So I went fishing with MasterofLaw and his dad this weekend. The fishing was fairly bad, the guide really great and the weather fine. The cottage we lived in might've been the worst damn thing I've ever lived in though. Keep in mind that this comes from someone who've shared a 4*5m building with no electricity or running water with 3 other guys for a week without feeling annoyed or complaining before.
First of all. There's something seriously fucked about a kitchen with ~10 different kind of knives and not one damn spoon or fork. It was also generally dirty and a lot of stuff looked fairly suspect. The "gubbjävel" ("damned old guy") we rented it of told us to make sure to get a fire going all night to get rid of the moisture since we were the first guest for the season. So we light the fire, we don't think much about it until MoL decides to look at it before he goes to bed and notice that there's more flammable objects hidden behind the fireplace then in a fucking crack factory. Fairly sure we'd burned to death if he hadn't moved all the crap.
The house was big though so we got a room each. I laid down to read a bit, annoyed that the damn bed was to short for me (I'm 184 cm and my feet were outside the bed ) when I heard MoL scream something and then come knock on my door. I was like "oum.. what?" and he goes of on the longest rants I've ever heard about how much his bed sucks since he found some small insects. He went on about how he food pee-stains on the bed, how the thing was probably from the Interwar period and went to sleep on the floor. I found this absolutely hilarious until something bit me on my shoulder. I did, however, decide that I was to tired to care about anything smaller then a fairly big snake so I went to sleep anyway.
To tired to write about the rest of the crap that happened but needless to say the trip was a lot of fun but not very productive at all.
So the support guy from Unibet called me and wanted me to do some stuff having to do with the registration for the next Unibet Open, and then we chat a little bit about random stuff as my room mate's sex life, how clean my kitchen may or may not be and such and then he commented that "You sure had some swings last month!". I found that pretty funny. The good part is that I'm much less inclined to let swings affect my mood anymore.
Thank God for other things in life I can find happiness and meaning in
Also, SC2 won't be the coolest thing ever. Except like, you know, Scarlett Johansson's boobies and other things probably constructed by a demon of some kind to bring people from their righteous path or whatever.
Hilarity is a great thing. Sometimes it is manufactured by John Cleese, in which case it might be lethal (according to wikipedia some Danish guy died laughing while watching A Fish Called Wanda) or just happen on High Stakes Poker when Raszi gets hold of 92s. Most of the time it's something they show on TV, or when your drunk friend tries to pick up some guy who looks a bit like a girl. However, sometimes you just happen to get into a situation that's bad, handle it worse and also get unlucky at the same time. Shit happens, basically, and sometimes it's probably really funny from an objective point of view. This episode happened a week ago and at first I figured I should keep it quiet, but in the spirit of "bjuda på sig själv" as we say in Sweden (wtf is the English expression? Basically giving up some ego to let everyone have a better time at your expense) I've decided that I should tell this story here on my blog. I'm fairly sure that not THAT many people I know irl reads this, and those who do are mostly close friends and such so I feel ok telling this.
Last Monday I played the Sunday donkament on prima, stayed up for some cash games and decided that sleep is for lazy people and that it's probably a good idea to go for a morning roll. Said and done I grab my gi and take a walk to the gym while drinking some red bull to keep awake. I do feel that my stomach is trying to tell me something about my sleeping schedule and food intake and that whatever it's trying to say probably contains a whole bunch of foul words. However, my body and I have a very simple relationship which basically is grounded in a lot of bitching from my body which I ignore or just answers with random phrases about how it'll probably be fine if I just get some duck tape, some water and/or some caffeine. I feel that I've probably spent to much of my life bitching about unimportant stuff so now I try to ignore that kind of crap. Anyway, I get to the gym a bit early, I sit around watching the morning break and generally feeling very philosophical and such thinking about how life is good, BJJ is sick fun and how the S mount is the most awesome thing since sliced bread.
Since Roberto "Cyborg" Abreu was in Sweden a couple of weeks before doing a seminar which a bunch of the guys was at the technique training for this session was about the Tornado Sweep.
check it out at about 2.40 or so.
I'd like to bring up a few important points for the rest of the story:
1. I'm not very good at BJJ. There's no way I'm getting a decent Tornado Sweep against anyone except if I get like 20 seconds to set it up. And then there's like a 50/50 chance it'll suck something horrid anyway, and maybe 5 % chance that it'll actually be a somewhat correct sweep. Also, a week ago before I had actually practice that sweep a couple of times I was even worse.
