From 2 wheels to 2 cards

[LB44]

Been tinkering with the idea of starting up a blog for quite sometime now after a few people keep mentioning it to me, and after reading quite a few of the other blogs on here, I thought it would be quite fun.


Well, where do I start. My name is Liam Batey, i'm 29 years old and I live just on the outskirts of Sherwood Forest which is pretty good for me as DTD is only 25 miles away and Sheffield is 25 miles the other way so smack bang in the middle of 2 nice spots to go play some live pokerzz.


The BMX years.....


I had a pretty different childhood to most kids. I had a fascination of bikes from a very early age, learning to ride a BMX without stabilisers at only 2 years old, and by the age of 4, I was racing BMX against boys 2 years older than myself in the 6 years and under category at national races all around the country along with my older brother, Kelvin who started racing in the 7 year old's.


So while most kids couldn't wait to get home from school to watch tv, play on their commodore 64's or go play football with their mates, me and my brother couldn't wait to get home so we could go ride our bikes! My dad would be waiting at the school gates with our bikes and kit in the car, and we would get changed on the journey to the track and we would do hours and hours of training, which paid off because after only a year me and my brother were the number one riders in Britain for our age, and were training for the 1991 European Championships which luckily for us were being held in England. I went onto win the 6 year old expert category and my brother finished 2nd place in the 9 year old experts.


2 weeks later and we travelled to Norway for the World Championships, and we both made the final of our first ever world championships. Unfortunately, it wouldn't end well for either of us, as in my race, I was battling for the lead into the first turn with my main competitor from Columbia and I crashed out and finished 8th place, my brother was actually winning the final but got past by the defending world champion from France to finish 2nd place for the Silver medal.  

There was some joy though as the team who sponsored me and my brother entered the world team championships which collaborated the results of the top 6 riders from each team and our team won the overall which was nice.


So after travelling on the road to races all round the uk and europe most weekends for the next 10 years, winning 9 British championships, and 2 European championships along the way, i'm at a cross roads in life.... do I try to make a living from cycling or go down the route most of my mates from school were going down with A-Levels and uni.  It was the year 2000 at this point and there were no Olympic games for BMX racers, and the bmx boom of the 90's where the pro's were making close to half a million dollars a year were gone, so the only way to make money was to make the trip across the pond to America.


I had got really good GCSE results even though I missed a lot of school due to travelling and training getting in the way, so I decided to take my A Levels and continue training and racing and make my mind up after. I completed my first year of A levels and my racing was failing, I had finished 4th overall in England and was feeling burnt out. I was going out abit more with my mates and I wasn't training as intensely as I did in the previous years, and there was a new type of pedal that had come onto the scene from mountain bikes, where you could clip your shoe into the pedal which dramatically increased your power output and sustainable speed as you had an upstroke on the pedal as well as a down stroke which you couldn't do with a normal pedal. Very little was known about this pedal at the time, and the 3 guys who had beat me that year were all using them, and I wasn't. They were thought to be quite dangerous as you were attached to your bike and couldn't eject yourself away from your bike if you crashed which put a few people off, myself included, but the off season of 2001 would change my mind about things as I went on a road riding training camp in Ibiza (good road rides due to the hilly terrain and sunny climate). I used the pedals for the first time on the road bikes and as soon as I got home, I got some BMX specific ones, and the results blew my mind, I felt so strong and trained my ass off that winter and signed my first professional contract at 17 years old.


The start of the 2002 season, I was racing Men for the first time as I competed in the Masterclass category ( which in football terms is kinda like the championship, with ex professionals who have dropped down and up and coming youngsters battling to get into the premier league of English bmx - The Elite class)


I had a good solid first year, highlights were a silver medal in the under 18 European indoor championships which went to a photo finish, a top 8 overall finish in the national masterclass rankings and a 6th place in the annual pro-am open which was an open event to any rider from the uk. Elite, Masterclass and expert riders all competed. I was the youngest rider in the final, so was really pleased to get 6th place, and a nice pay check to go with it as it was the biggest prize payout race of the year.


