I get numerous requests for coaching a week. Interestingly, I get requests for coaching on a number of different subjects; poker, women, writing, fitness, etc. For a long time I said no to basically everyone, claiming that I was too busy and flaky to make a proper commitment as a coach (which was true.) However, as I put in my last entry I'm going to be staying home for a very long time and focusing on being productive, so I've decided it's something I want to get into.

However, instead of being a simple poker coach I'll be offering a number of services. You can hire me as a coach on basically anything you want, but the things I feel qualified teaching are:
1. Tournament poker
2. Meeting women
3. Travel
4. Style, men's fashion/grooming
5. Working out, dieting

I hadn't really thought of myself as a writing coach (I don't think I'm a very good technical writer), but I just got a request for it so I might as well. I've recently purchased some literature on improving my writing, so hopefully that helps. Also, I don't think I'm particularly qualified to give people thorough work out/diet advice at the moment, but I think after the next couple months of working hard and doing a lot of reading I'll be in better form for that.

I've decided to set the starting rate at $300 an hour. That's definitely high, but lots of guys are charging in that area and most of them are offering poker only coaching. Basically, you can hire me for an hour of time and you get to talk about whatever you want during it. If you want for us to both get stoned and shoot the shit, hey, it's your money. Yes, I'm willing to break that up into smaller amounts of time. If you think what you have will only take a half hour or 10 minutes, that's no problem.

When it comes to poker coaching, we'll mostly conduct it by doing HH reviews with universal replayer and using a screen sharing problem so that we can discuss them at length in real time. I'll also refer people to articles and posts I think they should read, and am happy to just field questions for as long as they like. Additionally, I want it to be known that numerous people can buy the same hour. If you and two friends want to each pay $100 an hour for us four to get on skype and review one of your HH's, that's fine by me. There's no limit how many people can be on the skype chat, but the more there the less personalized it becomes.

I won't start doing this heavily until after the Aussie Millions in late January. For now I just want to build a client list, but if you really want to get this done soon I'm sure that I can accommodate you, though not until I'm back home in Melbourne on December 6th. I'd recommend getting a hold of me via PM on 2+2, or on facebook.

I'm normally awake from around 10am to 1am in Australia, which is 5pm to 8am central in the US, though the first eight hours of my day are normally spent playing. If I get enough interest I'll probably start taking one day off a week just to coach, likely Sunday in Australia which is Saturday in the states, a night with little tournament action and where many people are probably free. You can pretty much PM me about when you're available and we can discuss things and set up an appropriate time.

It has been over two months since I've wrote a blog entry. Although the last two months of my life have been some of the most absurdly motivated and productive times I've ever had, I simply felt no desire to write. I hate what I write when I force myself, I think there is a clear distinction in quality. Today though, today I have a lot on my mind.

I spent the last two months doing three things; grinding poker, working out/dieting, and working on my pick up. I wound up moving in with Aussie poker sensation Jarred Graham (Try_an_Hit online) to a three bedroom apartment in Southbank Melbourne and absolutely fucking love living with him. He's a great kid, an excellent poker player, and very easy to live with. His family has even extended a Christmas invitation my way which I really appreciate and am considering, though traditionally I spend my Christmas getting stoned with jews and I don't know if I want to abandon them. I got the apartment by calling a real estate agency and telling them I'd pay all seven months rent in advance if they'd get me the place as fast as possible and not be a bunch of nits about my playing poker for a living. They barely made me fill out any paper work and I had the place within a few days. Good to see the real estate industry likes money.

The first two weeks back was the WCOOP. I would wake up at 3am, go to the gym until 4am, and grind until anywhere between 11am and 4pm if I ran deep in something. Assuming it was a nice day and I didn't grind too late I would then walk into the Melbourne central business district and chat up women. I vastly prefer meeting girls during the day as it affords me to opportunity to actually talk to them and get a sense of their personality, as opposed to bars and night clubs where I can barely fucking hear anything and mostly hate being there unless I'm drunk. It is also a huge rush; approaching a woman directly during the day has a sense of gamble to it that poker now entirely lacks. I'll touch more on that later. After my city walk I'd go to the gym and lift weights, or if it was an off day I'd play tennis or go running. I took one day off a week. I would normally wrap up my evening by smoking a joint, and then go to bed at 6pm.

After the WCOOP finished the schedule adjusted a few hours but the routine was more or less the same. I went and did some training and diet consulting with a personal trainer at the gym and he designed the following diet for me:

Wake up and take three different supplements, liverplex, vitamin C, and salmon oil. Drink a protein shake, have a bowl of quick oats.

Have an early lunch that was a can of chicken (though I went with salmon since I couldn't finned canned chicken at the store) and 200 grams of broccoli. I would eat it raw since I was normally grinding. Take more salmon oil.

