Stephanie and I are sitting at McCarran Int'l Airport in Las Vegas. We fly out in about an hour. We'll touch down in Birmingham, and then we're headed to Tuscaloosa for the weekend. It should be a lot of fun. Alabama is hosting the Western Carolina Catamounts in football. The games are always a blast, so I look forward to checking it out. I bought 3 tickets from a gentleman on eBay, so my Mom, Stephanie and I are going together. I will not be betting any football games this year even though, believe it or not, I am a lifetime winner in sportsbook. I am trying to cut out some leaks cold turkey which also include Omaha Eight, Chinese Poker and Craps.

This week was a whole lot of work. Stephanie and I probably spent 30 hours over the last 4 days packing up all of our stuff and moving it into a nearby storage unit. I would normally hire someone to do this kind of shit for me, but moving is one of those things where you kind of have to evaluate what you're going to keep and what you're going to throw away. I also don't really trust random people with some of my stuff. We finally got the house entirely cleaned out this morning. I also rented another 10x20 unit on the other side of town near the airport which I parked my Tahoe inside this morning. Let's hope it doesn't explode in the 247 degree heat.

Aside from that, I have been playing some poker. I got like 8000 hands in at shorthanded NLHE online and beat it for an ok but not great 2 ptbb/100. 8000 hands is obv extremely short term though, and I'm still learning 6max NLHE cash. I am considering really going into grinding mode for about a month. I always say I'm going to grind, but I never do. Playing long hours of poker is not very interesting to me though. That's not why I got into this business. I got in to play when I want to and do a lot of other stuff when I want to, so I likely won't actually get many hands in. I don't really need the money, but it would help my confidence to beat a game for a while. There is a very busy live MTT schedule coming up, so basically I'm going to be living out of a suitcase for a while. I'll blog about what all is coming up later. Let's see what else. I continue to struggle with my weight. I am up to about 222 lbs. I have to start working out. I have been eating somewhat decent since getting back from LA, however LA was a disaster of the trashiest food on the planet. I'm also still wrestling with what I want to do in 2008. I do still enjoy playing poker a lot of the time, even if I'm losing. I especially enjoy live MTTs, I think. I don't particularly like most of the people in the business. That's for sure. Almost all of the young, online guys are pretty cool, and most of the live tournament circuit guys that I'm acquaintances (sp?) with are likable. However, most of the other people at the tables are uninteresting assholes. I guess you can kind of expect that in a business like this where there's so much ego. People continue to think they are better humans than others because they are good at a game called poker. One of the things I miss from my pre-poker life is that I hung out with a lot of beautiful, interesting people with lots of dimensions and interests. The poker life has afforded me the opportunity to do a lot of things cool, too, so it's not that bad. We'll see what happens in '08.

Hope all of your teams win this weekend.

SS

Just received news that my back injury video will not be airing on ESPN at all. It "didn't make the final cut" according to the ESPN guy with whom I was in contact. It's a shame because the video was sickkkkk. Maybe we'll put it on youtube or something. I did write about the details of the injury in the latest Cardplayer. It's the one with Brian Townsend on the cover.

Stephanie and I are in Vegas and currently packing up all of our stuff to put in storage. We have a flight booked for Friday morning to head back to Birmingham. We'll almost certainly be attending the Alabama game in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, so everyone hit me up and let me know where the place to tailgate, party, etc. is.

SS

I'm out in the middle of day 1a's pack in the fifth of today's six levels. There's almost nothing interesting to report. I played super, super, super nitty for the entire tournament. That was my plan going in. I wanted to just take advantages of others mistakes early. I wanted to get to the middle stages of the tournament and use my image to steal blinds and play pots in position with decent sized blinds. It seemed to be working as I got up to 30000 in the second level. This was largely in part to me flopping the nuts with 65o in a limped pot in the cutoff on a board of 7h4s3s. A pretty good player called my pot sized raise and then pot sized bet on the 8h turn with 8 seconds left on the clock after the clock was called on him. I had to sweat a million scary river cards, although it's more likely that he had a set than a flush draw. The river was a 9d, a good but not great card because JTss gets there. He checked and I moved AI and he instantly folded, later telling me he had a set of threes. From there things just didn't work out. I dropped a couple thousand in chips each level over the next three breaks, taking 24000 into level 5. At 3/600 (75) this is where I decided I was going to open it up. I found Kc9d in third position and raised to 1600. A middle aged unknown called in MP. Everyone else folded and we took Ac 7c 4c. I took a terrible line here, and I'm kicking myself for it now. In fact, it was the biggest mistake I made all day. I decided to checkraise, and if I was lucky he'd check and we'd take a free one. I think betting out is a much better play in retrospect. I checked and he bet 2500. I checkraised to 8500, and after about 15 seconds he moved me in for my last 11500. I of course have to call it all off knowing I'm dead to a club. I was expecting to see like AhQc or something with my image, but he showed me the suspect A5dd, and I puked. I missed. I'm happy with how I played. I'll get another shot in Biloxi in about two weeks. Stephanie and I are packing up and heading back to Vegas. I plan on getting all of my stuff out of the house and into a storage facility until I know what my plans are. Our lease ends in like a week. I'm very bummed about poker, but things could be much worse. I have an amazing family and girlfriend, and things will turn around for me in poker. I am going to try to get back to Alabama as soon as possible. I might even make an appearance at the Univ. of Alabama game next week. Thanks for reading.

SS