Authors note: The following entry has been written while considerably inebriated. Enjoy bitches!

“Hey! Didn’t I see you over at Pearl?” I yell at the girl in the striped sweater on the table opposing us.
“Yea I saw you on the dancefloor!” she responds.
“Oh really, how’d I do? Sick moves ah?”
”You…looked like you were having fun.”
”Wow, what a polite way of saying I suck huh? You’re a real charmer.”
She laughs.
“No, if I knew you better I would have come over to ask you for a dance.”

I smile and return to the plate of Kalbi in front of me. Across the table Cade sits with his arm around Keri, laughing at me for my bluntness.

“The fuck are you laughing at Cade?” I half shout at him. He and Keri continue to laugh at me.

Prior to our ending up in the 24 hour Korean BBQ restaurant ‘Sorabol’ the three of us had attended the nightclub ‘Pearl’ at Honolulu’s largest shopping center. I’d pumped myself full of alcohol and made a pass at numerous women in between attempts at dancing with Keri, who was much too skillful for me on the dance floor. As a result I mostly stood in her proximity moving my hips awkwardly while she danced circles around me, occasionally grabbing her hand to spin her haphazardly. At some point a blonde girl molested me and my suit on the dance floor and I danced with her briefly before she brushed me off. I’m not sure why.

Now we find ourselves in the aforementioned Korean BBQ with my attempting to chat up the girl in the white and orange striped shirt on the table across from us. I doubt I’m making much sense.
“Yea well next time you see me around make sure to ask for a dance.”
She giggles and nods.

The cool and social middle aged waitress comes over and asks us what we got up to tonight. I inform her that the three of us were out clubbing.
She looks at Keri and Cade “You two are a couple yes?”
They laugh and nod
“Then where is your date Tony?” she asks me.
“She left me about a month ago” I answer with a smile and laugh.
“She think you were too perfect huh?
“Hahaha! Thanks. Yea, that was the problem. She knew I was too perfect.”
She laughs and pats me on the shoulder and walks off.

I keep rambling at Cade and Keri and at some point demand to know how long Cade thinks I could keep my hand in the large jug of ice water on the table.
“I put the over/under on about three minutes.”
“Done. Twenty then?”
”Okay, twenty.”

I stand up, rip my tan jacket off, roll up my sleeves, and cram my hand into the jug of ice water. If cold could burn, this is what it’d feel like. It burns worse than anything I can remember since getting tear gased.
“Ooooooooooh God it fucking hurts Cade! FUCK YOU!”
Cade and Keri laugh at my hysterically. After about 45 seconds I rip my hand out.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Why did I agree to that!? I was never gonna come close to three minutes!”

“Ship it!” yells Cade while he and Keri laugh at me.
“Man fuck all of you.”

’Iceman’ was a nickname Celina used to call me, more insult than anything for my lack of emotions no matter the circumstances. Just after a couple of days of knowing me, without any knowledge of the history, Cade gave me the same nickname. I’m not really the most expressive guy, and I tend to cover any discomfort or thoughtfulness with insulting sarcasm.

About 20 minutes later I start pestering Cade about adjusting the line as to how long I can keep my hand in the ice water.
“Two minutes” he quotes.
“Hell fucking no. No way I can keep it in there that long. I barely lasted 30 seconds last time.”
”You lasted like 45 seconds. A minute thirty.”
:”No. Hell no. One minute Cade.”
”A minute ten.”
”Man fuck you! One minute!”
”No.”
”Come on Cade! Come on! Coooooooooooooome on!”
“No Tony.”
”COME ON CADE! I bet the guy at the other table would take this action.”
“Why don’t you ask him then?”
”Fine.” *I turn to the other table* “Hey man, you wannna bet me I can’t keep my hand in this ice water?”
He looks at me suspiciously and answers
“Nah I don’t think so.”
The girl next to him in a black dress looks at me and says
”Why are your pants pulled up so high?”
“Man…why you gotta be such a hater?” I retort.
“I’m not hating, I’m trying to do you a favor.”

