I'm sure if I were internet pokers this would come across pretty well but since I'm barely literate this will probably be difficult to read. My plan was to get all my thoughts down, see if they make sense and then publish the entry if they do. I don't really know that they make sense, but I'm publishing it anyways.

All my life I've been pretty competitive, whether it was video games, sports, chess, poker, math competitions, I always wanted to be the best. I was the type of person who was pretty good at a lot of things but never really great at anything. I always thought it would be cool to be able to really excel at something and perhaps one day be regarded as the best.

Poker came along and fairly quickly I was successful at it, and not too long after that I started to get good. I went to university for a year and really put many other aspects of my life to the side. I went from playing sports 4-10 times a week to maybe once or twice, didn't really participate in any extracurricular activities, focussed a lot less on school but in spite of all that I think it was most definitely the right thing to do. I had a fantastic opportunity to do something I enjoy, make lots of money and finally have an opportunity to truly excel at something.

After I turned 18 and could play the live circuit I did that, and I really enjoyed the free time, the opportunity to meet lots of people with the same common interest, the ability to see lots of new places. I started to get really good and fortunately after only ~5 months on the live circuit I won EPT Dortmund. I got to the point where I thought I was better than pretty much everyone and along with the success I had in tournaments I was doing extremely well in HU/shorthanded cash. After the 7 figure score I lost a fair bit of motivation to grind and went through a phase of playing very little poker. I was kind of at the point where I had made enough money that unless a couple really bad things happened, I had set myself up to be in a comfortable position for life. At this point I had more or less realized I would never be the best poker player since there were plenty of people who were smarter than me, had bigger egos than me and just legitimately enjoyed playing and learning poker more than I did. I still was very good but probably ~2 years ago is when I came to terms with the fact I would never be viewed as the #1 poker player in the world.

Around this time I decided to start trying to make my life slightly more well rounded. I got back into exercising(was fairly skinny fat at this point) and started jogging/lifting, started reading more etc. At this point I had definitely lost a fair bit of ambition but in some ways I think that is good; I know plenty of people who are very goal oriented, and constantly exceed these goals but don't end up making themselves happy which kind of defeats the whole purpose.

Anyways, it kind of irked me that there was no next logical step but poker was still so absurdly profitable and after going on a bit of a downswing+ the stock market going pretty poorly in late 2008 I decided it would be good to keep grinding so that 20 years from now I'm not kicking myself and although I wasn't as motivated, I still did enjoy playing.

2009 started great and was pretty much just one big upswing. 2010 started fantastically and I was motivated more than I had been since 2007. I was back to grinding smaller tournaments than I had in a while and although I enjoyed almost every day I feel like in some ways poker has become and escape for me; an opportunity to let time pass and just get through to the next day and justify it by saying "this is the most valuable use of my time" and I don't much like the idea of that. I also find that poker is at the point where with my goals/skill set/mindset I won't be earning a significant amount of money in the next few years and beyond that even if I were to say bink the WSOP main, the money itself would probably do almost nothing to change my future. I think my position in a lot of ways is truly unique since I don't know if there is anyone else in my age range who has as drastic of a ratio between their wealth and their earning potential. Most of the 20-23 year olds with my level of success are much better and will continue having high-6-figure or 7 figure years for quite some time, but I think I more or less managed to be in the right place at the right time and made about as much money as I reasonably could have without becoming really good.

In poker although I've met tons of people I really like and had tons of cool experiences I just kind of feel like there is nowhere to go from here in poker. I can't really think of anyone who is more engrossed in the poker world than me who I aspire to be like and poker seems to be a lot more isolating than I initially realized.

I guess what really stemmed all my thinking is that lately despite playing lots of poker and enjoying it plenty, I feel unfulfilled by it and think it can cause me to feel unfulfilled about other things in my life.

The last 2.5 weeks I've taken time off of poker and had so much free time its largely just resulted in me reading the forums more, I guess I managed to read some books, hang out with friends lots, but considering ~every waking hour is free time for me I felt kinda crappy that when people would ask about my day I'd have nothing to say.