Have a late lunch of another can of chicken and spinach. Confession; I never went and got the spinach. I wound up munching on cashews instead, of which I was allowed 50 grams a day. I almost always wound up eating closer to 100.

Dinner was a steak and side of vegetables. When I went out to eat I normally ordered a few grilled prawns for an entree figuring that was not too likely to fuck me up and because I was almost always stoned and they taste amazing.

I'd drink another protein shake after my work out, and if I wasn't lifting that day I'd have it in the afternoon while grinding.

The only things I was allowed to drink was water, black coffee, and a protein shake mixed with water. Once the diet was set out on paper by a professional I found it surprisingly easy to maintain; the only diet slips I had during the two week span I went full blown (as the previous 6 weeks was strict but less so as a result of lack of proper nutritional knowledge) was eating too many cashews. In some ways I preferred the diet he gave me, the food was always easy to prepare and eat while grinding and I never had to think about what I was in the mood for. I did something similar to this for 2 1/2 years in high school and basically never slipped. I'm traveling for the time being so I'm letting myself go, though I'll still be in the gym heaps and not just chowing down on junk food. I found my heavy marijuana intake did not deter me; if I got the munchies I simply ate a protein bar and drank more water.

The poker grinding went fantastic. The first five weeks were so-so and I probably lost in the area of $10-20,000, but the next three were enormous and I shot back up around $50-70,000, though some of that is Timex/Watts money because I won the UB 1k under them for $35,000ish. I enjoyed grinding enormously, I think I might love my job more than anyone on the planet. I worked six or seven days a week, and took off only when circumstances forced it.

I've decided that in 2010 to carry over the motivation for my passions in life to the extreme. Allow me to break them down in depth:

1. Poker: Poker is the number one priority in my life. Over the last few months I've been thinking a lot about the way we tournament grinders make a living at this and I think I've been doing it wrong for a while.

When I was a younger man I think I played poker with the sense that there was some potential glory involved, especially live poker. These days I am far more practical. I play poker because it's what I love to do and because I have the ability to make a large amount of money doing so. I used to talk shit about other peoples game and get petty on the forums. Now I'd rather spend my mental energy improving my own game, and if I'm going to bad mouth someone elses I attempt to express that respectfully and make it clear my criticism is on the poker thought process and not on the person (unless I genuinely dislike the person, which is pretty rare.)

What really doesn't make any sense to me anymore, is live poker. Even though in many live tournaments your edge is pretty substantial the variance is mind blowing and the the high costs involved in travel greatly reduce your overall positive expectation. These days I treat live poker as a reason for a potential vacation and am more interested in having fun than spending the entire trip in the poker room, though that doesn't mean I won't show up sober, well rested, and play my A game for the tournament.

So many very good online players don't have anywhere near as much money as they should because they take a staking deal to chase the live score and glory but then wind up working off live variance with their online play, causing a lack of consistent income. The fact is, a good online grinder who has a 50% ROI over a large sample at mid to high stakes can stay home, grind his ass off for a year, and expect to make 400-$500,000 USD. Taxes will eat 1/3rd of that (assuming you're American) but after that you've got a huge sum of money to stick in the bank and make sure that if poker ever goes belly up (and we can't feel 100% confident that it won't) you won't be back doing some job you fucking hate because you're broke and have no experience or credentials.

My intention in 2010 is exactly that; stay home most of the year, grind 6-7 days a week, work on my game, and crush shit. My goal is to win online player of the year at Cardplayer and reach number 1 on Pocketfives. Now, it's extremely, extremely unlikely that I"ll accomplish either given the variance involved and that I'm not actually that good. I'm not sure I'd put myself among the 100 best online tournament players anymore, but I feel that with my motivation I can become very good again in not very long. What I am supremely confident in though, is my ability to grind. I think when I set my mind to it I'd be among the ten highest volume players online at the mid-high stakes and there's not a drop of doubt in my mind that I can't keep that up for a whole year. Hell, I love this shit, it sounds like fun to me. I love sitting in my apartment and listening to music while 16 tabling my laptop (I got lazy and forgot to pick up my desk top from storage for a whole two months, I'll get it eventually.)

I figure I'll go to the WSOP but probably only play about 10-15 events as opposed to other years when I played 30, 30, and 20. I'll sit out anything that's not too interesting or where I don't have a huge edge and stay home to grind. I'll obviously play the stuff that comes to Crown, and additionally hope to do the APPT series since it's an ass load of fun and the stops are only a few days long. I guess I'll go play the Adeladie ANZPT too and try to get one better than last year. Outside of those events my focus will entirely be online.

Also, I want to make way more Pokersavvy videos. They're a great company I'm really proud to be working with, and I love that they tolerate my being a useless fucking flake so well. They recently increased my pay so long as I reached my video quota, and it's really dumb not to pursue it with more enthusiasm. I've very much enjoyed making videos lately and I'm pissed at myself for not being more involved with the community there. When I finish this blog entry I'm going to go over to the tournament forums there and replying to a shit load of threads.

