From 5$ MTTs to 109$ MTTs in 1 Year and Further Ahead

Still hustling. Still pushing.
What's up poker people?!
It's been a while. Most of the time since my last post I wasn't procrastinating. Quite the opposite, I was grinding hard, chasing dreams, losing my mind, finding peace and climbing and climbing up in stakes as I've intended from the beginning. Most of my thoughts, ideas and reflections just went to my journal, instead of to the blog. Honestly, I knew I wouldn't keep posting so frequently as I used to but I wanted to keep the blog going with less regular, but still regular posts. In all the business of life I just lost the habit completely. I'm not gonna make any promises, because blogging is far from being on the top of my priority list, but it makes me happy to be an inspiration and share passion for this game. Just starting this post I'm realising I almost forgot how enjoyable it is.

Anyways, let me just recap the year that’s passed since my last post. Quite a lot happened, so I’m gonna share the highlights of it.

A dream came true - playing the WSOP ME 2023
The most famous poker event on the planet, the dream of almost every low-mid stakes professional and even many recreational, definitely my big dream since the time I first learnt that flush beats straight. Last year after a very good spring series (during SCOOP I shipped 2 major Sunday tournaments on ACR) I decided it's time to take the shot and go to Vegas for the first time. The plan was to stay around 2 weeks just the time around the main and play around 7 tournaments.
The mini main for 1k was the warm up for the 10k main. As a newbie I didn't have the logistics well planned and ended up waiting like 3 hours in line for buy-in and to get a seat. Insane. Sat down with 30bbs, luckily got some good spots, made a stack and enjoyed the live game. Unfortunately busted right before the bubble. Then the ME started. I jumped in Day 1C full of excitement and enthusiasm. The dream didn't even last 3 full levels. One cooler and one three outer and I was out, losing this super deep stack in the sequence of 2 hands. Man, that felt like sh*t. I didn't even care about the money as much as about the hype, the multi-day challenge and a lot of action. Well, that's poker. It was a really great experience overall. In the end I decided not to play more tournaments and just sat some days on a cash game and then came back to Mexico.

WCOOP 2023
Because of a close friend from the Czech Republic, who decided he was gonna get married in one of two busiest months of the year for me, I made the executive decision and played the series from Czech. So a bunch of players travel from Europe to Latin America to play the series and I just did the opposite. The wedding was fun, the grind not so much. I am ready to convince all my good friends to get married anytime except September or May.

Finding peace and harmony
Very profound experience I had was my first silent meditation retreat. I travelled to the Mexican mountains to spend 3 full days of silence. No communication verbal or non-verbal, no eye contact, all the dopaminergic activities on hold - no phone, coffee, news, masturbation, even a book to read. Just three peaceful days full of meditation practice, nature, yoga, journaling and fresh vegan food. All the junk coming from the outside was cut off. And all the junk stored inside started to release little by little. A beautiful process. The practice is called Hridaya Meditation and it resonated with me a lot. So much, that I went again a couple months ago, this time for a full 7 days of silence. It is like personal self-therapy. I definitely plan to make an annual tradition out of it. Might share a bit more details about this in a future post

A first title!
The last milestone to share is very recent. This series, which ended a few days ago, I managed to win my first SCOOP title. It was in a 1k Highroller and so far the biggest score of my career. First 6-digit. Besides the fact I was pretty much sun running since the final two tables, I objectively believe I performed my very best in terms of both strategy and mindset. Great accomplishment, feeling and motivation to keep going.
Overall, I played the highest ABI of my career so far - around 180usd during the series. And I've never had so much fun playing poker.

This year Vegas is not happening. I have planned to escape the hellish temperatures in Playa and come to Czech for two months to spend time with friends and family, go to two EURO24 matches and travel a bit. So that's my summer plan, then back to the Mexican office to get ready for WCOOP.
GL to all!

Hey! Thanks for the update I was always wondering what happened to you. Just want to say thank you for all the great content. Made a folder on my computer last year to save valuable posts as a screenshot. They really helped me.

About your summer plans: Pokerstars will leave the czech market soon. Dunno what else will change July, 1st.

Keep crushing 😀

Yeah you are right, my home country slowly became one of the worst places to play poker online... Very unfortunate. Can't wait to be back in Mexico

Reflecting by looking back at 2024 and keep on rolling to 2025

Another year filled with poker passed by. Let me take a moment to pause and reflect a bit on what has happened. It was a year full of ups and downs, new realisations, maturing, growing, working hard and as well having a bunch of fun. First of all I'd like to express a deep gratitude for being able to continue on this challenging path of a professional poker player. All the people around helping me, sharing the emotions of this journey and supporting me.

Variance - the inherent part of professional poker - is so difficult for the rational mind to understand and making peace with it is the most challenging task to be constantly fulfilling. Every move up in stakes is making this even more difficult as the higher you play, the harder it is to achieve enough volume. The feedback loop of the game is extremely slow and can easily affect objective decision making. From the truth, from the rational acceptance of the reality, from surrender - from those I want to take off to the new year and keep on with the regular practice of being in the present moment in any possible kind of way at any time.

