Most excellent times

What a fine weekend that was.Friday night was the heads up Dadi tourney at 'Stars.I was well outplayed by Phluxer ( couldn't find link) after getting a bye in the first round.I folded 55 to his first big all in and ended up going out ( shortstacked) with A3 v QQ.I actually caught my Ace and 3 but a rivered Q sent me to the rail and as I was well behind to start with I can have no complaints.

Played a $10 sng after Dadi with Jordan,Tripjax,Dnasty,Sureflex and Garyc who was still playing Dadi popping in for the chat.Apologies if I've left any bloggers out who played but it was around 5am by then. The non blogger players must have wondered what they'd stumbled into as the smack talk flew round the table.It was a blast.I came 3rd with Jordan making a great comeback from a low stack to win it from a non blogger.

Good times indeed and a welcome break from the grind.

Figures update sees Party $161 ( inc $100 dep) ,Ladbrokes $1123 ,Pokerroom $768,Interpoker $1520. ( + $151 for week). Total $3472 ( not inc Partyy dep)

Watched Rangers beat Hibs 2-0 on Saturday before heading home and hitting the tables late on.

Played mostly at Party's beginnners tables and I've never seen play as poor in my short poker life.You simply cannot play your normal game and expect to profit there.I soon adapted though and won back most of last weeks loss there.The beginners tables are only open to new accounts for 45 days.When I looked before they only had .05-.10 nl table which may be soft but only have an ave pot of $2.

Not really worth it but last night they had $25 and $50 buyin beginners tables.Quote of the night was when one player mentioned another was multi-tabling.Another chimed in a "wow" before stating they only multi-table at the play money tables.Sure we all have to start somewhere and I hate the poker snobbery that sees players at one level look down on others below with contempt ( like my favourite poker gastronome hehehe) but that statement did tickle my funny bone.

Moved from there to Ladbrokes and played with Juice at the low limit nl 6 max tables for a while.I'd been running well but made a costly error whilst still in "party" mode.

On a flop with all hearts and a Jack I called a post flop bet with QhJc.After a Q on the turn they both went all in and the action was on me with my 2 pairs and Queen flush draw.Somewhere in my head the probabilty of flopping a flush ( 123-1) was flying around.To call one all-in would have been careless but calling two was downright daft.They both had 2 hearts in the hand and had flopped it.

My tilt trigger had been pulled earlier when I'd folded AQ and watched as KKK beat JJJ on a board which would have made me the nut straight."Party" mode meant I was giving the villans no credit for having a decent hand which is never the case at Ladbrokes when 2 players are all in.

$400 profit in 2 weeks hopefully means I'm over the worst of my downswing.Although I didn't actually have a losing month at anytime it felt like I was treading water for a while.

I was in bed for 3.30am last night as today was the day I would finally meet up with another poker blogger for the first time.I was up at 12pm and just slightly late in picking Juice up from outside his hotel at 1pm.What an all round nice guy he turned out to be too.Not the raving lunatic I was expecting at all...He's just as funny in real life as he is at the tables and I really enjoyed his company.

Brought him back to Acorn Towers to meet Mrs A and more importantly ( after all the gifts sent) Nacho who took an instant shine to the Juice.Mrs A had baked him a loaf and I helped show him the musical light by giving him Johnny Cash's live prison cd's before we headed off to shoot some pool.

I said Juice was a nice guy and in fact he was so nice he let me win all 10 games even firing the white off the table on the one occasion he did pot the final black.To be fair a lot of the games were tighter than the scoreline would suggest.

Good times indeed.I started my blog as a poker diary for myself and never imagined making cyber friends all over the world would come from it.

I mentioned playing with the US blogging crew on Friday helped break up the poker grind but thats an understatement and a half.It obliterated the grind.Smashed it into the ground.

When your plugging away on your own for hours at the table its easy to forget there can be more to the game of poker and life than just the constant pursuit of more money.As recreational player I sometimes wonder if I take it all just a bit seriously but then its real money not play chips I'm playing for and I would never want to gamble lightly with any hard earned cash.

I've touched on poker burnout recently and it was interesting to read Phil Ivey say he doesn't get tired of it even after playing 12 hours a day for 3 weeks.My first thought reading that was
that at least he probably takes a break after the 3 weeks.I probably average 20-25 hours per week but when that is every single week only broken by holidays abroad then I should probably look to take more frequent days or even weeks off from the tables.

Right enough of that pish.I've got poker to play....