Guess Who's Back

After a ridiculous hiatus, 89TJ is back.

I can't decide whether to do some kind of catch-up post or just let stuff filter through over time. I do know that this post will just be a rather shapeless piece of shit, but don't worry I will get back on form soon enough. I guess I missed the boat in terms of parlaying this blog into a life of 'freelance writing for the gaming industry' as so many of the old favourite bloggers seem to have done.

I now live in the States, which for a poker player snd sports bettor obviouslyabsolutelytotallyandcompletely sucks. I will never, ever get my head round how this nauseatingly self-proclaimed land of freedom will happily allow my greencarded ass to buy a gun but not to play online poker nor stick a few dollars on the Miami Dolphins to come crashing down to earth repeatedly this season.

Of course, I still do both these things anyway so why don't I just shut up and move to Russia or something, eh? Actually I like America a lot more than I expected, but this peculiar, mentally-ill-seeming attitude to gambling is one of the things I can't come to terms with at all.

Until recently I've been mired in poker mediocrity since I last wrote here in 2006. Different sites, different games, same array of false dawns and a general run of more or less break-even hell. Thankfully it hasn't been that important.

What has energised me to boot 'Double Through' up again is a move into playing almost exclusively in LOLdonkaments. I read the best poker book ever written recently and it has simply transformed my tournament game. I can't play in many proper full-on tourneys as I simply don't have the opportunity to sit four or five hours very often, so I'm generally playing two- or three-table sit and goes. I'm up around 40 percent ROI without running amazingly good or anything, which is very acceptable indeed in my eyes. A move up in stakes should be in the offing, but I'm not rushing anything.

Tonight I played a 45-seater, 27-seater and 18-seater. 20th in the 45-seater, where a 60% shot went down instead of putting me 9th in chips. A nicely-played 1st in the 18-seater. And - since it wouldn't be 'Double Through' without bad beat whining - an absolutely sickening cash in 4th place in the 27-seater. Four left, I get all-in on the flop versus a shortie and a guy with 400 chips more than me. I'm 86% favourite with top two pair only for the other two to share an unlikely runner-runner straight. Win the hand and I take the chip lead with three left and the third guy having less than 1BB. Monstrously profitable situation in theory, irritating mini-cash in practice.

I take these things a lot better now, though. I could say it's maturity, meditation, perspective, whatever, but really it's because I am winning hand over fist.

I read this entire blog from start to finish a few days ago (when I decided to resurrect it) and I have to say it was damn good. It made me laugh repeatedly and also made sense of something my wife said to me recently... I have a peculiarly strong affection for the erstwhile Ted Danson sitcom 'Becker', and when I wondered out loud why this should be the case, my wife pissed herself laughing and said "It's because you are Becker!". I couldn't see it at all, but re-reading some of my stuff here I had to reluctantly concede she has a point.

I'll be treading that path again in my next entry where I'll be taking a pissy shot at Patri Friedman (even though I really do enjoy his blog).