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

Thank you very much for the analysis, Harrier.
Yes I guess this is summed up very well. It´s not going to be easy this time, actually, we had registered for mixed doubles 50plus, but there was one couple who signed up for mixed doubles 30 plus and another one for mixed doubles 40plus. So, the tournament directors just put us all together into the mixed doubles 30plus! And well, then: 30 plus it is! We´re the oldest- and the lowest ranked couple: clear underdogs in the first match, the second one could be on razors edge. Will depend on the fitness and endurance of the clearly younger woman (13 years younger than me) and of course on the skills and fitness of the man (who is the same age as me) That could be close one....

Homer is a bit more optimistic when it comes to the first match but I pretty much see it like this pretty little one-outer from the PLO today:

It is important that we do not waste too much energy if we´re clearly going under! Because the seond match could be absolutely promising!

great blog "double trouble" lol so funny! i like it

Ah, and I forgot: While Primrose will be fighting it out on the tennis court tomorrow, I will have my own sporting challenge, in the last Trollympic event before the break.

800m Freestyle
Bronze: 28:50 minutes
Silver: 24:00 minutes
Gold: 19:15 minutes

Last year's PB was at 20:30 minutes, so I wasn't even that far off from Gold already - and back then, I could hardly crawl at all, only for maybe eight lanes or so. I should be able to keep up the crawl for at least twice that distance now, possibly even three times. I don't think I will be able to crawl through the full 32 lanes for the 800 meters, but it should at least be good enough to shave off those 1:15 minutes that separated me from Gold last year.

I will keep the grindette in my thoughts as I battle my way through those lanes at the local pool, which will be closed for two weeks, starting tomorrow. Best to get one more aquatic event in before the break, then.

Originally posted by taavi1337
great blog "double trouble" lol so funny! i like it

Oh, welcome taavi! Yeah, we have been going for a while already, not a lot of poker successes so far, but plenty of other stuff. We aim to deliver some good news from the tables soon, though - the MicroMillions 8-Game should start any moment...

Originally posted by taavi1337
great blog "double trouble" lol so funny! i like it

Thank you very much, taavi and

Maybe Sklansky would kill me for this, but I couldn't help but stay in for a few more streets with that starting hand. Not sure if it was pure tilt that made me stay in on 6th or if it was a genuinely good call based on the odds, but I got what I wanted on 7th - and managed to milk it for the max.

PokerStars, $1.96 + $0.24 - 7 Stud H/L Limit (8-Game) - 70/140 (28 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

Seat 5: 10,684 (76 bb)
Seat 1 (Hero): 8,428 (60 bb)
Seat 2: 10,616 (76 bb)
Seat 3: 9,916 (71 bb)
Seat 4: 10,614 (76 bb)

Third Street: (140) Hero is in Seat 1
Xx Xx 2♠ BI bring-in 42____BI folds
Xx Xx 7♦ UTG raises to 140
3♣ 2♣ 4♥ Hero calls 140
Xx Xx 9♦ CO folds
Xx Xx 3♥ BTN folds

Fourth Street: (462) (2 players)
3♣ 2♣ 4♥ 9♥ Hero checks____Hero calls 140
Xx Xx 7♦ 4♦ UTG bets 140

Fifth Street: (742) (2 players)
3♣ 2♣ 4♥ 9♥ A♦ Hero checks____Hero calls 280
Xx Xx 7♦ 4♦ T♥ UTG bets 280

Sixth Street: (1,302) (2 players)
3♣ 2♣ 4♥ 9♥ A♦ K♣ Hero checks____Hero calls 280
Xx Xx 7♦ 4♦ T♥ 5♠ UTG bets 280

Seventh Street: (1,862) (2 players)
3♣ 2♣ 4♥ 9♥ A♦ K♣ 5♦ Hero checks____Hero raises to 560____Hero raises to 1,120
Xx Xx 7♦ 4♦ T♥ 5♠ Xx UTG bets 280____UTG raises to 840____UTG calls 280

Total pot: 4,102

Showdown:
Seat 1 (Hero) shows 3♣ 2♣ 4♥ 9♥ A♦ K♣ 5♦ (HI: a straight, Ace to Five; LO: 5-4-3-2-A)
Seat 5 mucks A♠ A♥ 7♦ 4♦ T♥ 5♠ 6♣ (HI: a pair of Aces; LO: 7-6-5-4-A)
Seat 1 (Hero) wins 4,102

Pretty good stack right now during the first break, but still a long way to go. At least we have a bounty by now.

