Hi there!

Many parents and relatives are sceptical of people making a living as a pokerplayer. Poker may have destroyed some people lives because of gambling habits, but poker may also have saved some lives.

I am a former gangmember and got a 4 years sentence some years ago, when I was doing time I decided to break up with my gang and destructive way of living once for all. The reason for that was mainly because my fiance was pregnant and I wanted to take responsibility for my child.

My only chance of making it was to move from my city, and even my country. Therefore I had to find me a way of make a living in a foreign contry.

I came to the conclusion that working thru the internet should be the best way to do it. First I was thinking of daytrading, but finaly i decided to go with playing poker. Only one problem tho, at the time I could not even the rules in Holdem poker.

I asked my fiancee to buy all the books there was to buy about poker. At the time there was not so many out there, but those that were was enough for me.

I spent my time locked up studying poker and playing against other inmates. After I got released from prison we moved to Thailand and I have supported my family by playing poker since then.

We have since my release lived a very good life, been travelling all over world. Las Vegas 3 months, Aruba 1 month, Barcelona, London, Thailand 1, 5 years and right now we live just outstde Marbella in the south of Spain.

After a couple of years of playing poker I sadly lost most of my money because they got stolen from my pokeraccount. At the same time I had my biggest downswing ever and a bad money management, therefore one day I had only a couple of thousands dollars totally left.

I put aside 1000 dollars as a bankroll and had 2 months of living payed for. I then started grinding many hours every day and built that roll up so that now we have enough again.

Right now I play at way lower stakes than I used to do, but I am working hard and studying poker every day, and am going to play higher in a few months I am sure. I have now also learned a lesson about money management, I had lived a life of easy money for many years as a criminal and pokerplayer so a wake up call was good for me.

I have not gotten into any problems since my release at the same time many of my friends have gotten killed or are prison right now. If I had not found a way of making a living outside my country I also may have ended up in the same way.

That is why I believe poker may have saved my life.

Thomas

That is so very awesome. Congrats!

Yes. We need more stories like this in the papers!

Good to hear. My family don't like the idea of me playing poker also( Ijust added also to my vocab from Sarah Palin, also, furthermore). What gang were you in?

WP sir, NH.

Good to see you stopped gangbanging and are trying to make a career in somthing lagitament.
Very interesting read.
So I take it from your travels around your obv a tournament player?

Has this changed now?

I started as a tourny player and now my recruitment business has gones tits up im looking at playing cash poker full time.
I recently got sponsered and looking forward to attemping to make it in the poker world!

Good luck to you.

LOL lagitments....

And best of luck OP, hope it all works out for you...

Great to hear stories like this. I wish the best for you and your wife and your kid. Good luck to you sir.

Yeah.....

lol

pics of house in spain.

oh, and congrats on being alive!

Nope, I am not a tournament player, altho I am thinking of starting to play tournaments sometimes when my roll is bigger. Cashgames will be my bread and butter always tho. It is very difficult to survive as a tournament player without a sponsorship.

We have been travelling around alot because we have have so difficult to decide where to live. We loved Vegas tho, and if it was not for the visa problem we would surely have moved to Florida now when the regulations for the cardrooms are going to change.

Right now I play online but if I could find a nice sunny place with good live NL cash games on a daily basis it would be perfect because I am much better live than online at the moment. We tried Aruba, but there were not as much cash game there as I thaught it would be.

Good luck to you too sir!

lilholdem anybody??

LoL

Prison definately works - just look at Nelson Mandela.

All those years locked up and he hasn't reoffended :-)

Which country are you from originally?

Sweden