Something must have changed and the last 6 months my motivation has been unbelievable. I've actually run like complete shit so far this year(7th when 5 paid in the 100k at pca, 17th when 16 pay in the 25k at pca, bricked all the people who I bought pieces of in the 100ks and 250k) and yet I haven't been more excited by poker in years.

I feel that I've been thinking about the game a lot more clearly and much less stubborn in my general approach. I've been doing more coaching lately(I charge a lot as far as MTT coaches go before everyone goes ahead and PMs me) as well as having friends/room mates sweat lots of my sessions which leads to me re-evaluating my thought processes more.

I think this has all added up to me playing much better than I usually do. Although so far my spreadsheet of 2012 results may not look so stellar, I have a feeling this will be an awesome year.

Beyond coaching and playing, I've got a few other projects on the go.

I was asked a few months ago to take part in writing a poker book. I wrote some stuff, sent it off and kinda forget that it existed. It came out today and has had a great reception so far. Its $9.99 on amazon and all money goes to charity. I hate to oversell and under-deliver so I'll admit I haven't read the book yet, but I still imagine its worth taking a look at.

http://www.amazon.com/Poker-With-a-Purpose-ebook/dp/B0073JFP0Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328394662&sr=1-1



The most exciting project I've been involved in was actually a different form of poker instruction. One of my best friends, and fellow CR instructor Will Ma is doing his PHD at MIT and got permission from the school to teach a for-credit class on playing poker. The faculty was really excited with the idea of him teaching a poker class. Apparently the students were too, and soon the class had to get moved out of the classroom from Good Will Hunting and into a bigger lecture hall since the class size exceeded 200.

Will got permission for me to come teach a lecture, its 2 40 minute segments on youtube and actually pretty interesting. Will posted all the lectures on youtube and while the first few are quite basic, I think theres lots of good content in my video. Despite the poor audio quality, I'd recommend checking it out and appreciate all feedback!

Heres part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LXKp08snfI

Will's youtube channel if you want to see all lectures: http://www.youtube.com/user/Willmasaur

Travelling without a poker series at the destination is always fun. Whenever I'm at the WSOP or an EPT or whatnot I end up feeling that those are some of my most productive hours of the year and as a result log more hours than I normally would. I love travelling to a destination and actually getting a chance to explore without feeling that I should be "working" . One night Will and I met up with Gaucho2121 went out to a few of the Harvard bars.

One of my qualms with going out in general is how inefficent a use of my time it is for meeting interesting, intelligent girls. Cambridge changed my mind and I decided when I'm like 35 and in a rush to find a second wife before getting too old, I'm just going to hang out there and go out a bunch knowing that its probably one of the only night-life environments in the world where most people I meet could carry on a conversation.

I'm sure its a better idea in theory than in practice, but so far I can't really see any downside.

As far as travelling goes, I'm heading to the Fallsview Poker Classic in a few days(woohoo, a live tourney that I can drive to) and then taking my parents and sister to Cuba for a family vacation. After that I may go Madrid/Campione in March and after they announced the EPT Grand Final today, I'll likely go there. They're having a 100k euro buyin and another tournament of champions this year as well as all the usual events this year so it should be a damn fun week.

Thats it for now, results wise pokers been meh but life has been awesome and I'm more motivated than I would have ever imagined possible a few years ago.