Welcome to my new website and my new blog. I’ve wanted to update my website and start a new blog for some time now but I have this really awful habit of procrastinating on things that aren’t essential. I’m not sure what got me off my ass and made me finally do it, but I won’t question miracles.

I’m not really sure what kind of blog this will end up being. I think I’m just going to write about whatever is on my mind. Sometimes I’ll write about poker, sometimes about Magic and often just whatever I’m up to or anything interesting I’ve seen. I doubt there will be much poker strategy but I will write about anything interesting or unusual that comes up.

Right now I’m on a plane with Eric Froehlich head home to Vegas. We went to Providence for the weekend for a Magic the Gathering Grand Prix tournament. Eric had a great weekend (although substandard for him) finishing 22^nd out of over 1200 entries. I didn’t do so hot myself and finished in 159^th. I was a tad bit unlucky but was able to not let it bother me and continue to fight hard after each loss. Even though I didn’t do well, I think it showed me that I am in the right mindset and focused for all the poker coming up. There will be many situations where things you can’t control will go wrong at the tables this summer and you have to stay focused on the things you can control and continue to make good decisions. If you do that, the results will come.

The 2011 WSOP starts tomorrow and I’m more excited than ever. Last year I had my worst series ever, cashing only once! Coming into that WSOP I had just won the WPT Championship and I think that made it easy for me to have a bad series. I think I played well, but I didn’t have that fire since I had just tasted success and accepted failure too easily. That won’t be the case this year. I have lots of reasons for me to play my best and do well. Most importantly I just had a daughter, Liliana in February. She is such an amazing addition to my life that it makes me want to succeed at everything I do, so I can be a good example for her. Secondly, I just came close to defending my title at the WPT Champs, getting 14^th. I played great poker and was heartbroken when I was eliminated. I told myself that I am going to use that as a springboard and continue to bring that level of intensity every day to every event at the Rio this summer.

My first event is tomorrow, a new one and a tough one, 25k buyin heads up NL Holdem. I’m excited and can’t wait for that first walk into the Rio.