The beggining

     For a long time i thought about starting to write my own blog. I always enjoyed reading blogs a lot, because i think its a really good way to check experiences of people that have a lifestyle similar to the one you want to achieve, and because it is a really good way for the writer to store information and to understand the "whys" of some of his daily decisions ( this last one being the main reason why i am writing this). Pretty much everything i do is mental based, so i have to make a huge amount of decisions per day, and when that is the case i will start to do a lot of those decisions mechanically and the reason gets lost.
     To the people that do not know me, i see myself as a "true grinder". I play games since i was a kid and i play games now that i am an adult. Nothing thrills me more than competition, being that a soccer game for fun, or battling on the online poker tables against thousands of worldwide players or battling in the league of legends ladder against millions to reach the highest ranking possible.
     I am a believer that people have to do what they enjoy in life, chase their dreams. There is no point in studying/working in something you do not want for 2 reasons: 1-You will not be happy, and that should be everyone's main goal in life, everything else is pointless if you can not achieve happiness; 2- You have a really low % of being successful if you do not enjoy what you are doing. On the other hand, i learned that even if at first sight it seems impossible to make a living out of something you love, most likely there is someone in the world that found a way of doing it! God bless the internet! 
     I walked on the wrong road for a long time, following paths that i did not want just to make my parents/family happy, but fortunately for me the biggest change of my life happened when i started dating my current girlfriend, Mariana in 2010. I think i can safely say that if it was not by her advice and her support i would never be able to achieve happiness and to follow my passions. I lived in fear, fear of being rejected by my family that just wanted me to graduate and to follow the regular safe footsteps. In 2013 i started to get more into streaming, and i decided to quit university and raise money to buy a computer setup good enough to stream league of legends. I streamed for 2 and a half years and i have to admit, it was a wonderful experience, 2 years dedicated to something you really have pleasure doing was awesome, despite the really low money income that the stream provided, for a long time it was enough to keep me motivated to work hard and long hours on improving my game and the stream quality. A little before i moved in together with my girlfriend, i found out that there were several websites offering league of legends "eloboost", and that it was actually quite a big market, so i tried to apply to be a worker to 1 of those websites. Eventually i managed to get in, and i started to realize there were quite a few people making a a living out of it, so i paused streaming and started boosting full time. It was not easy, since the payment was not bad overall but i had to work really long hours, but again i rather work very long hours in something i enjoy than few hours in something i really dont have pleasure in doing. So i work as an elobooster since the end of 2015 up until this day, and it is still my main source of income, over the years i gathered a lot of connections in the area, and i have several regular customers and i work now for more than 1 website. What i enjoy the most besides loving to play is the flexibility this kind of jobs give, the freedom. I do not have as much free time as some of my friends, but i never had problems in taking X days off in anytime of the year, i can work at nights if i want, i can work pretty much when and how i want. In the end of 2016 online poker got back in Portugal, and since i always was a big lover of the game, of course i started to play it again, not as a job but as a "hobby" that could give me a little bit of extra income. I do not see myself as a good player, but i am good enough to be profitable in micro stakes ( tournaments up to 10€). Over the last year my passion for this game has been growing, and so i decided i will eventually make the transition and stop being a league of legends elobooster to start being a professional poker player. So i am playing league less and less and playing poker more and more over the last few months. I do not make enough in poker to make a living out of it yet, so i still need the consistent income of money league eloboost gives me so i am able to eat, pay bills and have some fun.
     I decided to start writing this blog now because for those who do not know, SCOOP( Spring Championship of Online Poker) is here. And i will exclusively dedicate the dates of 24thMarch to 11thApril just for poker. I want to dedicate this 19 days to poker and to live the poker lifestyle to see if i am able to fully enjoy it, and to see if i have what it takes to do it. That means, long grind hours every day ( from 3pm up to 3am), exercise every day so i can keep my energy levels up, healthy diet and good hours of sleep so my mind can be at 100%. It seems easy, but it is not, it requires a lot of discipline, focus and perseverance. I will try to post everyday a short resume of what happened in the day before pokerwise, but also if i was able to do all the other parts of the work, being that the exercise, the rest and the healthy food( as this is as important as the long grind hours).
     As for today, i will take the rest of the day to chill a little bit before the big marathon, and also to sneak in some league games to make some extra money, so i dont need to be worried about that in the middle of SCOOP and i can fully focus on the game.