Weekend grind

There are some excellent low stake MTTs running on poker.co.uk - yesterday's was the best yet. The MCOP main event is €30+3 freezeoout with a €50,000 guaranteed prizepool and it only managed 918 players. That's a 100% overlay. A bunch of us from the gambling network forum played it and all had percentages of each other. I ended up busting in 40th for €175. My exit was frustrating in its banality. I peel a KK4 flop in the BB with KQ, check/shove someone who had aces and he catches an ace on the turn. With over €10k to the winner, it was one tourney where I wanted just a few more doses of the rungoods.


I had three other three figure scores over the last few days. MCOP4 (€3+r) I final tabled for €125 and I came second in one of the new deepstack games:

Tonight is the final MCOP in the series. MCOP stands for Monthly Championship of Poker - I highly recommend these games in July. They are cheap, soft and overlayalicious. The perfect combo. Also if you final table more than one, you get a juicy cash bonus. It's almost as if the network doesn't like money.

Other than poker, things in Africa plod along. The droughts continue for yet another year which means many people are stuggling. With my sister we have decided on the next main project for 2011/2012. Firstly we'll be kitting a classroom out with desks and secondly repairing the concrete ball pitch at the blind school. The desk project sounds minor but it is pretty important cos when a child starts at secondary school they have all the usual fees to pay but they also have plenty of one off costs and one big cost is providing their own desk and chair. By us supplying these for all the first year students it means they can then delay having to find this money until the start of the second year when there arent anywhere near as many extra costs besides tuition. Thus a barrier to education is reduced. The ball pitch is also important but in a different way. The blind children have very little with which to amuse themselves and the concrete area is a fantastic resource. By filling a plastic bottle with sand they can play football whilst listening out for the direction of the 'ball' as it skittles along the ground. Currently it is badly pockmarked and potholed and a little dangerous.

I've also managed to find funding to get two blind students back into education. They graduated from the primary school last year and this year they have funded places in mainstream secondary schools. The only snag is the funding does not cover the hundred and one small things like uniforms, travel at the start/finish of the terms, bedding, utensils etc etc etc. Some poker friends have contributed enough to resolve these issues for the next year, so thanks very much to them!