With my A Levels done, my grades were good, not all A's or A*'s like I had been predicted 2 years earlier, but solid results good enough to get me in most uni's I wished to go. However there were rumours of BMX being including in future Olympic Games, and my brother was racing in the Elite class in Europe and was one of the top riders outside of USA, and we could train full time together and just get faster and faster, so I decided I wouldn't go to uni and I moved into the Elite class and raced all around Europe going on some crazy trips, and making friends with people all over the world, but the results wasn't showing yet as the talent was so deep.


Fast-forward to 2005, BMX had been confirmed for the Beijing Olympics and my brother was making his annual trip to California for his 12 week winter training ahead of the upcoming season, and last minute, I decided to fly out a week after him and I lived and trained with some of the top riders in the world, on some of the best tracks in the world, in sunshine 7 days a week. I came back a different rider, winning finals in the Elite class in England, started beating my brother for the first time too. We even placed 1st and 2nd in the none official World Championships race where the use of clip pedals was banned, which was pretty incredible.

I spent my 21st Birthday in Paris, France competing at the official world championships in the famous Bercy Indoor stadium where I was eliminated at the 1/4 final stage, but my brother went on to win the Silver Medal for 2nd place.


British Cycling armed with a money pot of funding due to the Olympic announcement, pumped money into an Olympic Academy for 8 of the top men and women from the uk to get lottery funding, and have access to train at top facilities around the country with some of the top sports men and women from different sports and top coaches, nutritionist and psychologists on hand for your every need. I was one of the 8 chosen to be on the programme.


 However...things wouldn't go to plan....


I had discovered POKER in 2002 after investing in some shares on the stock market in a gaming company, and one of their business interests was poker which I then had a go, and loved it. I was playing it whenever I had some spare time. It was having a negative effect on my BMX but more about that later.......


The next few years went by and the pressure of the Olympics on the horizon and the seriousness of the whole lottery funding, the fun had been taken out of BMX for me, and it was a tough few years slogging it out racing below what I and my coaches expected. I didn't qualify for the 2008 Olympics and after they were over, it was kind of a relief that the pressure would subside for a while.


I was spending many of the cold winter months each year in Southern California, and making some amazing memories and friends over there, but in 2009 I decided to base myself in England full time and try to concentrate on the uk bmx scene. Over the next couple of years my passion and drive for bmx was dwindling, culminating with my uk sport lottery funding being cut and took off the Olympic Academy. I had one last shot at making a go at the Olympics 2012 with qualification ongoing, a training crash resulting in a dislocated shoulder and hand injury ended my slim hopes, so I decided to hang up my bike and unofficially retire in 2012.


I had a brief stint as the Rep of Ireland Team Coach for my brothers shot at the London Olympics but he missed out by just one qualifying place. (he would redeem himself this year by getting 1st place at the world championships in New Zealand).


Pokerzzzz...


As I briefly said earlier, I started out waaaay back in 2002, and before I knew it, I was playing 1000nl and 2000nl on 888's Pacific Poker skin. I have no idea how but I was making money. Looking back now, I was horrendous. I think the fact that most people were pretty bad back then, and that site was full of gambling whale's / shot takers, I managed to escape my whirlwind introduction to poker unscathed.


Poker was like a backdrop to my BMX, playing in hotels during downtime at races, and at home inbetween training sessions. I had built up a nice roll online and heard about a new poker venue opening up in Nottingham called Dusk Till Dawn. I made my first trip there during a £300 deepstack weekend, and I played the £75 side event...I had no idea how live poker worked, pretty funny that during the first break, I picked up all my chips and walked round the club with them in my pocket for the whole break then went back to the table and put them back LOOOOL, nobody told me you could just leave them there hahaha, anyway I stone cold bubbled in 10th. I was gutted, it was 3am and I had wasted a whole night playing just one tournament to finish with nothing.


I didn't go back till the next deep stack month and played the same £75 comp..... guess what... I stone cold bubbled AGAIN!! What the hell was going on, this live poker must not have been for me I thought, stick to the computer my dad said. I took his advice and won a nice amount at the start of 2010 and I put down a large deposit on a house, luckily for me I had withdrew it from my Full Tilt Account, however I still left a large sum in there to play with and this unfortunately was seized along with a lot of other peoples money. I felt sick! All my money was tied up in my house, and the rest had gone! Poker took a break for awhile, and along came Frankie with a live staking deal to get me back into it. I didn't do well for Frankie admittedly but he was brilliant with me, something I'll never forget. A friend for life.


