StudioGlyphic

This says it all:

The rest can be summed up in three hands:

Cracked the hammer with pocket nines early on with a nine-high flop. The runner-runner seven deuce only gave my opponent two pair to my set.

Limped with KJ spades under the gun. Flop was all rags with two spades and I put out a bet hoping to take it right there, but Iggy smooth-calls me. The turn is a K and I bet out again. This time Iggy puts in a big raise. I re-raise him all-in for a little bit more and he calls. I miss my flush and my top pair is no good against his set of threes.

Doubling Iggy up left me with less than a starting stack, but still a lot of breathing room. Still, I got impatient with folding and when the SB raised my BB twice in a row, I pushed with A7. Of course, he calls with AJ. Oops. Flop holds both a J and a 7 and I'm out in 94th out of 109.

Not content with simply being a losing tournament player, I decided to lose two buy-ins at the cash tables, too, giving back my prior three days of winnings at Full Tilt.

Poker as a procrastination tool can be so -EV.

The Whisky Store has a great illustrated description of "The Making of Bourbon Whiskey."

And here I thought it was simply a gift from God.

Just as I finished the last post, my turbo freeroll started up.

It's nice to be chip leader after your first hand.

Update 3:24 PM: Came in second out of 857. $12.50! These turbos are a total crapshoot, but that's kinda what makes them fun (especially when they're free).

I've probably mentioned that I can't stand tournaments--multi-table tournaments, sit-n-goes, whatever. There's something about putting in your chips while you have the best of it, suffering a brutal beat on the river, and getting knocked out after investing your buy-in and 1-4 hours of your life with nothing to show for it that just doesn't appeal to me. In a cash game, you tag the idiot, re-buy, and wait for him to make another mistake. In a tourney you don't have this option.

Still, there's something to be said about being able to multiply your buy-in by a factor of 10, 20, or more. I think if I played a lot more tournaments, that luck factor would be reduced substantially. As they say, you will find the same group of men and women at the final tables time after time. More practice might also help me suck less.

But practice costs money; or does it?

One of the lesser-known Party skins is MultiPoker. As with the other Party skins, MultiPoker shares all the same cash tables and SNGs as Party/Empire/Intertops/Poker Now/Eurobet. However, MultiPoker has the advantage of having four daily $100 NLHE freerolls (one regular, three turbo) and a weekly $1000 NLHE freeroll (200 raked hands required) that make for good practice for the cash-strapped/excessively cheap. At least the top 20 cash in all the freerolls.

Empire Poker also has four daily $500 NLHE freerolls for people who play 50 raked hands prior to the tournament. These freerolls are limited to the first 500 registrants. Top 40 cash.

A while back I jackassed and tilted away what little bankroll I had and basically dropped down to zero. I had withdrawn a little profit before busting out, but I was hesitant to get back in the game. Still, I was hooked on playing, so I entered several of those awful 3000 player PokerStars nightly freerolls. One night I got lucky and won a seat at the weekly Round 2 tournament after five and a half hours of brutal all-night play. My luck held at the Round 2 and I won the damn thing after another four and a half hours of play. Top prize? $50. Woot! I made 5 dollars an hour! But that's not the point. These freerolls gave me a little bit of practice when I had no money I was willing to spend on poker and gave me a chance to start rebuilding the bankroll.

Now that I know about the Multi and Empire freeroll tourneys, I would obviously recommend that you play these instead. The smaller fields make the time commitment less prohibitive, and there's a small cash prize in each one, which means you don't have to do double the work just to get a small prize.

So which to play... Multi or Empire? I'd say give them both a try. In fact you may be able to play both at the same time. Empire has by far the larger user base, so you may find the competition there to be slightly tougher. I personally have a special fondness for MultiPoker's predominantly Swedish user base. While you sit there waiting and folding your garbage, engage your tablemates in some conversation and learn some Swedish.

Spela poker med riktiga pengar!

You have one day left to register for the next stage of the World Poker Blogger Tour:

Wednesday, March 30, 9pm ET
PokerStars
$20+2 buyin, NLHE tournament
Password: thehammer
Listed under the Private Tournaments tab.
Open to bloggers and readers.

So far there are only 17 registered players. Probably our weakest one-day-before showing yet! Get up off your duff and register already.

As usual, I will pass on the tourney due to academic considerations.

If you live in the LA area, especially the Westside, I recommend you check out Uncle Darrow's restaurant in Marina Del Rey. They primarily serve Cajun/Creole food, but I go there for the Chicken Supper: three crispy, meaty wings served with a side of red beans and rice, potato salad, and hush puppies spiced with bits of jalapeno. Not necessarily the best fried chicken I've ever had, but really flavorful and light on the grease factor. Friendly people, too; tonight I sped home from campus to try to catch them before they closed, but only managed to sneak in the door as they were printing out their receipts for the day. Suck. I must have looked hungry and pathetic because they graciously offered me some jambalaya and red beans on the house.

