The January 2026 Monthly Report

There are a couple of things from one of my previous blog entries that need to be immediately rectified. For instance, I said, "I never thought I'd be able to do anything with an 8 minute blind tournament simply because of my playing style, but I have recently proved myself wrong with 2 finishes of 18th and 35th out of nearly 800 players." Yeah, okay, retract that. In December 2025 I did in fact, have those nice, deep run finishes, of course, they were only in a $1 tournament. I was right about my style not being congrous to 8 minute blind levels. Obviously, those fairly deep runs, were simply a fluke. I did, in fact, continue playing the mystery bounty, and it pretty much went hideous. In fact, my buddy, Joe, got in for half the action in 8 of the $5 and $10 dollar mystery bounties. Now, counting those plus the other 8 minute blind tournaments I played during the month of January I went 4 for 23 for a total hideous personal loss of ($76.33). It would have been worse except for those 8 tournaments that only cost me 50%. Not exactly a stellar way to begin 2026. While it is true that for a time I was running extremely bad, such as being a 70% favorite and constantly getting beat, but my first instinct that 8 minute blinds are not good for my playing style was spot on. Going forward for the remainder of the year and the remainder of the century, there will not be any further 8 minute blind tournaments played by me unless a special circumstance came up and in this moment I cannot fathom what that might be. 

Tournaments with blind levels above 8 minutes are extremely hard to find and I will go into this momentarily, but there were a few that I played and for a reasonable buyin these are the only 3 that are available unless you are playing nosebleed stakes that cost hundreds of dollars to enter. I ended up playing 5 tournaments that had 10 minute blinds. One was a $20 deepstack, which I finished out of the money and I also played four $10 PL08 6-Max in which one of them I was staked. This tournament is the only one that I made any money in although it was an extremely small amount, only earning $26 for the month in them. The one bright spot was I had a 50% in the money percentage in that particular tournament with an 11th and 10th place finish in back-to-back weeks. That was about the only positive aspect for the month of January. There is also a single 12 minute blind tournament available that is held every Sunday at 3 p.m. PST. Unfortunately in that one, a $10 NLH $10K Gtd, I went 0 for 3 for a total loss of ($50) obviously because I had done some reentries. In the end, for my online adventures for January I went 6 for 32, with total losses of ($120.15). 

On the live front on the 15th I played just the one live tournament for the month which will be standard unless I cash. I played the Venetian $250 NLH $100k Gtd, which had 40 minute blinds and a 300 big blind start. A dream tournament structure as far as I'm concerned, but this one had so many ups and downs, it would've given a Yoyo a run for its money. As for running for the money, for me there was no run, only a walk to the exit. Well, since I use the mobility scooter, let's call it a roll, lol. Anyway, no cash in that one. So live losses for the month were $150, and the reason my losses are less than what the tournament cost for those of you that might be reading this that don't know about these things, that's because I ended up selling 40% action on that tournament. One investor lost ($50), and another investor also lost ($50), and I lost the remaining ($150). Anytime you see something like that, that's the reason. 

If you look on the right side of this blog where I am keeping track of everything, you will notice $2.87 earnings in cash games. No, I am not playing cash games on a regular basis. I hate them. They are boring and will put me to sleep. However, at one point, before I added some more money online  I had $3.13 in my online account and took it to a small 6-Max cash game to see if I could just round it up. Win or lose was really not a major concern. I just wanted to get that 13 cents off my account balance. Yes, I am superstitious, and I avoid the number 13 like it is the plague. Although as my buddy, Joe to this day, still reminds me that the nice $,1300 cash that I had at the Orleans some years back happened on a Friday the 13th, lol. However, I still avoid it wherever I can. All in all in this ultra pathetic month of January, total losses were ($267.28). Ughhh. Hopefully February will go better. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to play a live tournament in February unless I can take down or potentially make a top 3 or 4 finish in the online tournaments I will be playing this month. I had to buy a new nicotine vape, and so there went my live tournament, well, that and I owed my roommate some money that I borrowed, but you know, hey, things come up. I was able to set aside the $80 that I'm gonna need for the Friday and Sunday tournaments which I'm playing each month. Hopefully I can generate money for possibly an extra tournament or 2 during the course of a month and it gives me some poker to play twice a week to hopefully keep the skills sharp.

