Can you go to hell for what you post in a blog?

I'm posting this IM conversation because it crudely makes plenty of good points. The names are changed so people don't crucify the involved parties. If you are offended by this, try to figure out why.

Joseph: you know what i realized is a huge huge joke

Mary: what's that

Joseph: heaven

Joseph: think about it

Joseph: its like "hey idiot, dont do things that are bad for society, because if you are good enough you'll be in a nice place forever after you die."

Joseph: and the idiots just go right along with the idea of heaven despite having no reason to believe it in aside from that its a nice idea

Mary: hahah

Mary: true

Joseph: there are so many people who so fervently believe in heaven

Mary: yeah

Mary: well that goes hand in ahnd with the religion though

Joseph: these idiots will strap explosives to their body and blow themselves up because someone convinced them there will be 70 virgins awaiting them if they kill a bunch of sinners

Mary: truedat

Mary: they are convinced

Joseph: its like its too good to be true, if you are the one creating the relgions

Joseph: "hmmm what do people want? sex with virgins! we'll just promise them that if they do what we want. hmm but we cant really deliver on that. i've got it! we'll say they'll get it after they die!! they wont really fall for this will they?"

Mary: haha

Mary: people are idiots

Mary: sheep

Mary: you give em a nice idea like that

Mary: they will run with it

Mary: it doesn't hurt that it's self perpetuating too

Joseph: and the reason that some people fall for this shit and a few people can see through it is that the people who see through it still fuck the stupid people

Joseph: so its not like we'll ever advance past it

Joseph: but at least the majority of the dummies have something positive to believe in

Joseph: "i'm going to heaven"

Mary: i guess, but it's stupid positive nonetheless

Mary: and it's always an untouchable issue

Mary: it's like oh yeah i can't go to work on monday

Mary: gotta go do some shit for heaven

Mary: oh ok

Mary: cool dude

Mary: oh i cant go to work monday

Mary: i got an important bball game that day

Joseph: if i dont eat before sundown, i'll go to heaven

Mary: dude

Mary: you can't skip work for important bball game

Joseph: the ball game gets me into heaven

Mary: hah

Joseph: REALLY?? WHAT LEAGUE? CAN I JOIN??!

Mary: ahahah

Joseph: are there boring services and stupid ceremonies?!!

Mary: it'll be money

Joseph: can i donate 10% of my pretax earnings to perpetuate it??!

Mary: hahaha

Joseph: can we ritualistically kill a goat and then coat ourselves in its blood?!!

Joseph: dude whats wrong with you... i gotta go eat some jesus fleshwafers and drink his blood

Mary: hahahaha

Joseph: BUT MINE ISNT REAL

Joseph: so i'm not crazy

Joseph: its just a pretend fleshwafer and pretend blood

Joseph: so that makes it perfectly sane

Mary: mm pretend

Mary: symbol

Mary: religion really is a goddamn crutch

Joseph: you do all this shit for god

Joseph: show me god

Joseph: GOD IS EVERYWHERE

Mary: yeah

Joseph: its like talking to a child

Joseph: they just make up answers

Mary: religion is really genius

Mary: because if you deny it

Mary: then you are a heretic

Mary: and are invalidated

Joseph: exploitation of all these built in mechanisms we have

Mary: yeah

Mary: a fucking human virus

Mary: self-replicating

Joseph: i want a copy of this whole convo publicly available

Mary: do it

Mary: it's so taboo to disrespect religion

Mary: you know what

Mary: FUCK RELIGION

Joseph: whoa now

Mary: hah

Joseph: only the ones that hurt us

Mary: HAHAHA

Joseph: we benefit from religion for the most part

Joseph: sure i catch some shit from my mom

Joseph: and a few crazy muslims lob some grenades at us every once in a while

Joseph: but mostly jesus just keeps people occupied so they dont steal my money

Mary: i dunno about that

Mary: have you seen these jesus solicitations

Mary: i get one in the mail probably 3 times a week

Joseph: so you get some extra junk mail

Joseph: and a knock on your door once a year

Joseph: HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD WORD?

Mary: i'm even considering what i read one guy did

get some heavy strips of scrap metal, and send them in the reply envelope and make them pay for the postage

Joseph: hahahah

Mary: he said it drastically reduced his mail

Joseph: but he'll go to hell

Mary: hah

Joseph: you should tell him to stop

Joseph: tell him about jesus

Joseph: he can still be saved

Mary: hahaha

Mary: the best thing about jesus is you can just be an ass your whole life

Mary: and then be saved on your death bed

Joseph: thats true, jesus is a bit of a chump like that

Mary: hahah

Joseph: 20 hail marys and you're set in eternity

Mary: yup

Joseph: i think its horrible those things you said

Joseph: very offensive

Mary: hahaha

Mary: fucking a

Mary: just thinking about this shit

Mary: riles me

Joseph: turn the other cheek

Mary: almost have to

Mary: god you can't thoguh

Joseph: our relgion says that if you get punched, you should invite your attacker to repeat his assualt

Mary: people do the stupidest shit in the name of "god"

Joseph: god forbid you do shit just because it makes sense

Mary: yeah seriously

Mary: how have we fucking allowed religion to just take over

Mary: and make us do stupid shit

Mary: amazing really

Joseph: a lot of the actions religions encourage are actions that should be encouraged

Joseph: but they do it in the most ass-backwards way

Joseph: and there's so many layers of bullshit

Joseph: and pedophiles

Mary: especially imagine how things used to be, churchs running governments and shit

Joseph: "hey, its cool if you dont, but i want to eat pork, ok?" OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!

Mary: god

Mary: and even now in US politics religion is such a fuck

Mary: like if some atheist were to run for president, he wouldn't even make it past the first hurdle

Mary: he would be shot down so quickly

Mary: a fucking faggot could beat him

Joseph: well thats what happens when everyone gets an equal vote

Mary: people shouldn't get equal votes

Joseph: democracy is built on the idea that the sum of ignorance is intelligence

Mary: yeah

Joseph: at least we formally established seperation of church and state

Mary: yeah that was good

My thoughts on the matter...

• To the extent that religion encourages people to act in ways that benefit themselves and each other, reglion is a good thing.
• To the extent that religion helps people deal with life's challenges in a positive way, religion is a good thing.
• To the extent that religion unites communities and encourages friendships, religion is a good thing.

Religion is only good for those first 3 points when it encourages people to act in a positive way when they ONLY act that way because of religion. I'd much rather have people try to act based on a rationally derived moral code. If some people couldn't come to a moral code on their own and find one in a reglion, we are all better off with the religion. But that is a very dangerous situation because those people are ripe for manipulation. They're being told what God wants by a possibly corruptible leader or a book written by those leaders. Those leaders become "the mouths of God" or the books become "the word of God." Then, when the wrong person acheives those positions of power, it is scary as shit.

• Doing anything based only on a belief that it is the will of an all-powerful deity is insane.

• Doing anything based only on a belief that it will have good or bad consequences in an afterlife is insane.

• Many practices encouraged by major religions made good sense at some point in history. Because the world has changed so drastically, many of those practices no longer make sense. Many of these take the form of taboos: food taboos, taboos on sexual acts between consenting adults, taboos about deviating from certain rituals. Continuing to strictly interpret these obsolete ideas to the point where it causes emotional distress is insane.

• The belief that the book of Genesis is a factually accurate historical account of the creation of Earth and humans is insane.

