Tuesday 9 February 2010

The Virtual Treadmill

With work having ground to a virtual stand-still, I have been devoting my energies to other areas (no change there then). On Saturday and Monday I logged about 4k hands of HU. In total for February I am just over 7k, which means I should meet my monthly target with something to spare, unless Carpal Tunnel sets in. I probably haven’t played my best poker and haven’t run all too well and am down around £200 for the month. I’m not displeased with this, my last two months have been awesome and I couldn’t continue on such a massive heater.

After played such a heavy volume on Saturday and Monday, I came to really understand that poker is indeed a hard way to make an easy living. When I see the real grinders, playing 100,000 or more hands per month – I have no idea how they do this and play anything approaching their A-game a reasonable percentage of the time. I consider myself to be reasonably well suited to going through sustained hours of heavy mental workload and probably not too bad on the tilt front, but the sheer exhaustion caused by logging a lot of hands must get to them after a while. That said, I guess if you can play sessions in 90 minute blocks and divert your mind between sessions then it may be doable, particularly if you are playing enough tables.

West Ham lost 2-1 at Burnley at the weekend. Some shit defending cost us both goals and despite hitting the post and the bar we didn’t manage to snatch a point after spending the majority of the first half under the kosh. McCarthy went off injured after having an effort cleared off the line, however Mido looked sharp (and slim) enough (I have a sneaky feeling he might stay longer than this season and do alright for us) and substitute Ilan scored on his debut. We have a huge game at home to Birmingham tomorrow which we really, really have to win after other results went against us this weekend.



Otherwise I watched Antoine Corbin’s Joy Division documentary/film. I thoroughly enjoyed it, they managed to deal with Ian’s death without laying on the grief too thick. It is sad to see such an amazingly talented individual die at such a young age. There was a quote from Peter Hook in there, saying how Ian’s illness/unhappiness was a real elephant in the room that they never talked about. When he wrote “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, Cook said they didn’t hear the lyrics and think “Wow, he must be unhappy, with all the stuff with Debbie and Annik. We thought, wa-hey, Ian’s done it again and written another belter”. If you’re in any way a fan, I recommend watching it.

Good luck at the tables.

4 comments:

  1. It's still early enough in the month for you to turn around you results mate. I too admire the guys who can crash out 100k hands per month, but you must have to have a mindset like a robot!

    Not too bad about West Ham losing to Burnley, not too many come up here to Fortress Turf Moor and walk away with the spoils. :o)

    Gl for the rest of the month.

    BM

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  2. Cheers Bro. I try not to look at things in terms of months, as it is kind of silly and makes you results-oriented, but I always end up doing so.

    Yeah, I think we might consider ourselves a little unlucky but then your lot deserve a break. A lot of the lads that went up there said it was a top day out. To be fair to your boys, when we went 5-0 up at our place they had a right good go and we looked fairly rattled at the end (the only side on the planet that isn't comfortable defending a 5-0 lead). I'd sign that Eagles in a heartbeat, he's a quality player.

    Good luck to you too.

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  3. At least Burnley are not playing as bad as Spurs have been - especially last night!

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  4. I feel really let down Dan - the one fucking game I want you to win all year, and you lose! It seemed like an odd game to give Eidur his first start in too.

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