Yeah, you can now use your fishy table image as perfect disguise to continue Sklansky will be proud !

Out in 451st place out of 1,496 with 215 paid. We collected two minimal bounties, amounting to $1.

It was a shaky start, then it went well for the most part, with some rather card dead stretches in-between.

That big increase early on in the graph was not actually the Stud8 hand above, but an NL Hold'em hand later on against the same opponent, who hit a top pair with his KQ on the turn, against my KJ which hit a top pair on the flop that improved to two pair on the turn.

I believe the beginning of the end for me happened in FL Hold'em, which is still mostly an enigma to me, even though I had some decisive hands going my way in there in several 8-Game tournaments in the past. I know that aggression is the key in there - maybe it was misplaced here, though? Or was is it mostly a cooler?

PokerStars, $1.96 + $0.24 - Hold'em Limit (8-Game) - 400/800 - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 32,118 (40 bb)
MP (Hero): 19,684 (25 bb)
CO: 14,606 (18 bb)
BU: 3,210 (4 bb)
SB: 24,860 (31 bb)
BB: 10,000 (13 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,200) Hero is MP with A♠ J♠
UTG raises to 1,600, Hero 3-bets to 2,400, 4 players fold, UTG calls 800

Flop: (6,000) A♦ 6♣ 7♦ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets 800, UTG calls 800

Turn: (7,600) 3♠ (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets 1,600, UTG raises to 3,200, Hero calls 1,600

River: (14,000) 2♥ (2 players)
UTG bets 1,600, Hero calls 1,600

Total pot: 17,200

Showdown:
UTG shows 6♠ 6♦ (three of a kind, Sixes)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 52%, Flop: 98%, Turn: 100%, River: 100%)

MP (Hero) mucks A♠ J♠ (a pair of Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 48%, Flop: 2%, Turn: 0%, River: 0%)

UTG wins 17,200

We are done for tonight, in any case. I don't think I will play the MicroMillions Triple Draw tomorrow evening - but I might. I definitely do intend to play the NL Five Card Draw event on Monday, however.

Until then, it is time for Prim to kick some butt on the court tomorrow, and for me to do the same in the pool.

flhe hand, you can just fold that pre against tight utg open range, especially stacks this shallow i believe. i think i would 3bet 99+, AQ+ or something

Originally posted by taavi1337
flhe hand, you can just fold that pre against tight utg open range, especially stacks this shallow i believe. i think i would 3bet 99+, AQ+ or something

My experience with "pure" FLHE games, cash or tournaments, is extremely limited, but from what I can tell, players in the FLHE sections of 8-Game don't necessarily behave like "proper" FLHE players, I have seen many very questionable moves in the past that made even a FLHE donk like me find his tournament saver in this section. So I wouldn't necessarily expect the same tight UTG opening ranges as from a normal game.

I know that you have a lot more experience with this format than I have. As for me, I once prepared a simple starting hands chart to help me get a feel for the ranges in these sections - I don't remember the source for these ranges, must have been some kind of book or website, but the chart itself was prepared by me. Here's what it says about facing a raise:

No idea why SB and BB are missing, I prepared these things a long time ago, so I imagine the info is old too. Speaking of which, the ancient Basic level Pokerstrategy FLHE starting hands chart also includes AJs - but not AJo - among the "strong hands" to 3-bet against a single raiser.

Anyway, I believe it was a close judgment call whether to play this hand or not, but I think it was either a raise or fold here. And if we take the tendencies of the 8-Game player pool into account, I can imagine that the raise was justifiable.

Funny you should ask... yes, I will be going to the pool right now. Let's get that Gold, 19:15 minutes are the time to beat for 800 meters.

I have also heard an update from Prim, who has lost her first match against the higher ranked opponent team after a tough battle. Unlucky, Prim, but best of luck in your next match!

Yes, the thing is with FLHE, everyone, even the fish tend to tighten up a lot when it comes to openraising UTG. But I might be wrong and maybe he was a bad player opening too loose. But for the AJs 3bet to be good, he has to be opening many Ax, Kx, QJ... but even vs casino random i would fold that AJs there i guess, cause they tend to be tight-aggressive in that position in my experience. But i might be too careful and conservative.

Originally posted by taavi1337
Yes, the thing is with FLHE, everyone, even the fish tend to tighten up a lot when it comes to openraising UTG. But I might be wrong and maybe he was a bad player opening too loose. But for the AJs 3bet to be good, he has to be opening many Ax, Kx, QJ... but even vs casino random i would fold that AJs there i guess, cause they tend to be tight-aggressive in that position in my experience. But i might be too careful and conservative.

