dad:
"Okay I will make more than 1,000,000 THB (around 12500 Pound) in 6 months, if I can make this my dad must accept that Poker is a skill game and appreciate that it is a career choice of mine, but if I cant do this then I will NOT think about this for my entire life. I will 100% completely give up my poker dream."
Okay, good news. I hit this target in 3.5 months! I was super proud that I achieved this goal while putting everything on the line if I fail.
But you know? My dad did not accept this as a career!
Everything went well
Okay after this I got back to Thailand. Played some home games in Bangkok. Made some money. Things went well. Met many Thai poker players, businessmen, politicians, and many powerful people.
I learned so much from them. But back then all I was focusing on was poker. I dont care about anything else. They talk about business, politics, and the economy. I ignore everything! I just wanna be good at poker.
But future is not bright, a lot of shit that I need to face
EGO killed me 1st time
I got out of my comfort zone the very first time by going to Macau. I heard that the games there were easy. The Chinese are throwing money like crazy. They all play drunk and stupid.
100% Not true!
Macau was very very tough!
People play extremely tight and conservative. Asians fish also are more unpredictable, they did a bunch of weird moves for example 5bet with JTs a thing that I have never faced in my poker career. People even said that everytime when you see a 4b, you must fold QQ preflop. People just dont bluff enough and they play extremely tight! It was like a totally different game then London or Bangkok.
The Macau poker landscape was extremely competitive. I only play 50/100 and 100/200 HKD. I think Macau is one of the toughest games so far. Their biggest games 300/600 and 1K/2K are dominated by foreigners. All the top pros from UK, US, Spain, France, Philippines, Scandinavians, Japan, Korea. Its the cream of the crop. These guys were super sharp and rarely made mistakes.
I thought I was good. I went to play and got crushed again and again. Everything went the opposite way. In poker its very simple. You can think you are good and you are better than everyone else. If you keep losing consistently, it means you did something wrong.
Okay this was very very tough. I gave up. I lost a decent chunk of money.
And I flew back to Thailand, grinded it back. Then I will return to Macau again as a winner!
EGO killed me 2nd time
Again, this was gonna be my revenge. I studied it more and I was more humble. Surprisingly, I got crushed again. I just cant beat the game in Macau.
This was my lowest point in my career. My mom visited me, I had all the cash in front of me and cried to my mom. I have around 1.4M baht (40k USD) and this is my last shot. I said this is all the money that I have and its in front of me. My family and I were going to the US.
I had contact with Zahari who has moved to LA. He told me that LA games are super easy. But I need to go check myself. I used to think Macau was easy too and that crushed me. Okay I told my parents. I will give poker a shot with a 40K USD bankroll (including expenses). This was going to be my last shot. If I lose this money, I am done forever!
Going to LA
In 2016, I went to LA for the very first time wanna build some bankroll. I wanted to be strict with my money management so I can only play 5/10 and occasionally took shots in 10/20 when the games were very good.
EGO killed me 3rd time
The first 2 weeks, things were super easy. I made $20K in 2 weeks. I was like wow these Americans are so bad. They made many blunders and did many stupid moves. I was grinding around 250 hours a month straight for 6 months.
Then when I made money, I was into this ego loop again. I thought I was very good and I can get away with doing dumb shit, pulling weird bluffs, and making weird hero calls. Then it hit me again. For the next 2 months I lost 15K of this profit back. Again shit hit me and I got into this slowly.
Then I was really lucky to share a bedroom with Zahari at the Commerce Casino. Not for gay reasons of course, its better to save half of the cost given that it cost 180 USD a night to stay there with zero discount given to any long term stay. Back then Zahari was extremely helpful to me. He play 10/20 and 20/40 and beat the game consistently. This was the very first time that I learn how to be a true professional poker player.
To be the best, you have to work overtime and you must sacrifice a lot to be great.
Zahari taught me to be consistent with :
Study routine (must do 5 hours each week studying)
Must reviews the hands weekly and discuss all possible scenarios
Must be extremely disciplined. I have to meditate 20 min everyday and have a list of pregame routines.
I need to review my weakness and make affirmation statements about why I am playing poker at the first place and revisit my plan.
I actually said "Dont do anything stupid" every time before I start every poker session and took a serious note about interesting hand history since then
I saw him talk to a mental coach, "Elliot roe". Eliot only charged <$300 per hour. Now he prob charged >$1500 per hour. I knew that I must put a lot more emphasis on the importance of mental game, discipline, and poker studying.
