A lack of blogs

I played a couple dozen tournaments around Las Vegas this summer, and every now and then someone on the table would ask me why I never blog anymore. There are a few reasons.

First and foremost, the process of writing and researching a book has transformed me into the most boring man alive. A blog needs material, and when every single day for months can be described as "I woke up, went to exercise, then came home and locked myself in a room with a stack of books and a highlighter and my fairly distracting laptop until I was tired" I should think it becomes redundant. The house was usually vacant beyond myself since last September, as everyone had fled to the greener pastures of Toronto. I was lucky to get out once a week during these periods, usually to play a cash game session at Aria. I haven't had a real night of drinking since New Year's--and I'd argue the cigars were the true culprit in my vomiting into the trash can in front of the casino that evening. Generating the tournament reports is less appealing since it's become my occupation to write and talk poker so often, plus I try to save my interesting hands for the column. In the event I had an especially major result I'd definitely put it into writing, but for now I'm not focused on the reports.

Second, Black Friday created constant problems for both the industry and myself. I had almost everything online with UB and Tilt being my largest accounts, and on top of that had my Titan account hacked and robbed in early April, which was my third largest. I wouldn't say it made me depressed, but it left me in a state of constant slight-infuriation; losing so much while simultaneously discovering just how much of what I grew up around to be a mirage was jarring. The industry went into a tailspin and disaster followed disaster, both for corporations and individuals. Scandals were made public left and right, and as it turns out a disturbing amount of people we've been watching on TV or calling "professionals" over the years have seemingly been engaged in a contest with each other wherein they see who can fuck over the largest amount of people on the grandest scale. I felt like much of what I'd end up writing during that period would have been just adding more superfluous shit to the already present and insolvable pile. And besides, if I want to call someone an asshole in writing it can be accomplished much more publicly and efficiently on Twitter.

Lastly, I didn't actually know anything relevant about the goings-on of Black Friday. Sure I read many of the articles people linked on the forums and social media sites, but I have no real 'insider' information on these kind of things. I'm just another observer, waiting to see what happens next and sweating it pretty hard. Anyone who said anything inaccurate about the subject was quickly vilified and discredited for having given false hope. It was the perfect subject to say absolutely nothing about unless you were very certain of what you were saying.

The Pokerstars purchasing Full Tilt announcement was obviously a game changer. It was the first substantial piece of good news the industry had since Black Friday--except One Drop selling out and revealing there's apparently an infinite supply of rich dudes willing to play for a million if only we can get the money together. A huge number of people are about to get a financial shot in the arm, myself included. It makes it appear as though the United States government is willing to 'work with' the idea of online poker. I'm excited to see how it affects the attitude and turn-outs around the WPT events over the season.

Despite this upturn, I doubt there will be many more blogs through December. I'm spending the next few weeks traveling for both work and personal reasons, and when that finishes in late August I return to Vegas and remain there uninterrupted for four months except for two week-long work trips. I consider my deadline for the first draft of the book to be December 31st. I plan on going back to the hermit lifestyle for that period, so please don't be offended if I decline your social invitation. But I'm really starting to think that right about the time I'm coming out of hibernation, our game just might experience a Spring of it's own.