The Best In The Business

When I was 15 I was on the verge of being a professional footballer, Manchester United scouts were very keen on me after my first game for Newcastle, the boys team of the city I grew up in. After playing in a national tour in the isle of white I was persuaded by Southampton to go down and play there in the summers there was one guy everybody spoke about, theo Walcott, he was the best footballer in the south of England and his natural talent eventually helped him get a multi million pound deal to arsenal at 16? And he was the youngest ever player to go to the World Cup.

Everybody spoke about him and looked up to him. One day I was playing pool against some Canadian trialists for 1000$ after a bunch of double or nothing games where I won 10 in a row, then walked into the room and he was just quiet and a normal guy like all of us. Down the corridor was lots of young kids. I was from Newcastle, Liam was from Portsmouth, Billy was from Southend, NIck was from Farnborough and Gareth was from Wales. All of us were very similar in ability, we had been chosen to play for this team because we were the best player in our school, in our city, in our county. All we had was natural ability think what would happen next would be down to hard work and dedication. We all went back to our respective cities to finish school off, I would go out on weekends, drink vodka, eat pretty unhealthily and generally not act like a guy who wanted to be a professional footballer. When I turned out for my school team I was always the best player and I would play well.

One of my biggest regrets is being Patrick Leonard for those 18 months and not Gareth Bale. He was slow, slight, weak on the ball and he didn't get into the first 11 when our manager Dave Puckett picked the team. What he did have was belief, self confidence, desire, and dedication. He wanted to be a professional footballer, he was happy to make sacrifices and he was happy to stay in on Friday night when his friends went to the park. Happy to stay in is maybe overstating it, but he had enough self will to stay in. I went in to have a pretty unsuccessful football career playing for some decent amateur teams and playing in decent leagues in Gibraltar and Spain, unpaid of course. Gareth signed for Real Madrid last summer for 90 million and scored the winner in both the cops del Rey and in the champions league. Was he born to be better than me at football? No. Was he a better footballer than me when we were both given the chance to play for Southampton and have a direct route up the ladder to professional football? No.

Last night my poker playing friends alongside the biggest entrepreneurs in Budapest went to my favorite restaurant. Prime. It is the best steakhouse here, you can get a steak for 50 bucks or for 500 bucks. The company is great and they all went out afterwards to some good clubs and bars. A lot of my friends in poker love the freedom it gives you, play when you want, heck don't even play at all if you don't want to. Lots of money, no boss asking you how far you're down your to-do,list and no listening to your annoying colleague chomping on his fucking apple. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. It's similar to being a 15 year old kid at school. The weekend comes, you don't have to worry about bills, worry about work in huge morning, worry about anything, you're young and free and you will worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

You can see I'm trying to draw some metaphorical comparisons here, we have Phil Galfond, the Theo Walcott of the poker world who is born a genius with a great back of the game and will basically always be the GOAT and then there is the rest of us. We are all above average intelligence, we are all pretty good at this game, we've emerged from our home games, or even local casinos as the best player and we can call ourselves professional poker players. What happens next though is up to us. Perhaps shamefully so I'm petrified of failing. I've been so close previously to really being the elite in the field that I wanted to succeed in and if I could go back 8 years, sure I may not be playing for Real Madrid but I would be a professional footballer. What I'm sure life is all about is not pondering or dwelling on the past, it's about learning about the past to make a brighter future for yourself. Knowing you have made a mistake is fine. Knowing you've made a mistake that you knew you were making at the time isn't.

Now I'm not telling all you guys to not go out, not have fun, balance is super important. But you've got to ask yourself what do you want out of poker. Where do you want to be in 5 years, 10 years, 25 years. Does it realistically look like you will be there the way you are going? IMO, investing time now to become the best you can be and be as successful as you can be doesn't mean you just spend more time on yourself and on work now, but it allows you to succeed in the future, it allows you to build a platform for yourself so that you can look back in five years and say "man I really gave that a good go".

My goal now is to be number 1 in the world, and I will get there. It's my number one priority in the world right now. I want to log on to pocket fives on a Wednesday in 2014 and see Griffin Benger, moorman, Toby Lewis and which ever other Scandinavian geniuses there are out there below me.

I've identified some pretty decent leaks in my current strategy on attacking his challenge

1) balanced, healthy lifestyle

I think fatigue in online poker is huge. Playing 15 hour sessions is definitely difficult. My current lifestyle isn't healthy enough to be a true world class professional. I have booked 3 months of personal training 4x a week starting after espy Marbella (16th June) and will be looking forward to being more healthy I eating better and being in better physical shape than I am right now

2) studying

I have found it very difficult to continue studying since moving to MTTs. The level of complexity for 90% of spots is way under developed compared to cash games so I lose concentration very easily. I've eprealised this is a pretty significant leak
Watching videos isn't to improve me as a poker player it's about understanding how other poker players think and using that in the future. For example if I watch a tight player such as Craig Mccorkell in a video where he has xbbs and won't take a certain spot then I can in the future extrapolate this into different situations with similar player types. Similarity with an aggressive player such as pokerguru I can perhaps exploit other players who play very loose by understanding his reasoning behind different situations.

It's almost been an a-ha moment thinking about the studying, I've watched multiple videos over the last few days and whilst I think I would agree with most spots/choose a line I think is a little superior I have learned lots of very small things about players games that will definitely help me in the future.

Tomorrow is Sunday, lots of regs are in Vegas and I'm really, really, really excited to play. I feel really good mentally which is so important in this game and I feel so motivated to succeed. There is going to be a lot of Nicks, Billy's and Liam's in the poker world in 10 years. I hope through dedication, hard work, motivation, self will and a lot of luck they will be telling their friends that 19 years ago they were just as good as Patrick.

#whenthereisawillthereisaway
#youmakeyourownluck