– Hello, GT!
It's been 15 years since I started my career as a player and about 10 years as a coach in Hold'em.
Poker has had a profound impact on my life, giving me a financial foundation, discipline, the opportunity to see the world and live in different countries, and a community where I've made some of my closest friends.
At the beginning of my journey, Inner and Elef's (other GipsyTeam members) poker blogs helped me believe that poker could actually be a profitable business. And, during a period when I was grinding out rake at NL100 for almost a year and wanted to quit, Forch's blog became a great motivation for me to not give up and keep going.
Anyway, I decided to make a small AMA thread, maybe my experience will be useful to someone.
Before answering readers' questions, Jayser shared one of his biggest misconceptions:
Throughout my poker career, I was deeply motivated by a goal that seemed like the ultimate goal: financial independence. On days when I was close to burnout and literally hated poker, I forced myself to sit down at the tables simply by rereading my financial goals.
Now I see it differently. This goal is achievable, but it doesn't answer the question "what next?" Moreover, if you're someone who values movement, development, and a sense of progress (and these are the qualities usually needed to achieve this goal), then after a sharp reduction in workload, a strange thing often happens: first, a thrill of freedom, followed by emptiness and intense boredom.
If I could "try on" a feel for life after achieving my financial goals, I would have slowed down my poker development significantly in the latter stages of my career. Instead of aiming to become a top player or earn X, I would have strived for a balanced, systematic approach: without regular burnout, with regular exercise, and without sacrificing socialization and fun.
— Do you still have a love for the game after 15 years of your career?
— I don't have the same love for the game as I did during my active career, although I still dream about poker sessions sometimes. My interest in poker theory fluctuates and depends on the number of new challenges. For example, learning deep-stack ante games was very interesting when I was playing Asian games. When RocketSolver came along, my interest shifted to bomb pots, and after building a powerful PC, to working with research."
My psychological makeup isn't well-suited for poker, and to perform well, I had to pay a heavy price in terms of my health, "breaking" myself, suppressing my emotions, and turning into a robot. At the time, I hadn't found a better option, and while this approach worked, it had a lot of negative side effects outside the tables.
— Can you tell me more about “breaking yourself”?
— The first few years, the biggest challenge was always psychology and tilt; I'd estimate it took me about seven years to resolve it. At that point, for some reason, working with a psychologist wasn't an option; my best efforts were Tendler's books and self-study. The best I came up with, through trial and error, was suppressing my emotions at the table and becoming more robotic. But when you train yourself to tone down your emotions at the table, the effects continue outside the game—it reduces empathy and overall your sense of life.
Today, poker players have it somewhat easier in this regard, but not by much. A plethora of psychologists have emerged, but psychologists, like specialists in any field, are very diverse. The vast majority are incompetent and useless, and some can be downright destructive. This isn't a reason to categorically avoid psychologists, but you need to be very careful when selecting them.
— If not suppression/robotics, then what is the solution to tilt problems?
— Find a competent psychologist who will teach you how to work with emotions, rather than suppress them.
— What do you mean by “working with emotions”?
—I mean the skill of noticing an emotion in the moment, understanding what caused it, not acting automatically, but returning to a conscious choice of a solution – that is, sticking to a strategy.
When you're on tilt after a trigger (cooler/mistake), an emotion (anger/fear/resentment) appears, and it pushes you to an impulsive action like a stupid bluff for your stack, which you wouldn't have chosen in a calm state.
Working with emotions is the ability to analyze the chain “trigger -> thought/interpretation -> emotion -> impulse -> action” and pause at the moment: name the emotion, understand the reasons for its occurrence, and only then choose a solution according to strategy, and not on impulse.
After a tilt, it's helpful to ask yourself: "How would a top performer with exemplary self-control (like Aurora or fish2013 ) react in this situation? Why am I reacting differently? What specifically in my interpretation/expectations is triggering the tilt, and how can I change it?"
— If you had a passive income of ~20k and the unhindered opportunity to live in any country in the world, which 3 countries/cities would you choose and why?
— 1. Portugal, Lisbon
...a big gap
2. Melbourne, Australia, or Wellington, New Zealand.
3. USA (?)
I've been actively searching for a country to move to permanently since 2016, and I've spent over 10 years in different countries, living from a month to several years in each. I couldn't find anything better than a 6/10 based on all factors. I wrote a bit about the pros and cons and why I chose Portugal in my posts about local taxes, but I don't know what else to add.
