i wouldn't worry about posts like that, anyone with even half a brain will see how that only reflects poorly on him and anyone who would post "zomg lol" is not someone you should really be concerning yourself with anyway

He truly has been, and although this has been a grade A display of scummy from him, he has been doing this for years to all kinds of people. He admitted to targeting me because I didn’t know who he was when I moved to Austin, or I would like to think I’d of stayed away. But I’m not gonna let his nasty behavior effect my life, and I know that I can use this opportunity to utilize all the healing I’ve accomplished over the last few months. And thank you for your support

That’s exactly the thought process I had, and exactly how things turned out. My real friends checked on me and made sure I was ok. While others thought it was funny or that his behavior was redeemable. Even his mother thought what he did was disgusting.

Certainly helped bring into perspective who is my friend and who is not. Considering I’m moving to San Antonio in the next couple months, i now know who I’ll be visiting in Austin and who I won’t be

So recently, this last week, there was body cam footage released about a friend of mine who died last year. It turns out, the information we were given was completely falsified and his murder at the hands of the police was covered up, investigation incomplete and Live PD video footage of the situation was deleted. His name is Javier Ambler, but we all in Austin poker knew him as GATA. He was one of the first friends I made out here, and was someone I could always count on to have a deep conversation with about life, and poker. He was one of the good ones.

I’ve been breaking down and crying almost every day since the video was released. It really hits home, this man begged for his life. Told him repeatedly “I’m not resisting, I can’t breathe” they tased him repeatedly. When they finally got the cuffs on him, he was already gone.

Our community in Austin is fighting for justice. I have all the information and links on my Twitter and Facebook, if you have a moment to spare, it would mean the world to me if you would take a moment to learn his story.

Stay safe y’all.

Gator?

Do you know him? It’s said either gata or gator

Trying to work out whether you're playing any poker or if this is just a personal blog. What stakes do you play and what game formats?

Well, I’ve had this thread for 5 years and it’s been through a lot of different things in my life. There’s a lot about poker, but also a lot about life outside of poker because things that have happened in my life have made major impacts on poker for me.

I played for a living full-time when I started this thread. Over the last 5 years a lot has changed. I had a kid, he turned 2 in March. Last June he was taken to foster care by CPS because I was smoking pot and struggling with panic attacks.

I moved to Austin in Oct. of 2018, and poker is a lot different here. They charge time in the poker rooms rather than take rake. Underground games are raked, so there are a lot of those out here but they’ve gone through their own transitions in competition with the card rooms.

I primarily play PLO, preference for 1/2/5, which those games live are very scarce in Austin. I started working as a poker dealer when I moved here, and have worked at several rooms and underground games in Austin.

I had some stuff happening between Oct-Dec that had me inside my head for awhile, and I wasn’t in the headspace to play my best, so after being back to playing live full time from March-Dec, I decided to take some time off and just focus on getting my son home.

He came home at the end of February, a couple weeks after I changed employment in February to SA Card House in San Antonio. Due to restrictions on who can watch my kid, along with the 1.5 hours to and from work every day, my free time was taken up.

I was only able to play live 1 time before everything shut down due to COVID. Since then, I’ve started to play online, but my heart still isn’t in it the way it was before. Most likely due to the stress of being in the process of moving to San Antonio before August 3rd, having to work with my child on behavioral issues he developed in foster care, and trying to keep a roof over our head.

So if you’re trying to figure out if I’m playing poker or if this is a personal blog, I’m not really sure that’s the right mindset to have. This thread is in “Poker Goals and Challenges”, so currently I’m in the “Challenges” to poker part of that. And since I 100% believe that a big part of being a successful poker player has everything to do with your mindset, I’ve chosen to share my own struggles regarding those challenges I’m having.

I have money on PokerBros, and can play whenever I want. Online has never been my favorite, and I mostly just play online to study my hand history. I’ve been waiting for my friend to switch her PLO game from the pokerrr2 app to poker bro’s, since it’s the only online poker game I’m willing to sit in, so aside from that game I’ve just been playing Holdem and honestly as a PLO player I don’t “enjoy” playing NLH, so if I don’t “have” to, I usually don’t.

As for the “Goals” I have, they are to be able to get back to playing more live. Poker rooms here have opened back up and I’ll be going back to work this week. Once I am able to settle and get through moving expenses, along with having my cps case closed at the end of July, I’ll have a lot more freedom to play more regularly as well as a lot less stress on my mind when I do play.

In the 7 years since I started playing for a living, the number one rule I adhere to is: if I don’t ‘feel’ like playing, I don’t play. I’d only be setting myself up to play poorly, and to not be focused. And right now I have so much other stuff going on, I just haven’t had the patience to play well or confidently as I would normally.

