Like I said earlier in a small post, I have been sick lately and away from home. I went to Vlissingen (place of birth), to visit family and catch up etc. When I came back I was feeling kinda sick, but nothing extreme. Boy was I wrong. On Monday fever hit me full throttle. Sweat was literally dripping from my face and I spent most time in bed, trying to recover. It lasted a couple days but now I’m feeling great again. First things first, I was gonna put in a long entry about a tennis tournament here. One of the more fun days in the past months! I did get to do some stuff while being sick though. I recorded some sick lethal rap:
ABN Amro Tennis Tournament
It’s the biggest tournament Holland offers and one of the favorites of the pro’s themselves. I been there a couple times when I was young and innocent, but that’s like 8 years ago. I was really excited about it. Also, this was gonna be Raemon Sluiter’s last professional tennis tournament. People were anticipating this match greatly. Sluiter is the crowds favorite in Holland, which you can clearly tell from watching Davis Cup matches. I watched a ton of them always and I share those feelings.
All the more happy I was when Jaco, a friend of Sluiter, invited me to come to the match. I met them in the week before the tournament and so it was very cool to invite me . Jaco said there other people coming along, specifically from the world of snooker. They showed up at my apartment around 3 pm, sick life. Half woken up and half dressed I opened the door and at first I thought ‘oh fuck’. Everyone was well-dressed and my apartment was a pile of garbage. Then I thought ‘fuck it’, it’s just the way it is and the only ones I clean up for when they drop by are my grandparents. Luckily, they didn’t mind at all and loved the way my ‘bachelor’s pad’ looked.
Little did I know, these two gentlemen were greats from the world of Snooker, and now also Pool. Jan Verhaas, who is basically the best Snooker referee out there. If you see a big match on TV, it’s highly likely he is ref. The other was Tony Drago, long-time top Snooker play and #4 in the world in Pool as we speak. We had some coffee here and then went to play some pool. Was really fun and we had some drinks. Tony Drago had his first drink in 6 years and was hammered pretty fast from drinking a couple Baileys. We played a game of pool and I won with some cheesy 9-ball combination ZOMG! When he wanted to rematch I obviously declined, securing my winning record against a top pool pro by doing so. Ship it.
We went to Ahoy in Jaco’s car and had some food in the VIP Village. During dinner I met Richard Kraijceck, which is cool, cause I’ve been a fan of him since I was a little kid. He is basically the first player I watched when I started to follow and figure out tennis. After dinner we got ready to attend the match. Jaco had tickets for Kraijcecks VIP Box, so our seats were sick. We shared the box with Sluiters family, who were of course attending his last performance(s).
The Match
He was playing Llodra, a young talented player who was running good lately. It was kinda weird. I just met Raemon but I was really, really nervous. I wanted him to win so bad and sitting there with his family and friends only made that feeling stronger. You get a glimpse of the whole world behind a top athlete and the importance of every performance. The match begun and people feared it would be over soon. Llodra won the first set with 6-1 and was playing like there was no tomorrow. He basically had 1 unforced error the whole first set. He hit everything and I hated him for it.
Then the second set the match really started. Sluiter was getting a better rhythm in the match and then one of the most intense moments I ever had in sports was borne. My god, I was literally shaking and my hands were sweaty. The crowd went completely crazy, supporting Sluiter. The whole hall was filled to the top, close to 10,000 attendants. The cool thing about watching a tennis match, is that you can hear a pin drop when points are being played. Then as soon as the point has been played, the hall explodes and you hear 10,000 people screaming their lungs out. The second set went to a tie-break, which was o so fitting. I think I hadn’t been that nervous since Holland and Brasil faced in penalties in 1998 World Championship. (fuck brasil holla)
Here is an example of people exploding thinking Sluiter hit an Ace. It's quiet, he serves, people think he hit an Ace, they explode.
Unfortunately he lost the tie-break. However, to me it didn’t really matter. Of course I would have loved to see him win, but the match was sick ass cool and the crowd loved it and showed their support. They had a cool closing ceremony to thank him for everything he has done for Dutch tennis. After that we hung out a bit and talked about the match. Around midnight Jaco offered to take me home, but not before Drago, Jaco and me went to eat some Chinese. Christ did they love duck .
Later that week we went to another couple matches at Ahoy. We saw Llodra play again, also Nadal and Davydenko. Most fun that day was playing padel. I was with Jaco and Lisette and they introduced this sick ass action game to me. My goodness, I was dying, but with a smile. It’s an action packed mix between tennis and squash basically. Here is a highlight vid from it.
