Secrets of the Amateurs

That was the caption on the only cool T-shirt I have seen anyone else wearing. It's so good I've stolen it and put it on my T-shirt site. All property is theft anyway. Especially intellectual property. I really wish I had a shirt with that written on it.

I have never had to deal with so many comments about my play. Even at the very start, when I was a total egg, I was a super-tight egg so I didn't show bad hands or do too much that was worthy of derision. Out here, in a single table, the over-under of how long it takes for someone to make a "this guy only has one move" kind of comment is 36-38 minutes. When the blinds double to 50-100 (after 30 minutes), you can easily switch from rock to maniac at the bleep of a timer. The first couple of allins won't be called unless someone has a monster. Then the comments start. Once I've moved in three times more, they start getting antsy and telling me not to move in on their blind any more. It's annoying when, like today, some rock finds Aces and tells you "that was one allin too many" as they rake in your chips. What can you do though. Options are ignore it, laugh it off or give them some back. I can usually just about manage some combination of the first two, though it's difficult not to snap at people sometimes. They'll be alright. They have lots of inventive extra moves that I don't ; the problem is they are all different ways of wanking off chips [1] trying to take a moderate hand through the best hand out of the other 9 at the table. Some people do need a slap though. Phil Hellmuth has a lot to answer for.

As for me, I'm digging in an upward direction, just $500 short of breaking the surface and tasting the clean air of "up for the trip". I'm becoming more accustomed to the "get heads up and chop" mindset ; there is a lot to be said for it as long as you're not giving away chip EV. I'm also better off chopping compared to, say, saving a chip, because I have a tendency to switch off after the save even when we're still playing for say $600 which is bad. I figure I can pop along to the Rio three days out of four, put $700-800 in action however I do it, and it should sort itself out. I should try the odd $525, especially now I have a few tournament chips I can use for that purpose. Bushy apparently cashed in 12 consecutive $525s [2] and it's believable the way people play.

[1] Wanking off chips or wanking chips off ? I can't decide. One for the grammarians there.

[2] After losing the next two he told Keith he had "run into a brick wall". Bushy's the greatest :-)