When I Was A Donk – Mohsin Charania

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.
Mohsin Charania caught up the poker bug while in college at the University of Illinois. Although he busted his original bankroll playing in nosebleed games in Las Vegas, the Chicago native graduated with a degree in finance and even took a job with J.P. Morgan before quitting to pursue poker full time.
After a few years of ups and downs, Charania took down the 2012 EPT Grand Final main event in Monte Carlo for $1,785,780. In 2013, he won the WPT Grand Prix de Paris for another $469,477. Then, in 2014, he won his second WPT title at the Five Diamond at Bellagio in Las Vegas for $1,577,890. In total, Charania has won more than $5.2 million in live tournaments, along with millions more online.
Here, Charania talks about a recent deep run in a live tournament.

Back in April of 2015, I was in second place with just 21 players left in the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. For some reason, I kept getting into these really awkward pots against this guy who just didn’t ever want to fold. Instead of just waiting until I actually had a hand, I kept trying to bluff him.
That obviously didn’t work out too well. He ended up busting me in 15th place when he called my all-in with King-high. Of course, I had Queen-high. Afterwards, he told me that he had seen me on TV and he knew that I bluff a lot, which made me feel like a complete idiot.
This guy was about 75 years old and wearing a trucker hat. I didn’t recognize him and he shouldn’t have even been considered a problem, but I let him bother me so much that I basically gave away the tournament. I refused to just take a moment and realize what was going on, so I got frustrated and cost myself a lot of money because first place was a million dollars. I was really upset with myself.
I spent four days in that tournament just coasting along, with no trouble whatsoever. The first time I ran into some adversity, I couldn’t handle it. You have to be mentally tough and willing to listen to that little voice in your head that is telling you to stop. It even applies outside of poker. That voice that tells me it’s time to stop drinking at two in the morning is the same voice that tells me to stop bluffing the old guy who won’t fold, and for some reason, I didn’t listen that time. ♠