I think in all honesty I should be a fairly interesting person given the amount of time, resources, experience and opportunities I have but to someone outside of the poker world I appear quite one-dimensional and although I think I am definitely appreciated once I get to know people, getting to know people is often tough since my world is so different from their world. This leads to tons of people in the poker world having literally 0 non-poker friends, but I don't aspire to one day be completely engrossed in the poker world and after watching the "busto to robusto" movies and looking at the lives of older players it got me thinking about my future. Zeebo and Good2cu are both very accomplished people who have achieved great success in the poker world and whose lives at this point(assuming the video is accurate) are almost completely related to the poker world. I'm sure both of them are very happy with their lives I just think that I am trending towards a combination of the 2 of them and I think the goals I wish to accomplish are very different from what most people wish to accomplish.

This is obviously oversimplified and they are both more diverse than this, but more or less Zeebo was a fairly typical 2+2er, reads the forum, watches lots of TV, has tons of spare time and Good2cu is involved in a very materialistic lifestyle living the high life in Las Vegas. I more or less live a life where I am very much like Zeebo at home, spend tons of time on the forums, watch lots of shows/movies, spend tons of time with my girlfriend and although I have lots of close friends I'm not really part of a "group of friends" since I'm gone so much. When I'm travelling, everyone tries to be like Good2cu and although he looks pretty fake/uncomfortable doing so, he does a better job with that lifestyle than the VAST majority of wannabe ballers in the poker world. I guess neither of these are necessarily bad, I just find it lame when most people I meet outside of poker are tough to relate to and that most people in the poker world are very tough to relate to as well.

Before talking about where I plan to go from here, I guess I should point out that I do enjoy playing poker and I doubt I'll ever straight up "quit" playing poker, I just think at this point I sort of feel no ambition towards poker. I no longer really feel the need to improve, and even if I knew 6 months from now I could be twice as good as I am now, I likely wouldn't go for it, and I no longer feel the need to earn any money from poker, if I heard I could have 10times as much money as I do 20 years from now but would have to grind hard during that time, I wouldn't do it either. I also have no real ambition to build upon my celebrity in the poker world. I definitely do find it kinda cool that I have a wikipedia page and can find myself on google, but I feel uncomfortable being recognized and would likely rather be less well known than more well known.

I think within the last year or so I've essentially accomplished the ability to be a really good poker player in terms of mentality to play, but at the same time when I've already accomplished all that I want to in the poker world I don't really see anywhere else to go. It would have been super cool if either of my 3 close sweats turned into winning a 2nd EPT, but even if that happened it would probably have just been more incentive to stop playing.

I suppose the biggest realization I've had is that I need to keep busy. My life goal was to more or less get to the point where I never had to do anything for the rest of my life as early as possible. I'm at that point; I have almost 0 obligations, responsibilities and if I really wanted to I could sit around for the rest of my life watching the world go by and I'm just realizing thats not what I want. I want to be able to have a wider group of interests, and meet more people with similar goals; I want to wake up each day knowing I can fill it with things that I find interesting or challenging rather than simply filling it with things that fill time.

So anyways... at this point I arrive at the "where do I go from here" question that I asked in the title. I honestly don't know but I think at least setting myself up to be in positions to find things I'm passionate about is probably the right approach. I recently began talking with a friend about a business idea that we'd consider starting in the next few years and although I was originally just thinking my involvement would be limited to investment, I'm now realizing that this is the type of thing that could highly interest me. I think returning to school and trying out a super wide variety of courses, learning new things, meeting new people and just beginning to live a life that is more in touch with everyone else seems aligned with my interests. I currently am trying to get in touch with the university of Waterloo about possibly taking some classes this summer, and depending on how that goes may return to Waterloo or another university in the fall.

My goals at university are more similar to a retired person returning to school than a 20 year old entering university since I am mostly interested in this as something to do, an opportunity to learn new things and what degree I end up with matters very very little to me. In all honesty I don't think this will answer all my questions, and for all I know 5 years from now I could be even more involved in the poker world than I am(I'm probably a heavy favourite to return) but at least for now I don't really know whether I'll be considering myself a "pro poker player" anymore. I'll still play, I'm sure it will always be a part of my life I just feel like although I derive enjoyment from it, I derive almost no fulfilment/satisfaction/feeling of accomplishment at this point and I don't really think I will anytime in the near future.

I guess this was fairly long-winded(I'll bet you thought it was gonna be an April Fools Joke!) and I didn't really say very much at all, I just wanted to get my thoughts on paper and say that in some ways I feel that the poker chapter of my life is ending and although I may regret it, I'm looking forward to finding something new.