Author Topic: If Carlsberg did dull poker blogs, they'd do this one  (Read 225098 times)

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monkeyman

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #210 on: August 24, 2008, 19:29:08 PM »
Only two days until I set off for London. Mmm, "World Champion" does have a certain ring to it...........
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monkeyman

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #211 on: August 25, 2008, 15:01:24 PM »
 My good run on the cash tables seems to be coming to an end. Over the past few weeks, either Partypoker or Pokerstars and sometimes both at the same time have been very good to me. For the first time since my recent conversion from no limit hold"em fish to seven card stud grinder, both sites seem to be kicking me where it hurts at the same time. As I"ve only got a fraction of a week to play with, it looks like I"m going to have to settle for my first weekly online loss in the last seven weeks.
   To help me mentally prepare for my stint at The Vic, this morning I went elephant hunting. Before you send me death threats or ring the authorities, no animals were harmed in the writing of this blog. This summer, Norwich has played host to a city-wide open-air art exhibition in the form of fifty-three fibreglass baby elephants decorated mainly by local artists and community groups. All the elephants are soon to be auctioned in aid of charity. The exhibition ends this week, so as I"ve not looked around so far and I"ll be away from tomorrow, today was my last opportunity. 
 I started at The Playhouse Theatre, passed the Norwich School of Art and St Andrew"s Hall, then turned left at Cinema City to head back towards the River Wensum. From there, I made the short trip to Norwich Cathedral. One of my reasons for visiting was to see the elephant decorated by a school in Kenya, but, despite being a devout atheist, I have an affinity for holy buildings. A few years ago, during a protracted and viciously antagonistic departure from my then employer, Norwich Union, I regularly made the short walk to the cathedral during my lunch breaks to collect my thoughts before returning to the office for more verbal sparring with my boss. I used to head for a specific seat in the chapel dedicated to the Royal Anglian Regiment, who my maternal grandfather fought for before and during the Second World War. This particular chapel currently has an alternative use, so after a quick stroll around the cloisters, I left the building and on my way back into the city centre, passed the offices of the accountancy firm where I had my first ever job interview.
   I then headed for the grounds of Norwich Castle before passing through the Castle Mall. I"d registered a number of elephant sightings by this point, so continued up Timber Hill past Devil"s Advocate (I"ll leave you to guess what kind of establishment that is!), turned right at John Lewis, then headed along St Stephen"s Street and into the Chapelfield Mall. I always feel slightly uneasy when entering this place. It's not so much that I have anything against shopping in vast buildings full of national chains that can found in any large town in the land, but I can"t help but think about what it replaced. For many years, this site was occupied by a factory which, in its final years, was owned by Nestle, but most locals still refer to as Rowntree"s or Rowntree Mackintosh"s. At the time the factory was closed, it was apparently the most profitable site Nestle had in the UK, but was put to sleep because of its geographical remoteness rather than any lack of efficiency. Most families in Norwich contained someone who had at some point had a connection with the place and, indeed, one of my own brothers met his wife whilst working there. Ironically, their daughter is named after an elephant! Even Norwich"s most famous/best-liked resident, the Puppet Man also used to work for Rowntree"s.
   From there, I passed the Norwich Millenium Library which is apparently the 2nd busiest library in the country in terms of number of items loaned per year. At this point, I begun to think about a refreshment stop, so eschewing Starbucks, Costa and all those other huge chains, I sought refuge in Pulse, a vegetarian cafe in a quiet courtyard just off Norwich marketplace.
  By now, I had just a handful of elephants left to see, so headed along Gentleman"s walk towards Top Shop. On the way there, I passed the aforementioned Puppet Man who was "singing", what I believe (it was difficult to understand the words) was "The Leader of The Pack" whilst waving his "puppet" which looked suspiciously like a well-worn walking sock with two eyes glued on. For anyone interested in people-watching, the presence of the Puppet Man is a good way of working out who is from round these parts. Outsiders always have a look of sheer disbelief and can generally be seen pinching themselves to make sure they are not dreaming. Locals however, always laugh inwardly when the Puppet Man is around and look upon him as a harmless old chap whose idiosyncratic "performances", and I use the word in its loosest possible sense, help prevent our city from plunging headfirst into a morass of sanitised blandness.
  I then turned left towards the castle and left again to the cathedral, where I sat quietly at the rear listening to the closing few minutes of an organ recital before heading home.
  The reason for writing all of the above is to provide myself with a reality check. Like a lot of people on this site, I have been guilty of being over obsessive about my poker and felt I needed to take a step back before heading to London. Yes I"d love the gold bracelet, the sponsorship deal and the TV appearances, but I"m an amateur player with a life away from the game. Sometimes I need reminding of that.          
                   
