Thanks and yes I’m hoping it will continue to improve my quality of life.


Welcome and glad you’re finding it enjoyable. Dinner will be on the cards soon enough I’m sure.

Read the whole thread.

Mustve been less than 2 years ago when I saw you limp-call UTG with A2s off £100 and get coolered by 67 or something - to say you've come a long way quite soon is a bit of an understatement!

Super happy for your success. Ultimately poker wasn't for me after trying it out FT, didn't win enough/didn't work out which is why I don't really play anymore except for the occasional drunk punt on holiday/london.

I can definitely relate to a lot of your inner philosophical struggles RE: why am I playing, dealing with variance, the fine line between beating yourself up and being critical of your own play. It's a very tough grind, one that was not for me.

I would agree that having regular people outside of a poker is a very healthy thing e.g. a flatmate you can chat away in the kitchen with for 20 minutes - it just makes an enormous difference to your overall mental health.

Best of luck for the future, I'm glad to see you've come along way!

I remember that evening very well, time definitely flies!

And in regards to what you’re saying I’m sure many other players feel the same. I hope you’re doing well in your post poker ventures. Let me know if you’re in London for poker at some point and we can try and catch up briefly.

Awesome! Yep still in London - I'll come down 11/03 i.e. next Monday if you're about then after some chartership thing. See if I can do better this time after a drink! (Misread my hand and got £250 in with KTo vs some bloke with AQo good times).

Sure I should be about then, what exactly did you misread KTo as xD

So I've been in a bit of a reflective mood as of late so armed with a cup of tea and my emergency stash of mini eggs I thought it wasn't a bad time to write some stuff down.

Pursuit is an interesting thing. In life there are so many different paths we can take, and down our chosen paths crossroads can often emerge. Am I doing what's right for me? Should I try and pursue something else? Am I missing out on anything? Is my perspective clouded? And futher down the path as the thousands of hours tick by it's easy to feel locked in by sunk costs, whether it's a relationship, job or hobby. Well I'd have to start over completely, I guess I'm not feeling that bad, I don't know how I'll feel about that new thing. I think for those of us who are effectively professional gamblers it's more of a when not an if. I think the skill largely comes in picking the right time to close off what you've dedicated considerable amounts of time towards. But I'll leave my thoughts on that for another time.

But going back to there's so much to do. As of now (and for a good few years), I've been very content not actually doing too much. I've never been a super outgoing person who's plan is to travel and explore the world and see and do as much as possible. I'm at my most content in surroundings I'm relatively familiar with where I'm doing stuff I'm pretty familiar with. I also don't have this drive to try and pursue and find out as much as possible about lot's of things in life. Instead of trying to pursue a lot more, I've been making an active effort to pursue a lot less. My life right now is fairly simple, playing poker, chatting to friends, listening to music, going for walks, chilling at home. There's not really much else going on tbh. Often in poker rooms a few older regs have come up to me and said, "what are you doing wasting your time in here, you're young, you should be experiencing the world, going out, having fun, instead you're wasting time hanging around all these degenerates". I know it comes from a good place but I'm actually at my most content I've ever been with the life I lead now and I think I've gained a lot from talking to all kinds of people who venture into poker rooms.

Anyway, why the late night ramble you ask, well a friend messaged me a day or two ago and said what my plans for the coming years are and I gave it some thought. I eventually replied with, keep working hard and improving myself in both life and poker for the coming years whilst keeping an eye open to new things and continue to do stuff that makes me happy. I don't think there has to be a concrete plan of attack for everyone out there, I've always enjoyed going with the flow a bit more and seeing where it takes me. I guess the question made me have some thoughts about the route I've taken and just about the route everyone takes, hence the ramble above.

As a closing point never have I been able to dedicate my time to something like I have with poker, I've always been fairly flakey with my commitment to many things in life and I think that was largely down to my heart not being in them. I think the fact I can come from my worst poker month in Feb and come back in March and grind the most hours I've ever grinded and keep my head up is testiment to the work ethic I'm able to have in poker.

Short term plans for those of you that are curious consist of grinding in london till late June, basically only travelling with clothes and cash to the US, spending a couple weeks sorting out some admin at my parents and then basically off to Vegas or LA to push on with poker. And I have every plan with keeping the vlog updated once I've arrived in the states.

Caught up on the whole blog Tom, thanks for your insights.

