I’m writing this from Tuscany where I’m on a week-long holiday with my girlfriend and her family in a beautiful villa on the outskirts of an idyllic little village called Lucca. There is nothing but luscious green for as far as the eye can see. But there is no internet and, as it transpires, there won’t be any for me for another five days.

The thought of this enforced poker abstinence terrifies me somewhat, it being the longest I’ll have gone without playing poker since August 2005. But going cold turkey could be the perfect way to look back at my first full month of play as a Badbeat trader.