famouslastwords

Interlude

2010-09-09T16:52:00.001-05:00

This is absolutely my favorite part of my "night job":

Nassau79: lol
Nassau79: famous last idiot more like it
Nassau79: clown
Nassau79: where do they find these morons?
Nassau79: famous last jerkoff

I wonder what it would be like to get such honest feedback at my day job. Probably not quite as fun.

Adulthood?

2010-09-08T17:27:00.005-05:00

I guess you could say this blog is a lost cause, but I do keep meaning to write something here. I just never sit down and do it, unfortunately. But I have had a lot on my mind lately, and I feel compelled to actually verbalize it before everything disappears into the ether.

When I was in school, and even for several years after graduating from college, I was always very conscious of feeling younger than my peers. I was one of the youngest in my class in school, based on whatever the arbitrary cutoff was when I started kindergarten. I think I had just one classmate in grade school who was younger than me. More importantly, though, I always felt immature mentally. Not in the typical sense you might think of for a school-age kid/teenager/young adult. I was never, ever irresponsible. In fact, I was painfully compliant to the “rules” and my parents’ wishes. I never went through any sort of teenage rebellion. Typical teenage “trouble areas” never even interested me. I didn’t like parties and I didn’t like drinking. I actually enjoyed studying, although I complained about it incessantly, because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was a total nerd.

When I started college, I was 17. I was very homesick my first year, even though I was only 2 hours away from home and I went home almost every weekend. I felt totally lost, like a little kid being asked to live as an adult. Things got better as time went on, of course, and I did well at school and functioned well enough on my own. I still went home mostly every other weekend for the rest of my college career, though. And every other weekend when I went home, I took my laundry and let my mom do it for me. When I graduated, I was only too happy to come back home. Some of my friends were going off to live on their own in new cities with brand new jobs and some were staying around campus because it was just as much home to them now as their hometown had been. But it never crossed my mind to do anything other than pack up and move back home with my parents.

After I graduated from college, I went through a very bad depression. I’ve had a few periods of very bad, almost suicidal level depressions throughout my life, and this was one of the worst. I had always been a great student, dedicated to doing well in my classes. I think I got straight A’s in college. But I was unable to figure out what career I wanted to pursue, and so when I finished college, I had degrees in biology and psychology but no clue what I wanted to do with them. I told everyone who asked that my plan was to work for a few years to build some “real-world experience” and let that help me decide what to go to graduate school for. Grad school in biopsych or neuroscience? Maybe, but most psych programs were PhD level and I didn’t know if I wanted to commit to that, and I didn’t know if I’d be happy with life as a researcher. Law school? I loved logic and was detail oriented enough to probably do well, but I had terrible public speaking anxiety. Masters in Education? I love teaching in general but worried about how it would be to deal with dumb students and students who didn’t care to learn. And I thought it would get boring to teach the same stuff year after year. Veterinary school? At one point in college I was sure I would do this, but I worked at an animal hospital that I hated (bad coworkers, arrogant doctors) and changed my mind. Probably it was the wrong decision, but the experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth and doubts in my mind about the career.

So, anyway, being done with school and having my sense of identity suddenly gone (for my whole life it had been, “Julie, the student…” and now it was “Julie, _______”), I went through a terrible period of time. I worked part time at various jobs for a couple years, including my mom’s office, but mostly just drifted mentally and tried keep myself functional.

One of the problems I had at that time was the idea that I really wanted a vocation. My parents never pushed me to do anything I didn’t want to in life, but my mom always emphasized that I should find something that I loved for a career and then I would “never work a day in my life.” She was trying to be helpful. But this concept grew to carry enormous weight in my mind; it became something of an obsession – find the perfect career, the one that will keep me happy always. Of course, it didn’t happen. For years, I thought that eventually I would figure it out, and it would be like the key to the puzzle of my very existence and my whole life would fall into place. When I was in my early to mid twenties, this was the mantra of my life. But I never could figure it out.

Eventually, I fell into a job that I liked – definitely not one that I felt some overarching passion for – but something that I moderately enjoy. I became an office drone and found it’s really not that bad. When I started this job, I still had the sense that I would go back to school and find my “real career.” I work for a university, so I thought I would accrue my benefits for the requisite year and then be able to take classes for free at night. Great job benefit. I started leaning again towards a teaching career and getting a Masters in Education. But coincidentally, this was also the time I started doing very well with my after-work hobby -- playing poker.

To be continued…soon!

Austin, TX

2010-04-23T13:48:00.012-05:00

Just got back from a 5-day conference in Austin. I'd always heard great things about Austin, so I was really excited to check it out, and after just a couple days, I am so ready to move there. Such a cool city. How can you not love a place whose official motto is "Keep Austin Weird"?

I was really lucky in that I didn't have to endure that awkward alone-at-a-conference-in-a-strange-city scenario, as my friends Kurt and Carla drove up from Baton Rouge to help me explore.

Here are some photos from our adventures (mostly involving food).

From an avante garde hot dog place called "Frank" that we went to for lunch one day:

Awesome drink menu (I'm a big fan of Boylan sodas):

Kurt at Frank's (sign behind him says, "It seems to me that some people want champagne and caviar when they should have a beer and hot dogs.")

Carla gets angry without food.

My lunch, the "State Fair" -- brisket, onions, fried jalapenos on a Polish sausage. Good!

Creepy doll heads at an antique shop called "Uncommon Goods" (definitely the coolest antique shop I've ever seen; they had all kinds of crazy stuff and had it grouped in all different ways throughout the store - e.g., some sections just by color of the item, some by theme, some by time period, etc.)
I love that Carla's head is reflected in the mirror in this one. Yay for disembodied heads.
Dinner at Rudy's, the 2nd highest rated BBQ place in Austin, as judged by yelp.com (shoutout to my brother, who hates yelp). Yelp is the greatest and has never steered me wrong. This BBQ place possibly should have been rated #1, though. We got waaay too much beef brisket and St. Louis pork ribs (I think it was a lb. of each.) Also, the white bread accompanying the BBQ meal is apparently a Southern convention. It was standard at every BBQ place I saw down there.
Best creamed corn ever. And some beans which were good, but not as good as my mom's.

The remains...

Food comas for all...

My dinner the last night there, beef ribs at Ironworks BBQ. I always thought I liked pork ribs better, but these quickly changed my mind. Good beer, too.

There was another conference running alongside ours at the hotel. They were advertising for their next meeting in Biloxi with casino chips (kinda clever, I suppose), but no one seemed to be taking them. So I helped them out by grabbing a few every time I passed their table. Ended up with quite a collection.

Oh yeah

2010-03-29T12:41:00.001-05:00

I'm back from the dead and resurrecting this thing. That's the plan, anyway.

LOST

2010-03-29T12:39:00.004-05:00

I've been watching Lost on Hulu, but of course I watch it while I play poker, so sometimes I can't keep track of the storyline. So I've been periodically looking up the episodes I've watched on wikipedia. Some of episode blurbs are hilarious:

Eko follows what appears to be his brother into the jungle. It turns out to be the smoke monster, which proceeds to kill Eko.

Locke, Sayid, Kate and Danielle approach a sonic barrier fence protecting the home of the Others during their mission to rescue Jack. Locke shoves Mikhail, an Other who they have captured as a hostage, into the fence and he dies. Locke, Sayid, and Kate climb over the fence without any problem.

Sawyer kills Locke's father who happens to be the original Sawyer.

Locke is unable to see Jacob, but can hear him, and Ben shoots him because of this.

And my personal favorite:

Kate and Sawyer show their feelings for each other by having sex.

Running Better

2009-04-22T16:33:00.004-05:00

So I've had 4 consecutive solid winning sessions of PLO in a row -- been a while since that's happened. My hands graph for the last few months looks like a mix between a heart beat wave and a cosine graph. But I am running hot now and definitely feeling better about my game. Hopefully I won't jinx my next session by posting this!

Although I am definitely running well, I did have a pretty funny thing happen a few nights ago -- 3 times in a row, I got my stack in pre AAxx vs AAxx and lost all 3. That must be some kind of record. (Had the better coordinated side cards 2 of the 3 times, too!) So rigged.

Anyway, I was downtown for a conference all last week. It's almost like I'm a real adult or something! Although, having now been to two conferences as a "working professional," I have come to the following realization:

professional conferences: working world :: study abroad programs : college

i.e. Go to a conference for your job whenever possible, as it is the closest thing to a vacation that you're going to get without taking an actual vacation. I guess this is pretty much common knowledge, but it was a "oh, duh!" moment for me. (I didn't realize "study abroad" really meant "semester-long vacation" until I was almost done with college, either!)

Fuck My Life

2009-04-12T14:48:00.002-05:00

A Tale of Sorrow in Four Parts:

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

BB ($192)
UTG ($76.55)
MP ($158.35)
CO ($395.80)
Hero (Button) ($206.75)
SB ($238.30)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, 6, 8, J
3 folds, Hero bets $6, SB raises to $20, 1 fold, Hero calls $14

Flop: ($42) 6, 10, Q (2 players)
SB bets $34, Hero raises to $141.90, SB raises to $218.30 (All-In), Hero calls $44.85 (All-In)

Turn: ($415.50) 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($415.50) 4 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $415.50 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero mucked 9, 6, 8, J (two pair, tens and sixes).
SB had K, 8, 10, J (three of a kind, tens).
Outcome: SB won $412.50

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $2.00 BB (5 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($95.25)
Button ($37)
Hero (SB) ($246.80)
BB ($100.65)
UTG ($252.55)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, Q, 10, 9
UTG calls $2, 2 folds, Hero bets $8, 1 fold, UTG calls $6

Flop: ($18) 9, 8, 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $12, UTG raises to $36, Hero raises to $96, UTG raises to $244.55 (All-In), Hero calls $142.80 (All-In)

Turn: ($495.60) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($495.60) A (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $495.60 | Rake: $2
Results:
Hero had A, Q, 10, 9 (full house, nines over Aces).
UTG had J, 3, J, 9 (full house, Jacks over nines).
Outcome: UTG won $493.60

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $2.00 BB (5 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($74.05)
UTG ($150.60)
MP ($203.40)
Hero (Button) ($207.65)
SB ($239.10)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 10, A, A, 7
1 fold, MP bets $7, Hero raises to $24, 2 folds, MP raises to $75, Hero raises to $207.65 (All-In), MP calls $128.40 (All-In)

Flop: ($409.80) 10, J, A (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($409.80) 3 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($409.80) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $409.80 | Rake: $2
Results:
Hero mucked 10, A, A, 7 (three of a kind, Aces).
MP had 2, 7, 8, 9 (straight, Queen high).
Outcome: MP won $407.80

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha, $2.00 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

BB ($196.80)
UTG ($287.25)
MP ($96.20)
CO ($267.25)
Hero (Button) ($398.15)
SB ($198)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, Q, 7, J
3 folds, Hero bets $6, SB calls $5, 1 fold

Flop: ($14) 10, 3, J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $10, SB raises to $40, Hero raises to $133.30, SB raises to $192 (All-In), Hero calls $58.70

Turn: ($398) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($398) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $398 | Rake: $3
Results:
Hero mucked K, Q, 7, J (flush, King high).
SB had A, 4, A, 8 (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: SB won $395

Very confused about how to win in this game at the moment. Running like dog shit and even my leaks seem to have sprung leaks (I could have posted about 20 hands that I misplayed severely, but I thought I'd save myself the embarrassment). FML.

Anyway, on a happier note, going to the Cubs game tonight (in Milwaukee -- first time visiting their stadium). One of the guys going with us is from Germany and has never seen a baseball game before, so it should be fun. Got some great seats behind home plate on stubhub. Go Cubs!

Quote of the day

2009-04-07T18:50:00.001-05:00

From some FTP pro chat something or other:

#

QUESTION FROM OverThinking101: hi

ANSWER FROM Steve Zolotow: hi I am interested in any questions or problems players have that relate to probability, odds, statistics, and related concepts. Even though I may not be able to answer complex questions now, I have been doing some stuff for CardPlayer magazine on thi
#

QUESTION FROM PIE18: are you bald?

ANSWER FROM Steve Zolotow: yes

But I'm just big boned, right?

2009-04-01T18:19:00.004-05:00

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

I am going to add "eat an Elvis donut" to the list of things I must do before I die (possibly as I die?)

Time for dinner.

Bubbles

2009-03-30T10:45:00.003-05:00

When I rinsed out my coffee cup, it formed 3 perfect water droplets on either side of the handle. I thought this was super. So I took a picture w/ my iphone. Unfortunately you can't see the one side very well b/c of the reflection. But now my day of perfect bubbles will live on in my memory (er, blogger) forever. Hooray for technology.

So Accomplished

2009-03-25T17:03:00.003-05:00

Today I went through and organized my entire list of subscribed-to blogs on Google Reader. You can make as many folders as you want and add the same blogs to multiple folders (so nice and convenient). It never even dawned on me that you could do this until today when I noticed the little "manage subscriptions" icon at the bottom of my near infinite list. I am slow.

Speaking of slow, I just realized recently that Wikipedia's address has "en." at the beginning because it is denoting you are going to the English site. I had always imagined the address was like that for some artsy reason, like the beginning of an abbreviated Latin phrase that means "in here lies knowledge". Or something. I don't know, I get weird ideas.

PLO is going meh. I realized last night that one of my major issues is not playing well against maniacs. This is weird b/c I feel like adjusting to maniacs is one of my strengths in NLH. But in PLO I can never figure out their hand range and just get lost postflop...which mostly results in them value-towning me when they flop trip deuces with their 2T6Kr hand. Most of these maniacs have pretty big bet sizing (and even timing tells) -- I just gotta pay more attention...

PLO is crazy

2009-03-17T10:26:00.001-05:00

all of feb < one day of march

also, bonus angry fish chat:

THE TORNADO: i hope your house burns down
with you inside u POS
THE TORNADO: are you a cheater who can see
cards scumbag??
System: The $26 Token Frenzy ($1+$0 NL Hold'em) will be starting in 4 minutes.
THE TORNADO: you are a drown huh!! i am
reporting you !
THE TORNADO: you shuold fuking jump off a cliff
wiith no parachute and die

obviously I am a drown.

Bacon Lampshade

2009-02-13T12:19:00.000-06:00

WTF--how do people even think of these things?

On Ukeleles

2009-02-11T12:00:00.002-06:00

This is quite possibly the greatest thing ever to come across my RSS feed.

See Boing Boing for an explanation.

The original blog this is from is for the benefit of mr buffett.

A Test!

2009-02-10T19:10:00.002-06:00

Just trying this out. Will write about my vacation later.

On Breaking Resolutions

2009-01-28T16:19:00.002-06:00

Argh, too much work to do, no time to blog. Leaving for vacation on Saturday, no time to blog. Back to work!

stupid game imo

2009-01-20T19:50:00.001-06:00

Second time in 24 hrs that this has happened to me:

Full Tilt Poker Game #10157439500: Table Grubb (deep 6) - $1/$2 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 20:03:38 ET - 2009/01/20
Seat 1: amoky123 ($166.40)
Seat 2: thr1ll ($215.95)
Seat 3: famouslastwords ($408.95)
Seat 4: Flitcraft ($243.90)
Seat 5: athos1971 ($177.90)
Seat 6: HowDoMyNutzTste ($428.35), is sitting out
amoky123 posts the small blind of $1
thr1ll posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [Ah Qd As 7d]
famouslastwords raises to $7
Flitcraft calls $7
athos1971 folds
amoky123 has 15 seconds left to act
amoky123 calls $6
thr1ll folds
*** FLOP *** [Ac 7c Kh]
amoky123 checks
famouslastwords bets $18
Flitcraft raises to $36
amoky123 calls $36
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords raises to $167
Flitcraft calls $131
amoky123 folds
*** TURN *** [Ac 7c Kh] [Kd]
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $234.95, and is all in
Flitcraft calls $69.90, and is all in
famouslastwords shows [Ah Qd As 7d]
Flitcraft shows [2c 5d Ks Kc]
Uncalled bet of $165.05 returned to famouslastwords
*** RIVER *** [Ac 7c Kh Kd] [3s]
famouslastwords shows a full house, Aces full of Kings
Flitcraft shows four of a kind, Kings
Flitcraft wins the pot ($529.80) with four of a kind, Kings
famouslastwords adds $234.95
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $532.80 | Rake $3
Board: [Ac 7c Kh Kd 3s]
Seat 1: amoky123 (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: thr1ll (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: famouslastwords showed [Ah Qd As 7d] and lost with a full house, Aces full of Kings
Seat 4: Flitcraft showed [2c 5d Ks Kc] and won ($529.80) with four of a kind, Kings
Seat 5: athos1971 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: HowDoMyNutzTste is sitting out

Quote of the day

2009-01-19T17:53:00.001-06:00

"Sports is man's joke on God, Max. You see, God says to man, 'I've created a universe where it seems like everything matters, where you'll have to grapple with life and death and in the end you'll die anyway, and it won't really matter.' So man says to God, 'Oh, yeah? Within your universe we're going to create a sub-universe called sports, one that absolutely doesn't matter, and we'll follow everything that happens in it as if it were life and death.'"

