Too Much Steam...

In the same way bands tend to bring out greatest hits albums when they run out of steam I had a wee look at previous posts to see if I could link to a few of them for todays post.I changed my mind though as I've never been a fan of nominating my own "best of" and I didn't fancy trawling through six years worth of mince to find ones I liked anyway.

I did have a quick look back and the post that stood out was one linking to a donations page for a charity walk for cancer my sister undertook back in '06.The incredibly generous response from friends,fellow bloggers and readers was amazing and still nearly brought a tear to my eye even five years on!

My post from Nov '09 when I nearly killed myself in a car accident also made me stop and think.Although my side and back still hurt sometimes I'm almost glad it happened as I was stuck in a vicious circle of being stressed and depressed ( mainly work related) and smoking too much weed every night to try and escape those feelings.Regular heavy smokers will know that even on a trip to the Dam the best highs come during the first day or so and after that it's just more of a fuzzy minded feeling that kicks in.

These days I only smoke at weekends and I love feeling more like myself during the week and I also appreciate my weed far more when I do roll one up at the end of the week.I was so tired and kind of stoned over most of the time before the accident that it felt like I was operating with only half a personality most of the time. My memory of myself from the times I did cut back or didn't smoke was of someone who was far too outgoing and loud.( almost manic probably) So much so that I used to annoy myself!

These days ( though friends and work colleagues would probably disagree) I think I've calmed down a bit.Feeling far better and taking long walks at lunchtime also means I'm dropping off to sleep quite easily most nights instead of tossing and turning for hours with my mind whirring at 1000 mph.( which always happened when I tried to cut back previously)

I'm still only playing poker at weekends and although playing 6-8 tables and including more hyper turbos means I'm still racking up 300-400 sngs per mth, I'd still rather play Black Ops with friends online during the week.With the new Call of Duty game ( Modern Warfare 3) due out on Nov 8th I can't see that changing.

I may even have given up on poker altogether, but I'm a highly competitive person and I usually hate playing video games after a smoke as my slower reactions mean my kill/death ratio goes down ( and that's just not on!).Of course feeling more fresh when I do play poker also means I no longer feel burned out in any way and I actually relish my time at the felt instead of seeing it as a slow money making grind.

I did get back into profit for the month at the virtual felt last weekend,winning $240 over 95 games at the 6 max $7 hypers,18 player $15 turbo's and a $55 Mtt.Two Pies ( my cousin) was over and to change things up a bit I used up most of my 8000 Frequent player points playing satellites to bigger games and although I had no luck in most of them I did manage to win one $55 ticket.

I cashed for $64 in that game after having my Aces busted.I called a cut off raise from the button with my Aces and the big blind came along for the ride too.I used to always raise in that position but I could hear Jonathan Little's voice ( from watching his training vids ) saying that calling in that spot was totally standard and getting it on a seemingly harmless 9 9 2 board seemed ok at the time too... until the cut off showed 98 and the big blind trumped that with his 22.

Ok,I've written so much you're probably wishing I had run out of steam long ago! Thanks for reading.Back soon...