I cast my net pretty wide while asking for advice on what to do, so I received feedback from several different people. Several people advocating for staking, some saying to go on my own, basically all of them not recommending me playing my stakes full-time due to BR concerns, dangers of taking a shot and having it go bad, recommendations of variants to play. It's a hard thing to figure out because I think they are all good answers. Different things will work for different people. I still believe getting staking would be the best thing for my poker career in terms of crushing my stakes faster and moving up. Only a 6 month liferoll and an intensive, onerous contract is a scary prospect to me tho. In addition, my personal well-being is still my number one priority. Having doubts of committing for fear of failing, going in debt, needing to quit poker, etc. has convinced me to take this break from contracts for now. I'm not saying no to staking. In fact, I expect to get a deal at some point. For right now though, I believe I am better off pursuing my journey on my own.

It seems crazy to me now that I almost jumped from one insane contract to an 18 month commitment with barely a second thought. I am the guy that, as a 19 year old virgin with a topless girl in my bed, asked her to put her shirt back on because I felt I wasn't ready for sex. I was definitely wasted and possibly high when I made that call, so it's insane how ready I was to sign my life away without thinking first lol

Going forward I think MTTs will be my main game with $3.50r 180-man MTTSNGs as an extra, variance offsetting side game. Have asked advice from several people on whether or not to pursue MTTSNGs and strategy I can use, and I think the $3.50r will be good to have on the side. It was recommended to me to grind them full time, and maybe that is a good idea, but I am sticking to my MTT guns. I've had consistently good results in MTTs and I'm still wanting to pursue them. That being said, I plan to be conservative with my BRM and deciding which tourneys to play. My personal friend and I have talked about staking me into a few different mid-stakes WCOOP/Powerfest MTTs and we are going to fire a few tournaments together which will be fun. If this chapter in my poker journey doesn't go so well, I am 100% open to getting a job to pay the bills while I continue grinding. It may prevent me from playing full-time, but it will do a lot to ease financial anxiety and allow me to keep pursuing poker and getting better. I like having options, I like having freedom. Excited to get back on the grind

Since I am on my own and am somewhat capable with Excel, I decided to make some spreadsheets for myself. I made a spreadsheet for my BR to keep track of daily profits, MTT totals, and hours played just like in the CFP program. This way I will know if I am hitting the marks I need to. Added in important stuff like withdrawals, deposits, and money owed both ways (in case it ever comes to that). Thank **** I won't have to do everything in Euros, it'll all be USD and I can breathe easy.

While doing this, I then realized it would probably be a good idea to make a monthly budget. I've been ballparking it in general and not keeping track of daily expenses since the journey's started, figuring myself to be in a good ballpark. Turns out I was grossly underestimating how much my life costs. That may be a bit of an overstatement, but I was a few hundred dollars off of my initial estimates. I'm glad I did this now as opposed to later. Keeping track of my expenses will help me to stay on budget more than I was before. 10/10 need to eat out way less, what the **** was I doing.

The numbers are pretty sobering. I'll be honest, they make me want to get a job haha. The liferoll is in worse shape than I thought and the BR won't last nearly as long as I thought it would. The world isn't ending, I still have several months of security, but this will certainly help shape my decisions to come. Right now, grinding WCOOP/Powerfest are still a number one priority. Gotta be accountable now, can't mess around too much. Definitely no more pizza lol

I finally recognize this freedom as the crystal clear opportunity it is to optimize myself into the best person that I can be. It's kind of been the whole point of this journey, way before the thread even started. I was a deeply, deeply flawed person. A good person, I've always tried to be a good person, but deeply flawed. Rebuilding, healing myself has been a step-by-step process, each bit coming when I've been ready for it. Mental health has been my first priority in this journey and I fully intend to keep it my number one priority for the rest of my life. Poker has been my second highest priority where I think it needed to be. I was a fish, a ****ing donkey, a slightly above breakeven microstakes nobody a year ago. When I started this journey I had so much to learn that I just had to dive in and give it my all. And you know what? I am a winning player. I am not a winning player at the $55s, or the $109s, or the $1050s. I am a winning player at the $22s, and that was unthinkable a year ago. I have a solid enough foundation that with gradual improvement I will continue moving up the poker ladder. I've been feeling this for a while now, but there are life leaks outside of poker that I desperately need to fix. It's finally time to prioritize my fitness and create good life habits so I can truly crush the rest of my life and the poker world (in due time)

I'm fat. I'm actually ****ing fat. The fattest I've ever been. It is the last remnant from my dark days I have yet to change. I know I've talked about it and I know I've talked **** about wanting to make changes to that. I genuinely, and not even mildly, have fears that I could have a heart attack. Those fears are probably unjustified. I'm only 22, I'm a young man still, I don't qualify as obese. But for a little over two years, I have been crushing a liter of pop a day, multiple bags of chips and multiple pizzas per week. Vegetables are non-existent in my diet, no colours other than brown and yellow. My arteries feel clogged, my brain is a fog. It is a huge problem. I was not taught how to approach food properly growing up. Both my parents are intensely out of shape. I have had good runs when it comes to health, but I never thought about the nutrition of what I was putting into my body. I ate what I figured to be genuinely healthy. It's time I think about what I am doing.

