I've been very busy since my last entry. Well, maybe not busy, but just occupied for the most part.

I bought a house for my mom and I about a month ago, and we moved in right after. It's amazing.

I never wanted a huge house with 498537943759 bedrooms and more place than I could use. This is just perfect tho. It has two bedrooms and a guest room, as well as two living rooms so I can get some time by myself if I need to.

It's very central in the downtown area where I live and the price was extremely good I thought. Would probably sound expensive to Americans but the market in Norway is very high nowadays, so this was a bargain.

It's very exciting to own a house. Not many 19-year-olds can say they do, so I consider myself really lucky.

I also had some time to play online the last few weeks which was nice for a change. I miss the grinding as weird as it may sound. I remember "back in the day" when I used to play 12-14 hours a day for almost a year straight and I never got tired of playing.

Now I'm lucky if I can play every day for a week. I've also been catching up on the training vids across the sites that I haven't had time to watch until now. It's weird how watching other ppl play can really make u think about ur own game.

Even if the instructors are making mistakes, u react to it and u know how to make changes. It also helps u understand how ur opponents think about the game and what level they're on. All those small things add up and it's how u get an advantage over skilled players.

Looking for redemption at EPT Monte Carlo.

I absolutely recommend all of u join a training site if u haven't already. I'm not gonna suggest which sites here because I'm good friends with all the instructors and don't wanna advertise for just some of 'em and not others.

U can find more info on google or pm'ing me on different forums if u wish to know more.

I'm actually sitting in the Betfair office in London now after doing some media training yesterday. Was pretty interesting. They had hired some guys from BBC to come over and show us what to say and what to do in interviews when on TV, or talking to newspaper journalists etc.

They also showed us examples of what not to do. Definitely a good learning experience that I can take with me.

Monte Carlo is coming up. I'll be heading over there tomorrow. Very excited 'cuz I haven't played a big event in ages. Been over a month now since the EPT in Denmark where I totally screwed up, so I've had a lot of time to rethink stuff.

The structure in Monte Carlo is gonna be really slow. Ninety-minute levels and $15k starting chips I think. I also do better when they give us more chips in the beginning so I expect to make it deep in this event unless I get coolered or sucked out on real bad.

Also, I'm sorry if I haven't played in my tournament every week. I've always had a reason not to and it's not just me being lazy. I do try my best to show up every week, but sometimes I just have other plans and can't play. So please don't take it out on me too hard.

Will be updating a lot the next weeks so keep visiting my blog. I won't disappoint!

-- Annette

More blogs from Betfair Poker pro Annette Obrestad:

• From Dortmund to Denmark and a few nice awards
• The beginning of something new
• On the road as usual