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

Don't worry, we'll get back to poker updates very soon. But today, for another minor sporting update, I decided to explore the new opportunity that presented itself to me at last Monday's Trollympics meetup and get my own skipping rope.

It's one of those so-called "beaded ropes", with little plastic parts around it. Allegedly, they are a little easier for beginners because the rope is supposed to travel more slowly. The downside is that you shouldn't use it on hard surfaces like tarmac or concrete, or you may risk breaking the plastic.

I guess I can keep practicing at home now, even though I don't seem to be all that physically fit in general this week - not sure why.

Again, for the Trollympics, I would have to do those "criss cross" jumps, which aren't easy. I doubt that I will improve enough to succeed in that event, but maybe I can at least improve to the point where I can include rope skipping as a part of my exercise routine, which could bring many benefits.

Success - we're in the Boogie! But it wasn't pretty...

I'm not sure if the dynamics of those satties are right for me, really. Doesn't matter, it worked out today. Let's try to get some cold, hard cash later.

Pretty underwhelming stuff in the Boogie. As you can see from the chip graph, the first hour or so was mostly a snore fest. Things eventually heated up, but I think I let some frustrating hands throw me off - situations where your opponent keeps calling while drawing two and outdraws you at the very end, where you have to decide which suit to discard and find out that the other one would have giving you a monster, hitting the right suit but just one "pip" off (i.e. it pairs up)... and then getting choruses of folds when you do have something good.

It's all so standard that I shouldn't even write about it, but today, I think it did throw me off in a couple of decisive hands. Maybe the long grind has left its toll, with the satties and all. Also fatigue.

I did have a clutch hand myself, nailing a 5-Badugi in a three-way pot and collecting a $5 bounty for it, essentially turning the whole adventure into a freeroll. At the same time, it makes it only more frustrating that I didn't capitalize on it.

Anyway, we're done. 8-Game tomorrow?

I did play the MicroMillions 8-Game, and the big problem with this game can still be summed up in four letters: Razz.

But look, Prim: I can pick up some good Omaha hands too, and win stacks with them:

PokerStars, $1.96 + $0.24 - Omaha Pot Limit (8-Game) - 150/300 (40 ante) - 6 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 16,864 (56 bb)
MP: 26,190 (87 bb)
CO: 7,025 (23 bb)
BU (Hero): 12,049 (40 bb)
SB: 22,564 (75 bb)
BB: 7,594 (25 bb)

Pre-Flop: (690) Hero is BTN with A♥ A♦ K♥ 6♦
1 fold, MP calls 300, 1 fold, Hero raises to 900, 1 fold, BB calls 600, MP calls 600

Flop: (3,090) A♠ Q♥ 8♣ (3 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero bets 1,545, BB raises to 6,654 (all-in), MP folds, Hero calls 5,109

Turn: (16,398) Q♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (16,398) 4♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: 16,398

Showdown:
BB shows T♠ 7♥ J♠ 5♠ (a pair of Queens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 38%, Flop: 26%, Turn: 3%, River: 0%)

BU (Hero) shows A♥ A♦ K♥ 6♦ (a full house, Aces full of Queens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 62%, Flop: 74%, Turn: 98%, River: 100%)

BU (Hero) wins 16,398

I didn't even know until I regged that this was a PKO, which means that I picked up a small bounty in the hand above. It was the only cash I could get out of this tournament, however.

Badugi was the opposite story, where I secured a 5th place finish worth $9.13, but without any bounties.

Tomorrow's MicroMillions event is 2-7 Triple Draw, I plan to play it.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Tomorrow's MicroMillions event is 2-7 Triple Draw, I plan to play it.

