Dec 2022 update >> poke and life blog combined.

Hi guys. Sorry, but I have posted many threads on 2+2 because I am a fish ad don't know how to update threads. My bad. Anyway, I am a British mid stakes MTT player rand coach on the way up to high stakes who lives in Mexico. I'll keep EVERYTHING related to my blog on this thread. Thanks for reading and please connect with me about anything . I hope 2022 was good and 2023 is better! Love from, Dan xx

Poker/life:

So, where to start. December has been weird. So far, I’ve moved from Mexico back to the UK (just for Christmas and a bit longer), and moved out of living with a close friend and fellow poker player. It kid of feels like a marriage break up, haha, but without anything going wrong. I’ve moved back to my hometown, with my mum, which is always strange to come back to, especially over Christmas. Of course, nothing much has changed, which in many ways is good because I love where I’m from and many people who live there. It’s starting to feel more and more different each year though. I love my friends, but every year now I get a real sense of melancholy when I come back. A “Glory Days” feeling. I’m 26, but I feel like distance, and the way I’ve chosen to live, has killed any chance of past relationships being the same. It’s hard looking at the people you care about and knowing how close you could be - knowing only potential - , but seeing a reality that is very different, where you barely see eachother (and have less in common). The old people you love are always there though - I Guess that’s what’s hard.

But, I don’t live a “normal” life. I only realise how different it is when I talk to people who are in very much caught in the conventional “wheel” of life. That’s 95% of, loved ones, friends, strangers. It’s strange to see yourself in those people. I’m the same. I see a parallel life where I’m in exactly their positions, surrounded by the same circles of people who you love, doing the same things, but simultaneously know that my choices don’t allow that life to manifest. What part is lucky that I’m different? I certainly see myself in them. But there’s another side where I feel I could never be the same; I consistently make different choices to those I have left behind. I can’t figure out what part is luck, and what I have chosen.

Life is starting to feel extremely exiting though. My plans future, how to get them, and current lifestyle is starting to connect together. It’s weird how powerful that is. Once the consistency really clicks too, everything has so much potential. The best part is that you never know your ceiling. In poker, business, consciousness, relationships. How do you know how good you can be at any one I you really try. If you realty find that balance? The Tao. I’ve only ever felt that once, at 17/18, where everything came together in what I wanted to do. On reflection that was the happiest time in my life as an adult.

And it’s coming back. I can feel it. I have bad days, but the pendulum is swinging back to balance and always will (I hope). I also know that I’ve found Tao/balance before. Growth will come -as it is doing - projects will be completed, relationships will be made, strengthened and rekindled,
and I will continue to crush mid stakes poker. The extent of that success is really unknown, which is the most exiting part of it all.


Poker is calling me, because now it serves a clear purpose. I know where it will take me and how I want it to look. I have a plan for growth, but don’t need it to work. Life will work if I stay in balance, and if nothing else this year, for the first time I’ve realised poker is not life, it’s just packed with potential. Look around, thank SOMETHING/SOMEONE that you’re alive, and see how you can get good at life. You’ll feel what’s important.

Happy Christmas, and may your 2023 be strong and exiting to live. Thank you to whoever reads this, and as always, please message me with any messages or updates of your lives <3 Lots of love, Dan. Take care xxx

P.S. 2023 new year bonus update is coming, with new ideas about new year, big picture goals, how to achieve them, and a review of 2022 in a few days. Should be one of the best blog entries, but I’m biased. <3

Great post!

Waiting for updates

gl brother

Extra insert from diary >> My time back in the UK Jan 2023, before going back to Mexico. This is more personal than poker related, but the two are always intertwined:

This morning was bad. I travel to Northumbria today with my mum and brother. I woke up with a complete feeling of sadness. Sadness at life. Sadness at the fact that my life should be happy. "Aren't you living your dream?" "Haven't you got to exactly where you set yourself as a huge goal to get to?". Exactly. And still sadness. After all, I've done everything in my life, made all the choices along the way that have put me right in this position - where I am right now - and I'm sad. I'm sad that I'm sad. I'm with the people in my life that I love most. I'm making plans with people that I know, so deeply, that I love. People whom my heart lies with, and still no excitement. You can see it on my face. I feel emptiness in my heart. That's the familiar emptiness that I felt this morning, on my break from work, and how crazy it is.

You know why? Because deep, deep down, I know that these people, when I'm in a calm, content state, are everything I want at my happiest time. At a time when I feel in balance, I would wake up and couldn't feel happier. The same people, the same surroundings. I couldn't feel - believe - any deeper, that my external world is limited. Poker, and money brings so much potential, but is capped. I can move anywhere, spend thousands, or have the world as an acquaintance. It wouldn't matter. It just doesn't hit deep. Unlike love. Unlike balance. Unlike contentment. And knowing this, profoundly, made my sadness so much deeper.

