StudioGlyphic

Maybe it's a little too early to tell (I've only played 705 hands), but you really could ABC your way into some money if you follow HD's advice.

Pay special attention to #2: Play tight with a small stack. If you just read #1: Limping is good and suddenly jump into every hand you can, you might find yourself out your buy-in and reaching for that rebuy button. Not a good idea. That said, there have been a few occasions when I've limped my way down to half my buy-in and made it back in one hand.

By the way, that 13.5 BB win rate represents 47 wins out of 705 games (6.6%). I saw the flop 31.63% of the time. So it really doesn't take much to run up your stack.

Oh, and it's seriously a lot of fun. The best part is manipulating the size of your bets in relation to the size of the pot and your opponents' stacks in order to get them to call or fold. This is where getting a good read/history on your enemies comes in real handy.

A lot of times I just get lucky, and that's how I make most of my money. But a big part of that luck is the fact that I'm sitting at a table with players who do unbelievable things. They can't fold big pairs with a monster hand on the board, they think top pair is good enough to win when I'm raising like a mofo, they chase draws they don't have the odds to chase. But it's one thing to know rationally that this is happening, and another thing altogether to see it happen. Saturday afternoon, I had the pleasure of playing against some of these guys and took down a 27 BB pot in 1/2 and 40 BB pot in 25PL. Sure, there were times when I made my runner-runner flush on the river and couldn't blame my opponents for trying to win with big pairs or two pair (my 4 outs for a gutshot straight on the flop became a 12-outer with the flush possibility on the turn). But these other guys are just mind-bogglingly bad gamboolers. Fuck them. They deserve to lose.

I can see the attraction of big bet poker with training wheels:

Again, point #3 applies: Don't go broke with top pair. Now the question is whether my raise on the river was optimal for winning money. Would he have called me if I'd gone all-in? If I'd raised to $14? Is the potential payoff worth not holding back?

HD told me that he much prefers live play for the max buy-in NL games, since the PartyPookers tend to fold to any pre-flop raise and just wait for the nuts. But in the limited experience I've had with PL, it seems that people are willing to risk more of their chips because the pot limit maximum bet/raise makes them feel more secure. They're wrong, of course.

This unbelievable hand saved my bankroll today:

Now it seems obvious to me that neither of my opponents read the beginner's guide to beating low-limit no-limit (also applies to the $25 PL game), specifically points 3, 4, and 5:

3. Don't go broke with top pair -- MP2
4. Draws are overrated -- button
5. You win the most money by outflopping your opponents -- me!

Well, that was a lot of fun and all, and I'll be the first one to accept money from Lady Luck and fools, but I have no idea whether my play was any good. There were certainly points during the day when I'm pretty sure I made some good plays, but I don't know if it was at all that consistent. I definitely need more practice reading my opponents.

From what I'd seen at the $25 NL tables and from what'd I'd heard from HD, I would have expected a little more tight playing at the $25 PL tables. I guess not:

---

Didn't Izmet say not to slowplay a set? My ass was somewhat at risk with this little manouever:

Anyway, I think I'll go review some of the thoughts on "big bet poker with training wheels" over at The Cards Speak.

5:15 PM Update: the same guy whose flush lost to my boat just lost another big pot. The card that made his nut flush on the river made someone else's boat. In both cases, this guy was beat from the flop, but kept fishing for his hand, got it, and lost. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Reuters: Republican Platform Endorses Ban on Gay Marriage - this after Cheney's statement that "freedom means freedom" and the RNC's careful selection of speakers intended to show the kinder, gentler side of the GOP--that is, not the wingnuts who think we should overthrow every MidEast government and put statues of Jesus in every classroom

Reuters: Bush Campaign Lawyer Quits Over Ties to Ads Group - hmm

BBC News: Double air disaster hits Russia - simultaneity and political calendar indicate possible terrorist attack

Reuters: Rumsfeld Blamed Indirectly for Abu Ghraib Abuses - independent panel appointed by Rumsfeld partially blame poor war planning and slow reaction of leadership to insurgency

Reuters: Cheney Says Does Not Back Federal Gay Marriage Ban - Cheney's daughter is gay, and Cheney reiterated what he said in 2000 about leaving the issue of gay marriage up to the states; he also said "freedom means freedom for everyone"

Washington Post: Bush-Cheney Lawyer Advised Anti-Kerry Vets - campaigns aren't allowed to coordinate with "independent" groups; this is the second person shown to have a connection

Enjoy.

