feed from ejs18 blog 2008-09-30T03:47:14+01:00 text/html 1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 ejs18 http://ejs18.liquidpoker.net Hi, Alot has changed in the past year and reflecting on it, for the better. I find it funny how much I have grown including my shift of my goals and dreams from wanting to becoming a professional poker player into a real estate investor while playing poker as a hobby. Along the way I have done alot of personal development through reading books and going to seminars as well as first hand experience and persisting on my new found goals and dreams. Here is my contribution: My goal is to inspire and enlighten at least 1 person from this forum to apply what I have to share and hopefully take action because knowledge does not equal power - it is only APPLIED knowledge that can be equivalent to power. The topics that I will cover will be related to: Real Estate Investing, Money, Personal Development type of stuff, and whatever else people may request if i can give an adequate article about. What inspired me? There are 2 main things that inspired me to write and educate others. 1. I was reading through the website and alot of the more successful poker players give insight that help people like me become better which motivates me to give back in ways that I can. 2. I sincerely like to help other people. Little introduction about myself. Growing up I was always great academically but unmotivated. I figured since i was good at math that i should become an engineer. Live the basic life of wanting to "get good grades in school, get a great job with benefits and retire comfortable and get help from the government if needed." I believed this until the age of 15 when i started looking into financial books. A book that helped me shift my way of thinking of money was a book called "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki. This book stated the false "American Dream" mentioned above and was a slap in my face because it was the route i was headed. It also helped me expand my way of thinking by making a career change and also teching me to make money work for me long term instead of working for my money. 2 years later i graduated highschool and headed to UC Riverside as a business major in hopes of pursuing my goal of making money work for me. Around this time i was obsessed with poker (mentioned in previous blog) and thought that poker was my way out - or way in depending how you see it - and wanted to pursue become a pro poker player. However, around spring 2007 i realize that poker was not something i wanted to pursue full time and did not relate to my purpose and goals. (complicated and will be mentioned in a future article) Now here I am to pick parts of my brain to help you guys. First, I would like to say that everything i mention is either from books, seminars, networking with successful individuals so i don't take credit for someone trying to be a super genius who knows everything. Most of the things i do mention are just from personal experience and stuff that stuck with me along the way. Article I - Theory of Money - Written by June 21st, 2008. text/html 1970-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 ejs18 http://ejs18.liquidpoker.net Hey guys, my name is Erik J. Siquian hence my screen name EJS and was 18 at the time i created it. This blog will inform the community about my progress through my current activities that include: Real Estate Investing, Live/Online Poker, School, and some theories that I believe will help individuals to have the mindset like the rich. Before I give a little background information about myself, I would like to thank the moderators of LP and tell them they are doing a great service to the community. I am currently 19 years old attending University of California: Riverside. I saw poker on television when i was 15 on the WPT and started to spark an interest within the game. I read my first book at this age which was the Phil Helmuth book, "Playing Like the Pros." Even though now I realize that the book was a waste of 20$ it had a catchy name and most of my foundation of holdem poker game through that book. The first time i played holdem for money was at school where we played for dimes and nickels where i actually grinded about 60 dollars within the year. I considered this my bankroll and started playing with my friends house with his dad and his friends. Here I am being a hot shot labelling everyone the animals helmuth mentioned in his book and managed to scrounge 40 dollars in a 1/2 Limit Holdem house game. Increased my roll by 66%! By this time I turned 16 and found another house game where it was .25/.50 NL blinds minimum buy in 40$. Bouncing around these two games I managed to get my roll up to 350-400$. Forwarding to my online poker "career" when i first deposted my 100$ through a wire transfer at the age of 16. Yes, I lied about my age and was able to do a wire transfer to an online poker room through wal-mart. I played the 25NL$ and lost my deposit in about a week. Repeated the same process the next week and gave up on online poker due to the conspiracy online poker is rigged cause i cant win with Aces/Kings and when i have pocket TT-QQ someone always has Aces. Left with 200 dollars in my roll I was quite pissed and ended up going to a indian reservation at age 16 (brothers ID but didnt need it since i never got carded) playing 2/4 Limit Holdem. I ended up double my roll back to 450$ through a mad rush and stupid players. I thought i won 250 dollars at 2/4 because i was really good at poker, but it back fired on me later on. I tried online poker 1 more time for another 100... my theory reigned correct again. This is when i started playing Casinos Regularly and manage to get my roll to 1000 dollars in the summer of '04. I then picked up Super System by Doyle Brunson and was inspired to play NL Holdem Aggressively. I started to change my play by loosening up a little bit (keep in mind that I followed the Phil Helmuth guide of top 20 hands? i think it was called. About December/January my local casino opened up a 100-300NL game and i started playing that with my bad ass 1000$ bank roll. First time i went I brought 300$ and bought in 3 times short stacked and lost it all. Going home furiously i said to myself i am going to beat the game and brought the rest of my bankroll of 700$. Bought in fully stacked this time knowing i am going to win, but at the end of the day i lost my whole bankroll and found out i have lost my wallet after chilling with one of my friends who went with me to the casino. This was an all time low for me thinking how stupid...what if... why didnt i... and so i quit poker for about 2 months. This is when i saw the movie "Rounders" which inspired me to get back in the game. I actually started again with one of my friends backing me for a local house tournament for 30$ buyin, rebuys, and with about 25-30 people where i took first place and won 600-700$. With my new roll of 350$,(giving friend half for backing me)Senior year of highschool almost coming to an end, and new priorities of college and learning poker properly - there was only one road ahead of me - The Road to Wealth. Part I - Erik Siquian