Back in the States

Hey everyone! I last wrote in September from Barcelona, and this entry comes from my condo in Birmingham, Alabama. I still have strong attachments to this city where I was born as my mom, dad, sisters and baby niece all live here. It is a perfect spot for breaks between trips as it gives me a chance to see everyone, catch my breath, and get back on my diet and fitness grind. I'm at my happiest when spending time with family, and this week has been no different. Earlier this week I returned from an ineffaceable 82 day trip in Europe. I once again return to the US extremely inspired and happy. A lot of my time over the last couple of years has been spent on a journey of personal development. I feel strongly that being in Europe facilitates that. It can be attributed to the fact that I'm able to stay very active, meet people from different backgrounds, and have some incredibly different experiences from those I have here in USA. I can feel a sort of personal growth of which, admittedly, I am proud!

After Barcelona I spent the majority of the next two months traveling and playing poker tournaments with one of my best friends in poker, Byron Kaverman. I feel very fortunate to have met Byron as we share a lot of the same thoughts and views about life and how we wish to proceed through it. Additionally, we had a hell of a good time hanging out and checking out what the different European cities had to offer. There were several afternoons where we awoke and high-fived commenting something to the tune of "Woah, great night". I also traveled and roomed at times with two other very good friends, Jonathan Little and David Peters which is always an awesome experience.

(Photo from Stockholm, Sweden with Byron Kaverman)

Chronologically, my trip looked like this:

• Barcelona
• Stockholm
• Madrid
• London
• Enghien-les-Bains, France
• Brussels
• Paris
• Copenhagen
• Amsterdam

Of the aforementioned, it's a very close call between Barcelona and Amsterdam as to which is my favorite. Barcelona is extremely livable in that the weather, food, beaches, boardwalk, architecture and nightlife are awesome. I find the overall ambience of Amsterdam to be the best of all European cities I've visited. I say that despite having spent most of my time there in cold, rainy Novembers. The Dutch people are incredibly friendly, tolerant and openminded. I've been fortunate to make some very good friends in the city which really helps.

I spent almost a month in Stockholm and would be doing it a disservice if I didn't mention how much I loved it. I found the Swedish city progressive, clean, health-conscience and convenient. London is really growing on me. If you can't find something you like it London, you're doing it wrong. It is unmatched culturally, the food is out of this world, and there is something incredibly cool about the anonymity that comes with residing in that city.

My time in Copenhagen, Madrid and Brussels has been brief, so I'm not qualified to comment on those cities. The only other major city I didn't mention was Paris. I've tried to get into Paris but haven't quite fallen for it yet. Despite being a very experienced traveler, I find Paris at times difficult to maneuver as a monolingual (read: dumb) American. 

I will spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family here in Alabama before emplaning on one final trip in 2013. On Friday I fly to Montreal where I'll spend one week for a World Poker Tour (WPT) event. I'll then cross the Atlantic once more for my third annual trip to Prague, Czech Republic where I'll be competing for two weeks in events hosted by both the WPT and the European Poker Tour (EPT). 

It has been a somewhat successful year for me professionally, so I had half a mind to take a very extended holiday through 2013. That won't be the case though, as I have found myself near the top of the leaderboard in a couple of Global Poker Index (GPI) categories as a result of a successful fall in Europe.

The GPI is the foremost system when it comes to ranking tournament poker players worldwide. As of today, I am at an all-time personal best of World #5. I am currently ranked 6th in the GPI Player of the Year race. If I can create some magic in Montreal and Prague, I have a shot of catching the Canadian leader, Daniel Negreanu. My trip was highlighted by a final table appearance in the €10450 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event in Enghien-les-Bains where I finished 8th out of 375 entrants. I had subsequently final tabled another WSOPE event days prior, the €5300 Mixed-Max event as I finished 5th in the 140 player field. I made another major final table at the end of the trip as I finished 8th of 410 entrants in the €1590 re-entry event at the Master Classics in Amsterdam.

It's important that I explain that the GPI systems rank only results, not necessarily tournament poker skill. By no means am I the fifth best tournament player in the world. At least, that isn't distinguishable simply by staring at the list of ranked players' names. In fact, there is so much variance in tournament poker that it is impossible to measure. It would be foolish and unprofessional to blame one's personal downswings on the variance in tournament poker and then hail oneself the greatest when he or she is at the top of the leaderboards.

(Photo with the other World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final tablists. Eventual winner in bottom right, 19 year old Spaniard Adrian Mateos Diaz.)

