Hibernating - is it 2007 yet?
Yawwwwwwwwwwwwn..................strettttttttttttttch................... it's been a long winter but this warm April weather has finally woken me up. Just been looking at my previous posts, trying to remember what I'd rambled on about last year. Quite enjoyed reading it actually. I should write more!So what's happened while you've been away...Started a job, working 3 days a week, so still getting to grips with organising my Avon around it. It means I'm quite often out doing my Avon in the evenings and back to all night sessions getting orders ready during delivery week. Thank goodness for lighter nights - it makes such a difference to be out knocking on doors in daylight at 8pm again.Because of work I've not been able to put as much time into building my sales this year, so I'm behind on last year but still happy with how it's going and meeting the target I set myself. I finished up last year as no. 2 in my area and no. 204 in the UK, so was well pleased with that.I missed attending the Avon gala dinner in February because of our Goa trip. Typical that the dates should clash! But what a fantastic time we had in Goa. We only had a week there, as the prize only really covered expenses for the 4 days of the poker tournament, but despite the long flight and hassle of innoculations and malaria tablets, it was well worth it. The hotel where the tournament was held was top class, great food, superb weather, friendly Goan people, and excellent company of the mates from Punters Lounge who we travelled with/met there. Runadrum's poker play unfortunately met with a major bad beat (read his blog) but this just left more time to enjoy the sun, the sea, the pool, the beach, and my company. Goa is now definitely on our future holiday destination list and we are seriously considering entering the APC tournament under our own steam in 2008, if we can't win our way there again.My own poker has been...... hmm, what word shall I use....... unspectacular!The only highlights are a 6th in the Virgin Xmas Booty winning $126 and another i-pod; 18th in the Virgin flying club million miles freeroll winning 15000 miles (unfortunately not enough to actually fly me anywhere!); 2nd this month in one of the PL league games, only winning $10 but setting me up hopefully for a good finish in the overall league. I came close on Saturday in a Ladbrokes Grand National sweep tourney, finishing 29th to bag myself Liberthine (no.29) in the sweep, who finished 5th (so just missing me $250) with no. 30 and 31 ahead of her - if only I'd gone out a hand or two sooner!I'm actually on a losing run of months so far this year, about $75 down over the 3 months, but heading back to a profitable month in April hopefully. A bit of a turnaround from the last 3 months of 2006 when I was around $650 up. Must be about time to hit form again I reckon. What else have I been doing? Loving the return of Doctor Who. Oh yes. Can't get enough of it, and a certain leading man, who I claim to have discovered long before all these other hormonal women, around the time of Casanova, if I remember correctly. Mmmmmmmmm. More musings on that subject another time I think.Finally, the family - all 24 legs wintered well. Flo is getting ready to foal at the end of this month. Fizz may now be in foal as we AI'd her last week to a nice coloured (thoroughbred crossed with something) stallion, so we hope for a bonny black/brown/white foal next March.I'll call that a day for now, but promise regular updates from now on.
Busy is Good - Go Go Goa!
Spent the last week sorting, bagging up, delivering, collecting in brochures and putting in my next order. Condensing what I normally do in just over 2 weeks down to just under 1 week, on my largest order of the year. Reckon I've sold around £6,000 of Avon over the 3 Christmas brochures, (which is more than most sell over the whole year), and my total for the year should be approaching £23,000, which I've just realised is 25% up on last year. Eek! Thought I'd been working hard. But then again, I've not had a 'proper' job all this year. Really think I'm at the limit of how much I can sell, though I have said that for the last 2 years and increased again each time.
Had been too busy to think about playing poker and was still not really missing it, but made some time to play in the new month's PuntersLounge SportingOdds league. I enjoy these games, which are always accompanied by some lively banter and support from the PL'ers. I've done quite well in the past too, finishing in the money positions in the overall league. My only MTT win so far came in one of the games, followed by my biggest money win in the monthly freeroll I qualified for through the league. SportingOdds has recently started to move over to new software so this was the first time I had played on the Paradise linked site. Looks like I may like it, as I finished in 2nd place. Not bad for my first proper game in about 3 weeks.
