the importance of choosing words carefully

i was always a big fan of the thesaurus. even though i still pronounced it like it was a type of dinosaur until i reached about 15. it helps choose the right word when your close, but haven't quite found what your looking for. I imagine that anyone who uses words a lot uses them, except for journalists.

i don't mean to generalise so i'll just say most journalists are lazy. take this hilarious story of a crocodile attacking a lawnmower.

you will note that the story is mostly about a crocodile who attacked a lawnmower. the excuses for this act of insanity are given as he's territorial and he likes meat. which doesn't really cut it for me. but the funniest part of the story is buried and only briefly mentioned. in fact, it's only funny because of the ridiculous choice of words by the author of this article (who didn't source his comment):

"At the crocodile farm he was first brought to after being caught, he ate two of his girlfriends."

GIRLFRIENDS!?

i'm not sure that any animal of the opposite sex qualifies as girlfriend. i'm also pretty sure that girlfriend is not a term that has ever been used by david attenborough when narrating his nature programs. "penguins, choose their girlfriends carefully, as they will marry and stick with their husbands/wives till death does them part"

it seems the croc agrees with me and didn't see them as "girlfriends" either.

anger, pressure and replay retards

on saturday i lost about 6 buy ins. this annoyed me immensely. i didn't think i did much wrong and that was beginning to worry. constantly thinking i am not making that many mistakes yet constantly losing. so i checked my play for the last few months and saw i'm down 40+ buy ins, 80% from ev. essentially, losing 30+ buyins due to ev is no excuse for the overall figure. and at this point i realised that the pressure i've put myself under to succeed at this game, and succeed fast has spiralled out of control.

just like working for other people, you have to take pride in your work, without caring too much. knowing the grand scheme of things usually helps.
and so on sunday i woke up and when i sat down to play, had a feeling that i didn't really care. win or lose, i had to not invest any time caring about whether i won or lost. i'm pretty sure i won, but i had no desire to check my results, even after the event. i think a lot of the groundwork for this has come about from working hard every day to try to be orientated by my play and not my results, and largely the methods for doing this are from the mental game of poker. i don't wish to plug it too hard because, well, i don't really want anyone else to know the gold dust that lives on those pages.

enough of my rambling thoughts on that for today. my snoozing (or lack thereof) is going pretty well now, and am getting up within 5 minutes of alarm going off. I think i need to cut tv out just before bed as the blue light within, and brain state are conducive to sleep. might start reading (not via the media of computer) instead.

and finally, i would like to touch upon the replay retard. if anyone hasn't played fifa, look away now. if you have, you'll more than be aware of those people, who when playing online, will watch every replay of every goal they score. this is unsportsmanlike conduct. i played one of these creatures who went 2-0 up against me in the first 20 mins, watching as many replays as allowed of his weak goals. so when i scored my first, second and third goals to go 3-2 up i watched all my replays to send him a message. usually, i imagine they are hysterical when this happens, though in real life, they probably don't care. i still feel like i'm doing some good in trying to show them what a tool they are. when he equalised in the 85th minute - he didn't watch his replay! success! maybe he learnt?
anyway, this story does have a happy ending. i won with a last minute goal. i didn't watch the replay of that one.

the times, they are a-changing

a wise man once told me that when you're asleep you have no concept of time. i believe him because he knows, and you can prove it to yourself. if you have a nap in the afternoon, or sleep with blinds firmly closed, you will have no idea at all for how long you've been asleep. it's quite an interesting fact.
i also read in new scientist that dreams are in fact made up of snapshots, and your brain fills in the bits in between to get the movie you think you saw/were in.

i am reminded of this because on this morning, i had one of those dreams that felt like it was happening right now. I dreamt i had been snoozing for just under 30 minutes in a half awake state, and then in real life my alarm went off. i shot out of bed to turn it off and get up. i then realised, that it wasn't my alarm, but just an email notification. and my alarm had not once gone off yet. the excitement of achieving a no snooze day was offset by the shock of being awake and cold.

i think this snoozing epidemic is only relevant to people that live in cold countries. the main reason people don't want to leave the bed is the knowledge of the cold air that awaits when they pull back the duvet. when it's hot you don't have this problem. i wonder how the people in the arctic get up. i spent a night in the ice hotel, and while it never gets below -5 indoors (lol there are no doors), IT IS -5! they offer a compulsory alarm service (which is literally someone walking into your room to wake you up!) but i think this is mostly to check you didn't freeze to death overnight.

a 2 snooze day

that sounds like a cool metaphorical title but it's not. it was just the number of times i snoozed before getting up. i guess this won't be the easiest habit to change but i really need to fix it asap. 0 snooze days here i come!

meanwhile, today i discovered the main reason of losing moneys at poker this year especially over the past few months. aside from massive overconfidence, i have a decent thought process which will often start something like, i'm raising here and if i get reraised i'll fold. I get reraised and i think, well, i planned to fold, and i really should fold, but yeah, i like calling and then i click call.
this is insanely retarded. it was beyond my comprehension and i really chose to ignore it like it wasn't happening. so many times i thought, i should fold here, click call and obviously lose.

anyway, since the weekend, i've actually been able to avoid these retarded things (on almost every occasion anyway!) and am beginning to get happier with my play. today, i think i managed the most hands i've ever played. it's about time i delved as deep as i can into this game to see how i can do if i try my best. these days, i'd rather know i wasn't good enough then not try my hardest so i can have an excuse if i fail.

on thursday morning i gotta take a train to a drinking establishment. in preparation for this tube journey, i will now take my last shower so i smell appropriately.

a new beginning

each and every day this week my plan will be to wake up exactly when my alarm clock goes off. I will go to bed when i am tired, not before (and hopefully not long after) i.e. no lying in bed awake wondering when i'll fall asleep.

this morning, alarm went off and after hitting snooze i made the mistake of considering something. next alarm, 9 minutes later (why the iphone chose 9 minutes as a snooze period continually annoys me. what's wrong with 10?!) and I get up straight away.
no messing around with phone in bed reading the internet, no thinking, almost like a reaction i got up.

already been out today to the post officec (EXCITING TIMES!) and now to do some study, breakfast and more study. before recording a music video tonight. don't worry, i'm not playing anything, i'm literally doing the recording.

(oxy)morons

i was once asked "would you prefer to be hatefully remembered or lovingly forgotten?"
I replied by saying you can't be lovingly forgotten. How would that work?
-Do you remember what's his name, i really loved him.
-who?
-no idea

a lady i once lived with only asked me that only once. sadly, she kept asking lots of other questions. to make her stop i told her for every question, she would have to take off an item of clothing. more sadly, this did not deter her. in fact, it went so far, she even sucked the life out of me. and that, is the best euphemism i have ever thought of.

[though i presume someone has thought of it before, it seems pretty obvious]

i almost got up when my alarm went off this morning

i really hate being woken by alarm. even worse, is when it's cold and I have to get up. Of course, I don't have to get up but i choose to do so. i'm pretty tired of spending an hour in bed after my alarm goes off. today it was about 20 minutes. All of next week my plan is to get up at 930am every day. mere seconds after my alarm goes off. most people with jobs will probably look at me with disdain (for many reasons) and they'd be right to do so. still, baby steps and all.

speaking of which, since i got the mental game of poker, whilst i agree wholeheartedly with everything in it, and i've been doing the suggested exercises i haven't found much improvement. I think sometime last year i learnt bad habits coupled with a worsening ego. one thing that i found useful was detailing the errors in my game and labelling them as b-game, c-game etc.
yesterday, was the first time since starting this months ago that i have played my a game in consecutive sessions. i think it's coincided with not being horrifically underolled thanks to an fpp bonus. i did want to take out a bunch of money as i need to pay for a hotel and a tooth but now i want to keep some money in there. hopefully i can play well for the rest of the month and if i'm lucky withdraw come january. anyway, getting a head of my self, one baby step at a time. starting with a 930am wake up tomorrow...

[i thought about blogging at the time i wake up for motivation, records of success and failure. i might even think of something to say each day. i will also try to resort writing in caps to elucidate my grumpiness at early rising.
for example, i could start by saying why did parenthesis replace brackets? i'm bringing the bracket back.]

erm

was just looking through hands i butchered over the past few days. found one where i bet called the river with a straight vs a fish when the board paired. this was after i raised the turn when i hit my straight on a flush card.
worse than all of that is the fact that i had a 4 card straight. and i didn't even realise till now.
*head firmly in hands*

also checked my all in ev for last month. pre flop, i ran 19 buy ins below ev in 25k hands! can you imagine running 19 buy ins up? i try to imagine running level! well, i used to. now i try to imagine playing the same no matter how i run.

the thing i hate most about poker

it's not the ups and downs, nor the batterings that i take from variance. it is the way that it affects me outside of poker. in a sense i'm choosing to be affected by it for many reasons, and i need to learn how to stop.

right now, i've been thinking of trying to see if i can do this for a year or two (do this, refers to making enough money in that time to get a house). I don't want to play much longer but i think it's also a good way for me to fund all my other ventures. Even to date, i've been spending poker money on other businesses to try to make money, but in a useful way.

