The Return of...

...The Bloggerment!



Yep,it's back this Sunday and will be coming soon to the Pokerstars Lobby under the "Private" tab.( click on Tourneys first).It's open to all bloggers,readers and Raisetheriver forum members.Feel free to chat it up or play the silent chip stealing assassin! Bounties are on offer and I'll pay $5 to anyone knocking out Dudley ( Resdent Evil) after just getting a text from him suggesting the crate I swerved to avoid last Monday was put there by a rep from the Foxes Welfare Society!

On the health front I called the Docs this morning and was referred to Accident and Emergency at the hospital due to the slight popping sound I can hear when lying on my front.They literally took the piss,gave me another x-ray and the outcome was that they reckon I've torn muscles in my back and it'll just take time to heal, which in the grand scheme of things is good news.Called the Doc back for a sickline and I've got an appointment for Wed morning.Hopefully a week or two off and I'll be fighting fit again.

*Edit: Just had a call from the Docs to say they've read my hospital notes and I've been given a 2 week sickline with no need to go on Wed.

My sis popped round last night with Spag Bol,Chile and a DVD box set of The Wire and Prison Break.Oh and the Frankie Boyle live dvd too.After she left I played some poker and watched Slumdog Millionaire.I'm actually up a couple of hundred dollars at the $22's this month over not too many games, but as the swings are huge that really doesn't mean very much.

I also called the insurance company and they say I should get a call within a couple of days to negotiate a payout for my wrecked Focus.I like the look of a Honda Civic v-tec Type S I spotted and may raid my poker account if required too.

Ok,Back to feeling like I've been attacked by a Fire-Truck...

The Gambler

I may be 37 now but one of the younger girls at work ( 24) assured me that I'm still young....when compared to "really,really old people".I was disappointed too that despite dropping subtle hints like "I'm going for my break,now would be a good time to start a birthday collection" that my colleagues haven't got round to buying a calculator big enough to handle totalling up all the £20 notes I'm sure have been donated...

Wearing my ( height of fashion in Milan at the moment) Stars t-shirt also prompted an interesting chat with another colleague.I confirmed that yes I do play poker and actually make decent hobby money out of it.She asked how much I'd made and when I gave her last years net profit figure ( $15k) she replied,"Ahh but how much did you lose though?" My explanation about how I play other players, not the house and how over the long term poker skills will triumph over short-term luck were met by a disbelieving smirk.

It's probably a belief shared by some players too.One loose fishy at a $22 last night asked a nitty regular if he was "tightening up until the gambling starts later" which gave me a laugh.I realise the fish meant that with high blinds compared to stack sizes players will be shoving/calling far wider than early in the game and this can give the appearance of it simply being about luck.Obviously in the short-term it's a big factor, but there's no doubting there's a decent amount of skill required to be able to put other players on correct ranges and to be push/folding as optimally as possible.

I had a decent night at the felt last night mainly 2-3 tabling the $22's and finishing off with a $33 which I took down.( 15 games in total) I was also watching "Family guy",a re-run of that BBC show "Survivors" and some "South Park" too.

On the football front I was interested to see Arsenal drawn against celtc in the Champions League Qualifier.The tv money paid to English teams means there's no way Scottish football in general can compete with the EPL in the transfer market and I hope this is reflected in a record breaking and humiliating defeat for the mutants across the city.Come on you Gooners!

Thanks for reading and thanks especially to those who wished me a happy birthday in the comments box and elsewhere.

Back soon..

Sliding down the pole...

After pounding the tables at the weekend I slowed down a bit last night and watched a couple of sngicons videos before hitting the tables for a set of four games ( $16,18 player turbos) later on.

It's funny how I can play 61 games over an evening,be on the end of repeated bad beats and still enjoy the session,yet last night it only took four games to make me want to spew and buy a cat to kick!

In the first game I raised 6bb preflop with AQ,the money went in when the flop came 8 J Q .Surely the fish didn't call my raise with 910 off sooot....he surely did!

My KK v AcQc was next up and when the money went in on a flop with 2 clubs ,the turn brought the fatal club which knocked me out.My AQ failed to hit v 66 in my next game and even in my last game of the four, I came 4th after shoving KQ into AK.

I'm getting tired of posting philosophical soliloquies on running badly.Ok,I've been reasonable,accepted it's just variance...Now turn the fuckin' beats off!!! Just for once I want to be Mr JJ who gets it in v AJ and AA and still hits his case Jack, instead of being Mr "Np,gg" after yet another fish says sorry for some nasty beat.

I'm trying to remain optimistic and stay focused on making the right decisions.I'm trying not to push too hard and make things happen.I'm going over hand histories,watching more training vids and regularly read the sng forum sections of 2+2,Cardplayer and Rebels of poker.

I've tried talking about running badly in the past tense and treating every hand as a new independent event.Logically there's no way any hands I play tonight can be in any way linked to any previous "bad run" and yet despite telling myself this, every night seems to see the same old crap as big hands get scudded,races are never won and fish pull miracle river cards out their backsides like it's going out of fashion.

As I've learned from the forums,sng downswings and bad runs can last for hundreds and sometimes thousands of games.I've only played 2.5k games on Stars and this is all still part of learning the game for me.The best way to cope is through volume,continued revision of my game and plenty of huffy tantrums and foot stamping whilst shouting about how it's all so unfair.Perhaps not the last part, but I've tried the first few options to no avail!

I'll be back at the tables tonight for more as usual.Tomorrow night I'm looking forward to taking care of Step A and enjoying more "Family Guy" and crap makeover programmes.( her choice!)

Back soon...