As I alluded to in an earlier paragraph, the problem with playing on WSOP dot com is that well over 90% of the tournaments have 8 minute blinds unless you're playing nosebleed stakes. Believe me I looked high and low and the only tournaments I could find that didn't cost 3 figures that had better than 8 minute blinds we're the ones that I mentioned I played in January. Unfortunately that's all that's available until WSOP gets their head out of their ass and brings back normal, blind level tournaments, which there's probably about as much chance of that happening as in somebody bestowing on me a million dollars just because they can. The sad part is it's not like it's not what their customer base wants. I was on the phone with them a few weeks ago hecause I was having issues updating my phone number, and I mentioned to them that they should bring back their 10 minute blind tournaments, that 12 minutes would be better, and that 8 minutes was plainly ridiculous. The person that I spoke to on the phone said, "Oh, believe me, you are not the only player to tell us that." Unfortunately and apparently their customers wants and desires don't seem really important to them, but I will stick with them because for me it's really the only online game in town. I have no interest in playing anything that requires any sort of cryptocurrency, been there done that so, I'll stick with what are to me the available tournaments on the Nevada site and for me, that will be the two $10 tournaments, so only two each week. 

Ended up losing 6 pounds for the month of January. From January 11th, through January 31st.  I decided that I'm simply going to report each month on this. Things will happen during the course of the month, 1 week might go up a little because I went out to eat with somebody or wanted a little extra sweet one day, but nonetheless, I'm happy with the first month's result. That's gonna wrap this blog entry up. Today, I will be playing be the $10 PLO8 6-Max and Sunday, the $10 NLH $10K along with of course Super Bowl Sunday. I'm originally from New England so that means I say Go Patriots!! Until next time, take care of yourselves and as always, stay safe.

Welcome 2026 Part lll: Plans & Aspirations

So far in parts 1 and 2, you have discovered I am an older disabled man, collecting permanent disability, who is way too obese and seriously needs to do something about that, and who, after his bills are paid each month, currently has about $221 a month left over to take care of playing poker tournaments, both online and live, miscellaneous expenses, if any, and anything, and everything else that might come up each month.  

What you don't know is what is it I want to do going forward. What are the dreams, ambitions, and aspirations I may have. I may be 58 years old, disabled, and physically limited, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be doing things, that I don't want certain things to happen, or I don't have certain things I would love to accomplish. Maybe mundane, maybe lunacy, maybe impossible sounding, but you can make up your own mind on what you think. You can't begin to chase the stars, if you don't first reach for the moon. The things that I want and desire would have to come from potential poker earnings, because, let's face it, with the amount of money I have left over each month, if I were to try to save up for this and save up for that, it might take eternity. I'm going to let you in on these wants, plans, dreams, aspirations, desires, or whatever other words you choose to use, so let's get to it. 

The first thing is going to be moving expenses and furnishing a one bedroom 55+ apartment from the bottom up. Since I moved to Vegas 10 years ago I've always lived with roommates, or rented a room in a stranger's house. Because of this and the fact that prior to Vegas I've spent a time wandering around state to state, relationship to relationship, before I met my wife, and after she passed away, I went right back to what I used to do before I met her. The truth is, after she died. I was lost and had absolutely no direction. The bottom line is being a traveller and a roamer, and renting rooms and living with roommates, you do not exactly accumulate a lot of furnishings and knick knacks, as one might imagine. However, I would like a place to call my own, but to move into a one bedroom apartment, not only will I need the money for the upfront costs, I'm going to have to furnish it, not to mention every other thing you put in an apartment. All the things you find in the kitchen, a bathroom, and all the other rooms with the exception of a bedroom as i've already gut, the bedroom set covered. It's definitely gonna take a few dollars. I figure $5000 for the upfront costs, furniture needed, and moving costs. Hopefully $5000 will be enough for all the rest of the stuff, bringing it to 10 grand for the kit and caboodle. Obviously, I will utilize whatever tournament profits, if any, I can make this year, and try to build up to that 10 grand or at least a significant portion of it, so we shall see what happens. I'm glad you decided to come along for the ride. Hopefully, it will be enough to hold your interest.

