In Hoose Entertainment

Where was I up to?

Ahh, Wednesday I went into work as usual and *just* finished preparing for my presentation in time to go home and eat some noodles before being collected by Ed & LW for a trip down to the Altrincham Garrick to see “Anything Goes”, in which the latter was.

It was fairly decent and a few good pints of Thwaites were had in the if-it-wasn’t-for-the-beer-it’d-be-naff theatre bar. Adam, Sam & Frankie seemed to like it, the rest of us thought it was ok and Rosy fell asleep. Of course.

Went home and pretty much went straight to sleep, as I was up early the next day to do a presentation!

I was presenting all of what I’ve done so far to a visiting professor (Makinson, who’s come up with some pretty important results in my field) it was supposed to be about half an hour, but lasted for an hour and a half!

Then it was away to get my hair cut, a swift meat pastie from Greggs and then some footie.

Dan had informed me that he was arranging an 11-a-side friendly match at the Armitage centre and they were lacking in players, so I went down and joined “The opposition” and played left back (there were a total of two other defenders in the team, so I said I’d play there, though I prefer playing on the wing or in centre mid).

I had a decent game, because of the lack of defenders on our side I did only venture above the half way line on three occasions, on two of which we scored (I didn’t score, but I assisted) and the other one we should have.

Comfortably ahead 4-1 going into half time they notched a lucky goal for 4-2, and then the second half we contrived to miss about 20 chances, but ran out 7-4 winners.

Good game!

Thursday wasn’t quite finished yet, so naq’d I trudged home and went to sleep for a couple of hours.

Awoke to eat, and then put me glad rags on and head on out to The Didsbury, where Ross & Mahinda were celebrating their birthday’s with a big bunch of people we knew.

Headed on to The Font Bar where half of mugss had laid their hats, and then onto SubSpace next door. It was a pretty good night out!

Had a kebab on the way home too… great stuff…

Things I remember:

* Mahinda being very drunk (well, it *was* his birthday )
* Needing to be “Gayer” or “Taller” apparently!
* A lass named Sally and the “Welsh” cab-ride.
* lw’s mum being there (and being exactly like Lw!)
* erm….
* nope, I’ve left it too long, obviously!

Getting home at gone 4am does not a great Friday make, I did roll up into work around 3pm and do 3 hours of mathematics, but Friday was relaxation o’clock for me.

Saturday, then, was spent playing poker, listening to footie and then going to the Kro 2 with Adrian for Jamies latest “Leaving Manchester” Party.

The option was given to go to a club night called “Friends & Family” but fearing RnB’age Adrian and I went back to mine and had a few beers with rosy and Alex whilst watching crap on TV. This went on til around 4am.

It now turns out the “Friends & Family” is the (relitively naff) club night at the Star & Garter, which I’ve only been to once before.

Woke up just in time to catch Liverpool 1-0 Man City, a nice result, before meeting up with Pam, Lw, Jenn (briefly) & Dr. Kate at Solomon’s for brunch (though I just had a beer).

Got home in time to see Manure slay Wigan due to some dreadful defensive lapses then played poker, ate chilli and had Mahinda come round to watch the latest installment of 24.

Poker was interesting this weekend. I’ve been playing more and more MTT’s (multi-table-tournaments) and I much prefer them to STT’s (single-) especially with long blind levels as it enables more “Poker” to be played, and I just enjoy that more! Also I’ve been trying to improve my “Value-betting” by playing the more mathematical Limit (ring games) I generally win money (but slowly!).

Anyway a couple of interesting hands from the weekend (both of which I lost) were me going all-in on QQ pre-flop, only to find I’m up against KK AND AA. (This is unlikely!).

Even more unlikely was the QQQ flop in a sunday MTT. holding a low pair I’ve a full house, a fairly strong hand especially as it’s very unlikely the other person has a pair…. Turn and River are KK.

Cards flipped, he had QK. Such an unlikely holding!

Still lots of fun though!

Consider yourself caught up.

Monday Did nawt much. Tuesday did nawt much.

consider yourself updated!

Friday was a nothing day really, spent cleaning the house.

Saturday was the day of the first (of many, hopefully) PPT (Pete’s Poker Tourney - coined by Andi - the “Tournament Director” ).

The day was spent thus:

Getting the table downstairs and setting up the front room.
Going last-minute shopping for Gaffer Tape, Bread & Beer.
Watching Liverpool 1-0 Man U. (Hurray!)

Waiting for people to arrive.

Andi was first through the door, having completely failed to get lost on his way from Leeds, as was predicted!

