I think Black Friday is a day we will all remember. I feel for you guys. I really do. But for me, I almost feel like it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I've been looking for an excuse to quit poker for a living and now, I finally have one.

In Ashman's recent blog, he said how he had been looking for an escape. Although we are in wildly different financial situations, I pretty much have been feeling the same way. For the last 6 months or so, I have become disinterested with poker. I've stopped blogging and I only played to continue living the lifestyle I've grown accustomed to.

In my blog post "Life as a MSNL Pro: Warning Long and Emo", I chronicled my rise from the time I started Leggo up until about midway though 2010. What I didn't tell you guys was the years before that. You see I have been in the game a while. Too long really.

I got into poker originally because I was bored in college. Going into school, I had no guidance and picked a major based on what someone else wanted me to do. That never works and I hated it. All I wanted to do in my time in Ann Arbor was get fucked up and bang bitches. I used drugs, alcohol, and eventually poker to try and escape the pain and suffering that had been my childhood. I wasn't even thinking about a career. All I wanted to do was make up for the fun I missed out on when I was a kid.

Initially, I experienced some success in poker. The games were easy and I thought I had it made. I made my worse decision to date in 2007 and dropped out of school. I was a poker baller and I had more wads of 100 dollar bills than I knew what to do with. I was playing live 2/5 and 5/10 at the casino. What did I need with a degree?

I really had no clue at the road ahead. The first two years after I dropped out of school were turbulent as hell. I struggled with depression, substance abuse, bankroll management, and eventually a failed staking arrangement in a foreign country that left me homeless.

I've told this story to close friends but my fondest memories of those years were from live poker. I didn't have a car at the time and had chose to remain in Ann Arbor to live with friends who were still in school. I remember taking a taxi literally every day to and from the casinos in Detroit. I was underage at the time. On several occasions, I remember my fake ID being denied at one entrance of the casino and me just not caring at all and going into another entrance. I remember taking trips to Windsor in Canada, where I met Michael Phelps, who I eventually became friends with.

During those years, I remained in Ann Arbor and moved from house to house just partying and doing a lot of drugs. This pattern continued for a long fucking time. I was busto more times than I can remember and only made enough money to cover my rent. How I managed to even do that with the way I was living was really a miracle and something I still cannot figure out to this day. I was also super depressed and hated my life.

My life changed really only when I got back from France and met toocrispy. I decided at that moment in time that I was tired with the way I was living. My biggest aha moment in poker came away from the felt. Joining leggo and seeing the way other pros were doing it also helped changed my life.

Since then, things have been relatively stress free. I have lived a balance lifestyle over the last couple years and have really enjoyed life. Not surprisingly, I also started experiencing more success in poker. I have lived abroad and met lifelong friends through poker. I am forever thankful for what Leggo and this community has done for me. I may not be alive today without you guys.

I've now traveled the US, the world for that matter, but more importantly than that, I've matured and gained perspective on life. Poker has taught me how to properly deal with adversity. I really don't get too upset by anything anymore. It only takes me a couple hours to get over things and I'm much stronger emotionally than when I first started out.

So now that you've heard about the degen years, lets fast forward to today. I would describe myself as a happy person. Don't get me wrong, I still do dumb shit. I've had my slip ups over the last few years, but as a whole, I would say I enjoy each and every day. I'm in great shape and my energy levels are good. I've started to expand my interests in music and have taken up reading again. I generally just feel good.

So with me being happy, why leave poker now? Well, the only thing missing from my life right now is financial security. And for me personally, I just don't think poker is the answer. I have never treated poker like a business, even over the last two years or so, where I've made enough to travel and live a comfortable lifestyle. I made it a goal that I want to buy a house in 5 years and I just dont think poker will get me there.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want. This decision didn't happen overnight. It took years to finally figure it out but I finally feel like I know what it is. I've come to realize that life is too short really to constantly stress about money. I want to take a job were the main focus isn't all about money. Perhaps, if I had more success in poker and didn't have too struggle so much, I would feel differently. But my life has progressed in such a way that this is how I feel.