I stand up and push my pants down as low as possible.
“Okay fine! Just for you! Cade, come on man, a minute and five seconds. Let’s do this shit! Ten dollars! No matter what you’ll be up ten.”
”Alright fine, ten dollars Tony.”
”Yes! Boo yah! Let’s do this shit”

I leap up again, roll up my sleeves and demand Cade get ready.
“What are you doing Tony!?” asks the approaching waitress.
”Proving a point!”
I roll up a napkin and smash my right hand into the frozen water.
The other table and the waitress proceeds to laugh hysterically at me. The ice water burns my hand horribly. I do my best to play it cool and keep cracking wise throughout the process.
About 30 seconds into the bet I roll up the napkin, yell “This is what I look like when I have sex!” and cram it into my mouth and start laughing. The restaurant is in hysterics.

Forty-five seconds later I have destroyed the mark but keep my hand in the water.
“Come on Cade, let’s see how long I can go then!”
My hand isn’t properly frozen, but I still look like an iceman. A few seconds later I pull it out and laugh at Cade.
“I coulda kept going a long time.”

After paying the bill I stand up and start walking out the restaurant. A thought occurs to me and I turn around to face the table that was next to us.
“Hey! Black dress!”
I crank up my pants as far into my abdomen as they’ll go and walk out of the restaurant bow legged.

Authors 6 hour later post note: Ow, my fucking head.

I am an ambitious person. In many people that’s a quality, but I’ve seen what mines done to the point that I know it’s much closer to a fault. If I had to settle on anything, I’d call it a double edged sword. The problem is that my ambitions border on obsession. I become so single minded in accomplishing something (and only in a manner which I feel is best) that I neglect and eliminate anything around me that’ll get in my way. It can be as effective as it is self destructive. People sometimes tell me they wish they had my motivation and discipline, but those come with a price that’s harder to see.

A friend in the industry sent me a message today about my entry yesterday and the drawing attached to it which read:
” Hi Tony,

I'm a great supporter of yours, both personally and professionally, and I think you're one of the brightest guys I've met in the poker ecosystem. I'm sure with your bravado, charisma and intellect you could conquer any challenge you ever set for yourself inside our outside of the poker world. If you were ever looking for a job, it would be my pleasure to employ you; and I would always be up for having some or many drinks.

All that being said, I just want to share my concern with you about today's blog post. The cartoon at the end is pure highschool bull****. It's the type of thing that makes you look bad professionally (in ways you'll never find out about, but which will affect you if you ever want to be more than a player), and personally (I know you're not just an overgrown-frat-boy). You're now a high-profile public figure in the online poker player community and it's obvious you're trying to transcend that, and I think what you've done is a mistake.

If it's therapeutic for you to write about your breakup, then go for it - but be careful of invisible lines that you can cross without ever knowing it. If I were you I would try to republish that post without that cartoon.

That's it. I wish you well.”

I responded to him with:
” I really appreciate the message and any advice you have to offer on the situation. I wondered about what kind of message that drawing would send as I was creating it and have been wondering about my degree of visibility in the poker world in general. Most of what I've been wondering is whether any potential I have to go beyond being 'just a player' is something I'd even be interested in if it meant censoring myself or changing myself in the slightest degree.

When I got into this game I did it because I simply loved to play. At some point in the last year or so I think I lost sight in that. The conclusion I've come to is that I simply have no aspirations in this industry outside of being an excellent player and remembering who I am. What I loved most about this occupation is I always felt like I could do or say whatever I wanted (obviously outside the criminal degree) and there wouldn't be consequences when it came to my earning power. All that really mattered was that I played well and did so with integrity. Simply grinding online MTT's is easily worth in excess of $250,000 a year and it disgusts me that at some point I thought that wasn't enough for me, particularly for a job with as much freedom as this has. What I'm truly concerned about isn't my professional potential, but whether my greed and ambition has run amok.

