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
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