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

Prague, California, and Michigan

I chose Prague as my first ever trip to Europe. I've heard nothing but amazing things about this tourist city located in the Czech Republic. Most people speak some English here, everyone is very friendly, and the culture and history are absolutely remarkable. There's also one of the biggest tournament series of the year here, so that definitely helped my decision!

So far it's been a fairly uneventful trip poker wise. I've won some money in cash games, but have done very poorly in all of the tournaments I've played. This really doesn't upset me though, as I've still gotten to see quite a bit of Prague both during the day and at night. It truly is a gorgeous city and has some of the most amazing architecture I've seen in my entire life. I got to see the Prague Castle, which is the biggest castle in the entire world. Quite the monument to say the least.

My friend and I got dropped off at the castle and decided to basically wing it and figure out where to go from there. This turned out pretty well as we got to see some of the most breathtaking things I've ever seen. I have an entire album on Facebook with all of the photos from the trip. I hope to add more as I still have a day or two in Prague.

One day I wouldn't mind living somewhere in Europe. Everything just seems to make more sense here. I'd have to get over the cold environment, but lately the United States doesn't seem like the absolute greatest country to live in. Regardless of my living situation I will certainly be traveling to Europe again in the near future. Australia in January is a strong possibility as well.

I've been officially living in California for about two months now and I like it a lot. I feel like I really have a family there and I'm definitely happier than I've ever been. The only thing I really miss about Michigan are my friends and family. It's also very hard to meet girls in a place where you know nobody, but I guess everything takes time. I cannot imagine really moving back to MI for a long period of time. It's just a miserable state with a horrible economy. The weather isn't so great either.

Procrastination

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."

This is one of the most appropriate quotes for my life right now. I feel as though I have so much to accomplish that I haven't even started on yet. As a lot of you may know, I had the biggest score of my life netting me around $60,000 in profit a few weeks ago. This has given me the financial freedom (coupled with my previous meager networth) to do pretty much whatever I'd like to do within reason. This means travel the world, pursue any interests I'd like, and just feel financially stable. I'd also like to add that two friends and I have created a poker training site that I own a pretty large % of. I will also be the lead instructor there and produce videos, be in charge of advertising etc. I'll release the name of the site once everything is on paper. This will be great for a side project, and to add some passive income.

One of the big things I've been putting off in life is higher education My problem is motivating myself to pursue college and figure out what I really want to do with my life. Poker to me is fairly fulfilling, even though in general it is a pretty shallow game, It allows me to use all of my brain power to compete in a so ever changing environment. I've also proven I can indeed play this game for a living for a very long time. Poker is at its absolute lowest point right now and I'm still doing very well for myself. When poker gets regulated in the United States I am very confident in the fact I can beat the games for an extremely comfortable living, doing something I enjoy doing.

I still would like to achieve goals beyond that though, but I have such conflicting interests and keep "putting off" school to do things like travel. I absolutely love traveling and it's one of my passions in life. I've always dreamed of traveling to Europe, Australia, Asia, etc. I now have the ability to do these things, while still making money doing so. Some of the most beautiful cities in the world have amazing tournament stops so I can kill two birds with one stone.

With all of that being said, I really have a lot of things to figure out in my life the next few months. I need to figure out if I'm going to move to Vancouver or Europe to continue playing poker, go to college, or do both. I'd also like to become more healthy which I'm definitely on track to doing.


In my next blog I'll post about how my Prague trip went, living in California, and some other fun things I've done in the last month or so.

-Brandon

Cali

I've been in Temecula, CA for a little over two weeks now. I'm settled in and have gotten back in touch with a lot of friends and family I hadn't talked to in a month or two. Cabo was pretty isolating as I wasn't really able to use my cell phone, and Facebook chat really isn't the same. I'm glad I reconnected with everyone and I'm excited to see everyone in a couple of weeks. I'll be in Michigan from the 17th of November until December 1st. I'm going to play the HPT $1650 on the 19th, then Thanksgiving with family. The day after Thanksgiving I have tickets with a few of my friends for the Kanye West/Jay-Z concert. I haven't been this excited to go back to that awful glove shaped state in a long time.

I've made the decision to stay in Temecula indefinitely. I love it here so much and I don't think I've been this happy in years. I feel no burden and have people I love around me. Again I'm really happy with my decision to leave Cabo and look forward to a healthy and prosperous future. I'm going to obtain residency in CA, and attend school here next Fall.

Thanks for the support and for reading. I plan to update this more frequently.

-Brandon

Farewell...for now

This is going to be a pretty big surprise for a lot of people, but I've decided poker as a living may not be for me anymore. I moved to Cabo about two months ago and have done pretty well here. I didn't really have any losing weeks and I had a lot of fun. With all that being said, for the first time in my life I just simply do not enjoy grinding poker. I've really only felt this way when I was on huge downswings. Feeling this way for weeks while having the time of my life and crushing poker is certainly a sign.

