Poker, SocialComments Off on Orlando, Miami & The Bahamas
Jan092011
This feels a bit strange because since I’ve reached SNE I haven’t played a single hand of poker while last year I already grinded out 50.000 VPPs around this time. I’ve only logged on to PokerStars to check my new PokerStars Team: Online status and avatar and then I left for the airport. This is not a complaint, I do however look forward to get back to the grind but not before I’ve relaxed a couple of more days in this beautifull resort at the Bahamas.
On the 2nd of January I left for Orlando. Since the 1st of January there isn’t any direct connection anymore from Amsterdam so we had a stop-over at Newark. For the first time ever there wasn’t a long line at customs so we got into the USA pretty smooth. We arrived pretty late in Orlando but this was pretty convenient as we went to bed right away and when we woke up the next morning I didn’t feel jetlagged at all. Orlando is all about the amusement parks and we had selected Seaworld as our first pick. With the perfect weather and the relaxed atmosphere my holiday couldn’t start any better. We all really liked the park and I would recommended everybody to go there.
Our second pick was Universal Studios because I also really liked Universal Studios in Los Angeles. We bought a combo-ticket so we could also visit Adventure Island which is next to Universal Studios. Our first ride was a motion simulator with “The Simpsons” as theme, it was really awesome and I actually liked it more then being on a rollercoaster. After this great start all other attractions were pretty boring. We didn’t go into the extreme rollercoaster ride (as most people in our party are not big rollercoaster fans) but besides the “okay” mummy rollercoaster most attractions where pretty dull. We then visited the Adventure Island park which looked great but we weren’t really in the rollercoaster mood. We walked over to the just opened Harry Potter part of the park which was unbelievable crowded. There was a 2,5 hour queue to go into the castle and I’ve never seen so much people walking with merchandise. There was literally a 30min queue to get into the merchandise shops! The castle did look amazing and I think this park is more value for your money then Universal Studios is (not talking about the LA one).
Our next visit was Miami South Beach. We stayed in the Albion hotel which is at the corner of Lincoln road. This is the shopping/dining area in south beach so we had a perfect spot. At check-in my room wasn’t ready yet so we went out for a walk at the beach to see what Miami is all about. I would love to stay a little longer next time as I really liked the beach and surrounding area. At the end of the afternoon we came back and got news that we got a small room upgrade. We actually got the biggest penthouse suite of the hotel, which was in the corner of the building as well so we had a two-way view from our separate living room, next to our balcony. The next day we drove to Sawgrass recreation park to spot some alligators with an airboat. Some people warned me that this would be pretty boring but I actually liked it very much. It was a 30min airboat trip which was enough to spot a couple of alligators and not long enough to get bored.
Since the weather got really bad for a couple of hours we went over to Ft Lauderdale to do some outlet shopping. It wasn’t that bad and I actually bought some clothes myself.
After a good night sleep we got on a plane to the Bahamas. Our plane had a small delay and some suitcases had to be unloaded because some passengers didn’t show up. I only saw 2 empty seats in the small plane but a lot more suitcases got unloaded. I actually saw that one of our suitcases got unloaded but just hoped I was wrong. Arriving at the Bahamas I found out I wasn’t and we had to report two missing suitcases. The lady told us that the plane was to heavy and that they then just unload some random suitcases and don’t want to tell that to the people as most people would freak out. Since our suitcases arrived later in the evening it was all okay afterall but I wouldn’t know what to do if it really got missing since I don’t really want to go shopping over here 🙂
Atlantis is just like you’ve probably seen on the pictures, wow! The “normal” rooms are actually pretty basic (kinda old) but “the Cove” is the nuts. The picture below is not only the view from our balcony but also from our bed! The bathroom is huge and it’s really nice to be awarded with something like this after a year of hard work to become SNE.
