Surly Poker Gnome

What's up!

This is the evolution of my former blog, 5,589 Miles From Vegas. I should have changed the blog title after I moved back to the States from Santiago, Chile a few months ago, but I'm just now getting around to it. It seems a little disingenuous to keep advertising "Poker in Chile" when I now live in Atlanta.

This blog will be similar to the old one. I plan on updating the style and links on the site, but most of it will remain the same. Content will consist of random ramblings about what I think about poker, the evolution of my game, funny stories, book reviews, strategy ideas and trip reports. The purpose of this blog is to write about poker to help myself and readers understand the game better. I intend for this blog to be like a poker diary, but one which I will actually keep up with because other people might read it.

A little about myself: My name is Mark Niesse, and I currently live in the basement of my parents' house in Atlanta. I lived in Chile for most of last year and moved back at the beginning of July. I'm a journalist by trade, and I've been looking for jobs in the States. I have several promising leads, and in the meantime I've been living the good life. I've been winning at poker, traveling and having fun. Who knows if I'll ever have such an easy time of life again?

I recently made the jump to playing $15/$30 limit hold 'em on Party Poker, although I wouldn't consider it my main game yet. Previously, I played mostly $5/$10 limit hold 'em, but I now have the bankroll for $15/$30, and the games are much looser than I anticipated. And I'm winning.

I have to give props to Drew for coming up with the title of the blog. His idea was to call it Hal, the Surly Poker Gnome, but I don't know if Hal would be comfortable with that.

If you have a blog, please link to me or update your old link. My linking policy is that I will only link to blogs that I read on a regular basis. This might decrease the number of hits I get, but I don't want to refer people to crappy content.

I'd like to receive comments from readers about what they would like to see from this blog. I've considered putting up more hand histories, but I'm not sure whether that's something that would interest people. Let me know what you think.

Thanks! I hope you come back to read the blog again.