Living offshore I pass through London a few times a year and always keep track of the games and have noticed that the traffic at the Vic seems to have diminished recently. Have you noticed similar?

Also, may have missed it as flicking between this and other things; do you have any intention of finishing your degree?

Best of luck for your US adventure, subbed.

Good read Tom, was nice to catch up last night !

I agree with a bunch of what you say, it's extremely specific to the individual how/what they choose to pursue and at what time in their life. Glad you seem to have found the balance that works for you - I'm getting there slowly myself

I have generally seen a fall in traffic across all casinos in London, I think game quality has also decreased by quite a fair amounts.

No major intentions no. In the near future I'll make a more in depth post about my thoughts and feelings towards it.

Yeah I had a great time, was good to catch up and chat. We should work something out before I leave in a couple months.

In regards to balance I think I've got better at focusing on what's important to me (compared to where I was in my teens etc), but I can always improve and internally question myself more. I remember circa 2017 when I was knuckling down on poker I had this egotistical mindset that I didn't need to waste my time on television shows like other people did, that it was a time punt etc. The thing is though, we all need time to chill and how we spend that is down to the individual, for some it's sport, for others it's gaming, TV, music etc. We can't have our foot on the pedal at full speed towards something without eventually burning out. And we all decompress in different ways, I think it's very easy in life to judge others by comparing what they do in their lives versus what we do. I'm actively trying to care a lot less about what people do in their free time where as in the past I would be quite cynical and pinprick little things they were doing which I thought were -ev (this was internally not externally). I think we've all caught ourselves thinking we have the right system and this person isn't doing something I would do and they're punting time etc. Granted there's a chance they might be but in reality I'm far from perfect and I don't have it solved either.

Where I'm at with my life I'm struggling a lot with how I balance and manage the things I enjoy, as of late I've been on a pretty significant downswing and I just find myself in mental situations where I've told myself before I need to be financially impartial and still do things I enjoy and go for a coffee etc even when running bad because otherwise my life will be too emotionally tied to poker results. I mean I'll still be going out for a walk and a coffee this morning but I think when on a downswing it's easy to feel like you should be dedicating more time to poker, to try and print etc. On top of that there are the questions of whether I'm playing well or badly, how much of it is variance and how much of it is being in a trance like state where I might not be playing well.

I know I've caught myself in the past letting the days drift by and playing B/C game when losing a lot, I'm coming to terms with what that feels like and trying to nip it in the bud but also the reality of the game is that there's a lot of variance in poker. I've played a few sessions recently where I feel I've played out of my skin and I still got completely shafted, of course anyone who has played this game for long enough knows this feeling. All I'm trying to do is stay focused and push through and be as rational and honest with myself as I can be. I think a lot about having success in life is just making sure you turn up the next day with the right mindset and surrounding yourself with the right people. One thing I haven't done is get myself into mental ruts where I take loads of time off, stay in bed, eat like **** etc. I think I've become pretty good at dusting myself off and turning up again in the midst of big downswings.

My live poker career has been a pretty interesting one, I sun ran my first ~1500 hours and I during that period I knew I would go on a downswing (I honestly think many poker players in a sun running state think they can dodge bullets, think their results are just because they're better than everyone else, and it's very dangerous), I would say my lack of arrogance towards my initial results is one of the reasons why I'm still here (and haven't completely lost my marbles). Whilst I mentally prepared myself to some extent, sometimes you have to experience the pain. It's been tough, in the past I've been on fairly big monetary downswings for my stakes but I've always recovered fairly quickly, where as now I'm in this limbo like land. I think everyone gets humbled when they eventually have a storm but seeing the experiences of a close friend over the past two years it just reminds me that there's so much variance and you just have to care less about the short term and just turn up and do your job basically.

The great thing about poker is it really makes you question yourself in so many ways. I think playing this game professionally gives you so many opportunities to question yourself and improve in life. As I stated earlier in the blog I'll be leaving for the states in two months so will continue to put in hours whilst enjoying what London has to offer before I leave.

