At long last, I am back

It's been a while since I last posted, but I am back. A few things contributed to my absence, but if you asked me a couple of months ago if I would be away from poker and blogging until August I'd have thought you were mad.

I haven't been playing very much in the last while, and the biggest contributing factor has been work. Throw in some travel, a flat move and subsequent loss of broadband and you get the picture.

At the end of May I changed jobs. I didn't change the place that I work, I just changed from being a contractor to being a full time working stiff. I also moved from hands-on doing stuff to hands-off telling other people to do stuff .... er .... management. It's all good though, I have been very, very busy, but that is starting to quiet down. Thus my return to poker, albeit on dial-up.

The first significant poker that I have played was Thursday night. I was home in the evening (which has been pretty rare lately) and I decided to fire up a couple of tournaments on Sun. I normally like to play 2 at a time so as not to get bored. I played a 10 pound as well as a 10 dollar winner-takes-all. I normally don't like the winner takes all format, but since I was playing it to keep the other game company I didn't mind.

Well, I flamed out of the regular tourney, but I hung on to win the winner-takes-all. You suddenly have a very different perspective on 100% of the prize money going to first place when it's you. Forty one people started, so I came away with a tidy $399 profit. Sweet.

I'll try not to leave it so long next time. Take care all.

Variation on Addictions

Hey! Wake up!

Now, some of you (perhaps two of the five of you still reading this weblog) may have noticed that my hubby hasn’t posted in a while.

It should be noted that he also hasn’t played much poker lately. And by not much, I mean the following events have occurred:

1. My hubby has been left, unattended, at home in the evenings and chosen not to play poker at all during that time.
2. My hubby had a free evening, when I was going to be at class. I said “Are you going to stop by the poker room after work?” He said “nahh” and then proceeded to come home and watch T.V.
3. My hubby was handed £1,000 by a naked women who purred “Come on big stud… show me what a BIG HAND is” and he declined in order to finish the last few chapters of his book and to go for a nice stroll.

Now, one of those events actually didn’t occur. But I think it could have.

For a while there, especially last autumn, I was getting really worried, as you recall. My hubby was all about crunching the numbers. He depositing his keys and backpack on the floor and going directly to the computer when he walked in. Time to pee/eat when there was a break in a tournament.

Now, it’s as if the will to play has left him.

I asked him about it. He said:

Well, you may recall, I told you that this is how I am with these things. I get obsessed for a while, but then things start to cool off, after I start to get them figured out.

Well, I have to say: it is a relief to know my husband is a real man. For a while there, I thought he was a robot.

Anyway, all this poker talk is getting me itching to play (read: lose) a Turbo quickie on Noble.

See ya!

World Cup Snack Shopping (and other gambles)

My hubby and I got out of the house and went shopping for snacks in jolly-ole-too-much-rent-for-not-enough-sunshine, in honor of, well, not having any food in the house.

Lookie, lookie what we found on the "Get it the bloody HELL out of here!" discount end cap.

Here's some close-ups for better appreciation of English cuisine!

Yes, fellow gamblers, these are, in fact, Gingerbread footballer and wife. Or, Becks and Posh, cast forever in lard and sugar. Hey, check out her eyes! Now we know why she always wears those really enormous sunglasses!


Now my hubby is definitely less cynical than I, especially when it comes to foodstuffs.

"Hey honey," he said, after we guffawed over this one, "brine after all is just salt water. How bad could they be?" Um, personally, I just think popping open a tin of GIANT Hot Dogs for the game-- especially a tin with a talking weiner whose dressed like Uncle Sam, calling himself "Captain Hot Dog," and proclaiming the health benefits of this delightful treat-- might actually send me over the edge. What is next? Beefburgers sold swimming in a ready-made tomato-ketchup sauce, packaged in a boil-and-serve plastic bag?

In other news, poker is boring, so I write about things like this. $200 win, hands folded, hands played third place in tournament. Blah blah blah.

So much more to life!

Lick her!?! I hardly know her!

Hup!

Mmmm beer.

So, yeah, M-R-S- Psh here. Hubby gone. Wife out partying.

What is it about beer that makes poker so fun???

I got home late last night, ten minutes PAST midnight. My hubby was far away in Zurich, probably secretly at some Swiss poker room, playing a ring game with chocolate and cheese chips. Oh, the blondes!

Any-hoo-ha... so since my hubby ALWAYS says "I'm drunk! I have to stay up for a little while. Can't go to bed just yet!" I decided, hey, what's good for the rooster must be good for the chicken. Or something like that.

Now let's be clear. I have £4.23 in my Noble Poker account. That's it. I used to have £11.23 in my Noble Poker account, but then I went and switched my avatar from the comb-over guy in the Hawaiian shirt to the gay-looking guy in the cravat and things went downhill from there. Just as they say: never EVER change your lucky underwear.

