Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[GreekStein]

well come back tikay

glad you are well

[mondatoo]

well come back tikay

glad you are well

[Jon MW]

Cantlin Moran, The Times, May 1st.....
 
" I would confidently aver that Olly Smith is not of woman born. I think that he's what you get if Boris Johnson walks past an ovulating alien".

Now that's quality flaming of the highest order. If all flaming were of that quality, I'd vote for it to be allowed on blonde. Clever, witty, hurtful, funny. 
 

I assume you mean Caitlin Moran

But anyway, top quality writer I agree, one of my favourite journalists

[nirvana]

Well I've nervously dipped my toe back into the waters of blonde, but now I have to go out. Luton awaits, on a rare evening off, so I'm gonna play the £100.

I have promised myself I will find time to get on blonde every day. Hope I keep that promise.

I expect to be mocked hard at Luton tonight. I'm wearing an outlandishly un-cool "top", simply because I can. It did not fit me for the last 10 years, but now it does, & because I can wear it, I am.  Was I always this awkward, I wonder?

I think that style of top is called a Tankini - very fetching

[Claw75]

Well I've nervously dipped my toe back into the waters of blonde, but now I have to go out. Luton awaits, on a rare evening off, so I'm gonna play the £100.

I have promised myself I will find time to get on blonde every day. Hope I keep that promise.

I expect to be mocked hard at Luton tonight. I'm wearing an outlandishly un-cool "top", simply because I can. It did not fit me for the last 10 years, but now it does, & because I can wear it, I am.  Was I always this awkward, I wonder?

I think that style of top is called a Tankini - very fetching

+1 very preppy-chic imo

[Laxie]

Pics?

[ripple11]

well come back tikay

glad you are well

Still living out of your car/hotel then!

The other place seems to being going well.........any plans in the Sky pipeline for us to get excited about?

[Cottonbud]

There should be 36 hours in a day, minimum.

I'm happy, fit, as healthy as I've been for several decades, with a few exceptions, (my eyesight is much much worse), thoroughly immersed & fulfilled in my new job, but there is just not enough tome to do everything I want.

My new job is a stretch, a real challenge, & I'm struggling to get on top of it. More on that later.

I've become a Diet-Bore, sorry. But the Diet has been life-changing almost, & life-enhancing certainly, & I've loved every moment of it. The loss is now 4 stones & 2lbs, in exactly 3 months, and at 12st 4lbs, that's the first time I have been south of 12st 7lbs for 23 years. The target is my target weight before I was 30 - 11st 7lbs - & I will achieve that before I head to Vegas on July 1st, which is the day the Diet will end. Fried Brekkie at Gatters Airport, wonderful, & a few weeks of quality junk-food in Vegas, can't wait. When I return, I'll go sensible, & continue with the massive volumes of fresh fruit I now consume - & love - daily.

Next up - quit smoking. My head is gradually getting in the right place for that. The head HAS to be "just so" to succesfully diet or quit smoking. 1 down, 1 to go.

I sleep better now, immensely so, & wake up every morning bursting with energy & zing, & arrive at work anytime between 6am & 10am. (I don't have "hours" as such). On non-show days I work non-stop until 7pm, then play Online, mainly Omaha cash or Tourneys, until Midnight or 1am, which is sort of part of my job. Sort of. Sometimes. Complicated that. Show Days have been frequent, & the mix between my "proper" job & doing the TV Shows is quite awkward, & has exercised me considerably. It's quite tough to do regular work in the Office & then change heads & go straight into the TV Studio, as the anticipation & thought-process needed for the Show is missing, so that was a challenge to overcome, but I found a way.

June is gonna be very busy, with 9 "Show Days" (totalling 18 Shows) booked, 5 PTP Nights, & a new weekly tikay Rebuy Tourney, so a good month in prospect, but of course I lose out in July whilst in Vegas.

This Friday I go to the GUKPT to support our TSP & TP-er, Dan Brown, in the GUKPT, so I'll be there from Friday until he busts out. Meetings all day tomorrow (I spend Mondays at a different Office, the "Big Sky" Office in Osterley), office stuff Tuesday, Studio from 11am until 7pm on Wednesday, followed by a "spare" PTP from 7pm until Midnight, some private stuff to sort on Thursday, Coventry Friday onwards. Another week will fly by.

I'm incredibly happy, but lack of time is such a bugger, there is just not enough. 

