New Year's Resolutions

Well, the New Year is coming up, and amongst all the partying, drinking, staying up late, and celebrating that we all survived another year, there comes another time honored tradition - the New Year's Resolutions. I personally am a big fan of the New Year Resolution. It's an opportunity to try to better myself, and in some ways to challenge myself to do something I normally would not do. This can include resolutions that I may never expect to hold out on for forever, but want to see how long I can do.

Now, now, don't close the window quite yet. While I realize that reading about someone else's resolutions may not be as exciting as the latest deck tech, I promise I'll be entertaining, or at least make you laugh at me a bit along the way.

So, without further ado, my list of New Year Resolutions -

1.. Exercise more
Like this isn't first on everyone's list. I'm serious though! I even included on my X-Mas wish list Sneakers, a Basketball, a Soccer ball, a weight bench, and weights. I got the sneakers and basketball. Right now I feel tired a lot, and I think it has to do with lack of exercise. I play racquetball twice a week, but that's not the real truth. The real truth is that I am scheduled to play racquetball twice a week, but something always comes up, so if we actually play once a week, its a good week.

2.. Eat Better
Another one on most people's lists, and I think I will lose out on this one. I always do. I love junk food. I get it from my dad. While, reasonably speaking, I can actually stop myself from going out and getting junk food, or from buying it when shopping, my wife can not. And when it's here in the house, I lose my willpower. I'm still willing to give it a go though.

3.. Learn to play Poker better
I am so behind the curve on this compared to all the people I know who have been playing for years. But I think I am good at reading people, and I love to play. I have a passing concept of pot odds, but am not good at some of the direct odds. But, it's something I have a lot of fun with, and the competitive nature inside of me wants to be very good at it, so I'm going to spend this year learning a lot more and getting better. I also had tried to work this into my X-mas list, asking for a couple good poker books for x-mas. I did not get any. Doh! Anyone want to lend me Super System, Super System 2, Caro's Book of Poker Tells, or Small Stakes Hold Em?

4.. Get a new job
While Tournament Organization is great, with us having a new house built, I don't think its going to be enough to pay the bills. And the children are old enough to go into Day Care, so it's time for me to head back into the Real World Work Force (tm). I've been talking to a couple people I know about me going back to work. In all honesty, I am looking forward to it.
It's too easy to procrastinate when sitting on your couch every day, and I love the thrill of accomplishment. Not to mention the fact that, while I love children completely and utterly, having them as my primary social contact can be a bit draining at times. I'm not reduced to talking in Baby Talk to other adults yet, but I can feel it coming.

5.. Learn a new game

I think it's time I diversified a bit more. I love learning new games, and recently learned a new game called Champs and Cowards, which you can learn about here - http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=52. The weird thing about this game is that the pot odds seem to always be bad unless you are playing to win, in games under six players, taking third place doesn't even break you even without drawing ANY cards! The game is built to encourage people to go for first place, since it actually pays off, which means more action, but the more action you play, the higher the luck factor in the game.
Now, I'm not saying I don't like this game. In fact, I find it pretty fun, but I would never play it for real money. It's far too random in terms of winning. Quite often you can place simply by being the guy to the right of the high pip.

But this isn't the type of game I am talking about. I'm talking about a TCG or similar. I would look at a Miniatures game, but I just don't seem to like them. I don't have the patience to paint Warhammer figures, and the Clix and Mini games just never seemed to hold my attention. I like Board Games, but I want the creativity to build my own team or deck, and board games don't seem to give me that feeling. Which brings me to Trading card Games, but I don't see any games I want to learn right now. I still play Magic regularly, but want to play something new. There's several good games out there, including Versus, Wars, and A Game of Thrones, but none of them really seem to appeal to me on a personal level. Guess I'll have to keep looking.

6.. Teach my children more
My children are one and a half and two and a half respectively now, and they are growing quickly. I am as amateur a daddy as they come, but I am the main caretaker of them since my wife works a normal nine to five, so its up to me to make sure they get the education they need. Funnily enough, when you are trying to do what you can with what you have, you stick to what you know.
I teach my children things with cards. My son has learned to count with Magic cards and my daughter is learning her colors the same way. My son watches us play Poker all the time, and is learning how to count the cards out to play a game. When we play a game, no matter what game it is, there is always something for him to learn, whether it's new words, colors, counting, numbers, or letters. It's yet another reason I love gaming.

And that's it! Not too ambitious, but not too easy either. In short something worth pursuing. I also am planning on going back to daily blogging as part of my new year, and finishing development of a board game that's been in the works for a while now. Finally, I'll be working on a local movie production, but all of these are things that I do not want to make formal resolutions on, because I want them to be fun, not work, and making it official makes it work.

By the way, I got a couple of e-mails from people about last week's article, mostly friends who were curious as to why they were not in the article, but may have been too polite to admit it. The real answer is that I could have gone on for pages and pages with all the great people I have met through Magic, so I just picked a handful and went with it. If I didn't include someone, its not because I like them any less, but simply that I didn't have enough space to put everyone. I think I'm like most people that, when I sit down and start counting out my friends, I find I have many more than I thought, and for that I am thankful.

Have a Happy New Year everyone!