I liked the recent updates, the first one was kind of boring because it was mostly poker hand by hand, but the second was definitely an improvement over the previous time I read it.

I'm looking forward to the next update 3 years from now

No worries.

When you decide to make any of your private life public you're always going to get detractors and in general the truth will come out.

To be honest it's been years since I read your blog/this thread properly so wasn't sure what to expect when people (maybe again) started coming out of the woodwork.

But so far from what I have seen you have responded well and I definitely respect that and the stance you have taken.

Miikka, I ****ed up. First of all. I haven't been following what you have done in the past years and this thread is long as hell so I didn't know what stories you have told and what you haven't. Obv I should have checked first before accusing you of doing something.

I didn't know fex. that you have told that WSOP story.

I remember that many of your ancient stories where called bs, which obv don't make them bs, but as you can imagine, after the big incident I thought they were, because if you lie about something you must lie about everything else too, right?

I have been royaly pissed to you so long that when I saw someone bumbing your thread I instantly went and respond without better knowledge and spitted all the venom towards you. The reason why I have been so pissed to you is not that much what you did few years ago. Its more because you went and survived the ****storm and lived to fight another day and you even got a nerve to make your life better.

Yeah, I am from Finland and it is in my blood to be a bitter SOB.

I contacted couple of my friends from finnish poker community and none of them at didn't remember anything which they can comfirm being a lie. Maybe you did lie about something, maybe you didn't, but as long as no one can prove that, you are as honest as anyone else.

I also checked those other PS accounts I thought you were using. Guess what? One of those were your PS.pf account and the other wasn't you at all.

I owe you a big apology. I don't expect you to accept it, but I hope it at least means something.

Peace and love!

Awww how sweet

Hey,

It's all good man. Takes a man to write that, so I respect that And the (sad) truth is that honestly, the extent of my past ****-ups is so big that it's not like I can disagree with people who are judgmental of me. The only thing that tilts me is when people make it sound like I'm hiding something which I've never done - you can have a random person on the street asking me about everything I did and I'll always be honest and up front about it. And also I guess it might look like I just bounced back effortlessly, but honestly it was SO hard to gain even the tiniest of respect from people and it took years and years, and it's not like my reputation will ever be 100%. As a fellow Finn I can definitely relate with being pissed off over someone bouncing back, I think if it wasn't me I'd probably react roughly the same way.

But yeah. After the scandal I moved myself and my gf back to Finland from abroad, I had to move to my mom's empty bedroom to grind 15 hours a day to pay people back, had to deal with all that negative outbreak from literally 1000s of people, I was really scared to even go out for a while, and it was extremely horrifying to have tons of Facebook friends blocking you and trying to figure out who to even talk to anymore. I was, and am eternally grateful for those few who showed support at the time, it really is true that you see who your friends are at rough times. And still, even that I worked as hard as I possibly could, I couldn't have paid people back without some help from friends (as in, direct monetial help to speed up the process). And then when I had paid people back but still had absolutely no face to show in public, I went to the Helsinki Freezeout anyway just to deal with it because I figured I'll rather deal with it now than hide. And it was so terrible, I'd been a reg at the casino for a couple years and it was such a nice tradition to go there 30 minutes before tournaments start to hang out and talk with everyone... and now when I entered the room people were, literally, turning their backs pretending I'm not there, and when I tried to join conversations people just shunned me away, and to this day there are some people who barely talk to me as a result of all that. And of course about a week later in the Freezeout closing party I got badly drink spiked and ended up out of my mind passed out in -20c in the snow outside, could easily have died had the cops not found me and put in a jail cell, I was vomiting blood for days afterwards and my gf got the same treatment as she had sipped that same drink. It was never found out who did it but given it was an invite-only party and probably 90% of attendees more or less hated me at the time, I think it's pretty damn unlikely it wasn't related to the scandal. So if it helps at all, I can assure you that it's not like I just bounced back and pretended none of that happened and life was good again, I worked my ass off both at the tables and trying to become less of a ****ty person. I do agree that I probably did run pretty well in tournaments to go on win that same Helsinki Freezeout a year later and to have a ~+200k calendar year, but I really did work as hard as humanly possible, probably putting 70 hours a week on average into it. On the latter front I still have a long way to go but I've been taking baby steps in the past years.

Anyway, thanks for posting, this really made my day (I mean honestly, not sarcastically/in a douchey way). Peace!

Enjoying the samples. Quick editorial note, you should change "conversate" to "converse", you've made the mistake quite a few times and it's the only error that really stood out.

