Life, love, multiple divorces, planes, trains and submersibles!!!!

[Young_gun]

Nice read Monkey, Where's the PS3 in your office shot

Stay out the sun looks nasty that sunburn 

[teamonkey]

Been very busy at work. Half way thru my trip but hopefully things will settle a bit now and we might be doing 10 hour shifts instead of 12s.

Will try do another decent post tomorrow night.

Anyone wants to ask about something in particular I'll do my best to answer

Mick

[teamonkey]

just bumping this up as i intend to start posting again when i get back on my rig tomorrow

i'll reread what i've put so far, and try to continue on

Mick

[Mohican]

just bumping this up as i intend to start posting again when i get back on my rig tomorrow

i'll reread what i've put so far, and try to continue on

Mick

I rememberz this. Bit more effort required methinks.

[teamonkey]

Well, well ,well


sorry about that, just had an abandon platform drill, due to an imaginary toxic gas sensor going off.

always a laugh and a joke during these things, but deep down we all know that they have to be practiced incase the real thing does happen.

what a great start to a long awaited entry of my diary/blog/attempt to get my posts up to the magic 300 figure

speaking of which, magic numbers , i'm currently on day 116 offshore this year, which is so very close to 120, which itself is not that far away from 150, the figure i'm really wanting to hit.

the reason for these numbers is that i am on what is called a 120/150 consolidated contract, which works out as follows:

i'm contracted for 120 days offshore a year, and that is a guaranteed number of days paid, so, every month, regardless of weather i do go offshore, i get paid 10 days at offshore rate. so in theory, i could work zero days in a year, all 365 of them at home, and still get paid my base salary PLUS 120 days at offshore rate, sweet as (some might say)

however, i hear you say, what happens when you get to 120 days??

well, what happens then, is i get paid any days over my guaranteed 10, on top of my base salary plus 10 days, so, on a standard trip, where i do 21 days (3 weeks on, 3 weeks off) i would get paid 10 + 11+ 1/12 x base salary, excelent stuff

the good side of this is that i will always get a known minimum paid into my bank every month, and as long as it pays the bills, i'm a happy camper indeed

now, lets think about that other number, 150 (and here, it gets a little more complicated, but i'm sure the poker playing maths types will follow it easily)

so, i am now on 151 days, i've broken the 150, and on a 21 day trip (and we have to assume that all of the 21 days are within a qualifying , single pay day period of time)

at the end of that month i would get, my gtd 10 days, PLUS, my extra 11 days, PLUS (and this is where it gets good....) 21 x (base annual salary divided by 100)

so, every day i work offshore, over the 150 day period, i get paid an extra 1 100th of my base salary

turns into some quite decent figures towards the end of the financial year, but due to having to hit the 120 and 150 days, the majority of the year i'm on a basic salary, knowing what i'll get for 8 months or so, and feeling like a gajibilionaire when i see my March payslip, only to be dashed back down to earth when i see my April one and i'm back to the 10 days gtd every month (even if i worked all 30 days i'd only get paid for 10 of them)

complex isnt it???

i hope any readers can see that i've not put any wage figures in there, as i know some would look at it in disgust at how much it is, some would think "i'm not getting out of bed for that" and others would mention that they win more than that in a 4 hour grind session

anyway, hopefully, as i'm now at and heading past these magic numbers, i'll be bale to start saving for a house deposit, and will be able to buy some bricks and mortar to own in the next 12 months

time to do some work now

more later

Mick

PS, any questions, i'll do my best to answer them

[millidonk]

We all know offshore is deece so don't try it moneybags.

[teamonkey]

it's def in the ballpark of deece moneys yes

but rude to talk numbers

and i havent just won 25k

now stop trolling me!!!!!

[BorntoBubble]

Just found this! Enjoyed the first few posts will following!

Gl mick! Whets your poker background!

[teamonkey]

Just found this! Enjoyed the first few posts will following!

Gl mick! Whets your poker background!