The second in a series of random iTunes lists in lieu of actual content.

The White Stripes - I Can Learn
The Shins - Fighting In A Sack
Boards Of Canada - Olson
Grandaddy - AMMO
David Holmes - Higher Ground
The Dandy Warhols - (It Dosen't Take A) Genius
David Bowie - Fame
Cyril Neville - Gossip
The Verve - Star Sail
Mazzy Star - Disappear
Cocteau Twins - Pandora
Portishead - It's A Fire
Komeda - Curious
Cocteau Twins - My Truth
Ivy - Kite
U2 - The Wanderer
Stereolab - Fuses
Luke Vibert & BJ Cole - Nice Cave
Placebo - Blue American
Blur - Sing
The Sad Chicken - Leroy & The Drivers

Poker break time! Sit down at Full Tilt Poker, open up two .50/1 $100 NL Hold'Em tables and play for about 30 hands on each.

Straight 1, Table 1:

Kd Qc on the button. Serial raiser raises it from MP right after I noted he raised Q9 in LP. I call and so does the SB. Flop comes 8h Td Jh. It's checked to me, so I bet $8 at the $10 pot on a semi-bluff. SB min-raises to $16. Preflop raiser folds. I'm getting 4:1 to call, but probably more than the requisite 5:1 in implied odds if I get my straight. I call. The turn brings the Ac, making my straight. I'm wondering how much I should raise when the SB bets all in. I call. The river is the Js. No flush, but possible boat. He shows Jd Kh for trips, and I take down $162.50.

Straight 1, Table 2:

Td 8d in the BB. 3 limpers including the SB. Flop comes 3s 6c Qd. Checks all around. Turn is 9d. Ooh... flush and straight possibilities... and straight flush! But I can't call a huge bet here. Checks all around. River Jd. Straight flush! SB checks, I bet $2 into the $3.80 pot and take it down when everyone folds. I show and no one says a goddamn thing. Ingrates.

Straight 2, Table 1:

5c 6s in the CO. 3 limpers ahead of me, SB completes, and BB checks. Flop comes 3h 7s 4h. Woah. SB bets $2 into the $5 pot. The BB and one of the limpers calls. Well, this just won't do at all. I raise another $5. SB calls. Turn comes Js. I bet the pot ($23) and SB calls. SB must have something more than a flush draw. Maybe something very strong. River comes 9d, eliminating flushes and boats, and I don't fear a higher straight (I even check to make sure the flop didn't have any promising higher draws). I just pot it again for $69 and get called once again. I show my 7 high straight and the SB shows a flopped set. I take down the $204 pot.

Straight 2, Table 2:

Well, I'm up quite a bit... better call it a day soon. 6c 3s in the BB. 3 limpers, 1 poster, and the SB completes to make it a 6-way flop. The flop comes 4s 5s 2d. Wow. Again?! I decide to come out strong and bet the pot ($6).

First limper raises to $12. Everyone else folds.
Glyphic raises to $25
First limper raises to $38
Glyphic raises to $92.40, and is all in
First limper calls $54.40

I'm getting paid! I show my straight and he shows his set of deuces. Turn is the 2h and all of a sudden I'm broke. The river is the As and I look around the table to see the 2s safely tucked away in his hole cards. First limper takes down $187.80 and I type in the note that he'll risk his entire stack with bottom set. Not the worst mistake in the world, but... ask the SB from Straight 2, Table 1 if his set was worth 95% of his stack.

...

All of this is too much for me. I close my tables, note the bankroll status in my spreadsheet, and decide to get back to work. After blogging it, of course.

Questions:

Doesn't some of the play above seem to indicate that the FTP $100 NL games can be quite juicy?

Isn't getting four straights in the course of 30min / 60hands a bit unusual?

Should we be worried that the difference between a losing session, a winning session, and an amazing session is one hand? Isn't that why my roulette junkie self plays these games?

Shouldn't I get back to work?

The first in a series of random iTunes lists in lieu of actual content.

