It has been a long five months. I left Melbourne on April 10th and got back at about 6am this morning, after leaving Macau early because I didn’t feel like playing the high rollers event and am generally not particularly fond of the city of Macau. I had a very nice trip to Macau this time around even though I had no luck in either event, but when I busted the APPT main event I found myself longing for Australia so badly I just wanted out.

I had planned to move to Dubai right after Macau, but due to a number of factors that plan has been put on hiatus. I hope to go there for upwards of a month sometime around March instead. I must say that as stoked as I was at the idea of living in Dubai, I’m even gladder to be back in Melbourne at the moment.

Returning home is no time to rest though. I spent my morning looking for apartments in Southbank, right near Crown casino and city center. I spoke to my friend “AndyMcLeod” today and suggested that I get a two bedroom place with him here in Melbourne since I think we could both have a healthy impact on each other and he agreed, though he’ll need to go back and forth from Adelaide a fair bit due to family commitments. My plan for the week is to lock down an apartment at either Freshwater Place or Eureka Tower with a view of the central business district skyline (something I have always wanted) and a balcony for my smoking purposes. After that I’ll call an internet company and tell them I need their fastest possible connection in the apartment immediately. Getting an apartment as a professional poker player is a bitch, so I simply walked into the office today and told them I’m a writer, I need an apartment for six months, and I’ll pay for the entire rent up front since I cannot prove consistent income. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any units exactly to my specification at that agency.

A workaholic ambition burns in my veins like nothing I’ve felt in a long time. All I can think about is playing poker sixty-plus hours a week, working out constantly, and writing. I’ll use my week before the WCOOP to adjust my sleep schedule and watch training videos of as many tournament players as I can, on top of beginning to finish the Around the World blog. I have nothing to stop me from my obsessions here in Australia; no responsibilities, no job, no family, no girlfriend, no desire to go out, and although I have friends my constant time away prevents me from ever being close. And I have a suspicion that after half a year of that life style all of a sudden I’ll feel bored and start wondering what the world holds for me all over again…

The recent conception of this blog has had an interesting affect on my personal life. I got used to anonymous comments and judgments being made about me on the internet a long time ago from my years spent posting on forums and stopped affecting me a long time ago. However, getting the opinion of people who have met me and their perception of how I would be based on the blog or their thoughts having previously known me is far more relevant and interesting for me. While bored in Africa I went back to reread a few entries to see how I came off and started to understand where they got these impressions. Still, I feel a number of misconceptions have arisen as a result of this blog about both me and people close to me so I’d like to use this entry to try and clear some of them up.

1. I’m a drug addict: First things first; I have tried one drug in my life and that’s marijuana. I thought that I never tried it until I made a conscious decision at age 23 to get blazed with some 2+2’er friends, though I recently found out that there was a couple times when I was mega wasted at age 20 when I hit some friends piece but was too far gone to remember. I always promised myself that when I tried weed I would never allow any drug escalation of any sort, and although I am curious about other drugs and enjoy asking people about their experiences with them I can say for sure I will never try anything else. I have no judgment for those of you who do, it’s simply a personal choice as a result of being a health nut and aware that experimenting with more drugs could lead to a dangerous slippery slope, not to mention the negative stigma that comes with people knowing that’s your scene.

It’s true there was a period in my life where I was smoking pot daily, but even then it was mostly done in the evening after I’d done everything productive I needed to do with my day. I have never felt I fell into the category of a “pothead” in the sense that I sat around stoned all day and craved little else. Even this summer in Vegas I would often get high then go to the gym for two hours and come home to cook something healthy(ish) for myself. There will likely be a point in my life when weed loses its appeal to me and considering I’ve decided to move Dubai until December I’m about to have a few months away from it and I don’t anticipate any difficulties with that.

