Happy Daze

Thanks to Josie for the comment on my last post.The answer is that I've been completely smoke free ( no cigs or weed) from Tues night until Fri morning for the last couple of weeks.

That certainly wasn't the case last night as I rolled a couple up and hit the virtual felt.I only scraped one third place finish from my first set of four $22's but managed a couple of wins and a second place from my next set for a decent profit.I even managed to win a few buy-ins over 80 hands of Rush poker before hitting the sack just before 3am.As ever, after a winning night there doesn't seem much to say about it!I did find the hand below quite amusing and was tempted to type "Bot gone wrong?" in the chat box as I've no idea what the big blind could have been thinking when he called here...



I didn't even get annoyed at myself for banking a win and only playing eight sng's.Running well over a tiny sample size really shouldn't matter in the same way as losing a load of buy-ins over a similar sample is just the nature of the game.I suppose as humans we're always looking for affirmation that we're doing the right thing and the hard part about poker is that playing well is never any guarantee of short-term success.

I've not heard from my date yet this weekend.A girl at work informed me that apparently there are a whole host of (unknown to me ) rules about waiting twenty minutes before replying to text messages etc.My date also sent the first text the other night after we'd met saying she had enjoyed my company.My reply saying I had a great time and telling her to give me a shout if she fancied going out again should have seen me dropped like a hot potato according to my colleague.Jeez,play it cool,show more interest blah blah!Ahh well,I'll see how it goes!

A couple of snippets from the papers made me laugh this week.Scottish Socialist Rosie Kane talking about the lying swinger and former MSP Tommy Sheridan in a Guardian interview said, "We would have been behind him, helping him become first minister, and younger socialists would have paid the price".Do me a favour love.( to use another topical quote) Even at his political peak the bold Tommy was ( thankfully) a million miles from achieving that particular ambition.

Of course The Sun are loving Sheridan's downfall and even wrote about his new cellmate at Barlinnie Prison.I always laugh when they quote a "source" or better still "an onlooker" as the quote that follows has almost certainly been written by The Sun journo to enhance the story.

Apparently Sheridan has been locked up with a serial shoplifter called Dodds and a source said "Every one was wondering if they would get locked up with Tommy.But lo and behold it was Dodds,the only one who is not at all interested in politics". Aye,because the rest of the prisoners in Bar-L ( one of Scotland's most notorious prisons) do nothing but debate the latest early day motions from the House of Commons and are always chatting about the UK's deficit reduction strategy and what Cameron really means by the "Big Society".

Righty,good luck to Andy Murray in the Aussie Open final tomorrow morning.I'd love to see him become Britains first Grand Slam winner since Fred Perry but not enough to get up at 8.30 am in the morning to watch it! It will be the first thing I check when I do get up though!

Back soon....

You Can't Always Get What You Want....

Not much poker to report on this week as I've not had much time to hit the virtual felt.I met up with Step A on Tuesday evening for a Mc'ds and spent most of the time trying to talk sense into her without sounding like a lecturing old man! I didn't mention that I like a smoke myself but nearly gave it away when she said skins were made in Bristol and I said I didn't know that's where the Rizzla factory was located.Errrr she meant the tv show..

I was also arranging my date for last night and Step A was laughing so hard at my slow texting ( prodding the keypad on my phone with my index finger) that I ended up dictating my text and the wee one typed it.She's also got an Android phone and I've now downloaded the free virtual Zippo lighter app which is so cool the flame even flickers when I blow on it!

I was off work on Wednesday when the S-man contacted me with the tragic news that his Playstation had suffered from the yellow light of death.I'm no expert but I reckon his machine was just politely letting him know that he's been wasting his time trying to get as good at Call of Duty games as the mighty GusterBonad!( one of my PS3 names) Still,I was pleased to see he's struck a deal with his Mrs and will be back online soon.

After at least six months since my last date I've finally made a bit more of an effort over the last couple of weeks.As the classic Stones song goes "You can't always get what you want,but sometimes you get what you need" and after months of fancying a local girl and not doing anything about it ( I'm pretty sure she still has a boyfriend and my flirting/reading the signs skills are rusty as hell anyway) I met a hot chick for a few drinks last night.I was a lot more relaxed and laidback than I've been on previous dates and we seemed to hit it off quite well.She sent me a text saying she enjoyed my company and we're texting each other again over the weekend to arrange a second date.

