Let it Ride

Very sick night on friday involving lots of drinking and gambling, ending in one hell of a hangover!
The fun began at work with some low stakes backgammon, managed to win 3 pints despite only having been playing for a few weeks, but there is enough luck in the game to beat better players, thank god. Also won a tenner cutting for high card, when your running good life is so much fun lol.
Went to a pub in covent garden after work called sulleys bar, quite small but a good atmosphere and a few girls around to perve over. Stayed for a few hours but after a few free beers and a couple of rounds of black sambuca moved on to planet hollywood where the real fun began. On arrival found out that we get half price drinks ( because of work) so bottles of beer were 1.50, very rare in london so made sure i took full advantage.
Now for some reason the conversation turned to then ancient art of ro-sham-bo to the un-educated amongst you thats what we call paper/scissors/rock. I have always maintained that this is a game of skill and seeked to prove this in a 6 man drunken tournament. As usual i was in the zone,crushing my opponenets with some cruel jedi mind tricks. I knew what they were gonna throw before they did and after destroying a Spaniard came up against a southafrican called jason in a best of 5 match for the undisputed championship of the world. As a general rule most players will throw a higher % of rock than anything else, if they are tricky your gonna see a lot of scissors and some well timed paper. Jason throws paper to my rock, paper to my rock and then scissors to my paper for a crushing defeat! I didn't even get one draw! paper, paper, scissors are you serious! Having decided that this was a total fluke we up the stakes and play for some cash, i lose 30 quid and learn a very valuable lesson,no matter how good you are at something there is always someone better. Very good laugh though and after some more gambling on arm-wrestling and thumb wars we moved into the empire casino at 3am (had to be at work for 1.30pm).
Blackjack is certainly not a game of any real skill,i'm a realist and know that even if you play perfect the house has a 2% edge every hand. I still love the game however and will continue to play for fun and the occasional win. Played for about an hour and was about to leave having lost 150 but then i decided to stick my last 20 quid on and let it ride for 4 hands. Won them all and was soon sitting with 320 and a big drunken smile! Am i smart guy? did i cash out? hell no! i did what all decent gamblers do and ran it up to 600 before losing it all back. Once again i was about to leave, this time at about 5.30am but i then found a 50 note in my pocket and stuck it all on. won that hand, stuck it all on, won that hand and stuck it all on again; after about 2 seconds of thinking (having won again) i decided to go for it all again, 200 pound in 5 pound chips and by that time about 12 people round the table all on one box! first card queen, 7 for the dealer and then BOOM! ACE OF SPADES THANKYOU VERY MUCH! Blackjack of 200 for a return of 500 (including the bet). I jump up, knock my 8th pint of the night onto the floor and celebrate with some high fives (most of which with people i have never met before. Went on a nice run after that and ended the night up 500 before the casino finally closed. I get back at 7am just about make it into work the next day and despite the hangover just about make it through a nice easy day shift.
Looking forward to some serious poker on my days off. Gonna paly some sunday tournies online tonight (300K gtd on party and 500K gtd on stars) then on monday gonna play the 00 FE at the gutshot and probs play cash all night after.
Finally just wanted to mention that the dates have been set for the second annual Reading series of poker (RSOP II). The main event is on the last w/e of Feb witha couple of tournies on the thursday and friday. Booked four days holiday off work and am looking forward to it very much, can' wait to defend my iho tourney and hope that everything goes as well as it did last year, been a lot of intrest on facebook and 100 players in the ME looks likely.