The first step in my new life is to get a job. I don't have much money now with most of my roll being locked up online. I have enough to live off of for maybe 6 months or so, but I don't want to wait until that point so I am starting now. I am applying to work for a position in the Radiology Department,at the local hospital here in WPB as a transporter. Basically, I would just be wheeling patients to and from different wings of the hospital. I really think this is the perfect job for me and a great introduction to the medical field. Once my online money gets unlocked, I will reward myself and use that money to buy a car, something which I have never had (this is kinda embarrassing to admit, but its true, 24 years old and never had my own car).

Next step is finishing my degree. I have a ton of science classes left to take to get into the program I want since I didn't take any at all in college lol. But I know all the pre-requisites I need and I will be enrolling in classes in the fall, actually sooner than that, in order to get them done.

Anyways, this is getting long so I'll finish this up but I hope you have enjoyed. Although I wont be playing much anymore, I do intend on keeping up with the blogs on Leggo as this has been something that has helped me greatly and also something I enjoy. Best of luck to you guys in your future endeavors and I hope this was an interesting read

Take care and hit me up if we haven't talked in a while

Signing off,
Kyle

I am looking for up to 1k of action on Butler at +3. Quote to book until up to tipoff. Can pay on AP or FTP. Prefer only people I know or recognize on here

I will be in Mexico in less than 24 hours. I can't fucking wait. We will be staying in Cabo for one night with Jeff (Lostnthesaus), his girl, Jeff's brother, his brother's girl, Crispy, and a random Russian hottie that none of us really know much about out. The next day we will head to Cerritos, one of the sickest beaches in the area (and there are many), before making the drive to La Paz. Once in La Paz, we will most definitely be hitting up Rancho Veijo before capping off the night at the infamous Jungle. The towels, please, lets get them ready

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I know I haven't blogged in a while so let me update you on what else has been going on. This past week I've spent time visiting a friend in South Bend. During my stay, the two of us, plus crispy, made a pretty brilliant find.

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Really delicious. Now, I know most of you are going to say that is a pussy drink and blah blah blah but when I drink, I like stuff that actually tastes good and gets u fucked up, not battery acid stuff like Popov. Call me soft, whatever

Something else I wanted to discuss was the epic bowl game that went down tonight between Ohio State and Arkansas. Backstory behind this was I've actually met Ryan Mallet on a few occasions. I don't care if he is going first round the dude is a pretty huge bitch. One particularly memorable Mallett experience I had took place during my freshman year at UofM's IM sports building. It was Mallett and a group of football players against my 4 best friends at UofM. So unlike most times when we had played against the football players and they would just fuck around, this game got pretty intense for some reason. Mallett especially was bringing the intensity and turned out to be pretty damn good. Dude was screaming after dunks and just generally talking a ton of trash to us unsolicited. So late in the game my friend calls a foul on Mallett, who then just starts tweaking uncontrollably. He get's in my friends face, yelling obscenities, etc. Now mind you, my friend is 5'9, asian, and doesn't look very intimidating at all. Mallett is 6'7.... So my friend decides to Sam Cassell big balls it and pushes Mallett. Most of the guys would have definitely thrown down in this spot but Mallett just sort of took it and whined like a bitch the rest of the game. It wasn't like he just kept his cool either and sort of just laughed it off if that's what some of you may be thinking.

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So yeah, back to the game, I ended up booking a bet with Crispy against Arkansas strictly because of my distaste for Mallett. Now, he played great and all but it was great seeing him throw that INT at the end in what would have been an otherwise legendary sports betting loss. Great fucking game, maybe the best of the year besides Tennessee-North Carolina which was also amazing.

That's all I got for now. To close, I wanted to give a shout out to Crispy's new haircut aka the Forest Gump. Impeccable timing right before Mexico. Gettt ittttt

Whattup all? In carrying on tradition of some of the great blogs on here (I'm not going to pretend that mine is one of them), I have selected a song for the good folks to listen to while reading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGGez0CObXs.

Came across this song listening to Pandora. Pandora is pretty much the nuts as most of you know. It's sort of taken a while for them to create a station that really incorporates all of my musical tastes. The key is you have to thumbs up the songs u like. After doing this for a while, I finally feel like Pandora is starting to get me. As for the selected song, it is obviously very chill but Lauryn Hill's egregious grammatical error in the main chorus is kind of annoying.

