Balance last week - £169.96 Balance now – £201.66 Weekly Profit/Loss – £31.70 profit
After 3 weeks in the red, it’s good to be back in profit and for my BR to be back above £200!
Have focussed on DYM’s playing 41 and winning 25. They were all £5.50 except when I entered a £3.30 one by mistake.
I played a little HU, winning 2 on Tuesday but then losing 2 on Wednesday.
For various reason, I often finished my tea later than usual so missed the early evening Freerolls but I did have a good run in the £1ker on Monday where I came 12th for a tenner – tantalisingly close to the bigger payouts in the Top Ten.
Mum’s mobile phone died this week. She doesn’t bother with one that much although I use the number to access WhatsApp on my pc. I got her a refurbished Galaxy S8 from Music Magpie. With my guidance and some YouTube “How To” videos, she set it up herself – including transferring the Sim card from her old S4. Pretty impressive for someone who turns 89 on Thursday!
Very sad to hear the passing of Murray Walker. I was introduced to him at Oulton Park many moons ago. In our brief meeting, it was clear what a gentleman he was. His unique broadcasting style was a perfect match for motorsport. He had a wonderful self-depreciating sense of humour too.
I have not used my SkyPoker Tournament Token this week, I have decided to save some up and use them to buy into an MTT although I am not sure how much time I will have for poker next week. A friend of a friend is setting himself up as a tour guide in Cardiff post-lockdown and has asked me to set up a website. Nice to feel the sense of things opening up at last.
Balance last week - £201.66 Balance now – £161.66 Weekly Profit/Loss – £40.00 loss
Late start to my poker week due to the client who wanted a website building. Sadly, they turned out to be someone I was uncomfortable about working with and I walked away from the deal last night.
So I didn’t play poker until Friday and I was rubbish! I won 2 out o 8 DYMs (£5.50 BI)… It was the cards... not! Over the remainder of the weekend, I played 12 more games to qualify for the Tourney Token but only cashed in 5 of them. Not good.
I am letting the Tourney Tokens build up at the moment, not sure when I am going to spend them.
My mum had a good birthday on Thursday. The door-bell never stopped ringing with deliveries of flowers, chocolates, gin and even home-made chocolates infused with gin!
Last week we got her a refurbished Galaxy S8 phone and when I was watching some YouTube videos about how to use its features they mentioned something about an adaptor that allows the phone to be operated by a USB mouse. We couldn’t find one in the box but I bought one online and my combined foot-operated keyboard and trackball worked with the ‘phone.
So for the first time in my life, I am able to use a smartphone! This is abit of a relief as increasingly part of the security process when making payments on many sites involves being sent a text message with an access code. This was making it difficult to buy my mum surprise gifts if she had to get the code from the phone! …and also a concern for the future if/when I am reliant on carers.
I have had a www.textmagic.com account for some years which allowed me to send and receive SMS Text messages but they block texts from the automated accounts that the banks and credit card companies use. So I have increased my independence a little more.
I will probably use the phone’s screen to communicate when I am out and about too, it's smaller that the tablet I used previously. As well as the adaptor, I bought a stand to rest the phone on.
Balance last week - £161.66 Balance now – £221.66 Weekly Profit/Loss – £60.00 profit
Having made a loss of £40 the previous week, I had something of an upswing and made a profit of £60. Given the low volume I am playing at the moment, the weekly profit/loss is likely to swing about abit.
As I have a fair few things going on at the moment and want to ensure I have some balance in my life rather than letting poker dominate it, I am restricting myself to twenty £5.50 DYMs a week. That gives me the 100 points to get the Tourney Token. I am still letting them build up and am not sure when I am going to use them but may enter the 7 @ 7 one day next week.
I seem to be on a heater at the moment, of the 20 DYMs this week, I only lost 3! I am wary of entering a MTT in case my luck changes.
I played a couple of £1k Freerolls but didn’t cash in them.
So what have I been doing instead of poker? Sometimes I have just chilled out and watched TV. I am pleased to see the return of F1 and have enjoyed all the practice and qualifying sessions. Looks like it is going to be really competitive this season. I’m a big fan of Max, good to see him on pole for the race this afternoon. I’ve also enjoyed the F2 and look forward to watching the feature race after posting this blog.
I had a nice chat with my cousin in Suffolk on Tuesday evening and then on Thursday I met with the Chester FC Fundraising Working Group. Although I am no longer a director, I still enjoy being involved. Dreadful to hear that the National League have implemented their threat and fined many clubs for the non-fulfilment of fixtures before the season was officially abandoned. You wonder who's side they are on. Fortunately, Chester didn’t find themselves on the naughty step.
Best of all… I have discovered the Association of Independent Speech & Language Therapists. I have made contact with some of their members who live locally and have a meeting next week one of them with a view to a) coming on board with my charity and b) providing some speech therapy to me. I may have found a therapist for someone else too. After months of putting together the paperwork required to register with the Charity Commission (there is still a little more outstanding in that area) it has been good to see “my dream” becoming more than just a folder of policies!
Balance last week - £221.66 Balance now – £227.98 Weekly Profit/Loss – £6.32 profit (Includes SkyPoker “bonuses”!)
Nice start to the week when I won £20 in the Golden Ticket Giveaway on Monday – thanks SkyPoker!
….but then my luck seemed to disappear, certainly in the DYMs. Up to Saturday, I lost every day that I played albeit on some days I “broke even”, as I tell my mother, winning the same number of games that I lost but being beaten by the rake. I don’t tell my mother the last part as she might think I have been attacked by a garden implement!
I ran better today, winning 5 out of 6 which meant across the week as a whole, I “broke even” on the DYMs once more, winning 12 out of 24!