New Music

2009-01-19T16:34:00.004-06:00

I am really digging these guys: http://www.myspace.com/brickfoot

In fact, I like that music so much that I am linking to that site in spite of my totally rational hatred of all things Myspace. Worst. Website. Ever! Every time I go there I end up super-tilted by all the ads and the layout and the crazy-ass wallpapers people choose. And auto-playing music is always a bad idea, always. Even the name itself tilts me. Myspace. The first time I heard that name several years ago, I thought it was some site for little kids to play on. It sounds like something involving Toys-r-Us. Bah. I guess I'm just too particular about things.

My brother used to like to say that Myspace is "Facebook for Idiots." However, the way Facebook is now, I would say Facebook is now also Facebook for Idiots. Or something. I guess I shouldn't ding it that much -- it is quite useful. But I really do not need to know when one of my friends takes a quiz about her favorite ice cream flavor, thankyouverymuch. And no, I don't want to take the quiz and compare my answers, that's OK. I think I can find a few more interesting things to do. Like rant on here. Hmmph...

A New Year

2009-01-07T15:17:00.003-06:00

Well, I wanted to do a 2008 Year in Review post but never got around to it. It was a decent enough year, not too notable in a good way or a bad way. Pokerwise, I didn't hit my (kinda secret, kinda unreasonable) goal of 250K, but I did learn how to play PLO, which was one of my major goals. And I made slightly more than last year at least. Personal goals for 2008 were a less successful front. I guess I could blame my increasing responsibilities at work, but really I am just lazy and awful at holding myself to self-imposed rules.

2009 Resolutions
I do love resolutions, even if I am horrible at keeping them. If I at least make a solid attempt on all of these, I'll be happy:
1) Learn to play guitar (for real, not just practicing random chords for a week and then giving up on it). Be able to play at least 5 songs by the end of the year.
2) Make at least 2 blog entries per week. For posterity's sake, at least.
3) Keep working on my PLO game. Get good enough that I am comfortable playing 5/10 by the end of the year.
4) Read at least 30 books.
5) Watch a couple poker videos each week and TAKE NOTES!
6) Do some remedial math, esp. mental math exercises, so it doesn't take me 10 minutes to determine my pot odds. And so that looking at an equation doesn't cause my brain to automatically shut off.
7) Healthier lifestyle. Regular sleep patterns, eat less meat, stay away from drinks w/ calories, stop sitting in front of the computer so much, get some exercise etc etc.
8) Figure out whether I should go pro or not.
9) Make more money than last year. Try not to lose so much of it in the stock market.

I guess that's about it. So long, 2008.

Here's a cute little thing that's been making the rounds of my office's email:

Coolness

2008-12-17T16:35:00.003-06:00

My awesome co-worker Dee met Barack Obama when he came to our school to speak on Martin Luther King Jr. Day about 7 years ago. Dee was one of the nominees for our institution's Martin Luther King Jr. Award, so she was able to have picture taken with him. I just helped her scan the photo into her comp today so she can send copies to all of her family members.

Pretty cool to have a picture of yourself with any President, but with this one in particular it's a hell of a lot of awesome. Seven years later, and he's the most important politician in the world. :-)

ABCD...INFP

2008-12-16T23:55:00.005-06:00

I was a psych major in college, so I am somewhat familiar with the whole MBTI/"determing your personality type" subject. I think everyone who has taken Psych 101 had to take the Myers-Briggs test at least once. I never really put much stock in stuff like that, though. The actual Myers-Briggs research is pretty cool, but as is the problem with almost all personality psych research, the true findings get buried and subsumed by pop psychology (even in the introductory level psychology classes themselves). And then there's the whole unpleasant offshoot of the pop psych aspect, that of people trying to make a buck off of telling you how wonderful you are deep down inside and how you're really in the wrong career path and oh yeah, just pay us $49.95 and we will give you a nice little home-grown test to determine exactly what you should do with your life. And if you pay another $19.95, maybe we'll even throw in some graphs to show you what a unique person you are.

That said, though, for some reason tonight I was motivated to read some stuff about my (best guess, anyway) Myers-Briggs personality type, INFP (introverted intuitive feeling perceiving). And it's kinda frightening how well these describe me:
http://similarminds.com/jung/infp.html
http://www.murraystate.edu/secsv/fye/INFP.htm
If I had to try to write some blurb about my personality, I really couldn't do any better than that.

I once read that there is an abnormally high concentration of INTJ types among poker players. Makes sense, I guess (although it makes me picture a bunch of Sklansky type limit nerds...I wonder if there is a difference between the average personality type of limit and no limit players).

In other news, we got about 4 inches of snow today. Generally this makes me happy, as I love the snow (seriously, in my dream world Chicago would have 3 feet of snow on the ground for the whole winter), but when the snow starts coming down in the afternoon and you have to drive home in rush hour traffic, it gets pretty annoying.My usually 15-20 minute drive home would have taken me about 1.5 hrs today...I say would have, as my car broke down 2/3rds of the way home. (As they say on 30 Rock, "Blergh!") I've been driving this car ever since I was 15 and on a driver's permit...so 13 yrs now (yikes!)...and I had never before had it break down on me. So, of course, my life being what it is, I get to have my first break down in the middle of the worst snowstorm so far this winter. Heh. I really can't complain, though. The engine lasted long enough for me to make it into a strip mall parking lot and then I called my dad to come and rescue me with his nice big 4-wheel-drive SUV. I even got to spend the intervening time waiting for him in the local pet shop, which is my general idea of a fun outing. (Yeah, INFP, we're not really the wild and crazy fun type.)

Can't Complain

2008-12-14T00:54:00.002-06:00

I have entitled this graph The Learning Curve:

Moved up to PLO200 this weekend and so far the results have been agreeable. Nothing like running like God to boost your confidence in a game. I have also been reading Jeff Hwang's PLO book. I think I finally have starting hand values down pat (only took me, what, 3 months?). I am now on to more advanced concepts like "how to know when you are drawing dead" and "bluffing might actually be possible in this game, on occasion."

Favorite hand of the day, which I will entitle Inducing the Bluff:

Full Tilt Poker Game #9475134378: Table Coburn (6 max) - $1/$2 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 16:28:41 ET - 2008/12/13
Seat 1: willpga ($501.80)
Seat 2: famouslastwords ($227.25)
Seat 3: BOTSLAYER ($200)
Seat 4: Skyscrapers ($375.30)
Seat 5: schwingk ($57.30)
Seat 6: Emaninch ($343.15)
Skyscrapers posts the small blind of $1
schwingk posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [7c Jh Th Qs]
Emaninch calls $2
willpga folds
famouslastwords raises to $9
BOTSLAYER folds
Skyscrapers folds
schwingk folds
Emaninch calls $7
*** FLOP *** [3d Kd 8c]
Emaninch checks
famouslastwords bets $14
Emaninch calls $14
*** TURN *** [3d Kd 8c] [7h]
Emaninch checks
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $38
Emaninch calls $38
*** RIVER *** [3d Kd 8c 7h] [7s]
Emaninch checks
famouslastwords bets $2
Emaninch raises to $131
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords calls $129
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Emaninch shows [5h 9s 2d Ac] a pair of Sevens
famouslastwords shows [7c Jh Th Qs] three of a kind, Sevens
famouslastwords wins the pot ($384) with three of a kind, Sevens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $387 | Rake $3
Board: [3d Kd 8c 7h 7s]
Seat 1: willpga didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: famouslastwords showed [7c Jh Th Qs] and won ($384) with three of a kind, Sevens
Seat 3: BOTSLAYER (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Skyscrapers (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: schwingk (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Emaninch showed [5h 9s 2d Ac] and lost with a pair of Sevens

It may just be the luckbox talking, but the PLO games are so good that I don't know if I'll ever go back to NLH. Well, we'll see. I do kind of miss knowing what my equity is in a hand without having to go online and calculate it.

More later.

Anger Management, or Why I am not the Cubs GM

2008-11-14T11:51:00.006-06:00

Woke up this morning to some annoying news -- the Cubs traded for the Marlins closer and aren't planning to re-sign Kerry Wood. This pisses me off, as Wood has long been my favorite Cub. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I'm not a big fan of giving closers huge contracts in general, but still. This is Wood. He's supposed to be a Cub. I want the Cubs to be in a position to get to the World Series, but I want Wood to be part of it. He deserves it.

It's pretty ironic, too, considering Wood posted a sparkling 1.08 WHIP last year, the best of his career. IMO, WHIP is by far the best stat we have to measure a pitcher's effectiveness. I see a pitcher with anything below 1.15 and I start salivating. (If you really want to see me start drooling, bring up Greg Maddux's stats from the late 80s/early 90s.) OK, this is kind of gross imagery. I'll stop.

Anyway, I am going to be depressed to see Wood in a different club's uniform. He's been a Cub for 10 years (ten years! God, time goes by fast). I've told my friends this story a lot, but I always like to claim that I should have been at his 20K game in 1998. I was a senior in high school at the time and one of the sports editors of our school yearbook. (BTW, 1998 yearbook = best designed yearbook Central ever put out, I guarantee it).

So, as spring rolled around and we were putting the finishing touches on the book, our yearbook advisor decided that we had earned a field trip. She entertained suggestions from us, and mine was obviously that we should go to a Cubs game. But I guess she thought she wouldn't be able to pass that off as educational enough, so we ended up going to the Museum of Modern Art (where, it turned out, one of the halls had a huge exhibit up dedicated to vaginas--well, I'm sure it had some kind of thematic meaning beyond that, but all I remember 10 years later is looking at lots and lots of vaginas and thinking, "why am I not at the Cubs game?"). Then we spent the afternoon at Watertower Place (fancy shopping mall on Michigan Ave)--highly educational of course. That day was May 6, 1998. On the way back, in the bus, I listened to the game in disbelief as Wood racked up strikeout after strikeout and got home just in time to see the ninth inning on TV (and Wood's postgame interview, where he shoke like a leaf as he held the headpiece to his ear).

The next day one of the many articles about the game in the Tribune was a little blurb about how the tickets from that game had become instant collectibles and were already selling for a couple hundred bucks a piece. Just to be cruel, I brought it in to show to everyone in my yearbook office.

Anyway, ever since that day, Wood has been my (and I'm sure thousands of other fans')favorite Cub. I'm gonna miss him.

P.S. Looking for a photo of Wood's 20K game, I stumbled upon this site, where someone I've never heard of reviews pitching mechanics. Really interesting stuff.

Also, I am so proud to see that he listed Greg Maddux as someone who has superb mechanics. When I taught myself how to pitch when I was a kid, I modeled my windup and pitching motion after what I saw Maddux do, as he was my favorite Cub at the time. As I grew up, and he left the Cubs, I completely forgot that I had learned how to pitch from watching him. You can imagine how shocked I was in 2004, as Maddux returned to the Cubs and I watched him closely for the first time since I was about ten years old, to realize that I had the exact same windup and delivery as him. It was one of those bizarre moments of suddenly recalling a memory you didn't know existed, as my brain leapt back over a decade to an image of myself standing in the middle of my family room, mimicking his motion as closely as possible with every pitch projected on the TV in front of me.

Sadly, I never progressed past the windup stage of pitching knowledge, so my childhood repertoire of pitches consisted of one 40 mph fastball, over and over. Hey, I could hit a target, at least! I guess I should be thankful that I didn't model myself after Mitch Williams.

The Fish is Me

2008-11-12T10:15:00.006-06:00

I am still a huge fish in PLO. This is sad, as I have spent about a month now working on my game. Well, playing anyway. I haven't watched enough videos recently, because it's more fun to play than to learn (yes, I am the perfect fish). My recent mode seems to be: get home from work, eat dinner, play 4 tables of PLO50 on my laptop while watching an episode of something on HULU in the corner of my screen. Not the most profitable session type for me, but it has been kinda relaxing and enjoyable to play the "lunch-money" stakes again. And now I've gotten myself addicted to PLO, so while I recognize that I do suck quite badly at it, I'm gonna keep working on it and hopefully pull myself up into the "competent small stakes player" realm in the near future.

I am pretty curious what my PLO stats are like, but since I've been playing mostly on the laptop (a Mac), I haven't bothered with buying Pokertracker Omaha. My brother has promised to help me fix up my desktop comp when he's home for Thanksgiving, so I think I'll get it then and import all my hands. I'm guessing I'm playing too LAGGy, like 30/20/4, and winning at something sad like 1ptbb/100 (at least, I think I don't have a negative winrate--would be pretty depressing to find out otherwise. It's kinda hard to keep track when I'm jumping back and forth between my normal NL games and the PLO).

The main thing I've learned the hard way about the difference between PLO and NLH is the suckiness of pocket pairs in PLO. Still hasn't quite sunk in, though. Last night I was watching a video where the pro mucked crappy kings (like KK38r) from the SB against a BTN open without a second thought, and I was like, "Oh shit, I'm supposed to be folding there?!?" Weird game.

The nice thing about the PLO setup I have going right now is that I have been able to watch a shit-ton of stuff on hulu.com. The other night I even had this bizarre dream that I was going to open the first hulu review site (I actually looked this up afterwards and learned that there already is at least one of these--so sad, dream self). I'll have to settle for reviewing stuff in my blog instead.

So far on hulu I have watched:

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- great, great show. One of the funniest shows I've seen, in fact. I have my coworker's son to thank for recommending it to me. Best description of it I've heard is "Seinfeld on crack."

Friday Night Lights -- This show really grew on me. I was depressed when I got through the second season and realized hulu didn't have any more episodes. The show kept doing ridiculous, soap-opera-y things to the characters, but never enough at one time to completely sink the plotline. This show does get some extra points in my book b/c of all the hot guys on it.

The O.C. -- Yeah, I can't really believe I watched this show either. Don't know what came over me. It pretty much sucked as badly as could be expected. The scenery was nice, though (lots of mansions and beaches to keep my mind off the plot). And Peter Gallagher's eyebrows amuse me. As do storylines about the macho, bully kid walking in on his supposedly-straight dad making out with his male friend at his car dealership.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- There are a ton of these on hulu; took me like 2 weeks to get through them all. They all kind of blend together after a while, but the intro/outro bits by Hitchcock were always amusing. Three out of four episodes seemed to involve either one spouse poisoning the other for their insurance money or someone killing their wealthy relative for their inheritance money. Good times, good times.

Alfred Hitchcock Hour -- I never realized before that this was a different show. Hitchcock Presents was a 30 min. show that ran in the late 50s; the Hitchcock Hour was an hour long show from the early 60s. So far I'm just partway through the first season of this show, but I am generally liking it better than "Presents." Dramas are much better suited to the hour format rather than half hour, IMO. Actually, the first episode of this show cracked me up b/c it was about poker (main character is secretly a pro gambler and his younger brother is a poker fish who thinks he is good, so the older brother decides to "school him" before he ruins his life or whatever)--and it was kinda surprising to hear that the term "fish" was in the poker lexicon even back then.

My favorite episode so far has been one called Hangover, starring Tony Randall:

The scene where he is fucking up his presentation to the ad execs is one of the most uncomfortable scenes I've ever watched. Just brutal.

A Rant

2008-11-11T13:20:00.002-06:00

WTF is up with everyone using the term "drop" to mean when something is released? E.g., sentence I just read on another blog: "We're never shy about touting an open-source, highly-extendable browser, so feel free to try it out when it drops." That has to be the most retarded slang I've ever seen. And I keep coming across it everywhere -- new albums don't get released anymore, they "drop." WTF is wrong with this world?!?

On a slightly more important note, I am pretty bummed about this Prop 8 nonsense in California. What a juxtaposition--we elect our first multiracial President on the same day that this piece of codified bigotry gets passed. It never ceases to amaze me how close-minded people can be. Who the fuck cares if your church defines marriage as between a man and a woman? Go hang out in your intolerant little church, then. But don't push your religious views onto the rest of society and the government. And don't tell me you or your church are accepting of gay people even though you voted for prop 8, as if merely acknowledging their existence is some great accomplishment of tolerance. If you were accepting of gay people, you certainly wouldn't be asking the government to deny them the same rights as you or me. And, no, same rights does not mean "the right for a man to marry a woman." It means the right for one person to marry whichever other damn person they wish. Consenting adult & consenting adult. This is not rocket science, guys. It's basic human decency. You want to tell someone else who they are allowed to marry? Seriously. Say that to my face.

