mid-term scorecard - a tilt-free fortnight….

Whenever I hear the word “brazilian” I don’t think of Brazil - I’m not sure what that says about me but I hope its good. Speaking of Brazil, it is now the leading front-runner for where I will be living next year. The other contenders are Melbourne, Brisbane, Manila or Greek Isles (but I don’t think I can afford Europe).

At the start of this month, I was talking to a Sydney friend of mine named Puzz who is a decent grinder at the mid-limits. I’d just dumped a stack in a spot that wasn’t horrible, but it was just meh. Like, if you looked at the HH, you might think “that’s not so bad” but I knew it was bad at the time and that has been my problem over the last few months, winning 10-15k each month but not playing optimally, not playing with any real motivation or intensity, just going through the motions, giving up edge calling off in bad spots with the mindset of “why the hell not - poker is ghey anyway”.

Anyway, I was talking with Puzz about some friends of mine who are starting up a coaching website soon and I was telling him these kids really know their shit, that they weren’t mediocre chumps like myself with lots of limitations. I was telling Puzz that I think my biggest strength in poker is knowing all my limitations and just having the discipline to avoid any tricky spots or opponents. This is obviously not sexy poker but Puzz said a random comment “yea but you seem to be getting the job done”.

That comment got me thinking - a lot. I realised I wasn’t getting the job done at all. I was treating my online play as an annoying chore to be avoided whenever possible (I played 13k hands last month). I decided this month, I was going to play the absolute best I could possibly play. I wasn’t going to worry about (insert generic winner’s name here) winning 70k this month, or (insert generic winner’s name here) up 470k for the year, or all the chumps who make final tables in tourneys who wouldn’t know their outs for any given hand if they were given multiple choice options. I was going to get the job (MY job) done!

So I went to work with that in mind and it seemed to work over the last fortnight. Every time I was faced with a marginal spot, I got rid of the flippant attitude I’ve had over the last 6 months and got intense. Maybe my fortnight’s results are mostly just upswinging, but I definitely think my new mindset helped. I’m not quite back to how I was playing in Feb/Mar but I’m pretty close I think, maybe 10-15% off.

link to above graph if you can’t see it properly in this crappy column

Of course, its possible the ridiculous unstoppable AUD will wipe out my little 30k fortnight by the end of the month, but there is still value in winning, even if you’re winning worthless US dollars.

That will pretty much finish off my online play for the month, as I fly out to New Zealand tomorrow for my mate’s wedding, which should be pretty fun, even if Christchurch is not exactly the most exciting city in the world. I’ll then slip over to Melbourne for the PokerNews Cup and, hopefully, some sleazy nights in Revolver and catch up with Franky, a dear dear friend of mine who I’ve greatly missed and I hope has missed me too.

In between, I’m working on a few exciting projects which I’ll talk more about later - basically, I’ve been pretty lazy all year and depressed since I dropped that 70k to the Koreans in the riggd live games, but the time for crying is over and its time to get back in the game. No more fortnights spent watching entire TV seasons back-to-back achieving nothing - no more 10 hour sessions of neutral EV Chinese poker - 2008 is going to be a big year, and I’m going to start getting ready for it….

See you chumps in Melb in a week….

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sports betting tilt…

(pic courtesy of Pauly from Tao of Poker - thanks Pauly)

I love chili. I really do. Unfortunately, I am too downie to eat chili. Today, I was enjoying my chili and I got some sauce on my hands. Because I’m not a moron like many other people, I remember telling myself “make sure you wash your hands before you do something silly like rub your eyes” (as I have done this before, perhaps more than once if the truth be told). But then something glittery caught my attention, and maybe minutes later I rubbed my eyes. Pain. Half an hour later, my eye had stopped burning. It’s a strange feeling loving a substance but being too stupid to ever take the substance. I guess that’s the problem smack addicts face too. Smack addicts, brothers - I feel your pain.

When I was 13 years old, I was officially blinded. True story. I was helping my dad superglue a new covering over his car dashboard and the superglue bottle was almost empty. I squeezed and squeezed and nothing came out. I looked down the nozzle to see what was blocking it and at the same time I squeezed, a mega burst of superglue shot right into my eye. In a panic, I used my hands to try to get it out before it solidified. In my panic, I managed to superglue both my eyes shut. My dad raced me to the emergency room at Southport where they said operating would be too dangerous and the safest option would be to pour a special solvent on the glue a number of times every day for a few weeks until the glue dissolved. I would be, of course, totally blinded until the glue dissolved enough for them to slice strips to allow me to open my eyes. So for two weeks, I was competely utterly blind. If anyone is wondering what being blind feels like, I can tell you it sucks ass. Blind people - I feel your pain.

In other news, I run so bad in sports betting its really way f past ridiculous. I’m down $38,000 now in sports bets this year betting what basically amounts to neutral EV or better sports bets (using Betfair market lines paying no vig). I am now selling a super system for guaranteed success at making money betting sports. For $20 a month, I will tell you every sports bet I make, you bet your house on the other side and send me pictures of your yachts and mansions and BMW’s.

What makes this World Cup even worse is South Africa is now almost a lock to win. It’s so sick. I like Vos as a person, but I derive a special, sadistic pleasure in seeing his beloved Springboks lose. When they win next week (and they will) I may have to slowly step off my 18th floor balcony in honour of Vos’ ultimate pleasure.