At the back end of 2012, I was thinking of giving up on poker, however that just wasn't in my nature. I took a break and just watched training video after training video, had an early Christmas present with my money back from full tilt, and I was armed with knowledge ready for 2013.


This year has been amazing for me, I have travelled all around the country playing the uk festivals UKIPT's GPS GUKPT's and the bigger DTD comps. I had an amazing 5 weeks in Las Vegas with the Django guys for the world series, even luck box shipping a tournament over there for my biggest live result to date. I've met so many new friends and even though ive had so many deep runs in England recently, even rivalling mincashmitch for his title, I am still yet to have that big result in the uk.

My game of choice is live cash in either the 1/2 or 2/5 variety. However, I have played in 5/10 and 10/20 games this year, although these games are pretty rare.
I am more of a cash game player, which is prob why I can build so many huge stacks on day 1's yet stumble and fall into a min cash when we get short, but I still have a love/hate relationship with tournies.

Hopefully you didn't fall asleep during my OP and I'll try to keep it interesting over the coming months.


I have a day 2 of the DTD Big Game coming up tomorrow after qualifying online on Thursday coming back with 50 bigs, then its the GPS grand final in Sheffield which is kind of like my home club at the moment and have a pretty sick winning rate in that place, so hopefully continue that next week.


Thanks for reading and feel free to contribute or ask me anything.


Liam

[TightEnd]

Good stuff, nice to see this start....

good luck tomorrow

Regards

Your "please do not sprew it off again" mentor

[dakky]

enjoyed.

Is your bro still going strong then? What sort of money is still in the game? I see a lot of once super-popular sports which had a lot of money in drop out of fashion with the money also leaving, and people are kind of stuck in some kind of time-warp...

[JGill_DTD]

Love that you have set this up. Hope the market is alive for this kind of thing

Your dad sounds really supportive in regards to the whole poker situation. Was this always the case? Took me a good 3/4 years to convince my parents that poker could become a profitable lifestyle for me, even though I've always been more interested in working than playing for a living. They still disapprove now when they see my laptop glued to my arm for hours each day.

Madness that you were investing in shares at the age of 2002. I suppose you have always had some sort of entrepreneurial streak inside of you? How did the shares end up, relatively well since I presume it was a time of boom for the market?

[millidonk]

Biggest winning and losing cash pots?

How many tattoos do you have?

Favourite fast food?

[LB44]

enjoyed.

Is your bro still going strong then? What sort of money is still in the game? I see a lot of once super-popular sports which had a lot of money in drop out of fashion with the money also leaving, and people are kind of stuck in some kind of time-warp...

Yeah so when I was between 18-22 the riders who were at the top of the sport were the 28-35 year olds... but the Olympics totally changed our sport.

Once the governing bodies got hold of all the Olympic funding and started up teams the younger riders were trained properly at a high level so now these riders are the 18-22 year olds and they are the ones winning now, and the older riders are a dying breed. However my brother at 32 is still hanging with the youngsters, but hes had some ready bad injuries which are creeping up on him so I imagine he will be retiring once the whole world championship buzz has calmed down, and hes tried to defend the title next year.

Most of the money in BMX is in the freestyle element, like the X Games and all that. The Olympics pumped loads of money back into the sport which gave it a huge boost. People were able to make a good living out of BMX without having to move to the USA. The top guys are making chunks through sponsorship deals, but the main source of income for the Pro's is the coaching sessions and training clinics they hold. 

[LB44]

Love that you have set this up. Hope the market is alive for this kind of thing

Your dad sounds really supportive in regards to the whole poker situation. Was this always the case? Took me a good 3/4 years to convince my parents that poker could become a profitable lifestyle for me, even though I've always been more interested in working than playing for a living. They still disapprove now when they see my laptop glued to my arm for hours each day.

Madness that you were investing in shares at the age of 2002. I suppose you have always had some sort of entrepreneurial streak inside of you? How did the shares end up, relatively well since I presume it was a time of boom for the market?