I’d built up 4 weeks of tournie tokens and used them on Monday for the 7@7. I really enjoyed it and had quite a good run finishing 50/184. I lost most of my stack with pocket Ks. Having bet every street, I rivered a club flush and called the other guy’s big shove… but he had the Ace of Clubs. May be I should’ve folded but I have encountered people on this site who would’ve shoved with the 3 of Clubs!
Anyway, it gave me the appetite for more MTTs and I entered two £400 Bounty Hunters on Saturday. I ran well again in the first one and came 11/112 for a small cash plus 1 bounty. The second was less good… I tried to grab a cheap bounty early on but two players who acted behind me decided they would go for mine too… and one of them succeeded so I had an early exit. I finished £1.10 down across the 2 tourneys which is not bad for a couple of hours fun.
Elsewhere, with the lockdown rules relaxing and the weather so lovely, it was good to spend time with people who I had not seen for a while. I went for a walk down the canal with my friend Steve on Tuesday…
…and then, observing the rule of six, I enjoyed the company of some members of my family in our back garden on Good Friday.
On Wednesday, I had a meeting with a local Speech Therapy via Zoom. We seemed of a like mind, when I said I wanted people to rate being able to communicate as importantly as being able to walk, she told me she has to deal with Stroke patients who are discharged from hospital as soon as they are back on their feet with no means to communicate. If they live alone, they cannot summon help. So it looks like she is going to come on board. She has also arranged for one of her colleagues to give me some therapy. I am due to meet her for the first time next Wednesday. I haven’t had any therapy of this nature since I was about 10.
It is doubtful it will fix my speech 100% so that I am understood by strangers but every little improvement helps.
At the start of my walk with Steve, I had to spell almost every word because he hadn’t seen me for a while and it took him time to “tune in” to me so I feel now, as lockdown ends, is a good time to have therapy as I will be coming back into contact with many of my friends who will have the same problem as Steve had.
I have recorded my voice as it is now so hopefully I will be able to demonstrate a before and after improvement from the therapy which will help to raise funds for my charity once we are up and running.
Balance last week - £227.98 Balance now – £248.71 Weekly Profit/Loss – £20.73
Quite a solid week. Mostly played £5.50 DYMs and won 15 out of 23. This is largely due to 3 days when I won 3 out of 4 each day. Nice to be consistent but not so good for the upcoming DYM Streak promo…!
I used my tourney token for a discounted entry to Monday’s 7@7 and had another good run, finishing 7 away from the cash with 1 Bounty after QQ lost to KQ. Never mind, I had lots of good luck in the DYMs.
Monday was the only evening I had time for MTTing as on the other nights I was watching Liverpool and attending a meeting with Chester FC, a family Zoom Quiz and an initial meeting with a speech therapist.
The latter was most interesting. She asked me to make various sounds and stretch my face this way and that. It was fascinating to analyse what I can and cannot. Although I am well aware of how difficult I am to understand, it was the first time things had been broken down into the different elements of speech.
Two things stood out. I was unable to pucker up my lips and also to lift the end of my tongue. Since the session on Wednesday, I have been working on both… even if my speech doesn’t improve, I’ll be a better kisser! Ha ha…
Today, I have done something wonderful! I drove round Oulton Park in my van – they had an open day where people could buy 3 laps behind a Safety Car in their own vehicles. My VW Transporter certainly stood out amongst the Lamborghinis and Mustangs.
Bear in mind, I have been going to Oulton Park since I was a lad in the 1970s. It is my favourite place in the World but until I got to my late 40s and decided to ask the question, I had always assumed I was far too disabled to drive let alone go round a race track so this unimaginable not so long ago. I had watched so many onboard videos of Oulton, it was just mind-blowing to be tackling the corners myself.
Great video. You looked like you really enjoyed it.
A couple of years ago, someone bought me a track day experience there. A few laps in one of those BMW M4's and then a few in one of those single seaters. The guy in front of me crashed his M4 in the barrier just before Druids Corner. Showing off his lack of talent. It was quite good to watch and driver and passenger were both OK.
That's brilliant, although I'm sure you could have overtaken the two cars directly in front of you, resulting in a stern talking to from the stewards and I half expected you to peel off right at the end and sneak in an unrestricted lap, although that would probably be an instant ban!
What about taking the van around the Nurburgring next?
@dragon1964 that must have been scarey when someone went off right infront of you.
@Enut I definitely think I am a speed addict... it was a little frustrating powering out of the corners but then having to lift immediately to avoid passing those two cars ahead. May be if I booked a morning session next time it will be less busy. It has crossed my mind to do a track day but they can get abit wild! ...and I'd probably struggle to get insured....... The Nurburgring would be epic!
Balance last week - £248.71 Balance now – £283.56 Weekly Profit/Loss – £34.85 Profit
With the DYM Streak Promotion, that’s what I have concentrated on this week. I had a rich run of form/luck on Friday as, having lost the first £5.50 DYM of the day, I won all the remaining (7) games. The pressure was on when I played on Saturday as that morning there were a number of people tied on 8 wins on the £5.50 Leaderboard but I got knocked out of the first tourney having gone all in post flop with an 83% probability of winning – I then won the 9th game.
This just goes to prove that the much-maligned RNG is working properly as you would expect to lose once in 9 chances when you have an 83% chance of success! I just wish I had those sort of odds every time I went all in!
In total this week, I won 21 out of 34 £5.50 DYMs plus a £3.30 DYM which I entered by accident.
Whenever I had a spare 15 minutes I also played £5.50 Speed HUs and won 6 out of 10 of those.
