Hi,

Let me preface this by saying I am not a pro. I still have a day job that keeps me (a 36-year-old guy)  and my wife and 2-year-old daughter, comfortable. I just love pretty much everything about Poker. Also, the subject of this post is because I just told my wife that she got me a subscription to TPE for Xmas .

I’ve been playing poker longer than I can remember. My grandfather taught me 5-card draw at the kitchen table. I played with friends through high school, mostly 7-Card Stud and NL Hold’em, but it wasn’t very serious (I’m sure most of you can picture the type of night we had as high-schoolers with no money involved and platy of…other things).

In 2007 I was working at a company that had a “book club” (mostly so we could use company meeting management tools to book conference rooms at night!). A bunch of these guys took the game more seriously and introduced me to a whole new side of poker. I put a little money online, read a bunch of books, played with them weekly and even paid some expenses in between that job and the next. I never did get anywhere online. I was always more of a live game lover. I remember stopping at Bay 101 in a U-Haul on my way from San Francisco back to my childhood home in LA and covering all my moving expenses. I played at commerce a bunch at the lowest stakes (NL$100…was that a $1/$3 game? and tried a little $2/$5). I never really considered trying to be a pro. I think playing most days, even at low stakes, I realized I didn’t have it in me to be a cash game grinder. I love my job too much anyway.

Couple all of that with the boom of poker on TV: WSOP (which I was at live in 2007, but didn’t play), Poker After Dark, etc….I just loved everything about Poker.

I moved to SE Asia in 2008 when the only Poker I could find were Meet-Ups in Singapore where I spent some time getting crushed by locals in underground “$1/$2” home games (which played much more like $5/$10). I also got a chance to play at the Aviation Club in Paris. What an amazing spot!

Since being back in N. America – in Vancouver, BC now for the last 4 years – I play live as often as I can. Over these last few years, I’d put a min deposit in at PokerStars, play some cash or zoom, go up and down, get impatient, play a little higher, dump a few buy-ins, go broke and quit for a while. Meanwhile I’d go play live and do OK. I love the hyper-focused zone I find playing live: studying what everyone is doing, smelling the alcohol on the guy next to me, etc (plus, playing with chips). I’ve long believed that anytime you lose track of time you are in a creative zone and it is a clue that the time is being well spent. In fact, I’ve heard that as career advice…don’t focus on what you want to do, focus on the things you are doing when time starts slipping by, then figure out how to apply it. Getting off topic here….

A couple of months ago something shifted for me. I found I enjoyed playing tournaments online more than cash (though I still love live cash). I remember back in 2007 that I only really won anything online playing tournaments. I decided to deposit $50 at PokerStars again and take it seriously, starting with freeroles up to $1.10s. Over the last couple of months I’ve gotten up to around $460 and am now playing $2-$5s (usually not $5s, except for the 90-seat progressive knockout, which I love and have won once and taken 2nd and 3rd a couple of times recently). I could afford to bankroll myself more than this but I feel like this is me putting in my dues and earning my way through levels.

I recently took a stab at a live $85+R Sunday tournament at Edgewater Casino (around 45 people I think) (which is closest to my home and where I play cash games pretty often). I chopped top 3 with double the other two chip stacks. The next week I busted in the double-bubble (even-money put up by the players) after a silly sleep-deprived melt-down. I could have coasted in to a chop. Nothing huge in either case, but the feeling from the win was amazing and what I learned from busting on the bubble was equally interesting (but less than amazing).

Anyway, that is what lead me here (technically it was the pod cast. Thank you guys so much for making that! I absolutely love it!). There are 2 things I feel I need to work on more than anything else. The mental game (working my way through the book and already helping me through a bout of running bad – I’m guilty of justice tilt). The second is the math behind tournaments which I am hoping will help me pick better spots and run just that little bit deeper so I can move up in stakes.

I know poker is going to continue to be a life-long passion. I don’t have many people in my life that I can discuss a hand with, which is a huge edge in my opinion. I don’t know if I’ll be buying in to the WSOP main event any time soon, but I’m not shooting that high yet anyway. I’m just looking forward to learning more about the game and enjoying the ride!

This seems like the right place to be.