I’m glad you brought this up, because honestly it’s been eating at me. I feel guilty to be posting here and not have much to say about poker, but I post on here most of the time because I just want to get back to playing full time. It’s difficult to be the only person my child has, and to have the one thing that’s always given me the freedom in life put on the back burner while I figure out all this life ****.

But I’m a PLO player at heart, and always will be. I might be going through some stuff right now, but I will always find my way back to playing, no matter how I have to do that. This is one of the longer breaks I’ve had to take, mostly due to COVID, or I’d of been playing more by now. I do think you’ve motivated me to at least get back online since it’s been a couple weeks. Wanted to play yesterday, but it’s really hard to find time to play online when you have a toddler that needs you every second of the day and is also newly refusing to nap -_-

For those who’ve been following me for awhile and have read everything in this thread, they know that I am very open on here about everything I go through, in poker and life alike. Not sure if you’ve read everything from the beginning or not, but I hope you find something unique and admirable about me sharing the experience I’ve had being a poker player in ways other than just the HH. Poker is about a lot more than a HH, has a lot to do with how well you’re able to maintain an optimal mindset, which is the chapter I’m in now. We all have our off times, but that’s just the challenge that comes with being a poker player.

Yeah, I've known him and played with him for years. I considered him a friend. When he died, I heard he had a heart attack. I knew he had some health problems, but the whole account of it sounded so weird.

I've done a search and there's a bunch of stuff that needs looking into. We may need to go after A&E-- their claims make no sense. This is some bad business.

odd that u say in Austin isnt much PLO. in Houston theres $1-3 PLO everywhere. and when i want to play just NL til i build my roll back up, often the NL games have 1 or 2 hands of PLO included which id rather they not. some of the main rooms have all holdem, but the lesser known rooms (one of which has been totally rake free and time free for a week now, saving me a fortune) always include PLO. theres a lot more PLO in houston than NL.

We were all told the same thing, but nobody was told that it happened while they were trying to arrest him. The impression was that he had the heart attack while still driving. Watching that video, and seeing him continuously ask for help, makes me think he wasn’t even running from the cops as much as he was probably suffering from his medical condition and trying to get to help. It would make sense if he had his high beams on and was still going after they tried to pull him over, and especially when that’s what he kept trying to tell them “I can’t breathe, I have congestive heart failure. Save me.” He was begging for help and they killed him instead.

It’s even more disgusting that the live PD deleted the footage and that it was never requested by the investigation.

There is a lot of stuff that looks like a cover up, especially when they put in the paperwork that it was homicide as the cause of death, and that wasn’t what anyone was told.

Well each city is different, as well as each card room. Most of the PLO out here is underground still, and the PLO games that run in the card rooms are all regs and not that great to play in. At SA, they’ll have 3-5 tables of Big O, and 8 of NLH, but no PLO. I’m not really sure why no one really plays plo, but it started to pick up by the time I started working in San Antonio, but most of the PLO games ran in a card room I don’t like so I wasn’t gonna play in their game. The only other place that had PLO running was the room I worked at, and I don’t like playing where I work. In SA PLO runs at a different card room than where I work, so it’ll be a better place for me all around.

In S.A., the Big-O action is so monstrous that it would be crazy to play PLO if you were looking for action. When the Big-O dies off, there will probably be some more PLO.

In Austin, the room owners can milk more out of their players with low-action 1-2/1-3 HE games. If the less-experienced room operators die off, there may be some more PLO in the so-called public cardrooms. But the private games have better dealers, better gamerunners, and can handle bigger players.

Also, I think we may be headed for a political turnover in November. If that happens, the public games will get shut down.

Ah yes, I have played Big O in Austin rather than NL. I was hired at SA Card house primarily to be a Big O dealer, and although I prefer Big O to NL, I definitely prefer PLO to Big O. I’ve spent the better half of my time playing focusing on being the best PLO cash player, and since I’ve dealt a good bit to the Big O players, I just don’t see myself sitting to play with them. I can definitely play Big O, but I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d be the fish in that game lol out of all the games, the only one that still tilts me is Big O

And yea, I played the Oaks in Austin when I did play, they’d always have 2 tables, and sometimes 3. Main game would be a 1/2/5 SUPER deepstack game with there being almost no red chips on the table. It would easily have $100k on the table most nights, but lots of regs too. 2nd table was usually the more laid back table, with the recs who didn’t want to play the main. I would always go to main when I finally got a seat because i felt confident enough that I could be the short effective stack but still not be the fish That was pretty much the only game I played, and sometimes I would play at the card room I worked in Bc they ran 1/2/5 Big O/PLO round and round. Which, if I had an ultimate preference, I’d play that game 24/7 lol

But your right about the card rooms milking players in a way. Since they only make money from players filling a seat, they need players to stay in seats. It’s a lot different since it’s not per hour, and a lot of the dealers aren’t that great for sure. Probably one of the only states you can learn to deal on the job with 0 experience.