So first off, update on the legal situation. I basically had three options proceeding forward. 1) I could have shown up in court without an attorney basically hoping that the judge went easy on me. This option didn't appeal to me, as uncertainty is something I really detest. How does that old adage go? The lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Not an option imo. 2) I could have paid $500 to hire a lawyer to negotiate the terms of a diversion program. Essentially, I would be doing community service and some various classes. The negatives to this option would have been probation until I was finished with the diversion program. Probation means no traveling outside the country which is something I still want to do in early 2011 (more on that later). Another downfall to this option is that I would have to wait potentially up to 6 months to get the charge expunged from my record. 3) I could pay out the ass ($2500) to hire an attorney (extortionist) in hopes that I win the case. Most likely outcome if I don't win the case is the diversion program. After all was said and done, I selected option 3. $2500 is significant money to me, so this was a pretty big decision. Flame away.

Poker, poker, poker. Gay, gay, gay. Seriously, I'm going to give some advice that all of you should follow. Don't play when you have problems going on irl. I'm great at giving advice, but horrible at following it, so obviously I lost 3k to a massive donk at 2/4 a few days after my arrest. It really pained me to quit as I watched in horror as Pugilist took my seat and complimented the donk on taking my money but looking back, I am happy with my decision. I had a lot on my mind and really shouldn't have been playing at all. I am pretty low on online funds right now and was scared to bust my roll so I decided to quit after losing the 8 buyins. Overall, I don't think I played too terribly during the session. There were maybe 2 or so big hands that weren't great but most everything else was pretty standard. I won't bore you with hand histories, just the story.

So after the death-mode session, I took a day off and decided to drop down and grind 50-200nl. Within two days, I made back almost all that I had lost. I haven't felt good about poker in a while but I was generally happy with myself after the comeback. I cant remember the last time I felt euphoric about poker so this was actually really cool.

Next topic I want to discuss is my FTOPS schedule. I don't really play tournaments. I've maybe played 50 lifetime and never any big scores. So I am obviously due. I am saving my one time for right now. I will be playing events 30, 33, 26, 24, 18, 32, 22, 16, 29, and the Main Event. If I ever needed to bink, now would be the time.

Going to close off my blog by giving a summation of my life/travel plans for the future. I plan on leaving Florida after my court date on the 5th. I am looking to go some place warm, doesn't necessarily have to be in the US, but it has to be warm. I would prefer the option of live poker and desire an inexpensive cost of living. Feel free to give me some options that meet these requirements in the comments section.

That's all for now. Be good

Whattup all? We've reached the end of November and I thought I'd update you on what I've been doing lately.

Poker has been a mixed bag of emotions over the last couple of months. I've lacked motivation and direction to grind until really this past week. I've played exclusively HU this month after grinding Rush 6 max and FR for the greater part of October. I've withdrawn my roll on AP and am now left with money only on FTP. I figured I wasn't getting action on AP anyways so moving $ off the site wouldn't be a big deal. Looking back, my decision wasn't the smartest as being a HU pro with money on 1 site in the current poker economy is pretty retarded. I'm looking for stars, cake, and AP (up to 4k) in exchange for FTP or BOA so if you can help me out with that let me know.

When I have played, I've taken on all comers at 100 and 200nl and game selected a bit tighter when playing higher. Over the last week or so, I've scrolled the lobby and am now actively searching out regs to play. What I've found so far is that very few will play, lots will grim, lots will hit n run after winning 1 buyin, and very few actually give action greater than 1k hands.

Prior to withdrawing my AP roll, I did take a shot at 5/10 HU again, a game where I was previously down 3k+ in less than 1k hands. This time I actively sought out Brandon Cantu who was sitting alone in the lobby. Just seeing the blue name, him sitting alone, with his reputation of being a crazy, action player, I had to sit. I'm actually proud of myself for sitting down. After being such a nitty bumhunter for so long, I've just come to realize its best to change my ways. Especially now with there being less fish, I really just need to change my approach and play everyone to get better.

Anyways, Brandon and I played two separate sessions, both were pretty short, on 1 table of 5/10. I asked for more tables of 2/4, since I thought I had a pretty good edge but he declined saying 5/10 was the lowest he'd play and that he couldn't multitable HU. The match was fun. I thought he played much better and was much tougher when stacks were >100bb. At 100bb stacks, I thought he was making some pretty fundamental errors that I was able to capitalize on. I'm not playing him anymore simply because I dont have the roll to absorb the variance at 5/10 right now, but I would be down to continue playing if someone wanted to buy action.