All this beings me back to my point which comes about due to the amount of pressure i put myself under to win lots and quickly. sure, to some degree i expect to win, even without trying. i know it's wrong, but these thoughts are borne out of the past. from school, to poker, i never really had to try my hardest. a part of me didn't want to so i could have an excuse if i failed. and things kept on falling into my lap to provide me with a path to take. even just now, the day after i had these thoughts, i got offered a job, without even applying!

hmm, another tangent.

I need to stop putting myself under so much pressure to win so much so soon. when all my plans relied on doing well at poker, going through a sustained bad run of bad play also makes it difficult for me to cope when outside of poker. i guess it's because i'm not comfortable enough with where i am in poker. and part of me thinks the only way to change that is to win lots and have lots of upwards trending graphs. though the other part that thinks just quit and do other things has been getting louder recently. alas, what all these other things are exactly, it doesn't know.

this year, even after bonuses i'll be down around 2k i reckon but it's the lack of options in the future that bugs me most and causes my grumpy nature.
a part of my hopes that writing this down for myself will help my state of mind away from the tables.
one thought that i keep repeating to myself was said by the 'moron' in the tv show 'monk' (randy discher, if any of you watch it), and that is
"happiness is a choice"

and he's right.

I don't gerrit

this month, after 15k hands, i'm losing 1 big blind every ten hands. this is an unbelievably fast rate to lose money. this is 10bb/100 hands. i just don't understand how this is possible.

once again, it looks like i'm going to have to deposit an amount greater than or equal to the bonus i'm about to reach. i've never experienced anything like this in close to a million hands of play.
my last 12 sessions, i've played better than at any point this year. i've won in 7 (once $500, once $100, and every other time about $3.50). losing sessions, only one was less than a $200 loss.
if i can't beat the complete retards at 100nl who make glaring mistakes repeatedly, then how bad must i be. it's at times like this i usually ask pokerstars to send me a lifetime deposit/withdrawal statement for my account so i don't feel like shit. i'm not even sure that would help this time.

i won!

just once, but i'd literally forgotten what it looked/felt/sounded like. i'm not sure anyone thinks about what it sounds like. to me, it sounded like this.



in other news, i've eaten far too much chocolate today. i also had a dream about a girl i once knew. this girl opened my mind and blew it away and helped make me what i am today. till it went pear shaped. i'm not sure what made me think about her.
i did then think about telling her about the effect she has had on me. it wouldn't achieve much though. maybe make me feel better for how things ended but that's not a good enough reason to do it.

i had just started typing "anyway, enough of this emo sh.." when i realised that emotions aren't the problem. they're the messengers. use them to learn about your problems and solve the problems instead of just shooting the messenger. thanks to jared for that awareness in my mind.

i like the anonymity here. almost as much as the piece of music embedded above. which i discovered here:

rock bottom

i've busto'd my account, deposited a few hundred more bucks and busted that as well.
i'm less than 9k vpps from supernova and a 3k bonus (4k if i play a bit more, also making me extra $250 in the process).
problem is, i don't wanna deposit 1k to have at least a bit of a roll to play though i can't see how i have any choice if i want to play. bigger problem is i can't seem to win for love nor money. i think i've had two winning sessions in my last 20. even if i was a monkey clicking buttons i should be doing better than that.
i don't even know if it's worth going for a 3/4k bonus. last time i tried that i lost more than the bonus was worth. moreover, i don't even know if i should play again at all. i really want to be good, and want to do this full time for one year to bank a bit of money but money trend has been to the wrong direction for the past ~12 months. which is bizarre when i look at the statements of how much i've cashed out over the 2/3 years prior to that.

and if this doesn't work i'll have to get a j*b.

wgiwerubgv

i appear to be losing at a fantastic rate. i have noticed that i am not making more mistakes, more often. i am either bad or running bad. i try to correct the play bad but i can't seem to fix it.
not wanting to deposit, i think my options remaining are drop down to 100nl for a bit or deposit.
right now my only reason to play is to get supernova to claim the $1500 or $4k bonus. really i want to deposit but seem to have run out of money after withdrawing loads last year. i have literally no idea where it's gone!

hmmmmmmmmmmm

in other news, i think everyone should start using the interrobang more often. not only because it makes sense to have a punctuation mark that combines the question mark and exclamation mark (‽ ) but also because its name it awesome. interrobang!

a new thing i've been working on

i heard that you should never get angry. sometimes you may need to feign anger, but that should only be on the outside. this concept interests me immensely and so i have been trying to not be angry about anything.

being aware of this and trying to catch myself at the onset of the rage building isn't as tough as i imagined. nor is it as tough as preventing the rage from building.
a good marker for me is the effect that other mong drivers have on me. when i don't get angry from middle lane drivers ruining the roads for everyone, i know i'm in a much better mental state. i do wonder if what i'm doing is just bottling it up, or a long term cure...

been trying to play more poker as of this month. so far i've managed about 18 hours and 10k hands which i think is ok. i still want to aim for about 5 hours a day 6 days a week. anyway, als updated the bar on the right hand side, hoping to play better as the month goes on!

current schedule

i'm writing this here more so that i don't forget. every morning i plan to do
30 mins exercise inc all or some of yoga/weights/running
30 mins language study, including this (allegedly) great new program i found called anki
30 mins poker study, hh review and mental game work

once those are complete, i will play 3x 60 min sessions (rising by 10 mins per week to hit 2x90min and 1x60 min sessions), spread during the rest of the day

also need to do other bits and bobs during the day including some other academic learning and pr work etc. i should aim for 60 mins of each of those, in the afternoon.

all that should still give me plenty of free time in evenings and afternoons to watch tv like house and anything else that i find worth watching.

due to the boring nature of this post, in an attempt to spice it up, i will post a picture of glasses which were very cool when i was younger.

this is it

the time has come. my schedule is comparatively clear and will remain so until the end of the year. i am now committing to giving one last shot to make a boatload of money from the poker. i've always thought that unless i can make 6 figures per year it's probably not worth it.
to give myself the best chance i will be having a decent schedule. this means study of at least 30 mins per day. working out of at least 30 mins per day and playing in a non tired state of mind which will mean mornings, afternoons and evenings. with the americans kicked of the internet, i assume more of the action will be centered around times acceptable to my circadian rhythm.
hopefully you'll start seeing some weekly improvements to the target box on the right hand side of this blog!

finally, i lasted 10 days. i think that's ok. i found that i neither turned super intelligent (george) or super retarded (elaine). maybe everything on tv isn't real....

the contest

i still haven't had a chance to get around to playing an poker. this will change from the 9th of october. in the meantime, i have decided to go on a detox and as fans of seinfeld will know from the title of this post, this detox will see me attempt to reign as master of my domain for as long as possible. and where better to chronicle the struggles than here.
so that this is not a wasted experiment, i will also record whether i suffer the fate of elaine (become stupider) or george (become smarter). only time will tell...

i just bought my yearly travel insurance

it turns out there are some things i can't claim for. One of which they don't accept is:
"Any claim caused by you climbing, jumping or moving from one balcony to another regardless of the height of the balcony."

at first i thought that would completely ruin the holiday till i realised that there is no mention of jumping off the balcony to something that's not a balcony like a train or swimming pool!

it's september

where does the time go?!
it's also autumn. autumn in a very pretty word but sadly leads to winter. it is otherwise quite similar to spring but because of this, no one likes it.
here's an autumn only picture.

in other news, i was in america for a couple of days. it seems that the attention span of our former colony has been reduced to less than 30 seconds, as they have begun putting televisions in elevators!

the great irony here is that in this hotel, there were only two lifts and you would invariably spend up to 5 times as long waiting for it than inside of it, so the tvs would be better utilised on the landings where you wait.

i haven't been doing very much

got the new hem beta but barely had a chance to play with it

more importantly i came up with a magnificent joke (8.2/10 rating). you heard it hear first. don't copy it without crediting me.

people often accuse me of being sexy, but it's only because i get the words erotic and erratic mixed up.

today the bbc are running stories more full of sugar than usual

i still find it funny that people say sugar instead of shit. it's also quite interesting that sugar is the only word in the english language which has the su making an sh sound. of this i am sure.

but back to the nonsense at the bbc. firstly a non event non story.
i'm sure i've mentioned this before but when i was in the usa, i went to a bar, waited, ordered a drink, got my bottles and as i was about to go back to my seat was verbally attacked by the bar man saying if i wasn't gonna tip i should leave. so we had our drinks and left. i know it's customary in the us to tip relentlessly but surely people not actually doing anything for you is not worthy of a tip? that would never happen in europe. or so i thought. apparently our pm was forced in a coffee shop to go and get his own drink from the counter rather than have it brought to his table, so he didn't tip. and then he went back the next day to leave a proper tip. to me, this is akin to tipping in starbucks where you serve yourself.

