By LuckyJimm

I've had a good week.   My duties at the law firm where I'm temping continue to be light. I'm given at most two hour's work to do each day. I'm sitting next to a nice lady from Trinidad who's near retirement, eager to help, and happy to talk. One of the partners has a poor manner, rude and abrupt, but he's easily ignored. The sexy trashy pseudo Sloan on further acquaintance turns out not to be a Sloan at all, but a well-spoken girl from St Albans. We're having lunch tomorrow. Last week in the corridor she asked me how the poker was going. I said fine, and I'd just written my first article for a poker site. I had the print-out in my hand. Then I realised I'd mentioned her, and hurriedly put it away. She said she wants to train as a psychotherapist, specialising in addiction. She told me food and gambling addictions are "the hardest to quit." I can only imagine.

On Monday I deposited £40 and withdrew £145, winning a sick $380 three-way $0.50/$1 hand with 22xx on a 792 flop where one of the villains had a double flush draw on the turn, but nothing on the river. I've been going to the Gutshot most days. I've eaten my way through the menu. The best things are the steak, of course, and the chicken udon noodles. I called in briefly on Tuesday, since I had to be somewhere else. I deposited £100 and played hurriedly, losing it unneccessarily. Then I cycled the five miles to the Sartorial Gallery in Notting Hill for a friend's exhibition. I got there to find the door was shut and realised I'd come a day early. So I cycled straight back to the Gutshot, lost some more money, then went home and lost even more money, bringing my daily total to minus £300, all on my credit card.

I went back to the gallery the next day, saw all my friends, drank a lot of white wine, and cycled home drunk.  I found the toilet seat was up, and on putting it down saw it was covered in some kind of congealed red substance which looked like vomit. My French housemate was still up, watching TV. He falls asleep in front of the TV most nights. He told me that the Italian had been trying to pour a pan of tomato soup down the toilet, but had slipped and spilt it everywhere. He'd cleaned the toilet bowl, but had forgotten about the seat. I was tempted to wake him up but instead cleaned it myself.

The next morning we had a fantastic row. Before saying hello, he told me off for something or other. But now I had ammunition - how dare he leave the toilet like that? I kept on saying he had vomited on the toilet, when I knew it was actually soup. Soon he was red-faced and furious, telling me that as a prospective flatmate I'd said I'd be happy to do my share of the cleaning.  I was a liar - all I was interested in was socialising.  I said he was obsessed by cleaning. I told him he needed to see a doctor for his anger, for his neurosis. Maybe he could get put on anti-depressants. He got more and more angry. I was a fucking bastard, selfish, lazy, and an addicted gambler. Oh, how his words stung. As he shouted at me, I found myself correcting his grammar. It's "cleaning" not "cleanings", and if I "never do nothing" it means I actually do something. I don't mind cleaning, I really don't.  I've done it once or twice, and I don't leave any mess.  But I don't like being bullied, and I don't like someone who finds fault with everything I do while regarding themselves as above criticism.  Still, I should be careful. I want to stay living in this flat, and I want to get on well with my flatmates.  I guess I must make some cleanings!

On Thursday I went to the theatre with a friend - the tickets were a Christmas present - then drank house red in the French House in Soho. I came home and lost £30 to a bad beat and then £50 to bad play. After work on Friday, I lost another £100 in a raised $1/$2 pot with KKxx on a K23 rainbow flop, villain making a straight on the turn. I swore like nobody had ever sworn before. I was now down £375 on the week. Then to my surprise I found my maxxed-out bank card was good for a final £25 deposit. I sat down at $0.50/$1 and got up to $160. Then I went out. I've made a desktop background from a 2+2 post by Milky Joe, saying: "Bring your "A" game or log off. Commit to Zero Tilt!" With this in mind, it seemed a good time to quit.

I'd been invited to a Shoreditch bar by a poker player in his mid 20s I'd talked to a lot online but never previously met. We talked about PLO strategy and pulling girls. He said he'd slept with 40 women lifetime but was down $6k this year; my own results felt very modest. I'm out of the habit of drinking with crowds in bars, but met his friends and enjoyed myself. I spent much of the night talking to a short funny-looking Northern girl with a sharp sense of humour. As I drank my third, fourth, fifth beer she grew increasingly attractive. We were standing closer. But all I could think was that I was really drunk and had $160 in my poker account and just wanted to buy a burger then go home. I cycled the whole way no-handed, swerving round speed bumps, got home and started playing again. Fortunately I fell asleep without too much damage.

I woke again at 4.30am, sober enough to recognise I was starting to feel hungover. I withdrew £30, and sat with $100 at a $1/$2 table. I found myself sitting with the worst player I have ever seen. He lost 6 buyins in 72 hands. The key to his strategy was NEVER BET and ALWAYS CALL. Genius! Why has nobody ever thought to play like that before? Any pair and he would call any bet. He'd chases straights on flush boards, and chase flushes on paired boards. But if he'd actually made a strong hand, he'd never raise with it! You could bet a quarter of the pot into him when he'd rivered the nuts, and he'd flat call! Absolutely astounding. Within a couple of hours I'd got my stack up to $900. I then took the decision to quit. I wondered later whether this was the right thing to do, since the fish carried on rebuying for another hour or two, bringing his total loss to a dozen, fifteen buy-ins. But I didn't want to play that deep against the other players, who were much more competent and whose own chip-stacks were climbing, while the fish would never get above a single buy-in. Plus I was tired and hungover. So I logged off, and later on withdrew £460 in cash and cycled to Brick Lane where I gave it to a friend to look after. That's my rent paid.

On Saturday I cycled up to Hampstead to a friend's house, then went to the cinema to see The Savages, a slight but enjoyable film. I called in at the Gutshot on the way back and watched the £2.50/£5 live game. I saw a hand where there was £375 in the pot on the river and the board read 4678T. The first player bet £250, and after much thought the other folded. The bettor showed 23, the very worst hand possible. This is why I don't play hold'em!  With Omaha the hand values are so much stronger so it's easier to know where you are.

On Sunday I put £10 on at the bookies and got up to £121, but only managed to cash out £41, bringing my total for the week to +£121. Perhaps I was affected by the influence of Bluescouse, who spent the afternoon losing his bankroll at $100/$200 hold'em. He had $8,000 when I started watching, which he got up to $35,000 before he lost it all. He rebought several more times, turning his final $5,000 rebuy into $30,000 before losing it all. He had position on a fishy short-stacker. That player left and was replaced by Ram Vaswani; Ed didn't seem bothered.

Some people have compared our blogs, but of course we're very different. I am much more Emo than Ed. He'll lose £90k in a day and be pretty unaffected by it, while I plunge into self-pity if I lose a hundredth of that. He's not into self-analysis, and there's nothing mawkish or bathetic about his blog. There's a certain kind of integrity in his absolute refusal to listen to any advice anyone gives him ever. He's not interested in bankroll management or game selection. I don't think he even studies the game. But when he's on form - as he was yesterday, with most of the hands he lost being bad beats - he's a very good loose aggressive player, and can hold his own at the stakes he plays. But you have to be able to quit at some point, and he doesn't seem able to do that. And if you can't bank a win, why play?