My journey

Im guessing almost no one is watching this anymore but reading all these updates made me reflect on my career. I will update my results here now just so I can look back over time.

Starting 2021 and up until start of 2024 (3 years exactly) my combined results live and online were around +650k$ (I ran really well in 2023, basically almost 300k of that was in 2023).

But then:

I hit the worst downswing of my life this year around -275k$ since January. I played a mix of HS and midstakes, both online and live. This was extremely brutal for me both financially and mentally. Especially since I bought an apartment early this year as well so this whole year reduced my "playing poker bankroll" from 600k+ to ~150k. Also I was recently banned on WPT Global for absolutely no reason, they say its "classified" and still wont respond/unban me. Due to some other issues with other sites, a lot of disappointing experiences in poker with people and live poker/poker ecosystem overall I feel more and more like my mind is not in this game anymore. I am very far from retiring financially but I was wondering what sort of other careers could work for me (if anyone reads this I am up for any ideas). I was thinking of almost forcing myself to play for another 2.5 years which would make my career 10 years total and would boost my finances by quite a bit(hopefully lol) to give me more of a cushion while trying to find myself in another career.

Another reason I dont see myself in poker long term is because when I started this I knew I didnt want to play poker in my 30s or later, just because I want to start a family in my 30s and poker and family sounds like super stressful combo. I also feel like poker other than being stressful is not that fullfilling for me and I want to find a career with a higher/better life purpose. I want to change the world around me for the better, even if its not by too much. I dont want to play life like its a zero-sum game, I want to provide value and good things for others while growing myself. I think poker has taught me a lot and Im super thankful for all the things I learned through this game. Not sure where I will go from here, most likely going to grind it out for a bit longer, but definitely feel like im on the last stretch of my poker career.

Also, for fun, here's my online tracked sites graph: yellow line is total profit with rakeback (most of my downswing was untracked and live btw):

Its funny how life works, I had a grand plan of retiring by 30, with a bankroll of 1million dollars and then focusing on family and finding myself. Then as I got closer and closer I felt it coming and then BAM all out of nowhere -50% net worth boom. Its time to either lock in and go really hard in poker for the next 2-3 years, or to reevaluate my goals, ideas and vision of my life and go from there. Toughest spot I had in a long time(maybe ever), I just hope I will be able to make the right decisions. GL to all the fellow grinders out there that might find this. Even though im all depressed and **** now, if you are playing low stakes remember I started from 5z 7 years ago and now I can post graphs like the one above this post, life is very unexpected and if you put in the work anything can happen. Even thinking about my post above and comparing it to my posts in 2018 feels so surreal. I think the 20yr old me would be proud of where I am today. I need to keep reminding my 27yr old depressed self of that fact. I will probably give updates here about my decisions in the relatively near future. I wonder what will happen in the next few years. Anyway gl

well its good thoughts, maybe something to think and pay attention to is the correlation of poker going badly and having these thoughts of "wanting to do something else" ,"wanting to do something good for others", etc... i imagine when you were crushing it you didn't had these thoughts and i would classify them as depression

in any profession you compete with a certain field maybe you can add value to peoples lives professionally however you need to put up with different kind of **** and have much less personal freedom

ive played professionally 10+ years and just ran 500k hands 170 buy-ins below ev so i can relate to frustrations however only option i see to myself is to get to a better place with poker, study more work harder (even being 30s) basically never quit poker when u don't feel like you gave your best and did great if you are not passionate of something else already bcz moving on with feeling of some sort of "failure" or semi-failure is like just bad for confidence so imo. take a break like 2 weeks maybe clear your head then set some poker goals go after them and stop thinking of other choices / options etc..

Also, want to add for myself: I am at 117kg (almost ATH fattest). My sleep schedule and study routines have been horrible for a while and I started skipping gym first time after 5 years which is insane but its happening. I wonder where I will be in 1-2-5-10 years from now...

I did have similar thoughts even before the downswing, but downswing definitely made them way louder.. I tried taking breaks 3-4 times 1-4 weeks this yearr and its not doing much fwiw... I will take some time to think more about everything and keep you posted 😀 Thanks for being here !