I played four £1k Freerolls and cashed twice – one of those was for a tenner when I came 12th.
So a profitable week in all those areas and I am saving the £2.30 Tourney Tokens until the end of the DYM Streak Week when I will probably play a 7 @ 7.
The only area of loss was £4+ when I played a BWBH Frenzy and had one rebuy before I gave up. That was good fun because I was leading for a while until I went card dead and the blinds caught up with me. It was the first time I had played a Frenzy so no doubt my strategy was sub-optimal.
Away from poker… I must admit after the euphoria of driving round Oulton Park last Sunday, I felt abit flat at the start of the week.
I had a session with Niamh, the speech therapist, on Wednesday evening since when have been working controlling my tongue. Niamh had set me the challenge of moving my tongue from side to side. It is something I have never been able to do but I kept at it and on Saturday morning this happened! https://1drv.ms/v/s!AnG6SSQdCX66n8l0F15nvW8QcJiXFw?e=DK36gv
I feel like I have a new tongue! Niamh says improving the control in this area will make my speech clearer. She also showed my mum how to massage my face to relax the muscles to make talking easier (and it has). I have a long way to go and I am not expecting to end up doing voice-overs professionally but I am very impressed with the progress so far.
Yesterday I went over the border into Wales for the first time since I don’t know when. I went to Colwyn Bay. With the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, I thought it would be quiet but it was packed. I guess everyone had the same idea as me. It was great to be amongst people once more.
Balance last week - £283.56 Balance now – £260.56 Weekly Profit/Loss – £23 loss
I have had very little time for poker this week. Only played 6 £5.50 DYMs and I lost 5 of them.
I have been busy with a motor racing article that has needed a fair amount of research, my speech therapy exercises and I have been out and about enjoying the sunshine.
The therapy seems to be having an effect as I have had quite reasonable conversations with a couple of people who didn’t know me well this week.
Loving the updates "fast toes" your quiz today is too easy for me as i'm pretty sure i've owned all of them! My favourite...no contest...VW golf gti mk 2 (i also have a mk 1 in my garage currently being restored by my boyz....i still have the number plate from my first ever Golf gti......
Cool @Glenelg A cooking Golf was my taxi to college in the '80s. It felt indestructible so well it was screwed together. I guess that quiz was always going to be easy for a petrolhead. Did you get the trucks too?
Balance last week - £260.56 Balance now – £261.26 Weekly Profit/Loss – 70p profit
More time for poker this week – enough to earn a tourney token with points to spare.
£5.50 DYMs went ok. I was winning as many as I lost until Saturday evening when I won 5 out 7… however today I lost 3 out of 5. I also played one 55p Turbo DYM thinking about building points that way but I found it needed as much focus as a regular DYM. I won it fairly easily though and wondered about trying them at the £5.50 level to see if the faster turnover increases profits… but I played 2 tonight and lost them both! Best to stick to what I know…
Away from DYMs, I played quite a few HUs on Wednesday & Thursday and they went well. I only lost 2 out of 8. But played 3 more tonight and lost them all.
So, I was going to report a profit of £16.45 for the week but those 3 HU’s I just played wiped it out. Grrrrr!
Aside from poker… not much news to report. Been busy with my motor racing writing and speech therapy. The latest in the latter is holding a metal straw between my lips to strength the muscles and improve my “f” sounds. I made a few “f” sounds playing those HUs this evening!
Balance last week - £261.26 Balance now – £223.86 Weekly Profit/Loss – £37.40 loss
I had a bad day last Sunday so I expected to run well on Monday, especially as I was thinking the tables might be soft on a Bank Holiday.
I decided to play a BH in the afternoon but lost just about all my chips in the first hand I played (due to thinking someone was bluffing when they weren’t!). At least it only cost 90p due to the tokens I used.
I played a couple of tournies on Stars but was tilty and soon exited both so I came “home” to the Sky £5.50 DYMs. I took a metaphorical deep breath, calmed down and won the first 2 games. I decided to have a good long session of poker, all afternoon and throughout the evening but the cards were against me. I repeatedly lost to pocket 6s which usually hit a set and only won 5 games out of 15. At least I won £1 in the £1k Freeroll!
Since then, I have not really played much poker – too much paperwork to do relating to the charity I am setting up. I only played 8 DYMs and won half of them.
Hopefully, the downswing won’t last although I am a little worried that the tables are getting tougher due to fewer recs as the weather improves and we come out of lockdown.
Away from poker, Thursday was the 40th anniversary of my Father’s death. Although he was in my thoughts, as is often the case, it wasn’t a sad day because he would have been 107 thus it is unlikely he would have been alive even if he hadn’t had heart disease but the numbers – 40 years! – were difficult to get my head round. The numbers keep getting bigger as we get older.
He died at 3 pm and this year on 6th May at that time I was having a Zoom session with my speech therapist who was spending the week in Northern Ireland with her family. Back in 1981, having a video call would have been beyond anyone’s imagination… and I had taken matters into my own hand and found a speech therapist on the web whereas in the 1980s my parents wouldn’t have known where to start to find someone. They just accepted what the State provided (or didn’t provide in the case of speech therapy).
Good day.bad day dont work imo..😆 Kinda surprised from your diary that you tilt ?? My saving grace tho when rivered...ce la vie.. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PGL-8jeOTCI
Balance last week - £223.86 Balance now – £226.72 Weekly Profit/Loss – £2.86 profit
I only had time for one game of poker this week. That was a £5.50 BH on Saturday afternoon. I won a couple of heads and used some Tourney Tokens to enter so I made £2.86 profit.