So I played a ROCKIN' Turbo Cardiff last night. I mean SMOKIN'. I sent one, two, three four guys out in a hurry. I like being the OLD FART at the table (hee hee) even though I am a girl. It's fun.

Anyway, my head was wobbling and I got a little tired. Still is was set to win. I went all in with AQ against the other guy. He had a slight advantage in chips. He called and showed 99. OK.. But a nine came on the flop and I was a goner.

Oh, well, I still finished in the money. And I slept like a baby.

Mmmm beer, good.

It would seem ...

... that I'm pretty good at qualifying for tournaments, and that I'm not so good at the main event. Either that, or I'm pretty lucky in qualifiers and so, so very cold at the big show.

I qualified for the Party $500K guaranteed last week and played last night. I was pretty proud of my qualifying as only 1 in 24 made it, or about 4%. In the main event 400 of a field of 2900 were paid. That's nearly 14%. But could I make it? Hell no.

I was cold decked. No question. I lost a big chunk of my starting stack when I turned a straight and the villian rivered his boat. The only other hand worth mentioning was my last. I open raised all-in with 77 on a short stack. (M of about 3.5) I was called by a monster stack with JQo; he filled in a gutshot straight on the river.

It wasn't a complete loss thought ... I did make about $130 at a short handed limit table that I played in the early (slow) part of the tournament. I only played for about 20 minutes when I decided to pack it in and concentrate on the tourney. The best hand there: I held QT on the button. There's one limper and I raise. The blinds fold and the limper calls. The flop comes QQT (yippee). The I bet and am raised. I call. The turn comes an Ace, and I check raise. He calls. The river delivers the fourth Q. I bet out and I am raised. On Crypto when you're heads up there's no limit to the number of raises on the river card. We raise and reraise about 5 times before he finally calls, realizing that his Qs over As boat might not be good.

In other news, I'm off to Zurich on business for a day on Wednesday and then the Mrs. and I are on holiday for the rest of May. We'll be all over the US of A. Illinois, Iowa, Florida and Wisconsin, in that order. We'll try to post a bit while we're there, but no guarantees.

May all your flops be quads.

Mutated Animal Life and other Oddities

Mrs. P-S-H here...

I'm never quite sure what the English are talking about. This photo gives a perfect example of why.

On the poker front, MY poker winnings are dwindling to nothing... but then, I only have an £11 bankroll to work with. Meanwhile, my hubby continues to conquer the world. Last night he didn't get to the tables until almost 10 o'clock. He had so many forms to fill out for work! Well, anyway, it's becoming clear to me that large blocks of time are not relevant to him anymore. I said "Is it really 11:27??!" I suppose he could write blistering posts about my strange addiction to America's Next Top Model.

"Is it that late already?" he said, increduously. "I'm getting off here." And he did, just shy of $300 up.

We are going on holiday soon. Won't be much gambling except the odd trip to the Iowa riverboats and a home game with my family. Should be interestting to see what kind of mutated poker animal returns from beach.

Personally, I think he's hit his stride... "touch wood," as they say over here.

Whatever the hell THAT means. 

$500,000 Anniversary

Hey-ho...Mrs P-S-H here...

Well, of course, because our wedding anniversary is the 8th of May and that falls on a Monday, my hubby and I decided that we would celebrate on Sunday. So I sent a friend who works for the Fairmont hotels an email. I wanted to surprise my hubby with something really special. Lately he has been a stellar husband and doing great at work. So I went covert on him.

I said to him, "Oh, well, let's not do much, maybe just a picnic in the afternoon in the park or something low key." So he was happy with that and said he would even plan the menu.

Meanwhile, my friend and I planned the surprise.

Well, then Saturday evening I was working at the pub and he was home playing poker all night. We got a late license at our pub, so I didn't get home till 1:15 a.m. He was still up.

Well he said he won two tournaments that night. One he placed second in, and he won $135 or something. The other, though, (and he was so excited) won him a seat in a $500,000 guaranteed tournament.

"Oh, when is that?" I asked. I was really happy for him. He's been playing great lately. Very relaxed and having fun.

"Next sunday night at 9:30. Which is perfect, because we planned to celebrate our anniversary during the day anyway!" He was so happy.

Sigh. So I get a few hours in the afternoon, before the tournament. And, Sunday the 7th, in the middle of our "anniversary" evening Colin will be sitting at his computer, playing poker. Until God knows when.

He had better win. That's all I have to say. He did promise, though, that if he places at all that he will call in sick the next day. And I am holding him to it.

Thanks, Adrian, for the offer anyway. Maybe we'll stay at the Savoy another time.