A Fascinating Musical Experience - The Monster from David Holmes Come Get It I Got It
Cat Stevens - The Wind from Various Artists As Seen on TV Songs From Commercials
Da Lata - Beija Flor from Thievery Corporation DJ-Kicks
Pulp - Do You Remember The First Time? from Various Artists Popsuperstar
When The Cows Come Home from Blur Modern Life Is Rubbish
The Weight Of My Words from Kings Of Convenience Quiet Is The New Loud
The Deverell Twins from Black Box Recorder The Facts Of Life
Lonely Boy - V. Gallo from Buffalo 66 Soundtrack Buffalo 66
A Silhouette Of Doom from Ennio Morricone Kill Bill, Vol. 2
The National Anthem from Radiohead Kid A
Zither from R.E.M. New Adventures In Hi-Fi
Great Divide from The Cardigans First Band On The Moon
Chico's Groove from The Chemical Brothers Exit Planet Dust
Policy Of Truth from Depeche Mode Violator
Renaissance Affair from Hooverphonic Blue Wonder Power Milk
Indra from Thievery Corporation The Mirror Conspiracy
Black Night Crash from Ride Tarantula
The Funeral Party from The Cure Faith
Singing Softly To Me from Kings Of Convenience Quiet Is The New Loud
On Your Own from Blur Blur

It's gotta be a sign. The study area of this year's comprehensive exam is the area abutting the north side of Hollywood Park.

A site visit this weekend is highly recommended by the exam's administrators. Could any analysis of the study area be complete without some field research on the operations of the neighboring casino?

At some point last year someone (probably Iggy) dubbed me a poker blogger. Which was a little odd, considering that at least half of the posts I made were political in nature. Obviously this blog has become somewhat less political post-November. At any rate, I'm not sure how many readers I have, but it seems like there are certainly people who check in everyday, and that sort of puts a little bit of pressure on me to perform. Add that to the fact that some people have actually clicked through some of my poker site links and signed up, and now I feel even more pressure to return the favor by posting something about poker.

But what to post?

Can't do the uberpost. Don't play in many tourneys. I'm not a really good source for strategy. I'm not your guide for bonus whoring. Other people have the corner on poker news. Haven't been to a live casino in... well, I guess I was at the Aladdin ten days ago. And I'm not really too interested in writing about my day-to-day play, nor should you be too interested in reading about it, either. I certainly don't write as well as these other guys.

But I can offer this recommendation: play on Full Tilt Poker.

It's true what they say. The bonus is hella slow to clear. In the last two weeks, I've played there for ten days, usually for about two hours a night, sometimes more, and I've only cleared $75 of the $600 bonus. Even the biggest Party bonuses can be cleared by 4 tabling .50/1 for 5-6 hours. This bonus takes a months-long commitment.

Then there's the lack of hand histories, not to mention PokerTracker-importable hand histories. I'm a lazy person and I prefer to automate things that can be automated. I'm also a data-freak and love to have all that information available to me (though the aforementioned laziness often gets in the way of using that data, but that's not the point). The absence of these hand histories is a big, big minus.

I'm also a right bastard, and frankly, I don't think I want this guy behind the code that runs my poker site:

So some might say that all these reasons are reasons not to play on Full Tilt. They might be right, ultimately, but there are some things about it that I really do actually like:

Realtime cashier updates. Keep the cashier window open and it'll keep your current balance updated in real-time. No more exiting and re-entering the cashier for this monkey. Don't ask me why this is important to me. Okay, so it isn't, but I'm delighted nonetheless.

Buttons that work. It's been documented elsewhere, but I might as well use my own server to bitch about the fact that sometimes it takes two or three clicks to get Party Poker to register a button press. That might be okay for your average one-tabling monkey, but when I'm darting around on several tables, I want to be able to click once and move on to the next decision.

Faster tables. So a full-ring table is only 9 people. Even so, the number of hands you can play per hour is noticeably higher at Full Tilt, and that's a good thing for us 21st Century, grew-up-with-Nintendo, what-do-you-mean-you-can't-order-this-online? kids with short attention spans. Plus if you're a profitable player, you can ... er, get yer profits faster.

Michael Jackson avatars. No, they don't have this, but they should. I'm thinking a whole set of Michaels: Jackson Five Michael, Billy Jean Michael, Thriller Michael, and Baby-dropping Pedophile Michael.

Buttons that work II. Party Poker: "Oh, you'd like to wait for the blinds, eh? How about I sit you out until you're ready to post the big blind in early position like the rest of these yahoos?" Full Tilt: "Why, of course, sir. [Time elapses] Would sir like to post the big blind now? Would sir like to auto-post the blinds from now on? Thank you, sir."

Table rotation. I don't think I ever thought I would find this a useful feature, but it's great to be able to locate yourself quickly. Oh, look, there I am. Right where I always am.

Better SNGs. I hate tournaments. I hate multi-tables and I hate sit-n-goes. I'm projecting my suckiness, obviously. But if you like SNGs, give the Full Tilt SNGs a try. That $5 two-table SNG I won only charged a fifty-cent fee, had ten minute levels, and started with 1500 chips. If you don't understand the benefits of that, stick to cash games.

You may be thinking to yourself, "Yes, yes, that's all fine and good, but I don't play online poker for the interface!"

You have a point there.

