Hey everyone,

I am posting this blog as I am hoping that is it the beginning of the new chapter for me. I am a life nit. I am anxious, and scared to take risks. I currently work as a AI Engineer/ Scientist at Microsoft, and I am very passionate about machine learning. Previously I worked as a software engineer at Amazon. I went to the big companies to learn, and because it felt safe, and the money.

I am soon learning that the hedonic treadmill is very real. "If I just make six figures I will be happier, if I just get promoted I will be happy, if I just get a pretty gf then I will have it all." Unfortunately that is all shit. The truth is true happiness is much harder than this. Debt can make you miserable, but I don't think money will make you much happier.

This blog isn't really a poker blog. I will focus on poker, but I really want this to be the blog that will document how I stopped being a scared little life nit. Let me explain: I have lived my life in anxiety, or should I say I think anxiety has lived my life for me. I always did the things that were the right thing to do, or would avoid things that scared me. I don't know if the reader knows what I mean by the "scared child" feeling. It's something that is still in my brain stem. The feeling where you have no control of your destiny, at a young age, and that no one is there to help you.

I hate this feeling. I have realized that I had missed out on a lot of my 20s because of it. My dad passed away suddenly from cancer in 2019. It was a complete shit show. I spent most of my 20s in a library and had very little responsibility other than getting good grades, and trying to get a good job. Before he passed his girlfriend drove him to a notary (where I am from they are allowed to estate plan without being a lawyer) and tried to get his will, without his estate lawyer, or my family knowing what happened. The whole situation was awful, and this anxiety i felt my whole life shot threw the roof, and for the first time in my life I was on my own. My grandparents where too old to handle this, and my uncle was burnt out. I gave him the best goodbye I possibly could, and settled the estate over two years, and handled the drama to what was reasonable. It was here I realized I was a man. When I was young he would always tell me when I was born it seemed like magic, as if a light switch was hit and there was another person in the hospital room, and I never really understood what he meant until he passed. After his final moments I knew he was gone. It was just myself and my uncle in the room.

He always told me he regretted being too safe in life. He had the same demon of fear that I do. He had a safe job his whole life, and didn't travel much, and really missed out on adventure, and I had an epiphany that I want a life of adventure. Despite my nervous system suggesting otherwise.

[b]I really love AI.[/b] But I don't like using it to make people click ads. You know how annoying facebook notifications are getting? How creepy Google ads are getting? Imagine if all that power went into something more helpful that trying to milk a fraction of a percent out of a conversion rate.

I want to apply AI to solve real problems, and I also love poker. I am pretty sure I can use it to help build tools in poker, or solve real problems in science. Eventually I want to start my own AI company and solve problems that I find to be interesting. You have companies like Deep mind solving protein folding, but most of the money is going into trying to get you to click ads for a some MLM's detox cleanse juice 0.001% more of the time, so Google can make another few billion dollars. I am not against making money, and I am not really against advertisements, but holy crap that is boring.

[b]I will do the things that give me fulfillment in life.[/b].
[list]
I am going to be a winner at high stakes poker.
I am going to get a black belt in Brazilian Jiu jitsu.
I am going to make my own AI company.
I am going to crack sports betting / daily fantasy sports with AI.
I will combine any of the above as I see fit.
[/list]

I have learned I really value freedom, and doing the above things are going to be proof that I am truly free.

I am still early in my career, so I don't want to up and quit MS yet. I am actually learning a lot there and it will be beneficial when I start crossing off this list. I am currently going to publish a paper with them in the next few months, and I plan to work there for two years, so in the fall of 2023 I will quit the job and start my future endeavours.

My plan after leaving MS is to go spend time in Asia and work on some proof of concepts. I think I can build an exploitative solver, and I can beat DFS and sports betting with my own invented architecture. This way I will be able to travel, live cheaply and work on these projects all at the same time.

If I am going to build poker tools, I need to be good at poker to understand what is needed. I want to get to high-stakes so this and doing a lot of jiu jitsu is priority 1. I took a lot of inspiration from this blog:
https://www.runitonce.com/chatter/one-day-ill-see-the-light/

Deliberate practice is something I use all the time.

As I am writing this it is Christmas day and I can't sit still. I want to crush this. The next while of posts is going to be focused on Jiu jitsu training and poker training.

Poker wise I am going to start at NL10 on Bodog, and use MDA, and solvers to really try and build my own play book from scratch. Everyone who seems to get to highstakes in 6 months follows this pattern. Being trained in AI and data science this feels the most natural to me.

I can fund myself all the way up to NL50 if I need to, but then the grind to build the bankroll naturally really begins. But for now I see no reason to avoid making sure I am not just a winner at NL10 before moving up. I want to get better at poker, and the stakes will come naturally.

For Jiu jitsu, I was a blue belt, and with COVID I really fell off. I am going to study Danaher's Dvds and a base and follow the same principles for poker as this. He is dryer than the damn dessert, but his DVDs are gold.

For poker I am going to follow the information from the blog I posted above and prioritize deliberate practice and studying over volume for now. The only downside from this is the pressure the swings will put on my mindset. I am not sure how to balance that with my schedule. I am going to study poker every day. Even if it's a little bit. I have always started getting some pre-flop ranges down, and somewhat intuitive over the past few weeks.

This is it for this ramble fest for now. I am away from my main computer until Jan, but will study videos for nothing else other than to keep the habit. I am going to blog Weds and Saturdays.