I wish I could, but I'm busy all week

A little bit "unprofessional" but ....

it helped! Well: How do you deal with long card-dead phases, with plenty of missed flops and the looooooooong waiting for a solid hand? Bowser jr., Wendy and I decided to watch movies while waiting for something solid. :f_biggrin::f_ugly: We played lots of "Free to play" freerolls and of course all those little freerolls on 888. As you can already guess: variance was not exactly on our side (which is part of statistics, of course). To be honest: When the "dark side" of statistics hits you, poker can become a bit boring. We kept in mind, that it´s not about winning in every session, but winning on the long run! And that means: playing lots and lots of hands (correctly, of course!) and get through the "less interesting" phases. As freerolls are full of fun-players, many of them not having a fold-button or just feeling like "gambling" for fun, all you have to do is wait patiently for a solid hand and value bet. Against some fun-players you can even value-bet big, because - as said - they seem to have no fold-button. :f_biggrin::f_ugly:

Yesterday was pretty much all about passing the time until something good finds its way into our hand... It was ALL about staying patient. For that purpose, we decided: Anything goes! Even watching movies! :f_biggrin::f_thumbsup:

And we had indeed a little success: two 0,55 $ satty tickets won and a couple of cents won by Wendy.

Better than nothing, right?

Great stats, I'm +140€ this year in poker, gogogo!

Didn't do very well in the MicroMillions Triple Draw, though it didn't look too bad at times.

I can pick up good cards like everyone else and push them when I'm ahead, but I noticed my knowledge is still lacking in many standard spots, Therefore, it is probably better if I ignore this format from now on. I prefer to give Single Draw another chance instead.

Badugi was more of a disappointment, as the chip graph suggests. You can see that I had a good early lead, but then had to settle for a mincash, though at least with decent bounties.

In my defense, the exit hand was a big cooler where there was nothing I could do, it was a good push for sure.

NL Five Card Draw tomorrow in the MicroMillions, and I would normally be very interested in playing it, but I think I will skip. For starters, I will be at another Trollympic meetup tomorrow afternoon, which usually isn't a big problem for poker, but I have other plans too. My mother is turning 70, so I plan to join her for a nice dinner - even if it's just takeout. It's not completely decided yet, but I will surely spend some quality time with her on such a special day. I should still be able to join the Badugi later that night.

100 Meter Dash (Speed)
Bronze: 17.6 seconds
Silver: 15.9 seconds
Gold: 14.2 seconds

Olympic Record: 9.63 seconds by Usain Bolt (JAM) at the 2012 London Olympics, August 5th, 2012.
World Record: 9.58 seconds by Usain Bolt (JAM) at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin, August 16th, 2009.
Trollympic Record: 13.75 seconds by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2024 Trollympics, September 2nd, 2024.

Harrier's time: 14.69 seconds

Still couldn't quite manage to channel Sonic the Hedgehog this year yet. A marginal improvement over last month's abysmal 14.96 seconds, but a fair bit away from Gold, let alone last year's PB.

Once again, there were loads of young Trollympians to attend to, so there was not a lot of time, and the 100m dash was the only event I could do today. No new shot at the sling ball throw either, where I need to improve. Strangely, it seems like 25m freestyle swimming may suddenly be my best bet for Speed this year.

Honestly, though... an overall Gold ranking is starting to look questionable in the 2025 Trollympics. I don't necessarily have to improve in Speed, but if I don't, I will definitely have to get Gold in Coordination, where I am still at Bronze at the moment. Only about one month to go now... at least it keeps things a little more suspenseful than last year, where Gold was locked up fairly quickly.

We will get another shot next week, probably focusing on Coordination. And you know what? We are going to introduce high jump as a new event for the first time in the Trollympics, under the supervision of none other than Olena Holosha, who competed in the 2012 London Olympics for Ukraine, and even won Bronze that year in the European Championships.

Yes, she is now coaching some kids at my club. Pretty cool, right? She was at the Trollympic stadium today, so we talked to her about it, and she graciously agreed to let us join in next Monday, even though she originally had other plans.

Her all-time PB in high jump is 1.96 meters according to her World Athletics profile. For me, 1.45 meters will thankfully suffice for Gold, or 1.35 meters for Silver. I have no idea if I can pull off a decent high jump at all, frankly, let alone clear any of those heights, but let's see. Maybe Miss Holosha may even have some pointers for me.