It might help if I shared my dirty little secret. I'm up $500 playing $50 and $100 NL by playing an hour or two on two tables for ten days. This coming from a small stakes break-even player.

Go.

Sign up now.

You're welcome.

P.S. I'm kidding about Hank. He's a good guy, and they're lucky to have him. Buy his book, you PokerTracker-using limit grinder you.

P.P.S. Sorry, Pauly, but I leaked our secret in the name of content. Don't worry, you'll still crush those Full Tilt bastards even when both my readers start playing there.

My Masters program is winding down fast, but before I get that sheet of paper I've gone into debt for, I'll have to take the comprehensive exam. I won't bore you with the details, but it basically means I'll be disappearing for ten days over the next two weeks. Look for me to resurface around April 5.

I'm off.

Going up to the Bay Area for a Planning Conference to try to get me a job, take a break from school, and possibly redeem myself at San Pablo or plunge back into the limit games of the Oaks (I know, I know).

My buddy has a home game lined up for me tonight in the South Bay, so the thought of meeting my cousin for dinner down there crossed my mind, but it turns out he's got a home game in the East Bay. His home game sounds a lot like the ones I used to play, complete with Anaconda, Baseball, Follow the Queen, and all those crazy games. I told him about Omaha 8 last night, and he seemed intrigued.

The format for tonight will be $20 buyin .25/.50 NL, but I'll be doing my best to increase the buy-in or reduce the blinds. I'll also do my best to get people out to a casino afterwards. It probably won't happen, but no one can say I didn't try.

Moi.

Well, well, well... Dysart finally got his act together and threw up a website.

Dysart's a comic book writer and bum who I haven't seen in months.

The National Archives: When Nixon Met Elvis:

"I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good."

Indeed.

What you are looking at is the Lotus Sport Exige, not to be confused with your typical, run-of-the-mill Exige.

For Blogger users...

Let's face it. Blogger sucks. You type up a great big entry, click Post, and watch with horror as an error page comes up. You click back, already knowing that your latest blogging masterpiece has dissipated into the ether. After a few times, you start copying and pasting your words into a Word document before posting as a precautionary measure, but Goddammit, it shouldn't have to be this way.

Unfortunately, the only real way to get around Blogger's sketchiness is to upgrade to a real blogging solution like Movable Type or WordPress.

However, you can reduce some of the pain and misery of using Blogger by using the w.bloggar blogging client.

w.bloggar works on your computer and lets you save posts as local text files. Just click the save button or ctrl-s before publishing and never again will you lose a post to Blogger's ineptitude.

For everyone...

It's a pain in the ass to type in the tags to make things boldface, italicized, underlined, or stricken each and every time. Links and images are also a pain. While the addition of DHTML formatting tools helps a bit, I don't like to click buttons. I like keyboard shortcuts, and I don't like learning new ones. I don't like the focus being taken away by a JavaScript dialog box and being forced to click into the textbox to find my place. I don't like HTML being dumped at the end of post when I really want it placed where I had my insertion point. I don't like having to go through multiple steps to add images to my posts.

Fortunately with w.bloggar you can get around all of these little productivity-killing aspects of web-based blogging and focus on what you really want to do: blog.

At first you might wonder about a site called Black Viper's Web Site. I suppose it's better than Black Viper's Home Page or Welcome to Black Viper's Home Page on the World Wide Web!!!, but I digress.

The biggest problem I have with my Dell Inspiron 600 is that it tends to run hot (check out I8kfanGUI if you have a Dell laptop). Under load, the CPU can often reach up to 50 degrees Celsius before the fan kicks in. Heat can hamper performance and even damage your computer. I got myself a little laptop stand that has two built in fans, and that helps a bit--mostly by drawing heat away from the hard drive and memory compartments.

But I still had problems with the CPU experiencing high loads and thus generating heat. I noticed that there were times when I wasn't doing anything and yet 85-95% of the CPU would be used by a process called cisvc.exe. According to several sites, this was a Windows service, not Spyware or anything malicious. Of course, that doesn't mean you necessarily want it running.

That's where Black Viper comes in. Black Viper's Service Configurations essentially lists the various Windows processes and services, explains what they do, and makes recommendations on whether you want them disabled or not. I suspected cisvc.exe was a completely useless process, but this confirmed that I could safely turn it off. Go ahead and take a peek at the list; you'd be surprised at the number of stupid things that are running at any given time.

Disclaimer: Using I8kfanGUI to override the automatic controls on your fans or Black Viper's Service Configurations to muck around with Windows carries with it a small element of risk. Personally I think it's negligible, but don't come crying to me if you break something.

