Student Poker Blog

After losing my debit cards last saturday, I finally got one through today. Didn’t expect anything to come through from the bank on a Saturday but there we go. So although I say ‘cards’ I only really had the one, but the next one shouldn’t be too far away. Luckily it was the card for my main account where I keep most of my money, but unfortunately I have been given a new pin even though I asked to keep it the same. But I think its possible to change the pin through the ‘hole in the wall’ anyway so its no big deal, but it definitely needs changing because I am so familair with the old one.

Anyways, I decided to celebrate by making a deposit at Titan to check out the action at the 10c/20c tables. Turns out that the table I sat down at wasn’t as fishy as the last time I played at the room, but after a few players dropped out and were replaced the dynamics changed a little and there were some very obvious bad players. I think that there are still a number of people that are enjoying the festive season with a dash of online poker, despite the fact that they are pretty clueless when it comes to strategy and are relying on the luck of the draw. But I’m not going to complain about that.

Even though the table at the start was of a decent standard, I managed to get things going with a nice hand. I was dealt 3c 3s on the button and called a 4BB raise from someone in mid position. I felt the implied odds were there  because they had a decent size stack, so I comfortably made the call. I’m obviously looking to hit a set on this flop, and if I don’t I’m going to make an easy fold. 

Turns out another player made the call and came along for the ride. I was happy to see a 3 come down on the flop, and even more happy to find out that both of these players had decent hands. All the money wen’t in on the flop, and no cards came to improve the other two who were holding an overpair and top pair respectively. Theres not a lot that they could have done to save themselves from losing here, it was pretty much a cooler for the both of them. So worked out to be a nice $32 pot to get the session started.

The rest of the session was pretty standard, as I floated around the same mark for a while with small wins and small losses. There was another hand that I managed to win a nice amount from, around about $20 or so. I can’t remember the details but I think I had a straight, and I think they must have had top two pair. Either way I finished the session with about $50, which works out to be around $30 or £15 profit. This is more than I would usually make in an hour of play at one 10c/20c table, but I’m not going to make any complaints.

Its nice to get back into the swing of things with a decent win, especially considering I was just at one table and on MSN at the same time. I’m not exactly sure how much of an impact being on messenger whilst I play poker is having on my game, but I still feel that I am able to continue to play profitably, even though the amount that I win per hour is more than likely reduced. I’m not that great at multi-tasking to be honest. I will make a post in the near future about being on messenger and playing poker at the same time, I’m sure that most people have done it or do it from time to time.

Before I came to Uni I wasn’t much of a cook. I knew how to cook, but I didn’t really know any recipes for a decent meals, and so I was kinda stuck for a week or two when it came to cooking food. I found a love for Fray Bentos pies, which are pies that you cook from a tin and work out great as a meal. I mean you can just literally open them up, stick them in the oven and 20 minutes later you have yourself a meal with hardly any washing up and fuss, all for just over £1. But after a while things became pretty tiresome and I needed to find some ‘proper’ food to cook, instead of living on pies and whatever I could put on toast and eat.

Turns out that some decent meals really arent that hard to cook. Cooking rice and pasta is simple, and most of what I cook can be made with either of these and in around 20 minutes with minimum amounts of pots and pans to clean. I know a number of people that are still managing to live off ready meals and such, but these aren’t really sizeable enough for me and the half decent ones are expensive. Therefore being able to cook meals for myself is working out nicely. So here are my top 3 meals as a student…

1) Spaghetti Bolognese
This is so much easier to cook than I expected. I know how to make it using all the individual ingredients, like using the tin of tomatoes, onions, oregano and all that, but I find it much easier to just use a jar of Dolmio. I much prefer using Dolmio over Ragu because I find it tastes a little bit nicer, but I will use Ragu from time to time if its on offer like 2 for 1. I also use the pasta shells rather than spaghetti, as they’re easier to stab and pick up with a fork, instead of cutting and twiddling around like you have to with spaghetti. So maybe its more like ‘Conchiglie Bolognese’ rather than ‘Spaghetti Bolognese’.

2) Curry
This one isn’t specific, as I like all different types of curry. Again I don’t cook these from scratch because its so much easier to just throw the sauce on top of the chicken and cook away. I only really use chicken as the meat for my curries, as I hear its harder to cook curry with beef or lamb. I’m a big fan of chicken anyway so I’m pretty happy to stick with that. I usually opt for the ‘Pataks’ sauces range and go for either Korma or Jalfrezi. There are a number of other sauces to choose from that I might have from time to time, but these are my favourites for now.

3) Burgers
This one will probably change in the near future when I find something better to replace it with, but for the time being I am really enjoying the burgers, sometimes with chips or wedges. You can get really some decent size burgers from places like Lidl, and they are a decent price too so you can really get your money’s worth. The burgers have also got to be in buns, thats pretty much a neccesity as bun-less burgers really don’t cut the mustard. I usually have some relish to go with it, but if I haven’t got any then tomato sauce works out fine.