Jaco hit the most impossible ball at the end of the match. Like, fuck, it’s even hard to explain it. He was running to the back of the field following a lob and then with a flick of his wrist sent the ball racing towards our side with his back towards us. Was sick.
After the match I went to Vlissingen and came back home sick.
Poker
I played some poker when I got home, well some, I ended up doing another 45 hour session. I started out with some tourneys which went well. Finished 3rd in the 50 rebuy on T6 Poker. I had some minor cashes on Pokerstars, but nothing special. Then I played some cash games on Stars, in which I also did good. I played heads up vs Bart Spijker at the end of the session, swing mania. Bart was believed to be one of the weaker high stakes players, when he just made his appearance on pokerstars. That was probably true, but boy did he improve. Playing him now is sick ass, high variance, and not just upswings now. He puts sick amount of pressure and every pot is a big one. Props to him for improving so quickly and it’s fun to see, cause I like the guy a lot.
The rest of the week I’ve been lying in bed like I said earlier. On Friday I did put in a lot of hours, which is good, cause I haven’t been playing much. Pokerstars had a double VPP/FPP cause it was leap-day on Feb 28th. Yesterday I played some hu on 2-4 and 3-6 and that went pretty well too. I don’t have any really interesting hands to show from the sessions, sorry.
Guitar hero
Since my last blog I have a couple of new achievements and stuff. I 100% FC’d Generation Rock and Metal Heavy Lady. On Metal Heavy Lady I’m top 100 on the leaderboards in score, yay. Also a new No Doubt song-pack came out and I would recommend it! Sunday Morning is such a fun song to play. Oh, I made a list with my scores on Scorehero.com. I didn’t put every score there yet, but I’ll gradually complete the list, so if you’re interested check it out. I also finished the game on expert finally, fucking Lou.
It’s a good thing that I 100%’d a couple more songs. I needed the morality boost. More and more I was getting pissed off when I played bad, basically because I hate to suck at something I love doing. One time I was so pissed off when playing Evelyn online, I just walked away and went to bed. From her point of view it was as if I stopped playing, but she had no idea where I was going. I told her the next day I had internet problems cause I was kinda embarrassed. So NOW YOU KNOW, YES I LEFT PISSED OFF. Childish me, but fuck it I don’t care.
Tomorrow is my first session with a personal trainer. He trained Sluiter before he quit and he has a lot of experience with some big football teams in Holland. He is probably gonna kill the living shit out of me, but that’s kinda the point. Can’t wait to start and I hope it improves the way I live. Hollaaaaaaaaaaaa. Maybe he can even teach me how to do this:
Hope you enjoyed reading it and if you didn't well.. your probably an idiot anyway.
I havent been home in a while and i have a sick sick fever right now so I cannot do much.. water is literally dripping down my face so when i feel a bit better Ill do a big update since there is much to talk about ~
I have no recollection of what I did on thursday. I think I played guitar hero till like 6 am and then passed out. Anyways on with friday. I woke up around 1 pm by alarm, cause I had to pick up my car. I forgot to mention earlier someone busted the right front window of my car. Pretty nice. They left my 350$ Bose headphones, remote controles tv screens in car, everything. I mean if you're gonna fuck my car up, at least steal some shit so it makes sense. Anyways, I'm happy a brainless retarded just wanted to destroy something that night and never thought about making a living while doing just that. I left my car, mainly because of laziness, in a kind of desolated place. I had some trouble with my car alarm and I had to let an engineer look at it. Anyways, they took it to the garage and everything was fixed, so I went to pick it up.
Overall Friday was a sucky day, until the evening. I had a homegame in Rotterdam and it was crazy fun. It was pretty small stakes, but it reminded me how fun poker can be. They were inexperienced players but all very intelligent people, absorbing everything they could... and also wanted to do so. That last fact reminded me of the Eye of the tiger. I know it's kinda lame to quote Rocky movies, but it's true. I'm fighting fucking Clubber Lang and I lost the eye of the tiger. I need to get it back and since that game I'm confident I will. The night was fun, I met new people and I got back my fun in poker. There are more ways to making a living, I dunno if I can do it as baller as this guy though:
The homegame inspired me so much, I went straight to playing when I came back home. 40 Hour sessions are pretty normal these days, so I had a ton of stamina left. I played a bit on betfair again, which only added to my new motivation, cause a change of software has that kind of effect on me. I played some 2.5$/5$ and I loved playing there again. Software is insanely fast and I like the bet pot buttons . I switched over back to pokerstars because there hardly is action at night on euro sites. I started playing 3-6 and I saved some hands this time to put in my blog.
