With son #2's rapidly approaching 18th birthday and the end of his secondary schooling days, there will shortly be another major rut jump happening. The ex wishes to move on after his secondary school days end in November, and the family home will be sold sometime shortly after that. Most likely date to be Feb next year. So a major rut jump will happen for sure in 2016.
Prior to that, I have a mini rut-jump planned for September/October. I have been offered the opportunity to house sit in Sydney for five weeks. And will use that opportunity to scope out whether Australia will be the destination for my next major rut-jump. Main task during the house-sit is to look after a lovely 18 month old labradoodle. I'll take the opportunity while I'm in Sydney to play some tournaments at the Sydney Star Casino. However, as they don't run tournaments daily, I'll be looking to play some Pub poker tournaments as well. I like Sydney but don't think I'll be making a major rut jump back to Sydney next year. Apart from being relatively expensive to live in, I get the feeling I'll be more at home poker wise in Melbourne or Auckland. As my house sit ends towards the start of the ANZPT 2015 Melbourne season, I'll toodle down to Melbourne and check out the Melbourne scene for the last eight days of the ANZPT Melbourne poker season. Melbourne's Crown Casino appears to have a much better Tournament schedule than Sydney's Star Casino. Part of the purpose of my visit will be to have a look at Melbourne and the Crown Casino to see whether Melbourne could be an attractive enough rut to jump into in 2016.
The ANZPT Melbourne Main Event runs from Friday 16th October (day 1A) through to Tuesday 20th. I'll arrive in Melbourne on the 14th and give myself a shot at satelliting in. And if no luck in the satellites, will buy in directly to day 1b.
Playing in a main event at the Crown Casino is one of my poker-related bucket list goals so it will be nice to tick that item off my list. And, with luck, it may even be a profitable goal. I've played in four events with a +$2k buyin so far in my brief poker career. And, so far, have yet to cash in one. A combination of being card dead in two events, playing way too tight in another due to being over-awed and standard bad play leading to my demise. I'm more comfortable now at playing in a bigger buy-in event and now have an incentive to try to complete my mind-mapping of Janda's Applications of No-Limit Hold'em
(Mind-Mapping Janda's book is not a task I have enjoyed. But. Every time I've mapped another 20 to 50 pages, in the weeks after, I've felt as though I've improved my game at the tables. I would be nice to complete working my way through the final 200 pages of Janda's book, but even if I only managed 100 pages, I think I would have given myself a few additional tools to call on when I'm at the tables)
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
The side effects of a mid-50's guy exercising
The short, sharp 7 minute workout is great in some respects. For most of the time I feel a lot more energetic afterwards. However, yesterday's workout left me with some achilles tendon pain so I'll give myself a rest for a day or two. I was hopeful that the relatively short duration of the work outs would mean that I could hope to avoid too many injuries. Hopefully this is a short period of achilles tendon tenderness and I'll resume the work outs soon.
I'm optimistic that the exercise helps with my ability to play live. The jury is still out on this aspect but I do think I have a tad more stamina at the table and have more patience and make better decisions.. Especially if I perform the workout in the afternoon a couple of hours before the nightly tournaments start. Undecided on whether I've noticed any improvement in my online play. Will have to keep an eye on this.
Another side benefit is that I seem to be more inclined to write blog posts when my weekly reminder pops up....
I'm optimistic that the exercise helps with my ability to play live. The jury is still out on this aspect but I do think I have a tad more stamina at the table and have more patience and make better decisions.. Especially if I perform the workout in the afternoon a couple of hours before the nightly tournaments start. Undecided on whether I've noticed any improvement in my online play. Will have to keep an eye on this.
Another side benefit is that I seem to be more inclined to write blog posts when my weekly reminder pops up....
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Two posts in a month? What's going on...?
Maybe getting some exercise in has tipped me over the threshold to post twice a month. For about one week now I've been following along to an app for "The Scientific 7 Minute Workout". I'd read about this workout about six months ago and had been inspired enough to print off a page with a diagram of the exercises that make up this workout. However, just seeing the diagram on my wall every day wasn't enough to tip me over the threshold and get me exercising. About a week ago I decided to see if I could find a visual aid - maybe a youtube video or an app that I could exercise along to. And I found one. App now loaded to my iPad and about seven episodes of High Intensity Interval Training later I think that I might be able to keep this exercise thing going. My goal is to take this form of exercise once per day on five days out of seven.
