Ace of Spades

Things are continuing to go quite well, when I do actually get to play. An horrible two-outer in a moderate pot and a lost coin-toss in a decent pot prevented it being even better.

An interesting thing came up twice in a middling losing session the other night. Twice an opponent bet into me quite big on the river, in such a way that I felt strongly he did not have the nut hand he was representing. In both cases I had what amounted to third or fourth nuts, and chose to call – both times losing to his marginally better hands. I feel pretty sure that he would not have called an enormous raise back, and I feel that I left pots on the table through lack of guts. My reads were good, but I didn’t take the optimum action. Or did I? Perhaps calling was best because (a) it risks less money on a read which could be wrong; (b) a shade better hand and my call would have won and (c) he might have called a raise, you never know.

Talking of good reads, I want to praise two books. I just re-read Doyle Brunson’s book ‘According to Doyle’ over the weekend. It is essentially a collection of anecdotes, but many of them convey really useful poker wisdom (it is now reprinted as ‘Poker Wisdom of a Champion’). Not advice of the ‘Ace Queen is no good with five players left to act’ ilk, but broader thoughts on being a good gambler and poker player per se. I don’t know to what extent it was ghosted, but Doyle displays a pleasing turn of phrase and a story-telling knack.

I’ve been on a splurge of downloading tracks and copying CDs onto my laptop for my crappy MP3 player recently. Recent downloads include ‘Ace of Spades’ by Motorhead, ‘Angel Is The Centrefold’ by the J Geils Band, ‘Kayleigh’ by Marillion, and CDs copied include ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Pink Floyd. What a magnificent piece of work that album is.

It is now less than a week before I get my independence and privacy back. Sadly, my credit problems mean the phone company want a £50 deposit to turn the line on for me. That was not unexpected but could delay me getting connected by a day or two.

My total debts amount to about $65,000, which I am paying off at around $12000 per year under my current arrangement. I’ve put it in dollars because it sounds even more impressive. Or rather, less impressive.