One of two specific types...

I’m not sure why I am blogging today, since I haven’t played since Sunday night. I have been out and got drunk the past two nights, and chose to go straight to bed when I got home; I felt I needed the sleep more than I needed to play.

I’m quite pleased with the discipline I showed in doing so. I have proven myself perfectly capable of playing – and often winning – when tired and drunk, but that doesn’t make it automatically a good idea. I should be far closer to my best when I play tonight than if I had gone to bed at like 2am the past two evenings.

I fancy a monster session tonight if circumstances allow it. Not only have I just had two days off, but I am unlikely to play much, if at all, at the weekend – I am heading back up north for a party. I have Friday off work to that end, but to my disappointment could not get Monday off also for a real rest. I’m looking forward to the weekend for sure, but sadly it seems I will be able to see my ex only briefly.

I’ve read about half of ‘Zen and the Art of Poker’ now, and I have to say that it’s a load of crap! Unless there is some gold-dust tucked away in the last few chapters, it will go down as one of the least useful poker books I have read. I totally buy in to the approach that, ideally, you should seek to play with a serene detachment from the results of each hand and the up and down swings of luck. But I don’t think it takes an entire book to explain that, or else it takes a better book to actually make the concept more real and more attainable. I can’t say it’s even been a particularly enjoyable read, either.

So, what are my favourite poker books? Well, an annoying fact is that most poker literature up to now has tended to focus on limit hold ‘em – a game which I no longer play, ever, apart from occasional heads-up games. So my favourite book, ‘The Cooke Collection’ by Roy Cooke, is largely irrelevant to me. Ditto almost anything written by Sklansky or Malmuth. Hell, maybe I should go back to playing limit hold ‘em again, just to have something to read!

I can’t even really tell you whether I’m any good at ring game limit hold ‘em any more. I only ever played micro-limits back in the days when I played at Planet. Maybe I’ll try a small experiment with it tonight, at something like $1/$2. Perhaps $2/$4 at a push.

So, my current favourite poker books would have to be: ‘Pot Limit Omaha’ by Bob Ciaffone, which took me from clueless to just-about-competent almost overnight. And, er… that’s about it right now.

Moving on, I have decided I want to get with one of two specific types of girl. Either (a) a total, drop-dead gorgeous honey; flat belly, slim figure, long (ideally blonde) hair, dresses glamourous and looks after herself, breasts just the right size, probably a pierced belly button; the sort of girl that Every Single Bloke in the bar or pub or club or street gawps at. Or (b) a complete psycho weirdo kind of girl; not unattractive (of course!) but a little bit freaky, unpredictable, sexually perverse, unusually and provocatively dressed, almost certain to be ‘dirty’. Into mad music and poetry and foreign cinema and handcuffs.

So, is that too much to ask? I’ve never, quite, been out with either type. The woman I had my affair with was close to being both – but not quite. Let the quest begin…