As I've said before, I am for the most part not motivated by my actual tournament poker results nor where I sit on the tournament leaderboards. I am much more concerned with my level of focus while competing, my preparation, and the decisions I make. However, I feel it is in my best professional interest to sort of go after these titles. I really love playing tournament poker right now, so it is a nice excuse to play some more. I think that the live tournament poker arena is in a really cool place. It is extremely competitive and ever-evolving. The leading personalities, for the most part, are young, inspired, healthy, friendly, well-rounded and great role models. I feel honored to be around them. While I haven't made many plans for my 2014 aside from attending the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) in Bahamas in January, I expect I will continue to spend a lot of time playing live tournament poker. A friend told me something recently that resonated: "To give up something you love would be a travesty."

Happy Holidays everyone. Thanks for reading. I can be reached to talk about anything by email shannonshorr@gmail.com. I'm trying to cut down on time spent on social media, but at times I'll document my journey on my twitter account: @shannonshorr.

Euro-Tour

What's up everyone? Thanks for checking this out. I haven't written in several months. I continue to struggle with writer's block. I'm shaking my head wondering where I got the inspiration to write as often as I did in years past. As I write this, I'm in an apartment in Barcelona, Spain with two of my friends Jonathan Little and Byron Kaverman. We're competing in a European Poker Tour tournament series that's being hosted in this spectacular city. We're preparing for tomorrow's €10300 ($13,600) buy-in highroller tournament that should be a lot of fun.

I once said that of the places I've been, Berlin was my all-time favorite. Barca might get that nod now. Incidentally, I was here in 2006 but was way too young, immature and preoccupied with poker to appreciate the place. When Sunday comes around it is going to be very hard to leave.

Since my post five months ago, life as a whole has been great. My personal poker results in that time have been just okay, but fortunately I've been on the right side of some poker related business. I don't put a ton of stock in the actual results of the tournaments I play, if you can believe that. I of course want to win as much as anyone, but I have adopted the mindset that my job is simply to go to the casino and make the best possible decisions. Then, one hopes to be on the right side of variance. One of the main differences I see between the very top, long-time tournament players versus those aspiring to be there is that the top guys understand this. I'll add that it is quite liberating.

In the Spring, I played a couple live tournament series in Jacksonville, FL and Montreal, Canada with a little success, and then I got crushed playing the online SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) on Pokerstars before taking some downtime at my condo in Birmingham, AL. 

While in the south, my friend Jeff and I attended the NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship in Atlanta which was an out of this world experience.

I spent 50 days in the desert of Las Vegas playing the World Series of Poker. This marked the eighth consecutive summer I've spent in that city. The WSOP is something that every casual poker player must experience at some point in his or her life. Each summer, tens of thousands of people flock there and eat, breathe, and sleep poker for the length of their stay. It has become such a production, and I think that everyone involved in putting it on did a first rate job. The WSOP experiences I've had while living with my best friends in Vegas are easily the most memorable of my career. Poker can be deflating at times, but those times are easy to forget about when you're surrounded by positive-thinking people like the guys I know. Perspective is everything.

(Photo from Osaka, Japan. From left: me, Mike Katz, Adam Geyer, Jesse Yaginuma)

My 2013 WSOP was relatively breakeven despite five cashes including an unofficial final table 7th place finish in the marquee $25,000 six-handed event for what looked on paper to be $130,000. For one of the only handful of times in my career, I sold some action to this tournament. Additionally, I swapped percentages with other individuals. These are both extremely common practices in our world of tournament poker that go almost completely hidden from the public eye. Take these things into consideration plus the mounting buy-ins in tournaments in which I did not cash, that figure starts to be pulled back down to $0. I had the opportunity to play the $111,111 buy-in One Drop event and took a decent percentage of myself. I did not cash in the event.

In the aforementioned $25k event, I was really close to victory and the $1.2 million dollar first prize. In what is kind of the story of my live tournament career, it was another near miss. One of the world's best poker players, Phil Galfond (pictured together below) and I played an unavoidable coinflip for the chiplead and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity, and I was on the wrong side. The difference between 7th and 1st in that event is obviously a mindboggling amount of money. But at the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm in no position to complain about my luck. Coming so close over and over again can be frustrating, but I am at peace with it. I'm really hungry and focused as I still seek my first major tournament title almost 8 years later.

