Archive for May, 2006
Played poker on Saturday for the first time in ages.
When I first started playing, I was making a slight profit. On my first game (of very small stakes), I made about £25. That is of course the whole reason I started liking poker. Recently though, I’ve been getting worse and worse to the point where I’m consistently losing money at the poker table. You’d think that by getting into poker, reading up on it and learning some better techniques you’d become better at it but I’ve discovered that there is a danger of the reverse being true.
By learning about odds, outs, and the miriad of little complexities that arise from such a simple but infinitely fascinating game, I had become incredibly predictable. I had cultivated a table image of an tight player and everyone was aware of that. My brother observed once that he bet high on a hand because he’d forgotten to include the ‘Ian-factor’ in his calculations, i.e. if he’d noticed that I was in the hand that he wouldn’t have played it.
In a recent game I flopped a full house under the gun. Under ideal conditions this would have been a very profitable situation indeed. I casually made a minumum raise and the entire table folded leaving me collecting nothing more than the blinds. The Ian-factor was working very hard against me.
On Saturday though, I made a deliberate effort to shake off the image. I played loose for the first hour or so and made the most of some welcome bluffing opportunities, turning my cards over as much as I could. Some poor hands left me getting flopped to death for a while but it didn’t take long for the Ian-factor to be completely forgotten by the rest of the table. By the end of the night, I’d recovered from an initial drop of £40 and finished £76 in profit.
It was a short-handed game so the odds were leaning slightly towards loose play but it seems that by playing the way I used to when I started playing poker, I made more money, got in on more hands and had a much better game. And it is after all a game; you need to actually play some hands for it to be fun.
May 15th, 2006
Things that happened today…
I tore a hole in the arse of my trousers by bending down. This is very embarassing. At least I managed to get to the gents with a sewing kit.
I spilled water over my keyboard. Thankfully, it still works.
I just found sewing needles in my pocket. They jabbed my leg. I think this is evidence that I can’t sew.
Well at least bad things happen in threes. The curse must have ended.
May 8th, 2006
Well.. Lost fortnight really.
We’ve been frantically renting disc after disc of Lost series one and watching them sometimes four episodes at a time. It’s quite sad really and I’m finding it quite hard to rehabilitate back into normal life. Series two started on telly lately and it’s frustrating that I can’t go back in time to start watching it from the first episode.
God bless bittorrent, although it’s TOO DAMNED SLOW. I don’t know how I’ll be able to catch up in time.
May 8th, 2006
Additional blog…
The driver on the number seven bus from my house to my work smokes like a chimney. Makes my throat sting.
For those not in Scotland, that’s illegal now.
How do I make him stop?
May 5th, 2006
Well this is weird.
We had an old tumble dryer that was donated by a neighbour of my parents who wanted shot of it. Understandably, it was a bit old and crap, so when it finally kicked the bucket we bought a shiny new one and sat it outside in the garden to be dealt with later.
It seems to have dealt with itself.
It was there yesterday, and today it isn’t.
Who in their right fucking mind steals a broken castaway tumble dryer from my back garden? There are steep steps to climb, for fucks sake.
Thanks for doing me a favour, but I feel…. invaded. I shall not sleep tonight.
PS - I can’t make this stuff up.
May 5th, 2006
Well apparently I’m gonna be a team leader. Crumbs. Basically it means less writing computer programs, and more telling other people to write computer programs, and then feeling stressed because it doesn’t work out as quickly as you told everyone it would. Maybe I’ll fire some people too. Heh.
Why would I do this? For money, and the love of money. Here is what I can do with money, now that I’m gonna be a team leader…
- Buy iPods
- Get a diamond stud in my teeth
- Eat out all the time
- Live in a big house
- Make even more money
- Buy happiness
- Buy love
Amongst other things.
May 2nd, 2006