• We clearly see that many cult leaders are twisted geniuses who exploit their congregations, but we sometimes fail to that many similar figures exist within the leadership of major religions. Combine this phenomenon with the sexual taboos for religious leaders and you get major pedophilia scandals. How many sane, heterosexual males would voluntarily choose a life of complete abstinence? Let's make that group the only people who can be our leaders! Major religions use the same mechanisms as the crazy cults, they just drink pretend blood instead of real blood.
  

I'm an equal opportunity offender. Hopefully I've offended everyone's beliefs here. Next time I'll write about why every racial group sucks. Except Aboriginal Australians. I love those goofy little fuckers.

Sweet relief!

There isn't much in life that feels better than a big winning session after a rough downswing. But don't tell my girlfriend I said that...

TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Post a comment on here with recommendations of any movies, music, TV, books or anything else.

Recommendations so far:

Movies

• City of God - Watched it 6/18. Pretty good, worth watching. Probably not good enough that I would go out of my way to recommend it to someone several times though...
  

• Bad Education

• Equilibrium

• The Machinist

• Motorcycle Diaries

• Spiderman 1 or 2 -I suppose I'll probably watch these one day, but I don't usually have much interest in comic book movies. Batman Begins was awesome though.
  

• Taxi Driver - I've seen this, good movie.
  

• Waking Life

• The Primer
  

Music

• The Shins - They aren't available on my Yahoo service, so I doubt I'll check them out.
  

• Spoon - Same
  

TV

• Arrested Development

• The Shield -I've seen this show a little bit. It does look pretty good.

• Angels in America
  

Books

• Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

• Guns, Germs, and Steel -Currently reading it
  

• Freakonomics - Read in July 05. Check out their website and blog.

• How I Became Stupid, by Martin Page

• The Footprints of God, by Greg Iles

• Courtroom 302

• American Prometheus

• PROFESSIONAL POKER: The Essential Guide To Playing For A Living, by Mark Blade

• The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker - I've read this. It is excellent.

Reorg

Among other reasons I do this blog to

- record my thoughts
- amuse myself
- amuse others
- keep in touch with people

I wanted to reduce the clutter and organize my thoughts, so thats what all the last few posts are. They are replacing a bunch of links on the right. The best of the links will get their own direct link, the 2nd tier gets a link to some links.

Amusements

Blue Oyster Cult - 2/16/05 - I got a fever, and the only prescription is...
I don't usually watch the news - 3/1/05 - Dan and I flip out over the idiocy of a news report
Vegas I - 3/21/05 - Famous people I saw on a recent Vegas Trip
Vegas II - 3/21/05 - Quick recap of the trip
Other Poker Sightings - 3/21/05 - More famous peope I've seen in casinos, and some I made up
What's Shabbos? - 3/24/05 - Shut the fuck up, Donny
Safety at work - 3/24/05 - That's me in the pink shirt
Classic - 4/5/05 - Funny analogies
Cacocallia - 4/8/05 - (KAK-uh-KAL-shee-uh) - The paradoxical state of being ugly but at the same time sexually desireable.
Once upon a time... - 5/16/05 - The boob story
Help! - 6/16/05 - I don't know what the hell this is
For pooping at work, Iggy is the 2nd best - 7/27/05 - Workdump.
Randomness - 9/21/05
A quick story about Megan - 10/6/05 - Crazy shit happens in McDonalds
Adspar's Guide to Beard Growing - 10/27/05
Party with Adspar - 10/31/05 - Adspar goes to a party. Good times.
Great picture - 11/2/05
BLAST! - 12/5/05 - I went to this gay show
Reader response - 12/8/05 - Reaction to the BLAST! post
Why would I hunt penguins? - 12/10/05 - Early warning of my collapse into insanity
Drinks with Megan - 12/31/05 - More crazy shit with Megan
9000 awesome words - 1/23/06
Top 5 things that come in cans - 1/23/07 - Clear evidence of full blown insanity


Gracious in Defeat 1
Gracious in Defeat 2
Gracious in Defeat 3
Gracious in Defeat 4


Online Poker Screen Names 1
Online Poker Screen Names 2
Online Poker Screen Names 3
Online Poker Screen Names 4

Sports

I hate losing - 1/26/05 - I hate to lose more than I love to win

NBA vs NCAA Basketball: A raging rant - 3/10/05 - I rant about how my preference for NBA basketball is often looked down on

NBA v NCAA part 2 - 3/14/05 - Continued

First Day Notes, and more NBA v NCAA - 3/28/05 - Wilbon chimes in

Grant Hill - 5/15/05 - I make fun of Grant Hill (and Bill Walton)

Seriously though

This index is in chronological order, earlier to latest.


What's love got to do with it? - 2/12/05 - Love is all you need
I'm a feedback whore - 2/17/05 - A self evaluation of my personality
Reactions to Personality - 2/18/05 - Reactions to above
Desiderata - 4/12/05 - The poem by Max Ehrmann
Sleep - 5/2/05 - Me and sleep. This can't be interesting to anyone but me.
Reading, Thinking, Writing... Being a Lazy Jackass - 6/17/05 - What do I want to do with my life?
Pokernomics - 7/11/05 - I offer my services to an economist's poker project.
Can you go to hell for what you post in a blog? -7/21/05 - A rant about religion
More Evolution - 8/7/05 - Thoughts on science
Premarital cohabitation - 8/27/05 - My girlfriend, who is way hotter than me, moves in.
Why I mostly ignore Government/Politics - 9/5/05
Oil - 9/7/05 - A political rant, 2 days after I say how I ignore politics
Science already knows me - 9/23/05 - More self-obsessing about my personality
Calling people racist is fun - 10/2/05 - Politics, race, abortion
tiny good deed - 11/10/05
Businesses that I hate - 12/9/05 - List so far includes Comcast and Fandango
Gifts: Bah-hum-bug - 12/19/05 - Sounds goofy but I'm serious
Atheism - 12/27/05 - I out myself as an atheist
Belief in God is comfortable.. why take that away? - 12/31/05 - more atheist discussion
War, terrorists, Paulp - 1/03/06 - Political discussion
followup - 1/04/06 - more from the topic above
0.9999... = 1 - 1/10/06 - kinda funny but serious too. How do people argue fact?
Atheism under fire - 1/16/06 my atheist discussions offend my family
Is believing in God stupid? - 1/18/06 - Sorta.
Am I better than you? and the value of dishonesty - 1/19/06 - people keep calling me names
"Don't blame religion for what evil people do" - 1/20/06
Communication is hard - 1/24/06

Poker Posts

On 2/10/06 I decided to start another blog devoted entirely to poker. All of the posts below are copied to it.