After the grind of Vegas, I took some much needed downtime in Birmingham. I caught a Braves game in Atlanta, attended my childhood friend Scott's wedding, and went to Destin, FL for a weekend with my mom. While in Birmingham, I was introduced to Bikram Yoga which I cannot recommend more highly. I hope to get back into it when I get some spare time. I also attended my 10 year high school reunion and had a blast with old friends in a night I'll never forget.

So here I am back to traveling. Our Barcelona trip is on the heels of a trip in South Florida where my friends and I played in a huge record-breaking tournament. I finished in the money of that tournament and was eliminated in the money in the Main Event here in Barca earlier today. Both cashes were insignificant, but I like that I'm putting myself in a position to make things happen. 

On Sunday, Byron and I are headed up to Stockholm, Sweden where we'll rent an apartment and make home for a little over three weeks while we compete in the World Championship of Online Poker. Due to some changes from a couple years ago, we can no longer play on the major online poker sites in The United States. Hundreds of top American poker players have now relocated full-time outside the country or spend significant time in other countries to work. Byron and I were in the unique situation of choosing anywhere in Europe (barring Spain, France, and Italy for similar reasons) to set up while we await our next live tournament series in London. Having both traveled a lot, we wanted to choose somewhere we hadn't been. After some debate we settled on the Scandinavian city. I'm loving being back living a sort of European lifestyle as this marks my third straight Fall spent on the continent. I simply cannot get enough of it. I'm trying my very best to stay present in order to make the most of each moment.

That's all for now as I need to get some sleep for tomorrow's tournament. As always, thanks for reading. I'm always open to emails about anything, shannonshorr@gmail.com. Additionally, I'll be documenting my travels on my twitter account: @shannonshorr.

2012: The Year in Review

Happy holidays everyone! I will start by saying that 2012 was the best year of my life. I have said that about each of the year last three years, so it suffices to say that I am happy with the direction my life is going. My happiness and enthusiasm for life are at an all-time high, and I am cherishing every interaction. This year was so unforgettable for so many reasons. In 2012 I continued to strengthen relationships with family (baby niece!) and friends, whipped myself into the best shape of my life physically and met so many wonderful people while seeing a lot of the world. Things went well professionally for me, which was a nice sweetener after a disappointing year in 2011.

It's hard to believe another year is complete. I remember as a kid being so intimidated by something being a year away. It goes without saying that time seemingly goes so much faster the older and busier we get. Our time here really is so valuable, so I think it is important that we all do our very best to live life to the fullest. I've said this before, but I look back on how I was living my life in the poker business from age 21-24, and I was just really doing things incorrectly.  At the end of the year I looked at my Excel spreadsheet and, inexplicably, made a determination of my happiness based on just how red or just how black that figure was. It has been so nice to pull myself from that mindset and become a more well-rounded individual who has interests, passions and goals. I finally bought into the philosophy that one really shouldn't concern himself or herself with the opinions of others. You want to talk about liberating? I've been living my life confident that my decisions are on point. I hope this is not coming across as self-important because that is certainly not how I intend it to read. My hope is that younger poker players who are new to the business read this and don't fall into the same bogged down lifestyle that once held me captive.

I did a lot of reading over the last 18 months on a variety of types of self-improvement. In addition I had the opportunity to spend 135 eye-opening days outside USA in the leap year that was 2012 (118 were spent at my residence in Birmingham, Alabama and 113 were spent Stateside outside Birmingham). The travel and the reading are two of my fondest memories from the calendar year as I feel like I gained so much perspective that otherwise had been lost on me. I've been fortunate to land in a line of work where I have a ton of freedom and realize that kind of travel is not realistic. Still, I challenge you guys to get out there and do some of it! Stay positive when things get tough. Adopt a sense of awareness. Look around. Things could certainly be much worse. Sometimes I'll be chilling on Facebook or Twitter and am just left shaking my head at the general negativity and complaining that has become so commonplace. There is just no place for it. Sadly, I was guilty of this for the longest time.

I kind of want to live in the moment in 2013. I'm going to wake each morning (afternoon?) enthusiastically and try to make the most of my time, wherever that may be. I've only really scheduled as far as mid-March. With regard to poker, there are certain high value tournaments that I have to play almost obligatorily. I'm going to the BCS National Championship in Miami to watch my alma mater Alabama take on Notre Dame, and then I'm going to play the European Poker Tour's PCA stop in Nassau, Bahamas. In late January, I'm going to play World Poker Tour Borgata in Atlantic City, New Jersey for the first time since 2007. My dad and I are going to Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans in early February, and I'm currently training for a half-marathon that I will run on February 17th in Birmingham. I'll most likely hit a couple of WPT stops in Los Angeles and San Jose, CA in late February and early March. That said, there are no signs of things really slowing down.

