lucky_scrote's (b)log/diary

[lucky_scrote]

Moaning it in.

I definitely should moan more. After my last blog post I played a 15 hour session where I managed two victories and six finals of which included the Big 11:

Click to see full-size image.

Most probably the biggest field I've ever taken down.

On a completely different subject I've come completely obsessed with the Sparks. I had never listened to them until they collaborated with Franz Ferdinand last year. Since then, I have listened to their albums over and over.

[Geo the Sarge]

Nice result Dan, well done.

Any ideas on best part of Holland for walking/camping?

Geo

[lucky_scrote]

Nice result Dan, well done.

Any ideas on best part of Holland for walking/camping?

Geo

Yes I can definitely help you with that. Is there anything specific you want to include or exclude? Do you want to stay away from any busy areas or what?

[tikay]

Oh my, well done in the Big $11. Dan is the King.

Sparks? Crikey, proper retro, that. Ron Mael is the real deal.

[lucky_scrote]

Oh my, well done in the Big $11. Dan is the King.

Sparks? Crikey, proper retro, that. Ron Mael is the real deal.

Ron Mael is my hero!!!! Absolutely love it that he is still going after all these years (he is 70 now!)

[Steveswift]

Love Sparkes

[lucky_scrote]

Good afternoon Blonde.

Last week I was very fortunate and was able to have a weeks golf holiday in Cyprus with the company of three other poker players (We were together In Portugal last October too). I knew very little about Cyprus before going and I can say I was pleasantly surprised what a lovely place it is. We stayed for a week in the Paphos area and were greeted only by very polite people (mainly ex-pats from the North of England). I found the place to be clean, cheap and extremely safe. The weather was astounding too (too hot for golf really) at a toasty 26-29C each day, which was about 3-6C above the average for time of year.

Click to see full-size image.

After having a rough time in Dublin in February I decided to not have a drink until I went to Cyprus (A total of 7-8 weeks). I felt like I needed to give myself a chance to feel at my peak and to stop my habitual drinking of 1 or 2 beers 4 or 5 times a week. Now I am not going to advocate that people should quit drinking alcohol, nor am I going to be shouting from the rooftops about the positives I have felt in this time from not touching a drop but I will give you the run down on how I felt different abstaining from alcohol:

-You sleep so much better. My body was used to having a small amount of alcohol in my system before visiting the land of nod, but once I got used to not drinking I could get to sleep much faster and the quality of my sleep is MUCH better. I generally sleep about 1 hour less a night now and feel better. I can also get away with a 4 hour sleep and only feel groggy for 20 minutes. Can't escape the sleep debt though, you can't just sleep 4 hours a night (not if you're me anyway).
-A general feeling of greatness. I feel a bit better about myself on a day to day basis, my mind is slightly sharper and I have a hard time getting bored.
-Weight loss. The pounds absolutely flew off, and they came off round my gut which is good. I'm not big by any means but underneath the clothes there are no muscles in sight below that film of fat over the stomach .
-Fitness. Naturally, my fitness improved slightly
-Sugar cravings. Unfortunately, this is a down side I guess. I've never really enjoyed eating chocolate or sweets or even having desert but the past couple of months it's all I think about. I did some reading, and it's because of how the reward system in the brain works. The break down of alcohol and sugar triggers a similar reward system in the brain. Still, a small bar of chocolate is still considerably less calories than 2 beers.

For anyone who finds alcohol a little too routine, it gets easy pretty quickly. I have no decided to quit drinking when at home and only drink when with friends, at a special occasion or on holiday.


In each blog post I am going to post something about the Netherlands. Today I will start with food. There will be many posts about food since they have a rather interesting cuisine when it comes to short meals or fast food. Below is something you will see Dutch people enjoy regularly. It's a krentenbol (currant bun or hot cross type bun) with sliced Gouda cheese. One of these has an addition of Appelstroop (Appel syrup) which is a popular addition to sliced cheese with anything.

Click to see full-size image.

