Sitting around the house watching football and playing online poker, I was pretty much in my comfort zone when a friend called and told me all about his new year’s resolutions. He’s gonna do this, not gonna do that, planning to go there, hoping to do that, you know the drill. “So what’s on your list, TJ?” he asked. I drew a blank.

Got me to thinking, though, so now I’ve put together a few items, starting with paring down my tournament schedule. I plan on playing around 10 events at the World Series of Poker, and maybe 10 other tournaments. That will give me more time to devote to teaching for the World Poker Tour bootcamps, and to acting as the Ambassador of Poker for the PicClub. Through the rest of the year, I’ll play the big ones at the Bellagio, and the WPT events that I can get to—a lot smaller schedule than usual for me.

Of course, I’ll continue with the four charity events I do every year, including the big one, Math for America, at the St. Regis in New York City. That one raises a ton of money to improve the quality of instruction in mathematics. Clonie Gowan, Dan Harrington and I appear at it each year. My sister has been a teacher for most of her life, and I know she would’ve liked being able to sit out a couple of semesters to get further training in her subject matter.

I’ve also put a health goal on my list. I got a little heavy for a while, and when my weight got up to 288, my heart doctor told me I needed to lose some of my excess baggage. Last month I lost 22 pounds when I contracted intestinal problems in the Dominican Republic. Getting sick wasn’t too much fun, but something good came out of it: Now my weight’s down to 268 and that’s where I plan to keep it.

Some new things are on the horizon that I’m looking forward to. The WPT bootcamp is expanding to some different venues, such as Chicago and New York, in big hotels rather than casinos. Since we’ll be in such huge population centers, we’re expanding the size of our classes from 60 to 75 (they’re always sell-outs). This will be a good change for everybody, I’m sure.

I’ve leaving for Biloxi this Tuesday to play in the $10K event there. Joy and I are looking forward to being at the Beau Rivage again, which wasn’t significantly damaged by Katrina. Then I’ll be in Vegas on the 24^th-25^th for the WPT bootcamp at the Golden Nugget in Downtown, starting a new era for our classes, which have always been held on the Strip before now. Our WPT Captains event is coming up at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on February 28^th. Then we’ll be in Chicago for our inaugural hotel bootcamp the first week of April.

Even without playing back-to-back, wall-to-wall tournaments like I used to do, I’ll still be heavily involved in the world of poker, giving a little something back to a game that’s been so good to me over the years. I wish you a mighty fine 2009, and hope to shake hands with you somewhere along the tournament trail this year. Till then, this is TJ signing off from Texas to the world.