As a parting note I just have one more thing to say, I feel with where this blog is now and for what it does for me I really just want to keep it solely to do with my open thoughts (and my replies to people who post here). I have a lot of interesting hands but I don't really have any desire to post them here even though I'm sure they would be enjoyed by some. I also want to detatch from the results element too, ofc there will still be upswing/downswing thoughts but I just have this strong desire to keep this blog away from "Oh I won a tournament for 20k", "Oh I lost a 5k pot where xyz happened". I guess I just want this to be my public notepad for my open thoughts and rambles I have whilst playing this game. The thing about twoplustwo which is amazing is that you can't delete what you posted previously (or the blog itself), on other blogs or in a private journal, you can delete it or rip the page out. I've posted on here in a bunch of different mental states and it's nice to look back over time over things I might of got rid of in a moment of madness. I guess it's an extra layer to keep you accountable for your past thoughts.

So the time is November 2018. I’m at home in the middle of the night twiddling my fingers after putting in some volume online and I see a 1/3 run at my local casino, tldr whenever there’s a game above 1/2 running its normally very verygood, especially at 4am.

I sprint over and as expected the game was above the rim. Basically one reg in the game and the rest absolute lemons, with a couple of proper whales in the mix. Super deep 1/3 (often straddled) game and I sit for 1.5k. The first 2/3 hours are the usual, witnessing some crazy hands, winning a few, losing a few. Because of the time of day no regs arrive but I did let a v good friend of mine know he should come over. I’ll preface the following with the information that during this time I was on a pretty significant downswing in live, I was avoiding big games for the most part but this was too good to avoid.

Sadly we get in AKs for 1.5k pre vs a whale and he wakes up with kings. We flop a flushdraw...turn a gutter but... alas we brick. At this point in time I think I just crossed the 2k hour mark in live and I think this was the first time where I was still in a extremely good game and just got up because I had enough. Another 1500 in the bin and I couldn’t deal with pulling up and doing any more. I leave with my head down at around 8am, I take the bus home and because of the time it’s rammed, at this point my friend arrives and doesn’t see me there, see’s the line up and basically asks “where the **** is Tom, how could he leave this game” he messages me and gets the brief rundown. Anyway the bus is full of people on their way to work and I’m miserably squished in between people. I wasn’t even tilted much, just a bit of inner sigh if that makes sense. Anyway I get off and head to a cafe down the road from where I live, I get a coffee and an almond crossaint. I remember the almond crossaint arrived on a tiny saucer which was far smaller than the actual pastry. I remember starting to eat it, powdered sugar going all over the table. I remember just having this internal frustration at the impracticality of the situation which I feel was largely fuelled by the events thirty minutes earlier. I leave again with my head down, this time with the addition of small streaks of powdered sugar on my jeans. Again my head wasn’t spinning and I wasn’t super tilted, it was just more inner sigh. I guess the point of this anecdote is to show that sometimes nothing can go your way and that it's funny how in low periods small things can annoy you which would never annoy you normally. One thing which I can definitely say I’ve learnt amount myself is I need lots of sleep to function and lack of sleep really ****s my performance and wellbeing massively. I definitely need my 8 hours and I hate playing poker when super tired, in fact I just hate the feeling of being extremely tired and still having to do something. 95%+ of the times I get irrationally tilted over something it's because of lack of sleep.

Over the recent years I’ve never been a very emotional person. I seldom get that annoyed over pretty much anything, I can’t even properly remember the last time I cried. And I never really get excited over good things as much as most. I guess I’m fairly stoic relative to the general population. This isn’t meant to be some underlying brag because to be brutally honest, I don’t even know what the right system to deal with the emotions of life is. Maybe I should encourage myself to get frustrated over something I would view now as not worth caring about. I remember I was once chatting to a girl and I was saying how I think most arguements are completely pointless since they're over nothing, therefore a waste of time. She actually made a point that it sometimes feels good to argue over something and she felt better after it in some cases, like blowing off some steam. I feel I bottle a lot of stuff up, keep things to myself. I think for poker it’s far easier to play this game for a living when you’re emotionally introverted rather than wearing your heart on your sleeve but I think for other aspects of life keeping everything inside can take its toll. I think also just letting things float by being emotionally steady can also mean that potentially you don’t give some things enough thought when you really should. Maybe having the occasional bit of emotional volatility towards a certain event might lead you to dedicating more open thought towards it.