I've been doing most of my online play at Full Tilt Poker for the last week and have had a pretty good go at it. Out of five days of play (small sample, I know!), I've been in the black on four of them. I'm not sure how many hands that represents, but I've cleared $44.54 of the bonus, which should give you some indication of how much I've played.

While I've generally done well, you do often see the same players at the table night after night, and a fair number of them seem tight-weak. This has forced me to do a bit more bluffing and slow-playing. It's rare that a true live one enters the waters, but tonight a fish sat down at our table and suddenly one third to one half of the players sprang to life, playing weaker cards and raising to get heads-up against this guy. I had the good fortune of being in two pots against this guy that padded my account by about half a buy-in.

So here comes the hand we all wish we had played:

I'm pretty sure Fishy Guy had crap. He tended to play bad hands and bet with top pair, no pair, poor draws, etc.

BB, on the other hand, probably didn't have the nut flush draw or a flopped straight. I'd say two pair or a set is most likely.

So. Good fold? Worth risking half the stack?

Heard this afternoon on NPR:

Compulsion makes the greatest pleasure a chore.

I was already down a buy-in at the 1/2 $100 NL table when Grubby showed up after hour 4; two mistakes and a mistake/beat in raised pots will do that to you. I'd lost most of my chips by bluffing a passive calling station with Ajax (he flopped a pair with A9o) and then overplaying queens against the same guy after a king hit the flop (he had K7o).

I lost the rest of that first buy-in when I made a mistake by limping with Big Slick in MP. When it was raised behind me with two callers, I re-raised all-in. Everyone called. A king hit the flop and the second limper went all in. Surprisingly, he got called in both places. A little more action between the two remaining players created side pot #2, which was won by a pair of queens (limper #1 had QT). Side pot #1 and the main pot went to limper #2 who held A7s and made his flush on the river.

"Chips!"

Small rocks.

Despite my better judgment, I decided to join Grubby at a new 4/8 game. I've said before that playing low limit hold'em in casinos drives me nuts, and after the Commerce debacle, I swore I'd stick to no limit. But my no limit table wasn't really doing it for me after four hours of play, and Grubs said something about the limit games being softer than the no limit games. Fine.

We drew for the button and I found myself in the small blind with rockets. Sweet. I was disappointed to see my new tablemates fold their hands all around, but was glad to see the funny-looking guy in the cutoff open-raise. The button folded and I 3-bet. The big blind folded and the cutoff called. The flop came KQX. I bet, the cutoff raised, I 3-bet, and the cutoff called. I bet out the turn and river, figuring him for a K. He called each time and then said something about my hitting my set with the river Jack as he called. Uh oh. He had KQ for a flopped two pair. Not sure why he slowed down like that on the flop, but oh well.

I folded hand after hand for the next hour and started to get really antsy. I had been up for 16 hours at that point and had spent much of the day crawling around on dunes and salt formations and most of the evening drinking beer, whiskey, and gin on an empty stomach. Fortunately less than an hour remained until I fulfilled my 6 hour poker requirement to get the poker room rate.

Dunes near Stovepipe Wells.

Water catch at Devil's Golf Course.

Finally I caught Big Slick UTG and raised it up. Folded all around. What a shame. Then I noticed the Wilford Brimley look-a-like sit back down in his seat. The man had been calling a lot over the course of the night and I'm pretty sure he would have called if he'd been dealt in. Damn. I'd have to wait for another chance to get in a pot with him.

On the next hand I got a big blind special in the form of A4 with an AQ4 board. I went ahead and bet and was absolutely delighted to see Wilford call the bet. The turn brought a K, a bet from me, and a call from Grandpa. The river brought a J and I decided to bet my two pair despite the 4-straight on the board. Wilford raised. I decided to call despite the fact that I was pretty sure he had the ten. I wanted to see what he'd called me down with and there was the slimmest chance he had a weaker two pair or was trying to bluff with the scary board. Nope. He had QT.

Decide, despite, decide, despite. If only we could break that awful chain, we'd save a lot more bets.

After that beat I was down another $100 or so and decided to finish out the orbit and then take the rest of my chips over to a roulette table. It reminded me of my last bonus whoring experience at Empire. I lost $200 chasing a $90 discount. Then again, I didn't come to Vegas to sit in a hotel room.

Salt crystal formations at Devil's Golf Course.

I convinced Grubby that playing roulette was a good idea, but he seemed only half-convinced, betting on the outside while I played the numbers: 8, 10, 20, 23, 25. I wanted 35:1, he would settle for 2:1 or 1:1. I hit once or twice and when Grubby busted out, I got up with an extra $50 or so.

