It's been a while Leggo. From June 2011-June 2012 I have been in voluntary poker exile. At the end of June 2011 I moved out of my family home into a flat in Glasgow with my good friend dougiedan.

I recently read a poker article written by Taylor Caby and a couple of other high stakes guys whom I had never heard of. Anyways one of these guy said that there is no point becoming a professional poker player unless you had no other choice ie you were making so much money that continuing at your current job was pointless. I agree with this statement 100%, because I am one of those people who decided they could go pro where I could have easily grinded out a part time job making a similar amount of money.

At the time I was playing 50 and 100nl, taking advantage of the generous rake back deals on ipoker post Black Friday. I was making just enough and no more to make ends meet, but it was getting increasingly stressful. After a couple of months the pressure was just too much and I caved.

Fuck. Bastard. Fuck. What the fuck am I going to do now? lolol that was a brief summary of my thoughts at the time. Anyway I decided that the most +ev thing to do was to get a job, and double my efforts at university, however the job market is pretty fucked at the moment so it didn't really go as I'd planned. The fact that I pretty much told my previous two employers to go fuck themselves probably didn't do me any favors either lol eventually I got a shit Christmas temp job in Next (a fashion retail store) for five weeks between December and January, but unfortunately that's all I could find.

After that I got my head in the books and studied my ass of for my third year exams (my second attempt). I had 10 exams in 4 weeks plus two other classes were 100% course work. I was pretty disappointed with my results, but I did OK. I got an A (my first and only at uni) 3 Bs, 3 Cs, 4 Ds and F (fuck it I passed 11/12). And that's that.

I then got staked a few times by dougie to play sit n goes (I was not on life tilt I just felt like a change) and then again to play 50nl, both on stars, and both were very successful. Then in February or March Sergeant Matt Probability staked me for 25 and 50nl on Merge, which has also been very successful.

Next thing I knew it was Vegas time, and for a while I though to myself "Fuck man, I simply can't afford to go", but really I was just thinking about Vegas and the fucking Mirage lol My mum paid for my flights, dougie helped me out with rent money, and I grinded out about $1200 worth of spending money on Merge, and off I went. Dougie and jamjam went direct from Manchester, however since my flight were cheaper I ended up all over the place. On the way I went Glasgow > London > Washington > Las Vegas, then on the way back Las Vegas > Toronto > London > Glasgow. The journey kind of put me off even going, but at the same time I was quite looking forward to the adventure.

Well that's what I was up to during my year of exile. I will post another blog at the end of the month telling you all about what I've been up to post June 2012.

Keep the mind on the grind.

pEACE!