The great thing about a 55+ apartment is that my neighbors are gonna be people in my age group and also several of these places set aside a few units based it on income. An example of what I could be facing as far as rent looks rather delightful. I've got 10 different complex information sheets saved in my Galaxy notes. The income based rents range from $573 to $609 per month, a few with all utilities paid, and the rest, you pay, gas and electric or electric only. My roommate, who is one of my closest friends, is a woman named Michelle who is also disabled so we kind of watch over each other. We are like squabbling siblings, but I love her to death, and I always will. Get your minds out of the gutter, lol, as we have always been strictly platonic. She's like my little sister because I am 10 years older than she is, but she acts like my older sister's wereas to this day, i can be somewhat reckless and impulsive. Anyway, as far as electric bills, go for my own place NV Energy has this thing called the Equal Pay Program, also called Average Payment Plan you can utilize and like the name insinuates they average out your monthly bill. As an example, Michelle's average bill comes to $76 and we have the AC on constantly, as we both would prefer to be chilly than hot. So you don't have to face the $300 and $400 electric bills in the summer. Even if I had to pay an electric bill, I could handle something like that relatively easily even with my limited available funds. All in all, when the time comes, it'll be a great setup. 

Once the apartment situation is all settled and I'm moved in and have all the things that I need for it, what I would love to be able to do, is actually twofold. First, I would love for poker to be able to pay bills and expenses each month, making my disability payment pure monthly spending cash while having a seperate tournament bankroll of 200 buyins. Yes, I know, wouldn't we all? I didn't say this would happen, it's what I would like to happen. If you think that's a little strange, you ain't read nothing yet. The second part of this I've only told three friends about, and for all intents and purposes each one of them was ready to have me institutionalized. 

                     😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

I would love to be able to travel around the country playing in different tournaments, tournament series, circuit events, and things of this nature, throughout the United States. I have absolutely no desire to leave the country and I will touch on the reason why momentarily. If it were financially feasible for me to do it, and it would take a hell of a lot of feasibility, when you consider hotel rooms, food, travel costs, tips for hotel staff, and things of that nature, there would be a ton of miscellaneous expenses, not even counting the tournament entry fees. If I were actually able to do it, the question would be how? In 1865, Horace Greeley said, "Go west young man, go west." In my case, it would be go Greyhound, old timer, go Greyhound, and that's exactly how I would do it, traveling the country by Greyhound bus. The reason for staying in the United States is I'm terrified to fly. While I've done it in the past twice, no more, no way, no thank you, and if you ever watched every episode of Air Disasters for 22 seasons on the Smithsonian Channel as I did, you would never even look at a plane again. Some years ago I took a flight from LAX to Boston. As we passed over the Nevada mountains we went through what they called turbulence and I called a near death experience. That plane was shaking so hard I swear the rivets were popping and the damn tail was ready to fall off. That flight and the flight I took when I moved to Vegas were the only ones and they were also the last ones. If I wanted to go to Paris for the EPT, for me it would require booking passage on a cargo ship, which would run $100 to $150 per day and would take 10 to 22 days so yeah, I'll stay put in the good old USA. 

Amtrak would be a possibility, but Greyhound is going to be much better for several reasons. First off, they have rest stops every 2 to 3 hours and for a nicotine dependent individual such as myself that's vastly important. With Greyhound you get to see a lot more of the country, and I know this for a fact, because I took both forms of transportation, many, many times going from state to state in my younger days. Greyound layovers are a lot shorter. I remember when I used to travel by Amtrak, the main connector for going west was always in Chicago and it was always a minimum layover of 8 long, torturous, hours, especially for someone back then who was pretty much travelling on a shoestring budget. As for the potential blood clots, this is the only time having to travel in a mobility scooter will actually be an advantage. Ordinarily, when you're traveling in a Greyhound, and have to sit in a regular seat like a normal person, your legs are bent at the knee constantly on long trips. As a matter of fact, the 7 blood clots  at the same time that put me in a coma for 10 days that I wrote about in part 2, was the direct result of a bus trip from Massachusetts to Wisconsin. However, since I utilize a mobility scooter, a few rows of seats will be removed and they will store them in the baggage compartment A lift will be deployed and will raise me up into the bus compartment. 