So.. the past year it was your make or break year pokerwise right? Remember readimg that somwehere in this thread. How did you finish?

Sorry if dumb question, but it's gonna be out in English?

No.

Like this thread it will be in Arabic.

Not sure why you thought it would be a dumb question?

+1

+1

Lol

http://www.onceagambler.com

Site says its three parts in books part one to be released in January second feb third March and paperback after

lmao procastrinators gonna procastrinate

So parts 2 and 3 haven't been started yet?

Lol

looks like a crappy blog site.....

but you have to pay for the content.....

thats not even finished yet after a bazillion years .....

and so the phantom book is still not here? i always thought the guy was a tool, he keeps proving me right

I think Mikka should send me a copy to review and alleviate everyones concerns here hahaha

I can definitely be quite toolish for various reasons but I'm afraid the joke here is on you good sir. The site is completely free of charge as is the blog, so I'm not sure what exactly has made you believe you'd have to pay for it, but based on your post I'd recommend working on your reading comprehension. Also, how is the fact that I have taken years and thousands of working hours to finish this a bad thing? If anything I'd hate myself if I had put some hastily written half-assed product out there. To quote Ron Swanson: "Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing." I believe I have whole-assed this book to the maximum and couldn't be happier with my effort/result. If making sure my first book is the best product I can possibly make means that I'm a tool, then I'll happily be one.

Re: Everything else, I am updating in my (free) blog on the website. I'm still trying to avoid spamming here on 2p2 out of respect for them. The cover art as well as quotes and some other information are there. My latest post chronicles the slightly out-of-the-box publication method and the reasons behind it.

Cordially,

CB

Sb77 = wrecked

Cordially, (?)

PGH

Just got done reading all 20 volumes and look forward to the book. Pretty epic and entertaining read.

Poker Player Snapshot: Miikka “Chuck Bass” Anttonen – Once a gambler

Alright, I guess I should make a statement or whatever you'd like to call it here. I will preface this with a message to the mods; This will be my first and only self-initiated bump to this thread. I have no intention to promote my book via twoplustwo, but given that I assume many people will stumble upon this thread in the future and wonder why there's no closure, I assume posting this will be fine. If mods wanted to link this to the OP that'd be great, if not I have no problem with that.

So yeah the book inspired this thread, Once A Gambler, is out next week (and can already be pre-ordered). Or to be more precise, the first part of the trilogy is - the other two will be out this spring as well. I'm not going to include a link or anything here, since I assume it'd be against 2+2's rules, but I'm sure you can find it pretty easily.

I already talked quite a bit ITT about this project, and I'll be more than happy to answer any questions. I'm pretty sure this book will spawn a lot of discussion, and part two will without a doubt make the forums explode. I have worked like a maniac on this lately (in January I worked 80-hour working weeks and took a whole two days off in the entire month), not to mention all the mental and financial stress this has caused. As a result I'm so exhausted that I'm going to have to take a couple of weeks off just to charge my batteries, so I'm heading to Cuba soon to drink mojitos on the beach and enjoy my world being normal for a few more days before all my skeletons are out of the closet, so if I'm slow to reply it's not because I'd be avoiding tough questions.

I know that no matter what I do, some people will always think of the book as a moneygrab. "So your thread got popular and now you're shamelessly trying to monetize it, good luck with that!". I've received a lot of messages like that already. I just want to say that I truly understand that perspective. If this thread was someone else's, I'd be throwing similar accusations, at least in my mind. I know this won't go a long way to change the minds of those people, but I must say that I truly have worked hard on this project. It has been delayed numerous times, not because of me procrastinating or because the book would have sucked, but because of my perfectionism. In these final months I hired a complete outsider from UNC to help with the editing. She has never played poker in her life, and was exactly what I needed to get some perspective from someone who won't find too in-depth stories about online poker hands and the like exciting. In the end we didn't change very much, and she too felt the story was captivating, which in turn gave me a lot of confidence to go forward.

I've paid a lot of people just to help me out with the project, there are all kinds of fees going left and right, and just to financially break even I'd have to sell 600-800 copies. This is not accounting for all the man hours I've put into this project. It has taken two and a half years of my life, and while I don't have a precise idea of how many hours I've spent on it, I'd estimate the number to stand at around 2000. So if you account for the missed working hours I could've spent playing poker, there is no way in hell I'll ever end up in the black for this. Also, this is a very brutally honest book, that's not only going to cause a stir in the poker circles, but one that without a doubt will cause tension in several of my relationships and possibly even ruin friendships. The emotional toll it has taken and will take in the future is enormous. In many ways, this whole project has been pure suicide, and I can say from the bottom of my heart that this is far from a cheap moneygrab attempt.

