Thursday, June 26, 2008

Introduction & Plan

Hello everyone. I am starting this blog today to inform Toby and every fan of the incredible band that once was motW (now Kayo Dot) of my goal to make the new album possible (see latest motW blog on MySpace if you haven't already) and how I plan to do it and to keep track of my progress. The small donations will unfortunately don't bring us the money to make the whole thing possible, and I want more than one or two (old) tracks and I know you guys want it too.

This is a once in a lifetime chance to be able to help my favorite composer and I feel the need to do this.

First let me introduce myself. My name is Etienne and I am a 20 years old French Canadian from Montreal. I have been playing poker professionally for 2 years now. Well, "professionally", not like those rich guys you see on TV, but yes it is my only source of income, thus making me a professional poker player. If I was a high stakes player, I wouldn't have to make this blog and would just donate the money to Toby, as ~$10 000 would be a relatively small portion of my bankroll. Unfortunately, I am not... yet.

But fortunately for all of us, I do not care about money very much. I am living very comfortably with very small expenses at home right now and have a decent amount of money saved up. What I am lacking though, is motivation. I am extremely bored with my life at the moment (and have been for a long time) and I am not playing as much poker as I should be, since it is my job. Most people I know will set goals to buy things like a car, a watch or to travel or have some kind of big plan with the money they are making off online poker. I do not need a car nor do I need a watch, or any other things. Things, things, things. I don't feel the need for any of it. And for personal reasons, I cannot travel right now. So yeah, where can I possibly get any sort of motivation...?

The only thing that was always there for me in my life is music. The most intimate moments I have had with people, are with people that don't even know it, through their music. They have always been there for me and will always be. I feel grateful for this, so grateful. If I manage to make this happen, neither Toby or any the fans owe me anything. I am grateful to just have the opportunity to do such a thing and am doing this out of passion and love and because there is no price tag for me to put on this album, it is my choice to spend my money how I want to and this is just so motivating knowing that the more I will make, the more songs I (we) will possibly hear.


So here is the plan,

From the 1st of July until the 31st of July, I will be playing poker online and donating 50% of my winnings to this project. I am a mid-stakes poker player, and a normal/good month of poker at my stakes would normally earn me around $7,000 to $10,000 (which is what I have made last month and this month). I usually play around 20,000 to 25,000 hands of poker a month, which isn't very much for a professional player, but like I said I am extremely unmotivated so it is in fact quite decent considering this.

I am confident though that with this new found motivation, I can play at least twice as much while conserving good focus and playing a very good game. Which could make it possible for me to make between $14,000 to $20,000. Which would be enough to finance Toby's project. I will also probably join a couple tournaments and if I score big at one, we're going to be in luck.

The only problem is that, this is poker. And even for the best of us, you cannot always win. One month isn't a very long period of time, and breakeven stretches do happen on the short-term and (although unlikely) it is also possible that I end up down money on the month. This is a game of patience that really pays out a lot in the long term, but a month is short.

Anyways, be it $200 or $20,000... 50% of what I'll be making will go to this project.

I will be updating the blog frequently with screenshots (we have a software to track multiple statistics and winnings) of how much winnings I have accumulated so far. Wish me luck and DONATE YOURSELF, every dollar is important.

Thank you very much for reading.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, that's quite a story. Go for it!

Unknown said...

PUSSY

just do armed robbery...whateva

Unknown said...

This would be pretty incredible dude, you've got my support.

Anonymous said...

You are a saint for doing this. Best of luck!

David said...

I salute you, my good sir.

metaghost said...

More independent bands/composers need devoted fans that are also competent gamblers willing to finance their music.

This is awesome.

Déjà Loin said...

That's impressive. I will come back here to see how it goes. As someone said: "You are a saint for doing this."

Good luck!

Toby Driver said...

holy sheeit....
wow... thanks!!! that's amazing..