Among many other things in the game, I cut my teeth in poker blogging at a few live events, in both Australia and later, the Caribbean. Hailing from Sydney, it gave me a lot of satisfaction to be at the Aussie Millions, with the added bonus of blogging the entire journey of Gus Hansen's win, which also led to his book “Every Hand Revealed” - a book devoted to breaking down the hand histories of that famous win!

I will never forget tracking the likes of him and Patrik Antonius in the event, and watching Gus repeatedly stand up from the table after a big hand or pot, in order to speak into a little dictaphone - not knowing at the time why he was doing it, or that this event was to lead to his first book - capping it all off with a win! I can't help but think that his unrelenting focus and attention to detail in that event, played a huge part in him taking it down.

Some great action was captured in that event and others later, and you can still read some of my now very old stuff from the PokerStars Blog archives;

• Aussie Millions:
  https://www.pokerstars.com/poker/news/jimmy-fricke-luckbox-or-boy-genius-032453/28127/
• AAPT Sydney:
  https://www.pokerstars.com/poker/news/appt-sydney-former-chip-leaders-continue-033459/26998/
• PCA:
  https://www.pokerstars.com/poker/news/pca-2014-updates-from-the-politically-co-144831/8059/

Gus' Aussie Millions win was an event and experience that only made me grow in love with the game - a game that had already well and truly captured my attention through the various Mike Sexton (may he RIP) commentated WPT DVDs - or later downloads of High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark.

So, why am I even sharing any of this? Not entirely just for the little bit of poker nostalgia, but to say that I'm back behind the keyboard, with a BLOG link available to me, so I'm going to use it to type about poker once again.

Today I find myself with a very new challenge in the game, in that of a Poker start-up. If there are references to PokerStars along the way, then please respect that with 15 years and a lot of respect for that business, it will be unavoidable, but to confirm 4Poker is in absolutely no way affiliated.

One of 4Poker's internal values is that of TRANSPARENCY. A lot of companies preach it, and many less truly practice it. I endeavour at least until launch, communicate with the poker audience proactively, publicly and frequently. Online Poker is going to be a difficult place to cut-through, but with the world class management team we have, and the right set of values, we should at worst offer fellow lovers of the game a great place to play.

Keep an eye out each Friday for the next feature piece, where I will certainly talk less about myself and more about the business we are building.