Johnson fell of his bike

Johnson ran into the back of a car on his way home last night, hope he's ok and not too upset about his impending scarification.

so I promised Johhny that I would blog, luckily i already had one set up that I recorded some random musings from the 2008 WSOPE, seems like such a long time ago

yesterday i went to the ICE (international casino exhibition) it wasn't too interesting although there was free beer, above is a picture of Scooby with some stormtroopers, I did get a free ticket for a party at stringfellows, so it wasn't a complete dead loss.

afterwards went for a beer at the imperial with the people that are doing the pai gow training school, had a nice drink then on to stringfellows, arrived there and we got in free, it then transpired that the beer was free aswell so i felt a little silly for not going earlier, due to all the freeness i didn't feel to bad about paying for a dance, it was £20 which seems a bit steep to see some boobs, nice as they were.

got the nightbus home, fell asleep, woke up in seven sisters, had to get a bus all the way back to central london and then back to camden. on the bright side I didn't get robbed so i don't feel too bad about the whole ordeal.

andy gray has been sacked, as many people have pointed out, people say sexist things on TV all the time without being sacked (loose women) but having watched the footage they do both come off as proper bellends so maybe they deserve it - also andy gray is suing the news of the world so what does he expect, don't sue your boss, they don't like it.

family are coming down in april, i've booked us in at 'dinner by heston blumenthal' should be exciting

that is all for my first post for 2 and a half years, i wonder how long i'll keep it up for this time, i've just had a sausage sandwich, maybe i should've blogged it, i may start taking pictures of my food, i need to get my camera back from andy's house this is just me talking to myself now so i'll STOP.

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

tired and fed up

Well I'm now officially fed up to the back teeth of poker. I've done nothing but deal the fucking game for 2 weeks. I've been working really long hours and I haven't been sleeping very well. It started oof as good fun but the novelty of famous players and TV camera's soon wears off and it's a long bloody grind. I've found most of the players to be amazingly arrogant and very flippant about the opportunity to play for such huge prize money (probably because they have their buy-in paid for them). I don't think it's any cooincidence that most of the big names went out of the main event today, perhaps the young internet pros are just hungrier. Anyway we're supposed to have a night out on Friday to thank us for our hard work. I'll have to get really pissed to make up for all the hardship I've gone through.

My only enjoyment recently has been James' wedding at the weekend. It was really nice to be invited, the food was great and I saw Pete for what must be the first time in about 8 years. Dobber and Tom were there as well and it was a right good do. The hotel cost £150 for 2 nights and was a bit shit. Surely staying in a hotel you should be able to get a pint past 11 o clock. The cost of the hotel was offset by the fact that I won 5o notes playing poker on the first night and the booze was free at the wedding.

Pete was best man and I think he did a good job of the speech although I think he was quite nervous. This wasn't helped by James' brother introducing him as the funniest man on the planet. Pete went even more pink than usual.

Anyway, back for more poker tomorrow. Roll on Thursday.

Omaha ha ha

first day of the omaha today, just glad that HORSE is over as it was doing my head in a bit. i thought i did ok but it was really hard work. Omaha is all about good maths so it's more of my forte really. it does take a lot of concentration as you need to keep track of how much is in the pot at all times. i've dealt to some quite glamorous tables in the last couple of days but i'd say the novelty of dealing to famous poker players has definitely worn off. got jame's wedding at the weekend which should be a welcome diversion as long as i don't fall asleep through exhaustion.

in the omaha jason mercier is chip leader and he is my current tip for the top

my kingdom for a H.O.R.S.E

Bloody hell I'm knackered, all these 14 hour shifts are doing me in. I've hardly had a break all day and been dealing a game that I've never really dealt before. Just to add to the pressure I've been dealing to the pro's including Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Patrick Antonius and others. I made the odd mistake but nothing catastrophic.

It was just so mentally draining. I finished at about 2.45am and went straight to Burger King to give me enough energy to get home.

I'd love to write about something other than poker but poker is my entire life at the moment. I dream of a time when that will not be the case (in about 2 weeks)