Here's to wishing you all the best in the upcoming year. I really appreciate you reading. As always, I welcome emails about anything shannonshorr@gmail.com. Additionally, please follow me on twitter @ShannonShorr. Finally, if you ever see me around in Birmingham or any of the poker stops or wherever, please don't hesitate to say hello. I am at a point in my life where I am all about meeting people.
SS

Backpacking Through Europe

Hello everyone! Once again it has been too long since my last update. I'm writing this blog entry from a hotel room in the breathtaking town of Lugano, Switzerland. Since my last update, I have spent 31 nights in the US, 36 nights in Costa Rica, and 18 nights in Europe. I'd like to go through and do the calculation for the last 15 months, as I've been spending increasingly less time in America.

After the World Series of Poker ended this summer in Las Vegas, I did about a month worth of unwinding back in Alabama. I then spent a weekend I won't soon forget with friends attending the wedding of our pal Eric Baldwin and his wife Mary in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. When I arrived back home on Sunday August 19 I got a call from my mom saying that my sister Heather, who was expecting a baby September 5, was on her way to the hospital. At 11:57 pm she gave birth to my first niece Alaina! It was a really cool experience and I look forward to watching Alaina grow up. I had a flight to Costa Rica booked for the 21st, so the timing was perfect!

From there, I headed to Costa Rica to play the World Championship of Online Poker with one of my best friends, Adam "simmsux" Geyer. Let me first say that Adam is the definition of a consumate professional. It was an honor to stay with him and watch how he operates: quitely, efficiently, and completely under the radar (by choice). With his incredibly successful WCOOP, he has cemented himself as an online poker tournament legend. On arrival, we almost immediately began an intense work schedule. Down the final 3 weeks of the stay, we averaged 70 hours per week of online poker. Talk about isolation! We did find some time for some amazing adventure. We played golf, went white water rafting, saw a volcano, went zipiling, went surfing, and saw a World Cup qualifying soccer match. I really enjoyed my stay in the country. Along with the adventure, the people and the food were fantastic.

My WCOOP series didn't go well, and I was less than thrilled with how I played at times. It's possible I'm being too hard on myself, and I'll give myself that it's difficult to maintain focus for the duration of that kind of work stint. I found myself tilting at times which is something that I can say with confidence almost never happens when I play live tournaments. Luckily, I won the Pokerstars 792 player $500 tournament last night, so I was able to more than recover my losses from the WCOOP.

I was pretty surprised with how much the online poker tournaments evolved in such a short time, and it took me a bit of time to adjust. Poker is certainly becoming less and less attractive as a means for making a living if you consider how all of our hourly rates have been undeniably affected over the last couple years. I am a firm believer that with the current state of the industry, it would be a very poor decision for any young, unestablished person to abandon school or work to try to make a living playing poker. The variance is just so incredibly remarkable. Myself and other players from my generation were so fortunate with the timing of our entry into the business: a time when the economy was good, people were uneducated about the game, and online poker was legal in the United States. From talking with other professional poker players recently, almost all agree that it would be a most daunting task to try to build from the ground up right now.

After Costa Rica, I went home long enough to see family and do laundry. I arrived in Cannes, France late last month in time for the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. I had a short stay in that event, but I can only say great things about the town. It's so chill and definitely one of my favorite stops on the poker tournament circuit. I hung around for a couple days as my long time friend and (often) roommate Jon Little made day 3 of the event. Then, we took the short train ride to the town of San Remo, Italy which was conveniently hosting a nine day European Poker Tour series immediately after the WSOP-E. San Remo is another town that I really like despite many negative reviews from poker players. Admittedly there isn't a whole lot to do there, but I found myself spending hours just staring in awe at the natural beauty of the place from our apartment balcony. The 11 live tournaments I played in France and Italy were in a losing effort. 

