No Vegas...baby.

After umming and arring for a while I decided to give Vegas a miss this summer. I've been every other year since 2007 so seem to be keeping this trend going. I've decided to give it a swerve for a few reasons; firstly I am just not that keen on live poker in general so don't have that 'can't miss the WSOP' feeling that a lot of pros seem to have. I actually think the WSOP is overrated in terms of how soft the tournaments are and people (as usual) overestimate their edge. Yes, the 1k and 1.5ks are full of people with few poker related brain cells but you have about 15 chips to play with so it's obviously a crapshoot every time.

Usually what happens is I get fed up with playing live poker pretty quickly and then struggle to find many other activities to do there beyond ones that involve degeneracy. This ends up getting expensive unfortunately (though it's always fun of course). I really don't like the weather in Vegas that time of year either. On my first trip to Vegas I went in December and the climate was so much more pleasant. Walking up and down the strip without feeling like you were going to pass out from heat stroke was a real treat! Muzone and Wongaman claim they like this weather which I cannot understand. We all like a bit of sunshine but 40 degree heat, c'mon!

Anyway, before I start bad mouthing Las Vegas too much it is always a hoot and I expect there will be moments when reading tweets about fun times I will wish I was there. I was actually thinking of buying something expensive and frivolous with the money I would no doubt have spanked in Vegas. I was randomly looking at pinball machines the other day. They cost more than you would think, though I have always wanted one. We'll see.

Poker Update

Poker has been going decent recently. I had a good May with a couple of good tourney results. I came 17th in the $1k SCOOP event for $11k ish. 1st place was $560k and this was by far the closest I have come to life changing money. I never had big chips and grinded my way to that 17th place so never really had realistic expectations of winning. I satellited into that event so I was very satisfied with the $11k.

I've tried playing a few other sites in cash games though I always seem to do best on PKR. It just seems to suit my skill set the most as it has a small player pool and not too many games running which forces me to only a play a few tables and therefore better overall. Although I wish there was more 2/4 running on a regular basis there has been some good 5/10 action where I have done quite well. I've been taking shots vs a reg at 5/10 and 10/20 (when he will play me) which hasn't gone great so far but I'm optimistic of my chances in the future.

I'm interested in doing more poker related writing though my attempts to find any work in this area have proved fruitless. I did this piece for PKR's Raise Your Game section: http://www.pkr.com/en/raise-your-game/opinion-and-meta-game/meta-rhymenoceros/ I think networking in poker is a very important thing in improving as a player. I knocked this up pretty quickly and wish I'd spent more time on it to make it a bit more punchy. It's not the most thrilling read ever but hope those that did check it out got something from it. I had another idea of an article on accepting and making allowances for your emotions in poker so hopefully that one will be better.  I actually signed up for a football journalism master class which the Guardian are putting on in September. It's just one day and I'm just doing it for fun but hopefully I can learn some things from it too.

Apart from that there's not much planned for the next couple of months. I've said this before but I am going to try and get fit this summer. I got recommended this personal trainer who I'm going to give a try as motivation to do exercise seems to be my main stumbling block. I have been doing some running and playing squash pretty regularly but it's not enough. Also I'm planning on doing EPT/ESPT Barcelona in August as its a great city and probably a great value tournament series.

Good luck to all those in Vegas, particularly Brother Muzone. I have a percentage you see. #selfish