Today I have just started getting back into regular cash games after 12 days spent moving house, buying and putting together furniture, and playing the LEOCOP tournaments. I'll elaborate below, but first I want to quickly mention a huge philosophical/logical mistake that I keep seeing otherwise lucid people make in everyday discussion.

It's about the idea that we should "respect other people's beliefs" (I'm undecided if I mean people's or peoples' - perhaps both?). People often say it to me because I'm not too shy about pointing out when someone holds an incorrect viewpoint. They say that an opinion can't be idiotic because it's -an opinion-, and they are entitled to it.

The mistake that these people are making is failing to discern the subjects that are valid matters of opinion. They are presumably just repeating this mantra without thinking about it because that's the way they have been taught it, AND it makes them sound like good, liberal, inclusive, tolerant people.

Here's an example to illustrate the point: 3 people are looking at an oil painting. Person A thinks it's beautiful, person B thinks it's ugly, and person C thinks that it's an unusually-shaped turnip and not an oil painting at all.

In this case person A respects person B's opinion and his right to hold it, but agrees to disagree. Since it is regarding artistic taste there isn't a correct answer and their opinions can't be conclusively right or wrong. However, person C is clearly wrong, and both A and B, rightfully, think he is wrong, and probably an idiot.

The discussions in which people make this mistake are usually about religion. We have history of thinking we should be respectful (long history) and tolerant (short history) of religious beliefs, but in this day and age, when otherwise normal people are confidently asserting that the entirety of the world is an unusually-shaped turnip, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that their opinion is WRONG, and that standing by it in the face of education and evidence IS idiotic.

In conclusion, only respect respectable opinions. There very often IS such a thing as a wrong answer, and we don't want to encourage a society in which we can't even discriminate against incompetence.

Back to poker - I came 80th out of the 668 runners in the LEOCOP main event. That meant 9 hour's play and a 4.30am finish to miss the money by 10 places. Across 8 tournaments I spent $1804 on buy-ins, and won $848 cash, so an overall loss of $956+many hours of evening leisure time. I did, however, manage 1 of my goals, which was to get a place in the top 80 of the leader-board (I finished 65th). That awarded entry into a tournament for a Poker Million semi-final seat apparantly worth $120,000. That values the seat at $1500, so I could say I'm up $544 in expected value.

All my furniture is now in place in my new flat and we have moved everything in, unfortunately my lovely new office is also where everything is being dumped to keep the lovely new living-room and bedroom tidy while we are sorting everything out. Once its sorted I might see if I can get a few nice photos to put on here.

19 days left in November and I haven't had chance to make a proper start on the cash tables yet. I'm going to try to place at least 20,000 hands and win $15k. The idea of $40k targets I mentioned before is going to have to wait until I have a clear month to dedicate to it.