Our Trollympic progress remains unchanged for now, in any case.

New "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Silver
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Gold
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Silver
25m Freestyle (Speed): Silver
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Bronze

Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (3,000 Meter Run) - 3 points
Strength: Gold (Standing Long Jump) - 3 points
Speed: Silver (100 Meter Dash) - 2 points
Coordination: Bronze (Sling Ball Throw) - 1 point

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

Free Beer!

It may not help me run like Sonic, but he approves of the free 5 liter keg of beer that my employer gave away today - because we had a pallet of it and the beer just reached its expiration date.

I'm sure I will find a way to use it up. I did not find any time for poker tonight, however. Doesn't matter - the MicroMillions Badugi event is tomorrow, that one is more important.

And for another minor Trollympics update, I am aware that "gymnastics" is also a possible event for Strength, Speed and Coordination, the latter of which being the area where I need to improve the most. The events differ wildly depending not only on which of these three areas you pick, and also on your age group. It wasn't all that easy to find, but I had a look, and this is what I would have to do for Coordination - keep in mind that I would need to get at least Silver in order to improve:

I couldn't quite make sense of the pictures first, but if I understand the instructions correctly, we would form a line with up to four of... whatever those things are:

Then I would have to sit on it with my legs stretched out, do a backward roll while staying on those boxes and land elegantly in a crouched position on a pile of mats behind me. For Silver, the pile would be on an even level with the boxes, for Gold, it would be about 20cm higher.

Sounds... doable? I gave it a try on my bedroom floor, but there was too much stuff that I was worried about knocking over.

I know, I know... we'll get back to poker tomorrow, don't worry.

What a dud the MicroMillions Badugi was...

Early on, I had all of my high Badugis beaten by draws at the last moment, and eventually had to rebuy. This time, one of my hands held and got me a good pot and a minimal bounty, but that was I got. The cards didn't really come my way this time.

The regular Badugi later on didn't go one bit better, and bricked completely. So did last Monday's game. It sometimes seems like both the good and the bad results come in streaks.

Pretty lousy day at the tables. The MicroMillions may be over for me now too, the only event I still consider playing would be the 6-Card Omaha on Saturday. I don't see myself having much of a chance there, but maybe it will be interesting enough.

Free beer? You've got my attention

Originally posted by Zeezout
Free beer? You've got my attention
Well, I would gladly share some with you guys. The full keg is still in my basement fridge.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Well, I would gladly share some with you guys. The full keg is still in my basement fridge.

I'll raise a glass in solidarity with your keg at my earliest opportunity!

25m Freestyle (Speed)

Bronze: 35.00 seconds
Silver: 26.50 seconds
Gold: 18.50 seconds

Not an Olympic event.
Olympic Record for 50m Freestyle: 21.07 seconds by Caeleb Dressel (USA) at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, August 1st, 2021.
World Record for 50m Freestyle: 19.90 seconds by Jordan Crooks (CYM) at the World Aquatics Swimming Championships in Budapest, December 14th, 2024.
Trollympic Record: 18.81 seconds by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2025 Trollympics, August 13th, 2025.

Harrier's time: 17.70 seconds
NEW TROLLYMPIC RECORD!

17.70!

17.70? I could hardly believe it myself. I was very pleased with my last time of 18.81, which I assumed to be a fluke to a certain degree. I didn't expect any substantial improvements beyond maybe a few tenths of a seconds, hoping that it would be barely enough for Gold. I certainly didn't expect to improve by more than an entire second.

The pool attendant who took my time seemed a little young and inexperienced, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there has been a timekeeping error. Either way, it's the official time now, and timekeeping errors can happen in both directions. Oh, and Primrose was visiting. She saw me swim, and confirmed that my technique was quite good. So yes, 17.70 it is. This marks my first Gold in any kind of aquatic event ever since I started with the Trollympics in 2023. A huge success.