So thats my current top 3 meals at University. Looking at it I could probably be a lot more adventurous, but its only been 4 months so I’ve got plenty of time to try new things out. Also it probably could be a hell of a lot healthier, so maybe I should look to have something low in fat from time to time to balance things out a little. But anyways, there a little insight for you on my current eating habits. I’ll give it an update when I’m cooking real classy food like lasagne and all that. Let me know if you have found anything really easy to cook and tastes nice, I’m open to all suggestions.

We’ve heard it all before, about how all students are lazy and are out to get drunk as much as possible and lie in bed for as long as possible. But are students really that lazy? Although thinking about it this statement pretty much hits the nail on the head, I feel that students don’t get as much credit for the work that gets done in lectures and behind closed doors. When people think about students, they will normally think of them as being lazy, tax-dodging, drunk, poor and numerous other flatteringly descriptive words, but theres never really much said about the work that gets done when needs be or the extra effort in other things outside Uni, such as sports and societies.

Lets not forget the real effort it takes to go to 9am lectures after a heavy night drinking. The students that make these lectures are the true warriors that have the exceptional will power to fight through sickening hangovers whilst still being half-cut at the same time. Thats determination right there. Even so, the 10am and later lectures can still be a big struggle to get to and require ten times the amount of effort than would be normally needed if you were not drinking the night before. So the people that accidentally mix both their social lives with lectures and still manage make it work, really can’t be all that lazy with all the effort that is put in.

Furthermore, most people tend to overlook the fact that students are actually studying at some point in between their drinking and tax-dodging endeavours. You have to have a certain level of ability to be in University in the first place, and none of the courses can really be called all that easy. There is a lot to be learnt and a number of exams to sit each year that aren’t going to pass themselves. At some point a lot of revision and studying takes place, which can often be time consuming and hard work.

Outside of lectures are the sports and societies that a large number of students take part in. Fitting these in around a busy drinking schedule isn’t an easy task, but for most students they can make it happen. So when you combine this with all the work that gets done in the day at University, you will find there isn’t a great deal of time left to watch tele and procrastinate and do nothing. A lot of hours in each day can be pretty productive, and probably on the same level as most working people with full-time jobs. So maybe students aren’t that lazy afterall.

This whole post isn’t really a debate about whether or not students are lazy, because I know for a fact that a great number of students can be hilariously lazy at times. I mean I love sleeping until the last minute before I have to get out of bed and stumble to lectures because I spent the night before staying up ’til stupid o’clock in the morning on msn and eating pringles. But you know, when I’m revising and doing coursework I like to think I can be really productive and manage my time well, as can most University students at the end of the day, otherwise they probably wouldnt be there. So yeah, not really a rant, but I’m sure students deserve a lot more credit for their efforts than they get.

Its been pretty busy over the last few days and I havent been playing too much poker online, which explains why I havent updated the blog in nearly two weeks. The fact that I lost both of my debit cards for my bank accounts on a night out on town means that I’ve lost my main deposit method to get money into my poker accounts, and because I withdrew my bankroll to buy some Christmas presents I literally have no money to play poker with online at the moment. But then again it was a pretty good night, and you know you’ve had a quality night out when you wake up in the morning short of two debit cards and a student card, so things could be worse.

In case you are wondering, there is no significant reason as to why I have two bank accounts, in fact they are with the same branch. It just so happened that the lady behind the customer service desk at the bank had a little trouble when trying to upgrade my standard account into a new student account, so she just made me a new one on top of the old one. It can become a little confusing at times when picking the debit cards out of my wallet because they look exactly the same, but theres no major problems with having two. Hopefully the new replacement cards will have different designs so I won’t keep using the wrong pin number and having the ‘hole in the wall’ swallow my cards next time I’m well-oiled.

But anyways, it looks as though I’m going to get my new cards this Friday hopefully, but because its the holidays they may come a little later like Monday or Tuesday. I will probably make a deposit at Titan and play there for a while, as the last time I played the tables were pretty soft, and when this was combined with a good run of cards I won a nice amount of money to play around with. So hopefully there will be a nice number of players enjoying the festive period with a few drinks and poker that I can share the tables with.

Despite the lack of Poker, the last few days have been packed with seeing lots of family now that I am back at home from Uni, and so I doubt I would have wanted to play as much as normal anyway. Its good to take a break from time to time, and the time off should prove to be refreshing and beneficial to my game. Its been pretty good fun playing monopoly for a change, although I failed to get the red and yellow streets (the best ones) and ended up with just 1 house on each of the green streets at my highest point. Really should have won though seeing as I was the car, and everyone knows that the car always wins.

So there we go, I am going to enjoy the festivities whilst they last, and put off revision for the January exams as best I can. I will dabble in a bit of poker when my new debit cards come through, and you can probably expect another post from me around new years day or just before. So I hope you are all having a great christmas, and plenty of luck at the tables if you have the time to play!