Check Out My New Site Pokerheadrush.com For My Blogs

Try

Posted by Alex Fitzgerald on July 22, 2011 · Leave a Comment (Edit)

San Jeronimo, Costa Rica

I went to my girlfriend’s father’s place today. The man always makes me an incredible meal, and tells me stories in Spanish I can’t understand while he smokes a pack of cigarettes and drinks rum and coke. He also takes the time to try and teach me about art. As an art collector, he has a lot to show me in his house. Just incredible pieces.

I’m listening to a lounge music. I play my shit so loud they can hear it in other countries. I just ate some Carribean food. Saw my girl for a minute. Feel good.

I’ve put in about four hours of work this morning, but now I need to do three or four more. My problem is without a list of stuff to do I quickly lose track of what I’m doing. So I’m writing it down here, my burst of things to do:

• Write back on Facebook
• Write the other investors
• Write the other other investors
• Check that I’m not out of meds
• Answer emails
• Take it for a test drive and report
• Take care of those dishes

That’s all I can think of right now. The last time I posted on my blog a list of stuff to do I nailed all of it in one day.

My ADD is a bitch. If I don’t know what to do right away, I just trail off.

I typically work 10 hours a day these days. And I’m not even back on Pokerstars yet.

I still seem to be prone to mood swings, I’m just better at containing them. This morning I was jogging, and just thinking about the possibilities of everything I was working on, I just slowed down and looked over the foothills of Costa Rica, and felt super appreciative. Later that day, after sitting and unsuccessfully trying to understand Spanish, for the 24925th time, for three hours at my girlfriend’s father’s house, I was going home with my girlfriend and couldn’t find a taxi, realized I left stuff at the house, and then she wanted me to come over for a family gathering. I felt frustrated because I had to say no, because I honestly feel an urgency so taut in me to work every day, some sick need to create, build, make it work.

Then I felt swamped and screwed. I’ve been working my ass off since I was 18, but when I went broke at 22 for the first time in my career, I really got working. Every single day I was putting in hours. I made so much between teaching and grinding MTTs. Hundreds of thousands over about a year. Then, I ran bad on Stars for a long while, then I let everybody pay me back on Full Tilt, then I swapped out some of my Euro account balances for FTP money, because I wasn’t grinding much cash anyway. All normal procedure, what I’d done for years. Just there was a month or so I left the money in Tilt before I cashed out, mostly because I was being lazy, and I had to change banks recently because of the Washington state stuff. I didn’t feel like writing emails and being on the phone for hours explaining the nature of the wire. So I did what I always do: I put it off for a week or two. Right as I was gearing my ass up to finally do the necessary paperwork and get it done, yeah, Black Friday happened.

It’s totally my fault, I should have never trusted that poker site, but it’s very frustrating. I feel like a year of work has been yanked away from me. It’s been three months now and we still seem no closer to a solution than at the start. I’m pissed at myself for my inaction, and my inability to find a person to transfer the money to while Americans still had the ability to withdraw. Now the site’s completely offline, which can’t be a good sign.

So I’m right back to where I was a year ago, cash poor, with a bunch of projects going on that I was funding. It’s not just the money in Tilt I might lose, it’s all the money I’ve invested in other projects assuming I could handle whatever new costs came up.

Between all my horses, my accounts, and everything – it’s such a large number. Years of hard work for normal people.

I know I can build it up again. I just feel exasperated. I know I should be thankful for what I have, but since Black Friday…I mean I just knew things couldn’t keep going that well. I made like half a million online in the first third of the year or something. I was sober for the first time since I was 17, I was secure financially, I was happy with my personal life, and I was crushing. I just fucking knew something would happen. The cynic in me wants to go “nothing gold can stay.” I was feeling minted, great, on top of my game, so secure financially. I had left large sums online since I was 17. I knew I had to cash it out, I just had the WA state stuff come up, I had it across so many different sites in case something like this happened, then for one fucking month I had 90% of it on Tilt…and then this…of course.

I expect no sympathy. It’s just since Black Friday a couple projects of mine have tanked or gone awry or I have lost control with the other people who were working on it with me. I was doing lessons, and having my friend take the transfers on Full Tilt, so they could pay me in cash, and then the fucking website just goes down? I went out to the WSOP and just ran horrible, and then I felt so off my groove with all this going on that I made some boneheaded plays.

All I can do is try. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YjtwCxgOik

It’s just upsetting when you’ve been doing something for 6 years, you have no college degree, and all you’ve worked for and the entire streak you were on just comes undone in a couple short months. Not that this hasn’t happened to me four times before, it’s just weird when it’s not of my own doing.

I’m just thankful I can still eat a good meal, spend time with my family in Seattle, chill with my girlfriend, and live in my wood house up in the mountains. Just…you know…the swings this industry has handed me over the years never cease to astound me.

I guess I just gotta be thankful for the hard times. This is all crafting me. Making me more resilient. More grateful. It’s challenging my love for the game and the grind, and I’m feeling up for it still. As long as I stay sober and on my game I will crush it.