Update

It's been a while since I've last updated my blog. No real reason, just have been lazy and forgetful. A lot of things have changed in my life since my last update. I'm actually on a flight back home right now. I was visiting my good friend Kazu (TakeItBack online) for about a week. I've known Kazu for at least three years, and he's definitely one of my better friends. I stayed with him, his sister and his mother in Temecula, CA. It was a much needed vacation as thins have been a bit stressful on the home front. My dad isn't doing too well, and that was starting to get to me so I really needed to get away.

California was a ton of fun and super relaxing. As expected we didn't do all that much sight seeing or anything, but that didn't ruin the trip at all. Kazu's mom Jean is probably the nicest person I've ever met. She also happens to be an amazing cook/baker, so having home cooked meals for once was nice as well. Ben Wu (tylor_dii online) came to visit for a couple days as well. He only lives about 1.5 hours away so it was pretty convenient. I'd only talked to Ben a few times before the trip, but he was really cool. He gave me action on pretty much any degen type bet I wanted as well. The second or third night I was there we went to a park about 15 minutes away from Kazu's house. Playing basketball probably wasn't a good idea as I was feeling pretty sick to my stomach, but I did it anyway. We played up to 11 the first game, 2-on-2. I threw up when it was 8-9, took a five minute break and ended up coming back and hitting the game winning three. That was pretty awesome. I really need to start getting back in to shape and playing more sports. Poker is probably the worst thing for your body as you're constantly sitting at your computer and not really exerting yourself physically as much as you want to. It leads to pretty unhealthy lifestyles and I have to admit that I fell in to that for a short period of time. I've been trying really hard to get out of it lately though and have been doing pretty well.

The last full day before I came home we went to Del Mar beach which was absolutely amazing. The weather was perfect. I hadn't seen the ocean since I was around 7 years old in Florida, so that was high up on my list of things to do in California when I arrived. It was worth the hour drive each way to get to the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. I can't even describe how the ocean looked with words. It was absolutely stunning and the beach was perfect. We played catch on the beach for about 30 minutes which was a lot of fun. Afterward we picked up pizza from a small pizza shop right by the beach. I wasn't expecting much, but it was easily the best pizza I've ever had. It seems like everything surrounding the beach is just so much better. Maybe my eyes fooled my taste buds but it was great either way.

Poker hasn't been too bad either in general. I've been studying the game more than I usually do, and reviewing hand histories etc. I'm really striving to become much better than I am currently. I realized that the way to improve wasn't just to wake up and grind MTTs all day. Reviewing HHs, talking to friends about them, and just thinking about the game in general has helped me so much. I was in sort of a funk and not improving at all before the light bulb went off in my head. I was starting to hate the game as well, which I feared because of how much I loved it for the last 3-4 years. Luckily I was given advice from very smart and successful players which helped me more than I can describe. Thanks to those who have helped me in the past, and recently.

I'm backed by my good friend Jake Toole now for MTTs. The mement_mori deal really could not have gone worse. I don't think I was playing particularly bad, but I surely wasn't improving during those months either, or at least it didn't seem like it. After a few months I was in ~$150K of makeup and getting out seemed hopeless. I then received a PM from mement saying to send all my money back in my accounts as he was going to try to sell my makeup. He wasn't doing too well financially, and the ~$100K he lost staking me didn't help at all. I don't really have anything against Mickey though, he really was a good backer and a nice guy during our interactions. Lately he hasn't been as friendly to me, but it's understandable. It went as badly as it could've for him, and what happened after wasn't too great either.

Not many people nowadays are in the market for buying makeup. It's a very costly proposition even though it's very +EV in some cases. You may have to invest $50K in a new horse before he ever plays a hand for you. Dipthrong and PokerJamers have a huge stable of horses, and Dip has done very well in the staking business. He contacted mement about buying my makeup for a small fraction of what it was at. Before our first conversation, I didn't really know Dip at all. His reputation wasn't the best, but I knew he was at least trustworthy and wouldn't do anything "scummy" during our staking arrangement if it went through. I went in to a chartroom to negotiate terms with Jamie and Mark (jamers/dip) and things really could not have gone worse. I was treated pretty terrible during negotiations for really no reason at all. Dip seems to have a superiority complex that he can't get over, and I was talked down to etc. When I'm entering an arrangement where there's so much money, time, and effort on the line, I definitely am not interested in dealing with someone like that. I basically told them that I'd never play a hand of poker for them in my life. This obviously upset Dip, and mement wasn't the happiest either because if the deal went through, he would've gained much needed capital.

I was trying to talk to everyone I knew to get the makeup sold. Unfortunately, I really couldn't get in contact with anyone who wanted to invest a very large sum of money. I eventually talked to my friend Jake Toole (psutennis) and we struck up a deal with mement. Jake paid $20K, I paid $10K out of pocket, and I would start with $40K in makeup for Jake. This deal was obviously massive for me and I was extremely fortunate that it went through. Our deal started around 1.5-2 months ago and it's been going pretty well. Jake is very reasonable and a good friend as well. All transactions seem to be going very smooth.

A couple days after Jake signed me, Dip decided to make a thread on PocketFives outing me as underage. He did this purely because he had a grudge against me for what happened. Threads started on multiple other forums as well, including 2+2 in MTTc. I expected to be under a lot of heat from the sites, but really nothing happened at all. I was never contacted by any poker site, seemingly because I already have IDs on file on every major site, and have had to respond to underage allegations before as well. All of that is in progress of blowing over, but I doubt anyone will completely forget about it.

Right now I'm still playing for Jake and plan to for the foreseeable future. I've pretty much broken even over the last two months, but I'm at a point now where I feel it's a matter of time before I'm out of makeup again. I got 3rd in the $109FO on Sunday for ~$18k, and had a few deep runs last night to no avail. If I win a few flips things are a lot different, but "that's poker" even though I hate that saying more than any I've heard. Hopefully I'll be extremely successful in the future, and my next blog post has a happier tone to it.

My good friend Ricky (RonaldKosh) is flying in from CT on the 26th for a few days which should be a lot of fun. There's a homegame tournament that day he's going to be playing with us. I'll hopefully remember to update after he leaves. Thanks for reading.

-Brandon