OK, that topic gets me a bit riled up. I guess I'll save my poker thoughts for later.

The Power of Obama

2008-11-04T23:08:00.005-06:00

Full Tilt was running a 3x points special for election night, so I put in a solid NLH session for the first time in several weeks. I guess my luckbox and my NL skills are a bit rusty. I may have set a personal record for number of times I bluffed into the nuts. Someone needs to remind me that I do better as a nit.

Obama is making his victory speech now, though, and I can't stop smiling. What's a couple of buyins on a night like this? (although, in retrospect, I definitely should have gone down to Grant Park for the celebration and skipped the poker grinding--results oriented thinking much?) It's all pretty amazing, though. If someone had asked me a couple years ago when there would be the first non-white President, my estimate would have been a few decades from now. But apparently America is a better country than I gave it credit for. I'm proud. I'm excited to see what President Obama will accomplish. And, most of all, I can't wait until we look back on Obama as one of the greatest presidents in US history, and my mom has to admit that she is the worst judge of character in our family. I'm going to bed smiling, dammit. I'll worry about my stupid poker leaks later.

Omaha is fun

2008-10-18T00:01:00.003-05:00

I can't seem to find any hand history converter that works for omaha. Bah.

Full Tilt Poker Game #8540077646: Table Monte (6 max) - $0.25/$0.50 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 0:32:45 ET - 2008/10/18
Seat 1: famouslastwords ($94.30)
Seat 2: AceHogan ($127.50)
Seat 3: SOPHIE13 ($24.70)
Seat 4: GustavoCPA ($50.20)
Seat 5: FTrusdell ($139.80)
Seat 6: Chmielarz ($49.25)
GustavoCPA has 5 seconds left to act
GustavoCPA stands up
GustavoCPA has timed out
FTrusdell posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [8h Th 7s 9d]
Chmielarz folds
famouslastwords raises to $1.50
AceHogan calls $1.50
SOPHIE13 calls $1.50
FTrusdell calls $1
*** FLOP *** [8s 7h 2c]
FTrusdell bets $6
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords raises to $18
AceHogan folds
SOPHIE13 calls $18
FTrusdell folds
*** TURN *** [8s 7h 2c] [8d]
famouslastwords bets $24
SOPHIE13 calls $5.20, and is all in
famouslastwords shows [8h Th 7s 9d]
SOPHIE13 shows [6d Ad Qs Ac]
Uncalled bet of $18.80 returned to famouslastwords
*** RIVER *** [8s 7h 2c 8d] [Ah]
famouslastwords shows a full house, Eights full of Sevens
SOPHIE13 shows a full house, Aces full of Eights
SOPHIE13 wins the pot ($55.50) with a full house, Aces full of Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $58.40 | Rake $2.90
Board: [8s 7h 2c 8d Ah]
Seat 1: famouslastwords showed [8h Th 7s 9d] and lost with a full house, Eights full of Sevens
Seat 2: AceHogan folded on the Flop
Seat 3: SOPHIE13 (button) showed [6d Ad Qs Ac] and won ($55.50) with a full house, Aces full of Eights
Seat 4: GustavoCPA (small blind) is sitting out
Seat 5: FTrusdell (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: Chmielarz didn't bet (folded)

Full Tilt Poker Game #8540155305: Table Monte (6 max) - $0.25/$0.50 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 0:38:44 ET - 2008/10/18
Seat 1: famouslastwords ($67.85)
Seat 2: AceHogan ($123.50)
Seat 3: SOPHIE13 ($104.95)
Seat 4: ShipIt26 ($50.20)
Seat 5: FTrusdell ($83.95)
Seat 6: Chmielarz ($48.50)
FTrusdell posts the small blind of $0.25
Chmielarz posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [7h 5d 8c 9h]
famouslastwords raises to $1.75
AceHogan folds
SOPHIE13 calls $1.75
ShipIt26 folds
FTrusdell calls $1.50
Chmielarz folds
*** FLOP *** [5s 5c Qc]
FTrusdell checks
ShipIt26 is feeling happy
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $4.50
SOPHIE13 folds
FTrusdell calls $4.50
*** TURN *** [5s 5c Qc] [4s]
FTrusdell checks
famouslastwords bets $12.50
FTrusdell calls $12.50
*** RIVER *** [5s 5c Qc 4s] [Qs]
FTrusdell checks
famouslastwords checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
famouslastwords shows [7h 5d 8c 9h] three of a kind, Fives
FTrusdell shows [Js Kc 8s Kd] a flush, Queen high
FTrusdell wins the pot ($37.80) with a flush, Queen high
famouslastwords adds $0.90
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $39.75 | Rake $1.95
Board: [5s 5c Qc 4s Qs]
Seat 1: famouslastwords showed [7h 5d 8c 9h] and lost with three of a kind, Fives
Seat 2: AceHogan didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: SOPHIE13 folded on the Flop
Seat 4: ShipIt26 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: FTrusdell (small blind) showed [Js Kc 8s Kd] and won ($37.80) with a flush, Queen high
Seat 6: Chmielarz (big blind) folded before the Flop

Full Tilt Poker Game #8540224989: Table Toy (6 max) - $0.25/$0.50 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 0:44:11 ET - 2008/10/18
Seat 1: dbanner14 ($206.75)
Seat 2: bluefalken777 ($30.05)
Seat 3: Chmielarz ($49.25)
Seat 4: AceHogan ($50)
Seat 5: Yoinkavich ($40.20)
Seat 6: famouslastwords ($102)
Yoinkavich posts the small blind of $0.25
famouslastwords posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [Qc 4c Qd Kc]
dbanner14 has 15 seconds left to act
dbanner14 calls $0.50
bluefalken777 folds
Chmielarz folds
AceHogan folds
Yoinkavich calls $0.25
famouslastwords raises to $2
dbanner14 calls $1.50
Yoinkavich calls $1.50
*** FLOP *** [Ah Qh 9c]
Yoinkavich checks
famouslastwords bets $6
dbanner14 raises to $24
Yoinkavich folds
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords raises to $78
dbanner14 raises to $204.75, and is all in
famouslastwords calls $22, and is all in
dbanner14 shows [2c Ad 6h As]
famouslastwords shows [Qc 4c Qd Kc]
Uncalled bet of $104.75 returned to dbanner14
*** TURN *** [Ah Qh 9c] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [Ah Qh 9c 8c] [Kh]
dbanner14 shows three of a kind, Aces
famouslastwords shows three of a kind, Queens
dbanner14 wins the pot ($203) with three of a kind, Aces
famouslastwords adds $50
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $206 | Rake $3
Board: [Ah Qh 9c 8c Kh]
Seat 1: dbanner14 showed [2c Ad 6h As] and won ($203) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 2: bluefalken777 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Chmielarz didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: AceHogan (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Yoinkavich (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: famouslastwords (big blind) showed [Qc 4c Qd Kc] and lost with three of a kind, Queens

I totally misplayed that last hand. Double bah.

Hulu.com

2008-09-21T23:06:00.008-05:00

I must be out of the loop, 'cause I just found out about this site and apparently it's been around since March. Anyway, it has a bunch of TV shows and even some movies that you can stream on it. Very clean layout, works well, has every episode of Arrested Development. I am never going to get any work done again ever.

I have been rocking the heads-up games lately on Pokerstars. Er, rather I would be rocking them if I didn't keep getting stacked in hands like these:

Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Hero (SB): $375.25 (187.6 bb)
BB: $605.15 (302.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with Qs Qh
Hero raises to $6, BB raises to $22, Hero raises to $72, BB raises to $210, Hero raises to $375.25 and is all-in, BB calls $165.25
Flop: ($750.50) 7h 5s Kh
Turn: ($750.50) 2d
River: ($750.50) 3h
Results: $750.50 pot ($0.50 rake)
BB showed Ah 4s (a straight, Ace to Five) and won $750 ($374.75 net)
Hero mucked Qs Qh (a pair of Queens) and lost (-$375.25 net)

Other than hands like that, and some random what-the-fuck-was-I-thinking hands (which obviously bother me way more than the bad beats, since it's my fault the money ain't shipping my way), HU has been fun, and I'm slowly but surely getting better at it. I wish I could say the same for PLO, which is just ugh. Still very much an omaha fish. Maybe someday I'll get it.

P.S. Another cool thing about hulu.com is they allow you to embed their videos on your own site. Here's my favorite episode of Arrested Development, "Pier Pressure":

Plz hold one time!

2008-09-19T18:44:00.004-05:00

Also, is there a Darwin award category for business ideas? If so, I think this guy deserves a nomination. Quote from article:

Gioia would unwind by playing poker online in his hotel room at night. But that was very different from sitting at a table with other players and handling real cards.

For example, his three-of-a-kind and full-house hands frequently got topped.

“I even got beat with a straight flush by a higher straight flush — things I’d never seen at a real table,” Gioia said. ...

And so he started Gioia Systems LLC. His biggest challenge was how to differentiate his site from the fast-growing number of popular Internet poker sites.

“The answer was almost instantaneous: Play with a real deck of cards,” he said.

The funny thing is, people are so dumb that this might just be the perfect marketing angle for online poker. And think of the type of players this site would attract -- my god, I might have to sign up myself!

Time for Thanks

2008-09-16T16:58:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to give a quick thanks to Barney Frank for existing and being so fucking cool.

His new bill, HR 6870, passed its committee vote today. Yeah, yeah, it's not much, but it's about the best news in online poker in the past two years. Baby steps.

More later.

LOL

2008-08-28T22:22:00.005-05:00

Missed Obama's speech 'cause I was watching the Cubs game and grinding out some hands. But the night turned out pretty well anyway--Cubs won a great game and I ran pretty damn hot:

Here is my favorite hand of the night. I totally was looking at some other table and thought I had QQ. Was so confused why I didn't win the hand till I looked back at the hand history:

FullTiltPoker Game #7843175567: Table Double Arrow - $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:37:13 ET - 2008/08/28
Seat 1: famouslastwords ($600)
Seat 2: madman460 ($1,238.15)
Seat 3: luckmasheen ($294)
Seat 4: moproblems ($1,197)
Seat 5: Gman-NJ ($636.45)
Seat 6: mazzler ($600)
Seat 7: Superquade ($131.30)
Seat 8: Timid Flower ($615)
Seat 9: hoytbuck ($459.95)
mazzler posts the small blind of $3
Superquade posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [6h 8h]
Timid Flower folds
hoytbuck folds
famouslastwords raises to $21
madman460 folds
luckmasheen folds
moproblems folds
Gman-NJ folds
mazzler has 15 seconds left to act
mazzler adds $3
mazzler folds
Superquade raises to $131.30, and is all in
famouslastwords calls $110.30
Superquade shows [Jc Jh]
famouslastwords shows [6h 8h]
*** FLOP *** [7s 9s Kh]
*** TURN *** [7s 9s Kh] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [7s 9s Kh 2d] [Kc]
Superquade shows two pair, Kings and Jacks
famouslastwords shows a pair of Kings
Superquade wins the pot ($262.60) with two pair, Kings and Jacks
famouslastwords adds $131.30
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $265.60 | Rake $3
Board: [7s 9s Kh 2d Kc]
Seat 1: famouslastwords showed [6h 8h] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 2: madman460 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: luckmasheen didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: moproblems didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Gman-NJ (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: mazzler (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: Superquade (big blind) showed [Jc Jh] and won ($262.60) with two pair, Kings and Jacks
Seat 8: Timid Flower didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: hoytbuck didn't bet (folded

I can never get too angry about my random misclicks; they are rather hilarious. I especially like when I accidentally minbet the flop with a good hand and my opponent raises me big and I get to come over the top of him (or even better, put in a min 3bet). Fun times and not bad for building a spazzy table image either.

Quotable

2008-08-23T13:56:00.003-05:00

I like this. Just came across it on 2p2. Appeals to the misanthrope in me:

Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it.

--from a very old thread

Seriously, though, what is it with poker players and complaining? NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR BAD BEAT STORY. Sigh, I gotta stop reading BBV.

Argh!

2008-08-22T14:47:00.000-05:00

Apparently these are very difficult instructions for people to follow:

Please make sure that you open the attachments with the appropriate program (Adobe Acrobat Reader) so that the formatting remains correct--do not open them with Microsoft Word or the "view attachment" feature in Groupwise.

Aimee Mann

2008-08-19T13:20:00.001-05:00

going to see Aimee Mann at Ravinia on Aug. 31st and I am excited. Her album that she released this summer has quickly become one of my favorite albums of all time. Here is a b-side from it (how this didn't make the final cut, I have no idea):
Boomp3.com

Funny Sequence of Hands

2008-08-17T16:53:00.003-05:00

<3 Weekend Poker. The following hands were all played last night against the same villain, whose name will be changed to protect his right to donk around in anonymity (cue Dragnet music):
------------------
HAND #1
------------------

Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $430.50
UTG+1: $181
MP: $198
CO: $187.70
BTN: $374
SB: $202
Crazy Weekend Donk: $550.65

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $8, UTG+1 folds, MP raises to $26, 3 folds,
Crazy Weekend Donk calls $24, Hero raises to $88, MP folds,
Crazy Weekend Donk raises to $150, Hero raises to $430.50 and is All-In,
Crazy Weekend Donk calls $280.50

Flop: ($888) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($888) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($888) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $888 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked and LOST (-$430.50 NET)
Crazy Weekend Donk showed (three of a kind, Kings) and WON $885 (+$454.50 NET)

------------------
HAND #2
------------------

Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN): $254.55
SB: $196
BB: $178.60
UTG: $126
UTG+1: $191
UTG+2: $364.75
MP1: $113.25
Crazy Weekend Donk: $992.85
CO: $212.80

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BTN)

4 folds, Crazy Weekend Donk calls $2, CO folds, Hero raises to $10, 2 folds, Crazy Weekend Donk raises to $18, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($39) (2 Players)
Crazy Weekend Donk bets $32, Hero raises to $236.55 and is All-In, Crazy Weekend Donk calls $204.55

Turn: ($512.10) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($512.10) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $512.10 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked and LOST (-$254.55 NET)
Crazy Weekend Donk showed (a flush, Ace high) and WON $509.10 (+$254.55 NET)

------------------
HAND #3
------------------

Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $534.30
BTN: $196
SB: $179.80
BB: $178
UTG: $202.40
UTG+1: $195.40
Crazy Weekend Donk: $1,101.75
MP2: $312.55

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (CO)

2 folds, Crazy Weekend Donk raises to $4, MP2 folds, Hero raises to $22, 3 folds, Crazy Weekend Donk raises to $40, Hero raises to $125, Crazy Weekend Donk calls $85

Flop: ($253) (2 Players)
Crazy Weekend Donk bets $976.75 and is All-In, Hero calls $409.30 and is All-In

Turn: ($1,071.60) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($1,071.60) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $1,071.60 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed (a pair of Kings) and WON $1,068.60 (+$534.30 NET)
Crazy Weekend Donk showed (high card Ace) and LOST (-$534.30 NET)

------------------
HAND #4
------------------

Poker Stars, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG+1): $1,071.60
MP1: $196
MP2: $178.80
CO: $173
BTN: $199.40
SB: $198.15
Crazy Weekend Donk: $567.45
UTG: $312.55

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (UTG+1)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $8, 2 folds, CO calls $8, 2 folds, Crazy Weekend Donk raises to $86, Hero raises to $1,071.60 and is All-In, CO folds, Crazy Weekend Donk calls $481.45 and is All-In

Flop: ($1,143.90) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($1,143.90) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($1,143.90) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $1,143.90 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed (a flush, Ace high) and WON $1,140.90 (+$573.45 NET)
Crazy Weekend Donk showed (a flush, Jack high) and LOST (-$567.45 NET)

The most annoying type of beat...

2008-08-06T21:02:00.003-05:00

...there is just something about the "oh, yes, I've got him dominated!" elation when the cards are flipped over having hardly a chance to register in your brain before being overrun by the "oh shit, I guess he's got me dominated now" realization of what has flopped that is particularly tilting. Maybe it's just me. But this one tilted me for a couple of days at least.