Almost every single one of my poker playing friends asks me to not name them in the blog when it comes to smoking pot because they’re aware of the possible sponsorship consequences and implications, with the exception of my Australian friends because like all Aussies, they don’t give a shit about much of anything and I love them for it. I never attempt to apply peer pressure on others to try drugs and respect everyone’s choices, or as the conversation commonly goes:
“Hey man you wanna hit any of this?”
“No thanks, I don’t smoke”
“No worries, more weed for me baby!”|

2. I’m washed up at poker: It’s true that I really haven’t done much at all in the year of 2009. I’ve had one decent live result (second in ANZPT Adelaide for about 70k US which is nothing special in the grand scheme of things) and have played very little online where I’m ballpark break even on the year I believe. I’m fully aware that having spent so much time away from poker my game has likely fallen behind and that when I return to hardcore grinding in roughly a week’s time I’ll need to do some serious study. There is a general misconception amongst many players that this is an easy job or quick way to make a buck but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Unless you’re a huge genius or natural poker is a ton of study and hard work and I fully appreciate that. I’ve gotten to the point I’m at because for years I spent my life absorbed in the game and sought the coaching and advice of people I thought were fantastic at both the game and explaining the concepts behind it, guys like Adam Junglen, NoahSD, Mike Watson, Luckychewy, Randallin and many more.

A little over a week from now I will return to the online arena with fervor. I’ll be grinding about nine hours a day six days a week for the next few months, even though that means living truly miserable hours given the time zone I’ll be in. I’ve already consulted a number of players I respect about swapping review sessions and spending time discussing strategy on Skype like I used to. What the last few months have taught me more than anything is that poker is an incredible opportunity and that I’m one of the luckiest people alive to have a job that I truly love and that allows me the opportunities that I’m privy to. When I went home to Wisconsin so many of the friends I grew up with were confused and exasperated trying to figure out what to do with their lives and my time in Africa forever cemented the idea in my head that I should secure my financial stability.

I guess over the last year my mind has been in places outside of poker, which is fine by me. I go through phases where I want to spend heavy amounts of time pursuing interests outside the game such as exercise, girls, and travel and I like to think they make me a more complete person. That said, my passion for the game is fully reignited and I can’t wait to go back to the job of not only playing, but learning.

3. I write about going to whores: When a guy I knew in real life said this to me my immediate reaction was “What the fuck are you talking about!?” in a less than friendly tone. I can understand why people would think this is something I’d partake in given my general behavior and hell; I even wrote a blog entry entitled “The mathematics of whoring.” I have no judgment for those who choose to indulge in whores; it’s their decision and risk and none of my business if they don’t want it to be.

Personally I have never paid for sex, for a number of reasons. First off, I’m afraid that if I got started in that direction I might never stop, that if I broke down the mental barrier I have associated with it that I’d lose interest in chasing normal girls and would wind up at the hookers all the time. Second, I genuinely enjoy spending time with/dating women in the traditional form and the buildup of sexual tension that goes with it. I like hanging out with women; they’re fun, they’re challenging, they’re seductive. Third, I don’t feel I should have to pay for it. I’m a young guy living an attractive lifestyle who isn’t awkward around women; I shouldn’t have to resort to shelling out of pocket just to thoroughly bust a nut. I guess it just feels like a cop out for me. Fourth, I didn’t spend months studying pick up just so I could go buy girls; I enjoy the sense of gamble associated with the chase. The nights I go home alone and annoyed to watch porn in a sea of my own self loathing make the nights I go home with a girl with a mile wide grin on my face all the more satisfying. I guess that makes me results oriented.

4. I’m arrogant: Don’t get me wrong, having gone back and reread some entries I can see where this comes from. I’m happy to fess up to being cocky; it’s delusional to think I’m not. However, I think the people who’ve met me would nearly unanimously say that I’m pleasant, polite, easy going, and approachable. I’ve always made it clear online that anyone who wants to message me for advice, no matter what on or how inconsequential, is free to do so and is likely to get a response (though I have been awful about getting back to them during my travels.) I have never lost my temper on the table towards anyone and I doubt anyone can tell a true story where they saw me lose a hand or bust out and I was rude or offensive afterward. I think my worst reaction in memory was quickly walking away without speaking a word after a particular brutal bust out and I think it’s pretty pathetic that many of my fellow professionals feel the need to lose their shit at someone just because they’re disappointed over a few hands or tournaments. Professional indeed.