Rosy, Andi & I played a few rounds of dealers choice, which was good fun. the highlight (apart from me winning ) was when I proudly turned over my cards to display the winning hand, only to abjectly note a 37o instead of my AJo, “They’re not my cards!” — I’d turned over the burn cards by mistake!

No-one else turned up til around 7pm, then everyone arrived in the next hour or so.

The Line up (starting at the button)
Andi, me, Tim, Emma, Liam, Ed, Dan, Adrian, Rosy, Mahinda

We started at around 830.
I took down the first pot… though things weren’t to get any better for me!.
Andi hit a straight flush on the second pot, the rarest of hands!
Tim was the first all-in’er, losing to Dan in the showdown.
I lost all my chips on an AK bluff - the only one I made all night (mistakenly, against Dan)
& rosy rebought too.
The rebuys then finished, a few people “Added-on”, including Andi & Dan.
Tim swiftly exited, unluckily.

10th Tim 1030pm ish

Pizza’s were ordered and consumed, and then the blinds went up…. and suddenly many of us were short-stacked, Adrian, Me, Rosy, Liam (who’d had been playing super-tight up until this point) all spring to mind. I’d yet to pair the board at this point (unusual!) and my only good hands, (TT, KK) hadn’t paid off for one reason or another (TT was taken down, KK everyone folded my modest pre-flop raise… grrrrr!)
Adrian was next to go

9th Adrian 1140pm

Before the blinds really took control and a flurry of dismissals occurred as players got more and more desperate.

8th Emma 1215am
7th Rosy 1225am
6th Pete 1235am
5th Dan 1255am
4th Mahinda 1255am

We’d gone ITM with the two old pro’s and Ed battling it out. It became a marathon session for which I dealt.

3rd Ed 140am

And then a huge heads up session. the cards were just not hitting!

Finally, Liam came out champion and took the £100 first prize. (total pot was £200).

2nd Andi 220am
1st Liam

Despite not doing so well, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have picked up on several areas in which I can improve. Can’t wait until the next one!

Afterwards several people trotted off home, Andi, Liam, Rosy and I stayed up and watched some randomly crap tv, I sloped off around 330.

Got up on sunday and immediately made bacon & Egg sarnies. Tidying up took most of the day before some footie \ 24 action in the evening.

A good weekend!

We seem to have become extremely bad at the qu!z, I reckon it’s all the free beer they keep giving us!

Thought this might be fun for some of you.

Draw a Pig!

Do the test before you look at mine!

These were my results:

* you are a realist. ummm, ok
* you believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.) I suppose, though I really don’t remember dates
* you are emotional and naive, they care little for details and are a risk-taker.In some ways, I guess!
* secure, stubborn, and stick to their ideals. This one’s definitely right
* you are an OK listener I guess so
* you have a medium quality sex life. aaahahahahahahah!

OK, so the results are much of a muchness, but at least you get to draw a pig!

I’m currently waiting for my iPod to charge so I can go home, so I thought I’d update my blog.

Monday was work and then homeness. Not a lot going on because I decided against any sort of sport what-so-ever as I’m still recovering from the weekends illness escapades.

Tuesday was Valentines day which, of course, meant I was in watching the Liverpool match

We won 1-0 (against Arsenal) after being much the better side. The table now looks like this:

2 Man Utd 26 25 54
3 Liverpool 26 15 51
4 Tottenham 26 13 45
5 Arsenal 26 18 41
6 West Ham 26 5 41

After that there was some Poker on the tele so I watched that. How interesting!

Wednesday is much like any other work day, I’ve written up another counter-example and am about to go home to … nothing!

Tomorrow I’m qu!zz!ng, Friday I may well be pububbling and Saturday is the poker night, which I’m looking forward to. Alot.

… And just like that my iPod has finished charging!

tarra!

What is it with me being ill when there are parties to go to?

Actually, maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way around?

Maybe there’s always a party to go to, so whenever I’m ill I end up being ill at parties?

I reckon that’s it.

Anyway this weekend I missed the party due to illness, I was supposed to be going to a heroes & villains escapade down at the old guelke place, but gave it a miss due to the excessive coldness.

I’m on the up again now (Monday) but it’s been a fairly quiet weekend as a result.

Friday, I stayed in and watched Hull v Castleford. Hull won. which was nice.

Saturday, I did a big shop in Asda (£90) then stayed in and watched match of the day. An option made viable by Liverpool beating Wigan 1-0, and Chelski losing to Middlesborough 3-0!

Sunday, Relaxed all day and tried to get better. Largely succeeded. Rosy made a beef roast for squiz as he’s going to Thailand in 4 days (to live). watched lots of footie, and competed in a free poker tournament (though my head was a bit fuzzy so my decisions were perhaps not the best). The new series of 24 started, so there go my next 22 Sundays.

