A belated Christmas thanks

It is right now the time between Christmas and New Year's. I am up in Seattle visiting my mom, and I have had a very pleasant and relaxing Christmas, the best kind!

I often update my blog when I'm upset or going through a rough time, because it's when I'm most upset and anxious that I feel a need to vent... so I write. But I want everybody to know that I am very happy to be back in Vegas and that things are going well. The past 8 months have been some of the most difficult and scary of my life simply because it's kind of the first time I've been out on my own, and doing that itself is scary, but doing that by gambling and on top of that being a person who is very risk-averse and likes to know what's coming up (things which I must say gambling does not promote) has made it all the more difficult.

But I am finally getting set in. It has been rocky because all of it was so new and scary, but I've been at it for a while and am now sure of my success. I am not worried, and although I haven't saved up very much, I know it's because I was so scared and not playing my best, nor was I putting in enough hands. But all of that has changed, and I am very confident that I will be playing at a limit I can make real reasonable money at within half a year. So trucking ahead, happy and confident, I would like to offer my thanks to all the people in my life who helped me get here, because here is where I want to be. It's going to be incredibly cheesy as I'm sure most spill-your-heart-out letters are, but hey it's Christmas, I'm happy, and I don't care how cheesy it is!

My parents are the first and most obvious choices. Neither my mom nor dad were thrilled when I first mentioned I had started to gamble many years ago, and my dad still tries to get me to go back to school for a degree that isn't useless, they were as supportive as they could be when I told them this was what I wanted to do and showed them that it was actually possible to make money at it. But more than their support was how I was raised. I have instilled in me a want of doing what is right for me and a want to make my own way in the world. And if I wasn't raised with the courage to follow through with my heart, I wouldn't have been raised to be happy and fight for what I want. So I am thankful not just for learning to accept what I'm doing, but for giving me to courage to do it in the first place.

The next step is the live groups I meet with in Las Vegas (rarely at the moment I'm sorry to say), the NLDG and WPDG, and in particular Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson. The live groups showed me a bunch of reasonable and responsible adults who gambled responsibly and who were able to make it a positive force in their lives. I had grown up thinking, merely by the programming of society, that gambling was wrong. Not evil, but just a vice like smoking and drinking--something that is inherently bad and has no virtue other than to entertain. And while that is true for the most part, these people showed me that not only could they gamble responsibly but that they could learn from it and use it to help themselves. Linda and Jan even organize charity events, and in that way make gambling help other people as well. Now of course it IS a vice, and it DOES harm a portion of people who can't handle it responsibly, but these people showed me that that is not a necessary outcome and that I wasn't crazy for being so intrigued by it. Jan Fisher in particular took special care to encourage me, which really helped me break out of my shell and embrace my passion, for which I am extremely grateful.

Jim Leitner, also a member of the groups, also was important in that he was the first person to introduce me to a higher level of thinking in poker. I had reached a peak in my poker knowledge before his way of looking at the game infected me with the urge to study it from new angles. Most people in the group know he's smart and better than they are at poker, but few of them realise just how MUCH better he is. I haven't seen to much of him, but every chance I get to talk with him, I learn something groundbreaking.

Finally of course, I have one of my closest friend, Erik, who is also my poker coach, and I guess somewhat of a life mentor. He has taught me how to properly think about the game, how to contextualize all my thoughts and reads and experiments, and how to better learn more. He is solely responsible for my going from an average player to an excellent player (and I am pretty damn excellent), and he has also helped me through many difficulties in my life. He is a fantastic coach and friend, and I am very grateful for all that he has done for me. (And I would put money on him over Jim Leitner in a poker match, and those who know Jim know that's saying a lot!) I lucked out amazingly in finding Erik as a coach, but hey, as I always tell him, I run like God when it comes to poker, and this is no exception.

(See I told you it'd be cheesy.)

Of course I have many other friends who have shaped me life and personality and view of the world, and I am truly thankful to have them in my life. But this is a poker blog--or at least it's supposed to be--and those people above are the ones who shaped my poker career. I am thankful to everybody good in my life, those mentioned and those not, and I hope I have been able to show my thanks and love before now. But if not, thank you all! I am very lucky to have you in my life.

And I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!


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