I like to think I’m one of the most outgoing and social guys in poker. I invite everyone to everything, even at times when I probably shouldn’t. I had a couple of BBQ parties at my house this summer in Vegas and invited everyone I could think of, going so far as to throw up a thread on 2+2 for anyone to see. It didn’t matter who they were, what stakes they played, or the fact that they were 16, if they saw the thread they were welcome in my house to eat my food, drink my beer, and smoke my weed (okay, so the 16 part wasn’t terribly responsible of me, but he was living in a 2+2 Vegas house anyway so it’s not like I corrupted his ass.)

I like to think I haven’t forgotten where I came from. At heart I still feel like some random kid from Wisconsin who was never particularly talented at anything and happened to get lucky in finding poker early and having some smart coaches and friends. It wasn’t so long ago that I was just another subpar grinder looking for advice wherever I could get it, and just because I’ve won a few donkaments I don’t think that makes me a better person than anyone else, it just makes me better at playing 30 BB stacks than most. If poker dries up I’ll go right back to being that random kid from Wisconsin, albeit a well traveled one, who is likely to never get paid six figures a year to do anything ever again and at this point doesn’t even have a college degree.

5. I’m a misogynist: A good friend of mine told me that I come off as a misogynist in my blog over dinner in my last week in Vegas. He said from knowing me personally that it’s clearly not the case, but even his having had that perception really bothered me. I understand the kind of stigma that hangs around pick up, particularly with weirdos like “Mystery” running around in giant capes and top hats talking about running routines and negs. I understand that the assumption about any guy who dates with the volume that I do is that he views women as disposable and easily replaced. I understand that people would think from the writing that I happily and instantly out any woman I fool around/sleep with regardless to the consequences on her life.

When it comes to writing about the women I date I apply two basic rules. If it’s a girl that was a super random hook up that basically nobody knows or has met and is in no way involved in my social circle then I change her name, almost entirely leave out description, leave out identifying locations, and refrain from any disparaging comments. I think the worst thing I’ve said about a girl in my blog is that she was “plain looking.” When it comes to girls who people know I’ve had involvement with, are in the poker industry, or could be easily identified I give them the option of being completely omitted or editing my story in any way they see fit by sending it to them before I throw it up. I’ve gone so far as to let one girl write the entries with me, which was pretty fucking cool of her in my opinion even if she did leave out all the fun stuff. I’ve shown what I’ve written to quite a lot of women and I’ve yet to get a negative reaction and I even had one girl say it was the nicest compliment anyone had even given her.

Of all the women I’ve had some romantic involvement with since the start of this trip, which is ballpark 20 (which is not to say I’ve slept with 20 women) I only have negative things to say about one of them and I can assure you that she properly earned them, and I won’t be writing about it. I’m confident that most of the women I’ve dated would say that I’ve been respectful, generous, pleasant, and above all, honest. I air it all out from the get-go; that I’m not really looking for commitment, that I’m not monogamous, that I will almost certainly leave wherever we are, that I smoke pot, and that I like to go get wasted with my friends with pretty decent regularity. No, I don’t walk up to women and say “Hi, I’m Tony and I have a blog that chronicles my gambling, drug use, and sex life” (which come to think of it might be a lot of fun) but lately I have been screening for girls who I think are going to be cool with it and telling them about it before we get physical. I’d really rather hang around people that I can be myself around, which is something that really appeals to me about pick up. I can meet a lot of women being nothing but myself and if we aren’t compatible then I’ll just go meet a bunch more and not feel bothered that any girls I met previously weren’t interested.