I think my overall mental well-being now is actually very decent, I’m maybe just a tad bit worried at what happens later down the line. I don’t really fancy having a break down at 35 because I never really expressed how I feel. Maybe this blog is quite a healthy thing for me, often I just jot down my thoughts and I guess it helps me dust away some cobwebs mentally. In life I have very good friends who I know I can confide in the issue is I feel what I would want to let out would take considerable amounts of time and heavily burden them. I mean don't get me wrong we still have important conversations about certain things but it's not like I can unload all my emotional baggage onto them. I can definitely see myself at some point getting therapy (or some kind of mental game thing) and sooner rather than later is probably a shout. Issue is I’m going states though where I’d likely have to drop chunks for a therapist.

Anyway tonight I’ll head in to play and watch the Barca game. I always enjoy watching football games where I usually play (lots of bollocks being spoken, funny people, emotions etc). I was playing when Man U backdoored PSG with the last minute penalty and the whole place turned into a zoo (good for games too!).

London and card games with London based teams playing is great. I have been at the Vic when Spurs/Arsenal/West Ham are losing and people in hands are obviously not thinking correctly/tilted by what is happening on the TV. Makes for great action.

Yeah action is great when big teams are on. I was actually at the Vic during the City vs Spurs 2nd leg, issue with that game is it was so good everyone was too busy watching it instead of playing hands (myself included )

Couple of questions,

I moved 90% of my poker play to Live and it was a really good decision for me so far, I was thinking of taking an ipad to live poker to grind some tournaments while playing cash there but I don't really know how it will affect my wr, I'm pretty active at the tables but from time to time I find my self folding for 1-2 hours straight and I can't help but think that I'm just wasting those hours by sitting there and watching TV while playing.

Also dealing with downswings, you probably remember the many threads I made bitching about my luck etc... I'm currently in the middle of a pretty sick heater winning about 8k at 1/2 in the last month. The last downswing was for me was November where I had a 16 sessions losing streak. I couldn't really handle it because it's super soft at my casino (the equivalent of 25nl online at best). I've never really handled downswings online well especially when they last for a week+ but because of my low volume the November downswing lasted for month+.

How do you keep the same quality of play after 6+ hours, my casino games usually run from 9pm-5am they get really soft round 12-3 but I find my level of play deteriorates the longer I stay there.

Ty <3 <3

At the start of 2018 I was playing on PM a fair bit when the games were pretty decent, I remember one time I was at Hippo and I won a £400 and £600 pot at the same time . However I think grinding mtts on an iPad seems like a bad idea since there's an unknown playing time where as with cash you can come and go as you want. Even though I did it myself I didn't do it for long at all (and the few times I did it were when the games were vv bad). Also even if there were good games to grind online alongside live and very much doubt I would do it given my approach towards things now.

I think generally at a live poker table you really want to be somewhat present. For the most part fish aren't going to want to play with the guy on an iPad who's doing something else, personally I think you get a lot less implied action and you'll miss out on a lot of stuff too (hands others play which can give you info, could potentially be higher ev than the mtt you play in some cases). Ofc not all our personality types are the same but generally during low game quality periods I'm often around regs who I'm good friends with, so cracking jokes and talking makes the time go by, also sports on tv etc etc. I think just with the nature of live poker is that sometimes it's just dead, often if the table is relatively card dead with not much action over last 30-45 mins I use this as time to go eat or go for a walk, take a break etc.

In regards to downswings in live they can be pretty brutal, I think it's important not to have a massive ego and accumulate extra tilt by this "everyone is so bad", "how does this reg run so good" attitude. I think having overall perspective along reminding yourself on a regular basis to be grateful for where you are (so many people don't do this imo). And I've been there as well, when I started out playing live properly in Sept 2017 I think I won 16 sessions in a row playing like a complete crack head. Then fast forward the clock post beating 100z and with lots of live experience I could never even string two winning sessions together and I often went in hoping not to do more than £500. I think the skill which often comes from experience alongside active work on mindset is to just detach oneself from results more, variance is beyond stupid in poker so it doesn't make much sense caring too much about the short term. I think a big part of getting through downswings without doing your complete pieces is just to come back the next day with a refreshed mind, pride yourself on your composure and decision making and again perspective, if poker was this gig where every month was a win and you just had to sit there, everyone would do it. The reality is at it's core it can have some very low points which many don't talk to others about.

