Dear Leggo Land,

I saw a specialist on the 1st of Feb to see if the fracture had finally healed and apparently it had! Seeing as I hadn't walked on it for 5.5 months they thought it best that I used one of those massive plastic boots to walk around for 3 weeks, then phase it out for a week, and then go back and get final xrays and get the thumbs up to FINALLY get back to training.

But no. I went back on the 29th and got the xrays done, my foot was aching and I was pretty pessimistic about the whole situation, and unfortunately it turned out my pessimism was completely warranted. The fracture had opened up again and its actually worse now (28 weeks later) than it was at the 12 week stage. Another fuck up by the doctors and another forever without walking.

My new set of shitty instructions are remarkably similar to the last lot - which is pretty much, massive cast, don't walk on it, get xrays after 6 weeks and see how you go... I was really pushing for surgery seeing as I've tried this approach not once or twice but THREE times already and it hasn't worked, so I got a referral to a different hospital and I'm going to push for bone graft surgery because waiting for another 12 - 20 weeks for it to MAYBE get better, just isn't an option for my current mental state...

So other than that, I've had a whole lot of life shit going on and haven't played poker in a few months. I've moved to Melbourne, and started university studying a Bachelor of Environments, which is pretty ideal because I only have a few contact hours and it's essay based which I should be able to crush. I'm living with a med student doing his last year so it's a pretty quiet house but that suits me for the time being because whenever I see people partying and living it up, I just hate on life a little bit more.

I am trying to be positive and proactive though.. I've started teaching myself guitar, reading a lot, and actually putting some effort into university but sometimes it is hard to look on the bright side.

I have a grand total of $120 for a poker roll because I took all my monies off to pay for real life shit like xrays, medicine, bills, moving expenses etc.... But now that I've settled into a study schedule and there's not much else I can do I'm going to see what I can do. Probably just play $10nl on Stars and use my huge amounts of spare time to try and run it up. I'm far too poor to put more money on and seeing as I wont be able to get a proper job for at least another 4ish months, I have to be super careful.

I'm kinda regretting taking my roll off because I felt confident I could beat 50nl for more money than I could earn a shitty part time job in Melbourne - but I didn't really have any other option so that's just the way it goes.


Anyway, enough of all my negative energy, just thought I'd let the Leggo community that has supported me so much know that I'm back in the game and will be hammering the micro stakes threads from here on in. My subscription is going to run out soon so I'm going to smash some vids over the next few days, and then hit up the forums in a big way. Any tips on earning max monies at the mini micros would be appreciated!

So yeah, this is the last bitch I'm gonna have, and here's to positivity and some baby steps (because it hurts too much to take real steps,) forward!

Stay classy,

Oli

In an attempt to post a little more ffrequntly this year, here's another update!

I've got to get back into the forums! I've been having a few skype chats with a group about some hands and I feel like if I were posting the amount of hands I used to on the forums, then I'd be really cruising along, but I've sort of stagnated a bit and I think it's mainly due to the new year and having people around a lot. Don't get me wrong, I like seeing people, and I really appreciate them coming over and hanging out while I have a broken foot, but I have done bugger all poker wise!

Most of my friends live in Melb ( a couple of hours away) so when they come down, they usually stay for a couple of night to make their trip worthwhile. You know what it's like when you always feel like you have to entertain? It's good, and I'm grateful they made the effort, but I'm a little drained! Have been running good on the lady front though (brag), so that's nice!

I've got a clear run at poker again now, and my return wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination. I took a 3 buy in shot at 100nl, which was the first couple of sessions after not playing over xmas wihch I didn't think would affect me, but I definitely felt a little slower. Anyway, that didn't go so great. Got AA cracked once and then lost a couple of little pots here and there and then lost AK vs JJ btn vs blind for 160bb. But it didn't worry me because I feel like I played well and the only thing I have to tune up is turn play out of position and just be a bit more maths aware when it comes to the preflop 4betting etc that goes on a bit more frequently at 100nl.

So I went back to 50nl and proceeded to get boned. I feel like I'm playing my B+ game, but I think it may be largely to my new awareness about the importance of turn play when I'm oop and overthinking a few spots/gettint curious. I'm doing some searches in HEM and I'll have a coaching session to sort that out or at least get the ball rolling.