I studied a lot more. When I was in Macau, I asked how the pros study. Ryan Yum, who is very good, said that you must know how to use a Pio-solver. Okay lets go. I bought Nick Howard's ultimate Pio-Solver course. That was super good.
I also bought Doug Polk's Upswing Poker subscription the very first day and his Head-up no limit intensive course was very helpful for me learning about GTO strategy and combinatorics combo counting which helps me to bluff, bluff-catch very effectively. I still recommend the course if you are starting with poker today. It helps a lot thinking about balance strategy and combo counting very well especially when you play against non GTO players, you have to think in combos (bluff vs value combos) when dissecting the hands thoroughly.
Meta in 2016 is that, you should bet 1/3 for your entire range in most 3b pots. People overfold and under check-raise. Also you can take advantage of the fit-or-fold type players.
Back then the fish likes to think that when you bet small, you have nothing! They like to continue floating you to bluff at later street or check raise you with nothing i.e. killing themselves.
Good times in LA
I have met many pros including
-Art Papazyan: we were grinding 5:10 for 1000hr+ together. Back then he play like a monkey. Bluffings in spots that he shouldn't and made many weird hero calls. Then he studied MTTs and he ran super sick. He won 2 tournaments back to back in 2017 earning 668K and 390K. From almost broke he has 1M dollar bankroll in 2 month! Now he study a lot and played in many highstakes cash game since then
-Garett Adelstein: This guy really crushed everyone. I fear him the most when I play with him. He can make a strong fold and he has many sick turn and river overbets. I must be on my A game to play with him
-Met UK crew: Jack, Joe, Rick, Chris, Will Fasano
Funny to see that I met them since they dont have much money and now these guys are playing the biggest game in Macau.
Also I got invited to play Live at the bike. I played at 10/20 there on a livestream. Wow the dynamic was really crazy. I then come to realize that all the poker you are seeing on TV were mostly FAKE. There was one lady called Courtney. I played her at the Commerce for like 50 hours. I thought she was a complete fish. But then realized that she played super tight and can fold strong hands. Wow she was really really tight, even tighter than me. The next day, I played her at Live at the Bike, she played the totally opposite! She played like >40% VPIP doing a bunch of calls and dumb shit.
I then realize that wow this is all bullshit and all marketing! There are so many private games in LA that you must do these stupid moves or pretend that you are not good to get in. This is like sacrificing short term EV for long term EV. She was throwing like maximum $5000 to advertise that "Oh I am so bad at poker and like to make stupid moves" in a 10:20 game just to get invite to play bigger games 50/100.
Dont believe what you are seeing on TV, people have an agenda!
Only when you look at the bigger picture, you are seeing the truth.
Okay things were good, I have been to LA a bunch of times. Each time I went all grinding at least 220 hours a month. There was a very cool promotion at the Commerce Casino at a time. They were giving $200 cash for every 50 hours you play. One month I was trying to challenge myself I want to play the most in a month. I challenged Art Papazyan that I can play 300 hours a month (excluding break). I won the bet, but that month I was up only a little. I learned that too many hours will significantly hurt my hourly.
I sacrificed a lot. Every holidays, special days, I was grinding. I have spent most of Christmas, Chinese New Year, and New year eye days counting down at casino for many years.
Dont be a pussy! Fighting my fear. Macau 3rd Time:
Okay I wanna win. I promise to myself I will be super calm and dont do anything stupid.
After some analysis, I realized that I had a weakness that I dont often do an all-in bluff or overbet the pot with bluffs. (This works at a lower stake, but against better players, I need to learn to be more balanced).
I lived at the One Central Apartment which is a 10 minutes walk to the Wynn Casino. Right in my bedroom, I could see this giant tall Macau Tower. Somehow I googled "How to get outside my comfort zone" and came across a very good Ted Talk video of a lady talking about doing Bungee jumping at the world's highest building.
You know where it is?
Its right here at the Macau Tower.
This is actually the highest point in the world you could jump from the building safely (233 meters). Fun fact, bungee jumping is safer than sky diving and you have to jump yourself. In skydiving, you are behind another person so can argue that it is way less scary than bungee jump.
Okay I gather my courage and said let's go! In two day, I went there at the Macau Tower and was really excited. I really want to do this. Okay up until I was at the jumping point. This is extremely scary. I thought its super easy to just jump, but when I was actually at the point its super tall. I did not jump in the end, the guy actually push me to fall down the sky!
Wow but you know what? After about 1s, I felt super powerful in the freefall. Think that took around 10 seconds max. Its pretty short. But when I finished the jump, I felt super powerful.
