october 4th 2009. pokerstars warm up. ugritaly comes 3rd for $71,429.

its been about 10 weeks since that incredible day and i just wanted to put that experience, and the time since then into writing so that it may help inspire or motivate some of you out there. Ill start with some background and ill go from there.

Ive been playing poker since dec 2006 and to say i was a bad player is a great understatement. i started at pacific poker playing cash games and i really sucked. i worked away at the time and after a few months i discovered poker stars and full tilt and sucked just as bad. it was around that time i found out about tournaments and i just fell in love with them. unfortunetly i sucked at them too and i was losing money hand over fist. i had no idea about bankroll management and went busto several times. towards the middle of 2008 i picked up 5.4k for 1st in a 55r and 3.3k for 2nd in the turbo hundo on consecutive days and i could feel the tide was turning. unfortunetly i proceeded to lose the lot in a single session of cash games and i had finally had enough. i self excluded myself from all the sites for 6 months (the longest time allowed) and turned my back on the game i loved.
Sure enough towards the end of 2008, as soon as the self exclusion was lifted, i was straight back on the tables playing my heart out. i picked up some ok results during the xmas break which culminated in a first place in a 55r for 6.7k. All in all i turned a tidy profit over my holidays and i was quite chuffed. Then disaster struck. The day before i was due to go back to work, i decided to play some big cash games. wasnt long before i had lost my entire roll. Again.
My wife finally had had enough. she told me if i didnt stop playing she was going to leave and i was that angry with myself that i excluded myself again for 6 months and swore i would never play again.
There was only one problem. i couldnt stop thinking about poker! during the 6 months i devoured a ton of poker books and as soon as the 6 months were up i was ready to play again. my wife was very supportive as during this time she came to realize how much the game meant to me.
so july 09 my ban was lifted and almost straight away i could feel i was a much better player. in sept i came first in 100/30k for 7.2k and won a package to APPT auckland on stars. i withdrew my first money out of ftp (10k) and i think i had finally overcome my demons. at this stage i was still workin away so i was only playing now and then. i decided to take a months holidays in oct for the auckland trip and to try and play more volume.
my holidays started on oct 2nd and after playing for nearly 2 days straight my wife started getting on me for playing too much. we had a big arguement about it and that night i went to bed with my laptop and played the sunday warm up and the sunday millions.
the warm up started at 1am my time, and by the time my wife woke up at about 8am, i was deep in both. she couldnt believe i was still up playing. i told her something special was happening, and at that stage i showed her i was coming first in both tournaments. i ended up busting the millions at 239th out of 6940 but all my attention was on the warm up as i was entering the final table on the short stack. i hung on but by the time there was 7 left, i was down to 2bb. we tried to strike a deal but one guy held out cos he was waiting for me to bust. 7th paid 19k and the deal would give me 24k. he said no so we played on. i was all in with 93 and my pair of 3s were good.
i went on a tear and before i knew it there were 3 left and i was slight chip leader. somehow me and the other big stack got it in with 88 vs 66 and he hit his 6 on the flop. i was silly not to try and chop when 3 handed but i thought i was destined to win. while i was playing my wife was running aroung screaming and crying and when the dust settled we were 70k richer.
since then things have gone pretty good. i cashed in auckland for 7k and picked up the following results -
2nd NHG for 15k
2nd 55r for 13.5k
1st 100turbo for 9.5k
2nd 100turbo for 8k
2nd 50/50 for 7k
2nd 100turbo for 5k
9.5k package to appt sydney.

now i just have to stay away from those damn cash games...