Abandoned blogs are sad. Every so often I stumble across one during an aimless foray through cyberspace. Finding an abandoned blog raises inevitable questions about the author—what happened to make this person cease communicating?

I don’t want this place to became the online equivalent of a boarded up building. My latest silence is attributable partially to a lack of interesting poker stories to share and partially to my lack of motivation to write anything.

I’m spending a lot of time chasing sleep. Ivy is now an adorable, super-grabby, insatiably curious 5-month old. It’s amazing to watch her grow and develop. She also happens to be incapable of sleeping for more than about six consecutive hours and has demonstrated an unusual distaste for napping. I am therefore walking around in a constant state of sleep deprivation, looking to pick up whatever bits and pieces of sleep I can find. It’s difficult to reconcile the poker lifestyle with a constant desire to doze off. This is no joke!

Daddy and Ivy!

Back in undergrad at Cornell, the most popular elective class the university offered was Psych 101. Enrollment in this course was massive. The lectures consisted mostly of interesting videos and were administered in a gigantic concert hall that seated probably two or three thousand, and almost every seat was taken. The professor was a guy named Maas, and his specialization was the study of the effect of sleep deprivation on the human brain. My friends and I used to have a good time laughing at all the videos of the crazy maladies that befell the world’s insomniacs. Perhaps I’m now experiencing retribution for finding the antics of narcoleptics hilarious when I was 18 years old. I can barely think straight half the time.

In other news, I recently discovered that my love of poker has not waned. The way I came to this conclusion was atypical. It was not by winning a tournament and not through some kind of revelation at the table. I wasn’t even playing poker when it happened. I had a reawakening because I accepted a couple of coaching gigs. I was initially reluctant to mentor others because I was unsure if I’d be able to organize my thoughts in a way that would be easy to digest, but it has gone quite well. The feedback I’ve received has been encouraging and teaching poker for a few hours made me appreciate how much I work I’ve put into the game. I was surprised at how easily and naturally I was able to communicate as a poker coach, and the experience has me energized (good timing with the WSOP around the corner).  Oh, and if anyone is interested in private poker lessons feel free to contact me, lol.

In other news, the feds handed down two new indictments yesterday, effectively shutting down a few more poker sites and payment processors. If it wasn’t obvious back in April, it should now be abundantly clear: the party’s over for online poker, at least for now. Play online at your own peril—even if you win you may never see the money.  I’m less sanguine about online poker’s long-term prospects than I was when I last posted something.  I still believe we’re headed towards federal regulation, but it could be a long while.

I leave for the WSOP a week from today. I intend to stay for about three weeks, cramming as much poker as humanly possible into that time (there are 18 tournaments on my calendar, along with sit n’ gos and possibly cash games between bustouts) then return for the Main Event in July. I am not looking forward to leaving Janeen and Ivy for such a long period of time, and poor Janeen is going to have her hands full, but the WSOP is the WSOP.  Gotta be in it to win it.  I believe I’m playing quite well right now despite the minor downswing I’m in. I’m cautiously optimistic about drilling something big in the desert this year.  I’m also cautiously optimistic about updating this blog more often than once per month going forward.