Fish and Chips

A poker themed blog, charting the demise of my degree and the rise of my poker career.


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Monday, July 28, 2008

Kenya Countdown

In my time honoured fasion of leaving things till the last minute, I've finally got round this week to thinking about the various immunisations we'll need before heading off the Kenay in just over a month.

It's looking like it'll cost us a good £150 each for what we need. Yellow Fever and Hep A look like a must and Typhiod and Cholera seem to be recommended.

Last time I went I had Menigitis and Rabies jabs too, but I think we should be safe without these for the couple of weeks that we're there. Famous last words, eh?

I can't wait for the trip. It's been 7 years since I spent 6 months out there teaching. It'll be great to go back and see the school that I worked at and the people I got to know in the nearby vilages and town.

We're splashing out on a top end safari and we've booked a dawn hot airballon ride over the Masai Mara. We're also spending a week or so chilling out at the coast on Lamu Island, where I very much hoping to bump into Satan, the rather swave waiter and formidable chess player!

Here are a few photos from the last trip:

Kids at the School





Lamu Town



Dhow trip to Kiwayu Island



Swimming the Channel between Lamu and Manda Islands



Obligatory Animal Shots


Friday, July 25, 2008

Crackdown

Quality little vid here...

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

6 Month Review

This is a little late given that it's now almost the end of July but here a quick update on how I stand at the halfway(ish) point of the year.

Pokerwise, as has been the case for the last three years running, I've had a killer first three months and a terrible second three. April and June were exactly break even and May was a loosing month. There's no real excuse for it, although I'm sure there are plenty of reasons. Some of those will include, overconfidence and complacency after a winning streak; fewer bad players playing in the spring/summer than during the winter; and general bad play by me.

My poker goals at the beginning of the year were:

1. Make $25,000. I’m not on target for that at the moment. About $6,000 as it stands.
2. Achieve an hourly rate of $30. I’m off the pace on that one too: It’s a shade under $20/hour right now.
3. Play in at least two decent sized live events: none so far. I’ve got over £1,000 of DTD tournament comps, but as I only get 2 weekends off out of every 5, I’m unlikely to get up there more than once more this year.
4. Have a decent sized tournament score. I came 4th in a £20 event for £86. Does that count?!
5. Go to Vegas: not happening!

Of those, realistically, I’ll probably achieve between zero and two of them ;-)

Other aspects of life are going well this year.

I'm getting on well in the new(ish) job. It's keeping me very busy and I'm seeing less of Mrs Pink, which is no good thing, but on the whole it's going very well.

I'm keeping well to my fitness regime. The plan at the beginning of the year was to run a marathon and I had pencilled in the Istanbul one in October. At the moment it's a toss up between that and taking part in a relay run/cycle from London via Paris to the South of France. Either way I'll be getting some fundraising links up here soon, so get your credit cards ready!

I can only apologise for the lack of updates here. It's a far cry from this blog's early days, when I had plenty of time as a student to write something vaguely interesting. Unfortunately, I haven't made the time to post regularly, and on top of that, there's less for me to write about than there used to be. There are plenty of great stories from work, but those won't be appearing here!

Now go back to reading something more interesting ;-)