In regards to how I keep the same quality of play for 6+ hours, the answer is simple, I don't. One thing I've learnt about myself (again we're all different), is my quality of play heavily heavily deteriorates after 7/8 hours. I think one thing a lot of regs do is lie to themselves about game quality when they're deep in a session (this is largely the case if they're losing/under it). Personally I have a very low session win percentage (52%-54% I think) because I feel I just give way less of a **** about how I'm doing on the day vs general population. I'd say maybe 15% of my sessions go beyond 8 hours because rarely are the games good enough for me to justify staying especially when accounting for additional factors like shifting sleep schedule affecting my profitability on future sessions in the week/month. Ofc when it's a top tier game you have to strap yourself in, of course I've done a fair few 12+ hour sessions but having some form of control to get up and leave a game is pretty important.

Hope that helped.

No real major updates to report, played a bit higher than I usually do in some amazing line ups and ran very well for the most part. I'm always a bit on edge when shotting games because they can really make or break your month in live poker. I have became a lot more cautious than I once was but I couldn't pass up on the games given how good they were and luckily we didn't get ironed out.

I'm in London for another 5 weeks before I fly off and as I've mentioned before a lot of my time in June will be spent tying up some loose ends, doing a few things with friends before I go. I've made a more active effort in the past year to just be present more often, remind myself to have perspective and be grateful for what I have, things could always be worse. I've had it pretty tough for the last 6-8 months and I've stayed away from being the toxic person who complains a lot that I was earlier in my life. Complaining doesn't achieve much at all and I'm much more content with who I am when I try my best to pride myself on my external actions to others.

Even with attemping to be present that doesn't prevent time from flying, it wasn't long ago I landed back in London from the states at the start of the year and now we're nearly half way through it!

A few more people where I usually play are aware I'm leaving pretty soon and I'm getting asked a lot of "are you looking forward it it" kinda questions. I'm kinda of the fence in reality and I'll explain why. Like obviously getting a green card is a great opporunity for the future and I'm sure many would love to be in my situation but the thing is... I just like my life the way it is now, I like where I live, where I work, where I go out to eat, the people I play five a side with etc. I'm just in a comfortable and happy routine right now and throughout most of my life I've been shipped left and right in and out of different environments and I feel now this situation has arisen where I'm forced to move where for the first time in probably ever, I feel "at home". It's put a dampner on me wanting to pursue relationships when I know I'd be leaving in x amount of time. I've spent a decent amount of time in the US too and I don't think it's a bad environment, I just feel England is my home and it would be sad to semi create a life there for 2ish years knowing I might have strong feelings to return to London. I'm not this world traveller who wants to see and explore everything, I like knowing my surroundings, having a routine and yeah. For poker it will be plus ev and people have said the usual "you'll learn so much about yourself" kinda stuff and that could be the case but yeah I guess on some level I'm just a bit sad.

I do for maybe the first time in a few months, have the drive to keep improving my game. It's easy to stagnate in poker (especially when you play in the same line ups all the time and feel and know you do well in them), but yeah it's important for me to dig deep and keep studying, keep looking for good spots on the table and yeah just focus and keep my foot firmly down on the gas.

Not my usual kind of thing but felt the itch just to verbalize my thoughts on this one. Not much direction and a bit of a ramble I'm sure, maybe I'll do some of these in the future about more specific things I'm facing but we'll see.

Another few of my thoughts on things right now as my time in London comes to a close.

I've had some positive feedback from a few people about the first couple so I thought I'd make a third on the subject on entitlement. I don't think I'll have a set up to record in Austin for 2/3 weeks so might try and crank out one more if I'm in the mood to do so before I fly off. And I'll still be doing some long write ups on here in due course.

So I’m currently at my parents in Austin, chilling out with my dog.



The last few days in London were pretty crammed with packing and some final farewells. It’s funny how when you move you realise how much stuff you have which you don’t need. I’m not really one to horde and are generally a lot more purchase shy then I used to be but I think physically getting rid of so much stuff will make me think even more about what I spend money on in the future. As I expected it’s super refreshing to reduce the amount of material items one owns. Very freeing and yeah I’m enjoying having a clean slate here. Not that anything in London was particularly bad.

I thought since I’m no longer in London I’d share a few interesting hhs and lol pictures on my phone. I know a lot of people in PGC like hhs but London player pool was so small (especially when the majority of my volume was in one casino) I didn’t want to start giving out too much information. Maybe I’ll throw some more in when I’m playing in Vegas.

---

1/2/5

Fish limps UTG I iso AJo to 25 in CO, montenegran calls BTN limper calls

(83) AQ8chs

Check, I check he bets 44, fold, I call.

