Originally posted by Zeezout
Looking good Prim!
Thank you, Zeezout! Hope it´s gonna look even better, when hopefully ALL of the seed will germinate. 
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Coming up .......a different kind of "MTT"
Homer and I actually wanted to compete both in single´s: Homer registered to a men´s 50plus single´s competition, at the same time I registered to a women´s single´s competition on the same event. Well, but while I got in, Homer did not and was put on the waiting list! Bummer! So, we decided to unsub there and play a mixed double´s 50 plus tournament instead! It was a pretty spontaneous decision but here´s the thing: There are very few competitions out there - well, at least more or less close to our place. 
There´s not much to play .... but this one! It´s not close to our place but at acceptable distance. This and another mixed double´s 50 plus in two weeks are our only chances in February to compete in tennis together. Near our place, the tournament organizers decided that they split men´s and women´s singles to different events, so that Homer and I have no chance to play in the same tournament! That suxx! Because we are eager to play!
Okay, so we registered to this mixed double´s 50 plus competition, which will take place in the night! Yes, it´s gonna be a tennis night! REALLY something VERY different, but I´m sure we will have lots and lots of fun (and hopefully we will win our matches).
I see this tournament may even be within driving distance from my place. 
Would be very cool to watch you, though the fact that it's a night time tournament complicates matters a little. Maybe I will be able to stop by for at least one of your matches. I'd love to see you in action on the court some time. 
Originally posted by Harrier88
I see this tournament may even be within driving distance from my place.You are VERY welcome, my friend! Anytime!
At the moment we neither know our Troll-Villains nor our schedule. So, let´s wait and see.....
Originally posted by Primrose6789
Okay, so we registered to this mixed double´s 50 plus competition, which will take place in the night! Yes, it´s gonna be a tennis night! REALLY something VERY different, but I´m sure we will have lots and lots of fun (and hopefully we will win our matches).
That sounds really exciting!
A smashing racket even!
Pre-match thoughts
Okay, we got our competition schedule, we got our Villains and unfortunately in match number 1 we get exactly those Villains who I absolutely did not wanna get, I hoped that we do not have to play against them! I´m sure they are absolutely lovely nice people, but here´s the point: Trolls number 1 is the couple with the best ranked man! 
Oh dear! In mixed doubles it´s very often the man who is the key factor! The woman seems to be beatable, but the man is four rankings above me and eight rankings above Homer! Yes, Homer has a lower ranking than me, because I use to compete a bit more than him and last year he was pretty unlucky with his Villains in men´s singles - he got a couple of "Super Men" and couldn´t win those matches of course.
Match number one: Here we are with an apperantly strong, solid playing man and a beatable women. The question will be, whether we will be able to avoid the man as often as possible during the game and mostly hit the balls to the woman? (Poor woman, haha! 
) Homer and I play pretty much at the same level, we both have our strengths Homer is an incredible volley-player, while volleys are not exactly my strongest point, while servings and returns are my forte, Homer is definitely better, when it comes to playing at the net. So, let´s see how well we can use our strong points against them and how they -especially the man - will respond to our game. We will see tomorrow....
Match number two should be fine - those Villains should be beatable, unless fatigue creeps in!
I personally may encounter some challenges tomorrow:
1) Mother nature aka "girly time" (nope, not in menopause yet and very problably it´s gonna be "girly time" tomorrow :rage::rage::rage::rage: )*
2) Already two intense Crossfit-HIIT (high intensity interval training)-sessions behind me this week**
3) As we have tennis practice tomorrow at noon, fatigue could creep in later in the evening ...
*A good excuse if we loose :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:
** So, another lame excuse :f_ugly::f_ugly:
Normally, I'm the one who does those kinds of analyses, but it looks like Prim is quite excited about her matches already. Unfortunately, I won't be able to come this time, they are kind of in awkward time slots, but I heard she intends to play in a very similar tournament a few weeks later, maybe I can come watch those.
Sorry for the lack of poker updates, I think the sniffles threw off my sleep schedule a little. I intend to get back this weekend, and then ideally keep up a good grind from that point on. I'm still not sure what to pick as a side game to Badugi, but if everything fails, I will just play that one game, it's better than nothing.