FullTiltPoker Game #7430196957: Table Fuchia (6 max) - $3/$6 - Pot Limit Hold'em - 20:30:18 ET - 2008/07/29
Seat 1: rjm7 ($389.20)
Seat 2: BA Barackus ($676)
Seat 4: natedeezle ($754)
Seat 5: HenryII ($894.20)
Seat 6: famouslastwords ($1,367.10)
rjm7 posts the small blind of $3
BA Barackus posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [Kh Ah]
natedeezle raises to $21
HenryII folds
famouslastwords calls $21
rjm7 calls $18
BA Barackus has 15 seconds left to act
BA Barackus raises to $105
natedeezle has 15 seconds left to act
natedeezle folds
famouslastwords raises to $357
rjm7 folds
BA Barackus raises to $676, and is all in
famouslastwords calls $319
BA Barackus shows [Qc Ac]
famouslastwords shows [Kh Ah]
*** FLOP *** [Qd 7d 5c]
*** TURN *** [Qd 7d 5c] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [Qd 7d 5c 2d] [8d]
BA Barackus shows a pair of Queens
famouslastwords shows Ace King high
BA Barackus wins the pot ($1,391) with a pair of Queens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1,394 | Rake $3
Board: [Qd 7d 5c 2d 8d]
Seat 1: rjm7 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: BA Barackus (big blind) showed [Qc Ac] and won ($1,391) with a pair of Queens
Seat 4: natedeezle folded before the Flop
Seat 5: HenryII didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: famouslastwords (button) showed [Kh Ah] and lost with Ace King high

Found Art

2008-08-05T20:26:00.006-05:00

Time for a Test

2008-08-05T20:16:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite Elliott Smith songs of all time:

Tornado Central

2008-08-04T20:51:00.002-05:00

I had to cut short my session tonight 'cause we're having a really bad thunderstorm and the tornado warning sirens keep going off. So sad too 'cause I had the God seat on this 60/20 donk at a table where we were both +200bbs deep. Whenever I end up with a seat like that and have to leave, I feel like I should be allowed to auction it off to the highest bidder on the wait list. I guess that wouldn't be such a good feature for keeping the fish comfortable, though.

For some reason my dog has gotten really freaked out lately by thunderstorms. She never used to pay attention to them, but ever since all the fireworks around 4th of July this year, she's been getting spooked much more readily. Right now she is hiding in the basement bathroom. I guess she'll be the safest one in the house if a tornado hits.

This weekend I decided to experiment a bit with massive multi-tabling on Stars. I wanted to see if it would even be physically possible for me to play 24 tables at once. I had never played more than 12 at a time before (which is my standard number to play when putting in a full ring session). But I got it up to 18 tables on the first night I tried and 21 tables pretty easily the next night, and 24 tables actually seems well within reach. I finally understand why people who play that many tables are so crazy about cascading the tables--there would be no way to do it by tiling them across the screen (too much mouse movement). I had tried cascading my tables once a while back on FTP, but I thought it really sucked and kept making retarded misclicks. It's easier on the Stars' software. The key is to turn on the "pop up table when action required" option, which I had never tried before b/c for some reason I thought it would be making tables pop up all over the place as soon as my turn came up (I pictured a lot of craziness ensuing!). But Stars has the software worked out quite nicely where one table will pop up but none will pop in front of it until you've made your action on that table. So with 20+ tables, it's like a continual rotation of tables that pop up each time you complete your decision on the previous table. Kinda cool, actually. I found the hardest part to be keeping track of which tables I had to reload on.

Not that I plan to get into the massive multi-tabling any time soon, but it's nice to know I can do it. It is very tiring, and I noticed the mental fatigue set in earlier than usual (like at 45 min into the session as opposed to 2 hrs in), when I started to make ridiculously ill-advised plays and had to call it a session. Also, it's rather annoying not to be able to keep track of which table I have a particular image at since I had no spatial reference points for the different tables (when I tile the tables, I'm pretty good at remembering, for example, that I just bluffed off my stack at the upper right table; that I am running the table over at the middle left table; that I have a supernit image at the bottom middle table b/c I haven't been getting any hands, etc.)

I am kind of curious about what kind of hourly rate I could achieve w/ 24 tabling, though. I wonder if it would be more profitable. I'm thinking it probably would.

So I guess the Cubs game is gonna be rained out. Bad timing--they just barely got in 5 innings and Houston is leading 2-0. Someone should have started a dugout fire in the 5th or something to keep them from getting through the inning. Where's a decent pyromaniac when you need one?

Well, at least the Cubs won...

2008-07-30T09:54:00.003-05:00

So I put it quite a few hands yesterday night while watching the Cubs game and played pretty much like a total idiot...end result could have been worse, I suppose. But it always sucks to look back on several hours of work and say, "hmm, well, that was a complete waste of time."

July has been light on the poker overall. I think this is the fewest hands I've put in for a month all year. Was running really hot at the beginning of the month, and I have that horrible lifestyle leak where I feel much more compelled to play when I am running bad than when I am running well. And, of course, this past week I decided I was going to try to get a bunch of hands in before the end of the month and promptly got doomswitched. Life is hard sometimes.

This was June, for comparison. Best month I've had this year. Would be nice to have a few more like this before the year is out...

June didn't have any hands as awesome as this one, though. I love bizarre misclick hands...as long as they work out for me in the end:
Full Tilt Poker Game #7288813834: Table Moreno (deep) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 15:44:57 ET - 2008/07/19
Seat 1: Benzero ($270.20)
Seat 2: ActionDegen ($802.50)
Seat 3: OPM Crook ($864.90)
Seat 4: dar57635 ($779.50)
Seat 5: famouslastwords ($867)
Seat 6: fold-em23 ($88.30)
Seat 7: TwoGun1 ($366)
Seat 8: Bradford III ($738.90)
Seat 9: damantle ($204.60)
fold-em23 posts the small blind of $2
TwoGun1 posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [3c 5c]
Bradford III folds
damantle folds
Benzero folds
ActionDegen folds
OPM Crook folds
dar57635 folds
famouslastwords raises to $52
fold-em23 folds
TwoGun1 has 15 seconds left to act
TwoGun1 has requested TIME
TwoGun1 calls $48
*** FLOP *** [7h Td 4c]
TwoGun1 checks
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $72
TwoGun1 has 15 seconds left to act
TwoGun1 folds
Uncalled bet of $72 returned to famouslastwords
famouslastwords mucks
famouslastwords wins the pot ($103)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $106 | Rake $3
Board: [7h Td 4c]
Seat 1: Benzero didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: ActionDegen didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: OPM Crook didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: dar57635 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: famouslastwords (button) collected ($103), mucked
Seat 6: fold-em23 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: TwoGun1 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 8: Bradford III didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: damantle didn't bet (folded)

It's been super busy at work (grumble grumble freshman orientation/start of school year/doing the work of 2-3 people) so I haven't had any time to write long, boring entries this month. But I am going to make an effort to be extra wordy in August to make up for it--look out!

Achyachacha

2008-07-14T16:49:00.002-05:00

Someone in my office keeps making coffee with only half of the coffee package. I have no idea why. It is disgusting and putting me on severe life tilt.

An Important New Invention

2008-06-20T16:56:00.002-05:00

Improved ice cream scooper. Just brilliant. I wanna have an ice cream tower making contest.

True Love

2008-06-19T11:03:00.002-05:00

Firefox 3 is the bomb. Soo fast and nice. I love it so. That is all.

Grr Mondays

2008-06-16T10:32:00.004-05:00

I hate Mondays as much as the next working stiff and am in a rather bad mood, so I thought I would post some funny links/pictures I have been accumulating over the last few days:

The Onion: CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years

Bush says he uses "the Google."

Fox News is a legitimate news channel, really:

Penguins are always good for a laugh:

Lucky Number 13?

2008-06-14T00:30:00.004-05:00

Finally broke out of my slump at the tables tonight, even won some coinflips for once...who knew making a blog post of poker resolutions was such good luck? I should do that more often.

Actually, what I really did to activate my luckbox was make a cashout. See, I have a curse on my Full Tilt account, the very rare and valuable Reverse Cashout Curse. Most players, of course, suffer from the Cashout Curse. My situation is obviously much better. Every time I request a cashout, without fail, I go on a heater. You could set your watch by it.

Being a lifelong Cubs fan, I am quite used to curses and their usual ill-effects. So I am honored to have this rare +EV curse (possibly unique in the whole world of poker?).

On Heroes and Hero Calls

2008-06-11T12:31:00.005-05:00

Oh, I have been remiss in updating this blog, falling into bad habits! I keep thinking of things I want to write about, but then that leads me to five additional things I want to add, and then I realize that it will take me too long to write the whole post, so I put it off again and again. I'm kind of a long-winded writer, if you can't tell, which was nice for adding padding to any essay I ever had to write for school (actually I always had trouble staying under the max pages for most of my papers; a hint for any other overly wordy essay writers out there: the font Garamond Narrow is the greatest font ever, as it looks almost the same as Times New Roman but should cut your paper's page length down by at least half a page). Outside of school, though, this tendency to write in fifty words what most people say in ten is not really a trait that garners any advantage. That said, I apologize in advance; this is gonna be a long post.

So a couple of weeks ago I received in the mail one of those newsletters from my alma mater from the dept. of Cellular & Structural Bio (or maybe it was Molecular & Cellular Bio--who knows? They completely reorganized the bio curriculum like the year after I graduated, and I'm pretty sure what I majored in [general biology] doesn't even exist anymore). Anyway, I glanced through the newsletter quickly to see if anyone I knew was in it, and on the last page there was an obituary for my favorite professor, Dr. Roderick MacLeod, who taught Immunology at U of I for many years. Actually, the year I took his course, my junior year of college, was the year he retired (Spring semester of 2001)--officially, anyway--he was so well-liked that the administrators convinced him to come back and give one "encore performance" of his course for Spring 2002. I remember trying to arrange my senior schedule so that my classes didn't overlap his and I could go sit in on his lectures sometimes, that's how much I enjoyed his teaching, but I had some stupid required lab or something that got in the way, and I was only able to sit in on his class once or twice when my lab was canceled.

Anyway, Dr. MacLeod was an amazing professor. He was from Scotland originally and so of course had the remnants of that great Scottish accent. Every lecture of his consisted of the following: he would make a few copies of figures from recent Immunology journal articles, slap them on the overhead projector, and just talk to us for an hour. Never any reading from prepared notes, no PowerPoint slides ever made an appearance--it was just Dr. MacLeod and his overhead projector, and he would engage the entire lecture hall (probably about 100 students or so) in an hour-long conversation. That's the best way I can think of describing it. I've never seen any other professor who was able to do this quite so effectively. Every lecture really felt like one interesting, free-wheeling conversation, where he would tell us stories of scientific discoveries, new and old. He asked us questions; we asked him questions. It was a fantastic class.

Dr. MacLeod's class was also the most difficult course I took in college--immunology is a tough subject; there is a lot of memorization of different pathways and cellular cascades. But Dr. MacLeod was quite adamant about not allowing us to just memorize the material that would be likely to be on his test; it was more important to him that we learn and understand the concepts involved. (Although this isn't to say he wanted us to get away with not memorizing anything--I remember one particular instance where he came back from a lecture in the medical school [he taught the medical student immunology course as well] and apparently some of the medical students had not yet learned the blood clotting pathway, and Dr. MacLeod was so taken aback that students could get through four years of undergrad without learning this that he put up a diagram of the pathway on his projector right then and there and made us all commit all the steps to memory.) Not that I recall any of it seven years later, but at least I know to be ashamed that I can't!

Since I took Dr. MacLeod's course the semester he was preparing to retire, the immunology TAs asked us students to each write a message to Dr. MacLeod that they were then going to assemble into a book to present to him at his retirement party. I really wish I could have seen the finished product. Obviously my message was embarrassingly long and effusive. I wrote something about how when I entered college, I had come with this vision of exciting, challenging courses that would teach me not just concrete information but new ways of thinking about things. But after three years of mundane coursework I had given up hope of this being more than a naive, nerdy teenager's pipe dream. Dr. MacLeod's Immunology class was different. It was rigorous and intellectually stimulating and even (!!) something I looked forward to attending. If I somehow magically had the ability to go back and take it all over again, I would jump at the chance. Where are time machines made out of phone booths when you need them, anyway?

I tried to find the obituary online so I could link to it here, but apparently that newsletter is one of the few things left in the world that doesn't have a cyberspace corollary. Strangely enough, I instead found a YouTube memorial video of Dr. MacLeod and the blog post of another former student of his. I am going to shamelessly steal some of what she wrote to post here, as I really liked it and am afraid of it disappearing someday:

I learned today that another of my favorite professors has passed away in the past year. Roderick Macleod taught Immunology for many many years and retired in 2001 after 43 years of service. His class was incredibly interesting and he was an engaging lecturer. The lectures combined basic information with information from research papers published just a week or two before the lecture was given. He was particularly fond of telling people that their immunology textbook was out of date before they ever purchased it, even if it was only published two weeks ago, because the field is constantly changing.

The exams Dr. Macleod gave were challenging and inevitably asked questions about journal articles we hadn't read, but the questions were structured in a way that if you knew the basics of immunology, you could figure out the answer to the question. I remember struggling in one exam with a question about some new discovery regarding the immune system of horses, in which we were supposed to hypothesize how we thought a particular pathway might work, based upon what we knew about the JAK-STAT pathway. I had a long several minutes of frustration and panic during which I nearly convinced myself that I would never be able to answer the question, when I heard Dr. Macleod's voice in my head ask me what I knew about JAK-STAT. So I wrote that down and then looked at what other small chunks of the question I knew something about. By breaking it all down, I was able to actually reason my way through the question and ended up with the same hypothesis that the investigators posed in their paper. In other words, the exams actually tested what you had learned and expected you to think, rather than vomit memorized factoids onto the page. Because of this, the majority of the students hated the class and considered it to be impossibly and unnecessarily difficult. Several cellular biology students I knew were greatly relieved when Dr. Macleod retired and they didn't have to take the class from him.

The semester I took immunology (spring 1996), Peter Doherty and Rolf Zinkernagel won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defense and how the immune system recognizes cells which have become infected with viruses. Dr. Macleod lectured about their discovery and explained how it worked. (Dr. Macleod was particularly fond of "sexy macrophages" and "sexy T-cells".) ... I still occasionally hear his voice (and that of my calculus professor, Dr. Heinie Halberstam) when I get stuck on a problem and try to tell myself I'll never be able to solve it. Then I look at what parts of the question I can answer and chip away at it until I get the whole thing solved. Thank you Dr. Macleod.

Dr. Macleod died September 3rd on the Isle of Lewis. He was 70 years old.

I can't believe she can remember a specific exam question from over ten years ago, yikes! I wish I had that kind of memory. But that reminds me of one more thing I wanted to write about Dr. MacLeod, and then I'll shut up and move on to other things: he wrote the best exams. If I remember correctly, they were all short answer and considered to be quite difficult. This was, of course, because he made us *think* to answer questions and not merely regurgitate facts. He loved bizarre hypothetical questions (like, what if this was discovered and then this happened and you had to figure out what was going on. "Give your best explanation" of this totally wild scenario.) And he liked to put one or two "trick" questions into each exam, which basically meant a question whose answer was so simple that most of the class would inevitably overlook it and get it wrong. I remember my TA imploring us to make sure we paid attention to the sex of the patient in the exam question, as he said that one year Dr. MacLeod put in some question that went something like, "Billy has [some Y-chromosome related disease]"....long description of the disease qualities..."His sister, Sally, has no symptoms of the disease. Why is this?" and at least half the students in the class could not figure out the answer, and kept going over and over this long description of the disease looking for clues. Of course, the answer was that she didn't have the disease because she was a girl and had no Y-chromosome. :-)

OK, so onto other things....poker is going so-so. The games have been much better lately than they have in the past few months, but I haven't been happy with how I've played. Too much bluffing and too many hero calls. Strangely enough, this is not a good strategy against maniacs and TAGfish...shocking, I know! It's hard to stay disciplined about this when you're running bad, though. I always end up trying to make something happen and push the envelope anytime I perceive myself to have a small edge. But somehow I always seem to do better when I sit back and don't try to look for spots where I can pick up a few BBs. Just relax and play reactively, not try to press the situation. I wonder if that's true of all poker players to some extent, or if I'm just not good enough to be playing a more "proactive" style. (Probably a little of both, huh?) So I am going to work on staying true to my nitty nature and try to avoid overthinking things to the point that I end up leveling myself. I'll let you know how it goes...

I'm Kind of a Big Deal

2008-06-04T10:11:00.003-05:00

Getting emails from the next leader of the free world and everything:

As Matt would say, "Obama, Obama, Obama!"

Cartoons/Photos of the Day

2008-06-01T22:15:00.005-05:00

Graduation was today (not my graduation, mind you; the medical school graduation that I help to "orchestrate"...and by orchestrate I mean basically make sure all the faculty and students don't get lost and find their correct seats). The ceremony went well, but I am exhausted. I've been thinking of a bunch of random topics to blog about, but I am too whipped for any more coherent thought today. So I thought I'd post some funny pictures instead:

LOL, Internet 2.0

2008-05-21T13:49:00.002-05:00

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. It is useful and all, but it can be incredibly annoying. No, I don't want to pet your weird virtual animal/put things in your solar system/ tell the whole world that I just took a breath. I also don't need my friends to "poke" or (even worse) "tickle" me--jesus, just have them say hi like a normal internet communication device! All that said, Facebook is still about 500x better than myspace (gah, myspace--I can't even type the word without getting repulsed.)

