The True Aftermath

That One Big Chance

Alot is spoken about how bankrolls come and go in this game, you see people make it high, then crash down soon afterwards...I find myself in that situation on a regular basis, over my lifetime (and in poker terms, still a small one) I must have lost upwards of thirty bankrolls...each time trying to take that one shot too high. But i've never made the same mistake twice, so each one has been a valuable life lesson going forward...But for someone in my situation I have alreadt had that one score that was big enough to make a serious shot out of it...until the real world got in the way...

Always Dreaming, Never Succeeding

14th July 2013, Can hardly forget it...three of my best friends had found who are now long term girlfriends, one had proposed on the steps of the Louvre, i'd been asked to be their best man, my first ever deepstack day two and was actually smashing it...all in the same day. It was a wave of euphoria that i hope to see someday in the future...

27 Players left with me and J-Gill tossing banter across tables, me with the obvious chip lead, him grinding away nicely...and even then i knew what was coming. Something in the pit of my stomach told me what was to happen, and it didn't dissapoint. Second to the man himself for £7k, AT LAST! A bankroll to call my own! Obviously some went to backers but they had all sworn by my side for the future! That coupled with money that i'd been saving for years meant that the impending trip to america was going to be the greatest ever. I was going to spend four months in the land of my dreams, then come back armed with enough of a roll to give the tournaments a reasonable crack. Sure bankroll management was going to be a bit iffy, but whats not to try and achieve?

When The World Falls Apart

14th September 2013, two months afterwards...and my entire life could not have been more different. The trip to america had been a complete disaster. Everything it had been billed to be was a lie, 5,500 miles away from home, with nobody in the place i was staying that spoke english (Multilingual universities my arse) and feeling completely lost...Now i know i'll likely hear the line of "should have just held out, might have got better"...I got told by three residents of where i was staying (Long Beach, California) that every problem i had raised was "the way it was there" and there was no way around it...I lasted five days in america, didn't eat a single meal (the two i had both got thrown up), lost over a stone, was in constant emotional states and with knowing what my past was like (I'd suffered depression like this before) i knew, for the sake of my health, i had to get out of america regardless of the consequences, knee-jerk reaction yes, but i know in my heart it was the right decision.

Being back home was torture, i had to spend almost every single penny i had to get back home...to (as you'd expect) one of the frostiest receptions imaginable...now it wouldn't have been bad if not for my parents known method for dealing with issues...threats and violence...lots of them, in the end about a week later i got thrown out of the house and ended up spending all of my remaining money and then some trying to survive...i comfort ate this time round, putting on the best part of 2 stone (still suffering that weight gain to this day) and owing out thousands to the parents after they demanded i pay them back for all the time and effort they'd wasted in getting me there...

Worse still, coming back had put my degree in serious jeopardy, i needed to have 6 months abroad and 6 months working OR 12 months working within that year, what this meant (and another key reason i came back so fast) was that i had until the 14th to get a 36 week placement, naturally given the job market i failed spectacularly...

So here's me, two months off the back of having nearly five figures at my disposal and being on top of the world...flat broke, owing out, jobless, homeless, disowned and about to sign on...i'm not going to lie some fairly drastic things went through my head in those days...dark things i'm not proud of.

Silver Lining In A Mushroom Cloud

If there is one thing i am good at it's talking my way into and out of anything. And this time showcased that to it's truest potential. I had my first meeting with the job center planned for Tuesday 24th September...and i had decided (off my own back, obviously, seeing as the parents wouldn't even speak to me at this point) that on the monday i would get myself back on a degree, whatever it took. I had rang up Derby University (where i'd spent my clearing year) and explained the situation, they'd told me to ring a specific person who could get me back on the course i had been on at the start (Business Studies)...so i had a backup plan. My line was going to be walking into trent and basically reading them the riot act, clearly there had been no "safety net" for me and i refused to believe that i was the first person in the uni's history to have gone down the route i had (turned out i was, not a record i want)...we were to get me onto a degree that day or i was going to withdraw that afternoon.

I'd been given the private number of a tutor who ran a course for business defectors (Something that had been kept from me while i was in america and, in hindsight, could have avoided all of the worries, but my dad purposely never told me about it) and the idea was to try and get on his course...i still remember how the phone conversation went:-

Me: I've been told that Yvonne has explained my situation to you? Or should i give you a quick overview
Angelo: No need she has told me, basically i would love to help you but if you don't have 240 credits then there is nothing we can do
Me: But surely there has to be something, there is no way that the university hasnt got something in place! I've worked too hard to see this all lost over a health decision
Angelo: I'm just not sure, it's a very strict procedure.
Me: (Eureka Moment) You know this 240 credits, does it have to be from trent specifically or can it be across the whole academic career?
Angelo: Whole career.
Me: Well then i don't have 200, i have 320! I spent a year at derby before coming here!
Angelo: OH, I was NOT told about this...now we can look at this in a more favorable light!

Information was kept from me, and hidden from them...but in that moment i had felt a wave of emotion unlike any before...i ran, ran like never before to the university...i cleared nottingham from one side to the other in six minutes flat...i was red faced, panting, puffing and heaving, but the smile on my face was all to clear...around a few hours later i put pen to paper and transfered onto my course. The parents never did appologise for keeping it hidden from me, stating it would have been "just an excuse to come back", but it was solved...i rang the job center up right then and there and told them under no illusions how much i cared for it. And that was that...Life saved. Just.

The Aftermath

Hopefully this goes to explain to you all why i'm in the state i am...while you might not agree with how this has gone down, i don't regret any decision ive made...i thought i'd wasted an entire life's work in the space of five days, now im seven months from graduating from a degree that people tried to hide from me, in a country i should never have been in, with parents that have finally seen my way of thinking four months later, flat broke, with no fixed income for at least a while...looking to poker, the reason i had the money to travel at all, to realize a dream that had stood the test of time long before anything else...

Alot of dates got mentioned here...but there's one that overrides them all.
December 22nd 2013
...It was the day i would have arrived back home.

Amazing what can happen in the space of a season. Don't you think?