Yes as I said very difficult quick decisions in the midst of multiplayer fast action. But the ship where the poker table is on, is also moving, and not only because of wind...
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While the poker break should end on this very weekend, running had a short one-day break too, and Primrose and I found a more pleasant thing to do in this heat when we met up yesterday. First thing we did was to check out an outdoor pool that neither of us has been to before. It also happened to include this:
This 58m long water slide is relatively new, having been introduced in 2020, for a cost of about €200K. Naturally, Primrose and I had to give it a go. 
The grindette was very grateful for some clean aquatic fun without any competitive pressure, so she didn't mind at all that this slide didn't come with any timekeeping - as much as I missed this feature. 
Yes, just some good fun, and we had more of it later at home. Many of our meetups have certain "mottos", and yesterday, we had one of our favorite video game characters in mind.
"Happy Meals" at McDonald's were known as "Junior Tüten" (Junior Bags) before the 2000's in Germany, leading us to nickname the "Bowser Jr." spaces in our Mario Party sessions that way too. Neither of us really visits McDonald's anymore, but our last session gave me the idea to recreate our own "Junior Bags" at home:
Just some classic hamburgers and cheeseburgers in the same style (but much higher quality), with pickles and finely minced onions as toppings. We substituted the usual ketchup and mustard condiments with barbecue sauce.
Also some nuggets, even though they are usually an alternative to burgers in real Happy Meals, not a supplement. These were actually vegan, I figured they came closer in their taste to McDonald's nuggets anyway. Not to mention that vegan nuggets are on the menu there by now too.
Most importantly, it needs to come with some toys, of course. The three boxed figurines are even real Happy Meal toys, about the recently released Super Mario Galaxy movie, I managed to get a good deal for them online. In addition, I included some Kinder Surprise figurines for Prim and her husband. Maybe Primrose will show some of them later, I did put some thought into it.
I think McDonald's really did introduce the concept of adult-sized Happy Meals in the US a few years ago? Not sure if they are still around, but the idea made for a nice Junior-themed Troll meetup either way.
One more thing about yesterday: As usual, we later moved on to our gaming sessions with the usual drinks and refreshments, including some Mojitos to get in the mood for the upcoming summer season:
(Recipe and instructions available here)
Prim did quite well this time - and even placed 1st in our "London Party" session, from the game about Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympics. 
Not to take anything away from her, but the game is quite Troll-heavy, potentially just swapping the players' current progress via random events.
Regardless, I think it's the grindette's first outright win there. Naturally, I was playing as Bowser Jr again, since he was the theme for our meetup.
The reason I bring this up is that our next meetup, currently scheduled for late June, is going to be really sporty - and not just on the screen, but in reality. 
I have some challenges in mind this summer, and I am sure that Primrose will excel just like she did as Daisy in yesterday's game - if not more.
Obviously, I will face those sporty challenges too, and unlike yesterday, I certainly won't settle for Silver. More details tomorrow.
I love the drinks idea, also hoping to buy some more vodka + tonic + stuff, until then sipping cognac + water that girlfriend has.
Originally posted by taavi1337
I love the drinks idea, also hoping to buy some more vodka + tonic + stuff, until then sipping cognac + water that girlfriend has.
Well, you know where to go when you need some recipes. My forum sig always contains a link to a list of drinks that were previously posted on the forum, and I plan to finally introduce some more this summer. Also including some non-alcoholic ones.
Feel free to just pop in to ask for suggestions involving certain ingredients too. Many good cocktails are surprisingly easy to make at home.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Originally posted by taavi1337
I love the drinks idea, also hoping to buy some more vodka + tonic + stuff, until then sipping cognac + water that girlfriend has.Well, you know where to go when you need some recipes.
Feel free to just pop in to ask for suggestions involving certain ingredients too. Many good cocktails are surprisingly easy to make at home.
Yes thanks, maybe "Dead Nazi" and "Sex on the Beach".... will try some mixing for sure soon in summer (June to August)
Well, as summer has arrived here, we decided to swim in an outdoor-pool, which was amazing. It was the first time we visited this outdoor-pool and we both liked it a lot. And hey, if you want to eat the best burgers in town, then "Harrier´s" is the place to go. The food was great and I got princess Rosalina and a Luma as toy in my "Junior bag". 
