Thursday, April 30, 2009

To Vegas or not to Vegas? (P.S. Give Al some love)

Thanks again to all last night with the kind comments on my April POTM win, which brings me to the point of this post...

For most of this year I have been thinking that this would be the first WSOP I would miss since I started going in 2004. Of course, I've said that the last two years, but in 2007 I got last minute work for PokerWorks and last summer was a combination of winning blogger prizes, getting work for that slave driver Dan Michalski over at Pokerati and also winning the FullTilt Poker writing contest. But this was going to be the year I did not go.

Then while on my California vacation (of which I STILL haven't posted pics or a trip report) I got an email from a major poker media website that will remain nameless that made it sound like I had a high-paying job waiting for me in Vegas at the WSOP if I wanted it. Well I jumped at that and when I got back to Alabama I called the guy. Turns out I was only in the running for the job. Well long story short I did not get it.

So Vegas was out. I had mixed feelings about the deal because it would have required me to be there during the entire seven-week Series, which is a heck of a long time to be away from your wife and your home. Granted with the money I would have made I could have flown Amy out there a couple of times maybe, but it's not the same. It also would have required me to back out of a planned mission trip with our church to Nicaragua, where we are going to help build a house for a poor family. I was feeling kind of guilty about possibly backing out of this trip. The combination of those factors made me fairly indifferent about not getting the WSOP gig.

But as I resigned myself to missing the bright lights of Sin City, I still secretly hoped to go out for a week or two to experience the standard poker euphoria that takes place at the Rio each and every summer, as well as hang with friends at the hooker bar and the Gold Coast bowling center. Thanks to Full Tilt Poker and Al Can't Hang it looks like that's going to happen. I still have to decide when to go, and for now I'm looking at late June-early July for that.

This brings me to the second point of the post. If you haven't been over to Al's site in the last few days go have a read and show him some love. The lovable lug of a man spends countless hours tabluating point totals and arranging these prizes with Full Tilt, and we bloggers in general don't show him nearly enough support for his efforts. The slumping attendance in the last month doesn't exactly put on a good face for us either.

I think Al was right on the money with this comment:

I suggest everyone come out to enjoy the time and free stuff while you have the chance, you know the money train is going to stop sooner or later.


So go thank Al for putting all this stuff together every chance you get, and please come out in May and play some blogger events before FTP decides they are no longer worth their time...

8 comments:

lightning36 said...

Congrats on winning April. Thank goodness the month is over. I am looking forward to May.

I'm still trying to decide when to go to Las Vegas this summer. Sometime in the last ten days of June might end up working for me.

1Queens Up1 said...

Congrats again, hope to see you in Vegas, and I agree with everything you said about Al & the BBT.

BWoP said...

Nice job TJ.

I hope to see you around this summer!

Gugel said...

You ranked 69th for the top 100 poker blogs. Congrats :)
http://www.anskypoker.com/2009/04/top-100-poker-blogs-of-2009/

SmBoatDrinks said...

Congrats TJ!

I'll be in Vegas the week of June 21-27, so hopefully we can meet up!


Boat

Jeremy said...

Congrats again. My cash in the Freeroll makes losing the April POTM a little less painful. Looking forward competing for the May POTM. GL

Amatay said...

Alright mate. Have you got any contacts that you have placed ads for on your blog? I was thinking we could swap contacts? I've made about 800 ish in the last couple of months from small ads. Email if interested amatay1@yahoo.co.uk

Dantana said...

slave driver, huh?

watch your mouth, TJ ... i know people ... and sometimes they even let me hold the whip!