So the only run I'm so far entered in for 2016 is called the Wonderland Run and is through a mountain range known as the Grampians.

Wonderland Run Website

There is a 20km and 36km version but for my first trail run I'm sticking with the 20km seeing as I've never been beyond 23km in a run as yet.

Here are some youtube clips from people who did the run last year.




A long way off and a lot of training, and possibly other events, to get through in the mean time but I'm looking forward to this the most. Hence having registered already. A beautiful part of the world I'm led to believe (about 4-5 hours drive away) which I haven't been to yet so will take the family away for 2-3 days and do some sight seeing while we're there.

YES YES YES

About god damn time dude! We have been waiting like 6 weeks for this!

Good plan mixing it altogether so we can follow it all in one place.

Super pumped, subscribed, lets do thissssssss

Thanks mate. I've been one lazy S.O.B lately in regards to poker, running and giving back to this site. Might take a while to get this blog up and running but once cricket finishes in about 6 weeks - BAM, we're off and running full tilt again.

For those interested in cricket at all. I'm club coach and 1st XI captain this 2015/16 season. We have 3 teams who are all 1st or 2nd in their division with 2 rounds left. The 2nds will finish on top regardless of final round results and the 3rd XI look certain to make finals too. My boys, the first XI, are currently 2nd but just lost our first game since mid November and should the worst happen over the final 2 rounds, can still miss out on finals.

On a personal note, had a pretty decent season so far. Having returned to the 1sts for the first time in 3 years with the wife not working weekends anymore, I've felt I have had a bit to prove being 42 years old and playing with guys mainly in the 20-28 year old bracket. As it turns out, I've still been the most productive batsman and shown the guys I've still got what it takes. However, the final 2 rounds and finals are what it's about so hopefully there are some decent scores, and more importantly great team wins, to come.

Gday guys. Not a lot to report just now.

Running haven't done any at this stage since I started the blog. Still managing a hip flexor/groin injury which isn't recuperating that quickly due to not being able to rest from cricket. No running is improving it though and by start of March I hope to start slowly building up the kilometres.

Poker Not much to report either. Playing Stars again right now just due to more enjoyable software and better traffic. After the poor period from Oct-Jan, February has been better (as in about break even...not winning ) but it's taking a while to get things going. Two steps forward and 3 back at this stage. I'm still playing zoom and have stepped back to 5NL just to try and get some confidence going with some occasional shots at the higher stakes.

Note to self: fold all flopped sets. They never hold.

this is so cool dude.. Im subbing right away. Im also a runner.. Like to run far but Im pretty slow... Have run a couple of half marathons and 2 marathons. Need to get back in shape to run another one in a crazy race end of april. It is a marathon on top of the local water tower.. haha it is so crazy I just had to sign up for it.. starting to regret it now though

Will be cool to follow your journey!

Cheers @ICBrokePeople great to have you along.

Do you have a link to a website for that tower top marathon? Sounds insane. Would love to check it out.

So a constant problem I have is losing stacks too often when I have the worst of it but not getting enough value when I have the best of it.

I'm interested how others would play this hand. I feel I tend to play a little scared at times in that I'm always worried about getting outdrawn...." ooh there's a draw to a flush", "he probably has a gutshot I better not give a free card".... etc. As a result I always tend to bet, bet, bet when I have the initiative or raise early when I'm the caller and I've hit. Tends to show a lot of strength and get a lot of folds.

So with this hand does anyone play it differently. Call flop? Raise flop as played but then call turn lead? Should I be giving him another chance to fire the river?

Only 25 hands on villain playing 38/33 AF inf. 100% cbet (3/3).

33 is played fine, we raise because we want to raise some bluffs on this board. I would be calling some 55 combos and if I have any 2 pair to balance calling my strong draws qx mid pp. I would raise some bdfd that block qx combos so kts being decent, maybe 9Ts/TJs being better as we can call kts.

I prefer to think "am I bluff raising this board much?" And "is this a board I expect him to fast play his value hands" Over "what if he has a draw". This is simply to both balance our own range and to evaluate if will extract the most ammount of value from a raise. This second piece of info tells me if I should slow play, exploitavily over value raise, or exploitavily over bluff. If you are bluffing on this texture hiwever, IMO you HAVE to raise this as over bluffing on this texture seems bad.

Givwn this is not a board villain will slow play i think we need to have a value raising range as it will be the highest EV line. We can either play balanced and raise this along with some bluffs or exploitavily and raise this conscious that we don't have any or too few bluffs in our range

In!

So wifey and I got out for our 16th anniversary dinner on Saturday night. One of the very rare occassions where we get out without the kids.

Chinese this time which is something I love but don't get to eat nearly enough.

A nice entree of BBQ Pork spare ribs with Fried Rice, Sweet n Sour Pork in Batter and Chili Beef for mains.

Been smashing through the hands in February. Just getting a feel for the game again. Won't post results (yet). They're not great. As I've said the results Oct15-Jan16 were a write off as I wasn't 'in the game' and was just killing occassional free time and donating stacks.

Really started grinding again in February. Poker Stars Zoom...anywhere between 5NL and 25NL. Feeling out all the games and finding where I think I am best suited right now. I'm only rocking a BR of about $200US but I'm still getting in a heap of hands of 16NL and 25NL. Poor BR management but I'm comfortable at those levels having played many lifetime hands..........if I crash I'll re-deposit. Hopefully at some stage I find the nice upswing that gives me the buffer that it won't be necessary. Currently I'm treading water or a little down. A good winning day, a poor losing day....all over the shop like a mad woman's piss basically.

