is this sufficient

lmao

better than sufficient, thats amazing. You're clearly talented

lol

Perfect.

Well, we beat Yeezy to it. I always thought it's be sick rewarding to have it out there, but this is just pure terror. So grueling waiting to hear people's reactions, I haven't really slept in the last 72 hours apart from a few naps here and there, can't get my pulse to calm down. I really hope as many people as possible read it over the weekend so I can finally rest a little bit.

Anyway, a bunch of pictures from along the way that should be of interest to people who enjoyed this thread (even if you don't buy the book) will be posted on the book's Facebook page daily. Should be easy to find.

Also if anyone has any questions about, well, anything I'll be happy to answer now. I think I have quite a lot of perspective about the poker world after all this and I've seen pretty much everything, so I think it could make for an interesting "well".

My favourite is how WillemDaFoe tried to hijack this thread at the beginning, even going as far as to post a poem and chuck just tells him to stfu. Milk came out of my nose.

Just bought the book, will be posting review in a day or so.

Saying that you are open to answer questions, i want to fire one that ive asked several very skilled players and always find their answers interesting:

- What have been your biggest eyeopener or "aha moment" when it comes to your development as a player?

-Also for curiousity: what tilts you the most in a pokergame/poker tournament? Is it plain out bad plays from your opponents? Horrible 1 or 2 outers deep in a tourney? Buttonclicking spazzmonkeys? People that tank forever in livetourneys?

Thanks for a truly amazing thread and thanks for sharing all of this. Respect.

Thank you good sir, looking forward to that and more Photoshop wizardry, you are clearly talented


Thanks!

Re: Tilting, I've always been oddly immune to what happens at the tables; 1-outers and final bubbling big tournaments and stuff have never affected me that much. I mean, of course none of us is completely immune, but even in my out of control gambling days I think I've reacted to bad beats better than average. All this just comes down to how our brain is wired, we react to different things in different ways, and I think it's key to just individually realize what makes *you* explode and work on that, so that you can realize certain thoughts forming in your brain before it's too late. To me, there are two major things that have always sent me over the edge:

1) Technical problems. When your internet dies / laptop explodes / there's some bs issue in the client in the middle of a session, that's the worst for me and probably the only thing left that still, 8 years into my career makes me actually play significantly worse. I don't think my playing quality suffers almost at all regardless of what bad beats I face at the tables, but when this happens I definitely tilt in the purest sense of the word. Luckily it doesn't happen often.

2) Losing money. This was always the key to all my worst degenism and even now I'm not good at handling it. Last year I was working on the book almost full time and as a result only found time to play poker maybe 2 days a week on average. I wanted to make ends meet so I played in quite small, variance-free games just to print money for the most part and I had exactly one losing week all year. I'd lose maybe once every 7-10 sessions, but those losing sessions would feel 10x worse compared to any winning session. Like I'd win 1500 on the previous day, then lose 80 euros on the next day and it'd still hurt SO bad. No matter how much I win, I don't really get any kicks out of it, I forget about the good stuff 5 minutes after I close the client, but whenever I lose it's a sleepless night ahead. Luckily these days I've learnt to channel these emotions to the right things; I used to always just mindlessly chase losses back and martingale with my whole roll to get back to where I was, now I just study fiercely every time after a losing session. Back in the day I couldn't handle this at all and I couldn't tell you how many times I've destroyed a $10k bankroll over a $200 loss only to find myself grinding $0,02/$0,04 the next day with a $10 deposit


Regarding the a-ha question, hmm. I do chronicle this a bit in the book so I'll put it in spoilers although I don't think reading this in advance would really hurt the reading experience.



Another thing that maybe answers your question a bit better would be something LarsLuzak said when he was pretty much the best heads-up NLHE player in the world, so maybe 2009? He said something like "the first 4bet [in a heads-up match] always needs to be a bluff". This is something that still, modified, is useful in so many ways. Like when you get moved to a new table in mtts, always try to find a spot to 3bet bluff asap, because you're new and generally people expect you to wait a bit to get a feel for the table. Or when you end up heads-up in an MTT, while I think a better overall strategy in many cases might be to not 3bet at all or just 3bet really polarized, usually you can always get away with that one 3bet bluff really early if you're deep enough because what can he do? It's the first hand of HU, there's no reason to think you'd start spazzing all of a sudden.

#nostratinbbv

Read the entire book yesterday, and I'm very excited about the second part. Not only are the stories very exciting and entertaining but it also strikes me how well its written. I've earlier read most of the parts in here/the chuckbassblog and did expect the book to be similar but I was positively surprised because it was not even remotely close. The book adds several layers to you as a person, and it puts a lot of things into new perspectives.

It might sound like I'm overly positive but this book touches me on a deep level, it is basicly like reading a book about myself; on steroids. And I do understand that this book is not for everyone, it just does not appeal to the regular robo aspie 100nl grinder that just thinks this is bull****. But for us that have gone through many of these emotions Miikka have felt its a really great book because we can greatly sympthatize with this character, and it probably also appeals to the public because it overall is a great biography.

Thanks for the short review, cant wait to read the book myself. After all ive been reading all the volumes in this thread from start to finish probably more than 3 times.

I guess what you talk about being a human and not a robot 100 NL grinder sums up greatly what i like about OP as a person and the way he writes. I can relate to so much of what he writes in his stories. Chaos of feelings, tilting away rolls time after time again, being unsecure about what you want to do with your life,the ambivalent feelings towards poker and the pokerlife and so on.