Let me look back at the highs of the last year to celebrate the achievements and success as well as at the lows to learn from them and stay humble.

The biggest score of my career and winning a SCOOP title in 1k, runner-up in 215 WCOOP, climbing up in stakes and playing almost 200$ ABI for the whole year (240$ ABI in December), searching the truth and peace inside by attending meditation retreat, getting engaged, making new friends and deepening current relationships, those would be some of the highlights of the year.
Speaking of the poker related highs, by which I do not mean the dopamine hits by bluffing big pots, being on a hot run or shipping tournaments, but rather the alignment of my core values with my long term vision and those manifesting in successful moments. A great example of this is the SCOOP title, which the ego is just blown off by, but truthfully from the deep sense of my values and vision I do not care how many trophies I will collect in my career. What do I care about is the growth - the little improvements every day that keep making me a better version of myself. This manifested during the SCOOP series by just sitting down to play a session and having the most fun of my life by solving poker puzzles, battling tough opponents and feeling the balanced mindset during the swings of my stacks during that session. Similarly I would feel during the first week of WCOOP, where I have felt like never before, when I sat down to play - I combined all the knowledge learnt in past years with all the tools disponible and optimised my performance. By sticking to my routine including yoga, meditation, ice bath, healthy eating, etc. I was feeling an incredible mental clarity and totally got into a beast mode. Both physical and cognitive performance that I couldn't even think would be possible in the past. Sitting down to play, facing mental challenges and accessing a flow state when the time just flies by is a similar feeling of accessing a deep meditative state. This is also comparable to long deep study sessions, where it is not about memorising anything but just sharpening the intuition. This as well is a form of being in the present moment, this is the way to combine high performance and peace of mind.

But as good as poker can offer to flow in a present moment, as easily it can take one into very dark places. By climbing up in stakes and beating the games there I am fulfilling my long term vision, then it brings the challenge of going through much larger swings than before - during the month of WCOOP I went through almost a 100k swing, when I was up 60k at one point and ended up down more than 30k at the end of the month. I didn't track my results but it was obvious I was swinging down, when bricking all the high stuff. The lesson from this period is not to overestimate my abilities and to be more humble. What happened was I caught a virus in the middle of the series and even though I took three days off instead of one, I still did not adjust enough on playing days by playing lower table count and/or much lower ABI. I simply wasn't able to perform cognitively on the same level, barely played my B game and became much more vulnerable to tilt and mental distortions.
After profitable October and November I started adjusting my weekly routine in order to compensate for low playing volume expected in the second half of December. Independently of having very good $ results I started feeling more and more anxious during my sessions. There was a lot of tension and resentment on days, where I couldn't win many pots and the positive feedback loop just seemed invisible. Sometimes I played on study days. I became an enemy of the high variance games on GG, I felt anxious every time I went all-in and I slowly slipped into despair. Switching to autopilot mode, barely playing my C game, identifying with the victimization voice of my mind and beating myself up for mistakes and non-perfection. Everytime winning a pot during this time felt like a huge relief and every time losing it again felt like the end of the world. I started searching for any way to escape the uncomfortable feelings and pain. For the first time in my poker career I got to the point when I wished the session was over in the middle of it. The lesson from those times is to stick with my weekly schedule, acknowledge the urgency to win and let go of it and balance my dopamine levels to avoid seeking the rush and creating expectations. And from a practical perspective to improve the quality of my B-game and C-game, because it is inevitable I will play those from time to time.

The variance in poker is going to keep showing up. In single sessions, weeks, months and possibly even years. There are gonna be highs and lows and the bounce back from the lows is the way to progress. This is a reminder for myself - to keep in mind how important it is to stay grounded and not to become egoisticly overconfident when being on upswing, not to miss mindset sessions and the inner work when everything seems to go just well, and understand that rest is as important as hard work to be able to keep improving consistently.

High performance and striving to become the best can easily absorb one's identity. That's why I believe it is important to align the poker goals with life values and long term vision. This way one can detach from the short term results. In the end even one year is a very short time for having a sample of MTTs untouched by variance and reflecting on 2024 is just an artificial mind's construct of time. I believe it can fit together - that one can be successful and rich while fulfilled, happy and at peace. This can be achieved by stepping out from the false paradigm and trying to prove myself to someone else by becoming successful and rather finding the motivation and passion from deep inside. Also by comparing myself only to the older version of myself, never to anyone else, because everyone's path is strictly unique. This is my definition of success. This is how I understand the secret to happiness. What is success for when the thought of losing it causes fear and this way robs one of his freedom? What is wealth for when there is no one to share it with?

I will end this post with a couple of quotes that I came along the last year and that strongly resonated with me (mostly stoic quotes):

‘Courage. Patience. Fairness. Wisdom. Ego is the enemy. Stillness is the key.’

‘The obstacle to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.’

‘The peace I am looking for is on the other side of the pain I don't want to feel.’

GL in 2025 to all