Wow! that is amazing Tikay! Welldone m8 that takes some amazing willpower, if you quit smoking you will be my ultimate hero. Been trying to get my mum to quit for years

[tikay]

Luton for the £100 last night, & the atmo was pretty good throughout.

Made a complrete mess of the £100, I must have had brain-fade, I got myself into a good spot then spewed real bad.

Folded QQ PRE FLOP – correctly – I was SURE I was in bad shape, after some clear warning signals, & got off it very cheap. (Handsome Paul, behind me, saw the same signals & got off Jacks, too). I would have been up against K-K & A-K - & the Flop came Q-Q……

Later, I doubled up with K-J v A-8 AIPF in Level 4, for a 16k pot. I had made it 2k out of 8k in total, & Claire snap-shoved on me. I've got in the habit - to try to prevent my wimp tendencies - that I pre-determine before I Raise how I will respond to action behind, & I'd just decided that if Claire made a move on me - & she likely would - I'd get it all-in. And I was right, she was at it. With a better hand mind - A-8. I binked to 2xUp, & I'm in good shape now.

Lost a 35k Pot in Level 6 - & busted (ave was 20k) when I ran my  into A-A on a  flop & Claire could not find a fold. She did have Aces, to be fair.

She had popped it up on my BB, & I decided to take a loook.

I am not in the habit of defending Blinds, it costs more Tourney lives than enough, & there is no logic to defending with crap OOP. But oops, I did it again. Will I ever learn?

Then played DC cash, & in the first 3 hands, playing £1 £1 PL DC, turned my £100 pull-up into £500. The third of these hands was jaw-dropping.

We were playing 6 card Hi-Lo & the Flop came A-K-J. (a Ten turned). So, no low possible. I held A-Q-Q-J-T-T. Nuts. The money all piled in on the Flop against Avi, & I assumed he had “same hand” or a set. He Tables 9-5-4-2……..

Some quizzical looks, & eventually the temptation to ask could no longer be resisted. “Err, why did you pile it in with that Avi?”. “I only needed a Queen for the straight” says he.

So, the night ended up OK, I'm on a bit of a DC heater at the mo. I really should not play it, the variance is brutal, but it's so much fun if you find decent table-company.

Eventually left at about 2am I think, so not in bed until 3am, & I've suffered all day today from it. And I'm working until Midnight tonight.

Claire was in fine form, looking good, & she nicked £500 via a saver, well done her.

[tikay]

There should be 36 hours in a day, minimum.

I'm happy, fit, as healthy as I've been for several decades, with a few exceptions, (my eyesight is much much worse), thoroughly immersed & fulfilled in my new job, but there is just not enough tome to do everything I want.

My new job is a stretch, a real challenge, & I'm struggling to get on top of it. More on that later.

I've become a Diet-Bore, sorry. But the Diet has been life-changing almost, & life-enhancing certainly, & I've loved every moment of it. The loss is now 4 stones & 2lbs, in exactly 3 months, and at 12st 4lbs, that's the first time I have been south of 12st 7lbs for 23 years. The target is my target weight before I was 30 - 11st 7lbs - & I will achieve that before I head to Vegas on July 1st, which is the day the Diet will end. Fried Brekkie at Gatters Airport, wonderful, & a few weeks of quality junk-food in Vegas, can't wait. When I return, I'll go sensible, & continue with the massive volumes of fresh fruit I now consume - & love - daily.

Next up - quit smoking. My head is gradually getting in the right place for that. The head HAS to be "just so" to succesfully diet or quit smoking. 1 down, 1 to go.

I sleep better now, immensely so, & wake up every morning bursting with energy & zing, & arrive at work anytime between 6am & 10am. (I don't have "hours" as such). On non-show days I work non-stop until 7pm, then play Online, mainly Omaha cash or Tourneys, until Midnight or 1am, which is sort of part of my job. Sort of. Sometimes. Complicated that. Show Days have been frequent, & the mix between my "proper" job & doing the TV Shows is quite awkward, & has exercised me considerably. It's quite tough to do regular work in the Office & then change heads & go straight into the TV Studio, as the anticipation & thought-process needed for the Show is missing, so that was a challenge to overcome, but I found a way.

June is gonna be very busy, with 9 "Show Days" (totalling 18 Shows) booked, 5 PTP Nights, & a new weekly tikay Rebuy Tourney, so a good month in prospect, but of course I lose out in July whilst in Vegas.

