Location Location Location

So, yesterday I went to Neal's Yard Dairy in Covent Garden to buy some cheese to take to Ireland. It's a few years since I have been there. Now, Neal's Yard Dairy, the finest place in London bar none to buy top quality cheese from the British Isles, isn't actually in Neal's Yard. It's in Short's Gardens, at the entrance to Neal's Yard.

Or, at least, it was. As I walked along the street I noticed that the place which I distinctly recalled being the cheese shop was now one of those designer clothes shops that are proliferating throughout Covent Garden and which must make an immense profit on every sale, because I never see anyone in there buying anything.

Odd, I thought. Surely Neal's Yard Dairy can't have closed down. So, I walked through the Yard itself and, although tere was a Deli, and a salad bar, there was no cheese shop.

Jesus Fuck, I thought to myself, perhaps it has closed down. What a disaster. Where am I going to buy my cheese?

So, I walked back to Seven Dials and decided to take a walk up Mercer Street to enter Neal's Yard via the back passsage, so to speak. And, whoah, just as I arrived at that small, artfully concealed entrance (hardly anyone knows it is there, actually), there was the cheese shop, slightly smaller than at the old premises, but still, essentially, the same.

Thank god for that. Neal's Yard Bakery packed up years ago, but I couldn't see the dairy folding. So many people travel many many miles to shop there.

I picked up four cheeses, including a 22-month cheddar, a couple of creamy goats' cheeses, and a cheese from Cork called "Gubbeen" which, from the sample I tasted (yes, you can go in and taste small samples before buying) was like a punchy mature Cheshire.

I said that it seemed a bit ironic buying stuff from Ireland in London, only to take it back to Ireland, but the guy said that they got a large number of Irish visitors doing just that, because the farm-produced cheeses sold in the Dairy don't make it to any of the the shops in Ireland.

Which all seems a bit farcical, and a bit of a shame.

I may do the month's figures up tonight, since I won't be playing after this afternoon until February. Woo hoo, no Internet, no contact. Some real time for recuperation....

January Figures

Well, until the last couple of days, it had all the makings of a record month. Twenty-one winning days on the trot, not many hours, a lot of enjoyable play, getting the hang of low stakes 6-max, feeling more in control at the ring games (I really should get myself to lay down a few more river bets, though -- calling when I knew I was beat probably cost me 10 river bets, without a single compensating "surprise win", although I made a number of very light calls on the river (one with Ace-six and no pair!) when I thought I had a chance of winning, and these were profitable).

However, the past two days at UB brought back the knowledge that a bad streak is only ever a few hands away. Actually, I did okay during the short "bad" sessions, restricting my losses, except for perhaps a couple of hands when I raised just a little too lightly in an attempt to make something happen.

SITE	Stake/Data	$2 - $4	$3 - $6	Bonus	low-stakes	No Limit low stakes	50c - $1 (6 max)	$1-$2 (6 max)	Grand Total
Party	Win	$308		$285					+$594
Ultimate	Win	$43	$58	$70					+$170
Pokerstars	Win	$83		$150	$6				+$239
Virgin	Loss	-$59			-$16	-$9			-$84
Noble	Win			$40	$63	$1	$82	$56	+$242
Full Tilt	Win			$50	$1	$8	$1		+$60
Total Win		$374	$58	$595	$48	$0	$83	$56	TOTAL: $1,221
Hours		25.5	0.75	0.0	4.0	1.0	4.5	6.5	41.5
Average p/h		$14.66	$77.33	N/A	$12.00	$0	$18.44	$8.61	$29.54

The bonuses are high because Party decided to allow players to convert Party Points into cash, and I happened to have 20,000 of those. Ker-ching, $200. At Pokerstars I finished off a deposit bonus from December, and the rest were just run-of-the-mill bits and pieces.

The Noble Poker "deposit bonus" is a pile of shite at low stakes and I have no chance of clearing $500 in 90 days without putting in hours at stakes that are too high for my comfort zone -- a policy that I have sworn to avoid this year. It's really little more than ungenerous rakeback (about 27%), possibly the worst "deposit bonus" that I have seen.

I would guess that the average bonus for this kind of month over all the sites at which I play would be $200, making it a very satisfactory $800 month of which a quarter was bonus/rakeback.

For the moment, it's more of the same. I'm still finding my feet at 6-max. I still don't really enjoy no-limit when I sit down to play it. Razz, when I play it, is great fun, but I don't think the liquidity is there to make it worthwhile becoming a specialist. I really enjoy low-only games because they have a great capacity to send some players on rip-roaring tilt (as the saying goes, you never see a happy Razz player).

The bread and butter was Party, against bots or bot-like opponents who are not difficult to read and counter-attack. Ultimate (same kind of opponents and a good payment on bonus dollars per hour) would have been very good, except that I lost $170 in the last two days of "my" month.

Back in February. Perhaps one day I'll win that Bad beat jackpot, or a share thereof. I've certainly paid enough in rake towards it...