Poker wise July looks like it is going to be a break-evenish sort of month. Thanks in part to a cash in last night's $100 tournament at Sky City Casino. Last night was one of those nights where I took the bus to the Casino, this time thanks to not receiving the car rego reminder in time to pay the rego online and have a valid rego sticker for the car. Running deep meant I missed the last bus home. And while I cashed and could have paid for a taxi easily enough, chose to be a nit, and walked the seven to eight kilometers between the Casino and home. Once again I offered up thanks on the walk home to the surgeon who operated on my left knee two years ago and fixed the damage that I'd inflicted on my knee while skiing in 2012.
Poker wise July looks like it is going to be a break-evenish sort of month. Thanks in part to a cash in last night's $100 tournament at Sky City Casino. Last night was one of those nights where I took the bus to the Casino, this time thanks to not receiving the car rego reminder in time to pay the rego online and have a valid rego sticker for the car. Running deep meant I missed the last bus home. And while I cashed and could have paid for a taxi easily enough, chose to be a nit, and walked the seven to eight kilometers between the Casino and home. Once again I offered up thanks on the walk home to the surgeon who operated on my left knee two years ago and fixed the damage that I'd inflicted on my knee while skiing in 2012.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Months have passed. Weekly reminders keep coming in to write a blog post and I keep ignoring them. Until today.
Probably three months of break-even poker, one month of small loss and two months of quite large losses. The losses can be attributed to bad play and some variance (getting it in good but being sucked out on by the River).
On some days I feel like a better player than six months ago. And on others, like today, when I play my "D" game, pretty crap.
I engaged the coaching services of Andrew Brokos in late April as a ploy to make myself work on my game. And to some degree that worked in terms of improving some aspects of my game. Andrew's coaching was interrupted by Pokerstars SCOOP series in May and the WSOP in May/June/July. I believe that I have an hour or so left in the contracted coaching so will have another session where I will have to explain my poor results. (Blush). Though when I'm playing on the internet I do get distracted by shiny internet baubles and quite often don't have my "A" or "B" game going. In general terms, while playing live my game has improved. Not perfect. But improved. With quite a lot of improvement left to happen. I suspect the lack of distraction by shiny internet baubles in live play means I can play better live than online.
In family related matters, son #1 is halfway through his second year of his Engineering degree. Working hard. Being far more mature than I was at his age. Has now had a lady friend for about a year with four or five days recently spent in Rotorua with his lady friend during semester break.
Son #2 is halfway through his last year at high school and has a plan for next year.
Probably three months of break-even poker, one month of small loss and two months of quite large losses. The losses can be attributed to bad play and some variance (getting it in good but being sucked out on by the River).
On some days I feel like a better player than six months ago. And on others, like today, when I play my "D" game, pretty crap.
I engaged the coaching services of Andrew Brokos in late April as a ploy to make myself work on my game. And to some degree that worked in terms of improving some aspects of my game. Andrew's coaching was interrupted by Pokerstars SCOOP series in May and the WSOP in May/June/July. I believe that I have an hour or so left in the contracted coaching so will have another session where I will have to explain my poor results. (Blush). Though when I'm playing on the internet I do get distracted by shiny internet baubles and quite often don't have my "A" or "B" game going. In general terms, while playing live my game has improved. Not perfect. But improved. With quite a lot of improvement left to happen. I suspect the lack of distraction by shiny internet baubles in live play means I can play better live than online.
In family related matters, son #1 is halfway through his second year of his Engineering degree. Working hard. Being far more mature than I was at his age. Has now had a lady friend for about a year with four or five days recently spent in Rotorua with his lady friend during semester break.
Son #2 is halfway through his last year at high school and has a plan for next year.
- put himself through a bar tending course
- get a job and save up some money
- travel to Europe. In particular Germany (for Octoberfest) and Scotland (For Scottish New Year celebrations)
Friday, February 6, 2015
My weekly reminders to write a blog post don't seem to work too well...
Every Tuesday a calendar reminder does its thing and delivers a reminder that perhaps I should write a blog post. My ability to ignore these reminders is pretty impressive. Here I am in Feb 2015 and my last blog post was in mid December 2014.