When things fell through with Full Tilt they actually offered me a position to keep writing my blog for them for considerable pay, at least so for simply writing a blog. I declined because I realized I simply didn't give a damn about the money (among other reasons.) I wrote the blog because I enjoyed putting whatever I thought/felt into it and the idea of having to censor it just so I could take a paycheck doesn't jell with who I am. I sometimes wonder if the only reason I have a popular blog and some degree of notoriety is because I'm willing to put such ridiculous and absurd things in it, including admitadly immature and crude drawings. More importantly, I realize that being overly concerned about what my readers think is a fallacy to the whole reason I have the blog. I have the blog because I enjoy writing it. If nobody read it, I'd still write it.

If doing all this means no poker site would dare touch me than it's simply the price for being who I am. I'm happy with the money I make and my place in this world and industry and I'm not sure why I ever became interested in doing anything else. All I ever really wanted was to be a good player and make a living at this. If one day that becomes an impossibility than I imagine I'll go get a job where I feel like I'm doing something good with myself, like being a firefighter or something where I felt like I could be myself and do something honorable.

Lastly, I want to reiterate that none of this message was supposed to sound confrontational or arrogant, but upon rereading it I think it partially comes off that way. I have a huge amount of respect for you and what you do and have written so in the past and will continue doing so. I genuinely appreciate you're trying to offer a helping hand. It's also worth noting that this PM may appear in my blog as I think it clarifies a lot of my thoughts and feelings on the topic, but I will obviously edit out your name.

Cheers, Tony”

I had a long talk about Lee Nelson about not only this correspondence today, but professionalism vs. ambition in the poker industry in general. Of everyone in the poker industry, I’m not sure there’s anyone whose advice I have more respect for than Lee.

Lee realized the truth of the situation. I had a friend who recognized the ambition in me and tried to give me a helping hand, and my response was essentially “To hell with it, I do shit my way or not at all.” Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I did make a lot of valid points in my message back to him, but at the core of things I was lying. Not in the intentional ‘I think I can get away with this lie’ but the kind of lie where you know something and don’t really want to admit it to yourself. I know my ambition in poker goes beyond just playing. If all I ever wanted was to play the game and make a healthy living then why would I have ever wrote so many articles about the game? Was I just trying to make things harder on myself for amusements sake? Clearly I had an interest in teaching and discussing this game. I also think it’s pretty obvious from a number of things I’ve written that I also care about the games image. If what I really wanted was to make money and behave however I damn well chose I’d tear down my blog, delete the ‘things it took me a while to learn’ series, quit the poker seminars, and never post on 2+2 again.

I’ve never liked the idea of ‘professionalism’. I don’t like censoring myself just to please a more formal and rigid set of guidelines. That said my friends knew what I didn’t want to admit, you might be the smartest guy in the room but if you’re dressed as a clown nobody is going to listen to you (I’m not claiming to be the smartest guy in the room, I think the spelling in message will prove that.) I stand by my remarks that I wouldn’t edit my blog just to take a paycheck. But I would edit it if something in it damaged my ability to be credible.

In the end Lee thought the drawing was funny, but agreed that it was immature and unprofessional. He didn’t tell me to take it down, but made a recommendation. He didn’t want to see my being a wise ass hurt my ability to do the poker seminars we work on together (which I truly enjoy) and I’d hate to give them up too, particularly after putting in so many hours into crafting them. So the drawing is down.

There are too many examples of people who have tried to give me advice but my ambition and arrogance have prevented me from listening. I still remember arguing with my parents about playing poker instead of getting a job. Sure they were wrong that time, but it’s not like their hearts weren’t in the right place. There are more examples like that than I care to remember or rehash. So I apologize to everyone who offered me a hand and got the finger in return.

I’ve been kind of adrift for the last few days. I haven’t really been doing much of anything, and I didn’t even bother to play on Sunday for the FTOPS ME. In total, I played a single FTOPS event. I couldn’t even tell you what I’ve done since my last blog entry outside seen some funny movies, had some good meals, and killed time at the beach. The last couple of days I’ve developed a minor cold, but it’s nothing serious.

