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

Royal Fluffed?

I managed to play a few more hands of regular (i.e. non-Open Face) Chinese poker today. Remember when I briefly went through the royalties, describing that a straight flush earns 5 extra points? Naturally, I assumed that this then also applies to a Royal flush, and I was surprised that it didn't earn considerably more royalties than a straight flush.

Well, my opponent got one against me today. Notice something?

It didn't earn any royalties at all, it was worth just as much as any other hand. What a royal rip... I have no reason to complain, of course, but I can imagine that my opponent wasn't too thrilled.

If that's not an oversight, it is one of the weirdest house rules I have ever encountered.

Another attempt at the 100 pushups was done today, in the presence of none other than Primrose herself, who was visiting in person. Unfortunately, I fell short once again. I think I did around 74 reps, Prim counted a few more, but I was well short of the intended 100 for sure. This is getting a little frustrating.

Instead of repeating the final week once again, I think I will just keep making direct attempts at the 100 for a while. Not sure if I will start tomorrow already, or take a day of rest and do it on Sunday. If I notice that I'm not making any progress, I can still get back to the program, but by now, I would just like to wrap it up, really.

We also went swimming, I wasn't all that pleased with my performance either, though Primrose had some positive things to say about it. It doesn't really matter where I stand right now anyway, because we have bigger plans for the future. Possibly even some stuff that we can do together.

At least the plank went well, we are still struggling through our program.

Also, we did a spin for next week's Surprise Menu, and the result was:

A lot of things we can do there. Prim definitely liked this spin.

Mixed Drink of the Day: Brave Bull

Primrose loved the Kahlúa I bought earlier this week. We were sipping some of it while we were playing Mario Party, but then I thought that I should prepare a mixed drink with it as well. I had a few recipes saved up, and decided to go for this one today, the Brave Bull:

Making a Brave Bull is simple if you have the ingredients. You simply need a chilled rocks glass with ice, and some coffee liqueur and tequila.

The tequila to coffee liqueur ratio is 2 to 1. A rocks glass should hold about 200 ml, or 140 ml left if we account for the ice. Therefore, 45 ml of coffee liqueur, ideally Kahlúa, should do. Maybe 40 ml is enough, the glass was filled up pretty high in the end.

Add twice that amount of tequila. 90 ml if we stuck to 45 ml of Kahlúa.

Mix it up, and... that's all there's to it.

While we both liked it, Primrose had to admit that the drink is a tad strong, so I had to drink half of hers in addition to mine. And for sure, it is a pretty strong drink, it certainly lives up to its name.

A new little "Troll" arrived!!!

He´s here! And he´s ADORABLE!!! :f_love::f_love::f_love::f_love:

Larry Koopa came today! :f_love::f_love:

And he´s already excited to help with the gardening

Larry wants to plant bush beans. :f_love::f_love::f_love:

Awwwww, Larry is such a cutie!

Only two more to go now.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Awwwww, Larry is such a cutie!

Only two more to go now.

Yes, only Roy and Iggy are missing.

And a nanny: You cannot leave 7 koopalings and Bowser jr. alone, while you´re at work, can you?

Overkill

You can repeat Fantasyland in OFC by getting either quads or better at the bottom or trips on top. This hand allowed us to do both:

Our opponent was not able to mount any kind of effective defense against it either, so they had to pay the sticker price.

Satty time!

Saturday, pokerday and today, I decided to play some sattys on Partypoker. Played some "Free to play around the clock" where I could get a 0,22 $ Big Quarter Sub feeder ticket. After I saw the priced I decided then to sit out because that was the ticket I wanted. Furthermore, played a Big Quarter satty Phase 1 which brings you to the big freeroll satellite to win 11 $ tickets for the "Big Quarter" (200 K Gtd.). I thought, hey, why not: Let´s play such a little satty - and succeeded to quality for the finals, which will be a 9 p.m. today. Awesome!

Found out that the 3. p.m. "Free to play" is Omaha again and was happy to pick up four cards there - but unfortunately card-dead. So, my todays session is not ending yet. We will play the big final freeroll where you can win 11 $ tickets. Exciting!

The highlights so far ...

A nice full house in PLO

A royal double up

and last but not least ....

Wooow! Jacks are holding up :f_biggrin::f_ugly:

JJ and TT are the hands I like least in Holdem. But sometimes they do a good job. Like the jacks here...

Oh no! I´m out!

