Life Is Good!

As I said in my last blog update, I moved to California with my best friend and his mother. It's been about 6 months of living there now and it was probably the best decision I've made in my entire life. Even though soon I'll be moving out to my own place, as well as traveling the world to play poker both live and online, I'll always consider it home. Kazu and Jean (my friend and his loving mother, who basically took me in as her own) are the two best people anyone could have in their lives. I truly consider them as family and love them with all of my heart. They've gotten me through hard times, supported me mentally, and just have improved my life greatly in a fairly short time span. I've never really had a support group in my life and it definitely took a toll on me. Now that I have one, I have basically just slowed down. I don't do as many things on a whim anymore, (I still do sometimes, because it's part of who I am, and it's just downright fun!) and I am able to really take things in to consideration before I jump right in.


Since I moved from Michigan/Mexico to SoCal, I've become more mentally stable, I kicked a lot of bad habits, and I'm so much healthier both mentally and physically. I've always had way more responsibilities than the vast majority of people my age, but now I feel like I'm ready for these responsibilities and they don't cause me as much stress and anxiety. The key thing I've learned is just to SLOW DOWN!


On the poker side of things I've been doing very well. I feel great about my poker ability right now, better than I ever have for sure. I truly believe I'm one of the strongest NLHE HU players there is right now at my respective stakes (10-20 and lower). I strive to be the absolute best in the world, and honestly believe one day I can be considered as such. My MTT game has also improved, but I'm nowhere as good as I need to be mostly due to patience. My live MTT game is extremely strong, as I seem to thrive in deep stack tournaments and I am able to focus so much more while playing live. Online MTTs I've always had a problem with. I seem to punt off stacks more unless it's a larger buy-in, more deepstacked event. I've gotten better with this, but the "over it factor" is still there once in a while. I still believe I'm +EV in almost any online tournament field, but I definitely can and will improve in the future.


I've been traveling a lot lately after a fairly long hiatus from poker. I was basically just getting my life back together, and feel good enough mentally and physically to get back on the grind. I've been doing extremely well in cash games (mostly HU, some 6-max) and also chopped a prelim in Florida for $45,000. It was a nice confidence boost to get another decent score in the live tournament arena. I feel like I've fixed an incredible amount of leaks I use to have when I first started playing live. It's been a huge learning curve, way more of one than I thought there would be. I think many online players think it's pretty much the same game, and it isn't. A lot of decent online grinders are absolutely horrific live and are certainly -EV in even fairly soft fields. Just in my short amount of time playing big live MTTs, I've seen a lot of fairly good online players punt off stacks in spots that are just horrible. Not that I'm immune to this or anything, I've done my fair share of punting as well, but I'd like to think that's mostly in the past.


I'm moving to Vancouver right for the start of SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) on Stars. I will be there for at least 4 months, and probably closer to 6. After that I don't have any real plans. It depends on the state of online poker in the USA, which is improving every day. If this Stars deal goes through to buy Full Tilt, it will be a great day in online poker and surely regulation will be in place within the next year or two. After my six months are up in Canada (you can only spend six out of 12 months in Canada as a tourist) I will consider moving to Europe. I really am in grind mode right now and am loving the game.


Until next time,


-Brandon