Life Swongs

I've been pretty sick lately. I've had a fever on and off as well as a soar throat/stuffed up nose for a few weeks. I again got really sick Sunday night with a fever etc. I went in to the doctor's on Monday. I was told that I most likely have Mono. I'll know for sure tomorrow after the blood work gets back. I really hope I don't have Mono. It's really bad. Basically you're tired constantly and never get good sleep. You're also really sick on and off, and it doesn't go away for up to a couple months. Really a terrible thing to have, and there's no treatment for it but getting a lot of rest and drinking a ton of fluids. 

Poker has been kind of bad still, had a terrible sunday with no cashes. I did resolve the backer situation though. I talked to Fees and basically told'm I didn't like what was going on at all. We decided that he'd be no longer backing me for MTTs, and that I'd be clearing the ~50K make-up I owe him in cash. Obviously it's going to take me a very long time to clear that, but I'm just happy to no longer have to deal with the MTT thing with him and Doug. 

So, I needed a backer, and fast. SCOOP is in a couple days and I certainly don't want to miss it. I talked to a bunch of people, and Gobbo said he'd ask around and try to help out. Luckily he's awesome and got me in contact with Carter "cking" King who just won the Million after winning the WCOOP Main Event not long ago. He has a backing team for High Stakes MTTs with mattg. I worked out a deal with cking which is pretty cool. I'm going to start off playing pretty much everything I want to. The only thing I cannot play is weekday 100R's, and the Friday $500 6-Max. No worries though, mattg said it's just a sort of a trial. When I start putting in volume for them and am up ~$5K, I can play those tournaments. Pretty much their whole stable plays them now, and all of them started off the same as I did.

Overall I'm really happy and optimistic about the new deal with Carter. It seems they run a really awesome operation. Carter and Matt seem like cool people as well, and hopefully I can learn some stuff about MTTs from them as I respect both of their games. Maybe Carter's money will run good as well and I can ship a couple of SCOOPs. 

Before I end the blog I definitely have to thank Gobbo for setting up this deal. Thanks Jimmy!

-Brandon

Finally A Decent Day

Today was a pretty good day. It started off pretty standard, I woke up on barely any sleep for school after staying up to beat Resident Evil 5 until about 2AM with my brother. That was cool and definently helped me get my mind off of poker. I needed to have one of those nights again where I just stay up all night messing around and playing video games, stuff I used to do before poker. 

When I got home, I had a conversation with Doug "WCGRider" which really was frustrating. He basically came off to me like he didn't think I was good at MTTs. He told me I should look in to coaching, which is really frustrating espescially after how much shit I've gotten from him and Ryan in the past couple weeks. I basically just blew it off after he listed off a couple names for coaching recommendations that I thought were pretty funny knowing they weren't great players.

That really got to me, and I was closer to quitting in make-up than ever before. Whether or not I did all depended on my conversation with Ryan. I got straight to the point and told him how I felt about everything, and what was going through my mind. He dealt with it awesome and I feel really great. We had a good 20 minute conversation about everything, and he managed to put me in a spot where I wasn't sure if I was going to stick around for them, to a point now where I feel like I'm just going to play on and see what happens. Definitely a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and I feel pretty good.

On a different note, I'm officially 16 years old! Yay! I'll be getting my license by the summer which will be pretty cool. Definitely a lot more freedom, and I'll be able to go up and hang out with Wes (w33ktight) and Craig (HU4ROLLZ) more often. I always have a fun time up there so that should be pretty cool. I have a lot of respect for both of their games and they play a lot different, so it's cool to learn from them as well. Craig's on a pretty big heater lately too so that's always fun. 

I'm also looking forward to SCOOP which is coming up in a couple weeks. Spring Break is soon as well which will be a huge relief. I can't wait to get some real sleep!

Here's to having an awesome year as a 16 year old.

-Brandon

Random Thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and not really about one particular thing. I’m just thinking. When I lay down to go to sleep, I often am up for at least an hour with thoughts racing through my head. I think about a lot of things. I’m not sure why. It may come with starting to get older and realize some of what’s going on in the world. I obviously am not even close to obtaining all of the knowledge I’d like to, and may never be. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I feel like people don’t think about the little things enough. I also believe that the small things add up and play a huge role in the big picture that is life. I’m probably just rambling, but that’s what’s going on in my life right now. Just thinking.

One particular thing I’ve been thinking about is becoming more active. I used to play pretty much every sport; basketball, golf, football, baseball, you name it I played it. I loved playing sports and I’m an extremely competitive person at heart. I guess that’s why I love poker so much, because it’s a very competitive game and I strive to become the best that I possibly can be. Anyway, I think I’m going to try and start getting in better physical shape. I believe it will help me deal with a lot of the stress in my life and help get my thoughts straight. It will also help me become more healthy and live a better life which would be great. I’ve just been sitting down pretty much for the last year or so of my life. 

My plan is to start to run a lot this summer, maybe average a mile a day to start and work my way up. I’d like to also improve at some sports and possibly take up golf again. I’ve probably played about 10 rounds of golf in my life and I enjoy it a lot, but I suck. I hate not being good at things, so hopefully I can quickly improve in that game. Another goal of mine is to possibly play basketball again for school, which is tons of fun, great exercise etc. There’s nothing really more physically taxing and rewarding than basketball in my opinion. The practices/conditioning are really intense, more so than any other sport I’ve been a part of that I actually enjoy. Football may be harder, but it’s not really my cup of tea. There’s really more thinking involved in basketball than in football from a player point of view. Many may argue with that but that’s how I feel. I’m also probably a bit too small for football, and am not very good at anything but Wide Receiver which I’d need to be taller to play.

