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I'm still on the heads-up tip. I've been slowly picking up my hours, but it's not enough. My life is somewhat busy these days and I'm often doing other things. It's a major goal of mine now to put in enough time to get back in the proper poker mentality.

When I don't play enough, I'm rusty and don't make the best decisions; in addition, I pressure myself to win too much. I do notice a difference when I'm back on a regular schedule; I make better decisions and don't sweat the occasional loss. At this point, I feel like the mental game, keeping a consistent A-game, is the only thing holding me back. Of course, that surfaces in a lot of ways-- not tilting, not making weak or frightened decisions, not sticking through a tough match for reasons of ego-- but as far as the basics go, I feel pretty comfortable hand reading and board reading and making opponent-specific moves. There's always a part of me that recognizes the right play; the key is listening to it, and not to the distractions or the ego or the other reasons I might want to do something else. (I've lost more money at poker making giant moves that my own chain of logic had convinced me were genius, and I would look like a genius if they worked, when in fact nothing about the hand except my desire to win the pot suggested they would.)

I've been thinking about playing a live series soon. It's been a while, and I'd have to check the upcoming calendar. Probably it would be in early 2009; that should give me enough time to contact some of my usual backers and investors and see how much money I could raise for such a venture. I've been out of the loop in that regard lately; it would be good for me to reconnect with the friends I've made and the community of support I have in the poker world.

Oh, the Cardplayer piece is up. It's about a hand I played at the WSOP this summer, which I believe I wrote about on here when it happened. You'll enjoy it if you haven't heard about it already, though. (And as you can see by the included photo, I'm much classier and more important-looking than I was when I started out.)

Well, back to the holiday season and putting in some more heads-up hours. Anyone have anything they want to see me write about?