Next topic I want to cover is something Harrangutang covered in his latest blog. Harrang mentioned how in modern day 5/10 games, you simply cannot tilt and make mistakes and expect to win. I've never really played 5/10 6 max. but I really think the same applies even at 2/4 sh, at least for me. When I was grinding those games on AP, I really felt like 1 big mistake could ruin my session. I'm pretty confident this isn't just a mental block but that the games are actually that tough and if you continue to make mistakes and even tilt a bit, you will simply not win.

So to recap, I need money on Stars, AP, and Cake in exchange for FTP or BOA. I'm also interested in continuing my play against Brandon Cantu if someone wanted to split action. Lastly, I am looking for a Rush Poker coach, someone who has had success in the games over a large sample size, whether it be FR or SH, but preferably someone who has done well in both games.

That's all I got for now. I'm going to try and grind 8 hour days for the rest of the month to finish strong. GL

Had my best day ever this month

This was all 2/4 against the same opponent. 11 buyins doesn't seem like all that much but this guy bought in for 160 on all of his reloads, so it felt like quite a bit more. Amazing that in this day and age this guy actually stayed around and kept reloading. It feels like most donks these days will just hit n run for 20bb, win a buyin and hit n run, or lose a buyin and leave. I actually couldn't believe that he kept reloading, since no-one ever does. Felt nice to have some positive variance go my way.

I've played 16k hands of 2/4 FR rush on ftp and about 5k hands of 200nl FR rush. I'm up 1.6k, which is a disappointing result, considering I was up 6k at one point in these games this month. I am confident that I am a big winner at rush. My redline is actually winning now, which is quite amazing considering I've always had the tagfish redline. If I win an all in preflop and win a hand at sd, I will make a lot of money playing rush.

Next issue I want to address is nuthugging.



There is so much nuthugging on poker sites, 2p2, leggo, really everywhere. There's a difference between supporting your friends and slobbing on their nuts. I really hate people that ride the coatails of others to success. That's really all I'm going to say about it.

Moving on from the nuthuggers, I've recently jointed twitter. Holler at me @ kylelevasseur. For all you nuthuggers, you can hug me on there. jkjk. I actually have enjoyed tweeting and reading other peoples twitters. I feel that Twitter helps me waste less time, since I am notorious for long periods of inactivity. So now I can waste time posting updates, but hey at least I'll be doing something.

Through twitter, I have started following Prahlad Friedman.



Prahlad recently released a new rap with Jeff Madsen. The song is called Corn on the Cob and its great. The beat in the song (which Prahlad made) is amazing. Here is a link to the song.

http://www.mobypicture.com/user/prah...n/view/7398589

Um what else. I've started watching Skins a British comedy/drama. I'm only 4 episodes in but really enjoying it so far. Highly recommend it to everyone.



I have a few trips planned. I'm headed to Kalamazoo, Michigan for Halloween. I am meeting up with a girl I reunited with last time I was in Michigan, so I am quite looking forward to that. I am going as Elmo. Now some people might think this is a gay costume, but I actually think its quite genius.



I'm also planning on hitting up Austin, Texas to visit my friend Mikeymiz on stars. I've heard a lot of good things about Austin, so we shall see if it lives up to expectation.

What else... I'm considering flying to Barcelona at the end of November. I want to convince someone else I know to go with me and I'll snap go. There's a thread in MSNL about potentially meeting up for Real Madrid-Barcelona. Would be an amazing time and I could travel Europe a bit while I'm there.

Last thing I wanna talk about is the start of the NBA regular season. I will be tweeting updates during games on little things that amuse/interest me, so once again, follow me on there if you are interested. I really hate people that don't watch NBA because they say the players dont try during the regular season. I have watched both games tonight in their entirety and every player on the court is giving 100 percent at all times. I understand if you don't like the isolation style of play in the NBA, but saying things like they dont try is bullshit.

Thats all for now. Peace

Into the Wild chronicles the revolt and ensuing cross country journey of a young adult who gives up everything in his life to hitchhike and live in the Alaskan wilderness. Over the course of his journey, the main character, played by Emile Hirsch, develops several life changing relationships, all while experiencing a series of trials and tribulations that push his will to the limit. If you're looking for an action thriller, this really isn't the film for you, as some parts were admittedly slow. That being said, i felt it was really well done and left me feeling inspired.



