Double Trouble with Prim and Harrier - Poker, Sports, Cooking, Gardening, Mixed Drinks and more

Wow, amazing that Prim still made it into that tournament. I was aware of her position on the waiting list last week and honestly didn't expect her to get her turn. But it's great that she gets to compete again. This year has been a little light on the tennis competitions for her so far, especially compared to last year.

Time for a short pre-match analysis, then. Primrose briefed me on her opponents, it looks like they are both a fair bit older than her and not ranked too highly. I believe she even personally knows one of them. Considering how well Prim usually fares as the underdog in her games, I imagine that she won't have any trouble this Sunday.

My prediction: Clear sweep for Prim, two for two.

I will probably reveal my own big sporting challenge of the year tomorrow.

So, I think, it could indeed be a win, if I don´t f* up!

Got this mail today. Odd that they would ban play money games of all things, but if there is something to be banned, I'm glad it's not real money games, at least.

Time to beat: 26:45 Minutes
Current PB: 29:09 Minutes

This will be the last "Time Attack" for a while, at least when it comes to running. Bigger plans are on the horizon. How did today go, though?

Today's Time: 29:00 Minutes
NEW PB!

Wow, what a nice way to end it. We got a new PB with 29 minutes flat. That came out of nowhere, really. Maybe the pleasantly mild weather helped a little.

Starting next week, there will be a brand new running plan, with new goals. This one will be the subject of my next post.

I did a private 5 km run at the end of 2023, to get into a habit of running more regularly. In 2024, I upped the ante and participated in a public 10 km race. This year, it is time to go even further beyond it - and I feel that the next logical step would be a half-marathon.

The distance of a half-marathon is exactly 21.0975 km, or roughly 13.1 miles. In other words, it is over twice the distance of my 10 km run last year, and I remember how tough that one was. It surely won't be easy. People who have completed a half-marathon often consider it a life-changing experience.

I have one specific event in mind, which would take place in the evening of Friday, July 4th in Marburg, which is actually the town where I went to university. The event also includes a relay marathon and a full marathon, but I am only interested in half that distance this year. The starting point will be at the historic market square, and the track will lead through town alongside the Lahn river.

So far, I have not officially registered for this event yet, I will first see how practice goes. If everything fails, I can still run the same distance on my own somewhere else and consider the challenge completed, but I do aim for the Marburg half-marathon.

I found another training schedule from our friends at Runnersworld.com, which would last 14 weeks. We have about 16 weeks until July 4th, but you never know when you may have to skip or repeat a week due to sickness or simply needing more time, so I figured it's a good idea to start right now.

Here is the plan:

(enlarged version found here)

LSD stands for "long slow distance run". Notice that it only includes this and "easy" runs (defined as running at a "comfortable, conversational pace"), as opposed to last year's 10 km training schedule, which also included runs with aerobic intervals or gentle pickups, where you were supposed to pick up the pace a bit during certain sections. This doesn't mean that this will be any easier, of course, and combining it with the rest of my daily sports schedule may prove to be a challenge.

Many people who have prepared for a marathon-style race will surely confirm, however, that finding time to practice for it is always a bit of an issue.

Let's do our best. So far, I believe we have had an excellent track record when it comes to completing our sporting challenges, and I imagine this will be among the toughest ones we have done. Whether I make it or not, I want to make sure I have given it a good try. Honestly, though, I am looking forward to it.

Before I will hit the tennis court tomorrow, I hit the poker tables on PartyPoker. After a good tennis training session, I´m confident, that I will perform well tomorrow on the the tennis court and whatever happens, happens! Let´s see ....