2. Working out and dieting: From the age of about 16 to 18 I was a recreational body builder. When I was 16 I got grounded at the first drinking party I ever went to. I was 5'10" 130 pounds and skinny as hell. The only place I wasn't grounded from was the gym. Seven months later I was 6'1" 192 and kept up a strict routine of diet and exercise until I got to college and became more obsessed with poker and drinking.

I'm 25 now and beginning to feel my own mortality. Even though most people seem to hate it, I actually really enjoy time spent in the gym. I throw in my ipod and zone out to music while I think things over. I enjoy the discipline it all takes; sure I'm not eating the food I want but the sense that I'm building towards something is satisfying. A great aspect to working out is that so long as you continue doing it and don't injure yourself it's an area of your life that you inevitably make progress in. You can be having a bad time professionally, personally, or wherever, but if you keep it up in the gym you are 100% going to be making positive progress.

The end aesthetic goal is something like Brad Pitt in Troy; ripped and large enough that you look like you could wreck a fool but not so big that it's absurd and excessive looking. It took him a year to get to that point and that's exactly the amount of time I'm allotting myself. I'll be doing all of this while maintaining my considerable pot smoking habit, though I'd guess I'll tone it down slightly. Then again, Pitt was a notorious pot head for years. I will only be drinking on rare occasions, and I'll hire the personal trainer for a session a week to maintain my intensity and keep filling in my knowledge gaps.

I feel pretty good about what I accomplished in this area over the last couple months. I'd guess I'm down to about 12-13% body fat but the end goal is to have a larger frame and hang around 9%. Go below 7% and you wind up looking a bit too freakishly ripped and it's not healthy to try to maintain for too long below that.

I also want to get into Muy Thai boxing, as there is a MMA training school right next to my gym. I did a couple months of traditional boxing training before I left on my trip and really enjoyed it, and although I have absolutely zero interest in fighting anyone (and would much rather talk my way out) it's comforting to think I could handle myself were it absolutely necessary. It's a brutal work out, quite a lot of fun, and considering how many girls I crack on to in a club you never know when some psycho jealous dumbass is going to get excessively aggressive just because I said hi to his girlfriend. I was in a very crowded club last night, bumped into a guy, apologized, and I'm still fairly sure he wanted to go outside and fight me. It was so loud I couldn't say for certain but he seemed pretty pissed and said something about going outside, but I just went on and on with "Sorry man can't hear you, have a great night!" He dropped it.

3. Pick up: I have two major goals in pick up at the moment. First, I want to reach the point where I never hesitate or second guess myself about approaching a beautiful woman during the day. Doing direct day game requires undoing a huge amount of social conditioning and although I've never had a single negative reaction in somewhere around 150-200 approaches (I've had women walk away or be a little rude, but nothing story worthy bad) it can still be pretty intimidating.

Second, I want to strive to build healthy and honest relationships with the women I date. I've been pretty good about being very direct and leaving things on good terms with women (which I suppose isn't hard when I tell them I'm inevitably leaving the country) but recently had a relationship go sour and the girl really got her feelings hurt. Even though I felt I didn't misrepresent myself it was still an awful feeling knowing she felt manipulated and I want to do what I can to make sure that never happens again.

I think what I'm really looking for is a girl who's keen on the idea of an open relationship. I really enjoy many aspects of having a girlfriend and someone to seriously care about but I don't really believe in the system of monogamy and especially not for myself. I don't have any jealousy or controlling issues and I've been in casual relationships in the past where the girl was openly seeing other guys to the point that we'd discuss it and I'd try to give her whatever advise I could. I think it's really important to find a woman who's keen on the idea though, and not take a girl who likes me a lot and is willing to try it as some form of accommodation. That seems sure to end in disaster.

4. Writing: I've been so incredibly lazy about this lately. I have all my notes from my trip but I just couldn't seem to find the time to sit down and write it all. I've run the math and estimate I have about 1000-1500 pages worth of stuff left to write, not to mention pictures and other bits and pieces. I can't imagine I'll devote serious time to that until after the Aussie Millions when I settle into a proper routine, and I'll just make it part of my habit to sit down every night and crank out 10-20 pages.

Lee Nelson has asked me to write two chapters for his upcoming book with ELKY and I've been a huge jackass about getting it done. Luckily, I'm sitting in a Hong Kong hotel room with nothing to do for the whole night so I'm going to sit here until I finish it then and then send Lee an apology for keeping him waiting after he offered me such a cool opportunity.

I'd like to continue the 'Things it took me a while' to learn series but I think I'll do that once I really get into the swing of poker again. One aspect of writing I have done a decent job of lately is participating in the strategy discussions at 2+2. There's still a ton of good content and posters there and I feel proud to have been involved for so long. I want to crank up my posting volume when I start heavily grinding as those guys still teach me an absolute ton.

