It has been a whirlwind last few years for Bill Christie (pictured), known on PocketFives as throwinphins. Just a few minutes after signing a lease on a home in Florida, Black Friday struck down his poker hopes and dreams, temporarily of course. With the help of Poker Refugees, he made the decision to relocate to play online poker and has since won his first PocketFives Triple Crown.

But, the journey was not without several major obstacles, as he put it, as he loved living life “full speed in the fast lane.” He also had $140,000 online when Black Friday hit, dramatically complicating matters.

PocketFives: How did you get into poker?

Bill Christie: I got into poker during high school. My best friend’s dad was a professional and we would try and get as many people as possible to play in freezeouts after school and on the weekends. Then, I found online poker and fell in love. I became determined to figure out how to be the best I could. I played and studied the game day and night. I even would analyze hands in my sleep at one point. I couldn’t get enough.

At that point, I had started a lawn and landscape business. I would be mowing lawns all day and couldn’t wait to be done so I could go home and play poker. My first big score came shortly after when I beat Jon PearlJammer Turner heads-up in the Saturday $300 for $21,000. I had a couple more scores that week and was leaving for the WSOP soon. It was during that summer that I felt like I could make more money playing poker than landscaping. So, I made the decision to become a professional and play poker as my only source of income.

Over the next couple of years, I crushed online. I felt I had become one of the best sit and go players in the world. At the time, you could play $109 sit and gos, pay the $9 in rake, and still make $9 a game. I did well and, with the money I was making from sit and gos, I would take shots in the big MTTs.

After some deep runs in the Sunday Million and a Sunday Warm-Up final table, I chopped the Sunday 500 for $85,000. Finally, after the heartache that comes with tournament poker, I hit something big. At this point, it was October 2009 and I was on top of the world, temporarily.

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to have a good time, so when I wasn’t working, I was going out racking up huge bar tabs and making poor decisions overall. I lived life at full speed in the fast lane: sex, drugs, and plenty of booze. Honestly, looking back I feel like I’m lucky to be alive.

This continued and 17 months later, five minutes after signing a $2,200 per month lease in Florida, I get the Black Friday call that our government shut down all of the poker sites to US players. At the time, I had $140,000 online. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see my money again and the only other money I had was $10,000 to $20,000 in cash at home. Within a week, they wired most if it back to me, though.

Here is where I wish I had made the decision to relocate to still play on all the big sites. I was playing the best poker of my life and on a $90,000 upswing. It was hard for me because I had wanted to move to Florida my whole life. My passion in life is fishing and I wanted to move to Florida and start saltwater fishing and maybe even turn it into a business. So, I moved with my dog and girlfriend to Tampa.

I had $4,000 per month in bills and the only sites I could play on were withered US sites where you’d be lucky to see your money in three weeks. Well, that couldn’t last forever and soon I was headed for broke and knew I had to get into another line of work or relocate.

Twelve months after moving to Florida, my girlfriend and I decided to split and I felt like I didn’t have much to lose by relocating and taking a shot at the big sites again. So, with the help of Poker Refugees, I decided to move to Costa Rica in June 2012. I befriended some of the best cash game players on the planet and spent the next nine months playing and partying like I had in the past, but could never really get traction and kind of floated along, making enough to get by and having fun and trying to figure out what my purpose was in this life.

After 10 months in Costa Rica, my friends and I decided to move to Rosarito, Mexico. I went back to Ohio to get my dog and car and made the five-day drive to Rosarito. It was nice having my Costa Rican friends with me and we soon made friends with other guys in Rosa. I can’t say enough good things about all of the kids in Jaco and Rosa. They have all become brothers to me.

I was living here for a few months before something major in my life happened: I turned 30 and my god did it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to figure out what I wanted out of life and sat down for a good week looking at other occupations and schooling and nothing fit me. It’s hard with no other education besides a high school diploma.

I saw that chefs in Cleveland averaged $25,000 a year and I had plenty of times where I made that in a week or even a night. So, I said to myself, “Okay, this is your last chance.” I quit the partying and spent the last eight months busting my ass playing 10 to 12 hours a day, then going to the gym and spending the rest of the night going over my hands and watching videos.

It took a little while at first to get going, but I knew I was running worse than I ever had in my career in key spots. I went home for Christmas and knew when I got back, if I kept doing the same things, good things were about to happen. Sure enough, halfway through January, I started to hit $3,000 and $5,000 scores regularly and, for the first time since Black Friday, felt that I was playing on a way higher level than most opponents and that my edge was that big again.

It has been a crazy ride thus far, but I’m very excited for the future. I’ve worked harder than I ever thought possible to get back on top and I don’t have any regrets about the past. It has made me into the man I am today and I just keep trying to stay humble and improve as a person day in and day out. I guess it’s all part of growing up.

PocketFives: How are you feeling about the Triple Crown?

Bill Christie: I am very proud of that accomplishment. I won the Stan James Major and the PokerStars $5 Cubed on Sunday and was leaving on Wednesday to fly to Indianapolis to watch my sister graduate from Butler. I always take off Mondays, so I thought I only had one day left to get it done, so I started firing up all kinds of $100 Turbos and things that I would normally not play to try and get the Triple Crown. Halfway through my session, I was like, “Didn’t I win a tourney on PartyPoker on Tuesday?” I looked it up on PocketFives to make sure it was over $10,000, saw it was, and let out a big sigh of relief.

PocketFives: What are your plans for the rest of 2014?

Bill Christie: I am leaving Rosa to go home for the summer and buy my first home. I need more balance in my life. Since June 2012, I’ve been on a Federal tax break where if you stay out of the country for 330 days a year or more, you don’t have to pay Federal taxes up to $95,000. So, I’ve only been in the US fewer than 50 days since June 2012.

It adds up too. I miss sushi, craft beers, good deli meat, and going up to Cleveland and rooting on the Browns, but most of all I miss my friends and family. They mean the absolute world to me and it has been tough being away from them for so long. After the Browns beat the Saints in Week 2, I’m leaving Ohio and heading to Playa del Carmen to play from there. I will be going back to Ohio every two months or so for a couple of weeks at a time and am going to start investing in real estate. I want my money to work for me and I need income coming in after poker.

If anyone reading this article is on the fence about relocating to play, I say go for it! Life is too short to keep folding; before you know it, you’re blinded out without ever taking a shot. Excuse the corny poker analogy, but you get it. Even if you don’t win all the gold you had hoped for, you are still going to make new friends, see the way the world works, and how beautiful it really is.

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