My first game this season was outrageous. Given the huge amount of preparation at a practice table, I expected a lot, but certainly not the 8-0 score. It was brief, clocked an hour only; few errors were made. I played with a winner of multiple tournaments, who only just signed up for our club league.

And I lost.

I keep telling off myself that I’m wanting too much. Anytime I’m in a similar situation, I get punished severely. On another day, if it wasn’t a ranking game I would certainly stand up for the fight. I beat higher tier players on occasions, but these are just casual, spontaneous affairs. Whenever the stakes are anything more than nothing, I go mental and can’t even play the basic pot.

Colleagues advise me to take part in more tournaments to gain some proper experience in match play. In practice, I can be the best player in the world who never misses, but it doesn’t matter outside the training room. It is indeed my plan to start regularly attending such events. Thankfully, there’s a bunch of them happening in our club.

One thing I surely cannot do is to dream about winning any of those the first time I turn in. If it happens—great! But there’s no need for me to put any pressure on myself. I need to learn how to handle my emotions better. I mean, it is a million times better than it was at the time I started, but there is an endless path to excellence ahead of me. I just need to keep playing and enjoy every minute of it, because I love this game :)

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