It was close decision for sure, I believe. But admittedly, I don't think I paid enough attention to my opponent's position. Then again, I remember a bunch of people sitting out during this tournament, if there were any at that table at this particular moment, it could drastically change the situation.

It is what it is. It will probably be a while until I play my next 8-Game, unless I give the daily or weekly satellites a shot. The standard 8-Game MTTs during my grinding time are either $1.10 (too little to be worth the time and effort) or $27 (way too high for me, especially when I am going through a bad stretch like this). The main lesson to take away from this hand for future tournaments, whenever they may be, is to pay closer attention to position.

800m Freestyle
Bronze: 28:50 minutes
Silver: 24:00 minutes
Gold: 19:15 minutes

Olympic Record (Long Course): 7:41.28 minutes by Mykhailo Romanchuk (UKR) at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, July 27th, 2021.
World Record (Long Course): 7:32.12 minutes by Zhang Lin (CHN) at the World Championships in Rome, July 29th, 2009.
World Record (Short Course): 7:20.46 minutes by Daniel Wiffen (IRL) at the European Championships in Otopeni, December 10th, 2023.
Trollympic Record: 20:30 minutes by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2023 Trollympics, June 29th, 2023.

Harrier's time: 24:26 minutes

The good news is that I managed to keep up the front crawl for the full 800 meters, which is something I haven't done before. The bad news is the time above...

Primrose was stunned by her time when she swam the 400m and 25m a week ago. I may have been equally stunned by my time today, but for the opposite reason. I immediately had to ask the pool attendant if he was sure that he counted all of my laps correctly. Over 24 minutes, not even a Silver...

I'm still kind of at a loss as I am typing this. Ever since I started hitting the pool again in January, preparing for my lifeguard badge and trying to take my swimming to the next level, I was certain that all I needed to do was to continue training to keep the crawl up as long as possible. I figured that even a casual front crawl would be considerably quicker than a fast-paced breast stroke. It looks like it's not quite as easy as that.

Again, last year's time of 20:30 minutes was achieved by mostly breast stroke swimming, only crawling for maybe six or eight lanes. I thought 32 lanes of non-stop crawling would take down the Gold for sure. Instead, I was almost a full four minutes slower... I still can't get over it. I am almost starting to suspect a timekeeping error during last year's attempt.

Well, I have no choice but to take this terrible time for now. The pool will be closed for two weeks now, and the track and field meetups will take an even longer break. I just have to try another time once the pool opens up again, reverting to mostly breast stroke swimming once more. I know that swimming was never my best sport, but I cannot let a performance like this stand. What an awful way to enter the break...

Harrier's "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
10,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Silver
800 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): Bronze
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Gold
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Gold
Shotput (Strength): Silver
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): Silver
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Silver
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Gold

Primrose's "Medal Table":
400 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): Gold
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): Gold

Harrier's Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (3,000 Meter Run) - 3 points
Strength: Gold (Medicine Ball Throw) - 3 points
Speed: Silver (25 Meter Freestyle) - 2 points
Coordination: Gold (Coordination) - 3 points

11 points in total, 11 points are required for Gold.

Primrose's Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (400 Meter Freestyle) - 3 points
Strength: -
Speed: Gold (25 Meter Freestyle) - 3 points
Coordination: -

6 points in total, 11 points are required for Gold.

Trolland Garros - better than expected!

This time our Troll Open went pretty much as expected, a little bit better though. In the first match we didn´t have much chance, but we would keep up with those strong Villains! We had many interesting points, we fought hard and we did not completely go under. The first set was close with a 4:6 loss and the second set well....was a bit clearer with 2:6 but we played well. Today, especially Homer was in his best shape and I haven´t seen him playing such solid, good tennis before! Bravo, Homer! Big shoutout!

The second Villains, who we expected to be beatable indeed were! This was a clear win for us with 6:2, 6:2! That one was better than expected, we thought that the match is going to be very close, on razors edge, so, our performance was better than we had thought.

Anyway, we are happy with our today´s performance and could indeed improve our rankings! :f_biggrin::f_thumbsup: Both matches were BIG FUN, cool, interesting and fair. Shoutout to both of our "Villains" for those cool games!

Well done in the tennis, Prim!

I didn't feel like playing poker after that swimming disaster in the afternoon, but tomorrow, we should be back with more MicroMillions. The NL Five Card Draw will start at 18:35 CET, and I definitely intend to join. Two years ago, I had what I believe was my first and only MicroMillions final table in a tournament just like this. I could sure use another run along these lines - but any cash would be a nice first step.