5. Tennis: I've got a court at my apartment building and love playing. Unfortunately, my backhand is totally fucked, my volleys are weak, and my serve goes in and out. I need lessons, simple as that. Also, people around Melbourne who play well should shoot me a message about a match some time, I'm always down. Anticipate my offering you marijuana after the match, though I won't be offended if you say no. More weed for me baby!

So hopefully it all adds up to a very good year. I'll think about doing another big trip again in 2011, it would love to go play multiple LAPT events and see the one content I haven't spent serious time on (outside that useless hunk of ice Antarctica.)

Authors note: As I wrote, when I returned home I would return to the job of studying and writing, including strategy writing. It's been a long time since I've wrote a proper strategy article, so I brought a number of consultants to help me with this one, so much thanks to 2+2 posters Luckychewy, NoahSD, and Eagles. You guys do a great job of making me look smart. I'd like to get the 'Things it took me a whle to learn' series up to at least 30 entries, and if I keep feeling like writing it after that I'll continue. If people have suggestions for things they'd like to see covered which haven't been touched on previously, just leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Many people in poker have reached the point where they're considering probable hand ranges and their equity against said ranges. One thing many people aren't doing however, is considering all potential variables against each part of a range and the optimal decision against each part of that range. A big reason their not doing it is because it can be complex and not time efficent in the middle of a hand, particularly against a thinking player smart enough to balance his range with a wide array of hands.

What kind of variables are we talking about when contemplating optimal decisions against ranges? Well the first thing that comes to mind is the type of player we're up against. This is one of the reasons having some degree of read becomes so important; once you start thinking elaborately and on different levels every peice of information becomes precious. Allow me to give an example from a very simple hand I played in a $22 single rebuy add on tournament:

Bond18, UTG+1: 16,284
CO: 12,351
Blinds 200/400 with a 50 ante. 9 handed.
Bond18 holds As Js UTG+1.

Preflop: UTG folds, Bond18 raises to 990, folds to CO, CO calls 990, 3 folds.

Flop: 9c 4d Tc (Pot 3030)
Bond18 checks, CO checks.

Turn: Jc
Bond18...

And here's where things get more elaborate. At the time of the hand I was playing a ton of tables, did not have any pokertracker software running (which is soon to be rectified once I'm settled) and as a result was readless in the hand against this particular villain. Now let's go over how our action and intentions change depending on our read of villain.

1. If we have a read that villain is generally weak-tight: If we have a good inclination that villain in the hand is weak tight then the turn is a clear bet when we think how his range will react. When he has a draw or pair+draw combination he will almost never push us off our hand because it is not in his playing style to do so. We'll wind up getting value from those plus one pair hands and our river intention should be to check/fold on very bad scare cards because he'll never pay off with worse plus rarely bluff us. On safe cards we should likely bet smallish because a large bet likely won't get paid off from a weak player and we gain more value than checking to him because he won't value bet thin and he won't bluff his missed draws often. Additionally, the turn is very easy to play by betting against this villain because we can feel very comfortable folding every time he raises us.

Let's think about the range of hands that calls checks back this flop for a more weak tight player. For that particular player, it can be huge. He'll check back all his over cards, all his pairs under the board, sometimes even things like QJ which have major equity but he's too weak to bet, second pair hands like AT, and sometimes he'll pot control top pair weak kicker type hands like JTs. For this particular player, his flop check doesn't tell us a ton, but if we combine his flop check+turn cram range we can feel very comfortable folding to it, even though we're not exactly sure what it is we know that the majority of hands in it will crush us.

2. If we have a read that the villain is a moderate LAG capable of shoving for both pure value and as a semi bluff: If we're assuming that we will still be bet/folding against this type of villain most of the time but that he's aggressive enough to bet the turn with a combination of hands when we check to him than a check/call may be the better play. The more you beleive the player is loose-aggressive and capable of mixing in shoving the turn for both value and a semi bluff the more apt you should be to check/call rather than bet/fold because your bet loses equity as he puts more and more hands into his shoving range, since you are intending to fold.

My consultant for this article, NoahSD, put this thought perfectly when he said "Just the idea that just cause you almost always have the best hand doesn't mean you have to bet is prob a big revelation to a lot of people." The reason people bet those situations most of the time is because they're concerned about protection and they're not fully thinking about the reaction of their opponents range against that bet. Their not thinking about which route will actually result in gaining more value long term instead of just winning the hand at the moment. Checking to gain value as opposed to betting isn't exactly a new concept, but plenty of people still look at scary boards and bet without fully thinking over the implications against the villains range and reactions. This all ties back into the article about having a plan.

