LOL DONKAMENTS

My timing is impeccable. Either that or the poker gods seem to have a pretty twisted sense of humour... or both. I'm not complaining, though, I certainly needed the $$$.

The early hours of this morning: (click to enlarge)



Just now:



Someone remind me why I'm getting a job...

Seriously though, I'm still glad I'm getting a job. I've been playing a lot of tournaments over the past few days just for a change of scene (and because I'm still not winning in the cash games) and I've really been enjoying it. I remember reading a post of Pauly's a while back where he talked about all the scumbags and miserable people he met on the poker circuit. He noted that by far the happiest person he came across on a day-to-day basis was the winning part-time poker player. I remember being that person. I'm looking forward to being that person again.

All Change

I don't really know where to start with this one. A lot's happened since I last posted. It's gone very badly again and I've had to face up to the fact that I may not be cut out to play full time. The last 10 days of July and the first week of August were big losers and after paying myself, the bankroll was left in an even worse state than at the beginning of July.

It dropped under £1k for the first time in almost 2 years and I had to face going bust as a real possibility. I'd got about £2k of savings taken from poker winnings tucked away but I didn't want to touch it - there would be no reason to assume that I wouldn't loose that too.

I always left myself a safety net of going back to the career I was in back in April and I got a phone call from them saying I could start back in mid-September. So that's what I'm going to be doing.

I've got pretty mixed emotions about it all. Obviously, I'm gutted to have failed at the full time poker lark. I was also in the process of starting up a business with a friend importing wine from France, which I may not be able to be very involved with if I go back to work, and that's a big disappointment as I was really looking forward to it. On the other hand, it's going to be such a relief knowing that I'll have a regular salary coming in and then I can concentrate on growing the bankroll back and starting to enjoy playing poker again. Additionally, I'm quite excited about going back to work. It was always a career path that I was interested in so maybe all is not lost.

In the meantime I've just got to try not to go bust and hopefully clock up enough rakeback to be able to see me through to the first pay check.

I can't be bothered to delve deeply into the reasons for my failure at this point, but largely it's down to not being able to bring my A-game to the table for 40+ hours a week and not being able to handle the pressure of relying on poker for 100% of my income. I also think that the games on Crypto are harder than they use to be and I was concentrating too much on racking up the MPP/rakeback and not enough on making good decisions.

Here's to the future...

Support Dusk Till Dawn

Dusk Till Dawn has its Magistrates' court hearing for a Nottingham Casino Licence on the 24th September 2007.

Although the Club will be a dedicated poker only club (no blackjack, roulette etc), UK law currently states that they must have a full casino licence to open.

At the hearing DTD must prove that there is sufficient demand for playing poker outside of a casino environment.

You can support Dusk Till Dawn by posting your comments here

DTD have the UK Gambling Commission's consent and support, but there is very strong opposition from 3 casino companies, who firmly believe that DTD should not be granted the licence. DTD respect the Casinos' reasons and motives for this, but the Magistrates should know what the poker community thinks before they make their decision.

DTD will supply the Magistrates Court with your unedited comments, in favour of Dusk Till Dawn or not. They have until the end of this week to submit these comments as evidence.

You can further support DTD by filling out the club's online membership form.

July Review

Things got back on track this month as I finally remembered how to play poker. This last week was a bit dissapointing - a bit of variance and a bit of bad play creeping back in by way of a few bad calls/bad pushes and firing a few too may bullets at the I'm-not-going-to-fold-second-pair-ever type of player.

Still, I finished the month in the black and still have rakeback to come.

All the same, it's going to take a while to get back to where I was a few months ago. Now I'm having to pay myself a salary it's taking a while to grow the roll (this should probably have been obvious to me).

It looks like I'll be missing out on a trip to Barcelona with some of the DTD boys, but I can't really justify the spending money while things are as tight as they are. Still, I'm hoping to catch up with them at some of the remaining GUKPT events this year and before we know it the live club will be opening in Nottingham, which I'm very excited about.

Mrs Pink, Brother Pink and I are off the Cyprus at the end of the month so I'll have to work like a beaver in the next few weeks to cram enough hours in.

Back to the grind then...