I've been hanging out recently a fair amount with my friend, the one that understands poker, that understands what I am doing and is impressed by it. He is into self-improvement, he is into nutrition, he is into the idea of doing the most he can every day to be the best person that he can be. He's the one that talked to me about keto. I am not going on a keto diet. This is not just about losing weight. Losing weight is a quick fix, something that will (has) come and gone before in my life. We are going to create a meal plan for myself tomorrow, one that I can afford, one that fits my budget. It will be balanced, it will be good for me, it will be healthy. I can prepare it and I can cook it and I won't be having mini ravioli for lunch every day I play

Being in shape is about feeling great, but it's about having a sharp mind too. If I take my health seriously, I will gain an edge I am missing. I will be sharp at the tables, I will be sharp when I study, I will be sharp in my life. I won't die of a heart attack at the age of 22.

A focus on health is clearly what I need right now. Like I said, staking is undoubtedly the best thing for my poker game. High level coaching and a no stress bankroll. The thing is, I would be more focused on poker than on my health. I would not have the energy mentally or physically to reroute my life the way I need to. Staking will always be there, coaching will always be there. I have a fire in me to become the best poker player I can. If I want to be the best I can be, I need to prioritize my health right now. I truly believe doing that will help me move up the poker ladder and crush when I'm ready for the next deep dive.

I am learning so many things on this poker journey school never taught me. I am learning how to be responsible for finances, something I've never had to think about before. I never want to be a person in debt and I fully intend to live a financially secure life. Just the act of putting numbers in a budget spreadsheet, something I could have done months ago, something so many people do every day, has inspired me to realize how I can optimize my life with the limitations I have. I don't need to spend $300 on groceries, I don't need to blow $150 a month eating out. I can make good choices, good for me and my wallet, that will make the rest of my life so much easier. Learning how to cook now, take care of my body, will lead me to so much success in the future.

I can be the person I want to be for the rest of my life, the best version of myself. It will take time, it will take effort, it will take structure. This window of time right now is perfect to teach myself how to do it. If I create good habits for myself, routines that I can follow to be the most productive person I can be, I am well on my way to being an impactful person. In poker, in media, in life, wherever I end up, whatever I end up doing. Once I am ready for it, poker staking is there for me. Coaching is there for me. If I become the optimized, healthy, hungry version of myself, I can devour poker strategy. I will be motivated, I will never stop trying to be the best poker player I can be.

I don't anticipate this taking forever. I know that with structure and with discipline, I can accomplish what I need to accomplish. Creating that plan and following it is the key to becoming my best self.

So the plan? Tomorrow, me and my friend are making my meal plan. It will fit my budget, it will be something I can follow, it will be something I will follow. I'm ready to make this change.

Outside of that? I am grinding full time until the end of Powerfest/WCOOP. Once that is done, unless I bink $20k, I want to get a part time job. Maybe 24 hours, three days a week. Enough to cover my life expenses (should I stick to budget). That leaves four days a week to keep playing poker and grind up that BR to something that will support me stress-free through a staking deal. I started this journey with a roughly 500 Euro bankroll and have made 6700 Euros in profit. This obviously does not cover all of my life expenses and my net worth has gone down since the start. But I was learning. I was teaching myself, building my skills, and it was all completely worth it. My job will hopefully cover life expenses, and the poker earnings I will have will replenish the liferoll and put me in a good financial situation.

Long term? A year from now, I want to have money in the bank. Not an ungodly amount, but maybe $20k, maybe $30k. In the bank, financial security. I want to be strong enough, ready to move on from Swift Current. I don't have to leave in a year. I don't need to stay that long, I don't need to leave when that year hits. I just know that this city is not my whole future. Parts of my life will be lived outside of this city and I will leave it when I am strong enough financially, mentally, and physically.

I know I can do this

Started reading this and thought it was gonna be a train wreck. As the thread developed, I began to like you op more and more and Im sincerely rooting for you. You sound like a good kid and I relate to you in many ways.

At some point I thought about posting here with a lot of advice that I wish someone gave me when I made a similar choice to yours back in the day, things such as: "dont do it! pursue your career, poker has no future and is a bitersweet path with more bitter than sweet in it" or: "listen to your dad, he might sound as an ******* but he has a lot of reason on what he says to you and after all he just wants the best for you", but hey, probably if someone said that to me back in the day (and probably someone did) I wouldnt have listen cuz I was so fixated on my goal of becoming a pro, so, why would you listen? sometimes we need to experience things ourselves and there's nothing someone can say to make us change our mind.