Reading Nicholak's most recent blog entries has had a similar effect. I've gone on quite a few adventures in my day, but nothing recent. Lately, my life has just been characterized by routine and stability. I pretty much do the same thing every day. Not to say that this is a bad thing, but I sort of get off on being challenged outside of my comfort zones. I'm an adrenaline junkie. My desire to feel alive trumps most everything else.

Starting January 1st, 2011, I am going to be doing quite a bit of traveling. Now while I have done the whole poker house thing and really enjoyed that, I think this time I'm looking for a slightly different experience. I want to travel alone, at least for a few months. Living in a poker house or whatever is fun, but it doesn't really push you outside of your comfort zone. Since you're living with your friends, it doesn't force you into making new relationships... I want to live in hostels and slum a little bit. I'm hoping to learn quite a bit about myself while traveling and I think the only way to do that is to not have a plan and to go by myself.

Alright moving on to poker, its been going terribly...


Not pretty results, but I haven't handled it well either. I have been a whiny little bitch over the last couple of months... I want to apologize to everyone on my aim list and especially those I talk to on a regular basis for my incessant whininess. If you have any sort of longevity in this game, these type of runs are inevitable. I'm sure my 100k breakeven is diminutive in the grand scheme of poker run bad. Since its inevitable, the only thing u can control is how u react it when it happens. I've done a pretty fucking terrible job so far in handling it, so I'll be doing a few specific things to make sure that changes.

My solution over the next few months is to really tune in on my emotional control. I no longer want my results to dictate my happiness. I'm not going to be happy if I continually stress about individual hands, individual sessions, bad weeks, or even bad months. If this means that I play 10k hands a month than so be it. This feeling of anger and frustration towards poker just isn't healthy. I've been playing poker for long enough where I shouldn't be this much of a results oriented n00b, constantly checking my hem/cashier when I'm running bad etc... I got some major work to do and I know its not going to be easy

Moving on, I have some fun stuff planned this month. I'm throwing my sister a big birthday party at the local aquatic center, for her and her friends. My mom couldn't afford to pay for a party this year, so being able to do this for her, is pretty meaningful to me. It's little things like this that make me happy that I play poker.

In other random musings, I'm almost done with season 4 of Weeds. Something about this show just does it for me. The acting and character development is great and I really enjoy the humor. After almost every episode, I leave with a huge grin on my face, something I can't say about most TV shows. Nancy Botwin <3



I'm also booked to go to Ann Arbor for the annual Michigan-Michigan State matchup which I'm really looking forward to this year. Michigan's QB, Denard Robinson, is one of the frontrunners for the Heisman, so it should be really fun to see him play in person and get "denarded" with toocrispy and company.



That's all for now. Until next time

I started blogging on Leggo in February of 2009. At the time, I was dead broke. living at my parents home in Jupiter, Florida. There I was... A broke degen with no college degree, tons of debt, no job prospects, and very little hope for the future. I had come off a terrible experience in France, where I busto'ed my roll and essentially ruined my rep in the online community. Life couldn't get worse. I was depressed and really had no idea what the fuck I was going to do...

Desperate for money, I scrambled for work. I went door to door at every business within 10 miles of my house (since I didn't have a car), to try and get a job. I remember it being humid as shit outside, dressed in long pants, tie, and dress shirt. I went everywhere, from Blockbuster, to Publix (grocery store), to Sprint, where I finally got an interview and then eventually landed a position. I remember how happy I was when I landed a job working in sales at Sprint. I didn't care what kind of a job I had. All that mattered was I had a job and I could start making money. For two months, I sold phones, kissed soccer mom's asses, and grinded out the 9 to 5. That feeling of happiness was short lived. Within no time, I started hating going to work every day. I felt like such an underachiever. A kid who had gotten a 1450 on his SAT, working at Sprint...WTF... I worked my ass off in that Sprint job, but eventually was laid off when corporate was forced to make cuts. Upon hearing the news, I couldn't fucking believe that I had gotten fired. I remember going into my bosses office and cursing him out, explaining how I was the hardest worker in the entire store and how I couldn't believe he had the balls to fire me.

