Recently in my travels I caught up with a lot of old friends. Some of which have commented that despite being apart, they have followed me through my blog. Sorry I have not been posting much but thank you all for your support. I love writing but in the age of AI, I feel like this skill has kind of lost it's value. But I promise you all that 100% of my post will be hand typed by me. No AI will assist in my writing, so I can keep it real, my true authentic self.
In the past two years or so, I have been reluctant to call it a "downswing" as it implies it is mainly caused by luck. I have objectively tried to analyze my hands, and also put in lots of study time to make sure it is not a skill issue. I do admit that I have my shortcomings, and sometimes discipline or stamina issues, but I have since tried to correct them. And many of the spots I've had, I can't say I have had the best of luck. But as the saying goes, "what goes up must come down", I do believe "what goes down must come up" at some point. I have been preparing. I have been patient. I have been grinding. Waiting for MY time.
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| Street food in Hanoi YUM |
Since the start of 2026, although not super smooth, but there were glimpses of run good, which I have not had in a good long time. Recently I played a cash game where they had a bounty for winning 3-4-5 in a row, I managed to get to 5 picking up 3 all in pots along the way. That has gotta count for something. So it has given me the confidence to go out and play, together with my newfound skills and knowledge.
After finishing second in an invitational in Taipei, I played a couple of events at Players Series as well, finishing 9th despite a blunder right before FT. That I think came from fatigue and a lack of self awareness. After that I took a trip to Phnom Penh (which I will write on a separate post) and it was so nice to catch up with old friends. Some of these guys I spent time with every single day for months. They know me at my best and at my worst, and yet they still choose to be my friends. I wanted to keep the momentum going so I hopped on a plane to Hanoi to join the Royal Poker Tour.
Second to Malaysia, Vietnam is where most of my tournament cashes come from. I had two ITMs. One in the mini main and one in the main. Neither were deep enough and I essentially broke even for the trip. However there were a few highlights that I was super proud of. I kept my discipline, ran up a 5k (2.5bb) stack to 195k and bag the mini main. Day 2 of the main I ran JJ into AA and also flipped up 2.5bb to get a couple more pay jumps. However I did have a blunder on my last hand where had I had more time to think, and better brain processing power I could have folded that hand keeping my last 8bb. In the final event I played, I managed only to lose 7bb (off a 20bb stack) with KK vs AA. But ultimately couldn't escape as my QQ ran into KK soon after.
Studying has helped me immensely, but it has also added many layers to my thought process on the table. As a result, my stamina gets depleted much quicker than it did before. I am incorporating brain exercises now to my daily (non playing days) routine and recently my sleep pattern has also improved a lot. My body used to only allow me 5-6 hours of sleep.
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| Pho Suong, highly recommended |
Anyway I haven't started to make a dent into the losses I have incurred in the past 2 years. BUT I can already feel the cards are falling differently for me. Just yesterday I had a sun run, something I haven't experienced in years. So maybe, just maybe, this year might be the year for me. Stick around, I hope this chapter will be a more positive one.
