War, terrorists, Paulp

I decided to chime on on paulp's blog. Some people made the point I was going for a lot better than I did. But I did like my analogy. The entire thread.

His post and some responses:

the unanswerable question

Excerpt from Live and Let Spy

Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on "Americans." I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

But if we must engage in a national debate on half-measures: After 9/11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief.

With a huge gaping hole in lower Manhattan, I'm not sure why we have to keep reminding people, but we are at war. (Perhaps it's because of the media blackout on images of the 9/11 attack. We're not allowed to see those because seeing planes plowing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon might make us feel angry and jingoistic.)

Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).

That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other.

In previous wars, the country has done far worse than monitor telephone calls placed to jihad headquarters. FDR rounded up Japanese — many of them loyal American citizens — and threw them in internment camps.

So "we are at war." The war to which she refers is not the war in iraq, it is the "war on terrorism." We are at war with terrorists, and apparently all manner of once unacceptable measures are necessary to win this war.

My question is this: how will we know when this war is over? This question cannot be answered with any kind of generalities. I want to hear an extremely specific list of criteria for when this war will be over and I can go back to complaining about the government spying on US citizens without any oversight without my being considered a terrorist sympathizer for so doing. If these measures are temporary, if we are making allowances so as to win a struggle that has an end to it, if we are only taking the low road long enough to get back on the high road: well, such claims cannot honestly be made unless the end of the war is well-defined with testable criteria.

So does anyone know how we will know when the war on terrorism is over? I am also curious about the war on poverty and the war on christmas. Oddly the war on drugs could be won in a single day with the stroke of a pen, but it is a mighty heavy pen.

Of course, this is assuming I'm talking to people from the world of the normal. In the Democrats' world, there are two more options. Violate no one's civil liberties and get used to a lot more 9/11s, or the modified third option, preferred by Sen. John D. Rockefeller: Let the president do all the work and take all the heat for preventing another terrorist attack while you place a letter expressing your objections in a file cabinet as a small parchment tribute to your exquisite conscience.

"If you're not with us you're against us."

From: adspar Date: January 3rd, 2006 - 08:26 pm
	(Permanent Link)

Remember that scene in The Last of the Mohicans where Magua turns on the British troops while he's escorting them through the woods? A bunch of Native Americans jump out from behind the trees to ambush the British, and the British soldiers respond by lining up in their rows and firing on command.

Of course, while we're watching that we can see how ridiculous it is that they'd think that was the best response to the attack. Yeah, group all of you together in your bright red coats so they can aim at you easier. Then fire all at once on command so they'll know exactly when to duck for cover. It was painfully obvious that the British military was built for a different kind of fight.

Is it appropriate to spy on American citizens? Should our military torture people? Does this war have an end? Should we even be calling it a war?

Those are all important questions, and people seem to answer based on their party affiliations. But we don't have real answers to them yet because we've never dealt with anything like 9/11 before.

War was always against a well-defined enemy who lived in a specific geographic area and wore the same colors. Most Americans understood that there was a general code of what was acceptable in war. Just like the British had a different code of conduct for war. But that code was made for a different era, and while we debate the details we're risking lives.

9/11 was an unprecedented attack that revealed a different kind of enemy who fight by different rules. I don't know what the right response is. But I don't fault our leadership for taking unprecedented action in response to an unprecedented threat, even if some of it offends people. Hopefully as we continue to deal with this, we'll come to a better understanding and start to figure out some good answers to those questions. Ideally we'll be able to maintain all the liberties we've valued. But maybe some of those liberties are bright red coats that make us easier to hit, and we'll have to switch to camouflage.

(Reply)(Thread)

From: mosch2000 Date: January 3rd, 2006 - 08:54 pm I do not think that word means what you think it means... (Permanent Link)

9/11 was an unprecedented attack that revealed a different kind of enemy who fight by different rules.

9/11 wasn't even remotely unprecedented. Asymmetric warfare has existed for an extraordinarily long time, and is a common tactic when your enemy has greater military might.