2. While trying to do that sweep you'll spend a decent amount of time with your ass in your partners face.
Anyway, I start out trying to do the sweep with a big blue belt. He seemed to be having some troubles with it too which is understandable since, well, he's a big ass guy and it's hard to bend like you need to do. I'm also doing my best which is basically getting up on my neck then looking like a retard while trying to to figure out which leg to throw in what direction. Overall we probably looked a bit silly and after a while the instructor (probably ~100kg or so black belt) decides that we should probably switch partner. The blue bet goes with the instructor and I say hi to some ~60 kg girl. If this change was since I couldn't throw a guy a couple of kilos heavier then me or had something to do with the fact that it'd be easier for the girl to do the technique with me (90kg or so) rather then the even bigger dude I don't know, but judging from the fact that she threw me around like nothing I'm fairly sure which one of those alternatives was true.
Anyway, you guys are smart, you already know what happens. I start to get the hang of it and it's a lot easier to manage to move 60 kg then whatever the big dude could've been and I generally starting to feel good about myself. The girl was one of those super positive nice people you encounter sometimes to which helped a bit. So finally I decide that I this time, yea, this time I'll do an awesome sweep and then I'll grab the biggest damn dude in the room and try it on him when we roll afterwards. That was the plan. We start from half guard, I get my grips, I spin around, everything is great and then... I fart in her face. Not a big one, mind you, and not one of those smelly (I hope!) but one with some sound attached to it. Not a lot, but definitely something someone with her face 25 cm from my ass would notice. I say "sorry", continue the sweep and manage to fuck every part of it up . Then we practice for a while in silence until it's time for 5 minutes sparring rounds. As usual I get my ass beaten (I'm the only beginner who goes to morning class with any regularity, lazy fucks!), which is fine with me since I learn a ton from it, and walk home in the morning air. Contemplating how Murphy was right, the world's a bitch and sometimes random variance just fucks you over.
But then I remember, after all, life is good and when something like this is your biggest concern for the day, well, your life can't be that bad.
So I wrote a test yesterday. Only one more to do this semester but I'll skip that due to being in Bulgaria when it should be written. Thus I'm pretty much on summer vacation from now untill the 1st of September.
My sister comes visiting from Italy today and tomorrow and due to Walpurgis Night I'll probably spend Saturday being hungover as fuck. Won't be drinking as much as earlier years due to being old and responsible but it'll still be a hell of a night. First year I was hear in Uppsala I had been drinking the night before, was still drunk when I woke up, got even drunker at breakfast and then it went all downhill from there. When I went to bed at 3 am or so I was already hungover and when I closed my eyes the world started spinning around me and I felt sick. Tried to call my friend R for a friendly mid night philosophy session but he didn't pick up. Called my friend H and he picked up but was busy trying to sober up enough to have sex with this girl we knew so he wasn't very interested in chatting either. I think I went and puked instead but apparently I made to much noise so that the girl I lived with then decided to throw an orange at me. Eventually I passed out on the floor. I wish I could say I've come a long way in 4 years
After the test yesterday I was super tired because I had woken up really early since I had messed up what time the test would begin. I went to BJJ practice and it started out a bit so-so but when we rolled (5 minutes against someone, then a bit of rest and 5 more against someone else) I tapped out both of my opponents with armbars which felt really good. One of them is much stronger, a little bit heavier and has better conditioning then me and RNC'd me last time we rolled but this time I did a much better job. He got side control early, had some half-assed Kimura attempts and got my back in the first 2 min or so but I kept my cool and got out and passed his guard when he messed up a little. Got mount, remembered what steal city commented on about how I should concentrate on keeping my position and let him gas out. I sat there controlling him and made him work for maybe 2.5 minutes before I isolated an arm, threw my leg over and eventually worked everything out for a tap with like 3-4 seconds to go . Then instead of clapping hands or whatever we hugged and decided that we'd need another match to settle this soon since we're now 1-1. Decided to skip the morning practice because I was tired as hell and short of sleep though. Overall I feel that it's much easier to keep to the real basic stuff now. Now weird sub attempts from half guard or fancy moves. Just sweep -> pass -> mount -> armbar or get the back and work for a RNC. I used to try for triangles all the time but it really seems like something that only works when the other guy fucks up a bit or when you're just much better/stronger/bigger.