We'll find out in a few weeks how this works out, but right now I've got a packed schedule. Classes from 2PM - 9:30PM on Tuesdays and 10AM - 5:30PM on Wednesdays. Work on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Either Monday or Wednesday evenings will be devoted to the weekly game, and Thursday evenings will be devoted to the weekly happy hour. Yikes. I'll have to cancel that Netflix subscription when this month is up. This also leaves less time for poker, which is probably a good thing; afternoon poker sessions have a tendency to be -EV for me.

Head on over to eight23 with your well wishes. It's 8/23.

Not to keep pushing this or anything, but the creators of that anti-Bush comic Tex have put up a new flash animation advertising their product:

While you're at it, you can listen to one of the songs from the free CD that comes with the comic.

In the long run, I expect to win money when I play poker. It's not because I'm a great poker player, but because I'm somewhere above the halfway mark in the poker food chain. Since June, I've been eking out a decent 3BB/100 hands. That only represents a little under 4,000 hands, but I like the trendline.

In the short run, I expect to run into bouts of terrible runs that push me to and over the brink of tiltdom. This is why having a bankroll capable of handling the beats and bad runs is so important. Play within your limits!

Now as a student I don't really have the extra cash lying around to fund a bankroll adequately, so I am running a higher risk by playing with a bankroll of 50-100BB, but thus far I've been fortunate in being able to run up the bankroll after each initial deposit and withdraw the money to the safety of my bank account. After that, it's OPM, and while I'd be sad to see it go, it doesn't become a problem.

Of course, my ultimate goal is to build up that 300BB bankroll, and then push it even higher to fund excursions into the higher limits. I'm not a patient person, but I'm trying. It's frustrating because I've gone through periods of huge run-ups only to see it all dissipate in a flurry of suck outs and cold decks. It's a heartbreaking cycle, and it keeps me scraping around at 1/2. After all, one of the primary reasons I play poker is to beat other people and take their money as proof of my abilities. But if the game slaps you around like a mean girlfriend, you really start to question your manhood.

Well, maybe not quite that.

Anyway, I hope you're not reading this blog for any poker advice, because I'm not the one to give it. I do have a favor to ask you, though: bet and raise at every opportunity. Someone has to teach those fish a lesson, and if not you, then who?

...and they will reward you with riches. Either that or chat with HD on IM while rockin' two 1/2 tables at a time. I believe I was IM'ing with him the last time I had a session this good. Maybe I ought to give him a commission.

Bottom line: Up $65.12 for a win rate of 20.61BB/100 hands, not including this morning's tourney finish.

This wasn't like the July 17th session when I just kept getting massive hands. In some ways it was even crazier because I'd be sitting on crap in the BB, get a bunch of limpers, then be able to check-raise my flopped two pair or set on the flop and rake it in.

For instance, 52o flopped two pair and riverred a boat; 94o flopped middle pair then riverred two pair after checks on the flop and turn (amazingly I got three callers); 97o flopped top two pair; A4o flopped a boat; and A6o flopped a set. I don't know this for sure, but I've probably never won so many hands from the big blind. I could have won even more money with one particular BB hand if I hadn't ditched my 23s flush draw after a flop bet. I knew I had odds to make my hand, but was it really going to be the nuts? Yep. Winner riverred a set of jacks and took the pot.

Of course, don't let me give you the impression that this was smooth sailing the entire session. After flopping the nut flush on my fourth hand, this uberfish cracked my cowboys with QTo on the river. Unbelievable. Had I been observing this guy a bit more, I would have realized that he always raises with top pair. But it was tough to figure out. Before the flop, he called a raise, then called my re-raise. When QJ7 showed up on the flop and he raised on me, I thought it not out of the question to be up against two pair or a set. I probably should have reraised while it was cheap to test things out since my pair was better than any card on the flop, but then again, knowing what I know now about the uberfish, he probably would have been happy to call me down to the river and suck out on me anyway.

At any rate, I was hovering at a little above my buy-in for over half of the hands at this table. It was only when I launched the second table that I started to win on the first one. I won a big pot when I flopped two pair with Q9s, and then I managed to win 3-5 big bets about once every orbit. I was on fire and it felt great. Now that I'm working, going to school, and trying to have some kind of social life, making these infrequent poker sessions count is important.