I read this on someone else's blog and found it pretty hilarious, though:

A couple weeks ago I removed the "in a relationship" banner from my Facebook page, because I felt way too old to be waving my personal life around like a flag on the internet, and decided I wanted some privacy in case weird people from college that I didn't really want to talk to anymore started finding me and asking to be my friend. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that this would send a notification to EVERYONE I EVER MET with an alarmist "broken heart" icon saying I'm single again suddenly, and I got a whole bunch of concerned e-mails asking "what had happened".

Random Update

2008-05-19T13:51:00.005-05:00

So I haven't written anything in quite a while, and I am going to blame it all on my brother. (Family members are always the best to blame for everything, obviously.) He was home for a week, so I spent most of my free time hanging out with him. I recently got a couple DVD collections of Hitchcock films, and we watched a bunch of them (including watching "Shadow of a Doubt" on his laptop when there was a huge thunderstorm and the power went out for several hours--perfect atmosphere for a Hitchcock flick!) We never did get a chance to play any Rock Band or Guitar Hero, though (this is one of our favorite activities to do together--play one of these games while drinking fancy imported beers and trash talking each other's lack of skills). The one time we were about to start playing was right when the power went out.

When Matt arrived home last Sunday, one of the first things he said to me was, "I'm gonna use this week off to work on my poker game." He says this literally every time he comes home for a vacation. Did he play any poker? No. Did he watch any poker videos? No. He did watch me play a little bit, but that was it. It's frustrating, 'cause I am sure he would be a great player if he took the time to play. But he just never puts any hands in. Sometimes I think it's my fault--I put too much pressure on him, always telling him and anyone else who will listen what a great player he could be. He is super intelligent (much, much smarter than me) and has the best logic skills of anyone I know. Plus he's got that smugness (OK, arrogance) that comes with being so much smarter than most everyone--definitely a plus in the "confidence in your game" dept. And I know he likes the game, at least from a theoretical perspective; he will talk through hands with me and read the occasional strategy thread on 2p2. But I don't know if he enjoys playing. I don't think he knows, either, since he never freakin plays! I guess it could be a matter of me pressuring him too much, but I think the more likely explanation is just sheer laziness. Matt is the biggest procrastinator of anyone I've ever known. And I'm a pretty bad procrastinator myself, so that's saying something.

In other news, Matt, Virag and I went to the Cubs game on Saturday. I was looking forward to a great pitching duel, Zambrano vs. Zach Duke (young lefty who has pretty good stuff), so of course Zambrano got knocked out of the game in the 5th inning and the Cubs lost 7-5. I swear I haven't seen the Cubs win a game in person in five years (good thing I don't get to many games...). The weather was nice, at least. And I got a new hat.

More later, I suppose. Time for some actual work (gasp!).

Quote of the Day

2008-05-06T11:36:00.001-05:00

This was on my google homepage this morning:

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
- HL Mencken

I Suck at Poker

2008-05-05T14:01:00.003-05:00

Running bad, playing bad, things are not looking pretty in my PT database right now. Yesterday I played this totally crazy fish heads up at NL200 on Stars. He sat in with what I assume was his whole bankroll, like $95.90. Several hours later, he quits me with +$1400 in front of him. Yah. Not that I have a ton of HU experience, but this was definitely the grossest match I've ever played. I seriously felt like I could not win a single pot against him; he hit every possible draw; every time I had a big hand he somehow showed up with a bigger one (usually some crazy backdoor draw that got there on the river). I couldn't read his hands at all b/c he was so crazy; he just kept making all these bizarre min bets and overbets. Oh god it was frustrating. I played pretty shitty and tilted quite a bit. When I get badly tilted, my face gets all flushed and I can hear the blood whooshing around in my ears. Thankfully this happens to me pretty rarely, and I don't do any completely crazy shit like starting to open push every hand or anything. But I do start not thinking things through and manage to justify some pretty horrible decisions. I guess it's that fight or flight thing--all of the higher cognitive functions start shutting down b/c the body needs the energy elsewhere. Unfortunately I am not running from a bear, stupid body. Couldn't you please leave my brain alone next time?

Anyway, here are a few fun hands I've played recently:

I couldn't believe the hand this guy flipped over after just calling my river bet. How does he not find a raise there?!?
Full Tilt Poker Game #6279721196: Table Sandra (deep) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:55:30 ET - 2008/05/04
Seat 1: apparatchik ($1,160.70)
Seat 2: tightplay123 ($195.90)
Seat 3: famouslastwords ($2,000.20)
Seat 4: youpay2see ($663.70)
Seat 5: CARATLADY ($390)
Seat 6: probaksu ($873.70)
Seat 7: LA_Slim ($898.10)
Seat 8: Cuernavaca ($239)
Seat 9: finchdog ($694.15)
finchdog posts the small blind of $2
apparatchik posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS **
Dealt to famouslastwords [Ad Td]
tightplay123 folds
famouslastwords raises to $14
youpay2see folds
CARATLADY folds
probaksu folds
LA_Slim calls $14
Cuernavaca has 15 seconds left to act
Cuernavaca folds
finchdog folds
apparatchik folds
** FLOP ** [Kd 5d Jh]
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $26
LA_Slim calls $26
*** TURN ** [Kd 5d Jh] [Jd]
famouslastwords bets $60
LA_Slim calls $60
*** RIVER ** [Kd 5d Jh Jd] [Qd]
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $145
LA_Slim has 15 seconds left to act
LA_Slim calls $145
*** SHOW DOWN **
famouslastwords shows [Ad Td] a Royal Flush
LA_Slim mucks
famouslastwords wins the pot ($493) with a Royal Flush
** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $496 | Rake $3
Board: [Kd 5d Jh Jd Qd]
Seat 1: apparatchik (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: tightplay123 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: famouslastwords showed [Ad Td] and won ($493) with a Royal Flush
Seat 4: youpay2see didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: CARATLADY didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: probaksu didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: LA_Slim mucked [Qh Jc] - a full house, Jacks full of Queens
Seat 8: Cuernavaca (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: finchdog (small blind) folded before the Flop

Full Tilt has these new deep tables, where you can buy in for 200bbs (and I think the min. buy-in is 50bbs). They had these before, but only at weird blind levels that hardly anyone ever plays. So now they have them at the normal levels, and I love them so, so much. But this hand really stung:
Full Tilt Poker Game #6272638104: Table Sammis (deep) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:20:43 ET - 2008/05/03
Seat 1: CARATLADY ($384)
Seat 2: skins7 ($933.40)
Seat 3: KingNutzzz ($920.50)
Seat 4: j23ad ($221.50)
Seat 5: famouslastwords ($1,413.70)
Seat 6: Freedrinksonme ($807)
Seat 7: Dino21Might ($400)
Seat 8: novel20 ($961.80)
Seat 9: Storm God ($800)
skins7 posts the small blind of $2
KingNutzzz posts the big blind of $4
5 seconds left to act
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [5s 4s]
j23ad folds
famouslastwords raises to $14
Freedrinksonme folds
novel20 folds
Storm God folds
CARATLADY folds
skins7 folds
KingNutzzz raises to $50
famouslastwords calls $36
*** FLOP *** [5h Tc 4d]
KingNutzzz bets $80
famouslastwords raises to $280
KingNutzzz raises to $870.50, and is all in
famouslastwords calls $590.50
KingNutzzz shows [As Ac]
famouslastwords shows [5s 4s]
KingNutzzz: wow
*** TURN *** [5h Tc 4d] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [5h Tc 4d Qh] [Th]
KingNutzzz shows two pair, Aces and Tens
famouslastwords shows two pair, Tens and Fives
KingNutzzz wins the pot ($1,840) with two pair, Aces and Tens
famouslastwords adds $306.80
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1,843 | Rake $3
Board: [5h Tc 4d Qh Th]
Seat 1: CARATLADY (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: skins7 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: KingNutzzz (big blind) showed [As Ac] and won ($1,840) with two pair, Aces and Tens
Seat 4: j23ad didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: famouslastwords showed [5s 4s] and lost with two pair, Tens and Fives
Seat 6: Freedrinksonme didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: Dino21Might is sitting out
Seat 8: novel20 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: Storm God didn't bet (folded)

This one was against some guy who was either really tilted or really drunk. (Yeah, I know, I shouldn't be 3-betting the drunk/tilted guys with crap). I make a good read here, but the outcome ain't so good (running bad etc.).
Full Tilt Poker Game #6275198184: Table Bunch Grass - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:07:17 ET - 2008/05/03
Seat 1: ELVIS 54 ($397)
Seat 2: Richman316 ($80)
Seat 3: Tilty_Poo ($233)
Seat 4: Lou Siffer 13 ($300)
Seat 5: JerseyGrl07 ($225)
Seat 6: dabigboss187 ($400)
Seat 7: famouslastwords ($400)
Seat 8: Inzomnia ($396)
Seat 9: BOASK ($415.60)
Inzomnia posts the small blind of $2
BOASK posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS **
Dealt to famouslastwords [9c Kc]
ELVIS 54 folds
Tilty_Poo folds
JerseyGrl07 folds
dabigboss187 raises to $14
famouslastwords raises to $45
Inzomnia folds
BOASK folds
dabigboss187 raises to $76
famouslastwords calls $31
** FLOP ** [Qc 6h 9d]
dabigboss187 has 15 seconds left to act
dabigboss187 bets $158
famouslastwords raises to $324, and is all in
dabigboss187 calls $166, and is all in
famouslastwords shows [9c Kc]
dabigboss187 shows [Js Th]
*** TURN ** [Qc 6h 9d] [8h]
*** RIVER ** [Qc 6h 9d 8h] [7s]
famouslastwords shows a pair of Nines
dabigboss187 shows a straight, Queen high
dabigboss187 wins the pot ($803) with a straight, Queen high
famouslastwords adds $400
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $806 | Rake $3
Board: [Qc 6h 9d 8h 7s]
Seat 1: ELVIS 54 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: Richman316 is sitting out
Seat 3: Tilty_Poo didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Lou Siffer 13 is sitting out
Seat 5: JerseyGrl07 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: dabigboss187 showed [Js Th] and won ($803) with a straight, Queen high
Seat 7: famouslastwords (button) showed [9c Kc] and lost with a pair of Nines
Seat 8: Inzomnia (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 9: BOASK (big blind) folded before the Flop

This one is just hilarious. NL200, lol.
Full Tilt Poker Game #6273325198: Table Phil Ivey - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 15:24:35 ET - 2008/05/03
Seat 1: Coox ($246.80)
Seat 2: paythedonts ($94.65)
Seat 3: famouslastwords ($245.45)
Seat 4: walley6 ($149.10)
Seat 6: SpikerBuck ($172.55)
Seat 7: NicoretteGum ($217.75)
Seat 8: hotrodwvsu ($61.90)
Seat 9: Vic Makey ($193.75)
hotrodwvsu posts the small blind of $1
Vic Makey posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS **
Dealt to famouslastwords [3c 3d]
Coox folds
paythedonts folds
famouslastwords raises to $7
walley6 has 15 seconds left to act
walley6 raises to $12
SpikerBuck folds
NicoretteGum folds
hotrodwvsu folds
Vic Makey folds
famouslastwords calls $5
** FLOP ** [6d 9d Ts]
famouslastwords checks
walley6 has 15 seconds left to act
Vic Makey stands up
walley6 checks
*** TURN ** [6d 9d Ts] [5s]
famouslastwords checks
walley6 has 15 seconds left to act
walley6 checks
*** RIVER ** [6d 9d Ts 5s] [Qc]
famouslastwords checks
walley6 has 15 seconds left to act
walley6 checks
*** SHOW DOWN **
walley6 shows [Qd Qh] three of a kind, Queens
famouslastwords mucks
walley6 wins the pot ($25.65) with three of a kind, Queens
** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $27 | Rake $1.35
Board: [6d 9d Ts 5s Qc]
Seat 1: Coox didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: paythedonts didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: famouslastwords mucked [3c 3d] - a pair of Threes
Seat 4: walley6 showed [Qd Qh] and won ($25.65) with three of a kind, Queens
Seat 6: SpikerBuck didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: NicoretteGum (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: hotrodwvsu (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 9: Vic Makey (big blind) folded before the Flop

Never Heard This One Before

2008-04-24T12:35:00.002-05:00

Just came across this little gem--has to be the most hilarious theory on acting that I've ever heard:

...Ed Norton isn't a real actor. Here's a test: a real actor -- regardless of the approach -- settles their whole selves into the character. That's the only way to make things work. A poor actor is always there, always present, controlling his instrument. That uses one side of the brain as a puppetmaster for the rest of the body. That works for all parts of the body but the face: the two halves are unavoidably controlled by the two sides of the brain.

So, for example watch Harrison Ford. When he speaks, only one side of his mouth moves. When he uses his eyes (rare) only one is affected. You can literally see one side of his face as the actor manipulating the other side as character. Now watch Ed Norton here. Same thing. Impossible to hide if you are a bad actor, an incomplete artist...

Yeah, uh, WTF?

HU4Rollz?

2008-04-23T10:15:00.001-05:00

Just posted the following story on 2p2, re: some serious fun I had at the online poker last night.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you guys a pretty hilarious experience I had last night--first time I've ever found the opportunity to throw out a "HU4rollz" challenge to someone. So I was donking around at NL50 6max with a friend of mine (boundlessbluff) who I've been mentoring a bit in the poker, and I got into the following hand with one of the other TAGs at the table:

FullTiltPoker Game #6140933948: Table Stardust (6 max) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:52:35 ET - 2008/04/22
Seat 1: cslack8909 ($50)
Seat 2: SuicideKing21 ($51.25)
Seat 3: famouslastwords ($77.70)
Seat 4: audikid ($161)
Seat 5: BoundlessBluff ($88.35)
Seat 6: thee babe ($58.15)
thee babe posts the small blind of $0.25
cslack8909 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [Ah As]
SuicideKing21 folds
famouslastwords raises to $1.75
audikid has 15 seconds left to act
audikid raises to $4
BoundlessBluff folds
thee babe folds
cslack8909 has 15 seconds left to act
cslack8909 adds $0.50
cslack8909 folds
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords raises to $12.75
audikid has 15 seconds left to act
audikid calls $8.75
*** FLOP *** [Jc 8d 6h]
famouslastwords checks
audikid has 15 seconds left to act
audikid bets $15
famouslastwords raises to $64.95, and is all in
audikid has 15 seconds left to act
audikid calls $49.95
famouslastwords shows [Ah As]
audikid shows [Ts Td]
*** TURN *** [Jc 8d 6h] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [Jc 8d 6h 8c] [4h]
famouslastwords shows two pair, Aces and Eights
audikid shows two pair, Tens and Eights
famouslastwords wins the pot ($153.15) with two pair, Aces and Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $156.15 | Rake $3
Board: [Jc 8d 6h 8c 4h]
Seat 1: cslack8909 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: SuicideKing21 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: famouslastwords showed [Ah As] and won ($153.15) with two pair, Aces and Eights
Seat 4: audikid showed [Ts Td] and lost with two pair, Tens and Eights
Seat 5: BoundlessBluff (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: thee babe (small blind) folded before the Flop

Some trash-talking chat ensued:
BoundlessBluff: nh
famouslastwords: heh, tx
famouslastwords: that's a gift, getting people to stack off like
that
audikid: a blind squirrel....
famouslastwords: can't teach it ;-)
famouslastwords: you calling me a squirrel?
audikid: im saying youre awful and woke up with a good hand
audikid: a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then
famouslastwords: hu for rolls?
SuicideKing21: lol
audikid: hu for rolls?
famouslastwords: let's do it
audikid: heads up?
audikid: haha
famouslastwords: ya
audikid: id be happy to play for rolls, but u cant sit down at my table
famouslastwords: name the stakes
audikid: nl5000?
famouslastwords: ok
SuicideKing21: lol, ur both morons
famouslastwords: search for me
famouslastwords: I'm at orbit
BoundlessBluff: tell me which table so I can watch..
BoundlessBluff: THX
famouslastwords: cmon man
famouslastwords: b4 someone else sits
BoundlessBluff: cmon audi, u all talk
SuicideKing21: stay here and donk around a bit
audikid: u think im gonna sit down heads up, really?
BoundlessBluff: scared...
famouslastwords: well, you said you would
famouslastwords: we can play lower if you don't have enough
audikid: called sh it talking
famouslastwords: or higher if you want
SuicideKing21: no, its called being called out

Audikid ended up sitting for about 10 seconds, but never bought in and promptly disappeared from both tables. It's too bad for him, really--not only does he end up looking like a tool, but he probably would have had a decent shot at taking my "roll," as badly as I suck at HU play.

