His name was Conor. He had been playing online for about 6 years and like the overwhelming majority of service-users, he was losing. Badly.

Despite an initial hotstreak and a handful of strong finishes earlier in his story; Conor had been on a downswing more or less for years. By the time he came to my attention, he was down a significant sum (approx the average industrial annual salary). His preferred games were HUSnGs (25+ buyin) and HU Cash. The problem was obvious after reviewing a few random hand-packets, Conor was playing beyond his ability; consistently.

He was not a bad player in a general sense but he was definitely weaker than the level required typically for his stakes – especially HU. Unfortunately no one ever explained this to him or he never took it onboard.

After a particularly bad few days; where he admitted to depositing his entire month’s pay within a few hours of receiving it (and losing it), he exploded and sent an incredibly emotional rant to support. This lead to his case being escalated directly to me.

From the moment I reviewed his case and history; I had made up my mind: Conor needed to be permanently closed for his own good. His transaction history; playing habits and the overall player-profile he presented were deeply concerning. His latest email (it was a plea for help and reimbursement coupled with other concerning admissions, etc) illustrated that he finally realised he’d gone too far. The sad part was that, in many regards, this moment of clarity came too late for intervention.

Now it is rare that an operator will decide to outright permanently close a player without first trying to intervene and engage with them. Naturally; depending on the customers motivations and circumstances; you would try to work with them; offering limits or restrictions to aid them, strict caps to help with bankroll management or just general quality of life. Here though; any of that would have just been prolonging the bleeding. On some level, I imagine Conor realised this himself.

So I closed his account, explained the reasoning for my decision and signposted him to financial support and debt services as well as gambling harm resources. I also arranged for all currencies Conor had within his account to be consolidated and issued to him asap as a FINAL WITHDRAWAL – the total amount would have gone some way to easing his immediate problems (rent etc).

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Conor’s story is hardly unique. I encountered 1000s of players just like him. You reading this; you probably know a few yourself who mirror-onto Conor’s story. The reason why Conor’s story stands out to me is because it perfectly highlights a blindspot far too many ‘wannabe’s have – they dont actually evaluate and study their play.

Conor seemingly just chased ‘that big win’. Why not. It mapped early in his journey but it was probably more luck and circumstance than his innate ability. When he started playing more frequently; he zeroed in on one of the hardest formats; HU and never seemingly stopped to really reflect on his ability – was his swimming too far out?

I believed he was. Actually – I know he was. He was a Yellow Belt grappling with Black Belts – for alot of money. Over and over again.

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It’s easy to reflect now and say what Conor should have done. That would be of no help to him.

The best recommendations though for anyone who is seeing themselves (comfortably or otherwise) reflected in Conor’s story are these:

-NEVER move up stakes until you have cracked the one you are at. Conor jumped pretty soon after his first win because he conflated his results with him capability. This turned out to be a grave mistake. As I said at the beginning – he wasnt a bad player. Had he stayed in the shallow end and honed his skills there before trying to conquer the next rung– he might have become the black bet shark rather than the yellow belt chum!

-Study your results. Please. For someone who played as frequently as he did and again – the format he did – he admitted to not knowing how any of his recent sessions went. He knew he was losing but not by how much or how often. I asked him questions about his approach and why he played certain significant hands the way he did (general game theory) he did not know. He had completely lost track of his financial spending and his outcomes… he was playing on autopilot and out of desperation.

-He never once used a deposit limit or time-out. There are and were features available-throughout to help him – he never used them. Even when he would occasionally get an automated outreach signposting him – he just ignored them. I asked him why. He didnt answer.