So. I haven't done a blog in a really long time. For those that don't know, I went back to school. I am at St. John'sCollege in Santa Fe, NM. I spend my days reading Plato, translating ancient Greek, boxing, and hanging out in the coffee shop. I have been really enjoying my experience thus far, and don't see any reason why I wouldn't continue on for the next 3.5 years. Past that.. who knows what I will do.

Since most of you probably want to know about poker, I suppose I can move on to that. I didn't play for about 3 months or so, which, since 2004, has been my longest poker break. It felt really good, but I started itching to get back in it.

Over the last few days, I have been running up a bankroll from 10k. I managed to get it to 63k at peak, playing mostly PLO. Today, I blew it up, and another 60k that I borrowed, playing 25-50 and 50-1 PLO. Games seemed really good, and I figured I would take a shot. It didn't go so well.

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I feel like I am playing some awesome poker, but just didn't get the results today. While grinding up my roll this year (lol 2 weeks) I was winning pretty consistently at smaller stakes, and was moving up steadily until running into a brick wall today. More accurately I ran into the brick wall, causing it to collapse, covering me in bricks. It hurt.

What surprises me the most is that, immediately after quitting the games, I was really unhappy, but not in the way I remember being unhappy when I would have a losing day pre-school transition. I am not sure how to explain it, but I just sort of felt sad. I knew I played well, so I wasn't upset at myself, but still, there was some form of unhappiness present that was different from what I have experienced in the past. Perhaps it was the same feeling I used to experience, only coupled with a new disappointment feeling that I used to not associate with a poker loss.

Why I felt that, I am not sure. Was it disappointment in myself? Was it disappointment in the poker gods? Was I upset with myself for jumping into bigger stakes games too soon before I built back up an adequate online bankroll? Perhaps it was a combination of these things, and others. Perhaps it was because I had Del Friscos tonight and was having a good evening, and let poker interfere with that. I am over poker interfering with my life, so something will need to change. What that is yet, I am not sure.

Money wise, I am doing fine, but I have never really had to deposit money onto a poker site before, aside from the initial 50 bucks way back in the day, so it is sort of depressing. Mentally, I have generally separated my 'poker' money and my 'real life' money, and now that I have to wire some on, it feels a little strange. I don't really want to keep a ton of money online though, and sort of like the challenge of running up a bankroll, so maybe I will play really small Townsend style and set some move up limitations on myself. Maybe I will put in 10k and start at 2-4 or something and move up only if I get a certain number of buyins. Who knows, that could be fun. There is time to get into that later.

Switching topics because I do that, I bought a house in Santa Fe up in the mountains near my school. It is about a 12 minute walk through the snow from my front door to the coffee shop on campus, which is smack dab in the middle. I walk most days and really enjoy the process. I get to see beautiful scenery, explore the terrain, and throw rocks at the water tower which makes really cool laser sounds when the rocks bounce off. The house is a smaller place, around 2k square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, but I absolutely love it. The location is perfect, and it would be hard to imagine a better setup.

I spent Christmas with my family in Florida, then went to Houston to visit Lisa's family for a few nights. I really enjoyed the time I got to spend getting to know her family, and I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable I felt with them. From there, we headed to NYC for a few days. We managed to get reservations at Per Se for New Years Eve, and had one of the best dinners of my life. It was pricey, but the tasting menu was fantastic. We also did a tasting menu at Aureole, which was great. Apparently there is a location in Vegas that a few of my friends said was good as well.

After NYC we had a 6:50am flight to Turks and Caicos for a little sun. It was awesome getting to transition from a -2 wind-chill in New York to 82 and sunny on the beach. I got through 3 awesome fiction books without getting a sunburn (Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami, and the first 2 books in the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb). It was nice getting to do some leisure reading that wasn't school related. Unfortunately, a few of the days we were there were overcast, and it even rained for 2 days. The trip came to an end yesterday, and Lisa left this morning L

I have a lot more to write about, but am getting pretty tired so I am going to cut it off here. Likely, I will be blogging much more regularly since I am back playing some poker again, but I don't think it will be daily. I do enjoy keeping a blog though, having a place to express my jumbled thoughts is great, and if I can entertain others in the process, all the better.

Anyways, hope everyone had a great holiday season. Talk to you soon.

Love,

-David Benefield