Its about being a person, a human with several layers that attracts me- not a flawless perfect guy who always makes the perfect choices and never makes mistakes.

Thanks fellow degen, what a great review - it makes me really happy to read something like this, especially about the quality of the writing. I did put so much effort into that that it would've been pretty tragic if the quality of the book weren't drastically better than my internet musings. And having an editor really was key, she did a tremendous job and fixed so many little things.

I'm really looking forward to hear more people's opinions, the above alone allowed me to finally catch up on some sleep

Just finished it yesterday as well.

I'm pretty confident that anyone who liked this thread, would like the book as well. The biggest surprise for me is that while I found this thread entertaining, the parts in the book I liked the best were the ones capturing the inside of a mind of a problem gambler. My social circles consist largely of people who have gotten the good end of the gambling deal, and I feel reading this opened my eyes to understanding the other side of it a little better, so that was pretty cool. Looking forward to the next part!

Also, (minor Breaking Bad spoilers):

Glad you liked it! My favourite part of this review:

What's the name of the book on kindle

Once A Gambler: The Escape. Alternatively you can search under my name, which is spelled Miikka Anttonen (yep, weird Scandi names)

^ Btw, Finns are not Scandis. You have that same mistake in the book.

I bought your book and based on first 100 pages it's a good read. It's obvious you're a really talented writer, even though I personally like a little bit edgier style. I'm sure you had to hold back a bit since these are real people you are writing about. Maybe you should next write a fiction book, would probably read that too if it's not about vampires.

Hey man, and thanks for taking time to write - I really appreciate all kinds of feedback so much.

Re: Scandinavia, it's funny you mention that (if you're not Finnish, I don't know if you are), because it's a subject that's debated to no end around here. I can recall at least three separate occasions with completely different people in house parties and such where people have fiercely debated this for like two hours straight.

In a nutshell, here in Finland they teach (or at least taught to my generation and I assume generations before us) that Scandinavia consists of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. That's like the very first lesson in Geography on third grade.

I first actually argued about this with some random in London during the trip that's mentioned in the book. I can't remember the context anymore but it was some Swede who argued Finland isn't a part of Scandinavia and I had NO IDEA this was even an argument so I just thought he was dumb, haha.

From Wikipedia: In English, Scandinavia usually refers the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, while Finland and Iceland are sometimes included.

...

The clearest example of the use of the term "Scandinavia" as a political and societal construct is the unique position of Finland, based largely on parts of modern-day Finland being one of the four historical lands in the Swedish kingdom for hundreds of years, thus to much of the world associating Finland with all of Scandinavia.

I'd bet that at least 90% of Finns still consider themselves to be Scandinavians, even if the Swedes, Norwegians and Danes disagree. Also, from my travels outside Europe, it seems most people also thinks of us as Scandis. Within Europe it seems to vary.

From a literary standpoint, I believe the context I used it in was the paragraphs where I was describing the early days of online poker and all the dominating Scandinavians like Erik123, Lodden, Ziigmund, Antonius etc. In a context like that, I'm certainly giving myself a pass, because I don't really think when people on 2+2 or wherever talk about "crazy scandi crushers" they mean just Swedes/Norwegians/Danes and not Jeans, Patrik, LarsLuzak or Ziig etc. Actually, there's even a thing called Scandinavian Poker Awards, where I even travel to in part 2 of the book, where the eligible countries are Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

Oh, there's also a part where Tess said "What's up, Scandinavia". Those were her true words, and based on my time Down Under, I'd say most Australians also consider Finns as Scandis.

Re: Edgier style, etc - I certainly didn't hold anything back, I can't recall there being a single spot where I decided to write something differently because I would've been worried about other people's reactions. I just think that the writing style I use in the book is generally pretty close to my "own" style, the one that comes to me naturally. Most of the literature I consume, too, tends to be on the edgier side, but we are what we are and I don't think I could've written the book in a style different from the one I used. Also, I think the ~100 pages are probably the least edgy pages in the entire book. This is largely because I'm describing my angsty teenage years being a compulsive problem gambler playing under fake IDs, hating school, feeling out of place etc - it was a very dark time. And then when good things finally started to happen, it was such a joyful period in my life that the drastic contrast probably also reflected in my writing style. I hope this didn't take too much of the enjoyment away, I can certainly understand your standpoint though.

Again, thanks for reading and taking time to post

when i finally find my kindle, ill buy the ebook

looking forward to read,

Hello from a thailand grinder

What advice would you give to someone who can't seem to advance to a level above 10c/20c live?

I have done some horrible things (and told some horrible stories) for money to play higher and always lost heavily

Great, let me know what you thought afterwards! Man I miss Thailand, I'm going to spend some time in that area next autumn. Such a great country.

Will you answer my question if I say I will buy a book too?

Can I purchase it on lay away or pay by installments? Each book is worth nearly a buy in

I know this is a gimmick account but I'll answer anyway in case someone's actually struggling in a similar situation:

1) Forget cash games and start playing MTTs
2) Print a variance-free few thousand a month playing ABI $15
3) ?????
4) Profit

MTTs are the only soft thing left, if cash games (at whatever stakes) aren't working for you but you really want to pursue poker as a job (which is questionable in 2016 really), the solution is pretty obvious.

I think you said this comes out in 3 parts and when the 3rd part is released so will all versions in a full book.

I'll definitely buy the full book let me know when it comes out.

If people haven't read these stories at all I recommend buying these bit by bit as they are ****ing amazing