I do think tho that you have studied something that is great (and something I always thought as an alternative for myself too) and that probably will give you more satisfaction on the long run than poker. A problem I have with poker after all this years being "a pro" is that I feel I dont give much to society. Think about what we do: win money from worse players. As a writer you can change the world somehow, you can give insight to people, you can create things that are great, with poker, well, you have fun and make money, there's no "moral" fullfilment (not sure if that makes sense). If I were you, I wouldnt give up on that part of your life, the writing part, and keep it as a solid hobby that you can monetize or pursue someday along with poker or instead of it, because right now you're a "young" pro, but as years roll maybe you feel this moral dilemma Im telling you about, or maybe not.

Anyway, best of luck and see you at the tables, hope we crush this WCOOP, glgl.

Appreciate the kind words man. Yeah, I think when I started the thread this whole journey could have very easily gone off the rails. Certainly my life was not as stable as it should have been back in November, but I've been working hard and building myself up and I think I'm putting myself in the position I need to be for success later on in my life. This moral dilemma you talk about is definitely something I'm aware of. It doesn't seem like a big deal when I'm grinding $11 ABIs, but the dark side of poker is something I am aware of. Literally sharkscoped a guy a few weeks back on an $11 FT Bubble and he had lost $50k total and it was so sad to see. Taking money from losing players is how people make a living. I have ideas for somehow trying to give back, perhaps kooky ideas of creating a scholarship at my old high school for kids pursuing fine arts. There are positive things I can do with money I make. It probably won't make up completely for taking it from gambling addicts, but I think I can make positive impacts in other places later on.

I appreciate your input on not giving up writing. My perspective on the future is that poker is what I am doing right now, but it is not what I will be doing for the rest of my life. Maybe poker becomes unbeatable, maybe I become bored, maybe I never make it. No matter what, I'll reach a certain age eventually where it would be impossible to compete (physically and mentally) at the level I need to. Poker is the here and now and I love it, but I really do believe that following this as a passion will open up doors for me. I think about poker media, I still think about my poker scripts and maybe trying to create a film production company at some point, maybe I branch out into business or investing, maybe law lol. There are a lot of things that I can end up doing and I don't need to know the end goal. Right now I think it's important to have my vision for poker success and everything else will fall into place along the way.

On the writing note, one of my fellow creative writing BFAs at UBC always talked about how crazy it was that some people finished their BFA and immediately jumped into an MFA. It was this idea that you aren't really a changed person from BFA to MFA, maybe four months being all that separate the two. So many BFAs are in their early 20s and haven't genuinely lived lives outside in the real world. He always talked about wanting to get life experience before doing an MFA. I think it makes complete sense. I'm not opposed to getting more schooling, but this poker journey is giving me plenty of life experience that I know is valuable. If I'm being honest, I don't know if I have the requisite passion/talent/work ethic to make it as a screenwriter or in the writing world, but I am not closing it off as an option. If I want to make a run at it, it will be there when I'm ready



All of that being said, I've taken my first steps towards a physically healthy life. My friend came over this afternoon and we planned out meals I could make and ingredients to buy. I dropped $150 on groceries, but lots of these are long term products (spices, salt, pepper, olive oil, rice) that I need in my kitchen to properly make good food I want to eat. He's gonna come over to make a stir-fry tomorrow and he'll show me the ropes on meal prep and having extra meals ready to heat and eat in the fridge. The spreadsheet is going to go a long way towards making me avoid huge restaurant/takeout bills I don't need. Big portions of previous weight loss journeys I've had revolved around abstinence from bad food I enjoyed. I think this can be different because I'm replacing bad food with good food I will hopefully look forward to eating. I can still eat **** once in a while too. Moderation. I'm honestly really excited about it

Was so pumped up yesterday I was up until 5 or 6am, been routinely waking up around noon this week. I need to get my sleep schedule back on track. Will probably call it an early night tonight and hopefully be well rested for tomorrow. I think I am set up in a good way to commit to the full-time grind for the next month. Hopefully WCOOP/Powerfest goes well for all of us

I wish you all the best. Taking big risk early in your life is definitely the way to go. But being able to support yourself playing online poker with only a couple years experience is nearly impossible. Didn't read whole thread but what site/games are you intending on playing?

Gl

Appreciate it! Right now I'm just on 888, Stars and Party, playing MTTs and trying to work in MTTSNGs. I agree that I definitely need more skill and a bigger bankroll to genuinely support myself. My budget came out to around $1200 CAD per month which is fairly cheap if I can stick to it (or go under), but even at that price I'm not making enough. Part-time job I think is the way to go while I build up my skills/BR, possibly staking when the time/situation is right

Tbh I don't really know how GTO or not it is to show my face on the thread. I've already revealed enough about myself that it probably doesn't matter, I don't really know that I can consider myself anonymous like I could at the start of the thread, not that it's important to me. I don't really give a ****. As a writer writing OOL non-fic stuff you just gotta be okay with people knowing more about you than the average person, right?

