Since I last posted I haven't done much. We've gone out the last couple of nights, I've cleaned up my room in preparation for packing up, and I've lost around 13500 online. The plan is to weigh in with John on Monday afternoon and then to head back to Tuscaloosa to begin packing up. The plan is for my Mom and me to begin driving the approximate 27 hour, not including stops, trip to Las Vegas on early Wednesday morning. I'd assume we'll get there around 48-52 hours after we leave, so we should arrive in Las Vegas around noon on Friday just in time for me to play the 1500 dollar event at Bellagio on Saturday the 7th. Pokerwise, March was bad. Unfortunately, it marks the 4th losing month out of the last 6 for me. These 6 months come after a 6 month period where I turned a profit each individual month, April through September of 2006. I have made some mistakes game selection wise, but I guess there is really no explanation for this bad run besides that. I am a firm believer that the games have gotten extremely tougher online since the changes in the online gaming laws. It's doubtful that it's a coincidence that I'm not beating the games online with the regularity that I was before the law changes. It makes sense that if you can't get money online, the only players playing would be the good players who already had money online. Thus, you're playing almost exclusively against winners. I don't think it's too bold of a statement to say that it would be impossible to make a living strictly playing online poker over the next 10 years if it stayed the way that it is right now. All the money is just being passed around, and it may change the time I spend playing online. It would be really nice to go on a hot tournament run over these next few months while I'm in Las Vegas. Hell, there is no reason I can't win the 25000 dollar event for 4 million. Starting tomorrow, April 1, I'm going to do my damndest to come to play every session. You just have to right now if you're going to try to play for a living. You're not going to beat the games if you're not playing totally focused everytime out. Now that I've spent a year on the circuit and realized the devastation that taxes and expenses do to your bankroll, there isn't a whole lot of room for messing around. There just aren't the weak spots at the table that there were 7-8 months ago. Everyday that I play from now on, I'm going to do everything within my power not to tilt and to make the best decisions everytime I enter a pot. I'm watching the final four games right now and will have more updates before I leave for Las Vegas. Thanks for reading. SS

It's been a week since I last posted, and I apologize for that. Early last week I had a meeting with my accountant. For lack of a better word, depressed, is the way I felt when I left that meeting. I am going to have to cut a check to the Gov't that makes me sick to my stomach. Unlike a lot of poker players though, I was completely upfront about my winnings. I'm doing my best to stay positive. You just have to look at the situation as "Look at what I have left," instead of "Look what I had to pay." I know everyone has to pay taxes, and it's all relative. It just really hurts when you have to do it all at once. I consider myself rather liberal, but after writing that check it almost makes me want to start voting Republican because of the economic issues that party represents. Other than that, not a whole lot has been going on. I spent the weekend partying with friends. Friday night we went to see the CD release party of a long-time group of friends' band named Wetherly. They have really great stuff. Check them out at www.myspace.com/wetherlymusic . All of the other days last week and yesterday were spent grinding online. I've done very little back home this week besides play poker. Unfortunately, it hasn't gone well and I've dropped around 51000. I lost 16 playing Omaha 8 and 35 playing 25/50 on Stars. The Omaha 8 results frustrate me because I said I was going to stay away from it. As for 25/50, a lot of those losses can be attributed to TILT, but I'm pretty sure I ran less than EV over those 10,000 hands, too :( I am coming off a motivating last two days though. On Sunday I was stuck about 15000, but I stayed focused when I could've collapsed and rallied back to up 500 bucks after several hours. Yesterday I logged a marathon 10 hour session where I was down as much as 20000 6 hours in. I pulled it together again though and rallied to up exactly 93 dollars after 10 hours. Interestingly, I dragged the biggest pot of my poker career in yesterday's session against my good Swedish friend, Ramzi "Backdoorovic" Jelassi. Five minutes before the hand, I'd lost a 12000 dollar pot to him when I ran my KK into his AA. This time, he opened from the cutoff to 200, and I popped it to 700 with two red Kings in the SB. He immediately reraised to 3300, and we were both very deep, with him covering my 11400 stack. I puked because I didn't think it was possible this could happen again. I finally decided to just call and save my last 8000 for the flop. The flop was magical, K43 rainbow. I checked. He bet 4500 and I quickly moved in. He called of course, and I held against his AA. I'm going to play golf now with my Dad in Birmingham. I'll be in Birmingham until tomorrow night because I have to go to the dentist on Wednesday morning. I've also decided that I'm going to make the 27 hour drive across the country to Las Vegas when I move out there late next week. I originally planned on just shipping all my stuff out there, but I think there is something to be said about the experience of making that drive. My mom is going to accompany me, so I'm really looking forward to that drive. I will not be going to Foxwoods. I'm still hanging around 199-201 pounds in my weightloss deal. I haven't talked to my boy John yet, but I'll call him today or tomorrow and set up a weigh in for next week hopefully. Only about a week left until I can go eat complete trash, yay. Finally, good luck to my friends Mike Matusow, JC Alvarado and Danny Wong who are all hanging around the top of the leaderboard in the 5000 dollar event at Reno with 27 left, playing for 750000ish. SS

Thirty-two days after leaving for my marathon trip on the West coast, I've made it back to Tuscaloosa, AL. I arrived in Birmingham yesterday around 4 p.m. and spent the evening hanging out with my Mom and relaxing in Birmingham. I played some Omaha 8 and lost 6500 and I simultaneously bubbled the Monday one-thousand dollar tournament on FTP, finishing 34th out of 199, with 27 paying. I've played this tournament twice and have just missed the money both times :( I'm going to keep playing it and win it soon though. I made it back to Tuscaloosa around 1:30 a.m. I have tons and tons of stuff to do back here in AL. Today, I begin the unceremonious duty of getting together all of my stuff for taxes for the year 2006. It's going to be depressing. I have a meeting with my accountant on Thursday. I also have to begin packing up my stuff to move to Vegas. There is about a 5 percent chance that I'll go to Foxwoods at the end of this month. I'd like to play that tournament, but there is a lot of other stuff going on, and I need a break. I'm going to try to be atleast partially moved in to our place in Vegas by April 8, the start of the Five-Star poker series at Bellagio. I'm not sure if I'll play all of the smaller tournaments (1500s, 2000s, 2500s). Dating back to September 2006, I am a break even player for the last 7.5 months. As for the diet, it is still going ok. I weigh 200 or 201, about the same as I was two weeks ago. We've been drinking quite a bit lately, so that's the main reason there hasn't been more loss. There is about two weeks left in the bet. My goal is to get down to 192 by the end. If I can get there it will amount to 45 pounds of weightloss, an accomplishment I will never forget. I'm ready to eat pizza and cheese fries :) Finally, congrats to Alex Jacob, Vanessa Rousso, Joe Tehan, and Hasan Habib for finishing the UPC in that order. They are all friends and sensational players. SS