February 4th: Our crowded taxi pulls up to the Qantas terminal at the Melbourne airport at 3:55pm. Our flight is at 4:30. As agreed upon I sprint out of the taxi without my luggage and run straight for the check in. There’s an airline representative standing at the entry to the line that sees my running and hurried expression then asks how she can help.
“Yes well my friends and I are on the 4:30 to Adelaide and I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss the check in so I’ve come ahead of them. They’re right behind me.”
“Do you mean the 4:25 to Adelaide?”
“Yea, that. Is it too late to get on it? I’m terribly sorry about all this, there was surprisingly bad traffic on the way over but they’re right behind me and will be here any second.”
“Uhhh, I think we should be okay. Let’s go up to the counter and try to sort this out. Your friends will be here soon right?”
I glance over her shoulder and see them entering through the door about 50 meters away.
“Yea that’s them right there, we’ll be very quick.”

She approaches the woman at the counter and they discuss the possibility of being able to get our bags on the plane. The woman at the counter picks up her phone and makes a call to try and arrange everything. I alternate between apologizing to and thanking her profusely. Eventually we’re told that it’s not too late to get our bags on the plane but that we simply need to hurry up through security. We set our bags down, grab the boarding passes, and quickly move towards the security check point.

Timex, Watts, and I arrive at the terminal at last call. Naturally Stevo has disappeared for a smoke. We board without him and about five minutes later he finds his way onto the plane and takes his seat next to me. We occupy ourselves for the roughly hour long flight gambling on the over/under of what the other person thinks about random questions. When asked to approximate how many kangaroos there are in Australia Timex thinks it over then says he has his number. We eventually settle on the over/under being around 15 million, only to find Timex thinks it’s 75,000. We spend the rest of the flight making fun of him for it.

When we touch down in Adelaide we quickly make our way off to the plane and towards the baggage claim. And then we wait. And wait. And wait some more. Our bags don’t come. We walk over to the lost luggage center and I hand over the bag receipts. They take down our hotel information and tell us that the bags will be there by that evening.

We meet up with Alex, Kristian, and Joel Dodds at the baggage claim and those of us staying together take a cab over to our apartment. Our foursome includes me, Stevo, Joel, and Alex. We arrive at the apartments and are handed a key to a room on the 16th floor. When we enter the room we’re blown away. The apartment is two stories high with three separate large bedrooms and a cot in the downstairs living room. Both the upstairs and the downstairs have balconies, and the upstairs balcony is so big it has its own balcony. I take the upstairs room which essentially gives me an entire floor to myself. Joel intends to move his cot upstairs but never gets around to doing so, leaving me in solitude.

We make a run out to a convenience store to stock the house up with food and munchies, and then hang around the apartment for an hour or so waiting for a weed delivery. The delivery man comes over and whips an ounce of weed out of his bag. We give him $300 plus a $50 tip for the delivery then I make a poor attempt at a joke when I ask if he’d like to pose for a picture. He is not amused. Despite our having four people living in the apartment and God knows how many who will stop over I find the quantity we bought to be excessive, or as I put it to Stevo “What the fuck did we get a whole ounce for?! We’re here for four days.”
“Better safe than sorry.” The man has a point.

A few other players come over to join us and hang out then a few of us take the massive joint Alex has rolled outside and fire it up. The quality of Alex’s rolling is excellent and I let him know how proud I am of him. As always, when I get high I start babbling at them about “What a good fucking decision this was. We’re making lots of good decisions here boys.”

By the time we head for dinner half our party is blazed. We’ve heard that a special chef is in town from Tokyo at the Teppanyaki place in the Hyatt and that he has a kickass set menu. When we get there and have a look at the menu we realize that the talk of his chef has not been exaggerated and all eight of us order the set menu. The only problem is that it’s slow to get started and I’m absurdly fucking starving.