We made one for Homer too and decided as he´s a huge fan of Bowser jr., HE should get the Bowser jr. figurine. :f_wink::f_love: It´s now standing on his desk and princess Rosalina and the Luma are standing on mine. As you guys know, I got my plush-Bowser jr.!
I was really surprised that I did so well in the Mario Olympics and even in the mini-games in Mario Party! And we were happy to meet Junior there again, but to be honest: papa Bowser was not really nice to us - of course!
Besides, no poker for me yet, I´m still busy with work, gardening and tennis, on Thursday we´re heading to the north sea shore for vacation, and after vacation there will be more time.
Originally posted by Primrose6789
And hey, if you want to eat the best burgers in town, then "Harrier´s" is the place to go.
I'm glad you like my burgers.They're really quite basic, though, there's nothing really "artisan" about them. Especially this time, when we consciously kept them simple for the Happy Meal theme. I think one big factor that's often underestimated are the buns. I use store-bought ones (brioche in this case), but you really need to heat them up a little to get the best results.
Some people just put them in the microwave, not sure how well this works. What I do is just putting the buns in the oven at 150°C (no pre-heating) for a few minutes, maybe two or three. That's all it takes. If you're doing an outdoor barbecue, briefly putting the buns on the grill should work too.
Many people simply use the buns straight out of the bag, I think, which is not ideal. On that note, my personal prize for the worst value burgers I ever had would go to the ones I got after one of my American football matches in Frankfurt, directly in the stadium. Oversized unheated store-bought buns, low quality patties that were not nearly big enough for that size, so you had more bread than anything else - dry bread, that is - a very bare bones selection of toppings, and then they charged about €6 for them, if I remember correctly.
Bottom line: good burgers are easy to make at home, ditch the fast food stuff.
Originally posted by taavi1337
Yes thanks, maybe "Dead Nazi" and "Sex on the Beach".... will try some mixing for sure soon in summer (June to August)
Nice. I hope you have some stores with a decent selection nearby, though, as both of these drinks contain ingredients that are not always easy to get (peach schnapps for the Sex on the Beach, and white mint liqueur for the Dead Nazi).
The Dead Nazi is actually the go-to drink for my "afterparties" with Primrose, when we are done with the gaming and the rest of our program and just put on some music for a few hours in the evening, talk and maybe dance a little. The reason for this choice is that those drinks are very quick and easy to prepare if you have both ingredients, you just need a shot glass and can eyeball the amounts.
Apart from shots like the Dead Nazi, I can already tell that you will need a lot of ice, I have made a whole post about it on my old blog, with a recipe right below it that nicely demonstrates it. Store-bought crushed ice is a good choice, but keep in mind that it will very likely freeze to a lump when you take it home. I personally use a big wooden mallet to carefully re-crush the ice before each use, while it's still in the bag, which tends to work well.
Many drinks would also require a shaker, but if you don't have one yet, there are many good stirred or built drinks available too, especially longdrinks.
Yes what I did with vegan foods, I took some ideas from the course (such as "mashed red beans + boiled rice for burger steaks") and simply did that without the other ingredients. This could work with vodka-based drinks also. Will try to take a deeper look into what they _have at stores and not be so picky. Thx
You guessed it - it's time for the Trollympics again, formally known as the German Sports Badge. I assume that everyone who is reading this has been aware of at least one of our last three iterations, so there is no need to go into detail. I will just participate in several supervised athletic events over the course of the summer, usually on Mondays, and get Bronze, Silver or Gold (or nothing) for my performance based on normative data for my demographic.
What will be new this year is that Primrose will likely join in too! We planned to have her join in 2024 already, when she easily cleared the Gold requirements for her demographic in both available swimming events, but we didn't have time for the track and field stuff, so we couldn't officially register it. This should change this year, because I plan to become a licensed examiner myself. Therefore, if things go as planned, we could just quickly do the track and field events during our meetups, on our own time.
