Rolled On The River

I haven’t had much time to play poker lately, with work shutting down for Christmas, apparently lots of people want their powerlines up and ready to go for the silly season. This has lead to 18 hour shifts, 7 day weeks, and all the drama that comes with that. I decided to stay home for the holidays and work on my game, as well as a few other little things, and one secret project, which I hope comes to fruition since it’s been something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, and should net a decent amount of money, which is helpful.

My ratio of study to play, for a few reasons, has been unhealthily skewed, I suppose time constraints have given me grief in this department, but It’s been 90:10 study:work, which is always a bad idea. Being able to implement strategies you’ve learned is so important, and yet I’m failing miserably. I’ve taken comfort in the fact that I had my first sleep-in for two months last night, and I LOVE sleeping in, so other forces must have been at work in regards to time restriction.

I’ve been reading Dusty Schmidt’s ‘Treat Your Poker Like A Business’, and so far (I’ll reserve final judgment for when I’m finished, of course..) it’s pretty frikkin’ sweet. The moral is ‘you reap what you sow’, but the level of depth is awesome, the different perspectives make the book a worthwhile purchase. I’m a big girl when it comes to reading books, I’ll do anything to procrastinate or get out of study, it’s one of the faults I’ve been working on since the beginning, not getting distracted. So when Skelm gave me the book and said ‘here, read’, I didn’t know what to expect, previous books that have been shoved in my face tout ‘over 200 hand examples’, and as such, chip away at a portion of my soul, but this book isn’t like that. It’s refreshing, well, so far anyway.

The target came flying at me, my reflexes kicked in… I stumbled and it slapped my hand, hard. Enough force to soar beyond my reach from the rebound against my stinging flesh, but then the agreed rule played over in my head, a voice that called: ‘One hand, one bounce’. In my dress shoes I launched my body forward, stepping with the power and tenacity of an enraged Spartan. I eyed the objective in slow motion, it moved so effortlessly away from the earth it had just kissed, another touch of the ground and it was all over. I dived, soaring through the field, tucking my head for a roll, knowing that all calculations had been made, the trajectory plotted, my hand on an intercept course for victory.

My grasp was firm, my resolve true. I had caught the ball.

I met up with some friends of Skelm at the APPT poker tournament in Star City, I didn’t participate in any events, but was more there for the networking, getting to know some of the local talent, making new friends. They all stayed in Sydney for a few days, in a hotel room for the duration of the tournament, drinking, grinding, and generally having fun. The group composed of LacieK, Newmanni, Eurekakid, Petteytheft, Skelm, Ponchoco and myself, with a few others who we met along the way. We all got drunk and played a rotation game that turned into a crazy shove-fest even though we were playing mixed games we wouldn’t have much of a grasp on when sober, let alone drunk. I was there for 3 meals that were paid for via credit card roulette, with Petteytheft losing one, and Eurekakid losing twice, freeroll, baby!

On the last day we had a game of cricket, Petteytheft being American had no idea what was going on, but somehow showed great potential, and bowled Newmanni out, we played a rotation, with whoever took the wicket got to bat, and all ended up with a pretty fair game. LacieK got injured and sat down in his fielding position, and snatched the ball out of the air when it was belted towards him like a true champion. But it was late in the day, when we had all decided to call it quits next wicket, when I spied my objective screaming towards me at mach 3, and it was on.