Stay or Go?

From my school days I'm still best friends with the S-man,The Miami Trout( though I need to get back in touch again soon as it's been too long) and a girl I'll call L who I swap birthday cards with every year.Our birthdays are just over a week apart and I think we did have a hazy shag against a tree many years ago after smoking a ton of weed!( she has a partner now I think!)

Anyway L sent me a text today asking if I'd like to go to a school reunion curry in December.I replied saying "Hmmm and meet all the people I've managed to avoid over the last 20 yrs".I did add that it would be nice to catch up with L as it's been a few years.I also said I'd have a wee think about it and get back to her.

I remember seeing a similar idea on the once popular "Friends Reunited" website a few years back and thinking I'd rather puke up my own pelvic bone than meet a lot of people I haven't seen for 20 years.My theory being that I've stayed in touch with the people I still want to be friends with and an evening listening to how fantastically well everyone is doing and how great their kids are would be a mind numbingly dull experience.

I've a terrible memory too and once or twice down the years I've been enthusiastically greeted by a "stranger" I went to school with, and although they always seem to remember me, I stare blankly at them trying to recall who the hell they are!

Still,it's only a night out for a curry,I'll be going with L ( and maybe the s-man if he's up for it)and it might not be that bad.Hmmmmmm!

No poker yet this week, though I do plan on hitting the felt at the weekend as usual.I'll also be watching my recording of German Pius Heinz winning the WSOP main event title on ESPN as I play.I did find it funny that the news made Britains top selling tabloid paper who ran with the headline ( not on the front page!) " Hoodie wins Poker world series title".Hopefully his win will encourage plenty more German fish to play in my games at Stars!

I've been playing a ton of Modern Warfare 3 this week and I'm not sure I like it as much as Black Ops.The maps all seem small and it seems like it's back to being all about fast reactions and who has the best connection instead of being about outplaying my opponents.

The chat sound quality is dreadful too which doesn't help when playing with friends.Maybe I'll like it better when I know the maps better and I find a weapon I like using.Anyone who has watched me play poker ( live or via Yahoo IM) would be amazed that the same guy who sweeps through beat after beat without blinking at the tables turns into a completely frustrated raving ranting lunatic when playing Call of Duty at times!

Ok,thanks for reading.Back soon...

Fruity Hall of Famer...

After making steady progress at the $7 6 max Hyper turbo's I hit a brick wall on Friday night and barely won a hand.I even saved a couple of the worst runner runner bad beat hands for posting here, before remembering that bad beat stories only just pip hearing about other peoples dreams on most folks...

In days gone by I would have stuck up a soul searching post yesterday about swings,variance and all that jazz, but I've played so many sng's I'd almost be shocked if I didn't run into 20 buy-in downswings on a fairly regular basis.It did make me think though that if I step up to take a shot at the $30's, I'll have to quickly increase my gulp limit ( the amount I can lose in a night without it bothering me) from about $300 to well over $500.

I've just downloaded Jared Tendlers "The Mental Game of Poker" for my Kindle and maybe reading that can help me with gulp limits and taking shots at higher levels.If reading it is going to help save me money, I'm half expecting page one to read " Don't pay any attention to other bloggers football/horse tips"! I've not been in a bookies since the Grand National and after Pekan King and St Neots let me down yesterday I don't plan on donating again for a while! The old phrase about never seeing a skint bookie comes to mind..

Before placing those losing bets and going to Ibrox yesterday to watch Rangers beat Dundee Utd 3-1, I popped into G-Force games shop and picked up my copy of Modern Warfare 3.It's not officially released until Tuesday and my first impressions of it are that it seems like a slightly improved version of MW2.

Despite having a new game I only played it for an hour or so before hitting the virtual felt.After my crap run continued over my first two sets of four games I could feel myself starting to get frustrated.I took a break and when I came back I managed to win some flips,get some hands to hold and eventually sneaked back into profit for the weekend.

I like listening to the excellent 2+2 Pokercast as I'm playing or when out walking Nacho and this week the two Canadian presenters were interviewing new Poker Hall of Fame inductee,

Greenstein.

As someone with barely any accent at all, I think I can get away with that one....

Back soon...

Who are Ya? ( and Monthly Stats)

Pokerstars $3283 ( + $366) Party $604
Total $3887

Considering I only play poker at weekends these days I'm not too unhappy at only making $366 last month over 569 sngs.( mostly all hyper turbos and no play at Party at all) Towards the end of the month I also found it easy enough to play without using a HUD as it's the only way I can get Stars new hotkeys to work.

Playing four tables instead of 6-8 makes it easier to keep track of the play and I found the best way to assign ranges etc was simply to label players in my mind as regulars or randoms.Even after playing over 500 hypers I'm still not entirely sure if I prefer open raising for 2.5-3 bb preflop or just shoving all in during the early stages with playable hands.Against decent players only raising 2.5-3bb preflop with monsters and shoving the rest of my range would be very easy to expoit, but these are $7 games and for the most part I don't need to mix it up too much.

The next step up from the $7 hypers is straight to $30 and I'm tempted to give them a go with the stipulation that I'll drop back down to the $7's if I lose 40 buy ins.Only my nitty bankroll management and the thought of losing $1200 is stopping me at the moment!

Of course if I wanted to make some real money I'd withdraw my whole poker roll and buy shares in handcream companies.The girls in my team at work are obsessed by applying the stuff and don't seem to like it when they ask me about some complaint they're dealing with or some other problem and I offer the solution "Just put on some more hand cream".

Perhaps I'd be better off donating my poker roll to the local council who have decided to spend some of my hard earned taxes paying Peter Andre to switch on the Xmas lights in the town.The local rag even described him as a mega star! He had a couple of minor hits years ago and would have faded into complete obscurity if he hadn't been married to that mega trollope Jordan.

Mind you, maybe he is a mega star these days.Watching tv this morning the presenters were about to interview Cher.Now there's a mega star I thought to myself... before some no-mark Cheryl Cole look a like appeared.Cher Lloyd apparently.Never heard of her!

Anyway it's not been a bad week so far.I'm looking forward to catching up with Step A for a pub meal and to visiting my sister + nephew on before the weekend.I'm also seeing a woman about a dog tomorrow and buying the new Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3 game on Saturday.( getting it early!)

Back soon...