Thanks to social media, more top professionals are able to open up about poker and personal struggles. By that, we don't mean Rampage's latest request for backers.
Now, we're lucky enough to hear from Stephen Chidwick, one of the most rock-solid, respected tournament poker players in the world, and current 2nd place on the All Time Money List. This time, he's not talking about GTO misconceptions.
Hello X.
Many of you will know me as a top poker player who doesn’t say very much, and for a long time, I guess I didn’t really think I had much of value to say.
I’ve kept a low profile for most of my life. I’ve built my career with a quiet determination and focus on the things I could control—my preparation, my decisions, my consistency. “I don’t waste my time with social media,” I told myself. And while that decision was undoubtedly the right one for me at the time, the reasons were fabricated—or at least incomplete. What I didn’t admit so explicitly was my fear: fear of criticism, of vulnerability, and of my inability to control my own obsessive nature.
I would almost certainly meet the criteria for autism spectrum disorder. I would almost certainly meet the criteria for bipolar disorder, though I never stuck around long enough after an episode to receive a formal diagnosis (whether or not I identify with these labels is a topic for another day). I’ve known the isolation of being forcibly separated from society, for my own protection, and wondering how I got there. I’ve experienced being so socially drained from a day of live poker that I’ve gone to sleep hungry. Not because I was so focused that I lost my appetite, but because those one or two brief human interactions required to feed myself were just too much. I know how absurd that sounds—I knew it back then too—but no amount of rationality stopped it from being true.
Over time, I slowly adapted. I learned how to sublimate that anxious energy and turn it into a motivating force—into an obsessively focused drive to reach my potential as a poker player, to prove my worth to the world through external accomplishments.
And then the validation I was seeking started coming.
In 2019, I was voted by my peers in a CardPlayer magazine survey to be the best player in the world—my dreams had become reality.
Stephen Chidwick Vol. 33, No. 5 Card Player Magazine
My ego had a field day, but it wasn’t long before I realized there was still a piece missing.
Now that I was painted as “the best”, there was no margin for error. Despite everything I had accomplished, I was no less fragile. Every misstep felt like a threat to the whole narrative. Am I slipping? Am I getting old and complacent and lazy? How much longer can I keep tricking people into thinking I’m so good when I know how big my mistakes can be?
And none of that even touched the root of what I was actually seeking underneath it all—to be accepted. So when someone threw out an offhanded criticism—“boring,” “robotic,” “no personality”—I took it to heart. Because somewhere in me, I was scared they were right.
Driven by my desire to be the best poker player I could be, I started doing deeper inner work—peeling back the layers of my belief structure and examining what was uncovered. Why did I feel like I had to be perfect to be worthy? What was I really seeking through my success? Uncomfortable investigations that slowly but surely started to free me from my preconceived notions of who I was and who I should be.
And I saw the benefits—in my performance at the table, yes—but more so in my day-to-day interactions with my family, my friends, casual acquaintances, and even total strangers. The progress empowered me and urged me onwards. The more I leaned into vulnerability, honesty, and trust in others, the more confident, authentic, and self-assured I felt.
I’m learning to listen not only to my precious logic but also to the quiet, mysterious, unexplainable voice within. The voice that speaks when _I_ am silent. The voice that now compels me to write this—and to expose it for the world to see.
And so here I am—the kid inside the robot costume. Just another human being in pursuit of love, of connection, of belonging. Tired of running from my shadow and ready to stop and turn around (I hope).
This message is for anyone who feels trapped in the darkness. I’ve lived through times that felt unbearable—where the idea of peace, or connection, or even a quiet mind felt impossibly far away. If you’re in that place right now, I want you to know: it can get better. You’re not broken. You’re not beyond help. Keep going.
I also want to thank all the people who saw something in me that I took a long time to see in myself and guided me down this path. Some will know who they are. Others may never realize how much a small gesture meant to someone who was struggling. I’m deeply grateful for all of you.
TL;DR: Hi, I’m new here.
PS my intention is to be quite intermittent in my engagement with social media, at least initially, so if you reach out to me and I don’t respond please don’t take it personally.
Stephen's post has already received 500,000 views, over 4,000 likes and numerous comments from some of the biggest names in the poker world.
"Wow I couldn’t have imagined a better reception. Thank you all so much for the love and kind words, you rock ❤️," Stephen wrote the next day. "Lots of people asking for more but I’m not sure how often I’ll feel compelled to announce something to thousands of people so how about whoever has a question can AMA in the comments and I’ll sporadically take one of the most popular or interesting ones and share my thoughts."
Bencb: Do you miss 6-max SNG battles?
– I wouldn’t say I miss it but the SNG grind was a fun one for sure. I was never very good at the hypers but they were good for desensitizing you to all-in runouts lol.