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duke3016

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #212 on: August 25, 2008, 17:11:03 PM »

 Yes I"d love the gold bracelet, the sponsorship deal and the TV appearances, but I"m an amateur player with a life away from the game. Sometimes I need reminding of that.          


Now that is the single greatest piece of prose that has ever been posted. I will buy the first drink at the Vic

APAT

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #213 on: August 25, 2008, 22:40:17 PM »

Time for another blog entry and what is tonight"s effort going to be? An attempt to convey how excited I am about something I"m going to do soon? A collection of lowest common denominator cheap shots at my fellow Norfolk residents? Not this time anyway. Or possibly a thinly-veiled brag post during which I tell everyone how much money I"ve been making recently? Wrong again. Today"s effort has nothing at all to do with poker.
   Tonight I went to The Waterfront in Norwich, a former grain warehouse which opened in 1992 as a music venue/nightclub. I see a lot of bands and the majority are loud, raucous rock bands. When I go to a gig, I don"t go for note-perfect renditions of songs I"ve played to death at home; I look for a bit more. I want excitement, the unexpected, I want energy and I want a performance. Tonight"s band were Mindless Self Indulgence and I"ll have to admit, when I purchased the ticket to see them, I hadn"t heard a single note of their music. However, they have a reputation for wild live shows so I thought it was worth risking £14.
  My usual modus operandi is to stand on the edge of the area people where are hurling themselves at each other so that I get a slight sense of danger but I"m not likely to make contact with anyone"s flailing elbow. Early in the performance, a fearsome moshpit developed, which for the uninitiated means that a large chunk of the dance floor was covered by gig-goers not so much dancing as wildly hurling themselves in any direction until contact with another whirling dervish changes their path. I stood on the edge of this chaos with one eye on the stage, the other alert to rapidly-moving human-missiles. I"m not sure that anything specific prompted it, but there came a point where reserve exited stage left and before I"d had the chance to say my prayers, I found myself in the middle of the maelstrom. The most bizarre sight, amongst many bizarre sights, all evening were the three six foot plus skinheads who decided to have a game of scissors/paper/stone mid venue who were surrounded by ten blokes dancing round them in a circle. I was one of the ten.
   During the final song, the part of hell which had previously been shackled was unleashed and the whole venue became a seething mass of dancing, jumping, gyrating bodies. If my sensible self had been present, I would unquestionably have sought refuge in the space between sound desk and bar, but I didn"t do that. I cast off my last vestiges of self-control and for one beautiful, fleeting moment forgot that I"m forty next year, asthmatic and work in an office.
  Tomorrow morning, back to the call centre.



Outstanding post Simon.  This is a great blog.

Swinebag

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #214 on: August 25, 2008, 22:46:32 PM »
got there before me Des. Keep it up monkey!
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monkeyman

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #215 on: August 26, 2008, 10:50:11 AM »
My original motivation for starting the blog was the prospect of a seat in the main event at The Vic and planned on stopping the second the result of the competition was announced. However, like Frankenstein"s monster, this blog appears to have taken on a life of its own and I"ve no intention of stopping in the forseeable future. On the whole, I never plan what I write, I just sit in front of my PC and see what comes out (however, sometime soon I"ll write a piece about why my login name on most sites has a monkey theme). I"m not normally stuck for words, but I find it hard to express how pleased I am to see the three comments above. Thanks guys and I look forward to saying hello to you all in London. I was on the same table as both Rob and Gerard in Edinburgh, although The Duke was only seated to my left for long enough to hear my potty-mouth as I departed.    
  My train gets to Livepool Street just before 3pm. I"ll find way way to my hotel, then later will have a meal and go to see Spamalot which I saw at the Wynn Las Vegas last year. Tomorrow, the real fun starts and I fully expect to cash at least once during the week. I should be able to find a space for a trophy as well!    
   Also tomorrow, I will be joined my my brother-in-law, eastern region champion Steve Stringer (I was runner-up, grrrrrr) who will bring a laptop. I may possibly do some updates during the week, but its more likely I will leave it until my return home next monday.
   
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Oldsoreknees

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #216 on: August 26, 2008, 21:00:48 PM »
I confess; I was that man who met his wife at Rowntree"s, and named his daughter after an elephant (and she has some fault in the Monkeyman name!) but - and this is where it gets really scary, I was in Pulse at 4 pm on the same day.  This town ain"t big enough.

Incidentally daughter helped decorate one of the elephants in the city.