The reason I have had so little poker was that I rewrote a website that I manage. I converted it to Wordpress. In the past, I have had many a nightmare with Wordpress but this was the first time I had used the “Block Editor” that was apparently introduced at the end of 2018 and I found it really easy to use. I even did some CSS coding.
Rather naughtily, I developed it live. So they were without a few pages for a while but it’s only a simple site and the update was done and dusted in 4 days. I must have a go at downloading it so that I can make changes and test them on my pc. I tried to do that for a website belonging to a charity last year but I never managed to get it to work after weeks of frustration but that had been written by someone else and the extract was being handled by yet another person/organisation. I think there were too many cooks! …and the person who wrote was incommunicado.
The website I worked on this week is for the local branch of a national motor racing club – www.brsccnw.com – their media officer can now make changes to the content himself rather than send stuff to me.
I am unlikely to have much time for poker next week either as I have a 3-4,000 word report to write about a couple of races that took place at Croft near Darlington this weekend plus further 1,000 words for another publication although I wrote 500 of those last night.
If you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, you’ll know why!
No time for poker this week unfortunately... busy times writing about motor racing.
This weekend has really felt like the end of lockdown. It didn't start too well on Friday morning as I had to go to a funeral of someone who had become a good friend through being involved with the Chester FC Fundraising Working Group.
But when I got home, my cousin Mel who is more like a sister to me had arrived from Cumbria to spend the day with us. She helped my mum with a few jobs that she has been unable to manage and then we went out for a meal. Mel said that not only had the speech therapy improved the way I talk but also my eating was less messy.
On Saturday I went to Oulton Park for the first time since the end of 2019 (aside from when I drove round the track last month). It was an MG Car Club meeting - lovely cars, great sounds and some great racing too. Only downside was that I got my van stuck in the mud. As I went on my own, I had to put my developing language skills to the test when I got out my of vehicle and went over to a group of spectators to ask for their help. It took a few goes but I managed to convey my predicament and they kindly came over to give me a push.
If Mel is like my sister then another cousin, Ade, is like my brother and today was the first time we had watched footy on the telly together since before lockdown. We cheered Liverpool to their Champions' League qualification. Hard to believe they finished third in the Premier League considering how bad things have been since the turn of the year.
...and finally, tomorrow I am going for a meal with my mate Steve. We met at work way back in 1990.
After all the months of isolation, it has been a whirlwind of a weekend!
After the last entry in the diary, I had a bad dose of the tilts. I think because I didn’t have much time to play, I got impatient and switched from £5.50 DYMs to £22 HUs. High stakes Heads Up is my favourite type of poker, it gives me a real buzz, but is never profitable for me. I held my own for a while then lost £200 of the circa £230 that I had in my Sky Poker account.
Internally chastised, I switched to 2p/4p cash but didn’t really enjoy playing for small stakes so I stopped playing for a good 18 months.
To be honest, I was too busy with other things – setting up the speech therapy charity required a lot of paperwork and there was lots of motor racing articles to write.
The Charity Commission granted the charity registration last June but then I fell ill and ended up in hospital with bleeding stomach ulcers. I needed a unit of blood – I felt much better after that! But that put me behind with my motorsport writing which inturn delayed such things as setting up a bank account for the charity.
Frustratingly, the charity is still not up and running because we are waiting for HMRC to register us for Gift Aid. I submitted the application at the start of November. I don’t want to launch the charity until that is in place as the Government will add 25% to donations from tax paying individuals.
Meanwhile… my mum turned 90 last March. We had a 1940s themed party for her. Amazingly, she remained my sole carer but during the summer she began to deteriorate. She dislocated her knee and then had a bad hip. She would wake up fine but her hip became painful when reaching into cupboards to get the breakfast things out. It got so bad that she could hardly move when she came to give me a shower. Even when her hip was ok, she felt unsteady when walking.
…and then when I had bleeding stomach ulcers I semi passed out and collapsed on the control box of my wheelchair which spun round and took a large patch of skin off her leg. While I was in hospital, mum’s leg became infected.
One of my cousins stayed with her while I was in hospital for 10 days. That allowed mum to take things easy and her hip healed.
During the Summer, mum’s mental health was also deteriorating. She was getting increasingly confused and forgetful.
Thus, I decided that the time had come for us to get help. I contacted a care agency but it was 6 to 8 weeks before they could provide people to shower me and prepare breakfast. However, they did manage to bring things forwards and the package was in place when I came out of hospital in mid-September.
It was a big culture shock for my mum, but I have enjoyed having the carers. They also do some housework which is a great help. Mum hadn’t been keeping on top of things but she never seemed to notice.
Then at the start of November, mum had a fall in the middle of the night. Somehow, she landed on our umbrella stand and sustained a nasty **** on her arm which needed an operation to clean up. While mum was in hospital, they discovered that she was low on potassium/sodium. After they topped those levels up, mum came home transformed. Lots more energy and less confused. My carers only visit for an hour in the morning, my mum looks after me for the rest of the day despite being 2 months away from her 91st birthday!
My health improved too after my spell in hospital. They changed my medication and my long term gastric problem – a large hiatus hernia – is better controlled. I had been having bouts of sickness once a month but I have not had any of that since September.
Christmas Day wasn’t so good for us. We both had nasty colds. I didn’t have a drink all day – a “drink drink” as my Aunty used to call alcoholic beverages. So, in the evening, while mum watched Doc Martin, I had my first session of poker for well over a year. I played a couple of 2p/4p cash tables but didn’t run all that well. When it was nearly time to stop, I got abit loose and squandered my buy-ins.
