Somewhere in Europe

I had a nice time over the weekend, my girlfriend’s birthday. I bought her a DVD player and a few DVDs. It would be fair to say we don’t have quite the same taste in films; I mean, I like a bit of trash as much as the next man, but ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’?! ‘Bruce Almighty’?

Actually, ‘Bruce Almighty’ was quite enjoyable, and Jennifer Aniston was - of course - a bonus. Incidentally, her movie ‘The Good Girl’ is very, very good.

So last night went really well, the usual two tabling and a profit of $117 in three and a half hours. However, I suffered something even more frustrating than a terrible bad beat…

About to raise all-in with the nut straight on the turn, with $68 already in the pot, I somehow managed to misclick on the ‘Fold’ button. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Oh, how I prayed for the river to pair or flush the board so that I would have lost anyway. But no. And I had been waiting for the opportunity to nail this one cocky opponent, too.

I cannot recall ever doing that before; I am doing a reasonable job shrugging my shoulders about it, but why couldn’t it have happened in a small, insignificant pot? Why did it have to occur when I was about to win my biggest single pot of a successful evening?

I better move on, both in life and in here! So, since I spent £50 on a 64Mb MP3 player just three months ago the prices have tumbled. I could now get a 256 in the high street for the same price, and a 512 for less than that on eBay. I feel like a prize idiot. I’ll get one very soon, and perhaps give my current one away in a magnanimous gesture.

It occurred to me today that if I ever achieve my ambition of having the bankroll built to start playing for a living, then I could live pretty much anywhere. I have wanted to live somewhere in Europe for ages, somewhere with a different language that I would be forced to absorb. Oh well, more pipe dreams.

Winning at poker has been a pipe dream during the writing of this entry, tonight. I’m about $80 down in two and a half hours, with absolutely nothing going my way. It would have been nice to have won the second hand of the night, all-in versus a shortish stack for a $55 pot. I had AAKx and he had KKxx, and I estimate I was probably about a 65% favourite. I will now check the figures and see how bad that estimate is…

…Well, I was 72% favourite. It is pretty hard to be such a big favourite pre-flop at Omaha. Damn, that makes it all the more frustrating.

OK, enough. I’m playing on, waiting for that monster hand - and hoping I don’t fold it by accident.