Archive for February 10th, 2005
Three posts ago, I said that I was going to split todays post into three bits. Well here’s part four. I changed my mind, you see.
Anyway, back to poker.
The nice thing about my regular poker game is that there’s always a good number of people playing. There are a few core founding players who show up every month, but there’s usually new faces there at every game. Keeps things interesting, you see.
Last time, I invited my mate Fraser along for a game. He hadn’t played poker before but we are used to newcomers and try to keep the introduction as gentle as possible with practice games and the like. Without that, a table full of poker players can be a little intimidating.
We started playing and Fraser dived right in, paying his blind posts and folding a lot. After two-and-a-half hours he asked ‘So, can I have a straight with four cards, or does it have to be five?’
At that point, I felt rather guilty about taking him to this evil place to lose all his money. Nevertheless, the game continued until midnight came and Fraser had to leave early. Good for him that he did, because he was thirty quid down, and showed no signs of turning round.
I’m sorry Fraser, I really am. I feel bad now.
Anyway, the next game is on for the beginning of March, and my brother is interested. He’s never played before either. I’ll have to remind him to bring along plenty of spare cash.
Cue evil cackle.
February 10th, 2005
I’m getting well into this poker business. Poker is great fun. Everyone should play poker.
That said, the last game (I play a regular monthly game) was my first disaster. It was the first time ever I have lost money. This fact alone may account for the fact that I had previously regarded poker as ‘great fun’.
Normally I’m twenty to thirty quid up at the end of the night. That night, I dropped fifteen.
I have four entirely plausible excuses for this, all of which combined to doom me.
The main excuse (besides the ‘bad luck’ one) is the book I got for Christmas. It’s called ‘How to win at poker’. I read the book from cover to cover and declared myself a poker ace. According to the book, I needed to play less of the hands I was playing and tighten up my game. I tried out it’s winning system online and I have to say, I have never lost so much money so quickly in online poker. After losing twenty quid of my pre-book-reading profits, I was ready to uninstall the damned thing.
Nevertheless, the damage to my playing style was done. I have completely forgotten how I played before reading the book. Taking this playing style into my regular game was disasterous. I hardly played a hand all night, and won only two. That I only lost fifteen quid is a miracle.
‘How to win at poker’ my arse. Here’s how to win at poker… Write a book about poker, and sell it. That way you will make money out of poker players. The only time you ever will.
February 10th, 2005
These sleepless nights aren’t all that bad. That said, I’m a computer programmer and I’m used to deliberately messing around with my sleeping patterns in the pursuit of geeky matters, so I probably have a head start over most other people.
Baby is trying his hardest to test us though and has been vomiting up so much of his feeds that he’s been in hospital for the past couple of days to get his tummy seen to. He had an operation yesterday and all went well, although he’s extremely pissed off that he’s not been fed for a few days. Don’t worry, he’s on a drip instead. Poor little mite.
Today is when we’ll try him out with a little milk to see how he gets on. Apparently babies recover very quickly from these things so he should be out by the weekend.
Amazing unverified baby fact:
A newborn baby is likely recover completely from a brain haemorrage because it still has so many stem cells in it’s head. It will simply regenerate new brain. Adults, however, can’t do this.
February 10th, 2005
The thing about being too lazy to write blogs posts is that, when you do feel like doing it, you have too much to write. I am afflicted with an awareness of how likely it is that someone will read any post, so I like them to be short and digestible. For this reason, I’m splitting todays post into three as a way of tricking you into thinking you have less to read. So endeth the first part.
February 10th, 2005
