Generous B cups

I notice that my fiftieth post is approaching. Maybe somebody will send me a cake.

Interesting day at work so far. I spent half an hour tipping crumbs and crap out of my keyboard, then using a paperclip to remove the fluff buried under the keys. Try it some time. And then I visited the water fountain. When you first press the button it tends to spurt a jet out before settling down, and this time it got me right in the eye… I felt like Stan Laurel.

I enjoyed Boy Genius’s post about breasts. I love breasts too, but not the mammoth mammaries that he favours. Usually too big, too floppy, too sloppy. My current girl has a really lovely pair of generous B cups; perfectly round and neither too soft nor too firm. MMmmm.

Meanwhile, why can I manage to go about twenty hours without a cigarette but then crack every time and have another? I don’t even enjoy the damn things. Not much.

Moving on; poker. How did last night go? The short answer is that I played for a little over three hours and lost five dollars. That’s not exactly fantastic, but I feel very calm about it, grateful that it wasn’t a larger loss (more in a moment) and happy to think that if I didn’t earn dollars then I learnt some more things about the game.

I played PLO cash for most of the time, and it did not go well. The table wasn’t terrible, nor was it great, and my cards were real dry. I mean reeeeeeeal dry. I’m happy that I stayed patient, picked up a couple of pots with bluffs, made a good call on the end versus a maniac when I had one pair, and managed to get paid when I flopped Aces full. I’m not happy that I perhaps was a touch too weak, that I got stiffed on the river when I was trapping a chap with my full house and he filled on the end, or that in the end it took a rather fortunate rivered flush to leave me with only a $23 loss.

Debatable play of the night (apart from that flush-draw call) was a $20 bluff-raise on the end when it was clear my two opponents feared the nuts. Sadly, one called with the non-nut straight. It was probably worth a stab, but I also remember some words of Bob Ciaffone (I forget which book) along the lines of “I prefer to bluff when I believe my opponent is weak, rather than try to make somebody put down a big hand”.

Anyways, I got back in the game and survived a very poor run of cards, so onwards and upwards…

In other action, I played another PLO sit and go, and cashed. Once again, I went into overdrive with five left. One chap had a huge percentage of the chips, so if I was going to get into the money I wanted to have a realistic shot at him. Therefore I took on my other opponents and managed to get heads-up with only a 9-6 disadvantage. I got ahead, then had him murdered with a full house – until he hit a two outer to salvage it on the river. I kept my head and came back again to win it soon after.

My record in these sit and goes is really good. 28 played, 14 cashes. 8 first places. Longest run of cashes = 6. Longest run without cashing = 4. Have won 2 out of 3 when it has got heads-up. Lowest finishing position = 7th. Average finishing position = 3.25. Most common finishing position = 1st.

For all of that, I have made a net profit of only $122, because these are the piss-ant $5+1 games. Too small, and too high a rake. I have to move up.
I did move up to $10 heads-up no-limit hold ‘em tourneys last night, playing 3 and losing 2 of them. We’ll see how that goes, but I’d like to think I can win 6 or 7 out of 10 if I put my mind to it.

Finally, I had a first dabble in heads-up limit play - just 50c/$1 hold ‘em. I played for half an hour or less and took my opponent for $10, which was pretty much like shelling peas. If he was indicative of the general standard then I might not stray too much higher! Not until the bankroll has grown considerably anyway.

Tonight, the home game is on. I find myself strangely less enthused than I used to be. I have come to view poker very much as a for-profit enterprise, and five or six-handed no-limit hold ‘em tournaments are not exactly top of my list of strengths. Yes, the miserable sod is back. I’m sure I will enjoy it in the end.

Fear in the dentist's chair

Chronological post:

Last night, after some excellent snooker, I played for perhaps an hour and three quarters. I was in a $1/$2 five card stud game which had a gen-you-wine maniac in it. He raised every street if he was in a hand, and he was in most - and naturally enough got one or two others playing along, mostly trying to isolate him I suppose. Pots were frequently in the region of forty dollars or more, twenty big bets, a LOT for a five card stud game.