While we are wishing Primrose the best of luck on her busy day, the "side game" question continues for me. I gave Stud Hi-Lo one final chance yesterday, but I still think that it is not a good choice based on the time slot and my skills in it. PLO8 seems like a slightly better option, yet I don't see myself beating this format either. If anything, I would be more willing to give Courchevel Hi-Lo a shot, which doesn't have any good tournaments around that time.
8-Game has a similar problem. I would like to get back into it, but certainly not for $27 per game, which is the only available option for me in the evening. If I am going for this format, I guess the satellites to the daily (Mini) Octopus are my best bet, though they are at a similar time slot as Stud Hi-Lo, and thus have the same problems. It could be an option for certain days.
Aside from that, I only really see Five Card Draw as a possible option. Again, much like with Stud Hi-Lo, just because I shipped MTTs in the past doesn't mean that I am good at the game, I am still skeptical about the long-term potential. Still, this is at least another format that I may be willing to give another chance, though the one game I recently played was not a great advertisement for it.
Time to beat: 26:45 Minutes
Current PB: 29:09 Minutes
Today's Time: 30:48 Minutes
Not bad, after recovering from sickness. I even managed to beat my post-Christmas time of 31:28. I guess sub-30 would be a more realistic goal for now than the 26:45 I still have as my official target time, but I will stick to it, we should get below 30 minutes soon enough if I find more time for jogging.
Big fun and brutal fatigue
Our yesterdays Troll Open was big fun! Playing tennis in the night - hey, why not? 
We enjoyed our matches a lot, and after two hard Crossfit-workouts this week, plus an hour tennis practice yesterday at noon, I somehow managed to still compete and play 3 hours of tennis! Already at the beginning of our first match, I noticed that I was brutally tired! And it turned out that Villains were REALLY good! Especially the man: We encountered a highly sporty couple 60 plus, with a 1,85 m tall man and a REALLY solid player! We fought, we gave our best, we gave everything, but after 2 hours of fighting, it was a close loss with 4:6, 4:6. But the game was really big fun, it was a close, interesting game we enjoyed a lot. Well, it was of course not my A-tennis at all, I made a lot of stupid mistakes, which I normally don´t make! :facepalm::rage: So, the combination of fatigue and good, solid Villains lead to a close loss. Well, that´s okay.
Then, I was super happy, that the second match was quite easy. Villains were not so strong and all we had to do is playing clean tennis! We mostly succeeded, because interestingly, the fatigue had gone away (thanks to the Adrenaline rush)! The second match was a clear win with 6:1, 6:2.
We´re quite happy with the results but not so happy with our performance. After the matches I said to Homer that I had played the worst tennis ever in a competition! :f_biggrin::f_ugly: Fortunately, it was good enough for one win! :f_biggrin::f_ugly:
Originally posted by Primrose6789
We´re quite happy with the results but not so happy with our performance.
Congrats on the win, though. If you played "the worst tennis ever in a competition!" and still play 4:6 4:6 against powerful players you must have done OK.
So I did try a satellite for the Sunday Mini Octopus today, never really got anything going in there. What is more interesting, however, is the $4.40 Courchevel Hi-Lo I played on the side, now that I was playing around that time anyway.
I have had short term success in Courchevel before, I still mostly consider it a break-even game for me. It is interesting enough, however, so I would like to give it a chance if it was running at a better time. The way things are, these games will have to be something for special occasions instead. Sundays, possibly.
Badugi bricked, but we had some success in Five Card Draw too:
A final table, not bad. 
I am still not sure if ABC-poker is really enough to beat those tournaments, or if I need to explore some more creative moves. I suppose I should learn when to snow, at least. At one point this game, for example, I got two pat straights back to back and had people fold to me postdraw both times. If that's how it goes, I expect I should get away with the occasional snow too.
A combination of loose-aggressive opponents and a cold deck left me about to be blinded out at the final table. In my swan song hand, I at least received something, but I knew that I had to improve against three opponents.
When I didn't hit anything, I already knew that it was over, especially after one opponent put in a bet... or was it?