Obviously, I'm going to aim for Gold overall again, but I also like to compete against my previous PBs. Our current "Trollympic Records" are:
Spoiler
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): 14:09 minutes on July 14th, 2025. (Harrier88)
10,000 Meter Run (Stamina): 60:01 minutes on June 29th, 2024. (Harrier88)
800 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): 20:30 minutes on June 29th, 2023. (Harrier88)
400 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): 8:38 minutes on July 5th, 2024. (Primrose6789)
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): 14.60m meters on June 17th, 2024. (Harrier88)
Standing Long Jump (Strength): 2.40 meters on September 2nd, 2024. (Harrier88)
Shot Put (Strength): 8.04 meters on September 4th, 2023. (Harrier88)
100 Meter Dash (Speed): 13.75 seconds on September 2nd, 2024. (Harrier88)
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): 17.70 seconds on August 29th, 2025. (Harrier88).
High Jump (Coordination): 1.10 meters on September 1st, 2025. (Harrier88)
Long Jump (Coordination): 4.25 meters on September 2nd, 2024. (Harrier88)
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): 39.70 meters on September 22nd, 2025. (Harrier88)
It should also be noted that Prim has a PB of 19.06 seconds in 25m freestyle swimming, which stood as the Trollympic record until last year. Will she be able to improve on it this year, possibly even breaking my own record of 17.70 seconds?
My planned 10K run on June 20th will be eligible for the Trollympics as well, so it will be considered an event, and I would also like to point out that the outdoor pool we visited on Friday is suitable for the aquatic events too, as I confirmed with a lifeguard there. This could be an option if we plan to do a Trollympics meetup on a particularly hot summer day.
The first track and field meetup should take place on June 8th, right here in the "Trollympic Stadium". Before that, we might start with some aquatics as our first events next week.
And now, without further ado, let the games of the IVth Trollympiad begin! 
Officially licensed products:
Originally posted by Harrier88
Officially licensed products:
You forgot the link to your merch site.
My T-Shirt size is Medium or Large
T-shirts, now there's an idea...
Anyway, while this blog was always supposed to go beyond just poker, I also don't really like flooding it with anything but poker content as I tend to do these days, but there are still no recent games to report. So let's just take a look at the Sharkscope leaderboards, for the few games I did play earlier this month:
Not surprisingly, there aren't a lot of good things to say, but the leaderboard for all of 2026 in Five Card Draw SNGs is still looking okay. I am still in 3rd place, though it is a shared one at the moment.
Next month, we shall take it back by storm...
Primrose is currently on vacation at the North Sea. I have already heard from her that she has arrived safely. We hope that she will have a lovely time, of course, with plenty of relaxation... though there will be a lot of tennis for her too, of course, as always.
In the meantime, I will keep you guys posted with poker and sports. While we are getting ready for my big return to the tables, let's take a look at the updated stats, starting with MTTs. There have been only six scheduled tournaments, so our overall stats don't show too many changes:
Regardless, there were losses, of course.
It doesn't look like much in the overall graph. I pulled the ripcord pretty quickly after all last month.
Breaking it down by game:
And now with a closer look at our main games:
Bounty hunting is still not going very well on a relative level, with most of our profits coming from ITM placements:
Stats should be pretty quick this time, we will take a look at the other games next.
We're still in profit in the Five Card Draw SNGs. Only seven games were played last month, and only one of them cashed, with a 1st place.
5CD SNGs are the only ones we play this year, but overall, our SNG progress looks like this so far in this decade:
Our profits have been gradually decreasing with each month, but this one was the first with outright losses.
Again, not a big drop overall:
But what's a little worrying is the lack of progress since shortly after game 30, which is illustrated quite well in this graph:
Luckily, 1st place finishes are still the most common, but this ratio has obviously been decreasing too:
Lastly, a quick look at satellites:
There have been five new satties last month, with nothing to show.
Not much else to say, so let's just get back with a vengeance.
Primrose is currently on vacation at the North Sea.
Very funny paragraph!
Congratz to her!
It was finally time for the first event of the 2026 Trollympics! This time at an unusual location:
I had a day off (it was a public holiday yesterday), so I took another trip to the AquaMar swimming facility in Marburg. I did my attempt right here, in the indoor pool:
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: 17.70 seconds by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2025 Trollympics, August 30th, 2025.