Meanwhile, Bowser jr. got us a 0,11 $ ticket in the 4 p.m Free to play and Baby Peach made it ITM in the 15$ Gtd. PLO8!
(Excuse me, forgot to take screenshots!) It was 9th place for Baby Peach, almost final table bubble and those games today reminded me a bit of my tennis matches, when I´m the underdog. The cards were not really merciful to us today, lots and lots of junk, missed flops, bad turns and rivers, but we somehow fought our way through - and eventually left the tables with a prize! Glad that tomorrow will be more about skill than about luck! But both, poker and tennis, are very much about patience, about not loosing your nerves, not loosing your head and just keeping focussed.

Poor Trollettes!

Yes, it was a very clear sweep today, poor trollettes were a bit desperate.... Well, as there were some zero´s (so called "donuts") I won´t post the exact results - out of respect. Let´s put it this way: Two very clear wins and a lot of fun.

Never in doubt.

Nicely done, grindette. We expected nothing less from you.

I wish I could dominate the poker tables like you dominated the court today.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Never in doubt.

Nicely done, grindette. We expected nothing less from you.

I wish I could dominate the poker tables like you dominated the court today.

Never forget: In poker, there´s also "luck" involved (statistics!) - tennis is mostly skill, just sometimes a little bit of luck (some "troll balls").

Created my table garden these days. I will upload pics coming days.

48 sections of 30x30 to be filled with all kinds of biological vegetables.

Already have some seeds in the ground too. Planning to do some more tomorrow.

In my upstairs garden, I have carrots and kale today. The small tomatoes still have to get color but are develloping well.

Looking forward to the pics, Zeezout. I have left my bonsai without additional watering for a few more days, it looks like I really overdid it before. Tomorrow, I think it may be time for a careful watering again.

Poker went very poorly this weekend. Oh, and the daylight savings time switch happened already in America, didn't it? That affects the MTT schedule on Pokerstars, of course, and it caught me off guard. Weird that I didn't even receive a pop-up message about it this time. I skipped 2-7 SD as a result, which is on very shaky legs anyway, and had to late reg Badugi, where I really didn't play very well at all, I believe. Maybe the switch just threw me off.

Whenever the MTT schedule changes for me like that for a short time, I often use that opportunity to try a few games that would normally run at awkward time slots for me. This month is no exception, I will add a $2.20 NL Courchevel 6-max Turbo MTT which usually runs at 23:14, now it's at 22:14 for me. I have considered taking shots at a similar $7.50 game that runs close to when Badugi would start, so I think this $2.20 tournament should be a great way to get a feel for it and see if a game like that could be worth trying. No success tonight, however.

I expect that by the end of the month, we should have a pretty good idea about what games, if any, could be a suitable supplement for those Badugi MTTs.

The first two days of my half-marathon training schedule are now safely behind me. So far, so good. Tomorrow will be my first rest day from running, though the other parts of the tough sporting schedule will continue. Saturdays will likely be the only "true" rest days for the next few months.

The $2.20 NL Courchevel tournaments have unfortunately been a very bad experience so far. I may have had some bad runouts, but if this is the way it's going to be, I think it may be time to give up on not just these tournaments, but possibly Courchevel entirely - though many of the problems may stem from the fact that those particular games are both No Limit and Turbo, which is not the case in other available tournaments. Either way, I think I will only give it two or three more days at most.

Poker in general is going quite terribly at the moment, I believe. The last good cash was over two months ago, there have only been some minor successes ever since then, and I have been on a full losing streak for almost a week now. Almost half of the profit from my high point at the beginning of February is gone now.

Tough to make the segue to more pleasant matters, but one of my Australian pine seeds does appear to be germinating after all this time:

The wisteria seedling has also grown a bit more:

Yay! We´re sassy teenies now!

While Harrier has cute little baby plants which have just germinated, I already got a lot of "sassy teenagers".

We can already harvest coriander and sage

Also the peppers grow up fast

Beautiful spanish salad

You can eat that one either raw - as salad- or cooked, like spinach. I personally don´t like raw spanish salad, I use to cook it! Yummy!

Why am I strong, fit and win most of my tennis matches?

Because I always eat my spinach!!

