Hmm. It feels weird to be blogging. I'm glad to be back. I'll admit that I didn't stay away from poker entirely. I did play four of the $175 double shootouts on Stars and 2 of the $1k Aussie Millions satellites on FTP over the last 15 days. I don't really count those as playing though, as I'm really just trying to win a trip. I airballed all the satellites. I came very close to locking up the $18k Aussie Millions package on Monday, however. I was second in chips with 16 to go and 2 seats being awarded, but things went miserably from that point on and I finished 8th. I must say that I really enjoyed the break though. I got a chance to do a lot of stuff that I don't normally do when I'm playing poker. One of the funny things the break does is really restore your perception of money. Without being in the surreal world that is swinging $25k/day, I actually found myself looking at price tags and menu prices. That's something I haven't really done recently, but I think it's important. This career is a marathon, not a sprint, and managing money and saving could be key 30 years from now. I likely will only take this long of a break once per year. I know I am longterm +EV in almost any game at the stakes that I'm playing, so it doesn't make sense to sit out that long and lose wages. Breaks for a couple days should be sufficient, and that's what I plan on doing from this point on. To sum up my vacation: I didn't do anything for the first few days. It was extremely difficult not playing, and I felt absolutely worthless. Once I got through those first few days though it wasn't difficult at all to avoid poker. For Thanksgiving, I went home on Thursday morning and joined my Mom and her side of the family for a great meal. I ate a ton, watched football all day, and really had a great time. The following night I joined my Dad and his family for a tasty barbecue dinner. The next morning I headed to Atlanta with my friend Kaleb to see my favorite band of all-time in concert, The Deftones. The show was unbelievable. The atmosphere was great as thousands of metalheads were crammed into the balcony-style auditorium. Since the show, I've really been getting back into metal. For the past couple of years I'd kind of mellowed out and was just listening to alternative on the radio for the most part, but now I can't get enough metal and have been blasting it all the time. I finally made it back to Tuscaloosa Sunday and spent the rest of this week hanging out with my girlfriend. I didn't get a chance to play any golf, but I did exercise 5 of the 15 days, and I've also been eating fairly healthy. I've dropped 5 or 6 pounds, and I hope to drop about 15 more by the end of February. Like anything, I think successful dieting and exercising is achieved by being in the right mindset. As far as the poker tournament scene goes, Nam Le is climbing. Unbelievably, Nam is just 11 points behind me in the PoY race! He final tabled the $300 358 player event at the Turkey Shoot series at The Bike in LA last week. He finished 6th and received 144 points. He would have passed me by placing first through fifth. I am extremely focused and determined right now though. I'm obviously going to play all 11 tournaments, including the $15k main event, at Five Diamond. I don't expect any of the other PoY contenders to take any tournaments off either. I'm going to spend some time playing the $1500 single table satellites as well leading up to the main event. I'll also play the megas. These are generally very easy tournaments, and it'd be really nice to bank $30-45 grand by winning multiple seats. I'm going to play some live cash as well. I'll probably play quite a bit of 10/25 at Bellagio when I have time. As far as playing online, my schedule is going to be much different. I've determined I don't have the $1.5M+ bankroll to play 4-8 tables of 25/50 online simultaneously. I don't like to single or two table, so I'm going to drop down. I'm going to mix it up. I'll play all of the following games at some point most likely: 10/25 HU NLHE on UB, 10/25 on UB 5/10 6 max on FTP, 10/20 6max on FTP, 10/20 6 max on Stars, 15/30 NLHE deepstack 6 max on FTP, and Aussie Millions satellites and PCA satellites on various sites. I'll be going to both of these venues regardless of whether I win a package online, but it's always nice to lock it up before heading out there and saving quite a bit of money. My plane is leaving in just a few minutes for Las Vegas from the Birmingham airport. I managed to get 14 of the 16 nights comped for free at various casinos, so that saves a couple thousand bucks. Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin will be my roommate for the trip. He has been on quite the online heater, and I've always considered him one of the best young online tournament players I've met. It's going to be a fun trip. Updates to come. If you read all of this, I really appreciate it. SS

After dusting off $27k in an hour of playing today, I've decided to shut down for November. It was a difficult decision, but it's much cheaper this way. I've had my online passwords changed, so I will be unable to log in and play again until December 1st. I also won't be blogging or responding to poker related emails for the next 15 days. I want to completely detach myself from this fucked up game that I've decided to make a career out of. For the next 15 days I'm going to exercise a lot, party a lot, play golf, and spend a lot of time with my family and girlfriend. I'll book November as a -$80k month and look forward to returning to the game mentally and physically fresh on December 1. Thanks again to all of you for your support. Expect big things from me at Bellagio. SS

I woke up at 1 p.m. today and did nothing but work. I played 8.5 hours that included 10/20 NL 6 max, 100/200 Omaha 8 hu, and 25/50 NL on PS. I ended up +$3125 and -$3903 at Omaha 8. I was playing Matthew "PokerGodZeus" Glantz heads up at Omaha 8 for about 2.5 hours and was up $10k, but I managed to give all of it back to him and then lose $4k playing the game 4 handed with Roland de Wolfe and others. Finished the day at -$778 overall. I'm gonna go hang out with Stephanie now. Tomorrow I have to go to Birmingham to take the Tahoe to the shop. Also, congrats to my friends Kathy Liebert and Nenad Medic. Both made the final table of the WPT event at Foxwoods. Gioi Luong was eliminated in 15th earning just 96 PoY points. SS