Over the course of dinner I seem to run into everyone. At a table nearby us are numerous representatives from the marketing and organization of Pokerstars having dinner with Tony Hachem. Then Lee Nelson comes in and chats to us at our table for about 15 minutes. Then Celina comes in with Brian Huang and they sit down to join us for dinner. Throughout all my conversations I take enormous precaution to seem normal but I have a sinking and paranoid feeling that all of them can tell how lit up I am. We’re drinking many beers throughout dinner though, so perhaps they’ll mistake me for drunk. However, the food at the restaurant exceeds all expectations and by the time we reach dessert God only knows how many times I’ve said what a good decision this was.

After dinner we walk back to the apartment and start up a Madden tournament on the Xbox360 that Stevo brought. Half way through the game I text the girl I’m seeing, who had been in Adelaide for a few days visiting before I had. I ask her how her trip was and she texts back that she’s still here and that I should come out. I bail out of the apartment around midnight and make my way over to a nearby club where I find her and about a dozen of my young poker playing friends. Julian decides to be the balla that he is and buys everyone’s entry’s fee because he’s cool like that. The club itself is massive, packed, and so loud you can barely hear people standing next to you screaming in your face. Someone starts demanding we do shots and despite my protestations that I have to play the next day I am peer pressured into numerous rounds. At some point in the night numerous members of our party start slipping each other pills and a white powder that likely isn’t Anthrax. The club is completely going off and there’s some kind of swimsuit competition on stage. Before things get out of hand I insist that I have to leave early because of the tournament and walk out with my girl and Ali Khalil. I’ve got my fingers crossed that Ali is the one that puts out for me tonight, but unfortunately he goes off in another direction. Shit, should’ve got him drunker.

When we get back to the apartment I find out from my roommates that our bags haven’t been delivered. My girl insists that she’ll wake up early and go shopping for me. I tell her not to worry about it and that I’ll just borrow a shirt from Alex. She insists that she wants to do something nice for me and that I’m not to argue with her about it. Fair enough then. We go to bed, get some exercise, and then chat for a while before I pass out exhausted somewhere between 3 and 4am.

February 5th: I’m stirred awake at 10am by my girl crawling out of bed and putting her clothes on. She asks me a few questions about what kind of shirt she should get and tells me she hasn’t slept at all. I tell her one more time that she shouldn’t worry about it but she quickly dismisses me and tells me to go back to sleep for the tournament. Some time around 11:30am she calls me with a question about what color to get and tells me to get out of bed since the tournament starts at 12:30. I grab a quick shower then sit down stairs with Stevo and Alex for a few minutes. Joel is mysteriously gone. They head out for breakfast while I wait around a few minutes for my clothes delivery. When she comes back to the room the supposed one shirt has turned into three dress shirts, a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, thongs, deodorant, and a razor. She wont’ let me pay her for the. I put on the t-shirt and the black dress shirt over it. She notices that it still has the packaging wrinkles on it and demands I take it off and give it to her so she can go back to her hotel and iron it. I tell her not to sweat it so much but she won’t back down and takes the shirt and runs off to her hotel, agreeing to meet me with it in a bit.

I grab a quick breakfast and make my way over to the poker room. I find my seating assignment, have a ‘Pokerstars’ patch put on my shirt since I bought in with W dollars, then receive an ironed shirt delivery. I throw it on, thank her for everything, tell her to get some sleep, and then take my seat and count down my 20,000 in chips. My starting table has a few familiar faces as well as a few local guys I’ve never seen before. Play gets underway on time at 12:30 and I start off by finding a number of good starting hands and getting involved quickly. I lose a few small pots before my first hand of relevance:
My stack: ~18,000, HJ: ~22,000, blinds 75/150, I hold As8s on the button.
Preflop: Folds to MP1, MP1 calls 150, folds to the HJ, HJ calls 150, CO folds, I raise to 750, folds back to MP1, MP1 calls, HJ calls.
Flop: 4s Kc 6s
MP1 checks, HJ checks, I bet 1300, MP1 folds, HJ calls.
Turn: 5s
HJ checks, I bet 2800, HJ calls.
River: Kh
The HJ leads out 3075. I think it over and raise to 8075. The HJ winces then throws a ‘5000’ chip into the pot. I table my ace high flush and he mucks his hand.

