The start of a new week and two decisions to be made.........
Decision number one is poker related. Since my recent conversion from tournament hold"em devotee to 7 card stud cash grinder, I"ve made profit for four consecutive weeks. Admittedly, the amounts I"ve won are not huge, but do represent the average buy in for the level I"ve been playing at times several. I decided to step up to the next buy in level thinking that if things went really badly I would retreat from whence I came in the hope of making up a small deficit. I have to say that the way the cards have run over the last 48 hours, I"m glad I"m playing a limit game as opposed to, say, pot limit omaha. As usual, most of my stud time has been split between Pokerstars and Partypoker with Full Tilt as plan "c". To start with, I played like an idiot, imagining that I had to try all kinds of moves that I"d not been making at the level I"d been accustomed to. This was a mistake and led to me showing a loss. Once I"d screwed on my sensible head and decided to carry on playing the way I"d been playing for the last few weeks, things improved and I returned to profit. Then I made the mistake of deciding I would play on Full Tilt just to see how things were in my new grade. Oh dear. I try not to "do" bad beat stories, but every time I bet into a pot all the way to seventh street, the final card took things away from me. One of the things I"ve mentioned several times in this blog is my displays of petulance when things aren"t going my way and I decided that as soon as I"d typed "FFS" for the first time it was time to leave. Maybe that"s a sign that I"ve got a bit more control over myself than two or three months ago. I had a short session back on Pokerstars which yielded a positive result and the upshot of it all is that my profit/loss for the week currently stands at a loss of slightly less than the standard buy in for the higher level. The plan for the rest of the week is to step down again in an attempt to grind my way back to profit with a view to having another try next week if successful.
Decision number two will have to be made on friday night and has nothing whatsoever to do with poker. I"m having a night out with several people from work some of whom are bringing wives/husbands/girlfriends/boyfriends/lovers/bits on the side/stalkers/all of the above. We"re meeting in one of those poncy bars where they serve the same watered-down bland lager served elsewhere, but they charge exhorbitant prices because they wipe a little bit of the head off and stand the glass on a napkin. At some point the group will splinter into smaller units and my decision will be between one of the following:
1) Go to another bar and drink more tasteless lager
2) Go to a club where I will start off by drinking more lager but move onto demonstrate some of my own unique dance moves
3) Make use of that free entry token I was given several weeks ago for Spearmint Rhino.
Before I leave my flat, I will ensure that I have prepared myself for all the above eventualities by:
1) Eating lots to absorb the alcohol
2) Eating lots and making sure I wear a really comfortable pair of shoes
3) Making sure I wear the loosest fitting pair of trousers I have