I will also say that I truly believe I've written a genre-defining book, something that will be looked back as that poker autobiography that people will remember. I know that saying this will piss many people off, especially Finns since we are supposed to be such humble people. And I am humble, after all that's happened in my nearly a decade in this world I'm about as humble as they come. It's just that I really, really believe I've created something special here. I can't wait for the world to read it, but at the same time I'm very anxious and scared, because my expectations are so high and it'd be pretty devastating to find out that something I've worked so hard for turned out to be something that people hate. My expectations when it comes to sales aren't that high - I mean, it's a 400-page autobiography trilogy written by a 29-year old complete nobody - I won't be surprised if it won't sell much at all. But **** me if I didn't at least try. So I'm not saying this just for myself, but on behalf of all struggling independent writers; if you happen to read the book and enjoy it, please spread the word around. I don't care for your $5,99, or your friend's $5,99, all I care about is to draw enough attention to it so that as many people as possible would give it a chance. I'm trying real hard to get reviewers from outside the poker circles to read it, and it's proving to be nearly impossible because, again, it's a 400-page autobiography trilogy written by a 29-year old complete nobody. But what can I do? This is something I've dreamed of my whole life and I have to try to go all the way with it. So yeah. I'm not asking anyone to do my promotional work for me, to spam it around forums, or anything of that nature. And if you happen to read it and hate it, I encourage posting those opinions just as much. I don't want any attention my writing doesn't deserve, but if you do happen to think it's a great book, then I'd massively appreciate every tweet, Facebook share and what have you.

The first few pages of the book are available for free on the website, but I'll post them below too in a separate post. I think this is a good time for me to thank everyone who's read this thread and who's encouraged me along the way to make this happen. I'd especially like to thank the early readers - when I started writing this, I had no idea if I should go forward, but posters like ledoutwbottomset, EYESCREW, SmokeyJ and many, many others gave me energy to keep posting my story long before I dared to even dream about it becoming a real-life book one day. I've received advice via PM from numerous posters, too, and it's been really heart-warming to have people offer to help me without even asking. Many of these people are listed in the actual credits of the book, so I'm not going to name-drop them here. And I'd naturally like to thank 2+2 for not only providing a platform to originally get my hungover ramblings out there, but for providing us with this entire forum. I've learned so much from the threads on 2+2 over the years, and I'm not just talking about poker strategy - I've learned how to cook a great steak (thanks, gobboboy), about many tv shows I would otherwise never have come across, how airplanes work (thanks, w0x0f), etc etc. The list is nearly endless. This truly is a great forum and I'm looking forward to contributing to the community in one way or another in the future, too.

Thanks for reading


Miikka

And here are the first couple of pages as promised:



The paella I'm eating is overpriced and mediocre, as it often is at the Barcelona marina. I'm sweating. It's thirty-five degrees celsius outside and I'm wearing a hoodie. It's not hard to spot online poker professionals in Barcelona right now, as a steady stream of players, the vast majority of them men in their twenties, flows towards the casino, armed with their hoodies, Bose headphones and mirrored sunglasses. Just like every year, we're here for the European Poker Tour, the most prestigious series of live poker tournaments in the old continent. Poker seems to be getting more and more popular every year, and so are these tournaments. In the first ever EPT Barcelona in 2004 the first prize was just 80,000 euros. This year's winner will get over ten times that.

There are so many poker tours out there that it's hard to keep track of everything. World Series Of Poker, World Poker Tour, European Masters Of Poker, Unibet Open, Latin American Poker Tour, Asian Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker Tour – the list goes on. Every day somewhere in the world men and women gather in casinos, conference rooms, cruise ships and what have you to play poker for big money. Yet most of the bigger tournaments take place in the same cities over and over. According to my collection of airplane ticket stubs, this is at least my eleventh visit to Barcelona within the last few years. London six times, Cannes five times, Vienna, Prague and Malta four times each.

Then there are the more exotic locations; New Zealand, Uruguay, Macau, South Korea. I've been to over sixty countries in recent years, but whether I've seen many of these places is another question. It's not that the hectic nature of the touring wouldn't allow for spending time wandering around the cities and getting immersed in the local culture. Usually, there's more than enough time to see what each city has to offer. It's the physical and emotional burden caused by our profession that often limits our sightseeing to the vicious circle of the casino, the hotel and the nearest bar, the holy trinity of poker traveling.