I hang around the low 30 thousands for a little while playing numerous small pots before my table is broke and I’m moved to a seat with Tony Hachem on my direct left, Sam Youssef on my right, and Grand Levy one more to the right. I continue to win small pots and witness Grant pull off a sick bluff when his early position raise is 3 bet and he makes a smallish four bet. The flop comes QTx and he fires out again and the other player folds KK face up. Grant shows Kd3d and I start going on and on about what a sicko he is. Grant and I have found ourselves at each others table for the last four tournaments we’ve played in Australia and every time it leads to a lot of laughs and some very interesting hands. Today is no different, as we’re soon involved in a large pot:
My stack: ~38,000, Grant: ~35,000, Blinds 100/200 with 25 ante. I hold TdTc UTG+1.
Preflop: Sam Youssef calls UTG for 200, I raise to 800, folds around to Grant in the BB, Grant raises to 2200, Sam folds, I call.
Flop: Jd 8s 5d
Grant bets 3200, I call.
Turn: 6c
Grant checks, I check.
River: As
Grant thinks it over then bets 4600. I think it over for quite a while. Even though Grant is a little crazy and likes playing strange hands with me, I feel like he knows that’s a great card for him to bluff and that he expects me to expect him to bluff it. I also think his bet size really looks like it’s for value so after a moment of thought I fold my hand.
“Did you have tens?” he asks.
“Something like that.”

The very next hand I’m involved again:
My stack: ~33,000, MP1: ~17,000, blinds 100/200 with a 25 ante, I hold AQo UTG.
Preflop: I raise to 600, two folds, MP1 calls, everyone else folds.
Flop: Th 7c 2s
I bet 900, MP1 calls.
Turn: 6h
I check with the intention of folding. Then MP1 fires out 1200 and from watching him play I really felt like his bet was an information/weak/value bet that would fold to further action. I check raise to 3600 and he thinks briefly then folds. I think this is a good play to use on people who use these weak bets so long as they are not a high level thinking player because they’ll realize that your line represents basically nothing.

An orbit later I’m involved with the same player:
My stack: ~33,000, MP1: ~10,000, blinds 150/300 with a 25 ante. I hold 7c7d UTG.
Preflop: I raise to 800, two folds, MP1 calls, folds to Grant in the BB, Grant calls.
Flop: Qh 7h 3s
Grant checks, I bet 1600, MP1 calls. Grant gives me a fairly long stare down, seems to think about making a raise, then elects to fold. Damn.
Turn: 5c
I bet 2600, MP1 shoves, I call. He tables 33 and recoils in disgust when I turn over my better set.
River: 2x

The set over set pot seems like a good omen as I continue to hit hands and get small value from people. It seems like almost every hand I open raise I hit top pair or better, and normally the opponent check calls one street then check folds on the turn, never putting me in a difficult spot.

By the second to last level of the day I’ve built my stack to nearly 70,000, making me the chip leader on the table. Everything is going my way when I get involved in my next significant pot:
My stack: ~66,000, button: ~22,500, CO: ~35,000, blinds 400/800 with a 100 ante. I hold AKo in MP2.
Preflop: Folds to me, I raise to 2100, folds to the CO, the CO calls, the button raises to 5100, both blinds fold. The button is a very tight player but he’s attended one of the seminars I do and knows how aggressive I am. I’m not sure if he’s capable of pulling any kind of light squeeze, in fact I’m fairly sure he’s not, but I do think he may 3 bet fold TT, maybe even JJ. Then again, his raise size is very suspicious. In the end I decide to slide my entire stack into the middle and the CO quickly folds. The button snap calls and tables AA (since this hand I’ve talked to numerous good players about it and we’ve discussed that in a spot like this flat calling preflop given the price is not that bad, even though we’d never do something like that online.)
Flop: 2h 7d Th
Turn: Jc
River: 2c

After that pot I find myself slowly but consistently moving in the opposite direction as I start losing every pot I enter. By the next time an interesting hand comes up I’ve slipped all the way back to the mid thirties.
My stack: ~35,000, SB: ~10,500, blinds 500/1000 with a 100 ante. I hold 8h9h in MP1.
Preflop: Folds to me in MP1, I raise to 2500, folds to the SB, the SB shoves for 10,700, the BB folds. The SB has been pretty aggressive with open shoving and I don’t think he has a super tight live shoving range or anything so I make the call. He shows A4o and we’re off to the races.
Flop: Qc Jc 2d
Turn: 7h
River: Ad
I slide over 10,700 and find myself knocked all the way to near start bank.