I’m of course not only here to relax but also to play some poker. I only play the main event but there is a schedule of 48 tournaments in just 10 days! I only play the main event myself and I moved my start day from 1A to 1B so I could relax a little bit today. We tried out the water park and after lying in the water for over two hours we’ve not even done half the water slides. It isn’t very cheap over here but the food is great so far and the place is just beautiful. The pokerroom looks good and I’m really excited to play tomorrow. I’m not a tournament expert at all and looking at my WSOP 2009 performance I shouldn’t get my hopes up but I’m really eager to do well. In case that doesn’t work out I can enjoy the other half of the water slides so it could be worse but I would love to get my first Hendon Mob flag!
You should be able to follow me via the pokernews (NL) live reporting at www.pokernews.com or www.pokernews.nl . You could also view the PokerStars Blog at www.pokerstarsblog.com/nl or follow my updates on twitter via www.twitter.com/Tzen1 I’ll do my best and as soon as I’m busted I’ll relax a couple of more days before I’ll start my grind again at the Limit tables at PokerStars.
First of all I’m very happy that I’ve been given this opportunity. I’ve known this news for some time now but still when it was announced today I was extremely excited! I will explain how it all happened and what my plans for 2011 are. In case you want to read about what I did in 2010 I would recommended my previous blogpost as it’s a recap of 2010 with some nice cycling footage 🙂
On the 25th of November I got a call from PokerStars. It was around 14:00 but I was still sleeping since I just grinded out a long session till 08:00. Two things crossed my mind, 1) Somebody hacked my Poker-account 2) Team online? The Round 2 candidate selection deadline had already passed on the 20th so I didn’t really expect that I would still receive a call. I didn’t think my chances were that high anyway but still you always hope that you will be selected for something like this. I’ve chatted with the PokerStars rep and did a mini interview via the phone. I got told that I would hear back something very soon so the waiting started. Now that I knew I was in Round2, I really wanted to get picked so the waiting started!
On Friday the 10th of December I got contacted again and they told me I was selected to become a new member of Team PokerStars: Online! Wow, I was thrilled! I did already know however that there were certain things I had to do before everything could be made official. I got the contract a couple of days later and had some time to think about all the consequences. I still have a regular job which I didn’t want to lose so I had to get permission from my employer. That was a lot easier then expected and after detailing some other points in the contract it wasn’t before the 29th/30rd of December until I actually finalised everything with PokerStars and did the actual signing. I was still busy with my SNE chase and also due to the Christmas period things were delayed a bit more then usual but this was an opportunity I wanted to grab with both hands! I celebrated my signing on the 29th, together with my last VPPs of the year to become SNE. You can read more about this in my previous blog but what a party it was!
When I got contacted by PokerStars I was in the middle of my worst month ever. These things make you think about your future and I was really in doubt what to do. Since this was actually my first year losing on the tables (I did won money after rakeback) I didn’t want to go out like that but I also have a very nice career going at my employer for which I already work since 1999. I decided I would delay my decision till the PCA, since it would be best to make a big decision like that when I wasn’t in the middle of a crazy SNE chase. The opportunity to become a member of Team PokerStars: Online of course changed this and I’m already looking forward to again a year on the virtual tables at PokerStars.
I haven’t decided what I’m going to do exactly but tomorrow I will leave for Florida and the Bahamas so I got some time to think about it. My first poker this year will happen at the PCA and when I’m back I’ll be playing the Full-Ring Limit Hold’em tables again. I doubt I will put in the same volume as this year, so I won’t go for SNE but I still expect to play roughly 1.000.000 hands of poker next year. Till 2009 I played a lot of tournaments as well and I really missed that this year since I was only grinding the limit cashgames. I will not switch my maingame to tournaments for sure but I do expect to do some Sunday, WCOOP and SCOOP Tournament grinding again as I’ve always loved doing that before. On the Full-Ring Limit tables I want to prove again that I can be a winning player. In 2010 I’ve lost at all stakes ($2/4 till $15/$30) but up till the start of 2010 I was winning at all those stakes. This year I focused purely on volume which hurted my game a lot. Poker is still growing as a game and everybody keeps improving. For the coming year I expect to improve a lot myself again and hopefully beat the stakes again which I was playing back in December 2009 (up till $15/30). At least beating $5/$10 tables should be doable for me so that will be my first goal.
