Introduction

Hi everyone!

So I've decided to make a new blog! For the past three years I've had a diary / blog (I was never sure which) on the Blonde Poker forum which can be found here http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=51305.0

It started on January 5th 2011 when I was three months into my attempt at a professional poker player career. Just shy of 3 years, 700k views (mostly by me probably) and 17k replies (again, mostly by me) and I've decided to call it a day there and begin this blogspot instead.

I'll kick things off with a brief introduction and then give an overview of the past three years.

My name is Alex Goulder and I'm 24 years old. I could claim to be from Essex or Cambridge really, I lived on the border, but those that know me would say that I'm Cambridge through and through. Depending on whom I'm meeting though, I sometimes try and get the Essex bluff through!  

I grew up assuming I would roughly follow the path set out for me - get decent results in GCSEs / A levels, go to a top 10 Uni, get a 2.1, get a job in the city, become pretty well off and start a family. Sounded pretty decent. 

All was going to plan - I got the results and a place at Nottingham to study Economics. I took a year out before I went to Uni, in which I had the time of my life travelling and volunteering. This opened my eyes somewhat.

Though undeniably influential, I don't quite know how much of an influence that year had on me becoming a poker player, because that is also when I discovered poker. 

I don't have any interesting story about how I discovered poker. Much like everyone else, my friends at school introduced it to me, we played a bit, then played a local tournament in a Snooker club, then played some more, played play money online and then I went off travelling. 

The guys I met travelling also played poker. We played in some of the most bizarre locations you could imagine. 5000m above sea level on a volcano. In the desert. On a salt lake. On a chicken bus. 

I went to Uni at completed the first year with a decent 2.1. A few weeks into the second year I realised I couldn't do two more years of this. I decided to change courses and went for Maths. I was too late to join the current course, so took a year off and got a job dealing at a cardroom 5 minutes away...

I guess that was it. Once I was in that world, I wasn't leaving it. Obsessed, engrossed, immersed. I loved it.

A year later before my Maths course was due to start I got a 3 week gig dealing at the WSOPE in London, and managed to spin up a bankroll in the cash games in my spare time. I absolutely loved those weeks. Dealing to Dwan, Ivey, Isildur etc was incredibly inspiring. Predictably, the Maths course didn't last long and I made my decision to quit for good and give poker my 100% attention in October 2010. 

I knew in my heart that I could be a winner, and I could win enough to get me by to start with, and that I was intelligent enough and loved it enough to get better and better, and I couldnt see any reason why I couldn't become really good one day, and compete with those guys I'd just dealt to at the WSOPE. That was my rationale behind the decision anyway. 

Whilst it may have been a rash and silly decision, and it could have very easily gone wrong - I've been sensible enough, smart enough, and most crucially LUCKY enough to have made it work ever since. 

It's been the best three years of my life.