It's pretty weird when one of your favourite authors comes back from the dead to start following you on twitter.

Just started reading 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Apparently it influenced 1984

I was vaguely aware of that book. I've added it to my ever-growing reading list (fwiw, I generally love Russian literature, especially Dostoyevsky), but reviewers say it's not worth bothering with if you've already read '1984' and 'Brave New World'.

Today I mostly trolled 25NL by playing like an absolute whale (with a stupid stack size) as some kind of reverse bumhunt. It did not go well results-wise, but was kind of interesting to put myself in weird post-flop spots after I decided pre-session that all my c-bets would be minbets. I'd love to know what notes the regs made on my screenname were, because I must have looked like a spaz. (By the end of the session, they were 3-betting me with 53s.)

This is how whales play their sets imo:


#DailyMinbet #DailyOverbet

I like your style bro

Some fun poker snaps Arty! Hope to have some more time soon for poker/streams.

Hope you'll make it to UK tour or Unibet Open

I love Russian literature too.

Lol minibets.

Reverse bumhunt success imo whether you won or lost.

Week 12 review

I was more or less horizontal for a couple of days with a bout of manflu, but I basically stuck with the plan of playing an average of 1 satty a day, as I'm gradually transitioning away from poker. I don't really have an 'exit plan' (maybe: "Qualify for UO and win all the money"), but I feel like I'd be a happier person if I could free up some time for other hobbies and interests. Keeping up with poker news/strat/forums, studying (which I've already cut down on a lot) and then the actual playing just takes up so much bloody time. I'd quite like to learn something new (like a foreign language), or redevelop a passion for my old pastimes of painting, music, photography, novels, chess etc.

Anyway, cashgames went badly this week, but the satties went very well. The UK25 turbos especially had some interesting ICM spots where I honestly had no idea what to do, as the stacks were all so short. I was kind of lucky in a few spots, as I kept going from last to first in the space of a few hands.

I didn't look this one up in ICMizer (I haven't bought a sub yet, so I can only do one a day for free), but everyone's play looks weird to me.



The biggest headscratcher of the week was this spot in a UO10 on the ultimate bubble:



Three significant binks gave me a pretty sweet graph for my lolbad sample:



That's put me sort of back on schedule, but my 2017 ROI is still much lower than last year. (In 2016, I think I made about 1000 euros in 300 tourneys, and that was with much lower average buy-ins.)



Ticket bankroll is now at:
Unibet Open: 500 (so I might take a shot at a 50 euro game tonight or tomorrow).
UK Tour: 575 (I'm still gonna grind the 25s, as the next level up is the 100 euro final, and I'd prefer to have 10 BIs for that.)

This week's plan is to play a small amount of cash/Banzai to clear the rakeback challenge points for the quarter, and continue with just 7 satties a week like a true recreational player. #PingItUp

This cartoon might have been around for a long time, but I only saw it yesterday and it tickled me.

I love Russian literature and 1984, but I think Brave New World is bang average.

Tbf, only Dostoevsky I've read is Crime and Punishment, though I'm currently reading The Brothers Karamazov and enjoying it less.

Would you recommend We anyway Husker?

Btw, if you haven't already, I strongly recommend Zola, especially Germinal, for fans of Russian literature.

Sent from my Moto G Play using Tapatalk

Chekhov's short stories are a must read for fans of Russian lit.

I've only started reading it recently. It's not the longest book in the world and it's written in a kind of quirky style but I'm enjoying it so far. The dystopian future theme is pretty well known to us now so we have to put it into context in terms of when the book was written.

I didn't recognise the name 'Germinal' but from reading wiki I've realised it's a book that's popped up on my 'recommended for you' list on Amazon. I'll check it out at some point.

Thanks for the book recommendations. I've read a handful of Checkhov's plays and at least one of Zola's books (Frenchies are GTO too), but it was a long time ago. I need a break from poker, because the variance is pissing me off, so maybe I should just stay in bed and read books now the quarter is over and I have no rakeback points target to chase.
I've only played 5 tourneys this week and I've lost 14% of my so-called bankroll, because 95% of the player pool are idiotic luckboxes. A couple of days ago, I played a re-entry satellite with ten entries and had the noteworthy achievement of finishing 9th and 10th.