But then, it goes. As long as you believe it will go. Just like it always has. Especially when you are surrounded by people you love, and when you can share this sadness, it is embraced. You give humanity a chance to fight back. In Buddhism, they believe in Dukka, which is that human kind is born with suffering as part of their existence. An almost inherent disease, but it's only part of you. It's not you completely, but it's there - unexplainably.

And so, I write to those who suffer within themselves, in the same way I did, and do. To everyone. In what on another time may be your bliss, may now be a new low, because you can see so much potential. To those that are in the place they want, that they worked so hard to be in, and despite having everything that the best version of themselves could want, they still feel sadness, and even more sadness because of that. We don't know why, but honestly, does it matter? Just know: you never know how fast it can change. 1 day is a long time - a lot can and will happen, so believe. 1 month, 1 year, even longer. How fast that calm and contentment can come back, and suddenly life is bliss.


*** Normally on this blog I update on a monthly scale, and generally it is positive, because most months, if not all, when I step back, are positive. But months are made up of days, and hours like this. They just pass through. It's incredibly normal, and in my opinion, part of humanity in a literal sense, as part of the mind. On Insta, all we see are the best times - highlights. Life isn't that, and nor is this journey to high stakes. As always, please message and reach out, and have a lovely week Love, Dan. xx *** P.s. here are some pics from that same trip away

Last post quite beautifully put home and can totally relate. Not a tourney grinda but will be following your journey. Subbed and GL my man!

Thank you brother. I'll keep updating, and hugely value the support <3

*** 13/1/23 review of week ***

This week has been a week of insights. I'm back playing poker properly -full time- whilst managing odd coaching calls and the other exiting projects on the side:

I'm back in the UK, on the European grind. Late nights and late mornings, as no matter how hard I try to play the early session, I can't seem to get the volume. Not sure if I'm missing something, but I don't know how the early grinders in Europe fill 10-12 tables at mid stakes with solid EV tourneys. To be honest, I don't know how you guys that grind in the UK and Europe do it either, professionally. I normally live in Mexico, because the time zone gives me access to live a normal life and have SOME balance, being able to choose to grind late or early (8/9am start), depending on what I want to do afterwards. In the UK, there seems like only one option - start late and finish late. As a professional MTT player you just become extradited almost from society from the career you pick. Now, knowing I'm going back to live in Mexico, it's fine finishing at 3/4 AM and getting up at 11 AM, but only because I know I'm going back (haha). I just can't do this full time and have a balance for more than a few months.

But anyway, results have been going great. FTs have been coming all over the place, and I feel like I'm back playing close to the best poker of my life. Still not beating October 2022 (last month and best month I played full time), but getting there quickly. Wins in Turbos and $33 vanillas have been a nice solid base to start. At the moment, I'm working on getting my performances up to a level where I am happy to move up stakes towards mid/high, that supports my aggressive investment strategy in life. So for now, as always, it's the performance fundamentals that are key, which will show me when I am ready to move up.

The big insight though, is how much everything is a competition against yourself. How much do you have to turn up EVERY day, just to make life work and go in the direction you want. From just getting up when your alarm goes off, to walking at night and reflecting on your day. How nothing else matters; not your opponents, nor your results. It's just: "How well did you do against you?". Against that version of yourself that converges back to the life you know. I think, if you want to unlock different options in life, you only have to beat that self that converges to your current equilibrium. Beat it with love, with meaningful actions, but you must beat it, just to show yourself what you CAN access. What does "he" do that's bad, and what does the new equilibrium self-do that you don't do now. Consistency is the end boss. You can think you've beaten your old self, but you end up back in the same position - the one you want to transcend. Consistency exists where there is proof that you've beaten him.

So, that's what got me out of bed this week. I love playing poker professionally, which helps, and I love to spread love to those I see in life, but there's a real excitement; a curiosity that exists just to see what you can have access to if you break your demons for a sustained period of time, and to see then what life will throw at you then.

Lots of love, and I wish everyone good luck on their journeys. Also, please feel more than welcome to message me, I love it Dan xx

Good read, Thanks for posting the journey back. I am attempting to go full time and quit my job 3 weeks ago ;-)

Good luck!

Thank you! Best of luck with your progress as you go full time!

Interesting read!

I can identify with your journey, and am on a similar one myself. It's good to see I'm not the only poker player interested in Taoism!

Remember the highs and lows are just ripples on the surface of the water.

Thankyou brother. I wish you only luck on your journey! <3. Hopefully one day we will find the still water

20/6/23:

20/6/23 [image]NufyJgv.pn Image...]


Hello lovey people. ooooffff. So much to tell you about. I can't come close in 1 post. The good news is I'm back writing regularly again. My apologies for the lack of updates, but I have been sure to record loads along the way personally. I will update this every Tuesday and another blog every Thursday! We're back baby. Better than ever!