I intended on flying back to Alabama after the series in San Remo, but on a whim decided to purchase a backpack, cancel my flight, and do some solo leisure traveling around Europe. I am completely intoxicated by travel, and now is as good a time as any. I spent the weekend in Milan and intend on spending this entire week in Switzerland. I'll likely go through Germany the following week. On Sundays I'll check into hotels to ensure stable internet so I can play online, but otherwise I will be staying in hostels and riding trains throughout. Milan was my first hostel experience and I loved it! Meeting new people is near the top of my passions right now, so there is no other way to travel in my opinion. I was initially worried about the isolation, but I have already met a ton of amazing new friends. I feel myself growing everyday and expect this to be a lifechanging experience. I have particularly enjoyed sharing travel stories and getting recommendations on places to go. I am due in Amsterdam for a tournament series beginning November 3 and am supposed to fly home 11/9. As far as I'm concerned though, I'll be traveling indefinitely. If you want to follow along on my trip, I'll be on twitter occasionally @ShannonShorr.

Thanks for reading.

SS

WSOP 2012 WRAP-UP

As I type this, I’m sitting in my office in my condo in Birmingham, Alabama. I bought this place here in the city in which I grew up in late March 2011. The online poker fallout known as ‘Black Friday’ happened three weeks later on April 15, 2011. For those that don’t know, the three major online poker sites were seized by the Department of Justice on that day and online poker was essentially banned in the United States. I was a little unlucky with the timing of things, as I clearly wouldn’t purchase a home in a place where I can’t get any work done. Although I still call it home, I don’t get to spend much time here. When I do, I absolutely love it. My whole family is here, I’m comfortable, and it’s great for relaxing and having time away from the always-stressful career that is tournament poker.

I’ve been home for five days or so after spending 53 consecutive days in the city of Las Vegas. In my seven years in this business I’ve naturally spent a lot of time in Vegas. Truth be told, I don’t like the city. I feel like it’s very hard to find genuine people. Everyone seems driven only by his or her own financial success. There are amazing dining options, but aside from that there isn’t much to do besides go clubbing and gamble—neither of which I’m interested in doing too often. Still, I cherish the opportunity to be able to go work hard out there each summer. I had the benefit of living with five very talented poker players and great friends in Michael Katz, Adam Geyer, Jesse Yaginuma, James St Hilaire and Jesse Chinni. They all also happen to be amazing, well rounded, positive minded men, which makes the experience that much better.

I arrived in Las Vegas this summer in great spirits despite being amidst the biggest downswing of my professional career. I'd never entered a summer in Vegas in better shape physically, and I'd never been happier altogether about life. Something outsiders should know about playing strictly live tournaments for income (as I have been doing for 17 months) is the volatility of the endeavor. Given that only 10-15% of the field gets paid in each tournament, just cashing in a tournament is quite difficult. Add to that most of the money is loaded to the top one or two percent of finishers and you’ll see the necessity for making deep runs often in order to support oneself. Something else that people may or may not know about me is that since the beginning of my career, I have played tournaments entirely on my own dime. The reality is the vast majority of guys you see in the tournament arena are financially backed by other individuals. I told myself from the beginning that I would never be interested in being backed, and I was extremely fortunate early in my career to be in a position where I never had to be. There is something I love about going out there each day and putting my own money on the line. Not many people are saying it, but the truth is tournament poker is getting much more difficult. I can say that without question I’ve become a much tougher individual as a result of all of the heartbreak that is inevitable in this profession that I've chosen.

The first five weeks of this summer started out as had my last three summers at the World Series of Poker: miserably. I make a habit of spending tons of hours playing tournaments each summer, so no matter how hard I try, my overall state of mind is influenced by how the tournaments are going. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time playing these live tournaments, you just have to stay positive and keep the variance in perspective if you want to stay sane. It is essential to check your ego at the door and play each hand independently of the one prior. I can't count how many times I've seen guys bust tournaments as a result of losing focus due to another person at the table getting the best of them.

After scratching just 1 small cash in my first 20 events this summer, I had a shot in the $2500 mixed hold ‘em. It wasn’t to be as I finished 16th late in the night on day 2 in front of a rail of people that was around to see my tablemate Phil Ivey. A few events later, I made a push in the $3000 no limit hold ‘em event. Again, I came up short of the significant money as I finished in 30th place after busting on the first hand of day 3. From here, I bricked 7 consecutive tournaments before cashing for the minimum in a $1000 no limit hold ‘em tournament that uncharacteristically reached the money on day 1. It was at this point that I realized that I had two tournaments left to get my summer (and career) back on track.