the second story which has a stench of baloney gone off is associated with the normally good programme horizon. the guy keeps saying colours aren't real, they're just in your head. i had to double check it wasn't april the 1st. he then goes on to prove this by using optical illusions. surely, tricking your eyes into seeing different colours doesn't make them imaginary. that's like saying at night when you don't see in colour, it's because colour isn't real.

all of this worries me because a few weeks ago i spoke to a journalist about online gambling and poker. i worry about the nonsense spin they will be bashing out. i fear any article from them is going to be like the blind leading the blind. except where the leading blind is a self righteous turd that you expect to find being fired on the apprentice.

the worst lawn mower of all time

i just had the misfortune to use the subject title of this post. what appears to have happened is the company 'cutting edge saw' other lawnmowers and thoguht, how hard can it be? so they tried to copy others, in the process, making each and every aspect awful beyond comprehension.
Equipped with the shortest cable i have ever seen it just allows me to reach halfway down the garden.
They have obviously noticed that other lawn mowers have arms and decided that they would make theirs detachable. they are so detachable in fact, they fall off incessantly. move it in any direction that's not directly forwards, and the arms just fall out. heaven forbid you should need to move backwards.
they saw for safety that you have a button to push and a handle to hold down to start the machine. and you need to keep the handle squeezed to keep the motor running. i have big hands yet find it incredibly awkward due to its retarded shape. luckily you are already deterred from trying to turn it but should you choose to do so it will stretch your skin on your palm and fingers giving you massive blood filled blisters leaving you to type at 4 words per minute using just your left hand.
they saw that other mowers have this box thing at the back. unable to work out what it was for they left it as some sort of showpiece. grass doesn't get funnelled into it very well, just clogging up the blades instead. you may try to remove this unnecessary trophy box since it's primary role is falling off the back. however, take the box off and the panel that covers the back of the mower it prevents any grass exiting. so you have to leave it on to ensure it only jams every 30 seconds instead of every 10.

great names, bad games

i saw in the news that someone called goodwillie has had rape charges against him dropped. obviously it's tough to know what happened without being there, although all i'm really interested in is how soon are you allowed to make a joke about his name combined with his innocence. and does this also mean that badwillie is a real surname too? do his friends say to women in clubs, "would you like to see a goodwillie?"

i'll stop now.
i also have stopped poker for one month. i don't really want to take a break but i do. i want to decide whether it's worth pursuing. may start again at end of august, if only to get the $4k bonus. but chasing those always ended up costing me money in the past so maybe i'll just spend fpp's on stress balls, cuddly toys and sunglasses.

i think i've had enough

been breaking even for about a year now. think i'm not cut out for poker.
i keep looking back at how much i've made over the past 4/5 years. feb 2007 i think was when i started seriously on stars and even though my net withdrawlas are around $40k right now i cannot see myself ever making money again. this year i have been losing at 1/2 ffs!

so depressed. think i might not play again till september. who knows, tomorrow, i might wake up and not be such a melodramtic wally.

i just commited a criminal offence

i called the council just now about paying their tax, though it was for a house where my name isn't on the account. (possibly because i don't live there). why would i do such a thing? whilst my ladyfriend is at work i thought i would give them the date she's moving out along with a request for a final bill to pay the remaining months - they did just send a final notice for payment of a huge amount which kind of indicates that they didn't get the payment from 1 month ago so i wanted to request a statement too.

the twat on the other end of the phone though just kept saying he couldn't discuss the account with me since i wasn't the account holder. i said i want to pay you!!
his response was "you are actually committing a criminal offence"
incredulous, i asked "wanting to pay you is an offence?"
i did my best not to say, no wonder so many people get away with not paying you.
he claimed that wasn't what he said, and he can't give any information out either. i asked him to listen to the recording of the call where i said i wanted to give you information so i could pay. so i asked to speak to his manager's manager. he didn't take kindly to this. so naturally, i asked again. he decided to hang up! lol.
not before i asked for his name. he wouldn't give his surname but instead asked for mine. i think he may have been an inner city schoolboy on work experience.

so i called back and spoke to someone else who gladly took the tenancy end date, agreed to send a final statement and i wouldn't be surprised if she also put the reminder notice on hold.

tomorrow i go to town

this always leads to awkward situations, bizarre occurrences or both. even today, i didn't venture out much beyond a trip to the tennis courts. and there was a sexy milf playing complete with short skirt and grunts! i thought those were special effects just for tv. like champions league music shortly before kick off. turns out they're both real things. sometimes the line between real and fake does get blurred. i sometimes pick up my ps3 controller when f1 is on telly just to confuse my flatmate.

still getting caught up in the shorttermism of poker. this, just t'other day is the biggest pot i've played all year. (WARNING CONTAINS NOT UNLIKELY BAD BEAT)
the hand was so beautifully set up it could make a james bond hand look realistic (i jest, nothing could do that).
the villain is a monster fish who was guaranteed to be squeezing. i'm dancing around the room on the flop. i'm not a good dancer so i didn't get to dance for long.

Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: villain ( $396.95 USD )
Seat 2: bb ( $249.80 USD )
Seat 3: utg ( $318.85 USD )
Seat 4: mp ( $200.00 USD )
Seat 5: hero ( $516.25 USD )
Seat 6: btn ( $161.30 USD )
villain posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
bb posts big blind [$2.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to hero [ Kc Kd ]
utg raises [$6.00 USD]
mp folds
hero calls [$6.00 USD]
btn calls [$6.00 USD]
villain raises [$27.00 USD]
bb folds
utg folds
hero raises [$60.00 USD]
btn folds
villain calls [$38.00 USD]

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, Qh, 6c ]
villain checks
hero bets [$96.00 USD]
villain raises [$192.00 USD]
hero raises [$354.25 USD]
villain calls [$138.95 USD]
hero wins $119.30 USD

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]
** Dealing River ** [ 3s ]
villain shows [Qc, Ah ]
hero shows [Kc, Kd ]
villain wins $804.90 USD from main pot

my last post was awful

i hope this one is less bad.

last few weeks i've been trying to improve my motivation to do stuff in general and not waste time. making small improvements and constantly keeping them up is apparently the tough stuff. so i'm doing one thing at a time till they become habits. firstly, i really need to tone up a bit. so one thing i have been doing is 30mins working out a day. the test will come when i really don't want to, but when it's tough is when you achieve something. like that last lift of a dumbbell. (dumbbell is a funny word, just look at it!)

also, i really need to hurry up and finish writing my thesis. i've taken far too long with it, and need to finish it so i can concentrate on other ventures, not least poker. i think i have to move out of my flat. they say location, location and location are the three most important things about where you live, but i think they forgot the most important which is not living with a wally. he's not a cunt, but he has many features which are the complete opposite of things i aspire to such as thinking of others, energy efficiency (ie not having every light in the flat on at once, and then going out without turning them off), and many other things.
the next thing after this will be learning languages where i'll make a commitment to learn something every day.

more onto poker now, and it seems that i am going to set a goal and stick it on the right hand side. it will be hand based and money based. so far this year i'm down about $6k and i want to turn it into +$5k by end of september when i go supernova. more accurately, i will retain supernova but going supernova sounds much better.

my first session of the month was yesterday and it didn't start too well.

well, the only way is up, one hand at a time....

time flies

when you're doing nothing too it would seem

i did go to wimbledon last week, if just to break up the monotony of looking at x-ray diffraction spectra i don't understand. it rained. i tried to get into court 3 (i think to take a pic). I went in the wrong entrance, and just asked an honorary steward if i could take a picture. he asked if i was press (presumably because i had a camera) and i said no. he still let me go in. even before that point i wasn't sure what an honorary steward is. as far as i could tell from those that i saw, it meant over 60.

i also found a comedy blog. it's funny.

finally, the poker front, i think i lost again this month. the only results i checked were ev adjusted. turns out i lost $300 and 4 buy ins below ev. so a pretty rubbish month though in the middle of it i had a 20buy in upswing!
working on my volume is one positive, and got to 22k hands which is the most i've done for a very long time. aim is to get to 30k per month by the end of the year.
first half of the year has been terrible. no where near where i wanted to be in any terms. need to readjust lots of things to correct this. i have started by regaining motivation for learning and playing

last nights dreams

had a dream i was sitting on a little wall, a few hundred yards from a hospital, got my phone out and called for an ambulance since i couldn't move my neck for the pain was immense.
i woke up and couldn't move my neck for the pain was immense. took me about 20 minutes to work out how to get up. fear not though reader, for i have some deep heat which cures all known ailments excluding eye and groin injuries.

sadly, not all my dreams came true, i'm pretty sure i was being serviced by a lady in my dreams, which did not happen when i woke up.