With 2 or 3 rows of seats removed, so my scooter will fit, that means that's going to be an empty space probably 6 feet long so my scooter can be strapped in. 

I'll spend the trip sitting on the scooter, legs extended a majority of the time, reducing the danger of blood clots dramatically. Not to mention whichever side of the bus, they put me on, I'm going to have at least one pretty large window to myself, which will be great for leaning against to sleep, absorbing scenery, and picture, taking of the adventure, or hopefully adventures. Of course, I'm sure this is years away. As mentioned, the apartment fund needs to be accomplished first. This will definitely take top priority, first and foremost, with potential tournament profits. 

To wrap things up, the weight loss program I'm working on has a new official start date of January 11th. I screwed up on the settings that I did and it was allowing me way too many calories. If a person can exercise, that's one thing, but for a person who is sedentary, you've got to lower the calorie intake. So redoing the settings, starting on January 11th I weighed in at 417.2 and my allowable calorie intake has been reduced by 3500 per week.That ought to do something especially on the days I go a thousand less than the 2900 allowed. 

That's all for now. I hope anybody reading this is having a great start to their new year and if you're a poker player, I don't wish my fellow poker players luck any more. I simply tell them to run hot and win a lot, so until next time, one and all, take care and be safe. 

Welcome 2026 Part ll: The Medical Stuff

In part 2 we will deal with the medical. It'll be disability issues, weight issues, and hopefully the weight loss journey as I am a very large man, over 400 pounds. I am a 58-year-old disabled male and widower who was married to the best gal in the world for 12 years before she passed away.  Overall, in a nutshell, I'm a physical wreck. Arthritis has racked my body in both knees, which I'm 99.9% sure need to be replaced, both shoulders, which an orthopedist already told me both need to be replaced, and arthritis in the lower back so bad that I can barely stand for more than 30 to 60 seconds and requires 4 days to recover, from playing a poker tournament, which I touched on in part one. To get around out in the world I need to use a mobility scooter, or quite frankly, I don't get around out in the world. 

Other things going on that I've been diagnosed with include thrombophilia, which means I get blood clots if i'm not on medication and even if I am, which I am, it can still happen, diabetes, a heart condition called sinus tachycardia which means a fast heart rate which can cause heart failure or a stroke, oh joy, and if I'm weren't on medication, my resting heart rate will be about a 120 beats per minute. We'll talk later about the heart rate with exertion, which will tie into the weight loss issue. I also have high cholesterol, low iron levels, and low vitamin D levels. Pretty much it would be quicker to tell you what I don't have. I'm taking 24 pills per day to combat these and other things not worth really mentioning, because they can't kill you, and the medications pretty much keep things normal. If you saw one of my blood draw reports, you might look at it and say this guy is pretty healthy because almost all the numbers are green, and green is good, but it's the medications that make it so. At one point, before I got on all these medications and started seeing my doctor regularly, back in January of 2021, I was a walking dead man and never even knew it. I was walking around with a blood sugar over 400 which is supposed to be under 120 and an A1C of 12.9 which is supposed to be less than 5. but it is much improved since then. My A1C runs between 5 and 6 and my fasting, blood sugar usually comes in at around 135 which thrills my doctor no end. 