My other half went one place better and won a freeroll MTT last weekend. The prize was a place in the Asian Poker Classic live tournament which will be played in Goa next March, with travel and accommodation for 2. Wheeeeeeeeeee. Well done Runadrum.
So don't call me in March.
Newmarket Calling Again
Had a busy few weeks leading up to my holidays. It's the best selling period as far as Avon is concerned and I generally hope to at least double my normal sales in the 2 or 3 brochures before Christmas. I do a few parties too where I show a good selection of products so this boosts my normal 'doorstep' customers.So right in the middle of this busiest time of the year for me, we go on holiday! Timing can't be helped though as we come down to Newmarket for the Tattersalls 'December' sales (held entirely during November this year!) so it's a fixed time. There is a week of yearlings and foal sales followed by a week of mares and fillies (or thereabouts). We just come to be amongst it all and not for buying or selling, although we have done so over pervious years. We've rented the same cottage in Hartest, near Bury St Edmonds, for the last few years and we travel in to Newmarket each day. It's like home from home (only tidier).And I do some shopping too. In fact I usually hope to have got Christmas presents sorted by the time we go home.Well it's the last day of the sales today and tomorrow we go home, to about 50 boxes of my big Chrismas Avon order which was delivered whilst we have been away. The weather here has been much warmer than normal. I'm wearing at least 2 fewer layers of clothing than I've needed in previous years. No thick woolly tights under my trousers. No extra t-shirt. No scarf wrapped round my head. I expect it will be freezing again next week when I'm out doing my deliveries.Have enjoyed a break from poker too but looking forward to getting back to playing a few games. And catching up with everything on Punters Lounge which I've only been able to dip my toe in when we could get a wireless connection.So goodnight from Newmarket and I'll call you when I get home.
Pleasure (part three): horses - for love not money
Spent a couple of days in Newmarket last week, selling one of my babies. Perhaps I should explain...We breed thoroughbred horses. I'd say racehorses, except most of them haven't quite lived up to that name, unfortunately, but we live in hope. We've no children so our horses are our family, even though they may one day be sold. So that's a big advantage over kids then. We've 6 at the moment.It started 12 years ago when we bought our first mare, Runabay, in foal. It was a simple plan - sell the foal, breed the mare back to the stallion of our choice, keep the foal to race, sell the mare. Runabay is now 25 and still very much with us, in her retirement. She loves carrots and apples, and to rub her head all over your coat.The foal was called Jacko (or Jack if he's feeling grown up) and he is now 11, and still with us. We did try to sell, but no-one wanted to buy, so he became our first racehorse and raced as Runadrum. We had a lot of fun even though he never won or placed. Our other mare is Flo's Choice (Flo to us) and she is in foal again this year. She has a colt foal to wean, Otis, and it was her yearling who went to Newmarket sales last week. Nutmeg had been a premature foal and quite weak, but had grown into a sweet little filly (auctioneer's description). That just about summed up her value, and she was bought by a Hungarian for 1500guineas. Oh well, one less to feed. Hopefully we will be able to follow her progress even though it seems she will race abroad.We still have a 5year old of Flo's, called Fizz, who didn't sell as a yearling. We raced her ourselves as Sheliak. She injured her leg at 2 and needed a year off, coming back at 4 to give us our most exciting day racing when she actually led for while before finishing 5th. She then injured her leg again, and having had another year off has now been retired. We may breed from her next year, but probably not to a thoroughbred stallion.Our other yearling, Mimi, is a troubled little soul. Her mother, Plainsong, died last year when she was about a month old, so she needed several months of hand rearing, and companionship from a miniature shetland pony called Poppy. She's a beautiful filly, but (not surprisingly) has been traumatised by losing mum so young and now frets when she is stabled. Things are improving a little and all we can do is give her time to grow up. If she ever races, you may see a small white pony running alongside her.So Runabay, Jacko, Flo, Fizz, Mimi and Otis are our 6 children. There have been others (20 in total actually) but I'll save their stories for another day. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Other news - My ipod arrived today. :-)Must be like a tardis. Otherwise I can't see how my CDs are going to fit in it.I'll call back when I've figured it out.