Monday

Worked all day then went to cricket.

This entailed a great rush as I realised I’d left all me cricket stuff at home at around 5pm, giving me around 2 hrs to get back home, get me stuff and get back again. I made it.

Monday wasn’t a very interesting day really.

Tuesday

Neither was Tuesday.

Wednesday

or Wednesday for that matter.

Thursday

or on… no, hang on, Thursday was pretty cool!

Basically I went into work and then had my first ever live poker tournament at the union.

It was great fun… here’s how it went… This is how I wrote it elsewhere so you may not understand all the terms!

If this applies to you, it might help to open this page Poker Glossary and look up any terms that you get stuck on. Alternatively you can accept I had a pretty good time and move on to the stuff I did afterwards!

Basically everyone started with $1,000 worth of chips (for £1). now the blinds were raising every 15 mins or so and the rebuys lasted an hour, so you could try and play tight, but ending up anywhere < $1,250 would’ve been suicidal when coming into the freezeout (the blinds were $400/$200 by then). Realistically you wanted $3500 +

Therefore every hand (except about 2) went to all-ins. You could try entering a hand without an all-in, but you’d be re-raised by someone anyway.

It was crazy, and basically down to luck! (GREAT fun though!) there was a guy on the table next to ours who was going in EVERY hand, he lost £15 before quitting (impressive on a £1 rebuy!).

Anyway, I won up to $1,800 on QQ for my first all in, and risked it with an AQs (as rosy says, all-ins ranged from Axs to 86o (4 all-ins were on 86o!)). I lost to A8o when the 8’s hit a set - I was down to $650.

I decided if I didn’t hit a hand by the BB I’d go all in whatever (BB: $200 by then) so did so blind. I was quite happy when I got A6s. I was dominated however and lost to a kicker after aces hit their set.

as the end of the hour approached I realised my piddly $1000 wasn’t going to get me anywhere and so went all in on a fair few marginals, to try and double up; had I got to $2000 I’d have sat tight til the freezeout. I lost when favourite once, and when not twice.

It came to the last hand and I had my last $1000. Of course now I knew I had to go all-in whatever, so again I played blind.

Of course every short stack at the table was all in, so I had the chance to go to $5k.

The cards were dealt…

27o

(this is the worst possible hand!)

the board comes down T88J9.

It takes a moment to register, but I hit a straight! the dealer didn’t actually notice, so I had to point it out to him.

my triumph was shortlived, however, as the guy next to me pointed out his Q…

ah well!

great fun, I’d quite like to play just a proper freezeout next time though!

Afterwards I raced down to the quiz and met up with Liz, Cassie, Alsion, Mahinda, Adrian and latterly Ed, Linden and Rosy (who, it turned out, finished on the bubble in the poker tourney!). We did poorly, however.

Then onto the Retro Bar’s new “Indie” night, which was anything but! the music being a bit naff, I made my way home around 1am or so (?) apparently there was a bit of “fun” after we left involving some of the mugss lot, but I’ll not go into that here.

Right. thats it!

A Brief overview of Thursday & Friday before I launch into Saturdays goings on, I think…

Thursday

We went to the Ra!n bar qu!z aga!n and, aga!n, we fa!led to w!n !t.

Th!s week we mostly f!n!shed th!rd, desp!te some help from some lad!es on a near-by tablei. Ah well, !t was funi

Friday

Friday I spend most of the day at work before going home and getting a headache.

I had decided to stay in anyway and, though I was sorely tempted by offers from both LW and mahindinho, both of which arriving shortly after solphadeine ingestion, I stayed in and played some poker before doing some severe relaxing.

Saturday

By saturday morning the headache had completely gone, so I woke up fully prepared for the hi-jinks ahead.

Now, I’d arranged to meet Dan B. at Picadilly station at around 2pm. This meant the latest I could realistically get up was around 1130. This is about the time I got up.

Arriving comfortably on time, I queued and paid a nice £6.?0 for my ticket, this being due to having recieved £15 of train vouchers in compensation (the reason for which can be found below, in a post entitled “Trains Suck!”).

Now it turned out that Dan was arriving on the 1410 train, and there was a 1411 train to York on the platform next to his… I thought it’d be a good idea to try and do the quickness thing, but it all fell apart when they made people queue to get off his train. Some small matter to do with paying, I suppose.

Aboard the 1430ish to York, we travel with no hitches.

Arriving in York both Dan and I realise that neither of us actually know where the pub is, but we vaguely remember instructions like “Follow the wall around” and “It’s right there!”, so we follow the wall around, only to find it’s not right there. Eventually Ben phones me up and informs us that we went completely the wrong way.