It's all too subjective and if I were around 20 years old and didn't have a family, I would never choose Portugal because it's too difficult to build a career/earn money from scratch here.
— What approach to training players do you consider to be the most optimal and yielding the best results?
— The best approach is to teach them to think independently, to develop what I call their “poker IQ,” ideally using the Socratic method.
Provide a decision-making algorithm and a learning algorithm that will be most effective in terms of return on investment for every hour. Teach students to spot inconsistencies in the information they receive, whether from a coach or from third-party sources, and teach them not to automatically accept everything as truth, because, firstly, this is an important part of thinking effectively, and secondly, everyone makes mistakes. For example, in my poker course, I made a couple of obvious logical errors that somehow went unnoticed by myself and several dozen students until someone pointed out the problem.
It's also crucial to explain poker-related topics and incorporate them into homework between training sessions to set the tone for development in areas such as routine, sleep, nutrition, brain optimization, and the student's psychological state.
— How would you build your career now as an NL100 reg?
— I wouldn't join a fund or take backing, but I would look for a poker coach and a psychologist with experience working with athletes or traders (CBT or something similar). I'd learn financial literacy—most backing deals exploit a player's financial illiteracy. There are exceptions when a fund is more profitable, but you asked how I would build my career, so this is my answer.
I would cut down on living expenses as much as possible until the bankroll covered the game at the desired limit.
I've almost never sold shares in my career, except for a couple of high-stakes sessions. I bought my first car when its value was less than 3% of the BR. First you need to build a bankroll, and then everything else will follow.
— You wrote earlier that Forhayley’s blog helped you overcome difficulties at NL100. At that time, many future top players struggled at that limit? What was the reason for that?
— Back then, a large layer of professionals who had been playing this limit for a long time was emerging at NL100. The ratio of good regs to fish became much worse than at lower limits.
Another problem now is the high rake, which is completely unbeatable on many sites. Nowadays, poker selection should be practically a top skill – I played poker at the "medium" difficulty level, but now NL100 is considered "hardcore."
— What was your motivation, besides Forhayley’s blog?
— To put it simply, my main motivator was a mixture of my interest in the game and my fear of poverty. There were very few periods when I hated poker but played it—most of the time, I loved it. I remember periods in my career when, after working on theory, I couldn't sleep because I couldn't wait to wake up and get back to the tables to try new things.
— If you could go back to that time now, what advice would you give yourself?
— If I went back in time, I would strive for a balance between work and life, and I would also devote much more effort to my health and psychology.
— Are you planning to dive into online MTTs, and then maybe even offline ones?
— It's a great solution for those currently playing cash games online. It's not really an option for me, because MTTs and offline tournaments just aren't my thing: no matter how many times I've tried those formats, I've never liked them.
— How has the quality of your sleep changed since retiring? If so, what helps you sleep better and feel better?
— It's gotten a lot better, but it's still not perfect, like in my youth. The biggest changes that have improved my sleep quality and well-being are the absence of chronic stress and the sedentary lifestyle I experienced during my active skating days. I no longer sit still for longer than 45 minutes. For the same reason, I can't imagine myself playing MTT or off-ice tournaments.
— How long did you live at home with your parents?
— I think it was up to NL50, but that wasn't my fault; it just happened that my parents went away for a while. If I were starting my career now and had to make a decision, I'd start looking for poker friends around NL100-200 to share an apartment and gain complete independence from my parents without putting too much strain on my BR.
— What fields/professions would you consider moving to as an NL100 worker with a family?
— If I like poker at least 5 out of 10, and I don’t know anything else, I would aim to move to offline.
Unfortunately, there is no better answer, because I can’t imagine which intellectual professions will remain relevant in 5 (maximum 15) years, because everything can be delegated to AI.
— Many players spend years playing poker, despite the ever-worsening conditions. For some, it's a career choice; for others, a love of the game. But sometimes the question arises: could it simply be an addiction?
— The vast majority of poker players have some form of addiction to the dopamine rush that poker provides. Against this backdrop, many other activities feel underwhelming. The brain craves a return to the simple, straightforward stimulation of the tables.
This has its advantages – it’s easier to motivate yourself to play and earn money because it’s always accompanied by a “high,” but the disadvantages are also obvious – burnout, “wear and tear” of the nervous system, sleep problems, apathy, and, in general, an increased threshold of necessary stimulation that is unattainable elsewhere.
