July Summary

No poker played for approximately ten days caused me to actually miss the month end, and forget about the summary post. Until today.

July was a bit of a rollercoaster. At one point I was sure I was comfortably heading for a +$1000 month, before I ran into a barrage of outdraws.

Some were pretty sore - overpair v overpair on a low flop, where the lesser pair spikes the two outer after all the chips fly in - but strangely, most actually had some sort of method to them, so I couldn't really get upset.

Lots of good, and considered, calls/reraises with the likes of TPTK went down to flush/straight draws that hit after my flop bets got check-raised.

One shouldn't really complain when action is sought and given.

Ultimately I ended the month about $300 to the good and a nice loyalty payment from BlondePoker pushed that up to $450. So, not a great month, but so long as the bankroll moves north, I'll settle for that.

The reasons for lack of poker action are threefold.

I got distracted by the travel plans for the trip to London. On top of that, the new contract necessitates an earlier train to work - so I'm trying to curtail my late night sessions.

The most recent blocker to my poker play is entirely my own fault. I couldn't resist splashing out on a couple of new PC games to see how they looked on the 24" monitor.

Frontline - Field Of Thunder has been a slight disappointment. Not that it's a bad game, but I'd previously been a Sudden Strike addict and I was hoping this would be a step forward from that, but if anything the gameplay is slightly less satisfying to me. Still a decent game.

The real killer has been my first purchase from the Civilization series of games.

I'm well aware I'm way behind the times on this, but Civilization IV must be the crack cocaine of computer gaming. Time just disappears. I had a skim through the voluminous rule book and decided to have a quick play around to familiarise myself with the basics.

Seven hours later (around dawn) I shut down the PC and stumbled bleary eyed to bed.

Just typing these paragraphs has got me itching for my next Civ fix. No more early nights for me!