So yeah, back on the grind, and trying to be productive! I read a cool article about unitasking as opposed to multitasking which I found really interesting, and I think they key to getting shit done is concentrating one thing and to stop procrastinating/getting distracted. I'll find the article and do another blog post later becuase it was really interesting stuff and beneficial to anyone who finds themselves 2 hours into doing something and wondering why they've gotten nowhere


GL Leggo Land.


Oli out.

Dear Leggo Land,

This is gonna be a pretty stock standard life/poker/optimism blog so lets just delve right in.

Poker went well. Best month I've ever had volume wise and $$$ wise, so that was cool! Here's my graph All my volume is at 50nl except for a few k hands at the start that were 25nl, and about a hundred hands in the middle where I chased a fish to 100nl and stacked him. Boom!



I've been running really good vs 40bb rat holing fuck heads in flips, and bad vs 100bb regs in flips, but I think I'd rather bend over the short stackers than win money I hate them so much. haha. I guess they're not doing anythign wrong and they have a right to play that way etc etc, but man, it just kills the game!

I'm really happy to have played nearly 50k hands, and absolutely stoked to have won. the low point on that graph is exactly the day before I found out that I had to go back in plaster (previsous whiney blog) and that my foot was still fucked (to use medical terminology). It was after finding that out that I could straighten my head out, and start getting some work done on my game. Until then I was always short on sleep and motivation, and when it came to playing, I was so easily distracted that I'm amazed i didn't go broke.

But something clicked that day, and everything else started to flow from having a little certainty somewhere in the back of my mind. I started reviewing my sessions and got soome coaching from Zaza, which I'm super keen to continue with. I feel like I have a base to work from now, and a game which is "my game" to work from and improve, rather than changing up every session.

So that's my poker brag, now to life.... not so much bragging to do there. Have an appoinment to see the orthopedic specialist on 1st of Feb. Hopefully I wont need surgery, but I may still need bone stimulant injections. With any luck he'll say "that looks fine to me, take that cast of and go for a run".

It's going to be a slow recovery process, but i'm super keen to get back into fighting. I've been watching some JJ vids and there are some seriously impressive non-striking games that I plan on getting amongst while I don't have the strength back in the foot. Plus it'd be nice to be able to attack form the ground rather than relying on my slipperiness to get the fight back to standing.
Check this dude out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcTM0...eature=related He's a pretty freaky BJJ guy, and while it doesn't really fit into my style, it'd definitely be cool to know what's going on on the ground a bit more!


Anyway, the new year is going to be good. i should be able to walk by end of Feb, and until then, I'm going to smash the coaching and hopefully hit 100nl in the not too distant future.

Take it easy guys!

Let me get the boring, details out of the way. So I broke my foot 3 months ago, and I went and got x-rays, and the doc said there's no point putting a cast on because it's the 5th metatarsal and it wouldn't do anything anyway. He told me I could walk and out weight on it when I felt comfortable, and I'd be walking normally in 8 weeks and back to running and jumping in 12.

After 8 weeks, I knew it wasn't right, so I went in to the clinic and asked for a follow up x-ray, which he said I didn't need, and he just signed tthe centrelink form and disposed of me. He told me it would get better soon and that it was fine and the x-ray was unnecessary.

I went back 12 weeks later after walking around for about 2 weeks, and told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted a follow up x-ray. I got it done the next day, which was a Wednesday and he said he'd call me early the next week to discuss the results. That same Wednesday he called me and told me the fracture in my foot was called a "Jones" fracture, and that I should have been in plaster from the start, but seeing as I wasn't, I'd most likely done more damage, and that I may need a bone stimulant injection, and that I'll probably need to be in plaster. He told me he would contact the specialist next week and get back to me.

He called the day before yesterday and said that I need to come in right away and get plaster put on my foot, and that I couldn't put any weight on my foot at all, even while I was in plaster. He said the specialist couldn't see me until after xmas, and that plaster is all I can do. He said I should go and get on crutches so there's no swelling or whatever when I go to get the plaster on Monday, and that I'd most likely need the plaster for 7 or 8 weeks.

Apparently (according to med students I met on the weekend) Jones Fractures need up to 20 weeks immobilisation, but in my case, if 8 weeks doesn't do the trick then it's surgery to wrap a wire around the bone and stick pins in it. The reason it doesn't heal is because there's no blood supply to that part of the foot, and the location of the fracture isn't on the nice smooth shaft with loads of marrow, it's basically snapped off the bulbous end of the bone where it's supposed to not break/not need to heal itself.