Just looking at the difference in playing between against these two player types really helps illustrate why it's important to have the ability to balance your range against thinking players in a number of situations. If you're never semi bluffing the turn then a thinking player knows he can comfortably bet/fold the turn against you every time and will be correct in doing so. However, also keep in mind that you don't need to balance your range against random/bad players because exploitable/manipulative play becomes the better option to deceptive/optimal play.

However, if I were in the villains shoes for this particular hand I'd never be shoving the turn as a semibluff because none of the hands in my range that get to the turn this way would be reasonable to do so with for a few reasons. Namely, I think we get called too often and the hands we could shove with are better off flatting against the vast majority of opponents. That doesn't mean your opponents won't try that semi bluff though, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't be thinking about situations where you should be mixing in appropriate bluffs and semi bluffs to prevent your range from being easily predictable against thinking players. Just because you know better than something doesn't mean your opponent necessarily does.

Let's discuss one more variable in making optimal decisions against ranges; the options available to us we normally never consider.There is a brilliant line from the well of Jman28 that helps illustrate the overall concept of this article that I will quote him on:
"Meeting Tom (durrrr) was a huge part of my move to high stakes play. He opened my mind to thinking about situations completely differently. I remember one time when he was discussing a hand with h@ll in front of me, where he had something like weak top pair and was facing a big river bet. He was like, 'I think a call is better than a fold' and I thought to myself, 'yeah I agree' and then he said 'but I would shove' and I exploded. I realized that you should think of every possible option you have in nlhe. You usually have a ton of them."
That's it in a nutshell, during a poker hand you need to think over all your options and the way your opponents range is going to react to those options, otherwise you pass up opportunities you might not have otherwise realized.

I'm not advising that you need to mix your play up with all kinds of insane stunts and general fancy play syndrome. What I am saying is that very often in a hand we wind up debating between two options. Am I going to call or fold? Am I going to call or raise? As it turns out, in many situations there might be other options that we hadn't previously considered that just might turn out to be more profitable. Clearly, we need an example here, which is where Luckychewy comes to the rescure with a hand he played in the 2009 WSOP Main Event:

Luckychewy, MP1: ~4,600,000
BB: ~2,800,000
Blinds 30,000/60,000 with 5000 ante.
Luckychewy holds 7d8d.

Preflop: Folds to Luckychewy, Luckychewy raises to 150k, folds around to the BB, the BB calls.

Flop: Ah 7c 3s
BB checks, Luckychewy checks.

Turn: 5h
BB bets 225k, Luckychewy calls.

River: Kh
BB bets 300k, Luckychewy raises to 1.035 million.

As Chewy explains it "On the river I believed his bet sized indicated a bluff or marginal strength hand. By raising I don't think I ever have to worry about him calling me with an Ax hand or 3 bet bluffing me, and the only downside would be if my read was off and his river bet is strength, but that wasn't my intuition at the time."

Because Luckychewy had showdown value in the hand many people might consider this to be a call or fold situation, however if we think fully about our opponents range and what his bet sizing indicates, we can feel moderately confident that his hand is polarized between monsters and hands that are going for blocking value. The hands that are blocking value are often one pair hands that will beat our one pair hand, and if Chewy's intuition is correct (and the Ah helps reduce the probabilty of the most likely monster, a flush) then we don't expect to run into too many monsters. Because he believes this opponent will almost never call the raise with one pair hands the fact that Chewy holds a pair becomes irrelevant because raising will show a long term profit greater than calling or folding.

So remember, don't just think about your opponents range and your equity against it, think about how your opponents range reacts to every option and possibility open to you, then pull the trigger on which you believe to be best. As 2+2 poster 'Eagles' puts it "Always consider that you do not have perfect information of villain's range. You can estimate what his range is but you will always be missing information so it is important to leave room for error. Now and then people show up with hands that are so totally inexplicable it would be impossible to anticipate. It's not often with most players, but it is non zero."

It has been a long five months. I left Melbourne on April 10th and got back at about 6am this morning, after leaving Macau early because I didn’t feel like playing the high rollers event and am generally not particularly fond of the city of Macau. I had a very nice trip to Macau this time around even though I had no luck in either event, but when I busted the APPT main event I found myself longing for Australia so badly I just wanted out.

I had planned to move to Dubai right after Macau, but due to a number of factors that plan has been put on hiatus. I hope to go there for upwards of a month sometime around March instead. I must say that as stoked as I was at the idea of living in Dubai, I’m even gladder to be back in Melbourne at the moment.

Returning home is no time to rest though. I spent my morning looking for apartments in Southbank, right near Crown casino and city center. I spoke to my friend “AndyMcLeod” today and suggested that I get a two bedroom place with him here in Melbourne since I think we could both have a healthy impact on each other and he agreed, though he’ll need to go back and forth from Adelaide a fair bit due to family commitments. My plan for the week is to lock down an apartment at either Freshwater Place or Eureka Tower with a view of the central business district skyline (something I have always wanted) and a balcony for my smoking purposes. After that I’ll call an internet company and tell them I need their fastest possible connection in the apartment immediately. Getting an apartment as a professional poker player is a bitch, so I simply walked into the office today and told them I’m a writer, I need an apartment for six months, and I’ll pay for the entire rent up front since I cannot prove consistent income. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any units exactly to my specification at that agency.