OK, i'm assuming that you mean WHATS your poker background, damn these university educated kids, so i suppose i should talk about that

My first contact with poker, specificaly holdem, was watching late night poker on ch4 in the late 90s, loved it, recorded the shows on VHS to watch again, but never played poker untill the flowing

hankies at the ready.................

i started playing poker after my SECOND marriage went to pieces june 2003 (i'll go into the marriage/divorce tales another time), and quite frankly, so did i, i didnt have enough money to be going out and getting back in the saddle so to speak, i was in debt from my first marriage/divorce, and keeping the soon to be second ex-wife happy was an expensive habbit i had taken onboard.

so, i turned to the internet, found a social poker site, i have no idea what it was called, but it was basically a place where folks could play poker for imaginary money (just like play money, or maybe zynga on FB) and chat, take the piss, etc.

so thats what my routine was for the next few months, i'd get up, go to work, keep those military helicopters flying safely, then go back to my house(military house i was able to use for a while till the seperation was official) fire up the 56k interwebs, and play limit poker tournaments, for imaginary money, but with the same group of sad people such as myself who also had no social life in the outside world. I actually made somegood friends from it, 2 of whom are now ex-girlfriends, and one of the ex-girlfriends is now married to another bloke from that place(another story there)

anyway, i was enjoying the pokers as it was, and got chatting with a chap on there who said "why dont you play for real money, i know a sight, i can sign you up to it, and i'm sure you'll win"...........

so i got him to sign me up (not knowing about rakeback etc) and said fuck it, i'm in debt, lets put some real money into this , if i'm 10k in the hole to the bank, another 200 on my credit card means nothing

so i put 200 into this site, and lost it all pretty quickly, going from limit play tournaments, to NL cash vs experienced players, was not my finest move if i'm honest. So i reloaded another 200, and another 500, and well fuck it lets make it 1000!!!!

in the first 2 months i lost around 5k, all on my credit card, which i was cleverly paying off at the minimum per month, so icould afford it on top of the other debts i had, plus, i was in the army, i wasnt going to get sacked, and my food and accomodation charges were taken out of my pay, so i always had a bed and scoff even if i was busto. by this time i'd moved back into the on barracks accomodation too, so my friends knew the score with things, and if i was broke they'd take me out for a beer.

anyway, we are now 4 months or so after the marriage breakdown, and i'm starting to feel better about myself, looking after myself a bit more (not easy for a life time fatty like myself) and i was realising that if i wanted to keep playing poker, i really really had to do some work on my game, and work on it i did.

there wasnt as much poker edcuation out there as there is now, it was 2003, moneymaker had just won the WSOP and the online boom was just beginning really, so what i had to do was chat on MSN messenger or AOL (anyone remember that?) with 2 people who i had got friedly with (one of whom was the guy that signed me up, and incidently married one of my ex-gfs that i met on that play money site, i liked a complicated life back then!), and talk about what i was doing in what hands etc, bit like PHA on here really, but with a much lower knowledge base to work with.

for the next 2 months or so i found myself improving, and i actually broke even for the 8 weeks or so, i say broke even, i was putting in quite a lot of play, sometimes up to 3 tables at a time depending on my internet (56k FTW) and the site trafic. Oh yeah, the site was, and still is, called True Poker, it was a semi 3D site, very advanced for the time really, and i chose to be the robot character as i liked how his voice sounded when you made a riase, much fun lol

so that was 2 months playing poker , breaking even, and earning my friend a load of rakeback that i didnt know about!!!!

and after that 2 months i found myself winning monnies, and the longer i stayed on that site, the more hours i put in, the more i won, so that i'd made up all my losses in another 2 months, and was making a steady 1k USD a month, which was most pleasant as it really helped make up for the debts i was paying off from my incredibly successful marriages.

i think it was round about february 2004, by which time i'd been posted to Northern Ireland, and as i wasnt allowed off barracks my volume really shot up, that i received an email from the website that i was in their top 100 rakers, and had an invite to a freeroll, where the winner was given a seat at the 2004 WSOP ME, second place got $200, 3rd got $100, so basically winner takes all.

long story short i won the tournament, and after some emails back and forth between the site owners and myself, i had booked time off work, flights and hotel sorted, and i was somewhat giddy to be going to vegas baby, oh yeah, but again thats another story, and just to keep you all hooked it involves Dave Shallow!