Now for the feelings side of things. I am beyond frustration and anger, and not in the calm and peaceful monk-like way. Because Dr Gavin Rowland in all his grey haired wisdom, couldn't remember the lecture on foot fractures, I will be crippled for an extra 3 months than necessary. 3 months. A quarter of a year. That's not including the 2 months of plaster I'm about to commence, so 5 months all up. I know I know, there's no point crying over spilled milk, but this should have been avoided. Easily! If you google "fracture 5th metatarsal" half the results say "Jones fracture". It's almost negligence on his part.

I feel like the boy who cried wolf. from 1 week to about 5 weeks, I wasn't too bad. I wasn't in a great mood, but I could always be cheered up and distracted by shiny things or boobs. From about 5 weeks to 8 weeks, I was getting grumpy and everyone just kept telling me "it's only a couple more weeks and it's done. You'll be back to running around and you'll feel better." I wanted to believe everyone like a 12 year old wants to believe in Santa. But fuck, deep down I knew it wasn't right and it was eating away at me because if I told myself it wasn't right, then my only option was to wait until 8 weeks, and go see the doc. Which I did. But in the mean time, if I was feeling down I just convinced myself it was unwarranted pessimism and I was looking for things to complain about. If I complained I felt like an ungrateful whinger who was just bringing everyone around me down. If I kept my mouth shut I was infuriated by not being able to stand without pain when I should have been able to walk. The pain kept me awake at night, but there's no chance I'm constanttly drugging myself to the eyeballs like my ggood old mother used to do.

So there was depression and there was anger. There was loneliness and frustration. But the scariest thing was being scared. The fear ate away at me. If everyone around me was right, including doctors, then I was going to be fine and walking around in no time. In that case I was scared that I was becoming seriously suicidal and no matter what I wanted to think, the very core of my being wanted to stop, wanted not to walk and wanted to continue living as though I had a broken foot. If everyone was right, including the doctor, then my gut instinct, which I've always trusted to get me through sticky situations, was wrong, and what am I supposed to do then?

That was a seriously dark time in my life and you weren't there. I went days without eating, without talking to anyone, without opening the window, without even thinking about getting out of bed. Everyone said I was fine and when I tried to tell that to myself, all the little immeasurable, feel based things of my being told me I was wrong. It was just a massive internal conflict which I had no idea how to resolve, or which side I wanted to win.

When I listened to everyone, and told myself I was fine and that I was getting better, my body just couldn't do it. It's hard to describe, to make you understand because I could walk normally for about a week, but it wasn't right. It almost was, and to everyone around me it was because I didn't have uncomfortable hunks of metal sticking in my armpits anymore - but I tried to move properly and I couldn't. That to me just felt like mental weakness. It felt like I never feel - like I wasn't mentally or spiritually capable of pushing myself out of my comfort zone and achieving something that made me swell with pride (or arrogance - whatever you want to call it). So everyone said I could, and when I told myself the same, I felt like a failure when I couldn't.

So now I'm about to be completely immobilised again. I'm really not looking forward to plaster. On top of not being able to wallk, or swim, or go to gym, or run or ride or train or go to karate or jiu jitsu, it means I'll be in plaster over xmas, and new years, and summer in general.

I know it sounds like I'm whining an awful lot, and that's because I am, but for some reason I really had to get this off my chest via a blog, and through a community which will have the mahority of my attention for the next 2 months

. I don't blame you or anyone for not understanding the conflict that was raging inside my head. In a lot of ways I'm glad ypeople didn't. I know people care about me and I'm lucky to have a lot of people who want me to be happy and don't like it when I'm upset - it's just easy to forget that when every part of me is disagreeing with what everyone I care about is saying.

It is a little different now though. At least the problem has finally been identified and I'm actually going to get the treatment I need.

If I need surgery I don't think I'll be fit in time for outdoor ed at La Trobe (university which I got accepted into). So much of the course is assessed on camps etc that if I can't carry a 20kg pack, then I should probably defer. Which sucks, and will change plans yet again for another 12 months....

Hey Leggo Land,

Just a quick and distracted blog cos I'm hitting up the David Attenborough docos at the same time.

October was pretty good poker wise. Had about 16000 hands on ipoker that I broke even dollars wise, but won bb wise.
THEN I switched to Stars to bonus whore it up and it went delightfully.