My poker evolution

Way back then... - 2/6/05 - A recap of my online poker career from Sept 2000 through December 2004
Happy New Year, now you suck at poker - 2/13/05 - Recap of a frustrating start to 2005
what to do - 3/21/05 - Brainstorming about my tendency to lose early in my live mid-limit hold'em sessions and win late
Poker Life (so far) - 4/12/05 - Reflections on my first couple weeks of playing full time
Reality - 4/26/05 - 1 month update
Not satisfied - 5/15/05 - Another update and plan
Its been a long day - 5/27/05 - A crazy day leads to a major shift in my approach
11 weeks now - 6/8/05 - update
Trip Recap - 6/13/05 - Atlantic City
Opportunity cost - 6/24/05
Cartesian Pokery - 6/26/05
Acceleration? - 7/15/05 - Setting a poker goal
I'm still here - various poker updates - 8/6/05 - Big hand, huge win, general progress report, musings.
Bad end to a great month - 8/31/05
Big Losses - 9/5/05 - Coping with losses
Drivel 3 - 9/9/05 - More coping with losses
A month of daily results - 9/23/05 - A list of numbers, no commentary
Temporary setback of the beginning of the end? - 9/25/05
Cartesian Pokery 2 - 9/27/05
Perspective - 10/1/05
Wallowing peppered with lies - 10/9/05
Back where I started - 10/17/05
Beatdown - 11/2/05 - ugh!
Methodology - 11/2/05 - Analyzing a huge losing streak
Back to where it all started - 11/7/05 - I go back to low limits
my poker past and future - 1/20/05 - Wallowing in medocrity, lamenting inadequate bankroll
More pictures: Poker Graphs - 1/23/06

Poker thoughts and stories

The Big Game - 2/23/05 - My first experience in the Bellagio $4,000/$8,000 game
The Royal - 5/26/05 - My history with royal flushes and playing in casinos underage
playing online poker for a living - 6/21/05 - pros and cons of this game
The value of a decision: to play or not to play - 6/30/05
Famous Poker Players - 8/30/05 - I like him and him, but I don't like him... lil bit gay.
Ease the tension - 9/10/05 - How to handle jackasses at your table
I've had 13 positive thoughts while pokering recently: - 9/30/05 - Lemons, lemonade, etc
Quick poker thought - 11/30/05 - the poker boom can last
terrible poker post, DO NOT READ - 1/20/06 - Terrible post from a terrible session


A bunch of hand analysis

Stalling with a pair of hands from tonight - 2/10/05
If they want to hang themselves, just give them the rope - 2/13/05
Small Stakes No Limit fun - 2/20/05
Coulda been worse - 2/21/05
Meanwhile, back at the tables... - 3/2/05
Curious George looks deeply at a hand - 3/7/05 - What a weird title
Some hands - 3/26
Its better to be lucky than good - 4/1/05
Hand Analysis - 4/7/05
How am I losing - 4/7/05 - Hands and rants about how bad people play
That oughta teach him - 4/23/05 - Don't limp with KK
Huge Pot - 5/28/05
Fun and games - 5/29/05 - Weird play and funny reaction
Hyperbole? Probably not... - 6/7/05 - The most amazing hand ever
Raising the river with the worst possible hand - 6/20/05
Eternal Shame - 9/18/05 - A hand that haunts me still
Redemption? - 9/18/05 - A similar hand that worked out better
For my poker-starved readers - 1/14/06

Entertainment: Movies, Music, etc

TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Books

Movies

Top Movies
Top Pure Comedies
Top Hybrid Comedies
Top Badass Movies

Top Movie Characters

King Kong sucked hard!

TV

Top TV Characters

Music

I Alone Cannot Stop the D - 4/13/05
Sympathy for the Devil - 4/8/05 - Kill the beast!
DMB - 4/27/05
My Yahoo! Artist Ratings - 9/16/05


Video Games

Video Games (and another top 10) - 4/2/05

Leaving my job

Gotta get out - 2/1/05 - Realizing that I needed a change

The fine line between genius and stupidity - 2/28/05 - Q&A about my decision to quit my job

Response from coworkers - 3/1/05 - How people at work responded to the entry above

To do: - 3/7/05 - Unorganized plans for unemployment

The Exit Interview - 3/25/05 - Interview with the HR leader on my last day

Reading, Thinking, Writing... Being a Lazy Jackass - 6/17/05 - Is poker enough?

Opportunity cost - 6/24/05 - financial comparison of poker v job

Observations - 10/12/05 - wasting time

I tell you what - 10/15/05 - losing money and enjoying it

1/5/06 - not interested, thanks

Non-poker Friends

my life, in ASCII - my boy Walt, we went to high school and college together

Da Honger - I worked with Dan at GE

Max & Lynnette's Peace Corp Experience - Lynnette left GE to join the Peace Corps with her husband Max

Bezoar - Mario, another friend from high school and college

Maybe Manda - Amanda, a friend from college

MassMarket - Liam, a man who needs no introduction (because you'd rather not know)


If you are my friend and would like a link, post a comment here.

Gravity

did we botch that?

funny

Blogging: If minds had anuses, blogging would be what your mind would do when it had to take a dump.

-credit-


Another worthless dump tonight. Can't sleep.

Wow

This was posted on 2+2.

SoBeDude Pooh-Bah Reged: 01/10/03 Posts: 2356 Loc: South Beach!!!

100 years ago, he'd a shot ya! #2448234 - 05/21/05 04:10 PM

This is a story to tell my grandkids on day. There is this little asian (LA) guy at my 20-40 table here in Harrah's New Orleans. He's stuck a lot. He tries to pull an angle on me after getting cards and trying not to post behind the button. (floor comes over to settle it, he was called by the dealer) After he posts, I complete in the SB, the BB checks, then dealer scoops all the money in to the pot, THEN the LA says wait he wants to raise. I say no way, call the floor back. Floor says no raise. I flop top pair with my 97, where he 4bets me on the flop and bets the turn and river with his A2o no pair and I scoop the pot. About 4 hands later, he gets up and walks over to me and smashes his full beer over my head. While I'm sitting there in shock he's apprehended and arrested. I'm so lucky. only several small minor cuts on my ear and head, and one big lump. My head hurts and my neck is killing me. The EMT, while cleaning out my head says, "Hey be thankful, 100 years ago he'd a shot ya!" -Scott

Right on cue

For my last 300 hands, I've lost $260/hr.

I asked for that!



300 hands: 2 hours
1st hour: -$1,0000
2nd hour: +$500

Acceleration?

I'm setting a goal of averaging at least $50 per hour over the next few months. That is 2.0 to 2.5 BB/100 hands playing 2 tables of $10/20, which I think is especially achievable playing limited hours with good game selection.

Translation for non-poker people:
I usually play limit hold'em where bets and raises are fixed in increments of $10 or $20, as opposed to the no-limit you see on TV. I think that I can average a profit of 2 to 2.5 big bets (big bet in this case being $20) per 100 hands I play, and I can expect 100 to 130 hands per hour or so. A win rate of 2.5 would be very ambitious (anything over 1.5 is good; over 3.0 is expert) if I was playing 4 tables at the same time for lots of hours, but if I only play under very favorable circumstances (lots of bad players at my table and few good players) and only have to concentrate on making good decisions at 2 tables, I think it is a reasonable goal.


For my last ~70,000 hands played, I've averaged $34/hour.
For my last ~13,000 hands played, I've averaged $77/hour.
For my last ~800 hands played, I've averaged $132/hour.

That last stat is just a joke. Those are the real numbers, but I'm sure I could find plenty of 800 hand samples where I won or lost $200/hour. This is a very volatile game, so you really have to look at the long run. Even the 13,000 hand sample isn't really enough to draw any specific conclusions other than that I've have a good last 13,000 hands.

What I really should also do is set a goal of playing a certain number of hours per week. Then I could estimate my total earnings, net out estimated living expenses, and project my bankroll growth to set an estimated date to move up to $15/30.

Not tonight though. I'm getting up "early" tomorrow to meet some former coworkers on their lunchbreak, so I better get some sleep.

Online Poker Screen Names 3

When you sign up to play poker at an online casino, you pick a screen name that other players see when you sit at a table. Here are some names I've played against. Players in red are losers in games I've played; green are winners.

