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

Finally, I was able to get rid of the throwing rings I got... and as I feared, it turned out that one of the examiners had the same idea, and got an entire package of them. I still donated mine, they are bigger and a little lighter. Maybe they will eventually save some kid who was a few meters off their Gold distance.

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

My throws veered off to the side again - mostly to the right side this time, oddly. Normally, the problem is letting go of them too late, making them fly off to the left instead.

Best throw today, which did curve slightly left, was measured at 35.50m, so it was at the exact same distance I had last time. Getting a straight shot may have improved it, but the way things are, we are still at Silver.

Medicine Ball Throw (2kg) (Strength)
Bronze: 9.50m
Silver: 12.50m
Gold: 14.00m

Not an Olympic event.
No known world records.
Trollympic Record: 14.60m by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2024 Trollympics, June 17th, 2024.

Harrier's distance: 14.60m

I don't need the medicine ball throw anymore, but one of my lifeguard pals showed up today and gave it a shot, so I joined in. I was pleased with my distance of 14.60m, expecting it to be a new Trollympic record. Turns out I only tied it once again... Oh well, it's technically another Gold.

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: 14.70 seconds

I didn't want to do a 100m dash at all... but once again, my lifeguard colleague wanted to go for it, I figured I might as well. I feel like I kind of missed the start, so it's not too surprising I didn't get a good time. Technically, it's just 0.01 seconds behind this year's best, so essentially the same time as before. A lot of "same old same old" today, don't you think? At least we get an inconsequential change in the "medal table":

New "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Gold
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.

Just one more meetup next Monday, and it should be the last one this year, giving me one more shot at 4/4 Golds. I also plan to do an 800m freestyle attempt, just for a PB improvement - but only one, this one will have to do. I heard that my fellow Trollympian will be on duty on Sunday the 28th, so this will be the day for it, I can practice a little until then.

It's settled, then - the Trollympics 2025 will officially end on Sunday in a week. Good thing we have Gold locked up overall, but there is still room for improvement. Let's give it my best shot, then I can finally welcome the season of fall and munch on baumkuchen at home on a Monday afternoon instead of getting talked into yet another subpar 100m dash attempt at the running track.

Yo!
So... I lied
Couldn't handle drinking without stacking fishes for bounties in WCOOP.
Got a big question though and I figured creating a new thread is worthless compared to asking here in this lively thread and FOR SURE better than asking stars support.
I qualified for Phase 2 in the $5 main PKO currently sitting pretty at top 25%.
If I win more qualifiers would I get more chips? And would I get the total bounties as if my bigger stack stacked off my shorter one? ChatGPT seems to think only the biggest of my stacks goes into Phase 2 and I get only the cashed bounties and the value of my shorter stack goes in thin air... but what does AI know, that seems ridiculous! Surely PokerStars couldn't be that big of fuckwits and blatantly steal from players! No, sir!

Originally posted by nsavov
I qualified for Phase 2 in the $5 main PKO currently sitting pretty at top 25%.
If I win more qualifiers would I get more chips? And would I get the total bounties as if my bigger stack stacked off my shorter one? ChatGPT seems to think only the biggest of my stacks goes into Phase 2 and I get only the cashed bounties and the value of my shorter stack goes in thin air... but what does AI know, that seems ridiculous! Surely PokerStars couldn't be that big of fuckwits and blatantly steal from players! No, sir!
I'm afraid I can't help with that, as I have no experience with multi-phase events. If I had ever played any at all, it must have been during my distant Hold'em playing days, and in this case, I highly doubt I ever qualified for a later phase - not to mention that the rules were likely different back then.

As we found out last weekend, however, we have some readers over here who know their stuff, so I hope that one of them will have a definite answer.

You MUST be hungry!

Didn't read any cooking or growing vedgies for a looooong time

Originally posted by Zeezout
You MUST be hungry!

Didn't read any cooking or growing vedgies for a looooong time
Funny that you mention it... just earlier at work, I was wondering whether it would be about time to bring one of the cooking series back on the blog, but then I figured that people might be annoyed by too much non-poker stuff. Honestly, it's about time I cook something decent again anyway, I often stuck to quick and easy meals these days.

I still get occasional gardening updates from Prim in private, so I'm sure she will have something to add later.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Funny that you mention it... just earlier at work, I was wondering whether it would be about time to bring one of the cooking series back on the blog, but then I figured that people might be annoyed by too much non-poker stuff. Honestly, it's about time I cook something decent again anyway, I often stuck to quick and easy meals these days.

Speaking for myself, variety is more likely to be keep people coming back, rather than turning them off.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by Harrier88
Funny that you mention it... just earlier at work, I was wondering whether it would be about time to bring one of the cooking series back on the blog, but then I figured that people might be annoyed by too much non-poker stuff. Honestly, it's about time I cook something decent again anyway, I often stuck to quick and easy meals these days.

Speaking for myself, variety is more likely to be keep people coming back, rather than turning them off.

