Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Is the copper treated, or lined with something?
It seems that drinks with an acidic component would leach some of the metal into the drink...
Yes, as I pointed out in the paragraph below it:
Originally posted by Harrier88
Keep in mind, though, that pure copper mugs are not ideal due to the drink's acidic ingredients. It's best to get one of those copper-plated mugs with a stainless steel interior, like the ones I'm using:
Bonus: In a little departure from the standard mixed drinks, I tried a plain old chocolate milkshake instead. And it was pretty damn good. Also a nice excuse to give those new steel straws a try.
This article explains quite well how to do it. The trick is to use little actual milk, but plenty of vanilla ice cream instead. No need for chocolate ice cream, just use vanilla and then flavor it with chocolate syrup later.
There are many possible variations, including alcoholic ones (I'd love to try a Frozen Mudslide soon), so there's a lot of room for your own creativity here.
Following the recipe from the article, I used:
3 scoops of vanilla ice cream
1/4 cup (70 ml) of milk
174 cup (70 ml) of chocolate syrup (I just used some chocolate sauce that I had left)
and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Put it all in a blender and garnish it as you like. I used some whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.
Another bad night, only got $1 in bounties in the Badugi. Summer kinda sucks...
This time, I decided to play the $1.10 8-game, which I usually avoid due to its length, its little returns and its flat payout curve. However, since I plan to play the 2-7 Triple Draw anyway, which starts late and therefore usually lasts well past midnight as well, the first point is relatively moot. As for the rest, there is also a $27 8-game, which obviously is way out of my league. So I thought, maybe I can practice the $1.10 tournament, and if it turns out that I can achieve a good ROI after some time, maybe I could potentially have an edge in the higher stakes tournament as well, at which point I could try building a bigger bankroll once the games are going my way again, and maybe consider giving it a few shots.
Tonight, I got a decent run (after a 2nd bullet), but no cash yet. The problem with HORSE and 8-game is that they contain Stud...
Oh well, at least I created a new chart. This time it's a weekly candlestick graph.
All of those showed the overall profit, but I have already collected the data for my three main games too.
I also came up with a complicated formula that automatically colors the background of the cells of every second week in one of my calendar sheets gray, because I thought it would help me gather that weekly data. Turns out that it was absolutely unnecessary, but I did it for science!
And yes, I do have the feeling that OpenOffice is slowly turning me into a mad scientist (I even got the German accent already and all), but don't worry, I should really be done, as in "done done" with that poker spreadsheet now.
Onto the next one then...
Originally posted by Harrier88
And yes, I do have the feeling that OpenOffice is slowly turning me into a mad scientist (I even got the German accent already and all), but don't worry, I should really be done, as in "done done" with that poker spreadsheet now.Onto the next one then...
Well the accent helps, but the chilling laughter is a must!
And I thought poker was bad these days... Last night, I tried some gin rummy on a casual games website (only a flash game, but still for real money). I had no idea that this game can be so tilting... lost quite a bit of money on it too after a good start.
Next time, I'll just leave out the rummy part.
My work schedule will be quite busy now after the short break in the last few days - too bad I couldn't make it count this time. With only three days off in the next twelve days, there certainly won't be much time for poker. But the good news is that our request for vacation has been approved, and it was confirmed that we only need to work three more weeks and four more weekends. 
With that in mind, I should get through those rough stretches without any problems.
Originally posted by Harrier88
And I thought poker was bad these days... Last night, I tried some gin rummy on a casual games website (only a flash game, but still for real money). I had no idea that this game can be so tilting... lost quite a bit of money on it too after a good start.
Does that site have Hearts (the card game, not the emoji 
)?
I would love to find a site where I could play Hearts or backgammon for $
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Does that site have Hearts (the card game, not the emoji
I would love to find a site where I could play Hearts or backgammon for $
It does have Hearts (also Spades), but as I said, it's a flash game where you play against computer opponents. It's still for real money, your performance is scored and then you compete against a real opponent who faces the same flash game, with the same setup of cards (as far as I know).