Alex Duval: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." I'm curious what % of your poker career has been alone vs with others. Learning the game, studying, sharing HH's, whatever.
– It has fluctuated a lot due to circumstance but if I had to estimate I’d say maybe 25-30% of my poker study has been collaborative lifetime.
Derek Kwan: How do you balance your mental health with a grueling tournament schedule?
– I try to incorporate as much mental health stuff into my routine as I have time for…meditation, exercise, sunlight, good sleep hygiene etc. And then accept I’m gunna make mistakes and not make them worse by beating myself up about them.
Deacon Fahl: I admire the honesty & this message couldn’t have hit at a better time When you said “I started doing deeper inner work—peeling back the layers of my belief structure.” What type on inner work helped?
– Restructuring thought patterns was maybe the thing that had the biggest impact. Looking at my inner narratives and asking myself – 1) is this accurate and 2) is this helpful. And if the answer to either is no, can I rephrase it in a way that is. I came to realize I had long been habitually very abusive towards myself in a way that I would never conceive of being with anyone else.
Brian Boggs: How much, if any of your success and aptitude do you attribute to a higher power? It goes unspoken too often, but none of this is possible without Christ. And I’m not even there yet.
– Difficult question to answer. I will say that I rejected these kind of thoughts for a long time and have become more and more open to them in recent years. It does feel like there has been a correlation between my explorations in these areas and personal growth in particular but also subjective evaluation of performance in poker.
– Can you share your buy-in schedule?
– With normalized buy-ins the graph looks much less attractive. This is for the last 8 years – there are about 1,350 entries into tournaments. I didn't keep count before that.
– If you could go back in time to when you were 18, would you still choose poker?
– Wouldn’t change a thing :)
– If you could go back to the beginning of your career, what advice would you give yourself?
– “Many of the things you things you think are true are not, question your assumptions often” (same answer for both on and off the table)
– Can you speak on the high stakes MTT landscape in terms of staking, selling action, etc? Lots of speculation from people nowhere near the space.
– Many play the most expensive tournaments entirely from backers. Some players have regular backers who take a certain percentage, but they sell additional shares for individual tournaments to reduce risks. There are many players who simply sell shares right before the tournaments. The percentage they keep for themselves can vary greatly. Very few people play 100% of themselves; these are mainly rich VIPs, whom we see in invitational tournaments.
– Please tell us about a time, when you were the happiest. What do you like about yourself the most?
– Birth of my daughter probably tops the list but generally I’m the happiest when I’m fully present in the moment. I think I was so drawn to games/sports most of my life because they were my most consistent access point to being able to ‘get out of my head’ and be present, but I’ve had moments when I’ve felt profoundly happy doing something mundane like washing dishes.
– What qualities of your own do you value most?
– What do I like most about myself? I usually see the best in people.
– A poker player who serves as an example for you?
– Poker player I look up to…there’s a lot. I’ll go with Erik Seidel. Humble, interesting, funny, kind, all around great guy
Jonathan Van Fleet: Is it true that you never deposited even a dollar and got your money's worth from freerolls? (I know that's what happened, I just wanted to remind others).
– There was a lot more freeroll EV to be had 20 years ago.
Daniel Strelitz: How careful are you about your posture when you play? It seems like we're at opposite ends of the slouching spectrum.
– Not very carefully. It's already become a habit. But if I start slouching, it means I'm probably experiencing some kind of mental discomfort.
– As someone with bipolar disorder, I try to avoid multi-day tournaments because they can disrupt my sleep patterns. How do you protect yourself from manic or depressive episodes while playing?
– The mental state should always come first. For me, the most important thing was awareness. Early detection of “symptoms” and understanding which behavior patterns have the greatest impact on them. Meditation and self-analysis played a key role in this.
Barry Carter: It's impossible to get bluff-to-value ratio perfect, especially when you consider many bets are 'merge bets' which benefit both from fold equity & also make worse hands call.
With that in mind, what do you think of this pic of my dogs waiting for their dinner?
– I think they’re such good boys and deserve double helpings.
Stephen wasn't able to reply to everyone, despite getting comments from some of the poker world's top personalities.
Phil Galfond – There will be a lot of uncomfortable moments for you posting here, but the positive can outweigh the negative. I even believe I’ve grown (slightly!) thicker skin due to creating content the past few years. This post alone will help a lot of people. ♥️
Matt Savage – Thank you for sharing Stephen. I've always seen you as a humble friendly crusher!
Joey Ingram– We need some fresh blood on poker Twitter.
Shaun Deeb – If you ever need coaching on how to be even more sociable at the table or offend people on social media, my DMs always open. You’ve always been a fierce competitor of mine since our early online days always happy to see your success on and off the felt keep crushing.
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