(169) Jc

Check check

(169) 8c

I bet 90, he raise 190, I 3b to 625, he tanksss for ages, labels every value hand I have and not a single bluff and... folds.

---

And now a painful hh in the midst of my downswing, I remember when she peeled flop saying in my head “no diamond no diamond no dia- ****”

1/2/5

One limper whale limps Sb I limp bb A4hdtitled straddle makes it 15 all of us call

(60) AK4ddh

Check check straddle makes it 60 Sb calls I make it 210, straddle folds Sb calls with 400 behind

(530) 6d

She leads 75 we call zzz

(680) 8s

She begs 150 we fold obvs

---

A hh vs a very good friend <3

1/2

We open JJds to 10 UTG1, friend 3 bets UTG2 to 40 we peel ~950eff

(84) 442hdc

Check, he bets 50 I call

(184) 2d

I check he bets 200 I call

(584) 7c

Check he jams 650, we tank shrug call off and are good. Such a painful one because I snap know I’m getting shown 18 combos of QQ+, and a couple A4s. However I felt our friend here had enough bluffs (unlike 95% of London reg population zzz)

---

Woman reg opens EP 10 we 3b BTN 35 with QQ she makes it 125, 550 eff we peel

(253) 823hcs

She bets 125 we call

(503) Ad

She checks I tank check

(503) Th

She checks, vs this villain I just queens into a bluff and jam, she sigh folds. Again super exploit but I think her range is weighted super strongly to kings here which she will never hero.

---

1/2/4

Geezer who’s short and just doubled makes it 18 MP, uncle calls SB we make it 85 in BB AQcd, initial raiser folds uncle calls 800eff

(192) 543hsd

Check check

(192) Jh

He bets 85 I call

(362) 9d

He bets 240 we tank call off and he says queen hi

---

Don’t think I’ve ever bluffcaught this spot ever in my live career before this moment

Afternoon Vic 2/5 no reg game

Stars limps 5 UTG 6 handed, 50-60yo man who I’ve never seen before but doing props with pinky ISO’s 25 on the BTN, we make it 110 in the SB with TThc, he peels

Only read we have is he got in AQ on AQx5 and chopped with A5 RIT, doing props and annoyed about certain outcome

(230) 974hds

I bet 140 he calls

(510) Jd
I check he bets 375 (with 420 behind), I shrug call

(1260) 3h

I check he goes all in for 420, we tankkk call off, he meekly says 1p and we just show and scoop

---

I think that’s enough hhs for now

So I’ve played a lot of poker since this thread started and it’s without question that if I didn’t have a good network of friends around me I’d be completely finished. Poker can be a lonely game and is also incredibly difficult, big thanks to those who have been with me during the good and bad, you know who you are

I’m super excited for what lies ahead but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss London, there were a lot of goodbyes, to both friends, fish and chip shop owners, newsagent, people at my local cafe, casino staff, and regs. I was in a comfortable place with my life and very content. I had nice routines.



One of them was doing the evening standard crossword every Friday afternoon with a couple of friends from Aspers. I also went for many great meals, both formal and informal. A lot of regs in London were extremely miserable but I really enjoyed grinding, at aspers I had many good friends, the reg community wasn’t as serious and up tight, long running jokes, lots of laughs, crazy middle of the night games, amazing characters, great staff. I’ll miss it a lot and when I return to the UK at some point I’ll definitely swing by.

I seldom drink whilst playing poker, I think the 3 times I drunk one beer at the table was because massive stars were there and offering drinks and for the amount of money they were doing you just say sure thanks very much. At my last session at aspers I decided to have a beer to celebrate and it did taste very nice, granted that might have been enhanced due to me stacking someone just as it arrived



Below is a rofl pic a friend took of me from over 18mo ago, he's always ribbed me for it because it's one of the few times I wasn't in for the max at 1/2 and there was a spot who's blurred who I really should have been weeding on against. My excuse is I was listening to some top quality bollocks from the person not in the photo which I think is completely valid reasoning I actually think the bottom chip was a pink so I actually had around 460ish instead of 500 but still for me it was completely out of character, back then at aspers the half biggest stack was never enforced and it was a daily race to who could weed on to a grand first between the regs which is even more weird why I didn't have much here. Shock the only time a friend takes a picture of me at the poker table I have an absolute bowl of rice in front of me. Also shoutout to the regs that tried to discretely take photos of me at the poker table when they're sending their friends a hh, my mum would take a less obvious photo than some of you and shes one of those people who holds the phone with one hand and clicks the photo button with the other.



