Babies, Poker, Alabama Football and the $10,000 Man

I am trying to get back into the swing of things as it comes to regular blogging, but other activities keep pulling me aside...such as raising a child. Little John Harper is almost two months old now and growing at a rapid pace. As such, he needs frequent feedings and diaper changes and certainly lets us know about it with his healthy set of lungs.

Obviously it's high times (and high Tide) here in Tuscaloosa with Bama's victory over Texas for the BCS National Championship. It's definitely a good time to be in the Alabama football magazine business, and I am doing all I can to promote our publication and make some good cheese for myself. I've traveled much of the state trying to get stores to carry our mag, and have found a few potential advertisers for commission sake. We put out a special issue after the championship.



We're working on another project, too, relating to Alabama football that is keeping me busy that we hope to unveil in the next month or two.

Despite this I have found some time for poker. You may recall in one of my few posts from the fall that I was running hot in October. In the end I won about $4,500 playing mostly 1-2 NLHE on World Poker Exchange. You can only cash out $3,000 at a time so I did that and then managed to lose $1,500 back the rest of the year. Nonetheless, with that hot month I managed to (by the skin of my teeth) eclipse the five figure mark in poker winnings for the sixth consecutive year. The final tally was +$10,030. There were a few months during the year in which I played hardly any poker at all so I would call it an average of a $1,000 win a month.

Since I don't keep the best records I cannot say how much my win is per hour, but I do believe that most of my time is better spent on other endeavors. I treat poker these days as more of a side income than the main source of income it once was. Trust me, that stance of mine is a great stress reducer. Poker as a living is a hard road.

I was very fortunate to hit the five-figure mark yet again. For the second straight year I wouldn't have come close without the Battle of the Bloggers series, which is no more -- making a seven-peat even harder. If I had not swapped 10 percent with Drizz and CK in a 08 tourney at Binion's last summer I wouldn't have gotten there. (Thanks guys for both making the final table!)

Despite my reduced playing time I am up about $1,200 this month so who knows? Maybe I get there again. With the little guy in tow and Rounder magazine perhaps gone for good I definitely will not be making many casino trips in 2010. It's highly likely I will not make it to Vegas for the WSOP for the first time since my first WSOP in 2004 as I am committed to the church's Nicaragua trip again, and I don't want to be gone too much during the summer. So if I can retain my $10,000 man title it will be with online poker and Tuscaloosa underground games.