Grubby wanted to go play some blackjack so I decided to sit down and see what happened. It had been a while since I last played blackjack, and I even forgot to put out a bet on one hand, wanting to see my cards first. I saw hammers and flush draws everywhere. The headache I was nursing with some whiskey was spreading to my eyes, but I managed to settle into the rhythm of blackjack. I made some good bets when I felt the deck was favorable and also got some lucky cards and found myself steadily increasing my stack. It was nice to be playing at a table where the other guys knew what they were doing and let the dealer bust. At one point I was up $190 or so and decided to save $150 to get me back to even and bet the remaining $40 on two hands.

With the $40 gone and my tally for the night back to zero, I felt good, but dissatisfied. When I'm playing those -EV games, I want the rush of the big score. I wish I could tell you that blackjack and roulette saved my win/loss tally for the day and I got a full night's rest, but you already know what happened next. I took my three black chips over to the roulette table and started on a three hour streak of losing $10-20 a spin. I justified it by saying that as long as I was losing my prior blackjack/roulette winnings, I was ok.

Hills.

By 5AM I was completely exhausted and complained loudly as Grubby and I "raced" each other on some slot machines. I'm not sure what the winner was supposed to get, but I remember the distinct feeling that neither of us could possibly come out ahead in this race.

After the slots we stood around ruminating on the past 5 hours of -EV games and Grubby said something about us being better off if we'd stayed in the poker room. He's probably right. Then again, if we'd stayed I think it would have had to have been a 1/2 table where I could play without thinking too much or worrying about winning.

Actually we should have both gotten up when I was back to even and just hit the bar and gotten some fried foods. Fuck. Where's Al when you need him?

Suck.

Now I've lost all reason to play at PokerNow. Whatever. I'm still tied up at FullTilt with that insane signup bonus until the next Party skin reload bonus comes along.

Here's proof that blogging is not the domain of the technologically literate: my mom's photo blog.

Click a photo to see an enlarged version. Click it to close the window.

...unless you happen to like good table chat.

Oh, Pacific, why do you suck so hard? I think I'll just withdraw the free ten dollars you put in my account.

Your poker machine could be giving you this much working space*:

If you jumped on this deal:

Dell UltraSharp 2001FP 20.1" Digital LCD $487 at Dell Home

20.1" Flat Panel, ± 88° H/V Viewing, Analog + DVI + S-Video + Composite
4-Port USB Hub, 400:1 Contrast, 250 cd/m2 Bright, 1600x1200 Native

This is about $20 cheaper than what I paid three weeks ago, but I think I more than made for the difference in price in multi-table profitability.

Related:
Dell 1600x1200 LCD Monitor for $507
Airborne works on President's Day?

*The left half, by the way, is my notebook screen. Obviously if you've got a one monitor setup on your desktop, you won't get the extra space on the side.

Somehow I missed adding fellow LA-based poker blogger fhwrdh.net to the blogroll. This despite a few nights of playing NLHE together in various LA locales. Oops me. Worse than that, when a blog's not in the roll I'm usually not checking it frequently. I spend too much time reading these damn things anyway. But fhwrdh.net's one I should have kept tabs on.

My timing, however, is pretty remarkable. I wandered over just in time to get the latest news alert. Go on over yourself and congratulate fhwrdh on his latest news.

Get your own.

Not much to report in my corner of the Blogosphere. Still playing the $50 NL tables and finding myself up, down, up, down on a zigzag that thankfully trends upward. But even though I'm on the PSO rake rebate program, sometimes I get to feeling a little directionless in my play when I'm not clearing a bonus. I've been reading around about all these guys jumping on the Omaha 8, Razz, and Full Tilt bandwagons--you know who you are. So I guess I'll sign myself up at Full Tilt and start going about clearing that gargantuan bonus. By my estimates, it'll take me about 80 days to clear it all. Ew.

This Sunday you'll find me at the Aladdin poker room clearing another kind of bonus: a poker room rate. In exchange for committing myself to 6 hours of poker (really? that's all?), I get a room that's more than half off the going NASCAR-March Madness rate, and I suppose that's a good thing. The Vegas detour will come on the heels of spending a couple days in Death Valley with my mom. She's taken up photography as a hobby and wants to snap some pictures of the crazy wildflower boom that's resulted from all this rain we've been getting. Me, I haven't been to Death Valley in years and years, so I figure the beginning of Spring Break is a good time to get out of the house, out of doors, and maybe catch some no limit action (and maybe show my mom that poker isn't the nasty gambling habit she imagines it to be). Can't wait. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I'm guessing NASCAR fans will be about as good at cards as those cowboys from the first WPBT.

Time for you to pick up Bring It On, Donnie Brasco, Donnie Darko, This is Spinal Tap, and Vanilla Sky for under $9 each at Buy.com. Get an extra 10% off. Free shipping on orders of $25 or more. And no, this is not a shill.

It's too bad I paid full price for Cabin Boy last week.

