Semi-retired

I started playing poker for a living in July 2003 and after more than 7 years of working for myself I got a job.

September was the worst month I ever had as a poker player. I got totally crushed and flushed the vase majority of my bankroll. I tried to recover in October, but my confidence was at an all time low and no matter how far I dropped in stakes I couldn't seem to make it work. I didn't play for any significant stakes in November or December and my action was limited to a few dozen $20-$50 multitalbes, 2 or 3 $200 tournaments in person and a half dozen sessions at the Oaks Club.

Sometime in October my wife and I decided that one of use needed to get a job. Since she has a mechanical engineering degree from Berkeley she was the prime candidate, but as we all know this is a terrible time to be looking for work.

I applied to a few jobs as well. The most interesting by far has been ring games manager at pokerstars. If you look at the list of qualifications and skills required I am a slam dunk candidate, but the guy in charge of hiring is in no hurry to hire anyone so that is still pending. Even if I get offered the job I'm not likely to take it since it would require moving to the Isle of Mann (really!). I've spent the time since I applied trying to decide the dollar about it would take to get me and my family to move 6,000 miles. It's a lot, but not so much that I think there's zero chance that I'll be offered that much.

But as I said above I actually have a job right now. I'm working in a two tiered capacity at entertainment website www.HitFix.com. The first part is developing a game that is the bastard cousin of fantasy sports but for reality TV. Our first show is going to be American Idol and the game should be up and running for the top 20 show on February 24th.

On top of that I've been working in a business development capacity generating leads for partnerships as well as doing some general quality control for the website as a whole. Some of you might be thinking "What the hell do you know about working for an entertainment website? You're full of shit!" All I can say is so far I know a lot more than I thought. We'll see how it goes.

As far as poker goes, this year I've made about $700 in 10 hours playing $13 Ultra Turbo tournaments on Absolute, but we all know that that's just running crazy hot at those stakes.

For now poker is on the backburner as I dive headfirst into the world of entertainment news!