Home / Poker News February 2013 / Poker Downswings – Dave Nicholson
Poker Downswings – Dave Nicholson
Posted by: Jo Martin - Mon, 2013-02-11 07:18
Poker is a swingy game by nature, and high rollers who thrive on aggression are more exposed to up- and downswings than any of the regular players. 23-year old poker pro Dave Nicholson could probably talk/write more about that than just about anyone else out there.
Like most players of his caliber, Nicholson runs a personal
poker blog where he documents various aspects of his life and where put up a post a few days ago, detailing what has turned out to be the biggest downswing of his career. Although the mainstream poker/
online poker media doesn’t really treat Nicholson and his career as front-page material, the young pro must’ve been doing pretty badly lately. In his blog post, he says he added up the numbers and he realized he was at the receiving end of the biggest cold-shower of his professional poker career. The interesting part of the post is however the one in which he details his reaction to the monstrous downswing. He says the first time he experienced the wrath of Lady Luck, he had a really difficult time dealing with it. He was all stressed out, he couldn’t sleep and he exhibited many of the symptoms of being pushed to his psychological edge. Worst of all, he says he felt his pride destroyed. Beaten and humiliated, he no longer felt any motivation to return to the green felt.
This time around he says, he found it surprisingly easy to handle the situation. While the loss of the money really did hurt him, he didn’t feel frustrated, nor did he feel any sort of hatred for those who took all that money from him. Nicholson also said the reason why he felt no emotional impact this time around was because his priorities had shifted over the years, and
winning at poker no longer brought him happiness, only a feeling of relief.
