My last few months

I don't remember where I found this, but I thought it was pretty funny:

The 4 stages of a poker blogger

Stage 1: Here is my blog. I've just learned how to play poker and I'm going to impart my knowledge to you as I learn. "It's so much fun telling everyone how much I know about poker".

Stage 2: This is easy. I'm winning xxbb/100 hands. I'll be quitting my job next week to go "pro". Here's some blogging about how much money I'm pissing away, just because I can. I'm like a trust fund baby only I'm earning my money playing poker.

Stage 3: Man, I've been running bad. I just lost more money this week than I used to make in a year. Oh well, things will turn around. These people I'm losing to are horrible. They just outdraw me on the river everytime. I don't mind losing to idiots cause i know in the long run, i will win.

Stage 4: Most recent post was 6 months ago.

Hey, that sounds like me!

When last I posted about my own poker exploits, I was in Tunica living it up on the circuit again. I essentially broke even for the week up there (yes, I speak the truth -- I think I lost $50 for the trip, which is miniscule in this crazy poker world).

A brief bad beat story -- I played in the first $500 NLHE at the WSOP circuit event at the Grand and was in the money. We were down to about 55 players and I had just won a pot and was up to about $30K in chips I believe, which was above average. The blinds were $600 and $1,200. An early position raiser made it $3,000. I looked down at QQ in the small blind and made it $8,000. The raiser just called so I put him on A-K. I was going to push on a non-ace flop for my last $20K. The door card was an ace. My heart momentarily sank until I saw the second card -- a queen! I decided to push anyway, hoping he would call with A-K. He called immediately and I happily tabled my pocket queens. My smile quickly turned upside down when he flipped over pocket rockets.

OK, so it was more of a cold deck story than a bad beat, but hey, that's how bad I roll. Still got $850 or so, but I just can't seem to catch the big break.

I played very little poker for the next two months following that, but with a wedding and honeymoon on the way, I decided I needed to start earning money again so I got back at it. March was a good month (nearly +$3K in still relatively limited action), but I'm not making much hay in April.

I'm looking for jobs again, of course. I didn't go to grad school for nothing. I am still hoping to make it back to Vegas for part of the WSOP this summer, but I'll probably only go if I win a seat to the main event online and if I don't get a job before then. Amy's not too happy about the idea of me missing her birthday on July 8, but she said I can go if I get her a really, really, really good present.