(wrote this last thursday after we first got our power back, but only managed to post it now due to internet connection problems)

Sometimes things really have to be taken away from us for us to appreciate them even more. After super typhoon Milenyo struck about 7 days ago, we lost our power, water, and phone lines. Ok, no problem, we’ve been through this before. Little did we know it would take the authorities 7 days to restore everything back to normal in our area. Yesterday, we got our normal lives handed back to us a week of living in the dark ages.

Lying in my own bed has never felt so good in my life.

Man, what a storm though. A huge tree in our yard literally cracked in half! I even went driving around the metro the very night after the storm hit us, and it was as if Godzilla himself passed through Metro Manila. I saw cars crushed under huge billboards that fell on the road, vans and trucks tipped on their sides, trees all over the place, and all kinds of devastation.

A few days after the storm, we were all bitching about the lack of power and all the inconveniences that came along with it, and the utter ineptitude of the authorities to do something about it as fast as we wanted them to.

Then I came across this article in the paper about a simple farmer in the province who had been saving up for his birthday for 3 whole months so he can treat his wife and kids to Jollibee. Yes, he was saving up for THREE MONTHS, to save P1, 000. The typhoon tragically struck a few days before his birthday, and a flash flood killed his entire family, his wife and kids.

He ended up spending the money to bury his family on his birthday.

Kinda shut up my bitching.

Puts things in perspective huh?

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So on to other, more mundane things like poker. I’ve been playing more the past weeks with some good results. Mostly I play the SnG’s at JG’s place, and ive only monied once in several games. Last night I was sure I was gonna take it down when I was cruising with about 3k in my stack all the way till we were 4 handed on the bubble, then I shifted my super ultra tight gear to a more aggressive one and had about 5K+ in the 200-400 level. I look down and see pocket queens UTG and raise it 2x BB, getting re-raised by the new guy on the table who has never really played poker much and has been playing for two months. All night he has been surprisingly lucky and has the biggest stack on the table! I push after the re-raise and he calls quickly with AQ, the perfect scenario for me at this point. If I double up, I’m surely gonna take this win. Ace on the flop says otherwise and boom, bubble boy again hehe.

Two days before that, I played the northside Monday 30 player MTT and played the tightest poker I have ever played in my life! I just wanted to play it like I would an online game, never tried to be “cute”, and just played straight up. Folded AK, 10-10, KJ’s, QJ’s, all pre-flop, JJ on the flop with one overcard, things like that. Only played AKs, KK, AA strongly, all of which got me rewarded. KK tripled me up and AA doubled me up.

I got to ITM with a decent stack of 20K+ in the 1k-2k levels. Got it down to 3 players at the 2k-4k level with about 24K in chips in my stack. I had been playing ultra tight all night and everyone knew it, so I decided to make a move when Ariel (big stack) raised AGAIN on the button about 2.5xBB. I had pocket sevens and decide to push him all in for about 20K more, figuring if he called, I would be a slight favorite. He instantly calls and shows A-A which sealed my fate for the third place finish.

Night before that, I was at a friend’s home game MTT at the fort, 3 tables with bounties of 200 per player. Ended up taking 4th place and took out 3 people along the way!

So the past week, I’ve been playing really good and have so far only lost when I had my money in way ahead. I’m hoping to keep up the pace and play a lot more in the nest few weeks, and maybe build up my bankroll again so I can play the bigger MTT’s.

Watch your backs!