Fresh

First off thanks to everyone who has sent me a little comment, text message, email, or IM the last few days to help me get through this rough patch. I may have overreacted a little bit to this discouraging slew of events. Everything is not lost. It will be a long time before I'm "all better" but I'm at least recovered to a functional status.

I'm in Vegas now at the hated Rio, where Nappy was able to get us a comped room. Tomorrow is the 1.5k NLHE Shootout and I can't wait to play. I'll be blogging for pokerwire throughout the WSOP, which is pretty cool. I've always wanted to write for a poker publication and I finally got my wish - all I had to do to get it was retire.

Here's my first post (I think, not sure if it will get edited or what):

I haven't played a hand of live poker since the Shooting Star WPT event in March. Shortly after that tournament, I more or less retired from playing poker full-time and shifted (or pretended to shift) my focus to other endeavors. Since then I've played little poker, but did hit a recent hot streak in the 10-20 NL online cash games my bankroll has been built on.

It felt great walking into the Amazon Room this evening. Just looking at the chips and the cards and the players felt fresh and exciting, whereas three months ago the same images filled me with cynicism and disgust. Shortly before my "escape" from poker I concluded I was likely the worst regular player on the professional poker tournament circuit. That's no longer the case. Hopefully it's for two reasons: 1) I'm no longer a regular on the circuit, and 2) an improved attitude (and a couple strategic adjustments) will allow me to play better tournament poker than ever before.

I plan to play 8-10 events this year at the WSOP, beginning with the $1500 NLHE shootout today.