I've no other plans for the weekend other than going to the league cup semi-final on Sunday with my cousin Two Pies.I was quite pleased with myself for not smoking anything at all again this week between Tuesday night and this morning.( had a cig on the way to work after giving my neighbour a lift into town).Two Pies was over on Wed night for the Gers game and although occasions like that give me an easy excuse to spark up,I stuck to the nicotine gum and felt all the better for it the next day.

Ok,thanks for reading and good luck to Andy Murray in his Aussie open semi-final.I know he's not everyones cup of tea but I like him and hopefully he can make the final and win his first Grand Slam event.C'mon Andy!

Back soon...

Speaking Americano

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 549586

I went to bed happy but annoyed at myself for feeling that way after a planned night of poker playing turned into just one set of four sng's and some Rush poker on Full Tilt.I did take a 1st and a 2nd from the four sng's, but it's about volume and I'll need to ramp it up if I want to make a decent profit this month.( or hope my short-term run good continues)

Here's a wee hand from the $25 nl Rush game.I had a bad feeling when the money went in but didn't realise I was drawing quite so thin!



Away from the poker I was quite pleased with myself for staying smoke free between Tuesday night and Friday morning.( still using the nicotine gum though) It's quite scary to think that's the longest break my lungs have had since I was about 17! I do intend enjoying some fine herbs tonight whilst watching "The Big Lebowski" which I picked up for a couple of quid the other day.

I was less pleased with my new mobile phone this week after spending most of Tuesday night trying to get a speech to text app to work.( google voice actions)The smug wee smart arse in the demo video made it look so easy but apparently there is some issue with it working properly with the HTC Desire.Not that I have a strong accent but I even faked an American one to see if that was the problem!Hmm I can tell y'all I ended up feeling like a right tit and giving up as all my phone wanted to do was search the web.

Plans for the coming week? Well the girl downstairs is coming up tomorrow to clean the flat,I'm hoping to finally catch up with Step A on Tuesday evening,it's the dentists for a couple of fillings on Wednesday before watching Rangers play Hibs later that night.I've also got plans for a hot date later in the week at some point, although knowing my luck the only hot part will be the coffee/tea! The girl I mentioned I liked in a recent post still has a boyfriend as far as I know so I think it's time to forget that and make more of an effort in other directions.

I'm off to roll one up in a minute.Hopefully it'll brighten my mood after I watched Rangers get beaten 1-0 by Hearts in a game we should have won by halftime.On the subject of football I read an interesting football fact today.There are currently more English Premier League managers from my hometown of Glasgow - Alex McLeish, Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes, Owen Coyle, Kenny Dalglish and Steve Kean - than from England - Ian Holloway, Alan Pardew, Steve Bruce and Harry Redknapp.

Righty,thanks for reading.Back soon...

Beep Beep Grrrrrr!

It was good to catch up with old Dudley the senile old bassa for some live poker last week at the Alea Casino in Glasgow.We both played in the £22 turbo tourney and sadly neither of us cashed.In truth it was quite an uneventful game for me.I doubled with AA V KK quite early and then ran AJ ( button) into AK ( Big Blind) a few hours later which crippled my stack.Losing with 22 v JJ sent me to the rail.The blinds rise every 15 mins due to the turbo format and I quite fancy trying out one of the deeper stacked slower games sometime soon.( the problem is that they start at 8.30pm and finish too late when I'm working the next day)

I've still been playing more Black Ops ( k/d now 1.81!)than poker over the last week but at least I've managed to fit in a few sets of six $22's and won some dosh.Moving back up to the $22's has been great and I do feel far more motivated to play and focus harder when playing them instead of the $11's.

The $22's are on Party and I must have ticked a box somewhere as they email me the complete hand history of every game afterwards.This would be fine but my HTC Desire beeps whenever I receive an email and hearing that damn beep every time I crash out to a bad beat is doing my head in! The phone itself is a huge improvement on my old one although I don't mind admitting I was stupid enough to try and "right click" using my pinky ( little finger) when I wanted to copy/paste something the other day!