This is bigg blinds... the first 10 000 hands were at 25nl, so that was a fun heater, then I went to 50nl, and ran well again


and this is the $$$




So in summation, ran super hot and am now rolled properly for 50nl. Feel like I'm playing the best I've ever played for sure. Reviewing sessions, posting more in the forums and concentrating more when i'm playing.

Goals for November...
- No music while I play. I swear I play so much better and concentrate more when I'm not singing along to music.
- 40 000 hands.. did about that in October, but I may be going back to work sometime in November so we'll see how I go.
- Get the coaching ball rolling with Zaza. Super excited for this!


Oli out.

Hey Leggo Land,

I hope everyone is enjoying this month as much as me.
Just a super quick brag about swapping to Stars and running like God for 8000ish hands!

I only play 25nl, but feel like I'm definitely to return to 50nl.
The software is so much better than ipoker. The lobby is wicked with the colour coding, and the player pool is massive! sooooo many games! So many bad regs!
I'm sure if I had lost theses last 3 days, then I'd be telling a different story, but hey, maybe my happiness/enthusiasm towards the game will rub off on some others!

here's my 20 bi upswing graphs!





GL Leggo Land!

Be good or be good at it!

Hey Leggo Land,

Just a quick update to say that I don't hate the world as much anymore, and that I have had a few revelations lately - so that's nice.

Having a broken foot and not being able to get out and about for the last 5 weeks has been painful in more ways than one. One of the things which I was pretty surprised/humbled about was just how few of my friends have come to see me. Granted my 3 closest friends are overseas, and I moved to a new town not long before I was injured, but still, not many people have made the effort. But I do understand seeing as the uni term is heating up and what not.

Anyway, the friends I have talked to have helped immensely, and one of the main things they helped me with was finding a direction for the next few years. I've always been one of those guys who picks things up really quickly, gets good at a lot of things, but never really gets great at anything. This has left me feeling really torn as to what to do in life because I have so many options, and none of them seem to stand clearly above or below the others. My mind used to change by the minute, and I literally lost sleep over it.

Breaking my foot has made me realise how focused and satisfied I felt when I was training at Kentokan (karate) and JJ, and it became really clear that picking a path that could incorporate martial arts into my life was going to have huge benefits for my health - both mental and physical - and benefit my focus/mindset hugely in other areas of my life. There's nothing quite like sitting down to play a session after a hard training session and being able to think clearly and logically.

So I choose to train as hard and as well as possible, with people who know my strengths and weaknesses, and have a wealth of knowledge - Brendan McCarthy and Raoul Kent. Once that was decided it meant I could chose what to do in other areas of my life, and an option which always tempted me was doing a Bachelor of Outdoor Education. previously I had dismissed this option thinking that it was a wast of my academic abilities, but since taking a good hard look at myself, I've realised that other than a love of literature, my academic achievements at school were largely a product of reasoning, logic and a more than capable memory, rather than actual research or general book-smarts.

So I think outdoor ed is the right way for me. It keeps me physically and mentally content - and hey, who doesn't like the outdoors?
The other plus side is that I can stick to enjoying literature, rather than studying it, which could quite possibly kill the enjoyment factor.

The other good thing about studying outdoor education besides all the camps and fun times etc, is that I can apply my problem solving brain to something which can be profitable and enjoyable. You guess it, POKER.

It really feels like everything has clicked, and I'm really happy with my decisions concerning the next few years. I think as long as I remind myself that when I finish my degree in 3 or 4 years, I'm only going to be 25 with plenty of time to travel and see the world/satisfy my nomadic tendencies that have stopped me committing to uni/training/work/realtionships in the past.

Pretty much all of these positive decisions in my life can be traced back to advice from one of my best friends who is overseas atm. She saw how I was torturing myself, and never committing to a decision let alone a course of action, which in turn meant that I could never really reach any of the lofty goals I set for myself. After hours of skype-arguing she told me to read "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, and if I did, then I'd understand the frustration she felt when watching me change directions every other day.
She was right.

This is Chapter 7, and I honestly think that without having read this, I would still be conflicted, still be frustrated with myself, and still be taking one tiny step forward and two massive steps back.


