Selling EPT action

Back in Edinburgh now, had a few good nights out with James, Flash and housemate Claire and caught up with Andy tonight over a few pints at local boozer.

For those of you feeling the pinch from the budget, snap up the value in my EPT thread. Can reserve pieces if I know you w/o sending quite yet.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/163/staking-selling-shares/msnl-reg-baltic-festival-winner-ept-monte-carlo-action-743340/

When I TID will be fun time in Jimmyz.

Also am making tentative birthday plans, so keep 16/17th of April free. Will probably try and sort something at Opal Lounge where Grandmaster Flash will be making a Premier performance of the soon to be classic "Opal Lounging".

PRAHA

Nope it's not a Prahlad Friedman themed entry espousing the merits of overbetting rivers...I'm off to Prague tomorrow with the Warwick Poker Soc and esteemed former members such as Rupert. Avid readers may recall Steven, who stayed with us in Australia, he was the chap disappointed to be described thus: "Steven managed to make us all feel rather mature and responsible". He was also supposed to be joining us, meeting me at Bristol airport, however, it transpires he has lost his passport.

It feels like the night before the start of a new term at school, full of anticipation, I've got several upcoming trips, after Prague will be checking out Dubrovnich with Rupert, George and James, then Monte Carlo for the EPT, followed by a bit of lashing for a stag weekend. I have been packing my belongings up and wondering how my Mum how has managed to lose all my pairs of socks in the wash. I also discovered my external hard drive in the bottom of my cupboard and took a rest from working my fingers to the bone to enjoy a spot of Alan Partridge. It truly is a timeless classic. I'll be returning to Edinburgh from Prague, it will be good to catch up with the flatmates and James, who is making his way up from London.

Had a little bit of an upswing at poker, my Ipoker contact seem determined to thwart it though, offering me the chance to play in a £10k minimum buy in 48 hour cash game. I mustered up the discipline to decline.

House of cards

Has been some decent TV on this week. The BBC had a couple of programmes focusing on unemployment. Celebraties such as Meg Matthews, Archie Mitchell from Eastenders, A Parker-Bowles IT Girl and Irish gardner Diarmund, all went to live with an out of work person/family. I thought all parties came out smelling of roses, the celebraties were portrayed in a pretty positive light and the plight of those suffering from long-term unemployment was also sympathetically highlighted.

"My Big Fat Gypsy" wedding was a rather more lighthearted Channel 4 documentary, focusing, as you may expect on traveler's nuptials. In their world most of the girls seem to get married at 16, with a huge, ridiculously oversized dress being a great status symbol. The larger the better, with many of the dresses weighing more than the brides and causing permanent scaring to the hips. It also transpired that the location of the reception must be kept secret, as if the venue get wind of it being a gypsy wedding they will cancel the occasion for fear of violent debauchery!

Poker has been pretty dismal, may take a few days off to watch some videos and regain a positive mindset. Am off to Prague on the Warwick Poker Soc trip next weekend which should be good fun.

Elsewhere, this caught Rupert's eye, we saw it being constructed in Macau, and is now finished.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8559882.stm

Miscellaneous

Didn't really feel like playing a lot today. The msnl games weren't great so I mixed in some 1/2, results were poor, but there we go. I punted another share selection, picking up some "Mouchel Group", the mutter from the gutter is that it will bid up and there is decent upswing potential and a limited downside. Props to Robbie: http://thenakedtrader.co.uk/ A decent read if you have any interest in this type of thing.

In between "Doctors" and "Neighbours" I also managed to help a new horse set up hand history imports into Holdem manager and configure table selection software. Later I took a look over another guy's Holdem Manager stats and gave him a few pointers on what he can do to help improve his game a bit. Hopefully I won't turn him into a complete spewmonkey! Anyone looking for staking should take a look at my 2p2 thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/135/staking/full-time-msnl-players-seeks-horses-fun-times-frolics-614357/

Finally, Congratulations to James "The Market Maker" Saunders who finished 3rd in the March £330 competition at Simon Trumper's "Dusk Til Dawn". A terrific score to open up his Hendon mob database account with.

One Week in...

Managed to get a good amount of hands in, however, week ended badly when I jumped into a ridiculously soft 5knl game and managed to lose a stack, relieving myself of the majority of my week's profits. Elsewhere in poker, my horses are making good progress and James Saunders is making a deep run in the DTD £300 (http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=47063.0). Good Luck JDizzle. Was a little disappointing to drop that stack today, it's hard to figure the balance between taking shots in juicy games and trying to mantain sanity as well as ensuring that I don't feel need to take a day off or something ludicrous.

I enjoyed seeing "Question Time" this week, Boris and Carol Vorderman were both guests. Carol gave a lovely character assassination of Lord Mandelson whilst Boris kept me amused by expressing his displeasure with terms like "rhubarb" and "absolute codswallop". Serial HIGNFY guest Will Self also featured, he was rather tiresome at first, before eventually making some decent points. I was curious about his background so looked him up on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Self), discovering that he was a former heroin addict.

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Pinch, punch.

Still feeling under the weather, however, need to get back into grinding spirit. I therefore aim to play 60k hands on ipoker this month. The bonuses will be significant and I should be able to beat the 2/4 and 3/6 games for a decent clip if all goes to plan.

No trips or distractions this month, although I'll have to make my way back up to Edinburgh at some point. Once there I think I may get a 30" monitor to facilitate the grind. If I don't fail spectacularly may even put a graph up at the end of the month.

I took the plunge and created my own internet share dealing account. Picked up Microfocus and PVCS, ones to watch out for. Will be keeping an eye on them between clicking buttons. Once again may decide to keep track of the profit/loss on here.

In other gambling related matters I've taken on a couple more horses. Both seem reliable and have a good work ethic, so hopefully it will work out successful for all parties. Check out the forum where we discuss hands: http://bombtheturn.freeforums.org/