I entered the $10,000 six-handed no limit hold ‘em event as focused as ever. This is an extremely prestigious event, so I knew I would have to be playing my very best to have a chance. In the first 25 minutes of the tournament, I was fortunate enough to double up versus a gentleman with a straight flush against his king-high flush on a board of Ac2cJc4c9d and started to think this could be the one. I struggled to get anything else going on that day and ended somewhat short. Early on day 2, I got lucky against one of the class acts in the tournament poker world, Dan Kelly, when my eights flopped a set against his jacks after we had committed my entire stack preflop. We eventually reached the money, but I slipped late in the night and entered day 3 in 19th of the 27 remaining players all undoubtedly losing sleep thinking about the $1.15 million first prize.

Things worked out on day 3, and I climbed to chipleader with around 15 players left. I will say this about that day: I have never felt more pressure to make a deep run. If I came up short it would have taken a long, long time to recover from another missed opportunity. I was feeling the magnitude of the moment. I took special care to be deliberate in my decisions, turned my phone off, and isolated myself on breaks from the tournament in order to keep my focus at the highest level.

One of the crazy things about tournament poker is just how much real money equity is at stake late in the tournament. I won’t bore you guys with details from the rest of the tournament, but I ended up finishing 3rd for $455,000. It hurt to not get my first bracelet after coming so close, but I gave this tournament everything I had. It just wasn’t quite enough. The eventual winner was Greg Merson who is a hell of a nice guy and a truly elite player. He happened to make the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event later in the summer and will play for a staggering $8.5 million when the final table plays out in October. I’ll add that everyone at this final table was extremely classy and professional. It makes the experience that much more enjoyable when you can just get lost in the grind of the tournament and not have to deal with annoying personalities and ego overdoses that, sadly, you so often see in our world.

The next week, I participated in the WSOP Main Event. I was happy with my play in this the pinnacle of all poker tournaments, but I came up short of the money by busting in the middle of day 3 around 1200th of the 6600 entrants with 666 getting paid. I was really exhausted after this tournament but as an afterthought decided to play a $5000 tournament at Venetian that would begin the next day as opposed to flying home. I just felt like my focus was at an all-time high, and I thought it would be a poor business decision to sit it out. I plugged along in this well-run, deepstacked tournament and ended up finishing 4th of the 398 entrants on day 4 for $126,000. It was a nice sweetener to end the summer, and I left Las Vegas the next day with a new energy and passion for poker.

Where do I go from here? I don’t know. I have a lot of thoughts about poker and the role I want it to play in my life, but I’d like to articulate these thoughts in a blog entry at another time. I’m considering going abroad and setting up short-term residency in order to make my return to online poker to play the World Championship of Online Poker in September, but I can’t say for certain. I’m also keeping an eye on the World Series of Poker Europe in Cannes, France in late September. Until then at least, it’s unlikely I’ll play a hand of poker. I have interests and projects I’m going to pursue from Birmingham over the next few weeks. Additionally, my older sister Heather is expecting a baby girl in early September! It’s an exciting time for me personally, and I look forward to what the future will bring. I’m realizing more and more just how fortunate we are to live this life, and I intend on embracing and living every minute of it.

I’d also like to add that I really appreciate the support you guys have given me throughout the summer (and my career). When I got in to this business as a 20 year old I could have only dreamed for it to materialize as it has. The words that some of you have said are so kind and so touching. Thanks for reading.

Shannon

A Blog Entry About Me

Some of you will notice that it has been six and a half months since my last entry. It's really strange to sit here and type that as I vividly remember blogging daily (sometimes twice daily) a few years ago. Honestly, I just grew tired of it. I look back and cringe a little bit about some of the stuff I put on the internet years ago. Call it poor blogging etiquette, but it got to the point that I actually took the blog entry archives off the internet. Additionally, I lost interest in talking about myself and have thoroughly enjoyed laying low and not reporting to anyone the last year or so.

It has been an amazingly fun and wild six and a half years to start my career as a professional poker player. It goes unsaid that this line of work sends one on an emotional roller coaster. That said, I'm extremely fortunate to be where I am and would do it all over in a heartbeat. Other poker players and I have it so good compared to many others, so I regret sometimes complaining on this blog. On behalf of all poker players, I'd like to apologize to anyone who has ever had to listen to us whine.

Anyway, this blog entry IS about me. Here is an honest, rambling account of what I've been up to since I last posted on November 1, 2011.

