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After reading through and appreciating both Assassinato and Mig's wells, I thought I'd give PocketFives an opportunity to do the same with me. I initially felt these wells were just a means of attention, and they may very well be lol, but after reading the first two I truly believe they are healthy both for the author and the community and you seem to appreciate them. I understand that my well will be different as both Mig and Assassinato are two of the most respectful well mannered people in poker and I have more than my fair share of critics for good reason. I expect plenty of hate and am more than willing to take it and hopefully mend some wounds I may have caused with the community.
For those of you who don't know me my name is Scott and I'm 22 years old and have lived in the Los Angeles area my entire life. I grew up playing competitive sports and had a stint playing competitive magic the gathering between the ages of 10-15 or so.
I've been playing poker since I was 16 just before the Moneymaker boom. I was extremely fortunate that one of my better friends in high school and his dad had been competitive poker players for years and they shared with myself and my friends (including #1PEN). With an entire room dedicated to poker with multiple casino quality poker tables and chips and 10+ willing poker players almost nightly I was very lucky to get through some of the early poker stages before the boom hit. I entered USC in 2004 as a freshman and continued to play poker for fun primarily on Pokerstars grinding lower stakes sngs and mtts. At the time I had very little desire expectation to be a professional but enjoyed the game, the challenge, and the small amount of money it provided me. It wasn't until I witnessed #1PEN's success in late 2006 that I realized I could be really successful.
After I completed my 3rd year at USC late April of 2007, partially due to some success in early 2007 and partially due to me turning 21 and the WSOP coming up, I decided to play poker full time during the summer of 2007. This is when I was fortunate enough to run fairly well in May online winning 3 triple crowns and my deep finish in the WSOP main event leaving me with a bankroll of just about 400k. I was faced with one of the more difficult decisions in my life with whether to go back to school in August and finish my final year, or really go all out and see what I could do with poker. With a ridiculous amount of support from my parents and confidence in my ability to go back to school when the time came I continued to play poker full time traveling the WPT circuit and had a lot more success online throughout 2007. Unfortunately after PCA in 2008 I realized that I no longer had the drive to play poker that I used to. I felt like I had achieved an understanding of the game where improvement and success was extremely slow. The inability to control the game began to take its toll on me and I became very frustrated. I just needed to take some time off and played less than 10 days of poker from January 2008 to the 2008 WSOP.
For whatever reason I decided to come to Vegas in 2008 to play the WSOP, partially because I wanted to see and spend time with the many friends I met in 2007 and partially because it has always been a goal of mine to win a bracelet. I played 11 tournaments and was fortunate enough to make two final tables including a 4th place finish in the second 1k rebuy for 223k. I have played limited poker since the World Series both online and live instead focusing on other aspects of life most importantly my friends, family, and my health. I spend too many hours railing online tournaments and browsing the forums and not enough playing :) Please feel free to ask anything about myself, poker, my thoughts of you, and please be as brutally honest with your opinions of me. I know many things I say aren't healthy and good for the community. I've publicly admitted my inability to filter what I say is my biggest character flaw. Those of you who know me know I'm a good person at heart and those that don't I hope to get to know you so you understand. Thanks and see many of you at PCA! Please if you know what I look like and I know you from the tables come say hi.
EDIT: HOLY SHIT sorry for the novel bio. Feel free to ignore =/
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