A Cheerful Pudding

Although yesterday's post wasn't overly doom and gloom I wrote it at home in quite a sombre mood. I even told former Mrs P on Wednesday that I wasn't really bothered about the situation when really I was. I'm pretty good at pretending about how I feel about stuff when it comes to my emotions, it drives my mum mad and I bet a few others too. I think the fact that I described my feelings as being "numb" spoke volumes. Anyway, things have already started to look up after a long conversation with potential Mrs P this dinner time.

Every Friday, at work, we are allowed an hour for lunch instead of the usual 30 mins and because where we work is a bit out of the way the company puts on a coach for us and takes and collects us from God's own city of Leeds! I don't usually bother, instead I grab something from the canteen here, get a nice coffee from the coffee shop over the road and have a couple of smokes before doing blog stuff and surfing the t'internet. I popped in today though because I needed to sort my travel insurance out for next Thursday when I go to Lanzarote with my olds. Reason to be cheerful number one: £15 was all it cost! Earlier this morning I received a text from potential Mrs P asking how I was and stuff and I said I'd ring her on my lunch. We chatted as usual and she told me that all this didn't mean the end but that we just need to do it differently. She went on to say that she doesn't want to be with her boyfriend and she wants to be with me but wants to do things properly and not jump from one relationship straight into living with me in another, which is fair enough I suppose. Apparently it was viewing the flat last Friday that made her realise she was rushing into everything too quickly and it freaked her out so she stuck the brakes on.

Anyway, long story short it looks as is things might still be happening. I need to sort a place out for me to go to and she's going to sort her shit out and get her own place too and then once the dust has settled we can take it from there at our own pace without having to rush anything at all. It's not going to happen overnight but it's a start I guess and better than being left in limbo and not knowing what and why everything all of a sudden came to a halt. Like I said in the comments to the last post, time will tell. Also in a good mood because I had a pint of lager and a jacket spud with cheese and chilli for my lunch!

So my poker challenge begins in a little under 10 hours and I will then have 200 days in order to make $5k from NLHE cash games. It was going to be ending on 19th April 08 but I think 200 days sounds better for blogging purposes! I'm starting by playing at Ultimate Bet and sitting at the short-handed NL2 tables before moving to NL10 and NL25. Once NL25 is reached I will be considering changing sites, probably to Full Tilt, because I'm having trouble multi-tabling on UB at the minute. My two problems are the lack of resizable tables on UB so I have horrendous overlap and also the fact that their "force table to front" simply doesn't work properly so it gets annoying and causes misclicks and wrong bet sizes when another screen becomes active! I've emailed support but they're about as useful as cock flavoured lolly pop in all honesty and they're probably looking for a generic email to send me right now to fob me off! I can cope with misclicking and losing out on a $0.45 pot right now but would be a bit more pissed off at a $14 pot so a change may be needed unless a solution can be found. I've Pudding Jr staying tonight so I won't get to start until he hits the hay and by that time I'll probably need a beer and something to eat so it'll almost certainly be midnight by the so I'll hit the tables for a couple of hours before getting some shuteye.

Well that's all for now folks, good luck at the tables, have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

Shit On By A Bird!

Now if you've started reading this expecting to find that a pigeon has taken a dump on my head or that I've been experimenting with some sort of scat with Milla Jovovich I apologise because it will disappoint. Unfortunately it's another in a long line of life beats dealt to Yorkshire Pudding and yet another that seems to involve women.

Readers from my hacked blog will remember me mentioning a potential Mrs P that I had been kind of seeing for a little while and who had a boyfriend. The past few weeks we've got on like a house on fire and talked about everything and anything and we felt really really close. There was a special connection there which was confirmed when we sent each other an almost identical text at the same time as each other. All was good if you discounted the fact she lived whith her kid and boyfriend and I was stuck here in the pub. However we both made plans for that to change.

The idea was for her to get a place of her own and for me to try find somewhere so that we could do the whole dating thing properly because she'd never really done it plus we'd get to know each other more when we weren't having to sneak about and lie to people. Unfortunately circumstances changed and the pub I am living in has been bought out by another company and they want to change the terms and conditions of the landlords contract. Long story short he's not accepting so I really do need to fuck off out of here very very soon. I put the idea to potential Mrs P that, although not ideal, how about we found a place and moved in together. After all we have been basically live apart partners for 4 months. It might be risky but she agreed to it and the house hunting began.