Not to diss on Pillars, I like him a lot and he's a good player, but this hand is important from the session. I haven't been reviewing my play enough lately, so when I started doing so, I discovered something huge. Some lines I take always with the same holdings. For instance, I would hardly ever checkraise bluff the river. That is gonna destroy my game, especially in games with a ton of regulars like 3-6 on ps. So i decided to get funky with it a couple times in hands and this was one example.
Another point of criticism. I play too cautiously in 3-bet pots pre heads up. I noticed I have a lot of trouble vs people who play actively in 3-bet pots heads up. So i decided to go full throttle this session and again balance out my range better, because this is a line i would def take with AQ+ hu. It will make me less predictable in heads up matches and definitely improve the 3-bet part of my hu game.
This is just a random 4-bet preflop pot with Aces. It was the biggest pot of the night, and a perfect spot for me. I had a lot of history with the regulars this session. I went from playing tight slightly passive to really lag in the same session and then slowed down again.
Ok this pot is just kinda insane. I 4-bet preflop here, since we're deep and he was 3-betting me regularly. I know he is gonna call my flopbet a ton of the time, so i fired a second barrel on the turn. Little did I know I was valuebetting thinly. It results in a 3,5 buy-in pot, with shitty holdings, kind of funny pot. When he snappushed turn and his hand opened on the river I was searching the board what he had, cause I was sure I was beat without improvement. Funny hand, and this one is from the superlag period.
Guitar hero
Lets start of with one of the best music video's in history:
I remember crying laughing when my mom saw this video aired for the first time on dutch tv. I don't know a lot of Tenacious D music, but I'm sure i'll find out more. I love their 'The Metal' as well. Anyways I got the 350,000$ plus achievement in guitar hero. You have to earn over 350,000$ over different careers. It takes some time, but I got it. Ow I also re-gotten that 500,000 point achievement!!! I did it on the same German song as I did when I played Evelyn online, but this time I got it in single player. So I received it. The other failure from that session was also made fact when I 100% fc'd My Name Is Jonas, but this time in career, so I have the 5 golden stars behind it. Holllaaaaa. Props to Evelyn for also getting the 500k achievement in single player. She is sick good at rhythm songs, so im not surprised.
There was another kinda of like rhythm game brought out today. It's called audiosurf and read about it on a starcraft website. It's not so much playing an instrument like guitar hero or rockband, but it's moving a plane on music.. here's a sample vid.
OMG YOU DIDNT EECT DID YOU NOW.
This is a more normal song though, maybe the hottest song in gaming right now lol?
Anyways in GH Im still struggling with raining blood, but Im getting better and better at mosh 1. I really wanna learn it the right way and not luckbox my way through it and finish the song. I can tell im improving a lot at guitar hero, just by playing that bit over and over.
Plans for upcoming days
This week the ABN Amro tennis tournament starts. It's been ages since I last watched any of the matches. This week is the last pro-performance of Raemon Sluiter. He has been great for Dutch tennis so I'm definitely gonna check out his match. I hope to be able to watch some others as well, should be mad fun. I'll try to play as much poker as I can this time. I didn't feel like it last couple weeks, but like I said, my fun returned, now give me tigereye and leaderchip in a big tourney and I'll be ready to own you bitches.
OHH!!! Before I forget I was gonna do an update on sidebets:
My bet is coming along great. I'll ask Victor (Nazgul1 to contact support and verify I've been keeping to the deal for those that might not be satisfied with my word alone. Sometimes I'm longing to play higher, but I have to keep to it.
I also have a new bet with Elky. It's kind of a funny bet, because we both don't work out all that much, but we bet who can bench press more on day 1 of the WSOP Main event. It's about a single push, so who can push the most in that 1 single push. Elky has the bet with a couple people, so I hope he is not too motivated, but he just won 2 million, so I think I have an edge in this one. I doubt I'll work out for it though.
Ow and props to Jay Kwik for making his Bellagio bathroom bet. He came out unscathed after a 30 day imprisonment. So cool he won.
. Jaco said there other people coming along, specifically from the world of snooker. They showed up at my apartment around 3 pm, sick life. Half woken up and half dressed I opened the door and at first I thought ‘oh fuck’. Everyone was well-dressed and my apartment was a pile of garbage. Then I thought ‘fuck it’, it’s just the way it is and the only ones I clean up for when they drop by are my grandparents. Luckily, they didn’t mind at all and loved the way my ‘bachelor’s pad’ looked.
ECT DID YOU NOW.
to contact support and verify I've been keeping to the deal for those that might not be satisfied with my word alone. Sometimes I'm longing to play higher, but I have to keep to it.
