"I Bet You Kiss Prostitutes"

Seattle, USA

$50,000, in one week.

I don't usually talk results in this blog. At the start it was because I was terrified the IRS would think I have a lot more than I had, then come take every cent I had. Now I realize The IRS probably wouldn't have a clue I was actually making this money if my accountant wasn't about to inform them this April, or if I didn't keep this blog. Not because they're dumb by any means but just because of how weirdly in the margins poker fits, how everything is offshore.

Now I don't discuss results as often because of just my disgust for how so many poker players act in public. Just flashy ass clothes and cockiness. E-thugs. Somehow their latest result is always dropped in the conversation. All my idols always kept it businesslike.

I guess writing a blog bragging about money you make and travels you've done is just as flashy, if not flashier, than a lot of shit those guys do. Or well, I guess not. I guess if all I did was WOW CHECK OUT THIS SHIT. I'd like to think I give people a far more honest view.

It's also just nice having my say on things, in a written form. It's on just my site, and if people give a fuck enough they can read but I'm not just going after people on forums, or dropping things I did in forums. It's more of a personal thing when it's just your own journal-type thing.

That being said I do feel like a blowhard writing this, a lot. It felt self-serving when I did it in my own journals. "Wow I just take time out of my day to write about myself." Now I just feel like a blowhard with an audience.

But yeah, I usually don't like dropping scores, but this time I'm fEELING like such shit, and the money really just made things so much easier, so I figured it wasn't really so much bragging but just stating what's going in my life now.

It's just weird. I've been in a stage of life where I was considering how much of a role I wanted poker to play in my life. Even though the real answer is, "I have no idea, we'll see how things work out." I still want to play because I don't know how many more times I will be this motivated and without responsibility. Then you have a week that reminds you of everything that you hated and loved about poker.

What I hated: Waking up feel like absolute shit, like I feel most mornings when I'm grinding every day. Even before I started smoking because I needed new good habits to pick up, I always felt like shit in the morning after a long session. It's so mentally demanding for me to play a typical session when I'm not autopiloting anything. It's so much easier to just get so high you are autopiloting and go through every day like it's exactly the same as the last. That's what most MTT pros do. You avoid this, "holy fuck I feel like I took standardized tests all day yesterday" fatigue.

I hated running for things in the morning because I had to make an MTT start time. I hated not being able to work out or write in the mornings. I hated how the second we got inside our apartment that was the last of civilization I was going to see for another 12 hours.

I hated how I'd let a fucking beard grow on me the last week because I felt no need to dress nicely for anyone, because I have no social life when I'm playing all the time. I hated how even if I wanted a social life it's usually regulated to bars, and here wouldn't be too much different. I was obsessed when I was coming up, and I don't have too many super tight friends after that. I hated how my eyes had bags under them because I was doing nothing but grinding, and if not that just laying around.

I hated how I had to play even though I was sick, if I didn't want to just forfeit $4,000 in equity or whatever it is every time I play a Sunday. I hated swallowing cough medicine every few hours.

I hated how that day could totally end with me losing $6,000. You can get through these obstacles to play a sunday...finding wireless in an airport, sickness...and you can still just whiff for so much, and you probably will.

Then you get deep in something huge and it's on. You have a ton of chips and everybody is so scared except for you, then at the end is some ridiculous paycheck you feel like you do not deserve given how much work you put into it.

Money does an odd thing. It turns every social system on its head, because every social system now grants people of wealth special authority. Yet most people expect to be greeted with stories of degrees and hard work and perhaps entrepreneurship when they're greeted by afflunce, not a fucking kid who plays a card game. When you achieved said wealth through no logical avenue and you did it at such a young age then you test the social systems. Why should anyone give you credit for anything? You're just a poker player.

Money makes so many problems easy to fix. When I get sick now I go to the doctor. I don't have to worry about if I can afford it. If my Mom or sister needs something now there isn't a lot of melodramatic worrying about how to pay for things, it's just taken care of. When I see something I want I typically just get it. I don't feel any increased need to spend so whatever I do want is probably not expensive enough to be considered a serious purchase.

Money makes you confident in yourself. Whatever people thought of you before everything in your own private world is under control, and it's because of your hard work. It's because you didn't sit around talking shit about people, you hit the ground running and got to work. Fuck whatever those people think or do.

It's way harder to go "fuck people who hate on me" when you're sucking in life. When you can't pay your bills. When no opportunities are presenting themselves. Hell, maybe they have a point. Look at what you're dealing with, if you knew what you were doing would you be in this spot?

Money makes the girls come to you, or that's what the guys will say. You'll kid yourself, and tell yourself it's because of the confidence you have now, but you know that's not the whole answer.

I really enjoy playing, but sometimes I hate it. Of course when I'm running bad. Online can seem so fucking repetitive and formulaic I want to smash my head in. Then I get deep in a big tournament and every hand is engaging, because I'm playing most of the hands trying to develop a stack. I'm making things happen instead of waiting for them to happen, like I was doing a year ago. Then you make more in one night than most people make in a year.

You can't even believe you have any complaints...ever. Who else is that fortunate? What a little whiney BITCH you are! To ever whine about anything? Remember all those times your mom was stressing over how to support you, or how hard you had to work for $1,200 a month at your old job? And this is what you bitch about now? How detached a fucking moron you've become.

These are just the things on my mind. I write them because when I talk I can't talk right. I know what I want to say but it comes out as a stoner kid from Seattle who loses his train of thought all the time. I sounded like that even before I smoked. I just can't keep a straight train of thought.

Often I don't know truly what I think about anything till I write it because my thoughts are such a jumbled mess.

That score was so nice. Not that I was feeling any financial pressure, but coming home I was reminded of some expenses I have coming up, and I wasn't making money for a month or so. Not that that's a problem but I just get hungry. I'm addicted to winning. It just feels good to go deep in tournaments and work your craft, or play winning cash sessions.

Winning two tournaments and final tabling a major is ridiculously over expectation. I feel really happy. Not just because of the money but getting to play three final tables. That and financially things are just more secure now. Not that it wasn't before but things are just fine now. I can handle whatever. I feel blessed to have that.

I was so sick the last few days. I played really well, but honestly that was just because I smoked too much to get over how bad I felt, and then just played. I don't know why the fuck I was playing when I was sick, I never do that. I felt like vomiting this morning. I don't know why I do that shit. I got pretty sick, like more than an intense cold, and my solution is to grind all day for a few days, just why not?...so dumb. I've just really been motivated to grind since I got home for some reason. But I already look older than 21 and that kind of living is going to make me look 40 when I'm 30.

Today I didn't really do much. I bullshitted with some friends and smoked some blunts, had some Red Stripe. I watched some Family Guy. I had a Frankfurter and a beer at some brewery. Ben and I went to this downtown Seattle sunglass shop to get some specialty glasses for looking at a computer all day. I just chilled, didn't really celebrate the mammoth week that much. I'm probably going to take my sister for some back to school shopping and get myself something stupid and impulsive at the mall, there's my big ol' reward. Oh yeah, and I'm sure I'll take everyone out drinking one night.

Yeah, I'm just enjoying that feeling of a job well done, since it's such an elusive feeling in poker.

I'll go back to grinding whenever I feel like it. I'm probably not going to play for a few days and just hang out and read books and write and go see movies, and try to be a bigger geek.