One strange aspect of going through a major break up is you wind up thinking to yourself “Well, now what?” It tends to sap your motivation and in many cases leaves people hiding inside for weeks or months at a time with junk food in one hand and a computer full of recently downloaded pornography in the other, alternating between gorging, jerking, and crying (bonus points if you accomplish all three at once.) I don’t have that kind of capacity for drama or misery, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was feeling unmotivated and confused as to what to do with myself.

For the first time in a long time the world is truly my oyster. I have my youth and health. I have enough money that I can create a life wherever I want. I have a job that let’s me live wherever I want. I have some degree of talent in poker and in writing (not trying to be an ego maniac here, but I’m pretty sure I don’t suck at poker.) Thanks to online message boards I know people in cities around the world, even if informally. I have absolutely zero responsibility or limitations. Most of all I feel I have the opportunity to make some kind of impact in my profession, to do something respectful.

So with that I’ve decided I want to write a book on poker tournament strategy. It’ll be based on the ‘Things it took me a while to learn articles’ (which I now feel a new commitment towards continuing.) But because it’s me and I can’t possibly do anything in a normal or straight forward manner, I want it to be a strategy book filled with various anecdotes and humor where appropriate. The challenge for me (outside of having to put in a shit ton of work) is trying to prevent the book from being too esoteric and incomprehensible to the casual reader, so I imagine I’ll have to submit it to a few people less experienced in the online world first.

I’ll also need to go back and ask my various contributors through the articles if they're okay with their words being used in the book. Considering the guys I’ve had work with me I doubt there will be any issues since they are all so awesome and easy going, but it seems respectful and honest to check with them first.

My plan going forward is to use the articles as a blue print for the book but it’ll need better organization. I’ll also need to add a ton more content in order for it to be worth purchasing the book instead of just reading the articles. In some cases it’s difficult to explore a topic more thoroughly than some of the guide lines I wrote, so in those cases I’ll be coming up with a shit ton of examples in order to illustrate them. Take the stack sizes article for example, outside of clarifying a few things there I don’t think the basics of what’s been written in the article have changed much or can be further clarified. However, adding a bunch of examples there would help to fill out the ideas and would add value to the section.

I might put examples of chapters up on the blog or forums to ask people for feedback and find out what they’d like to see more of or how they’d like things further clarified. I hope this will result in creating a book that people will feel actually addresses their questions. I also feel it’s very important that I stay true to my style in the book; otherwise nothing separates this from any number of the other quality texts out there which are high on technical and mathematical information pertaining to tournaments. I imagine having the book laden with sarcasm and occasional insults might reduce its overall professionalism, but I’m not writing this thing because I think I’m some professional author. I’m writing this shit because I want to and because I finally feel driven again.

So if there are any suggestions, comments, ideas, topics, or issues you want to seen addressed in this book, please let me know about it here. I’ll do my best to accommodate.

I just woke up and it’s past 2pm. Thanks to Cade forcing vitamins and water down my throat last night I don’t have any form of hangover and will likely live out a similar evening out tonight. What did I get up to last night? Um, it’s a bit of a blur, but with the help of Cade here’s what I do remember, in
semi chronological order:


1. First we went to a place that had live music. I went to the bar and got a beer while Cade stayed talking on the phone to Rachel. The WSOP final table was on TV and the people next to me were chatting to the bartender about how 22 year old Peter Eastgate now has nine million (MIRRION!) dollars. I blew their minds by telling them he got taxed for seven of it. I stood there for half an hour chugging my beer waiting for Cade and realizing the bar was predominately old people. I finished my drink, went back over to the Cade, swore at him, then asked him to use the phone.
”Hello Rachel? Hi it’s Tony how’s it going? Look I’m terribly sorry to intrude and interrupt, but I need to take Cade here on an excursion to find his penis which he has apparently lost talking to you. We’re going to go wasted now okay? Bye!”

