Prose from a Poshboy

[Supernova]

Get the blog restarted.

Belated HB for yesterday & Best Wishes for 2023.

+1


HNY mate!

+1 and a HNY to you and yours - happy belated B'day too!

[booder]

Get the blog restarted.

Belated HB for yesterday & Best Wishes for 2023.

+1


HNY mate!

+1 and a HNY to you and yours - happy belated B'day too!

Ditto

[cambridgealex]

So there's a lot to catch up on!

The main reason I stopped blogging frequently here was because it didn't make sense to promote the games I was playing in. That started in Macau, where I was told by my backers I couldn't, and then when I moved to London and started playing at the Palm Beach, that same sentiment carried over - it very much felt like people didn't realise how good it was there, and the regs were keen to keep it that way.

Then from about 2018 to Jan 2022, I split my time between there and the private game scene, another domain I really couldn't speak about publically for a myriad of reasons.

Now ALL of that has come to an end, I can tell a few tales and spill the beans I guess

[cambridgealex]

I'll start with the lead up to Macau, and even though it was only a 3 month trip, it was quite a turning point in my career.

In 2013 I had taken on 3 or 4 horses, I suppose I had around a £50k roll, and was playing and staking in £500 buyin events, the odd £1k probably I can't remember, and playing the DTD 2/5 games or 1/2/4 whatever was running at the time. I made dumb mistakes like counting makeup as an asset (cos they're bound to win it back soon right?!) and thus making bankroll decisions based on money I didn't have (erm wtf?!). The horses I had were friends and the lines tend to get blurred in those spots. I dropped them one by one in £5k-£20k makeup each I guess.

Early 2014 was certainly the trough of my bankroll. The Keith and Keys stable had become just the Keith stable and I think I considered getting staked again myself (a little hazy on the timeline tbh) as I was becoming under-rolled for the games myself. As it happened, I was getting marginalised out of the DTD games anyway. Skalie had taken over organising games, with the purpose of maintaining a healthy ecosystem as the bigger games had gotten too tough for most people and were dying out.

I think of those as the glory days as I love that environment, but it was often Mitch, stato, myself, Giblin a couple of other regs like Jack Allen, Tom high, PJ, Fred, Nick Hicks, Kurt or Keith and then one or two seats open for whoever else.

I thrive in this kind of game - where I really enjoy everyones company, enjoy battling hard with the regs, plenty of good needle and banter, straddles, action and just enough recreational money to keep the game going. It was the kind of game where even when you did your bollocks you often left happy because it was so much fun.

But it wasn’t sustainable and Skalie rightly had to limit our game time. I saw the end was nigh and it was right around this time that our very own Greekstein messaged me saying I should come out to Macau to play 50/100 (£5/10) and he could sort me a banking deal, expenses on makeup etc. I remember when I left, that my BMW was worth more than my bankroll so it was a no brainer. I told my Mum to sell my car for me, I’m off to China!

Two weeks before the trip I happened to meet my wife-to-be…

Viktorija was dealing at DTD whilst studying at Notts uni, and she was super keen on poker herself, and would play on her days off at Alea or Gala. I’d go along and play too and we got to know each other a little but nothing more, she was in a relationship and I was off to Macau so I didn’t think too much about it.

[RED-DOG]

 

[Karabiner]

[tikay]

Fabulous start Alex, keep it coming please.

[cambridgealex]

BOOM, yes please Alex.

Include plenty of photos if possible, please. And family update.

Holiday pics?

How does one attach a photo these days? Assume it’ll be a large file size

Seriously…

[KarmaDope]

BOOM, yes please Alex.

Include plenty of photos if possible, please. And family update.

Holiday pics?

How does one attach a photo these days? Assume it’ll be a large file size

Seriously…

I think Imgur.com is the site to upload photos to and then insert the link in here in the img tags.

[cambridgealex]

Macau wasn’t anything special. Round the clock action, but not exciting games by any stretch. You could say it was the exact opposite of DTD. Very nitty regs, nitty recs, quite high rake so you had to play tight also and absolutely zero banter / fun. Give me a tough splashy lively game over a soft nitty silent game any day of the week. I never dabbled in the bigger games though which are quite different.

It was a means to an end though and I did do alright in the 3 months I was there. Maybe I made £20k for myself I can’t remember, but with the car sale, I might have been back to £30-40k, with no horses, and no rent to pay. I’m very grateful to Cos for this opportunity to kick start my career again. He was kind to me and looked after me while I was there. I met his partner and they now have a beautiful family together. He’s crushed life as much as anyone in this business - deservedly so - top guy.

About two months into my trip having not heard from her until then, Viktorija skyped me one night drunk. That was the first time I thought she might like me. She seemed to be breaking things off with her boyfriend and was going out a lot with my friends. I have this image burned into my retinas of her, Fred and Craig on a night out and they were winding me up pretending they were getting off with each other lol.  I needed to get back fast!

But I was going to be more sensible this time round. I started some kind of partial backing deal with Keith aka mondeoman. He said it would be good for his brand awareness if I drove a mondeo also, so I obliged Sensible.

This was May 2014 when I came back and was stopping at Keith’s for a week or so. My blonde profile picture was taken at that time, at Keith’s house with his dog, and Viktorija.  We went headfirst into an intense relationship (Viktorija and I, not Keith, nor his dog)- I basically moved into her basement flat within a couple of weeks. On our first date we went walking in the peak district and pretty soon after that we started travelling all over Europe together. Marbella, Tuscany, Pisa, Como, and eventually stopped in Barcelona during the EPT. I came 2nd in a 1k side event for €80k and since it was both of our favourite cities in Europe, we decided to get a short term rental there for 6 months and see how it went. We lived right by the beach. I grinded stars.es and winamax and played some 2/4 in the casino, a lovely ten minute stroll by the sea away. This was the only period of my life I can remember actually winning at online poker. I even bagged myself an ESCOOP title!

Our street in Barceloneta

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

I binked WPT National Prague for 80k just before Christmas, quit the staking deal and we decided to move to London in February.

[Mohican]

Awesome bloggage. Nice to see a blog on a poker site that actually talks about Poker, rather than trains.

[tikay]

Loving this Alex, thanks.

[cambridgealex]

BOOM, yes please Alex.

Include plenty of photos if possible, please. And family update.

Holiday pics?

How does one attach a photo these days? Assume it’ll be a large file size

Seriously…

I think Imgur.com is the site to upload photos to and then insert the link in here in the img tags.

Ty, very easy

[RED-DOG]

Great stuff Alex.

Your missus is gorgeous BTW, but you already knew that.

[Marky147]

Loving this Alex, thanks.

+1

Really enjoying it.

Great start to 2023