The most difficult thing in my life is pain, which I'm in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's never-ending because arthritis is vicious, something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It's not just using the apendages that are arthritic, it's not using them also. For instance, when I'm on my phone and not moving my shoulders hardly at all, when I finally do, they will have stiffened up so bad that the slightest movement will send pain searing through me that on a scale of 1 to 10 is about a 12. If you think it's bad not moving them for several minutes, imagine what it's like waking up in the morning after you've been sleeping and likely not moving for several hours. Sitting for long periods of time in my scooter, or at the tournament tables will put me in misery when I actually straighten the legs or finally stand up. I've already touched on the back and mentioned what happens when I go out to play a poker tournament for the day, but I still go and do it because no matter what's going on with me, I will not simply exist as opposed to living, because as far as I am concerned, if I'm only existing, I'm not living. It sucks there is no cure for arthritis, but just because there is no cure does not mean there is no hope. That's where the pain management doctor comes in. Although, I have to tell you, the things he has in mind, you may cringe, because trust me, I already have. 

It's s called Radiofrequency Ablation or RFA, where heat is used to temporarily disable the small sensory nerves sending pain signals from your arthritic spinal joints to your brain. They use X-rays to identify the small sensory nerves that supply what they call arthritic facet joints whatever the hell that truly is. Once they've got that identified, they use a needle with a microelectrode and place it near the nerve, and a radiofrequency current creates heat for around it for 60-90 seconds per nerve to stop the nerve from sending pain. Hmmm, per nerve?? Just how many of these things, do they plan on deep frying?? Anyway, the doctor uses X-ray to guide needles and the procedure takes about 20-60 minutes. They use the term needles, which is the plural of the word needle and possibly taking 60 minutes. Why is it I picture the procedure causing enough pain to send me through the roof of the surgical suite, but they say the back pain relief lasts 6 months to a year and If this RFA works, it could be a whole new world for me. I could play poker tournaments on consecutive days which is something I can't do right now. I wouldn't have to specifically play Day 1A in multi-day tournaments, just so I can have the couple or few days off to recover. Even if I played a day one where day 2 followed the following day it wouldn't be a problem. I can only dream and imagine something like this and apparently they can potentially use it in other areas, but that's something that I will be talking to my doctor about. I will be calling him to make an appointment sometime next week and the appointment will be, hopefully, sometime in February. 

That brings us to the weight issue. I am 6 foot 1, and weighed in on the first day of 2026 at 413.2 pounds which is obviously way too much. However, it is down from the high point that I saw on the scale of 430 when I was rooming with my buddy, Joe, up until November 2025. Nonetheless, I can't get the new shoulders I need, or the new knees I'm 99% sure I need, unless I take a lot of weight off because it's just too dangerous with the anesthesia for a very heavy person and no doctor will perform the surgeries under the current circumstances. I'm utilizing an app called MyNetDiary. You can scan barcodes, and it tells you what the calorie count is and if you have gotten fast food, or food from any restaurant really, it's so easy these days to simply Google how many calories are in this and how many calories are in that. I told the app my weight, my goal weight, and the desire to lose 1 pound per week, and it told me how many calories I'm allowed to have each day which for me is 3,471. This is a complete caloric plan so you can eat absolutely anything you want, but once you run out of calories, you're done eating for the day so you need to choose wisely. Choosing unwisely can mean several minutes of enjoyment, but many hours of hunger pains. I've utilized this app previously and in 2024 lost weight, over 40 pounds, so I was doing very well and then ego and arrogance kicked in. I made the mistake of figuring okay, I got the jist of this and I can just handle this on my own and the results of that arrogance was, shall we say, unfortunate considering not only did I gain those 40+ pounds back, I added another 30 on top of it. Live and learn, I suppose, but this time around let's not get overly egotistical and presumptuous. My ultimate goal is to be 200 pounds but I'm setting my goal in 3 stages or steps. Step 1 is to get down to 340, step 2 is to get down to 270, and finally, step 3, getting down to that final weigh-in of 200 pounds. Let's see how it goes.