I expect most people to wince at the food I will post in here and I will say that it's just because it's a bit different to what we are used to. This is definitely one of the more normal things that I have become accustomed to and I have found myself enjoying almost every variant of Dutch food with the exception of Haring (Herring). Dutch people are mad for it. It's a cured hearing and is often stuck in a bread roll or otherwise just eaten in one go. You can also have it sliced with some diced onion to match. The taste is quite nice, but the texture for me is foul. If you imagine what eating slugs feels like, then you won't be far wrong with this one.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Poker front has been quiet since I've only just started playing again this month. I expect I'll have some tasty scores to post in my next update .

Dan

[Ragz]

Having a read of your blog, so many Brits I've never heard of under the radar making squillions lol. See you binked 100k before hitting 100 games in 2006 ha apt name brah

[Ragz]

3rd in the Million last night

[lucky_scrote]

Back in June I managed a tasty chop in the SM for ~$120k and parted with the BITB shortly after since my contract had expired and it felt to be the right thing to do. It wasn't easy though since they have a good thing going on over there full of great minded people. I decided against posting about my SM victory here and also not participating in an article for P5 because I've really started to realise it's important to be a bit modest.

Since quitting the stable I had struggled with my volume for a long time since after catching up on real life (and realising how hard I had worked in the past couple of years), it felt a bit daunting "going back to work" again. I decided to contact Elliot Roe for some one to one sessions and they did wonders. For those out of the loop, he is the poker hypnotherapist/psychologist that everyone raves about.

Outside of poker I've spent a lot of time playing golf. I've enjoyed golf my whole life but I found in the past 10 years I never dedicated time to practicing. At the start of this year I decided to get some lessons, it's been really nice having something else to work towards that I'm passionate about. Currently my handicap is 7 and I've set a target to be down to 4 at the end of next year. I'm very confident I will smash that with the progress I've made this year but whenever I've said this in the past I've given up and forgotten how hard it is to be good at golf! A couple of swings from the range a few months ago: https://vimeo.com/183013052 https://vimeo.com/182195754


Coaching

I've been coaching here and there for the past couple of years, spending quite a bit of time coaching some of the smaller stakes people of BITB whilst I was there. I really enjoy it and as well as it being a second source of income, I find it helps my own game too. I am restricted to how much I can coach because I play poker full time and also run a small stable on the side, but I am looking to take on around 5 students.

I am going to advertise on 2+2 once I am back from Punta Cana, but for now here is my listing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXkaA9BElACqa68u71uNnrhNsKlN-EAGP6s_QQsYnPQ/edit?usp=sharing

If any blondites are interested in coaching, contact me here or on skype (lucky_scrote)

-Dan

[Nakor]

Back in June I managed a tasty chop in the SM for ~$120k and parted with the BITB shortly after since my contract had expired and it felt to be the right thing to do. It wasn't easy though since they have a good thing going on over there full of great minded people. I decided against posting about my SM victory here and also not participating in an article for P5 because I've really started to realise it's important to be a bit modest.

Since quitting the stable I had struggled with my volume for a long time since after catching up on real life (and realising how hard I had worked in the past couple of years), it felt a bit daunting "going back to work" again. I decided to contact Elliot Roe for some one to one sessions and they did wonders. For those out of the loop, he is the poker hypnotherapist/psychologist that everyone raves about.

Outside of poker I've spent a lot of time playing golf. I've enjoyed golf my whole life but I found in the past 10 years I never dedicated time to practicing. At the start of this year I decided to get some lessons, it's been really nice having something else to work towards that I'm passionate about. Currently my handicap is 7 and I've set a target to be down to 4 at the end of next year. I'm very confident I will smash that with the progress I've made this year but whenever I've said this in the past I've given up and forgotten how hard it is to be good at golf! A couple of swings from the range a few months ago: https://vimeo.com/183013052 https://vimeo.com/182195754


Coaching

I've been coaching here and there for the past couple of years, spending quite a bit of time coaching some of the smaller stakes people of BITB whilst I was there. I really enjoy it and as well as it being a second source of income, I find it helps my own game too. I am restricted to how much I can coach because I play poker full time and also run a small stable on the side, but I am looking to take on around 5 students.

