All I do is copy

UGH. The bad thing about being the type of person I am, careful and conscientious, it is incredibly difficult for me to make purchasing decisions on my limited budget. This is especially true of computer components because I know a bit...and the internet gives me so much more information to process. I mean, if money was not a consideration, my decision would be relatively easy: Just select for the best current performance/price ratio. Right now that looks like P5W DH Deluxe and an E6600. Trouble is both the P5W and the E6600 haven't dropped a great deal in price. P5W = £131. Even getting a clearance one doesn't save a great deal, maybe £30-40. E6600 sits at £190 but should drop to £130 or below on April 22nd. That is a shitload to spend on core components. Just priced up a system (case, PSU, CPU, fan, mobo, RAM, GFX, HD, & DVD-RW): £785. That is over double what I spent on building my last system.

Yes, P5W is expensive...yes, E6600 is expensive but the alternatives (P5N and E4300) save little money. I could save some by getting 1GB instead of 2GB of ram to begin with but if the whole thing is on interest free credit that's not particularly helpful. Also, there is another reason to plum for the E6600 over the E4300: VT. My primary reason for upgrading is to improve my virtualisation performance. No matter what virtual technology I use (parallels, KVM, or VMWare), VT is an important feature.

So again, everything comes down to money. And I have little. Even taking advantage of interest free credit, I have to pay a crippling £150 a month. Well, in theory I could pay less over more months but I hate credit.

Played a little poker earlier, tables seemed to fill up with 3bet monkeys. Most of the time I folded, once I pushed KK OOP because I thought he'd likely make a bad call...wait, wait, wait. I think it was AA. BOLLOCKS. KK is worth pushing pf sometimes because they are fucking Ace magnets. AA, however, is wasted. I do push AKs too. Anyway, notable hands: 98x flop, I have 88. C/R the turn all-in. 99 is good. SIGH, at least he wasn't a full stack. Raise QQ UTG, solidish MP 3bets. This is one of the guys who hasn't been abusing me with reraises. Flop is QJxss. I check/raise all-in and he calls with KK. But the big news is I don't get sucked out on. Wow, amazing. Some other hands, I flop NFD, 2NFD. Both miss and I maybe get bluffed off the pot on the river. So, hmm, I make no draws, what a fucking shocker. Fortunately, I decide not to bluff them when they miss saving myself money.

That reminds me of yesterday: I double barrel QJo against a decent blind caller on a 554dd6d board. I know he has 77-99 on the river and I check behind Queen-high. Why? Because I doubt he will fold. I mean, compared to the rest of the board, the river changes nothing.

Today, I get semi-owned by a limp caller. Yes, limp call every raise, check/call every flop. Bet out every river. Excellent. I would try raising him off the pot but he has fucking no stack. It goes without saying that I didn't flop so much as second pair.

TNG: Tasha is dead now. Boo. She was considerably more attractive than Troy. Like I said, however, it's scary to think of how old these women are now. All good things...

My discipline is getting better playing poker but not that much so. I don't call 3bets light, even in position. I don't make 3bets light when people CAN'T fold. I haven't tried any extended move like I did with A5s. I still get insanely frustrated when people won't let me see a flop, let alone a showdown. Still, I think I was playing a TAGy game with decent VPIP (~18%). Maybe my table selection was awful. And, of course, my postflop skills are still pretty weak. I feel like I'm giving up the least EV by folding rather than bluffing. Perhaps that's just results orientated...but results fucking matter. Sorry, but they do. The only detriment to being results orientated is that you will make sub-optimal moves in future. And, right now, when people are tending to, on average, call much lighter than I would like. Making my adjustment to valuebet lighter and bluff less.

SUM: x86 components cost a lot...and don't seem to be getting cheaper; I don't have enough money; people call me too much in poker when I do not want them too...and fold too much when I do.