Black friday.

As I sit here, with 300 euros to my name in real money and a high 5 digit cashout pending on Full Tilt Poker for 32 hours now, I find myself looking back at all the nagging from my parents to "empty your poker account, keep only the minimum you need because those companies aren't stable!" and thinking... "maybe I should have listened to them for once".

Alas I didn't, and so here I stand before uncertainty, of whether I am still a baller or one more busto 22 year old trying to find some purpose on what to do with his life.

Although I am perfectly aware it's the worst weekend in online poker history and the 3 big sites are getting absolutely raped with cashout requests and emails like "WHERE'S MY MONEY" or "WHY DOES MY PENIS LOOK BRIGHT RED", I can't help but feel very insecure about my financial future. I know these sites are very big, secure and trustworthy, but theres only so many posts I can read of people in the same spot I am right now before I actually start having some doubts.

For those of you interested in my stupidity, I have a couple of (not excusable) reasons of why I have kept the entirety of my bankroll on FTP:

- I have been waiting for years for the exchange rate USD/EUR to get better. It has not, so I have been delaying large cashouts.

- I want to open a bank account on a reliable bank with a lot of perks, so it's a pretty extensive search.


I delayed it so much that I'm now paying a price I shouldn't be paying. Like being double charged at a bar because I didn't pay attention, or being ripped off by that stripper because I'm drunk off my ass.

Now all theres left for me to do is wait and pray. I tried playing earlier today but I just spewed stacks off because I began thinking of that particular table as a play money table and not real money, which is obviously bad for your game.

I had already decided earlier in the year to re-join college in August, unless I shipped like a $1M donkament (which is impossible because I never play them) because I had realized a backup plan was required in case this poker thing got fucked up the ass. Well, Nostradamus JR. here saw that one coming, but didn't take adequate measures. Bravo.

No matter what happens, whether I am buying Dom Perignon next time I get drunk just because it comes in a nice bottle or whether I am grinding 12 freerolls for a top prize of $10, I don't give a shit.

Poker has been extremely good to me. It has taken me places I never thought I'd go. It has introduced me to some of the most intelligent, funny and honest people around. It has given me liberty to wake up when I want, to go to sleep when I want, to help out friends, family and unknowns, to grow and mature as a human being. And no one will ever take that away from me. Not the FBI, not the KGB, not the SS. These experiences will forever hang on to me until the day I die, and I will cherish them dearly and look back and think to myself "I am truly lucky and blessed".

I have done it before, I will do it again. If I am broke by this week, I will grind freerolls on Euro networks again and work my way up to 2/4 in a matter of weeks.