Ok so for the past 4 months or so, I haven't touched the game. I decided I'd focus more on uni and take a break from poker. Exams finished 3 weeks ago, results came out (I did the same as I've done previous semesters =/ ) and since then I've returned to playing.
Deciding that FTP really is RIGGD, I decided to put $500 on stars and grind up from 25nl to ease my way back in.
I've noticed the games on stars are fairly soft, there are quite a few fish but then there are also quite a few multi-tabling nitty regs. Not only that, but most of the fish don't really get involved in big pots without the nuts. So, while its easy to make money, it takes a lot of diligent grinding and disciplined play to do so.
Here's the graph of my run at 25nl: (Note the first 6k hands I donked around really bad, playing like 28/26 and trying to run stations over...obv failed haha).
So I'll continue grinding, moving up to 50nl next session I play. Holidays only last for 1 more week, but I don't return to uni: I'm doing research in a lab at a hospital for a year. Hopefully it's not too full-on, and I won't have any commitment to it at home, so I can continue playing poker for the coming year.
In non-poker related stuff, I have a long to-do list of games to complete:
On XBox360 I have to finish Lost Odyssey, GTA4, DMD mode on DMC4, Ninja Gaiden 2 (this is fucking hard) and Gears of War.
Also, I'm going to go out and buy a parts for a new computer in a few days. While not finalized, the setup seems to be:
Core2Duo 8500
ATI Radeon 4850/4870 (undecided on which card to get yet)
4gig DDR2 ram
Appropriate case and PSU
22" LCD
My friend made a detailed list of the exact parts and costs, it should be$1.2 - $1.4k Australian dollars. And ready to kick ass in SC2 at max settings (hopefully) when it finally comes out.
Finally, some funny youtube videos which bag creationists (if you are a creationist, lol @ you)
There's over 20 videos in this series, but these 3 are amongst the funniest. I suggest you listen while you grind, it's good entertainment and tilt relief (unless of course you're a creationist, but in that case you probably think poker is all about luck and suck).
So I had my jaw surgery yesterday, it was 3.5 hour operation. Thankfully, the surgeon only had to adjust my upper jaw, so my lower jaw remains unscathed.
I still feel the effects of the general anesthetic, although it is very mild now. The nerve blocks they used during the surgery are wearing off, so I am beginning to feel dull throbbing pain. However, it is far less severe than I imagined it would be, so I'm very relieved. My face is massively swollen, I'll post photos of myself later if I can be bothered. I'm very tired and have a headache. The most frustrating thing is not being able to eat anything except for complete mush, and I have frequent nose bleeds. I'm told these will go away soon, and within a week I should be able to chew soft foods.
I'm very tired, but I can't sleep properly because I favor positions where I have my face buried in the pillow: Obviously that's not possible because it is painful to touch my face around the mouth area, so I have to get by on fragmented sleep on my back .
So I got jaw surgery coming up, I'm booked in Saturday morning on the 2nd of Feb. Because I consider this to be fairly major event in my life, and because I want a quick and complication-free healing period afterward, I'm deciding to not play any more poker until the surgery is done and probably won't play for at least 2 weeks afterwards. The reason for not playing prior to the surgery is, it would be really gay to go on a 10bi downswing, mentally feel like shit, and then go under the knife. I'm happy with my poker progress this month so far (+$2k in approx 35k hands), so I'll just let it stay that way.
The purpose for the surgery is I have a very big over-bite, meaning my top teeth protrude over my bottom teeth. Because of this, when I bite down fully, my teeth only touch at the back molars, and the front teeth make no contact whatsoever. The gap at the front is so large that I can bite down fully, and still poke my tongue through with ease.
These pictures kinda show what is being done, I'll try to commentate exactly what each picture is trying to show.
-This shows a side-on view of the skull only. The black line shows the cut they will be making into my maxilla to adjust my upper jaw. The result is to bring my upper teeth lower and backwards.
-This shows a frontal view of both the skull and mandible. The cut-lines are in red this time, and show how they are cutting directly back into my maxilla (upper jaw), and how they are cutting my lower jaw on both sides to adjust the angle, bringing it upwards to cause my lower teeth to move higher and more forward.
-This shows a top-down view of the mandible (lower jaw). It's hard to explain exactly how the cut looks, but it is basically a really shallow-angled cut through the bone on each side. The red line shows the cut-line they will use, and the green shows the surface area they have of each piece of bone on which to manipulate it and adjust the angle. The goal is to tilt the bone upwards, so that my lower teeth will come up and forward.
I'm getting kind of nervous because post-op is going to suck and be painful. Apparently it's standard to lose 5kg post-op, due to the trauma of the surgery and the fact I can only eat limited amounts of soft food afterwards.
edit. The pics don't work directly, so you'll just have to make do with links.
.
