Been back in Notts for the last few days and it's been quite eventful.
Time for a rant...
Cash games are usually quite good on Tuesdays at Alea so decided I would go and give the boys a spin. Haven't played live in a while so went to the cash desk to withdraw enough money to play for the week. After giving them my card and entering my pin number, it for some reason came up as declined... This was strange as I knew it was the right pin number and there were definitely enough funds in the account. Upon phoning my bank I found out that Alea had taken the funds from my account regardless of what they had just told me!
I then asked them to check again whether it had gone though and they said it had not and that there was nothing they could do. I then asked to speak to the manager as this wasn't really the response I was looking for. I told him that if he was to fax the bank with their details mentioning that it hadn't gone through then the bank would instantly release the funds back to me. The manager then told me that this wasn't the case as he obviously knew the bank's procedures on these matters better than the bank themselves and refused to help me in any way. When I asked what he proposed I do he simply shrugged his shoulders. At this point I was more angry than I've been in a long time but just laughed and shrugged it off. One of the worst examples of customer service I've ever seen.
Luckily I managed to use my 1 bullet on cash very well and spun it up to lock up a decent win. Was still in incredibly frustrating night and despite making daily phone calls to them since, the issue has still not been resolved. Hopefully it will be refunded shortly as it's pretty much just theft otherwise.
/rant.
On to Wednesday...
One of my mates wanted to play the grand prix so decided I'd go down with him and give it a go. Regret doing it now as I wasn't really in the mood for a long grind and probably didn't play my best. Flopped a set early on and lost the majority of my stack vs a flopped straight. Was left with 1200 chips which I managed to spin back up to 27k in an hour and a half only to lose half of it in a flip and the rest by shoving 18bbs over a CO open with
which turned into a 3way all in vs
and
Somehow didn't win!
Then played cash for a bit and lost 2 buyins, both in pretty comical fashion. First hand I 3bet the button with
, young bad spewy guy calls and initial raiser calls. Board comes
. He checks, other guys checks, I cbet and he jams... with
. I called. Didn't win. Was pretty tilting as I felt he was just spite sticking it in my eye and wasn't really sure why. Obvs quite profitable in the long run but annoying at the time.
Second hand was an even better way to lose £200. Guy raises UTG, I peel with
in the CO. Flop comes
. He checks, I bet £20, he raises to £55. He definitely does this with air a lot of the time or even a value range that I'm still ahead of. I call. Turn is the
. He checks with about pot behind him. I jam and he snaps with
. River is the
NICE HAND SIR. WP.
Decided to call it a night and my mate needed to get the bus back to Derby so I said I'd walk with him to the bus stop as it wasn't far down the road. Turned out that the bus he needed didn't stop there so walked a bit further to the next one... and the next one... until eventually we reached Nottingham Bus Station 2 hours later. Not really sure why I had carried on with him but must just be because I'm a good mate
. Upon our arrival we realised that there weren't actually going to be any buses back to Derby for another 3 hours. After seeing this we thought we'd be best off going to Gala/Grosvenor and thinking of a plan to get him back. In the mean time I got a text from another mate who suggested we go out for a few drinks with it being freshers week. Didn't seem like a bad idea so we met up at Grosvenor and after having complementary drinks from Stef the card room manager we headed to the only place we knew to be open, the gay bar.
Now this was the first time I've been to a gay bar and must admit that I was a little anxious over what to expect. Well I certainly wasn't prepared for what we were about to see. Now I'm not sure if it was just this venue or because it was a Wednesday night but this place was full of some of the strangest people I have ever seen. And everyone was just getting it on with everyone regardless of gender, age or social norms. There were men dressed as women, women dressed as men and I didn't have a clue what was going on. I decided it was best that we sit in a corner where it was safe from what seemed to be a place rife with sexual predators. However despite the clientele, the music was actually ok and the drinks were only £1 each allowing it to be a very messy night for a small amount of money.
I definitely won't be forgetting last nights experience and almost certainly wont be going there again. Ah well, guess it's something to tick off the bucket list...
Am heading back to Boston tonight as I've been called into a meeting tomorrow at one of the companies I consult for and have got a feeling it's not going to be an enjoyable one. Roll on the weekend!
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