Started with 4 BB stack (you bring your old stack from phase 1 to the final) and as soon as I saw my mini stack, my hopes were not really high. But I could make my first double up with QJs vs QK, hitting my lucky two pair on the flop. Afterwards, I could make a couple of steals, just somehow surviving. The next double up came with TT versus 44 of another shortie and I could build up my stack to 16 BB. After that, not much decent stuff came, I was blinded down to 8 BB, until I found again TT in the BB. Everybody folds to BTN, BTN limps, SB raises and I jam my last 8 BB in. BTN folds and SB calls with AJs. Standard flip. But unfortunately I lost that flip, an A showed up on the turn and out I was. Bummer!

Unlucky, Prim - but you had a nice run. Congrats on making it that far.

Overkill #2

I explained in my previous post how quads in the back allow you to repeat Fantasyland, and that you may sometimes even be able to get something better out of it. Now, in the hand below, I am actually not in Fantasyland. In fact, I am defending against a Fantasyland deal. And yet, I managed to hit not only quads in the back, but even a full house in the middle. An excellent hand - you almost have to feel sorry for our opponent.

Except...

Yeah... my opponent managed to not only hit better quads than me in the back... but even got additional quads in the middle. I have never seen a Fantasyland deal with two quads before, neither for myself nor for an opponent - let alone in a hand where there is a third instance of quads around.

Normally, this kind of hand would be one for the annals, whether I was on the receiving end of it or not... but I have a few more things to say about it. Notice that I have censored my opponent's name? That usually means that I don't have anything nice to say about them and therefore would like to keep them anonymous.

These are higher stakes than usual for me, at µBTC 2 per point. This one player can often be seen hanging out at these stakes in the lobby. I sometimes join him, and yes, he often seems to hit some very outlandish draws. This definitely wasn't the first one like that, and it didn't remain the only one in that round either. Don't get me wrong - I am not accusing him of cheating. That is a serious allegation that I wouldn't make without evidence, and I am aware of the huge amount of variance in poker, particularly in a game like OFC.

However: There is something else I don't take kindly to, which is this person's very annoying tendency to immediately leave after one round where he ran that hot, without giving me any chance to win any of it back. I have seen it time after time with this player: I sit down with him, he nails some miracle draws for a fantastic round, and then leaves. I have lost a load of chips that way, it's amazing that I am still in profit overall.

In general, the behavior of some of those players in the lobby leaves a lot to be desired. There is this one player who never seems to play anyone at all, another one who is avoiding me specifically... and now this guy. I can take some incredible bad luck against him that makes you wonder if everything is above board, but I won't tolerate those dastard hit-and-run tactics, which go against the spirit of the game.

Again, no allegation of cheating, but I know who this player is, and I will definitely avoid him from now on. I already thought that I probably shouldn't sit down with him today, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt once more - maybe he really did only have time for one round all those times before. After tonight's session, however, I decided that he can look for another patsy.

Useless Quads...

In case you hadn't had enough quads yet in that slightly controversial hand above.

We are entering this Drawmaha cash pot with trip Jacks, and even hit a half decent flop that at least gives us a gutshot for (vulnerable) Omaha nuts. Let's draw a few times, looking to either fill up to a full house or improve our Omaha potential.

Well, I will certainly take those too, after the second draw:

No help from the board, but we build up a sizeable pot by the time we get to the river.

...and our quads are pretty much useless, because they can only split the pot against the Kings from our opponent's hand, which we would have much rather seen on the board instead. They give our opponent a better two pair in the Omaha part.

Later on, against the same player, I even managed to hit quads again... which split against 44xxx with an Omaha straight.

Sunday Update

Not a bad week at the tables overall, despite some bad encounters. My crypto bankroll is now over µBTC 2,600, also thanks to some nice Drawmaha pots. I have already prepared an unfinished Drawmaha spreadsheet, though I doubt this game will ever be anything but a gap filler. I'm mostly using it as an OFC waiting room.

I have also made an addition to my OFC statistics spreadsheet, which should allow me to do weekly updates. I will try to get one out tomorrow, it's almost ready. The data is there and the graphs are working, they just need some finishing touch.

Another failed attempt today, I collapsed after the 75th rep. It's no use, I will have to re-do the week once again. Bummer... I was hoping I could bring it to a graceful end this weekend.

I will start tomorrow already. This time, I will make sure only to take limited breaks in between sets. Maybe that was my problem, and the rest periods were simply too long.

Schedule:
Monday: 45, 55, 35, 30 and 55+ reps
Wednesday: 22, 22, 30, 30, 24, 24, 18, 18 and 58+ reps
Friday: 26, 26, 33, 33, 26, 26, 22, 22 and 60+ reps

Prim and I struggled through the program, some days went better than others. We are now technically on the home straight, though I would be very surprised if we could just cruise through the week like that, directly to the Five Minutes Plank at the end. Still, we have to try, and very likely try again next week, but the effort needs to be made first.

