Going away

For those that don't know, I've been sorting out a trip with Barry/Bazclef and Chris/Pureklas for a while now. We got the flights all booked this week which means it's on! Barry and I are flying out to Tokyo on the 8th Sept, then we fly to Melbourne on the 13th and stay there for three months. When we leave we're flying out to LA on the 13th Dec and we fly back home from New York on the 23rd. We make our own rules in between! This gets us back on Christmas Eve which is really cool as it's the main night that everyone goes out where I live (as opposed to New Year's Eve where more people tend to stay in), so I'll get to arrive back home and see people straight away. Whilst we're in Melbourne we're planning to go visit New Zealand and probably the Philippines as there are APPTs on when we're over there so we may as well go visit somewhere new and (hopefully) make some money too.

On Saturday I went to a family get together at my cousin Jill's new house. I loved the house - it was exactly the type of house I want to own. It was Victorian and decorated beautifully. I really like watching programs like Escape To The Country (I'm old way before my time), and this house was definitely straight out of it. They found out about my blog when I was there - I don't know if you're going to be checking it, but hello if you are! It was the first time I'd seen my other cousin Stuart's new son. He's called Sonny and is four months old. They'd got him in an old man's flat cap, and it looked great - all babies should have to wear them! His daughter, Bella, was there too and she's incredibly good at being the only kid in a group of adults. I know I'd be bored and whiny if I was in that situation at that age. She did rope me and her dad into a game of hide and seek, and I'm definitely way out of practice as I was awful at both hiding and seeking.

I'm pretty much done with this month now poker-wise so my results most likely won't change much/at all in the next 9 hours. It's been kind of a lazy month for me for a few reasons. The first half of the month was pretty filled with visiting Barry and Chris, and then having my friend Scott down with me for a couple of weeks. Scott and I also went to Brighton for four days with another friend, Alex. There have also been a couple of nights when I've been out with friends and drank since I got back which really cuts down on my playing. I tend not to play at all the day after going out as I'm always tired and just feel like I can't concentrate properly.

So I ended up getting in 19k hands this month and made about $8k. I'm reasonably happy with it, although I made zero dollars at 2/4 where I played half of the hands. Since I started playing 3/6 and 5/10 again I've not played any 2/4 though. That limit hates me and I hate it. Go check my tableratings if you don't believe me!

Hopefully in my next update I'll be able to report that I have places to stay in Tokyo and Melbourne!

Back to the "big" time!

This weekend I headed into Notts on Saturday with a couple of friends. We sat out at the Waterfront in the sun which was pretty nice. Then I headed up to meet a couple of my old friends from when I worked at the American Adventure theme park (RIP). I hadn't seen one of them since I worked there around 6 years ago, and the other one I was good friends with but haven't seen for a good while. It was really cool to catch up again and hopefully we'll make more of an effort now!

We'd planned to go to my friend's sister's flat-warming/30th birthday party later on, and I managed to drag those two along as well which was pretty cool. It's always good to bring randoms to other people's house parties. One of them ended up stealing music duties for half the night which was pretty funny.

Poker-wise, I've been playing more 6-max recently as I've just had the taste for it more. I also decided to man-up and get back playing 5/10. I was looking around on table ratings at the win rates of a lot of the regulars, and even the top winners for the year, and realised that I'm still pretty good in that regards. After today I'm now at around 50 BI online for 5/10 so I'm fairly happy playing it now.

That's better!

EDIT - got all my hands now.

Back to normal, HU

I'm now back at home, on my own, and back into playing poker again! I've had a good couple of weeks. I visited Barry/Bazclef up in Edinburgh along with Chris/Pureklas. Then I headed back home, stopping at Hartlepool overnight to pick up my friend Scott. Scott stayed at mine until yesterday, and we just went and caught up with friends he hadn't seen in ages and stuff like that. Then last Thursday - Sunday we headed down to Brighton with another friend, Alex, for a short holiday. I'll write some stuff about that and put some pictures in when I can be bothered in a few days.

Since I got back I've pretty much just been playing HU. I decided it's time to learn, and I'm really enjoying playing, so that's my plan for the time being. Unfortunately it's decided to not be kind to me so far:



That's all at 2/4. I don't actually think I'm doing much wrong. I think it's just the HU variance getting to me. I'm going to just keep plugging along. If anyone who can play HU fancies reviewing a video session of mine then please let me know!

It's definitely a little frustrating trying to get games. I seemingly suck and still most players play for five minutes and then leave (particularly if they're a little up). I think I'm dealing with that side of things pretty well though.

The only big losers that weren't total coolers (well, or nasty beats) are these two:

http://weaktight.com/1413902 - I'm pretty sure this is always a stack off. I'd just played a hand in the exact same way (same bet sizes etc) a few hands earlier, which I think makes it an even easier stack off.

http://weaktight.com/1413903 - I'm not particularly happy with my play on this one, although I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do. This was early on in the match and I had literally zero idea of his ranges.

