OP opened up his Pocketfives account and insta jumped to 5th in the world this week I noticed.

Can track his scores there.

this thread is not dead

i had a longgggg update posted, but it somehow got erased when i posted and i cant recover it. grrrr....


will try to bring you guys up to speed though, and add some photos later tonight when i'm done playing

if you've followed this thread from the start, you'll know that at one point i was more than 200k in makeup from online tournaments. it took me nearly 20 months and 40,000 tournaments, but i am happy to say that i am back playing on my own with a comfortable bankroll.

2014 has been a great year for me. though it started off slow, I was able to have my 2 biggest scores ever in consecutive weeks in the Pokerstar's Super Tuesday. I had a 2nd place, followed by a chop. life has been good since. I spent the better part of 2.5 months in Europe, splitting my time between Edinburgh, Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Dublin and Monaco. playing some live tournaments scattered in between. it was great to see so many old faces and make some new friends

i am back in mexico now, to attack the summer grind, regain my health, and continue working on poker. being on the road, i found it hard to strike a balance and really let myself wither with the way i treated myself, and the things i ate. i turned it into a 2.5 month vacation which wasnt good. i honestly also didnt work on improving as much as i would have liked to. staying productive isnt easy when there's always another option...

as far as summer plans, my first priority is to get my vision back. i have a consultation for LASIK this friday. i am going to make a trip home to spend time with family, and then make it out to the WSOP for the main event

poker will be very busy, even with a lighter schedule. i've started to work with wcg|rider on my poker game, and look forward to all of the things i will learn from him. i have a lot to improve on and want to see how far i can take it with the right kind of approach


i may also be looking to mentor a few people of my own in the near future . so if you've got the work ethic and the heart, hit me up for some details, or maybe i'll find you. talent has a way of attracting talent in my experience


best of luck to everyone at the tables and im going to work on getting some pics up so you dont have to deal with this wall of text

looking forward to the pictures

keep crushing, summer grind let's gooooooo

I guess you could say my trip started before I even left Mexico...



...blast off.

Made my way to LA for 2 days to hangout before flying to Edinburgh to start the adventure.











Traveled to Edinburgh via LA with my buddy Dominin Nitsche who has access to the flight lounges I've never even dreamed of being allowed into:






Was a great flight and I was really excited to get on the grind in Edinburgh. I had recently purchased a 27inch monitor to travel and grind with as per the suggestion of a friend of mine. Noticed my suitcase was a bit tattered upon retrieval, and when I opened it:



My monitor had been completely GG'd which was a sad start to the trip, but admittedly made moving around a lot easier in the future.

Was only a short time 2 days in Edinburgh, before heading to Vienna. I was randomly seated next to Dale Phillips on the plane which was a crazy coincidence. The venue for the tournament was absolutely amazing at the Hofburg Palace













I made day2 in the main event, but busted out KKvQQ, which was pretty sad. I started to drink that day and made plans to go to dinner with some friends that night

Restaurant was quite good, there was a 10 course tasting menu, and an entire menu of only water. I wouldn't say I'm a foodie, but I don't mind spending money on food versus other luxury items.



Ended up losing the CCR which sucked, especially since they scammed us for 7g of caviar at 22e each




Wasn't going to call it a total loss on the day though. Made it back to latereg the super tuesday 3 hours in, which is the one I took 2nd in

I was hyped and didn't want to stop the party. I went out for a celebratory brunch with Dom, then started pounding espressos and gin and tonics at the 1k bounty turbo table to keep fueled. I busted pretty quickly and made my way over to the Natural History Museum, which was one of the coolest places I went to in Vienna




that is me with the venus of willendorf. ended the night nearly fainting repeatedly from my legs cramping. should have probably slept at some point, but it was hard to find the time

I was stoked to meetup with an old Austrian friend I met in Estonia in 2008. He took me to Salzburg via train and gave me a tour of the city and took me to a playoff hockey match, which was a really unique experience.












^that is one of my favorite photos/sunsets of the trip

I headed back to Vienna and planned to grind there after the EPT for another week to go to an XZIBIT concert a friend had invited me to. Some Austrian PLO players were kind enough to let me grind WCOOP challenge Sunday at their place, which was unique poker experience for me












The weekend was a lot of fun, but definitely not profitable. I was planning to take it easy that week, enjoy the rest of my time in Vienna and then make my move to Prague to meetup with other friends. Fellow grinder 23norab was kind enough to let me crash at his pad in Vienna that week, and I couldn't help but fire up the Super Tuesday again. Voila! AND we won it this time!!

Vienna couldn't have been a more magical city. Had a great time overall and met a lot of really awesome people. Thank you to everyone in the Austrian/German community that showed me such a great time, you're a really genuine/welcoming group of people and it was an honor to chill. Won't remember everyone because of my sobriety level in Vienna, but that's life

Last pics of Vienna are from Danube Island which was my favorite spot outside of the city:

















say hello to my little friend ^^^

I'll get to Prague and beyond in a bit, but Vienna was a truly beautiful city

Hope to see you in Vegas when you get here, nice update.

Is there something in the water in Austria/Germany? All the poker money goes there somehow

Epic thread and massive respect for the level of dedication you showed grinding your way out of that 200K hole.

Finally finished reading all of this. You sir, are a beast. Amazing work ethic and attitude. Looking forward to more.

Yeah, this is a great one when he drops in.
He FT's the Sunday500 last night.

wp OP

Any updates?

wow just read through this start to finish and the journey is unreal

Just read this. But what we all want to know is, who won the no banana bet?

Amazing!!

fyp

Gotta beat 1yr long dead horses

I was 100% sure bananas meant masturbating. You said the words "peeling" and "cleaning up" #

Now we need to know if this is actually +EV