I lost in the game, about nine big bets, which is negligible really. When nobody is going to fold anything past third street because of the large size of the pot and the small size of their brain, you have to make a hand. I never got a wired pair bigger than 9's, and never could hit anything. Usually if I was going anywhere in a pot somebody would open-pair a big card. These things happen; it was a game where one decent hand could have won me a (comparatively) enormous pot but I just never saw one. It is a shame that I hadn't made my deposit at that stage so that I could afford to keep playing.

For the record, the maniac lost around 70 bucks while I was at the table, a fact not disguised by him bringing $500 to the table after a string of losses.

In other action, I won three out of four heads-up games, coming from 600-2400 down in one of 'em. But I failed to cash in a PLO sit and go, coming fifth when an opponent made a dubious call of my all-in raise on the flop with only a flush draw, but hit it. A small $15 total loss on the night.

This morning I was at the dentist for the completion of my root canal work. I'm a brave soldier, so that was fine.

My mind drifted onto poker whilst the dentist did his thing, and I discovered a little fear inside me. Fear of the PLO games that I want to get back into. It probably didn't help that I took a look last night and the $50 buy-in game was running at an average pot size of over sixty bucks... that is huge for that game. It was a murderer's row of loose, aggressive players with three figure stacks. Still, I won't be sitting in games like that. So, after the dentists I made a deposit and am ready to get pack in the Omaha saddle as and when the game is good.

Then, upon checking my blog here at work, it was nice to get a comment from a new reader. Blu, I'm afraid the five card stud games I play are at an English site that doesn't accept players based in the USA. I think that Planet possibly spreads the game as well, but I haven't played there in well over a year so I can't be sure.

Well, this has been another boring update... please accept my apologies. For English readers, I just remembered that Chelsea have a player called Scott Parker. How long will that idiot stay there, sitting in the reserves, as he was always destined to do?

Last night I had another footie bet. This one was a 'push' as Spurs drew with West Brom.

We can rebuild him

For the sake of comprehensiveness, and for something to do as the workday grinds to a close, I will record last night's short session.

I got home rather drunk, and only played because I had the downstairs to myself. I lost two out of three heads-up games; the last one because I was getting a headache and was bored, so I chucked it all-in with K2 suited. I outflopped my grateful opponent's AK, but he overtook me on turn and river.

Meanwhile, I was playing 50c/$1 five card stud and won a few dollars to make it a break-even hour or so. Also made a bad fold there on the end when my hidden pair of sixes seemed beaten but wasn't. I still can't get to grips with how optimistic some of my opponents are.

In fact, I did slightly boost my bankroll because I picked another football winner, and this time actually got round to betting on it.

Anyway, that's all very boring. Today is payday, hallelujah. I had a quick nose around the poker section of 'Borders' and bumped into one of my home-game friends. I hope to host a game or two over the next couple of weeks, because I will be house-and-cat-sitting for a friend while he is on holiday. Therefore, two weeks of glorious solitude and plenty of poker.

I am also going to make a deposit into my poker account in order to be able to play wider and/or higher again. I want to get back into the Pot Limit Omaha games when they look favourable, as I do miss the game.

My aim is to regain my position of a couple of months back, building the bankroll again. PLO is usually a good way of doing that, as long as I can be disciplined enough to get out of bad games - and bold enough to play properly. At the same time, the enforced sojourn in PLO tourneys and low-limit stud has widened my game selection horizons such that I feel hopeful of being able to pick good games in a sensible manner. I fancy trying a bit of heads-up limit cash (at low levels) just to add to the mix.

Amid all of this, I have decided to keep comprehensive records for a while. Now that I play various games, I want to track where the money is coming from and going to. I also intend to start recording heads-up opponents and building up a list of players to seek out or to avoid.