Once again, I was back to square one. I had shit to show for money. All the money I had made at Sprint went towards paying down my debt. So to the newspapers I went, once again desperate for anyone that would hire me. I made tons of phone calls and eventually got an interview with a local oil and gas company. I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world when I walked into that office the next day. Everything about the company was professional and the staff represented itself extremely well. The staff had a few questions about me not having a college degree but decided to hire me anyways due to my hustler's spirit (their exact words). I told them about poker, all about my experience at Sprint, I told them everything, and they hired me on the spot.

I worked at that place for one month. The people at the job were great. Hard working, determined, ambitious. In theory, it should have been a great place for me to work. But once again, it took no time before I started hating going into work every day. Telemarketing just wasn't for me. I was on the phone all day, trying to tell stock to business owners who hated pieces of shit like me who tried to sell them product they had no interest in. 99 percent of the people I called didn't give me the time of day. I fucking hated that job with a passion..

It was about this time that I decided to give poker a second chance. I had owed money to a friend of mine, many of you probably have played with: S U F F E R on UB. He had staked me for 50nl HU, money which I eventually degened off, prior to me leaving for France. I had maintained contact with him over AIM and he decided to give me a second chance, staking me for 10nl on FTP with a starting bankroll of $200.

So all the while working at this oil and gas company, I started grinded 10nl on FTP. Now mind you, my parents were pretty much banning me from poker and wouldn't let me play inside their house, so I had to play late at night when they were asleep. At the time, I questioned my parents' decision to not let me play poker, but looking back, I think it was more than reasonable considering poker had caused nothing but problems in my life.

So late at night, I started putting in hands. During my time at the oil and gas company, all I could think about was poker. I would print off threads from 2p2 and bring them to work and read them during lunch and any downtime I had. I was determined to succeed in poker. I remember getting off to a rocky start. I dropped I think 7 buyins of my 20 buyin roll my first night playing. I immediately started 12 tabling, since I knew 10nl was soft and that I could kill the games. I stayed disciplined and eventually ran my roll up to 1k playing 10 and eventually 25nl.

I continued grinding out micros until one night at 3am my father walked in on me playing. He had made a rule that if he caught me playing poker, I would be kicked out of the house. I didn't think he really would do so but sure enough he followed through on his promise. He also called me a scumbag for playing and eventually threatened legal action if he ever saw me playing again in the house. Now, at the time, I didn't know anyone in the area, so once again I was in panic mode. I needed to get the fuck out. I had approx 1k in my checking account and 1k online... The very next day I quit my job and decided to move to Michigan and live with a friend of mine and try to make poker work.

So up to East Lansing I went, where I stayed with my friend Brian. Once again, without a job. But this time was different. I had some confidence. I had just started playing nl50 hu again. I knew how bad players were at that level. And furthermore, I had found something I loved doing. I was determined to grind it out. I didn't care that I was a staked pro playing 50nl. I knew I was going to make it.

The first week I was in East Lansing, I made 2k at 50nl. Pretty crazy timing to run good, but damn I fucking needed it. Over the next couple of months, I continued to crush 50nl. I finally managed to muster up enough balls to start taking shots at 100nl. I experienced immediate success there. I started crushing 100nl. Meanwhile, I was working on my game like crazy. Doing everything I could to improve. After everything I had been through, I wanted it so fucking bad.

200nl was a bit of an adjustment for me. I lost 10 buyins or so when I first started playing and was scared to play 200 for a while. I eventually grinded that money back at 100. I should mention that my entire run at 50 and 100nl I was still being staked by S U F F E R. While this was cool in that I didn't have to worry about going broke, I was passing up a TON of money by not playing on my own roll. During this time, it was extremely hard for me to make money. I was playing micros, giving away half my winnings, while still having to cash out for rent + expenses every month.

Eventually, I started playing on my own roll, starting with 1k online. Once again, I ran good when I really needed it. Before long, I started crushing 200nl. It was about this time, that I was presented with the opportunity to go to Mexico.

Mexico took my game to the next level. Being around other good players inspired me to work on my game and just gave me the confidence to start playing higher. I lived in Mexico for roughly 4 months. With the help of Toocrispy, Lostnthesaus, Jaymesbond, Reefypoopoo, Robin Ripper, Jnuey, Slow Habit, and others, I started to crush poker. I started having 10k months, something I never dreamed of when I was grinded 10nl in the wee hours of the morning in my parents house.