I can say that this kind of dating lifestyle is not something I anticipate doing forever. It’s incredibly time consuming, expensive, only occasionally emotionally fulfilling, and you can go through vicious streaks where you get very little sex (and I will certainly not deny being a huge sex degen.) Sometimes I run into guys with girlfriends who tell me that my blog makes them wish they were single and I always tell them it sounds more fun than it is then give them the following example: I spent six weeks in Vegas for the WSOP and despite having sex with four different women I only had sex on seven different days, spent quite a bit of time and effort to get it, spent no more than a few days with each girl, and wound up longing for a girl that due to my lifestyle I simply couldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, there are some awesome advantageous to the lifestyle and I’m glad I’m pursuing it while I’m young because I’m confident that If I didn’t I would have always wondered, it’s just that I don’t anticipate doing it for too long.

I have only cheated on one woman in my life (not Celina) and although I never got caught (I don’t think) it was still a pretty terrible feeling and simply a stupid and selfish thing to do. If you get into pick up (or are naturally good with women) you’ll find there are plenty of women who are happy to date casually and openly just like men. You simply have to accept that she will very likely be dating others as well and you might wind up being expendable next to a guy who can offer more emotionally. You don’t have to lie or cheat and if anything openly presenting myself as not monogamous has certainly helped attract the kind of women who could handle that kind of relationship and repelled the ones who couldn’t.

6. Celina used me/I write the blog to get back at her: A few people have mentioned to me that people perceive that Celina used me to learn poker and get a foot in the industry then got rid of me when I was no longer a viable way to move up in the world. I get how it looks, but let me make this abundantly clear; I have always maintained both privately and publicly that Celina was absolutely correct to have broken up with me and that roughly 95% of the problems in the relationship were on my shoulders. For the last year of our relationship I was a totally lackluster boyfriend and although I was never mean or temperamental with her I was certainly apathetic towards the health of the relationship and my disinterest became highly apparent. Celina was as good a girlfriend to me as any man could hope for and the only real mistake she ever made was getting committed to a guy who was way too young and reckless to think about settling down. Early in the relationship she even went so far as to cover rent when I was a moron with no bankroll management who lost nearly everything.

In the end we simply wanted different things and just weren’t as compatible as we appeared, and I hold none of this against her. That’s why I find the idea that I write the blog to get back to her particularly absurd. There’s nothing to get back at her for and her affect on my life was undeniably a positive one. I wish her nothing but the best of luck in her career as a poker player and budding celebrity and for what it’s worth I asked her about writing this at the APT party to make sure it was cool.

7. I volunteered for my own self-satisfaction: Obviously any volunteer work is partially self satisfying and motivated. As they say on the internet “Like duh, obviously.” I didn’t go to Africa thinking I could fix poverty or solve the world’s problems. I went to Africa for three main reasons. First, I just plain love travel and the kind of things I learn doing it. Every time you go somewhere totally different and encounter a people you’re unfamiliar with you become increasingly empathic and open minded. I can’t recommend it enough. Second, I liked the idea of doing something productive with myself outside of poker. I love my job, but it’s still sitting inside on my computer or at a table and doing math problems all day and outside a bit of writing I can’t say that I’ve done anything constructive or substantial in my adult life. Third, I had a month between the WSOP and the APT so fuck it, why not go to Africa.

I’m quite excited to write about the time I spent there in further detail as I have a lot of good and bad memories and a couple of totally absurd stories. With anyone who has a bit of gamble them I’d definitely advise checking out Africa as you’ll see some crazy shit there that you just can’t compare to anywhere else you’ll go. Unfortunately, you’ll also see some things that make you feel a brief twinge of guilt every time you eat a decent meal or take a shit in a toilet that isn’t a bag with the intention of launching it out the window.

Alright, that’s quite enough for now. I’ve spent three sleep deprived hours on this and wound up ranting for 11 pages. I look forward to getting back to Dubai so I can finish the story, I feel confident that it’s not boring.

I’m finishing up my last few days here in Nairobi. It’s Saturday and I’m off from school until Monday and then leave for Dubai on Wednesday. I know at least one person messaged me about hanging out in Dubai a few months back but I can’t find it anymore, so I thought I’d mention it in the blog for him or anyone else who lives there and would like to meet up and cause trouble. If not I imagine I’ll roll around the crowded areas and try to find a date as I tend to do.

