Dearth evader

Well, I have a lot of catching up to do. The dearth of blog entries has simply been due to time pressure; I have become increasingly reluctant to write at work, have been out of the office a fair bit anyway on business trips, and having a girlfriend again has reduced my online time at home such that I prefer to devote as much of it as possible to actually playing.

Since the last entry, I have only managed just over ten hours of play. Ouch, I didn’t realise my play had been curtailed so badly. Anyway, I have won $285 over those hours, playing a mixture of PLO and PLO8. The latter hasn’t gone too well so far, but it is far too early to say how profitable it will (or won’t) be. I am still re-acquainting myself with what can be an odd and complicated game, but it does appear that quite a number of people are playing it very badly (calling pot bets with nothing but a low draw, for instance) so I hope to make some money out of it. I’ve yet to win a really big scooped pot and not made a wheel even once, so my results aren’t too bad in that context.

One of my ‘must-read’ blogs is whiskeytown’s downtown, a little different to the norm. He recently lamented the fact that every poker blogger seems to win except for him, and wondered if all these self-declared winners can be on the level. That’s a good enough cue for me to post the numbers revealed when I recently printed out all my transactions from my poker site, as mentioned a few weeks ago.

Since the middle of May, I have deposited £255 and withdrawn £1123, while my account currently has about £140 in it. The exchange rate has fluctuated over that period, but I think its fair to say that overall I am at least $1900 to the good. Obviously I wish it were more.

Talking of the exchange rate, the dollar is really fucked at the moment huh? Perhaps John Kerry should have used that ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ mantra. Not that I would care, if it were not for the fact that my poker winnings are becoming worth less and less money in the real world (eg, the UK where I actually live). Eighteen months ago, when I was enjoying/enduring my brief and ill-conceived spell as a ‘pro’, $100 won at the tables was worth £66 when I cashed it out. Today, at this precise moment, that same $100 is worth just £51. Ouch. It was worth £54 only a couple of weeks ago, too.

So, I mentioned being out of the office a lot. I enjoy hotel stays; I love solitude (its all too rare that I get any), and being away from my usual routines forces me to do some of the things I normally put off because I keep playing poker, playing snooker, drinking and seeing my girlfriend. I’m thinking of things like reading, writing letters, watching a little TV and taking in DVDs. And some introspective brooding, too.

I’ve watched a few DVDs in recent weeks, anyway. ‘Spiderman 2’ remains fabulous of course, and I am looking forward to ploughing through some of the extras. ‘Daredevil’ was a lot less fabulous, but still enjoyable for a Marvel comics fan like myself. ‘The Cooler’ was excellent, and highly recommended regardless of the gambling/casino theme. And ‘Last Orders’ (British, adaptation of a prize-winning novel) managed to reduce a slightly drunk 89TJ to tears in my hotel room, with all the emotions about my ex swirling to the surface. How can I miss her so terribly much, when I spent so much of the time the last few years we were together wishing we weren’t?

I hope I am going to get over this. I need to see her and have a really good long conversation about things, just to bury it all. I doubt my girlfriend would be impressed with that, somehow.