Mental Game Forum

Hey:)

I have a following issue:

I have tried now several times to move up to MSNL and I just had experience there negative experiences.

At my homelimit (NL 200 6max) I am a consistent winner and feel very comfortable.

My coach (he is a great support) assumes that i have easily an edge at MSNL as well, over the whole field, on average – tbh, with all modesty,

I also realize there a big enough edge -> sure there are better regs, but more regs than not have many leaks which I can spot and in addition to that i am tableselecting pretty well.

So regards to the logic, I knnow that this is only variance what is a part and a reality of poker.

It just feels that b/c of the negative experiences I had now several times at trying to move up, I still know the correct mental logic (I am also making regularly some mental HHs), but i do not feel it anymore.

This leads that my mental thresholde is way way way faster rerached, at MSNL (NL 400) than at my homelimit (Nl 200 6max) where I feel very comfortable -> after getting emotional affected and assuming that I cannot recover aymore (too stong physical patterns), I am returning again to NL200, to regrind all the loosses and what is more important, to regain my confidence.

-> then I try to add some MSNL-volume again, get again punched into my face and the whole circle restarts from new (happend already ~ 10 times now).

I have a pretty conservative BRM (200 stacks for my homelimit) which I feel i have to have b/c I am playing for a living and there are so many uncertainties in poker…

But yeah, b/c I am palying for a living I have to of course grind some volume out, which is for me anyways a bigger challenge b/c I am only 4-5-tabling on average b/c I wanna better increase my WR/Skill than my hourly for the moment, but in this way still have a chance of a better perspective in the future (moving up).

All my volume-goals are in danger b/c when I again experience some negative variance at MSNL, I usually have significant opportunity costs.

This I will have to explain shortly by using this day as an example:

Again I tried to add some MSNL-volume. I have planned to grind today 6h (netto) by two 3h-session and between making a short break to eat something and go for a run.

After ~50 minutes I have lost a stack in a pretty tough spot (already have discussed it with ppl in my study-group) – this have lead into an early stage of Mistake/Uncertainty-tilt, but with the help of your advices in  in your great book (recognition early tilt-stages, breathing-exercises , injecting logic and some strategic reminders…), I was able to recover successfull mentally.

~5 minutes later i have lost in 2 minutes 2 stacks due to random coolers -> at my homelimit I would not care too much to such obv. variance, but here it was already too much for me and my thoughts have been something like this "oh no, again – always when i try to add some MSNL-volume I get hit by variance -> so it will work never out to move up finally and again i will have to regrind it and to recover by playing only my homelimit for a while, then I will try it again, fail again and so on….".

Due to strong physical reactions, I have already known that I never cannot recover fully anymore with the 4 suggested steps and hence I  had to quit.

-> then I had to make a mental HHs ( time has paased)

-> meditate ~ 30 minutes (time has passed)

…

-> when I would have only palyed my homelimit, I would have not cared too much about the variance and I would normally be able to reach my daily volume-goals for today.

But this is now of course another time not possible which just costs me money and is leading to opportunity costs.

I hope you can see now the dilema.

But on the other side, of course  I wanna strongly move up, not due to moneywise only, but also b/c at a certain stage you kinda have to "live" in a tougher competetive environment to keep developing and not stagnating yourself…

The easier way for me would be of course to just grind a nice income at NL200 out with fewer emotinal pressure, but as due to the mentioned benefit-points of moving up, I think that this is not the best way.

Do you maybe have some advices for ppl who are moving up?

Maybe you had some students in the past who had similar problems?

This last questions leads me to a short offtopic question referred to you^^

I am planning for this year a coorperation with you, supposely in the 2nd part of the year.

So it just would be kinda good to know if you have waitinglists for your coachings or something like this, so that I will have a good chance to work with you together in the future depending on your capacity and time..

And sry, that this thread is so long^^

Best Regards,

Placebo