Blog #10 - So what then??

Well, I've finally come down from teh elation of cashing in for over £1500 in only my 2nd live poker club tournament. So what have I been up to since?

Firstly, getting back to teh day job, and sharing my tales of poker stardom (ok, not quite WSOP but it is my equivalent!) and teh Grassroots promotion with anyone who'd listen. Even my work colleagues...which out of interest I had to fill in a '2nd Employment/Activity Interest' form for approval in order to take part in Grassroots, due to 'sponsorship' and possible publicity and extra income. No, for real! Oh how teh civil service love their forms!

Secondly, putting my new found wealth to good use! So the local eateries profit has soared whilst Mrs G's cookery skills have been put on hold. We are also pleased to see our kids restaurant skills have improved from a few years back when:

At 9 years old, my daughter, when asked if what she ordered might be too big for her replied:

"I might look like an angel but I eat like a truck driver"

Or when my then 10 year old son, when asked by the waitress how he'd like his steak cooked replied:

"Yes, I'd like it cooked...thank you"

We also spent a weekend celebrating a friends birthday, which included Longleat Safari Park, and actually managed to see the monkeys doing what everyone wants to see...wrecking cars. Unfortunately our friends car was one of the many cars they decided to try to pull apart, though we found it soooo funny!

The only downside was missing the Grassroots Freeroll which Ladbrokes Poker had once again generously arranged, so it was a shame to miss out on teh banter, discussions on wildcards and tweets, but can't play poker all teh time...can I?

And , yes, of course some money banked to keep Mrs G happy!

I've also been keeping an eye on teh WSOP and following some of our English talent! Watched the video stream of Neil Channing getting through to teh final table and then losing his AJ to 44 to miss out on the win and perhaps as importantly for a poker pro the elusive bracelet...but guessing the $406k helped soften the blow, eventually! And then of course $1m drop...and a cool $10m for 2nd; $18m for 1st and as importantly over $5m for charity!

Finally, the names for teh final 8 Grassrooters were revealed at the beginning of the month. Four of us had cashed so knew we were through, but congrats to teh lucky chosen four for getting through. Next steps for us all were finding a £500 game for our Round 3 game, which has been harder than you might think.

Only two £500 games in teh UK in July, one in Plymouth and one in Bolton, both starting on a Friday over 3 days. The 3 days were fine but taking a work day off at relatively short notice was a big problem for me, but thankfully Ladbrokes understood teh predicament and allowed us to enter the £400 event at The Fox on 4th August, extending teh deadline slightly, so 5 of us have chosen that as 'our event' so we're all looking forward to that; the catching up with each other as well as the actual poker. GO TEAM LADBROKES! GO TEAM GRASSROOTS!

Alan (aka Lifeisalaugh, aka 'Green Army' (for his Grassroots wig not because a Plymouth supporter!)) picked the £500 GUKPT Deep stack event in Plymouth and was a joy to watch on the GUKPT's live stream over teh weekend. At the final table he was very unlucky to be hit hard when his QQ was rivered against AQ with an 'A' and then going out short-stacked soon after. But he did Ladbrokes, Grassroots and most importantly himself proud!!! Well Done!!

Richard, TheSwede1970 is playing in his home land of Sweden on 27th July so although a competitor for one of teh last four places, and despite being the man who on paper i think is favourite, I do wish him well!

What else? Well teh only other news is that I've decided (ok and negotiated with Mrs G!!) to speculative to accumulate and fullfill a long time wish of playing a live and reasonably high stakes (for me) Omaha game. So off to The Vic i will go to their London Poker Championships on 25th july to take part in their £200 PL Omaha game, for my first live Omaha game. And all thanks to Ladbrokes and Grassroots, who without the opportunity I wouldn't have won the money to treat myself to this kind of live buy-in! Thank you!

So not much poker to update you with on this blog...but #11 will give you my thoughts and 'heavily researched statistical analysis' on my remaining 'challengers' in teh Grassroots race for teh £10k sponsorship deal!

IMPORTANT!
Oh and finally...offering 5% of any of my #LPGR2012 Stage 3 winnings if you follow and retweet my offer of 5% and then send me a funny poker tweet, with the 5% going to teh single funniest tweet i get! @_Mr_G_ is who you need to follow! With a likely 1st prize of over £12k it could be a good 2 minutes well spent to follow and tweet me. Although if not in teh money then 5% of nothing...erm, well hopefully you can do the maths!!