A workaholic ambition burns in my veins like nothing I’ve felt in a long time. All I can think about is playing poker sixty-plus hours a week, working out constantly, and writing. I’ll use my week before the WCOOP to adjust my sleep schedule and watch training videos of as many tournament players as I can, on top of beginning to finish the Around the World blog. I have nothing to stop me from my obsessions here in Australia; no responsibilities, no job, no family, no girlfriend, no desire to go out, and although I have friends my constant time away prevents me from ever being close. And I have a suspicion that after half a year of that life style all of a sudden I’ll feel bored and start wondering what the world holds for me all over again…

The recent conception of this blog has had an interesting affect on my personal life. I got used to anonymous comments and judgments being made about me on the internet a long time ago from my years spent posting on forums and stopped affecting me a long time ago. However, getting the opinion of people who have met me and their perception of how I would be based on the blog or their thoughts having previously known me is far more relevant and interesting for me. While bored in Africa I went back to reread a few entries to see how I came off and started to understand where they got these impressions. Still, I feel a number of misconceptions have arisen as a result of this blog about both me and people close to me so I’d like to use this entry to try and clear some of them up.

1. I’m a drug addict: First things first; I have tried one drug in my life and that’s marijuana. I thought that I never tried it until I made a conscious decision at age 23 to get blazed with some 2+2’er friends, though I recently found out that there was a couple times when I was mega wasted at age 20 when I hit some friends piece but was too far gone to remember. I always promised myself that when I tried weed I would never allow any drug escalation of any sort, and although I am curious about other drugs and enjoy asking people about their experiences with them I can say for sure I will never try anything else. I have no judgment for those of you who do, it’s simply a personal choice as a result of being a health nut and aware that experimenting with more drugs could lead to a dangerous slippery slope, not to mention the negative stigma that comes with people knowing that’s your scene.

It’s true there was a period in my life where I was smoking pot daily, but even then it was mostly done in the evening after I’d done everything productive I needed to do with my day. I have never felt I fell into the category of a “pothead” in the sense that I sat around stoned all day and craved little else. Even this summer in Vegas I would often get high then go to the gym for two hours and come home to cook something healthy(ish) for myself. There will likely be a point in my life when weed loses its appeal to me and considering I’ve decided to move Dubai until December I’m about to have a few months away from it and I don’t anticipate any difficulties with that.

Almost every single one of my poker playing friends asks me to not name them in the blog when it comes to smoking pot because they’re aware of the possible sponsorship consequences and implications, with the exception of my Australian friends because like all Aussies, they don’t give a shit about much of anything and I love them for it. I never attempt to apply peer pressure on others to try drugs and respect everyone’s choices, or as the conversation commonly goes:
“Hey man you wanna hit any of this?”
“No thanks, I don’t smoke”
“No worries, more weed for me baby!”|

2. I’m washed up at poker: It’s true that I really haven’t done much at all in the year of 2009. I’ve had one decent live result (second in ANZPT Adelaide for about 70k US which is nothing special in the grand scheme of things) and have played very little online where I’m ballpark break even on the year I believe. I’m fully aware that having spent so much time away from poker my game has likely fallen behind and that when I return to hardcore grinding in roughly a week’s time I’ll need to do some serious study. There is a general misconception amongst many players that this is an easy job or quick way to make a buck but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Unless you’re a huge genius or natural poker is a ton of study and hard work and I fully appreciate that. I’ve gotten to the point I’m at because for years I spent my life absorbed in the game and sought the coaching and advice of people I thought were fantastic at both the game and explaining the concepts behind it, guys like Adam Junglen, NoahSD, Mike Watson, Luckychewy, Randallin and many more.

A little over a week from now I will return to the online arena with fervor. I’ll be grinding about nine hours a day six days a week for the next few months, even though that means living truly miserable hours given the time zone I’ll be in. I’ve already consulted a number of players I respect about swapping review sessions and spending time discussing strategy on Skype like I used to. What the last few months have taught me more than anything is that poker is an incredible opportunity and that I’m one of the luckiest people alive to have a job that I truly love and that allows me the opportunities that I’m privy to. When I went home to Wisconsin so many of the friends I grew up with were confused and exasperated trying to figure out what to do with their lives and my time in Africa forever cemented the idea in my head that I should secure my financial stability.

I guess over the last year my mind has been in places outside of poker, which is fine by me. I go through phases where I want to spend heavy amounts of time pursuing interests outside the game such as exercise, girls, and travel and I like to think they make me a more complete person. That said, my passion for the game is fully reignited and I can’t wait to go back to the job of not only playing, but learning.

