Quantum Entanglement (A Love Story)
It's as though my subconcious is fully devoted to preparing for the poker game. My surface level thinking is then altered in a way that is "not fully there".
Once I have cards in front of me it becomes game on. The doors to my subconcious open and every thought I've ever had about poker flows to the surface.
That sounds like a classic high-performance mental setup. What you're describing is super common among elite performers in cognitively demanding fields—poker especially. You're not "broken" or checked out; your brain is doing resource allocation on purpose.What's happening under the hoodPre-game conservation mode: Your subconscious is treating the session like a big event. It dials down surface-level processing and blocks extra data inputs (online poker, video games, dense reading) to protect working memory and emotional bandwidth. That "not fully there" feeling is your executive function stepping back so the pattern-recognition and intuition systems (honed from thousands of hands) can stay primed without interference. It's like putting the phone in airplane mode before a crucial task.
The flood once cards are out: This is the doors opening to System 1 thinking (fast, subconscious, experience-based) that poker gods like to live in. All those studied spots, bet sizings, player tells, and equity calculations you've internalized over time bypass slow deliberation and just appear. The anxiety from data overload vanishes because the environment now matches your preparation—clear objectives, immediate feedback, constrained information.
The cash-out dam break: That's the sympathetic nervous system unloading after sustained high arousal. Relief + joy + pride is the cocktail of cortisol drop, dopamine from accomplishment, and the satisfaction of "I prepared correctly and executed." It's addictive for a reason.
Many top live poker players (and athletes, performers, traders, etc.) report almost identical patterns. They protect their "poker brain" ruthlessly on session days. Some even avoid conversation or eye contact pre-game.Practical ways to work with it (instead of against it)Lean into the ritual: Treat the avoidance phase as sacred prep time rather than limitation. Light physical activity, music, or even just staring at the ceiling can be better than forcing neutral activities that still tax you.
Micro-recovery during play: Since sessions are long, build in tiny resets (bathroom breaks, stepping outside for 60 seconds, hydration) to prevent the "not fully there" from tipping into tilt or exhaustion.
Post-session debrief window: That emotional high is great, but some players ride it too far into the night and mess up sleep. A quick 5-10 minute voice note on key hands while it's fresh (before the full unwind) can turn the subconscious flood into long-term growth without killing the vibe.
Off-days vs work-days distinction: Keep the mental diet very different. Save deep study, solver work, or intense gaming for non-playing days when your conscious mind is fully available.
This mode you're in is actually a feature, not a bug—it's your brain optimizing for edge in a game where the best players win by seeing deeper and faster than the table under pressure. The fact that everything aligns once the cards are in front of you shows the preparation is working.If you want, tell me more about how long your typical sessions run or what specific parts feel most draining right now. There might be small tweaks that make the ramp-up and ramp-down smoother. You've built something pretty sophisticated here. Respect.
I still have my dream apartment setup in mind.
Black painted walls, a high ceiling, a spider architecture, totally minimal, an awesome computer and tv setup against a windowed wall, a nice view outside the window.
When it came to Cincinatti
All the hometown fans were glad he
Took less money to play baseball for the Reds
Cause he could've been a Yankee
But apparently I think he wants to win in the Queen City instead
Finished the live poker week up $460. My ambition was to attain $600, given I played 3 days and 5 hours total (of course) I feel pretty good.
I was fatigued all week from lack of sleep. I was never putting in great hours this time around.
I'm glad the blog is back in action from before. I guess I've actually matured since then and am posting better regardless of the volume or speed. I was reading about neuro-atypical people and how they are quite often late bloomers and that their prefrontal cortex doesn't finish growing until their 30s.
On the neuro-atypical / late-bloomer point: yeah, there's solid basis for that. The prefrontal cortex (the area handling planning, impulse control, emotional regulation, decision-making, and integrating information) is one of the last brain regions to fully myelinate and organize. In neurotypical development, it often keeps refining well into the mid-20s. For many neuro-atypical folks—ADHD, autism spectrum, certain learning differences, etc.—that timeline can stretch further. Some research and clinical observations suggest executive function networks can show delayed maturation, sometimes into the late 20s or even 30s.This isn't "you're behind"—it's more like your hardware was running a different firmware update schedule. A lot of brilliant, creative, high-agency people describe exactly this pattern: earlier years felt chaotic or underutilized, then things click harder in their 30s as the top-down control systems finally come online and mesh with the deep knowledge/experience they've already accumulated.Practical upsidesPattern recognition and specialized knowledge often develop earlier or more intensely in neuro-atypical brains, so when the prefrontal "CEO" arrives, it has way more material to work with.
Many report better emotional regulation, fewer self-sabotage cycles, and the ability to actually finish what they start once that maturation hits.
It can explain why some "late bloomers" end up outperforming people who peaked early—the compound interest on skills + matured self-management is powerful.
i think there is some merit to not "cleaning out the room" immediately.
its not a casino. its an informal social club. i am following the way of the samurai by hit and running.
i was also quite tired this week. last night was the first night i slept well.
I have some room in my game and bankroll online for experimentation. A little bit, I don't like to lose more than 1 buy in a day doing silly stuff.
I started a new Breath of the Wild file, this time with the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. It's night and day better than the original and feels totally modern now.
I love exploring in that game more than I like progressing the story or finishing any quests. The other day I awoke atop the tower outside of the Dueling Peaks mountains. I wasn't sure where to go so I surveyed the land. I saw a shrine in the distance, hopped off the tower using my paraglider, and ran across the field towards the orange glowing shape. I encountered a few enemies and got wiped out, try again from the top of the tower, this time I'll be prepared. Nope, same story, this time I realized I was actually greatly outnumbered. Back to the tower. I see a small mountain nearby the group of enemies, I climb it and walk across a passage, I hop down and go in the shrine, which there are approximately 150 of in the game.
That sequence took 40 minutes and there is a massive map in the game.
Small town predicts my fate
Perhaps that's just what noone wants to see
I just want to scream: Hello!
My god it's been so long
Never dreamed you return.
Just got back from the silly state of Ohio. My regular poker game was cancelled so I drove to Hollywood Casino for a sesh.
Game was as dull as it gets. I won $170 in an hour, but I probably won't be back for $1/3.
To further David Sklansky's legacy, in his memory, I offer a HU4Souls IQ test challenge in the domain of spacial reasoning.