Harrier's time: 19.51 seconds
Decent enough for a first try - at least we have Silver locked up now. Only about one second to shave off for Gold - or more than that, if I want to attack my current PB.
The pool was quite crowded today, undoubtedly because most schools had a vacation day too. The lifeguard who assisted me briefly had to clear the lane for my attempt... and the three swimmers who were there before actually ended up cheering me on. What a nice gesture.
Obviously, I had to do some timed sliding on the 62.83m long "Black Hole" slide too, which is not a Trollympic event, as much as I would hope it was. I erroneously stated before that my previous record was 10.18 seconds, but I think I somehow misread a 7 for a 1. In reality, it should have been 10.78, and it was improved to a 10.50 earlier this year.
Today, I further improved it to 10.27 seconds, with a top speed of 22.01 km/h, or 6.12 m/s. The large amount of kids who were present obviously impeded my ability to get more attempts in.
(sample picture, but the "traffic" was similar today)
A nice trip all the same, with our first Trollympic Silver. I later went to an all-you-can-eat sushi place, and surely made them want to reconsider their business model. ♠_wink:
I should have some chances to improve on today's time at my hometown's swimming facility in the following weeks.
New "Medal Table":
25m Freestyle (Speed): Silver
Current Progress
Stamina: -
Strength: -
Speed: Silver (25m Freestyle) - 2 points
Coordination: -
2 points in total, 11 points are required for Gold.
No poker yet, there was a surprising amount of "housekeeping" to do, and even some yard work today - I had some hedges to trim.
I will be away on a training course tomorrow, so I might not have time in the evening either, but I'm getting ready to crush for sure.
Also, Dragons won! I would have posted the standings, but they don't seem to have updated yet. Either way, they should be in third place, so I assume the play-offs are still possible.
Okay, so I did my training yesterday - I am now an examiner at the German Sports Badge (Trollympics).
It looks like I will get a chance to step up today already, as both an examiner and an athlete, assuming we will have enough time for everyone, and the weather stays fine.
Apart from that, we are halfway through the preparation for the 10K run on June 20th:
Busy week, I guess. Well, let's make the most of it.
First Trollympic track and field meetup of the year - now we're starting for real! ♠_grin:
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina)
Bronze: 19:50 minutes
Silver: 17:20 minutes
Gold: 15:00 minutes
Not an Olympic event.
World Record: 7:17.55 minutes by Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR) at Chorzów, August 25th, 2024.
Trollympic Record: 14:09 minutes by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2025 Trollympics, July 14th, 2025.
Harrier's time: 13:26.11 minutes
NEW TROLLYMPIC RECORD!
I was slightly worried about overdoing it with the running training, but it looks like there was no need for concern - we are nicely on track, and our efforts got rewarded with a new "Trollympic Record" that easily beats the Gold time in my category. That's one event safely locked up. But we had some room for more.
Standing Long Jump (Strength)
Bronze: 1.65 meters
Silver: 1.95 meters
Gold: 2.25 meters
Olympic Record: 3.47 meters by Ray Ewry (USA) at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, September 3rd, 1904.
World Record: 3.73 meters by Byron Jones (USA) at the NFL Combine, February 23rd, 2015.
Trollympic Record: 2.40 meters by Harrier88 (PS) at the 2024 Trollympics, September 2nd, 2024.
Harrier's distance: 2.37 meters
Not bad, at least we have Gold secured. We're pretty close to the TR too. Maybe I will give it a few more attempts in the following weeks.
Other than that, I was not only competing, but also taking times, measuring distances, and explaining proper techniques, since I'm now one of the examiners myself. I did some practice attempts in the sling ball throw, but once again mostly to demonstrate the technique for other participants. We should see the proper event soon.
Until then, we can take satisfaction in two clean Golds for Pokerstrategy, with a new TR in the books.
New "Medal Table":
3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Gold
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Gold
25m Freestyle (Speed): Silver
Current Progress
Stamina: Gold (3,000 Meter Run) - 3 points
Strength: Gold (Standing Long Jump) - 3 points
Speed: Silver (25m Freestyle) - 2 points
Coordination: -
8 points in total, 11 points are required for Gold.