Usually you only get to the destination on the day the tournament starts. So you go to the casino, play your heart out at the tables, and due to the nature of poker tournaments still lose your entire investment about eighty-five percent of the time, often after days of playing with minimal sleep and huge emotional outlay. Since many of these tournaments cost between five and ten thousand euros just to enter, losing that kind of money takes its toll, especially when you bust in a brutal fashion to some idiot who made a bad play and got lucky. Most of the time, that's exactly what happens. After busting out, you drown your sorrows at the bar with your peers and spend the night sharing your stories of bad luck and little justice from the poker gods. The next day you wake up hungover, realize you're ten thousand poorer than you were before you left for this stupid trip, and want to recoup some of that money back. But as always, the hotel internet is too slow to play online poker, which to someone who has just lost a significant portion of his bankroll is a disaster comparable to famine. So you book a new return flight for the same day, buy your spouse something from the airport duty free shop, and upon arriving at home, lock yourself in your office to click a mouse for twelve hours a day until you've won back the money.

Of course, sometimes the stars align just right and you actually do make money in these tournaments. When you play live poker tournaments for long enough, your day will come. And I can tell from experience that there's nothing sweeter than ending up the last man standing and lifting that trophy in the air. The feeling of having outlasted everyone, of being crowned champion – there's nothing like it for a poker player. Not to mention the money. One of the players slowly making their way to Casino Barcelona right now will take home a check of 850,000 euros a few days later. One of them will come in second for over half a million, and 120 of them will leave with at least 8000 euros. There's more than enough money to attract us back here over and over.

I've already been in Barcelona for a week. I came in early with Cinnamon, because we'd never been to Barcelona together before, and the city has played such a big part in my life that I wanted to share it with her. I always feel at home in Barcelona, and with Cinnamon I feel more at home than ever before.

Just a few days before our departure, someone from Unibet called me. Would I like to come play in their tournament in Dublin? They'd give me a 2500 euro package just to show up. It's a lot of money, but I had to turn it down, because I wanted to come here with Cinnamon instead. In my years as a poker player, I've learned that money isn't everything. Sometimes you just have to do what feels right, even if it includes leaving free money on the table.

From my many visits to this city, I know a lot of secretly great hotels in Barcelona, and the one I picked couldn't have been more perfect for us. With its mere handful of rooms, we've had the pool to ourselves on many days, and resting on the hotel's huge, comfortable beds has allowed me to catch up on some much needed sleep. We've seen all the sights, from Sagrada Família to Parc de Montjuïc, we've feasted on local wines and eaten all the Catalan culinary wonders. It's been a revitalizing week.

Yesterday Cinnamon left, because I wanted to be alone for the madness that is the European Poker Tour. I never play my best poker with her around. To do that I need to be inside the poker bubble, a bubble she has no part in with her university studies and normal life and hobbies. Yet I know that when the bubble eventually bursts and I'll buy that flight home, most likely hungover and thousands of euros poorer, she'll be there waiting. And that makes the prospect of busting the tournament without making any money much easier.

I'm not following the stream of players to the casino, not just yet. I guess I should be, because the tournament is starting in five minutes, and I've already purchased a seat for 5300 euros. But what's the rush? I have a perfect view of the Barcelona marina, the turquoise Mediterranean Sea and the skyscraper next to the casino that is the Arts Hotel. I know this will be the last moment for days when my mind won't be solely focused on poker. It's the famous calm moment before the storm, and it's beautiful. I'm feeling at ease, well-rested, hungry for success, but at the same time content. Considering everything that's gone down in the past few years, it's a minor miracle that I'm sitting here in such a zen state of mind, or even sitting here at all.

It's only been a year and a half since I woke up from the lock-up, drugged out of my mind, vomiting blood and without a shade of memory of the previous night. A month before that was the night that changed everything, the night that someone even suggested they should put someone on watch at the airport around the clock to make sure I don't flee the country. In this city alone I've witnessed a lesbian sex act, been shot with a fire extinguisher by a security guard, and been robbed at knifepoint for many thousand euros. During the rollercoaster of my poker career I've been broke more than a few times, been tossed around by turbulent relationships, lost control of a motorbike in monsoon rain, slept on a park bench and gone from a sponsored professional to the spitting cup of the entire poker community. If I have a heart attack before I reach forty, I won't be particularly surprised.

All things considered, one could say I'm pretty lucky to even be alive. In the grand scheme of things, a few missed hands of poker aren't going to hurt. I might as well sit back, try my best to enjoy the paella and gaze at the line of endless palm trees, reminiscing about the crazy ride that has brought me here.