Meanwhile, I was reading Doyle’s blog (which is consistently good in my opinion) today about the poker hall of fame nominations and his thoughts on the matter. He posted the criteria, which I will quote him on
“(1) Must have played against top competition.
(2) Played for high stakes.
(3) Played consistently well, gaining respect of their peers.
(4) Stood the test of time.
(5) Contributed to the overall growth and success of poker with positive and lasting results.”

Certainly seems like a reasonable list of expectations to me. Assuming I had the two votes he does I would use them towards:
A. Barry Greenstein: Barry is the fucking man, plain and simple. He has enormous tournament accomplishments, has played in the biggest cash games for years, has donated a ton of money to charity, is one of the most congenial and approachable pros in the business, and is quite popular with the ladies. Despite all of this, he manages to maintain a nice balance of honesty and modesty and is well liked by old school and young pros all around. I’d be surprised if Barry wasn’t voted in this time around, but if not he’s a lock in the future.

B. Eric Seidel: I’ve played with Eric a few times and much like Doyle said his demeanor is incredibly impressive. I don’t think the guy would react negatively if you reached across the table and stabbed him. He’s got a shit ton of bracelets (seven I think?) in a number of games plus a runner up finish in the main, and he’s been doing it consistently for over 20 years now. It seems year after year he’s near the top of the Cardplayer leader board and when I played with him I thought he had a really solid gear changing hold’em game. I’d be surprised if anyone in the industry had a legitimate bad word to say about Seidel.

And then there were the names I was surprised to see on the ballot:
A. Tom Dwan: Very surprising to see him there considering his age. That said, the guy’s poker abilities are incredibly sick verging on creepy. He makes for great TV and in my interactions with him he’s a really nice and modest guy. I’m confident one day we’ll see his name on the ballot with a legitimate shot at getting in.

B. Men Nguyen: Words cannot describe my thoughts on Men being here as accurately as a simple “LOL”. The guys been accused of cheating more than Bill Clinton, probably has a who can angle shoot more prop bet with Doug Lee, and I’d be pretty shocked if I found out he was crushing any cash games (though who knows, maybe mixed, I don’t keep track.)

C. Scotty Nguyen: So, I guess we’re all just pretending that whole 50k HORSE final table thing never happened? Scotty was the first big name pro I met when I was more poker fan boy than player and he was the nicest guy in the world. To this day I kind of have a soft spot for him as a result of that and numerous other interactions but damn, that final table was the poker TV fiasco equivalent to the Bay of Pigs.

It seems Doyle believes Mike Sexton will get the nod, which is fine by me because Mike has been a suburb ambassador for poker and is nice to everyone despite how much he gets approached about random stuff. I don’t know too much about his playing days as he seems to be more interested in the business side of poker since the boom, but he has a nice collection of accomplishments and the respect of his peers, which is a pretty good indicator.

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe near central Nairobi. It has been one week since I've arrived now, and it has not been without incident. I have a couple hours to kill today because I'm supposed to go to a bank in the city to retrieve the credit-debit card an ATM at the mall ate yesterday. The volunteer program I've gone through had required their final payment and their online processor didn't except either of my otherwise fully functional credit cards for some inexplicable reason (probably because of my lateness, which was my fault) so I was told I needed to get cash or would have to leave the program. I went to the ATM to get out 51,000 Kenyan shillings (about ~650 USD) and after getting 20,000 out and attempting a number of other transactions the machine elected to eat my card and give me a slip of paper to present to the bank to retrieve it.

When I arrived I was originally supposed to go from Nairobi to Mombasa but they were apparently not expecting me down there and I was tired of travel so I decided to simply stay in Nairobi. I'm living in a compound with a number of other volunteers that functions a bit like a hostel. At one point there were around 15 of us, though currently there are only five left.

