This morning I woke up to my maid making coffee for me. Right there should have been a sign I was stupidly lucky. But as I was drinking it at my computer the notices started popping up. FTP SOLD. AGREEMENT MADE WITH THE DOJ. POKERSTARS WILL OPEN THE SITE UP AGAIN. IT’S OFFICIAL.

I muttered to myself, “no way.” I couldn’t believe it was real. I opened up the notice, overjoyed.

Then I stopped when I read the part about having to file a claim with the DOJ.

I haven’t had many good experiences with getting money out of the states. They’re oddly really efficient when they are taxing you, getting you for a speeding ticket, or having you file for a permit that costs $300.00. In my past experiences when the government got involved with money being owed to me I’d gotten delayed, delayed, no responsibility admitted to, delayed, dumb asses on the phone, delayed, no confirmations of receiving my sent documents, delayed.

Of course, this is a great step in the right direction. It’s just now the United States is going to have a very large sum of my money in their coffers, and who knows what docs Pokerstars gave up to secure this deal? I’m worried they might try to get me on back taxes for money I never made because they misunderstood a profit chop with my backers. If the IRS gets involved and charges us whatever the hell they feel like it’s going to take a while to get a proper refund. Also, who says the DOJ is going to haul ass to get us our money back?

The last I heard before the story broke was that Pokerstars was going to pay us back. Actually, if Tilt had ever processed my move I would apparently be getting the money faster, but they weren’t too fast at getting back to emails in those days, and I wasn’t too fast either in my depressed stupor.

But whatever, this is good news. Whatever the IRS needs to take they’ll take. Whatever I’ll need to pay I’ll pay, and I’ll work out the proper numbers with them later.

It’s also possible the DOJ just wants good publicity and gets us all hooked up right away. That’d be my dream.

I wanted to strangle the people who said “Black Friday was good for me” when I was out six figures, but I can let that go now. Black Friday was good for me. I got some nice checks from MTTs, albeit no huge ones. Where I really grew was in my personal business. I lost a lot of money backing but won it back quickly in my little mountain hideout in Costa Rica. I was so used to having that financial cushion, that once I had it back and was sober I was thinking, “I will never lose this again.”

Black Friday gutted me, but it made me realize it’s important to never take anything for granted. Christ promised you peaceful sleep and your daily bread. There was nothing in the Bible about a retirement plan and a house.

I had to learn to live below my means but above my circumstances. I had to learn to budget, save for emergencies, and how to make more consistent money. Most importantly, I learned I had to cut drinking, smoking cigarettes, all of it out. Times were too tough to be pulled one way or another by my addictive personality. I had to be on. Every time I went back I regretted it. I finally felt so on my game when I put some months together. Every thought just fired off again.

I’m doing all right, but the money would help. I could pay off the government finally. I could fix my more messed up teeth. Put a down payment on a house. Get my papers here. Get moving on that good life.

I look around at all I’ve gotten since Black Friday and it’s kind of dizzying. I made it all because I thought I wasn’t ever going to get a cent from Tilt. I’d completely written it off. I thought the reports would taper off. I thought it wouldn’t work out between Stars and the US. Whatever it was, I thought it wouldn’t work. I got up early and into lessons, I wrote more articles, I did more videos, and grinded more MTTs because I was hungry again.

Like right now I feel stupid lucky. Dumb luck. TV, cable, fast internet, big screens, fridge full, and savings. To get anything else feels stupidly lucky. I just never thought it would happen.

It’s been a long fifteen months. I hope it’s not too hard to wait now during the home stretch. At least we have a solid answer now as to what’s going to happen.

***

By the way, I’m writing my blogs ahead of time now. There might not be as many mentions of the Pokerstars and Full Tilt deal in the coming week’s blogs, because I wrote them before all of this.

I hope you guys like the more regular posts by me. I’m trying to write notes in a notepad for possible blog ideas, and write out four or five blogs before every week now. I feel like I could be getting more out of this blogging and social networking. Things pick up when I keep the blog going.

Hope you all enjoy what I have written for this week.

My Plugs: Check out my vids at Pocketfives Training, contact me for lessons at assassinatocoaching@gmail.com, see other stuff I write with my friends at www.pokerheadrush.com, and follow my Twitter at TheAssassinato