Pauly's got a great photo on his site, and strangely, it doesn't feature Paris Hilton. Check it out.

I don't play a lot of video games these days, and haven't really for years and years. But two of the games I will always remember from my NES days are Metroid and Kid Icarus. Great, great games.

One of the things that made these games memorable was the great music by composer Hip Tanaka. The games these days have rock soundtracks and great sound effects, but the NES basically gave the music composers three channels to work with, and Tanaka made the most of them.

Feeling nostalgiac yet?

Download the actual NSF sound archives at Overclocked Remix. You'll need Meridian Prime to play 'em back. The sound archives are just that: archives. So hit forward and reverse to hear the different tracks.

Additional Fun NES Links:

Super Mario Theme on Guitar

Super Mario Theme on Piano

Mario Twins

WPBT H.O.R.S.E. Tournament
Online Event
Sunday, March 13, 2005
9PM Eastern Time
Full Tilt Poker
Password: thehammer
Organizer: Iggy

The World Poker Blogger Tour Aladdin Casino Classic
Live Event
Saturday, June 4, 2005
10AM Vegas Time
The Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas, NV
Details.
Organizer: CJ

Sadly, I will miss both events. I'll be in Vegas the night of the H.O.R.S.E. tournament and in China the day of the Aladdin Casino Classic. Bloggers hate me, but I'll pimp their events anyway.

We hope you like our show
We know you're rooting for us
But now we have to go

I'm with Mr. Dhal et al., I like this new blind structure Party's brought to their NL tables. It's pushed a lot of terrible players up to the $50 NL tables where their mistakes and our patience can make for some big payoffs. I played four tables tonight (two at a time twice) and ended up doubled on three. Nothing too interesting to report, but to complement what Halverson said about patience, I bring you two examples of being patient:

First table:

I raise with AK and get one caller. I miss the flop and bet the pot. The caller folds.

I get AK again and raise. Everyone folds.

I get JJ and type in the chat "You guys aren't going to believe this, but ok" and I raise for the third time in a row. One guy calls. The flop comes down KKJ. Beautiful. I play it fast as I did the other hands and the caller calls on every street. Turns out he had K4 suited and lost most of his stack making a stand.

Second table:

I raise with AQ and get two callers. I miss the flop and fold when someone bets into me.

I get AQ again and raise. The same guy calls and bets into me on a missed flop. I have a gutshot draw and I put him on a bluff, but I decide the pot's too small to contest.

One or two hands later I limp in middle position with KJ. I'm happy to see the K high flop. The same guy bets the pot, gets a caller. I wonder if I'm behind to a KQ or K-rag. I call. Another guy calls. The turn comes and it's checked twice to me. I bet 75% of the pot and the LP and EP guys fold. The caller calls. The river's a J and I'm happy. I bet another 75%, but my opponent folds.

Examples of impatience:

Well, you had to have been at Commerce last weekend to see that. Ouch. It was truly the worst poker I've played live, and I've played some bad poker.

Anyway, I'm clearly still learning this game, but I think there are some small observations about small stakes NL games to be gleaned from these two experiences.

Be patient. The caller's impatience with my three raises caused him to play an inferior hand. Instead of losing a quarter, he lost over 100 times that amount.

Play your game. Consistently raising my big hands and following through on the flop left my opponents wondering where they were.

Save your stack for the big ones. When the pot is only 12 big blinds and I've missed the flop, I'm done with the hand (but for God's sake, don't check behind!).

Brag a lot. Enjoy the fruits of your discipline. If one in three hands pay off, you'll have something to blog.

Disclaimers:

Everything I said above probably doesn't apply to higher stakes games, short-handed games, heads-up games, super-tight/super-solid games, or games where you're playing with someone who's read your post on how you play small stakes NL full ring.

In fact, if you've read this post, you've probably lost some of your no limit chops. Go fill up at Double A's and Ship It.

Back in the heady days of the late nineties I was working a shitty job, Bill Clinton was porking a fat girl, and one of my old friends from junior high was hosting a weekly home game that featured all the crazy wild card dealer's choice poker games that make home games so awful and fun. Anaconda and In Between would regularly put some of us in the hole for a marker or two, and the following week the poor sucker would return with his checkbook to make good on his debts. Playing poker was an excuse to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and talk shit. Then one day our intrepid host went and decided his life needed shaking up. Our weekly game suffered. Actually it coughed up a bloody phlegmy mess and keeled over.

Fast forward a few years and I was working a good paying shitty job, George Bush was invading countries, and I decided to get my old friends from junior high and college together for a weekly home game that would give us an excuse to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and talk shit. We started off playing all the usual stupid games, but as time went on we felt the urge to play "real" poker and called a lot more 7 and 5 card stud, even though we had no idea how to play stud. Hindsight is... well, you know.

