POKER: Poker's gonna get ya

I've been cutting back on the face-to-face games recently, mainly down to a lack of time and the start of the football season. Naturally, this has been mirrored by an increase in my online play, mainly in cash ring games (rather than my usual specialty of single-table tournaments). Not for me the heady world of the No Limit tables, though - that £100 freebie from Victor Chandler I wasted was enough of a lesson where that's concerned. OK, so even playing the limit tables I've recently spunked almost the whole of my PokerStars account and I'm down on my VC account. But I also managed to turn the £17.19 I had in PartyPoker into £48.98!

This is mainly down to the brilliant tactic of sitting on the 50c/$1 Beginner tables, waiting for a hand that hits the flop, then betting it and watching lots of deluded people call. Sadly, this skill doesn't transfer everywhere - hence the loss of $19 on Stars. I'm starting to think Stars is just full of grinders as all I do is hand money out when I'm there and never make any back. I think I'll pay it the occasional visit to keep my hand in and stick to the other online poker rooms. Still, I'm up overall, so I'm not going to cry over spilt chips.

The one face-to-face game I do still attend regularly is the monthly Poker Meetup. Well, I am a founder member so it'd be rude not too. Last week's game was superb - and from that statement alone it should be obvious I made some cash there too. It was a surprise to me as much as everyone else on my tournament table - at one point I was down to 700 chips (out of 2,500) and clearly going out in fifth place. Then a single hand where I made two-pair and two other players called my all-in bet with no hand turned that around. Just a few hands later I had knocked out two people and was in third spot - an unlikely entry into the money positions. When the chip leader put out the remaining player I was guaranteed second place and happy to still be in there. Even more crazy, just three or four hands later I had turned my 2-1 chip deficit into a healthy clay mountain and had the other guy all-in. My A/10 offsuit held up and I took home the £45 first prize. Like I said, superb! It was telling that our table finished its tourney about an hour and a half before the other tables, as there was some extremely aggressive, loose play going on.

Thankfully, things slowed down after that. In an extrememly tight cash game I finished 45p up so just cashed out for my original £5. That still made £35 profit on the night, though. Let's face it my 'live game' balance could do with the boost...

Just to make it simpler I'm removing my poker journalism takings from the list. I have no aspirations of being an accountant and it's just a column too far when it comes to doing these posts. Besides, this way is more honest - that freelance money went on beer and fryups, not poker.

Face-to-face
-£77 (+£35 from the Poker Meetup)
Online
£46.63 Victor Chandler Poker (-£6.89)
£48.98 PartyPoker (+£31.79)
£1.05 PokerStars (-£11.10)
----------------------------
£19.66 Poker Balance (+£48.80)

There's a worrying Post Script to this usual poker roundup. It seems someone has spotted me for the sucker I am and decided to open a poker room within walking distance of my house. Oh well, I hear you can get good money for one of your kidneys on the black market.

Under Construction

Another issue of the magazine put to bed means I have some time to work on my website. What do you mean "What website?" My newly-acquired www.meejaboy.com, of course.

Don't get too excited, though. I have a habit of buying websites and not doing anything with them. Did Matrixtales.com ever showcase any of my stories based on The Matrix? Did icandy.co.uk ever turn into a film and video review site? No, they didn't, because I never found the time. I could find the time to be in the pub, watch countless hours on pulp television and football or simply sleep for entire weekends - but doing something useful? No way.

I'm determined to make this one work for me though. I'm going to sandwich my blog into it so there's always some new drivel up there. But I can't decide whether to have this stream-of-unconsciousness on the front page or as a link. Does it paint me in a good light? Or make me seem like I should be setting up Alcaholics & Gamblers Anonymous? (AGA, for people who don't have time to attend both meetings)

What I'm really hoping to do is showoff some of my other skills. A freelance section with links and scans of my work may help to pull in some extra work. I might also have a story section, for all those things I've written that will never be published (by anyone else). And an up-to-date CV could always catch the eye of the folks at Empire or Total Film. In my dreams.

I'm actually getting excited. Hang on, the footie's starting on the TV.

Job done

Following my little rant a few weeks ago, it's nice to realise how lucky you are. Nothing brings this home as much as doing some of my old job for freelance dosh. Below is a little taster:

Step 5
If you already have a Skype account, click the Existing Users tab (1) and log in. Otherwise, type a username (2) into the top box. Select a password (3) and repeat it (4) in the boxes below. Leave a tick in the checkbox (5) if you want to log in automatically each time – remove this if you’re not the only person using the PC and you want to protect your Skype account. Put a tick in the checkbox (6) to confirm you have read the licensing agreement from Step 2. The Next button (7) then becomes active, click it to continue.

While it's nice to remember where you came from, it's also surprising that I could put up with writing this kind of thing for Web User as a full-time job for MORE THAN THREE YEARS! I guess I really did like working from home.