Good luck for the tournaments Monkey and Steve (Prince of Spawn)Stringer - it will be very satisfiying beating a World Champ!

(I"ve just crashed out of the Sky Slow Boat - K high flush against a A high one.  At least I"ll get an early night.)

monkeyman

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #217 on: August 29, 2008, 19:58:54 PM »
my cards have been colder all week than a penguin in a freezer. I"m sure this means its all going to come good tomorrow, so take those odds on Blue Square now whilst you can!
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duke3016

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #218 on: August 29, 2008, 20:20:11 PM »
Taken already -- I have faith !!!!!!

Bad hat lady

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #219 on: August 30, 2008, 15:23:54 PM »
I"m glad to see you wore the Darley hat in the WCOAP stud tournament. I was a bit disappointed you didn"t win as I was hoping to set up as a poker image consultant.
Good luck for the main event.

monkeyman

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #220 on: September 02, 2008, 22:03:40 PM »
I"m back in my natural environment and its time for a review of the highs and lows of my week in London. WARNING - this blog entry may contain traces of bad beat stories.
   The Highs:
1) Seeing Johnny Rotten whilst strolling through Trafalgar Square.
2) Oh Heck, I"m struggling here....................hmm.................that"s about it for good stuff, on with the whinging.
  The Lows:
1) Feeling like c**p all week. My normally completely-under-control-no-problem-at-all asthma decided that it was going to teach me that London isn"t the place for me and I had breathing problems from wednesday morning onwards. Whilst this didn"t affect my poker at all, it did mean that most of the time I"d allocated to tourist activity was spent laying on my bed in the hotel.
2) I"d figured that by playing all four tournaments, I"d have a reasonable chance of having at least one day when the poker gods were on my side. Unfortunately, being an atheist, I refuse to believe the existence of any god and my experiences last week reaffirmed my views. I didn"t have a single hand I"d would normally like to touch with a very long pole during either the Omaha and Razz tournaments. Stud day was marginally better and gave me my only top half finish of the week.
   WARNING - This paragraph contains a bad beat story. Then came the main event. Oh dear. My record in APAT nationals is, frankly, dismal. I"ve now taken part in four (excluding last week"s side events) and have yet to make it to day two. For the early levels on saturday, nothing of note happened. I stole a few blinds here and there, but my stack never seemed to go above 11000 or below 9000. Things went completely wrong when Darren Shallis (seated two to my right) was replaced by Ducncthehat. Karma dictated that the new arrival should be the man to force me to depart as I greeted him with "Aren"t you the guy that who was outplayed by an empty chair in Cardiff?". The round before I departed, Dunc raised from the button, I reraised from the big blind and he put me all in. I didn"t feel that I wanted to put my tounament life on the line at that point, so after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I folded. Then came the fateful hand which occured during the 150/300 level. Dunc raised to 900 and I reraised to 2500 leaving me with about 4500 behind then Dunc called. The flop came  9c tc :2d:. I bet a further 2500 and was immediately raised all-in and called without hesitation. I had a pair of aces, he had queen/jack for an open-ended staright draw which was completed with an eight on the river. The only positive I can draw from this is that at least Mr Potty Mouth stayed at home and I retained a certain level of decorum.
 WARNING- This paragraph also contains a bad beat story. I"m not sure how I manage it, but despite the fact that I think I"m contiuously improving as a player,  my departure from each national has been quicker than my preceding effort. My first try was in Luton last year when I went out an agonising two minutes before the close of day one ( Have I ever mentioned I was rivered off a 70000 chip pot by going all-in with QQ and was beaten by AQ? I have? About a dozen times? OK, I won"t mention it again). In Cardiff I survived the table of death and a couple of hours sitting next to Liv Boeree, but went out just after 11pm. In Edinburgh I was brilliant for the first couple of hours and stormed into an early lead but then blew-up in spectacular style and departed the first hand after the meal break. This time, didn"t hang around long enough to sample the bowl of chilli provided. At this rate, next time I enter a national, I"ll probably be disqualified before arriving at the casino. 
 In all seriousness, the main positive I gained from the week came well before my arrival in the capital. As mentioned extensively over the past few weeks, I have changed from being a no limit holdem player to someone who plays almost nothing but stud and my bank account is looking all the healthier because of it. The only reason for this change was that I wanted to practise all the side events before arriving at The Vic. If last week hadn"t been planned, I"d probably still be swearing at opponents upon departure from mickey mouse holdem contests. Being a cash player seems so be suiting me down to the ground.              
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APAT

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #221 on: September 02, 2008, 22:54:53 PM »

I"m glad to see you wore the Darley hat in the WCOAP stud tournament. I was a bit disappointed you didn"t win as I was hoping to set up as a poker image consultant.
Good luck for the main event.