When the day finishes up a bit less than half an hour later I find myself with 27,100. Considering I had over 30,000 since the second level the end to the day is a bit disappointing, but considering the quality of the structure I’m not overly worried about it.

When I walk off the table I meet up with the girl I’m seeing and a few mutual friends who’ve been hanging around the poker room drinking for most of the day. The small group becomes a large one as more and more players finish bagging up their chips and join us by the bar. We wind up doing a few rounds at the bar and by the time we head out to a club most of my company is very smashed.

By the time we arrive at the bar our group has swelled to over a dozen and I’m doing my best to refuse the idea of getting drunk. When I step into the bathroom I get a call from Celina. She tells me she’s in the hospital with severe internal pains and wondering if I don’t mind coming to wait with her in the emergency room because she’s scared. I tell her that I’ll come over and wait with her for a while then hang up and attempt to mentally pursue for the inevitable shit storm this is about to cause.

I go over and tell my girl about the situation. She immediately gets really pissed off at me. I attempt to explain that I’ll be back in a little while and that I’m just going to make sure a scared girl in the hospital is okay and that Celina and I are just friends. She is disinterested in my arguments and tells me to “Just go” then starts giving me the cold shoulder. I grab Julian and explain the situation to him and ask him to take care of the girl. I ask him what he would do in the same situation and he agrees that he would go to but that it’s an incredibly fucked up spot.
“Thanks man. Just take care of her for me okay? Man, I am so fucked.”

I quickly walk out of the bar and grab a taxi over to the hospital. When I arrive I can’t seem to figure out the entrance and when I try to buzz the door to the ER nobody answers. Eventually some woman who works there comes over to get in herself and lets me through as well. I find my way to the ER Celina is waiting at and after a few short seconds of asking her how she feels my girl calls my cell phone, which is getting about one bar of reception in the hospital. She’s yelling and nonsensical on the phone, telling me that she doesn’t want to see me anymore and that I should just go back to Celina. I attempt to explain that I’m not interested in Celina and that I’m only there to make sure she’s okay. She’s too upset to be reasoned with and continues yelling at me in the phone. About this time the doctor comes in and tries to talk to Celina while I’m practically yelling into my cell phone, no doubt making me look like a colossal jackass. Eventually the reception cuts out mid call and I’m standing there stupefied for a moment before the phone rings again.
“DID YOU JUST HANG UP ON ME?!”
“No, I didn’t hang up at all! The reception in here is terrible, I can barely hear you as is.”
“FINE! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! DON’T EVER CALL ME AGAIN! I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU ANYMORE!!”
*click*
The phone goes dead and I snap it shut with a loud sigh. The doctor looks at me with contempt and I start apologizing though I can’t make what I’m apologizing for into a tangible sentence. I settle with “I am so sorry about…all that. Sorry.”

At some point the doctor asks me to step outside into the waiting room while she conducts some tests. I slink into a chair and sit there silently staring at my phone. There is no reading material in the waiting room.

About 20 minutes later Celina comes out and has a seat with me. We chat about how she’s feeling and the events of my evening. She apologizes for having created any drama and I tell her that it’s okay and that she was right to have called me, that even though we’re not a couple I still care about her health and safety. She asks what happened on the phone and I do my best to explain without swearing too much. I end up swearing a lot. We sit around waiting for the doctor, who comes out and tells her there is no immediate threat to her health and that she’ll give her a pain killer to deal with any continuing discomfort.

