As I’m writing this blog I just completed a six-mile jog through Prague in the pouring rain. Most of the pedestrians took cover under buildings while I soldiered the rain They gave me big smiles and I’m sure they were thinking “Silly American”. But It was worth it as I now feel totally alive.
I’m in Prague for the iGaming conference to promote Victory Poker with the rest of the Victory poker team. I’ve been here once before and it’s one of my favorite cities in all of Europe. There is so much History in the city, as it survived not only survived World War II,to but it has been ruled by so many different regimes during this existence. This makes for an amazing display of architecture. Not to mention the nightlife is amazing .
For the past few days I’ve been in London catching up with old friends and filming a photoshoot. The theme of the photoshoot was a strip poker game between me and fellow Victory Pro’s Sara Underwood, Keith Gipson, Antonio Esfanardri and UK glamour models, Emma Glover, Rosie Jones and Victoria Moore. Let me tell you there is nothing like being shirtless, surrounded by the most beautiful women on the planet to make you feel self-conscious!
Beside the shoot I got to catch with my good friends Josh Gould, John Tabatabai and Luke Trotman. Luke recently won the charity tournament to raise money Thuy Doan that I wrote about a few weeks ago, being the great guy he is he decided to donate a huge chunk of his winnings back to Thuy. The tournament was an overall success and we will able to raise several thousand dollars for Thuy. Which truly makes me happy. She is one of the sweetest people I know, and I’m sure she will rise above this and be kicking ass at the poker-tables this summer!
These guys along with my friend Mark Mark Teltscher (a good friend of mine who has made a forante staking players), showed us an amazing time at the London nightclubs. Being with people who know the scene makes all the difference. One night after a particularly fun evening at Whisky Mist; Sara Underwood challenged me to a drunken wrestling match. I agreed to fight with one hand behind my back and our camera man/cool cat Trevor Alder whipped out his flip cam to record it. But at the last second I sobered up a little bit, and realized I didn’t want to break my 90lbs little sister in half! Next time I try to outdrink some Finns though she better look out!
Be on the lookout for cool videos and photos from the strip-poker photoshoot at both my blog, andrewrobl.com, victorypoker.net and coinflip.com over the next week or two.
I’m currently in London England sitting in a 5200 square foot suite in the Mayfair hotel with the Victory Poker crew. I’m just reflecting on how lucky I am to be part of the victory poker team. I mean I’m currently traveling to the most beautiful places in the world with my best friends, watching Dan Fleyshman create an iconic brand from scarth.
I feel lucky that I’ve become such good friends of Dan over the past year or two, as he is one of the people I respect the most. He has the most amazing work-ethic I’ve ever seen he literally works every moment of every day it’s inspiring. But more than that he refuses to abide by other people’s expectations or limitations that they place on themselves, their lives or his companies. I think a story that illustrate this the most is a story Dan wrote in bluff magazine here: http://blog.bluffmagazine.com/turning-fantasy-into-reality-3071/. He saw Emma Glover, one of the most beautiful women on the planet, in Nuts magazine, said to himself “I have to meet this girl”, and within a few hours was with her at a party. This is an attitude that I greatly admire, it is really inspiring – and being around him I realize some of the limitations I set on myself.
Everyone else on the team is also so interesting and fun to be around – with their own viewpoints on the world that every moment spent in their company is enjoyable – I hardly consider it work. We just concluded a a two-day trip to Cannes where we enjoyed the fine food and beautiful weather of the French Rivera and even got a chance to party with Coinflip’s own Jasper Paakkonen, and Ziggmund to celebrate the launch of powervegas.com. I hear pictures of the event will be up soon! Hopefully, I will be absent from all the photos as I tried to out-drink all the Finns so I might not be looking my best in the photos. A word of warning do not try to outdrink a Finn.
In London my good friend John Tabatabai has been acting as my tour-guide. He has taken me to some amazing restaurants such as J Sheekey’s, a seafood restaurant I highly recommended if you’re ever in London! Beside that we also hit up Ice-Bar a bar that is literally made of ice, is kept at 0C and requires you to wear a giant parka. For safety reasons you cannot be in this bar for over for 30 minutes, because of the danger of hypothermia! The English, being English try to make the most of this by drinking as much alcohol as humanly possible in 30 minutes while jumping up and down in circles to keep warm. My type of Party!
