Happy new year everyone! I had an amazing time last night, I rented out a party bus and a bunch of my friends and me went out to a few different bars in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. I cannot stress enough how much fun this was. I will post pictures when I get some, some of the girls who came took lots of them thankfully. I hope everyone else had a fun New Year's Eve as well!

Since my big win earlier this month I've been taking it pretty easy pokerwise for a few reasons. Mainly, I've been really busy, I had finals then came home for one day before flying out to Chicago to go to a Bulls game and the CR Christmas Party with Taylor, Wiggins, and some other good friends. Unlike the last time I went to Chicago in the winter, the weather held up really well (actually 10 degrees warmer there than in the northeast when I was there). I had a great time and I'm really becoming fond of Chicago. One big reason is that the people just seem friendlier, small sample size but I've heard others say this as well. Also, another quick story that shows why I like it - I was leaving my hotel one day around noon to catch a cab and head to the CR office, but I decided I wanted a quick bite to eat first because I was hungry. I asked the doorman at the hotel and he told me there was a great deli a block away. I went to said deli, which was a small, family-owned Italian deli, and had one of the best subs I've ever had in my life. I just think being able to do stuff like this is awesome, I realize it's not exclusive to Chicago but having never lived in a big city before I just think it's so cool. Chicago is definitely an option for living after I graduate this coming December.

Since returning from Chicago I've been spending lots of time with friends and family. I'm only in PA for a few months a year anymore so I'm trying to make the most of this time. It's not that I haven't wanted to play poker, it just hasn't been a priority. Similarly, I planned on catching up on Mad Men this break and have watched a grand total of zero episodes so far (I've previously seen S1). I did watch the Hangover for the 4th time though, such a great movie. I'd imagine I'll spend most of the remainder of my break spending time with friends and family as well since everyone is home and looking to hang out as much as possible. I've also been hitting the gym pretty hard over break and I expect to keep that up as well.

Now to resolutions. I did this last year and thought it would be a good idea to check up on my progress. I'm going to do that first then make some new ones for 2010. Without further ado....

2009 Resolutions

1. Make more productive use of my time.

I think I've seen some improvement here. I still waste a bit more time on 2+2 than I'd like but I've kicked the bad habit of lying in bed on my computer for an hour or 2 after waking up. I certainly waste less time than most of my college friends lol

2. Get in better shape.

Making progress here as well, at least in the past few months. I was pretty good in the spring but Vegas really killed it as it's pretty impossible to live a healthy lifestyle while living in a big house in Vegas with 8 friends + friends of friends visiting constantly. I want to try harder this coming summer though. After Vegas I also slacked for a bit but since October I've been pretty consistent with my workouts and I've eaten reasonably healthy as well, especially over this break. I've definitely seen some nice strength gains but I'd like to drop 15-20 pounds.

3. Perform well in school.

Nailed this one. I got a 3.55 this fall and I think a 3.3 in the spring. Couldn't be happier with my schoolwork.

4. Improve my social life a bit.

Aced this as well. I've definitely improved the amount of meaningful relationships I have with friends over the past year, and I think the main reason is that I've really opened up. I was pretty shy in high school but now I feel like a completely different person when I go out. Sometimes I used to force it just to fit in, now I still don't always feel like going out and stay in sometimes, but when I do go out I genuinely have lots of fun almost always. I am extremely happy with all of this.

5. Become a bit more of a bankroll nit.

Believe it or not I think I did a great job of this. For the first half of 2009 I pretty much grinded a bunch of 25/50, played a little bit of 500/1k pretty heavily pieced out, and put up pretty subpar results compared to what I would have liked. Regardless, I stuck to my gameplan. I was fortunate to have some nice scores staking in the WSOP and as a result had some money to play with, and at the same time there were some really good nosebleed games running on FTP, so I decided to put more money online and share action in these games. I'm happy to say that it really couldn't have worked out any better and I'm very fortunate for that.

2010 Resolutions

1. Get in better shape.

Still plenty of room for improvement here. I've been getting very serious about this all around so far over break. The local gym is super nice and has a basketball court that I've been shooting around on to warm up and cool down and on off-days from lifting. I'm definitely going to start going to a gym back at school, I had been working out in my house but it's just so much easier to motivate myself to work out when I leave the house to go to a gym. As stated above I'd like to lose 15-20 pounds.

2. Learn how to cook well.

This ties in with #1 a bit as cooking myself means I can make my own meals and know what I'm putting in my food. Also, in my limited experience I've made some meals that taste pretty damn good, although the credit really belongs to getting good ingredients. I have a nice grill at my house and don't even know how to use it, my roommate does so it's not going to waste, but this is pretty stupid and I'm going to figure it out asap. I also got a cookbook for Christmas that really starts from the ground up and I've already read a bunch of it. I think cooking will be fun and rewarding and I'm looking forward to getting into it more.

3. Continue to maintain/expand relationships with friends and family.

I've really become closer with some friends and family members in the past year and this really comes back to opening up more and becoming more outgoing as I discussed earlier. Same goes with girls too. I hope to maintain the close relationships I have, especially with good friends who are graduating and who I won't see as much. Life's just better when experiences are shared with others, imo.

4. Remain hungry at the poker tables and continue to put up good results.

This might be a bit tough as quite frankly I'm more concerned with other aspects of my life right now. That said, I'm very much looking forward to the WSOP this summer as it will be my first full Series since turning 21. I plan on playing the 50k 8-game event, the main event, 10k HU, 10k PLO, and perhaps a few more, as well as playing some big cash games. I want to spend the first half of 2010 sharpening up my mixed games online so I can play them live this summer if good ones are running. Money is nice too but my primary goal is just to get the mixed game as sharp as possible. I plan on still playing a decent amount of PLO too but it's a secondary goal as I'm quite content with my PLO game. I also look forward to playing HU if there are good spots, although I think my days of waiting around for 8 hours for action on HU tables are pretty much done, I rarely spend more than 3 hours at a time playing/looking for games anymore.

5. Have fun!

I doubt I'll have a problem with this, but just putting it here to remind myself that this is what it's all about. 2009 was arguably the best, most enjoyable year of my life to date and I can only hope that 2010 is even better.

Wish me luck with these resolutions and happy new year again to all!

Brian