Came in 11th in the weekly $1000 freeroll. I was short stack and figured pocket queens would be good; big stack to my left had pocket kings and knocked me out. Figures.

There was one hand early on that I made a terrible mistake on. I had AJ suited and limped. I flopped two pair and tried to be tricky by checking. Someone made a straight when a 10 showed up on the turn and raised on me. Instead of folding, I reraised, got raised, called. Rag appeared on the river and I called his all-in like a fool. I instantly went from being 800 above average to 1000 below average. Luckily I got pocket aces a few hands later and was able to save my stack from certain doom.

After a one week hiatus, we had our weekly game last night:

   This week  Cumulative  Average

CR   +$2.40     +$9.60    +$1.60

EM   +$1.45     +$5.45    +$0.78

ER   -$0.85     +$3.15    +$0.53

JB   -$0.25     -$9.75    -$1.39

JC   -$2.50    +$12.00    +$1.71

Me   -$0.25    -$12.30    -$1.76

JC's 5-game streak came to an end. I'm guessing the cards just weren't coming his way. CR continues to gain on JC in the stats.

I started off winning a few small pots (mostly consisting of the blinds and 1 or 2 small bets), then started losing a number of pots, then came back to just below even. I need to mix up my game a bit. One hand where I flopped two pair and turned a boat netted me virtually nothing. On another hand I folded top pair with a weak kicker when I completely misjudged what the other people had. I basically conceded 6 big bets to CR, which would have put me in the black and EM into first place this week. Doh.

In case you wondered what MachineSamba looked like, here's a story from a local paper about Tex:

Good grief.

A friend of mine got a spyware and virus infestation that was more severe than anything I'd seen before. The steps for dealing with the problem went far beyond what I'd prescribed in my Public Service Announcement. Thankfully, the counter-spyware experts at The PC Guide Forums were able to walk me through the process of marking, fixing, deleting, repairing, and immunizing. I think the machine is clean now.

Right now would probably be a good time for you to update your spyware and anti-virus definition files. SpywareBlaster is also a good one to have. It puts known spyware on the shit list and prevents them from being installed in the first place. It's free to use, but if you donate a small fee, you can enable the auto-update feature for worry-free protection.

I've said this, other people have said it: the Bush administration may be causing a split within the Republican party. The lack of fiscal discipline, the bad intelligence, the kowtowing to the religious right, the trampling of civil liberties--all of it is bound to cause defections, or at the very least, a lack of enthusiasm that will translate into lower turnout.

The AP has this story on a retiring Republican Congressman who is coming out against the Iraq war, both for the rationale used and the method of execution:

Another breakthrough from those geniuses at Google:

So what's it good for? Well the first thing that came to mind was inputting names of my friends. But Google's not scary enough to come up with names of my other friends.

Ah, but what about names of bands I like?

Radiohead
Blur
Belle and Sebastian
Cardigans
Interpol

That got me some results I could use:

Radiohead
Cardigans
Blur
Belle and Sebastian
Oasis
Travis
Pulp
The Cure
David Bowie
The Smiths
SUEDE
The Verve
Stereophonics
The Beatles
Kula Shaker
COLDPLAY
Supergrass
U2
Boo Radleys
Placebo
Beck
Depeche Mode
Madness
Cast
Sleeper
Tori Amos
Fatboy Slim
SPIRITUALIZED
NEW ORDER
James
Lush
STONE ROSES
Weezer
The Prodigy
Semisonic
Nirvana
Bush
Manics
DAVID GRAY
JJ72
PRIMAL SCREAM
Small Faces
Ash

Incredible. Now I have no idea who JJ72 or Small Faces are, but I think I'll go check them out.

Just watched The Fog of War tonight. Great documentary centered on interview footage with Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, during the escalation of the Vietnam war. The film is divided into 11 lessons that filmmaker Errol Morris derived from McNamara's experiences. McNamara is pretty explicit that these are not necessarily the lessons that he would give, but rather the ones Morris received. Many of these lessons are worth learning and applying to the current conflict in Iraq as well as future wars.

Incredible. Check this out:

Since when did Shanghai have a Formula 1 circuit?

Crazy. Look at those curves.

Here's what Formula 1 has to say:

No, Fox Hills isn't a casino. It's the local mall. The Culver City Democratic Club has been registering voters at Fox Hills every weekend for the past several weeks. So far they've registered 300 people or so. Today we got between 35-40 registrations. That's pretty good.

There's a big problem with the Culver City Democratic club, though. It's overwhelmingly white and old. If the Democrats want to gain any serious ground in national elections, they've got to work on getting younger local people involved. At some point in the next 5-15 years, I can see the Culver City Democratic Club facing some serious problems as its more active members die off or otherwise retire from involvement. These people ought to do some serious outreach at LMU, the high school, and other local schools to bring some fresh blood and new leadership into the party.

It seems like an odd thing to do, but South Korea's government has announced plans to move the capital 100 miles south of the current capital, Seoul. Their reasons? "to ease chronic overcrowding in Seoul, redistribute the state's wealth, and lessen the danger of a bombardment by North Korea." Sounds like a wet dream for architects and urban planners. Will they be successful in building a new city from the ground up? I wouldn't bet on it. Which isn't to say that successful design shouldn't be attempted, it's just that it's very, very hard.

Wow. I reloaded my account and happened to notice a shitload of players on Multi/Party/Empire:

Wow. If you're not playing, you're not making money.

A friend of mine wrote this comic book:

Tex! - George Bush and the Fine Art of Character Assassination

Rampant consumerism is a non-partisan facet of American life, but some left-leaning shoppers might not be comfortable seeing their consumer dollars going to fund some big, bad corporation run by the man.

For instance, Walmart's long been known as a kind of Republican outfit: its founder was a religious nutjob, it grew out of the South, and it pays lousy wages.

Where's a Democrat to shop and save?

Daniel Gross reveals in this column that Walmart's blue counterpart is that mega-super-box retailer, Costco:

Trader Joe's is another good company. Check this out: their employees get Medical/Dental/Vision Insurance, a Company Paid Retirement Plan, bonuses, Life and Accident Insurance, and Paid Time Off. Yikes. I know a lot of people who don't get all this stuff with their jobs. Considering how good their prices are, you really need to reevaluate your assumptions about grocery jobs, salaries, and prices.

It's pretty remarkable. I subscribe to the Google News service, and every time something is posted that says "John Kerry," I get an email with the headline, a sample of the body, and the link. Right-wing internet news sites like LifeNews, MichNews, American Daily, Useless Knowledge, etc., make up most of the hits. Seems like they post at least two stories daily about how Kerry is this, Kerry is that, etc. Now I'm not sure that they really have any kind of effect out there in the real world, but it seems to me that some of these liberal bloggers ought to set up corresponding news and opinion sites as a counterweight to these freaksites.

In a few minutes I'll be take the final exam for Finance of Real Estate Development. According to my calculations, I just need to get a 65% or better to get an A- in the class. I think I can handle that. Wish me luck.

I decided to try putting Google ads on this blog. I don't imagine myself making any money off of this; mostly I'm just interested in seeing what ads appear in response to the content.

Well, the very first ad I saw was one from the RNC. I guess Google thought it was the most relevant ad to go along with my Protesting the Republican National Convention entry. Heh. While I wouldn't want to make any money by getting people to sign up with the RNC, I wouldn't mind costing the RNC a lot of money by having people click-through and then not do anything. In fact, someone could create a bot and run it on some server farm to find RNC/Bush ads all over the web and click through multiple times. Ramp it up and you could not only charge them lots of money for online advertising, but also DOS their servers. Not that I'm advocating any of this, of course.

There I was, blogging about Netflix, thinking it might be a weird thing to blagh about. But blawging about it once is probably not weird. Blahging about it all the time, though... check out Netflixfan for the latest news and insights on the video rental by mail Internet company with the bogus patent on rentals by mail.

P.S. The patent's not bogus, it's just bogus they were issued a patent for it. God save us from the USPTO.

Hey kids, just trying to make up for a lackluster week of no posts.

I signed up for Netflix a couple months back and have come to the conclusion that it's a really good service.

It's fast. I have always received my DVDs the day after I get the email from Netflix saying it's on its way. If I drop off the movie for return at the post office, Netflix usually gets it the next day and ships my next movie that same day. I've never been so impressed with the postal service in my life.

It's flexible. My sister and I wanted to watch all the Lord of the Rings movies in one sitting, so one of the first movies I got was Return of the King. As it happened, we never got our schedules to coincide, so I had to sit on that one for a week and a half. In the meantime, I watched/returned about four other movies.

It's cheap. Well, this one depends on how many movies you can get through in a month. I pay about $24 every month, and got through 14 movies this past month. That's $1.71 a movie. Not bad. If you're one of those people who gets hit by late charges at your local videostore all the time, you're probably better off joining Netflix instead.

