Hello delicious people. Apologies for the lack of updates. I have moved house last week and had a birthday trip, so a one off to miss the week's posts.
Anyway, I have a poker school coming out. A business aimed at all levels of players to promote poker in the healthiest way possible. The exact same theme running though my blogs runs throughout my business: the only point of poker is to improve your life. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter how much money you make, you're not achieving you main aim. The main themes are going to be reducing thing slke addiction right from the start, encouraging mental strength as a fundemntal to progress through poker, and then providing strategical contenmt that can help you go up to mid stakes MTT crusher level, or live MTT mid-high stakes level.
Anything I can give away free I will. I want to promote poker in a good light. No bullshit paid for ranges - we give those for free. If you can't afford courses, I'll give you them for free. No 100+ hours of content -(how is that even a selling point?) Get better teachers. Good teachers keep videos as short as possible and as effective as possible. Get people finishing the course and loving poker. No dry 1000 hour + archives of poker librarys. The game of poker is a blessing in many people's lives, and with healthy mentoring can be HUGE in so many lives.
******
However, to get to this point where I can launch a business that promotes poker, i've had to look deep. Deeply enough to decide whether poker is genuinely a net force for good. When I didn't believe in poker (at the start of the idea), I had a crap business model. The same as the existing poker schools. Make a quick $ on the side, offering good coaching, but always maximising profit for their future ventures. They are alien to new players, and don't really promote poker to the masses at all, and the fundementals of those schools aren't NECESSARILY healthy.
SO, I wrote a letter or asked in person as many close friends, in the industry what they thought, and what they think of poker's potential. After all, it is a 0 sum game. Can it homestly offer anything? I would LOVE any of you guys to coment what you think of the game, and of it's fundementals. Whether you would reccommend it to friends, and if you can see it genuinely having a net positive impact on new and existing player's lives in the future. Below is the reply I wrote in letter fopr to one of my best friends. A now ex pro, who moved from poker to folllow himself spiritually.
It gets deep. I'll post his original letter first (which came to me out of the blue). Thank you for reading. Tell me what you think. Only love, as always, Dan xxx
***** Letter reply from me starts here. The main them is how he sees poker, in as honest view as possible. He actually replied from my previous blog post on 27/6/23 above this
*****
Hi brother. Thank you very much for the letter. I appreciate it hugely and enjoy reading your points. It reminds me of a
"Jacobo" that I know, love, and miss <3. (I put the " because we know we are more than what we percieve ourselves to be, always)
Firstly, I realise that it may identify with you a bit, however when I write, I write usually with someone/ something in mind.
In this case, that was NOT you. It was my old roomate who taught me to play seriously, and who played high stakes. Funny what
the mind can do eh? But, I believe many people would identify with it because what you say is true. For the most part, we are all lost : In poker, in work,
in life, even in meditation occasionally. Imagine that
. Our minds lose us when our only objective is to silence. However, my main point was to be careful. Having poker
does not mean that you are "found", or even moving in that direction, and nor does leaving the industry either. It can help you walk towards that honest place though, especially with the right mental guidance and reflection about how it impacts your life. My only aim of that blog is to make people see poker/life/mental states of mind from another light, as we now do. Even the fact that we wright to eachother makes it a success though
.
Anyway, the reason this wasn't you, is because I believe you crushed poker by the end. You used it. You moved your journey forward in an honest and positive direction. Maybe poker
is over for you, maybe it isn't. That doesn't matter. You used it as the vessel it CAN BE as a base to improve your life EVEN when you started unconsciously. That, in my opinion, is it's power.
It's strategy is WELL connected to our emotional triggers. As you say " The dogma (morality, principles) is the guiding star, your reason is the one throwing the light and the wisdom, the experience is the battlefield to practice and receive feedback on how you are taming the beast (the mind), how close you live by your principles and how close you are from learning the truths (observing reality as it is)." ----- Poker is the battlefield in my opinion.
I also believe it to be spiritual as you improve mentally, exactly as you mentioned in point 6. I couldn't have put it better.
Poker is a beast -sometimes- just as the devil is an angel. It has potential, and I think new players must be warned of it's vices ideally as much as it's potential. However, that does not
mean we should fear it, but respect it, as it has put us both in the positions we are grateful for. It's potential is undenyable, and with the right guidance can sky rocket life
experiences, however it will not work for everyone. We will never know weather poker makes someone's life worse, or better. We see no other life path alternative. All we can do is look honestly
within the objective fundemntalts of the game, which I have done deeply, and feel VERY happy to promote it, especially with the right guidance and some solid fundementals to begin with. Even if
the whole poker community starts off unconscious, and remains there, surrounded even by a "rotten" industry, as some would say, it produces good, honest, capable people, endlessly. That's how we started. Many others too. There is power there, even with shakey fundementals, so if we can improve those and spread love in the community, there is huge potential as I see it.
Lastly, to your last point (7) on poker's limit to spirituality, I think yes and no. We speak from Proffesional's point of view. There I aggree. You sacrifice a LOT to follow that path, which is why i see my future outside of full time poker. It feels very taxing in that standard "reg life" that we know and lived for many years. BUT, where I disagree is that crushing poker is using it to improve your life. That's it. That's all that matters. I encourage people to start poker not to chase the lives we lived (the life which I still have), but to figure out what you want from it and how it improves life. It's benefits, it's flaws - everything I can advise on. For some that is a variation on "reg poker life", for others not. If you realise that playing it with friends that you otherwise wouldn't socialise with makes your life better, you crush poker more than the Reg that makes his 100k a year life but suffers greatly in the process. I would not advise the social person to leave poker for spiritual growth there.
Even if a Pro leaves poker, as you did, using poker as a vessel to realise what he wants in life, I see that as a BIG win. Leaving poker, or staying in - I don't care much. As long as I can help people move towards honest, helthy directions that they feel in day to day life, that's good with me.
That is the prupose of BreakFree, and will always be.
Thanks for writing, and please do so anytime. I will read your message many more times and I am sure I'll take more form it. Take care brother <3
Love Dan xxx
***** End of letter