Off the top of my head, the main indicators of healthy motivation are the absence of burnout and chronic stress, when a person perceives poker as an engaging process and plays because they enjoy the game itself and the strategy, not because of ambition or thrills. Of all the poker players I've met, the best role models in terms of approach and healthy motivation are Aurora and fish2013.
— When you were moving up in stakes, did you ever encounter regs who completely destroyed you and drove you crazy? How did you solve the problem: did you analyze their strategy individually, or did you just temporarily retire to higher/lower limits?
— I did, but it usually didn't have much effect because I didn't know how to do it properly back then. Before NL200, the problem wasn't that acute, since there were always a lot of games, and you didn't play the same opponent that often. Usually, the problem resolved itself organically—sooner or later, one of us would either improve and move up, or the level of play would even out, but sometimes you just had to accept it and lose.
Leaving tables against opponents who are destroying you is a good idea regardless of the stakes, especially considering that sometimes those opponents end up being bots or players with tipsters. For example, I was always destroyed by bots playing with 52-53 WWSF: in 2012 at midstakes PS (grinerman & co), at rush400 Full Tilt (monkiavelli, usdemocracy, etc.), and in 2020 at Chico/ACR (bloodywolf and 2BTConred). I think they all ended up getting banned.
— What should you do if a person loves to play, but sitting down to study theory is sheer torture?
If you're completely uninterested in theory (which is essentially strategy), then your motivation is probably the sheer joy of the game. Motivation alone won't get you very far; discipline and a systematic approach are essential. If theory/strategy feels like "uninteresting torture," and you've made no progress over the years, then building a professional career is pointless. You won't be able to compete with those who are willing to spend hours on solvers without negative motivation, revel in new theoretical discoveries, and constantly grow and develop.
— How do you manage your capital: investments, crypto, deposits, real estate?
— I prefer the approach of top investors (Buffett, Dalio, Boggle, and dozens of others): the market is quite efficient most of the time, and you can consistently outperform it over time only if you have access to information/an advantage that others don't have.
Without such an advantage, trying to "guess trends," pick the "best stocks," and constantly shuffle things around often feels closer to gambling than investing. Statistically, about 90% of investment funds fail to outperform the market over a 10-year period, despite huge budgets for analytics, AI, and expert teams. If they don't beat the index en masse, expecting us to do so between sessions and hands is a dubious proposition.
The conclusions are as follows:
— Don’t try to beat the market.
— Avoid investment funds and don't listen to financial advice. In most cases, they won't outperform the index, but they'll definitely charge a commission.
— Understand taxes and how dividends are structured (I wrote about this in a post about taxes in Portugal).
— Read a couple of basic books on investing to understand the principles.
— Assemble a simple, diversified portfolio of several ETFs across different regions/asset classes and hold it securely. This alone is enough to achieve roughly market-like results over the long term—and outperform most "professional" attempts to beat the market.
— Misha Inner once said that only people with above-average intelligence can achieve anything significant in poker. Do you agree?
— Intelligence is a very broad concept. History is full of examples of very smart, even brilliant people in one field, who made incredibly stupid mistakes in others. Specifically, in poker, you don't need to be "the best of the best" to expect to earn $2,000-$4,000 a month in 2026. You'll have to work significantly harder than before, but the barrier to entry is still lower than most other professions with a similar EV.
— What is better: regular independent work or a high-quality training course?
— Nothing in the world can replace regular independent work, and a course (or other type of coaching) is a supplement, designed to maximize development and make it more effective. For example, I've always worked extensively on theory and devoted about 15,000 hours to poker. Finding the optimal areas for focusing my efforts and developing the most effective workflow required thousands of hours. If I had been able to buy such materials ready-made, I would have reached the high stakes many times faster and would have won much more.
GiveMeUp comes to mind here. In the pre-solver era, we played at roughly the same level, then he trained with fish2013 and started crushing NL 1k and higher. It took years for him to catch up, and if we calculate the potential lost EV, it would have been a plus to train with Nikita (fish2013) even for a six-figure sum.
Today, knowledge itself is significantly less valuable than it once was. The importance of coaching is now reduced to other things: learning algorithms, time optimization (when a coach provides a student with insights from 40 hours of research in a 90-minute session), mindset development, rapid feedback, support, and community.
The game and strategy, at their core, truly don't change because the theoretical foundations (GTO) are static. Exploits change, new developments and ideas emerge, but all of this is and will always be built on an understanding of fundamental things.