Most of the walk home is occupied by Celina lecturing me on my recent life decisions and my continuing icy exterior. I’ve found that having this kind of temperament and emotional disposition to be increasingly uncomfortable for people in personal relationships, particularly women, who pick up on it close to immediately and find it concerning that I never seem to ‘care’ about much of anything. I suppose after playing enough poker the emotional insulation you build up creeps into your personality and you stop seeing the point in getting worked up or upset over much of anything. The problem is that people interpret you’re being so non reactionary to mean that you don’t give a fuck about your relationship with them at all, that they are incapable of affecting you. On the exterior level, they’re mostly right.

I say goodbye to Celina outside of her hotel and tell her to feel better. I walk the few blocks back to my apartment, take the elevator up, struggle with the impossible lock like I always do, then enter our living room which is full of numerous friends to whom I immediately start raving at jokingly
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT I HAVE HAD THE WORST FUCKING NIGHT! FOR GODS SAKE SOMEBODY ROLL UP A JOINT RIGHT THIS MINUTE AND PUT SOME FUCKING THC IN MY BRAIN!” I burst into laughter and yell at them “WHY IS THERE NO THC IN MY BRAIN!?!”

As Alex rolls up another one of his trademark excellent joints I regale them in the story of my evening. When he finishes a few of us step outside and I take way more hits than is appropriate joint hitting etiquette. When we come back inside I start shit talking and issuing Madden challenges. Jarred accepts and I spend most of the game giggling my ass off. Half way through the game I have a memory flash to the peanut M&M’s I’ve left in the fridge with milk.
“HOLY SHIT!” I yell, then leap up from the couch and sprint to the fridge. I rip out the candy and my carton of milk. I devour the chocolate feverishly then start drinking from the carton which I justify to my roommates by stating “I’m drinking this shit from the carton cause that’s how I roll.” Nobody seems to care as it seems Australians don’t drink milk.

As a result of having played so much recent live poker I’ve found myself in quite a few interesting spots against a vast array of players. I’ll post those five hands here and people can think about what they’d do, then in the next entry I’ll post the results.

1. Aussie Millions $2200 AUD 6 max “preliminary” event. Start bank 10,000.
Villain is roughly 35 and Aussie. He's been on table about 15 minutes, not really aggro or really nity, but seems like a sort of random standard live player. Haven't seen him play post flop much, we haven't been involved yet. He's min raised numerous times pre flop before.

I've been fairly card dead since his arrival and haven't been very involved. I lost most of my stack in small medium pots leading up to that.

My stack: ~5500
CO: ~6000
Button: ~20,000
Blinds 75/150. I hold Ad Th in the BB.

Preflop: Folds to the CO, CO raises to 300, button calls, SB folds, I call.

Flop: 5c Ac 5h (Pot 975)
I check, CO thinks breifly and checks, button bets 1000, I call, CO thinks a bit again and calls.

Turn: Tc (Pot 3975)
I check, CO shoves for 4800, button folds, I?

2. Auckland high rollers event. It got 2 tables and was a buy in of roughly $6000 USD. Most players are good.

Villain in this hand is mid-high stakes online cash player Josh Egan. Not sure what his online name is. We haven't played before but we've chatted and we're both aware that the other is a good thinking player. We haven't been too involved yet as it's pretty early.

My stack: ~20,000
Josh: ~20,000
Blinds 100/200. I hold Qh Qs on an 8 handed table on the HJ.

Preflop: UTG calls, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, I raise to 1025, CO folds, button folds, SB folds, BB calls, UTG calls, MP2 calls.

Flop: 2h 8c 9c (Pot 4200)
Three checks to me, I bet 2600, folds back to Josh in the BB, Josh calls.

Turn: 6h (Pot 9400)
Josh leads 4500, hero?

If you continue what's your plan depending on the river?

3. Aussie Millions $1100 Turbo event prelim (okay technically post lim but w/e.) The blinds aren't turbo, it simply means players have 20 seconds to make their decision.

I'm at a fairly new table. On the first hand two players in MP limped for 150 to me on the button. I raised to 750 and when it folded back to the second limper he limp reraises to 3500 and i folded (we were about 7k effective.) He then showed 22. That's my only history with him, and the rest of the time at the table he's played fairly normal and accumulated well. He's a youngish guy, i'd guess mid 20's, and while I'm not sure I think he might be Euro, but I have no idea what kind.