writing

i never used to enjoy writing.
they made me do it in school. i never thought i came up with anything creative or original and i hated having to be so expressive. why use 100 words when 10 will do?
more recently i've come to really appreciate writing. not just the importance of being able to communicate clearly - and writing is a great tool for this, people can't interrupt you, and people aren't just waiting for their turn to speak - also for the expression and clarification of my own thoughts.

this blog has changed that. whilst i write for myself and have an interest in looking back and reading about the many mistakes i thought weren't mistakes, i am mindful that other people will read what i write. and even if it's only one person, this ensures that i take better care, and proof read it afterwards.

i enjoy finding humour in social situations. i enjoy letting my mind flow to explore different avenues of thought. and i enjoy writing about them and looking back occasionally.

i recently noticed that i became quite 'old' in a lot of my thoughts (for want of a better word). by this i mean a lack of patience and inflexibility in thinking, and a reduced willingness to learn in many situations. i like that i have caught this and am trying to regain some of the traits i have lost, including humility to a degree.

anyway, that's enough nonsense for one day. here's an image of a bird. a very sad picture.

ps i might do one of them poker blog things soon where i set fanciful new targets like 40k by the end of the year and try to track it regularly. first i need to start winning! lets hope this month finishes well - i've stopped tracking money and now track ev adjusted totals. weird i know, but i like that i know it's not the real amount since it doesn't affect me positively or negatively as much, yet it still quenches my thirst for results.

the great outdoors

there's nothing great about it. the worst part of owning a little bit of the great outdoors is that you have to take care of it. and it doesn't give much back in return other than a place for foxes to take care of any business they have.
worse still is when your lawnmower appears to be from the 90s. the 1890s. and falls apart when you try to move it in a direction other than forward in a straight line. and you have to stop every minute because the grass clogs up the exiting channel from the blade, waiting for you to stick your hand in to remove it..
next time, i wont wait 6 months to cut the grass. the weeds were bigger than me. i was using shears to chop down weeds and stinging nettles. i was shouting timber as they fell but they still often fell on my head. how inconsiderate. i did feel quite manly doing it though, i can now see why people cut down the rainforest.

poker? i don't want to talk about it. at least i broke even last month. lost 4 buy ins of ev in first 400 hands this month, never ending run of misery please end soon! i have even taken to studying properly and fixing leaks. i think i have many more to repair.

advertisements

does anyone else feel cheated when bad products have great adverts?
carlsberg and the orange cinema ads to name just two

sometimes i feel very hungry. then i remember tarrare and realise i'll never be that hungry. i'm not sure how his story isn't more known. maybe someday someone will make a film about it. then again, thinking about the content, probably not.

and one last pic for now...

the great carbon emission lie

there are lots of clever people in the world. many of them make a difference for the better. some even have positions to influence governments. and some make policies for governments. however, it would seem that most decisions are based purely on politics, rather than what is correct, and sometimes their decisions lead to the exact opposite of what they're supposed to be doing, yet everyone seems happy.

an example:
LED lighting. the new energy efficient lighting that will save the world from carbon emissions caused from wasteful tungsten filament bulbs! or are they?
well, they do run on a tiny amount of the power of bulbs. and they are much more efficient with much less heat wastage. and they last longer! but how are they made? well, they are made at around 100 times the cost of bulbs. that is real $ cost. which comes from the energy cost. which means over the course of the lifetime, from creation of product to when it is no longer working, they generate more carbon emissions globally. but because they are made outside of europe, european governments are generating less carbon emissions. for themselves. which is all they really want to do.

this is not a unique situation. if you know anyone who has a prius, don't tell them to find out what's in the battery of their car. so many rare earth elements, the mining cost of which no doubt exceeds the carbon emissions saved by using the battery.

answer: real clean fuels (and other energy sources) need to be researched. but whilst government policy only cares about their own country emissions, and researches need government funding, nothing will change.

politics. to paraphrase groucho marx, anyone who wants to be a politician should not be allowed to be a politician.

competition

natalie portman finally has some

go here for more

battered

so i played a game of football at watford. to say i got taken out by their striker would be an understatement. it was quite early in the game and it wasn't till i woke up on monday that i realised my body wasn't happy. muscles i didn't know i had were making any movement difficult. i tried to ice my muscles using tubs of ice cream but that didn't work because i just ate all the ice cream.

sitting in my chair to work became slightly more pained so i found a youtube video showing 4 stretches for tendons to help for carpal tunnel.
though i still think i need to buy a chair - any recommendations? might go to sit on a steelcase one in town. they're supposed to be pretty good.

McDonalds' Burger King

you've no doubt heard about the man who's eaten 25000 burgers from mcdonalds. A bit of a weirdo who records how many he buys, it appears he is romarioesque in that we only have his word to take for it.
The best part of the story is of course, the last line added by a special at the bbc (or perhaps a comedian?) "Doctors have said they do not recommend Mr Gorske's diet."
Did they actually go and ask more than one doctor whether it was a recommended diet?

Speaking of doctors i went to see a physio the other day for a troublesome ankle. trying to locate the pain by applying pressure and asking if it hurt wasn't going that well. i thought she was gonna give up cos nothing hurt. eventually though, she found the spot. i was impressed. especially after the GP i saw acted as though i was faking it. turns out a tendon is rubbish. i'll be playing football this weekend anyway, in a proper football stadium and after that will have to wait and see how long it takes to strengthen my ankle. hopefully not more than a few months....

well, google stole my comments

unreal. my last post garnered approximately 21 comments (error margin of +/- 20)
and then google destroys them. as everyone knows, all (most) bloggers say they write for themselves. (except of course i really do just write for myself). but comments are nice. they're the massage equivalent of a happy ending for my brain. and google stole them. i can't blame google, everyone likes a happy ending. except for the guy that wrote the book which the film the mist is based on.

anyways, i bought the mental game of poker. i heard some rave reviews. not believing anyone else i found some excerpts of the book online. read about 20 pages and there were 2/3 really great thoughts written there. i was worried about the style of the book. by that i mean, it's all very well having some great points but i wanted to know if there were exercises in the book so that you could teach yourself to put into practice the things you'd learned. i needn't have worried. it's hard work to set things up, and no doubt will be to maintain them too. examples of this are things like a warm up and cool down around sessions. it sounds ridiculous but it really improves your frame of mind away from the tables.
the book is one of those things that pays for itself almost instantly. i can't recommend it highly enough.
today i played 4 sessions. i don't think i've ever done that before. i didn't let earlier sessions affect later ones. one thing that helped was i stopped looking at money in hem after sessions. i now look just at ev adjusted results. this gives me the results i crave for, but it shows how i played better than actual results do. i also have completely lost the urge to look at results during a session. i finally understand that being able to perform your best is affected when you are worried about results and those two ideas should be kept separate by your brain.

here's my plagiarised thought of the day (brought to you via Prof Sadoway)
graphite is the stable form of carbon. diamond is the metastable form. So which should be the symbol of eternal love?

girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money

boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny.

apologies for quoting bad charlotte although i think there is merit to this second line. i have found in my brief existence that there aren't many funny girls. and last week i had the displeasure of meeting a girl, who not only thought she was funny, and seemed to think she was a stand up comedienne, she was also spectacularly unfunny. beyond the realms of what i thought capable. bruce once lamented that laughing at people who aren't funny so they don't feel bad is in fact the worst thing you can do for them since they continue to attempt humour. ever since then i have oft tried to avoid the nervous laughter that breaks the awkwardness. these days, i try to embrace the awkwardness or increase it through vacant stares. luckily, on this occasion there were a few of us subjected to some words lacking humour. it is a well known fact that when in company you laugh more than when alone. researches suggest it's due to bonding or to prove you understand the humour or something. either way, none of us even contemplated laughter.

this post really is just a public service announcement to let you know that i have hopefully stopped such a humourless career, thus saving you all from being afflicted with words i probably would wish upon my worst enemy.

after all that doom and gloom here's a treat:

2 leaks i have found so far

one is a long standing problem where i never fold when i get raised. this, i know, is a hallmark of a the fish.
two, when i don't know what to do in a hand, i often just click call. need to beat this one out of me.
3, i hate losing to fish and it drives me crazy when i keep losing over and over to people playing 75% of hands and more.
4, my attempts to do basic mental arithmetic are flawed through laziness more than a lack of ability.

swingathon

i still get caught up in short term and medium term variance too much.
it's tough not too when swings like this happen. but i need to not let it affect me!
at the two troughs of the graph i was over1k down for each session and almost stopped.

the second was brutal with consecutive hands against a tard getting tt vs jj and then jj vs qq whilst inbetween those hands, on another table against the same tard losing kk vs tt!

overall this whole year has been just terrible. need to fix it. this begins with 30mins study per day of my hands before playing any new ones. no study, no play.

summertime

i guess the hairdresser was right about no rain on the royal wedding day. i believe his sound arguments were appreciated by the weather.

