A good score and GLASTONBURY!

Yay glasto! Haven't been thinking about it much, but am starting to get excited. I missed last year (trust me to miss the one sunny year in aaages) and loads of my friends went, and all had a great time. It's not for everyone, and I know it's changed a lot since it started, but I still love it to bits. The people, the place, the atmosphere, the music - it's all amazing. My dad has worked there a lot, when I was young he sold pancakes and now he plays there most years, so I often get free tickets (not this year though). Basically I've been there a lot, and I feel its an important event every summer - some fairly major stuff has happened there for me.

It might be a bit weird socially this year though. I have a few good friends from bristol going, but I don't think they're going together, and then there's a big group from sheffield who I kind of know...ish (one or two I know well) - I kind of said I'd go with them, but they're pretty different from my bristol friends. Basically they're a bunch of druggy hippies :P who are all lovely, but my bristol friends aren't into the whole drug scene. I'm kind of in the middle somewhere. meh, i'm sure it'll be fine. I think i'm going to spend most of the time wandering on my own to be honest, trying to meet with people/staying in groups and stuff can get stressful.
Anyways, it's going to be awesome. And please don't rain.


As for pokerz, I've continued having dozens of near misses (10th-18th in a $1001r1a, a $100 FO, a $55 6max, a $77 6max, a $15 FO, a $7r and a $200 FO, and top 30 in a BUNCH more - in the last 2 days) but in my last game yesterday I finally got a score coming 4th in a $163 75k on fulltilt for a profit of 6.5k on the session. sweet! That score quadrupled my month's earnings which is great, nice to be back on track for the $6k+/month I've been hoping for.

The transition to the higher stakes stuff has been a bit rocky, but mostly ok. It's mainly the swings, I'm still not used to spending 2-3k in buyins per session. Still, no massive downswongz yet (touch wood) and I've decided to start cashing out again - it'll be nice to have some 'income'.

Swingy sessions and a warehouse rave

So I went to a rave a few days ago, and it was pretty damn awesome. I've been to similar-ish things before, but nothing on this scale. Was a massive set of abandoned warehouses, different rooms playing different music, all totally trashed and grimey - pleasingly so. Thousands of people, all there through word of mouth, going bonkers dancing, great fun. Was feeling pretty tired at the beginning of the night, almost didn't go, but very glad I did - there's not much that beats dancing your socks off for 6 hours. Unfortunately it didn't end well. I guess when there are thousands of people possibly not in the most sensible frame of mind in abandoned buildings accidents will happen now and then. On the upper floor you could climb out of the windows onto the roof which was a big square thing where lots of people went to cool down, really nice - got a great view of the sunrise. Anyway, at about 7am there was a flurry of activity and one of our group told us that a girl had fallen from the roof (3 storey fall onto concrete) and the police were on their way. We made a sharp exit, was a strange end to the night. I found out the day after that the girl had survived, but broken her legs. Pretty horrific, but at least she lived and will be fine - frankly I think she was probably pretty lucky, it was a big drop.

So yeah, a slightly odd/subdued end for us but still an amazing night. We ended up going back to a friend's house to wind down for a few hours - a few of my mates had entered a football tournament starting at 10am, and needless to say they were seriously regretting it when the time came! Got to bed 11am, woke up at 5pm, spent the rest of the day shuffling around as you do after a big night out and then slept 13hrs last night. score


On to the pokerz. Played 3 sessions in june so far, -1.2k, -2.2k (I had maybe 1 or 2 mincashes this session, one of the worst sessions I've had in a long time) and +4.7k. Just finished the 4.7k session so I'm feeling positive :) Won 2 $109 mtts, on ipoker for 2k and bwin for $4.5k. Actually came reeeal close to some others, went out 10th in a fulltilt $55 mtt KK < A8 (ace on the river...) and 20th in a pacific $55 too. Still, nice to book some solid results after a rocky start to the month.

Got SUSOP this weekend (sheffield university series of poker) which is a £50 freezeout. Not much of a series, but should be fun, and then back down to bristol next week in time for glastonbury. And lots of online poker in the meantime of course.

Close encounter

So me and a few friends are sitting in the park, drinking some beer and smoking a few joints, playing the guitar, generally having a lovely summer afternoon. A few of my friends go off to find the loo, and it's just me and my friend Jon. He's telling a story which I find immensely funny and am giggling, as you do.

'What are you laughing at?'

I'm faintly aware something threatening and unpleasant is about to happen, but try to ignore it and carry on talking to Jon.

'I said what the fuck are you laughing at?'
Ah crap. 2 guys approach.
'Nothing, my mate's just telling a story'
'You fucking laughing at us? I'll take that guitar and smash it over your fucking head'
Nothing like a guy who thinks he's Joe Pesci to round off a nice afternoon in the park. Why does this stuff always happen when you're slightly baked?
'Woah chill, we're just sitting enjoying the sunshine, we're not laughing at anybody'

We finally manage to convince them we're not laughing at them, and the guy who's doing all the talking apologises, saying there's 'gang shit' going on. At this point I'll add that my friend has long curly hair and wears cardigans and I was wearing a stripy hippyish shirt and shorts and sandals. Real mafia types.

When he realises we're students and not in a gang from out of town, he clocks us as potential customers and sits down next to us ('oh please god no') and talks about drugs and where to find student parties non-stop for what felt like hours. The quieter guy speaks up and is actually being quite nice, but there was that undertone of 'we almost got beaten up by these guys for no reason, they could easily flip out again' that made it very difficult to relax. Finally our friends came back and we decided it was a good moment to leave without looking like we're running away (which we were). Before we go he insists we take his number in case we need drugs. yah, I'm going to voluntarily meet up with a psycho who almost assaulted me in order to give him money...

Is this legal?

Just had my 2nd winning sunday in a row - I'm suspicious! That has to be some kind of record, surely? Maybe the poker gods are placating me before dealing me a -100 buyin downswing or something. Final tabled 2 $109 mtts on ipoker, 2nd in a smaller one for $1100 (really good HU match, almost won it a few times but couldn't quite clinch it) and 3rd in a bigger one for $3100. Probably cashed for about 6k total, about $2.5k profit. Yay! Reached 20k online which is great, feel I'm able to take a shot at the majors without satting now, although I wont be buying in to $150+ mtts during the week, want to keep to the softest possible fields for now.

Pretty pleased with how everything's going pokerwise at the moment. I think I'm playing well and I'm actually progressing in terms of bankroll and stakes, which I haven't done in a long time. I've been a bit slack organising other things though. REALLY need to figure out what I'm doing this winter, can't stay in the UK. Not just because I'll feel crap, but I literally wont be able to do anything. Poker's off the cards (ba-boom tish) since SAD makes me tilt and lose bankrolls (I really really reeaaally don't want it to happen a 3rd time) so I'll have nothing to do, so I'll lie around feeling miserable, so I'll play poker. And lose bankrolls. Basically I need to phone this guy about a teaching placement in senegal who hasn't been replying to my emails, but I'm lazy and don't like phoning people. If that doesn't work out I have some decisions to make - and I'm really no good at making decisions.

Having said that, the 1 big decision I've made recently -dropping out of uni- I definitely feel was the right one. Even hearing about people's exams just makes me squirm, especially language oral exams... ewww. Hate them soo much. I always did fine, just... ugh, I'd just wake up and immediately start worrying, even in normal term-time without exams. I love being able to wake up and not worry about everything.