Warming Up

Poker has been slow of late. I was away for a few days (see below) and came back demotivated and didn't really feel like playing. However I have finally got my finger out and my luckbox seems to be working again, and am at 4,300 hands/+$600ish for the month so far. I was sat at the tables the other day with Gorvacofin (a very god player and great guy), who 4 bet shoved over my squeeze with 66. The button had set a tarp (obviously knowing that Hoopie1 in the big blind was an aggro mega-fish) with QQ. Gorv did what good players do and spiked a 6 on the river and apologised to the guy that had QQ, who is obviously someone that he knows as he said something about "I know you have been running bad". The guy replied that he was only 7 buy-ins off being 100BI below his AIEV number for the year. Imagine that? I think I'd kill myself. I made a note to shove crap on this guy more often, I'll probably win given that I run hot and he runs like shit.

Congratulations to Sadan Turker (the_snail03) for his second place in the $1k shoveament at the WSOP. Being smart he made a deal that guaranteed him $500k when it got to HU. Sadan is a rare creature in that he is an Arsenal fan that I actually like. Well done him, I'm just about to send him a begging PM on 2+2.

Not quite as good as this is what happens when you put Bill Chen, 2+2 and Photoshop together:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/bill-chen-photoshop-potential-1049364/

I spent a few days in Cyprus with the wife for a friend's wedding. It was a decent do and I needed some time away, I haven't had a break for a long time.

I went to see the Senna documentary film on Sunday. I hate F1 but it was awesome, even her indoors liked it. The director did a Q&A afterwards and said some interesting stuff, despite some fuckwitted questions from the Hackney trendies.

Godspeed.

Downtime

I finished June up $1,700 or so, which is an amazing result (although I lost a good few BI towards the end of the month). Since then I haven’t played any poker – I was away for a few days at a wedding and haven’t really got back on the horse.

I came back from my break to see another non-statement from Full Tilt on returning funds. I have some funds on there, I’m sort of tempted to pull them out, but the games are soft so I might let them ride for a while. The whole Phil Ivey thing obviously has more to it than meets the eye. As far as I am concerned, Ivey is a cunt for pretending he is doing this for any other reason than his own interests, and Full Tilt are cunts for making out that this might delay the return of player funds.

It is becoming clear that Full Tilt are something of a cowboy outfit. Whilst Rainey’s claims on QuadJacks may have been somewhat overblown, and he is a little shit that loves the limelight too much, there is clearly something up at the company (the deposits that people played with that were never withdrawn is very worrying) and they are blatantly short of cash. I think they’ll try and keep the non-US players raking whilst attempting to get an equity injection from somewhere.

I was away in Cyprus at a friend’s wedding over the weekend. I don’t really like Cyprus, it is a long way away, quite expensive, the food isn’t great and the island isn’t so nice to look at. However it was good to catch up with some old faces and I haven’t really had anything approaching a proper holiday since the honeymoon last year.

The wedding was attending by the Crown Prince of Jordan (complete with security guards and entourage) - Samy’s family are fairly wealthy, I (obviously) don’t normally mix in those circles. His great uncle also attended – aged 91 and having been told not to fly by his doctors, Samy, and his daughter, he booked himself some flights and went on his own. What a legend.

I’m quietly reasonably happy with the appointment of Sam Allardyce. I think he’s a miserable northern cunt, but probably the best of the realistically available candidates – much like Craig Bellamy, I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than the other way around. He’d better not bring Diouf with him though, the spitting at our fans at Anfield will never be forgotten and he’s a waste of oxygen. I’m hoping that his desire for the England job will be enough to make him play a bit more football – as some pikey pointed out to me, he won’t let us get rolled at The Den in the way we did on our last two visits. We have also bought probably the best fake twitter account in football: http://twitter.com/#!/TheBig_Sam

I have just completed the first series of The Wire. What a totally amazing programme – probably the best thing I have ever seen on TV. The second series seems somewhat slower paced, but fascinating all the same. We’re going to see Dominc West in Butley later this month, which should be good (I have never been to see a play before, which will not surprise regular readers). If you haven’t seen The Wire, buy the box set, send the wife to her parents and book the week off work. Thank me later.

Godspeed.