(Online Poker Screen Names 1)

(Online Poker Screen Names 2)



Sexual/Vulgarity:

• jizmaster - Pretty much speaks for itself

• AssPoker - Pretty much speaks for itself. The AssPoker won a lot when we played. It was a lovely experience.
  

• NutsKickerNL - Curiously this guy was playing limit, when I saw him, not no-limit (NL). Maybe that's why he was losing.
  

• ea8tshtndie - Had to throw that 8 in there because eatshitanddie, eatshitndie, and eatshtndie must have been taken.
  

• eatmynuts1 - Once again, resorting to adding numbers because some other genius beat you to the original idea.
  

Drugs:

• GAMBOL4CRACK - Is there any other reason to gambol?

• cokedupninja - This is just a great name. Bravo.

Messages:

• DontEatMeat - In response to his suggestion, I'll quote Reel Big Fish: "Maybe I'm a murderer, but I'm hungry and they're better off dead." Maybe some protein would help your results, buddy.
  

• spirituality - Allah helps me hit my flushes.

• Jeter_Loves_LilBoys - I didn't actually play with this guy, but I saw him sitting in a game and his message rang true to me. But I suspect most of you already knew that Jeter is a homosexual pedophile.
  

• lysbexic - This noble public servant has taken it upon himself to warn the world about the dangers of dyslexia.

Weird:

• ryanquirk - I assume the guy's name is Ryan Quirk. What kind of weird last name is Quirk?

Funny References:

• Pete Rose - Insert your favorite Pete Rose gambling joke.

• bobamilktea - I don't know if this is why he picked this name, but there is a woman who walks through the Commerce Casino selling that stuff. In her thick Asian accent, she yells "boba tea... milk tea... boba MILK tea!!" Mildly amusing but curiously memorable. Adverbially speaking.
  

• cunningstunts - I didn't play with this guy either, but I recognized the classic punchline: What is the difference between a circus and a cheerleading team? A circus is a bunch of cunning stunts...

• chewygotu - What a wookie!

In response to "chez"

In response to my recent gem of an entry "Fuck Comcast," someone left this gem of a comment:

Chez said...

seems to me a serious card player, with a sole income source being from an online activity, would have had an emergency plan in place.

hmmm, guess not.

failure = when a lack of preparation meets a roadblock while the person in question is involved in an idiotic plan

Wow, I have a heckler. I'’m big time now. Allow me to respond.


a serious card player

Is he talking about me?



sole income source being from an online activity, would have had an emergency plan in place.

1. While I prefer online play for the most part, I'm quite comfortable making the 3 hour drive and playing in Atlantic City for a few days until the internet connection is back up. I would have done this but I had a trip to the Boston area planned for last weekend.
2. I had about 4 offers from people in my area to let me use their computer to play if I wanted.
3. At any point I could have switched to Verizon DSL. In fact I still might do that. But in spite of their awful service in response to this situation, Comcast's product is a better overall value while everything is up and running.
4. I've been running pretty hot the last few weeks, so taking an unexpected week of vacation is well short of a financial emergency.

a lack of preparation

I set aside 6 months of living expenses before I quit my job. If I lose my bankroll, I have 6 months to find a job. If poker is outlawed in the United States, I could comfortably live off my bankroll for at least a year if I had to. That is enough preparation for me at this point in my life.

roadblock

A roadblock would be somehow losing my entire bankroll. A roadblock would be a nationwide ban on poker. A roadblock would be breaking both of my hands. Losing my internet connection for a few days is a pothole.



while the person in question is involved in an idiotic plan

My plan is not to waste 50 hours a week at a job I don't like if I don't have to. My plan is to play poker an average of 20~30 hours per week to support myself and to use the extra free time to read, write, and figure out what I want to do with my life. I'm definitely an idiot though, so maybe thats why this seems like a good plan to me.


failure = when a lack of preparation meets a roadblock while the person in question is involved in an idiotic plan

Here are some other quotes about failure:

"I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying."
-Michael Jordan

"With every effort, I learned a lot. With every mistake and failure, not only mine, but of those around me, I learned what not to do."
-Mark Cuban

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
-Sir Winston Churchill

"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail."
-Napoleon Hill

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
-Theodore Roosevelt


Anyway, thanks to Chez for stopping by and using the internet for its highest purpose - to anonymously insult strangers with no threat of negative consequences for rude behavior.

Pokernomics

I've always been fascinated with trying to figure out why people act the way they act. Over the last year or so, I've read a lot about evolutionary psychology and other approaches to behavioral sciences that have blown my mind again and again.

I've mentioned Freakonomics a few times recently on this blog. I liked the book because it was mainly about asking why people act the way they act, but I found it particularly interesting because it was written by an economist. I think that when I first studied economics in high school I saw it as an exciting way to analyze people's actions, but after 4 years of college study with endless plotting of utility functions, currency conversions and lifeless textbooks, I think I forgot why I liked it in the first place. I turned down a fellowship to study economics at Johns Hopkins because I couldn't remember why I wanted to study it. Freakonomics reminded me.

I recently learned that Steven Levitt is running a project to study poker, Freakonomics style. Check it out.

I just sent them the letter below. I listed this blog as a point of contact. I'm amused that if they check this out, my recent posts will mostly be profane rants about how much I hate Comcast. Maybe they'll skip past that to some of my quasi-intelligent discussions of more relevant subjects.

I've been in contact with Dana Chandler about the Pokernomics project. I'm very interested in this research, and I have a database of over 100,000 hands that I am willing to donate.

Every hand of poker is a series of risk/reward decisions and an often confusing combination of strategies in response to incentives. Adding to the confusion, existing poker literature has been authored by poker players who could have mixed motives in revealing their secrets. Maybe conventional wisdom about optimal strategies is wrong. It is easy to see why poker is a great target for Freakonomical study.

The decision to play poker professionally is also an interesting one. Reading the chapter of Freakonomics about drug dealers, I couldn't help but think what a similar analysis of the poker world would find. With poker skyrocketing in popularity, lots of bright young minds are quitting their jobs or dropping out of school to hit the felt. Why are they choosing poker? Why not the corporate world and academia? Will they be successful with poker? Do they live with their parents?

In addition to donating my hand histories, I'd like to offer myself as a resource for this project. Working in the corporate world, I saw how big projects are always taking advantage of contributions from loosely labeled "subject matter experts." I'm reluctant to call myself a professional poker player, but I've been scratching a living off of poker winnings since I quit my job in March of this year. I used to be a student of economics (I completed my undergrad with a double degree in Finance and Economics and was offered a fellowship to the Economics Ph.D. program at the Johns Hopkins University), so I'd love any opportunity to contribute to a project that combines my academic field with my recently adopted profession.

I see in the FAQ that the project is fully staffed, but if I there is something I can offer - insights into the poker world, specific hand analysis, ideas for investigation, my own poker stories or anything else, please feel free to contact me.

ugh

I'm back. I hate Comcast.

Fuck Comcast

I can't believe I actually said something nice about Comcast recently. I take it all back. My internet and cable have been out since Saturday (7/2) morning and won't be back before next Tuesday (7/12) at the earliest.

On Saturday I called and they told me it was a temporary outage in my area that would be fixed in a few hours. It seemed believable since the same thing had happened the weekend before. Sunday morning it was still out, so I called again and after 15 minutes on the phone they couldn't figure out what was wrong and concluded they'd need to send someone out. Oh yeah and the earliest available date was a week away. Great, I'm an internet poker player without an internet connection for over a week. They told me I could maybe call back and if someone cancelled an appointment maybe I could move mine earlier.

