Taxes

Nothing will dampen your spirits after one of your best weeks of all time like writing checks for almost 2 years worth of taxes in one sitting. I didn't make estimated payments in 2011 because...well, because I was lazy mostly but also because I made so little money in 2010 my required payments were so low it didn't really matter that I didn't send them in. The minimum required payments for year N+1 are based on tax liability for year N, and if you don't send them in you get dinged with an interest penalty, but that just wasn't going to be enough to make me care. So other than the tax withheld from my prop paychecks, I just fired off everything I owed from last year, Q1 for 2012, and wrote the checks for my estimated payments for the remaining 3 quarters of this year (which will sit on a shelf until they need to be mailed). It was just...brutal.

Other than that, though, life has been grand so far in the month of April. I just get to win and win and win, and I've been doing a lot of hand reviews and study work with a friend that at least make me feel confident and give me a sense of self improvement. This week I played 6 days, had a 6 rack win, 3.5 rack win, and 2.5 rack win, and was in the black on the other three days combined. And what was kind of funny about it was that throughout the week I noticed everyday that the pros were literally taking ALL the money. I could rattle off about a half dozen names that combined to take probably $60k out of the bike 40/80 game last week. I mean, I could be wrong, as I didn't see all their results, but what I did see really made it appear that way. It's just kind of the way of things, really. When the pros run bad they lose small or break even for 3 or 4 months at a time. But when they win, the just crush the game for $200/hour for a month or more, and if a couple of them do it at the same time...well, let's just say I hope we don't bust too many people.