Agree

True, and either way, I guess underwhelming content would be better than no content at all.

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll, btw. It seems like we have more readers over here than we thought, and the majority of them appear to be in favor of the stream. I have pretty much decided that I will go ahead with it, but it probably won't be until October, sorry about that. I will let you guys know when we are ready for the first stream, of course.

I think we can close the poll now. There is another issue that I would like to ask you guys about soon, but we will get to that in a week or two.

Since we are light on poker content at the moment and because I keep postponing the planned Twitch stream, let me take this moment to outline what I have in mind for the stream, currently planned to premiere in early to mid-October:

The content will be draw games (MTTs). Naturally, Badugi will be in it, but I also plan to add 2-7 Single Draw, for which I should practice already, and Five Card Draw. I didn't want to grind 5CD anymore, but it should make decent streaming content, and maybe I will even get the odd win to make it worthwhile.

I plan to stream weekly, and originally had Monday in mind, but Primrose objected - she usually has tennis practice on those days, and she would like to catch my stream too. Fair enough, I would like to have her in the chat as well. So I will probably stream on Wednesdays instead... at the risk that I may be caught literally falling asleep on stream a few times.

While I would love to have Prim as a co-host, I realize that this is not something she would throw herself into without preparation, so she will just chill with you guys in the chat, at least when we are starting out. I will do voice commentary, but don't plan to add a webcam yet - this may change. I figure a delay of 90 seconds should be appropriate to mitigate the risk of stream-sniping while maintaining decent interactivity.

What do you guys think so far?

Originally posted by Harrier88
What do you guys think so far?

I like Wednesdays as well.

I'd especially like to watch NL 5-Card Draw, since although I built a bankroll on FL 5-Card Draw, I suck at NL

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I'd especially like to watch NL 5-Card Draw, since although I built a bankroll on FL 5-Card Draw, I suck at NL

I have never been good at NL 5CD cash games either, though I didn't put a lot of effort into them. When I was watching you play these games on your stream, I usually thought you were doing all right.

Are FL 5CD cash games even a thing anymore? Even if they are, I remember the traffic for them dying long ago. It was fun while it lasted.

The 5CD MTTs I plan to play are PL, which is my preferred format for tournaments.

There was a PL Badugi WCOOP Side Event today? I noticed it by pure chance as I was about ready to register for my satties. Had a decent start too, earning me a $2.50 bounty, but a crippling cooler later on prevented me from getting any further returns on my $11 buy-in.

Bad luck in the satties too, especially the first one, where I doubled up within the first few hands, but failed to hold several times in a row in my later all-ins. I found myself starting to wonder if those satellites are even worth it at all, but assuming I want to play the target tournament, we are still on track, despite bad results recently. The tournament has a $22 buy-in, and my two satties add up to $5.50 per day, so I would only have to qualify once in four weeks to make it an equally viable choice compared to regging directly. So far, I qualified for the target MTT on three out of seven days.

You guys may have read on her other blog that Primrose will be leaving on vacation tomorrow. I hope she has a great one, and we may even still see some freerolls from her. Maybe I can pick up the slack too when it comes to poker, to keep things going while she is away, but there are still some other things left to do. Naturally, I will keep you guys updated.

It seems like I'm not in the best poker mindset at the moment, probably because I played so little these days. Tonight's game had me dropping two more buy-ins, and it's starting to look like predraw T-Badugis are becoming my unlucky hand, much like JJ for Primrose in Hold'em. Apart from the results, I found myself making the kinds of judgment errors that are common for me on a downswing. Not that we can speak of a downswing yet, with such a low amount of games.

Nevertheless, it's a slump to recover from. This can sometimes happen very quickly, possibly within a single game. Other times, it can continue for weeks or even months, and evolve into a real downswing. No point making predictions, it will be over when it's over.

There will be a few other things to take care of in the upcoming week. One of them is more of a medical issue. For more than a week, parts of my right hand have gone completely numb. The pinky finger is the most affected, but also the ring finger to a lesser degree, and parts of the edge of the hand and even the forearm. I contacted my doctor about it when it became apparent that it wasn't going away on its own, and I got an appointment for next Thursday. My best guess right now would be that I have this. At least I can still move all of my fingers, but I think it's a good idea to have it checked.

This may also be a good moment to cut back on some of my workout routines, including the 100 pushups every weekday, which I have kept up for over a year by now. I wonder how swimming will work in this kind of state too. Maybe it won't work at all, or maybe it's even beneficial. I think I will give it a try on Wednesday.

One final day, and one final chance for 4/4 Golds. I wish I would have joined a little sooner, so we would have had time for some long jump attempts too - even though I already have Gold in the standing long jump, and regular long jump should be a lost cause anyway. Still, I feel like there was room for improvement, and possibly a PB.

Instead, the sling ball throw is where it's at today:

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: 39.70m
NEW TROLLYMPIC RECORD!