Simon wearing the offending item....


APAT

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #222 on: September 02, 2008, 22:56:04 PM »

I"m back in my natural environment and its time for a review of the highs and lows of my week in London. WARNING - this blog entry may contain traces of bad beat stories.
   The Highs:
1) Seeing Johnny Rotten whilst strolling through Trafalgar Square.
2) Oh Heck, I"m struggling here....................hmm.................that"s about it for good stuff, on with the whinging.
  The Lows:
1) Feeling like c**p all week. My normally completely-under-control-no-problem-at-all asthma decided that it was going to teach me that London isn"t the place for me and I had breathing problems from wednesday morning onwards. Whilst this didn"t affect my poker at all, it did mean that most of the time I"d allocated to tourist activity was spent laying on my bed in the hotel.
2) I"d figured that by playing all four tournaments, I"d have a reasonable chance of having at least one day when the poker gods were on my side. Unfortunately, being an atheist, I refuse to believe the existence of any god and my experiences last week reaffirmed my views. I didn"t have a single hand I"d would normally like to touch with a very long pole during either the Omaha and Razz tournaments. Stud day was marginally better and gave me my only top half finish of the week.
   WARNING - This paragraph contains a bad beat story. Then came the main event. Oh dear. My record in APAT nationals is, frankly, dismal. I"ve now taken part in four (excluding last week"s side events) and have yet to make it to day two. For the early levels on saturday, nothing of note happened. I stole a few blinds here and there, but my stack never seemed to go above 11000 or below 9000. Things went completely wrong when Darren Shallis (seated two to my right) was replaced by Ducncthehat. Karma dictated that the new arrival should be the man to force me to depart as I greeted him with "Aren"t you the guy that who was outplayed by an empty chair in Cardiff?". The round before I departed, Dunc raised from the button, I reraised from the big blind and he put me all in. I didn"t feel that I wanted to put my tounament life on the line at that point, so after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I folded. Then came the fateful hand which occured during the 150/300 level. Dunc raised to 900 and I reraised to 2500 leaving me with about 4500 behind then Dunc called. The flop came  9c tc :2d:. I bet a further 2500 and was immediately raised all-in and called without hesitation. I had a pair of aces, he had queen/jack for an open-ended staright draw which was completed with an eight on the river. The only positive I can draw from this is that at least Mr Potty Mouth stayed at home and I retained a certain level of decorum.
 WARNING- This paragraph also contains a bad beat story. I"m not sure how I manage it, but despite the fact that I think I"m contiuously improving as a player,  my departure from each national has been quicker than my preceding effort. My first try was in Luton last year when I went out an agonising two minutes before the close of day one ( Have I ever mentioned I was rivered off a 70000 chip pot by going all-in with QQ and was beaten by AQ? I have? About a dozen times? OK, I won"t mention it again). In Cardiff I survived the table of death and a couple of hours sitting next to Liv Boeree, but went out just after 11pm. In Edinburgh I was brilliant for the first couple of hours and stormed into an early lead but then blew-up in spectacular style and departed the first hand after the meal break. This time, didn"t hang around long enough to sample the bowl of chilli provided. At this rate, next time I enter a national, I"ll probably be disqualified before arriving at the casino. 
 In all seriousness, the main positive I gained from the week came well before my arrival in the capital. As mentioned extensively over the past few weeks, I have changed from being a no limit holdem player to someone who plays almost nothing but stud and my bank account is looking all the healthier because of it. The only reason for this change was that I wanted to practise all the side events before arriving at The Vic. If last week hadn"t been planned, I"d probably still be swearing at opponents upon departure from mickey mouse holdem contests. Being a cash player seems so be suiting me down to the ground.              


Was good to catch up at the Vic Simon and as they say, that"s poker for you.  Your day will come....

monkeyman

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #223 on: September 02, 2008, 23:24:35 PM »
There is a small point I neglected to mention in my earlier report. When my train departed from Liverpool Street, I switched my MP3 player onto random play mode and kept it running until I got home. As I opened my door, the track playing was "Will The Revolution Come" by, I"m sure some of you may find this amusing, a band called "Reel Big Fish". Some might say that was entirely appropriate!    
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Santino67

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Re: Am I a fish or what?
« Reply #224 on: September 03, 2008, 13:42:25 PM »

At this rate, next time I enter a national, I"ll probably be disqualified before arriving at the casino.                


:D :D :D

Excellent stuff Simon. Shame I didn"t get to meet you in London but hope to at some future events.
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