My ship never comes in.. do I HAVE a ship?

Interesting and ultimately irritating day's play.

Had a lovely session of PLO8 first; the usual story of people donating money to my nut hands. Sometimes wonder why I get tricky occasionally, when people are happy to do that no matter how tight they (could) see me playing.

At the same time, I missed the final table of the PLO tourney after five straight appearances. I gambled with 13 outs and missed.

Then a NLHE tourney, very rare for me but I fancied a change. 322 runners, and I came in 15th, having shown down precisely two hands in two and a half hours up to that point. I was pretty short-stacked and tried to steal with 9Ts. I was re-raised all-in and had to call (as I had known I would have to). He had AQc, making me 38 percent, but I couldn't buck the odds.

So, miss with 13 outs and a 38 percent shot all-in. Then I play some more PLO8 cash in the evening and got royally shafted when I completely outplayed a guy who called his entire stack on the turn with six outs. He obviously figured I had Ace-Two, as they so often do. I spent the next hour repeatedly asking him (I had drunk a beer or three) to wire the money back to me.

I am now off to Copenhagen for a few days... Scandinavia, home of over-aggressive luckbox poker players. I might punch one or two if I run into them.

A New Broom

What else have I been doing besides making - and sometimes losing - money from other people's dumbass poker mistakes?

I won another sports bet, Manchester United at Fulham on Saturday. If you bet on football (soccer), you really ought to consider the Asian Handicap markets. Once you get the hang of the rules, it's a wonderful form of betting. I watched the game live, thanks to the local pub with its illegal satellite broadcast, and Man U were quite impressive, certainly in attack. Less so at the back, where Rio Ferdinand seemed to be in a daze. Still, Ryan Giggs was a joy to watch and I started reflecting on the reasons why I really ought to quite like Manchester United, despite all the ingrained hatred from their years of dominance and the cockiness that came with it.

Yes, despite the over-rated (and now past it) Keane, dislikeable Fergie, cocksure Manc fans and laughable Surrey Reds, there is much to like. They are and always have been an incessantly attacking side, and they have tended to field far more British players than most Premiership clubs. Saturday was no exception, with Fletcher, Ferdinand, Rooney, Smith, Giggs, O'Shea... and I think one other. And Scholes came off the bench too.

Anyway, what else have I been doing...? I bought a broom and a dustpan and brush (for less than two pounds) yesterday and swept up the disgusting kitchen floor in this godforsaken shared house. I am so glad that I will soon leave this behind and be living in a modern, air-conditioned apartment in Canada, with a bacony.

Do Not Read This

Moan moan fucking moan.

I often feel like the unluckiest poker player on earth. Today's PLO8 game was just the most fantastic value you can imagine. I made only a tiny profit though, thanks to being THREE outered, TWICE, in decent pots. Not to mention losing out in decent pots when I had 18 outs in one, and 22 in another... not to scoop, but to finish off significantly better than I did.

It's that contrast that hurts so badly. Opponents hitting THREE outs on me, while I fail to hit six and seven times as many, myself.

I then final tabled for the fifth straight time in my PLO multi-table tournament, battled my way rather brilliantly to the final five, having come to the final eighth in chips. Got it all-in on the turn to gain the comfortable third-biggest stack, with flush draw and two pair, and lost to a no-pair straight draw. Nine outs, that was, which is nothing special on its own. It just felt like one more smack in the face with a runny turd.