By nath on March 29th, 2008 (more posts by author)

So my vacation from poker is about to come to an end. I'm currently in Seattle, where I've been hanging out with my cousin the last few days. (I went to visit some other people, see some shows, and clear my head a little, and when I remembered she was here, I got in touch with her.) It's been great-- she and I haven't gotten to spend much time in close proximity over the years, but we've always been close, and as we've gotten older we've stayed surprisingly similar. Being around family who are like you, where you can relax and be yourself and be loved and accepted, is exactly the sort of thing I needed to get centered before tournament time.

Speaking of tournament time: I'll be spending the next few days in Houston, seeing friends, and more importantly looking for a new place to live. I haven't had one in a while now-- which isn't as bad as it sounds; I spend more time around my friends and other people this way, but even so, it's imposing and/or expensive-- and I'm gonna try to land something with a friend that we can call home for the next year or so. That's also when I'll be making my final preparations for Las Vegas.

I decided to go straight to Bellagio and play the entire Five Star Classic (including the WPT Championship). Even though the 10k event at Foxwoods will be excellent, the back-and-forth travel would, I feel, eventually prove exhausting. And I'm personally disappointed that I'll miss Quinn and Noah and Brown Spring Weekend, but I've seen most of the acts already (M.I.A. once, Girl Talk twice, and Vampire Weekend on Wednesday), and this is the situation where I really need to keep business and pleasure separate. It's too hard to just switch the mindset back and forth-- establishing a good routine, staying focus and clear and level during the tournaments, is the priority here.

So I'm going to try to play all 12 preliminary events and the main. I say "try" because I still don't have a long-term backer; I've been raising the money in parts. I've got a couple of people onboard already, and I've posted in the 2+2 Marketplace. I have a few more people I could and should ask; I just hate asking for money in any context, even one like this where it's totally standard. I always feel like I'm begging or hitting them up for money, even though I'm really offering them a situation where I stand to make them even more. But I need to just nut up and do that; business is business, and the series is fast approaching.

Lucked into a room at Bellagio thanks to JPOSU (Jason Potter, who just finished 4th at WPT Reno today). So I have a room and I've scheduled time to rest my head and get back to thinking about poker before I get there. If I can raise the rest of the money and find a routine to establish to stay healthy (eating right, regular [i]real[/i] exercise, and sunlight are musts), we'll really have something here.

Otherwise, T.S. will have been right once again.