PokerStars, $3.92 + $0.48 - 5 Card Draw Pot Limit - 1,600/3,200 (800 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat
UTG: 12,618 (4 bb)
CO: 75,224 (24 bb)
BU: 65,413 (20 bb)
SB: 87,376 (27 bb)
BB (Hero): 2,369 (1 bb)
Deal: (7,169) Hero is BB with 8♦ A♥ J♥ J♦ 7♠
1 fold, CO calls 3,200, BTN calls 3,200, SB calls 1,600
Draw One: (15,169) J♥ J♦ Q♠ A♠ 9♥ (4 players, 1 all-in)
SB draws 3, BB (Hero) draws 8d Ah 7s, CO draws 3, BU draws 3
SB checks, CO bets 9,600, 2 players fold
Total pot: 15,169
Showdown:
CO shows 5♠ 5♣ T♥ 2♠ 7♥ (a pair of Fives)
BB (Hero) shows J♥ J♦ Q♠ A♠ 9♥ (a pair of Jacks)
CO wins 4,893
BB (Hero) wins 10,276
Well, it was enough to let me advance one more spot, at least. I even went on to catch some good hands and managed to build a decent stack again, at one point shortly surpassing the player with the highest bounty, but I couldn't get any further than that, after a failed bluff later on. I figured I should have had a tight if not nitty table image at that point, so I was a little surprised it was caught.
A few lucky MTT cashes will not make you a worthy shark - but you guys may remember that I embarked on another "Shark Quest" away from the tables last year, taking on a swimming challenge and passing my exam in December.
Today, my certificate finally arrived in the mail. ♠_thumbsup: It even came with a handwritten note, saying how difficult it was to even get access to one of them. Yes, I knew that it was a very obscure badge. But here it is - this document certifies that I am now officially a "Shark".
And we get another cool badge too. When I saw it in online pictures, I always thought that it looked a little silly, but it looks a lot better "in person".
Swimming may not be my strong sport, but as you can see, a little bit of effort and determination can still earn you some nice prizes over the years.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
congratulations!
For both the Shark badge and the MTT scores, I assume. Thank you very much!
Tonight was one of those sessions that first looked pretty bad, but eventually turned around, resulting in another Badugi FT. Unfortunately, an avoidable cooler prevented me from advancing any further. I was short, but I saw a decent chance of going all the way here.
We now have a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd place finish for our three Badugi cashes this year. In that order, even.
Originally posted by Harrier88
We now have a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd place finish for our three Badugi cashes this year. In that order, even.
at the risk of repeating myself...
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
congratulations!
The only poker since my last update was a single Badugi tournament which ended relatively early after two big coolers that I couldn't really do anything about. In general, it seems like I finally have my mojo back, so I hope we can see a few more nice cashes in the future.
I will continue to explore Five Card Draw as a side game, even though I am a little skeptical about it, and I may even give 2-7 SD a try, where I haven't really had any success at all so far whenever I had tried it. While this could mean that this is simply not my kind of format, it could also mean that it has a lot of untapped potential.
Until then, we will have a couple of non-poker updates here, which I hope you don't mind. Prim is grinding a few freerolls as we speak, however, so she might have something to add herself in a while.
Time to beat: 26:45 Minutes
Current PB: 29:09 Minutes
Today's Time: 30:41 Minutes
A marginal improvement of a couple of seconds compared to last week's time. Conditions may have been slightly worse, with passers-by towards the end of the track preventing an unimpeded final sprint, and me having met up with Prim the day before, where we had shared a few drinks.
So the time is okay for now, but I feel like I need to start making some bigger improvements. It is only a couple of months until the next "Trollympics", after all, where I will be asked to run 3 km in less than 15 minutes for Gold. Sure, it will be on a nice and even running track, in stark contrast to the hilly terrain I am currently running, but still...
Much like in the last two years, however, I have plans for some running challenges with a dedicated training schedule, which will probably get revealed in early spring, so I expect things to pick up from there.
Looking Beyond the Shark...
So I recently received my "Shark" swimming badge that I earned at the end of last year, and when Prim and I went to a public indoor pool together yesterday, she already commented on my improvements. In fact, in what could be considered a rematch of the previously failed Keeping Up With Prim mini-challenge we did two years ago, before I went for any of those badges, I managed to keep the pace with her across more than 1 km of swimming. I was kind of surprised that we even went for such a distance, I guess I am not used to those 50 m lanes. Prim wasn't really going all-out this time, and rarely crawled, but it's still something.
Once again, I have an idea for a big swimming challenge involving the two of us this summer, but until then, let's get back to the Shark badge one more time. Did you know that just like the other badges, it also comes in Silver and Gold versions? The only difference is that the Bronze version is called "Shark" instead this time. So what is required for the other ones?
Well, let's first look at the previous requirements again:
Shark
- 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
All right, we did that. What would be next?