Tbh I just wanted to share a few photos and things from the past. I spend a lot of my time writing these thread posts, rewriting them, reading them five times before posting, reading the same old journal entries and phone notes time and time again. My descent is honestly pretty well documented and I'm happy that it is, there's so much to learn from it. I mentioned to my friend I spend a lot of time doing this and he said it's probably fine. Self-reflection can't be that bad, right?



These are some before and after pics of a crazy Vancouver night in July 2016. On this particular night I went to a club downtown with my friend where I got promptly ****-faced. That summer was interesting in that I was sad and lonely but I wasn't in a dark place like I eventually went. I had broken up with my girlfriend shortly before the summer and rediscovered poker as a hobby at the start of May. I spent that entire summer playing microstakes (1c/2c) poker on 888, grinding up an $8 sign up bonus to $30 back down to $10 and then $20 and so on. This was punctuated by a few trips to the casino to play like a nit-***** in some cash games. I always played sober because I knew I needed my full-attention when I played. This night, however, I was going to crash on my friend's couch but we got separated in the club. My phone went dead and I just sat on the DJ stage at the front until closing at 3AM. Got to my friend's waterfront place around 4 but the doorman didn't have a charger for me and didn't want to wake up my friend. So I could get a taxi and go home, or I could go to the casino and play poker until my friend woke up. ****-faced Blake chose option two and got hit by the deck. Walking out at 9am I had $1400 rolled up loose in my pocket. Bought my friend some breakfast as a thank you for locking me out. I was never that OOL with poker before that night, but the alcohol and poker combo was a horrible mix for me. One good night will hook you and it hooked me.



At that time I remember not really knowing why I was playing poker. I just didn't understand why it became an obsession of mine. It was a question I had that entire summer until I connected it with my breakup and realized it had everything to do with me avoiding my problems. Like I said, I was in a sad but okay place that night. The next couple months were when my life took a serious downwards turn. I started to genuinely hate myself and many nights out ended with me alone at a poker table.

This picture was taken almost one year ago. I saved it but sent it to no one. Checking my phone the next day I sent it off to my friends as a "Last night was wild" snap. The thing is, I distinctly remember this and "You are sick" was not meant in a good way. It was meant in a "You are sick, ****ed in the brain" kind of way.



I never really thought I had a gambling problem. I didn't play slots, or blackjack, or roulette or anything like that. It was always only poker and it would only ever be poker. I was, however, addicted to the feeling of losing. Winning $1400 feels pretty great, but when I hated myself it always felt better to lose my buy-in. I never thought of it as a gambling addiction, I always kind of saw it as a manifestation of my self-hatred. Losing everything and then walking out always left a cold, empty hole in my stomach, my skin crawling, hair on edge. I was addicted to that feeling because it was the only feeling I had for a long time. I wasn't happy, I never felt good, I didn't care about anything. Going to the casino and losing $300 actually made me feel an emotion and I wanted it

I wrote this note on my phone on August 13, 2017 in the back of a Vancouver taxi, getting a ride back home to my bed and my life.

"It kind of feels shallow, doesn't it? Taxi ride home at 6 am after having lost $300. I left my friends to go to the casino, and that $300 was half of one paycheque. I'm supposed to write, but I don't want to. I want to be close to someone, but I can't because I don't have that kind of person in my life. I'm just adrift.

I don't even know what I want

I want to be happy. I want to be loved.

Those are both easier said than done.

It's really hard to motivate myself to do anything worthwhile. I know the finite nature of the world, and I know the inherent pointlessness of my (and everyone else's) existence. Knowing those things makes it hard to be passionate about art

I just want love.

Vancouver doesn't feel like home. Vancouver doesn't love me.

I have work tomorrow and I played poker till I lost all my money at 6 am. And when I say work tomorrow, I mean today

But no one really cares. I don't even care, if I'm being honest. I really don't"

Dark stuff, goddamn. Eventually losing lost it's feeling too and I was just trying to talk myself into giving a ****, doing something to change my life. All of the good stuff I have now means so much because I came from this place. It was a lot of hard work, and jumping into poker as a solution was certainly counter-intuitive. I was able to recognize that poker was the only passion I had left in my life though. And I knew that poker was not a bad thing for me. The bad things were the depression, and the self-hatred, and the isolation, and the alcohol. Poker wasn't the problem.