I've been doing my volunteer time at a school I walk to everyday. I teach social studies there; mostly dealing with Kenyan politics or physical geography. The majority of children are eager to learn, though the younger ones have a shorter attention span. At recess they run up to me, grab my hand, and ask me to join in their games of soccer and volleyball. The younger kids like to come up to the white volunteers to shake hands, stroke their skin, and pet their hair. They are friendly, outgoing, enthusiastic, and full of questions. The teachers there are mostly nice and accommodating except for that one moron who thinks it's a great idea to spike the ball into the children’s head during volleyball games, or yell at them when they fail to hit it correctly. A couple days ago one boy, an 8th grader who is an amazing kid with so much potential, hit his head and had what appeared to be a seizure on the playing field. All the teachers and volunteers gave the money we had on us so that he could be taken to the hospital and there would be money for treatment. The teacher who drove, teacher Margeret (who is a lovely woman who seems to care enormously for the children) went to pick up his mother who refused to come because she had no money and was afraid she'd have to pay something. It turns out the boy's problems stemmed from hunger; namely that he hadn't eaten in over a day because what little food there was at home he'd given to his mother and brother. Katie discretely took him and his brother to a cafe for lunch the next day; I told her I'd split the cost. I taught his class that day and played volleyball with him, he seemed much better.

The headmaster however, is Idi Amin Jr. During a parent-teacher assembly he announced to the crowd that "The Americans have promised to bring us 10 computers next year!" which was something nobody promised or even mentioned in any form during conversation. Two of the teachers that Katie (the other volunteer at the school who is a nice girl from New York) and I are friendly with have told us he shorts their pay and pockets the money. He told some other volunteers that for 5,000 shillings he would organize a brand new bus and great trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro. They paid him and rocked up to find an old, piece of shit bus that broke down on the way. He attempted to convince them to keep going to the mountain in the middle of the night, as pointless as it is dangerous, knowing if he got them there they couldn't demand a refund. The volunteers refused and demanded to go back home. When they got there they naturally wanted their money back and he refused saying that it had already all been spent. One of the girls, Shrea, flipped out on him and he eventually refunded them each 4000. Already been spent indeed. Shrea has not been back to the school to volunteer since and is now working in an orphanage.

Corruption like this is everywhere, and as far as I can tell, is the largest problem a country like Kenya will have in moving forward. The stories of this kind of angle shooting are absolutely endless and while years in the poker world have made me well prepared for picking up on bullshit many of the other volunteers are not as paranoid or suspicious of people’s motivations. The corruption is on all levels of government and daily life, and while picking up a newspaper in the US normally depresses me, picking up one here makes me suicidal. Many other volunteers have questioned the volunteer company's validity itself; as they have spent weeks of time and considerable money attempting to get placement in programs only to have the people organizing them not show up or horrendous delays in communication make their efforts pointless and infuriating.

Walking around outside at night as a white person is basically asking to get mugged. If you go somewhere at night you go by taxi and go straight from the door to the guarded entrance of wherever it is you're headed. We've also been told not to take side streets in the city during the day as again, you'll get mugged. Anyone with money lives in a compound with a large wall around it and barb wire at the top because there are so many robbers. The nice mall is walled off in this way with a dozen or so guards with batons patrolling it at all hours. I carry large denomination bills and anything else of importance in my socks. During the day you take what's known as a matatu, which is a sort of large van that functions something like a bus. Most of the rides cost roughly 50 shillings, less than a dollar US. A ride in a taxi is normally 10-15 dollars US no matter where you're going. When you blow your nose it comes out black.

I am going to Mombasa tomorrow, the second largest city in Kenya known for its beaches. The school begins its exams tomorrow and then is on break for a few weeks so they no longer have use for me. When I come back I intend to go work at an orphanage that Shrea has been volunteering at and says good things about.

