Poker New Year

We're a week removed from the end of the 2009 WSOP (not counting the November Nine of course) and I think I've finally got myself out from under it. I was explaining to CK the other day that even despite dealing with all the shit and stupidity that surrounds the WSOP -- and there's plenty -- after doing this two years in a row I can't imagine being anywhere else during WSOP time. Which is just nuts, because by the end this year I was definitely ready for it to be over. The last few days of the Main Event all I could think was, "Three more days of this nonsense." "Two more days til it's over." And it has literally taken me a week to feel some semblance of normal again.

I was also explaining to CK that if WSOP is the equivalent of poker Christmas, then post-WSOP is a time of reckoning and making promises to myself (some might call them "resolutions") that I'll never keep. I was considering heading out of Vegas right after the WSOP but that got shelved in exchange for quiet decompression at home. One resolution broken already. Another one that is yet to be broken is the never-ending battle with my weight. One thing about the way I approach my job is that my eating habits suffer greatly. In the last 18 months I've lost almost 25 pounds, a rather absurd number when you consider how much I don't weigh. I still have at least three weeks before I have to go anywhere and will be devoting those weeks to, as CK puts it, "eating something".

I suppose the National Poker Week activities in DC might also qualify as a poker new year -- assuming some meaningful change comes out of all of it. Glad to see there are some activists among us. I'm not one, and frankly I don't think I can stomach DC in summer. That place was built on a swamp. Too damn muggy.

In other news, the EPT is supposed to release a formal statement tomorrow regarding EPT Moscow. [I know that a PokerStars PR rep gave some BS statement that "As far as I know EPT Moscow is still going ahead." That statement means absolutely nothing. I could say, "As far as I know, EPT Moscow is illegal and so must be postponed." The real meat is that the Russia regional manager of the EPT, Julia Savina, has said a statement will be made tomorrow.] As much as it fucks with my travel plans -- I was going to stop in London for a few days on my way to Moscow, visit some friends in Moscow and then head east to Macau -- I still hope PokerStars pulls the plug on the tournament. Assuming they do that then most likely I'll spend two weeks in Macau as I did last year. Macau was one of my favorite stops last year. It'd be a shame to miss out on that.