Next to Poker Goals I will have think about other goals as well. Alpe d’Huez was fantastic last year (see the movie in my previous blog) and I want to do something like that again. Mt. Ventoux or maybe cycle a full-classic like Luik-Bastenaken-Luik, I’m just not sure yet. Those goals will be a great help for my other goal, getting fit again 🙂 I hardly cycled anymore since Alpe d’Huez which was in June and in stead of going to the gym 3 times a week, I probably didn’t even go twice a week on average during the last 4 months. I gained 8 kilo’s since the summer so it’s time for some exercize again! When I’m back from my holiday I will update my website with the goals for 2011.
Tomorrow I will take the plane to Orlando together with my girlfriend, best mate and his girlfriend. On the 7th I will arrive at the Bahamas and hopefully play Day1B but I’m currently registered for Day1A. I’ll give an update somewhere next week and will keep blogging throughout the year.
I would like to thank everybody for their support, thank PokerStars for this great opportunity and thank all my family & friends for the great fun I have with them day in, day out!
I want to type a lot and I really don’t know where to start. I could either do a year wrap-up or just write about what happened since my last blog. I’ll do both, so if you don’t want to read about my whole year I would scroll down since this could be long 😉
Last year around this time I really doubted what I wanted to do in 2010. I was playing $15/$30 and filled up till 24 tables with some $10/$20, some more $5/$10 and if needed $3/$6. Earning VPPs went very fast playing those medium stakes and I knew that I could put in the volume to become SNE. I actually estimated my SNE based on playing $10/$20 tops just to be on the safe side. I estimated playing 10% $10/$20, 40% $5/$10 and 50% $3/$6.
Breaking even would give me $79.200 and I needed to play 25 hours a week (based on 45 weeks) for an hourly of $70,39. This didn’t include the extra’s like the two packages and the WCOOP Main Event Ticket. After the VIP changes were announced it was actually $1.200 more because of the Stellar Rewards and the changes for the milestone bonuses. My idea was to give it a shot in January to see if I could put in the volume that was needed. Since my girlfriend was away for the first 5 months of the year my idea was to give myself a headstart, take it easy during the summer and pick up the volume again at the end of the year. I expected to actually win money on the tables since I did so since 2006. My idea was that I would probably learn something from playing this much and sure the long grind would affect my winrate a bit but I still hoped to win $10k/$20k on the tables.
Since I could use the motivation I started this blog and a topic on the Pokernews NL forum. If you want to achieve a goal it’s best to write it down and to keep track. For myself it works even better if I share my goal with as much people as possible. I just don’t want to fail after telling everybody that I was going to be a SNE at the end of the year. What also really helps is the encouragements from people during the year. At the moments that I lost shitloads of money on the tables people were still rooting for me which was sometimes the only “positive” thing on a pretty negative day, week or sometimes month! Sure I wouldn’t blog if I didn’t like the attention from people and I would love to only tell how good I was doing, but after the first month I already had to write about the bad moments since January wasn’t how I planned it.
I did put in enough hands and got almost 142k VPPs so on the VPP front everything was good. I continued in February but things only got worse! On the 22nd of February I played my last hand of $15/$30 and $10/$20. I lost $3,500 that day and I had enough of it. Dropping down in stakes would mean I had to play more hours, but hopefully I would win again since in February I actually lost money after rakeback! With 90k VPPs I was still doing good on the VPP front.
So in March I mainly played $3/$6 and $5/$10 and everything was sunny again. I won some money that month and got 80k VPPs. That was less then the two previous months but I earned a lot less VPPs/Hour so it was expected.
April didn’t go as well as March did. I booked a small loss but again 80k VPPs. I also cycled the Amstel Gold Race that month which was an awesome experience and I’m going to ride it again in 2011.
May already! There are less $5/$10 and $3/$6 tables so I had to play more $2/$4 which was a pain due to the lower VPPs. I book a small loss again and since my girlfriend finally got back I only made 60k VPPs. I was still ahead of pace and ready for a nice vacation.
