This interview was something I did for my friend Jack Welch on our new site www.pokerheadrush.com It should be coming out there shortly. I blog there, but I wanted to also blog for Pocketfives as well to help me promote myself and Pocketfives Training. I figured republishing this would be an easy way to introduce you all to who I am, since I really haven't been too active here for a while. I hope you all enjoy this interview and my future posts on this site.

This section we soon hope to fill with hard-hitting interviews with some of Alex's good friends, the guys you watch all over TV on the EPT, WSOP, and WPT. We intend to ask the questions other news outlet are afraid to ask, and give you the real story behind many of the "instant success" stories in poker that are anything but. We also intend to offend a lot of his friends with how direct the questions are.

We've decided to interview ourselves first. This is easy because we don't have to go offending our friends before we have a huge reader base to reward with their answers. It's also helpful, because many of you stumbling on this site might not know a ton about Alex or I, and you should get some background on why we think we can write anything about poker and life.

We'd also like to give you an example of how we want to talk to people. We want to talk about the life and mentality surrounding an entrepreneurial pursuit into professional gambling, and not do the typical, "wow, golly gee, you ran good and won a donkament! How does it feel?"

So here's some questions I wanted Alex to answer. Enjoy.

Jack Welch: Why poker?

Alexander Fitzgerald: I really don't know how to do anything else for money. I guess writing, but that doesn't pay anything like poker.

When I was fifteen my family was on food stamps and school-sponsored free lunch. We didn't have it really bad, just that suburban white trash poor thing. I just never had money like the people in my area. I saw some kids playing on credit in a cafeteria and I was addicted instantly. I played without any money to pay people, but I started winning from the start. It seemed so obvious to me. You wait for a big hand and bet the hell out of it. I had no idea that was such an elusive strategy to everyone else.

Of course, it wasn't easy, and I sucked for a long time. I got my ass kicked by the same kids over and over. Yet I could run a game with anyone in the back of a class and usually make money. Eventually, after losing in home games to the good players for a year or so, I could beat them. I read every book I could find because I knew this was going to be my way to a good life. It soon became a joke amongst my friends, how I never read anything besides poker books. I was so geeky, walking around school with them all the time. I played in every live cash game and tournament I could find in the area.

Eventually it all worked out. I was a slow learner but persistent. I tried to play and learn every day. I quit my job at 18 and haven't had a real job since. I could probably write three books on all the adventures I've had doing this for a living. I feel incredibly blessed to have found poker.

Jack Welch: Highest high?

Alexander Fitzgerald:

Depends on if you mean when I was partying or not. When I was partying I had a good time after my San Remo final table. I'd been grinding that whole year in Europe, and even though I lost a huge flip at a gigantic final table where there was 2 mil for first, I came back into Malta with 30k Euros in a Gucci bag right as the party season was starting, and a lot more in my accounts. It seemed like everybody saw the EPT broadcasts, and I had a lot of people treating me like a celebrity. The sun was out and we went crazy. We destroyed my million dollar condo on the beach there partying.

That was all immature bullshit though. I'm just saying that because...I know a lot of people are curious about that kind of thing, the partying and all.

It sounds corny, but my real highest high is pretty much every day now. I love waking up in my house in the Costa Rican mountains. It's not incredibly exciting at any one moment, but I feel like I'm living a very satisfying and rewarding life every day. I learn Spanish with a tutor, and I've always wanted to study a foreign language every day. I usually write 1,000-2,000 words a day of creative writing. I jog up to the top of a hill here chugging the clean air, and get rewarded with the most incredible panoramic view of Costa Rica. At night my incredibly supportive and loving girlfriend cooks me these delicious dinners of fresh fish, meats, fruits, and vegetables. I feel like my body is cleansed of all the crap I ate and did around the world. We hang out on the couch watching movies, while I grind tournaments.

On Sundays I go to my office where I have dual screens and a sick sound system. Since my house has so much property around it I can play my music till the walls shake and no one can hear it. Getting deep in tournaments with that set up is a sick adrenaline rush.

Every time I get a score I have all of Costa Rica to explore with my girlfriend as a reward. Nearby we have beautiful country, and if you take one bus for ten minutes then you're in the heart of one of the craziest cities on earth. Take another bus for an hour and you're at white sand beaches with crystal clear blue water. Take another bus and you're in the rainforest.

I live in the greatest country on earth with the nicest people in the world. I have no idea how it happened. I run incredibly above expectation.

Jack Welch: Lowest low?

Alexander Fitzgerald:

Waking up and not wanting to get out bed because of the stupid shit I said the night before. Being so fucked up on drugs all I could feel was anxiety and anger towards everyone around me. Losing all my money backing while laying around in my room depressed all the time because I was so loaded.

I have this one moment in my head. I was trying to chill on the couch, blaze some, watch some TV, like I always did when I was younger. I was just laughing hysterically even though I felt nothing good inside. I was the most depressed and stressed I'd ever been. It was weird, like I had no connection to my body. I broke a bunch of shit walking around because I had no control over my faculties. I finished an episode of some show and realized I couldn't remember anything about it. I was so tired and depressed all the time.

When I watch TV shows I watched at that time I realize I don't remember anything. I listen to music I was listening to stoned every day and it's like I've never heard it before. People recount conversations I can't remember where I would say the most fucked up shit to people. I hurt my friends so much. I was such an awful example, and they followed me a bit. I never taught them shit after they moved from their home country to learn from me. It's amazing to me now, I never once went "let's take the day off and just go over hand histories." It wasn't till at the end when I'd lost hundreds of thousands that I started scrambling trying to make the money back, but it was too late.

One of the most pathetic moments was going back to places I played live and realizing I didn't even remember what the venue looked like. My memory is a gift, and I did my best to destroy it. I have a mental picture of everybody I ever played with live, and a bunch of their tells. I realized when I sobered up I wasn't even paying attention to physical tells at that time. How could I when I don't even have the energy to remember what the fucking venue looked like?

Continued in Part 2