Plasma

I bought myself a Christmas present - a 42" Samsung plasma TV :-)

It was thanks to my success at poker over the last couple of months or so and good saving that allowed me to not only clear my £1000 overdraft, but also be able to afford this TV. I got it for £660 online which is £240 cheaper than Currys are offering for the same model. Only thing is I had to pay £49 to guarantee getting it delivered before Christmas! It would have been free if I was prepared to wait up to 10 working days, but I must have it on the 27th because that is when I am getting my PS3 and I have been looking forward to it for ages, so I paid up. Buying that coupled with buying endless Christmas and birthday presents means I'm pretty broke for the next month, but I'm sure I will cope and will hopefully be able to win a bit at poker to help.

On the poker side, I have hardly been playing recently, and when I have played I have had a couple of hair raising sessions which only serve to remind me why I am currently in a poker lull. Last weekend I deposited £100, lost it, then £25, lost it, the £75, lost it then finally £100 again. This went down to £40 and I couldn't believe I was on the brink of losing £300 in a short space of time through sick sick coolers and of course a little tilt, I wasn't playing badly though. I knuckled down and played HU and 6-max and managed to somehow make the money back over a couple of days plus about £18 or something. Once I had got back to over £300 I withdrew £250 and had a roll of £68, I lost this however, so in all I lost £50 - not great but it felt like a win after being on the brink of losing £300.

Then the other night I decided to play again. I deposited £40, played a £20 tournament in which I failed to cash, and lost the rest in a cash game. I then moved to HU and someone with £20 managed to stack me a few times when I was buying in for £40 etc. This guy was a complete fishy moron though and so I just had to keep playing him to get my money back. I sat with what was gonna be my last £40 and shortly doubled up with KK when he called my all in with middle pair on the flop. Then I doubled through again with QQ when he raised me on the flop with nothing, called my re raise, then called my all in on the turn which had given him a flush draw - he had 10,2h or something, like I said he was useless. He left immediately after this hand so I couldn't berate him which was somewhat annoying cos he was being a fucking twat to me the whole time we were playing. This left me with about £120 from the £180 deposited. I then sat in 6 max £1/£2 with £100 and only 1 person playing. We played HU for a while and I was down to £80, but more people joined the table and he soon doubled me up when I called a raise from him in position with KJ and the flop came J high, I called his continuation bet and the turn was a K, he bet about £35 and it was a no brainer push. He calls and flips Q10, aggressive bastard! No 9 or A for him on the river and I double through, my aim was to get to £160 in this room then I was gonna withdraw everything, and this is exactly what I did. I withdrew £182 for a £2 profit!! Get in!

So the moral of the story is to sort of not play for a while, because I have proven to myself how easily I can throw away a few hundred quid. I have been lucky to have only lost £48 in total in recent weeks, it could have been far worse. I will soon have other Saturday afternoon entertainment however in the form of high-definition gaming on a 42" plasma, happy days :-)