Our schedule:
Monday: 4:00 minutes
Tuesday: 2x 2:00 minutes (2:00 minutes rest)
Wednesday: 4:00 minutes
Thursday: 2x 2:30 minutes (2:00 minutes rest)
Friday: rest day
Saturday: 2x 2:30 minutes (2:00 minutes rest)
Sunday: Five Minutes Plank!

How on earth are we supposed to do that, especially with me trying to go for 100 pushups at the same time? I don't know - you tell me. All I know is that Primrose is going to hate me for this...

Other Projects

I have been in contact with various people over the weekend regarding additional (mostly aquatic) sporting challenges, some of which could be suitable for the two of us. Whether or not we can implement them, we do have some swimming plans, and I also intend to introduce a new jogging challenge very soon. Maybe I would have already started it if I had succeeded with the pushups this weekend, but with two ongoing fitness challenges, I figured it's wise not to start anything new before we are done with those.

My karate course has two sessions left, then it's time to gear up, get serious, and hopefully rise through the belts. Meanwhile, I have also been informed that tennis practice shall now recommence for me after the break, so it won't just be the grindette battling it out on the courts from now on.

With pushups, planks, swimming, jogging, karate and tennis on the docket, the Trolls will surely be grateful if they can rest on the couch for a while every now and then... but rest assured that this is only the beginning - not to mention that we have some butts to kick at the tables too.

Coming up, this Saturday, April 27th:

Women´s singles 50 plus! Haven´t competed in singles for about 2 years due to several injuries. But the injuries have now healed. And here we go again: competing in women´s singles! This year for the first time in the category 50 plus cause I´m getting old.

Will play two matches, don´t know yet against whom. Looking at the list of competitors: I´m the underdog! Two Villainesses appear to be beatable. So, how will Prim do? Will Prim fight her way up? Will she stand a chance?

We will find out ............... on Saturday.

We have kingsday saturday, but good luck with the 'troll open'

Last Week's Stats are in!

I promised stats, and here they are. I intend to do this every Sunday from now on, my spreadsheet should be able to yield those graphs with minimal manual input.

Here is how it looked like at the OFC tables in general. The columns show the profit from each day, the line shows the cumulative profit for the week.

The above uses µBTC as the currency, because this is what I use at the tables. For reference, the values have been converted into USD in the chart below:

I finished the week µBTC 100.51 up, corresponding to about $6.67 at the moment.

Here is an additional graph, breaking down our profit by stake, measured in points. Each point would be assigned a certain value in a cash game, so you can think of them as big blinds.

The µBTC 1 per point games were my main stakes, and those are the ones I usually seek out at the moment. The lower stakes only had one game, and it didn't go very well. The µBTC 2 per point games suffered from those nasty hit-and-run sessions, of course. Without them, we could have had quite the profit last week.

No additional poker so far due to a complete lack of opponents, but we will get to it.

Until then, let's talk a bit more about our swimming plans, because we are far from done, even after I picked up my Silver Badge this year.

I didn't even use this logo after I designed it for my opening post about that Silver course... Ah well, I like the animated "Aqua Challenge" logo that I ended up using too. Anyway, with Silver being done, the question is, of course: Should I try to go beyond it?

Going for Gold??

Unlike the previous two badges, which were required for certain tasks (Bronze for watching groups of people in shallow pools, Silver for doing proper lifeguard duty), Gold does not give you any rights, duties or privileges anywhere - it is purely meant as a personal challenge, and fair enough, that's what the other badges mostly were for me too. In order to rise up to this "elite rank" of lifeguards, you have to go quite a bit beyond the minimum requirements. In fact, it looks super tough. Here's what you need to do:

Theoretical part

- Passing a nationally standardized quiz about the following subjects: Hazards in and around water, life-saving equipment, assistance in case of bathing-, boating-, and ice-related accidents (saving yourself and others), respiration and blood circulation, rights and duties when providing emergency assistance and the tasks and activities of the DLRG.

- Having passed an officially recognized first aid course within the last two years.

Practical part

- Swimming 300 meters with flippers in less than 6 minutes, including carrying a partner in full clothing for 50 meters
Note: 30 seconds for each 25m lane

- Swimming 300 meters in full clothing in less than 9 minutes, with subsequent unclothing inside the water
Note: 45 seconds for each 25m lane

- 50 meters of transport swimming - pushing or pulling, in less than 1:30 minutes, with both swimmers in full clothing
Note: 45 seconds for each 25m lane

- Swimming 100 meters in less than 1:40 minutes
Note: 25 seconds for each 25m lane

- 30 meters of distance diving, while picking up at least 8 out of 10 diving rings, which are scattered across a distance of 20 meters, arranged in an up to 2 meters wide channel

- Diving to retrieve three 5 kg diving rings from the bottom of a 3-5 meters deep pool within 3 minutes in full clothing, starting with a head first dive from the edge of the pool, then diving both head first and feet first from the surface. The rings are about 3 meters apart from each other.