Since then I have had a few winning cash sessions and also played 5 Bounty Hunters. In one of the latter, I had a golden 5 minutes and took 5 heads before going out 3 places before the bubble. The other tournies weren’t successful at all. Indeed, in Sunday’s 7 @ 7 I went out on my second hand when my full house ran into quads.
So the £38 I had at Christmas is now £17. Nonetheless, it’s nice to be back. I doubt I will playing every day, just a couple of times a week at most.
Comments
Balance now – £201.66
Weekly Profit/Loss – £31.70 profit
After 3 weeks in the red, it’s good to be back in profit and for my BR to be back above £200!
Have focussed on DYM’s playing 41 and winning 25. They were all £5.50 except when I entered a £3.30 one by mistake.
I played a little HU, winning 2 on Tuesday but then losing 2 on Wednesday.
For various reason, I often finished my tea later than usual so missed the early evening Freerolls but I did have a good run in the £1ker on Monday where I came 12th for a tenner – tantalisingly close to the bigger payouts in the Top Ten.
Mum’s mobile phone died this week. She doesn’t bother with one that much although I use the number to access WhatsApp on my pc. I got her a refurbished Galaxy S8 from Music Magpie. With my guidance and some YouTube “How To” videos, she set it up herself – including transferring the Sim card from her old S4. Pretty impressive for someone who turns 89 on Thursday!
Very sad to hear the passing of Murray Walker. I was introduced to him at Oulton Park many moons ago. In our brief meeting, it was clear what a gentleman he was. His unique broadcasting style was a perfect match for motorsport. He had a wonderful self-depreciating sense of humour too.
I have not used my SkyPoker Tournament Token this week, I have decided to save some up and use them to buy into an MTT although I am not sure how much time I will have for poker next week. A friend of a friend is setting himself up as a tour guide in Cardiff post-lockdown and has asked me to set up a website. Nice to feel the sense of things opening up at last.
Balance now – £161.66
Weekly Profit/Loss – £40.00 loss
Late start to my poker week due to the client who wanted a website building. Sadly, they turned out to be someone I was uncomfortable about working with and I walked away from the deal last night.
So I didn’t play poker until Friday and I was rubbish! I won 2 out o 8 DYMs (£5.50 BI)… It was the cards... not! Over the remainder of the weekend, I played 12 more games to qualify for the Tourney Token but only cashed in 5 of them. Not good.
I am letting the Tourney Tokens build up at the moment, not sure when I am going to spend them.
My mum had a good birthday on Thursday. The door-bell never stopped ringing with deliveries of flowers, chocolates, gin and even home-made chocolates infused with gin!
Last week we got her a refurbished Galaxy S8 phone and when I was watching some YouTube videos about how to use its features they mentioned something about an adaptor that allows the phone to be operated by a USB mouse. We couldn’t find one in the box but I bought one online and my combined foot-operated keyboard and trackball worked with the ‘phone.
So for the first time in my life, I am able to use a smartphone! This is abit of a relief as increasingly part of the security process when making payments on many sites involves being sent a text message with an access code. This was making it difficult to buy my mum surprise gifts if she had to get the code from the phone! …and also a concern for the future if/when I am reliant on carers.
I have had a www.textmagic.com account for some years which allowed me to send and receive SMS Text messages but they block texts from the automated accounts that the banks and credit card companies use. So I have increased my independence a little more.
I will probably use the phone’s screen to communicate when I am out and about too, it's smaller that the tablet I used previously. As well as the adaptor, I bought a stand to rest the phone on.
Balance now – £221.66
Weekly Profit/Loss – £60.00 profit
Having made a loss of £40 the previous week, I had something of an upswing and made a profit of £60. Given the low volume I am playing at the moment, the weekly profit/loss is likely to swing about abit.
As I have a fair few things going on at the moment and want to ensure I have some balance in my life rather than letting poker dominate it, I am restricting myself to twenty £5.50 DYMs a week. That gives me the 100 points to get the Tourney Token. I am still letting them build up and am not sure when I am going to use them but may enter the 7 @ 7 one day next week.
I seem to be on a heater at the moment, of the 20 DYMs this week, I only lost 3! I am wary of entering a MTT in case my luck changes.
I played a couple of £1k Freerolls but didn’t cash in them.
So what have I been doing instead of poker? Sometimes I have just chilled out and watched TV. I am pleased to see the return of F1 and have enjoyed all the practice and qualifying sessions. Looks like it is going to be really competitive this season. I’m a big fan of Max, good to see him on pole for the race this afternoon. I’ve also enjoyed the F2 and look forward to watching the feature race after posting this blog.
I had a nice chat with my cousin in Suffolk on Tuesday evening and then on Thursday I met with the Chester FC Fundraising Working Group. Although I am no longer a director, I still enjoy being involved. Dreadful to hear that the National League have implemented their threat and fined many clubs for the non-fulfilment of fixtures before the season was officially abandoned. You wonder who's side they are on. Fortunately, Chester didn’t find themselves on the naughty step.
Best of all… I have discovered the Association of Independent Speech & Language Therapists. I have made contact with some of their members who live locally and have a meeting next week one of them with a view to a) coming on board with my charity and b) providing some speech therapy to me. I may have found a therapist for someone else too. After months of putting together the paperwork required to register with the Charity Commission (there is still a little more outstanding in that area) it has been good to see “my dream” becoming more than just a folder of policies!
Balance now – £227.98
Weekly Profit/Loss – £6.32 profit (Includes SkyPoker “bonuses”!)
Nice start to the week when I won £20 in the Golden Ticket Giveaway on Monday – thanks SkyPoker!
….but then my luck seemed to disappear, certainly in the DYMs. Up to Saturday, I lost every day that I played albeit on some days I “broke even”, as I tell my mother, winning the same number of games that I lost but being beaten by the rake. I don’t tell my mother the last part as she might think I have been attacked by a garden implement!