At some point we realized that they were showing poker on TV; specifically the WSOP and the WPT. Gambling as sport. No. Hang on. Let's try that again. Gambling is sport. We were hooked, and while we'd only rarely called Hold 'Em during our dealer's choice games, we decided to put together a little BBQ tourney and spend a Saturday afternoon pushing our chips in when we thought we had the best of it. Actually we probably didn't do that. It was probably weak-tight city. Regardless, it was a blast, and even those of us who got knocked out in the early rounds of the tournament stuck around watching every hand. No profitable side games here. After that, our weekly game, while still dealer's choice, quickly turned into pure Hold 'Em.

Around this time I figured if some dumbass could play at PokerStars and go on to win the WSOP, well, hell, that might be a good place to buy in. And I always thought I was such a logical person.

Actually, here's the truth of it. "Online poker? Sounds shady. But... if that guy played online and went on to a live championship event, that site must be legitimate, right?"

Whatever. From what I hear, Moneymaker is a dumbass. Then again, so was I. Underfunded and outclassed, I was one of the fish who swarmed PokerStars after every WSOP and WPT broadcast. Pot odds? Implied odds? Bankroll requirements? Big bets? It's funny how difficult it is to unlearn something. (Like reading.) Right now I can't imagine not having this most basic of knowledge bases. But back then I was a total noob. (God I hate that word.)

Yet there was something there that brought me back. Again and again. I knew that I was, that I could--fuck it, I'm just a degenerate gambler looking for the big score. And an obsessive. And a guy who doesn't know when he's beat. So I'd deposit $50 at a time, waiting the 4-5 days for the EFT to hit Neteller, then transfer the money into Stars where eventually I'd lose the whole damn thing. Six times.

StudioGlyphic blog came into being around the same time that I first ventured into the online world of poker. (World of online poker?) I, of course, read my friends' blogs while pushing out my own inanities on an unsuspecting public. One day I noticed a comment on Cavebutter from some guy calling himself Iggy who kept shilling for a site called Party Poker. Actually I think he was trying to be helpful: "good god, none of you guys play at party poker?"

I won't go into the long sordid history of me and Party Poker, but let's just say Iggy was right about Party. (You got that, Iggy? You won't hear it again from me. Savor this moment, you bastard. Bonus Code IGGY!)

I've long since climbed out of the hole I dug for myself at PokerStars by playing at Party and Paradise and bonus whoring diligently, and haven't really gone back to Stars except for the one or two WPBT Online Events. The memory of those first half dozen deposits still makes me a bit gunshy, and after spending all this time on Party's inferior software, something about the Stars look and feel makes me antsy. But from what I hear, it's now almost as good as Party in terms of the number of players, the number of games, and the quality of play. I should consider going back.

Especially now that I've discovered money in my account! A miracle!

It is a sad, sad thing when you've made more money being a poker site affiliate than as a poker player. If you are one of the handful who signed up at PokerStars through my shill link, thank you very much! It's clear that I don't do this to get affiliate signups. There are better ways to do that. But it's also clear that I am much better at getting people to sign up at PokerStars than I am at winning at PokerStars.

Of the many people who swarmed to California during the Gold Rush, the most successful were those merchants who sold supplies to the miners. I therefore present to you the StudioGlyphic General Store: the source for all your poker needs!

As usual, school will be interfering with my availability for the June 4 event. Bah, I say. It is a small consolation, but I will be off in a foreign country busily converting prices into heavily devalued dollars and wondering where all my spending money has gone.

Good news, everyone. Our local public radio station (KCRW) is now podcasting its locally produced content. Being the big public radio dork that I am, I once considered getting the Samsung MP3 player instead of the iPod since it could record audio files directly from FM transmissions. Ultimately, the fact that it was ugly as sin, not as easy to use, and bigger (remind you of any poker sites?) made me settle on the iPod. Size matters.

But that's partially a moot point deprived of practical significance / made abstract or purely academic* now that you can get these podcasts. Here are my three picks:

The Treatment - film and culture interviews

To the Point - current events roundtable

Final Curtain - radio obituaries

As for all the NPR and PRI shows that take up the other 75% of KCRW's news/talk programming, I'll have to settle for being tied to the network for their RealAudio streams, or shell out for the somewhat pricey Audible.com** downloads.

* See DuggleBogey below.
** Audible.com likes to give your session a unique ID and include it in the URL as you browse, which means that I can't link you directly to their TV and Radio section. Their internal links also use JavaScript. Both measures will likely confound both the search engines as well as users who want to direct people to specific categories or products. Why are they so ass-backwards?

Sometimes I'm reading a blog and I realize it's terribly boring. Then I get to wondering if this happens to my two readers. As with my poker game, I hope I'm slightly above average.