The BB in this hand is a huge mega donk station that does a TON of calling. I would imagine the probable Euro is aware of this having played with him for a while. Giant station.

My stack: ~8k
CO: ~ 15k
BB: ~12k

Blinds 100/200. I hold Ts 9s on the button.

Preflop: Folds to MP1, MP1 limps for 200, folds to CO, CO limps, I limp on the button, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: Ks Td 9c (Pot 1000)
Checks around to me, I bet 800, SB folds, BB calls, MP1 folds, CO quickly calls.

Turn: 3d (Pot 3400)
BB checks, CO checks, I bet 2100, BB calls, CO calls.

River: 7c (Pot 9700)
BB checks, CO leads 6500, hero?

4. Sydney APPT Grand Final High rollers event, 15k AUD buy in (about 10k USD.) 37 entrants with 6 paying. We're quite a few hours into the action but the structure is very slow so we're all quite deep. I've recently moved tables and wound up on the right of Chad Brown. I've developed a pretty aggressive image since sitting down and have open raised many pots. No major history between us two, I think he might have folded to a C bet in one hand, maybe raised another in a different one.

My stack: ~73,000
Chad: ~50,000
Blinds: 250/500 with 50 ante. I hold 4d 4h on the CO.

Preflop: Folds to me, I raise to 1400, Chad calls, both blinds fold.

Flop: Qh 4s 2h (Pot 3950)
I bet 2000, Chad raises to 6000, Hero raises to 16000, Chad calls.

Turn: 6s (Pot 35,950)
Hero thinks briefly then shoves,

Prefer any other route of getting value here?

5. APPT Grand Final High rollers event (15k AUD, bout 10k USD.)

Open raiser is Jarred Graham aka Try_an_Hit on 2+2
Button is online cash player Andrew Pantling. I'm told he wins at mid-high cash online over a large sample, and plays and speaks in a manner that suggests that to be accurate.

Jarred has been quite aggressive with open raises and I've been 3 betting him often. Andrew is also quite aggressive but one thing I've noticed is he tends to call reraises considerably more wide than tournament players, though the hands I've seen that in are nearly entirely in heads up pots.

My stack: ~36,000
Jarred: ~80,000
Andrew: ~90,000
Blinds 300/600 with 75 ante. I hold Jd Jh on the CO.

Preflop: Folds to Jarred on the HJ, Jarred raises to 1600, I reraise to 4600, Andrew thinks for a while then flat call, both blinds fold, Jarred folds.

Flop: 3h 9s 5h (Pot 12300)
Hero?

Now that the Aussie Millions are over it’s time to look forward to what’s upcoming in my life over the year 2009, and it’s shaping up to be interesting.

My plan over the next two months is to play a very high amount of online poker. I’ll be going to Adelaide for the first event of the ANZPT from February 4-8 and after that my entire focus is on getting up early, putting in volume, and then writing and working out at night. I’ve only got about two months to finish the book, so I’m going to need to develop a Dostoyevsky like writing style. In total, I’ve had confirmations from about a dozen guys interested in being coauthors, and I’ll need to figure out what I’d like to direct them to write about and how to incorporate it into the material.

I’m thinking my schedule through February and March will look something like waking up about 9am, getting a quick run in, then grinding for about 8-9 hours, then going to the gym and finally retiring for the evening to work on the book for a few hours. I imagine my social life will take a hit, but that’s alright since I’ll be very social for the five months following that and I’m a little tired of going out after the Aussie Millions and everything.

After that, inexplicably, it appears I’ll be traveling a full circumference of the world in a short period of time again. I know when I finished last year I wrote that I didn’t want to go around the world again any time soon, but things have fallen into a sort of place where it seems to line up too well not to, plus I’ve got the opportunity to do some really interesting stuff. The planned itinerary for the moment looks like:

Early April: Leave Melbourne for Hawaii. I’ll be stopping off for a few days to visit Cade and Kari as well as cut down the flight time to the US, not to mention making an ass of myself in our favorite 24 hour Korean place. It’s possible previous to this portion that I’ll be stopping off in Thailand, but that’s currently uncertain and right now the plan is Hawaii.

