Looking back at the second month of my Melbourne rut and the highlight for me was taking four days off poker and serving at the local Vipassana center. A needed break from poker and a short, sharp burst of extra meditation.
Poker wise a slight losing month. Travelling well in the first part of the month and, again, another downswing in the second part of the month. Combination of some second best hands and poor play.
Leak wise I've noticed that I'm becoming aware of situations where the cards don't matter but am being a little passive and not taking advantage of the situations. There have been many limped pots when I have been in the big blind where I could have raised and likely taken the pot down with any two cards. Or at least, been in a great spot to take the pot down post flop. My image is pretty tight and I'm sure I could take advantage of my image more.
The major leak I've worked on in March is the lack of focus during hands I'm not involved in. The good news is that I am managing to stay alert in more hands and be able to reconstruct the action from pre-flop all the way to showdown in a higher percentage of hands. The bad news is that I'm still zoning out far too frequently during hands and wake up on the river to wonder who the initial raiser was and how the flop and turn action had unfolded. But. There has been improvement. And I'm starting to develop a ritual while a hand is being dealt to try to ensure I'm awake at least through the preflop action.
I've managed to get myself invited along to a couple of home games and did well in the first being a couple of buyins up. But sadly being 6 buyins down on the second game. This game ran until 3am in the morning and that is well after my quitting time. Again I'm donking off buyins when tired. Another reminder of my playing when tired leak leads to my "e" game.
Exercise wise I continue to walk lots more in Melbourne. Mainly due to the need to walk to train stations or tram stops to commute into the Casino. No scales at the last couple of places I've been at so cannot determine whether I've lost any weight or not over March. But I have managed to increase the number of push-ups executed each day to 50. Thanks to the TED talk on tiny habits I slowly built up the number of push ups executed each day and am now managing 50 per day. My morning ritual seems pretty solid with 45 minutes of meditation, followed by some hamstring stretches and finishing with the push-ups. Generally it feels like I've started the day with a win if I manage to execute all 3 components of my morning ritual.
Plans for April. Well... I left this post in draft for over a week and have come back to it on April 8th so a reasonably significant chunk of April is already in the past...
Moved out of the Caulfield airBnN into an airBnb in Brunswick on Tuesday April 6th. Luckily for me the people who live in this two bedroom apartment have taken themselves off on vacation for the entire period that I'm here. Yahoo!!. And they have left an elderly cat behind for some company. The neighbour let me in and she also comes in once per day to feed the cat and look after the litter tray. Another Yah! She told me that the cat is anti-social but it seems to be tolerating me and allowing me to pet it. One quirk the cat has is that it likes to drink from the faucet in the bath. Turning the light on in the bathroom turns on the fan. And this audible cue lead to the cat coming into the bathroom, hopping into the bath and waiting expectantly under the tap. Hint taken, tap turned on to allow a dribble of water out , and the cat starts drinking from the dripping tap. This is now quite a routine, with the cat even meowing at the door of the bathroom to give me a nudge to enter the bathroom and turn the tap on for it.
This apartment is a very nice place to stay in and I feel like I've lucked out a bit this week. It is in an old brickworks and is reasonably close to tram stops / train stops and a shopping area. With a cafe within 5 minutes walk if I want to grab a coffee. So instead of going into the Casino on the first day I arrived here, or even on the second day, I stayed in and played internet poker for a change. A very pleasant change. In the AirBnB's I've been in I haven't felt like lounging around and getting in the way of the people who are hiring a room out to me. So I've been pretty consistent at heading into the CBD/Casino area each day.
On the 14th of April I'll be flying up to Sydney and will be heading out to Blackheath to serve on a 10 day Vipassana meditation course. By choosing to serve I get the benefits of having three one hour meditation sessions per day, food and board, and the sense of doing something for others by working my backside off in the kitchen preparing food for the course attendees. But at least I won't have to pay any money as my donation is my time working in the kitchen.
Enough meandering. Time to publish. This post has been in draft for too long.
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