Anyway, my "plan" for this 4 month summer without school is to play a ton of poker and do as much BJJ as I can. I'm hoping to get like 80k hands/month in while 6ish-tabling or so and work out in one way or another at least 5-6 times a week. I feel that I mostly want to get better but it'd be cool to get much better conditioning (right now it sucks) and strength too. Maybe start Muy Thai or something this fall too, for some more diverse training. Heh. Dunno if I have time though. As for the pokering I hope pick my game up a step or five. I know a fair few things I do bad and I want to fix them.
So I don't think I've ever been so tilted in a winning month. With rakeback it'll probably end up around 20k or so, which is nice. Last week has been fairly brutal, heh. Probably not playing any significant amounts or stakes for the rest of the month due to a test and VALBORG. Overall for the year I'm not up as much as I've hoped, but I'm still making a fair bit. Pretty swingy though.
I have some goals for may though:
- Working out 6 times a week.
- Put in a lot of hands while not playing to many tbls.
- Eat well
Basically may will be the first "summer vacation" month for me since I'll miss my last test anyway due to poker obligations (lol) and therefore I won't study much (might do the test later, but w/e) and I'll spend the month doing meaningful shit such as: Getting in shape, playing poker and fishing. It'll be glorious.
It's about the topic; "beating mid stakes pokering" or something. Dunno if the link works cause megaupload was weird about uploading it but let me know and if it doesn't work I'll find another host.
Decided to play the Sunday donkament on Prima. Finished 31 for like no money at all. Managed to get top 50 or so in it probably around 3-4 times just the last 2 months or so. Can't seem to run good in the end though . Saving up my "deep in donkament"-luck for Unibet Open I guess. Anyway, I started playing some cash (5/10) an did pretty well while I waited for the morning to break.
Guy is some MMA-fighter known for some crappy MTV-show, a good record and various entrances which usually includes dancing and hot Asian chicks. Here he speaks about his next fight (tomorrow?) and a lot of the crap he's talking about sounds a bit like some of us thinks about poker. How you need to be on top of your game etc. He might possibly be my favourite fighter, or at least top 5.
Really havn't played much, up a lot due to running good/playing really well. Been playing much less omaha (bad action for some reason) and been crushing 5/10 and 10/20 NL instead.
BJJ is going good too. My conditioning sucks ass due to being a lazy poker player but my balance seems to be above average and I'm very limber for my size which helps a ton. In sparring I'm doing ok against most guys, but the ones that are in shape and/or has been doing some kind of grabbling before still have an edge, obviously. I did, however, superown this 30ish y/o 100 and something kilo guy by basically underrestimating his strenght, get pushed to the ground, do some kind of panic-mood-gaurd and then just triangle him. I think he kind of thought I had the same ability as him to actually reach anything with my legs (ie: non to speak of) and got caught of guard by my general awesomeness. Then I managed to do the same thing once again and later sweep -> armbar from mount him all within 3 minutes. It felt really good that stuff actually works.
In positional sparring (no submissions and when you get a dominant pos for 3 sec you just change so the other guy starts in that position) I managed to own my room mate which was really fun since he usually owns me. Then I did some regular sparring against some guy who seemed to be in much better shape then me. Got mount, figured I'd try to do that Aoki-thingy with a gogoplata from mount, obviously failed miserably and got swept. From then on I had some decent armbar attempt from the bottom but in the end he passed me, got my back and RNC'd me.
Was happy about it anyway since I learn stuff. Basically I think I need to do some running or whatever so that I actually get some conditioning going and then figure out wtf I'm supposed to do when I get sidemounted.
Weird thing is that despite actually making more then most people in Sweden does in a year in two weeks I'm still more excited for BJJ then poker right now. That feels a bit weird, but I'll take it I guess.
Really looking forward to Unibet Open Bulgaria in June. It'll be so much fun it's ridiculous. Also, since I'm this new healthier me I might actually be sober enough to hold on to a conversation for a bit so if you're going there don't hesitate to say hi.
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) when I heard MoL scream something and then come knock on my door. I was like "oum.. what?" and he goes of on the longest rants I've ever heard about how much his bed sucks since he found some small insects. He went on about how he food pee-stains on the bed, how the thing was probably from the Interwar period and went to sleep on the floor. I found this absolutely hilarious until something bit me on my shoulder. I did, however, decide that I was to tired to care about anything smaller then a fairly big snake so I went to sleep anyway. 
. Then we practice for a while in silence until it's time for 5 minutes sparring rounds. As usual I get my ass beaten (I'm the only beginner who goes to morning class with any regularity, lazy fucks!), which is fine with me since I learn a ton from it, and walk home in the morning air. Contemplating how Murphy was right, the world's a bitch and sometimes random variance just fucks you over. 