I ran better today, winning 5 out of 6 which meant across the week as a whole, I “broke even” on the DYMs once more, winning 12 out of 24!
I’d built up 4 weeks of tournie tokens and used them on Monday for the 7@7. I really enjoyed it and had quite a good run finishing 50/184. I lost most of my stack with pocket Ks. Having bet every street, I rivered a club flush and called the other guy’s big shove… but he had the Ace of Clubs. May be I should’ve folded but I have encountered people on this site who would’ve shoved with the 3 of Clubs!
Anyway, it gave me the appetite for more MTTs and I entered two £400 Bounty Hunters on Saturday. I ran well again in the first one and came 11/112 for a small cash plus 1 bounty. The second was less good… I tried to grab a cheap bounty early on but two players who acted behind me decided they would go for mine too… and one of them succeeded so I had an early exit. I finished £1.10 down across the 2 tourneys which is not bad for a couple of hours fun.
Elsewhere, with the lockdown rules relaxing and the weather so lovely, it was good to spend time with people who I had not seen for a while. I went for a walk down the canal with my friend Steve on Tuesday…
…and then, observing the rule of six, I enjoyed the company of some members of my family in our back garden on Good Friday.
On Wednesday, I had a meeting with a local Speech Therapy via Zoom. We seemed of a like mind, when I said I wanted people to rate being able to communicate as importantly as being able to walk, she told me she has to deal with Stroke patients who are discharged from hospital as soon as they are back on their feet with no means to communicate. If they live alone, they cannot summon help. So it looks like she is going to come on board. She has also arranged for one of her colleagues to give me some therapy. I am due to meet her for the first time next Wednesday. I haven’t had any therapy of this nature since I was about 10.
It is doubtful it will fix my speech 100% so that I am understood by strangers but every little improvement helps.
At the start of my walk with Steve, I had to spell almost every word because he hadn’t seen me for a while and it took him time to “tune in” to me so I feel now, as lockdown ends, is a good time to have therapy as I will be coming back into contact with many of my friends who will have the same problem as Steve had.
I have recorded my voice as it is now so hopefully I will be able to demonstrate a before and after improvement from the therapy which will help to raise funds for my charity once we are up and running.
Balance now – £248.71
Weekly Profit/Loss – £20.73
Quite a solid week. Mostly played £5.50 DYMs and won 15 out of 23. This is largely due to 3 days when I won 3 out of 4 each day. Nice to be consistent but not so good for the upcoming DYM Streak promo…!
I used my tourney token for a discounted entry to Monday’s 7@7 and had another good run, finishing 7 away from the cash with 1 Bounty after QQ lost to KQ. Never mind, I had lots of good luck in the DYMs.
Monday was the only evening I had time for MTTing as on the other nights I was watching Liverpool and attending a meeting with Chester FC, a family Zoom Quiz and an initial meeting with a speech therapist.
The latter was most interesting. She asked me to make various sounds and stretch my face this way and that. It was fascinating to analyse what I can and cannot. Although I am well aware of how difficult I am to understand, it was the first time things had been broken down into the different elements of speech.
Two things stood out. I was unable to pucker up my lips and also to lift the end of my tongue. Since the session on Wednesday, I have been working on both… even if my speech doesn’t improve, I’ll be a better kisser! Ha ha…
Today, I have done something wonderful! I drove round Oulton Park in my van – they had an open day where people could buy 3 laps behind a Safety Car in their own vehicles. My VW Transporter certainly stood out amongst the Lamborghinis and Mustangs.
Bear in mind, I have been going to Oulton Park since I was a lad in the 1970s. It is my favourite place in the World but until I got to my late 40s and decided to ask the question, I had always assumed I was far too disabled to drive let alone go round a race track so this unimaginable not so long ago. I had watched so many onboard videos of Oulton, it was just mind-blowing to be tackling the corners myself.
As I say in this video of the day, it was like being in a dream (although my cousin Ade thought I was saying I wanted an ice cream… I’ll definitely have to work on my speech!) https://1drv.ms/v/s!AnG6SSQdCX66n8A_IAfWU9K_ffOuAA?e=j51ZH8
You looked like you really enjoyed it.
A couple of years ago, someone bought me a track day experience there.
A few laps in one of those BMW M4's and then a few in one of those single seaters.
The guy in front of me crashed his M4 in the barrier just before Druids Corner.
Showing off his lack of talent. It was quite good to watch and driver and passenger were both OK.
What about taking the van around the Nurburgring next?
@Enut I definitely think I am a speed addict... it was a little frustrating powering out of the corners but then having to lift immediately to avoid passing those two cars ahead. May be if I booked a morning session next time it will be less busy. It has crossed my mind to do a track day but they can get abit wild! ...and I'd probably struggle to get insured....... The Nurburgring would be epic!
Balance now – £283.56
Weekly Profit/Loss – £34.85 Profit
With the DYM Streak Promotion, that’s what I have concentrated on this week. I had a rich run of form/luck on Friday as, having lost the first £5.50 DYM of the day, I won all the remaining (7) games. The pressure was on when I played on Saturday as that morning there were a number of people tied on 8 wins on the £5.50 Leaderboard but I got knocked out of the first tourney having gone all in post flop with an 83% probability of winning – I then won the 9th game.
This just goes to prove that the much-maligned RNG is working properly as you would expect to lose once in 9 chances when you have an 83% chance of success! I just wish I had those sort of odds every time I went all in!
In total this week, I won 21 out of 34 £5.50 DYMs plus a £3.30 DYM which I entered by accident.
