Peaks and Troughs

If my Party Poker virginity was lost on Friday, Sunday was a veritable orgy.

I'd done ok on my first few days, winning fairly steadily on the Friday night Bad Beat $2/4 tables, and regular $2/4 tables on Saturday. As I'm anticipating playing a load of hands here, I splashed out on Poker Tracker and imported the hands I'd played to date. My BB/100 hands was sitting at a little over two.

I found a post on the 2+2 site that suggested anything over two was pretty good, and approaching four = crushing the game. I know the sample size is way too small, but I'd felt on Saturday I was just getting to grips with the Party style, and I believed I could move that number higher. So, I was feeling pretty confident as I logged in on Sunday afternoon for a quick session.

About 2 hours later, the BB/100 showing on Poker Tracker was negative. It was a massacre, and even though I hit a few suckouts, I had only myself to blame. My problem wasn't not getting good cards, it was getting good cards and either missing the flop completely and trying to bluff out the little fishes, or hitting it, but someone else hitting it better. I felt like one of those guys who falls into the river in a Piranha movie. I was savaged.

The worst hand was raising with AJ from the button, against several limpers, and hitting a flop of JJ2. Woowhoo!! Trip Js and an A kicker. Can't ask more than that? I called a bet from an early position, aiming to keep everyone in so I could take more off them once the big bets came on the turn. The turn was a blank, yet suddenly I found myself in a raising war with Mr Early Position.

Stupid me just kept ploughing on, unable to see what was staring me in the face. I figured he'd slow played something like QQ from early and I was still ahead, but of course he'd limped with 22 and flopped a full house! Poker 101 - beware of full houses when the board pairs. I was playing like an idiot. I just couldn't see that I could be beat, even if some of the hands that did beat me were a little unlikely.

The session ended with me down about $92. Yes!! I LOST $92 on Party Poker in less than 2 hours. I couldn't believe it.

I snarled and growled my way through dinner, while the cogs in my head whirred and clanked. There was no way I was going to stand for a beating like that. Apart from anything else, I'd a duty to report it on here!! So I needed to even things up.

Session two of the day, and I was much more focused. I hit a few good hands early and picked up some momentum, but I kept myself under control and didn't get carried away when the flops missed me. Several hands I folded may well have been best but I was playing the percentages, and noone was going to stop me winning. The session lasted 2 hours 49 minutes, and I logged out as soon as I hit my goal. Yes comrades, I made a profit. My second session was $97 to the good, for a grand total on the day of $5 profit. Now that's what I call variance.

The more astute among you will have noticed that works out at $1 an hour profit, but boy did it feel good!!

I was really hyped after that. So hyped in fact that I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed for hours fuming over the stupid hands I'd played in session 1, and my mind drifted to other things that make me mad. If I was to list them all, we'd be here for eternity, so here's a couple of things that have pissed me off recently.

1. Sir Mark Thatcher. It's been an open secret that the bumbling dunce traded on his mother's name to make money from arms deals and other shady enterprises. Now it's undeniable. He admitted being involved in a mercenary coup that could have left hundreds of people dead. All for the sake of money. Yet what does he get? A quarter million pounds fine, and a suspended jail sentence. The man is worth sixty million pounds for heavens sake!

Mind you, he might have enjoyed prison a bit too much for my liking. The buggery and punishment beatings might have reminded him of fond times at public school.

Oh, and of course he gets to keep his baronet title too, which he inherited from his father, who was awarded it by John Major who admitted to awarding it under duress after "powerful representations" from "more than one source". So much for an egalitarian society.

2. Imagine working as a sports journalist. Getting paid good money to write about one of your favourite subjects; travelling the world on expense account junkets to follow your local team; meeting your heroes - maybe even becoming friendly with some of them; guaranteed tickets to all the biggest events; and all this just for penning a few words about football, golf, rugby, boxing etc.

So how do some of these idiots manage to make the job seem so difficult? Take, for example, Keith Jackson. Keith writes for the 'Daily Record' - known to the more discerning as the 'Daily Retard'.

Keith managed to unearth a story so hot he slapped an 'Exclusive' tag on it, and gave it the most prominent position on the sports headlines page. Celtic's new Nike strip would break the club traditions, it was already being considered at boardroom level, and was sure to be controversial. Except, of course, it wasn't. Because the strip didn't exist. It had been mocked up by a 14 year old boy as a joke; and had been circulating on the internet for 3 MONTHS, prior to Keith's 'exclusive' story.

I use the word 'story' deliberately. For this article has more in common with Pinocchio than it does with a genuine news story. The Daily Record - a newspaper without news; or a future.