I have still been recording the events and interactions of each day in my computer, which I hide deep in my suitcase and never take out in front of anyone. When I get home I'll set aside a week to go to a cafe and just write it, as I have hundreds of pages of material at this point. I don't like writing around the house for a number of reasons, for example apparently the house guard and handyman, Alan, used to steal things, though I'm fairly sure he was fired after attempting to convince the girls in the house that the organization hadn't paid him in months and he had to drop out of school after his auntie died and blah blah fuck you, you conniving thief-ass mother fucker. Either way, the head lady at the house caught wind of his con attempt on the girls and I think he's been fired within the last couple of days.

I leave Nairobi for Dubai on August 12th where I'll be staying until the 15th before moving on to Hong-Kong Macau for the APT and APPT poker tournaments. When that's all over I'll be returning to Melbourne Australia and grinding my ass off online eight hours a day, six days a week. I miss online grinding horribly and really look forward to being productive again. It's been a great trip so far, but I haven't exactly made any money and I've spent plenty plus spending a ton of time away from poker has made me truly appreciative of what an amazing opportunity and lifestyle it is. It's an odd thing to say, but I miss my job. I've spent a lot of time living an outrageous but unproductive lifestyle the last few months, and it's been fun, but I miss the days when I considered myself an ambitious and profitable poker player first and a drunken, sex crazed, weed smoking spastic second.

I busted out of the Bellagio Cup main event yesterday, which was my last event of the summer in Las Vegas. Early this morning I took a flight from Las Vegas to New York and slept the entire way there. I now sit in my hotel room in Manhatten doing some video work for pokersavvyplus.

I’ll be leaving the country on Sunday, and a couple days after that I’ll be in Mombasa Kenya for a month. After that I’ll be in Dubai for a few days and then Macau for a couple weeks playing poker before finally returning to Melbourne.

It has now become very clear that attempting to write a long blog entry every day of this trip while trying to stay current is near impossible. That’s not to say I don’t want to write it at some point; in fact I take notes at the end of each day about what occurred so I can write it in the future if I feel so inclined. However, I was much more busy in Las Vegas than I’d anticipated and I can’t imagine things will get any better with all the travel I’m about to do.

Writing this blog has had a series of both positive and negative consequences. It’s caused major damage to some personal/dating/familial relationships but conversely created valuable new ones and afforded me a bunch of fun opportunities, not to mention gotten me offers to get smoked up all around the world. I’ve learned a lot attempting this, and I’m glad that I took the shot. Not that this writing experiment is over, but it seems pretty clear for now that it’s delayed. I may be able to get stories up now and then, but the truth is I have no idea what my computer/internet access will be like and how much free time I’ll have and I don’t anticipate having serious time to do writing until I return home to Melbourne in September. If I can get stuff up I will, if not, oh well.

A lot has been made about my decision to write about drug use and sex. At the start of this trip I told myself I’d write whatever happened to me over the course of the day no matter how embarrassing, ridiculous, incriminating, or even mundane. Hell, plenty of entries have been me having a straight forward day of hanging out with friends and wasting time. I’ve talked to many other people in the industry who (understandably) don’t want to be named in any relation to my stories, particularly when it comes to smoking pot. Most serious poker players have the aspiration of legitimate sponsorship at some point, which is an entirely reasonable goal and I wish them the best of luck with it. Clearly, I have given up on that aspiration and find the idea of being unapologetically candid far more creatively satisfying. I’ve already done straight forward tournament blogging, strategy writing, and PC travel writing. I felt like this year it’d be interesting to try something new, particularly as I was in a situation with no relationship and no potential legitimate business opportunities and the only guaranteed draw back would be some occasional internet hate. I guess I just find the idea of writing tournament report after tournament report with no color boring. If you feel that such extracurricular activities don’t belong in a poker blog I would simply recommend reading someone else’s, because the content of mine will not be changing. Some have warned that there may be unforeseen long term consequences, and they may be right, but I’ll deal with those as they come.

So best of luck to everyone I got to know better this summer, and to those I didn’t get to say goodbye to. Hanging out with you all made it truly memorable for me and I hope we’ll get to do it again soon, even if soon means a year in my terms. If not, well then I’m sure we’ll see each other on the internet at some point, because these days there’s no such thing as truly going AWOL.