Whenever I had a spare 15 minutes I also played £5.50 Speed HUs and won 6 out of 10 of those.
I played four £1k Freerolls and cashed twice – one of those was for a tenner when I came 12th.
So a profitable week in all those areas and I am saving the £2.30 Tourney Tokens until the end of the DYM Streak Week when I will probably play a 7 @ 7.
The only area of loss was £4+ when I played a BWBH Frenzy and had one rebuy before I gave up. That was good fun because I was leading for a while until I went card dead and the blinds caught up with me. It was the first time I had played a Frenzy so no doubt my strategy was sub-optimal.
Away from poker… I must admit after the euphoria of driving round Oulton Park last Sunday, I felt abit flat at the start of the week.
I had a session with Niamh, the speech therapist, on Wednesday evening since when have been working controlling my tongue. Niamh had set me the challenge of moving my tongue from side to side. It is something I have never been able to do but I kept at it and on Saturday morning this happened! https://1drv.ms/v/s!AnG6SSQdCX66n8l0F15nvW8QcJiXFw?e=DK36gv
I feel like I have a new tongue! Niamh says improving the control in this area will make my speech clearer. She also showed my mum how to massage my face to relax the muscles to make talking easier (and it has). I have a long way to go and I am not expecting to end up doing voice-overs professionally but I am very impressed with the progress so far.
Yesterday I went over the border into Wales for the first time since I don’t know when. I went to Colwyn Bay. With the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, I thought it would be quiet but it was packed. I guess everyone had the same idea as me. It was great to be amongst people once more.
Balance now – £260.56
Weekly Profit/Loss – £23 loss
I have had very little time for poker this week. Only played 6 £5.50 DYMs and I lost 5 of them.
I have been busy with a motor racing article that has needed a fair amount of research, my speech therapy exercises and I have been out and about enjoying the sunshine.
The therapy seems to be having an effect as I have had quite reasonable conversations with a couple of people who didn’t know me well this week.
My favourite...no contest...VW golf gti mk 2 (i also have a mk 1 in my garage currently being restored by my boyz....i still have the number plate from my first ever Golf gti......
I guess that quiz was always going to be easy for a petrolhead. Did you get the trucks too?
Balance now – £261.26
Weekly Profit/Loss – 70p profit
More time for poker this week – enough to earn a tourney token with points to spare.
£5.50 DYMs went ok. I was winning as many as I lost until Saturday evening when I won 5 out 7… however today I lost 3 out of 5. I also played one 55p Turbo DYM thinking about building points that way but I found it needed as much focus as a regular DYM. I won it fairly easily though and wondered about trying them at the £5.50 level to see if the faster turnover increases profits… but I played 2 tonight and lost them both! Best to stick to what I know…
Away from DYMs, I played quite a few HUs on Wednesday & Thursday and they went well. I only lost 2 out of 8. But played 3 more tonight and lost them all.
So, I was going to report a profit of £16.45 for the week but those 3 HU’s I just played wiped it out. Grrrrr!
Aside from poker… not much news to report. Been busy with my motor racing writing and speech therapy. The latest in the latter is holding a metal straw between my lips to strength the muscles and improve my “f” sounds. I made a few “f” sounds playing those HUs this evening!
Balance now – £223.86
Weekly Profit/Loss – £37.40 loss
I had a bad day last Sunday so I expected to run well on Monday, especially as I was thinking the tables might be soft on a Bank Holiday.
I decided to play a BH in the afternoon but lost just about all my chips in the first hand I played (due to thinking someone was bluffing when they weren’t!). At least it only cost 90p due to the tokens I used.
I played a couple of tournies on Stars but was tilty and soon exited both so I came “home” to the Sky £5.50 DYMs. I took a metaphorical deep breath, calmed down and won the first 2 games. I decided to have a good long session of poker, all afternoon and throughout the evening but the cards were against me. I repeatedly lost to pocket 6s which usually hit a set and only won 5 games out of 15. At least I won £1 in the £1k Freeroll!
Since then, I have not really played much poker – too much paperwork to do relating to the charity I am setting up. I only played 8 DYMs and won half of them.
Hopefully, the downswing won’t last although I am a little worried that the tables are getting tougher due to fewer recs as the weather improves and we come out of lockdown.
Away from poker, Thursday was the 40th anniversary of my Father’s death. Although he was in my thoughts, as is often the case, it wasn’t a sad day because he would have been 107 thus it is unlikely he would have been alive even if he hadn’t had heart disease but the numbers – 40 years! – were difficult to get my head round. The numbers keep getting bigger as we get older.
He died at 3 pm and this year on 6th May at that time I was having a Zoom session with my speech therapist who was spending the week in Northern Ireland with her family. Back in 1981, having a video call would have been beyond anyone’s imagination… and I had taken matters into my own hand and found a speech therapist on the web whereas in the 1980s my parents wouldn’t have known where to start to find someone. They just accepted what the State provided (or didn’t provide in the case of speech therapy).
How times change!
My saving grace tho when rivered...ce la vie..
Balance now – £226.72
Weekly Profit/Loss – £2.86 profit
I only had time for one game of poker this week. That was a £5.50 BH on Saturday afternoon. I won a couple of heads and used some Tourney Tokens to enter so I made £2.86 profit.
The reason I have had so little poker was that I rewrote a website that I manage. I converted it to Wordpress. In the past, I have had many a nightmare with Wordpress but this was the first time I had used the “Block Editor” that was apparently introduced at the end of 2018 and I found it really easy to use. I even did some CSS coding.
