Yet another weekend ahead......

Back to the grind today after taking a few days off and and also playing just the evening tournaments a couple nights the last few days. Taking a few days away from the game is almost always a good thing for most players, at least I know it is for me. I find that I usually comeback a little more focused mentally and tend to put up some better results. Thats not saying playing a ton of hours over a short period of time is a bad thing, I also find I do well during these periods too. We all just need to take a break at some point.

So yesterday was my birthday, and last night we went out for my birthday. Jason and his girlfriend arranged for Grandma to watch Jr. and along with my roommate Mike, his girlfriend Patria and George we had a few drinks at my apartment before finally hitting Madison street about 11. When Mike and I were apartment hunting last spring one of the most attractive things about our apartment was the location. We literally walk out of our apartment and take about 10 steps and we are on Madison Street in Forest Park, which has a strip of about 15 bars in a 3 week run at our disposal where a lot of people we know from the surrounding suburbs go to hang out. It's great being able to go out and have a few drinks and not have to worry about how you will get home, and Madison street is usually pretty hopping.

This was not the case last night. Perhaps because of the memorial day weekend the usual suspects decided to go down town to party, but Madison was pretty dead and after just a couple beers at 2 different bars we found ourselves calling it a night and I was at home and in bed by 1:30 or so. I don't know why this is, but a weird thing has happened when I've attempted to sleep after a night of drinking the last 2 times out. Most who know me know I have very weird sleeping patterns, usually not falling a sleep before 6 A.M. and most nights only sleeping 5 or 6 hours. Last night I was out cold by 2 A.M. but woke up at 5 A.M. and I was not able to get back to sleep. I layed in bed for about 30 minutes before finally turning the T.V. on and flipping through the channels for a couple hours before I got back to sleep. At least I was able to get another 4 hours of sleep before having to play today, and I don't feel tired really. Last Thursday was different when I went out to the bars and got home around 1 A.M. I was a sleep by 2 A.M. and again woke up at 5 A.M. This time I wasn't able to get back to sleep until after 10 A.M. and I ended up sleeping all afternoon missing the afternoon tournaments. Lying in bed last night, I was fearing I was going to repeat this. I'm not quite sure why these almost identical situations took place, and I have only had a "weird" sleeping experience after a night of drinking 1 other time, and that was after the only time I ever drank vodka-redbulls last summer in Vegas.

Real quick I wanted to congratulate a couple of friends of mine, Cory "UGOTPZD" Carroll and Darrell "gigabet" Dicken on finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Mirage WPT 10k main event. Nice job, great playing guys.