Conditions weren't ideal today, with my messed up right hand and even a slight headwind... but we pulled it off, with a new Trollympic record to boot!

All we needed was one little trick: You just need to yell more. It's what people do in competitions too, after all. Basically, I just found myself naturally grunting a little during some of my better attempts, and then remembered the kiais from my karate practice. We do those kinds of shouts for a reason, so I started making a conscious effort to shout during my throws too. Placebo or not - it worked! I noticed an immediate improvement, both in distance and in technique, and eventually, we got our PB. Maybe the shouting really does help you focus.

My lifeguard colleague was joining me again, and he was also still missing his Gold in this event. He is slightly younger, and needs to throw a little further than me. I saw some good throws already, but once he introduced the "kiais", it didn't take long for him to crack the 40m mark (40.40m, I think) and take down the Gold in his category too.

And with that, we can confidently wrap up this year's Trollympics... well, not quite yet. I do plan to have a go at 800m freestyle swimming next Sunday, depending on how well it goes with my numb hand. Maybe I will practice a bit next Wednesday, and then we can officially conclude things on the weekend. But either way, full marks have now been secured. I had my doubts at times, but it all worked out in the end.

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

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

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

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRIER!!!

Have a wonderful day and enjoy it!

Thank you so much, Primrose!

A day like this calls for some Greek takeout food... can you see what I did here?

If not, you will surely see it now:

Harrier just turned 37. A pretty worthless hand in Hold'em, but often worth a double down in blackjack.

Apart from the Greek food, not much is planned for today, as it's on an awkward weekday this year. I will bring a six-pack of Kilkenny to karate practice later, as well as some non-alcoholic drinks for those who are either too young or prefer them for any other reason.

I hope you guys have a great "Squirrel Appreciation Day" too.

Gratz!!! :f_drink::f_drink::f_drink:

Originally posted by Zeezout
Gratz!!! :f_drink::f_drink::f_drink:

Thank you, Zeezout!

Finally played some Badugi again tonight, finished just short of the final table in 8th place... but without any bounties to go along with it, the payout is still not quite enough to cover the buy-in.

I also went swimming, to practice for my planned 800m attempt on Sunday. The guidelines will still be the same as in the previous years:

Bronze: 28:50 minutes
Silver: 24:00 minutes
Gold: 19:15 minutes

My time? Around 23:30 minutes... I think. I'm not entirely sure - for one thing, because there is a small chance I miscounted lanes. But mostly... my wristwatch comes with some unnecessary features, and when I was trying to stop my time, I think I accidentally pressed the button to display Tokyo time instead... which also happened to be around 23:30. By the time I noticed, after swimming some cooldown laps and getting out of the water, it turned out that the stopwatch kept running the whole time, and now displayed 26:xx. It seems realistic with a swimming time of around 23:30 minutes, but I can't fully confirm it anymore...

Still, I'm pretty sure something around 23:3x is accurate, so let's go with this. It would be a Silver time, at least, so it would be better than the disaster that was last year's time, which still haunts me to this day. However, it is still behind my PB from two years ago, where I wasn't even crawling all the way through.

You know what? We'll see on Sunday. It will be my official time for this year. Let's make it a good one, or at least one I'm not ashamed of.

Bar Update

It was that time again - I visited the big liquor store out of town.

For the most part, those aren't new additions. Another big bottle of triple sec, and some amaretto and Drambuie, which were in danger of running out. Two bottles each of crème de cacao and Frangelico, which are among Primrose's personal favorites when she is visiting - especially as a choice during our extremely fun Mario Party drinking games. She has a bit of a sweet tooth and those drinks are relatively low on alcohol compared to some of the other available options, making these drinks ideal for her.

I also wanted to get two bottles of crème de café, which is another one of her favorites, but they only had one left. Instead, I got an extra bottle of Kahlúa, which I intended to get anyway as an additional treat.

Russian Standard vodka was sadly not available, as it seems to be affected by current import restrictions. But I did get some Jose Cuervo, a quality brand that my brother enjoys a lot - and he has been to Mexico, so he knows some things about good tequila. Actually, tequila is a common choice for me when Prim and I are doing our drinking games, but I wouldn't waste this valuable tequila on it, I stick to Sierra for that.

The only new addition today is this:

Licor 43 (spoken as "cuarenta y tres"), named after its 43 ingredients, which supposedly mostly consist of fruits and herbs from Spain's Cartagena region, where this drink originates from. I haven't ever tried it yet, all I know is that it's said to taste a little like vanilla. I do have concrete plans for it, and I look forward to give it a try soon, probably this weekend.

The total bill was €166.34, but it will last a long time (I typically make one trip like that per year), and there is no price tag on the fun Prim and I will have together, with some of those beverages on our side.

Lol

Drinks are getting expensive here in Holland. They are not allowed to give more than 25% discount on alcoholics ...

Here a bottle of Absolute Vodka (Swedish - I like Sweden) 700cl with discount is about 15 euro.