Fortunately York is not a big town and we’re only about 5 mins from where we were supposed to be.

Entering the pub was reminiscent of an early Leeds Boozer, where you’re suddenly confronted with a group of 20-30 of us, half of whom you recognise and the rest you don’t!

Introductions are hastily carried out and beerage commences.

We remain in the pub (The Punchbowl*) until sometime after 6 when we decamp to the “Lendel something-or-others” (Cellars**?). There I eat a mighty fine burger***. Further activites in the pub ensue, including:

- Mahinda arriving
Fortunately he knew where it was because the phones were rubbish in the pub. Mine didn’t work at all, and Wayne had a little bit of reception to tell him where we were.

- Pool Playing
Not by me.

- Quick Guiness Drinking
Not by me. I mostly stuck to the bitters.

- Rosey Nosey grabbing
Goodbye to that little notice! later replaced by hasty hand written. Where did it end up? All sources point to Andi, who also became proficient at

-Getting Covered in Beer
after interupting (what all sources suggest was) a terrible cullydinho joke! What a waste of beer, but a nice change from being as wet as a waterhoose… I guess….

We left that pub at some time in the evening.

We walked for a while to another pub that I don’t remember the name of, but it was fairly small and cramped so we were only in there for one.

I don’t remember anything interesting happening there, except that when we left we totally forgot about Nayth stuck in one of the toilets. Mahinda and some others went to go and get him.

The next pub was a quiet affair with a rickety floor. Some random people, including welsh choirboy Aled Jones and his two lady friends joined the group. Bizarrely he didn’t seem to mind.

we left at closing.

On the way the Usual York Trolley shenanigans took place, with Joel and Toby mostly involved. I seem to remember Toby being pushed off the side of the pavement and getting stuck in the trolley. Helga stayed well clear.

The abandonment policy was timed spectacularly as upon rounding the corner the police popped into view.

The next drop off was some nightclub type effort. However, upon letting in half the group the bouncers decided (probably rightly) that Joel was far to drunk to be allowed in. So we seperated. A few of us popped in to join the others and the rest went of to world renowned nightclub Ziggy’s.

We didn’t hear from them the rest of the night (though at least two of them were meant to be on our train back!) and from what I’ve heard since they delved into some drunken hazy world of lightweightedness.

The club we were in was fairly busy and had a rotating dance floor (small). Great Fun was had by all. There was some sort of beer-fight that involved flicking beer at each other… typical drunken frivolity.

We left around 2.

On the way back to the station we stopped off for a “Rubbish” kebab. I always forget when I go elsewhere that the kebabs are nowhere near as good as they are in Manchester! ah well…

Upon arriving at the station, more trolley related fun took place, before Mahinda & I got chatting to a girl named Ruth. She remained on the train ’til Leeds, and then was replaced by a bizarre girl named Anna, on her way to a party in Manchester (it was about 330am by this point, remember!)

we arrived in Manchester and taxi’d it back, hitting the hay at around 5am.

Top night out.

Sunday

As you may suspect. Sunday, largely, didn’t happen.

I watched the Liverpool v Chelsea match, which was rubbish, and stayed up to watch the superbowl, which was pretty decent. I played some poker.

That’s it!

* It turns out there are two pubs in York called the punchbowl, I think this is the right one, but I don’t really care!
** I looked it up for the link afterwards but thought I’d leave the original post in.
*** I think the guy in this picture looks a little like Wayne, who also ordered a burger.

I’ve tried to mis-spell it in a way that a mancunian might pronounce it.

Anyway, what have I been up to this week?

Not much sport… Cricket didn’t seem to happen and I’d passed up the opportunity to play footie by then, with footie (2) being cancelled it means I’ve none at all!

Fortunately I got my kicks with a bit of Ceilidh last night…

I didn’t think it was as fun as last time (sometime back in December, I think, there is a post on it) but it was decent enough. Lots of mugss people there and I danced with plenty of people (including some randoms) it was decent.

Could’ve gone for a curry afterwards, but after applying some thought I figured I’d much rather go for food on Saturday, so I’m saving my money for that.

Workwise - nowt to report - loads of work to do, I’m kind walking trepidiciously around the edge of it at the moment, but pretty soon I’m going to have to dive in.

I’ve decided I’ll have to start looking into some sort of business plan for my rehearsal room’s idea, to see how feasible it is and how much I’d actually need (I suspect it’s quite a lot, unfortunately!) I’ve some ideas… we’ll see.

Liverpool only managed a draw with the brum last night, though both the arse and manure fell to defeats so that’s ok. Even Chelski failed to win.

This morning (thursday) I finally spent my birthday money on a TFT flat screen monitor. My eyes will be happy.

see you later!