of course, i don't really believe that. i would think that a more likely scenario is that he has a swiss heritage (and not the apparent greek one he shows off) and kept up to date with the happenings of Böögg, the explosive snowman, which as everyone knows, predicted a good summer this summer.
Furthermore, "Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found that...it is a good indicator of global climate change."

a pine in the mouth

if i cared about google rankings i would have called this post pine mouth.
a few weeks back i started getting a funny aftertaste in my mouth. i couldn't really describe it very well. food would be delicious followed by an horrible after taste. a little metallic, but i don't usually eat metals so was hard to be sure. at first i thought the chocolate bar i ate was off. but i then noticed it with everything. so in this time of medical need i turned to the only viable source, google.
a brief search, lasting a mere 0.00223 seconds, brought up many words of information. a brief perusal of the first 2 pages (i used to do 3 but am getting more efficient) narrowed my condition down to two possible causes.
1)bloody mouth
i did not see any blood when brushing my teeth, nor was there any other signs of blood or possible causes such as fisticuffs or rugby (nor did i use fake blood)
thus, i ruled this cause unlikely
2)pine mouth
it would seem that some chinese pine nuts can cause a metallic aftertaste in some people. it occurs two days after ingestion (possibly due to EHR according to wiki) and many googlers said it could last up to two weeks! and two days ago i had eaten some pine nuts - from china!

eating became more of a chore than usual. furthermore, i kept forgetting i had this condition so would eat things like cheese sand witches and think they were very off, throw it away, and then remember it was just my tasting inabilities.

someone mentioned to me today that kanu still plays football. it reminded me of my second original joke, which my brain made up subconsciously, the day after he missed a penalty for arsenal

roses are red
violets are blue
i can score a penalty
kanu?

off to play some pokers now. realise i hadn't done an update for ages. thats how bad it was going. i'm beginning to turn a corner and then last friday all the american sea creatures (fishes and sharkes) got caught in a net of bureaucracy. it's a pretty stupid situation and like all things political, getting stupid things reversed takes a stupidly long amount of time.

hopefully i can suck all the money out the sea before they return (don't worry, that's a joke, the ice caps are melting so we'll all just end up drowning)

how people find my blog

a yahoo user found me by typing "pma positive mental attitude kriss akabusi advert"
i was quite pleased i was found using those terms till i got to the last three words.
but they have nothing on a google user who found me by typing "is everyone on omegle wanking"
i understand this is a tough question to answer because omegle only lets you type and not see your opponent (unlike chat roulette i am told)
however, i can confirm, should they be interested, that the answer is yes.

a week of mentals

the past week has seen the meetings of new mentals and conclusion of old mentals.

the story begins many months ago when i was driving. i wasn't moving at the time, but stationary in my car, waiting at a junction, looking to the right to avoid driving into other cars. alas, other drivers on the road do not share my idealistic driving philosophies and one of these creatures used my car to stop their own. i hit my head on the window but luckily no lasting damage was done to me. (maybe there was but it would be probably be hard to tell)
i got out my car to survey the destruction to find that her car was fine and mine had it's bodywork damaged. the lady who hit me said nothing. literally nothing. no sorry, no are you ok, no comments about any damage, no accepting responsibility. having avoided these driving philistines all my life i wasn't aware how exactly to deal with the situation. i only took her details. in future, i will always be writing a statement of accepting responsibility and getting them to sign it.
i asked her to pay for the damage, telling her to give me £250 in cash to cover the respraying, assuming there is no further damage after visiting the garage. she didn't say much back. surprisingly. it's not like she had a shocked expression on her face either. i got the impression that this was a common occurrence for her.
i went to my mechanic and he said there was no further damage to the car. i called her to inform her of her luck. and this is where the fun started. she wanted quotes and receipts and confirmations and to pay the garage directly and all sorts of nonsense. it was as though i was doing her a favour by getting cash from her and avoiding the insurance company. i had enough and told her, no - you have your quote, you pay me, not the garage, no receipts or they'll charge more. she agreed. if she didn't i was just going to go through insurance.
this happened months ago and she finally paid last week. my favourite moment was when she sent an email confirming she would pay the quote. she started it by saying "without prejudice"
i'm no lawyer but that is generally reserved for litigation correspondence when someone is making an offer by mail that later can't be brought as evidence before a judge. i don't think many insurance claims for under £400 have ever made it to a judge.
she was mental.

yesterday i met two more mentals.
1) i felt sorry for this one. she was old, and old people like to talk. she talked about all the buses lined up in a row. "i've never seen so many. and i've been coming here for years!" i pretty much got her family history after that. it's quite difficult to leave these people. though i shouldn't feel so bad when i do abruptly leave, they probably don't notice.
2) the mental it's ok to laugh at. hairdresser. it started sensibly, commenting that it's impossible to predict the weather more than a couple of days ahead. and definitely not forecasts for the summer. i was about to agree with his point but couldn't get a word in. he continued:
of course, it's the royal wedding coming up. it will be sunny on that day. the weathermen make sure they get it right. the royals always choose good weather for their weddings and funerals. imagine all those people outside in the pouring rain.

i was gobsmacked. not only are weatherman in fact able to get long range forecasts accurate 'when it's important' eg events such as royal weddings, they don't apparently try for anything else. furthermore, for funerals, the royal family also consult weathermen about when the best time to die is. they wouldn't want their subjects getting wet whilst mourning their beloved rulers.

*i realise i wrote weatherman and not weatherperson. i don't even know if thats a term. also weatherman is quicker to type and weatherperson sounds odd. no one complains when one writes mankind do they? if they did, i think it says more about the complainee than anything else.

story of the day

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12968538

shocker! politician lies!
calls in radio station to support himself pretending to not be himself after calling as himself and being told he couldn't take part since he was a politician.
like someone making 4 forum identities all vouching for the op. ha.

my favourite two things about this story are when the person who appears to be his boss backs him in public by saying
"I think it was a genuine mistake, I don't think it was deceit and lies."

erm, it definitely was lies and deceit. it may also have been a mistake but to say it's not a lie/deceit is like saying i don't think his picture on that website makes him look at all like a ladyboy. which was my other favourite part of the story. i honestly thought he was in fancy dress when i saw that picture.

twitter

i still don't get it. i use it primarily for ease of getting thoughts down. for on my phone i have 'dragon dictation' which means i can talk to my phone and it will make the words in written form. and usually correctly! it says it understands names in my phonebook but i haven't yet found that to be true. though i was using a nickname based on a non existent word. however, that's what i thought it means, surely real names like, Steve or Leopold, are already understood.

Anyway, as i was saying, i can talk to my phone then push two buttons and it posts to twitter. this is the kind of laziness that i like. i call it efficiency.

it helps me get down fleeting thoughts which otherwise would be lost to the ether. i don't really like repeating myself but thoughts include:
how the northern lights were explained before science cos they look mental in pictures
how i don't mind the neighbours playing piano. well, i wouldn't mind if they weren't so terrible
and whilst waiting in the gp that patients need patience. and what would the people who have problems spelling those words the right way round do if they had that same thought?

this post in other words: i am soul destroying;y awful at pokers. i lost lots. worst. month. ever. busto account. deposit money. start all over again.

adventurous creatures and my massive failings. in reverse order

so my internet kept dropping whilst playing which annoyed me. i mentioned this a few times to o2 previously, and the other weekend it was every half hour so i called them again on monday. this time, instead of saying it's my fault they say, "known issue with the router, we'll upgrade it, will happen within 72 hours"
brilliant. thanks for being wring lots of times before and not actually looking into it and not letting me know when you did find a problem or at least upgrading it automatically.

that however, is the least of my worries. i have been haemorrhaging money at a fantastic rate and have begun to question whether i know what i'm doing in the slightest. i know small sample, variance, etc etc but it's difficult not to just think i'll never make enough to make this a worthwhile pursuit. this is my greatest concern. long term results speak louder than my own ego and this scares me.
due to get a 4k bonus soon so will take proper stock after that.
at the end of the day, i have just been making way too many mistakes. if i can't sustain good play for many days and months on end i should put efforts into making monies in other ways. that was always the plan, the was just to make money to invest in other things.
still, gonna get back on the horse at the weekend

also gonna start posting more often. been slack of late. so nature got me back to posting. i knew i shouldn't have watched episode 8 of the 'human planet : cities'.
yesterday i saw a very well fed rat walking towards me. i called it splinter it was that big. it ran away when i took my camera phone out. two days ago as i walked out my flat main front door i spotted an enormous creature was walking towards me. at first i thought it was a cockroach (ok, so it wasn't enormous but noticeably big when i saw it in my peripheral vision) but then i saw it was a spider. aren't they supposed to run away from humans? i guess they're so used to us they don't any more. as if to prove this point to me, last night i was touching myself inappropriately (and lazily enough that my trousers were only as far down as a gangster rapper) when i saw a spider walking along my thigh mere inches from my throbbing member. luckily, i'd already been to the toilet a few minutes earlier.

a post in songs

1) the beast of tilt returneth.



what happens when you lose everything? you just start again. you start all over again.