Withdrawal Symptoms
Dear me. I've let this slip already. So, a quick round up of my poker week:It's been a bad week on Sporting Odds...Sunday - 49/54 in Champions LeagueTuesday - 44/47 in Champions LeagueWednesday - 40/53 in the Punter's Lounge $1 LeagueThursday - 26/44 in Champions League.But not too bad everywhere else, despite, with one exception, not getting 'in the money'...Sunday - 18/382 in Virgin V-points freeroll (top 10 win V points)Sunday - 95/271 in Mansion PokerGodWednesday - 164/2601 in Dream $7000 freeroll (130 places paid)Thursday - 19/322 in Dream Dirty Dozen qualifier (50 places qualify) :-)Now, I like Sporting Odds. It's where I play the most, it's where I've won the most, and it's from where I recently withdrew some profit. And there we have it - poker lore says you will hit a losing streak when you make a withdrawal from a site. Clever poker bods and those who are not superstitious (actually, I'm not superstitious so I suppose that includes me) have another word for it - "variance".So I will hope my downcurve is short-lived and look forward to the ride back up.However bad my week it's not as bad as the one for the poker sites who are having to reorganise following the new gambling/finance legislation in the USA. I hope their downcurve is short-lived too.I'll try to call back sooner next time.
What is an i-pod anyway?
I got an email from Virgin poker site yesterday advertising their 'Bootylicious' tournament. This is a new monthly tournament where the top 10 can win added prizes. It quotes a choice of: Apple Ipod, a choice of Virgin Experience days for 2 (go-karting, paintballing, spa day etc), dinner for 2 at London's Kensington Roof Gardens, a case of specially selected Virgin Wines or a Virgin Books package. At $10 entry I wasn't interested as my usual level of buy-in is $3, but I posted it up on the Punter's Lounge forum in case anyone else fancied it. With only 30 mins to go, GotaFancy? (poker mod par excellence) flagged up that there were only 23 registered, so I decided to give it a go after all, as I'd had about $13 sat unused in my Virgin account since we had a league series on the site several months ago. I often play the V-points freeroll on a Sunday, but with such a small amount left in I never played any buy-in games. Saving it for a rainy day I suppose, or a Saturday in October. So the tournament started with only 38 in, paying top 5 places the $380 prize pool and the booty for top 10. I'm sure Virgin expected more in!Well I played my usual tight game, (which generally leaves me short-stacked around the bubble), but by the time we got down to around 20 I was already clinging on for dear life. Then I got dealt QQ which held up all-in, followed immediately by QQ again :-) which successfully took the blinds, and I'm sitting pretty in 7th.Well I played my usual tight game (which generally leaves me short-stacked around the bubble)(hehe!), and I'm floating between 9th and 11th with 11 left in. Enough chips to withstand a few rounds of blinds so it's basically a fold strategy and hope someone else goes before me. I rememember folding 88 and AKs before I was dealt JJ on the small blind. I decided to call (since all-in was not putting anyone off calling me) and the flop comes K2A. Had to check and hope for the best, and thank goodness Danarama checked back, and continued to check the turn (7) and river (8), because I would probably have folded to a call and hoped my 500 chips would outlast someone for another circuit. So my JJ beat his Q3 and I'm back to 9th and folding again.A10s - fold; K9o - fold; A8o on the big blind and everyone folds round to the small blind, and I wait for the raise which will steal my blind.....and instead it's a fold. A hugh sigh of relief and cheers MCFC81 (and you're not kidding anyone with that name - he's a different age on every site!)Meanwhile I'm watching the other table, and their short-stack keeps surviving too.Another set of good hands folded - AKs, Q10o, A8o, at which point the short-stack hits her blind, calls the small raise to put her all-in, and goes out. Very unlucky Donna. 