Jobsworth

A jobsworth is a person who uses his or her job description in a deliberately obstructive way, "a minor factotum whose only status comes from enforcing otherwise petty regulations".

Running for a train at Waterloo I just managed to jump on board before the doors closed. It was only once the train started to move that i realised i didnt have a ticket. It was 11:30 at night and i know there are unlikely to be gates or inspectors at my destination.

I had a choice between trying to evade my fare or trying to buy a ticket before my journey ended. I knew i made a mistake but i wanted to correct it so i chose the later. I got off the train at the next stop and went to the ticket office to try and buy a ticket.

At which point i had the following conversation:

"Hi i got on the train at waterloo and am trying to get to X and would like to buy a ticket please"
" Where did you get on?"
"waterloo"
"You know you are supposed to buy a ticket before you travel"
"i know that but i thought i had a ticket when i got on the train but i didnt. Ive jumped off the the train to buy a ticket"
"Well there are alot of tickets stations are waterloo you could have bought a ticket"
"i thought i had one and thats why i ran for the train but i was wrong and ive come to buy a ticket now. Im trying to do the right thing by getting off the train and buying a ticket"
"well i have no choice because you could have bought a ticket so im going to fine you"
"well thats your choice and i understand it but i tried to do the right thing by getting off the train."
"well like i said you should have got a ticket"

At that point the ticket inspector smirks and turns to his colleague and says " hes not talking so much now is he"

Perhaps i was naive to get off the train and think i could just buy a ticket but what a fucking bastard. If you must fine me thats fine but that smug comment at the end just fucked me off.

You know what they say about people who follow process and procedure:

“Process and Procedure are the last hiding place of people without the wit and wisdom to do their job properly.”

Absolute tosser.

USP: smug

Smug

Im sure we all have friends who are just that little bit too satisfied with themselves and who just love to tell you how great their lives are and in comparison how impoverished your own is. For these people its not enough to do well they want YOU to know they are doing well.

I know it is petty but sometimes i wish i could violently shake these people and slap them with a fish to wake them up. Its easy to win a race when there are no other runners. Not everyone needs to play to the gallery. Not everyone needs external affirmation. The worst thing is you'd think these people were holding stone tablets with a mandate from god to preach!

If pride is a deadly sin then these guys must be sucking on the metaphorical gun barrel. Would i smile if they pulled the trigger and commit metaphysical hari kuri? no that would be far too smug.

Sinking feeling

I think i must be playing the worst poker of my life. They say that if you cant fold the best hand you cant play poker. Well i cant fold the best hand and i cant fold the worst hand so im pretty much stuffed. I just dont seem to have the discipline to play good poker these days. Its all about the easy money and the easy bucks. I want to get my money in because i want to win back my losses. Im chasing, im tilting and im losing.

Today X raised, i reraised with QQ and they moved in for $25. It was quite a substantial reraise by X and i knew that he would only do that with either KK or AA. The best i could hope for is that he had JJ or AK. I knew i was behind with QQ yet i couldnt fold. I knew i should fold but wanted to gamble and got my just deserts. X flips over AA and makes tips on the flop.

The grisly facts of my demise is that i havent won an SNG in weeks and sharkie says im -$100 in profit. PT says that ive only made a net profit of 37 dollars over about 6 months and that over the past two months ive lost $150 at the cash tables. BR is $250 after withdrawals.I know i have been running into bad cards but part of me thinks that i should be playing better poker to minimise my losses. I just cant seem to do it.

Its quite depressing really and to be honest when you keep getting beat, its enough to de-motivates an already pretty de-motivated poker player.The worst thing about all of this is the way poker losses make you feel. Make a stupid call or a stupid bet and you feel like a chump. Walk away from a losing session and your pride tells you that you are better than this, your heart aches and your head tells you you are a fucking loser.

At the end of the day im getting pretty sick of playing bad and losing.

Good luck at the felt.