Professionally

Let's get the bad part out of the way. Professionally, things haven't been going well. One of the things I've tried to stress in my blog since Black Friday (4/15/2011) when online poker was essentially banned in the US is the volatility of playing just live poker tournaments for income. The variance in tournament poker is something that only true poker insiders will really ever understand. I am a tournament poker player by trade, so I played 124 live poker tournaments in 2011 with an average buy-in of over $5,000. Comparably, online I played around 30 tournaments per Sunday for an average of about 33 Sundays per year during the years leading up to Black Friday. Obviously, it was nice to spread the variance out over a lot more tournaments. I won't sit here and make excuses though nor will I complain. I made my own decision to play poker professionally, and I will deal with the highs and lows of the business accordingly.

My short term plan is to move to Las Vegas for 50 days starting next week. This will be my seventh consecutive summer in Las Vegas. I will be renting a house with five of my friends, and I look forward to the experience. I intend on playing a bunch of events, but I won't go out of my way to play almost everything that runs. For the last 3 years I have been near the top of all players in events played. That isn't necessarily a good category at which to be near the top. After the summer, I will most likely hop up to Canada to set up residency so I can log in and play poker whenever I'm outside the US. Honestly, I would like for poker to be more of a secondary source of income for me within the next 5 years. I'm not sure if that can happen though as Black Friday was a big setback. Add to that the fact that I don't have a passion for any other kind of work at this time. I can still say with confidence that I love waking up and playing poker each day that I do. I'll enter each tournament this summer in a positive state of mind ready to work.

Fitness/Diet

As I type this, I am in the best shape of my life physically. I weighed in at 173 lbs this morning--down from 237 on Jan 3, 2007. I can't tell you how good it feels to type that! I have fully dedicated myself to my health over the last 9 months or so, and I'm reaping the benefits. As my 27th birthday approaches in a couple weeks, I look back and am pretty disgusted with how I treated my body for most of my twenties. Something just clicked one day, and this sense of awareness came over me. I realized that my overall life could only be improved by getting into tip-top shape. I did it all by myself which makes me feel even better. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find out if I had it in me, and I got the answer. I've developed a passion for running and look forward to getting into other outdoor activities.

I won't go into what exactly I've been eating because I'm no diet expert. I will say though as many have and will: DIET is the key to success in weight loss. For years I ran often enough but didn't understand why I couldn't shed pounds. You just must show the discipline to lay off the junk food, the late night food, and the big meals if you want to see a difference. Straying from your diet multiple times per week won't cut it. I educated myself on what foods actually were healthy--something else that you must do. I feel like so many individuals don't understand what they actually need to and needn't be eating. It's going to take a lot of work and it's not easy, but I hope this section of this entry motivates just one person to turn his or her life around with regard to health.

Women

Any poker player you talk to you will tell you the difficulty of having relationships when you do what we do. By choice, I've spent most of my twenties single aside from one childish 19 month relationship I had. I've been gone so often and was never in one place, so it didn't make much sense to try to cultivate any sort of romantic relationship. I made some mistakes with girls by not being honest upfront, and I truly regret that. It finally hit home that my actions do have consequences.

At this point in my life, I'm still focusing on me. There are a lot of things I'm still trying to do and places I'm still trying to see while I'm single. I've enjoyed not having to report to anyone. The difference now is that I'm honest upfront with girls about my situation, and it just makes things easier for everyone. When I find a girl that I like that likes me, I hang out with her and we do what we do without labels and don't make a big production about it. I think there's something to be said about that. It's not for a lot of people, and I can respect that.

Family

This is the section of this blog that I'll get the greatest joy from typing. I have increasingly been strengthening my relationships with my family over the last year. I love my dad, mom and sisters Heather and Carly so much. It has given me great pleasure to grow closer and closer with them. I'm in contact almost daily now and know what is going on in each of his or her lives. I've always had a great family life but at times people get busy and lose touch. It's a matter of making it a priority. I've always looked very highly at people with very strong family relationships, and I'm glad to be part of one.

Goals/Plans

Poker is about to take over my life again, as I'll be playing up to 80 hours per week for the next 7 weeks. Still, I have some non-poker goals and plans for the rest of 2012. I have been doing quite a bit of reading in 2012 and hope to continue that. A lot of my reading has been on communication, eye contact, self improvement, and human relationships--things in which I'm absolutely fascinated. Additionally, I'll spend much of my spare time attacking Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) that I just purchased. I've developed a fondness for foreign films, so I plan on watching a bunch more of them.