So Tuesday I called and they told me they had an opening the next day. PRAISE ALLAH! Half an hour after the scheduled time, nobody had shown up. So I called them again. Every call takes at least 10 minutes before I speak to a person, by the way. "We have no record of an appointment being scheduled for today." WHAT?? "This shows that you called to inquire, but no appointment was actually made. Next Wednesday (7/13) is the earliest available time."

Wow. And this brief summary doesn't include all the various transfers between people over the phone and bizarre stories some of them made up. Amazingly bad customer service.

The only real internet and TV alternatives are Verizon DLS and Direct TV, but Comcast really does have the best deal. So I'm just bending over and waiting til Wednesday.

The value of a decision: to play or not to play

For various reasons, I found myself exhausted at 10pm. I had wanted to play tonight, but figured sleeping was a better decision than playing while tired. So I turned off the lights and laid down, unsure if I was taking a nap or going to bed. I knew I didn't want to be totally back on a real-world schedule, so I was leaning towards nap. But I sure as hell wasn't going to set an alarm had no reason to suspect I'd wake up before morning. I woke up around 3am and had to make a tough decision between getting up and playing for a while or rolling over to go back to sleep.

A funny thing about playing poker is that it creates a distorted picture of the value of those kinds of decisions. Theoretically, I should look at my long term average hourly earn rate, R, and how many hours I'm going to play, H, and multiply those 2 numbers to figure out the expected value of playing. H x R = EV. But variance is high in this game, so the actual result is often in a very different ballpark than the H x R projection.

So here's a common scenario. I decline an invitation to go out on a Saturday night, opting to stay in and take advantage of the juicy weekend action on Party Poker. I have a rough night at the tables: big pairs get cracked, miss all my flush draws, flop set under set 3 times. When my friends drunkenly call me at 3:31am and ask how my evening went, I know my excel sheet says I've lost $389 but I just mutter "Eh, not great... what did I miss?"

Our brains are built to make results-based associations. If I eat some berries and 30 minutes later I throw up, I associate the result of vomiting with eating the berries. I have an abstract understanding that I should be counting my imaginary EV dollars to determine how much the decision to stay in was worth, but its hard not to think that going out drinking would have been a $389 profit. I'm not going to eat those bastard berries any more.

Luckily tonight it went the other way. Instead of going back to sleep I got up and played, winning $884, far above the most generous estimates of my H x R. So what was the value of the decision?

DMB

I caught the Dave Matthews Band concert last night in Manassas, VA. This was the 15th time I've seen them. I've been a huge fan ever since my mother randomly gave me their album "Crash" as a gift in 1998. I try to avoid mainstream pop culture, so I've always kind of resented that my favorite band is so hugely popular among the teeny boppers and frat boys, but I guess this a rare incident of the dull masses having good taste.

I used to be pretty fanatical about collecting recordings of their live shows, which they generously allow fans to tape. My collection includes almost 300 shows from 1991 to 2002. I started collecting them my freshman year of college, and early on I had a weird ability to remember setlists for a given show date. Because of my setlist fetish, when I started going to their concerts I would write down the set as they played it. So now I have 15 scraps of paper with a bunch of songs scribbled on them.

Feel free to congratulate me on these tremendous accomplishments.

I enjoyed last night's show. Most concerts feed off of crowd energy though, and playing 10 new songs in an 18 song set isn't going to have the crowd into it as much as a set full of road-tested classics. So this wasn't one of my favorite of their shows, but I liked hearing their live versions of the new material, and was glad they played Warehouse.

They brought out a guest performer, Robert Randolph, who I had never heard of. But this guy laid down some nasty pedal steel guitar and tore the house down. The 3 songs he played with the boys at the end of the night were definitely the highlights.

Last night's setlist:

Sunday Jun 26 2005
Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge

Dream Girl
One Sweet World
Don’t Drink the Water
Hunger For The Great Light
Say Goodbye
Too Much
Out Of My Hands
Grey Street
Steady As We Go
Hello Again
You Might Die Trying
Where Are You Going
Warehouse
Stolen Away On 55th & 3rd
Stand Up *
Louisiana Bayou *

__________________

American Baby
All Along The Watchtower *


* - featuring guest performer Robert Randolph

Punk Kids!

Around 5pm today, I was sitting on my bed reading Freakonomics (more on this later) when I noticed a red SUV pull into the parking spot next to my car and two kids get out. Something about them immediately seemed suspicious so I kept my eye on them.

They got out and started unwrapping something in front of their car, and dropping the wrappers on the ground. They then disappeared behind a large pine tree, but I could see they were behind there smoking something and nervously laughing. I was hoping they just were back there smoking cigarettes or pot or something relatively harmless, but they came back to the car a few minutes later making no attempt to conceal their smoking.

As they continued to unwrap something and talk about it, I had the idea to take some pictures. It was hard getting a good shot through my windows and screens, but I got a good one of the license plate and some blurry ones of the kids.

I relaxed as they finally pulled out, but was startled when I heard loud crackling of small fireworks from the direction they drove off. I went out and looked around, and saw (and smelled) the discharged fireworks on the road and the wrappers on the ground near where they were parked.

I've been debating what, if anything, I should do about the incident.

On the one hand I'm a little bit pissed that they decided that in front of my house was a good place to fuck around with explosives. They could have damaged my property, and worse there are some little children that live around here. So that makes me think I should report this and make sure the kids get a smack on the wrist.

On the other hand, they clearly picked this area cause it didn't seem like anyone was around, so they weren't likely to hurt anyone other than themselves. Its close to the 4th of July so they were probably just testing these things one time so they'd know how to use them next week. It doesn't seem like its worth it to get them in trouble, especially if they find out it was me that made the complaint and then they decide to come back and key my car or egg my house or something.

I've decided I'm just going to keep my eyes open for them. If they come back, I'll cut them off and nicely suggest they go somewhere else to do whatever they came here to do.

Cartesian Pokery

My total poker income is the sum of 2 categories: poker wins and other. The first category is self-explanatory. The second category is income from various promotions that online sites use to attract players, net of poker-related expenses (travel and lodging for casino play).

Since I play mostly online, "other income" is a fairly consistent stream, linearly correlated to the number of hands I play. It is nice to have that stability in an otherwise highly volatile business.

The graph below is the cumulative sum of each category over the 14 weeks I've been doing this.




Observations/Analysis:

• As recently as week 11, I'd made less playing than I made from other.
• Almost 70% of my total poker winnings have come in the last 3 weeks. I'm on a huge upswing right now.
• Overall, I've made as much in the last 3 weeks as I did in the first 11. Again, huge upswing.
  
• Weeks 7 through 9 were brutal. Sooner or later I'll have another downswing like that. Sooner or later I'll have downswings much worse than that.
  
• In week 10 I switched from playing 4 tables of $5/10 to 2 tables of $10/20. You can see that the poker wins immediately skyrocketed while the growth of other income modestly declined as a result of playing fewer total hands. I'm not planning to add a 3rd table any time soon. I might move up to $15/30 soon though.
• Generally its just good to see a positive trend. I don't expect to continue crushing the games like I have the last few weeks, but hopefully my long term trend won't look as flat as the first 9 weeks here.
  

Batherings

• My cable went out this morning for a few hours. I called Comcast to report the outage, and I actually talked to a friendly and professional representative. I've long been vocally anti-Comcast, but between On Demand, the Comcastle, and my first ever good encounter with a Comcast employee, I might be softening my nay-saying stance.

