July & Micromillions Challenge

Hello everyone!

I know that in my last post I wrote I would be studying in June and that there would be a post related to that, but since it's taking longer than expected I thought I'd just make a quick post to update you.

Basically, June flew by without me noticing! During the first week, I was trying to recover from my super intensive last days of May where I was chasing Platinum. Then, I went to Greece where I stayed for another two weeks. Here are some pics:

Flisvos bay, one of my favourite places to get a coffee back home.

Greek summer: Beach, sun and frappé coffee!

Beach in Athens

Fun way to pass the time at the beach: board games!

The plan was to come back to Portugal and study during the last week of June, but it backfired when I caught a cold and was feeling too tired to play or think. Imagine, I was even turning down invites from André and other friends to play Diablo 3!

Anyway, not only July is here, but half of it is gone already! What have I done since its beginning... Well, when it comes to playing, not much. I've been playing the Micromillions Satellites, but not many at a time. What I've mostly been doing this month is studying . And let me tell you, it is more chaotic than it sounds. I've dropped the number of tables I play to 4, so that I have more time to think about what I'm doing before I do it. Also, I've been messing around with Holdem Manager quite a bit. I've discovered some new interesting things.

This whole reviewing the way I play thing, has confused me more than it has helped me so far. I'm actually considering to put aside all the spreadsheets André gave me and make new ones on my own... Not that I want to question the hyper-turbo master, but... Maybe that specific way of playing is not what's best suited for me. My hesitation has to do with the fact that creating new spreadsheets is very time-consuming and I may be waisting my time for nothing if I find that it's not working out and go back to my previous way of playing.

Also, since I didn't play at all in June, I'm back to Bronze star. It stung a bit that I didn't get to play at all with my Platinum status, but oh well. I'm not setting any points goals for now, cause I don't want to be chasing after a status instead of studying.

As hinted in the title, I have some things to say about a certain Micromillions challenge. It's not a challenge I'm doing, it's one of André's ideas. You can learn more about it here. Basically, he decided to play ALL  100 Micromillions Events. Why is that a challenge? Because during 11 days, the Micromillions will be running pretty much non-stop. Events can start at anytime of the day, doesn't matter if it's 15:00 p.m. or 3:00 a.m. You can see the full schedule here. In theory, this means that during 11 days he could get absolutely no sleep. In practice, he gets to sleep 1 hour here 2 hours there everytime he busts early from a tournament and until the next event starts. Some of them also have late registration available, which adds a couple of hours of sleep. As I'm writing this, it is day 8 of the Micromillions series and the challenge. You cannot imagine how much I'm looking forward for it to end. Let me tell you what living with a Micromillions challenger is like from the perspective of the girlfriend...

From day 1 it became obvious that André and I could not be sleeping in the same room. There is no way I can sleep if his alarm goes off at random times and all throughout the night. Also, I cannot risk waking him up with my alarm in the morning if he happens to be taking a one hour nap when I wake up. Therefore, I was immediately self-exiled to the guest room. When it comes to meals, he mostly cooks by himself cause it is somehow part of the challenge, but I still prepare some of his meals. The worst part of it though, is the mess he leaves in the kitchen (and in the house overall). I spent around 4 hours clearing just the kitchen yesterday. You can imagine how bad it was. And I can't really say anything cause he's pushing himself to the limits as it is, we can't expect him to clean on top of it all, can we?

As if playing while being sleep deprived is not enough, he also needs to do videos about it. And guess who serves as a cameraman whenever one is needed? Yeap, you guessed right! You may think it's not such a big deal (he films most of his video blogs by himself anyway), but you'd be amazed at how many times you have to re-film a 2 minutes scene when the person you are filming is so exhausted they cannot think straight.

And then there are the accidents. Yesterday, around 5 a.m. I hear a loud BAM! followed by the sound of glass breaking. It's not the first time I hear things falling and rush to the other room to see if André is ok, but this one was worse because of the glass. I get to the computer room and what do I see? André's improvised lightning which consisted of a ladder, a huge pile of books and a lamp on top of it all, was on the floor. If you are wondering what the structure initially looked like, you can see it in this video. It was basically a wonder how it lasted so many days and didn't come down anytime sooner. And to make things worse, André was standing in the middle of the mess of books and broken glass barefooted. I told him to not move and brought the vacuum cleaner. Just my favourite thing to do at 5:00 in the morning.

Today, I woke up and went to check up on him. He was in front of the computer, as usual, and had just started explaining how he missplayed a hand due to his exhaustion the during the night, when he knocked over a glass full of water he had next to him. The water spread to his laptop which I rushed to pick up and then fell on the UPSes and the computer cables. Shortly after, the computer turned off. Oh, and there was more broken glass on the floor, of course. First we wiped the water off the laptop, then André turned it on and continued playing his tournament while I was cleaning up the mess. Again. And all that before I had a chance to get a sip of my morning coffee, may I add.

I won't bore you any further with the errands I need to run (super market, buying lamps etc.) or with the comments "You are nuts" I get when performing mundane tasks such as putting the knives and forks from the washing machine into the drawer or walking fast around the house. Or the complete lack of conversation during the past week. It feels like living with a zombie.

I'll just leave you with my favourite incident from this challenge:

A couple of days ago, I was putting the laundry out to dry. As I'm standing in the balcony, I see André coming towards the kitchen. He didn't enter however, he just stood there in the hallway, staring at the floor. I followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at a small slice of onion. I had been cooking that day, and I guess I dropped it without noticing and then the wind must have carried it into the hallway.

André stares at the onion.

The onion stares back.

André keeps staring.

A couple of minutes (!) later, he snaps out of it, goes into the kitchen and notices me out in the balcony. "There's a slice of onion on the floor there", he says matter-of-factly. "I know", I replied, "Why don't you pick it up?". He thinks a bit and then says "Cause if I bend down to pick it up off the floor I think I'll get very dizzy and may not be able to get up again!". That sould give you an idea of what it's been like in this house these past days.

In conclusion, I think poker players should consult their girlfriends/wives before launching themselves into extreme challenges like this one. After all, no one asked me if I wanted to participate in this challenge. I'm trying to be supportive and all, but it's tough work. I told him that I deserved a lunch or dinner at that nice Mexican restaurant that I've been wanting to go for ages but we never seem to have time for it. I think I should add a full day at the beach to my rewards. I've earned it, don't you think?

Ok, three more days to go. I can do this. Wish me luck!!!