I felt that I can conquer anything in life.
Lessons done, Face your fear!
Biggest game I have play since then
There are some Thai people that wanna play a big game. The organizer wanted to organize the biggest game in Thailand. Before 2017, you could only play 200/400 baht or occasionally 500/1000 game in Thailand. But they wanted to do something completely new. They want to organize 2000/4000 game with a minimum of 1,000,000 baht buy-in.
Okay I am in. I sold some actions to friends including some small swaps with Punnat.
Again Punnat made a mistake . I remembered he called a 5b 150bb all in with AQ from a very tight player, a lady who never made any big preflop bluff. This was just burning money.
Back then I was clueless. I dont know about the dynamics behind the scene in the private game. All I was focusing on was playing the best poker. I somehow figured out that there was a lot of acting behind the scenes. You must act and play very stupid so people can talk about your hand and then you can get invite again and again to play and take their money later. Good poker pros must set aside a marketing budget trying to do something really stupid so that people are gonna say bad things about their plays and then got invited to play in a more juicy private games. When there are more money on the line, they play super tight. Back then I dont understand this dynamic at all.
Lifetime biggest bluff
Okay first day done, I was up around 800K. Then this happened. I made a huge bluff with all my stack for 1,500,000 THB. This was the biggest bluff I had during my whole poker career. I break down the hand in a super detailed manner inspired from Jason Koon. I highlighted the different in thinking from noobs vs the pros with a lot of maths and complex thought process in here:
How to learn anything super fast! This is how I learn PLO4 in 4 months and beat highstakes game.
I really wanted to learn anything fast and be able to pick up new skills very quickly.
I study a lot about learning. Two most important books that I found very useful were :
4 hour Chef by Tim Feriss
Art of Learning by Josh Waitskin.
Core idea is the same: do "deliberate practice" , be very focused and be strategic with what you are consuming.
Okay so I found out one key idea which is the pareto principle. I must first identify what 20% spot makes 80% of the results. Because I dont have much time, these spots are:
Button and Co RFI, and Blinds vs late position open
3BPOT OOP (Blinds vs Co,Button RFI)
3BPOT IP (Button vs CO RFI)
BUTTON CBET IP
Note that I know beforehand that ranges in live games will be very wide. People will not play 20% like a solver. They will be very loose. I know pretty much the right range to fight against a 30-70% VPIP players. Basically the quick rule of thumb is that you wanna 3b around 1/3 to 1/4 of what you think they are opening.
Pro tip: Because ranges in live PLO4 games are pretty wide, it make sense to master cutoff and button ranges. You must know what range you should 3b these co,button from the blinds and master 3b pots. These fish will got punish very fast by having super weak range. And if your image is tight, you almost take down every A high flop and high card flops. Some low, mid high flops, you will have a 100% checking range.
Master Preflop
-Jnandez and Vision (runitonce version) has this amazing tool. The tool was a game changer. You can practice all your preflop spots i.e. you select Button vs CO RFI, then they will simulate a hand one by one. You can 3b, call, fold and then they will show you the highest EV route.
It was like a morning routine, I was doing this like 2 hours everyday. Then I kind of know all the preflop stuffs by heart. This is the best way to learn, you have to practice a lot similar to sports
Okay then I study a lot of 3bpots like crazy. I got all Jnandez range charts, memorized all the preflop range and know exactly what 5%,10%,15% looks like. I make sure I master all the basics before moving on. Just keep it simple even though its not optimal by checking most ranges OOP.
Mistakes are not equal
Pots are not created equal. One mistake in a 3b pot will cost you 5x+ more than the single raise pot. I have seen lots of fish make huge blunders in 3b pots. Dont be like them. That's why I encourage you to master all 3b pots first. Note that EV are very close, in most single raise pot, many times EV of checking and betting is very similar. You dont wanna spend time on this. You want to make sure that you eliminate all the big blunders (anything more than 3BB out of the equation) first.
First time Hiring a Mental/Performance Coach
I came across Adam Carmicheal's youtube channel and really like how he teaches about the mental game and all performance related stuff. I messaged him, ask for his rate, and paid around $250 an hour to do a weekly session with him at first then switch to bi-weekly after that.
He is a very good coach. In most calls, he spends about 90% of his time asking me many good questions. He does not tell me what to do. Instead, he is a coach. He dived deeper and guided me into thinking the right way by asking the right type of questions. First he wanted me to make sure why I decided to play poker in the first place and let me clarify my short to long term goals.