There is some rut jumping to report so may as well blog about that. I briefly jumped out of my Auckland rut in January and landed in Sydney for a couple of weeks. I was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to house sit a friend's house and 10 month old labradoodle for two weeks. All I knew before turning up to the house was that they had taken on a puppy some 7 months earlier. I was a little concerned as to what sort of mutt I would have to look after and whether the dog and I would get along. I've never owned a dog or been much of a dog person but all was well. Absolutely lovely mutt called Fernie. And even better, this pleasant natured, intelligent dog had been very well trained for his age. Super impressed.
Added bonus for me was that I haven't been exercising much at all and regular dog walking for two weeks was a welcome change to my routine.
About a week into the house sit the back yard swimming pool started to turn green. I requested advice by email from the owner and ended up buying some chlorine and tipping a measured amount into the pool. An hour later the pool had changed, as if by magic, from green to blue. Just like a school science experiment. The amusing part of this story is that I had been told to go to the local hardware store and buy some chlorine for $20. The owner was assuming I would buy Chlorine tablets. He advised me to tip 1/4 of the purchased chlorine into the pool. I purchased a 15 litre container of liquid chlorine. As instructed I tipped 1/4 of the container into the pool.... Still seemed to do the trick and when the owner returned and checked the pool water at the local pool shop all seemed to be pretty right with the water.
Poker wise, whilst in Sydney, I managed to get to the final table of a big $16.50 tournament at pokerstars and ended up 7th out of roughly 1400. Nice score but would have been nice to get a few places higher. I also tried out a version of pub poker in Sydney. Played in a $65 tournament at 5 Dock RSL. The main differences to adjust to were that no dealer is supplied so every player gets to deal when on the button. Plus, while dealers make change at the Casino, at these tables change is made by the players which makes keeping track of what each player needs to put in to meet bets a little interesting.
Since returning to Auckland I've played in five live tournaments, cashing in one and finishing two out of the money in another. Overall down on live play by several hundred dollars since returning. And online I have been unable to run deep or well since by big $16.50 cash.
I will interested to see how many weekly reminders it takes until I get around to writing my next blog post.
Note: Almost zero progress on mind mapping Janda. Have watched a few videos. No reviews of tournaments. No posts this year to online forums. Must do better
There is some rut jumping to report so may as well blog about that. I briefly jumped out of my Auckland rut in January and landed in Sydney for a couple of weeks. I was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to house sit a friend's house and 10 month old labradoodle for two weeks. All I knew before turning up to the house was that they had taken on a puppy some 7 months earlier. I was a little concerned as to what sort of mutt I would have to look after and whether the dog and I would get along. I've never owned a dog or been much of a dog person but all was well. Absolutely lovely mutt called Fernie. And even better, this pleasant natured, intelligent dog had been very well trained for his age. Super impressed.
Added bonus for me was that I haven't been exercising much at all and regular dog walking for two weeks was a welcome change to my routine.
About a week into the house sit the back yard swimming pool started to turn green. I requested advice by email from the owner and ended up buying some chlorine and tipping a measured amount into the pool. An hour later the pool had changed, as if by magic, from green to blue. Just like a school science experiment. The amusing part of this story is that I had been told to go to the local hardware store and buy some chlorine for $20. The owner was assuming I would buy Chlorine tablets. He advised me to tip 1/4 of the purchased chlorine into the pool. I purchased a 15 litre container of liquid chlorine. As instructed I tipped 1/4 of the container into the pool.... Still seemed to do the trick and when the owner returned and checked the pool water at the local pool shop all seemed to be pretty right with the water.
Poker wise, whilst in Sydney, I managed to get to the final table of a big $16.50 tournament at pokerstars and ended up 7th out of roughly 1400. Nice score but would have been nice to get a few places higher. I also tried out a version of pub poker in Sydney. Played in a $65 tournament at 5 Dock RSL. The main differences to adjust to were that no dealer is supplied so every player gets to deal when on the button. Plus, while dealers make change at the Casino, at these tables change is made by the players which makes keeping track of what each player needs to put in to meet bets a little interesting.
Since returning to Auckland I've played in five live tournaments, cashing in one and finishing two out of the money in another. Overall down on live play by several hundred dollars since returning. And online I have been unable to run deep or well since by big $16.50 cash.
I will interested to see how many weekly reminders it takes until I get around to writing my next blog post.
Note: Almost zero progress on mind mapping Janda. Have watched a few videos. No reviews of tournaments. No posts this year to online forums. Must do better
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