Things are looking bad in other sporting fields as well. After that stupid British moron rookie Hamilton cost Webber his best ever finish by running wide in the rain at Japan, he moronicly put his car (the best car in the entire F1 field by the way) in the gravel, opening up the title race at Brazil now, giving Alonso and Kimi a chance. As stupid and unethical and downright evil as Hamilton is, no one in the world is stupid enough to throw away two races in a row in the best car F1 has ever seen. He basically just needs to finish the race to lock up the title. He’s deadset downie, but even that retarded Brit can manage that.

I’m on a freeroll for pain at the moment. If either South Africa or England win the william webb ellis trophy next week, I will cry. If Hamilton also wins, I will be on suicide watch. Bring on the pain…..

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armin van buuren, spiking tilt…

Armin van Buuren is basically awesome. I couldn’t believe he was coming to Manila, and I was more excited than a fat little boy walking into McDonalds. Manila is a bit of a jungle where dumb folk like myself get eaten up and spat out, but Armin was playing only a few minutes from my place, and if you’re not going to risk your life for van Buuren, then frankly what’s the point?

Armin was recently voted the 2nd greatest DJ of all time. This is obviously quite ridiculous. I don’t know who got 1st place but whoever it was was definitely sucking some judge’s you know what. Here is some van Buuren magic I found on YouTube. I was so excited I left my new video camera at home and also, I feel like a bit of an idiot whenever I lose cameras (which I seem to do with alarming regularity).

Honestly, I think Armin in Manila was even better than this. It was magical. He is a freak and I would like to sex him he’s so good. I had planned to sip a few quiet Baileys and some G&T’s with lots of T but some horrible fiend spiked my drink very early in the night and I became a raving Mutant. I entered into a strange world of fascinating Mutant Creatures and I was pretty sure I was their King. I ran around drunk with Mutant Power. What a lot of people don’t understand about the Mutant Race is that mutants cower in the face of more powerful mutants (which I obviously was), and I was enjoying watching the inferior mutants scurry away from me like rats.

My power didn’t last long however, and the walls started crashing in around me so I tried to hide in a corner so I could enjoy Armin without the millions of eyes staring at me. I was pretty sure a Mutant Coup was being plotted against me and there is nothing more shameful than a Mutant King who has lost his crown. As I was sitting in the corner, this insanely cute girl started dancing in front of me and began doing very un-Christian things with her eyes and waist. At first, I told myself I was imagining it, but after half an hour the halluncination remained. I decided I would speak to this girl. I gathered up the strength and courage to say “sup” and her eyes lit up like a South African luxury car getting hijacked. Things were looking promising.

At this point, I think its appropriate to set a bookmaker’s line on this situation. A normal person has a 97% chance of success here. Unfortunately for me, I am socially retarded and my chance of success is something like 10%. But as they say “Life: Be In It”, so I tried to say something funny which probably sounded retarded and she said, “you’re weird”. For new players to this game, this is not a positive response. She asked me how old I was, I considered lying but that’s retarded and unethical so I said “26″. She said, “ewww, you’re old!” I decided to cut my losses and retired from the game injured.

At this point things began to get interesting. I took a picture with my camera phone which gives a fair indication of what my world looked like to me from here on in.

Some lovely girl took pity on me and offered to help me home. It might have been a guy, people are short in Asia, but I’m going to say girl out of wishful thinking. My good samaritan found my Stilnox on my desk and drugged me up good. I woke up feeling fantastic about 10 hours later to find all the cash in my jeans was gone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is only the 2nd time this has happened to me (the first was in Lithuania).

Good times, good times…kids, watch those drinks of yours, there are nefarious villains on the loose….

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sep results, usd/aud tilt….

So I had a pretty good September, went up 11k first couple days, down 12k next few days, too tilted to play so spent about a week watching TV and playing Russian and lost another 11k, had a really good week late in the month, then my little Seoul adventure cost me 10k. Overall, things were still looking good for a nice month despite the fact that tournaments are freaking retarded, and I think I was up 8 or 9k, which I’m very happy with these days.

Then I calculated using the new exchange rates from today and almost vomited. Make that actually vomited. I spat out a piece of cucumber I think I ate yesterday in Seoul. I lost 15k on the AUD rise in September. This is frankly ridiculous and someone needs to pay. I don’t care if whomever is responsible for this is innocent or guilty or what, I just need vengeance. 89c - you’ve got to be f kidding me. Someone’s head should roll.

I was so close to getting back to where I was before Manila too, I really want to break something. This year has been so sick, I’ve been playing not so good since I lost 70k in riggd live games vs Koreans, but been fighting and scrapping to get that back online ever since, and last thing I need is the freaking AUD barring up like a US serviceman’s Pedro on Burgos St.

In other breaking news, tournaments are f retarded. Seriously. Like, almost everyone I played with in Seoul was really nice and I wish them and their 10/6 minraising awesomeness all the best, but it’s freaking ridiculous that I have to steal for 7 hours every tourney I play just to stay alive whilst others can just pick up endless Group 1’s and get paid off, not to mention putting in their stack in wonderful spots like 98 vs QQ and not blinking when they win as they’ve run so good for so long, they aren’t surprised anymore.

I’m just about ready to give up this joke riggd gig and start up a Rent-a-Puppy business.

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