Third hand of the tourney:


A couple of orbits later:


#AceHighForTheLose

I'm just constantly losing when I have a dominating hand all in pre, or the BB keeps waking up with aces when I jam in SB/BTN. It's just been brutal. I think my roll has dropped back to the level it was at in December, so I feel like the last three months have been a complete waste of energy.
#TheIdiotsAreWinning #ThePenguinsAreWhining #PingItDown #GFYpoker

On the positive side, I'm running fairly well when I fire off marriage proposals to random twitter people.

#JustAnotherKidWithADream

I was not lucky in Week 13. Nine ****ing bricks.



Year to date:



I might play one tourney tonight and 'Double Trouble' tomorrow, but then I'm taking a week or 10 days away from this #StupidGame.

Variance is a cruel misstress. Enjoy your time off, clear your head, and I hope you can come back on a heater.

comeback time yet ?

Nope. I've cut down to about 5 tourneys a week, but FWIW I've lost money (in ticket form) over my last 170 games*. I'm probably doing slightly worse than I would if I used an RNG to pick all my actions completely randomly. Curiously, random button-clicking appears to be what 90% of the player pool is actually doing, and I've seen the screennames of some mega-whales on the qualification lists for the UO and UK tours, so maybe they're on to something, if not actually on something. As a method for comparing skill levels, it strikes me that poker tournament results are about as useful as an inflatable dartboard.

* Yes, I know this is an insignificant sample in terms of variance, but it's a significant sample in terms of my annoyance.

In case anyone's thinking of playing satties, here's a GIF to show you how much fun they are.

Hey Arty,

How's it going? I've put up a new PGC, I'm hoping you'll find it entertaining.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...r-bus-1666101/

I only played 4 games on Unibet in week 19. I finally got some rungood and cashed in 3 out of 4, so I'm back in profit for the year. #variance



My ticket roll is back on exactly 1000 euros, just like it was in January... and February... and March... and April.
The Sisyphean struggle will continue at a very slow pace, as making about 50 cents per game doesn't provide much motivation to put in a big session. (I averaged about 3.50 last year, at lower stakes). Instead of playing, I prefer just hanging out in other people's Twitch streams when I've got a couple of hours to kill. I'm away from home at the moment, so I might only manage two or three games this week. #PingItUp

Brief and pointless update.

Still only playing half a dozen games a week. Still roughly breaking even (ticket roll was back on exactly 1k at the start of the week). Still finding poker to be a particularly #StupidGame.

In other news, we've got to get back to the future. We've got to do something about your kids!

Welcome back Arty

I should probably give up poker and become a full-time twitterbot. I've lost about a hundred euros on the poker tables this week, but just won a €100 tourney ticket in a Photoshop competition to promote my favourite podcast. https://twitter.com/thechiprace



Darth Stall imo.

Week 23 was a weird one. My contemporaries celebrated a General Election that they lost, and I spewed off more 'virtual money' than ever before, but my real money account balance went up. Go figure.



It's nice to be freerolling when you play your biggest BI ever, but I was still pissed off about my BvB cooler (jacks vs aces) quite early on, as the field in the $100 game was softer than most $4 tourneys. My ticket roll is down to 920 euros, so now I'm gonna high five some boobs. #PingItDown

P.S. I was thrilled to see the results of my AceHigh buddies ChairChap and Neri who play in some of the same games as me. They combined for over 5 grand in profit last night. Well played, lucksacks!

In for penguingiraffes (and because if you're going to have an account on a forum you should interact with its other members).

At the top of the page/some time several months ago, We was discussed. My unsolicited opinion is that it's a good book which deserves credit for being (one of?) the first of a now very tired genre, but that it depends on the translation you read. However the genre is really tired and may bore some readers, plus it lacks a moment with the punch of Nineteen Eighty-Four's final three sentences. (12-year-old me does not care that you find those sentences and in fact the entire book poorly structured and heavy handed, and he never will.)

I largely share TDA's view that BNW is average.