I was re-watching the whole Rocky series and found a hidden gem in Rocky 3 so I thought I'd share it with the BC. Rocky after the 2nd movie became the world champ and successfully defended his title for a long time. However, he gets defeated by Clubber Lang (Mr. T) because he didn't take his training seriously and he lived a life of glamour and glitz instead of training hard like he should; he lost the eye of the tiger (lol). When Apollo Creed and him team up to regain his title, Rocky can't seem to take the training seriously as if something inside is eating him up. While they're on the beach, Adrian questions what he's going through because "[Rocky]'s never quit anything since [Adrian] has known [him]." He goes on to explain his resentment towards his late coach Mick because he 'protected' him by only setting up fights with fighters who weren't very dangerous. Once the illusion of greatness was gone, the unbearable truth was too much for Rocky to handle:

Those fights weren't right. I never fought anybody in their prime. There was always some angle to keep the title longer than I shoulda had it.
Protectin' don't help nothin'. It makes things worse. You wake up one day thinking you're a winner, but you're not. You're a loser. So we wouldn't have had the title as long. So what? At least it would have been real.
In poker, there's a trap of getting too comfortable with your winrate. You think "oh.. over the last 10k hands, my winrate is killer" and so you open up more tables and milk the profits. I don't think anyone at the micro's should ever be "milking" anything. You should focus on improving and extracting knowledge, not profits every time you play. Logically, it makes more sense to learn as much as you can so that you can break into small stakes, then medium, then high stakes and then milk the profits there, where your killer winrate will translate to absolute profits that don't even compare to the micro profits. If you're milking profits at the micro's, you'll get to small stakes super quick, but then you'll hit a wall when the competition gets heavy and you'll go through what Rocky went through.

Another trap is when players try to find shortcuts to winning by memorizing charts, odds, plays, etc and start killing it in the micro's. Instead of trying to analyze and learn things at a truly DEEP level, they just memorize instead of LEARN. This happens because they think they know something when they don't really, or it comes out of pure laziness of just wanting to see their bankrolls swell with minimal effort. Their positive winrate serves as a blanket of comfort and a false sense of security (the illusion). The laziness may suffice at the micro's, but I highly doubt it will work when you move up in stakes where the competition is actually 'dangerous'. Again, you'll move up fast (although probably not faster than if you really learned the fundamentals), but you'll hit a wall sooner or later.

I ran into this problem of illusion: I played on a Euro site that was particularly fishy and did very well. I moved my funds to Stars after my bonus cashed in and started playing there and got my ass handed to me (mostly due to variance, but also because of an illusion that I was a winner) [down 13 BI’s in my last 7k hands]. I've accepted the fact that I'm not good and I'm working my ass off to fix it. I find there's no room for pride in poker. You have to accept yourself as you are (realistically and without delusions) and maximize your potential and improve cause there's always someone better than you. Honestly, never go to a Euro site because you think that it's fishy. “Fight people who are in their prime”. You WANT your competition to be tough; how will you learn anything if everyone you're playing against is WORST than you and they're shoving KJo PF into your AA??

Nothing in this life comes easy without hard work, especially not in poker. STOP being lazy and keep yourself from falling into the illusion. Think proactively in play and after you're done your session, open up PokerTracker and analyze your hands that you've marked and the top 5 wins/losses of the session. Don't just grind all day, every day. Learn something. Learn a new concept, or explore one more deeply (depth over breadth, depth over breadth, depth over breadth...) Keep a notebook where you keep notes on everything you learn; how the hell are you gonna learn something in-depth by merely reading an article? Analyze the article. Question the article. Discuss the article. PROVE you understand.

If you haven't already, start by reading everything in the Beginner's Digest. If you've done that already, read a book that someone from FTR recommends you (Theory of Poker and Professional No Limit Hold'em by Sklansky are good starting points). There's always something to learn, and the moment you accept your current level and milk the profits, the sooner your growth will stall.

I'm glad that I went through the worst downswing I've ever been through cause I know when that variance decides to change direction, I'm gonna come out immensely stronger than I was going in. I'm more determined than ever and I'm gonna grip the 10NL players by the throat and show them how FTR players play. I got the eye of the tiger baby .