Sorel Mizzi doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in the poker world. He was caught buying somebody else’s account deep in a tournament at Full Tilt Poker, and let a friend use his account during a PokerStars tourney because he had to catch a flight. And while these acts don’t exactly measure up to the UB Poker superuser scandal, they did earn Mizzi a tarnished reputation.

He’s had trouble living this rep down over the past few years too. But Mizzi seems to be more at peace with himself these days and blogged about it on his website. While it’s a pretty long post, one interesting excerpt reads as follows:

Several incidents of being robbed, cheated and wronged had made me cynical, cold, distant and emotionally disconnected. The thought of people accusing me of exactly what I had been a victim to was unbearable. Poor me, no one understands, no one cares, I can’t trust anyone.

In fact, whenever I chose to trust someone, subconsciously I wanted them to disappoint me so I could reinforce my beliefs that no one could be trusted! I wasn’t happy about the person I became. I thought I had self-respect but upon further self-evaluation, I realized I didn’t.

As you can tell from the post, Sorel Mizzi also claims to have been cheated himself plenty of times. And while poker cheating is inexcusable in any case, at least it’s a little more understandable why Mizzi would turn to such acts.

Even when not bending the rules in his favor, the Canadian has always been a very successful poker player. He’s earned an impressive $4,661,968 in live tournaments, which includes a 2012 WPT Vienna High Roller win and a 2011 WPT Paris High Roller title. Plus he’s made millions more in online poker tournaments over the years.