• Plumbing problems suck.

• In spite of my various predictions (Mavs, Rockets, Heat, etc) if I had to bet all my money I would have put it on the Spurs at any point in the season or postseason. I predict with my heart, but bet with my head.

  In the words of Dr. Farthing, "Hindsight is 20/20 my friend!"

• If you play limit hold'em and want to improve your game dramatically, read Small Stakes Hold'em by Ed Miller immediately. That and Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players are the best poker strategy books I've ever read.

• After reading this, Kira asked her mother, a native speaker of Tagalog, if there is a word in that language that sounds like "Betty" and means "drunk." Ma said she didn't know of any, but maybe it is some slang she doesn't know. She also pointed out that "Kira" means "gullible" in Tagalog.

Opportunity cost

In 13 weeks, I've made about $4,200 less playing poker than I would have earned from the job I quit. That extrapolates to a $17,000 annual paycut. The benefits aren't as good either, but what can you expect from flexible part-time work?

If you add back the 2 weeks vacation I got paid out, and consider the expenses I'm saving on commuting and lunches out in Bethesda, the financial difference looks much better. Plus I got a nice tax refund this year, so with that buffer I haven't really felt any pains in the wallet at all.

As a return on that $4,200 investment, I honestly expect my earn rate over the next 13 weeks can completely dwarf what I've done so far. My understanding of the game is growing every day, I feel like I'm playing the best poker I've ever played, and my results are starting to show it. Or maybe I'm just catching a good run of cards and in the long run I'll struggle to break even. It has been fun either way.

Its 11:20am, I guess I should go to bed.

Beautiful

"I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them."

Well done.

playing online poker for a living

pros

• don't answer to anyone:
  
• this is all on me
  
• no boss
  
• no corporate interests or politics
  
• no pants
• no annoying coworkers (no, not you)
  
• obvious and immediate correlation between effort and reward
  
• no alarm clocks
  
• my own schedule
  
• sleep when i want
  
• take days off when i want
  
• life is just a game
  
• don't have to take anything seriously
• "work" is fun
• easy money
• challenge
• matching wits
• opportunity for advancement - moving up limits
• applying skills to new areas - learning new games
  

cons

• "so what do you do?"
• parents don't like it
• people generally look down on gambling
  
• why did i bother with college?
  
• sketchy healthcare coverage
• no 401k, pension
  
• no sick leave
  
• life is a just game
• hard to take pride in outplaying a drunk or a rich moron
  
• greater good?
  
• future?
• what if the games dry up?
• huge hole in my resume
  
• downswings
• pyschological challenges
• financial challenges
  

input?

Wow.

I just heard a commercial on the radio that started out with a bunch of guys talking about how their buddy can't join them on the trip to Las Vegas this weekend because he's stuck with babysitting duty. They go on to make fun of him saying that the kid doesn't even look like him, that a smart guy with an MBA ought to realize that the kid probably isn't his. Just as I'm wondering where the hell the commercial is going, the ad kicks in for at-home paternity testing by mail. Thank god for science.

DOES YOUR SON LOOK SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE THE MAILMAN? ARE YOU STUCK AT HOME BABYSITTING HIM, KNOWING YOUR FRIENDS ARE LAUGHING AT YOU AS THEY SNORT COCAINE OFF A STRIPPER'S ASS IN VEGAS?

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!! WITH OUR FAST PRIVATE TESTING, YOU'LL HAVE YOUR ANSWER IN NO TIME.

DON'T LET THAT BITCH MAKE A CUCKOLD OF YOU! CALL US TODAY!!

Raising the river with the worst possible hand

Party Poker 10/20 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 2♥2♣
3 folds, MP2 calls, Hero calls, CO calls, Button calls, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (6 SB) 5♦, 5♥, 4♥(6 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP2 checks, Hero bets, CO folds, Button folds, SB folds, BB folds, MP2 calls.

Turn: (4 BB) 6♦ (2 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets, MP2 calls.

River: (6 BB) 6♠ (2 players)
MP2 bets, Hero raises, MP2 folds.

Final Pot: 9 BB


Normally I don't put any more money in the pot without flopping my set, but in this hand I bet the flop and turn because I thought it was highly likely I had the best hand. When MP2 called the turn, I figured he probably had overcards and a heart flush draw, but not a good flush draw because he probably would have bet the flop. So he probably had something like T♥8♥. Although a hand like 3♥3♣ or 4♣3♣ also seemed possible.

The river seemed like the worst possible card for my hand, since now I'm playing the board. But when he bet out it seemed like a desperate bluff attempt consistent with a busted heart draw or a pair of 3s. So I took a chance and raised. If he had called my raise, he would have won the pot with any hand except for 43, 33, 42, and 22. Those hands would have won half of it.

I don't know if it was smart, but this bluff won me $177.

At least I'm building home equity?

I just spent the last hour doing the closest I'll come to manual labor. It was somewhat enjoyable, but now my lower back hurts from being bent over for so long.

I've had some water leaking problems in my house, and concluded that my bathtub/shower needs to be recaulked. It took longer than I thought it would to scrape the old caulk off, but it was definitely damaged in several places and there was dampness seeping behind it.

So now the old nasty caulk is off. I'll swing by the Home Depot later and pick up some gunk to finish the job. Hopefully the new seal will solve my leakage problems. I'm not really cut out for home ownership.

I love this picture

Reading, Thinking, Writing... Being a Lazy Jackass.

This is what happens when I see a simple poker winrate projection...

I was reading Luke's latest, when I came to this quote:

In theory, playing 12 $2-$4 tables, beating each table for a bet per hour, and receiving a partial rake rebate would yield more than $250 thousand at 8 hours per day. A quarter of a million dollars at $2-$4 is actually possible!

Something about that math didn't add up to me as I thought about it, so I busted out the excel and crunched some numbers. I was about to ask him what kind of crazy rake rebate deal he had, when I realized what I was missing. When I hear "8 hours per day" I think 40 hours per week.

He meant 8 hours every single day. I can't do that. I know there are tons of people out there who work more than 56 hours every week, but I don't think I could ever be one of them. I can't think of any one thing I'd be willing to devote that much time to.

Coming out of college with a double degree in finance and economics and strong math skills, I could have gone for an investment banking gig. I knew I could make a ton of money that way, and my friends who went that route are making huge 6-figure salaries at age 25. I saw that potential, but I didn't want to slave through the 80 hour work weeks they make the entry-level analysts put in.

Hell, it got to the point where 40 hour weeks at GE was too much to bear.

These days I'm fully aware that playing poker for more hours is the most important thing I can do to build my bankroll, thereby allowing me to move up to higher limits, thereby allowing me to make more money. But I struggle to put in more than 30 hours per week.

Clearly wealth accumulation isn't something I've shown a willingness to invest much time in. Which is not quite the same as saying I wouldn't be willing to invest a great deal of time in something that would lead to wealth, just that I'm not willing to work simply for the sake of wealth. We'll get back to that point.

But for now, if not just for money, then what would I invest tons of time in?

Well, I'm pretty sure that I'd work 18 hours a day to ensure my own survival. And if I have my own family some day, I assume I'd include their survival as a higher priority than my own.

But that's really all I can think of. I'm too selfish to include any kind of altruistic causes that help people outside my small circle. God bless the soldiers and the Peace Corps and teachers and law enforcement, cause I sure can't do what they do.

