And but of course

No poker last night.I think I've mentioned I've 14 hours of flexi to make up at work so after Mark left last night and I'd sat with Mrs A for a while I went to bed without even being tempted to get in a hand or two.

Grinder posted about his great new system of playing less hands to win more and I think he has a point.While I can play for 12 hours with barely a break I'm not playing my "A" game for 12 hours and I'd be kidding myself if I said otherwise.I noticed the other night that after about 40 minutes my mind was wandering and I was surfing blogs and forums whilst still playing a 6 max game.Nobody likes to leave a juicy table but I think I need to be better at recognising when my "A" game starts to slip and taking a break. Better to play 45 minutes of my best poker than 12 hours of going through the motions.Even better would be to play my best game for 12 hours and also take sufficent breaks to keep me at my best.

Mark was good company last night.Jordan's post about only talking poker with his friends me me laugh as I'd intended posting a similar tale today.Mark and I played "Black" on the PS2 and talked a bit about holidays,football and him finding a monster dildo in a shoebox whilst helping his mother-in-law move house but after he's driven off into the night my phone rang and the caller id showed it was him calling.I was quickly checking to see if he left his smokes or lighter when he says "forgot to mention that the Mrs is pregnant and I'm going to be a Dad again". Pales into insignificance v the monster dildo story imo.....

Not sure if this will work in print but one of his best stories was of a mate of his who was driving a long when a cop started making the wanker sign at him, giving it big licks.His mate ignored it for a while before getting angry and giving the cop the finger back for his cheek.Next thing the siren flashes and the cop pulls him over to ask what the hell he's playing at flipping him the bird."You started it by making wanker gestures at me" says his mate. "I was telling you to get your seatbelt on.Your nicked!"

Juice will be happy to know that I'm getting right behind Arsenals bid to win the Champions league this season.I heard today that due to the co-efficent system if Arsenal win it then this years one season wonders ( Scottish Champions) will have to play a qualifier instead of getting into the group stages automatically.Seeing as that lot from across the city are going to borrow our title for a season that would mean no automatic route in for them and after they were humiliated 5-0 in this seasons qualifier they could be facing no European football after July yet again.Go on you Gunners!

On the subject of qualifiers I'm tempted to set aside $100-$200 to take a shot at qualifying for the WSOP main event.Most of the qualifiers ( incl blogger tourneys) are on at terrible times for me though if its a 3am start on a Fri/Sat I'd give it a go.Pokerroom has an entry level qualifier for only a few hundred player points so that'll be my first port of call.Its obviously a total long shot especially if I aim to play 6 or 7 of the lowest rung on the ladder type qualifiers but I'm definitely going to give it some serious thought.

Some great posts out there by other bloggers.Scurvydog's post on being a poker hobbyist really struck a chord with me even though I'm at a far lower level then him and Garyc has an interesting post on blog ads.

My personal take on that is that anyone with their own blog should ( and are) perfectly free to decide for themselves whether thats a road they wish to go down.If you don't like it then go blog off! I don't have any ads more down to barely being able to add blogger links let alone too much else to my template thing plus I'm a lazy sod who hasn't bothered to reply to most ( like I've got all the big corporates queuing up) emails of that sort.

Maybe deep down I like the idea of not having ads and therfore not feeling I have to edit the 9 zillion "buts" , "of courses" and "ands" I use in every post.But of course its my blog and I'll write it anyway I please!

Ok its 10.15pm and I aint had a smoke or played any poker.Time to get that sorted....