Then he got me a disciplined daily checklist. I have to record:
What time I wake up
How many of hours sleep
3 hour no phone rule
Write down 3 most important things that needed to be done
Exercises 5+ times a week
Journal at night
I have a huge whiteboard at home, I write down my yearly goals, weekly tasks to be done.
I recommend you to do this too. You must see it very often and know the north star of what are you moving towards.
In the end, the core skills in poker is very simple and is very similar to running a startup or playing any sports or games.
1st: You study the game + have all the plans for the game
2nd: You go play the game
3rd: You review your game. Most 90%+ of the hands can be solved by a solver. Those 10% hands you must do detailed discussions with good players. Make sure you know your mistakes and learn from them.
REPEAT
KEY is to iterate quickly!
Highstakes PLO Games
-Indian game season
This was a pretty big game. There was the Indian game season where about 20 Indians are flying to Bangkok to play PLO4 almost everyday for one month straight. We play around 8-20 hr a day with sometimes game runs for 70+ hours straight.
Game was pretty big, it first started at 1000/2000 THB and later turned into 2000/4000.
I had to play many great players from Thailand, UK, India, US. There was one huge twist!
We decided to play a badugi game. Its similar to 2/7 game in nolimit where you got incentivized to win with shit hands to increase actions. Here its 2/7 game on steroids.
The game goes:
If you win a hand with trips, you will take 20K (5BB) from each player
If you win a hand with rainbow suit no pair, you will take 10K (2.5BB) from each player
If you win a hand with all cards the same suit, you will take 10K (2.5BB) from each player
First I really struggle with this. This game make sure that no one can play too tight or too loose. We have to be aggressive at the right spots and take into accounts a bunch of factors.
In the end I found a way and can capitalize on others' mistakes pretty well.
I played this game 3 seasons and managed to win in this game. The proudest moment is that it only took me 4 months to learn this and beat the game with winrate over 5BB per hour.
Got cheated in the Cambodia game!
First time I was in Cambodia. I was flying to cambodia to play highstakes poker.
The first day we were playing $50:$100. One hand, I was flopping a nut flush. I was playing against a rich cambodia whale. I bet, he check raise me! Wow I was like this is it. I got him please please please dont fold! I decided to call or reraise but we were playing 500bb+ deep so I decided to 3b him big okay he call. Turn he check I bet huge, then he think... I was like please call! I was imagining how much money I can make okay then he said "ALL IN!" I was like CALL! Wow I got him. Finally. We ran twice. I bought some insurance and finally I won. I got him in a $100K pot. This is the biggest pot that I have won in my life.
EGO got me 4th time
2days passes I was up 70K. I was more confident. Somehow the third day its weird it will be the last day. The fish request that they wanna play bigger so instead its $100:$200. I was playing pretty solid then something weird happen. When I cbet with air, I got checkraise so I have to fold my hand many times. There is this guy called "CHENG" he checkraised me like 4+ times every hour. He seems to know that I miss the flop often. I can sense that something is wrong. I was down around 60K so far today and then I just wanna sat out and fucking quit the game. Something was just not right. How come everytime when I dont have anything, he knew and checkraised me correctly. But when I have hit anything, I bet and he fold very easily. I just suspected that they cheated.
Before this Cheng flew to Bangkok and did some stupid shit plays and then he advertised hey we play like this in Cambodia to everyone in Thailand. Cheng played a few times in Bangkok and prob drop 4M+ baht so far. I thought something was wrong. Why the hell do you want us to fly there. To play a very easy game and take everyone's money. Really?
Okay me and my friend Tua were arguing big time. I sat out for 2 orbits and said this guy was cheating. He said no. I felt that something was not right.
We then realized around 3 years later that we got cheated. Cheng always wear 1 sided headphone and they have a hidden camera to see our cards. When I miss the flop, his team gave him a signal so he knew that I have nothing and checkraise me recklessly. Normal way of cheating would be that guy setup a cooler such as AA vs KK etc. This way of cheating ensures that they take all the small and medium pots. It was much harder to get caught
In the end, I am the only thai guy that was up in that trip. Everyone lose!
Rent a villa with highstakes pro in Samui
I heard that the UK crew : Joe, Jack, Will Fasano, Shaun were gonna come to Samui and rent a villa here. I joined them for around 2 weeks. We rent a big ass luxury villa 6 bedroom villa with one giant pool with a mountain view in Samui.
I saw how they studied poker and saw Will playing high stakes 50/100 online on Pokerstars.
He studied pretty hard and rises to the top. By just watching him, taking notes, and asking him a bunch of questions during dinner, I learned so much.
