2008: A Year to Remember

This year was a year that I'll never forget from both a poker and life standpoint. It was my third year and my most profitable year as a professional poker player. Of the 3 years I've been playing professionally, I spent the least time playing poker this year. It was especially nice to put up a nice bottom line number after all of the heartbreak I went through last year in turning an overall loser for the year. About this time last year I pretty much hated the game with a passion and was on my way out as a professional. Things have worked out though, and I'm very grateful for what the game has provided me. By trade, I am namely a big buy-in live tournament poker player. Realistically, I haven't even played a big enough sample of live tournaments in 3 years to tell if I'm a long term winner. I've obviously been able to supplement my income in other areas of poker besides live tournaments though. I've been fortunate to be on the right side of things so far though. I was especially fortunate to hit the Aussie Millions right at the beginning of my career which allowed me to play my own money for my entire career to this point, as opposed to being backed.

The year started off for me in the Bahamas at EPT PCA. I busted late on day 1 and hopped on a flight back home the next day. I'd resume taking classes towards my Civil Engineering degree a few days later after not having been in a class room in some 29 months. I came in very focused and determined to get that degree. Alas, I'd forgotten a lot of the skills needed to do well there, and to be honest it just seemed so fucking impractical. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I didn't intend on using that degree had I gotten it. I dropped my classes in mid February after 6 weeks of struggling through it. I threw Civil Engineering in the muck for good. The Friday that I dropped classes I looked at the poker schedule and noticed that the LAPC was the next day. I was on a flight and in Los Angeles by midnight.

After I busted from LAPC I was back in Tuscaloosa chilling for a week or so. During that time I had my biggest career online MTT score of 51000 dollars in Full Tilt's 1000 dollar Monday tourney. A few days later I took a great vacation with my Dad down to Florida to check out 4 spring training baseball games. Talk about a great trip. If you're a baseball fan at all you owe a trip like this to yourself. I hope we get to do it again soon. Soon after I returned from our trip, I got home and my then-girlfriend, Stephanie and I decided to break things off after 19 months of dating. This was for the best as I was moving back to Vegas for four months and she was gonna stay in Huntsville and work. I actually haven't been in a relationship with a girl since and don't really want to until I finish school in May of 2010.

At the end of March I moved into an absolute mansion in Vegas with my boys Adam, Mike, Cody, Eric and Jerry. We had the summer of a lifetime with so many just ridiculous stories. April went very well for me in Bellagio's Five Star series. I made three final tables including two sevenths and a third place finish. The third place finish was worth like 92000 dollars.

May was pretty much a month long vacation. In early May I came back to Birmingham to hang out for a Crawfish Festival and Cinco de Mayo. Soon after I went on a short 8 day trip to London, England and Amsterdam, The Netherlands with Mike and Adam. Sick time. I came back to Vegas and hung out with my sister for a week and then we all went on a really great houseboat trip on Lake Mead.

The WSOP kicked off in June and I got off to a poor start airballing the first 5 tournaments. In my sixth tournament, I made a magical run through 1600 players before finishing just short of a bracelet in second place of event 7 to Matt Keikoan. It was the most fun playing I've ever had playing poker. The finish was worth 350 thousand dollars. I went on to have a successful Series and added three more cashes. After the WSOP, I went across the street to Bellagio and had yet another successful series. I outright won a 3000 dollar tournament for a quarter million dollars and then the very next tournament I finished 3rd in a 5000 dollar affair for another 125000 dollars.

In late August I again decided to return to school, this time as a more practical, much easier Business Management major. It's a scrubby degree, but as I said earlier I'm just going back to school to prove to myself that I can finish. I completed the semester earlier this month, and I wish I could express in words how great it felt. I posted a 3.73 grade point average, and now have just 3 semesters left until I'm finished. I'll knock out another semester starting in a week or so. I played a couple of poker tournaments over the course of the semester with some decent success. I finished 5th in a tournament at Bellagio in October and I finished 15th in a tournament earlier this month at Bellagio. I also had some poker related business ventures go my way over the course of the year.

Alabama football went on a really sick run, so it's funny that that was the semester I decided to return to school. I took a lot of road trips over the course of the fall and in general drank way too much alcohol.

Here's to hoping 2009 goes well. Happy New Year everyone.

SS