Not only that, but while Gold overall is not guaranteed yet, it should now be pretty easy. All I need to do is to improve to at least Silver in any kind of coordination event. It should be easy enough with the sling ball throw already, provided that I can finally throw that damn thing straight again, and we also plan to do high jump with a former Olympic contestant next Monday, as I mentioned earlier this week. And if all else fails, there is still gymnastics.

After the general lack of success this week in both poker and athletics, this result seemed like a breath of fresh air.

New "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Silver
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Gold
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Silver
25m Freestyle (Speed): Gold
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Bronze

Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (3,000 Meter Run) - 3 points
Strength: Gold (Standing Long Jump) - 3 points
Speed: Gold (25m Freestyle) - 3 points
Coordination: Bronze (Sling Ball Throw) - 1 point

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

Applied Mathematics - The Finale

Here we are, right on Harrier's roof...

...and we are at work again, trying to finish our project with the trigonometry-based rain shelter for the balcony.

It took a while, but we got it done in the end. Here it is:

Looks like sine, cosine and tangent did come in handy in a real-life setting - even if I had to look up again how exactly those functions work.

And guess what, it was raining for a short time later today, and the shelter seems to work fine. It remains to be seen how it will fare in stronger wind, especially when the wind is blowing towards this side of the house, but for now, everything is good, the balcony floor stayed nice and dry.

So we can finally say goodbye to our previous makeshift contraption.

This makes the balcony usable again. Looking forward to my next meetup with Prim - maybe we can sip some hot drinks on there already.

The MicroMillions have come to a close, as far as my games are concerned, and frankly, not a moment too soon. I think my only success was the mincash in Triple Draw. It wasn't a very focused grind at all, maybe it can be considered symptomatic for how I was often playing those MTTs in general lately.

We should soon see more about this, because the month is coming to an end as well, so there will be more stats. I can already tell that not everything was bad, but especially with the MicroMillions being part of the equation, I think we could look into some more stats than just plain results, and see what implications they could have for the future grind. I'm not even sure yet if I am going to play tonight, but I will probably start working on the stats tomorrow.

In general, however, I expect the grind to pick up, now that summer is slowly coming to a close - also not a moment too soon, in my opinion, it wasn't that great for me. I will still have a major challenge to wrap up with the Trollympics, but like I said in my last post about it, I expect Gold to be easy now that 25m Freestyle swimming has been successfully locked up as my Speed event. All I need is another Silver in Coordination, and I should now also be more flexible for other events, trying to get some PBs.

Oh, and this arrived with some kind of magazine today - looks like McDonald's just had a similar idea as I did with the Burgers Around the World series on our old blog. Fair enough, it was in part supposed to be a parody of sorts for exactly those kinds of campaigns.

In fact, I even planned to do a version based on Philly Cheese Steak, but had trouble getting my hands on some of the ingredients that would have made it stand out compared to a regular cheese burger. Not sure why they seem to consider it a "UK" burger, though. Or why their Malaysia-inspired burger is called "Chicken Samurai".

Anyway, I think we are mostly going to tie up some loose ends in the next few weeks before we're ready for fall, and a crushing MTT grind.

Better than nothing ....

Our weekend freeroll- and MTT-session was pretty unspectacular... mostly being card-dead, getting it in good, loosing the hand anyway, some coolers, some f*ed up hands but mostly lots and lots of junk. Bowser jr. won us a 0,11 $ ticket in a Free to play, Wendy won a couple of cents, Baby Peach f*ed up her PLO8 - guess she was still too exhaused from her GREAT 3rd place in Mario Kart on Friday? :f_wink::f_biggrin::f_ugly:

The mental game went so-so....today, we can report again a little ITM, but somehow, after loosing most of our all-in situations, we decided that it is best to do something else ... Just didn´t feel like playing anymore, but hey, there was some tiny little winnings: better than nothing, right?