That was the most fun I've had at a poker table in a long time. This doesn't make me an excessively mean person, does it?

Picture of the Day

2008-04-21T23:25:00.002-05:00

Word

2008-04-16T14:08:00.002-05:00

Saw this comment on another blog:

Sometimes when I'm sitting at my computer, all 'Dear Google, how do I get wax out of a table cloth?' (warm iron and paper towel) or 'Dear Google, who was it that said 'The road to hell is paved with adverbs' (Stephen King), I wonder how they did it, so long ago, when all the knowledge in the world was stored up in books and in people's heads. Maybe they did a lot more calling their moms, or talking to Old Man Perkins down on Amblewood.

...actually, it was in response to a very funny story: The Internet is Magic on Ultratart, one of my favorite blogs.

Seriously, how did people do things back in the day? Reference books? Literal carbon copies of letters and memos? It blows my mind. We're so much more efficient nowadays--so I don't understand why no one seems to be working towards a standard 3-day weekend. Surely technology has earned us an extra 8 hrs off per week, eh? Who's with me?

Good Stuff

2008-04-06T19:18:00.004-05:00

Poker comics, what more could you want from life? http://plusev.net/

I like this one in particular:

Cigarettes & Coffee

2008-04-04T13:15:00.002-05:00

OK, no cigarettes. But coffee, yes. I am a big fan of good coffee. At work, the brand we usually order is called Stewart's Coffee, and I actually think it's really good. Add 3/4ths of a French Vanilla Coffeemate creamer, stir, and I am a happy, productive worker. At least for a little while.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the people in my office don't like the Stewart's Coffee very much. They have very bad taste (and obviously defective taste buds!), as they keep bringing in packages of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and making them instead. I know Dunkin' Donuts is like known for its coffee and has a big following of people who proclaim it as their coffee of choice. I am here to tell you that those people are all completely and utterly ridiculous. Dunkin' Donuts has some of the worst coffee I have ever tasted. It is so nasty; the taste is just so, so...well, I don't know what it is. It's bad. Overly acidic would be my best guess. And the aftertaste, ugh. All of these people who preferentially drink it are off their rockers. I wonder what in the world is wrong with them. They are probably the same people who think candied cranberries are a good food. Yuck.

So, anyway, now that I have that off my chest, a little update on life. Poker went pretty well in March; I didn't get to play a ton, but I always 12-tabled when I did play, so I got in a decent number of hands overall. Ended up even surprising myself by having the guts to play about 100 hands of NL2K 6-max because I got the "God seat" (i.e. the seat to the immediate left) on a huge fish. It was pretty nerve-wracking, and the regulars ran me over completely, but luckily I was able to isolate the fish a few times and take a good chunk of his stack. It was a good experience overall, I think, but I definitely don't consider myself an NL2K caliber player by any means and don't plan on making a habit out of playing in games that high. Maybe some day. Maybe.

Work has been pretty "ugh" lately. My boss/immediate superior is in poor health, has been in and out of the hospital for the past 3 weeks, and is basically going to have to take a leave of absence from work. So, I know I've complained in the past about "doing the work of two people" in my office, but actually, literally having to do the job of two people is fucking hard. Especially when it's your supervisor's job. I'm well on my way to a serious case of burn out. And, of course, poker is there in the background, always, teasing me with its easy money and promises of mornings of sleeping in and no alarm clocks. It is tempting, no doubt. I try not to think about it--especially in the morning.

What is the World Coming To?

2008-03-24T13:07:00.007-05:00

Here's something you don't see every day--an actually well-informed and intelligent article about poker from the mainstream media (ESPN, no less!). Embarrassing admission time: I have a yooge crush on Phil Galfond. Dude is a great poker player, a good writer, a very nice guy (from everything I've heard) and pretty cute. What more could you ask for in a guy?

In other news, work is kicking my ass and I am running extremely well at the poker. Matt went back to school yesterday and left me with his MacBook Air--not a bad deal! I'd forgotten the luxury of having a laptop that doesn't overheat and completely crash every time I try to open more than three programs on it simultaneously. (I love my laptop about as much as one can an inanimate object; it has served me very well these past four years, but it is clearly on its last legs.) The two-finger scrolling is a new thing for me and is sooo nice.

One of my favorite things about coming back to work after a long weekend is checking my email junk mail folder and seeing what spam has gotten through our filters. I don't get a ton of spam in general, but it's definitely more than my gmail account (where I hardly ever get any) and always highly entertaining to me. Some of my favorites from the past week (yes, I am actually lame enough that I leave my favorite ones in my junk mail folder rather than delete them, so that every time I go in there I can laugh at their titles all over again): "Leg game," "I was seduced.", and "Your new proportion will keep her satisfied." That last one contains the following text:

FPpk
Having survived the Nazis, the Hungarians did not want to trade

Just imagine that your love wand becomes extremely huge! It is attainable!
Before deciding on applying to surgery, try our preparation!

The Russians were moving westward. But would they break the NaziWhat one is left with is a man who, even as an adult, was convincedTwo: When taking risks, dont bet the ranch.He is a chemical engineer and works for Tungsram, the wellknownthe other boys. In fact, George learned how to box, how to defend him-own interest in the subject. Although the family spoke Hungarian,

I wonder if anyone has ever considered writing a book about all the different bizarro spam people come up with. I can't be the only one who gets a huge kick out of this stuff, can I?

Nothing Much

2008-03-12T14:31:00.002-05:00

Not much going on here. Prepping for Match Week in the office. Matt is home for Spring Break, so haven't had time to play much poker. We watched the movie "The Assassination of Jesse James" last night, which I thought was excellent.

On the Other Hand

2008-03-06T16:01:00.003-06:00

Although being excessively results oriented (why do I keep hearing people call it "orientated," anyway? is that a British thing?) and sucking at/hating math are not very good traits for a poker player, I do have some personality traits in my favor:

1) Gambling itself doesn't interest/excite me. I have no desire to ever play -EV casino games like craps, blackjack, keno, or whatever else. I can't really understand their appeal, but there are plenty of poker players that give away their poker winnings "in the pit," as they say. I also don't have any desire to play in poker games that are above my skill level. If I somehow suddenly became a billionaire, I highly doubt that I would go donking around in the nosebleed games, even if the money meant nothing to me.

2) I am very competitive. I hate losing. I always want to prove to myself that I can beat my opponents/the level I'm playing at.

3) I love repetitive tasks. I get some weird satisfaction from doing the same thing over and over. It's more calming than boring to me.

4) This kind of overlaps #1, but when it comes to money, I am very disciplined. I play vastly over-rolled. I have never chased my losses by moving up to a higher game. I do understand the urge to move up to try to get even, but my fear of failure/getting outplayed is far too great to ever tempt me to do something like that.

5) I have an obsessive personality. When I get into a subject, I want to learn everything there is to know about it. Luckily, poker is one of those things that is so elusive, you can just go on learning and learning forever and still feel like you have barely skimmed the surface of the game.

6) I have a pretty good memory and am reasonably decent at recognizing patterns.

It's Not (aka Who Me, Emo?)

2008-03-06T10:42:00.004-06:00

Played like a fucking idiot last night. Stacked off light in a number of spots where I should have known better. I've been playing very badly in 3-bet pots. Not much else to say other than I'm quite frustrated with myself right now.

Except, yeah, one more thing to say about this: My success at poker cannot be how I define myself. Self-worth is not measured by a goddamn results graph. It's just stupid to go through this again and again like a fucking yo-yo. One day, I am playing well, life is getting on the right track, hell, I'm not such a loser after all. The next day, the next week, I play bad, my pt/bb drops a point, whatever, suddenly I'm comparing myself to the rest of the world and coming up quite a bit short. This is not the way to go through life, obviously. And it's not a poker problem, it really has nothing to do with poker at all; it's just that poker provides a very tangible way to measure yourself over time. And so I cling to that. I wonder if any player ever really gets past this, or if the good ones just get better and better at hiding it.

I've got the lyrics to Aimee Mann's "It's Not" stuck in my head, so that may partially explain my emo-ness. She's pretty good at this songwriting stuff:

I keep going round and round on the same old circuit
A wire travels underground to a vacant lot
Where something I can't see interrupts the current
And shrinks the picture down to a tiny dot
And from behind the screen it can look so perfect
But it's not

So here I'm sitting in my car at the same old stop light
I keep waiting for a change but I don't know what
So red turns into green turning into yellow
But I'm just frozen here on the same old spot
And all I have to do is to press the pedal
But I'm not

People are tricky you can't afford to show
Anything risky anything they don't know
The moment you try - well kiss it goodbye

So baby kiss me like a drug, like a respirator
And let me fall into the dream of the astronaut
Where I get lost in space that goes on forever
And you make all the rest just an afterthought
And I believe it's you who could make it better
Though it's not
No it's not...
No it's not...

Worst Book Synopsis Ever

2008-03-04T22:46:00.001-06:00

About a book called, so surprisingly, The Mole:

In the spirit of Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor or Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, Andy Brown's first novel follows a sibling relationship told through vignettes, each story centered around the removal of a mole. From this premise, Brown's novel expands the associations of moles from skin disease, to the burrowing animal, to secret societies and espionage, to tell the story of familial dysfunction, culture-jamming, eco-terrorism, and regret in the lives of young adults in the 1990s.

Ew, just....ew.

Biggest Pot

2008-03-03T19:35:00.002-06:00

Not really that impressive, but it feels good after yesterday's tilt. It was like my third hand of the session too. So I did what any reasonable fish would do and decided to call it a day.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5489856488: Table Paul Wolfe - $5/$10 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:21:49 ET - 2008/03/03
Seat 1: Mr Cea ($439.85)
Seat 2: thenobb ($969.25)
Seat 3: ShesNoGood ($2,711)
Seat 4: JaccoH ($677.90)
Seat 6: josh3336 ($1,000), is sitting out
Seat 7: badring ($1,000)
Seat 8: urgolf9 ($420.50)
Seat 9: famouslastwords ($1,000)
badring posts the small blind of $5
urgolf9 posts the big blind of $10
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to famouslastwords [5c 5h]
famouslastwords raises to $35
Mr Cea folds
thenobb folds
ShesNoGood folds
JaccoH calls $35
badring calls $30
urgolf9 folds
*** FLOP *** [Ts 3d 5d]
badring checks
famouslastwords bets $80
JaccoH raises to $642.90, and is all in
badring raises to $965, and is all in
famouslastwords calls $885, and is all in
badring shows [Kd Qd]
famouslastwords shows [5c 5h]
JaccoH shows [Ad Td]
*** TURN *** [Ts 3d 5d] [Qc]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 3d 5d Qc] [4c]
badring shows a pair of Queens
famouslastwords shows three of a kind, Fives
famouslastwords wins the side pot ($644.20) with three of a kind, Fives
JaccoH shows a pair of Tens
famouslastwords wins the main pot ($2,040.70) with three of a kind, Fives
JaccoH is sitting out
badring adds $1,000
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $2,687.90 Main pot $2,043.70. Side pot $644.20. | Rake $3
Board: [Ts 3d 5d Qc 4c]
Seat 1: Mr Cea didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: thenobb didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: ShesNoGood didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: JaccoH (button) showed [Ad Td] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 6: josh3336 is sitting out
Seat 7: badring (small blind) showed [Kd Qd] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 8: urgolf9 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 9: famouslastwords showed [5c 5h] and won ($2,684.90) with three of a kind, Fives

Life Tilt

2008-03-03T11:32:00.004-06:00

My job is driving me crazy today. Yay for Mondays. My boss actually came to me this morning to tell me that I should back up and delete an old file folder (last year's grad audit) from our shared hard drive because it takes up too much space. Our hard drive is 244 GB; the folder consists of a bunch of word documents totaling about 16 MB. Oh yes, you're right; I'll get on that right away! And so I did.

Also spent about 10 minutes this morning asking one of my coworkers for a copy of the cover page we send out with external elective applications. It is a standard cover memo that goes with every application with generic instructions for completing the application. So I ask, "Can I have a copy of the cover sheet that goes with these applications?" Coworker has no idea what I mean. I try to describe it. She pulls out some other form. I try to describe it in more detail. She says, "We don't have anything like that." Finally I go to last year's application copies and dig out an old one. Show it to her. "Oh, that? That's not a cover sheet." Uh, okay? It's the standard top page of each application packet that goes out. Is there some other name for it?

Anyway, played a bunch of poker this weekend; ended up somehow making a solid 4.5 ptbb/100, but I have no idea how. Felt like I was running sick bad while playing (had a bunch of sick hands, including one where I got effectively all in preflop with AKs against some crazy guy's 92s and lost, and another where I got all in on the turn for 150BBs with AK on an A55J board against another maniac, and lost to J6s--J on the river, of course). Tilted pretty badly; by the end of Sunday's session I was at the point of berating myself after every play I made that didn't work (definitely a masochistic streak in my blood), which is obviously not the best mindset to be playing in. Luckily I don't have the inclination to super monkey tilt like I have seen in some other players. My tilt is more subtle, probably not extremely -EV on any one hand but -EV nonetheless. I do a lot of pushing in marginal spots, looking to get it in with any decent draw. Nothing catastrophic to my game, but obviously any time I am making plays that I should know better than to make, it sucks and should be unacceptable. But I have a definite "quitting" problem, as Tommy Angelo would put it. If I'm stuck and there is at least one big fish in the game, I can never bring myself to leave the game. It's stupid, but there it is. I want my money back. And I deserve that money more than the fish, goddamnit.

If only I could learn a way to turn off my emotions...

Favorite Poker Blogs

2008-03-01T11:50:00.001-06:00

GambleGambel
DJ Sensei
CaptZEEBO

Jobs

2008-02-29T15:27:00.005-06:00

Careers I have considered at one point or another in my life:
Veterinarian
Archaeologist
Doctor (internal medicine, pathology or neurology)
Psychologist
Teacher (high school or college)
Baseball player
Baseball announcer/commentator
Journalist
Novelist/Screenwriter
Pro poker player
Truck driver
Dog walker
Pet shop owner
Film critic
Film director
Research scientist
Construction worker
Web designer
Software programmer
Manager of a movie rental store
Bookstore worker
Law Enforcement
Lawyer (criminal or constitutional)
Firefighter
Trophy wife

Careers I have never considered and could never imagine pursuing:
Dentist
Bus driver
Janitor
Politician
Ballet dancer
Event planner
Teacher (kindergarten or preschool)
Movie producer
Dressmaker
Accountant
Hair stylist
Nurse
Door to door salesperson
Telemarketer
Receptionist
Podiatrist
Dermatologist
Pediatrician
Car salesman
Snake charmer
Entomologist
Lawyer (corporate or tax)
Babysitter
Lion tamer
Prison guard
Criminal
Violinist

Random Thoughts

2008-02-28T11:46:00.002-06:00

I am in an abnormally good mood today. I don't know why. I keep finding myself with this stupid grin on my face and then have to consciously "neutralize" my expression so I don't get hit with the, "And what are you smiling at?" from my co-workers(the answer is nothing; I'm just goofy!)

Yesterday I received from amazon.com a CD by Griffin House (one of the musicians on the cruise, who I actually never got to see but heard good things about) and the DVD of "The Remains of the Day." Watched the commentary to RotD; it was very good. Emma Thompson is hilarious. I guess she was a stand-up comic before she got into acting (she mentioned something about this in the commentary). Also, she and Anthony Hopkins are both obviously very, very smart. Smart, creative people are the best kind of people. <--My deep thought for the day. I am obviously not one of these smart, creative people I speak of.

Griffin House's CD was awesome also. He has a very Elliott Smith-esque vibe; he seems to also be fond of the double tracked vocals. So I was listening to the CD while futzing around on the computer and enjoying it but not actively paying much attention, and then I came to this song towards the end where I could have sworn he sang "I love your butt in my face" as the chorus. I almost spit out my drink. I was like, hmmm, this is not so Elliott Smith-like anymore. But it turns out he was merely singing "I love your blood in my veins." So that was a relief.

In other news, I am sooo not feeling the work vibe today. My boss has been out sick all week with the flu. Not that I wish her to be sick or anything like that, but wow, I can get so much more work done when I'm left on my own. So I've basically caught up with almost everything on my desk. A week ago I was buried in paperwork. I've been the anti-procrastinator lately, I guess. Until today. My goal today is to complete the minimum amount of real work that I can for the next five hours. Go go go.

Here is another of these comics that I liked:

Garfield Minus Garfield

2008-02-28T09:43:00.003-06:00

My brother sent me this last night: http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

It is pretty awesome.