3. I write about going to whores: When a guy I knew in real life said this to me my immediate reaction was “What the fuck are you talking about!?” in a less than friendly tone. I can understand why people would think this is something I’d partake in given my general behavior and hell; I even wrote a blog entry entitled “The mathematics of whoring.” I have no judgment for those who choose to indulge in whores; it’s their decision and risk and none of my business if they don’t want it to be.

Personally I have never paid for sex, for a number of reasons. First off, I’m afraid that if I got started in that direction I might never stop, that if I broke down the mental barrier I have associated with it that I’d lose interest in chasing normal girls and would wind up at the hookers all the time. Second, I genuinely enjoy spending time with/dating women in the traditional form and the buildup of sexual tension that goes with it. I like hanging out with women; they’re fun, they’re challenging, they’re seductive. Third, I don’t feel I should have to pay for it. I’m a young guy living an attractive lifestyle who isn’t awkward around women; I shouldn’t have to resort to shelling out of pocket just to thoroughly bust a nut. I guess it just feels like a cop out for me. Fourth, I didn’t spend months studying pick up just so I could go buy girls; I enjoy the sense of gamble associated with the chase. The nights I go home alone and annoyed to watch porn in a sea of my own self loathing make the nights I go home with a girl with a mile wide grin on my face all the more satisfying. I guess that makes me results oriented.

4. I’m arrogant: Don’t get me wrong, having gone back and reread some entries I can see where this comes from. I’m happy to fess up to being cocky; it’s delusional to think I’m not. However, I think the people who’ve met me would nearly unanimously say that I’m pleasant, polite, easy going, and approachable. I’ve always made it clear online that anyone who wants to message me for advice, no matter what on or how inconsequential, is free to do so and is likely to get a response (though I have been awful about getting back to them during my travels.) I have never lost my temper on the table towards anyone and I doubt anyone can tell a true story where they saw me lose a hand or bust out and I was rude or offensive afterward. I think my worst reaction in memory was quickly walking away without speaking a word after a particular brutal bust out and I think it’s pretty pathetic that many of my fellow professionals feel the need to lose their shit at someone just because they’re disappointed over a few hands or tournaments. Professional indeed.

I like to think I’m one of the most outgoing and social guys in poker. I invite everyone to everything, even at times when I probably shouldn’t. I had a couple of BBQ parties at my house this summer in Vegas and invited everyone I could think of, going so far as to throw up a thread on 2+2 for anyone to see. It didn’t matter who they were, what stakes they played, or the fact that they were 16, if they saw the thread they were welcome in my house to eat my food, drink my beer, and smoke my weed (okay, so the 16 part wasn’t terribly responsible of me, but he was living in a 2+2 Vegas house anyway so it’s not like I corrupted his ass.)

I like to think I haven’t forgotten where I came from. At heart I still feel like some random kid from Wisconsin who was never particularly talented at anything and happened to get lucky in finding poker early and having some smart coaches and friends. It wasn’t so long ago that I was just another subpar grinder looking for advice wherever I could get it, and just because I’ve won a few donkaments I don’t think that makes me a better person than anyone else, it just makes me better at playing 30 BB stacks than most. If poker dries up I’ll go right back to being that random kid from Wisconsin, albeit a well traveled one, who is likely to never get paid six figures a year to do anything ever again and at this point doesn’t even have a college degree.

5. I’m a misogynist: A good friend of mine told me that I come off as a misogynist in my blog over dinner in my last week in Vegas. He said from knowing me personally that it’s clearly not the case, but even his having had that perception really bothered me. I understand the kind of stigma that hangs around pick up, particularly with weirdos like “Mystery” running around in giant capes and top hats talking about running routines and negs. I understand that the assumption about any guy who dates with the volume that I do is that he views women as disposable and easily replaced. I understand that people would think from the writing that I happily and instantly out any woman I fool around/sleep with regardless to the consequences on her life.

When it comes to writing about the women I date I apply two basic rules. If it’s a girl that was a super random hook up that basically nobody knows or has met and is in no way involved in my social circle then I change her name, almost entirely leave out description, leave out identifying locations, and refrain from any disparaging comments. I think the worst thing I’ve said about a girl in my blog is that she was “plain looking.” When it comes to girls who people know I’ve had involvement with, are in the poker industry, or could be easily identified I give them the option of being completely omitted or editing my story in any way they see fit by sending it to them before I throw it up. I’ve gone so far as to let one girl write the entries with me, which was pretty fucking cool of her in my opinion even if she did leave out all the fun stuff. I’ve shown what I’ve written to quite a lot of women and I’ve yet to get a negative reaction and I even had one girl say it was the nicest compliment anyone had even given her.