Sling Ball Throw (1 kg) (Coordination)
Bronze: 28.50m
Silver: 33.50m
Gold: 38.50m

Not an Olympic event.
World Record (2kg): 86.92m by Alwin Wagner (GER) on August 21st, 1982.
Trollympic Record: 39.10m by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2023 Trollympics, July 10th, 2023.

Harrier's distance: 35.50m

That's more like it - certainly much better that the nonsense from two weeks ago.

No wonder - I've been doing it wrong! I've had a look through that little book that contains all the possible gymnastics exercises, and it also had pointers on the other events. Here's what it said about the grip... and it turned out that I was holding it like in the left picture:

I'm supposed to grab it with only two or three fingers, not the entire hand. No wonder it kept veering off to the side last time.

Anyway, I didn't do a lot of attempts, because we had another determined contestant, but I got a safe Silver distance of 35.50 meters, at least. With this, I am happy to announce that Gold overall is now officially locked up! We can't lose it anymore, no matter what happens. Wouldn't it be nice to get "full marks", though. 12/12 points?

High Jump (Coordination)
Bronze: 1.25 meters
Silver: 1.35 meters
Gold: 1.45 meters

Olympic Record: 2.39m by Charles Austin (USA) at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, July 28th, 1996.
World Record: 2.45m by Javier Sotomayor (CUB) at the Gran Premio Diputación in Salamanca, July 27th, 1993.
Trollympic Debut!

Harrier's best clearance: 1.10m

Hey, don't laugh! I was actually starting with the Bronze height of 1.25m right away, but while some attempts were better than others, none quite made it yet. I quickly realized that I first needed to develop a feel for the technique - and so did Ms Olena Holosha, who was overseeing our attempts. She went on to set the bar to an embarrassingly low 1.00 meter, at least I could clear that one (though not on my first attempt either, I believe). My Fosbury flop left a lot to be desired - I may even have been better off with a "normal" jump.

Did you know that Dick Fosbury passed away two years ago, at the age of 76? You'd think he would have died of shame if he had seen how badly I butchered his revolutionary technique. The first obstacle was figuring out which leg to use for my jump.

Despite the language barrier, Ms Olosha had some helpful pointers, but I couldn't yet improve to any height that would at least earn Bronze, best I could clear so far was 1.10m. It should be noted that we did all of this while she was coaching the young girls from her athletics group, who needed to set the bar even lower, so we typically only got one or two attempts before having to take a longer break, which was a little frustrating with so much new stuff to pick up on.

Honestly, this may not be my kind of event, but we will probably try again next Monday, with a little more time.

New "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Silver
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Gold
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Silver
25m Freestyle (Speed): Gold
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Silver

Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (3,000 Meter Run) - 3 points
Strength: Gold (Standing Long Jump) - 3 points
Speed: Gold (25m Freestyle) - 3 points
Coordination: Silver (Sling Ball Throw) - 2 points

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

Trollympics 2025 Result: Gold

I know that you guys care about poker, not sports, but unfortunately, I didn't get to work on my stats yet. Whether they will be ready by that time or not, I plan to play the games on Friday, at least. Until then, I expect it will be mostly "off topic" updates, I hope you don't mind.

For example, check out what I got in karate practice yesterday:

It's my official karate passport, which I will now be required to bring to all official events, like belt graduation exams.

Look, it already includes the exams I did so far, even that "white belt exam" from the end of my beginner's crash course. I thought back then that it was a mostly "symbolic" exam, to prepare us for the real exams at later points. Apparently, though, it was the real deal already. And by now, it's almost hard to believe that it was only last year, it seems like it was so much longer ago.

Plenty of space for the dan ranks too... I have my doubts that we will ever get there. But who knows...

It goes up all the way to the 9th dan, the very rare 10th dan goes beyond the scope of this document, I suppose. Looks like there is a "Junior dan" too. Not sure if it even refers to age, but I expect I'm too old for that stuff either way.

Suspensions would go here... but what would I ever do to deserve that?

Well, it looks quite nifty, don't you think?