So, My Road to the high stakes: It's taking me to places that I hadn't imagined so vividly until now, and quickly. I'm still at mid stakes, and crushing. I'm feeling solid, and my game is probably more aggressive than ever, especially preflop. Navigating tourneys is improving hugely as a skill, and I feel SO dangerous every time I'm in a tourney. "What could you do to be a nightmare if you were to play against yourself? WHY?". This is the focus of my sessions . I just do things that I would be really not like to see other people do - relentlessly. This has me conscious about my edge in the tourneys that I play. Aggressive plays, Defensive plays, passive plays - doesn't matter. Just be a nightmare (which usually involves an extremely well rounded player, tending towards aggression). Andy Murry (of old) in tennis: you just know when you play him it's going to be a bitch of a game. That's how we like it.


BUT: my main value in this journey to the high stakes has come through off the table realizations. How do you scale your work? Why scale? How to take the pressure off performing? How to take pressure off life?

The answer to the latter is mental work ALWAYS. That is the heart of life. La pura vida. Knowing the limitations of my life when I solely focus on getting to high stakes MTT poker is SO huge I can't do it justice to explain. My heart and shoulders must be relaxed. My daily goal is only to see and focus on what I have - to appreciate it deeply. No chasing growth. No wanting more. It comes with the price of restlessness. Very expensive.

And importantly, life is about more than poker. Poker is the vessel towards personal growth. Towards abundance in resources and spirit. But only in seeing poker as just another application within life have I been able to see how healthy it can be, because let me say, when poker is all you think there is in life, consciously or unconsciously, your skill at being good at life is non-existant. That's all that matters isn't it? Get good at life?


"So what's your point?" That My journey to high stakes is not what it was. I started this journey seeing myself as the typical grinder. Solitary, with a tight community, that works and studies his ass off to grind up to the top and beat his competitors. The typical performer/ athlete's / competitor's mentality, which I grew up with in a life of sport. Not now though. Sure I have elements of that life, but I want to crush life through poker. That's all that matters. So my journey to high stakes is not as single minded anymore.

This changes everything. I want to bring other's along - to use what I know about crushing life to help other's as honestly and as much as possible. No more will I look to get to the high stakes out of ego, to achieve this arbitrary goal that I set at the start of my career. I will move towards it by growing a community and scaling my positivity. This means giving back to the world through the skills I have. I happen to be pretty decent at poker, and have insight into how it can help other's life as much as possible. I will stream, I will entertain, I will write and I will coach as many players though online videos as possible with the healthiest fundamentals that I can give. The high stakes are coming baby, and I'm living more exiting times then I've known.


Note: I still live in Mexico. It is as beautiful as ever. Here are some cheesy pics of my life with loved ones and some results over the last weeks. If anyone happens to come by Mexico, I would love you to reach out. Lots of love to everyone as always. Dan xxx

Blog 27/6/23 Jounrey to high stakes:


So, the tables are still as soft as ever. No change really. It's hard to tell in honesty if the standard is plateuing, or if i'm improving.
I'd like to think it's both, but i'm not sure. What do any mid stakes guys think? I try to ask a lot of mid stakes MTT guys if they genuinely
think the stakes have improved over the last 2 years. Almost all generally say no, and those who say 'slightly', generally don't have specific
ways in which the stakes have improved over that time. My answer is that there is more aggression preflop. More rejamming for sure. However, this
is not understood well in ICM and leads to more collision from rejams in deep tourneys, which works for me . There have also been an infux of
bots (A.I.) which hasn't been great, although again fortunately they are generally not made too well, and easy to spot (almost any Belarussian flag,
and Russia also often sus). The good A.I. definately have made life harder on 888 and ACR, mostly on ACR though.

In any case, poker is far from dead, and certainly not in live form. Punts are as often as ever. It seems live poker won't improve there for a long while. Resources in poker have spiked, and although you find way fewer live players that have 0 clue, you still havee 4 + limpers very often in cash games, whilst tounrneys are punted. Good signs.

My recent trip to the US, alongside the crippling inflation in the UK and Europe recently made me realise a few things though. Firstly, how much
money there is in the US, and how seemingly unstable it seems for the majourity. There must be tonnes of personal debt. Even $60/70,000 per year in any decent sized city their seems like relitively little. That made me think a few things:

1) Money really is what money does. It has such diminishing returns in life. I see such a higher standard of living in Mexico than the US on average, with incomes being SINIFICANTLY lower. Families with 10x lower income seem to make it go much further, physically and mentally, and wealth really relates mainly to attitude of it within life. If your money guides you, you're poor nomatter what numbers you're chasing.

Studies say after $40,000 your utility per dollar (happiness per dollar) is pretty much 0. That seems very true, certianly without very solid fundementals of what that money post $40k does.

