The Man of Twists and Turns

The title of this post comes from the first line of my favorite translation of the Odyssey. And, while it might seem strange to many of you reading this that a professional poker player has read enough of the Odyssey to have a favorite translation, I stand on the precipice of a great adventure. Without putting on too many more grandiose airs, I'll just say that I feel that poker players have a certain kinship with Odysseus. He wasn't the strongest or bravest, but what set him apart, what made him Homer's greatest hero, was his intellect and cunning. He survived his journey by the force of his will and the strength of his mind.

April 1st, my Odyssey begins. I'm at what I hope is the tail end of my worst downswing ever. And now I'm embarking with this new and lofty goal in my heart: win my share of one million dollars before the year is out. It's a new start, a blank slate I need to climb out of these doldrums.

One year, four gamblers, one million dollars. Can we overcome all the trials that are sure to dog us through our travels? Will we come out on the other side stronger and much richer than we started? Only time, and this blog, will tell.

Running bad or running good, which will prevail?

I feel like I have started way to many blogs in my life. I felt as though I was finally going to keep a consistent video blog going on deucescracked but this morning Jeremy tells me to post here now. I want to say here we go again but this time its going to be different. I am feeling good. Life has been treating me well this year. I have decided finally to take poker as my fulltime profession and the results have been good(in some sense). Coming off my best string of play in a long time and feeling more confident about my game then ever.

Not everyone is feeling the same way though. I get a text message from Hope last night saying "I'm back bitches". For Hope this has been a really bad start to 2011. This is Hopes biggest downswing in terms of bets ever. It seems as though it can't get any worse but it keeps coming and coming. The pain and the torture that comes when someone goes runner runner flush on your flopped set. "How can they be taking my money? I am the professional at this table. They aren't suppose to be winning. I am." is the feeling I get. Hope's luck seems to be turning around but Jeremy's not so much.

"My won at sd is 8 right now :(" he say to me on skype. I do not know how to respond. I like to be left alone when I am in a downswing so I just give Jeremy the sadface back and assume he'll be alright. Jeremy has been here before. He knows the feeling but this is a new game that is suppose to be high variance and people play terribly. Why does he keep losing if it seems like hes making less mistakes? It's going to be tough.

John looks to be feeling pretty good. He ran good when he first came to Arizona and is looking to keep those results up. He's playing new games and he's not sure if hes playing them well. But the results seem to be coming.

This is what I am going to. On April 1st were all going to meet in Scottsdale, AZ we rented a sweet 4 br 3.5 bath house and are going for the goal of a million dollars. Is it lofty? Yep is it doable? Yep I would think so. Its for fun but I figure might as well blog about it. If we do something special it will always be fun to look back.