Nate's Vegas Diary, Day 1- How The Fk
Dear Diary,
Well, it’s here. The day we’ve all been waiting for- Trump and Putin, shaking hands at last. But also, today is the day I hop on a tube and dart through the sky at a billion miles an hour, out to Las Vegas to play the Main Event of the WSOP.
It’s pretty surreal to be able to type that, as it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was just an awkward 14 year old who would rather stay inside and watch poker on TV or play on PokerStars than anything….so I guess you could say not much has changed besides my hair line and I have an IRA.
It’s been a long time coming. I used to sit in my bedroom and play the lowest stake games and lose every time. But I kept at it- I read poker strategy, I talked to players much better than me, I studied the game, and slowly but surely I went from a bad losing player to a bad somewhat winning player.
I had random success along the way – In 2011 I final tabled a $345 tournament in Atlantic City. Look, here I am!
I had soooo many chips during this tournament. With like 27 people left, I had 20% of the chips in play. I came into the final table with the chip lead, daydreaming of quitting my shitty, $35,000 a year job and moving to Mexico to play online poker full time. But instead, I played like an idiot and finished 7th. Oops.
After about a year of doing that shitty job, I decided “fuck this cube monkey nonsense”, quit, and moved to Manchester, England to play online poker full time (remember, it was/is banned in the United States). I didn’t have much money, but I knew I would rather take a shot at doing something I actually enjoyed than grind it out another day in the cube.
It went okay over there. It was definitely a great experience. I didn’t get rich, but I did well enough to pay rent and go to the pub to watch Arsenal or Wigan with the lads. Yesterday, my old roommate who took me in off the proverbial (but not so proverbial) streets messaged me:
As Riggs pointed out, yes 5 years is a long time, but it’s still pretty wild that I was grinding micro-stakes in a kitchen in Manchester not too long ago, and now I’m flying to Vegas to play the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. How the fk?
People have been asking me if I’m nervous and all of that. Right now, not really. We’re going to do some work on Saturday and Sunday, and then Monday morning it will really kick in and I’ll get some nerves. But it’s not like I haven’t played poker before. Sure, not a $10,000 buy in, but it’s still the same game. I’ve documented my recent live poker success on this here website, so I’m feeling confident. But at the same time, it’s still poker and anything can happen, both good or bad. I can easily run my kings into aces on day 1 and be out just like that (or vice versa, of course). Or I can run kings into aces and flop a 3rd king and get a huge chip stack. You never, ever know. All I want to do is play my best so I don’t regret anything. That’s where my mindset really is- play my best and don’t do anything stupid.
I take off shortly for Vegas. In the mean time, check out the podcast myself and Smitty did yesterday with the legend Chicago Joey. He’s the best poker podcaster out there and an all around great guy with great hair.
Also, check out who is #TeamSpiderMonkey….
I’ll be blogging the entire trip, and doing vids and shit like that on Twitter. Hopefully it’s an extended trip and I come home very rich. If not, I’ll just have to try again next year.
Til next time,
With love,
Xoxo,
Nate