Rather naughtily, I developed it live. So they were without a few pages for a while but it’s only a simple site and the update was done and dusted in 4 days. I must have a go at downloading it so that I can make changes and test them on my pc. I tried to do that for a website belonging to a charity last year but I never managed to get it to work after weeks of frustration but that had been written by someone else and the extract was being handled by yet another person/organisation. I think there were too many cooks! …and the person who wrote was incommunicado.
The website I worked on this week is for the local branch of a national motor racing club – www.brsccnw.com – their media officer can now make changes to the content himself rather than send stuff to me.
I am unlikely to have much time for poker next week either as I have a 3-4,000 word report to write about a couple of races that took place at Croft near Darlington this weekend plus further 1,000 words for another publication although I wrote 500 of those last night.
If you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, you’ll know why!
Fabulous read as always
Best of luck this week
This weekend has really felt like the end of lockdown. It didn't start too well on Friday morning as I had to go to a funeral of someone who had become a good friend through being involved with the Chester FC Fundraising Working Group.
But when I got home, my cousin Mel who is more like a sister to me had arrived from Cumbria to spend the day with us. She helped my mum with a few jobs that she has been unable to manage and then we went out for a meal. Mel said that not only had the speech therapy improved the way I talk but also my eating was less messy.
On Saturday I went to Oulton Park for the first time since the end of 2019 (aside from when I drove round the track last month). It was an MG Car Club meeting - lovely cars, great sounds and some great racing too. Only downside was that I got my van stuck in the mud. As I went on my own, I had to put my developing language skills to the test when I got out my of vehicle and went over to a group of spectators to ask for their help. It took a few goes but I managed to convey my predicament and they kindly came over to give me a push.
If Mel is like my sister then another cousin, Ade, is like my brother and today was the first time we had watched footy on the telly together since before lockdown. We cheered Liverpool to their Champions' League qualification. Hard to believe they finished third in the Premier League considering how bad things have been since the turn of the year.
...and finally, tomorrow I am going for a meal with my mate Steve. We met at work way back in 1990.
After all the months of isolation, it has been a whirlwind of a weekend!
After the last entry in the diary, I had a bad dose of the tilts. I think because I didn’t have much time to play, I got impatient and switched from £5.50 DYMs to £22 HUs. High stakes Heads Up is my favourite type of poker, it gives me a real buzz, but is never profitable for me. I held my own for a while then lost £200 of the circa £230 that I had in my Sky Poker account.
Internally chastised, I switched to 2p/4p cash but didn’t really enjoy playing for small stakes so I stopped playing for a good 18 months.
To be honest, I was too busy with other things – setting up the speech therapy charity required a lot of paperwork and there was lots of motor racing articles to write.
The Charity Commission granted the charity registration last June but then I fell ill and ended up in hospital with bleeding stomach ulcers. I needed a unit of blood – I felt much better after that! But that put me behind with my motorsport writing which inturn delayed such things as setting up a bank account for the charity.
Frustratingly, the charity is still not up and running because we are waiting for HMRC to register us for Gift Aid. I submitted the application at the start of November. I don’t want to launch the charity until that is in place as the Government will add 25% to donations from tax paying individuals.
Meanwhile… my mum turned 90 last March. We had a 1940s themed party for her. Amazingly, she remained my sole carer but during the summer she began to deteriorate. She dislocated her knee and then had a bad hip. She would wake up fine but her hip became painful when reaching into cupboards to get the breakfast things out. It got so bad that she could hardly move when she came to give me a shower. Even when her hip was ok, she felt unsteady when walking.
…and then when I had bleeding stomach ulcers I semi passed out and collapsed on the control box of my wheelchair which spun round and took a large patch of skin off her leg. While I was in hospital, mum’s leg became infected.
One of my cousins stayed with her while I was in hospital for 10 days. That allowed mum to take things easy and her hip healed.
During the Summer, mum’s mental health was also deteriorating. She was getting increasingly confused and forgetful.
Thus, I decided that the time had come for us to get help. I contacted a care agency but it was 6 to 8 weeks before they could provide people to shower me and prepare breakfast. However, they did manage to bring things forwards and the package was in place when I came out of hospital in mid-September.
It was a big culture shock for my mum, but I have enjoyed having the carers. They also do some housework which is a great help. Mum hadn’t been keeping on top of things but she never seemed to notice.
Then at the start of November, mum had a fall in the middle of the night. Somehow, she landed on our umbrella stand and sustained a nasty **** on her arm which needed an operation to clean up. While mum was in hospital, they discovered that she was low on potassium/sodium. After they topped those levels up, mum came home transformed. Lots more energy and less confused. My carers only visit for an hour in the morning, my mum looks after me for the rest of the day despite being 2 months away from her 91st birthday!
My health improved too after my spell in hospital. They changed my medication and my long term gastric problem – a large hiatus hernia – is better controlled. I had been having bouts of sickness once a month but I have not had any of that since September.
Christmas Day wasn’t so good for us. We both had nasty colds. I didn’t have a drink all day – a “drink drink” as my Aunty used to call alcoholic beverages. So, in the evening, while mum watched Doc Martin, I had my first session of poker for well over a year. I played a couple of 2p/4p cash tables but didn’t run all that well. When it was nearly time to stop, I got abit loose and squandered my buy-ins.
Since then I have had a few winning cash sessions and also played 5 Bounty Hunters. In one of the latter, I had a golden 5 minutes and took 5 heads before going out 3 places before the bubble. The other tournies weren’t successful at all. Indeed, in Sunday’s 7 @ 7 I went out on my second hand when my full house ran into quads.
So the £38 I had at Christmas is now £17. Nonetheless, it’s nice to be back. I doubt I will playing every day, just a couple of times a week at most.