Mid April: Arrive in Las Vegas to play in the WPT championship. I likely won’t arrive in time to play the full list of preliminaries though I will be there for some. I’ve already got my seat as a result of the WPT preliminary event I won at the Bellagio Cup IV this summer, which I’m unable to sell or transfer, hence the necessity of this Vegas trip. Were it up to me I’d just take the 25k cash for the seat, but unfortunately I’m locked in. The only other alternative was to defer another year, but considering the quality of the management decisions at the WPT God knows if they’ll even be around in another year.

Late April: Leave Las Vegas to go to Wisconsin and properly visit home for the first time in years. There are friends and family I haven’t seen in Wisconsin for between two and six years, and this will likely be my last time to catch up with them properly for another few. I’ve got cousins who are teens now that I remember as tiny children, and friends that I haven’t caught up with since high school who I’d still love to see. Hopefully most of them will be receptive and as cool as I remember, though I imagine a lot has changed. As far as most people in Wisconsin know one day four years ago I said I was going to Australia and would be back in six months then was never seen again.

Late May: Leave Wisconsin for Las Vegas to play in the WSOP and Bellagio Cup V. It appears I’ll be getting a house with my “fellow” Australians, and possibly Sirwatts as well. I had a great time with all the guys I roomed with last year, but this is just sort of the way things have wound up this time. I imagine I’ll be doing a shit ton of volume again this year, and hopefully that can lead to similar or better results than last year. I have a feeling I won’t be able to swap as well though.

Mid July: At the end of the WSOP I’ll be leaving Vegas to go visit for New York City for a few days. I’ve never been there and have several friends in the city, and it seems like a cool place to stop off in order to reduce the travel time to my next destination.

Mid July: Leave New York for Kenya. I’ve decided to volunteer in an orphanage there for roughly five weeks. I’ve always rejected the idea that “poker players contribute nothing/are a drain to society” but I still can’t escape the idea that I really haven’t done much with my life other than play cards. I’ve lived on three continents so far and this seems like a great way to have an interesting experience living on a fourth, plus do something that would feel a bit more rewarding than doing math problems on my computer home alone.

Late August: Leave Kenya and stop over in Dubai for a few days. I know a couple people there and it seems like an interesting place to stop off, especially since it will cut down the flight time to my next destination. From the pictures I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard about Dubai it’s one of those places everyone should see once before they die. They’re building a skyscraper that will be nearly double the height of the world’s next tallest building. That’s fucking absurd.

Late August or early September: Leave Dubai for Macau for the Pokerstars APPT Macau. They haven’t announced dates for this yet but it was around this time last year and I’m told is likely to be around the same date. If for some reason it’s not I’ll pick some other tournament in Asia around the same time to go to and simply hang around Kenya and Dubai for a few extra weeks if it’s more down the line than I thought.

Early September: This seems like the most likely return time to Melbourne. I won’t know for certain for some time when the exact date will be, but around this time looks probable. I imagine I’ll want to take it easy for a while after that.

So there it is, five months of non stop travel, about 150 days in total with a full circumference of the world. And of course, I’ll be writing the whole thing. I won’t be approaching any companies attempting to sell it this time because creative control is important to me and I know for certain the blog will contain things most poker sites don’t want to endorse, such as degeneracy (not by me), sex, drug use, stereotype jokes, and the occasional rant about why such and such name player is a huge douchebag.

If some site out there wants to talk to me about buying it I’m open minded, but don’t waste your time if you want even the slightest creative control. The only things I’d be willing to have edited are grammar and spelling and any cutting of the content will not be tolerated. I don’t care how much money I’m offered when it comes to that issue, I will not edit it. I write because I enjoy it, not to take a paycheck.

Edit: Just remembered I really need to stop by Fresno too. I'll work that in either before or after the WSOP. See all my friends at Kyle's casino soon.