June was a fantastic month. Probably the best month of the year and for sure in my top3 ever! It all started with a trip to France & Italy. Cycling up Alpe D’Huez was massive and spending time in San Remo, Monaco, Nice, Cannes, Juan-les-pins & St Tropez was awesome. Wednesday my buddy handed over the video he created while I cycled up Alpe d’Huez. This is so much cooler then photos! Have a look:
When I got back the worldcup had just started. In stead of playing poker I watched almost every match. Since The Netherlands was doing great we had some very good parties and the weather was really good as well so I could enjoy the beach during the day! I played a total of 10.718 hands! Not even 10 hours of poker, I still give you the graph just for completeness 🙂
The worldcup ended in July, we lost the final for the 3th time. We didn’t deserve the win but still it would have been great! I was behind pace and summer had just started. Also the Tour the France started and I took a week off work to grind every day and watch the mountain stages. I actually got 83k VPPs in July which was a lot more then expected. There weren’t a lot of $5/$10 tables since it was summer so it was a long grind. Again I booked a small loss, but overall I was happy with the results.
August was a crazy month. I didn’t do that bad on the $2/$4 and $3/$6 tables but lost $6k on the $5/$10 tables. Bizarre actually now I look at it. I got another 82k VPPs and made a schedule for the rest of the year. I had expected to be behind pace at this stage but was more behind pace then I had initially planned. I also had a trip to Las Vegas scheduled in September so it was good to plan ahead and know what I had to do to make it. To give you an idea of what I did:
I colored days I would play with red, days I couldn’t play with black (and noted why) and days which I had nothing planned I left blank. As soon as the day was behind me I colored it green. At the top of the sheet it should add up to 1.000.000 VPPs and in case I slacked a day I either needed to up the amount of a day I was already playing anyway (often not really doable) or had to color a blank day red. Stuff like just helps a lot, it makes it visible if you can achieve your goal or if you are way over your head. I wasn’t, but it would have been nice to win something in August.
September was another great month. I first visited San Fransisco which was fantastic, then before going to Las Vegas we made a short stop in Los Angeles visiting Six Flags. In Las Vegas we stayed for 8 days and basically did nothing else then party. 6 guys a lot of alcohol and the best vacation I’ve ever had in my life. Celebrating my birthday in Las Vegas was the worst idea ever 😉 During the remainder of the month I got another 32k VPPs and booked a small win.
I planned to play a lot of hands during the last 3 months of the year. Each year since 2006 my best months were the last months of the year, probably because a lot of people are putting in a lot more hands to get milestone bonuses or just because it’s wintertime. I had to pick up the pace and did so but was 100k behind pace at the start of the month. Getting 107k VPP was okay, booking a small loss was fine getting SNE was by now a lot more important. I started the month pretty bad but recovered after changing my game so I was ready for November.
Since I didn’t want to risk not reaching SNE I had planned to get as many VPPs as possible in November. I would play 6 days a week, playing both Friday and Saturday evening/night as well and just lock myself in my house for 1 month to get back on pace. I didn’t want to leave things till December and with a good last 3 weeks in October I was ready to win some money on the tables as well. It wasn’t even close! Check the graph, not even a chance…. I had the idea that I hadn’t changed a thing compared with my play in October but in stead of following the upward trend, it went downhill from scratch and I never recovered. Lost $15.377 without playing $10/$20 and $15/$30 was something I didn’t even know was possible. Getting 142k VPPs was good for the SNE chase but wow, just unbelievable!
Somehow I started fresh in December. I was ready to finally get SNE, despite the losses. The start was okay, then it went downhill again but it wasn’t as bad as November. I had a chat with Joep van de Bijgaart(Pappe_ruk) via Skype/Mikogo about my game on the 22nd and just look at the graph to see what it did to my game. We just discussed some general Limit stuff, we didn’t go really deep but somehow it was an eye opener again. I’ve had these before, often when playing live when I have more time to think about my game but the session with Joep seemed to have helped a lot. At least it gives hope for 2011!