I am going to advertise on 2+2 once I am back from Punta Cana, but for now here is my listing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXkaA9BElACqa68u71uNnrhNsKlN-EAGP6s_QQsYnPQ/edit?usp=sharing

If any blondites are interested in coaching, contact me here or on skype (lucky_scrote)

-Dan

Golf - Not sure if its the camera angle on the first one but you have an interesting forward press in your set up.  All correct as you start but an interesting address, did you have a high fade prior to the lessons? or when you started?  History of cricket?
Second vid is beautiful, a finish to die for.  I would suggest you have found a very good teacher.
Good luck on hitting your goal.

[tikay]

Nice post, Dan.

When you say this near the top of a piece....


"I've really started to realise it's important to be a bit modest".


...you are always going to be better appreciated. Not sure there is anything less endearing in a human being than misplaced arrogance.

[lucky_scrote]

Golf - Not sure if its the camera angle on the first one but you have an interesting forward press in your set up.  All correct as you start but an interesting address, did you have a high fade prior to the lessons? or when you started?  History of cricket?
Second vid is beautiful, a finish to die for.  I would suggest you have found a very good teacher.
Good luck on hitting your goal.

I am set up with a little too much weight on the front food. I'll address that at some point I imagine. I always seem to have something bigger to work on every time I have a lesson although my coach does point this out every time. He also points out that my club face is a little shut at takeaway.

 
2016 is coming to a close now and in order to prevent this from becoming a poker blog post like any other I will try not to focus too much on my results. For me it's been a great year, I've seen a lot of people posting negativity on the internet and on FB about how people are dying and how miserable 2016 has been in general. I am definitely not just noticing it more than before, but if people want to keep focusing on the negatives and how dreadful their lives have been then I guess their future isn't look prosperous. If you're in a rut then you need to do something about it. Even when you work hard things can still go badly, but I am confident that if you feel negative and keep doing the same old shit day in day out then shit ain't gonna change.

Poker wise I have exceeded my expectations in terms of results. I've run above EV but I've also worked hard. The only area I am lacking in is motivation. The problem with me and poker is that I play poker for the money these days. I've been playing for a living for over 11 years now and lots of stuff that was exciting to begin with isn't there anymore. Don't get me wrong I am still very grateful for what poker has given me. It's a bit like a relationship these days, trying to figure out what is best, how to make a transition from the honeymoon period into something that is just "there".

I've had some sessions with Elliot Roe and they have helped, but I think I need to change it up a little bit. I've played a lot of online poker in the last few years but neglected live poker. I am certainly going to try and do a bit more travelling around Europe for 2017. I think I will try and blog a little about that in the future, giving an insight on the best way to maximise enjoyment as well as working on ways to stop expenses eating away into the bottom line. Live tournament poker has always been a tough way to make a living because generally only the younger population are able to do it, and the younger population are also dreadful at handling money. I have been there but times have changed. If I can get 10% off a hotel booking I am over the moon!

Time for a little brag. I'm supposed to be more modest but this is worth it. The Dutch poker Open was held in Breda just before Xmas. It's a type of Champions of champions event. I didn't quite meet the prerequisites to enter but I sent a nice e-mail and they allowed me a wild card. Well, I bloody won didn't I! Absolutely love this live poker malarkey.

Click to see full-size image.

I also had a little victory outside of poker. I closed my golfing year by winning the final competition of the year. We were only allowed to use 3 clubs and a putter and I shot my best round of the year (73)!

Have a prosperous 2017 blonde

-Dan

[shipitgood]

Hey Dan,

Well done on the live win, nice going and fantastic finish to the year.

11 years in poker that is quite some going, it is so relentless (poker), it's no surprise that it's all about the money now, compared to starting out when it was all about fun and the challenge of improving.

With poker, or life, it's good to mix it up and keep it fresh so defo get stuck into the live scene where it will be a lot more personable and "real" compared to online.

Look at Alex G, he loves live poker and seems to do very well too.

All the best for the NY