peterbirks | High Circles

I never really thought that the day would come when I could say that I had played in home games with three of the last thirty or so players in a major poker event, but that was the case this week. So I take some kind of vicarious railbird-like pleasure in mentioning that Nick Persaud (Tooting game), John Iannou (Steve Bennett's game) and Richard Gryko (one time Diplomacy-hobby member, James Butler's game, MSO) did well in this week's Monte Carlo Millions, but none of them made the money.

Gryko is going to win a big one eventually. I know this because he seems to show no fear of going out on the bubble, even in big tournaments. This time it was 14th, with 12 getting paid.

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I made a bad mistake yesterday. Flushed with success on Sunday, when everything went right, just about, I was keen to sit down after work to continue my winning streak. Normally I take a nap first, but yesterday I fired straight in there and, of course, absolutely did my bollocks. I would have lost anyway, but being tired is bound to exacerbate the nightmare, especially when by 10pm you decide that three tables of 2/4 is the only answer.

If anything, I was too laggy for the 3/6 (and then 2/4) games that I was playing. Some of the players were good enough to look me up on less than premium hands, at which point I often foolishly decided to get into battles because it was "only" 2/4. If the luck's running with you, this can result in a big win. But the luck wasn't running with me, so it didn't. Result, all of Sunday's win wiped out, and then some, with only the accumulated bonus points on Party and rakeback money on Empire as compensation. Oh, and I managed to win on Ultimate, where they were so weak-tight that they didn't start looking me up until I was gettin' me coat.

A lesson learnt.

But I did get Aces cracked by Kings (once), Kings cracked by Queens (twice), and Aces cracked by QJ and AQ. Plus QJ of clubs in BB beaten by AT of clubs in SB on a flop of Kxx of clubs! Get away from that one! Needless to say, river flushes and straights when I was pushing never came.... End of whinge out of turn.