The 29th of December was a special day. I saved up my last 261VPPs to play that day and I invited over my friends to celebrate my SNE status. My living room was filled with 15/20 people and I played the last hands together with my best friends. Most people had never seen me play so it was also nice to finally let them know what I’ve been doing all year long. I wanted to quit all tables just before the 1M mark and then play the last points on just 1 table. At 999.900 I unchecked the “Post blind” checkbox but the VPPs went a lot quicker then usual. Almost out of nothing the magic checkbox appeared!
We popped a bottle of champagne and toasted together. I then opened a couple of $0,01/$0,02 tables to play some semi-blind all-in shove fest with the people from Pokernews NL who supported me the whole year. I actually won $11,57 which makes this my most profitable stake of the year 😉 My best pokerbuddy who I’ve been playing with for years and who will play the PCA gave me the best present ever. A king chess piece! If you’ve watched or read The Count of Monte Cristo you know why, else you should really watch it since I just love that movie. King’s to me!
The party went on and after popping 5 bottle’s of champagne I was out, so we had to go outdoors to get some more. I didn’t expect I would be so happy finally reaching SNE. I hadn’t invited anybody till Sunday for my party since I wasn’t sure if it was really worth it but after 9 bottle’s of champagne and a lot of shots I can say I had loads of fun, thanks to all my buddies!
The year is over and I got SNE as planned. I also achieved my cycling goals earlier in the year which is something I’m proud of as well. What I didn’t expect was to lose so much money during the year at the tables. Because of the evil November month I closed the year with a loss of $44.625,93 in cash-games and a plus of $189,20 in tournaments and Sit & Go’s. As stated in the beginning of my blog I had planned to at least break even so to me it really feels like I lost about $44k. My hourly rate wasn’t even close to what I had expected as I played a total of 1180 hours to reach SNE. I’m really happy to be SNE but that was also partly due to the fact that otherwise my year would have really sucked.
Would I have done it if I would have known this in advance? Probably not because nobody likes to lose that amount on the tables. Do I regret my decision to go for SNE, certainly not! Even with the losses I still made a lot of money due to rakeback. I didn’t have to rely on the money from poker anyway since I still have a job. And getting SNE one time in your life is at least special to me. 341 other people will get it this year, which is a lot more then last year but still a select few.
I’ll end this blog with my year graph and some statistics, just because I love statistics myself. Tomorrow I’ll write a blog about my plans for 2011. I have some great things scheduled for next year and I would really love to tell you guys about my plans already but I do like to celebrate NYE myself as well 🙂
Cashgames/Tournaments (* stats are totals, # only cashgames): Hands played: 1.566.065 / 32 Money Won/Lost: -$44.625,93 / +$198,20 # Hours Played: 1.179,67
# Hours/week: 26,2 (Based on 45 weeks, I also worked 24hours/week at my normal job) * VPPs: 1.000.043,9 # Rake Paid: $128.142,36 # Monthly Gross Rake: $166.650,23 * Total amount of Rakeback: $80.403,21 (FPPs & Bonuses) * Total Amount Won: $35.975,48 (Excl the WCOOP MA Ticket ($5.200) and Bahamas PCA Package + 1 other Tournament Package or $10.000) * $/Hour: $30,50 (About $60/Hour including the SNE Rewards mentioned above) # Hands/Hour: 1327,55 # VPP/Hour: 847,61
And some random other stats: Sessions Played: 272 Longest Single Session: 18.074 Hands in 11,85 hours on 22/11/2010 playing 1525,23 Hands/Hour earning 11.107,38 VPPs.
Best Session(s) of the year: $1958,50 on 03/01/2010 which was one of the first sessions of the year. The 2nd best session is the last big session of the year on 27/12/2010 winning $1904,00
Worst Session of the year: -$3.383,50 on 21/2/2010 in only 5.579 hands.
Most Hours/Hands played in 1 month: November with 172,73 hours playing 241.260 hands getting 141.966.06 VPPs.