Here is one of my favorites:

Satellite

2008-02-27T13:25:00.002-06:00

I've had this song stuck in my head for the past two weeks.

Just Donating

2008-02-27T11:12:00.003-06:00

Played a HU session last night; ended up losing about 5 buyins (NL200) to a rather fishy player, so it was pretty frustrating. I guess that's not abnormal for heads up, as it's a high variance game, but it still makes me feel like I'm the worst HU player in the universe. For some reason, it's always much harder for me to accept losing to a worse player than to a player better than me--it's like somehow I think I should be rewarded for being a more thinking player, even in the short term. Like this game owes me something. It's stupid.

Regardless, I am not a good HU player by any stretch of the imagination and I hope I can improve with more practice. I think HU is the best form of poker and the greatest test of a poker player's skills, but I find it very stressful. I hate the constant second-guessing I do about how well I'm adjusting to my opponent and how much he's adjusting to me. Basically, I think my lack of confidence inhibits my development a lot. I guess this is true in all aspects of my life, heh.

The Greats

2008-02-26T17:50:00.007-06:00

The three things that separate great poker players from the merely good players:
1) Ability to filter the important from the trivial.
2) Understanding how other players perceive them (their table image) and how that influences their actions.
3) Most interesting to me, and possibly most important, is the ability to reassess the progress of a hand immediately upon the presentation of new information. This may sound kind of, "well duh," if you don't play poker. But if you do, you'll understand how rare and useful this skill is. Almost all players fall prey to a sort of anchoring heuristic, wherein their initial assessment of hand strength (whether it be their own, their opponent's, or both) greatly influences how they continue to view the hand even as more info is presented. A very simplified example: I am dealt AdAh. I think, ooh, nice, let's get as much money into the pot as possible. Flop comes JsTs9c. I think, hmm, kinda scary flop, but I have aces. I wanted to get all the money in. We'd better get it in!

Great players seem to be able to shake free of this almost entirely. The great player is able to objectively re-evaluate a hand at each decision point. Sometimes he ends up with a complete 180 degree change in his assessment. I love to listen to the thought process of players this good--it is remarkable how unbiased they can remain in their analysis throughout the hand.

Final truism of the day: There is no better poker training than listening to a great player talk through his thought process.

A Reminder

2008-02-26T10:08:00.003-06:00

It is not a good idea to play poker when you are tired. You end up doing stuff like 5-bet shoving QTs into AA for 150BBs. Ugh.

A poker truism: You are only as good a player as you played in your last session.

Another: Losing hurts more than winning feels good.

Top Ten?

2008-02-25T15:45:00.003-06:00

So two weekends ago I saw the movie The Remains of the Day for the first time. I was playing poker while watching it and not paying all that much attention for the first half of it or so...But it slowly sucked me in, and by the end I had to sit out on all my tables because I had become so engrossed in it. It was the most depressing movie I have ever seen. Devastating, in a way. The themes it touched on: inertia, regret, personal failure, subservience, defining yourself through work that has no real importance -- well, let's just say it resonated quite heavily with me. It was one of those films that I wasn't able to stop thinking about for days afterwards. I ended up watching it again (this time, no poker to distract me!), and somehow it seemed even more sad the second time.

It was the acting that really sold me on it. This is not a perfect movie (I would say the cinematography is weak in parts--there is one particular scene where Anthony Hopkins looks out a window contemplatively, and the way they filmed it makes it look like some kind of bizarre homage to a Hitchcockian psycho villain; and the flash forwards, while important to the overall narrative, are somewhat clunky as executed). The acting carries the film, though. Anthony Hopkins is amazing. Hell, Emma Thompson is too. I'm having a hard time thinking of any movie I've seen with two stronger lead actors.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about my favorite films and whether The Remains of the Day would make my top ten list. Then I realized I don't have a top ten list, which is a sad omission to my life. So now I am going to attempt to create one (you know, in case I ever need to refer to it in the future--these things can be important!). So here it is; I'm not going to attempt to put this in much, if any, kind of order.

1) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
2) Fargo
3) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
4) The Remains of the Day
5) Lost in Translation
6) The Godfather
7) Taxi Driver
8) The 'Burbs (it's a sentimental favorite, OK?)
9) Chinatown
10) Manhattan

Elements of Poker

2008-02-24T23:02:00.000-06:00

So I just got Tommy Angelo's book, Elements of Poker, and I am enjoying it quite a bit. This is the first poker book I've ever read by someone who is a talented player and a talented writer (well, OK, first strategy book--I read Positively Fifth Street by Jim McManus long ago, and it was a very good book, but it was narrative first and foremost). Angelo's book is almost like a collection of poker proverbs. I like this one:

Low Hanging Fruit

Poker is a fruit tree. Money is the fruit. There are two ways to get the fruit. One way is to climb a tree, get all scraped up, risk falling out, pick some fruit, and climb down. Another way is to stand on the ground and pick the low-hanging fruit. The Professional knows how to climb a tree. But he rarely has to.

Good table image

2008-02-21T20:51:00.000-06:00

It's important.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5337888433: Table Bunch Grass - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:18:00 ET - 2008/02/21
Seat 1: premgolf ($400)
Seat 2: gifthorse ($429.30)
Seat 3: Nutzunurchin ($388.55), is sitting out
Seat 4: HeyPokerMan ($385)
Seat 5: Ivanei Ivanov ($410)
Seat 6: Mammola ($400)
Seat 7: famouslastwords ($765)
Seat 8: mischa_007 ($104)
Seat 9: branth24 ($1,134.90)
Ivanei Ivanov posts the small blind of $2
Mammola posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS **
Dealt to famouslastwords [Jd Js]
famouslastwords raises to $14
mischa_007 folds
branth24 calls $14
premgolf folds
gifthorse folds
HeyPokerMan folds
Ivanei Ivanov has 15 seconds left to act
Ivanei Ivanov folds
Mammola has 15 seconds left to act
Mammola folds
** FLOP ** [8s 2h Qd]
Mammola adds $4
famouslastwords checks
branth24 bets $34
famouslastwords calls $34
*** TURN ** [8s 2h Qd] [Jc]
famouslastwords checks
branth24 bets $100
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords raises to $402
branth24 calls $302
*** RIVER ** [8s 2h Qd Jc] [6s]
famouslastwords has 15 seconds left to act
famouslastwords bets $315, and is all in
branth24 has 15 seconds left to act
branth24 calls $315
*** SHOW DOWN **
famouslastwords shows [Jd Js] three of a kind, Jacks
branth24 mucks
famouslastwords wins the pot ($1,533) with three of a kind, Jacks
** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1,536 | Rake $3
Board: [8s 2h Qd Jc 6s]
Seat 1: premgolf didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: gifthorse didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Nutzunurchin is sitting out
Seat 4: HeyPokerMan (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Ivanei Ivanov (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Mammola (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: famouslastwords showed [Jd Js] and won ($1,533) with three of a kind, Jacks
Seat 8: mischa_007 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: branth24 mucked [8c 9c] - a pair of Eights

Randomness

2008-02-20T18:20:00.000-06:00

For some reason this exchange from the barenaked.net board cracked me up (mostly the last response):

MrGuard:

To all the Cruise Ladies
I hope that Valentines Day was amazing and that each and every one of you would be my valentine (wink)

James
MrGuard

BrianBNL:

Thank you so much for wishing me an amazing Valentine's day...and I'm so very flattered that you want to be my Valentine, but unfortunately, I find you just a wee bit (or maybe more) creepy, Mr. Guard...

Mr Guard:

I'm not sure which is creepier, my wish to you or the fact that you consider yourself one of the cruise ladies.. LOL...

James
MrGuard

MuppetfromHell:

OOOH!!!! I'm sure!

Who's Counting, Anyway?

2008-02-18T16:31:00.000-06:00

OK, so a day later, a week and a half later, all the same in the grand scheme of things...But I better write this down now before this vacation completely fades from memory!

Vacation Top Ten List:
10) Cab driver to the airport on our way back home who kept going on and on about how Tom Brady had once been in his cab and left his water bottle (or possibly gave it to the cabbie w/ his autograph? I couldn't quite follow), so now he has "Tom Brady's DNA" to prove to everyone that he was actually in his cab. He just has to get it tested. Funniest part: Katherine good-naturedly commenting, "Ah, I think you would need something to compare it to," and him just continuing the conversation over her, oblivious.
9) 24-hour soft serve swirlie flavor frogurt on the ship (the swirlie is the most important part!)
8)Watching Ed play Rock Band with fans, esp. when trying to sing "Say it Ain't So" without knowing all the words (he employed my brother's technique of just kind of mumbling in the right key at the fast parts), helping this little 5-yr-old girl sing Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive," and failing at the drums on hard and deciding the game "needed" calibration. [Pretty funny also to see that and then see him actually playing drums -- perfectly well, from what I could tell -- with Brothers Creegan the next night.]
7)The Music of Paul McCartney thing that Steve Page and the dude from Harvey Danger did. I don't even like Paul McCartney, but this was really cool. First time I ever realized the chorus of "Maybe I'm Amazed" is not "Baby I'm Amazed" (uh, yeah, duh).
6)Towel animals!
5)Meeting Adam of the Gusters and somehow ending up discussing Puppetry of the Penis.
4)Hearing Box Set live.
3)Spontaneous second encore of When I Fall at BNL show. It was just...yeah. Crazy amount of energy in that room. Probably my favorite concert moment of all time.
2) Songwriter panel. It was totally not what I expected (which would have been a Q & A session about writing songs), but it was amazing.
1) Boothby Graffoe. He stole the show at the songwriter panel, and considering the line up, that was quite a feat. Classic British humor, perfect delivery, some of the funniest songs I've ever heard = unforgettable. Some examples: Kittens in a Bag, I Saw you on the Telly.

He Makes Me Want Her Again

2008-02-07T19:03:00.000-06:00

I still have to write some stuff about the cruise before I forget everything, but I'm too tired tonight. Hopefully tomorrow. I'll make a top ten list or something.

Anyway, I heard this song for the first time on the cruise, and it is just ridiculously good:

If BNL ever did a country album, I bet it would easily become my favorite album of theirs of all time.

Back; Losing My Religion

2008-02-02T16:42:00.000-06:00

Back from cruise; so sad to be back. Definitely in the running for Best. Vacation. Ever!! Too tired to try to give it justice in writing now, though.

Just saw this, though, and had to post it. Apparently it was played in the spa on the cruise ship (wtf, wtf, but it is awesome):

Not about poker!

2008-01-27T11:27:00.001-06:00

In Miami right now, about to leave for a weeklong cruise w/ my brother and 4 friends. Gonna be pretty sweet....also,gonna be pretty weird to go for like a week with no internet and no poker (probably a good thing for my game).

Brought a couple of books--"What the What" by Dave Eggers and "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides (hopefully I'm remotely close on that spelling). Started Middlesex yesterday on the plane down, and it's really, really good so far. It's been far too long since I've read a good book.

That's about it. Bye, internet!

Video Killed the Radio Star

2008-01-25T13:43:00.001-06:00

Two videos:

First is a Harvard Law professor being interviewed on the Colbert Report about online poker. He is a great, great spokesperson for the game. I want to give him a big hug. Also, his suggestion at the end about the presidential candidates is possibly the greatest idea I've ever heard.

Second is just one I saw on another person's blog and thought worthy of stealing. I don't watch American Idol, but this guy is awesome.

Perspective

2008-01-17T21:24:00.000-06:00

Interesting "poker" experience tonight -- came home from work, had dinner, didn't really feel like playing at all 'cause I'm kinda under the weather. Started reading 2p2 and came across some thread about this documentary called "Poker Bustouts." Seemed like everyone found it to be pretty hilarious, so I had to take a look, and OMG is it a classic. This is a documentary about poker "pros" in the classic sense of the word. Hilarious is an understatement. So many quotable lines, I wouldn't even know where to begin. My favorite was the old guy who wore a white fur coat and called himself the "best 3/6 limit player in the world."

After that, I was reading a bit more on 2p2, came across someone rambling about starting some blog to expose the "truth" about online poker--so of course I had to check it out. Dude writes like a mix between Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson's (OK, I've actually never read anything by Hunter S. Thompson, but I imagine it has to be just like this). A quote from just the beginning of his second blog entry,

Ok since I am fucking around in micro stakes online which is the most I will do, I thought I would put some thoughts down. Now when people talk to me about online poker I get many angles on this and I really hear some thoughtful and some down right stupid shit with respect to online poker from both sides. I sit at a table and talk to many live players and they are all convinced that online is a waste of time and rigged, fair enough because they are sitting there playing live. Then I hear from people playing online that it is rigged, ok fuckers if it is rigged and you hate it why are you knowingly risking your money and then bitching about it??? I mean online to me is like a carnival game and that is it, I don’t take them seriously and I don’t take online poker seriously. Sure I see some lucky ass who is walking around with the giant stuffed animal, so some guy won that is just awesome so does that mean I will win, odds are not good. Not to mention let’s look a little deeper into this, maybe he won shit and is hired to walk around with this stupid fucking stuffed animal and a girl? I mean good marketing you are really showing that you can win, and then getting your girl to say I want one of those carny humped bacteria filled stuffed animals, and like a douche bag there you are trying to win a prize. Well then the marketing worked, and yes you too can be a winner, and let’s face it every online tournament has a winner, so why not you? You can be the next Moneymaker, take a semi retarded online donk (99% of the online players) and make him the WSOP champion, now all the other players who suck dick at poker and rely on luck to save them from themselves believe they can be WSOP champ.

The blog is called Shoveit.com if anyone cares for a laugh (or a glimpse into the world of the mentally deranged).

So, this all got me thinking about how stupid the average person is and oh god we have a general election in 10 months to determine the next leader of the free world. Some days democracy seems like a worse idea than others (I can hear my brother in my head, "We don't have a democracy; we have a republic," but whatever--you get the point).

Anyway Pandora is playing some awesome country song right now (apparently it's Old Shoes by Tom Waits, never heard it before), so all is good here. This weekend is going to be very cold; I am hoping to stay inside and get a ton of hands in. Weekend poker is almost as good as holiday poker. I think the point of this post overall is that I have keep in mind that 90% of my opponents at the poker table are certain idiots or not far from it, and when I try to out-think them when they're not thinking of much at all, I just end up owning myself.

Results Oriented

2008-01-15T20:19:00.000-06:00

Put in a couple hours at Pokerstars tonight; lost like 3 buyins b/c that's how I roll these days but feel like I played very well overall. Ran my overpairs into sets twice [neither were places I could even consider folding--one was a reraised pot and the other a super-drawy flop against a guy with a postflop AF of like 12(!)]. Got sucked out on in one big pot with bottom set against a flush draw.

I'm planning to play a lot more at Pokerstars this year. I figure I can put in enough hands to make their points system be worth more than rakeback at Full Tilt. Also, there's something kind of alluring to me about chasing supernova--I can be less results oriented in the short term and just focus my obsession of "keeping score" on seeing how many player points I can accumulate. Pokerstars really has a fantastic rewards program for heavy multi-tablers--I think someone calculated that achieving "Supernova Elite" is worth over $100K in and of itself (in terms of the different bonuses you get as you accumulate points). It won't be possible for me to get Elite w/ a full-time day job, but if I don't get to supernova by the end of the year, I'll be highly disappointed. Only two problems stand in my way right now--one, I am not nearly as used to Stars' software as I am to FTP, so it's gonna take me a while to work up to 12 tables. I only played six tonight and probably shouldn't go above 8 for the time being. Second problem is simply that the full-ring tables are infested with multitabling 2p2ers; I feel like NL200 at Stars plays like NL400 at Full Tilt. And it's weird not having any read on the regulars yet -- I feel like I can't take any nonstandard lines b/c I don't know how anyone will react to them. (Maybe this is a good thing, heh.)

OK, my third problem is that if I don't stop running bad soon I'm gonna bust my Stars account. I've never busted an account in my life, and I don't really want to start now!...I'm not actually in much danger of losing my Stars roll, but it would be kind of demoralizing to have to move down to NL100. This month so far has been demoralizing enough. I'm getting seriously worried that this is going to be my first losing month ever, which would be pretty funny* considering December was my best month ever. *Unfortunately, I don't mean funny as in Woody Allen-movie funny, but more like "please just shoot me now" funny.

Here is the best example of why poker is a cruel, cruel game and how it can toy with you. First graph is the first 15 days of December (hottest I've ever run); second is the first 15 days of January (not the worst I've ever run, but painful nonetheless).

December:

January:

The one good thing about downswings is they really motivate me to work on my game. I hate losing. Gonna go watch a video and try to plug a leak or two.

