Around the World in 150 Days, Day 2, The Taxman Cometh
April 9th, Melbourne Australia: I wake up a little before 10am. That's not a good sign if I hope to play the SCOOP main event in Hawaii, as the event goes off at 6:30am Melbourne time, meaning I'm three and a half hours off the sleep schedule I need to be on. I went to meet up with another couple who work at 'Crown' with the girl I'm seeing after dinner last night and we wound up staying out till 11pm, which for my recent sleep schedule has been an ungodly late hour. When we got home I was exhausted and passed out instantly, something I decide to make amends for it in place of my morning run.
After breakfast I jump on my computer and waste some time browsing the internet before telling myself I should use this opportunity to finish my taxes. Actually doing the taxes themselves using the TurboTax software is fairly simple and straight forward, but going over all the live tournaments I played during the year, figuring out what % of profits went to backers, and then looking up every online tournament I played under them and working out the profit on that (which I must subtract from my yearly profit total online) is where all the bitch work comes in. It takes hours to look and add up everything and when I finally enter all the information into TurboTax it informs me that I owe Uncle Sam a disturbingly high number. Christ I wish I was a real Australian, thank God I only have to pay the federal taxes.
On the plus side, I found that my 2008 totals over the major sites averages out to about 50% ROI at roughly $150 average buy in over a considerable sample. I've spoken to a lot of friends recently who I consider very good players (many better than myself) and quite a few of them wound up having a losing year in 2008. My best guess as to why is a combination of bad variance and not putting in volume, something a huge percentage of professional online players don't do enough of in my opinion.
In the evening we go for Korean BBQ on Victoria Street and go play pool at 'Princes'. The Australian version of pool uses tiny balls and a fast moving felt with small pockets that often have you bouncing right out if you don't aim precisely or hit the ball there gently. I get my ass handed to me in all four games but explain to her that "If it weren't for this pussy ass version of pool with these mini balls I'd be crushing you." I'm going to need a new excuse when I start losing at pool in the states.
At nights end we lie in bed and discuss what happens now. The best explanation I can give for why it has to end is that "Sometimes you tell everyone you know 'I'll see ya in six months' and never really show up again." In the case of home, that was three years ago. I'd like to come back to Australia, I hope to, but it wouldn't terribly shock me if I wound up stopping somewhere along the way and didn't bother getting on the plane again. It doesn't help that my permanent residency status in Australia is still up in the air. I suppose only time will tell.