The Best In The Business

Ha, Hello!

Long time. What a crazy couple of decades, it’s crazy to think I’ve been playing poker almost 20 years now. I turn 37 in a few months.

The journey on blonde.. quite a wild one. I think initially I considered myself fairly misunderstood, I think, well no, I know I wanted to be respected, wanted to be seen as good at poker, I thought that achieving success in poker would make me happy. I would have money, I would have “respect” I would have what I wanted, the “dream” life of a high stakes poker player, around all the other ballers, I honestly worked very hard for it, 12 hour days every day for years and years, then I got there. I was #1 ranked in the world (debatable how much that means these days, but at the time it was big) I’d made 7 figures and in my final week in vegas I won 2 25ks and the 10k Bellagio cup within 5/6 days and I finally had the “respect” of people. But really as soon as I got there it was the opposite of what I wanted or expected. It didn’t bring happiness, it wasn’t the dream life. People’s respect? Why didn’t they respect me when I was doing the hard yards?

I realised quickly that the dream life for me was not playing necessarily the highest stakes game in the world so that I could get “respect” i didn’t like the “high rollers” who all wanted the same thing. Outside validation. Respect from people they didn’t know. It was basically a room full of insecure people who all were scared to be vulnerable. The people I once wanted to share rooms, jokes and aeroplanes with I now pitied. They were as unhappy and as soulless as me. Their entire happiness was built on how well they ran in the short term, not for their financial situation but because how it would look externally. If they’d be doubted or praised. And really it’s all just down to if they won a flip or not (in the short term at least) their/my/our happieness was built on what somebody outside would mistakenly judge us after a deck of cards decided if it was our time to be the chosen one of the month or not.

My dream was always to get to this point and then go all in, “play the circuit” all epts, wsops, Aussie millions, PCAs blah blah. But as soon as I got to that point I realised that happiness for me was different to this. The dream life was different to this. The respect I wanted, I didn’t want it from these people. The “ballers” weren’t people I wanted to spend time with. Success to me quickly became to have different metrics. I realised success would be built on two things

1) longevity. I love poker, I really do. I should have been a professional footballer really, but I let that slip. I didn’t want that to happen again, but success initially being framed in my mind of having a good “week” “month” or “year” to have outside validation, I quickly realised was a) dumb, b) unhealthy and 3) unsustianable, instead success would be if I was still around in 10 years. I saw so many talented people on blonde who were at the top just fall off for different reasons. Degeneracy? Control? Love for the game? Lots of reasons and we all know probably 50 different examples on here of people who had just as much talent, in most cases a lot more than me, but just fell off. I realised success isn’t talent, it isn’t “playing sick” in one tournament. It isn’t making the sickest river bluff and it isn’t writing a good reply to PHA! If you want to be successful in poker it’s if you’re around after x years. I shake my whole year every year around future longevity. I study a lot, not to be great today or tomorrow at the fame, but because it gives me structure and discipline to push through the tough periods. There’s less self doubt when you’re prepared, when you have a bad run you have less self hate, when you’re busy it’s tougher to be degenerate

2) the opinions of others. Sounds strange right when I said that was my biggest leak? Well I found my tribe, a very small tribe, two other players, both Finnish guys, we have worked together for the last 10+ years. Both are incredible humans, they have all the discipline/structure that I aspire to have. They don’t play live really, they work very hard and they’ve made 15m+ during these times. I care what they think. I care if they think I played well. I care if they think I’m lazy. I care if they think I’m a bad human. I care if they think I’m not professional. I care if they think I have a big ego. I care if they think I’m arrogant. And I think likewise they care what I think too. They are two of my best friends in life, have taught me so much in life, being a man, being a friend and of course being a tournament poker player.

I’m in Vancouver and it’s midnight, I have to be up in 6 hours for a Sunday session, I should already be sleeping. I’ll continue next week.