Notes

Some poker notes

• With last weekend's rebuy bonus at PartyPoker, I decided it was a good time to move from $3/6 to $5/10. I've always been very conservative about moving up in limits, so even though I've put in some time at this limit previously, this jump was a big deal for me. I had a good first weekend there, partially confirming my theory that the bonus would cause an infusion of loose money. It was a good way to ease the transition.
• The last few days I've felt like I've hit another wave of very tough beats. It seems like all my big pairs and flopped sets get cracked, and I'm not hitting any draws.
• I'm really having a tough time playing my AK, AQ, KQ type hands. Lately it seems like either I raise and everyone folds, or I get a couple calls and miss. I'm having a tough time playing the hand when I miss the flop, especially because people call flop bets with almost anything. When I bet, I always seem to get check-raised, and when I check I always seem to let a weaker hand catch a card to beat me. But I think I've been getting away from rule #3:

3.) Assume your opponents are morons unless you have overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Act accordingly. This means that 99% of the actions you are faced with are pretty straight-forward. You can't bluff a calling station, and you can't check-raise someone who is afraid of their shadow. Bluff sparingly. Bet for value. Don't get fancy, jackass.

• I'm doing much much better dealing with this tough little stretch. I've managed not to get as emotionally frustrated, and most importantly, I've been able to keep plugging away and putting in more hours, hours where I'm still playing well. I keep making adjustments in my game, and I'm feeling pretty confident in spite of a little bad luck.
• 21 of the 29 hours I've played in the last 6 days have been at $5/10, good for 5,293 hands and a win rate of 0.9 BB per 100 hands, which works out to about $22/hour. My VP$IP is under 13%, which means I'm being very conservative about my starting hands, more conservative than I've ever been in full-handed games. My overall aggression factor is at 1.82, which is as aggressive as I've ever played in full-handed games. Only my river aggression factor is below 1.5, which I think I think I'm ok with, since when there are no more cards coming I'm not using aggression to protect made hands any more, and I don't run into too many situations where my opponents are likely to fold a better hand than mine.
• Last week (I track my weeks Wednesday through Tuesday), I made an effort to put in more hours, and got in 40 hours last week and averaged about $18.75/hour. Kind of like a crappy full-time job.

NBA Notes

• Ok, when I picked the Dallas Mavericks to win the NBA title, I might have been getting carried away a little bit. They have a rookie head coach, their point guards have very limited experience, and they still don't have much offensive post presence. But I still think that they are a very dangerous team. Dirk had the best season of his career, and Michael Finley still is a very good player. Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Josh Howard, Eric Dampier and the rest of the supporting cast are fitting their roles well and the Mavs actually play some defense now. But T-Mac is off his ass and it looks likely that Houston will win the series, in spite of the Mavs stealing a game in Houston tonight. If Dallas loses, I just hope that my boy Mark Cuban doesn't tear the team apart again. After another tumultuous offseason, they pretty much stood pat during the season, making only the excellent acquisition of Keith Van Horn. This is a great nucleus that he should give a few seasons to grow into their potential.
• How fun would a Rockets-Suns series be? I say that the Rockets are likely to win their series now because I really like Houston's team, especially their backcourt. Bob Sura, Jon Barry and David Wesley are a great collection of veteran guards to play with McGrady and Yao. Suddenly Yao is playing with some aggression, and T-Mac is being a leader and playing excellent defense. Matching that team up against the Suns small-ball squad would be very very interesting.
• My predictions suck, which is why I don't bet sports. I love watching and analyzing, which is why I still make predictions. But I don't take too much pride in correct predictions or feel too bad about misses, cause its all a crapshoot to me, because I don't watch or read enough to really have a good idea what is going on. The media seems to think they always have to make bold predictions, which I guess is fine. But I'd rather hear them discuss strategic analysis.
• Another thing that media always does that drives me crazy is when they feel the need to establish the importance of a playoff game. They say "this is a must-win game!" These are the fucking playoffs, every game is important. You want to win every game you play. They asked Kenyon Martin if splitting 2 games in San Antonio was a "successful road trip" and he got all pissed off at the question, and rightfully so. Umm, the one they lost was a failure and the one they won was a success. What the hell is a "successful roadtrip." I know what a successful game is, and what a successful series is. Stop trying to invent more artificial subsets of basketball! And then you get segments on ESPN where the experts try to tell me about the importance of each game in a 7 game series. THEY ARE ALL IMPORTANT, YOU STUPID ASSHOLES!
• I've never liked Jermaine O'Neal as a player or a person. He is a talented player, and when he has time to plan his words in advance, he usually says good things and seems like a good guy. But I think he's a dumb player and a punk. I'll always remember his absurdly stupid foul on Kobe Bryant as Kobe was shooting a desperation shot falling out of bounds as the clock expired that ruined what should have been MJ's game winning shot in his last All Star game. Watching him in the Detroit brawl earlier this year, and in the scuffle with Antoine Walker last night, he really comes off as a jackass who is always looking for an excuse to hit someone. And he recently made comments that the NBA's proposed 20 year old age limit for players is motivated by racism. While it is true that more black men than others will be affected by such a rule, even disproportionately to the ratio of black men to others in the league (the one good point Scoop Jackson made in an otherwise worthless commentary on this issue), it is ridiculous to suggest David Stern and the team owners would adopt it for racist reasons. I don't know if an age limit is in the league's best interests, but I am sure that the league's best interests, and thus their own personal financial interests, are all they care about. And if they adopt it, how would an age limit even hurt black men? Sure, there are some 18 year olds who are ready for the league, but unless they suffer a career-ending injury in those 2 years, they'll still get their payday. And for every preps-to-pros superstar, there have got to be many more guys who declared for the draft and lost their chance to get a free college education that could have improved their lives. It is at least a reasonable argument that by encouraging 2 extra years of maturation and education before they are eligible for the league, in the long run you'd be helping more black men than you hurt. The opposite could also be reasonably argued. Maybe an age limit would hurt more players than it helps, I don't know. But if it is adopted, it won't be because the man is trying to keep 'em down. God knows black people have faced and continue to face unfair discrimination, but playing the race card on this issue and accusing the owners and commissioner of a league that has made millionaires out of thousands of young black men is grossly irresponsible and classless.
• Speaking of NBA players who came in right out of high school, Jermaine O'Neal noted that those guys are some of the biggest stars in the league. Lebron, KG, Jermaine, Amare, Kobe, T-Mac. These guys are the faces of the NBA. But I think it is worth pointing out that the superstars that win the titles are college players. Shaq, Duncan, Jordan, Pippen, David Robinson, Hakeem. Yeah, Kobe has his rings, but this year is proving that those were Shaq's teams more than Kobe's. This might change over the next decade, but so far the way to build a winning team has been with college players, not the high school guys.

Other Notes

• Happy 50th birthday to my Mommy.
  
• Happy 81st birthday to my Grandfather