They have backgammon too, against real opponents, but not for real money, which makes it a little pointless. I would like to find a place to play it for cash too, but most of the places I know seem to have closed down.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Originally posted by Harrier88
And I thought poker was bad these days... Last night, I tried some gin rummy on a casual games website (only a flash game, but still for real money). I had no idea that this game can be so tilting... lost quite a bit of money on it too after a good start.Does that site have Hearts (the card game, not the emoji
I would love to find a site where I could play Hearts or backgammon for $
I used to play backgammon for real money on a site called BGammon about 8 years ago. I didn't play much because the client and traffic was poor and stopped playing. When I checked about 12 months later, it had closed down.
We played backgammon for $ when I lived at Whistler in the '70s, but it was in the form of tournaments.
It went well for several months until the RCMP stopped by to provide coaching in the finer points of the law.
Nobody was charged, but we were told to stop -- and in no uncertain terms
There'll be another busy weekend ahead of me, but tomorrow, I'll have another day off and most likely time for a full poker session. Fingers crossed that it will be a good one, because they have been quite rare this month so far.
Meanwhile, here is my profit in 3-player mahjong cash games since I started playing them again at around the start of the quarantine in late March:
Well, it's a swingy game...
Current profit is $13.86 over 267 games, at an ROI of around 1.11%.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Well, it's a swingy game...Current profit is $13.86 over 267 games, at an ROI of around 1.11%.
Better than my savings account -- but I'm not about to put that money into 3-handed Mahjong
Tonight's session was interesting, at least. The main games bricked, but the "scouting games" (i.e. the ones which are not part of the main grind, currently consisting of Badugi, 5CD and 2-7 TD) showed promise. Mincashed the $3.30 PLO, keeping my overall ITM-rate in PLO at 100% this year over three games. It even had potential for a deep run, but you gotta take those risks. The 8-game was mincashed as well, after losing an ICM reshove to none other than Vorpal himself in the NL Hold'em part. 
Of course I kept listening to his stream to keep track of his impressive run which lasted all the way to 2nd place (congratz!), but for most of the time, I was busy at the mahjong tables, where I got a little more lucky, earning a profit of $7.77 over 7 games.
Lucky number seven indeed... 
My mahjong spreadsheet also happened to be hit by another case of "feature creep", allowing me to present some more stats. You know how I mentioned that it's a swingy game? Well, it looked worse than it is, because many of my losses are simply the result of me taking a shot at higher stakes.
Here is the updated overall graph again, with both stakes included separately:
Those interrupted lines look a little awkward, but I couldn't think of a better way to present them. Column and area charts looked even less presentable.
So here are the graphs for the two limits on their own:
Confused about mahjong limits? $2/$4 means that your stack is worth $2, but an additional $2 are set aside for the bonus payments based on the final standings, bringing your entire potential investment to $4.
Considering all this, the $2/$4 games actually show some somewhat steady progress, with a total profit of $48.23 and an ROI of 5.24% over 230 games. Compare this to the loss of $26.60 and the ROI of -7.56% over 44 $4/$8 games.
New overall mahjong stats:
Games played: 274
Total buy-ins: $1,272.00
Total returns: $1,293.63
Total profit: $21.63
Average profit per game: $0.08
Total ROI: 1.70%
So yeah, busy weekend ahead, almost certainly no time for poker for a while, probably until next Wednesday. But maybe we'll be able to sneak in a quick drink to wash away the dryness of all those stats and graphs.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Tonight's session was interesting, at least. The main games bricked, but the "scouting games" (i.e. the ones which are not part of the main grind, currently consisting of Badugi, 5CD and 2-7 TD) showed promise. Mincashed the $3.30 PLO, keeping my overall ITM-rate in PLO at 100% this year over three games.
Of course I kept listening to his stream to keep track of his impressive run which lasted all the way to 2nd place (congratz!), but for most of the time, I was busy at the mahjong tables, where I got a little more lucky, earning a profit of $7.77 over 7 games.
Lucky number seven indeed...
Sorry!
I had the luckbox firmly in my possession in that tournament for sure.
Here's proof in case you missed it...
https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3168045#post3168045
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Sorry!
I had the luckbox firmly in my possession in that tournament for sure.
Here's proof in case you missed it...
Well, I'm glad it went to you, at least. 
And I'm even more glad that you managed to make a great run out of it.