Like I've said, I was never an alcoholic but the whole sober thing is pretty important to me. I really feel like I'm never going to get drunk again. Nights like these ruined it for me. Thoughts in my brain did too. All of that being said, the last time I got genuinely drunk was early September. It's not quite a year ago, but it's pretty close. I guess I'm just happy that I made that change for myself. I've never had an itch to drink so it hasn't been hard, but I'm just proud. Proud of everything I've done in my life since the thread started. Poker genuinely helped save me, and I'll always love it for that. Good luck at the tables everyone

For the fitness thing, was able to weigh myself this morning and I am at 248.8lbs. I honestly thought it would be more, but I’m not complaining haha. About four days into this healthy eating thing and so far, so good. Haven’t had any intense cravings, I’m hungry ALL of the time, but I’m just sticking to blueberries and the like for snacks. Would be nice to get to 220lbs by the end of December, a little over four months. I think that for me, and based on things I’ve done in the past, that’s an attainable goal. Need to look into some kind of exercise to work into the routine. I might try swimming since I’m near the pool and it would be a good, full body workout, probs cheaper than the gym too. Guess we’ll see how it goes

So I guess I've taken a whole week off of poker. Like, literally nothing poker related, not even on the project for coach which honestly makes me kind of a ****. I've just been super unmotivated the past week, this entire month has honestly been pretty infrequent playing. I had the staking situation and the project, but there's no reason for playing as little as I have. It's fine for my situation I guess, but if I do this consistently it will be a big problem for long-term success. Gonna play tomorrow but then I need to grind my ass off to finish this project before WCOOP/Powerfest. I have no one to blame but myself, so it is what it is

All of that being said, it hasn't felt like an unproductive week. I've been watching lots of really good movies, started watching The Leftovers which I'm into. It's honestly really encouraging for myself to be going out of my way to watch stuff like this again. As mentioned, I went to school for creative writing, screenwriting specifically. For a while there I lost any appetite for story when it was a huge passion of mine, and I'm honestly really happy I'm getting that back a bit. Need to find a better balance than the last week, but it's fine to have an off week

So far, so good on the healthy eating. I've cooked more things in the last week than I have in my entire life up to this point, and it's honestly tasting pretty okay. My body already feels much better. I know I mentioned feeling like my arteries were clogged, but I haven't had that recently. I feel much lighter. I don't have a scale so I'll be weighing myself infrequently. Played a couple rounds of golf this week too, carried my Men's Night team to a third place finish and won myself a dozen NXT Tours in gift cards. Pretty sweet

Hopefully Sunday goes well. The next priority after that is this project, which I'm already past my original due date on. I just have this mental block on doing it, similar to when I was in school my last year. I remember I handed in an English essay at my final, two and a half weeks after the due date. I just couldn't get myself to sit down and start it, sit down and write it. Obviously, I pulled an all-nighter the day before the final to crank it out. Ended up getting an A, a C with marks deducted lol. Just gotta get started, push through. I don't have any good excuses for not doing it. Goodnight and good luck on Sunday everyone

Quick addition, I've been trying to read more too. I've started and stopped multiple books, a lot of the stuff I have just isn't really doing it for me. I have a bunch of screenplay PDFs on my computer though, if anyone has suggestions on scripts I should read/movies to watch, let me know lol

Had a few decent runs but lost money on the day. Thought I played pretty okay overall. Like I mentioned, I've been pretty low-motivation on the poker side of things and I still feel that way. Priority is now to finish this project for coach by this upcoming Saturday. If I put in a couple of hours a day I should be able to do it. Hopefully I play more than last week, but whatever happens happens. Playing another Men's Night this upcoming week as well, likely my last one of the year with all of the big tourney series coming up.

Also, shoutout to Brooke Henderson for winning the CP Canadian Women's Open. It was in Regina, a couple hours down the road. I floated the idea of going to watch earlier this summer but it was wishy-washy idea at best. Awesome to see a Canadian win it, interview after made me tear up a bit. Good on her. Apparently media day was her first day she'd ever been in Saskatchewan and she will 10/10 never come back to Sask again. They shoulda held the tourney in Saskatoon so she would've had a better impression of this beautiful province. See ya

Heyo. No poker update, but today I looked into more job-related stuff. Finding a part-time job is now a big priority. I won’t have a lot of options being that I live in Swift, so I honestly might fast-track the application process and make sure that I give myself as good a chance as possible to get hired somewhere. May not wait until the end of the poker series to get a job either. An A+ set-up would be a 3-4 day per week job without working on Sundays. That would let me still devote plenty of time to poker and developing my game.

Another exciting thing is that I’m looking into doing freelance writing. My mom showed me a site one of our neighbours uses to look for freelance work from around the world. My mom was so about all of the job talk today, she’s honestly very excited I’m doing it. I’m pretty excited too honestly. I have been low motivation poker-wise and have been blowing a lot of time in unproductive ways. If I could take some time to build up a writing portfolio to get freelance work or possibly get some articles in the local paper, that would be pretty awesome. Then I could call myself a writer again lol. I think the last couple of weeks have shown, if anything, that poker is not my lifetime destiny. There’s just no way I’ll be playing forever. Diversifying my interests and work portfolio can do nothing but good for me, and hopefully I can ease my way back onto the writing path. I wasn’t joking in my first post when I said having screenwriting AND poker would be pretty ideal. There’s no reason why I can’t have that. Wouldn’t that be dope?

