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For the last twelve months, I had been living my dream. I graduated from university in the spring of 2011 and that same summer, secured a job working on wall street. I'd always dreamed of living in the USA, and now I'd finally found my opportunity. I seized it with both hands, packing my life in to two bugling suitcases and headed for the big apple.
Of course, after Black Monday, online poker is no longer legal in USA. So I withdrew what I could to my neteller account in order to safeguard against any more sites being shut down, and off I went.
I won't reveal everything that has happened in this past year, but I might tell some of my adventures when the poker talk in my blog slows down. There are some real gems, and just thinking about them now makes me laugh.
You may be wondering why I'm starting a poker blog if I'm living in the USA. Well unfortunately, my time in the USA was cut short. I originally moved here on a “training” visa, also known as a J-1 visa, used for “cultural exchange”.
I've worked my nuts off from 7am to 6pm everyday, and partied like a mad man every weekend. I figured I was in great shape to convert my role to a full-time position. Sure enough, one day, my boss asks me to come and see him before I leave. So we sit down and we start discussing what I wanted to gain from my current role. I told him I was looking to stay over here full time and would like to stay on at the bank.
A couple of weeks down the line, we sit down again, and I'm told they've found me a full-time roll. I was overjoyed. No more shit pay, no more worrying about my future, and no more worrying if I would have to say goodbye to my girlfriend and all the friends that I've made at the end of August. So the powers that be start to get the paperwork together, and moving stuff around to accommodate me, when we reached the stage of getting me a full-time work visa. We sent off the forms, and I could barely stop smiling for the next few days.
However, after a couple of days had passed, my boss again called me in to his office. He told me he had some bad news, we missed the visa quota set by the US government. There were meant to be enough visas to last for a whole financial year, instead, they'd run out in less than two months.
I was devastated. I didn't know what to say, or what to do. My dream that I'd worked so hard for, was ripped from my hands at the last moment. Three days off since I'd started at work almost 9 months ago, for less than minimum wage, and it had all come to nothing.
I spent the next few weeks in a state of almost constant depression, contemplating how the hell I would cope with returning home to London, after living the crazy life in New York City. How could I go back to living with my parents, and leaving behind the girl that means the world to me, and the friends that I explore it with?
The blow was softened slightly, with the talk of a job for me back in London, but again, the fickle nature of the financial industry bit me in the arse. High level management changes had meant a global headcount freeze for the business. It was too late to even get me a job back in London. I was now going to be unemployed when I returned home as well. I felt like just sacking off work. I was pissed off at everyone, annoyed at my bosses for not coming through for me, annoyed at my friends that never had to worry about immigration laws, and annoyed at myself for daring to dream.
But then, I remembered poker, and the first thing that popped in to my head was tilting. You can't get mad and give up just because things didn't go your way. You have to look and evaluate where you could have taken a better course of actions, what could you do differently? And overall, was the play good or bad?
I have to say, this year has been the best I've ever had, the memories from this year, I'll never forget. I've learnt how to live life to the full. The choice to come here was definitely +EV, even if it didn't work out the way I had hoped. And thinking about how great my year had been, and realising that I still had a few months left to make it even better, I pulled myself together, and managed to get through a period where I felt like I was being dealt one bad beat after another. And let me tell you, those last few months were the best, I knew what I was going to lose, so I knew what I had to treasure, I knew every moment was special, whether it was watching tv with my girlfriend, or overlooking the statue of liberty at a rooftop party.
You may have realised, this has all been in past tense. So where am I now? Well I just got home after a 30 day road trip across the USA, living with my parents again, and thinking about what might have been, it's day one, and I can't sleep, so you find me writing this epic opening blog post. Tomorrow, I'll be searching for a job, and I'm not sure how many other people have been in a similar situation, but there are only so many job applications that you can send off each day. I need something else to do, something to look forward to, and something to take the pain off feeling like I'm an alien in my own country.
This has been building up to one thing... Poker. The perfect distraction, and the perfect thing to keep my brain sharp during these dull autumn days.
And now, after one of the best detours along one of the most scenic routes of life, here I am. Back to the place it all started, back under my parents roof, Back to the Beginning.
Now it's been a while since I played any poker, and to be honest, I remember very little of even the basic strategies right now, giving my blog a second reason for it's name. I have to start from the beginning, and attempt to learn more than I even forgot in the first place.
My method will be to take one (or maybe two) lessons from the pokerstrategy pages, each morning, and my play that day will try to incorporate it. I'll then write up my thoughts on the lessons, and my play for the day. At the start of the month, I will post my goals, and keep track of them throughout the month. For the first month, I will probably not set a target number of hands or any arbitrary goals, it will be more about completing the lessons.
I'll be doing my best to keep the thread interesting, and share with you some of my stories from my time in America, there are some to love, and some to make a lot of you jealous, but I hope to build up a decent following from you guys, and we can see where this all leads. One things for certain, it's going to be uncharted territory.