Overall, I’m extremely happy I pursued poker and am still pursuing it. Of course there’s been some tough moments, tough journeys home, tough months, tough moments to witness others go through too. But all of this has made me stronger and more grateful and made me want to keep improving. I really don’t have any desire to do anything else right now so time to keep my foot down on the gas and keep pushing forward. I should be in Vegas within the next 2-3 weeks so expect some updates from there (maybe with a small adjustment to the thread title too!).

I’ve heard there are some good games in Austin
Good luck Labax in the states

Hey mate, really enjoying the thread.

Wanted to ask you any tips/thoughts you had on bridging the gap between playing poker for a living and having normal conversation with family/friends who dont know anything about poker. I often get asked "hows the poker going" and have no idea how to respond other than "good ye" . I feel hesitant to discuss when im downswinging and losing because they'll think im punting all my money away, and I feel hesitant to talk about when im upswinging because it will paint some unrealistic picture of me printing tons of $.

It leads to a point where I kind of feel bad about not elaborating on what Im doing with my time and can lead to feeling quite isolated and distant. Im sure this is an issue every poker player deals with and wanted to ask if youve any advice on the topic. Maybe this can be a topic for your next yt vid

GLGL

Thanks Jason I heard a lot of things about them too, I think quality has been skewed because of vlogger meet up games a lot. Ofc traffic will be high when Neeme and Owen come because people drive hours to come play with their hero's I think traffic at meaningful stakes struggles a bit more when it's just locals. I'll still swing by to the one near me though!

Hey great question, I think I will address it in more detail in a future video but to quickly address it now, I think it's a gap that's really hard to be bridged. So much so that I rarely share that I play poker for a living to many people I know because they just wont get it and as you stated yourself are heavily influenced to how things are going in short term.

Again I feel you that it's a bit sigh not elaborating. I don't think it's that important though in the grand scheme which is kinda my semi advice. Like people don't really understand what anyone in any career does for the most part, it's just easier to pretend like you understand what someone does in more generalised careers (accounting etc.). I don't think connection with others has to rely too heavily on what one does (this is just a base filler layer for the most part, like when it comes out and people ask me I just say I enjoy the game, have always enjoyed problem solving, good days and bad days etc) as long as those close are supportive it's fine, you can get your tough poker related issue's sorted with those who are close to you in poker (hence why I stated in my previous post, w/o very good poker friends it's incredibly difficult to make it).

I think as long as you're engagements with others revolve around them as well as certain other individual thoughts and views you have towards other area's of life there's no reason to get feelings of isolation imo.

tldr is just focus on adding value to those conversations with interesting insights outside of just elaborating on your work (I think a lot of people find it boring to listen to people talk about their own jobs anyway). It's not a huge deal when you look at the big picture imo.

Gorgeous dog! (and not a bad view neither!).

Good luck in your new chapter, please keep us updated, would really like to hear about you journey / experience transitioning to life in Vegas.

Thanks very much man! She's a beautiful dog and the view is great, I feel very lucky.

And I will definitely keep the thread updated, likely with a lot of stuff about how I'm specifically finding living in Vegas.

So I'm flying off to Vegas on the 29th of this month. Currently I'm in Austin and playing (and will continue to play) at the Texas Card House in Austin when I have some time. Let's just say I've seen some incredible things. Like I grinded a lot of hours back in London but some of the stuff I've seen I have never ever seen in London.

I'm not putting in chunks of hours this month because I'm spending a fair amount of time with my family and don't want to start working nights and being out of sync with them, they'll be plenty of time for that in Vegas. I'm driving to play there as well which is really nice, I really missed driving being in London. That being said in Vegas I'll be living near the strip (15min walk from Bellagio) so I won't need a car.