More on Downswings

2008-01-14T14:34:00.000-06:00

Meant to post this before. This is something Jman on 2p2 posted in his "in the well" thread, which is the best thread I've read in a loooong, looong time. The part about going on autopilot when running bad really hit home for me -- I never realized how true that is of myself until I read it. Anyway, quote:

people play worse and less decisively when stuck. They don't trust their decisions as much. The opposite is true for players who are running better.

Also when players are losing, they often go on autopilot and hope to run good. Players who are winning think about every hand and look for any +EV spot. This might have the effect of the losing player not fighting for the small pots.

Someone losing is often scared to make correct plays because they feel their opponent is inside their head. They can envision their (good) river bluff getting snapcalled with bottom pair, so they opt not to make it. Things like that.

Lazy

2008-01-14T12:18:00.000-06:00

Got a million things to do at work but can't seem to get myself motivated to do more than the bare minimum. Standard Monday. Mid-year performance reviews were due today (basically we review our own performance--it's all very dumb); I just hope they don't tell me I have to start getting into work on time. No matter what I do, I always seem to get here 20 minutes late. I usually get to the parking garage on time, though--they should start the clock there!

My brother went back to school yesterday. I'm looking forward to getting the basement cleaned up and organized now. Matt is possibly the messiest person I have ever known. Still, I miss having him around; life is always duller when he's not here to annoy me.

Didn't play any poker yesterday, which is a good thing I suppose, although it sucks for the bankroll only playing 1 out of 3 weekend days. I did watch a couple of videos, even one on limit hold 'em (!). Usually the games are the worst on Monday and Tuesday, so I don't know if I'll bother playing tonight. Maybe just clean the basement some more.

Went out to dinner Friday with friends at a place called Uncommon Ground in Wrigleyville. Some pictures:

My friend Lauren and her boyfriend, Jeff. I love Lauren's expression here--the menu is very surprising!

Matt, Virag and Murtaza

Murtaza's girlfriend is fostering an awesome older dog--we stopped by her apt to visit it. I think Matt fell in love.

Not Quite There

2008-01-12T22:48:00.000-06:00

Trying to climb out of my downswing; played decently today for the most part. Flopping the underset in 3 big hands didn't help the cause much, though. Here's the worst of them:

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

CO: $761.25
BTN: $472.90
SB: $361.50
BB: $192.50
UTG: $95.90
UTG+1: $634.40
UTG+2: $104
Hero (MP1): $720.40
MP2: $410.70

Pre-Flop: Kh Kd dealt to Hero (MP1)
UTG calls $4, UTG+1 raises to $18, UTG+2 folds, Hero raises to $64, 6 folds, UTG+1 calls $46

Flop: ($138) Ks As Qs (2 Players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $80, UTG+1 raises to $326, Hero raises to $656.40 and is All-In, UTG+1 calls $244.40 and is All-In

Turn: ($1,278.80) 5h (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($1,278.80) 8d (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $1,278.80 Pot ($3 Rake)
UTG+1 showed Ah Ad (three of a kind, Aces) and WON $1,275.80 (+$641.40 NET)
Hero showed Kh Kd (three of a kind, Kings) and LOST (-$634.40 NET)

I made one stupid stack-off preflop to Stylistic (AJs < AK) and a couple bets I wish I could take back. On the other hand, at least I'm not as bad as villain in this hand:

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $470.30
MP2: $628.60
CO: $92.20
BTN: $400
SB: $402
BB: $232
UTG: $133.80
Hero (UTG+1): $1,089
UTG+2: $392

MP2 posts $2
MP2 posts $4
Pre-Flop: Ks Kc dealt to Hero (UTG+1)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $20, 2 folds, MP2 calls $16, 4 folds

Flop: ($46) Qh 2d 6s (2 Players)
Hero bets $32, MP2 calls $32

Turn: ($110) 4h (2 Players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $64, Hero raises to $172, MP2 calls $108

River: ($454) 2c (2 Players)
Hero bets $865 and is All-In, MP2 calls $402.60

Results: $1,259.20 Pot ($3 Rake)
MP2 showed 3c 3h (two pair, Threes and Twos) and LOST (-$626.60 NET)
Hero showed Ks Kc (two pair, Kings and Twos) and WON $1,258.20 (+$631.60 NET)

Downswings Suck

2008-01-11T14:28:00.000-06:00

Not much to say here. Playing meh, running bad, frustration level is high. I have a hard time keeping my confidence level up when I go through a downswing. Poker is the ultimate mind-fuck, I guess. When you run hot, you feel like you got the whole game figured out, bad beats just roll off your back, your winrate feels invincible. When you run bad, everything seems to go wrong -- bluffs don't work, you don't get enough value out of your big hands, sometimes it even feels like opponents can see your fucking hole cards.

I did play this fun hand yesterday, which one of the regs posted on 2p2:

I had AsKs, obv. :-)

Hand Reading 101

2008-01-04T18:13:00.000-06:00

I saw this hand posted on 2p2, the poster having been impressed by the seeming "soul-reading" Urindanger made to call the river. It is definitely an impressive hand, don't get me wrong, but it is also a fairly standard hand for good high stakes players. What caught my attention about it, and interested me enough to post it here, is that this hand is a perfect example of hand reading/ constructing a story from the line someone takes in a hand.

Full Tilt Poker $100.00/$200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 2 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Urindanger (BB): $31297.50
Hansome Man (BTN/SB): $10696.00

Pre Flop:
Hansome Man raises to $600, Urindanger calls $400

Flop: ($1200.00) A Q 7 (2 players)
Urindanger checks, Hansome Man bets $1200, Urindanger calls $1200

Turn: ($3600.00) 8 (2 players)
Urindanger checks, Hansome Man checks

River: ($3600.00) Q (2 players)
Urindanger checks, Hansome Man bets $3600, Urindanger calls $3600

Final Pot: $10800.00
Urindanger shows Tc Kd (a pair of Queens)
Hansome Man shows 9c Jd (a pair of Queens)
Urindanger wins $10799.50
(Rake: $0.50)

People who I would classify as "novice" poker players aren't really going to understand this hand--to them it would look like a very big call with King high and something closer to a lucky guess than a solid read. Players who are slightly more advanced, however, can look at this hand and understand perfectly Urindanger's logic in calling the river. A quick explanation:

On the flop, Urindanger elects to float OOP with King-high -- he has flopped a gutshot draw and also, since this is a heads-up match, where relative hand values are vastly different than, say, a full ring game, king high is often still the best hand. His opponent is likely either making a standard c-bet with air or has hit top pair.

On the turn, a relative blank comes, and when Urindanger checks again, Hansome Man chooses to check behind. This is a key component of the hand--it now looks most likely that Hansome Man was just taking a stab at the pot with his flop c-bet and has given up on the hand once Urindanger indicates he has caught a piece of the board with his flop call.

Now, on the river, a second queen falls, and Urindanger again checks to his opponent. Hansome Man makes a PSB. The reason Urindanger is able to call this with K-high is that Hansome Man is not able to represent many believable hands with this sequence of actions. If Hansome Man had an ace, he likely would have bet the turn again for value (and may have then checked behind the river when the 2nd Q came, as from his perspective, a queen is definitely in Urindanger's range for how the hand has played so far). Aside from the flop bet, Hansome Man has played the opposite of how you would expect someone with an ace to play this hand.

Another possibility is that Hansome Man has a queen in his hand and has now made trip Qs on the river. However, again, this doesn't fit the prior betting pattern all that well. If Hansome Man flopped middle pair, this would be a good spot for him to check behind the flop--he would have a hand with excellent showdown value but not quite strong enough to withstand a flop checkraise (most of the time). Surely Hansome Man is not checking behind the flop every time he flops a good but non-top pair or better hand, but I would imagine it would be his choice >50% of the time. The other aspect of the hand that makes him unlikely to have a queen is simply that another queen fell on the board by the river--from a simple mathematical perspective, this makes it less likely that he has a queen, as two of the four in the deck are already accounted for.

Another thing that may have gone into Urindanger's read is his opponent's bet sizing. Since I have no idea of Hansome Man's standard bet sizing, though, I'll leave that part alone...all in all, a cool hand...since Hansome Man doesn't seem likely to have either an ace or a queen as hole cards, Urindanger is able to make the call with King high.

Favorite HHs of 2007

2008-01-04T14:30:00.001-06:00

A few of my favorite hands from this past year...

------------------
HAND #1
------------------

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

UTG+1: $609.10
MP: $419.30
CO: $284.50
BTN: $404
SB: $374
Hero (BB): $454.40
UTG: $521.30

Pre-Flop: 7d 5d dealt to Hero (BB)
5 folds, SB raises to $12, Hero raises to $36, SB calls $24

Flop: ($72) 3c Qc Jh (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $40, SB calls $40

Turn: ($152) Td (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $108, SB calls $108

River: ($368) 9h (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $270.40 and is All-In, SB folds

Results: $368 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked 7d 5d and WON $365 (+$181 NET)

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HAND #2
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Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

SB: $184.90
BB: $388
Hero (BTN): $400

Pre-Flop: Qh 9h dealt to Hero (BTN)
Hero calls $4, SB raises to $184.90 and is All-In, BB folds, Hero calls $180.90

Flop: ($373.80) Ad 2s 4h (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($373.80) 6h (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($373.80) Kc (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $373.80 Pot ($1 Rake)
SB showed Tc Jh (Ace King high) and LOST (-$184.90 NET)
Hero showed Qh 9h (Ace King high) and WON $372.80 (+$187.90 NET)

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HAND #3
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Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 PL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $313.80
Hero (SB): $535.10
BB: $174
UTG: $863.10

Pre-Flop: Ad Qs dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG raises to $14, BTN folds, Hero raises to $46, BB folds, UTG calls $32

Flop: ($96) 6s 8h Kc (2 Players)
Hero bets $60, UTG calls $60

Turn: ($216) Td (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

River: ($216) 2d (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $140, Hero raises to $429.10 and is All-In, UTG folds

Results: $496 Pot ($2 Rake)
Hero mucked Ad Qs and WON $494 (+$248 NET)

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HAND #4
------------------

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

MP2: $1,655.25
CO: $1,288.20
BTN: $449.70
Hero (SB): $562.20
BB: $400
UTG: $2,803.90
UTG+1: $200
MP1: $895.95

Pre-Flop: Jd Jc dealt to Hero (SB)
3 folds, MP2 raises to $8, CO raises to $35, BTN folds, Hero raises to $88, 2 folds, CO calls $53

Flop: ($188) 3h 3d Ks (2 Players)
Hero bets $110, CO calls $110

Turn: ($408) 2s (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($408) Ts (2 Players)
Hero bets $364.20 and is All-In, CO folds

Results: $408 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked Jd Jc and WON $405 (+$207 NET)

New Years Resolution

2008-01-04T11:03:00.000-06:00

This is bothering me--is it New Years Resolution or New Year's Resolution? I think it looks better w/o the apostrophe. My personal opinion is that apostrophes are evolving out of our language and in 50 years no one will bother to use them. But I digress.

So I have been thinking about several resolutions for this year, although I have never bothered to make resolutions before. This year I want to be different. One of my resolutions is that I would like to start writing again, even if it just means making stupid little blog posts, at least it will be something to start with -- hence, I am restarting this blog! Since these days poker is a huge part of my life, for better or worse, I was thinking of just turning this into a poker blog. But I think I will keep it a general blog interspersed with random poker moments. That should work. I am excited to see how my game develops this year, and writing stuff down should help me track my progress/swings/hopefully a logical epiphany or two.

So, yeah, cliffs notes: I'm excited to be trying this blogging thing again; we'll see how long it lasts. I hope to make several entries per week, poker or otherwise.

Devil in the what now?

2006-05-09T20:26:00.000-05:00

I just started reading this book, "Devil in the White City," recommended to me by my dad. (I'm trying to be diligent and shit and read two books per week for the duration of the summer.)

Only on page 20, but it seems at any moment to be poised to morph into gay porn. Two quotes, same page: "Burnham took to Root immediately. He admired Root's white skin and muscular arms, his stance at the drafting table."

"Sherman liked Burnham. He liked his strength, his steady blue gaze, and the confidence with which he conducted the conversation."

Or maybe too much Oz viewing has warped my brain.

QotD

2006-03-08T01:40:00.000-06:00

Napoleon's chief of staff, Louis-Alexander Berthier, tasked with organizing a hunt for his boss, got a thousand rabbits to the Tuileries. Unfortunately, he bought tame rabbits instead of wild ones. According to historian A.G. Macdonell, when the emperor took his gun and advanced into the park, the bunnies, "all thousand of them, mistook him for the man who provided their daily lettuce and leapt to their feet and charged towards him." Napoleon's marshals beat them off with whips, but some rabbits, being skilled in Napoleonic warfare, wheeled around on both flanks and reached the carriage of the escaping Bonaparte.

--Barbara Amiel

Picture of the Day

2006-03-08T00:54:00.000-06:00

QotD

2006-03-05T09:46:00.000-06:00

In honor of Oz, which I have been watching of late:

Augustus Hill: When Napoleon died in Exile, the doctors cut off his dick. They put his dick in an ornate jar and gave it to his priest; don't ask me why. Over the years, Napoleon's dick was sold and sold again to the highest bidder. To this day, at least three people claim to own Napoleon's dick. But you see, it's not important who owns the real dick. The big question is, well... who the fuck do those other two dicks belong to?

I think I love that show.

Desert Island Albums

2006-03-05T02:25:00.000-06:00

Oh that eternal question, if I could only take 10 albums with me to the proverbial desert island...I have always wanted to make a list like this because I am nothing if not a huge nerd. Some obvious ground-rules: Best of Compilations are cheating. Self-mixed compilations are cheating. Ipods are definitely cheating. More than one album for each artist is cheating (except BNL, 'cause they are my favorites and this is my list and my rules, dammit).

1) American Idiot - Green Day. Rock opera is cool, yo.
2) Born on a Pirate Ship - BNL. Even though I'm not sure it hangs together as an album in any particular way, BOAPS is still pound for pound BNL's best collection of songs to date.
3) Either/Or - Elliott Smith. This was hard. Leaving off every one of Smith's other albums was *hard*. Thank God I'm not really ending up on a desert island anytime soon, or I might not be able to live with myself. Either/Or is my favorite Elliott Smith album, though, and it has to go with me.
4) Lost and Gone Forever - Guster. I believe this is Guster's best-produced album to date. However, however, "Come Downstairs and Say Hello" is my favorite song of all time, and it's on Keep it Together. So this was another tough decision. Ultimately, however, I was swayed by the existence of "Amsterdam" on KiT--that song has to stay the fuck away from me! It is just too awful.
5) Kind of Blue - Miles Davis. You know, for those mellow desert nights.
6) Rock Spectacle - BNL. I can't survive without that live version of "What a Good Boy." I really can't. Also, that panting at the beginning of "Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank" will never get old.
7) Automatic for the People - R.E.M. (although my version would magically have "Everybody Hurts" removed, 'cause I can't fucking stand that song).
8) Songs in the Attic - Billy Joel. Billy Joel has so many albums, and I've never really had a particular favorite. 52nd Street has my favorite Joel song on it ("Until the Night," which has my favorite song climax of all time); Glass Houses was my favorite of his albums for a long time; Piano Man is probably his album that I find most cohesive and that I listen to the most nowadays. But, really, Songs in the Attic is probably the best compromise. I love live albums.
9) A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay. Say what you will about Coldplay and overexposure and overrating (and I know, people can say a great deal), but this is an amazing album.
10) The Vanity Project - Steven Page. I still can't believe I didn't think much of this CD the first time I heard it. This is why I have a self-imposed rule of listening to a new song five times before passing judgment on it. "Everything's the Same" is the best song on here; "Wilted Rose" is the most catchy; and "So. Cal" is my favorite to sing along to.

One final thing, on the subject of compilations. When I was a kid, my dad bought a cassette at the gas station called "Cruising Classics of the '50s and '60s." Johnny B. Goode, Travelin' Man, That'll Be The Day...that was the soundtrack of my childhood. Best fucking compilation ever. I wish I knew what happened to it. I would sneak it onto that desert island, rules be damned.

Found Art

2006-02-25T22:32:00.000-06:00

This made me laugh...

..and this made me laugh harder...

The Internet is a wonderful place.

Ow

2006-02-25T14:18:00.000-06:00

Somehow I have managed to sprain my thumb while...get this...while using the trackpad on my laptop. What can I say, I was laying on the couch at a not very appropriate ergonomic angle. Yes, I lead a pathetic life. Hurts like a bitch, too.

Sweet!

2006-02-19T13:18:00.000-06:00

I am my favorite character. I always knew I was meant to be a hot, Constitution-trampling lawyer. Or, you know, John de Munch.

You're Alexandra Cabot!

Which Law & Order: SVU character are you?
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