December Summary

I'm going to throw up the December summary a little early, since I've got plans for the next few days.

Birthday today, so spending some time with K. E decanted to the grandparents for an overnighter.

Tomorrow is the annual Jolly Boys day out, which is simply a day when the guys take the chance to go out and get ridiculously drunk without the girls in tow.

It's a long standing tradition which used to end in a visit to a club, but these days usually involves many pubs, some food, and climaxes in a casino in Glasgow. -EV ahoy!

After that it's Hogmanay time, though I can't see it being a wild one. In truth, there hasn't been one of those for quite a while.

Returning to the month so far...

For obvious reasons this has been a harrowing time. The miscarriage is one of those events that I wouldn't want to forget, but that I do need to put behind me.

K and I are both of similar minds on this, and are trying our hardest to look forward rather than back.

It's easy to say or write that, but less easy to actually manage it. We've both found ourselves unexpectedly breaking down in the last few days, but as I've said before, I'm sure time will be the healer.

Perversely, the time I've spent at the tables this month has been one of the best runs I've experienced in a long time.

I've had many more winning sessions than losing ones, albeit a couple of the losing ones have been real epics.

Chuck in the regular Interpoker bonus, and a decent rakeback, and it looks like I'm going to post a profit of just under $1000. I don't expect to be playing much, if at all, in the next few days so that figure should be fairly accurate.

I've been primarily playing a mix of $.25/.50 and $.50/1 NLHE on Doyles Room (Tribeca) and the standard of play is extremely mediocre. I also think 9-handed rather than 10-handed tables suit my No Limit approach better.

It's been interesting to track the various players I've added to my buddy list this month.

Many of them seem to disappear back to MTTs after a caning at the cash tables, but some of them pop up in the most unexpected places.

A few have migrated to 6-max, which could make sense as it might suit their maniacal style better.

One extremely passive type surprisingly appeared in the $2/4 9-handed game.

Most astounding of all, a guy who I'd labelled an 'over aggressive idiot' suddenly appeared in a $5/10 9-handed game on Boxing Day! I can only assume someone gave him a cash Christmas present.

I don't make a habit of watching other games, but I did take a few minutes to monitor that table. Unsurprisingly he was losing, and he didn't hang around long.

Although the bankroll has grown less than I'd hoped for this year, I'm optimistic I could hold my own in the $1/2 game at the very least.

My present expectation is to persevere with the current level for a while longer to prove to myself that I am a consistent winner at this level - and to build additional insurance reserves before stepping up - but the step up is certainly in sight.

I'll be putting together my annual review, and targets for 2007, quite soon. So, more on this to come.