This Friday I go to the GUKPT to support our TSP & TP-er, Dan Brown, in the GUKPT, so I'll be there from Friday until he busts out. Meetings all day tomorrow (I spend Mondays at a different Office, the "Big Sky" Office in Osterley), office stuff Tuesday, Studio from 11am until 7pm on Wednesday, followed by a "spare" PTP from 7pm until Midnight, some private stuff to sort on Thursday, Coventry Friday onwards. Another week will fly by.

I'm incredibly happy, but lack of time is such a bugger, there is just not enough. 

Wow! that is amazing Tikay! Welldone m8 that takes some amazing willpower, if you quit smoking you will be my ultimate hero. Been trying to get my mum to quit for years

Thanks James. I will quit smoking - I will - & I hope to do it before I die. A lifetime of ciggies & advancing years makes it almost a flip.

PS - I'll reply to your text/PM later this evening.

Well done on binking the WSOP Seat!

[tikay]

Luton.

Guy leaves the "Big" DC game (it's £5 £5 I think) & goes home. He returns an hour later, & joins "my" baby DC Table, the £1 £1 game. (Which gets surprisingly big, in fact).

He sits down with £100, we get it on, & he runs it up to £350 in 10 minutes. Then Luton remove him from the Table, on the grounds that he cannot "move down" to another Table. (It was a different game by any criteria). So he hits & runs, unwittingly, because of a Rule to prevent players hitting & running. He did not want to leave, & appealed, but to no avail.

Then Luton rung The Vic to query it, as our man was kicking up, understandably, & The Vic said "yeah, if it's a different game" - & it was - "he can play it". By now there were no Seats left.

The punters there are lovely, it's great craic. In fact, the Staff are lovely, too. I'll leave it at that.

[tikay]

All day today at Big Sky in Osterley.

The Restaurant there is awesome, & I'll have Sunday Dinner 7 days a week there once the D is is finished. But for today, it was mushroom soup, & a lovely salad, being tomatoes, beetroot & pasta, with fresh pineapple for the mid-afternoon graze.

Tonight, it's chicken, beetroot, toms, with a couple of Ryvitas, then a yoghourt, with a pack of grapes later. I'm eating more than I ever did, I really am.

I start my PTP shift in 10 minutes, so will be Online until just after midnight. I'll play 4 small Omaha Tourneys, + the 8pm NLH Main, & some Omaha cash after. I find Omaha cash incredibly relaxing. In truth, I'd never play Hold Em Cash Online at all, given a choice.

I played Online Omaha on my own account on Saturday, 3 Tabling (!) 25p-50p Omaha, & it's a game I really enjoy.

Going back to tonight's PTP shift, I used to employ tradesmen in a previous life - painters, joiners, steelfixers, floorlayers, etc - & I paid them less per hour than I get paid to sit & play poker Online. It makes no sense, but I'll take it, I'm in happy street. How do these things happen?

[gatso]

luton rulings never fail to make me laugh

[tikay]

True, gatters, but it's all relative.

I played a Friday night Tourney in Alea Glasgow the week before last. About 100 runners, & self-deal. Self-Deal! Ugh. To be fair, ALEA don't seem to have the first idea about poker, nor much interest in improving the service they offer, but that's another story altogether.

A "Dealer" was nominated, he turned out to be great craic, a local with a beany (sp?) hat, spoke well funny, but he was a right character, & we had a grand evening.

Geezer joins the Table late on, I saw him clocking me, then he said "I know you". I was struggling to place him - there's a thing - but for some reason, I did my Dad's old trick, & just decided to call him "Sid". And as spooky as it gets, (maybe only Tank will get this), but he turned out to be Damon, he of Cincins!

We got into convo, & later he approached me later & we swapped business cards, he suggesting we (SP) & he could do some business. He said can get me a lot of new Clients, every week. Quite so.

He's running a thing called "MainEventPoker". (Just add "co.uk"). I could not quite figure out if it was Online or Live, as the numbers were huge, far beyond what you'd expect from a Live Venue, but he seemed to suggest it was. So, I took a look, & it seems to be to be a Pub League thingie. But it gives - apparently - MASSIVE CASH PRIZES.

In fact, pub poker is huge in the UK. I do some work with a pub league that operates in 7 Counties, & gets no less than 2,500 uniques per day to it's rarely updated Website - just players who want to see their names posted in results I guess. Small-ball poker is big, it really is, very much whatever the opposite part of an iceberg to the tip is.

[Cf]

wtf, tikay playing KJ and 95? I thought you only played AA, KK, sometimes QQ, and if you're feeling particularly adventurous AK?