Settling in and underway

First off a little about France ... (if this bores you just skip to the next section where I will be talking poker) ...

We've been here almost a month now and are settling in nicely .. it is great not getting up until 10am every morning (despite wanting to get up earlier). The problem with getting up later here is that by the time you are washed, dressed and breakfasted all the shops are closed (between 12.00 and 2.00 pm). So I will soon have to set an alarm so that we can get more things done.

We have made a lot of headway with the garden and our attached small building (this needs completely renovating) ... oh yeah and we have already smartened up the bedroom with a fresh coat of paint.

I have lots of photos on my phone but am unable to get them onto the PC so I will post a few in later posts.

However in an attempt to NOT make this my "French Adventure" blog I have also been playing some poker.

As I have posted before, France have introduced some new internet gambling laws. This doesn't stop the individual from playing on non approved sites but it does make it illegal for sites to open accounts with french residents (at least thats the way I think it works). In response most of the major sites have initially blocked French IP addresses so as not to Pee off the French government in the hope that they may get a legal license.

The whole thing is run by an association called ARJEL and a full list of approved sites is available on their website ... http://www.arjel.fr/

So I have opted to initialy join PartyPoker.fr under the affiliate pokerlistings.fr until I have done some more research on affiliates to find out who offers the best benefits. However they are very hot on ID etc so if it wasn't for the fact I have a French bank account I may not have been playing in France.

So far I have started on the low limit tables - up to 6 euro buy ins - and have had a bit of a culture shock ... just look at this sharkscope page of a typical evenings SnG quality (even at the low levels) ....
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First off my initial 100 euro deposit fell to 50 euros.
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However I have played 3 of their 250 euro guaranteed and had 3 cashes -a 16th, a 12th and a final table 3rd out of an average of about 250 entrants per tourney.
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So now with those cashes and a few heads up wins my balance is sitting back at 110 euro.

I am also keeping my eye on the leaderboards and do want to attack the weekly SnG leaderboard just once to see where I can get.

So for now I am very happy with the move, extremely happy with the pace of life here but frustrated at not being able to play the bonuses I am constantly sent by email from my UK gambling sites.
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Some of that will be rectified next week however because I am back in the UK for a couple of weeks; one for work and one for pleasure.
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So Until Next Time

Keep it Tight!