2012, Building Upon Foundations

For the first time in my life i get to sit back and reflect on a year i tried to predict, sitting next to me is the very words i typed out for my breakout year post...and reading back now a year wiser makes me realise a few things.

I sat down last year saying that i would be the person to watch for, the one that could adapt to changes faster than anyone else...that i would make my mark upon a game or sport, but didn't know which. And while my name isn't in lights all over the place, the "breakout" did happen...but in ways closer to home.

I've come within inches of becoming a world champion...that was a feeling i will treasure for many years, sure i got robbed, but the game of poker is luck as much as skill, it just wasn't meant to be on that day...but my day will come i assure you. This year coming up has events that can define already made career's....imagine what they'd do to a blossoming one?

The thing is...this year those events were mere fantasy to me, i wanted to play them, but was destined never to reach past £100 buyins...there's a key reason for that...buyins for most of the year had to be met entirely out of my own pocket, very little was doable to get into the bigger reaches.

Two things have changed that.

1. I have a collection of friends who without which i wouldn't be where i am now, they put me into events that have made me capable of reaching new heights, bigger events, closer than ever before to becoming a fully fledged professional, and also (and this is actually a scoop for people who read it) my friends have made me play so much, so well, so big...that ive started to become noticed...

2. Next year money from my own pocket will not be an issue, savings funds, student loans, bursaries and (hopefully) winnings will be able to put me into events the likes of which are the stuff of dreams...past that it's anyone's guess.

Overall this year has been great, ive met some new and interesting people, created a social network i could have only dreamt of at the start of the year, have discovered which of the two main paths im to go down but still more than ready to switch over should the second route prove more lucrative. Formed my own team with hopes to make it the UK's best and biggest and so much more that its impossible to fit onto a single blog.

For next year, the dream is to get more backers, get more results, get more dreams accomplished and hopefully, just hopefully. complete the dream of a lifetime and win of the biggest events the world has ever seen, while supported by the friends and family i treasure the most...if that happens, expect to see the night skies lit by the party of a lifetime i plan to throw.

From Our Friends To You: Merry Christmas

Well, tis the season again...and while im aware we will all end up on computers tomorrow for one reason or another. I thought id take this opportunity, yet again. To wish you all a merry Christmas, a prosperous new year, and all's hoping a smashing start to 2012!

Realization

To write two of these blogs describing a single event is not something ive done before...but its something i feel i need to do, this is my avenue to express all the feelings i have, its my avenue to describe in some small way what im feeling at this given moment. I wont give a long doctored speech, what i type in this will be like those before it, pure emotions spilled into letters on a page.

Im nervous. I wish i could say that im the picture of serene grace, the picture of calm in a storm...but i just cant. This event is on a scale i have never imagined, anticipated yes, but never truly grasped until i woke up this afternoon...It concerns me not just of the scale, not just of the weight now on my shoulders...but also of its lasting implications.

I said yesterday i consider myself a true poker player now...that still holds true, but only now have i truly understood what it meant...im not the man who makes his money from £20 freeze-outs anymore. Im not the man who sits back waiting for his next big break to come worth little more than a weeks wages...things have changed.

The scale has changed. The needs have changed. The pressure has changed.

While i sit here with butterflies in my stomach, comprehending just what leap im about to make, be under no illusion that it does not affect the sheer force i will take into not only this tournament, but the years to come. Before i was just a local player, before i was just one of the also-ran's...destined to play in events no bigger than the size of my wallet, prizes no bigger than the size of a night out.

Those days are over.

I cant sit by anymore while i watch those around me scale new heights...sure my wallet cant hack the buy-ins i dream of, and hell my skill isn't up to world class level yet. But the passion is, has, and will always be. Bigger than any of those before me.

Butterflies in the stomach do not mean it affects the end result. When the clocks strikes tonight, i will be sat down in a sea of tens of thousands. We all have dreams, we all have hopes and wishes. We all probably know what we'd do with the money if we won....And its that last point that separates me from the pack. Shows me for what im worth...or more importantly, what i fight for.

The money i win tonight will be split between those that have put their faith in me. Those that have put there support in me. This is what separates me from the rest. No buy-in is out of reach, no mountain too hard to scale. I consider every person stood beside me tonight as an extra life, to use one of pokers most famous sayings...i have 16 "One Time"'s at my disposal...Hold on, because i may need them yet.

We stand together for this one, of that i am sure, but its implication reaches far past this event. Its shown me i have supporters in the most unlikely of places, in the most amazing number of people. Next year i set myself the task of exploding on the scene with a serious bang...with these by my side, anything. And i mean anything. Is possible

Realization. Its a word i toss around quite alot, but every time with meaning. Tonight is the start of something more...the start of a realization that this is no longer a hobby...this is no longer just a mere fantasy, a dream in the vivid mind of a 20 year old from Nottingham...no, this is more.

This is the life i am now sculpting. With my friends, family, supporters and backers alike beside me...we cant lose.

We wont lose.

The Prelude

Its been months since ive sat down and accurately written out my emotions, hopes, dreams...three months since ive been able to sit down and let everything pour out. Its given me time to sit back, take stock, realise the things in life that matter...

But also, its allowed me to pursue a passion to such an extent which ive never been able to before. Supporters have numbered far more than ever before...results have started coming in on a scale unlike anything before...while i may have won less this year (so far) than i did last year...the wins have meant more, come from bigger, been achieved through tougher...

I am a poker player, before i wasn't so sure, i wondered if it was all an illusion. Just a hope that would ultimately prove a step too far. But now it feels real, ive had people putting there support into me through more than just words. Ive been within inches of true greatness. Ive taken part in events that until recently were nothing but mere fantasy. And from friends to family alike, i have them to thank for that.

Tomorrow marks a step into the world i aim to join. Recent weeks have been the biggest ive ever faced, and while ive not actually won, ive come alot further than was possible before, than i thought was possible now...but will be easily possible in the future. I walk into this feeling unlike before, feeling the world is behind me, support from places i didn't think were possible before. Its no small achievement to be where i am now, my career isn't even two full years in the making, yet my aims for the future are the stuff of true professionals. the aims reflect where i think 2012 will stand. and tomorrow is the start of that journey.

I seriously believe it this time. before was hope mixed, tainted almost, with the idea of what might happen should i not succeed. But for the last few weeks ive only thought of that once, and unlike before that was quelled by one of the new supporters, every other time has been the image of me collapsing on the desk as the computer reads the millions now in my bank. the career etched off the back of five small cards......the career created by the 16 people who stood by me on that fateful first step up the staircase of champions...at the top rests my dreams, ambitions, lifetime's goals. Tomorrow i stand there at the bottom...its only seven steps, surely it cant be that hard surely?

Its The Prelude to a great future. tomorrow starts the journey of a lifetime, regardless of the result it will be an experience ive yet to enjoy...and for once, with the people beside me, backers, friends and family alike...i seriously feel like they're lifting me onto the first step.

From there....its all up to me.