I'm finding it much easier to grind HU than 6-max though for some reason. I think it's the fact that I just sit and play rather than hunting down new tables all the time, as well as the fact that it's sort of easier to concentrate on everything when it's just one person to focus on.

The plan is to just keep grinding it for now until I start winning or go bust!

Good weekend, broken tv

It's been a pretty busy last few days so it's nice to have some time off today. On Thursday our friend Andy came down and we went to the pub for a little while. I've not really drunk at all for about a month, and even though I only had about three pints I felt pretty rotten when I woke up.

On Friday Scott, Andy, and I headed up to Notts for around 3.30, went round town for a while and then grabbed food at Nando's. The plan was to then meet up with a couple of friends who live there at one of their houses (Alex's) and go out in Notts. I got ill from the food/beer combo though and had to go home instead. I eat pretty well at home now, and my diet's pretty standard/the same all the time, so eating something a lot different/spicier/whatever can have a pretty bad effect on me.

The rest of those guys went out on Friday and I headed up on Saturday night to meet Scott and Alex to go to Hooters next with Tom who lives by there. Saturday night was a lot of fun. We had wings and beer at Hooters, then just headed back to Tom's for music/Wii/films. Unfortunately, pretty early on the tv broke when a surfboard was knocked into it. It was pretty much the most random way to break a tv - especially given that Tom's never been surfing and lives in a city centre. It was really annoying too because if the board had been three inches taller or smaller it wouldn't have broken the tv. A real freak accident.

The next day was a weird day as we took hours going tv shopping, and when we'd finally figured out which one to get none of the shops had it in. So we had to go all the way to the other side of town to find one. It was a rocking tv though. We set it up and watched 30 Days Of Night. I actually didn't like the film that much but I guess it was watchable. Then I headed to my parents' for Sunday lunch and to the Keys later on for Andy's birthday.

This blog was pretty boring.

Edinburgh, still busy

I'm back home now but my friend Scott's staying for a couple of weeks so I won't be around that much/playing much. I had a good time up in Edinburgh with Barry/Bazclef and Chris/Pureklas. It's just before the festival starts up there and we caught three Australian comedians on the Sunday night. They were really good and it was great to go and see some live comedy as I haven't done that for a long, long time. On the Monday Barry took us to a gay cafe (apparently one of his favourite haunts, and they all seemed very pleased to see him (not actually true)), and we watched The Hangover too. Then I travelled down to Hartlepool to Scott's to hang out for a day and then bring him back down here.

Last night I went to watch a friend's band at The Vic in Derby. I haven't been to watch a band for about two years, and considering I used to play a gig probably once a month that's a really long time for me. It felt great to be watching live music again and I'm going to force myself to get out there and watch more from now on. They're called Dead In The Queue and are on myspace if anyone wants to check them out. They also played with this crazy guy called Squatters from a band called Dead Factories. He was pretty insane and crazily raw, but I loved him. And there was some guy called Daniel Angelus who did some weird keyboard/synth music that I'd never seen live before. It was pretty ballsy to do that in a place like The Vic I thought (which is mainly a rock club), and I actually quite liked him. He was a bit like a band called She Wants Revenge who I quite like.

Over the next few days I'll be taking Scott to catch up with mates that he hasn't seen for while. So on Friday and Saturday night we'll be in Notts meeting with different friends each night. And on Sunday it's a friend's birthday down here so we're going to the Keys (Brian's favourite place!).

To all of you who I normally talk to a lot and haven't been around to talk to - sorry that I'm not around much right now but I'll be on sporadically and then in a couple of weeks I'll be back to usual.

To all of you who don't talk to me much - your loss!

The grind is on hold

So my grind kind of comes to an end today for a while. I'm heading up to Barry's tomorrow in Edinburgh to meet up with him and Pureklas/Chris. Barry wrote in his blog a little while back about going and living somewhere for a while. The plan at the moment is to live in Melbourne, and us three are going to discuss it all and work things out in the next couple of days.

After that I'm driving back home via my friend Scott's house in Hartlepool. He's just split up with his girlfriend that he lived with and is pretty down about it all. The plan is to go there for a day or two and then bring him back down to mine for a while. It's a mate's birthday on the 9th and then me, Scott, and another friend Alex are going to go away from the 13th-16th somewhere.

This means that between now and the 16th I won't be grinding as much as I'd like, but I will be doing life stuff which some people would say is more important. I should get some hands in though as I'll play a bit when Scott's just staying at mine. Maybe I'll try and teach him.

I think we're hoping to head to Australia at the end of August/beginning of September, but I could be wrong on that. Either way, it looks like I'll probably make a new plan/set of goals once I'm out there to accomodate the fact that I'm not in Swanwick 24/7 and that there are better things to do than just play poker.