For the last four...

Taking a day off from poker today so I figured I might as well post a long overdue update.

Been home for about two weeks now. After coming from the fast paced Vegas lifestyle, living at home has been a nice change of pace. I'm quite happy with how it's working out so far.

Over the last couple years, I've come to learn that balance is the most important key to success as a poker player. Eating home cooked meals, helping my mom around the house, playing video games with my sisters, all these fairly standard/normal family things should help keep me balanced. At this point in my life, this is exactly what I'm looking for. I'm very optimistic about the coming months. I'll be free of all distractions and can really dedicate myself to both studying and grinding lots of hours.

Vegas was pretty lowkey this year, much different than in years past. Our house was fairly far from the strip and we only had two cars, so we ended up spending the majority of time at the house. This was cool by me since I had already experienced the hotels and the general degeneracy of the strip. As shown in Probability's blog, the house was pretty sweet. I already knew Crispy, Nuey, Jeff, and Jaymes before Vegas but the new guys, David, Brad, and Greg were all chill and fit in right away, which made for a great group. Was also nice seeing Tri and Reefy again who I had previously roomed with in Mexico.

While I was out in Vegas, I was hooping pretty much every day at 24 hr fitness. My game has severely deteriorated over the years, but I still love to play. The highlight of the trip was beating Ae Jones, Anksy, and the Ashman in 5 on 5. I shot and played terribly but I did manage to hit the game winning 3 after several failed attempts. I think everyone in our house considers those guys to be poker legends/role models, so beating them in any competitive endeavor was pretty sweet. I think we cared much more about winning then they did, but whatever, it was still pretty cool beating a team of millionaires.

Poker had been going pretty well, until the last couple of days. The pattern has been crushing 100-400NL and then getting crushed at my limited shots at 600 and 1KNL. I had my worst losing day yesterday which obviously sucked, but felt like I handled it pretty well. All in all though, I'm pretty happy with my progress. I haven't been putting in that much volume, so my results haven't been super stellar, but my hourly is right around $75, which I'm pretty happy with.

That's all I got for now. Heading to Miami for 4th of July weekend with some friends so pretty excited for that. Later all and gl in Vegas/donkaments in July

After a 3 month long stay in Mexico, I am back in the states. It's been a nice change of pace in the sense that I've been able to clear my mind and actually play some poker. Living abroad is great, it's just tough to live that lifestyle and still be able to play well and work your game on a daily basis.

Poker has been going great so far this month. I'm taking shots at 2/4 and 3/6 again and am feeling confident in my game. I've moved some of my action off FTP and am now game selecting across multiple sites. For the past few weeks, I have been pretty good about studying poker. I think its showing signs of growth as a pro that I'm actively trying to learn even though I know I'm running like god. I'm usually pretty focused and motivated when I'm breaking even or losing but in the past, I've sort of just coasted and have gotten lazy during heaters. I just finished Let There Be Rage and am going to start Exploiting Regulars next. For those of you breaking even and struggling with poker, I just want to emphasize how important it is to keep learning. Keep working on your game yo.

Life outside of poker is also going quite well. Jaymes Bond just got into town yesterday afternoon. We had a great time at the Tigers-Yankees game, although we left after the 6th inning due to it being cold lol. Thankfully, we leave for Mexico in just a few days.

After that its off to Vegas. I am going to be playing basketball every day over the next month to try and get in playing shape. I was going fairly regularly with Jeff prior to hurting my ankle. That put me out for a good two weeks. Definitely looking forward to ballin with the new crew. We should have some pretty competitive two on two games. I have no idea how good Jaymes is but Crispy is solid for someone who has never played organized basketball and Jeff is very good. With Jeff's body type, you'd expect him to be a Corliss Williamson type player, but he actually surprises you, and plays a finesse game, relying on a deadly mid range jumpshot. I'd like to gamble in Vegas on three point shooting if anyone is interested. Not large bets, just $50-$100 per game or so, and I'd be willing to shoot against anyone. Looking forward to playing on 5 on 5 with some of u guys as well. FWIW, I'm pretty much looking to play whenever anyone else wants to, so just let me know.

Thats all I got for now. Take care and see u guys soon.