Winter spinach "Matador"

Spinach "Laweva"

Originally posted by Primrose6789
Why am I strong, fit and win most of my tennis matches?

Because I always eat my spinach!!

Yes, Prim sure ate her spinach.

Badugi at least at some potential again tonight, but a nasty cooler ended our hopes of cashing, so we had to settle for some minor bounties.

I have decided that NL Courchevel will be out, effective immediately. This means that we won't need to consider anymore whether that other $7.50 game could be an option at one point, so at least we learned our lesson cheaply. The other $4.40 PL game will theoretically still be an option, but due to its time slot, it will most likely never be a steady part of my grind, so it's not that important at all.

Will there be any side games to Badugi? Right now, I only see 2-7 SD and Five Card Draw as options, and I'm not optimistic about either of them.

While the poker slump continues, the exercise program keeps showing steady progress, and I am looking forward to finally have a completely sports-free day tomorrow.

Big Quarter special

Today´s session had one goal: to qualify for the Big Quarter Mystery Bounty!! As today our tennis practice was a bit later, I couldn´t make it to the 5 p.m freeroll satty phase 1, but found that there was another one at 7 p.m. It was a hyper turbo, well, I´m absolutely no fan of those but okay, there was no other option. No Limit Holdem, that means: Bowser jr.´s turn! :f_biggrin::f_wink::f_ugly: Baby Peach was playing the 7 pm Free to play PLO but got unlucky very early with AAKJss, pre-flop all-in - lost vs. some random str8. :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:

Bowser jr. made it bravely through the phase 1 freeroll satty, meanwhile got also unlucky in the 8 p.m Free to play, but stayed brave and strong in the satty! The cards were mostly not on our side but somehow we survived phase 1 and qualified with about 17 BB for the Final! We also used up our 0,11 $ Sunday Carnival satty ticket, where we busted with AA vs J7o. :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:

Okay, at least a nice qualification for the Big Quarter Final satty. I never thought we would get far there, it´s a turbo and with 17 BB we pretty much started behind. But during the tournament, I noticed that I still have some old SnG and DON skills left. We took step by step, remembered some of the good old ranges, remembered how to play a "double or nothing" - and managed to survive more than 600 players (100 get tickets). Even though the cards were not at our side either, we made some successful steals, could double up once and steal our way to the top 100! Eventually, we made it with something like 1 BB left, but who cares! It´s double or nothing! ...urm...or so... :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:

Bravo, Bowser jr.!!! We´re in! For free! Excited to play the target tournament!!! Yaaaay!

Originally posted by Harrier88
Oh, hi FrozenElf, great to see you're still around!

I think I did see your new name pop up sometimes in the list of new posts, and while it reminded me of your old one, I thought it was a coincidence, so I didn't make the connection.

Best of luck with the NL2 grind, I see you have a new blog running already.

How are things going, outside of poker?

Not too great I'm in a mental hospital I did 3 years in jail for drug dealing, my dad died and I got attacked by a gang of lads with a metal bar they hurt my back, I can't work now, so things are pretty shit.

Originally posted by ThunderElf
Not too great I'm in a mental hospital I did 3 years in jail for drug dealing, my dad died and I got attacked by a gang of lads with a metal bar they hurt my back, I can't work now, so things are pretty shit.

Dang! Wow, I'm sorry to hear all of that. Very sorry about your dad passing away, and clearly you had a lot of other bad stuff happening too.

Your situation must be quite tough right now. Try to take things one step at a time. And be careful with the poker, your own well-being takes precedence.

Getting back to the bonsai one more time, I'm afraid the African Wisteria fell over when I carefully tried to water it on Sunday.

Not much that can be done to get it back upright - in this bed, that is. I got one of the little pots that came with the set and put the seedling in there, making sure it sits deep enough into the soil.

Let's see if it can be saved. I think it was about time it got a bigger pot anyway.