Welcome to my world 
Original opening posts are in the spoilers below if you want to check them out
BUMPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
Holy Sh*ttt, I can't believe how different pokerstrategy is now, I don't blog for like 18months and everything has changed!!! Although pokerstrategy isn't the only thing that has changed an awful lot over the last 18months or so! I've had to re-read the last few pages just to see what kind of crap I was blogging about back in 2013. O how it was a long time ago haha.
Anyway, I'll get right to it. From like August through to November I was dating the aforementioned girl but things went sideways pretty quickly and by the end of Nov13 I was really down in the dumps, felt like the whole world was against me and all that 
But I believed in my self that if I stayed focused on myself I would turn it all around. In December 2013, I got a new job, it was crap pay, crap hours, crap everything but I realised if I ever want to get anywhere I'm going to have to put in some hard graft and this is where it would all start! Pretty much thats what I did for the next 9 months, did crazy shifts like midnight - 4pm, 5 days a week or work 6pm to 6am on sundays. It was insane, up and down the country, all over the place! But I got my head down and worked my butt off and in July 2014 I got my first reward for all the hard work, I got promoted into a supervisor role. It mean't the same crappy hours, if not longer but abit more money. Some people I worked with wern't happy with the situations we were all in but I was happy knowing I was working super god damn hard and I wouldn't be in this crappy job for much longer if I carried on working as hard as I did.
As some of you know that followed this blog from the very beginning I did a degree in Accounting and Finance, well sometime after I got my promotion I was looking to carry on moving up, and in the summer of 2014 I was asked to apply for a position at the company's head office in London. Which I did and in September 2014 I was offered a position to work within the finance team which although meant moving away from home but I jumped at the opportunity! This is the role I am in now and happier than I have ever been before, I've gone from being the lowest of the low to now overseeing and having a rather large input into a £10million+ annual revenue stream in less than a year.
Sometimes people don't stop and look back and actually congratulate themselves on the hard work they have put in but I did that a little over Christmas because I knew that I had worked harder than I have ever done before, just to get back to a position I should have been in if I had worked hard all through uni etc. Anyway, because I'm now working 9-5 (according to my contract) but realistically its more like 8am to 7pm during month end's and annual budgets 
it means I have alot more time to do the things I enjoy. Now because I am away from home it means I don't see my friends as much but really its been a blessing in disguise and it allows me to focus on more important things like keeping fit and health and also developing additional revenue streams.
Initially the plan was to look to get into trading forex possibly but I don't have the starting capital or the knowledge to even attempt to do that so that idea is on hold for now and a plan to return to poker was put in place. I started playing again right after Christmas with nothing other than a few free £1 spins from Genting in there casino games, I spun that up to like £10 or so then I insta-shipped it over to stars which is still like my spiritual home for online poker! I cant imagine playing anywhere else.
Since then I've been 2 tabling nl2 zoom and I've done quite well with a plan to move up to nl5 zoom in February, I don't think over the course of this blog I will go into great deal about poker because I don't want to jinx myself, but i'll outline some key points below which will be my goals for this month and the months ahead.
CLIFFS:
- Did Hate Life
- Now Loves Life > has a RL job and is super happy about it!
- Plays Poker Again > For fun!
GOALS for the remainder of JANUARY 2015:
Increase my poker knowledge by discussing more hands, general theory and reading about new concepts
sample some nl5 zoom, make notes on what I think the key differences are between nl2 and nl5
improve my 2.5mile(4km) run time and look to increase the distance without the need to slow my pace
get to the gym more to go swimming
I hope everyone at pokerstrategy is well and the poker gods are treating you well, I'll try to catch up with some of my favourite blogs in the next few days and I'm sure I will come across some new ones that will be just as good!
PS: Melanie Iglesias is still hotter than hawtttttt!!!!!:
Spoiler
My background:
Im a 19 year old student (so your average teen prodigy who thinks he knows it all, or so you think). I used to play county level tennis and had trials with walsall fc. I found poker after quitting football due to a back injury.
First foray into poker:
I first started as a few people did on zyngas facebook poker, crushing the play money games when i was 16 this lead me to join a poker site (pokerstars) and play freerolls and play money on there. as soon as i turned 18 i deposited something like $10 and donked that off in a month playing nl2 cash. so i joined a few forums and then made the mistake of joining loads of sites to play loads of freerolls 
I think i joined stars/ftp/888/sky/pkr/carbon/paddypoker/betfair. and non of them with RB. damn i shot myself in the foot.
Taking poker to the next level:
Anyway, I played on and off for a few months but never really took it seriously, fast forward about a year and i decided right lets take it serious and try and make so...rfect for my nitty style.
So here i am after playing afaik 24 $1 18man SnGs and thinking i need to take this serious so whats the best way, make a blog 
so far im up $14.40 so its been a nice start and ill hope to post once a week minimum with important hands aswell. Ill also track my BR and what limits i am playing etc within the blog.
standard bankroll management:
normally you would move up limits when you have 50BI for the higher limit however because im new to SnGs im leaving it abit late, ill move upto $2 SnGs when i get to somewhere between 60-70BI, just because i want to give myself extra time to prepare for higher limits. i will then apply a minimum 60BI point before i move up limits. If i drop below 40BI for the limit i am on i will move back down limits to get some confidence and build my roll back up again.
Thats all for now because i have work tomorrow and i want some sleep but ill check my spelling and grammar etc when i get home 
GL on the tables ♠_biggrin:
Spoiler
Since I did that original post alot has changed, so here is a brief summary about me.
Im currently in my final year of University and along with grinding I work at ASDA part time ♦ Love playing poker and sports amongst other things. Very short intro 
Recently, Ive been playing poker more to make a decent profit which was going well until I started taking shots at NL25 in September. I think fustration with not being able to beat NL25 got to me and caused me to make a few rash plays at NL10 + some run bad at key times and before I know it im on a pretty decent downswing!
Anyway, its christmas + my birthday soon so hoping to start a fresh in 2012, work, study and grind hard and hopefully make my breakthru into NL25+
As you may notice I changed the title of the blog from NL5 to the world series to NL5 to an around the world trip. This is because the world series can wait where-as a gap year trip at my ages is a once in a lifetime chance before I start working in a proper professional job.
So the future, I hope to be successfully profiting at NL50+ and also enjoying the world at some point in 2012 ♦
This might not be the best blog out there but this blog is for me to look back on down the road ♦ Enjoy guys