Best Month on the tables: March with $2.890 (Really?) Worst Month on the tables: November with -$15.377,00 Most dealt hands: 83o Most deatl pocket pair: TT
And as last a screenshot of my PT3 per limit with some relevant stats:
Thanks everybody for all the comments I got both on my blog, the Pokernews NL forum and 2+2. I wish you all a fantastic NYE and a wonderful 2011!
I’ve considered writing a new blog entry for the past few days but since I’m almost SNE I didn’t. I’ll probably write a big update after the magical moment and will hopefully give an insight in my plans for next year, there could be some surprising elements in that news.
This entry is more a short and fun one. I contacted PokerStars with the question if they could give me an overview of the tournaments I’ve played before 1-1-2009, since I lost them when switching from PokerTracker v2 to 3. I never really missed them but now I know that it’s missing I want to make my database complete again. I got the list of tourneys I entered and retrieved the Tournament Summary via the PokerStars client. I created my account on PokerStars at April 20, 2006 and I played my first tournament on May 1, 2006 which was actually the weekly Pokernews RayADHD tournament. This became the Pokernews League later on and is still going.
I finished in 3rd place which isn’t bad for a first tournament but I was really surprised that almost every name on the list brings back memories. I’ve played with many in live tournaments, some play(ed) poker for a living nowadays and with others I still have contact via Twitter. I’ve added the Summary below, just for giggles 🙂
To wrap it up, I’ll be playing a bit tonight and will celebrate Christmas both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday night I will play some more poker and I hope to finish up the rest of my play on Monday and Tuesday. I’m planning to leave 1 VPP left for the Wednesday, get it and drink champagne for the remainder of the evening!
For now I wish you all a Merry Christmas and maybe also already a happy New-Year. Thanks for following and supporting me throughout the year!
So it’s December and I have a great feeling which isn’t good. I got the feeling I’m already there, which isn’t the case of course. Having pulled off a 145K VPPs month in November, getting less then 100K VPPs seems simple. It is however my 3th biggest month ever when I’m done. I’m a volume monster but due to November I’m even more so then before. I can put my mind into a grind gear and stop when my target is reached.
Now there is still 84,5K VPPs to go and I have a pretty relaxed planning with no poker in the weekend. Last Friday I had a great party and came home completely wasted, Saturday I had a huge hangover and around 16:00 I could finally “wiggle my toe” again. I prefer not to have a hangover but really enjoyed being among friends again. Saturday evening I went over to one of my best friends and played a bit of World of Warcraft and StarCraft II again, it itches. I want to play video games again, like I always used to.
Back in the days I played a text-based online strategy game called Planetarion. I’ve mentioned this before in one of my previous blogs and I think I was hooked for about 3/4 years. During that time I was invited to play online poker by some fellow gamers who were making easy money on the tables. I already played live poker before and created an account on Paradise Poker, I can’t really remember when this was but I think it was around 2001/2002. I remember winning $100 and cashing out. I cashed out and got a check and never redeemed it because I was lazy. I also remember I cashed out because back then Poker was still something shady to most people. Cashing out via checks really seemed even more shady to me and everybody always warned me not to get addicted and/or to trust these sites. I was happy with my winning, didn’t see the potential of making a living out of it and already had a good job, so why even consider it? I didn’t even know about the WSOP back then, I had already played the 20/40 LHE cashgame in Amsterdam the month I turned 18 back in 2000 but lost ƒ800 (This was before the euro) in about 1,5 hour, I didn’t know Rolf Slotboom was waiting for aces all the time back then 😉
So my first experience with online poker was really good but I already had a good job for 3/4 years and really never expected I could earn more money playing poker. After my Planetarion addiction ended, I played Counter Strike for about a year before I discovered World of Warcraft in 2005. I was insta-hooked and didn’t really do anything else for the next 2 years. I was guild leader of a completely Dutch Speaking guild with 70-100 people and was playing every day except on Fri/Sat evening or when I planned something with friends who didn’t play WoW. In early 2006 I saw Noah Boeken on TV with Pokerkings and in 1994-1998 I played Magic The Gathering just like him. I remembered Noah as a great MtG player and knew him a little bit from the MtG circuit and the Tuesday night’s at Kempinski at the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. So if he could make money playing poker, why couldn’t I do the same? I played a lot of poker in 1996-1999 (weekly) and had decent winning from which I bought my first scooter and computer! I didn’t play for a long time but saw the poker boom evolving. I was still playing WoW during the week but during the weekend I tried to mix in as much as poker as I could. The edge was huge of course (people really had no clue back then) and I started to develop idea’s to make more money playing poker. In September 2006 my local casino started offering weekly LHE cashgames and I didn’t miss a single week. I went over to the Holland Casino in Amsterdam in November 2006 to watch the MCOP and knew I wanted to play there as well the next year.
