Stick to the Plan

Hi there,

If your reading this, then you've got too much time on your hands eheh, or you are interested in my story of persuing a career in playing professional poker in Las Vegas, well done you.

I've accumulated a bank roll of around $7000 from;

1. My own money (well technically it's HSBCs as it is on credit card lol)
2. My sultan mates (Matt (Donkey) Roberts - his nickname is nothing to do with poker ladies ;), Simon (Anti-game) Izzard, Pete (Self-appointed Captain) Khoury, Dan (Old man) Murnghaham, Ali (Pied Piper) Smith, Kam (Token) Berepiki). Fortunately I beat them all in house games so the mugs have faith, little do they know I've marked the cards muhaehehe (only joking)

Thanks guys!!

Ive booked flights and a hotel for the first week. After that it'll be done on a week by week basis - my ultimate goal is to last the 3 months allowed by USA Visa permits. My man Kam found a return flight for 350 nugs, it comes back in 3 weeks...I'm hoping I won't need to take it!! We've reviewed the laws and put together a spreadsheet documenting how much wonga (nug nug nug) I'll need to survive - what hotels I book and how well I eat will depend on my poker results lol, it's gonna be interesting times....

So anyway, you wanna know a bit about the kind person who does this crazy trip?!? If no, then skip past this bit ha, otherwise here goes:

I've been surviving in Portsmouth, UK for the last year by playing online poker

Before that I designed weapons for warships at BAEVT and before that I designed helicopter upgrades for 2 years at Lockheed Martin. I quit these jobs because I knew I didn't want to work in an office...being behind a computer all day, checking BBC news every lunch, spending 30 minutes writing an email to someone sitting just next to you...also, there is just not enough of those lovely ladies in the office workplace!!

I also teach a little bit of breakdancing as volunteer work (I quite enjoy working with kids, did a Summer camp once in the US for 10 weeks which was awesome). My breakdancing experience is only about a year, however I am just about good enough to do shows and compete at a low level. I love dancing, it's such a good thing - keeps you in great shape, loads of cool people do it and is a great party trick! Gonna miss all my breakdancing pals!!

Before Breakdancing I did a lot of martial arts and was the president at my University club (Portsmouth). I won quite a few gold medals competing accross the UK in Taekwondo and was also awarded the "Full Colours" award by Portsmouth Uni for my efforts, touch!

I have a degree in Computing from Portsmouth Uni and won an award for my degree for achieving the highest mark, although I spent the whole of Uni partying or at competitions, so not quite sure how that happened!

Before Uni I played computer games a lot online and was the UK captain for a game called RTCW (Return to Castle Wolfenstein), this included competitions around the UK and US. However I completely messed up my school/college grades because of it and had some pretty poor results (too embarassed to say lol!). I remember my dad calling me when I was playing at Quakecon in the US, and saying how embarassed he was collecting my results and talking to my teachers /friends about bad they were...ohh myy dayssss. I got suspended from school once for drinking between lessons lol, I also used to flunk school a lot with Rhodes but never got caught (in fact my parents don't even know to this day hahaha, so did Andy by the way if you guys read this. Ian didn't, he was too proper!)

And finally I also like playing chess. I used to play for my county when I was younger, but then didn't play for a while, getting back into it now - great game!

Right enough about me, now for the plan. There's only one way that I'm going to survive in the crazy Yankland gambling deviant city Las Vegas, and that is by, and only by! "Sticking to the Plan" (plan formally created by life long friend Rhodes - insert small c in circle for copyright mina mina)

So what is the plan?!? Well...basically it means a list of things:

1. Stay away from Craps table (ohh my godd Craps is so much fun, yeeeoooppp)
2. Play only the 1 cent 1 line stakes on slot machine "Mr Cashman" (Don't put a 100 nug note in ya clown)
3. Stay away from the "other" expensive pleasures eheh (multiple.)
4. Play a lot of poker. Poker, poker, poker, poker, poker. When I'm not playing poker? Study. Review, anaylse, criticise, discuss, whatever it takes to improve - I have to become the best Poker player I can possibly be to ultimately maximise my winnings!! There is too much luck involved in Poker to make mistakes, my game has to be precision perfect!

That's it, thats the plan. If you follow this blog on a regular basis (I intend to update it once a week), it's gonna include an all telling Spreadsheet, details of every game and their results; My poker thoughts with regular updates on interesting poker hands; What I'm thinking about when I'm in hands, my poker strategies; and finally my personal thoughts - how I'm getting on, the highs and lows! What living in Vegas is like and how I'm gonna survive out there on my own, away from all my friends and family.

I hope for the future that this will be an interesting read for you (I will try and add pictures/ videos to the blog), and a rewarding trip for me / my investors.

So to good times, wish me luck!

Steve (hopelesglory)