I had very mixed thoughts when I decided to serialise the old blog in the blonde forum format. I already have a blog which I’m amazed a decent amount of people read anyway and it only seems like the real blonde elite that have a blog thread going, which I can’t really claim to be. But I’m coming up to the 1000th post, I’m feeling a bit philosophical as I’ve just had my 29th birthday and I am a bit of an attention seeker, so I’m gonna give it a whirl. Most of you guys know me as that guy who seems to write 44% of all poker articles in circulation today so I also wanted to enlighten you all (plus my Mum reads my other blog to see if I’ve gone broke, so I make sure it’s pretty tame and mumworthy, whereas I’m certain she doesn’t read this forum so I can write what I want).
First and foremost I can confirm that my name isn’t actually Dave (But it always gives me a chuckle at tournaments when I’m called Dave because it reminds me of Trigger calling Rodney the same thing).
I'm now officially 12 months away from the big 3 0 and I'm pleased to say it isn't the daunting milestone I once imagined it to be. When I was about 22-26 the prospect of turning 30 was genuinely scary to me, but that was probably something to do with how I lived back then. I was a bit of a Lad in my early twenties and I'd be out every weekend and the week would just be inconvenience between weekends. I'm settled now, have a great girlfriend and enjoy the finer and more relaxing things in life. I had a great time of course, when I was a dirty stop out, but I wouldn't change things for the world now.
The other big difference was of course that back then, I had a dead end job in a large Insurance company (who claimed to quote people happy). I was straight out of Uni and uttered the words that most of my colleagues have said..... "this is only temporary". Low and behold it would be 6 years later before I actually left, which I guess is still temporary in the wider context of my life. Back then I got promoted a few times and got plenty of extra responsibilities that deluded me into thinking it was going somewhere, when my annual income was actually increasing at a rate of about six kitkats a year.
Not to slag the place off though, one of my pet peeves was all the people that would walk around moaning about working there, like they were forced into doing the job rather than there of their own free will. ‘Mood Hoovers’ a boss of mine called them and I always did my best to be the opposite, I always had a good attitude at work, which is why I progressed and earned more kitkats than some of my workmates, but inside I hated it. The only thing that kept me there was the brilliant and instant social life you get with working in a big company and my mission to boink a lady from every department before I left.
But I think I have to be grateful to my old job for a number of reasons. The biggest and most important one being my mate Jonesy, who is still one of my best mates and we hang out every week, teaching me to play poker when we worked together. Every lunch we would discuss hands and bad beats and he created a monster. He is still a good player in his own right but soon I became obsessed with the game and surpassed him as a player the student became the master so to speak. I started winning money that was beating what I could make in overtime, so I stopped doing overtime and played poker instead. If and when I win a serious amount of money in a tournament, I want to buy Jonesy a big old gift as a token of my appreciation.
The other big change that saved me was getting what can only be described as a PISS EASY JOB as a sideways move in my current job. I was drafted into a new department as a technical consultant, where it was my job to inform this new department how the rest of the business works. I'm sure they thought this would be a huge role but it quickly became transparent to me that it was easy and the best part was, they had no idea how easy and had no benchmark to compare me to, so I made it look like it was the hardest thing in the world and I was doing a great job.
Most of my work could be done in a couple of hours, but because nobody within a mile of my desk could understand how to use the systems I used (or excel, the thickos) I would drag it out over several days. This allowed me to spend, pretty much 60% of my working week, reading and writing poker articles at my desk. It was round about this time that I started getting paid writing work which meant that I was earning more money at my desk not doing my job than I ever would have trying to get promoted, and all the time my bosses thought the sun shined out of my arse.
If you've ever wondered, as many people do, how I am able to write so many articles every month (as I appear in many magazines and websites) I would attribute it to this period of my life. I have always been a super fast worker anyway (when I'm trying) and because I love writing I can do it quickly and well, but this period where I would write poker articles when I'm supposed to be working sharpened my speed writing skills as well as my 'flick-up-a=spreadsheet-when-the-boss-is-walking-past' skills. These days I can get my daily Pokernews writing done in a couple of hours in the morning and some of the best magazine articles I write only take 2-3 hours a piece for the bulk of them, even though I consider them to be of a good standard and not rushed at all. Most of income is from playing poker and thats how I spend most days, I just have a natural gift of fast writing so I make the most of it.
So both these things led to me going part time at work to concentrate on poker and eventually quitting the 9-5 altogether, which was about 16 months ago and I haven't looked back since. I kinda feel guilty about admitting I did nothing for my last year of work because my employers were gutted I left but in all honesty, I'm also childishly proud at the same time. Towards the end of my employment I literally would do something that could have got me sacked every single day (nothing sinister, just cheeky) and got away with it without ever breaking a sweat, I suppose if things hadn’t gone as well as they have then this could have actually been the early signs of poker ruining someone’s career, but as we said before, I never really had one anyway.
I've gone off track a little but what I am saying is now that I have found something I love, a job that doesn't feel like a prison sentence and I am my own boss, hitting 30 doesn't seem that bad at all. Hopefully this doesn't come across as bragging, but instead inspires someone to follow a dream job of their own, whatever it may be. It really is the most liberating feeling to leave your dead end job forever for something you enjoy (especially after the piss weak gift I got for 6 years service from them).
As I write this I’ve just completed a tilt drive from
DTD as I busted out of the double chance and couldn’t be bothered to wait for the PLO. I seem to shave a minute off my journey every time I go to
DTD and I think it’s often down to tilt rather than the traffic conditions. Snoopy had just bust from his FT and
Julian Thew was cruising the £300 event (I love it how Thewy plays the smaller comps despite being one of the biggest players in the UK, he is probably one of the only players where you are likely to see an EPT final table followed by a cash in a Gala £10 rebuy event next to each other on his Hendon Mob DB).
I’m now off to spend some quality time with the missus, where I shall be trying to talk her out of making me go to Alton Towers tomorrow (I chuffing hate Theme Parks me).
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