Hey guy's, I guess it was 2005 so I was about 31 and a couple of my co-workers played a bit of poker, we fooled around with $5 sitngo's now and then…I had an idea on hand strengths from a card game called Rummoli that I played as a kid; other than that I was completely new to the game.  One of them showed me how to play online; I thought it would be a good way to practice and that's basically all it was for the 1st year.  I played now and then mostly just for fun never spending more than $20 on a tourney or sitngo; and then I don't remember why or if it was the 1st time but in March 2006 I played a sunday million satty…I won the Sat, played the sunday million and somehow (Wish I could look back at the HH lol) I made the final table and won 20k; a few days later I FT'd the nightly $162 and cashed for about 5k and then on Saturday I took 2nd in the weekly $320 for another 15k…I was pretty much hooked after that lol…

Not long after that I won a Sat to WSOP main event, I had never played a live tournament so I went to a couple local tournies at casino rama to practice before I went to Vegas….I busted on day 1 of the main but decided to wander over to the Bellagio and late reg'd a 1k bellagio cup event; started 2 hrs late on the same table as the Grinder and 1 of his brothers (can't remeber which one); I ended up chopping it for about 30k; 2 nights later I chopped another bellagio cup 1k for about 65k…

I can't really explain my instant success, I wasn't very good…I remember playing very “abc”, limping from ep etc…Maybe I had good instincts, maybe I just ran absurdly good…prob a combination of both.  The downside to such instant success (yea I know poor me lol); I never had to grind my way up the stakes and was nowhere good enough to be playing high stake mtt's which of course with all the instant success and bankroll is all I did.  I'm sure I gave everything I won back over the next 6 months playing online and live tournaments.

I was a competitive athlete for most of my life and won salesperson of the year basically every year I was eligible until I got too high in management…So my background while not being gaming or mathematical was much more of me just being type A highly competitive.  I wanted to be the best at anything I did and I really liked poker, was pretty much hooked on the game and decided I wanted to be the best.  So I kept playing high stakes; kept depositing online (I remember having to play freerolls now and then while I waited for my deposit max to reset).  I didn't have any poker friends, didn't know that pocket fives, two plus two or training sites even existed; I just attemped to learn from my mistakes.

In 2007 while still working very full time; I finshed in the top 100 on PokerStars leaderboard while playing 1 or 2 nights a week and on the weekend…I made the odd trip to play in live tournaments and spent a good chunk of the summer in Vegas.  I proceeded to juggle work and poker through to 2008 until it was getting to the point I had to choose 1 or the other.  I took a temporary leave from my job in the summer of 08 to spend 6 weeks in Vegas for WSOP; pretty much got my head beat in but made some poker friends; a couple of whom offered me a backing deal and that was enough for me to take a permanent leave from my career of 16yrs to make the leap into full-time poker.  I was single with no kids and knew that I could always go back to my job if things didn't work out so it seemed like a good time to give it a shot.

I pledged to myself to spend the next 16 months Sept 08 – Dec 09 on the road basically playing every live tournament possible to prove to myself/test myself that this is something that I could do/want to do.  I wrote an article in Dec 08 called: “How to win player of the year in 365 days” as that was my goal for 2009; I came close, was in the top 5 most of the year but a disapointing wsop, failed backing experiment and probably just getting wore down did me in the last 1/2 of the year.  I still ended up 10th in the POY races and knew that poker was something that I wanted to do/would do for a long time.

Over the last few years I have experimented with different travel schedules to try and balance life and poker in a healthy way; still trying to find the right formula but there is nothing else I would rather be doing than continuing to chase my goal of being the best player in the world.

And as for the Leafs and Luongo lol I just hope the Leafs win the cup before I die…I'm not too sure that he is going to make that happen; I'll trust Burkey to make the right decision.

I'm planning on coming out to Van, and if you min-raise my blind I will give you instant cred 🙂

I can remember screaming, cursing, throwing things and scaring the dogs when I took a beat online…Or throwing a water bottle, storming off after a live beat….I have gotten a million times better with experiance understanding that it's just part of the game and it's going to happen.  The thing that probably helped me the most was this statement that I tell all my friends:

The better you play the more you are going to get it in ahead and lose….If you get your chips in ahead way more than behind you will get sucked out on way more than you suck out on others just due to percentages…Once you understand this and are at peace with it you should be able to handle the beats better.