Sadness

I was going to write a post about a girl i knew 6 years ago who who i liked and who liked me.
I was going to write about how things didn't work out because she thought i was too young and needed to sort myself out.
I was going to write about the promise i made to myself to make myself a better man so that the next time i saw her she would notice the difference.
I was going to write about how i went to a party last night and i saw the same girl
I was going to write about how nothing and everything had changed.
I was going to write about how we chatted all evening and as we did so the years that had passed seem no longer than the pause between a breaths.
I was going to write about a story in which people live happily ever after.

I was going to write about all these things but the truth is sometimes dreams are just that and i know in the cold light of morning E will still be married and i will still be a lowly trainee solicitor.

Sometimes even in life you can be drawing dead.

Stop and repeat ($764)

Bloggerment 51

This week seems to have followed the same pattern as last week. A good performance in the blogger (finishing third out of 22 runners this time) and continued failure in the turbo sngs and cash games(159 sngs for a minus $54 dollar loss and -8 ROI). Whilst i havent been playing much i havent been playing well either. Its pretty disheartening.

This week i fell in the blogger whilst ITM when i reraised Tan's A7 button raise with KQ. I was well stacked compared to Boredmistress who was then second however i was conscious that once the blinds rose to 800/400 this game could become a crap shoot. I therefore decided to make a reraise steal to capture what looked like a positional raise. Sadly instead of picking off the steal a call from tan and an ace on the flop eliminated me.

My decision to reraise all in from the sb was mainly based on the fact that i was pretty sure tan was stealing and i thought that if i didnt make a stand at some point i would be at risk of a) being blinded out b) tan using me as an ATM everytime he was on the button.

Whilst KQ isnt the greatest hand the key question was whether Tan would want to gamble with a sub premium hand by calling a 6k reraise? Turns out he did. ( I shall leave the maths to someone else to do however the pot was offering Tan less than 1.8-1 odds and Tan got his money in as a 57% to 43% favorite. Which makes the call ok i think as 1.8-1 is about 35%.)

At the time I thought my fold equity and tight image would have persuaded tan to fold but it was not to be. Its a shame because recently in the blogger i have felt in control of my game. True ive had the breaks (eg the final hand against weegem, flopping a straight against zagga) but i do feel that ive adjusted my play well and played good pressure poker.

How strange it is that our happiness can fluctuate so much on a turn of a card.

Just goes to show how timing is everything poker. I was temped to make the same move one hand earlier but folded instead only to find that i had Tan's hand dominated (J7s to A7s). Such is life. But then even if i had made that move whose to say it would have made any difference. A jack on the flop or a straight could still have meant id have lost the hand. Its an illusion to think that things would have been different if you could go back and change one thing.

In light of my last post I think you can spend too much time worrying about your mistakes and it just isnt really helpful. However that doesnt stop you doing it and nor does it stop it hurting. The bad thing is its a whole 7 days before i can get it out of my system at blogger 52. I think this calls for a guiness.

Well played tan.

Good luck at the felt.

Loathing $773

Wonderful.

Down $25 for the night. Crashed out of two sngs and lost $15 at the cash tables. Pathetic.Sharkie is ashamed of me and im ashamed of myself. I hate going to bed at night after a losing session. Im sure it cant be healthily to go to bed with so much negativity swelling around my head.

This is probably why losing players blame the poker stars rng, the other players, the poker gods and everything under the sun because if they started blaming themselves then im sure all that self loathing would probably cause the poker suicide rate to sky rocket.

Calm temperament, good decision making and total focus are the route to salvation yet this good advice doesnt do a world of good when the hurt is burning inside you and you know there is nothing you can do to take back the way you played the hand nor the cards that were dealt.

The problem is its all ego and pride. The fish beating us up is an affront to our internal sense of justice and the natural order of things . What other ecosystem exists where prey regularly give the predators the run around and the predators walk away resigned muttering the refrain "thats poker".

No the lion still eats the gazelle, the shark still eats the seal and the hawk still eats the mouse. Thats the deal and you expect it to be honoured. So damn logic and mathematics. I for one dont want to hear any more talk of variance, positive ev and slkansky dollars i just want the fish to die and hand over the wallets.

Now if you would all just form a queue we can get started.

Elbow-Powder Blue $780

Here is powder blue by elbow which i think is wonderful.