And it hasn't officially started yet, but being assistant director means I now get to do all those things that just seemed "taken care of" when I was a counselor, so I've gone in a bunch to set things up/make manuals/call people/go through health forms. Lots of excellent things. Orientation is this week as well, and it's wicked cutting into my poker grumble grumble. Started mixing in a few $30s with the $20s, turned out being even tighter than the $20s which I guess is normal enough. The only other real frame of reference I have is PartyPoker, and there were a crapload of idiots at every level there I found, even up to $50s which I had dabbled in for about a hundred sngs or so. There are still nutters on UB to be sure, but quite a few less. This is nothing new, but the ratio from idiot to decent player is rising proportionally with stakes at such a precise level which strikes me as a bit odd.

Still doing well, the new Gary Spivey avatar rungood mojo left me for a while and I...

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...against complete MORANS. It's true. While I do think rungood has something to do with it, I'm still crushing these SNGs at a $5/sng clip. When you're playing $10s and $20s, that's pretty solid. I bought 200 searches on sharkscope to get a sense of what I was up against. Out of about 30 players I sharkscoped yesterday, 5 were winning players, three marginally so with 2-3% ROI. The rest were losers. Some of them huge losers. Like -50%+ losers. Well then. No wonder these games are way easy. Everyone sucks. Totally fine with me, but also a minor bummer in that I'm still not as good as I think I am :P. Either way, still enjoying it very much, the only times I get really upset now or when I screw up. Beats don't have much of an effect, though they are coming much less frequently due to being all in a hell of a lot less. That little nugget of info about raise/folding has completely changed the dynamics of the endgame for me. No more silly double ups, no more wild suckouts (going...

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But don't get too excited, what little there was to talk about is partially forgotten at this point as far as hand specifics. Throw in a few random things about the cruise itself, but this is a poker blog first and foremost, so I shan't bore you with the minutia. This will doubtless still be a rather long post, since I have a tendency to be quite verbose. You know this, of course, being a loyal reader of mine for all these years. Right? RIGHT?!?!

Easy peasy flight down, checking in takes less than 20 minutes, text my girlfriend as I get on telling her to meet me right outside the crew area. This being a ship I'm quite familiar with, I know all the ins and outs. Grab my complementary glass of champagne upon embarkation, book it across the length of the ship, get a funny look from one of the cruise staff as I'm sticking my head into the crew area, she comes out happy times yay my cabin still isn't ready. Well then. Putz around the ship, I go through the casino and lick my chops...

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Soooooooo yea...cruising>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>working on a cruise. And working on a cruise is a pretty awesome experience. I guess that's no real surprise though. Very strange being on a ship I had worked on as recently as 8 months ago, not used to walking around wherever the hell I wanted and doing what I wanted. It was pretty sweet. There was poker to be had, but I'm hungry right now, so I'll type up a little mini trip report in the next few days or so. Long story short I ended up paying for my various expenses onboard and cab rides and tips and all that, which was solid. Also, I REAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY want to play live poker again now. Totally gave me the itch. But with medication, and regular trips to Foxwoods, I can still lead a normal life.

Sharkscope has me at a healthy 28% ROI over my first 30. Huzzah. Sustainable. It's fun though, and the play is atrocious. I go deep lots. Nice. 4 tabling at the most, and doing sets of 4 instead of continuous. Not overdoing it, but getting in 12-16 a day which is fine. Nothing of note really except that I'm way better playing 4 tables than I am playing more than 4. Duh. Still doing $10s, did a set of $20s because no tens were filling at all, and proceeded to lose to two big suckouts in my first two. Standard moveup runbad. Won the last one to turn a minor profit though, wahoo. That is all. Two half-assed attempts to qualify for the 200k since it seems there's always overlay, but ehhh. Half-assed doesn't seem to work, so I wasted like $50 there. No more of that. Try better Ham. See Ham try. Try Ham, try. Rakeback coming in, only made about $90, but that's also because the bonus cuts into it a fair amount. Cleared $100 of that, so still got a ways to go. If things continue...

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