Silver
- 100 meters of breaststroke swimming in under 1:55 minutes
- 100 meters of front crawling in under 1:40 minutes
- 100 meters of back crawling in under 1:50 minutes
- 100 meters of individual medley swimming (no time limit)
- 400 meters of freestyle swimming in under 10:00 minutes
- a head first dive from a height of 3 meters
- a front flip from a height of 1 meter
- dribbling a water polo ball for 25 meters in under 25 seconds
Remember medley swimming? It means alternating between butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle swimming, in that order, each for a quarter of the race.
Other than that, the requirements double the distance for each individual swimming test, while expecting you to at least keep the same pace or often even to pick up on it. You no longer get to choose between the two dives from the 1 meter and 3 meter boards, you need to do both of them. 400 m freestyle gets introduced with a time limit that won't be a problem for Prim, but may be one for less proficient swimmers. And even the water polo ball dribbling now gets a time limit at a pace of one meter per second, which I don't think is even a bad sprint distance pace for a beginner swimmer.
Gold
- 100 meters of breaststroke swimming in under 1:35 minutes (men) or 1:45 minutes (women)
- 100 meters of front crawling in under 1:20 minutes (men) or 1:30 minutes (women)
- 100 meters of back crawling in under 1:35 minutes (men) or 1:45 minutes (women)
- 50 meters of butterfly swimming in under 40 seconds (men) or 45 seconds (women)
- 400 meters of front crawling in under 7:00 minutes (men) or 8:00 minutes (women)
- a head first dive from a height of 3 meters
- a front flip from a height of 1 meter
- dribbling a water polo ball for 50 meters in under 1:00 minute
Mostly just stricter time limits, which have been pushed so much that they now need to introduce separate standards for men and women. A tightly timed short distance butterfly swimming test replaces the untimed individual medley, and the 400 m front crawling (previously freestyle) tightens up the time limit so much that not even Prim's excellent 8:38 minutes from last year would be enough anymore. Water polo ball dribbling doubles the distance, while at least being a bit more lenient with the pace.
That's what lies beyond the Shark. The question, of course, is whether I would ever attempt to go for those other two badges, and the answer is most likely not. The reason is simple - I barely made the Shark badge last year after several attempts and weeks, if not months of dedicated practice. You can see how much tougher the badges get with each additional step, I just don't think it's realistic, not to mention that I am probably too old to make such massive improvements now.
Of course, I will continue to go swimming on my own every now and then, and continue to time myself. If I ever improve to a point were these guidelines could get somewhere within reach, maybe I will reconsider. But as far as I am concerned, this quest is over. I just wanted to show you guys what it still out there.
A nice meetup and a mini-success
Another sporty week lies also behind me and yesterday, Harrier and I, again, had one of our "legendary" live meet-ups! 
We went swimming and this Shark-badge really showed! As I haven´t been regularly to the swimming pool for quite a while (because ours nearby was closed from September 2024 until last week), I just swam 1 km. And Harrier kept up like he never did! I could see GREAT progress and have to say: Good job, my friend! Keep up the good work! ♠_thumbsup:
Afterwards I tried KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for the first time in my life!! It was really delicous and THE perfect meal for a "cheat day". :f_biggrin::f_wink: Then it was time to come to the REALLY important things: MARIO GAMES! :f_ugly::f_ugly: Well, I like them a lot, to be honest. 
We finally finished Super Mario Bros, we defeated this big bad guy here:
and freed Princess Peach! Yaaay! ♠_biggrin:
Just let´s hope he´s not gonna spit fire on our beloved chilis, he still looks pretty p*ssed off. ♠_ugly:♠_ugly:♠_ugly:
In Mario Kart, there were three clear wins for Wendy O´Koopa (my character) and finally, an all-over 2nd place. Bravo, Wendy! ♠_biggrin:♠_thumbsup: The all-over winner was eventually Morton Koopa jr. (Harriers character)!!!
But Baby Peach (I also often choose her as my character) didn´t suck either! She did a great job and placed 5th in Mario Kart!
And she didn´t suck either at PLO today!! Baby Peach (my Nickname and chosen character on PartyPoker) managed to win us a ticket today in the "Free to play" PLO, but to be honest: I´m so exhausted from tennis & stuff, I decided afterwards to call it a day.
So, congrats to Baby Peach for this nice little ticket:
