PLOlz

[dwh103]

[hi_am_chris]

Good luck

[Santino67]

Good to see this Dave, looking forward to further updates mate. Sure there"ll be far more creative stuff to come and hope the support from friends and family help to pick you up after the bitter blow of losing your dad.

Stay strong and you"ll get back on track in no time.

[AAroddersAA]

This has potential to be great gl with it.

[dwh103]

Cheers Chris, Grant and Steve.

Been a good few days. Night out in Southampton to see a friend off to New Zealand for the year. See Southampton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin out and about with friends/family on the next table.

As luck would have it, one of our party was called Morgan. Cue endless conversations mentioning him by name, and chanting of "Morrrrrrggaaannn, Morrrrrrggaaannn". Poor guy was paranoid within half an hour - must"ve thought we were Pompey fans taking the piss.

Bankroll has received a welcome 50% boost. After a year of not winning a single tournament at my local casino (Southampton Grosvenor) I"ve gone and taken down a 36 runner £20+20+20 comp, using only two of the three possible buy-ins. Cashed for £630 but foolishly swapped 10% with a friend at the start of the final, ended up with £525 profit, not to be sniffed at.

1 from 1 for the year. Maybe I should stop going.

[Santino67]

Nice start to the year Dave, why stop now when you can obv make it 2 out of 2  

[PHIL_TC]

Looking forward to reading this Dave hope you had a cracking xmas and new year mate ps whatever happened to... http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=11123.15 ? x

[dwh103]

Looking forward to reading this Dave hope you had a cracking xmas and new year mate ps whatever happened to... http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=11123.15 ? x

Ah yes, Sorel Mizzi"s health challenge.

Not something I held out much hope of being victorious in, but I did ok. I had 2 weeks in Las Vegas in the middle of it, and then my dad"s health deteriorating immediately after that so it fell by the wayside to be honest.

I"ve always hated commercial gyms, but more accurately the advice from the unimaginative personal trainers inside, seemingly reading from a one size fits all crib sheet when it comes to devising a programme. I"d taken advantage of a LivingSocial voucher to visit Winning Health Solutions:



You might see a giant tractor tyre, and some Atlas Stones. If, like me, you"ve spent part of the Christmas break watching Worlds Strongest Man, you"ll know what"s done with these. And no CV in sight.

I"ve attended for a good 6 months now, fairly on and off for a variety of reasons (the one above, financial, and laziness), and I"m an abject failure at keeping grip of my diet. I"ve lost zero weight, but my lean mass has increased by 7kg, so I"ve basically dropped a stone of fat, body shape has improved a little, and I"ve gotten a damn sight stronger. My trainer also correctly identified nerve problems in my left shoulder, so it"s not just the personal training I"m getting.

Really, the results aren"t awesome, but the best thing I"ve gained is the knowledge that I can actually enjoy going to the gym (and what to do when I"m there and not there!). That"s more important to me and I have the faith that I"ll get to where I want to be eventually. I"ll just stubbornly do it my own way.

[dwh103]

Been feeling really lethargic the last couple of days. My brother"s had an "upper respiratory tract infection" and has been feeling rubbish for a few weeks now, so really hope I haven"t got that.

Nice start to the year Dave, why stop now when you can obv make it 2 out of 2  

Grant, I took your sage advice and popped in Thursday"s £50 freezeout at the local. 20k starting chips on a 25 minute clock, reasonable structure. Picked up 36 runners so around £650 for 1st.

Had one piece of luck (just the one) in level 4. Blinds at 150/300. Weak-passive UTG limps out of 23k, relatively straightforward yet perceptive player UTG+1 limps, bad MP limps, tilted HJ limps out of 7k, CO limps. I"m in the SB with ATs and pop it up to 2200. Weak-passive BB cold calls the 3bet, UTG calls, couple of dwell folds and the short stack jams his 7k in.

I know the guy well, and absolutely positive he"s gambling, so shove the lot in to iso. BB folds, and UTG dwells for a good 30 seconds before calling...with KK. WTF?! Shortie has 93o and I bink an Ace on the turn to win a monster pot.

(BB had 88, UTG+1 TT, MP had 22 and would"ve flopped set)

UTG isn"t happy. She"s chuntering under her breath, moaning what a bad player I am. No-one agrees (of course/fortunately*).

*delete as appropriate

Poker gods are fickle though, it just ensured I spent the maximum amount of time for zero award. Busting just short of the FT in 13th after doubling up shorties on 6 occasions. I"d swapped 20% with a WSOP ME/EPT ME cashing friend who went onto the FT above average and came out 9th with top 6 paying. Standard.

Really feel like playing today, but also don"t. I"ve got a Ring Game Ticket on Full Tilt, so popped in some micro-stakes Rush just now. I"d say I was just keeping the ticket active, but in reality with a 2-figure roll on Full Tilt it"s all I can afford at the moment. Definitely not feeling it, game all over the place and stopped after 13 minutes, fortunate to be a buck up.

May pop along to the local Saturday tournament, try and win it two weeks in a row. Will more likely veg in front of the telly. FFS.

[Santino67]

Losing v 6 shorties Dave, that"s pretty brutal running  

[dwh103]

Little in the way of poker, but should probably write down some stuff regarding 2013 goals.

P5s Worldwide ranking: 11,121 (target 5,000)
OPR: 64.72% (target 95%)

That"s the starting point, given I"ve only managed a handful of tournaments at the start of the month. Still trying to job hunt, a few irons in the fire but nothing concrete.

Am pretty much decided on a change of direction in the mid term. Really want a career where I can control my own destiny, and in the time it"s controlled by others I can be recognised for my skills, rather than how many years I"ve spent in a soul-destroying job. My existing experience incorporates a number of front and back office Operations functions, and I"m looking toward shifting towards IT/development. Will be starting from a pretty low point, but hey ho, no-one said it"d be easy.

In other news, I attended my first strongman events session at my gym. I was rubbish. All the guys were gym rats, personal trainers, or amateur strongmen. I didn"t get anywhere near them (not helped by dodgy back and shoulder - excuse in!) but at least I was stronger than the women. My technique was also dreadful in the events, which certainly didn"t help.

45kg log lift
6x40kg log lifts in 60s
130kg deadlift
And couldn"t budge an 80kg Atlas stone, though I wasn"t using tack which increases the difficulty.

Gives me some PBs to shoot for in the future!

[dwh103]

Got a job at long, long last. Just temping, supporting a load of Merchandising Analysts at a large retailer. Crap pay, crap company, crap job. But it"s a start.

Going to try and move in a more IT focused direction long term, but with no programming experience or academic qualifications in IT it"ll be tough to get a foothold in the industry. A developer friend of mine is teaching me C#, Java, ASP.Net, HTML and a couple of others, and we"ll get some projects on the go. Fingers crossed it pays off long term.

[dwh103]

Oh, and the work vending machine stocks Nice n Spicy Nik Naks.

Diet fail.

[hi_am_chris]

I want to head in a similar direction, i was out of work from may ish last year until January where i got employed by an online shopping company who host 4 or 5 different websites selling different products. Foot in the door is putting these products on eBay . amazon etc and hope to progress from there. Already learning a bit of Html along with a lot of other things i have never touched on before. Hope it pays off in the long run, good luck

[MintTrav]

I want to head in a similar direction, i was out of work from may ish last year until January where i got employed by an online shopping company who host 4 or 5 different websites selling different products. Foot in the door is putting these products on eBay . amazon etc and hope to progress from there. Already learning a bit of Html along with a lot of other things i have never touched on before. Hope it pays off in the long run, good luck

I don"t hold out much hope for your future with the company if you can"t count up to five.