Tomorrow is my last day in London and we are wrapping it up with a new Victory Poker photoshoot. The premise of the photoshoot is a strip pokergame in which Keith Gipson, Antonio and myself compete against, Sara Underwood, Emma Glover and the 2010 European playmate of the year. No idea how I landed this sponsorship gig - but life doesn’t suck!
I haven’t blogged in a while because I’ve been so busy playing poker. My only recent excursions beyond the online tables were the NAPT shootout at the Venetian – lots of ESPN airtime for the VictoryPoker boys — and an appearance at the WPT championship. I lasted until day-two on that one before losing most of my chips to David Benyamine. I made a hero call that was incorrect. I miscalculated how he thought about poker and probably just went a little to in depth with my thinking.
Cash games online have been up and down. I’m pretty much even over two weeks of massive hours. But I’m really happy with my performance at 8 game rotation. I ended up winning $250,000 on PokerStars, playing $100/$200 and $400/$800 rotation before losing it back. I had never before played it for significant stakes, so I find my short-term results to be encouraging.
What’s been great about getting into 8 game rotation has been the learning process. I have been studying up on how to play all the games, and I am really enjoying the need to think deeply about every hand as I develop correct strategies. For somebody who’s done pretty well at no-limit and pot-limit poker, starting from the beginning on new games is humbling and all-around self-improving. More and more of the big action is going toward 8 game rotation, and I’m hoping to be successful at it in the long term.
Away from poker, I’ve been working out a lot with my trainer Dave. He’s a great guy and his website is www.forgetthegym.com. As you might be able to tell from the name of his site, part of Dave’s strategy is to work out in places other than the gym. We spend two days a week at a park near my condo, and it’s the kind of workout that I haven’t had since my days of playing high school football. Dave has me jumping hurdles, we toss around a 70-pound punching bag, and I do sprints while he holds me back with the help of a harness.
One day I brought my friend Luke “Red Line” Kim out with us. For the first 10 minutes, he kept up just fine and I thought he was in pretty good shape. Then, right after the 10-minute mark, Luke practically passed out, he turned white as a ghost, and curled up into a fetal position. He reminded me how difficult it is to get into good shape and stay there. Thanks, Dave!
Maybe a workout video will make it up to VictoryPoker.net, where there is an ever-growing library, including submissions for a contest we just launched. It’s a competition to become the next VictoryPoker pro. Based on submitted videos and an Apprentice-style final match in Vegas, we’re going to award $100,000, a new car, tournament sponsorship, and an apartment on the Strip to the player who best embodies what VictoryPoker stands for. Check out the details at http://contest.victorypoker.net/victorypoker/.
If you haven’t had a chance to view the From Busto to Robusto documentary that was done on me, it’s something that you might enjoy at http://robustothemovie.com/?page_id=53. I thought they did a great job on the movie and I answered questions about it on PokerCurious.com: http://www.pokercurious.com/interviews/view/andrew-good2cu-robl-interview/. I appreciate that the Busto to Robusto documentaries provide real, warts-and-all looks into the lives of online poker players, but I wouldn’t have minded being the pro in the series who gets all the glory. Of course, though, it didn’t work out that way. My documentary showed the stress and the losses that sometimes come with being a professional gambler. People who don’t understand my world have commented on how rough it looks. To them, I say this: Don’t worry. I’m doing fine. And in case any of you want to come down to take a shot at my bankroll, you know how to reach me.
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For the past few days I’ve been in London catching up with old friends and filming a photoshoot. The theme of the photoshoot was a strip poker game between me and fellow Victory Pro’s Sara Underwood, Keith Gipson, Antonio Esfanardri and UK glamour models, Emma Glover, Rosie Jones and Victoria Moore. Let me tell you there is nothing like being shirtless, surrounded by the most beautiful women on the planet to make you feel self-conscious!