Mid Month Update

As per usual, this month started off really bad. I don't know why, but its always happening. After a week in, I found myself down over 3k, running bad because my all-in ev was around zero (this basically means I should've been breakeven). So time to take a few days off, we drove out to Bath - home of the Roman natural thermal spa . We did the usual sight seeing, and also spent 4 hours in the Thermae Spa. Lucky for us it wasn't that busy on a Tuesday, and the weather was great so we spent almost 2 hours at the rooftop spa:

I definitely recommend that anyone who's currently stressed out from their jobs or whatever, spend some time there! So relaxing :)

So now after that mini-break, I'm back to grinding on the tables, feeling motivated again. I have about 3 and a half months before I fly out to Vegas for the Main Event, so I really need to get a move on with both Supernova Elite and learning a bit of tourney poker before then. As I'm behind pace for my targets this month (I don't even want to think about pace for 1.5x SNE!!) and also because the number of fish at NL400 seems to have dwindled abit since the changes, I took the plunge and started mixing in NL600 tables into my grind. So far its going ok, theres not much difference to the NL400 games except the pots and betting structures are a fraction bigger. The regulars are mostly the same as NL400 and the fish too, they are just as bad as they are at lower stakes, except they have more money to lose :)

In other news, I've recently been buying alot of things online, a friend mentioned that I had developed a bout of 'retail therapy' to ease my runbad on the tables, but I disagree - sure, I bought alot of games for my PC and X-Box recently, but they are there for when I need to cooldown from a really bad poker session. The kinect I bought, was for the purpose of shifting some weight, and being a bit more active. I've also spent a fair bit on computer stuff, namely a new Steelseries Xai mouse:

A new PSU for the PC that I initially bought in Macau:

A 60gb OCZ Vertex 2 SSD:

A Logitech G510 Keyboard (awaiting delivery):

The point I'm trying to make is, all the above stuff is for 'work', i.e. poker. I needed a decent 2nd backup mouse (I already have a Razer Imperator) to replace the Deathadder which started double-clicking randomly, causing me to lose money on the tables. I got so fed up with trying to fix that damn mouse that I binned it and got the Xai. You need a reliable and comfortable mouse, if you're gonna be grinding lots of poker tables for long hours.

My new PSU actually saved me money, because after almost 2 years of suffering random BSODs with that PC I bought in Macau, not knowing whether it was an overheating issue, a faulty mb, cpu or ram - I figured out that the stupid people at the PC shop had incorrectly built my machine with an inadequate PSU! So now that my PC is stable, I can put on hold my plans to upgrade to the Sandybridge platform, for at least another year - saving up for a house/flat is still our immediate priority.

The SSD was a must-buy too - since I'm running a SQL database and lots of background programs when I'm playing poker, I need a quick and responsive PC. The SSD solves that problem nicely. The G510 keyboard, well, this crappy Razer Arctosa that I also bought in Macau is a US style one and doesn't have a UKP sign. Nor does it have backlight keys. Those excuses alone are enough to justify getting a new keyboard, will all the bells and whistles of the G510.

Not everything I bought was expensive though, I did manage to pickup a bargain along the way, in the form of some G-Star jeans that were on sale for only 15quid, original price 80!

Online shopping ftw!