One unusual thing about where I'm playing currently is every orbit there's a double board bomb pot. Obviously I have no prior experience with these things and it was a bit sigh/daunting because obviously the recs love this and it's something you just have to do. I've started chatting about the strategy of them with a few friends (some said it was above their paygrade and I feel it's above mine too ha). Ofc it ramps up the variance chunks, in some spots you can be 700bbs eff with multiple people and it can get pretty yikes pretty quickly. That being said I only have to endure them for 3 weeks and then it'll be over. I actually do think it's amazing for the game flow. I think the idea of having a bloated pot where action is almost guaranteed to ensue really prevents people from locking up and could potentially make people push the action in the non bomb pot portion of the game. It prevents a game from going stale in a lot of cases. Like in a game I was in 8x RFI became the standard (it's not just old boys doing it with AK ).

I've spoke to a few friends privately about the games and they are good, a couple were like why don't you stay. One I got a place in Vegas through a friend and don't want to scum. Two, there's a lot of uncertainty about the future of the games here imo. Lot's of other "clubs" are shutting down and the gov could easily change the law making these redundant (they're on relatively thin legal ice already), I'm not one to enter private/underground territory so I don't really want to be stuck in Austin with some lease on a place and then have to pick up and move again. Also I don't want to be working where my family are breathing down my neck (I love them ofc and want to spend time with them this month but yeah I couldn't work in the same city as my family).

As I've highlighted in previous posts I'd like to kind of settle down and be in the same place for a bit and Vegas poker is obvs going nowhere so it seems like a good place to post up. Also I'll have some friends from London coming through every so often so is a nice hotspot to catch up with people. Also it's a 24hour city so I think it helps with being less detached from real life, sometimes in London I would get back at 5am, wake up 3pm and after a while you just feel very isolated. That being said maybe the entirety of Vegas is detached from adult life. Anyway I plan to write and share a lot about what it's like living in Vegas for a considerable amount of time. A 3 month stint is one thing but yeah I plan to be there for as long as I can stand it so expect some comment on that.

Also something that's been on my mind is that I'd like to share a bit more about my life and journey in poker than I have in the past. I guess I've shared a fair bit more "publicly" (I use that term loosely because I don't tell anyone I really have a blog, it's been kind of weird actually, a few times when I've been out in London people have said some genuinely nice things about it and I'm a bit taken back, maybe because a lot of the reason I'm doing this is for myself so I guess it feels unusual to expect compliments from some saying they've got a lot out of it, I guess I'm also fairly bad at taking compliments so there's that too).

I'm at a bit of a mental crossroads. Like with close friends I'm happy to have discussions about funny or crazy events that happened between people. But I guess when I'm posting on a public platform such as YouTube or 2+2 I have a decent amount of underlying respect for peoples privacy. In small player pools as well I don't really want to try and give public dialogues and what someone annoying did or how a certain hand went down, or to call someone a fish/rec and then he watches or reads something I said about him. I'm not saying my thought process is right here and maybe if I'm okay sharing stuff with close friends I should be okay sharing things on a more public level, if not then maybe I should not be sharing anything but yeah.

HHs are also a very weird things. It's a bit of a battle in regards of how much I'm giving away. I just threw the London ones on in the recent big post because I wont be playing there anymore but maybe it's not a big deal to post hands. Like I have enough solid people I can send HHs too so I wouldn't really be posting for feedback necessarily. I know people love reading live HHs and following along but I guess I'm still a bit on the fence. Plus I don't really get much out of sharing them from an enjoyment aspect. I much prefer jotting down my thoughts towards mental game or life balance, or struggles I've had in the past instead of how I played queens in a 3bp CO vs HJ.

I think I'm largely having these thoughts because I know I'll be on my own initially (until I make a few friends). Ofc I can call friends and chat with them but yeah I highly imagine I'll be spewing down stuff on here and making a few video's over the coming months. I'm not interested in becoming a persona or starting a vlog or content or whatever, I've never wanted to have much attention or be famous etc I'm much happier being an effective John Doe. Content creation takes an incredible amount of time, time that would take away from me improving at poker and time that I couldn't spend on my other hobbies. I don't think ones life can just be poker, poker, poker, you'll go insane. I feel for the dealers a lot who are trying to break into playing for a living. They'll deal an 8 hour shift and then try and fit in hours on the table, I'd lose my mind.

Anyway sorry for the long ramble, I guess the stark reality is this thread is (and will likely remain) an open journal of sorts where I just throw down my thoughts towards life as a professional poker player. I think it's been a very good thing for me, I really like flicking through it and examining moments. Like ofc we can all "think" back to a time where we went through some stuff but I feel being able to go back to a moment where you wrote something about that given experience is even more reflective.