making the most of your day off

i did well on friday as i managed to cram lots into my day off. i experimented this week with staying up when i got home from work on thursday. i got a bit of tidying done and watched a bit of telly. i then had an afternoon nap before going to play pub poker. i came 2nd out of 30 which was ok (but i would've liked the prize money). when i got back, i was a bit drunk and tired so i managed to get an early night.

i managed to get up early on friday and i felt quite well rested, i went and joined the gym (i just need to make sure i go now). i then decided to go to borough market and have a look round as it was a nice day. i had possibly the best fish and chips i've ever had, really good batter, mmmmmmm. anyway, had a good look round, tasted some cheese, had a look at vinopolis (i think i might go wine tasting there in the future) i love borough market, it'll be nice to go down towards christmas time and get some treats.



after the market i had a walk by the river and went to have a look in the turbine hall at the new exibit. i'm not sure exactly what its supposed to be but i think it had something to do with immigration. there were lots of makeshift bunk beds with paperbacks in foreign languages (oh, and a big spider type creation complete with egg sac)

i finished my day with a game of poker as gary was supposed to be playing at the vic. i played in the £30 freezout but only lasted and hour and a half. i thought i played quite well but i got rivered with a pair of 9s and a pair of kings. if things had gone the other way i would've had a monster chip stack.

so, the end of the day, i went home a loser but cheered myself up when i got home by having a platter of parma ham and aged parmesan with a bottle of champagne whilst watching wanted on dvd.


a happy end to a good day

coming out from the shadows of the world series

so i went in to work on thursday expecting a night of dealing cash games and found out as i went in that i was going to deal the final table of the main event of the world series of poker europe (WSOPE). i wasn't sure whether to be happy or extremely nervous. i watched rob for an hour and then dealt for my first hour at 9pm. i was shitting myself as there was loads of cameras and people watching. my hands were clammy and i got the shakes a little bit. the actual dealing was fairly easy as all the players were playing very conservatively and Jack (the TD) was doing commentary and announcing everything i had to do. the thing that made it hard was the fact that i was so petrified of fucking up and i became paranoid that i would make a stupid mistake like forgetting to move the button.

anyway, during my first hour there was a couple of big hands and 2 players (including daniel negranu) were knocked out leaving only 3 in the tournament at 10.30pm. i thought it would be all over in another couple of hours but to my surprise it was 3am by the time we got down to the final 2 when some bloke that's also on the final table for the main event in vegas got knocked out.

so then there was 2 .... the final 2 were john juanda and stanislav alekhin. juanda was nice and chatty and is quite well known. the other guy was russian and reminded me a bit of ivan drago. rob really wanted to deal the final hand and i quite wanted him to to it as he was so keen but he dealt his hour and next it was my turn. i expected it to end during my stint but despite 2 called all-ins i couldn't finish it off. rob was up again next and he came close to ending it but stanislav hit trips on the turn. by this stage everyone was getting tired and wanted to get home, it was 6am which is just too late to be playing poker.

we came close to it all ending a few more times but it was ultimately 11am before John Juanda won the £860,000 first prize with quad 6s. i got to deal the final hand which i was quite happy about as it's a good story to tell down the pub