I’ll definitely be looking for a home game in SA that runs PLO, I think it’s hard to beat timed rake if you’re card dead, I’d much prefer to play in a raked game, and from what I’ve seen, the home games here are pretty good about a fair rake. It’s easily half of what home game rake in LA was when I played there!

When I first came out, the card room I learned in never ran PLO, but I would talk about it with players and started convincing players to play so it eventually got off since the players realized how much more fun more cards are now that room runs PLO regularly, and it’s the one room I wouldn’t play in lol

I’m hopeful that PLO will pick up out here. I figure it’s mostly slow since poker is still relatively new in Texas, and since PLO can be scary for players who haven’t played and don’t know the math, it’s not something a lot of players transition to easily. But SA is much better for game variety, I just haven’t been there long enough to really check out other rooms aside from mine or had the time to find home games.

Why will you only play at poker bros?

Lol, never said that? But I guess it was implied. I like the app more and there are more rooms/players on that app compared to others. I personally prefer to play on acr, use to play Bovada before it was ignition but never went back when it came back online. Apps are new, and never needed to be on one before, I’ve always been a live player except for in 2016 when I was online full time, but again, when bovada changed I lost interest in online, and not sure how I feel about apps just yet

Hopped on PokerBros last night after I got done with my 40hr work +15hr drive time week and all that was running was the 50c/$1, won my first hand posting in CO 6max, flopped bottom pair and a FD 3 ways, bet each street and scooped against top 2, then proceeded to make like $70 in about 30 minutes before I had to get off to go to bed. Thought it was pretty good, got the label “table sheriff” on their so I was playing a good LAG and it was fun.

Now I’m in San Antonio about to go tour this apartment

Once upon a time I was a lost girl.
Everywhere I turned,
I got lost in my own world.
I made fairytales,
And danced in my dreams.
Yet,
When I opened my eyes,
All I could do was scream.
I picked myself up,
And started over again,
Wondering when,
If ever,
This cycle would end.
I was a tornado,
Bursting at the seams,
Leaving a trail of disaster,
Never able to break free.
Then one day,
Everything started to change.
The life I had been living,
Started to rearrange.
I started to see the pattern,
The one that brought me to my knees.
I started to have different wants,
Different hopes and dreams.
Suddenly, I could finally see.
To wake up to the suffering,
That I believed was innately me.
Finally I realized,
The lies I’d been living in.
I was given a chance to start again.
I crawled my way back,
From the depths of self-loathing.
Step by step,
With no idea where I was going.
All I knew,
And still know now,
Is who I am,
Was different somehow.
The days got brighter,
Then after awhile,
Without even realizing it,
My soul began to smile.
I defeated my demons,
And kept searching for more.
Unafraid to face the future,
As I had been before.
So once upon a time,
I lived inside a dream,
And when I awoke,
I became who I was truly born to be.

Very Nice

Update:

Case is closed, moved to San Antonio, got a 2br/2ba that’s super cute and super brand new <3

Honestly on a cloud. I haven’t been this relaxed in what seems like millennia

Looking to start changing around my schedule to fit in some more extra time so I can play.

You know, I’ve seriously been thinking about what’s keeping me from playing and if I’m honest, I think it’s literally just the lack of PLO games running live.

If anyone knows of a good PLO game in San Antonio, please shoot it my way

Moved downtown, it’s legit. At a park/river with the little man now, low key, not a ton of people so it’s nice hope everyone has been well!

Congrats!

How's the COVID situation down there? Poker rooms open?

Thanks!

The rooms have been open since June I think, they’re looking for a reason to close them but we’re following a bunch of protocols so we can stay open. It’s been picking up! Pretty steady for me, making about the same dealing as before COVID shut everything down! The games are getting better, we’ve rebounded in what seems like a better than expected way! So that’s good!

Hope you are well!

Where are you from if you don’t mind my asking? Curious how poker during COVID is different in other states?

Yes, all is well, thank you! I'm in NYC, we've been locked down for the longest it seems

closest legal poker atm is MD Live 200 miles away

private raked poker is illegal, so we don't have any big cardrooms like you do, mostly 1 or 2 table store fronts with silly rake

I wasn't a big fan of paying $50 rake per hand pre-COVID, not about to start doing it now. Just playing some online for the time being

Ah yea, NY was hit hard. How are things adjusting there? It’s been pretty chill here for the most part. Bars are closed but that’s about it.

We have timed take in Texas, rake is illegal in Texas. Can’t even tip dealers playing chips. My card room is $12hr, you prepay and as you go for time after paying a daily/monthly membership fee