... Finding ways to avoid cashing tournaments all over the world!

Hey pokerroad! This is going to be my first blog for the site, and Im super pumped to give you guys a little window into the crazy roller coaster that has been my life since I decided to take "the plunge" down the poker road. OK, it turns out that line sounded better in my head then it did on paper, but whatever, I had to start off blog #1 somehow =).

For those of you who don't know me I will throw in a little background info, I am currently 23 years old, and recently finished up school at the University of Minnesota. I learned to play poker around my sophomore year of college when I discovered online poker. I grinded hard for a few years under the screen name "AMAK316" which is probably familiar to many of you. Since finishing school I decided to take this whole poker thing a little more seriously, with bundles of free time I decided to hit the road and play all the major tournaments in the US and a few overseas. Fast forward 9 months later and I have ran like Zeus already making a world series of poker TV final table (10k pot limit holdem) and getting second in WPT Legends of Poker at the bike, amassing over 900k in live cashes.

Alright thats about all the brag-blogging ill do (for now) but on to other stuff. I've been super busy since the bike, I made a trip to borgata but got banned from playing that WPT, then I jetted off to europe to play the WCOOPs (world championships of online poker) in Amsterdam with a group of friends. After bricking off the WCOOPs in epic fashion we all decided to hit up World Series of Poker Europe in London. That tournament was ridiculously awesome, and a great structure but I got coolered pretty hard on day 1 to find my way to the rail, I may have to relive this moment a bit because it was on the ESPN feature table so maybe you all will see it. Later that week I played EPT London, which I felt had a terrible structure and was kind of a poorly ran tournament, I also found a way to stack off on day 1 (drawing stone dead all in on the flop) and grabbed the first flight back to the states. Running bad in London is way less fun than running bad in the US because the travel expenses there are unreal. Losing buyins + spending 50$ on a cheesburger = life tilt, that place is absurdly expensive.

After London I came back out to the US, hung out at my parents house for a week or so and skipped WPT Niagara because I was the best man in one of my friends weddings, it was really strange to see one of my good friends getting married and starting a family already while I have literally 0 responsibilities at this point in my life. After that I moved into what is now my house in vegas, and I love it here! This city is pretty awesome, and my roomates are all poker players who are very fun guys. I am currently living with Jamie "TheCronic420" Rosen, Hunter "HemipowerSWT" Frey, Ben "Shanking You" Palmer, and Adam "Akat11" Katz. Hopefully all these guys motivate me to get back on the online grind, because I have been ridiculously lazy the last few months. Since I got to vegas I have played a few events here, WPT Festa 15k at the Bellagio, and the 10k at Ceasers, I made day 2 of both of them, but couldn't run good deep in either =(. My next stop on the circuit will be Foxwoods (which I hear is not the most fun stop of the year but oh well) hopefully next time you guys hear from me Ill be 1.5M dollars richer =).

Sorry if that was a little long, in the next few blogs you can expect less of a summary and more interesting hands and individual trip reports, maybe I'll even do a write up of some Sunday online tournaments this week. Later guys!

~Amit