Of all the women I’ve had some romantic involvement with since the start of this trip, which is ballpark 20 (which is not to say I’ve slept with 20 women) I only have negative things to say about one of them and I can assure you that she properly earned them, and I won’t be writing about it. I’m confident that most of the women I’ve dated would say that I’ve been respectful, generous, pleasant, and above all, honest. I air it all out from the get-go; that I’m not really looking for commitment, that I’m not monogamous, that I will almost certainly leave wherever we are, that I smoke pot, and that I like to go get wasted with my friends with pretty decent regularity. No, I don’t walk up to women and say “Hi, I’m Tony and I have a blog that chronicles my gambling, drug use, and sex life” (which come to think of it might be a lot of fun) but lately I have been screening for girls who I think are going to be cool with it and telling them about it before we get physical. I’d really rather hang around people that I can be myself around, which is something that really appeals to me about pick up. I can meet a lot of women being nothing but myself and if we aren’t compatible then I’ll just go meet a bunch more and not feel bothered that any girls I met previously weren’t interested.

I can say that this kind of dating lifestyle is not something I anticipate doing forever. It’s incredibly time consuming, expensive, only occasionally emotionally fulfilling, and you can go through vicious streaks where you get very little sex (and I will certainly not deny being a huge sex degen.) Sometimes I run into guys with girlfriends who tell me that my blog makes them wish they were single and I always tell them it sounds more fun than it is then give them the following example: I spent six weeks in Vegas for the WSOP and despite having sex with four different women I only had sex on seven different days, spent quite a bit of time and effort to get it, spent no more than a few days with each girl, and wound up longing for a girl that due to my lifestyle I simply couldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, there are some awesome advantageous to the lifestyle and I’m glad I’m pursuing it while I’m young because I’m confident that If I didn’t I would have always wondered, it’s just that I don’t anticipate doing it for too long.

I have only cheated on one woman in my life (not Celina) and although I never got caught (I don’t think) it was still a pretty terrible feeling and simply a stupid and selfish thing to do. If you get into pick up (or are naturally good with women) you’ll find there are plenty of women who are happy to date casually and openly just like men. You simply have to accept that she will very likely be dating others as well and you might wind up being expendable next to a guy who can offer more emotionally. You don’t have to lie or cheat and if anything openly presenting myself as not monogamous has certainly helped attract the kind of women who could handle that kind of relationship and repelled the ones who couldn’t.

6. Celina used me/I write the blog to get back at her: A few people have mentioned to me that people perceive that Celina used me to learn poker and get a foot in the industry then got rid of me when I was no longer a viable way to move up in the world. I get how it looks, but let me make this abundantly clear; I have always maintained both privately and publicly that Celina was absolutely correct to have broken up with me and that roughly 95% of the problems in the relationship were on my shoulders. For the last year of our relationship I was a totally lackluster boyfriend and although I was never mean or temperamental with her I was certainly apathetic towards the health of the relationship and my disinterest became highly apparent. Celina was as good a girlfriend to me as any man could hope for and the only real mistake she ever made was getting committed to a guy who was way too young and reckless to think about settling down. Early in the relationship she even went so far as to cover rent when I was a moron with no bankroll management who lost nearly everything.

In the end we simply wanted different things and just weren’t as compatible as we appeared, and I hold none of this against her. That’s why I find the idea that I write the blog to get back to her particularly absurd. There’s nothing to get back at her for and her affect on my life was undeniably a positive one. I wish her nothing but the best of luck in her career as a poker player and budding celebrity and for what it’s worth I asked her about writing this at the APT party to make sure it was cool.

7. I volunteered for my own self-satisfaction: Obviously any volunteer work is partially self satisfying and motivated. As they say on the internet “Like duh, obviously.” I didn’t go to Africa thinking I could fix poverty or solve the world’s problems. I went to Africa for three main reasons. First, I just plain love travel and the kind of things I learn doing it. Every time you go somewhere totally different and encounter a people you’re unfamiliar with you become increasingly empathic and open minded. I can’t recommend it enough. Second, I liked the idea of doing something productive with myself outside of poker. I love my job, but it’s still sitting inside on my computer or at a table and doing math problems all day and outside a bit of writing I can’t say that I’ve done anything constructive or substantial in my adult life. Third, I had a month between the WSOP and the APT so fuck it, why not go to Africa.

I’m quite excited to write about the time I spent there in further detail as I have a lot of good and bad memories and a couple of totally absurd stories. With anyone who has a bit of gamble them I’d definitely advise checking out Africa as you’ll see some crazy shit there that you just can’t compare to anywhere else you’ll go. Unfortunately, you’ll also see some things that make you feel a brief twinge of guilt every time you eat a decent meal or take a shit in a toilet that isn’t a bag with the intention of launching it out the window.

Alright, that’s quite enough for now. I’ve spent three sleep deprived hours on this and wound up ranting for 11 pages. I look forward to getting back to Dubai so I can finish the story, I feel confident that it’s not boring.