- Displaying abilities to avoid strangleholds and escaping neck chokeholds from behind

- A combined exercise, to be done in full clothing, involving the following steps without any breaks in this order: Diving head first into the water, swimming 25 meters in less than 30 seconds, diving to retrieve a 5 kg diving ring at a depth of 3-5 meters, then dropping the ring and escaping a stranglehold, followed by carrying a partner (also in full clothing) for 25 meters in less than 60 seconds, bringing them safely ashore and performing CPR for 3 minutes

- Demonstrating the ability to use life-saving equipment by tossing a suitable piece of equipment into a 3 meter wide sector at a distance of 12 meters, doing six throws within 5 minutes, hitting the area at least four times, then performing a simulated rescue with another piece of equipment

- Demonstrating the ability to use revitalizing equipment

Woah... that sounds extremely tough. I'm really not sure if this is a realistic goal at all, even though I should have until November to prepare. I don't know if I would ever be ready for this.

Which is why I have been in contact with a local swimming coach, who is not only an accomplished lifeguard himself, but also a sports scientist and a former coach for swimmers at state level, with a proper coaching license. I reached out to him last weekend after finding out about him on the website of a local pool, and I have been on the phone with him earlier today. He believes that he could whip me into shape so that I may have a fighting chance to take down the ultimate badge.

Whether or not we will get to it, and when we will start, has yet to be determined, and I expect it won't be all that cheap... but before that, we have another big aquatic challenge in store - for both Primrose and me. But more on that later, it's time for my karate course. Hi-yah!

Okay, so about that other aquatics challenge: There is another kind of badge, which is not part of the standard DLRG lineup. In an early post, I briefly teased it as "the secret badge", because I was looking into it at that point already, but I couldn't get any info on where to take the exam, the local pool attendants didn't know anything about it. That swimming coach told me on the phone, however, that he was familiar with it and that he could supervise the exam, and then take care of the paperwork with the federation and all.

To get right to the point, there are three additional badges by the German Swimming Federation. Unlike the DLRG badges, which are mostly based on being a competent swimmer who can stay safe, these ones are all about performance. The lowest one is also known as the "Shark" badge, which makes sense in a way, as some of the early badges are named after sea creatures too.

And this is the one we are trying to go for - Primrose too. Can we become proper sharks, at least at the pool, if not at the tables? That will be our quest:

The requirements:

- 50 meters of breaststroke swimming in under 1:00 minute
- 50 meters of front crawling in under 50 seconds
- 50 meters of back crawling in under 1:00 minute
- a head first dive from a height of 3 meters, or a front flip from a height of 1 meter
- dribbling a water polo ball for 25 meters

Doable? I think so. I did 50 meters of breaststroke swimming in 56 seconds for the DLRG Gold badge last year (1:15 minutes was the requirement). Back crawling should usually be faster, so I should be able to handle that time limit too. As for the front crawl... I did 25 meters in 21.45 seconds for last year's Trollympics. If I can sustain a slightly worse pace for twice that distance, I should be on track, though it wouldn't be easy.

This leaves the dive, where the front flip from the 1 meter board sounds a lot more pleasant to me than the 3 meter head first dive. Hopefully, I can still do it. And then the water polo ball dribbling... not sure what to expect there, but how hard could it be?

Prim mentioned to me that she would prefer to take this in July, when her tennis competition season is over, so I guess we have our big summer challenge already. That gives us plenty of time to practice too.

That's the badge, it looks a bit ugly... but we're here for the achievement, so let's do it. Time to take our place among the sharks - are you ready, Prim?

Fantasyland vs Fantasyland here - do you guys see my mistake?

I didn't notice it until after I confirmed my hand, but I had the option of making my full house with tens over fours, rather than fours over tens, as I did. Both the ten and the four had a flush card for the middle, so I could have simply swapped them. I figured that the chances were low that it mattered... but it did, in the end. The higher version of the full house would have won. It was only a difference of two points in the end, but it was a mistake nonetheless, and those points add up.

They would take a long time to add up to all the chips we lost tonight, however. Points-wise, it was the worst sessions of the year so far, I ended up finishing -149 points down, each point corresponding to a µBTC at these stakes. Terrible stuff. We're still in profit overall, but not by much anymore, less than µBTC 100. Very damaging session, and this was the first time since last Saturday that I managed to get a table started at all, mind you.

I suppose things are a little crazy in general recently, I'm longing for a day where I can return home without knowing that I will have a load of correspondence to take care of. A good weekend rest soon might do wonders, at least I hope so.