2. I handed the phone back to Cade and walked over to the nearby ‘Hooters’ which was apparently having live music and $5 pitchers that night. I ordered what turned out to be a gigantic pitcher of ‘Blue Moon’ beer and sat down and started drinking alone while Cade finished his conversation. Cade came over when I was about a third through the pitcher and since he was driving the responsibility for drinking all of it but one glass came down to me. We sat there for a while drinking then realized there was not going to be any live music and instead we were just hanging around a bunch of douches at ‘Hooters’. I finished the pitcher and we headed off.

3. We went over to a club which was actually very cool. It had a downstairs bar, hip hop dance floor, then sectioned off area for salsa dancing. Upstairs they had booths and several pool tables, where Cade and I bought five games and I kept ordering screw drivers. There weren’t many people in the bar so we decided I’d keep drinking for an hour and play pool to see if anyone showed up. As it turned out the only people who showed up were dancing over to the salsa area, and seeing as I can’t dance salsa and it was super loud in there we had no reason to stick around.

4. We went over to another club by a mall and it turned out to be an Asian night. I was one of like three white dudes there and the place was packed. I kept drinking and the stuff really started getting to me. I vaguely remember hitting on numerous girls in the club, opening with the line “You know I have that exact same skirt and almost wore it tonight, that would have been so embarrassing.” It was pretty much impossible to hold any level of conversation as the bar was super loud. I remember hitting on one of the girls behind the bar at some point (also known as suicide) and being told she had a boyfriend. The club had two polls up on a stage where dudes with a microphone were yelling various shit as girls in bikinis danced around them. At my drunkest I told Cade I was going to get up there and strip tease one of the polls. I jumped on the stage and yelled something at the dude up there about my intentions and started throwing myself around the poll. He told me he was just about to take the poll off the stage and I need to get the hell out of there. Cade got a couple of blurry pictures of it which I’ll upload soon.

5. Cade and I went over to the all night Korean BBQ place at which point I was belligerently drunk. Cade did his best to keep me from doing anything retarded and my entire visit there is kind of a blur, though I do remember thinking the Kalbi was so incredibly delicious.

6. Cade took me home and started pumping water and vitamins down my throat while we had a long discussion about anime porn and how crazy it is that Johnny Depp somehow looks 27 despite being 45. I’m under the impression that I was not making a lot of sense.

So that was my evening. Hopefully there’s more of the same today and tonight. Also, we saw the new Bond movie was an action packed and respectable entry into the Bond canon but lacking in the wit and flair that we’ve come to expect in Bond films. Either way, I enjoy this new variety of Bond who feels like a constant legitimate threat to kill someone and Daniel Craig made another good showing in the roll.

As pretty much everyone reading this knows, the UIGEA regulations are out, the Bush administrations last attempt to restrict your personal freedoms before his abomination of a presidency comes to an end. For decades to come our country will look back and question how we ever came to elect a bungling, mongoloid, freedom hating retard like Bush twice and some of the damage he’s done to our countries international reputation and respect will take even longer to reverse.

I’m not one of these people who think Obama is going to swoop in and be the cure all to both the problems of poker players and the nation as a whole. I don’t know how Obama will function as president, but I am hopeful. What I do know is that we have nowhere to go but up. Obama is in the fortunate position that so long as he doesn’t fire a nuclear missile into the center of London pretty much whatever he does will look better by comparison to his predecessor. We all need to make our voices heard about our feelings on the UIGEA and I urge you to go over to this link and take a couple minutes out of your day to let the incoming administration know what you think:
http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/7/Fight-UIGEA-with-Obama-and-the-transition-team-3555389?PageIndex=1

Now that I’ve done my complaining/nagging let’s have fun with an equally relevant but much more hilarious link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSE_saVX_2A

In other news, the new James Bond movie is out today and obviously I am going as soon as possible, though first I have to get to the gym and ‘sculpt my guns’. It’s a Friday night and I plan on getting wasted and behaving like a jackass so hopefully when I write tomorrow I have something hilarious to report.