What's happenin guys? I've been holding off on writing this blog for a few reasons. One I want to make sure things sufficiently blow over before I start throwing my hat into the ring and I've been moving across the country for the last 2 weeks. You might say, "hey ringer! it takes like 4 days tops to drive across the country, how does it take 2 weeks?". Well there's alot more to moving then driving out to your new location. FWIW, I moved to Denver, CO (still in america).

So I guess let me go through the moving stuff first since I brought it up and then we'll get to the black friday opinions. So skip to that part if you don't want to read a few paragraphs about a shitty moving experience. I decided back at the beginning of the year to move with my GF to wherever she got a job. It's pretty standard considering I didn't want to breakup with her and I have (or at least had) the luxury of working from anywhere with an internet connection. I made a small move from my apartment in DC to little ole Blacksburg, VA in March due to my lease in DC being up and it quite frankly making sense. My GF got a job offer in Denver, CO. For those euros out there, its a city in the Rocky Mountains which is pretty well known for being awesome. The move was slated for May 22nd. Everything was looking GREAT! I started shopping around moving companies for a cross-country move and decided on an "internet mover" known as Neighbors Moving and Storage. I got sold over the phone and basically needless to say I got screwed by this company. They never showed up to pick up our stuff and come May 22nd at about 10:30am, I fired them and told them I didn't want their business. They were suppose to show up one of the two earlier days and the dispatcher couldn't tell me when he expected the truck in. So boom 5 hours before we have to leave and no movers. A complete disaster. If moving across the country wasn't already stressful enough, I had no idea how i was going to get my stuff out there.

Thankfully, I had my apartment through June in Blacksburg. So my stuff could sit. My GF had one of her friends let the reputatable movers into the apartment to move us. Fwiw, the reputatable movers were about twice as much money which I'm sure I would have paid in getting screwed by this other company. I learned a valuable lesson about moving. DONT SKIMP ON THE MOVING COMPANY. Also, don't use internet moving companies. They almost all have ratings of D or F at the BBB so make sure if you decide to try one... you look that up first. Don't make the same mistake as I did.

Moving company shituation aside the move was amazing! The drive across the country was great. I really love the thrill of just picking up and hitting the reset button in life. So I love Denver and can't wait for winter which is a weird thing to say... but man, ski season is gonna be AMAZING! Also the apartment we got looks out at the mountains which I love as well.

Black Friday Thoughts

Man, I didn't see this one coming in the slightest. If you had told me poker would get shutdown, I thought it would be after the US deemed it to be illegal and then there would be a mass exodus offline. But BOOM it happened.

I started this whole thing pretty positive. I realized after it happened that I was in a pretty good place. I had alot of money saved up in my bank accounts as well as a degree in engineering. I could definitely go back into the work force with almost no effort at all. I decide after seeing the immediate shutdown that I would wait a few months to see what happened before I made any kind of life decision and on top of that, I decided I should finish the move too. So now its been a few months and I just finished the move. Here's my thoughts:

I started this whole black friday non-sense 99.9% sure i'd see the 70k+ I have on FTP in the next 3 months. Basically as each week goes by and each new update comes up from FTP as well as each new update about FTP comes out, my faith in FTP dwindles. I'd say I'm at about 50/50 on FTP ever paying US players. I just find it pretty hard to believe that they didn't pay before the WSOP as now it will be a 2 month long shitstorm for anyone repping FTP at the live events.

I think the Ivey update as scared me the most of all the things I've heard. I caught myself saying to a few buddies after it happened... "Ivey is so sick, he is distancing himself from FTP because he realizes they aren't the kinda people he wants to be affliated with". Then I realized what I said. Phil Ivey is basically jumping ship in the smartest way I can think of... by looking like a martyr for the players.

Oh man, that's all bad. I am continuing to wait for my money but if the ivey thing solidified one thing, its that we, americans, won't be seeing our FTP money for a few months at the very least. Don't get my wrong, if I never see that money again it won't be the end of the world. But it will definitely sting to have 70k go down the drain of an elaborate poker ponzi scheme.

That being said, I think there's still a 50% chance I see that money again and I've been known to win flips from time to time so let me go ahead and use my 'one time' right here. Don't go bankrupt FTP, one time!

I see alot of people trying to pretend its business as usual at FTP (all euros/canadians obv). I definitely understand their vantage point, and I gotta say i'd have been one of those people too if I wasn't on the recieving end of this. That being said, I think if you can't acknowledge something is wrong at FTP as a business... you are wrong. It'd be the equivalent of the people saying UB didn't mean to cheat and they are a good company. That being said, if there's fish... by all means you should play. Just don't blindly trust FTP with your money.

And now for the million dollar question... what am I going to do now? My plan is as follows: Ride the storm out until the end of 2011 with coaching and video production. Based off how much interest I get in that regard I possibly begin looking to get back into the workforce. I'm not 100% sure I want to get back into engineering though. I'm going to start pursueing a few possibly poker related jobs or something in the HR field. I seem to have a really good knack with consulting and dealing with customers on a day-to-day (who am i kidding hour-to-hour) basis. I think that's a pretty valuable tool in this kinda business. Obviously that being said, I'll be going back to engineering if nothing pans out in that regard. I do plan on coming back to poker when the US finally does regulate it though... and ideally I want to position myself to profit immensely when it does come back.

If any of you poker gurus out there, have a job opening that I could do remotely from Denver with some travel please let me know. I'd be more than willing to listen to anything out there as this is the first I've mentioned this publically.

But while this job stuff may sound like the poker dream is done... mine is just getting started. Hopefully we will look back and think that black friday was a step in the right direction and just a small bump in the road. Thankfully, I have planned well enough where its not the end of the world for me or anywhere close. But even if you have alot in savings and planned, don't just sit back and eat your savings. I personally really liked my "buy a house with a duffle bag full of money" dream and I don't plan on living off that money being a bum.

My one piece of advice to the american pros out there is: Don't sit back and wait for poker to come back. Find a way to position yourself for when poker comes back. This really happened, time to be adults and deal with it.

WSOP Plans

So my plans were to make several visits to the WSOP this year. I sadly didn't make my first trip due to the whole moving thing taking about a week longer than I thought. I am planning to go sometime in mid-june and probably another time in late june. So let me know when you guys are going! I'd love throw down.