Not much else going on really.I'm off to watch the Gers tonight and I'm hoping to catch up with Step A again this week for a McD's.For my own records I also paid £244 to get new front brake pads/discs and a service.( 35350 miles)

Oh and I also splashed out just over £50 on a new variable temperature kettle which means I don't need to boil water and wait for it to cool down before making my favourite white/green teas.Ahh life doesn't get more exciting than that!

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon....

Badda-Beep, Badda-Boop

After an extended Xmas break that's me back at work today.At least I still have plenty of leave days left to take before the end of March I suppose.On the poker front I'm still playing sets of six sng's on Party and some NL/PLO cash games on Stars.My Party rule is that whenever my roll there is over $440 ( 20 buy-ins at $22) I move back up to the $22's from the $11's.Even the $11's are full of regulars although most of them are still making lots of push/fold errors that can be exploited.I did hit $480 at one point, but a couple of cashless $22's sent me back down to slum it at the $11's.After a decent session last night I've got about $460 and will mix in a couple of $22's in my next set.

I also played a couple of $22 Mtt's on Bwin and lost a flip in one ( QQ V AK and the river brought a King) and got it in with 910 on a 9 10 7 board quite early on in the other.The original raiser showed 77 and that was that.

My new HTC Desire mobile arrived at the weekend and the good news is that I've already managed to play some Rush poker on it! In fact it works beautifully on the 3.7" screen and when I find out how to listen to my two favourite podcasts on it ( 2+2 Pokercast,Heart and Hand-The Rangers podcast) I'll be sorted! Far more importantly I've downloaded an "Air horn" app and one called "Dog Teaser" which is great for keeping Nacho on his toes.

Of course when you get a new mobile number it's wise to let everyone on your old phones contact list know the new number.As I've now learned it's always worth checking the old phone for messages in case some senile old bassa hasn't been paying attention...Hope to catch you later in the week mate!

Hopefully I'll be able to upload a few more pics using my new phone.Here's one of Nacho listening to one of my bad beat stories...




When it comes to watching the latest hot TV series ( usually imported from the US)I lag way behind.I've still not seen "The Wire" despite having the first series on DVD and apart from a few recent shows like "The Inbetweeners" and "Peep Show" I spend too much time playing video games or poker to concentrate on getting into a new tv show.There are also are a load of classic movies I've not seen and I managed to catch up with the rest of the world over the weekend and finally got round to seeing "The Godfather".What a stonkingly fine movie! The plan is to watch Part 2 tomorrow night.

Back soon if I'm not swimming with the fishies..

Happy New Ears

No,the post title is not a mistake.I really do need a new set of ears.I was driving home from work just before the Xmas break when I heard a rattling sound coming from the car.Having just shelled out £568 for a new ABS unit I was dreading discovering some expensive new problem, however when I opened and closed the drivers door a few miles later the rattle thankfully stopped.Arriving home,I was going to take Nacho out and reached into my pocket to sort my Ipod out.Hmmm no headphones.I traced my steps back to the car and there was a piece of severed headset wire lying on the ground.They had obviously been dangling outside the car since I'd stopped for petrol earlier.

I replaced them with a set of similar JVC ones but although they looked like the original Ipod ones,they kept falling out.I splashed out £15 ( well £15 seems like splashing out after already paying £8 for the JVC ones) for a set which are supposed to fit into my ears ( bud headphones) and they keep falling out too.Grrrrr!

On the poker front I watched a bit of the Superstar Showdown on Stars between Tony G and Isildur1.There were a few decent sized pots but after watching Isildurs battles with Durr on Full Tilt in Dec '09 it seemed a bit small beer in comparison.The "On your bike Tony" and "Played it like a set" comments from the rail got a bit boring after a while too.I think the games Isildur plays against qualifiers at $5-$10nl will be more interesting viewing.

I played a few sets of four sng's last night and watched the Chris Morris film "4 Lions" at the same time.I loved his "Brass Eye" series a few years back ( search for "Brass Eye Cake" on youtube if you've not seen it)and this film about 4 thick would be suicide bombers was genuinely laugh out loud funny at times. It was also quite clever too as the main characters were easy to like and near the end I caught myself hoping they wouldn't get arrested and then realising the consequences if they didn't.

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon...