thanks for that Anthony,

I agree with you, being natural IS the way to go. At the moment my game has two problems:

1) There are occasions though when I run out of stuff to say

2) Trying to keep the interaction at an emotional level rather than intellectual. I am great at conversations that are intellectual in nature when struggle at conversations at an emotional level.

In the above example I only used canned material twice, (cube & 5 lies). nonetheless i was caught out. I wonder if I was encountering LMR and what I should or could have done was to admit or half admit. that way I would have stayed in the game and kept the engagement going.

You are right that I should not have left in a huff like I did it is not Alpha behaviour. One should always keep the moral high ground.

on the 4 & 5 point, hey we all have to start somewhere...... I do have d2 with a HB8 next week.