TGIF

It's been an exasperating week for a variety of reasons.

It started off eventfully, with a little mishap on my way to work. We'd had heavy snow and the driving conditions weren't great. There was a lot of spray on the heavily gritted motorway, which was blurring the windscreen badly.

So, imagine my disappointment when my windscreen wiper decided to pop out of its socket, just as I was overtaking several vehicles. Visibility went from poor to virtually zero in the space of a few seconds. At 6omph. In the middle lane of rush hour traffic. Yikes!

I slapped on my indicator to try to pull off the road, but white van man in the inside lane decided to undertake me, rather than let me in, and a BMW driver then decided to tailgate me rather than go past me, meaning I had to pull onto the snow covered hard shoulder at about 50mph, whilst peering through the murk. Obviously they are both psychics, since two of my most despised breeds of road user are indeed white van man and 'I'm more important than you' BMW drivers, so they were getting their revenge.

Wiper restored, it was onwards to work. Oh joy.

The family cat has also been acting up. He too seems to be psychic, and has decided to introduce the wife and I to the sleeping pattern of new parents five months ahead of schedule. Mewling and yowling at 3am and 5am is becoming a regular occurrence. The pattern seems to be: cat yowls, wake up, try to get cat outside, cat looks at me as if I'm daft - why on earth would he want to go out in that weather, does cat have food (yes!), water (yes!), what the hell DOES he want? (don't know). Back to sleep. Two hours later cat yowls....aaarrggghhh.

It's been a similar story on the poker front. I've been a bit pushed for time, so I've been sticking to $5 SnG games this week as they generally last for a predictable length of time.

Usually I play on Pacific Poker where there's T800 to start, and blinds go up every 15 hands. The problem with Pacific is the games can be so variable. Most are very loose with players raising with all sorts, and calling with anything. With only 800 chips, it can be difficult to sit and wait for decent cards, so sometimes you can get enveloped in the madness. Last night I saw a guy go all in pre flop on level 1 and get two callers. He flipped over T9o, flopped a pair of tens, and it held up as the best hand. Unbelievable!

A few hands later I have KQ, flop a straight draw and pair, hit the T I need on the turn and it holds up to win. Mr All In then tells me how lucky I was to beat him on the river (which was another Q). Durr, thanks for the advice but I made my hand on the turn dude!!

I decided to give Spin Palace (one of the Prima sites) a bash. They start with T1000 but the blinds go up every ten hands. It made Pacific look like a monastic retreat. Probably seven of the ten players were Scandinavians - all of whom thought they were Gus Hansen. Crapshoot time, and back to Pacific.

I've been playing like a tired man this week, but even so I've had some bad luck. KK with 4BB raise pre flop, outflopped by A8o. All in with TT v AK. K on the flop. And the most depressing of all, after I'd battled from a really low chip position to make the paying places, all in with 88 v 44, and a 4 on the river. Oh well, at least I got paid for 3rd.

What I've learned this week is that I'm nowhere near a good player yet. Some of the play is awfully erratic on these tables, and there's been an element of cold decking, but even so I should be getting better results by outplaying some of these guys. Again it's the paradox of play against bad players and you won't improve, but I need to stay at these levels til the bankroll grows.

I'd like to move on one step to the $10 SnG games on Pacific since they have T1000 to start and 15 hands per level, which would suit me better. I set myself a target of getting $400 into that account before I'd step up. All week I've been seesawing around $340. It's frustrating, but I'm going to stick to my rules and not let it get the better of me.

For the weekend, I think I'll go with the Party $2/4 ring games, which are more fun, and don't have the depressing finality of being rivered and pitched out of the tournament. I've got Poker Tracker running now, and installed Gametime+, so it should be interesting to see how much it helps.

I did see one very unusual hand this week. Midway through a SnG, two players go heads up with aggressive pre flop raising. The community cards are all rags, and the betting slows down, though it's bet and called all the way to showdown. Player 1 turns over AA. Player 2 turns over AA!! Pot split. What are the odds on that!?