This will probably be a multi-parter (unless I get into grind mode and write a book).

For the past two and a half weeks, I have been in Europe with my friends Craig and Derek. They visited my house for a day on the 27th of September, and then we headed to London on the 28th.

Earlier in the day, we went to play tennis at the local courts. Derek was down about $100 to Craig in prop betting, and when he picked up a ball by lifting the bottom of the surrounded fence up, he challenged Craig again: He bet Craig he could climb under the fence faster than Craig could climb over the fence. Craig instantly accepted and the following video was captured (excuse my hysterical laughter -- I thought Derek just looked really funny):

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So, Derek clawed back through some of his debt, and we took Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy to London that night. We got in around 10 AM London time (GMT) on the 29th, and, after a short nap, it was time to go to the Arsenal game.



After the game was over, we went to a couple pubs in the area because everyone was taking the tube (Americans read bars/subway) from the Arsenal station (which is awesome/hilarious that Arsenal has it's own station). Then, we went back to the hotel bar.

As a quick interjection, and, admittedly, to impress the non-Americans, I thought Arsenal played *ok*. I was surprised to learn that the team's stars were in the 18-20 year old range, but, since they are still playing on such a big stage, I can critique them. I thought they played too passively, and didn't take open space quickly enough. I also thought that they tried to string together too many passes in the box before shooting, because Olympiad(?)'s goalie could not hold on to the ball at all. So, take the mediocre first shot instead of trying to set up a 1-on-0 on the six, and take space so your cutting forwards can actually get the ball when the defense has to challenge!! They wound up winning 2-0, but it should have been 4 or 5-0.

The game was still really fun, and, as you saw, we donked it up and bought jerseys. Back to the hotel bar... London basically shuts down at 11 PM. Most pubs close, and special ones stay open until 1 AM. Clubs can keep going until 3-5 AM. Luckily, our hotel bar was able to serve "residents" (i.e. guests) until 3 AM. So, we grinded that and then went to bed, with the 6m to be played the following afternoon.

I wound up getting 11th in the 6m. When we got there, it actually took the TDs about 15 minutes to figure out the table situation, which was fine, but the MTT nits were FLIPPING out (I thought they just folded for the first 4 levels?). Annette_15 was acting like a total bitch to the TD, and this other kid was speaking derogatorily to them as well. The latter guy actually got placed at my table, and started to get pretty annoying pretty quickly. On the first hand (4 handed), I raise T2ss UTG and get called by the BB (6k stacks, 25/50 blinds). The flop comes out T85fd, and my cbet gets called. The turn is a 3o, and my turn bet gets check/raised really small. I call, and also call on the K river that completes the flush. He BB has A6o and I take it down. However, that annoying kid then starts the "DO YOU PLAY ONLINE? WHO ARE YOU WHAT'S YOUR SCREEN NAME?" I response, "Are we really gonna do this?" He keeps going, so I say who I am and move on with life. He seems bothered that I don't ask him who he is, but I really didn't give a shit. (NB: After this point, we decided that we would give fake screen names if asked. Mine would be PrancingUnicorn111, but I mostly play cash).

I then start flatting all of his opens whenever I have position preflop, and proceed to keep taking pots away. I just hated his attitude -- it's poor etiquette to talk about that stuff around recreational players, and he gave off a "holier than thou" attitude which I hate so much. As it turns out, Craig knew who the kid was because the kid actually randomly came up to Craig (Craig is such a celebrity that the MTT community recognizes him in public) and said what's your screen name I'm xxxxxx and I work for Poker VT (Are you fucking serious?). Craig told me that he didn't even recognize the kid's screen name, and I can't recognize his face on the Poker VT web site to call him out .

For the remainder of day one, I had my ups and downs, with my 6k starting stack dwindling to 4k at 100/200/25 at the lowest point. I had a couple eventful hands against David Pham, with the most significant one mentioned in my previous blog post. When we hit the money at 24 we went on break to day two.

Day two was a complete shitshow. The blinds were ridic high, average stack ridic low, etc, to the point where I would have been happy taking my chip equity at the beginning of the day because the variance was unspeakable. I went out 11th, but my German friend got 2nd.

I'm going to stop here because I want to include photos of the other stuff we did in London, and they haven't been uploaded yet. The Main Event was uneventful, and I went out 270/720 sometime on Day 2.

Poker wise, I'm still interested in grinding PLO. I'm also interested in playing some Sundays, so I might do that tomorrow. I recently opened up my coaching again, but yesterday I actually got a coach for PLO. I'm pretty excited because he's really nasty, and seemingly very knowledgeable about the game. I would hate to be my coach though -- I'm probably a pain in the ass student .

I'm still going to be the biggest winner in the non 25/50 games of PLO from now until the rest of the year, so see you all at the finish line.

Greg