I’m skipping today’s $400 1r/ao because of a general Bleh feeling. The thought of sitting down tonight to play makes me feel queasy. The charmed feeling I’ve had since the WSOP has gone. Some unpokerrelated financial issues knocked me out of rhythm a little and some unnecessary mistakes have cut me off temporarily from the mindstate I access when playing well.

A losing session at 50/100 was inevitable as I’ve been tearing up the game and losing $2k (a small amount for the game) would normally be no big deal. The nature of the loss is what aggravated my troubled mind. Shortly after sitting the guy on my left started talking to me and I realised it was Andy Prock (who i like). The guy on my right (the reason I sat) busted pretty quickly and I was slightly up, but also incredibly hungry and not really wanting to be there. Especially as the remaining seats were filled by Neverwin, DanDruff and TuanLam. However I was slightly up on pots with Andy and felt it would be bad etiquette to leave so quickly. I stayed another 30 minutes and dropped $2k before finally leaving. I’m still not entirely sure what I should do in this situation – don’t sit on a site like stars when I’m going to be getting hungry in 15 minutes is a good answer but can’t always be avoided. I’m pretty sure if i continue to play 50/1 with Prock on my immediate left I’m going to be busto by the end of the year tho so the right play almost has to be leave and apologise later. His game feels a lot like mine only more “solid”. He’s probably the person I least want sitting on my left and I need a bonafide fish on my right to put up with it. (At a WSOP FT he lost the minimum with KK vs my QQ on a Q hi flop.)

The first GUKPT Luton event – the $200 NL fo, I busted in the 1st level. I flatted an utg raise with AKo, knowing mr squeezy on the button was gonna reraise really wide. He did, but then the BB raised again. In a live setting I should almost always just fold here after utg folds. But hey, it’s a $200 tourney and I have AK so I ship anyway and lose to KK. I just don’t have the odds. While it’s true that busting quickly is +ev for me in a $200 live tournament if you factor in opportunity cost, if one wanders down the carriages of that train of thought one quickly arrives at the epiphany carriage and wonder why you entered the damn tournament in the first place.

No real mistakes in the PLHE yesterday, altho I did lose a few thousand chips on a blind def J3s and XR flop bluff before realising my opponent was a midhigh stakes online pro and not the live monkey I’d assumed. The dealers were atrocious tho.  And this is a large part of why I’m not playing today.  while I’m feeling “off” the staggering incompetence they showed yesterday could destroy my game if I play.  One always enters a PL tourney with a degree of apprehension.  But not only could they not calculate the pot properly, they tried to make it easier on themselves by insisting on pulling in blinds and bets (and making change) during the betting round.  When faced with two raises this causes some confusion.  My bust hand for example.  I’m on the 400 BB with AJo.  utg limps.  Lady “pots’ and throws out $2k.  The dealer correctly calls 1800.  She’s been doing this a lot with almost ATC so i happily move my remaining 3100into the middle.  (my 400 BB has already been dragged into the middle together with the SB and utg’s limp)  Lady calls and flips 55.  Throws another 1100 on top of her 2 yellows and the dealer scoops the whole lot into middle while I’m sayng “woaaahhhh!”.  Neither dealer nor lady seems to understand she owes another 400 so I tell him to just deal and I’ll call floor if i win.  55 holds and I leave holding a lot more empathy for the name pros who shout at the dealers than I used to.   While I still wouldn’t do it myself seeing the same stupid and easily avoided mistakes time and time again grinds away at your feelings of charity.  With the amount we pay the casinos it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect competent dealers – especially now that tipping is allowed (read heavily expected) in the UK.  Instead the casinos seem to be the source of teaching dealers to pull in bets immediately.

The $1100 tomorrow should be better as the circuit players will be starting to arrive.   WIthin the first few hands I will no doubt hear someone less polite to dealers shout at them about pulling in bets before the round is complete.  And my heart will be warmed enough for the sprite of my ability to venture back outside from his shelter, see that the rain has stopped and the sun is shining again and jump onto my shoulder, where together we laugh and kill and laugh some more.