Last Friday she went to look at a flat and she said it was really nice and that she wouldn't mind it so I started making mental plans for the move. On the Friday night she and her boyfriend were going to meet his brother, a friend of mine, for a few beers and she asked if I wanted to go and I went. After a good night I ended up back at hers and she fell asleep on the sofa whilst me and her boyfriend talked drunken bollocks. Mistake number 1. I agree it was a bit strange but I'm talkative, especially when pissed! Anyway, she went up to bed, I jumped on the sofa and fell asleep and he must have followed her up. He was working in the morning and set off about 0800 and woke me up. I went upstairs to see if she wanted a drink and sat on the edge of the bed and gave her a cuddle. She seemed weird and I asked if she wanted me to leave and she said yes soI did. I text to see what was wrong and got the usual "I'm tired" etc so left it at that.

She text me on the Saturday night and told me regardless of what happens she would always love me which set alarm bells ringing. During the Sunday she hardly text but when she did she went on about how she felt dirty because as soon as one man left her bed she let another in. During Monday she hardly replied or text either so I knew something was the matter. Then on Tuesday she hits me with something along the lines of she can't do this anymore and that us moving right in together wouldn't work and she wouldn't do it and only agreed to it to keep me happy etc. I asked if there was still going to be a me and her and she said she couldn't reply to that right now because her head is full of too much shit and she didn't want to say something she didn't mean or that she'd regret. She sent another saying she'd never felt like this before and is scared about it in case I hurt her because she couldn't cope with it.

Now I'm not off into detail but she's had a fucking shit life so far and has been with some right wankers of men who have treated her really badly. She says she's never been in love properly until we met and that if I hurt her after all we'd said to each other and stuff (I know things about her even her boyfriend doesn't know) then it would finish her off. She already has trust issues and she'd never trust anyone again, it took me 4 months to get her to trust me properly. The impression I get is that she'd rather stay where she is and be unhappy with her total loser, junkie boyfriend than risk being hurt because of all the shite she's gone through when she was younger. Which basically means Pudding has been left high and dry. Once again the good guy gets left on the sidelines.

How do I feel? I'm not sure. Tuesday I was gutted. Totally gutted, like my heart had been ripped out. As I was texting her I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. Then I became angry with her for what feels like using me and for me for letting myself be used. But now I honestly don't know what I feel. I suppose a little empty and numb. The girl I've dedicated my time to helping get over some issues and made feel good about herself isn't there anymore and it feels weird. I still can't get my head around it at all. I should be really upset or angry but I don't feel much at the minute. Like I said, I'm a little numb. She says she wants to see me over the weekend which I think means she's going to tell me once and for all that there is no us because she's not actually said as much yet. I suppose then it may hit home, who knows.

I don't know what the point of this post is to be honest and it's ranted on a little long now but I needed to talk to someone about it because not many people know about it so I can't talk to anyone about it if you catch my drift. Blogs are great for spewing feelings out and stuff and getting things off your chest so I guess this post has served it's purpose.

Well done for getting this far! Take care guys and thanks for reading.

Pudding's $50 to $5k Challenge

For too long I've fucked about, jumping from cash games to SnG's to MTT's with no real focus, just the hope of a big score so I can play decent stakes for decent money and have the remote possibility that I can use poker to fund a better lifestyle or ideally play full time for a living. The problem is it doesn't work like that for most players. It's a known fact the vast majority of players are losing players and fall by the way side. In fact a lot of seemingly winning players are actually losing players long term but are riding a good spell of variance. It's time to prove to myself I can do this and time to get serious about my game and make poker start to pay.

I have great belief in my game. I'd probably get killed at NL200 and above, currently, but I know I can beat the micro stakes for a decent score on a regular basis. I have the knowledge, know the theory and have the balls to make plays and read games but I have a few leaks that I need to plug in order to succeed. One downfall is strange because it is down to patience. When I'm playing I can easily sit there for an eternity and wait for the right situation to arise which is a good thing but I am very impatient when it feels like a challenge isn't progressing as quickly or smoothly as I would like and I often start playing more tables etc rather than focussing on the end goal which is often months away. I guess I become kind of blinkered. Readers of my old blog know I like a drink, and poker and drink don't really mix too well. I hate to think how much money I've left at the table due to drinking the amber nectar so that is one leak I need to plug right away if I am to become profitable. There is a very fine line between being ok to play and having alcohol cloud your judgement and I cross that line with an alarming regularity. I don't think living in a pub helps but that situation should be changing when I get back from holiday on the 11th September. Those are my main two problems really. I could include over thinking hands but I can adapt that quickly to my table and adjust the way I think to suit the donks or the tougher players.

