So it's been quite a long time since I have posted a blog entry anywhere, much less on here. I guess I really haven't been involved with pocketfives enough since black friday to know that we had a pretty decent option to write Blogs. So this is a quick update of where I'm at in my poker life:
I never left the country since black friday, unlike most of my friends. Part of that is due to a serious relationship with my girlfriend and her having an excellent job here in Long Beach as a nurse, and part is due to the fact that when I finally got around to having the opportunity to leave the country, I had discovered I had lost my passport.... sigh.
My recent path has taken me to take up coaching again. I had made videos for pokerpwnage.com before they got bought out by cardrunners but I had never worked with students until september of last year. I started a small stable of students that are all under 1 year contacts and being backed by 'Bet for a Reason'. This stable has now grown into about 12 guys that I really enjoy working with. I think i've always had an interest in helping/ coaching people. For quite awhile, I was very serious about playing baseball, professionally if I could. When that dream dissolved, I was about to look into options to start coaching baseball, but that was also around the same time that I had become more serious about poker and so life took me in that direction.
As Poker has gotten tougher at the higher stakes, higher variance etc, i began to lose motivation to continue to play after black friday especially and so I turned to what I did still enjoy which was live poker. I moved to Las Vegas and started to make a living there post black friday. Obviously the routine is quite a bit different than online poker, in that you actually have to shower, put on some decent clothes and drive a half hour to get to the strip from where I lived. My Bankroll never got high enough to where I could comfortably play in the limits I was playing so it became a pretty high stress environment for me on a daily basis. Had I been single, i think I could have handled it, but there was also the pressure of having more stability because my girlfriend and I were becoming more and more serious. I had to look for something more stable for the long haul in hopes that I could one day support a family. This is where I turned to coaching.
I moved back to Long Beach, California and moved in with my girlfriend. During last year's WSOP, i had luckily been sat next to Andres Soprano in one of the events and he offered me an opportunity that would soon change my life. That opportunity was to coach low to mid stakes players while he and his partner backed them in the hopes of turning these players into successful high stakes MTTers.
So far, i've really fell in love with it. I probably enjoy coaching more than playing most of the time. I was able to find increased stablity, the fullfilment to help people, and stay within the poker community where I have developed so many good friendships over the years. As of now, I'm getting close to half way through some of my students' 1 year contracts and I would call it a success so far. I know they are always improving and I'm anticipating my financial benefits to only exponentially improve in the second half of their contract (as I get paid by % of profits not hourly rate). Some of my students have even expressed the interest to continue being coached by me past the end of this year's contract, which is fantastic!
It's been a grind, and frustrating at times monitoring the different speeds of imrpovement and learning but overall its very exciting and less stressful at the same time so I've really been able to put my heart and soul and time into it. I've been striving for something that I was fully committed to and was willing to work my ass off for in the last couple years and I think I have found that. I'm in a very happy place in my life right now, and I only think its going to get better from here on out.
As my european students would say,
cheers,
-TT
Canada
Mexico
United Kingdom
Poland
Brazil