Moving to Cabo has given me a lot of time to think about things. I kind of moved here on a whim as I didn't see myself going to college for a year or two. I still loved the game and believed I could beat HU and 6-max for 6 figures a year pretty easily on Stars and Party. I still believe this is true, but I'm no longer happy doing this. I'm going to look for something else I'm passionate about and have fun doing as a career.

While I can see myself playing a lot of poker if/when the US legalizes it, I think moving out of the country for a long period of time is not the best choice for my life. By being down here I'm pretty much putting my life on pause. I'm moving to California (Temecula) with my best friend and his family. I've been close to his family for a pretty long time and believe it's the best move to make. I'm going to live there for a month, then probably head back home to Michigan for Thanksgiving. After that I'm going to start figuring out going to college as well as many other things I've kind of blown off for a long time.

I do not regret moving down to Cabo San Lucas in the least bit, even though I'm leaving my condo with almost a month remaining. I've had an absolutely amazing experience living here. It was a shock to me at first as I've never lived in another country for any relatively long amount of time. You still see things here that you'd never see in the US almost every day, but it's very safe here and the people are quite friendly. I learned a ton about myself from being down here for a while and met a lot of cool people. I also made a bit of money so that's always nice as well.

I've really never had a "normal" family and have been very independent since I was 13 or 14. I consider my friend family and have visited Temecula a couple of times and loved it every time. It just feels normal to sit down and eat dinner with your family, have emotional support, etc.

It's been a lot of fun and I appreciate everyone for their support and input. It really has helped me on my way to becoming a better person. I had a great run and hopefully you'll see me back online in a year or two playing here and there. I expect to be in college by the absolute latest Fall 2012.

Update on other things

As for the rest of my life, everything is pretty much sorted out. My grandma is working diligently to try and keep my house, but it's pretty likely it's going to get foreclosed on at this point. I feel horrible, but I knew it was coming so it's not really that big of a deal. I know when I go back to the states I have so many friends and family members I would have a place to stay no matter what.

My Grandma was an emotional wreck after the death of my father, but she seems to be alright now. I really feel horrible for her as she was the one working with him on his health constantly. She would literally be over my house 5 days a week 12 hours a day just sitting by his bed, talking to him, cheering him up, and making sure he felt comfortable and wasn't drinking or in pain.

As for my future? I'm not really sure. It's hard to look years in advance and I've learned that very quickly. I'm just trusting my instincts and doing whatever I feel is best for my life. I make sure to talk to a lot of people I trust and soak in their opinions, but overall it's about what I want to do with my life. I strongly believe I will still go to college, but now is not the time for me. I just went through an absolutely devastating period of time and I'm simply not prepared for it.

Moving to Cabo was a great idea and has been a lot of fun. I've already met a ton of cool people here, and our realtor (Greg) has been the most helpful person in the world. His assistant Vianey has been very helpful as well. They've shown us around town, driven us wherever, and have done us countless favors. If anyone reads this and wants the best realtor in Mexico you can send me an IM, facebook message, email, whatever and I'll give you his info. He really is not only our realtor but a friend as well.

I still have a very strong passion for poker and it's never died out. I can truly see myself playing poker professionally for the next 5-10 years and still loving the game. The moment it's 100% about the money is the day I quit playing for a living. It's not only a job, but a hobby as well and it's the most mind engaging thing I've ever done. It's provided me opportunities that I certainly would not have had without it, and has gotten me through some rough times in my head. Just being able to load up some tables online, or go to a live poker game to get my mind off things just makes me feel great. It really is one of the best games ever and I'm blessed to be able to make a good living doing what I love.

I've gotten a lot of pressure from a few family members to go to college right away, but I'm just going to listen to my heart and do what makes me the happiest.

Sorry for the long winded posts as usual. Thanks for reading everybody...

-Brandon

The Move

So I moved down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with a couple friends of mine. So far it's been absolutely amazing and I plan to stay here for at least another 3 or 4 months. I'll visit home a couple times in between then, but living here was the best move I've ever made. I feel stress free, anxiety free, and I'm just enjoying my life in general. I'm doing pretty well in cash games too so I feel like I have my groove back. I haven't done too much partying down here, as I consider it a business trip, but we did go out the other night and it was one of the best days/nights of my life.

I'm not sure how long I want to stay here. My lease is up in a little over 1 month, and as much as I love it here I miss the US a lot. It's hard to meet anyone new here and I've just mostly been staying in my condo playing poker. I do love playing, but I find when I play too much I am depressed regardless of how well I am doing.