So back to playing poker; while in the army, from starting out playing in 2003, to leaving the army in 2007, i ended up winning a decent amount of money, nothing huge, just a good steady extra income that was making up for the outgoings i had from debts i had acrued. And when i left the army, i was taken on by badbeat as a sponsored player, being mentored by Paul Jackson at first, then by Jeff Burke, however, in the 6 months i was with them, i was winning overall, but certainly not enough to look after a wife and 3 kids, so had to get a real life job, but i still kept playing poker, but mostly as entertainment as i realised i just wasnt good enough to be a consistent winner. these days i like to play a live game once a fortnight, usually in DTD or somewhere close by, sheffield or leeds, with a little online fun as and when time/family commitments allow.

Couple of poker facts about myself:

1) my first ever live hand of NL holdem was at the WSOP2004 ME, day 1, hand 1, i was in the BB and won an uncontested pot on the turn by betting half a big blind, holding 10 2 os, on a 10 high board, yes, i bet 25 chips, everyone folded (5 players i think) to my totally illegal half blind bet, and another player had to let the dealer know after he had pushed me the chips that the minimum bet was a big blind

2) i am officially one of the best players in the world, it says so on my poker playing TV debut where i managed to win a seat in the Part Poker world open III, the lovely presenter mentions how great we all are in the program intro (i came second in my heat to the eventual winner)

3) i can never play jacks correctly


righto, time to do some more work, been writting this entry on and off for the last 6 hours between looking at wellheads, BOPs and a lot of fish

[teamonkey]

internet onbaord was woeful last night, logged into stars, regged 2 MTTs, and didnt manage to play a hand on either

also had a very odd dream, see Milli's diary for that one

on a work front we are currently building up  a subsea structure in preperation fro finishing off a well to keep everyone topped up with that lovely oil we all use, it's involving some very intense flying of the ROV, good stuff for my experience, and quite cool really from my own, and i imagine an outsiders perspective

more later

Mick

[Mohican]

Is your mate still earning your rakeback???

[teamonkey]

Is your mate still earning your rakeback???

excellent question!!!

and in short, no he isnt

when i found out i'd been earning him a few hundred dollars a month i make a deal with him to split it 50-50, and then, after realising that i was still being seen off, i spoke to a member of the management who had sort of hosted me and the "team" during the WSOP and was allowed to open up a fresh account, under a new name, and take a rakeback deal of my own. things you learn about eh?

anyway, the internet is still attrocious here on the rig, no one really knows why, or is letting on why, but 6 days ago it was great, 4 days ago it went pants, and hasnt improved since.

add that to the fact that there is only 1 official phone out for the workers to use, 1 phone between 115 people, and i can see the OIM (offshore instalation manager) with a mini mutiny on his hands, these offshore types get very grumpy sometimes.

been spending my nights watching the office US, not a subtle as the british version, but they have so many extra episodes a season they have allowed the characters to develop very well imo, and watching myself get blinded out of any tables i have managed to reg into.

on a work front we have now managed to build up the subsea structure, and the rig is now moving into a drilling phase, so our workload will drop for a bit, perhaps only 1-2 hours "flying" the sub each day, swapping out data loggers and carrying out visual inspections of valve indicators, all very interesting stuff from my point of view.

days onboard 6 (out of 21) money bankroll at 323 (from 60) mostly from playing 7 stud hi-lo limit games, with the odd 45 man MTT thrown in, hours controling the sub 15 (career total 164)

Mick