Also, some things turned out all right for me after all during last night's session:
Congratulations! You have won a share of The Deal's progressive jackpot – as a result, we have credited your Stars Account with USD 9.56.
I knew I picked the right time to play it. 
The returns come in very handy to recoup some of the massive losses this month.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Also, some things turned out all right for me after all during last night's session:Congratulations! You have won a share of The Deal's progressive jackpot – as a result, we have credited your Stars Account with USD 9.56.
I knew I picked the right time to play it.
Was that the first time you played during this cycle?
Even if not, pretty good ROI all around.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Was that the first time you played during this cycle?
Even if not, pretty good ROI all around.
I played a few times, not too many. Definitely nice returns.
We're about halfway through the busy and pokerless weekend, so let's stop for another drink.
Today, we're going to look at a recipe I received from the box that came with the hurricane glasses I once bought, for a drink called the Blue Gin Kinley.
I hadn't really heard of Kinley before, but it seems like it's a brand of carbonated water that also comes in other varieties including tonic water, which is one of the key ingredients, so I guess this cocktail may just as well be called a Blue Gin Tonic. I have already made this drink a few times long ago, and even included some pictures of it on this forum way before this blog got started. However, there was one difference to the suggested recipe on the box: I did not use any blue curaçao syrup, partially because I didn't have any and partially because I read the recipe wrong, and instead used regular blue curaçao.
Now the drink was already quite tasty as it is, but I couldn't help but wonder how the intended version of this recipe would turn out.
Monin to the rescue, I just happen to have some blue curaçao syrup at home now. So let's get started. The recipe only included the ingredients and I couldn't find anything else about it online, so I had to come up with my own way to combine them. Here's what I did:
First, fill that hurricane glass with ice. At around 500ml, it's a pretty big one, so no need to fill it all the way to the top, but give it a good fill.
Next, put 40ml of gin, 20ml of blue curaçao syrup and 10ml of lime juice into a cocktail shaker along with the ice, once the glass has been sufficiently chilled (shouldn't take too long, maybe a few minutes). Note that the recipe called for the juice of half a lime. While it's always nice to use fresh fruit, they don't keep forever and sometimes, you just don't have any on hand. 10ml of plain bottled lime juice should be a good substitute.
Give all the ingredients a good shake, fill the mixture back into the glass, and... do not strain the ice, just add it back on top. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's what I came up with, as a middle ground between simply stirring it with ice and just shaking and straining it. That way, the mixture gets a bit diluted, but still has some extra ice on top to further chill it and take up some space in the glass. It should look somewhat like this:
All you need to do now is to fill it up all the way to the top with tonic water. Those little 125ml glass bottles from Schweppes usually did the trick for me, yielding just about the required amount. Once you're done, give it another gentle stir to combine it with the other ingredients, and you're ready to go.
Compare it again to the image of the other version I posted before, which was made with regular blue curaçao. While the lighting was a little different, the version I made right here with the syrup does seem to have a slightly deeper blue to it.
So which version is better? Hard to tell, they both feature a combination of sweet and bitter flavors. The difference is that the old version with regular blue curaçao is slightly more bitter than the new version with the blue curaçao syrup. It's down to personal preferences, of course, and I have never tried the two versions side by side, but I think I would go with the new one that includes the syrup. It was the intended version of this recipe anyway. Note that Pokerstrategy's grindette Primrose, who is currently busy kicking some butt at the tennis court again, has approved both versions of this drink by now.
Either way, it's a nice refreshing long drink that gives you more than just a quick slurp on a hot day.
Any idea why it is called a "hurricane" glass?
It seems to me it would blow over in a hurricane.
Perhaps it is the large volume -- I'd want large volumes of alcohol if I was shut in due to a hurricane.
Aaaw yeah! Those are definitely Prim-approved. And yes, I kicked some bum bum on the tennis court today!
Good luck with the challenge.
Frozen Banana Daiquiri Cocktail
Blend a whole banana and ice with the usual daiquiri ingredients of rum, triple sec, and lime juice. A little sugar is tossed in to sweeten it up ever so slightly.
Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces light rum
1/2 ounce triple sec
1 banana
1 1/2 ounce lime juice
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup crushed ice
Garnish: maraschino cherry