So I have set myself a challenge which will start on Saturday 1st September 2007 and will run until Saturday 19th April 2008, which incidentally is my 27th birthday. I am going to start with a bankroll of $50, or as close to that as I can, and grind my way through the 6 max micro NLHE cash games until I reach a bankroll of $5k. From start to finish is exactly 34 weeks which means I'd have to earn an average of $21 per day from day one. Obviously starting at NL2 this isn't going to happen but once I hit NL50 it should, in theory, be a piece of piss! Two reasons I've set a challenge of this length are firstly because I have a lot of shit going on at the minute and could be without the net to play poker for anything between 6-10 weeks in the not too distant future and also so that I can try to learn to stay focussed on something long term rather than get caught up with what's happened in a singular session.

I'm going to start off by playing a singular table of NL2 on Ultimate Bet. I have some outstanding bonus dollars on there that clear at very slow but steady rate and I also get 30% of my rakeback which should help a great deal. I want to learn to walk again before I start running and iron out any bad habits and become more positional and make notes on players rather than rely on 10-12 stats displayed above them by my HUD. Once I am comfortable fully with one table I will add more as it is obvious your hourly rate goes up if you're a winning player. I will be following a semi solid bankroll management plan albeit a pretty aggressive one which I'll explain later but it's going to allow me to take the occasional shot at the levels above without putting too much at risk.

I will be applying the following rules:

1.) Always be true to myself. If I am being outplayed accept it because it happens. Find another table.
2.) If I don't feel like playing then I won't. Simple as that. Too often I play for the sake of it which is -EV.
3.) If I feel like I'm going to tilt then I'll sit out and make myself a coffee or have a fag or something until the feeling passes.
4.) Accept bad beats happen to good players more often than bad.
5.) Don't be results orientated, just make plays that I believe will maximise expectation over time.
6.) If I go bust I stay bust.
7.) When I hit $5k, brag like fuck and treat myself to something nice!

I'm really looking forward to this because it's going to make or break me as a poker player. If I can't do this then I'm going to need to make some sort of other plans to finance some of the things I want to buy and places I want to see. If I can do this then I'll be as chuffed as a puff with two arseholes and the sky is the limit from there. It'd be a great birthday present on the 19th April 2008 if I can look at my online poker worth and see a nice shiny $5k looking back at me. I need something to distract me from the real world right now, I'll post about the goings on soon but Pud's real life world has fallen apart a little so I'm wrapping myself up in my online one until everything goes away!

Only time will tell if I can do this. Wish me luck and keep coming back for updates and rants from yours truly.

Like A Phoenix From The Flames

Guess who's back? Only little old me! I went to sign onto my old blog today and there was absolutely nothing there! Nothing, nada, zilch. It looks like I may have been targeted by some twat who thinks it's funny to go around and either change all the posts the owner has ever written to porn links or to just straight delete it. In the past couple of weeks I know that Iggy aka "The Blog Father", Cadmunkey, Kenn and Micro Limit Donkey all falling victim to this cunt. Get a life or put your obvious skills to some use you piece of shit!

For those of you who have followed me from my old blog you know all about me so I'll just say hello bitches. For those of you that are new and have somehow stumbled across here I hope you like what you find and continue to come back. My blogs are mainly about my poker playing, mainly No-Limit Hold'em but I also love to have life rants, speak my mind about various subjects (often without thinking) and from time to time I go off on one and go a little bit crazy and off the wall. I don't usually set out to directly insult people or piss them off but it happens from time to time as I express my opinions in my own unique, from the hip style! If any of my posts or comments offends you please feel free to let the other readers know, just don't expect me to give a shit because to be honest as it's my blog, written in my words and they are my feelings. I used to wear my heart on my sleeve on my old blog and document my every up and down and that will continue so hopefully you'll start to feel you know Yorkshire Pudding and feel part of this blog.

As this is technically a new blog I'm going to totally start from scratch, as if I've never played before. All wins and losses from now on are going to be documented here on these virtual pages and hopefully as my blog grows with time so will my skills and obviously bankroll and I'll have something to look back on in a couple of years and see the progress I have made. I'll be starting a cash game challenge in the next day or two, I'm just waiting for Neteller to confirm they've received my massive deposit of around the $35 mark! Micro-stakes madness, bring it on!

That's it for now boys and girls. Thanks for checking in and best of luck at the tables!