We also did so many dumb stuffs, making a bunch of fitness prop bet and many random bets. I still remember that one bet is that I am betting that Will can swim 20 meter with only one breath. He never swim before. Cool that I think this is achievable so I put money on his side and win
Got staked to play Chinese game
Fortunately, there is one Singaporean guy who knows me and believes in me. Finally I got this staking deal. For those that dont know what a staking deal is. Okay its basically an investor who decided to invest in me and believe that I am a winning player in the long run. Normally this requires at least 600 hours+ but it depends. If I lost $200K, I dont have to pay anything. But if I make $200K, I will get 50% of the profits.
Play around 500 hours playing 1000/2000, 2000/4000 and sometimes as big as 4000/8000 baht. Win some and make my stakers proud. We have to stop because games are not running anymore.
Top 5 takeaways from my poker journey
I am not gifted in poker, its all hard work
Some players are super gifted. They dont have to study that much its all intuitive for them. For me its different! Everything is all hard work. Its all grinding days and nights. Watching the videos and grinding all the solvers. Now all the feel players are crushed and top 0.1% of the players are put a ton of work in their game. It will be a lot of sacrifice but it will be worth it in the endKnow your edge! Discipline and tilt control are super important
My strength is that I can play extremely solid for very long hours. Compared to many people who have more talent than me, my A+ game would be much worse than their A+ game. I will continue to bleed money if I were to play with them during their A+ game. But these guys tilt a lot and they often play their B game most of the time. So I just make sure that I can play my A game when they are playing their B game, the longer time I spent playing with them, the more mistakes they are gonna make. Chinese Romance of Three Kingdom story is really good. Its about war. Poker is no different. Poker is a war game. One thing that is really cool is that you dont have to take every fight! You can pick your fights that are most favourable to you. Remember in Troy movie, when the Greek army was overextended and pushed towards Troy wall, they were too close and got into Archer’s range. If they dont retreat, they will lose all the men. Same thing as in poker, you wanna fight when you know your enemy is super weak and are tilt monkey. Pick all the fights carefully.
Ego is gonna kill you as a poker player
This one should be obvious. I lost a bunch of money with ego. You must be very calm and NEVER EVER underestimate your opponent. The moment you do, this is when you will be the most vulnerable. Same principle apply to trading, investing, other games and life! Always treat your opponent with respect and even if they make mistake, try to understand them very carefully “why” they have taken those lines!
Fight through adversity
No matter how great you are, you are going to have downswings. There will be period where you run bad CONSISTENTLY. All you sets will get crack. You will lose all in with AA preflops. Most successful poker players all have this period. It is inevitable. You must have an attitude to not give up and keep fighting. You are making progress even though you think you dont. Dont give up! You can move to lower stake to fight easier opponents and win some to help with your confidence. My worst streak would be that I lost around 30 out of 40 sessions. It was brutal. Key is when you got knock down, you must get up fast!Know when to quit
You cant play your A game all the time. I have seen a lot of great players going broke because they tilt of all their stack and wanted to get back fast. They said wow this fish is so bad, I ran bad. If I stay, I will take all their money. This could be true but most of the time, they are not in the right state of mind to fight. Its okay to lose, take a break, keep your money to fight another day. MY trick is that I play a very long session when I am winning and quit pretty fast when I am losing. My win rate is only around 55% of the session. On the other hand, I have seen a bunch of losing players or wanna be pros players have winrate over 80%, but when they lose.
This video is one of the best. Doug Polk talked about top 5 traits that very best poker in the world has. Recommend you watch it.
During my last 3 years, I dont find poker fun anymore. It is just a job for me, but I find sitting and discussing with other about businesses way more fun.
Got into Private Equity
I got invited to play a high stake game with Thai billionaires. One day my friend really recommended that I meet one guy who ran a wealth management firm. I heard that this guy lost 10 million baht last year playing poker.
I got his contact information. I finally had lunch with him. That lunch took 6 hours. I learned so much from him and I think wow this guy is really good. I got an Economics degree and Finance for Masters so he said come to work with me you will learn a ton.
This was when I quit poker for good.
Here my poker chapter has come to an end.
Will write part 2 of this: "How every crypto investor and trader can learn from poker players? "
There are a lot of skill sets that make these two professions similar.
Hope you find value in my journey!
Best of luck.
Remember to fight your own ego and make sure you are controlling them not let them controlling you!
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Tell me what you think about this in comments. Do you like this format or you would rather me going into more depth? Also if you have any cool lessons from poker, I would love to hear this from you too. Feel free to share this in the comment section.