I'll continue to spend time in the gym. It's so easy to sacrifice diet and fitness at the WSOP each summer because of the horrible work schedule, but I don't intend on letting that happen this year. Another thing I'm really getting into is meeting new people. For the longest time, embarrassingly, I wasn't receptive to it. I love talking with new people now and believe that there's good in everyone. You just have to dig to find it. I cherish every interaction that I have in my daily life now.

That's all I have for now. If any of you are interested in keeping up with me, feel free to follow at twitter.com/shannonshorr. Additionally, I always welcome emails about anything, shannonshorr@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

I really appreciate you guys reading. Have a great weekend

Poker and LIfe Post Black Friday

This entry is being written from an apartment in Budapest, Hungary as I'm currently vacationing here with my boy Matt while I'm about halfway through a seven week European poker trip. This is a really incredible city with so much history, and it's such a great opportunity to visit it. Our time here comes after 12 days in Cannes, France for the World Series of Poker Europe and seven days in San Remo, Italy for a European Poker Tour series. This weekend we'll head to Amsterdam for a week long series followed by a two day vacation in Athens, Greece. Then, Ill head an hour west to a town called Loutraki for another EPT series for a week to conclude the trip before heading back to Birmingham for Thanksgiving. Needless to say, this has been an experience of a lifetime. I've really taken the time to see some sites and haven't taken a moment of the trip for granted. If I could offer one piece of advice from all the travels that I've been so fortunate to experience during my time in this business, it would be to see the southeastern coast of France as it meets Italy. The views of the houses on the hills on the Mediterranean Sea were images that will never escape me as long as I live.

Before, I headed overseas I had a  sort of ten week lull where I spent a lot of time in Alabama making a lot of changes in my life. For those of you who don't know, the three major online poker sites were seized in April of this year, and online poker was essentially banned for now in The United States. The reality of this didn't hit me until after The World Series of Poker which took place this summer, as I was extremely busy trying to grind out a living in Las Vegas over the course of six or seven weeks during that time. I had a lot of growing up to do quickly as my style was cramped with a major source of income being taken from me. It turns out that for the last six years I have been making a very good living for myself playing poker on the live tournament circuit in addition, so I was not entirely dependent on online poker. 

I should make clear that I am in no way bemoaning my luck or complaining. I am incredibly grateful for everyday that I get to spend playing poker for a living as it's something I love and is a career that has afforded me opportunities that I would have never had otherwise.  The reality is that myself and thousands of other poker players were just a coin flip or two away from being in or out of this business many times at the start of our respective careers. No one deserves anything in this business of playing cards for a living. There's no room for complaining when you consider possible alternatives, and it's something regrettably I've been guilty of many times in my career. I've grown out of it and am completely over hearing it from other poker players, many of whom are top names who have been more fortunate than anyone to be where they are. 

During my downtime, I had some decisions to make as far as what the future holds for me. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just sit around and complain about the state of the business and the economy, and everyday that you're not making moves you're falling behind. Many poker players made the completely understandable decision of relocating to Vancouver or Mexico or Europe in order to play online. For a couple reasons, I couldn't make a rash decision and uproot from my condo in Birmingham, Alabama. I decided the first thing to do was to get in great shape physically. The online poker seizures were kind of a blessing in disguise as I was able to, at long last, have some time for myself at my home to entirely dedicate myself to fitness and diet. I quickly shed fifteen pounds and as I type this am nearing the best shape of my life. During this period of my life, I've become extremely goal and business-oriented and couldn't be happier. I've grown closer than ever with my family that I love so dearly and have become extremely active in a side business project that will supplement income. I traveled to Los Angeles and Las Vegas (twice) for a few other poker tournaments and spent a few days in Atlanta watching my Braves collapse at the end of the regular season. Additionally, I took an amazing 1700 mile round trip RV trip up to Happy Valley with my boys from Birmingham for the Alabama vs Penn State football game over the last couple months as well.

As I'm getting older it seems like things are becoming a little more clear despite the ever-changing, volatile, career and life that I've chosen. I need to be working and it turns out that traveling around the world playing poker tournaments is my best skill set for the time being. Not having much time at home to relax and get things done is tough sometimes, but it's something with which I'm at peace, and I don't exactly think I'll regret spending my twenties experiencing many of the things that I've experienced. Also, there are no women in my life right now, so it's a really great opportunity to do me. In Alabama to be 26 and to not be trying hard to settle down is a foreign concept to a lot of people, but it is not a priority for me right now. It will happen when it happens. 

Thanks for reading,

SS