United Kingdom of Boomer

I’ve just finished watching Busto to Robusto featuring Captain Zeebo.

Incredibly enthralling video and one where, to be honest, I could see a couple of similar personailty traits that have manifested themsevles in me over the years but, thanks to various career choices, have now been all but supressed.

What it got me thinking about was how the outside world judges poker players and, in a way, I’ve had it right here at home.

Both my parents are professionals in the Health Service and my life started out, and may yet still finish, in a way that mimicks them. I’ve been to Grammar School, I’ve got my Bachelor’s Degree (which is actually something neither of them acheived) and I’m now on the track to Chartered Accountancy.

However….

The wild card has always been poker. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not about to throw away 10 years of school’ing so I can play 6 tables of 2/4 every day…but it does present an opportunity.

12 months ago I completed the AAT qualification which is bascailly the foundation Qualification you do before you do a 3-year course which gains you chartership and I think you automatically qualify for a BMW 5-series or something becasue you complete it :). Unfortunately while the company I work for were willing to put me through the AAT, which all in all costs about £2000 ($3200) they kinda balked at the ACCA (Chartership) which costs in excess of £11,000 ($17,000). Obviously I had a few rebellious thoughts after this becasue I essentially thought I’d be cock-blocked but at the end of the day what happened next? The biggest financial meltdown in 30 years bacailly meaning what you have is what you got in terms of job, house etc and I even went through a period where I was put at risk of redundancy and essentailly won a coinflip to keep my job.

So I’m sitting doen with the old man, who’d come up from Manchester to help with some emergency housework, and my mother and having a chat about what we were planning to do over the winter etc and we’d come up with all sorts of plans regarding the house but then a spanner was thrown into the works in the fact that somehow I’ve got to get together about £11,000 over a 3 year period to get my chartership.

That’s when I perked up and mentioned that if I worked hard enough on Poker I could potentailly have $10-15k in my poker accounts by this time next year and it was my problem to solve. (Alright I only have $1.5k now but 12 months is a long time). Thanks to poker, in a way, I have become exceedingly patient and long term in planning. I will look a year down the road if I have to which does sometime clash when someone’s panic’ing about now now now as always seems to happen.

Now my mother has NEVER been comfortable with me playing online as, like everyone knows, it’s a negative sum emotional game which means weven if you’re winning you can get stressed and downhearted about it. Plus the negative effects sitting in front of a PC can have yadda yadda yadda. Also I had to sit her down once and explain how I wasn’t going to burn my credit cards up with poker deposits and I could only ever “lose” my original $100 deposit I made 2 years ago before I’d found DC, 2+2 and anything else…not really a disaster.

However my father managed to put it in real world terms and it looked like the lightbulb finally came on for her and it was so simple what he said…

“Look, I know it’s difficult for you because you (mother) can’t do it and I can’t do it…but he can and what’s the harm in letting him try?”

One thing that a lot of people find hard is admitting that someone else, especailly family members, can do something they cannot do. It’s hard to visualise and it’s hard to come to terms with and especailly with something like poker and the negative stigma attached to it, it can lead to very bad feelings. But she agreed…and it appears has finally laid that ghost to rest. Not through anything I did tbh, I’m a bear with a sore head sometimes with poker.

At the end of the day nothing to lose, if I fail at least I’ve tried and there may be other ways in a year or two I can open up, as I said I’m patient so chartership at 29 or 31 is not going to make a huge difference for me and, in the end, I still have a job so it’s not like I’m looking to pay the bills. (Btw yes I’m 26 and still living at home but neener neener I OWN the house so pthbthbthb :) ) If I succeed, however, the road is open.

Up to me now, the way it should be :)