The Joy of Poker?

Made it home safely but man it's cold here.From sitting out on the balcony enjoying tempartures of 80f at night to scraping ice off the car in the morning.At least I'm off work today and not back until Monday and Rangers beat Maccabi Hafia 2-0 last night in the Uefa Cup too with Nacho scoring the first one.

To the poker and Chipper asked about how I use Sharkscope and if I pay for the full version.I do indeed pay the sub and use it to keep an eye on my own progress and also to check out the competition.At Crypto sites where the sng's fill more slowly I use it to get a flavour of the table before I join but mainly I use it to get the whole tables stats ( after an orbit or two).It's also great for shutting up the table big mouth as they are usually losers according to Sharky and at least twice now said big mouth has admitted they lose and even starting wittering on about their other gambling habits and generally behaving like it's a GA meeting.It's also good for determining which players can be bluffed and are capable of laying down a hand ( usually not the big fishy losers) and overall I find it well worth the money.

I titled the post "The Joy of Poker" because it's a subject I gave a lot of thought to whilst I was away sunning myself in Sharm.I've now completed two years of real money online poker and find myself wondering how much fun I actually have playing poker.There certainly are one or two hands most nights where I feel happy that I've outplayed the villian and used my poker knowledge and experience to triumph but in general ( at 6 max $50 nl) it's fairly basic predictable poker that seems to win the money.I suppose too that success can equal fun at poker and the last few months have been fairly lean and tough at times and we all know repeated beats and nasty variance just aint no fun at all.

The answer to the fun quest may simply be to play more sngs and Mtt's as they ( esp sng's) seem so much less of a grind than 6 max cash games.Maybe it's the knockout factor or the escalating blinds but there's something about tourneys I enjoy a lot more than I'd have thought possible when I used to play them simply to get a break from the cash game grind.Still it's cash for dough and sng's for show so the saying goes and I wont be leaving the cash tables behind as I move into my 3rd year of real money poker.

We arrived back home late on last night and after a long flight Mrs A went to bed and I fired up Pokerroom to see how rusty I was.In my first $5 turbo I went out on the first hand when my 96 soooted didn't make a flush and the villian didn't fold to my "move".I launched into another and made the bubble this time again crashing after failed "move".By this time I was so tired I could hardly focus and went to bed for a long long sleep.

Ok,that'll do for now...