All of my motivated, going-places friends are leaving for school/work within the next few days. As mentioned, I love and appreciate all my friends. I am just very paranoid about the possibility of getting stuck here. I love Swift so much, but it’s not a place I want to spend the rest of my life at. If I am going to achieve anything worthwhile it’s going to take me to places beyond Swift. Even if I never achieve what I want to, I need to at least try. So the irrational fear is that I get stuck in a rut and content with life here and just never move on. An offshoot of that is that I get stuck in a rut and deteriorate mentally and fall back to where I was. That feels like a long, long ways from who I am now, but the possibility of that happening really does bother me. So I’m just gonna keep prioritizing what’s best for me. Poker was definitely a high priority, but it’s falling on the back-burner last few weeks. My life is more than just poker anyways. See ya

Surprised to read about the change of place poker had in your life, but I think is the wisest move for you. Writer > pro poker player imo.

Would be cool to know if your plans stay the same if you bink big during wcoop lol. Anyways, glgl

I think my life priorities are coming into clearer focus a bit. That being said, no guarantee anything happens with writing in the near future, but I'm putting out some feelers anyways

In golf news, carried my Men's Night team to ninth place after shooting a 1-under 34 (we only play nine holes). Won KP, a gift card, and half of a skin for over $100 total value lol. Amazing thing is that I missed two putts inside of six feet for bird on my last two holes and missed another eight-footer earlier in the round, so it was honestly a bad 34 which is crazy to say. Deal going on at the course tomorrow so I'm gonna play a cheap 18, try to get that sub-par round. The KP was two-and-a-half feet from the hole and I really thought it was going to be a hole-in-one for a hot second. Probably won't get that close again for another five years #rip

Heyo. So this week went much the same as the last, with me doing nothing poker related. I’ve also been a bit of a recluse as well, not going out of my way to leave my apartment and see people which isn’t great. I have seen some people, but I feel a bit of a bigger rift between me and the boys which has been an ongoing thing for years. They’re still my boys and they’ll be really important in the future for me, but it is definitely different than it was and that’s nothing new. I’m really wanting to surround myself with the best people possible and put myself in good spots. Not to say my friends are bad, but they do a lot of things I’m not really on-board with and that’s just life.

So August was probably my worst month poker-wise since the journey started. I probably finished close to even or a little negative (I did chop the Big $4.40 lol), but the studying and volume I should put in as a full-time player weren’t there. There was obviously my coaching/staking situation at the start which is understandable, but I then neglected playing/studying due to this project and I’m not even close to done yet. I just messaged coach to apologize for my tardiness but assure him I would finish it, might end up docking some of my payment because of my **** work ethic which I think is justified. I promised two weeks, it’s been three and I probably won’t be done for a while yet because of Powerfest/WCOOP. I have no one to blame but myself, so that’s life

I have been super low motivation lately and just feeling down in general. I am eating better so feel immeasurably better, but this other stuff and knowing I’m not doing it has been weighing heavy on me. I hold myself to a very high standard so when I know I’m letting other people down, I can be hard on myself. Probs a life leak. Had some bad emotions this last week too. Nothing serious, but fears about getting stuck in neutral or falling back to where I was again. Probs won’t happen, but my brain can play tricks on me. Thankfully my support system and mental strength are way better than what they once were and I’ve been able to talk it through with some people which I am very grateful for

The month hasn’t been a waste. I feel like I’ve been spending my time meaningfully even if I have not been productive poker-wise. Eating better is also something I desperately needed to change and it’s good that I’m doing that. The next thing to accomplish is get a workout routine going, hopefully within the next week. It would be nice to start doing something after my poker sessions, I don’t really have the discipline/willpower to wake up at 6am to do before. Poker will be a big priority the next three weeks and hopefully I will grind most days, but balance is very important to me and I’m still doing my best to make myself the best version I can be. Poker isn’t the only factor and I’m not treating it that way.

All that being said, hopefully I bink $20k tomorrow lol. Good luck everyone

Heyo. I am slightly below breakeven to start the series grinds. Got second place in a $3.50r 180-man to help recoup a decent amount of my losses which is cool. Feels good to just be in an FT, big money situation again. I know I barely played in the last month, but it's pretty easy to feel hopeless that it will ever switch around during any sizable stretch of poor results. Just gotta keep trucking and finish strong.

I've finally started the exercise part of my fitness plan. I used to swim as a kid and have decided to try taking that up again, just swimming on my own. I've gone twice so far and banged out 1km in about 45 minutes yesterday. Goddamn, I am so out of shape tho. Shoulders are sore, legs are jelly, neck is stiff. I know I just gotta power through and I'll feel better on the other side, but it'll be a bit of a grind. I haven't been able to weigh myself but I'm confident I'm on a good path. Just need to continue making good food choices while getting the exercise hopefully 3+ times a week. A fun thing is that I'm actually kind of enjoying cooking now that I've gotten into it again. I've basically only cooked chicken so far, but I am proud of myself for making not only edible but tasty food. Also watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi tonight. It's probably too late for me to become a Japanese sushi chef but a kid can dream, right?

hey man. Did you ever start Crime and Punishment? Just put it on the back of your toilet, you'll be done in no time.