It's convenient. I get movies delivered to my mailbox. I can return them at any mail drop. It doesn't get much more convenient than that.

It's expansive. Maybe I'm stretching it a bit here, but really, I find that I'm watching all kinds of movies now. If I think of some movie I've been meaning to see, or hear about some movie that sounds interesting, I just add it to the Netflix queue and figure I'll eventually get to it. That goes for TV shows as well. Seriously, who wants to spend 13 weeks following some series on television with commercial interruptions and cliffhangers when you can just order up the entire season afterwards and watch it in one 12-hour marathon? This may change the way you watch TV.

Kerry Faults Bush's Delay at School After 9/11 News

McCain Decries Ad, Vouches for Kerry

It's one of those juxtapositions that makes politics so interesting: Bush is criticized for his inaction on September 11, 2001 after being told of the first attack, while an anti-Kerry group attempts to undermine Kerry's military service, which was marked, of course, by decisive action in the line of fire. While I don't necessarily endorse attacks on the President for what he did that morning, it's clear that Kerry's stature as a military leader is a threat to the November hopes of the GOP and its allies.

However, I will say that this is pathetic:

"Bush has said he stayed seated to keep from alarming the children."

It would have been preferable to have a man of action with actual combat experience in control that morning.

It's understandable that a former ne'er-do-well with no real leadership experience would freeze up for a few minutes.

It's completely unacceptable to make excuses for your shortcomings. Fucker.

Michael Kinsley of the LA Times (founder of Slate) analyses some trends from 1960 to 2002 in "Democrats vs. the GOP: Do the Math" and comes up with some unsurprising (for me) results. Here's the meat:

Lawrence Lessig has a great post on how Nader was responsible for the result of the 2000 election, using the infamous Corvair as a clever analogy.

Is Nader unsafe at any speed?

Finally, Lessig makes the following point:

American Research Group has some new numbers out this week covering a number of states, including Florida and New Hampshire. In both states we see some very good results for Kerry:

Most importantly, Nader will not play the role he played in 2000 in these contests if he continues to hover at 2-3%. As you may remember, Nader got more votes than the difference between Bush and Gore in these states in 2000. It would still be better to add those numbers to the Kerry column, but I'd be more worried if Kerry and Bush were in a dead heat. More on Nader in a bit.

The group Counter Convention plans to organize a protest in New York City during the Republican National Convention:

Still, the Window treatment approach might be more successful since it requires so little effort.

Either way, my guess is that the mainstream media will ignore the protests.

Thanks to eight23.

Do I even need to say it?

    This week  Cumulative  Average

CR    +$5.10      +$7.20    +$1.44

EM    -$3.40      +$4.00    +$0.67

ER    +$3.25      +$4.00    +$0.80

JB    -$6.20      -$9.50    -$1.58

JC    +$3.55     +$14.50    +$2.42

Me    -$1.20     -$12.05    -$2.01

JN    -$1.10      -$3.55    -$1.78

I keep losing an average $2 every time I play. In fact, I've only had one winning session in the past 6 weeks. By contrast, JC has had only one losing session, and that was the very first one. ER and CR have each had only one losing session, but they missed a week. I think me and JB ought to start a losers club where we skip poker and get wasted instead. At some point, you need to stop blaming the cards (though the best hand I got all night was AKo, and that had to be mucked when the dealer fucked up) and face up to the ugly facts.

In other news, I came in fifth in the morning freeroll, winning six whole bucks.

New insight from the gentleman drinker:

Halliburton Settles S.E.C. Accusations

Don't try to tell me that the CEO of a company isn't going to notice that earnings suddenly jump 46 percent in a single year. At the very least, he'd notice the corresponding change in the value of his portfolio.

Is it any surprise that we've seen a pattern of misinformation stretching back to his days in the private sector? Is it any surprise that the SEC is not pursuing the Vice President for his role in this fraud?

We still have a long way to go to root out all the problems we've come across in corporate America. Only then can we fully restore investor confidence in the system.

The LA Times' Ron Brownstein thinks that "Edwards' Real Worth May Be in Message to Strapped Voters" and cites the following Republican poll data:

Why the fuck is someone blowing leaves around on a Sunday morning?! Good Christ. I don't think I can express just how much I hate the sound of those blowers. Fuck the neighbors.