Inspired by blogs like yours Gilly

My dad has been super supportive throughout my life, well both parents really. You don't realise when your a kid just how much effort it must take for your parents to go to work all week then pack up the car to take their sons all over England and Europe most weekends to races/training, not to mention the costs of everything. Cant thank them enough.
They were against it at first, but once I showed them that I wasn't losing they have been ok with it. They always watch the live streams, but still don't understand varience yet no matter how many times I explain it to them. The first 2 questions I get asked whenever I go visit them is, did you play today? and how much did you win? Can get quite annoying if I had a losing session.

I've always had a business brain to be honest, always hustling in the play ground buying American sweets in bulk, and bringing them back home from my travels and selling them for huge profits at break time and on the school bus haha. I was blessed enough to have a pretty big monthly retainer each month from my sponsors so tried to invest it wisely which has worked out pretty good. The shares in question worked out pretty good, I got out just as their trial of mobile gaming fell on its ass so made some money, but it could have boomed, they were just unlucky.

[LB44]

Biggest winning and losing cash pots?

How many tattoos do you have?

Favourite fast food?

Winning.
Online - KJ against AA on AQT for over $5k back in the day on pacific
Live - AA all in pre and made a set other guy mucked for over £6k

Losing.
Online - Don't know tbh, only remember the good times
Live - Not too much, think I've only lost like about 3 or 4 pots over £4k lifetime.

Fav fast food: Chipotle Mexican Grill. Just amazing.

Tattoos... just my right arm and shoulder is done, however plans are in my mind for my other arm to be done, just finding the time.

[Rexas]

Legend, this will be a great diary I'm sure Liam's gotta be one of the nicest guys I've come across, and also one of the few that can pull off a tattoo sleeve and not look like a twat. Biggest bluff you've ever made? What is it you do in the shower that takes so long?

[Tal]

Have been looking forward to a diary from you. Great opening.

Why do BMXers wear baseball caps like that? Do you have a rivalry with mountain bikers?

[verndog158]

Legend, this will be a great diary I'm sure Liam's gotta be one of the nicest guys I've come across, and also one of the few that can pull off a tattoo sleeve and not look like a twat. Biggest bluff you've ever made? What is it you do in the shower that takes so long?

jesus matt. you worry me at times!

[LB44]

Legend, this will be a great diary I'm sure Liam's gotta be one of the nicest guys I've come across, and also one of the few that can pull off a tattoo sleeve and not look like a twat. Biggest bluff you've ever made? What is it you do in the shower that takes so long?

too kind.

Biggest bluff... not quite sure but the scariest bluff I have made had to be in the £1m UKIPT last year... only about 5 mins left of day 2, and I have a top 10 stack, and get into a pre flop war with an Australian chap who also has a big stack and was pretty aggressive, anyway hes 5 bet about 35% of his stack, but just had some rastafish moment and book poker went out the window and I rammed my JTss into his eye 6b all in.... he tanked for almost 5 mins and folded wiiiiii. Pretty intense.

Hahaha I take ages in the shower because I am a tall person and it takes a long time to wash myself thoroughly lol. I try to keep myself as clean as possible lol.

[LB44]

Have been looking forward to a diary from you. Great opening.

Why do BMXers wear baseball caps like that? Do you have a rivalry with mountain bikers?

Hahaha I think its just a Californian thing that I adopted.

No rivalry with mountain bikers, because the top mountain bikers are all former or current bmx riders. BMX is just perfect to develop all the core aspects in cycling to succeed at any discipline. Speed, Power, bike handling and Endurance all rolled into one. 

[Tal]

And some more...Tal questions:

1. Favourite word to hear someone else say?

2. One thing you would change about BMX racing to make it better?

3. Guilty pleasure (film or music only, please)?

[LB44]

And some more...Tal questions:

1. Favourite word to hear someone else say?

2. One thing you would change about BMX racing to make it better?

3. Guilty pleasure (film or music only, please)?

1 - FOLD, when im bluffing or CALL when I have it

2 - Get rid of the SuperHill...the 8m high starting ramp was only brought into BMX for the Olympics. It takes away some of the close passing and excitement from the normal bmx tracks.

3 - Miley Cyrus haha