Other than that, the scheduled sports will enter a break, too bad I couldn't end them on a high note. The pushups will continue and have in fact continued this whole time, I just didn't post about them because I didn't take any shots at the 100. Tomorrow, I might. We should also get back to running soon, with some brand new challenges.

It's a bit of a rough stretch on all fronts, let's see what we can do about it. Meanwhile, I have a new cooking challenge for the grindette, in time for the new week:

Something with a toothpick on it

Yeah, go nuts - just make sure that a toothpick is involved, somehow.

Feel free to come up with a new challenge for me too, even though I still have to deal with last week's...

...for the little ones!

Thank you very much, Harrier! And I do not have a CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK for you, but little Lemmy Koopa has:

Prepare a meal for the "little ones", something, a 3-5 year old child would eat without complaining, without throwing a tantrum! :f_biggrin::f_ugly: You know, the thing is: As we harvested a lot of veggies, little Lemmy has been throwing big tantrums when it came to eating his veggies. So then: Prepare something little Lemmy would love to eat!

Originally posted by Primrose6789
Prepare a meal of the "little ones", something, a 3-5 year old child would eat without complaining, without throwing a tantrum! :f_biggrin::f_ugly: You know, the thing is: As we harvested a lot of veggies, little Lemmy has been throwing big tantrums when it came to eat his veggies. So then: Prepare something little Lemmy would love to eat!

That should be no problem, I believe. I just wish I had known about this before I did this week's groceries... At least I picked up some mushrooms for the soup, though.

Weekly Best: 94 reps

So I went for the 100 after all today... and got surprisingly close, after my previous best attempt from a month or so ago only got to 80, and most attempts failed somewhere in the 70's. Obviously, I wanted to go all the way after getting so far, but I physically couldn't handle anything beyond the 94th rep. I imagine we should have a real good shot at it next week.

Until then, I will keep up the standard workout of six sets of 42 reps each, three times per week. Maybe I will switch to the next row midway through this week, I have repeated the current one several times now.

My MicroMillions Five Card Draw run is over now, we finished in 20th place:

It was a bit of a slow start, and I found myself losing interest shortly before the first hour had passed... until I picked up this hand:

PokerStars, $4.90 + $0.60 - 5 Card Draw No Limit - 250/500 (60 ante) - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 22,246 (44 bb)
MP: 18,443 (37 bb)
CO: 4,641 (9 bb)
BU: 9,130 (18 bb)
SB: 8,103 (16 bb)
BB (Hero): 8,871 (18 bb)

Deal: (1,110) Hero is BB with T♦ J♦ J♠ 7♥ J♣
3 players fold, BTN raises to 2,110, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to 8,811 (all-in), BTN calls 6,701

Draw One: (18,232) J♦ J♠ 7♥ J♣ 4♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)
BB (Hero) draws Td, BU draws 3

Total pot: 18,232

Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows J♦ J♠ 7♥ J♣ 4♥ (three of a kind, Jacks)
BU shows 9♥ 9♠ T♠ J♥ K♦ (a pair of Nines)
BB (Hero) wins 18,232

And just a few hands later, this one made sure that I stayed interested:

PokerStars, $4.90 + $0.60 - 5 Card Draw No Limit - 500/1,000 (125 ante) - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 66,749 (67 bb)
MP: 24,077 (24 bb)
CO: 24,793 (25 bb)
BU (Hero): 40,948 (41 bb)
SB: 21,629 (22 bb)
BB: 29,629 (30 bb)

Deal: (2,250) Hero is BTN with T♠ Q♣ T♥ T♣ 9♦
UTG raises to 2,800, 1 fold, CO 3-bets to 6,600, Hero calls 6,600, 2 players fold, UTG calls 3,800

Draw One: (22,050) T♠ T♥ T♣ 9♦ 9♠ (3 players)
UTG draws 3, CO stands pat, BU (Hero) draws Qc
UTG checks, CO bets 8,525, Hero raises to 20,000, 2 players fold

Total pot: 39,100
BU (Hero) wins 39,100

There were a few more nice ones, I even picked up quads at one point late in the tournament, though I only got a predraw 3-bet called with it. But these two hands were what got the game rolling for me, I believe.

Hopefully, this little win can get something rolling in the overall tournament grind for me too.

Although I focus on shaping my garden setup, still managed to harvest about 40 garlic bulbs

Also, the 10 blueberry plants adds a lot of vitamins to our diet ♦

Young leek is growin good and already eat some salat out of my open green rooms.

Love fresh, not-polluted food!