Before you write me off as 100% worthless and lazy, note that so far what I'm writing about is devoting myself extensively to any ONE thing. I couldn't dissect balance sheets or fight crime for 80 hours per week. But I could probably do those both for 8 hours per week, and throw in 7 or 8 other things too.

Ok, maybe not all in the same week. I am 90% worthless and lazy. I have a short attention span; spending too long on any one thing drains my energy.

I guess the point here is that I want to enjoy my time, not just slave miserably towards a goal. My means are just as important to me, if not more important than the ends. Some people enjoy poker enough to play 8 hours every single day. It turns out I enjoy it enough to fill about 30 hours per week, and it turns out that amount of play meets my survival needs. I'm very lucky in that regard.

For some people, meeting survival needs isn't enough, and they don't mind working 80 hours a week at jobs they dislike if they know they'll eventually have more money. Some people trudge through the hours knowing their work is serving a higher cause. Some people never stop moving because they don't know how.

I got a job after college because I wanted to live on my own instead of having to mooch off my parents. I liked the job more than I liked the other idea. After a few years I found a solution I liked better and I started playing online poker in my underwear in the house I bought instead of sitting in a cubicle in business casual working for the man.

That was an improvement, and now I think I can do even better. I know myself, what I'm capable of, what my limitations are. I have a better idea of what I want. I don't want to put more time into poker, because I want to spend some more time on other things.

When I was working 40 hours per week, I was spending about 10 hobby hours on poker. Both those time chunks had direction. These days I'm putting 40 work hours into poker (30 playing, plus I probably spend 10 hours reading or analyzing my game), but I haven't picked up something else to fill those 10 hobby hours. Nothing with direction anyway. I've enjoyed a couple months of filling that time with diversions - movies, video games, etc - but recently I've felt the urge to start something with a purpose.

I love writing this blog. I'll sit down and start typing and suddenly an hour has gone by. I like it when I can entertain, inspire, amuse, or mostly just annoy people with my ideas and the way I express them. I look forward to hearing about people's reactions, and I'm always on the lookout for new material to write about. I don't mind making an ass of myself with this kind of public introspection, and I know that people find it interesting.

I'm going to start writing something else. I'm not exactly sure what form it will take yet, or if it will ever be worth anything to anyone else. But I have some ideas that I know I'll enjoy spending some time developing. Those are the kind of time investments I'm willing to make.

Help!

3pm

Say you're buying movie tickets online. Say you get a window that looks like this:



How long are you supposed to actually wait? Its been about 8 minutes now...

3:09pm

I gave up and closed the window. I went back and ordered again. This time I got a confirmation right away. Is there any chance I won't be charged twice? I better check my email and see if I got 2 confirmations...

3:15pm

Only one confirmation, but wow, I get a lot of spam email for penis help - Viagra, Cialis, Levitra.

These are some of the subject lines of the spam I get:

• Re: A clean the confabulate
• Of send my marrowbone
• Or go he malnutrition victory
• her need he arugment indisposition

Aside from the advertisements for their drugs, the bodies of the emails also contained the following messages:

• It got late, and Harlan, Anton, Brian and the many thousands of krill took off, December, there is a complete sentence (Season's Greetings from the
• it's a straight line." In the words of Karin Foreman, "That and innovative ideas for the future. Total Recall is one movie
• Football Team, and so on. At least Brown has interesting, if wacky, ideas. Although some electronic galleries will probably develop their
• to take my honey, I may kill him." Jupiter was much displeased, ground and limped away, howling dreadfully. His yelling soon

I assume that these subject lines are randomly selected words and that the messages are snippets automatically picked out of text from websites or something, all in an effort to beat spam-blockers. I'm glad our top minds are working for shady penis-help marketers.

Todd Heap

What up

Trip Recap

BULLET I suppose the trip was a modest success, financially. I had a great 3-hour session in a $10/20 game at the Taj the night I arrived, and the rest of my play basically evened out. Not a hugely profitable venture, but a nice change of pace.

BULLET After a 14 hour session on Friday I decided to head home Saturday instead of playing again. I didn't want to risk burnout after 3 long days of playing. Even though I'm sure the Saturday action was great, I'm happy with my decision.

BULLET For the first 2.5 days of play, I had very good feel for my tables. More than ever before, I really had a good idea what my opponents held and how they'd act. But towards the end of my session on Friday, a guy sat down who completely altered the dynamic of the table, and it really threw my game off. There had been one maniac at the table who played any 2 cards to the river almost every hand. He had been amazingly lucky and had a very large stack of chips in front of him. But I had been sitting next to him for several hours and was doing a pretty good job of reading him in spite of his wildness. The new guy was a preflop maniac, playing any 2 cards, often for a raise, but he played fairly well postflop. They were sitting next to each other and their antics pretty much put the whole table on tilt. With one exception, I did a miserable job of adjusting my game. Hopefully with more experience, I'll know how to adjust properly to changing conditions.

BULLET I mentioned one exception, which was a play I made shortly after the new guy (NG) joined the table. This was certainly the greatest poker play I've ever made. We'll pick up the action on the turn, where the pot was already very large. I held 98 (suits irrelevant) on the button, and after several checks the original maniac (OM) bet with the board showing K978. I knew him well enough to know that he'd try to checkraise any hand that beat me, and the pot was huge, so I raised hoping to force out the 3 people acting after me. 2 of them folded, and then NG 3-bet. He hadn't been at the table long enough to know that OM was a complete moron, and he had heard others at the table talking about how tight I was, so I knew his check/3-bet meant my hand was worse than his. At worst he had to have a set, more likely a straight, and probably JT for the nut straight. But after OM called, I had to call 1 more bet and hope for a miracle on the river. I expected any miracle would have to take the form of an 8 or 9, but the river was a J, which seemed like a horrible card for me until NG checked. He looked genuinely concerned about the Jack. Then OM bet again. At this point I it was obvious to me that NG had the best hand and I had the 2nd best hand. OM betting was an blessing, because I realized that if I raised, NG would have to assume I have at least a T for a straight and he might fold. With the pot so large I figured it was worth a shot, so I raised and looked at NG and made a sheepish "I'm sorry" face. NG agonized and finally folded. OM called my raise, and NG immediately informed OM that I had a straight. When I turned over my hand an announced 2-pair I think he might have thrown up in his mouth. "JUST TWO PAIR???! I FOLDED 5-6!!! OH MY GOD!" I quietly stacked the $425 pot.

BULLET Asian casino employees have some cool names:

secondary bullet He
secondary bullet Trung
secondary bullet Nho
secondary bullet Thang
secondary bullet Phat
secondary bullet Supa

It makes me wonder if any American name sound like cool words somewhere in Asia...

secondary bullet Ron is the Vietnamese word for "pudding"
secondary bullet Betty is a slang term for a state of inebriation in Tagalog
secondary bullet Charlie sounds kinda like "shitbird" in Korean
secondary bullet Your average Cambodian would find the name Ralph highly amusing, but couldn't really explain why. Actually that might be universal.
secondary bullet Tony sounds like the Cantonese word for "girth," especially with that Hong Kong accent.

BULLET I played a bit of the $15/30 game at the Taj, and I really felt the difference that the 2/3 blind structure makes. I've got much more experience with 1/2 or 1/3, and the $10 small blind really made the game feel a lot different than what I'm used to. I don't remember feeling that way in my occassional shots at Party's $15/30 game, so that makes me think I've come a long way since my last try at that game.