I am brimming with enthusiasm for poker, and a desire to play with real commitment and intelligence. Nice feeling, long may it continue.

Three out of three ain't bad

Interesting how my old online journal pretty much died, whilst I write this 'poker blog' four or five times a week without fail. Am I a monomaniac?

Last night went very well. I played three heads-up Hold 'Em games and won all three, with a little bit of luck. One of 'em took about three hands, since I flopped a set of eights while my opponent flopped a set of sixes.

I was really marking time until I could get in an Omaha sit and go, and I ended up playing three of those. I came third in the first, fairly standard stuff, and then played two at once for only the first or second time.

For a time, I feared missing out in both. I folded a couple of decent hands in the first to action from opponents who proved to be clueless, or optimists, or clueless optimists. And in the second, I couldn't find or flop anything and was short man for most of the early going.

However, the fact is that most people are far too impatient in these games, so I bided my time while the blinds remained too small to either hurt or be worth picking up. I took third in the first game, going out somewhat unluckily as soon as we hit the money.

That left me free to focus on the other game, which was progressing slowly. I remained short stack, but everyone was fairly level which gave me the encouagement I needed to start raising as the blinds reached 100/200 and 200/400. By the time we were five-handed with blinds of 400/800 (a very rare situation) I was chip leader. I continued to bully, only getting hurt once when I had the short stack all-in but he fluked out on me.

To cut to the chase, I felt I played extremely well - especially in the short heads-up battle - and fully deserved my victory. So three out of three headsup games won, and three cashes out of three in the sit and goes. A very rewarding evening of play. Hell, I can drink tonight!

Oh, Wolves won 4-2 at odds of 2.18. Which is great, except I forgot to back them in time for kick-off.

Taxi!

What a curmudgeon I was on Friday. The night proved to be most enjoyable, and the two people I was most worried about (my girl and my very best friend) got on great with the crowd that neither of them really knew before.

Sadly, I passed my limit booze-wise and threw up copiously shortly after we moved on and into a small nightclub. TAXI!

Had a quiet weekend after that, with the girl I am seeing. This included going to see ‘I, Robot’ at the cinema, which really sucked. I’m baffled by the generous reviews this movie has received; I thought it was a tortuously plotted, cliché-ridden, patchy-effected mess that did no justice to the old Isaac Asimov stories. I anticipate ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ being far better.

So, no poker content to speak of, since I haven’t played. As usual, after a little break (four days by tonight) I am raring to go. I’m in the mood to play with real concentration and focus. Hmm, that ought to be a given didn’t it?!

Looking back over my records, I have made just shy of $700 since the end of March. On the one hand I am really disappointed with that, because:

(a) it could be so much better, given that I have made a lot of bad decisions, gone on tilt here and there and generally made some bad bankroll decisions

(b) it just isn’t that much money

On the other hand I play at the bottom-feeder end of the stakes spectrum, so expecting a lot better may be unrealistic. And heck, at least I’m a winning player over the five months! While my plan to pay for my holiday out of my bankroll went tits-up at the last minute, the little withdrawals I have made from the bankroll over this period have helped me keep afloat, buy beer, catch trains and so on.

Still, it’s a long, long way from The Dream. Yes, THAT dream – you know the one I’m talking about! And I lived that dream for about three months last summer; it went very well indeed to begin with, playing exclusively pot limit Omaha up to $1/$2 blinds. But I was under-bankrolled, to the extent that losing a $600 pot (to an abysmal, weak flush-only draw which hit the river) knocked me for six… if it didn’t actually put me on tilt, it certainly knocked the stuffing and confidence out of me.

Big lesson learned, once the wounds had healed. Call me naïve, call me stupid, call me foolish, but I still harbour the dream. I just know now that I need a reeeeeal big bankroll before I can even consider trying again.

Time for a football bet. Wolves are begging to be backed on the Asian Handicaps at Rochdale tonight. On a bet strength scale of 1-10, its probably a 6. I’ll let you know tomorrow if the bet wins or loses.