Overall I guess I have a ton of goals I’d like to eventually meet. I’m a pretty big procrastinator about most things but I believe I can push myself to at least get in better shape.  I also need to do things outside of poker. I’m putting too much time in front of the computer as of late and I really think it’s bad for both my physical and mental health. I just need to be a kid for a little bit, even though I have a ton of responsibilities, I can find time to do so. I’ll close this entry on that note of optimism. Wish me luck on improving my life!

-Brandon

My Poker Story

I've decided to start a sort of personal blog. I plan on sharing it eventually but for now this seems like a good idea to record my thoughts and ideas, frustrations etc. I've thought about doing a blog for a long time, but decided against a public one for multiple reasons. The biggest reason being my age. I turn 16 in 5 days. I play pretty much the biggest stakes MTTs online and poker is a huge part of my life. Getting banned from the sites because of my age would be devastating so I think advertising my age on a blog would be a bad idea if it fell in to the wrong hands. I made the mistake of putting my age on 2+2 before and luckily nothing happened. I got the thread deleted and all is well.

I'll try to update this blog at least a couple times a week with new/interesting stuff, but it may be more like once a week. Right now happens to be one of the most frustrating times in my poker career. I'm currently on the biggest downswing of my life, sitting at about $30K in make-up. I think I've been playing quite well and have just ran in to the negative side of variance. Hopefully it gets better, as I think I continue to improve every day. 

The thing is, at such a young age, I don't have THAT much of a financial burden. I can basically play and not worry about going too deep in to makeup for the most part. I probably have a bigger burden than most do at my age, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if I was broke for a month or two. My goal is to get as good as I possibly can, and the goal is to play professionally. I have a while before I turn 18 and am able to travel the live circuit and play online legally. 18 also marks when I should be making the decision to either go to college, or play professionally. I'm honestly not sure of what I'm going to be doing now, as I've been going back and forth. I really want to make it as a poker player. I truly enjoy the game, and think I'm good enough or will be to play full time. On the other hand, I've heard many people say college was the best time of their lives. Not only was it a great learning experience, but they also had a ridiculous amount of fun. The college environment is unlike most other places. It's truly a one of a kind experience or so I hear. 

I believe I'm extremely intelligent, but I'm not sure if college is for me. I've never been too fond of school. I've never had the motivation to do homework, to study, etc. I've always just gotten by on intelligence alone, which is not something that's too great of an idea in college. Anyway before I go on too much of a rant about college (booooring!) I'll give some background about me.

I started playing cards at a VERY young age. I first started playing random card games with my Grandma at probably around age 7 or 8. I used to love playing "21" (Black Jack), Old Maide, and other card games. I got in to poker probably around age 11. My friend showed me play money online on a really old site which I'm pretty sure is no longer available for US players. PokerRoom was the name, and I LOVED playing play chips. I played all the time and really loved the game. It was tons of fun. 

I began playing freerolls etc. at around age 12, and I started playing on multiple sites to play the best freerolls. I really wanted to play for real money. I actually met my first real poker friend begging for $5 at a final table. His name was EricT and it was a final table on FTP. We talked for a while and somehow I ended up speaking to him on AIM a ton. I learned a lot from him, and started off playing PokerStars micros when I offered to sell him SuperSystem 2 for $30 on Stars. I actually never did get around to sending him the book, and shortly busted the $30. I felt really bad about not sending the book, so eventually when I got a bankroll I sent the $30 back, and I began playing for real money only and no more freerolls. The only freerolls I played were private ones with decent first place prizes ($50 OMG!!!). 

How did I get my money you may ask? It's all kind of a haze, but I remember getting them mostly through random poker friends sending me $5, and private freerolls. I busted roll after roll. 

  In January of 2006 my mother passed away. I was really close to her and it hit me really hard. I began playing way more poker than ever to pass the time and take my mind off of what had happened. A few months later my Grandma also passed. She taught me cards and I was also quite close to her. Again a devastating loss, and again I upped the amount I played poker a lot. 

Since I have somewhat of a bad memory, we'll fast forward to the recent past. I continued to meet a lot of great poker players, which I think is absolutely key to becoming a great poker player. They've taught me so much from just chatting with them on AIM about hands, etc. I've gone through a few different private MTT backers, the most recent being Jimmy Fricke. He taught me a lot about the game, and I kind of regret breaking off the deal with him. He was not only a backer but a good friend and still is. I got offered a great MTT backing deal from Ryan "fees" Fee which was too good to pass up. That's where I'm at right now, playing MTTs and cash games for Ryan.

I'm kind of upset with how things are going overall with this deal. I'm playing the stakes I'd like to in MTTs and everything, but a lot has changed since he teamed up with Doug "WCGRider". I also have a feeling they actually don't think I'm all that good, but maybe it's just paranoia. Hopefully I can get out of the current rut I'm in and go back to crushing. I still love the game and hopefully will for many many years to come. 

This turned out to be a really long entry as I thought it would be. Hopefully that will get all of the background information out of the way. I guess this is sort of a way for me to vent, as well as write. I love to write and used to write stories frequently before I got in to poker. I'm very creative by nature, and sort of odd I guess. I think this is why I got in to poker, and don't really fit in to the normal 16 year old stereotype. I guess you could say I'm odd, or at least a bit unusual. I like it that way though, it at least makes life a lot more interesting.

-Brandon