15 minutes of creeping death finally over! Woohoo - final table and I've won my choice of booty. I'm sitting in 9th and the money starts at 5th. What strategy now?It tends to be something like: "don't play the hand if you don't have to", ie. fold if it's not my blind, unless it's a pair. So I throw away A5, A7, Q5, J8, and then go all-in on my small blind with A7 and win a 3-way pot against 97, KJ and 22810Q on the board. Back to folding, and before long we're down to 7 (guess who's 7th!)I get 38 on my big blind which I fold to a raise and decide not to call against 2 with my J9 small blind which leaves me with 960 chips. With blinds at 1200/600 I throw these all-in before I hit my next blind, when I get A10s, and manage to find 2 more Aces on the board. Someone goes all-in, and out, next hand so I'm 6th/6. Big blind time, and I'm looking at my ladies again (QQ). Small blind tries a steal, and I'm all-in, hitting a Q on the river for good measure, and leaving my caller as short-stack. More folding, then short-stack comes up against his blind and loses.I'm in the money! (and short-stack!)I survive several more rounds, helped by KK, then get Ah2h which I only played knowing I could not get through the blinds another time. The other short-stack also goes all-in with his A4o and the small blind calls to cover us both with AJo.Flop 5d, 7d, 9h, turn 7h, river 3h. Nice little flush, thank you very much. 4th/4.I get K5s on my next small blind and decide, for the first time, to push when I could actually have waited. I'm called by Q8 and although I pair my 5, he pairs both his Q and 8 and this time only one card is my suit.Out in 4th for $45.60 and an i-pod (probably). My biggest win in a buy-in tournament. And with fellow Punter's Loungers in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 8th, a good night for the forum, and a good spot by me in telling them about it!And the moral of the story? Don't call if you don't have to!
Pleasure (part two): poker
It's appropriate to tell you about my poker career tonight, since the tournament I "played" in this evening, (will explain the "" shortly), was the reason I set up this blog.I blame my other (and sometimes better) half for getting me into this game. He's been playing a couple of years, happily keeping out of my way on his PC upstairs. These were the days when we only had the one PC and every 3 weeks, when my Avon order had to be submitted, I would have to kick him off it. I don't remember it being a particular problem, but it probably started to be so around the time he bought me my own PC and installed it downstairs!So then it began that he lived upstairs and I lived downstairs, and I googled and played yahoo games on mine, and he, apparently, played more and more poker on his.Then last year he played the Maxim King of Poker competition, which consisted of 2 freeroll games every day from November til March (or thereabouts) and points earned every game towards final placings on a leaderboard. Poker now began to impact on our limited social life, requiring early starts so we could be back home for the afternoon game, and I think probably no going out in the evening at all. So I slyly watch him play a little (he does not like being watched; and never ever speak, on pain of death) and I remember the basics of the game from the days when you played with actual cards and not pictures on a PC, and I start to want to have a little go myself. However my PC will not have any of it. Go and get a wireless connection, it says. And eventually we do.So now, at last, I can download the Victor Chandler site and play the free MKOP tournaments. What a great way to learn how to play (except for the fact it was for points rather than money) and after playing for only the last month of the tournament I ended up 231st/1200 in the table, with as far as I could see, the highest average points per game in the whole table.At this point I joined Punters Lounge and began to really learn how to play properly; I downloaded several more sites; I started working my schedule round game times; I learned how to play poker, cook tea, read the forum and watch TV at the same time; and all of a sudden I seem to be playing every night.So after starting only in February this year, I won my first MTT in August and smashed my PB in September by coming 2nd in a Sporting Odds freeroll for $487.50.So what about tonight's tournament? The Punter's Lounge Bloggers freeroll on Betfair, for members of the forum who have blogs linking to the site and various affiliates. Well I was going along nicely, sitting in 5th, when I was moved to sit at the same table as the other half (who was not doing as well) and made to sit out the remainder of the tournament as this site will not allow us to play at the same table as we have the same IP address (whatever that is). I fizzled out in 13th without being allowed to play another hand. Annoyed does not really do my feelings justice, even though the other half upped his game and finished in the money in 4th.Just hope the next one is played on a different site.That's it for now - will call you later (a little poker joke there!)
