I've had better weeks.......

After the chaos in the financial markets over the last week, it was pretty predictable that my weekend would bring more woe.

Firstly, on a non poker note, my football team, Watford, were victims of surely the worst refereeing decision of all time. Reading swing over a corner, and the ball deflects 3 yards past the near post. A Reading forward trys to hook the ball back into the danger area (although it appears to cross the line for another corner), and one of his team mates thumps the ball against the cross bar. But what’s this? The lino is flagging and after the referee consults him he awards…a goal. Unbelievable!

If you haven’t seen this incident yet on youtube, take a look, as it really does need to be seen to be believed. I’d be interested to see the fallout if this had occurred in a Chelsea v Man Utd match but, of course, since it was two inconsequential teams involved, it will be deemed to be just one of those things. I must admit it was amusing to see the footballers trying to process this information. Assorted chavs and thugs, whose previous sole brain transmission was “kick ball in goal”, had had their senses scrambled. Next weekend, expect to see numerous players up and down the country trying to usher the ball to this new mysterious Touchdown Zone 3 yards wide of the post.

Back to poker, and Sunday was a bit of a disaster. I lost $600 playing 3/6 NLHE on PKR. I started pretty well building my stack up to $900, but soon suffered a string of outdraws to put me down to about $300. The last of my money went in with an overpair which was snap called by an open ended straight draw - from memory he didn’t have the odds by some distance, but received instant service on the turn. I won’t bore you will the other beats, but I think it’s fair to say it wasn’t my day. I then tilted off $150 on Omaha on Stars before deciding to stop for the day, before I did further damage to the bankroll.

On a happier note, Sir Mike busted Phil Hellmuth in the 1.5k WSOPE event. Unfortunately Mike went card dead late in day 1 and had to shove with JT and lost. The majority of the group I normally play live poker with are affectionately known as “The Canines”, and we have now eliminated the following players from big buy-in tournaments:

Phil Hellmuth
Phil Ivey
Chris Ferguson (twice)
Roland De Wolfe (twice)
Tony Phillips
Phil Galfond (OMGclayaiken)
Todd Brunson
Tony G (twice)
Bruno Fitoussi

Not too shabby, for a bunch of players who two years ago were happy to sit around playing £20 sit and gos.

Looking ahead they say bad luck comes in threes, so how about this for a good luck treble:

Order restored to financial markers (1% chance)
Watford beat West Ham (20% chance)
I burst back into tournament form in the Virgin Festival Main Event on Saturday (30% chance)

You’d get decent odds on that treble.