2) just watched the fighter. great film. every time i see mark wahlberg i see a reflection of vinny chase.




3) this song, i just like. makes me sad and happy at the same time.


4)no video, but i think i've found a flaw in the royal mail recorded delivery system. lets say i purchase an item off ebay. it gets sent recorded delivery to me. post man pat takes it to a house up the road instead. the lady who lives there signs for it. and here is the flaw:
it will look to royal mail like it was signed at the correct address and said lady keeps the package.
luckily, this lady had no desire for football gloves and delivered them to me today instead of keeping them. would have been tough to track her down.

eagle eyes

eagle eyed critical readers such as myself will have noted that the last post had 2 glaring errors.
error 1) only went up to 100
error 2) forgot to mention the greatest timewaster of all time - the interweb!

luckily, these two errors cancel out as they meet in unification, unlike matter antimatter interactions and more like the carnal meeting of two opposite sex cross dressers. both are wrong, yet when they come together it still works in a way that still doesn't seem quite right. not that there's anything wrong with it. (there is). (there isn't).

101 things to do to avoid writing for work with a distant deadline

1. tidy room thoroughly
2. take out the rubbish
3. take out more rubbish
4. hand wash keeper's top for the first time in >1 year
5. do laundry
6. watch latest episode of house
7. avoid playing ps3 till after 7pm when you'll feel less guilty
8. read forums
9. write a blog, perhaps post more frequently
10. work out, preferably twice a day
11. eat (more often)
12. drink (non alcoholic drinks, more often)
13. side effect of 11/12, see nature more often
14. take longer in food preparation

....

98. read more books
99. call people, just to chat
100. wake up late

another gender equality oddity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12606610

this story says insurance companies cannot base their pricing on gender. they essentially have to ignore that in their statistics and do equal pricing. so obviously this won't mean they lose money, but will slyly gain some instead.
some men will gain, some women will lose, overall common sense will lose massively. i don't understand why, if this is the case, it is still ok to discriminate pricing on age, marital status etc

it appears that once again people equate equality with being the same. much as people have a hard time differentiating between envy and hatred. often people feel envy and it all channels to hatred. doesn't make sense to me. if you see someone doing something well, something you wish you could do, it should channel you to better yourself to become like them in the aspects you envy/admire. eg how so many people can hate celebrities without ever knowing/meeting them is amazing.

hands

i don't post many hands, i dunno how interesting it is. i think these are the two biggest pots of the year, since i've moved down to 1/2. one was at regular 200 buy in table. t'other was at a deep table. both hands played out perfectly, just as i'd envisaged when making each bet/call.

Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: SB ( $226.50 USD )
Seat 2: BB ( $200.00 USD )
Seat 3: utg ( $208.00 USD )
Seat 4: Hero ( $358.20 USD )
Seat 5: WHALE ( $383.25 USD )
Seat 6: BTN ( $200.00 USD )
SB posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
BB posts big blind [$2.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Qc Kh ]
utg folds
Hero raises [$6.00 USD]
WHALE calls [$6.00 USD]
BTN raises [$25.00 USD]
SB folds
BB folds
Hero raises [$62.00 USD]
WHALE calls [$62.00 USD]
BTN folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ Qs, 7s, 2s ]
Hero checks
WHALE bets [$72.00 USD]
Hero calls [$72.00 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 5d ]
Hero bets [$218.20 USD]
WHALE calls [$218.20 USD]

** Dealing River ** [ Ad ]

Hero shows [Qc, Kh ]
WHALE shows [5c, As ]
WHALE wins $741.40 USD from main pot


Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: agg reg ( $692.80 USD )
Seat 2: mp ( $547.65 USD )
Seat 3: fishy ( $261.00 USD )
Seat 4: Hero ( $487.00 USD )
Seat 5: SB ( $407.35 USD )
Seat 6: BB ( $455.05 USD )
SB posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
BB posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
agg reg posts ante of [$0.40 USD].
mp posts ante of [$0.40 USD].
fishy posts ante of [$0.40 USD].
Hero posts ante of [$0.40 USD].
SB posts ante of [$0.40 USD].
BB posts ante of [$0.40 USD].

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ah Ac ]
agg reg raises [$6.00 USD]
mp folds
fishy raises [$18.00 USD]
Hero calls [$18.00 USD]
SB calls [$17.00 USD]
BB calls [$16.00 USD]
agg reg raises [$60.00 USD]
fishy folds
Hero raises [$116.00 USD]
SB folds
BB folds
agg reg raises [$626.40 USD]
Hero calls [$352.60 USD]
agg reg wins $205.80 USD

** Dealing Flop ** [ 4c, 3h, 7s ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qh ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8c ]

agg reg shows [Jc, Js ]
Hero shows [Ah, Ac ]
Hero wins $1026.60 USD from main pot

things i've learnt to apply to life

specifically, things from poker.
i think the correct term is transferable skills. and i also think that the ones i pick up from poker are ones that i will find easy to apply to other aspects since they are in a very pure form when playing poker. and these are things that when you do them better your see the results.

there is a long list, ones i once considered adding to my cv. i may have even blogged about it before. i think it would be useful to keep them all in one place. but to start, i will just write some of the most recent ones that cropped up in my mind here.

responsibility
by this i mean taking responsibility for your results. "how is it possible to do this in a game where luck is so heavily involved like poker?" i hear you cry.
well, it is. accepting that you are responsible for your results is the first step to being able to improve. believing that you have the ability to create the results you desire is important, not just in poker, but quite evidently in life too. and i wouldn't hesitate to say that there is a large slice of fortune there too.
and one of my favourite quotes is by golfer Gary Player "The more i practice, the luckier i get"

mental blocks

on my betfair account many moons ago, i would run £50 up to £1k before promptly losing chunks. i tried many things to correct this such as withdrawing amounts etc, but could never significantly get past it. i still don't know why, but i do know that i now longer have any fears or lack of self belief about breaking that barrier and going past £2k. maybe it just took practice or maybe a bunch of other factors combined.
this transfers to life since i think there are many self imposed blocks that i place upon myself. and most of them aren't real but pigments of my imagination. much as henry ford was a terrible human being he was right when he said "whether you think you can, or think you can't. you're right."

auto pilot

this one will be familiar to any poker player. playing without really concentrating, surfing the tinternet, watching telly, talking on the phone, or just not really paying attention to what you're doing. all give you poor results. sometimes, you can even win when playing on autopilot, but really, you know how terrible it is for your results. if you're gonna do something, commit to it, and do it properly. if you're going spend 2 hours playing, either play to the best of your ability or do something else.
i don't think this is too hard a concept to apply to real life. make sure you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, and then commit fully to it - don't be on auto pilot, simple reacting to what happens around you; you are the one in control.

poker epiphany #16.2

i went to play live last night. once again i am reminded not only how much i don't like it, but also how bad i am at it.
afterwards i was quite depressed. and annoyed with myself. and a wee bit angry. all at the same time. and then this afternoon i started playing a little bit with a focus on decision making. I have really got to learn to take all this very seriously else i will be resigned to getting a job in the not too distant future. and this was when i realised something which made me happy when playing. something really obvious, but i hadn't put two and two together.
everyone knows that winning or losing, in the long run, is based on making the correct decision. and so i always tried to judge my play on whether or not i'd made the correct decision. but i'd always based my happiness on winning/losing. and it doesn't really make sense. and it's something really obvious but i'd just been reacting to winning/losing by the first thing that came to mind (happiness) instead of how i want to react.

of course, i'd always got annoyed with myself for making mistakes too, but never been happy with making the right decision. this should be obvious to everyone, it's kinda obvious to me, but i like this way of thinking about things. this might even be the post i was looking for to reread before i start each session. so that i know exactly what i want to be focussing.

as for playing live, saw some amazing beats, and comments. the best by far was all combined into one hand. on an a82 all spade board, a massive whale who bet with nothing and called with any pair/draw got all in vs a standard live player, with a9 against standard's 83ss.
turn9. river a.
table erupts in headshakes and disbelief with but one man banging the table in glee.
after this dies down, a kid on my right says nice hand, not loud enough for the winner of the hand to hear, but close enough so that the loser could. the guy who lost understandably, doesn't take it too well, saying "not actually a nice hand was it?"
kid replies, "no, but you're supposed to say that to the winning hand aren't you?"

internet commentators

much as i wrote this blog for me, it's always nice to get comments.
however, i can understand why you's wouldn't want to. it was bruce who once quipped that "..as everyone knows youtube commentators are the lowest forms of intelligence"

i have written many an article on the complete lack of thought that goes into many a bbc article. this is often the journalist, though not infrequently the people they quote. i have of course, always avoided reading the general public's opinions because whilst as a group the conclusion can be sensible, individuals' thoughts are alarmingly alarming.
and sometimes it's hard to tell when they joking, mostly because i'm hoping they're not serious more than anything else.