The thing however was that I still had my WoW life and it was a busy one. Being a guild leader comes with a lot of responsibilities and most of you would say it’s just a game but it’s not about the game at all. It’s about the community and I just love community based games. Planetarion was a community based game, but also MtG and Poker in a way. It becomes more fun when you meet people and get to know each other and talk about your shared passion. I was struggling to quit WoW but I saw the potential in poker and really wanted to get into poker more.
We are still in November 2006 and at the 6th of that month my father passed away. It was a complete surprise and it made me realise a couple of things. Especially my unhealthy lifestyle was something to consider. I had developed the following pattern: 07:30 – 18:00 work, eat, 20:00 – 03:30 Casino and 4 hours of sleep and repeat. This was my Monday/Tuesday schedule (since only those days LHE cashgames were offered) and the rest of the week I was still playing a lot of WoW. I was 133KG (309lbs) not really healthy as well, something needed to change! I quit my WoW life instant but continued to play live poker so didn’t really change a lot.
In April 2007 I visited Las Vegas. I was already going to LV every year since 2004 but never played a lot of poker, I always played blackjack and craps and a little bit if 7card stud. However the day before I left I could hardly walk and was in real pain. I always had back issues and they were back. I’ve been operated before when I was 17, the issues came back when I was 19 and there I was again. I was determent to go to LV, since I wanted to test my poker skills but this almost ruined my trip. I crawled to the plane, made it to Vegas and that trip I almost only played poker (LHE). It was a profitable trip but I realised I needed to change my lifestyle and quitting WoW wasn’t enough.
From the moment I came back I started playing online poker. I always preferred live and looking back now I wish I would have started online in 2006. I should have quit WoW earlier which I almost did about 100 times but I think most people have a similar story why they didn’t get into poker earlier. I stop playing live which meant I wasn’t going to bed at 03:30 any longer and made myself a schedule to lose weight. 40 weeks no alcohol, lot’s of cycling and a less food. I didn’t try a diet, I just eat less of what I would normally eat and it proved successful. During those 40 weeks I lost 41Kg (90 lbs) and played a lot of poker online. My life was getting a lot healthier just by losing weight and stop playing live poker.
I ended my weight loss period April 1, 2008. The day after I went to LV again and in October that year I went for another trip. After my October trip things went really good online and in December 2008 I decided to start working part-time as of January 2009. I became an online semi-poker pro and most stuff that happened after that should already be somewhere in this blog.
Jeez, I wanted to tell you guys something about video-games and I ended up writing about 16 years of history. So back to what I wanted to write. WoW kinda blocked my way into poker but now I haven’t played any video games really since 2006. I miss it, I want to enjoy it again but I’m not sure what to do. My plans for next year are completely open but I also just installed StarCraft II on my computer which I promised myself not to do before I was SNE (I haven’t played yet…). So what will it be? Another year of poker, a year of cycling sounds really tempting as well or just relax and play games like WoW, Starcraft II and Diablo III again?
I still don’t know but I do know I have to finish my SNE first! There is a small chance legislation will decide things for us (read more on 2+2) since Stars might have to pull out of the USA for some time(don’t panic!). 4 weeks to go and I’m at the Bahamas and probably there I will decide what to do. I love poker, I love video games, I love cycling but I probably can’t do all at the same time.
Strange blog now I read it again, but well.. 84,5k VPPs to go, the countdown makes it easy but I’m not there yet. Good luck to everybody wrapping up what hopefully is a successful year of poker!