"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Hey Leggo Land,

So, September was ok-ish for me. I was playing mostly 50nl, and some 25nl towards the end when I got boned, but this is up to week 3 of broken foot, and I was finding it a lot harder than I expeccted to get out of bed in the mornings. I don't mean I was depressed or anything, more like just mellowed to the point of not being very motivated. So, here's the new plan:
1. Get out of bed at a reasonable time (anythign before 7am is obv unreasonable)
- My kid brother is home on school holidays and I've given him this mission and a world of opportunities to throw water at me, crank music, shoot me with nerf guns. *must remember to where underwear to bed*
2. Eat, lots.
-Love my Weet-Bix. Smash at least 8.
3. Review marked hands from yesterday.
- I think it's bettter to do it the day after because I'm more detached, and because I don't remember as clearly, I don't brush over them and just say "oh yeah, I remember that was standard"
4. Post at least one hand from previous day on Leggo, and comment on at least 4.
- I used to try and do session review after each session, but I just found I lacked motivattion, and I ended up taking the time it took out of study time instead of playing time.
5- chill and play some CoD with the little brother.
-Trying not to get owned by a 13 year old is harder than it sounds.
6. Play!
- with a 1.5 bi stop loss which sounds uber tight, but I think it's better for me and my mini br.
- oh and no otther windows open! no skype, no facebook, no Leggo, no nothing. Just poker!
7, chill/eat
8. study one of my poker topics for the month for min 1 hour!
- first up on the list is bet sizing, perceived ranges, combinatorics, and EV of hand vs range.
9, play,
10, Leggo vid review with not taking and what not!

Defs more info than you needed, but if I write it down and don't stick to it, then you can all abuse me for it (please).


Be good, or be good at it!

It feels like I'm back on track. After 2.5 weeks of not being able to blow off any steam, and hopping around on my crutches, I'm finally back at gym doing some physical work! It was pretty easy to modify m old program and make all the standing up things, sitting down, or subbing them for exercises that didn't require my feet to hook under anythign etc, and it felt so good to be back.
I swear I've never worked harder in the gym; I felt like a man possessed.

One thing I didn't allow for, was how hard it was going to be to use crutches after doing an arms work out, which made the 100m trip back to the car seem like a efn long way. haha.
So after finally burning up some energy I went through a session review and played a session 3 tabling 50nl making sure to concentrate on "action, range, equity" before every decision, and i played the best I've ever played. I did end up down for the session, but I feel so much more confident about my play that I honestly couldn't care less. Plus, looking through my database afterwards I realised I lost KK V AK twice, both due to 4 flush boards.. so that was kinda shit. Oh, and does anyone else feel like every time you 3bet and have aces, people fold WAY faster, and way more often than when you have K9s? haha.

So what else? Oh, I'm getting some life coaching from a crazy witch doctor lady I know.. I shouldn't call her that, but she'd probably love it if she knew.. Anyway, she's heavily into energy fields and shakras and metaphorical meaning of things in life, and... wait for it... meditating.
It's been surprisingly effective. I get very frustrated sitting around all day, and watching people train at the dojos, and not being able to wrestle/muck around with my little brother, but meditating is really helping. For me, it's basically just tryingg to control my breathing, let go of the stress and bad energy/thoughts that are stopping me from healing up as fast as possible.
Don;t get me wrong, I''m not levitating or anything, and I'm sure there's a more spiritual way to approach it, but one thing that does happen when I get right into itt and really focus on it, is that the outside world pretty much disappears. I do it outside, and here in Aus, it's pretty fricken cold, but the first 5 minutes are death, and then after that, the next hour just slips past.

Anyway, that's enough hippy shit for one blog.

Hope all is well in Leggo Land.

Be good, or be good at it.

I don't think i could be more angry than I was about 2 moniutes ago if I tried.
I used to train 5 days a week, karate, plyometrics, swimming, running, gym, and JJ. I haven't doone anything, for nearly 3 weeks, and I have so much frustration bent up thanks to this stupid broken foot.
All I have to do is concentrate on poker for the next 6 weeks that I can't walk, and I'll be able to make a good hourly and travel once summer iis over.
It's so much harder to concentrate when I can't blow off steam beforehand though, and to top it all off, I just reflex kicked my water bottle as it was falling off the table, and now foot really fucking hurts.
I just played really well for about 1900 hands, and then lost my shit in the last 10, one of which was set over set on the last table that I had to close down beffore I quit.
I guess the fact that I was closing my table is a positive seeing as I'm sticking to my stop-loss rules, but I'm just mega annoyed. I have next to no money coming in because I can't work and I have no contact with jsut about anyone, because most of my friends I either used to work or train with and I can't go get drunk with other mates while im on crutches, cos that's jsut a recipe for disaster. FUCK!