Also, there are some pretty decent sushi books out there. Did you know that sushi just means flavored rice? It has nothing to do with raw fish. And it takes 3 years for Japanese sushi chefs to learn how to cook just the rice! ;-p Also, the raw fish is usually frozen, so people like me in the middle of the USA can enjoy sushi with raw fish just as easily as someone on the coasts.

gl sunday.

Dude, I was true to my word and I tried reading it when i went to Vancouver in May. I could only get 20 pages in though. It was just very dark and I wasn’t feeling it. I might try pushing through because I do want to read as many great books as possible, but it’s further down the list. I have a bunch of items on order to the local library, movies I want to see and books I want to read. I have a moral problem as a screenwriter with pirating movies which is why I don’t just illegally download/stream them, but ordering them through the library is okay for me haha. Have a couple books on order I think. I crushed Tiger Woods a couple weeks ago. 400+ pages and I ripped through it in three days. I can count the number of books I’ve finished in the last year on one hand so to just get enraptured by a book like that is super exciting, I know there’s more books like that out there for me. Currently reading a book called Coroner written by a, you guessed it, coroner up in Saskatoon. Morbidly fascinating and genuinely interesting for me. A book on sleep also just came in. I’m trying to optimize my health obviously and I know my sleep habits need some serious correction, so I wanna crush that after I finish reading about all these farm accidents lol

Speaking of sleep, I can’t do it tonight. My brain just keeps going, won’t shut up. Nighttime is when I am really able to think about everything happening now and in the past. And my brain will just go off on tangents and I have hypothetical conversations in my head with people I know about life or about what’s going on and all of that stuff. Dialogue was always my biggest strength as a writer and I think it’s because I am constantly having dialogues in my head

As has been going on this entire last month, I am incredibly unmotivated and have been neglecting poker. A lot of my focus has been on improving my physical health which is important, but that’s not really an excuse for how little I’ve been playing or how I’ve been feeling the past few weeks. I’ve been leaning on my Vancouver friend a lot recently just to talk out what I am thinking. I’m not sure why I’ve been so depressed lately. I think a lot of it has to do with my most positive friends leaving Swift in the last few weeks. I have been withdrawing myself and although I have still occasionally been doing stuff, it’s not always stuff I enjoy doing and I’m always on edge.

The closest friend I have left in town is basically perma-high. I don’t frown upon pot itself or people that get high. I just have an issue in that he’s never sober and I haven’t been able to handle myself as well in those situations in recent years. Going back to the high school days, none of my crew got into drugs until I was in second year in Vancouver. We used to go for walks or play basketball or watch movies for fun but their idea of fun has changed while mine hasn’t too much. My mom also drilled in heavily not to drink and drive which is a huge problem in Saskatchewan. My friend doesn’t drink and drive but he is constantly driving high and I ****ing hate it. I’m on edge whenever he drives me and when I do voice my uncomfortability I feel like a dick. I’m just not comfortable being in the car with him and it also sucks to know that he’s out there driving every single day high and putting other people at risk while just blowing it off as nothing. He isn’t the only one in the crew doing that either. Maybe you guys think I’m a stuck up narc lol, but it just puts me on edge so much and I really don’t like being in those situations.

I don’t know. Poker has kind of grinded to a halt as I kind of deal with myself. I’m probably going to get a job and I’m actually pretty open to just working and putting poker on the back-burner for a bit. I am rediscovering stories, movies and books, and I am wanting to try writing more again. I feel like there’s just a lot of things that I want to do and because I am so unfocused I am achieving almost nothing. And I really don’t want to get stuck in this town or fall back to where I was but I just have this fear that it will happen.

It’s all very frustrating and very, very stupid. I’m not giving up poker but it really feels like my mental health is slipping and I just want it to get back to level again. I’m not in a crisis, just having a ****ty couple of weeks. Sorry for the lack of poker goodness in the thread, but this is just kind of the state I’m in at the moment and it’s okay to not be 100%. I am very lucky to have the supports I have. When I think about that November night and how close I was to killing myself, it really felt like I had no outlets, no one to talk to. I am so lucky to have my Vancouver friend supporting me, she is honestly the person I credit most with the growth I’ve made in the past few months and it’s really hard imagining where I am right now if I never reached out to her. I’m leaning on her and I’m using other supports I have and I’m doing my best to tread water. ****ty couple of weeks but I know it’ll get better if I stick with it

I’ve decided to go play live poker in the city today. I think I need to get out of my apartment and just do something that’s low-key fun. If I just drop into a random $1-$3 game I will probably be okay skill-wise compared to the rest of the table. Hopefully I don’t lose a bunch of money, but we’ll see. I wish I had the option to go to the casino when I don’t feel like playing online just a few minutes drive away, but a road trip will hopefully be good for me

Hang in there, man. I've been suicidal a few times in my life as well. I think getting a job, even part time, would be beneficial.