The funny thing is that it's actually nice to have something like this to do again, where you can switch off your critical functions and just get down to the nuts and bolts of things. I find it much easier to write practicals and workshops than I do to start work on that sitcom idea or pull some of my novel notes together into a workable story. Maybe I could pitch a comedy based on getting Microsoft Windows to work or deleting your browser Favorites?

Millwall scaled

Thank god for the return of the football season. OK, so it's one more vice to squeeze in between poker, freelance work, ebay sales, watching bad sci-fi and masterbating, but I like to keep busy. And I've already seen the same number of live games this season that I did in the whole of last season.

The pre-season friendly against Man City dropped on a weekend when I was home and it was an entertaining (if a little annoying) game. It was great to go one-nil up against such a poor Premiership side. When Sun Jihai was then sent off as the last defender and we got a penalty, it looked like being a good day to be a Stoke fan. But nothing is ever that simple when you support these boys. Despite some attrocious mistakes throughout the game that had nearly gifted us two goals, David James (England number one my arse) saved the penalty. To rub salt into the wound, the 10-man side then went on to beat us two-nil. 'Nads.

At least our performance gave me hope that this might be one of those years where we fly a little higher than our usual mid-table shiteness. That was soon knocked out of me by the single point from a possible six we picked up in the first two games. The opening day draw doesn't seem so bad when you consider we got the first red card of the season, but we missed another penalty that would have won us the game! I can even forgive the four-two loss away at Leicester, as once again we had a player sent off (number one for red cards!). It sounds like the manager really went for it, though, and that's the attitude we need.

With those poor results, today's game carried a heavy burden with it. Sitting in the same lowly spot as Millwall, the loser of today's game was likely to be in the relegation zone when 5pm rolled around. Maybe that's why the Millwall manager played a lone striker up front and packed the midfield and defence? Not exactly a popular decision with the home fans - I know because I was sitting in the middle of them! The Michael Chiklis lookalike sitting next to me made his thoughts known with just 10 minutes played: "Put anuvver facking striker on" he screamed intermittently, leaping to his feet every now and then and slamming his flip-up seat as hard as he could to emphasise the point. Eeeek!

Millwall never really got into the game - it's hard to win a match where your first shot on target comes in the 76th minute - and it took a single John Halls goal for Stoke to put some more points on the board. The fact that it sent Millwall to the bottom of the table at the same time was just a bonus.

It was a shame to have to watch the game in the opposition's end and not be able to celebrate the goal. Stoke run a ticket-only system for all away games now and I just never found five minutes during press week to phone up and order one. I was hoping the seat in the Millwall stand would at least be justified by my (work) mate Ricky's appearance, as he claims to be a Millwall supporter. Since he couldn't be arsed to turn up I can't confirm that. Still, the bragging rights are mine on Monday. Let the ribbing begin.

Running Commentary

I haven't mentioned my interest in running on this forum before, but I've now taken part in the Bath Half Marathon and a couple of 10K runs. I'm always nervous before a run - do I have everything I need? Will I be able to get a good starting point? Have I got a spare camera battery in case the first one runs out?

My wife has it easy, all she has to do is run around the course. I try and be supportive when she's taking a breather after finishing, but I've just had to stand up for an hour on the same four inches of pavement with a camera pressed into my cheek. That really takes it out of you.

While my pavement balancing skills keep me relatively in shape, I thought it was probably time to improve my fitness even further. I'm not really interested in competing against other mortals (I already have a medal from the Bath Half Marathon as Jane was given two, but the pictures I took that day were superb so I earned it as much as anyone else did). I do fancy giving the running lark a try, though. Especially as my new trainers - sorry I mean running shoes - feel great and were worth every one of the (eek) £75 I paid for them. That's as long as I use them to run regularly, even if my natural instict is to sit around in them playing poker.

My first attempt at this new lifestyle was Saturday morning. I say attempt, but I went out for 30-40 minutes and ran for at least some of that time, so really it was a success. Besides, you can't expect to run before you walk - or is that a bad metaphor in this situation?

The benefit of having a wife who's obsessed with running is that she can tell you all the tips. So on my return to the house I drank sips of water ("Don't down it") and I did the proper stretches to stop my muscles aching so much the next day. At least that was the plan. Next morning I still felt like I'd been stomped by a crowd of hoodie-wearing kids. I'm sure that will get easier over time. Now where are those running shoes, I fancy a game of No Limit Holdem.

Almost 300 up!

All that plugging away on Ebay is starting to pay off and my feedback rating has rocketed up in the last couple of years. My frequent sales are almost like a second income (unless anyone from the inland revenue is reading this, in which case it pays for the occasional beer but certainly isn't worth your time and effort looking at as a second taxable source).
I know I shouldn't get excited about these things - it singles me out as a geek and pidgeon holes me in the Nick Hornby "boys are all slightly OCD and like to organise things" category. But the '250 positive reviews' stage wasn't much of a milestone, so I'm looking forward to cracking that 300 barrier. Just one more to go.
I might even be extra generous and send the 300th person something extra. Or should I be all hard-nosed businessman and sell the thing I was going to send, so I get to 301 that bit quicker? Watch out Branson, here I come.