Res Ipsa Poker

It's Monday morning, which means that I am most assuredly not drunk. That's a shame. If I were drunk, that would mean that I was on vacation. Instead I am at work, cringing at the thought of what is coming up over the next few days.

The post-holiday blahs have set in big time. I accomplished nothing this weekend. It was a "fail" on all fronts. I started and abandoned a substantive post for this blog. I watched a lot of football. I slept in. I played a few games of online Scrabble. Life failure.

I also found myself reading through a copy of The Nick Adams Stories that I picked up (for myself) while Christmas shopping. I already have a copy of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, but I was compelled by the idea of having all of the Nick Adams stories in one volume. I'm not displeased by the purchase, but it left me unfulfilled for some reason - like there were a number of stories missing, gaps in the narrative that I don't remember being there.

And poker. There was no poker. Really, after the extreme beatdown of the first two days of the month, I haven't had much desire to play. I began the year with some fancy plans to go back to my roots, rediscover an old game and spruce it up. I figured that I'd rack up some "comps" while playing a modestly winning style. Plans are a wonderful thing but they often clash with reality. Reality wins every time. In reality, I found myself confronted with tight, hyper-aggressive opponents who were rewarded for most every move they made, which is not a scenario that allows me to win without great variance.

And so it's on to the second plan of the new year. Figure out where there are still fish, improve enough at that game to gain an edge, and find the sweet spot where there is both a reward for playing and a lack of burnout from playing too much.

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January is a great time to be a poker junkie, by the way. If you're not there yourself, you can follow all of the action at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure by reading the Pokerstars blog, and coming up you can check out people playing for big money down under by reading the Aussie Millions coverage over at Poker News. There are a lot of really good writers grinding away, cranking out coverage for your pleasure, so go check 'em out.

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This just in: In case you've been living under a rock or you checked yourself into lockdown rehab for your Christmas cookie addiction, GCox has announced dates for Okie-Vegas III. July 9-13. From past reports, it sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun. I want to make and will be trying to make it work, but chances are probably 50/50 at best.

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Speaking of bloggers -- I hate to say it, but I've got a belated new year resolution that I'm pretty sure nobody else is making: I resolve to play fewer blogger donkaments.

It's not that I don't love y'all (in the non-gheyest way possible) or enjoy the donkaments. I just need more sleep.

Until next time, I yawn. Still setless in '08.