Atlantic City

I'm taking a 4 day trip to AC for some live action. These will be my first casino sessions since I quit my job, and a much needed change of pace. I don't know of any 2-7 triple draw lowball available up there (my new favorite game), so I'll have to settle for the mid-limit hold'em action.

I'll be back home Monday after I go to the doctor to see if there is any tendon damage in my finger.

11 weeks now

I've tracked 11 weeks (Wed to Tues) now.

9 out of 11 weeks have been wins.
7 out of 11 weeks I made less than $500.
3 out of 11 weeks I made more than $1,000. 2 of those I made more than $1,500.

My worst week was a $705 loss. I followed it with a $1,507 win.

My worst day was April 3. I lost $965.
My best day was April 17. I won $560.

My worst single session was losing $727 in two hours on May 27, playing four $5/10 full tables.
My best single session was $604 in one hour on May 27, playing two $10/20 full tables.
May 27 was a long day.

My average week is 25 hours of play and $480 of income. If I did that for 50 weeks I'd make about $24,000. If I kept the same earn rate and put in 40 hours instead of 25, I'd make about $38,000. Nobody would mistake these numbers for evidence of great success.

Discipline is my biggest problem. I rarely play my "A-game" for an entire session and I don't put in very many hours. I quit too soon when I'm ahead, and I play too long when I'm behind. I let emotion cloud my judgment in big hands. I don't know a lot of odds as well as I should. I am horrible at multi-table tournaments mostly because I don't have enough patience.

I've started posting on the 2+2 forums, and it has already helped my thinking about the game, beyond what simply reading them had done for me. I've felt improvement in my game. Game selection is a growing strength. I'm getting more effective at using statistics and other information to find situations where I have a greater advantage. I've read and reread a few excellent poker books, and tried some new games.

I'm making ends meet, and enjoying this time. I don't think I'll want to be a professional poker player in 10 years (considering myself a pro now seems like a stretch), but I don't think I'll be getting a job any time soon.

I suck

So to clear the 1,050 raked hands I'd need to earn PartyPoker's $150 bonus this month I decided to 4-table the $3/6 game. I might as well have just banged my head against a wall for 7 hours.

7 hours
1873 hands (1050 of which qualified as "raked hands")
$68.71 profit, including the bonus

I'm filling out an application at Taco Bell tomorrow.

Hyperbole? Probably not...

This is the most amazing hand of poker I've ever played.


Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (8 handed)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Kc, Ad. MP2 posts a blind of $3.
2 folds, MP1 calls, MP2 (poster) checks, Hero raises, 1 fold, BB calls, MP1 calls, MP2 3-bets, Hero caps, BB folds, MP1 calls, MP2 folds.

Flop: (13.33 SB) 5s, 3d, Qc (3 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets, MP1 folds.

Final Pot: 7.16 BB


I almost just called the 3-bet, but said to myself "I guess I'll cap and maybe someone will fold." And then I laughed, because the idea of someone folding was preposterous. And then 2 people folded.

Has anyone ever seen a preflop limp(check)-3bet-fold??

And then MP1 folds the flop getting over 14 to 1 on the call. Astonishing.

In response to kiraness

I feel the need to address this comment from my recent post, "Buncha spoiled babies."

kiraness said...

who's everyone, weirdo? seems like you get more feedback with poker related biznass than much else. makes sense. it's the only subject you can effectively trick your audience into believing that you've got some working knowledge base. i agree with brian, your hike blogs are yawn inspiring. .... i'm surprised more comments aren't blaring with incredulity that you of fair skin actually ventured out into the daylight.

First of all, speaking of Brian, I know of at least 3 gentlemen with that name who read this and comment. Usually I can distinguish which one is Brian "Bwian" A. in New Zealand, but I never know if its Brian P. from my fantasy leagues or Brian my sister's friend. Or maybe it is Orioles star Brian Roberts. Oooh or figure skater Brian Boitano!

But getting back your point, kiraness, maybe this is hard for your feeble little mind to comprehend, but people do find ways to communicate with me other than through the comments on this blog. And lately, a lot of the feedback I've gotten by phone, email, IM, telegraph, carrier pigeon* and in person has been complaining about too much poker content.

What you, Bwian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, and all my other clown/readers need to realize is that I write this 98.3% for my own enjoyment and amusement and 5.1% for any other reason. But here I am, several times a week giving it 103.4% effort.

That's a lot of effort.

So I'll write about poker if I feel like writing about poker. I'll write about hikes and post a bunch of boring pictures if I want to post boring pictures. If you don't like it, YOU CAN GO TO HELL!!

So there...



...yeah...



...OK FINE, WHO AM I KIDDING?!

I can't keep up this ruse anymore. I love you all. Its all for you!! You aren't clown/readers!! I need your approval, kiraness. I need to entertain Brian with poker stories, Bwian with movie reviews, and Brian with sports commentary. I'm just a pale boy who hardly ever goes outside! I need love! LOVE ME!!

LOVE ME!!!!!



* - Yes, I realize that "carrier pigeon" is completely hackneyed as an example of an obscure communication channel. I might as well have just said "smoke signals" and flushed all my self-respect down the toilet. Luckily the rest of this entry in no way compromises my self-respect. My self-respect is 103.4% intact.

More from that hike

The "Billy Goat Trail" of Great Falls starts off on an elevated area above the Potomac River, and offers some great views.



When we got to a point overlooking this, I snapped this picture and

we decided we wanted to climb down and explore that far ridge. The third picture in my previous post is from the same point, but aimed a bit more to the right. Luckily there was an easy path down a little bit ahead on the trail. When we got down, I looked back up at the spot from which I had taken the picture 10 minutes earlier.



Once we were down that far, we wanted to get across the ridge to the edge of the Potomac river, but we had to cross some pretty nasty terrain to get there. (If you look at the top right of the snapped picture, you can see the fast-moving water we were trying to get to.)



Finally we got to the edge of all the rocks.


The river moves pretty fast


and it was nice dangling our feet in and enjoying the view.

Some cool wildlife:


We saw 2 of these black snakes; neither picture came out great. Some guy ahead of us on the trail nearly stepped on this one. The dude nearly fell over trying to avoid it, then freaked out big time. The snake pretty much ignored him.


This big old snapping turtle was sticking its head out of the water getting some air.


A little skink chilling on log.


Mean bastard of a turkey vulture.

Buncha spoiled babies

Everyone starts complaining to me if I post a few poker entries in a row. I don't know if you guys know this but I PLAY POKER FOR A LIVING. WHAT ELSE AM I GOING TO WRITE ABOUT?? I HATE YOU ALL!!

Just kidding.

I haven't had time to write much. I've been kinda busy. By "busy" I mean "drunk." Just kidding.

What?

While I go insane, enjoy these lovely pictures I took while hiking around Great Falls this weekend. I tried to do thumbnails, so I hope that works.

2-7 Triple Draw

On a whim, I played $2/4 for an hour and won $90. Maybe I've got silly secret lowball skills. Or maybe nobody has a clue how to play this game, and I have 1/20th of a clue thanks to Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negreanu.

In one lovely hand my opponent raised me after he drew one card on the 2nd draw, this after I had checkraised him after the 1st draw when I made a 87642 on a 2 card draw. I was so baffled by his turn raise that I almost broke my 8 to draw to the 76. Eventually I decided to stand pat, and he quickly stood pat behind me as expected. I check-called him on the river and he showed 8754A which would beat me if we were playing A-5 lowball. But unfortunately, and apparently unbeknownst to him, the Ace plays high in this game and I took down a large pot.