Appreciate it man, my thoughts exactly. Hope you’re doing well 👌🏻

Heyo. So I was in tonight for $340 and cashed out $837 for a net profit of +$497. Very excited to not lose money and be able to pay for my gas on the trip. Crashing in my friend’s room at the U of R which is very chill, getting flashbacks from first year I spent here. Regina is kind of a dump of a city, but the poker room is NICE. Honestly my favourite one I’ve played including B.C. and Lethbridge. Played a few hands at the Bellagio a couple years ago so that will get the edge, but Casino Regina is pretty hype.

Not much in terms of interesting hands. I basically played ABC poker, stuck pretty close to my MTT ranges, and didn’t do anything too stupid. The Ottawa Redblacks are in town and one of the players sat at our table. In his very first hand I stacked him with Aces when he donk jammed KT on JT3 flop. Easy money. Does knocking him out make me a Rider fan?

Overall, today was a really great day and it was great to have fun playing poker again. Also enjoyed just being in the city on my own, the spontaneity of it, the hours spent on the #1 to get here. I did not like going to school here which is why I transferred to UBC after first year, but I still have some fond, nostalgic memories. I drove home basically every weekend so my memory of first year is basically just me in the car listening to Alt Nation and just chilling. Stressful times, but, compared to the years that followed, chill times

Really happy to see my friend again, I really enjoy hanging out with him. As mentioned, I think a lot of the past weeks sucking have centered around my positive, going-places friends leaving. I’m just glad to see him cuz I’ve really been on the fritz and it’s nice to actually talk to another human in person rather than texting, yknow? Very thankful to have him as a friend and it’s awesome that he was chill with me just crashing on his floor. If he said no I never drive up to Regina and I’m just stuck in Swift for God knows how long. V thankful to just get away for a day and have fun playing poker.

This is a lifestyle I could really get behind, the poker pro with the freedom and ability to do what he wants and play where he wants, stress-free. Maybe it’s unrealistic to be completely stress-free, but today reinvigorated the desire to be an independent, on the road poker player. I would love to be able to play more live events around Saskatchewan and Alberta and Manitoba and so such. My game is honestly at a level where I could compete at these tournaments just because of donkeys, but hopefully I can have the financial means to compete soon

Not sure how long I’ll be in Swift but I definitely cannot stay forever. I would love to have a portfolio somewhat ready and a nice BR/liferoll set-up before moving to a city that would be good for me with a really nice poker room where I could play live when I want to. Regina poker room is great but the city is kind of a dump. I’m thinking Calgary/Montreal/Toronto as potential destinations. Toronto would moreso fit the screenwriting angle too if I had a portfolio as well. I can stay in Swift for a while yet, but I really do need to and will get out eventually. Hopefully everything will be in balance when I do

Final thing. I’ve been thinking a lot about getting anti-depressants and I think I’m going to try them out. I know there are people worse off than me and I wish I could do this all on my own and I wish I could just do everything natural and not “cheat” to be happier (which is how I’ve worried about it in the past), but it just might help me and they are probably worth a shot. When I am depressed I basically become incapacitated and just don’t want to do anything. If I got medication that helped me get rid of that, hopefully I can accomplish a lot more than what I’m currently doing. Take my edges where I can get them, yknow?

So yeah. This was a very fun spur of the moment thing and I’m glad I did it. I’ve never done a spontaneous road trip on my own like this before and it was worth it for sure. Definitely going to try watching a movie tomorrow, hopefully a good one that will never come to Swift in a million years. Goodnight guys and good luck on Sunday. I’ll be back on the virtual felt to finish off my very unproductive WCOOP by then

Glad you were able to have a good night out. WRT to the medication, I’d def look into it. You are very fortunate to live in Canada with our healthcare. Mental health issues I can relate to, not personally, but had a best friend who couldn’t cope and left us too soon.

I hope you continue to seek happiness in your life. Talk to your good friends for support. And good luck with poker!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've tried a few antidepressants and to be honest, none have ever helped. Getting exercise outdoors, staying away from excessive drinking, and having a job will probably do just as much if not more to help you.

Vipassana meditation. I cannot overstate how much the latter has done for me in beating THIS HELL OF A DEMON that is severe depression I owe everything to vipassana, tbh Blog post about it :

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...8&postcount=19

and this one, from only a couple of years back :

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=404

The centre closest to you is located just outside of Red Deer, if you happen to look into it. A good friend is the centre manager over there. Anyhow, good luck with beating that demon friend