Email to my sister's friend...

Just wrote this to a friend of my sister's who asked me about going pro....

Hey Santiago..

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to you. To be honest right now I'm in a huge downswing and I guess it's a good time to let you know about the bad side of playing professional poker.

I haven't really expressed this to anyone but the hardest part about what I'm going through right now is the fact that I told my family and friends that I'm a "good" poker player and that they can believe in me. Now everytime I have kings, someone has aces, if I have a set, someone has a higher set. Anytime I'm in a big pot, I find a way to lose.

And to be honest the hardest thing is not the money. Obviously losing money at a constant rate is terrible, but the hardest thing is acknowledging that I'm failing at what I told everyone I could do. It's very hard to deal with.

I'm not sure what type of person you are or what type of lifestyle you live, but money management is the key to being a successful professional poker player. This is something that I've failed miserably at.

When I have a session where I win a lot of money, or if I'm on a heater, I will spend the money like it's nothing. Then when I go through downswings I think about all the ridiculous things I spent money on and just get pissed at myself.

So I would say if you feel like you can manage the money when you are doing well, go for it. I'm definitely glad that I tried professional poker and I've definitely been a winning player since I started, but I've failed to manage my bankroll properly and now I'm facing some major decisions about what to do with my future.

That being said, I've traveled more than I ever have the last year because of the freedom that poker gives me. I've met hundreds of great people through poker and had some truly amazing experiences through poker.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Kevin

Cougars

Watched the Finals final last night with a cougar that I met playing poker. She was great company and much better conversation than most chicks that I go on dates with, but I have to say it's a bit awkward being out with someone who's probably 25-30 years older than me. Definitely a lot of situations where I would have made a move on a chick my age but I felt weird doing it in front of people considering she's visibly older than me. I was in the valley though, land of the MILFs.

Fuckin' game killed me. Pau Gaol's missed rebound when the Lakers were up six with 20 seconds left was a dagger to my heart. I covered my losses with a bet on the under, but today USA and Germany both failed me ridiculously and my sports account is now maxed out. I'm gonna stop sports betting and focus on poker. Definitely a good thing.

Going to HP today, peace.

Day 1: The Great Get Back

Day 1 of the "Great Get Back" was a success.

I flirted with the idea of going to Hollywood Park all day long but I opted to do laundry, get my car washed and go to the batting cages. Traffic on the 405 was horrible so I decided if I was going to hit HP, I'd wait until traffic was over.

Early in the evening my boy that recently started his home game hit me up and let me know that he wants to improve his game by adding house players, which would include me. He also wanted ideas from me on how to improve the game.

So I went over to his condo at the W hotel around 9 pm to play in the game and talk to him about improving it. When I got there, he was there with the dealer. No one else. They were sitting around playing some first-person shooter game on x-box.

For the next two hours we talked about improving his game, which basically meant adding more girls that would flirt with the players and getting more action players, less grinders. The entire time I was wondering 'Is there even going to be a game tonight?' Didn't look like it. It was already 11 p.m. and I was still the only player there. At this point, I was actually getting a little impatient. One of my boys was telling me how good the action was at Hollywood Park and another friend was requesting my help to recruit strippers from the strip club for his birthday party on Saturday. Instead of doing either, I was sitting in this empty condo watching video games.

Finally around 11:30 p.m., a guy called and said he was coming with two friends. That makes four players. Throw in my boy who owns the condo and that's five players. Then the second dealer decided he would play. Six. Then my boy told the security guard to buy in for $100 house chips and play. Seven. We have a game, $5/5 blinds and I'm in for $500.

I told the security guard that I was going to put pressure on him because he's so short stacked. My first button and his small blind, I raise to $20 with Ad8d. He shoves all-in and says "That's for picking on me."

I know he's scared to lose the money and plays super tight. He probably even has AK, minimum. I'm 100% positive that I should fold and I'm way behind. But it agitated me that he said I was picking on him. He deserves a bad beat. So I called the extra $75 and he turned over kings. I told him I needed an ace. Flop: J-4-5. Turn: 3. River: 2. I didn't even think I made a hand but I looked at the board three times and then realized I had the wheel. Goodbye security guard. He was pissed.

Later in the game I won a big three-way all-in pot. My buddy straddled to $10. One of the three other players min-raised to $20. I was in the small blind with QQ and I had been the main aggressor the whole game to this point. I made it $110. My buddy who straddled called. The min-raiser re-re-raised all-in to $250. I went all-in and my buddy called for $280 more. I told him "You idiot, I have queens." He says "You want to just chop it up right now?" I said, "Hell no, you're trying to suck out on me. $100 rebate either way." This is the benefit of home games, you can do shit like this. My buddy tabled J9 of spades and the other guy turned over A-9 off-suit. The flop came jack high to give me a sweat but it bricked out and I won the pot. Finally, after a month of running like dog shit, I have a hand hold up in a big pot.

We only ended up playing for two hours and I won $1300, which was nice. After everyone left I played Chinese poker with the dealer and my buddy and broke even after an hour. Overall, it was a good night for me and the $1300 is a big boost right now.

I'll start tracking my winnings and where I'm playing.


Day 1 (6.16) Home Game: +1300 2.0 Hrs.

Ground Zero

"Throw dirt on me, and grow a wild flower...
But it's fuck the world, get a child out her...
Yeah my life a bitch, but you know nothin' bout her...
Been to hell and back, I can show you vouchers..."
Lil Wayne

From this point on I'm taking no prisoners and offering no sympathy to anyone in the way. Time to rise up and rebuild. Welcome to my version of every against-all-odds movie that you've ever seen.

"And you can never break my stride, you'll never slow...
The momentum at any moment I'm bout to blow...
You'll never take my pride, I'm killin' the flow...
Slow, venom and the opponent is gettin' no...
Mercy mark my words, ain't lettin' up relentless I smell blood...
I don't give a fuck, keep givin' em hell...
Where was you? When I fell, and needed help up, you get no love..."
Eminem

I'm on Twitter

What up you can follow me on Twitter here ... I'll be mainly posting new music downloads (hip hop) and updates on life, a lot of which will be poker and my fight to get my bankroll back.

4 years.

Bust. Oh.

I hate to make this post but I just went through hell and back in a gambler's hand basket.

Running pretty bad for most of the year was the beginning of the storm and the past two weeks in Vegas brought the hurricane in.

The timing is bad but when is the timing for going broke good? Never. After it's all said and done, I really can't complain at all. Shit sucks and it's heavy on the brain but I've learned a hundred lessons in the past year, many of them time and time again. Some lessons I failed to learn and ultimately that was probably my downfall.

I'll add the numbers up over the past year and see what happened, which months hurt me the most and how much money I made and wasted. I know for sure that I was a winning player but my money management is right there with the worst of them. At least I have a lot of nice kicks to wear to my job.

I will definitely keep the blog going.

Right now the plan is to get a job and rebuild my bankroll. I need to find a job pretty quickly and once I find one, I'll look for one that I would rather be at. So if anyone has any job leads in the L.A. area, feel free to let me know. Journalism degree, lol.

4 years, keep going.