Weeeeeeeeeeee. I just outright won the FTP 1000 dollar Monday tournament for a little over 101 thousand dollars. The win comes just 1 night after my victory in last night's Sunday Mulligan. The score is just about double my previous largest career online MTT payout. I am pretty excited. I actually played this tournament as an afterthought. I got a good workout in this afternoon and was just about to come home and start cleaning my apartment. I felt I owed it to myself to try to go deep in another one after yesterday's success. I'm glad I played.

It was a pretty stacked final table, but I was really in the groove. The finish moves me into a multiway tie for 3rd place in Cardplayer's Online Player of the Year Race, lol. I'm very very tempted to drive down to Biloxi tomorrow night and then play WPT Biloxi on Wednesday. If I don't go, then I'll definitely play tomorrow's Super Tuesday on Stars to see if I can rattle off another win :) In the event that I made it to day 2 of the WPT, I'd miss another day of classes. School is my first priority right now, so I'll have to tank on that tomorrow during classes. It's really nice to sort of turn a corner in online MTT. My results weren't nearly where I expected them to be before these two scores. Speaking of classes, my first one starts in 5.5 hours. I better sleep.

SS

Pretty decent Sunday online. It's about 1:30 a.m. central time, and I just outright won the Sunday Mulligan on Full Tilt Poker for about 49000 dollars. I had 3 other cashes on the day including a 20th place in the 200 rebuy on Stars. The Mulligan win felt really nice. I played an outstanding young player name Scott "stpauli111" Hall heads up and was fortunate to have a 2:1 chiplead when we got to that point. I ran pretty hot too, which is obviously a necessity. It's really nice to post a nice win after my miserable showing in Nassau. I won the Mulligan some 18 months ago as well. Thanks for those of you who were on the rail supporting me.

I'm writing from Birmingham. Tomorrow, morning I'm gonna head down to Tuscaloosa and start getting prepared for my Tuesday classes. I have to get groceries, pick up all my textbooks, and do a bunch of other random stuff. I look forward to challenging myself with another semester. Also, I'll begin a strenuous workout routine tomorrow. My buddy Mike Katz and I have organized a gym prop bet through March 31st. For the pro-rated month of January, we'll have to get 12 workouts in. For February, 16 workouts are required. For March, 18 workouts are required. If either of us does not complete his required workouts in each month then we'll be required to pay the other a substantial amount of money. Without stating the amount, it's a number that will sting if we have to fork it over. I'm also hoping that this will help me cut down on my alcohol intake significantly. That's all for now. More updates soon.

SS

It's been almost a week since I posted. I apologize for that. Not too much has been happening since I got back to Tuscaloosa. I finished out the week of classes and then had a relatively calm weekend. I watched a lot of football and decided to play a few of the big WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I played really focused, but again was unable to score big even though I cashed in all 3 events I played over the weekend. This has been very frustrating for me online, and as a result my online MTT results aren't nearly where they should be over the 600 or so that I've played lifetime. I finished 61st (of 852) in the 500 rebuy on Friday, 32nd (of 580) in the LHE on Saturday, and 144th (of 2185) in the 5000 dollar WCOOP Main Event on Sunday. I had tons of chips late in all 3 of these, but impatience led to me squandering away chances.

The most heartbreaking of the 3 tournaments was, of course, the main event. It was the biggest tournament in online poker history, with the winner receiving over 1.7 million dollars. There was no reason I shouldn't have been right in the mix competing for the title, but alas I let ego get in the way and doubled up a really aggressive player in one huge pot to sort of cripple myself. I pride myself on not doing that kind of shit, and I like to think that's what's separated me from most of the other (in live events) tournament players. I was sick to my stomach and couldn't sleep, but I netted 9000 or so and life could be worse. Hopefully this will give me the momentum I need to really start crushing the few online MTTs I play. It's not really even about the money. I just want to crush in all avenues of poker tournaments.

Ok, that's the most I've talked about poker in a long time. One cool thing I got to do this week was go on a tour of the Tuscaloosa County Jail for bonus points. My legal studies teacher mentioned it to the class, and I immediately jumped on it. I've always loved prison shows and stuff like that on TV. The trip was quite an experience. My classmates and I got to walk through and see how miserably these people live. Frankly, it's depressing. I think one of these trips is something that everyone needs to do at some point. I'd especially recommend it to any parents reading who have adolescent kids. There are obviously some really attractive girls in my class, so it was a real treat to see the way the prisoners reacted (like animals) as the girls walked through the open area. I was actually propositioned a couple times by prisoners. It was...flattering? At the beginning of the trip one of the correctional officers sprayed some pepper spray in a garage and we got to walk by it and get a whiff and sense of what it's like when fights break out in the facility. Wickeddddddd.

Sadly, I've decided to just skip my scheduled trip to Aruba to play in the Aruba Poker Classic. I'm sick because I love Aruba and I'll very much miss not being there with all my roommates. I just have too much going on with class, namely a huge paper due like the Tuesday after the Saturday I would arrive back from Aruba. I think my mind would be on the beach and Pina Coladas in Aruba rather than where it should be (Edgar Allen Poe or Walt Whitman), and I don't think I would get it done otherwise. I guess I'm proud of myself for this decision. As a whole, I'm really enjoying things since I've been back in college. Things are a little different since I'm a few years older than most of my classmates, but that is mostly irrelevant. I'm learning a lot about myself, getting in pretty good shape physically, and developing a work ethic. I think this is important because I don't wanna be that Dad or that Husband or that Son or that Brother 7-10 years from now that is worthless and just plays poker all day. I shouldn't say that playing poker most of the day is bad, because it's not. I guess I mean I don't want poker to affect me to the point that I can't do other things, because it definitely did for a period of time, especially in 2007.

That's about all I got. I'm almost certainly going to Athens, GA this weekend to see #8 Bama square off vs #3 Georgia!!

SS