2) Poker, for the most part of my career, was looking inwardly only. I was too often in the very rat race -which I set out so desperately to avoid- because of this.

So, for now, I play less poker, because money is less importnt for now. Who cares if I make an extra 20k this year? 30k? 40k? Great. Same again next year?

However, if I channel what I can offer to the world honestly as much as possible, and scale, abundance will come. I feel it extremely deeply. If my mindset of how to live improves significantly, and being content shapes my life, how much is that worth? Money is what money does. That, as an Economist (I started as an Economist in the UK, from Sheffield university btw) is the best definition I have seen. Most people don't seem to know how deeply that goes. I spent some years meditating on this. You literally get richer if your mentality towards it, as resources, improves. You get poorer if it worsens your life. The sum of $ doesn't matter so much (after you keep yourself safe and healthy, alongside loved ones). The same money in 5 different peoples hands, is of vastly different opportuity and influence on them within the world, and therefore life. I found that abundance comes mentally, and manifests physically through resources - neither being restricted.

So, I will use poker as the positive vessel that it is. Scale it outwardly, look outwardly, and not view at it as an ATM. Who does that benefit? Not me, nor the players I take $ off. What can be used is the opportunity poker presents to those with fundementals to grow mentally and financially to improve this world positively.


Making money through poker doesn't necessarily change your life. I've seen many high stakes regs. Slaves to the game. Changing your mindset positively towards life through poker is the crusher mentality.

{Crushing life is all that matters}

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

Update 19/7/23

Another week of mainly focussing on how I can sperad poker in as healthy was as possible through setting up my company with the healthiest foundations I can come up with. Poker grinding has been succesful, however i'm not grinding many days. Part of me misses my consistent, regular grind, however my problem is with going back to that is the lack of sustainablility. Every morning I wake up, meditate, and manifest. I decide and envision where I want to go in life, what I want to come about in the day, and what the ideal future self of me looks like. Then I try to do things in the day that I think he would do. I visualise what he looks like, how he interacts with the people in his life, and how he lives.

I guess the more I do this, the clearer the visualisation in my mornings becomes. I move towards my target with more precision, although admittadly I am still way off. However, I do realise that my grinding days - those days where I grind in a one dimentional way (for myself only) are numbered. I've known that actually for many years, but because I lacked clarity with my life moving towards a specific direction, I often fell back into what I knew and what I am good at. So, I know that the guy who I move towards, doesn't play poker for himself. He shares his experience, and tries to help others in many ways. I feel that deeply. He tries to grow or scale his efforts, not out of a discontentment from his current situation, but because he believes in the honesty of what he is dedicating his time (and hence his life) to.

As I say, I am not him now, and to be honest, being sepcifically him isn't the point. However, sharing the same fundementals as him IS. So that means that I will move to streaming and towards spreading what I believe to be honest (marketing my projects for healthy poker). That's going to change the grinding schedule we all know and love/hate (haha). The one which we turn up against ourself more than anything, and compete for $ against other people doing the same. Maybe we're mostly attached to that, because it's what we know and what has made many of us the people we are today. Maybe it's an escape from our problems - maybe it's been OUR escape door from "normal 9 to 5" life. Hard to know. But, what I do know is that people love this game for many positive reasons, and whilst I am in poker, I'm happiest when I am spreading as much positivity to as many people as possible. This game, at it's best, is a crutch, an outlet for creativity and socialising, and a light that allows potential to grow. Let's move poker to what we all know it can be!

As always, thank you to anyone that has made it this far. I appreciate it massively, as well as any messages. If you don't agree, don't worry <3. Regarless of anything, I wish you all only the best and will keep you updated every week. I also have another blog btw "How to crush poker at any stakes". I'll post a link.

i wish only love, and all the luck to this lovely community, as always. Dan xxx

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1.../#post58201395


2nd blog thready for anyone interested <3 <3 <3 . Extra update this week btw. Love, Dan xxx

Lovely to see how you progress through your journey. I see on your posts a very determinant and possitive efforts towards incarnating that version you envision for yourself in the mornings. I feel a lot of honesty and courage in this blog. Anyone knowing you outside of this virtual network that have spent some time with you can trully see your essence through these words.
Keep on giving us inspiration and good reads brother. Thank you for sharing.

I'm back. BETTER than ever. I have plenty of news to share with you lovely people - it will come.

Poker wise, i haven't been anywhre, just haven't updated. The sreets of poker are still at the moment (in genral), but I think there is massive growth coming.

Keep uing poker to improve life. It's there for that. I'll update more later today. xxx

P.S -- I have been a pro laying in Mexico for 2 years now, but I have left back to the UK in the last month to pursue growth in the poker industry. It is COMING - i'll update tonight xxx