One of the issues I have is that exercise is out of the question and my heart condition, sinus tachycardia, plays a direct role. As a stated, if I weren't on medication I can be laying on my bed, which is what I'm doing 95% of the time anyway, watching TV, playing online poker, or playing computer games and the heart rate will be about 120. I'm laying on my bed instead of sitting because of the potential blood clots, in which sitting is the worst thing you can do, but it's not stopping me from playing live tournaments. When it comes to those, I'll take the damn risk. I'm not giving up my love and passion. Also, laying helps the arthritic knees and the back as I stated, as long periods of sitting like in the scooter or playing tournaments puts me out of commission for a few days, so that makes predominantly laying that much better. While the medication seems to solve the resting heart rate issue unfortunately any exertion will send my heart rate flying. Just walking to the kitchen, will raise it to over a 100 and if I have to walk numerous steps, it'll go as high as 130 maybe even a 140. The high heart rates, even at 100 beats a minute causes me to experience profuse sweating and overheating, nausea and sometimes the unpleasant things that come with nausea, and the heart itself and chest actually hurt. Unfortunately, the cardiologist says, as far as the tachycardic heart rate from exertion, there's nothing they can do about it. The heart pill I'm on only helps the resting heart rate, and there's nothing to treat the exertion caused tachycardic episodes, except obviously exertion avoidance. I'm gonna have to just do this based on caloric intake, it's worked before and I know I can make it work again. I will be giving updates on my progress when I do my weigh-ins every Sunday. I saw no sense on doing a weigh-in on the very first Sunday since only 3 days had passed, so this coming sunday will be the first official one. I hope any comments on my weight issues and weight loss journey can at least be civil. Thank you for your cooperation. 

You may be reading this and perhaps thinking, "Well hell, with all those conditions, he's not going to be around too long anyway." Well, that brings us to the final part of this entry. If you knew my past history which I will now share with you, you will understand when I say I must be living forever because death has knocked on the door at least 8 times and i've sent it on its way every time. I tell my friends all the time I'm living forever and that it's actually a win-win situation. If I'm right, I'm eternal, and if I'm wrong, by the time any of my friends can say, I told you so, I'll be dead in a box and not going to hear them anyway. Truth of the matter is dying scares the hell out of me, especially the older I get, and I don't even want to think about it. The other part of it is when death tries to grab you at least 8 times you start to think, I must be invincible. The first thing is the blood clots that I mentioned. I've had so many of them that it boggles the imagination. I've had this condition for the last 30 years and over that time I have had more blood clots in my lungs alone, which are called a pulmonary embolisms or PE, than you have fingers on both hands and that is not an exaggeration. 25% of PEs cause sudden death as the first symptom, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and I've had at least a dozen PEs in my lifetime if not more, so, if you look at the numbers, a minimum of 3 of them should have killed me. I'm not even including the time that I had 7 blood clots in my body, at the same time, 3 of them being simultaneously PEs which is when they found out I had this condition and that put me in a coma for 10 days, not to mention another short term coma I was in with a fractured skull. Either one of those should have been fatal. So now we're up to 5. Double pneumonia, nearly killed me a few years back, so that's 6, and in addition I've been in 2 major automobile accidents I probably shouldn't have survived, so that's 8. I'm not even counting the 400+ blood sugar and 12.9 A1C which I had for God knows how long. My doctor to this day doesn't know how I'm still alive just from that one alone. I will not get into religious things too much in this blog, but I will say this. I am a Christian. I believe in God and Jesus, although I am not a church goer, but after everything that's going on in my life, I gotta think somebody has been watching over me, so bring on eternity, Baby!!

Well, that's gonna wrap up part 2. Now you have a better idea of what has gone on and what's going on in my day to day life. I'm not sure if anybody is gonna read it or cares or whatever, but this blog is going to be about life and poker, and for me, this is life. In posting part 2, as far as I'm concerned, the best thing it could do is just let those younger than myself realize not to take anything for granted and live life fully like I always have, and I'm still trying to do only in slightly more subtle ways. Even with all the crap I'm going through I'm still waking up every morning wondering what sort of mischief I can get into and that's never gonna change. I still have such a love of life. Yeah, the daily pain sucks, but I fight through it. I battle, and the number one thing is I never surrender. I hope whatever's going on in your lives you have that same attitude. So until next time, take care everyone and stay safe.