this article is about crocodiles eating you. as some comments rightly point out, the whole article is retarded by saying the best way of not getting eaten is going nowhere near them. so stupid on a few levels. not least because the article is titled "How do you fight off a crocodile?"

and then the comments section. early on, a comment worthy of youtube intellect appears, and doesn't seem to be anything other than serious. remember, this is on an article about how to defend yourself when a crocodile is about to kill you:
"...I don't think poking it in the eye is the best idea. You do that your going to drive it mad, because its in pain and the last think you want to do is drive a man eating creature with 13 tones per square inch gob mad."

reading just that part it actually seems quite humorous, although i think that's just because it's taken out of context. and once again, i'm hoping it's a very witty person who has caught me out, because the alternative is so disappointing.

award time

an early contender for moron of the year goes to this lady
she, an employee for the department of transport, complained that messages she posted on twitter were used by journalists. she expected them to be private. obviously a ruling was provided that they are in the public domain. no doubt a decent waste of taxpayer money was wasted somewhere trying to defend her idiocy.

something else accidentally moronic happened today. i sky plus'd match of the day and went to watch it. as is usually the case, the programme begins recording at the end of the previous one, so you catch the last minute or two of the preceding one, which in this instance was the news. as usual, the last news item is sport, and the first thing that i heard when starting the programme was hearing the newsreader finish saying,
(if you don't want to know the scores)
"look away now..."
together with an image of all the day's results.

had another epiphany yesterday when losing a bunch of money. i often berate myself when losing money for making mistakes and bad calls. much as i try to avoid results based thinking there is a huge bias when looking at results which involve the calls that you make because you don't see the results from the times that you fold.
when i make a good call i assume it will be correct every time and bad calls are wrong every time. i don't think it's as simple as that but even after the event it's occasionally hard to know definitively whether what i've done is + or - ev.
and i shouldn't abuse myself so much. except when i've made stupid mistakes which i still seem to do an awful lot of. need to focus on correcting that and having better plans for hands when i invoke the call button. at least i'm worrying less about winning and losing. even though i need to pay rent!

also, got an hdmi cable for my ps3, and it's like my eyes are now open. fifa is much more beautiful! all for the princely sum of 37 great british pennies + delivery. and now i must sleep.

know thyself

i think it was sun tzu who said something like "know your enemy and know yourself and you'll win every battle"

like a lot of things i've been learning about recently, there is one more obvious step beyond this quote, which is that you need to be able to apply it. further, i think that the application of this is quite interesting.
i know myself, but recently i began thinking about really understanding what causes me frustration (especially at the tables) and most importantly, knowing how to deal with it in a way that will please my brain.
so this month i've been setting out to play 1000 hands, and i keep an eye on the number of hands played (not too frequently) and make little milestones in my head. so i notice when i'm 1/3 of the way through, half way through, two thirds of way through and also when i reach the 1k mark. then i decide how i'm feeling and whether to continue.
i find these milestones help relax me into not doing anything rash. this has kinda helped my overall play.

playing a bit of football and tennis recently and i think i've tweaked my hernia. i assume this is possible since i've done it before and it took a couple of weeks of rest to recover. whenever i hear hernia, i assume it's a terrible injury but that's just a pavlovian response i think.

on a related but an unrelated note i tried to call my gp today at 3pm. they'd already closed. what if i was ill!?

i wasn't though. but when i was relaxing on the throne i realised that i'm pretty sure the smartphone was invented by someone bored of reading the toothpaste ingredients for the umpteenth time whilst sitting on the toilet.

great success!

not really on the poker results front.
as is clear from my last post, i have what seems to be the football pundit mentality: you're only as good as your last result.
so regardless of whether you've won 7 in a row before throwing away a four goal lead, or you're bottom of the league and beat the league leaders your season's performance isn't as important as your last game. clearly, this is utter nonsense. though obviously it's more difficult when analysing your own performance, when there is no team involved. there is just variance.

anyway, i stopped feeling sorry for myself when i woke up the next day. that was a success. but the great success just followed this evening's session where i completely forgot to check my results till just now.

i need to concentrate and run good again as i need to withdraw some more money for rent. not much else been happening. other than a minor car crash. i was waiting (stationary!) at a junction to join a road, woman drove straight into my car. brilliant. when i was getting her details she seemed completely unfazed by the whole experience because i figured she was either out of bounds (an actual retard), giving me false details or has done this before lots of times. i was going with c.

last thought for today, i was watching the superbowl last night (first half till i couldn't stay awake any longer) and was most impressed by the coin toss ceremony. more accurately, the way the packers' fans celebrated winning with the stadium erupting in cheers!
finally, a statistic for the superbowl - the nfc team has won the coin toss for the last 14 games! variance!!

worst run i've ever been on

i would first like to note the general tendencies of the last 4 sessions
hands = 6.5k
$2k below all in ev
went to showdown, below average in 3/4 sessions
won at showdown, well below average in 4/4 sessions
premiums dealt, aa only dealt less often than 2 other pocket pairs.
AKs less often than all but 2 other Axs
Ako less often than every other Ax
today was very depressing when within a few hands i flopped bottom set, got it in against an overpair and lost both times. should have known it would be bad when first hand got aipf with kk vs jj
8 buyins down in ev just today!
it's not helped that my play has been average at best for this month. this is the only thing i can control so this is where my focus will lie.
just hope i don't have to deposit money, and can actually win in february. one k down in january so need to reach 11k before i will go back to 2/4. still hoping to reach this by end of march. should reach a 4k bonus by end of march but that will not be included in the 10k total.

SEXism

this is what grinds my gears about sexism. whilst most people in the western world (under that age where you're seemingly encouraged to be racist) are against it, the people most vocally supporting it can be retarded.
there are two main issues i have. firstly, is that rather than wanting equality, the peoples who were 'wronged' want to be in more power to make up for it. as everyone should know, two wrongs don't make a right. just cos you make a mistake on the turn, doesn't mean you should compound it on the river.
the second thing that really drives me barmy (or used to, now i realise i no longer need to choose to feel rage at the idiocy of others) is that no one seems to understand that equality doesn't mean you are the same. the best example i can think of is that of identical twins. yes, they look the same, and yes you should treat them equally (or so i'm told, i don't have any) but it doesn't mean that you should treat them the same. they are different people!
similarly, men and women should be treated equally and fairly, which does not equate to treating them the same.

the reason i have posted about this has come about due to the dinosaur comments made by sky sports presenters about a female lines(wo)man / assistant ref. whilst i may have had a similar thought in my head along the lines of 'lol she doesn't know the offside rule' i didn't say it out loud. and i wasn't even in a studio. with a microphone i had left on.
(i also enjoy the apologies that come following these types of incidences where they never actually say sorry for their opinions; it seems they are entierly sorry for being caught).

but there follows a comment made by a lady here stating the game needs more women refs. whilst that sentiment is not one of contention, the comment that follows is retarded.

"But when they're appointed, sadly, they'll get the same abuse as their male colleagues."

lol. if you want equality, don't complain when they get abuse from fans. they aren't getting it for being women, but for being wankers and needing glasses. whilst the fact that no refs should be getting abuse is a valid one, it has nothing to do with sexism and if that's what they are trying to say in this article it is confusing, irrelevant to have added, and i apologise for not understanding.

disclaimer: as it comes from a journalist the quotes are likely to be made up or taken out of context.

danny trejo

my door has no doorbell. well, it has a doorbell which doesn't work. so the other morning someone is banging on the door. i know it's gonna be a delivery since they're the only people who visit unexpectedly. i open the door without looking through the peephole and i see this guy looking at me

he asks to come in. i say no. so he pulls out a knife. i don't say "that's not a knife, THIS is a knife" because i am a little scared and also not holding a knife. i manage to get him in the bathroom and i close the door from the outside. i'm not sure how this confused him but it gave me time to get my phone and keys from my room, get out the flat and lock him in. i call the police and they say they have no one around to help. even though there's someone thieving me whilst i talk to them! as i'm about to say, don't worry, i've found a gun and i'll go deal with it (based on a funny joke, i expect that will get them to show up) i am woken up from that dream by a banging on the door. i decided not to answer it. just in case.

iplayer

hopefully this post will rank up my blog when people search for iplayer.
iplayer makes me laugh almost every time i watch something on it. they have this warning which stops youngsters watching inappropriate material where you have to click a button to say you're over 16. how will a 5 year old get past such stringent measures? then again, i'm reliably informed that porn sites have the same strict security measures.

clouds

took this awesome picture. should definitely share it with the world. twas right after a short but violent lighting and thunder storm. the contrast in clouds and the colours as the sun sets are magnificent.

boiler broke down over the weekend. the worst part is having to wake up early to let the plumbers in to fix it. it's funny how many coincidences have occurred with this. Firstly, the hot water was on, downstairs flat did some gas works and then the boiler broke. apparently, unrelated. i'm not so sure.
secondly, with new boiler installed, kitchen sink tap drips. again, i'm told that it is unrelated.
like all trades, i can't really argue with these people and say it's rather a convenient excuse for you not to do any more work. not just because they know lots and i know nothing but also because i want them to finish the job well.

