“It takes a lot of work to be a winning player now.” A quote from a man who has been around poker for ten years that undoubtedly rings true with players everywhere.

Johannes ‘Greenstone25‘ Korsar believes in the importance of focusing on your mind as well as your game, especially as poker has become tougher and tougher to beat. “For the last three years,” he said, “I’ve been feeling like I won’t be playing only poker for the rest of my life. When poker got tougher, I realized it’s not possible to play poker successfully and not feel bad when things go badly. Then, I started looking at life coaching.”

Korsar said talking to others about how to manage his life outside of poker and how to formulate goals would have been highly beneficial while he was coming up. As such, he plans to coach others along as they ascend poker’s ranks.

“A lot of players are on a hunt for money, but they could be more successful if they had some kind of life balance,” Korsar argued. “I don’t know many poker players who have balance in life. The trend now is that everyone is forced to think of more aspects of their life like exercise and eating in order to do well in poker, so every aspect of a person’s life revolves around poker.”

The Swede has almost 5,600 tracked in the money finishes. Almost $5 million on PokerStars alone. And he has been a staple of the top 100 on PocketFives, reaching as high as #25 in the world last year. But, he has come to the realization that firing up poker games for 60 hours a week just isn’t in the cards.

“I’ve gotten coaching to figure out how to deal with poker and life in general,” he relayed. “I was trying to find something to combine with playing full-time and coaching others could be it. There’s a private institution I go to. They teach me about knowing myself and teaching others. I’ve been doing that for the last two years.”

Korsar believes that questions each player should ask themselves include why they play poker, whether they play with passion, and whether they play only for the money. In summary, “Self-observation helps a lot.”

Korsar, who has almost 450 top-three finishes, hasn’t begun teaching others how to balance poker and life… yet. He fully admits there are plenty of poker coaches, life coaches, and mainstream psychologists out there. But, as he noted, “It would be fun to be that outsider who helps people look clearly at how they’re dealing with poker and why they do what they do.”

He has a two-year education at HumaNovain Stockholm and has consulted with therapists, life coaches, and poker coaches. He is studying to be a therapist and life coach.

The Sweden poker community member has been around the industry for ten years and said, “Being a professional tournament player isn’t always easy and there is a lot of stuff to deal with all the time. We have to handle the theoretical and the psychological aspects of poker and have to deal with the fact that the majority of the time, we will be on a losing streak.”

He added about his future teaching style, “I intend to offer ‘classic’ poker coaching, but with a ‘life around it’ perspective if a person wants it. My advantage versus other coaches with more education is my experience of what poker is really like.” Anyone who is interested can email johannes.korsar@gmail.com.

Korsar got started in poker during the Moneymaker Boom, playing with friends and entering freerolls. He dominated his home games and promptly moved online. “I never thought I was talented in poker,” he admitted. “I just thought it was a fun game.”

Fun indeed. Ten years and over $7 million later, Korsar is still racking up big wins. He finished third in thePokerStars Super Tuesday late last year for $66,000. Over the years, he has piled up five scores that have passed $50,000. He is one of two-dozen players to hit $7 million in career winnings online.

“I’m proud of surviving in poker,” he boasted. “There have been plenty ups and downs over the last ten years. It has been fun to play. In the beginning, it was easy. It has become more like work over time, though. Now, you have to put in a lot of hours, take care of yourself, and think about every aspect of poker much more than you needed to in the beginning. That also makes it a little more fun because it demands more. It takes a lot of work to be a winning player now.”