So what the hell am I doing? Well.....I'm enjoying poker. First time for about 6 months. Not overly concerned about results just now. Just enjoying getting hands in, tagging the hell out of hands for review and making adjustments. Making errors....trying to correct them. Finding a love of the game again.

I'll post some results in a week or two and I'll start smashing the HH forum soon too.

I'm not winning........but I'm back in the swing. Cricket finishes in 3-4 weeks and then it's flat out running and poker.

Let's do it.

OMG that food looks amazing and congrats on 16 years - how does that feel btw?

Really good to hear you are enjoying poker and I am sure the results look just fine!

Well.. It is a really low-key event. Only 40 participants so the website is only for information and nothing in english so there is really nothing to see there. But here are some pictures of the venue.







Lets just hope the weather will be fine so I get some good views while running. One lap is approximately 95 meters so there will be 440 something laps to run. Hoping I wont be dizzy going round and round and round..

And Oh.. Asian food is THE best!! And congrats on the 16 years. Me and my missy get to 17 April 30th. Cheers to both of us for keeping them for such a long time and many years to come!

Mate it feels great. She's a great wife and it feels like we're getting even better together as we get older. Loving the new house too. Things are great..... and yeah the food was awesome.

As for the results. Nah, they're not fine. I've been playing really poorly, or was over those few months when I was just off poker. From October to end of January I only played 15,000 hands approx. in total and the graph looks like this.




Already played 20,000+ hands February as I'm getting back in to it and as I said last night I'm about break even (was about $20 down upon checking). However tonight I lost patience with a run of bad luck and thought "stuff it, I'll move up and go big or go home" and played a bunch of 50NL hands. As I said I can always re-deposit if need be so BRM isn't too big a concern. Unfortunately the run bad continued. QQ all in v AK and they spike A. Only a few hands later and reverse it and I have AK v QQ. All stock standard but when I'm nursing a small roll it's immeasurably annoying, especially for someone with tilt issues

Today's 50NL




February Graph.....with today's big dip on the end.




So the roll is sweet F-all now (about $85) and I have a decision to make. Re-deposit some funds (maybe $200 or so) and keep playing something like perhaps 16NL or swallow some pride, try not to get bored, and actually work it up from 5NL and see if I can turn this $85 in to something decent. I did turn $100 in to close to $1,000 last year so I know I can do it. I'm leaning that way for now.





Woaaaah. That is absolutely insane. Haha. I've never run anything like a marathon distance so that's hard enough to get my head around but doing it running laps like that. Crazy. Good luck I'll be interested how you go.

And yeah Asian food is awesome stuff. Congrats on the 17 years too buddy. When I look at how many blokes I know who are divorced and single these days I realise how nice it is to still be going strong after this many years and I'm sure many more to come.




RUNNING STUFF

As for my own running, got out for my first run in about a month tonight and the groin felt pretty good. A little stiff (hehe) but loosened up fairly quickly. Was that keen to get going again that I went a lot harder than I intended and was blowing pretty hard at the end. However through without issue and hope to start building up the kilometres again now.





For anyone who didn't read the linked threads from 2015, I'm a 42 year old Australian bloke. About 188cm and currently 95kg. Fairly athletic so carry the weight well but would still feel a lot better (especially lower back) if I strip another 3-4 kgs off that weight. I love playing cricket and like to run to keep fit so I can keep up with the younger guys. Now that cricket season is coming to an end here, my running will really pick up with the extra free time (and the cooler weather). I'll try to get some decent photos now and then if I can as I live in a regional (rural) area with some pretty beaches and scenery.

As can be seen from this next pic, it's been a slow start for 2016. Only 68km so far.

Its nice to see marriage last and be so happy for so long. You must work well together! Also with moving house it always seems to turn into a big stress for relationships whereas is should be one of the happiest days ever in reality.

As for poker ouch fair enough not that fine! BUT not the end of the road. I guess the decision comes down to you and what you enjoy. If you want to grind 5nl and 'get out of it' or splash around a little bit. It depends on what satisfaction you get out of doing what also.

Only 68KM so far - you crack me up!

Well it's all relative mate. Mid-last year I was running close to 200km a month so 68km in close to 2 months isn't a lot at all

As for poker, I'm going to give it a crack at grinding through 5NL until around $150-$200 and then take shots at 10NL. I'll be fairly aggressive BRM wise in terms of moving up through 5NL, 10NL and 16NL but will have to be a little more circumspect beyond that.

Played close to 1,000 hands of 5NL tonight and made a concerted effort to get the VPIP/PFR raise and Btn steals up. I've really gone in to my shell lately.
Looks to be around 20/14 which is too large a gap but still better than the crazy 14/11 type stuff I've been playing. Btn steals up over 50% too which is much better and really high for me. I'll just keep working on it.

Looking at the session result and I was up 4 BIs one stage close to the end of the session but in the end only booked a 1 BI profit. Last 100 hands hurt when AK v A8 AIFP and he spiked 8 on river, then flopped set < turned flush and finally KK < slow rolled AA AIPF. Played a good session and there's nothing I can do about that bad run to finish. The slow rolled AA did tilt me some though. I'm all in, you're obviously calling so just press the fucking call button.

I mentioned in an earlier post how I'm not getting enough value with my big hands so interested on how others play this. Did I raise too early?

Did I raise to early?

Yes!

What hands are you raising here as a bluff? What hands are we expecting to put more money in?

We get value from over pairs andddd that's about it

Haha yeah well I figure every other bastard is an unlucky SOB like me and gets their aces cracked every time...