M&S

actually, just M. punishing myself.
having been playing really badly for the last few months of last year so i've dropped down a stake to repair my mind. it's not going particularly well. there are lots of things i'm doing badly. i really have to think about things better whilst playing. i slowly think i'm getting there. i'm gonna stay at 1/2 for at least 20k hands i reckon. maybe more. maybe till i get to $10k.
also beginning to worry that i will begin to need more money soon. this will lead to an increase in play rather than getting a job just yet i hope! i've been really bad at organising my time properly and this will change.
one thing i've always wanted in order to improve my life is a whiteboard. i finally inherited one this week. so far it contains my new fitness regime (currently unfilled in as i haven't started yet. oops.) and also an imitation escher diagram, the devil fork. so it's working out well so far.

was about to eat a chocolate but don't see the point as i'm about to brush my teeth and go to sleep. eating chocolate now would feel like a waste since i wouldn't get to savour the flavour in my mouth.

and finally, the alarm just went off in my roommate's room. it's 330am. and he's not getting up for a work shift. his lady friend is with him. and he sets the alarm so that he can kick her out.

healthy eating

in not a bid to get healthier i have begun eating more oranges. it's simply that i choose them over chocolate at the moment since they are nearer. i think i usually go for chocolate because it never involves washing/peeling not eating parts of it along with all the other hassles of eating fruit.

and i just lost my train of thought after having to take another ladybird out my room. both red with black spots. i remember seeing yellow ones when i was younger and being amazed. i still get amazed when i see new animals. i only found out about the okapi a few years ago and then shortly afterwards i saw one in london zoo!

hmm, another ladybird flying around my lamp like a fly on crack.

just went outside in the rain to wash my car. i thought it was a great idea, saves me taking a bucket, and saves water. sadly, there wasn't enough rain. and i need to t-cut and polish and wax my car which you can't do in the rain, or direct sunlight either. lucky i live in england where it's usually overcast.

weird dreams

first of all one that i can't remember whether it was a memory from a film or a dream? one guy facing another rips out his septum. sounds like it could be from a film. except he then places it in his nose where his septum should be. I'm unclear as to whether it was to replace one that he was missing, or in addition to an existing one.
then i have had an F1 dream where i was out on a sunday so spent the day not checking the bbc website to avoid knowing the result so i could watch it later (disclaimer: i have never and will never do this!) except i part checked the results accidentally and when i started watching the replay on iplayer i realised it was boring so just found out the results. vettel won and webber was knocked out. however, the weird part is that just as they were lining up on the grid, a coded messages was sent to the red bull drivers about elephants being cold. martin brundle later explained that this meant the team decided to not support both drivers equally, but have vettel as number 1, and webber as number 2. stranger still is that i think team orders are now allowed.

went for a run yesterday to try to get a bit fitter. i used to be able to jog for quite some time. yesterday i ran to the next tube station. the way back was uphill and almost killed me. i kept having to stop. except at one point, a terribly long hill, i overtook a lady pushing a pram going at an incredible rate (her, not me). I wanted to pause for breath but felt a bit embarrassed lest she overtake me so had to keep going. maybe i should employ her as my motivational coach.

material provided for me

i think writing this blog more often will force the universe into providing me material. not long after my previous post i went out and stopped off on the way home to pick up dinner in the form of a kebab. (flafel actually). whilst waiting, a cross-eyed chinese dude walks in, with satchel, and asks if anyone wants a DVD. This reminded me of the time about 10 years ago playing 5-a-side when someone i barely knew who we were playing with asks my friend "do you like DVDs?"
this was his opening gambit into "would you like to buy a film off me?"
brilliant. we still laugh about it to this day.
so anyway, i was thinking that thanks to the internet this chinese dude no longer makes any money since if you're gonna steal a film, you might as well steal it for free rather than a small fee. but no! the guy working in this shop must never have heard of the internet as he requested a film.

estate agents

no one likes them. not even their mothers. i recently been helping someone move flat and the agency are run by morons. a lot of little things annoyed me about them such as not cleaning the flat properly, leaving things broken etc but the worst was their blatant flouting of the law when they decided to finally deliver some furniture. i asked them for at least 30 mins notice, which is quite reasonable when they're supposed to give 24 hours. i asked in writing and on the phone. of course, they gave me 5 mins notice, and when i turned up 7 minutes later it was all delivered. this was pretty much the final straw so i sent them an email saying how it was disappointing and shouldn't happen again. i finished it with the sentence

Further, I would like the name, number and email address of the manager of your 'agency' to make an appointment and register my displeasure.

I sent it on Friday, since it happened Thursday afternoon. A minute later i get a phone call from one of the disgruntled mongs. who firstly tells me he is the owner/manager (i laughed on the inside) and that he doesnt like receiving "these sorts of emails on a Friday afternoon" (i laughed a little on the ouside). Avoiding asking him if it were better that I should send future ones on Monday mornings he launched into some tirade or other. sadly, the moral of this story is that they are now relatively accommodating. I find it disappointing that they should only choose to do this when people have to complain after being wronged. i remember when i had a job as a finance department, I always tried to treat the nicer customers better than the horrible complaining ones.

google searches

lots of people found me thanks to vinny chase.
but someone found me using the less well used search term:
"i would love to meet you, get to know you and show you round the flat so that you can see what you are renting but i have been having problems with ti" which had visits = 1.

i also had the search term "mudwig blogs" with visits = 0
which i think is amazing. no people got to my blog searching google for that. i wonder what other terms people didn't search to get to my blog.

I would also like to have a belated party to myself for reaching 20 followers. you may see it says 21 but one is me. which doesn't count. and i only joined so that it would reach 10 as a nice round number instead of nine. i'm still more a fan of popular and better blogs.

i've taken to doing two things to improve my poker playing. firstly i've withdrawn some monies so dropped to 1/2 to build ip money and confidence. secondly i have written some notes which say
"SIT DOWN
BREATHE
RELAX"
i have this covering my hem shortcut so i can't play without reading this. i forgot this and dropped 5 buy ins today. then i remembered and won them back. i fear it was more due to luck than breathing but hopefully my brain will think otherwise and i'll condition myself to meditate for 2 minutes each time before playing.

also, i was thinking of blogging every day, or every other day. i would have to make it funnier. which is a lot of pressure. but also don't know if any one reads it that frequently to make it worthwhile?

once again

firstly, an article i've been meaning to post for a while. it elegantly shows journalistic standards. though it does come from the daily mail which is hardly a bastion of intelligence.
why is this article so retarded? in the penultimate paragraph it states
"The player, who cost £5million in August,..."
though you may have noticed the caption for the first photograph says
"Family affair: Konchesky has failed to win over the Kop since his £4m move"
perhaps a simple typo neither the author or sub-editor noticed. or perhaps they make up the transfer figures half the time. or maybe they wanted to cover more bases. whatever the reason, it's pretty slack.

right now, i have more pressing concerns. i once again find myself needing the toilet. alas, my flatmate who didn't want two bathrooms when we were looking for places to reside is in the shower. and even if i knock whilst about to piss myself (not through laughing) he won't hear since the radio is on at full volume. i know this because i can hear magic fm (which, if you've never heard of it, you're lucky as it's terrible) and it wasn't till after i moved in he told me how he likes long showers. really long prune inducing showers. i think people started pissing in bottles or sinks because their housemates didn't leave the bathroom, especially in the mornings. then they got used to it so continued to do it when driving or working at the computer. and as society gets more crowded and the shower to person ration decreases and people get lazier it'll probably become more acceptable.

the other day i went to shower only to discover my shower gel had been thrown away. by him. the irony was that he left his empty bottles in there for months, yet throws mine out before it's finished?!

and today's final gripe is that he has filled up the 250Gb sky+ hard drive with simpsons. he then deleted all the tv (two shows of 8 episodes) i had saved; luckily i'd watched them. thus he could completely fill up the hard drive with simpsons that he has seen before and/or doesn't watch now.

get cape wear cape fly had a song that went "you are not your job, you are not the clothes you wear, you are the words that leave your mouth, so speak up..."
as a doctor i would have expected him to be unselfish, but it appears that you are in no way a reflection of your job. which is strange because one of the first things you usually ask when meeting someone is "what do you do?"
now i feel this is rather a redundant question and perhaps i should start asking people "what are you like?"

i will choose to not be annoyed by any of this. though it is much tougher than i anticipated, as it is how i imagine gonorrhoea to be - a constant source of irritation.