Tilt inducing co-worker

I get to work this morning, sporting a head ache and a serious coffee withdrawal. As soon as I open the office door, a wall of noise hits me like a ton of bricks.

A co-worker that I shall leave nameless, is screaming over his cell phone, arguing with god knows who about some money he apperently paid for no good reasons. The way our office is designed, it's a large open space. So when someone makes noise, it bothers everyone.

I sit at my desk, waiting for my PC to boot up so I can at least try to listen to some music to counter this barage of noise when I suddendly realise that all of this is over 35$! Pretty sure a bunch of my co-workers would have chipped in 5$ each to give him his 35$ just so he would shut up.

Guess I should at least tell him how annoying that little tantrum of his was and that the next time he should find a private space to scream through his cell phone.

After my coffee... maybe...

I can smell it...

Well since my laptop was stolen I have not been playing anything near my usual volume. That said, playing HUD-less has forced me to play more focused and while I suffered a bit from fancy play syndrome at first (I often do following a hiatus), my results overall have been pretty good. Add to that the fact that I'm currently clearing a bonus on CD Poker and I've quietly made it very close to my year goal of reaching NL50 by the end of 2008.

It's strange, in the past whenever I was getting close to move up I would get edgy, impatient and kinda nervous about it. Not this time. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm not playing like I'm used to (currently playing HUD less and on less tables), or the fact that I'm not playing as much or that I'm clearing a bonus... Anyway, I don't feel the jitters I had when closing in on NL25.

On another note, I have been talking poker strategy a lot with a good friend of mine who is struggling a bit right now playing on his first online money. I love this! Talking about lots of stuff forces me to think about it all and ask myself why I do certain things. I also tried to come up with a basic strategy that could make him an instant winner from NL2 to NL10 (and most likely even higher). My goal was to come up with an easy to teach playbook that would keep it simple and still be efficient. This has been a recurring theme for me lately. I was discussing a prop bet idea with Alex. The bet was that in 4 hours of coaching I could make someone with just basic poker knowledge (like a flush beats a straight type of knowledge) a winner at NL2. We have not come up with a candidate or the particular details of how this bet would work out but I thought it would be an interesting idea. So if you know someone who would be a nice candidate let me know!

Life tilt

So we're finally getting settled in the new condo. I'm starting to get back into my routine, have a few good sessions to get me back into the game after this short hiatus and then...

Thiefs break into my place and run away with my laptop. So basically another forced hiatus for me. But what pisses me off the most is the loss of my PT database. Oh well... guess I'll start datamining again as soon as I can get my hands on a new laptop.

Russ Hamilton directly implicated in the UB scandal.

If you're sick and tired of hearing about the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal then stop reading this entry (it won't be a big one anyway).

I don't plan on repeating everything that's been said elsewhere since, well, to be honest I don't know all the little details, and that information is already available elsewhere.

Still, I don't want to let this story die so here I am posting you the latest update. Turns out Russ Hamilton was directly implicated.

I think everyone should at least take a look at this. Be aware though, this is a thread in a big forum, so there is a lot of people jumping to conclusion and shit. This is still, however, a great source of information if you can filter out the noise.

Stuck in the stone age

It's done! We're finally in the new condo! Problem is, no internet connection, no phone and no cable until next monday! I could definitly live without phone or cable TV... but no net means I'm in serious poker withdrawal...

Alex has gracefully agreed that we push back our volume bet by one month instead of using this week to take a huge lead. Thanks buddy!

Not much else to say right now so I guess I'll leave it at that for now...