This idea that 9/11 is vastly different than Oklahoma City, the Second Boer War, the Revolutionary War, or Hannibal's attacks on Rome is flawed at best. In every one of these cases a weaker force used unconventional tactics to gain an advantage that was considered "unfair" by the stronger force.

(Reply)(Parent) (Thread)

From: adspar Date: January 3rd, 2006 - 09:43 pm Re: I do not think that word means what you think it means... (Permanent Link)

You are right.

But I'm sure you know that I mean the attack resulted in an unprecedented loss of life on American soil. Even if "unprecedented" is somehow the wrong word in that context, the point is that we hadn't seen anything like that, and many of us probably believed nothing like it would happen here.

And I agree that we should look to history, hence my goofy analogy.

(Reply)(Parent) (Thread)

From: mosch2000 Date: January 3rd, 2006 - 10:19 pm Re: I do not think that word means what you think it means... (Permanent Link)

I can think of numerous battles, fought on American soil, which resulted in more death than 9/11. The World Wars mostly resulted in the death of Americans overseas, but I fail to see that as being significantly different either.

9/11 was dramatic and tragic, but even if it happened every year, you'd be more likely to die of:
influenza, cancer, heart disease, drowning, gravity (falling down), car accidents, poisoning, smoke inhalation, diabetes and a host of other "dangers" that we all willingly face every day.

The idea that this one relatively minor risk is somehow special, just because some crazy people did it on purpose is flawed. The idea that our best possible use of resources is to spend a few hundred billion dollars killing people in a faraway land is even more absurd.

(Reply)(Parent) (Thread)

From: adspar Date: January 3rd, 2006 - 11:11 pm Re: I do not think that word means what you think it means... (Permanent Link)

"I can think of numerous battles, fought on American soil, which resulted in more death than 9/11."

Are there any that people alive now have seen? If there are, we've certainly forgotten them. Has any battle resulted in more loss of civilian life? I'm genuinely curious. I think I know the answer, but I'm far from certain.

"The idea that this one relatively minor risk is somehow special, just because some crazy people did it on purpose is flawed."

I disagree.

The 9/11 attack revealed in horrible fashion that there are crazy people out there who want to come to where we work and live and kill us. This IS a special case compared to your list of various natural and lifestyle-related killers. Car accidents don't hate us and want to kill us. We choose to get in cars, accepting the risks. We don't have to choose to let people keep attacking us, we can fight back. And they WILL keep attacking us if we don't stop them.

You compared the terrorist attacks to several historical wars that you sound like you know far more about than I do. I agree with those comparisons - we need to think of this as a war. The goal of war is destroying the enemy, and that is what the terrorists want to do - destroy us.

The reason I responded in the first place is beacause often people that ask the kinds of questions Paul asked ("when is the war over?") do so because they don't think this is a war. I don't know if that was Paul's point or not, but Paul's question does point out that if this is a war, it is a different kind of military war than we are used to, in that it is open-ended.

9/11 showed that they are more of a threat than we ever gave them credit for before it happened. And 9/11 showed some of us that terrorism isn't the "relatively minor risk" that you think it is. No, it didn't kill more people than cancer, but if they got some nukes or dirty bombs they could.

You are right that you can analyze this war in terms of optimal allocation of resources. If our equations are wrong and we're wrong to be at war, we lose hundreds of billions dollars and the lives of soldiers who chose to fight for their country. If we were wrong to avoid this war, we could lose millions of civilians in a WMD attack (and the resulting economic damage would be more worse than the war costs). I prefer the former gamble to the latter.

And by the way, I agree the way we overlook some of the other risks you mentioned is irresponsible. But just because someone smokes a cigarette while expressing concern about terror doesn't mean their terror concerns aren't valid. It means they'd rather die of lung cancer in 30 years than in a blown up building next week, and the weight of the probabilities doesn't compensate for the severity of the preference.

Anyway, I don't often tentacle on Paul's blog but I love reading it. I felt strongly enough about this one to respond, but I've chosen to quickly throw stuff together rather than taking the time and effort to present a tighter argument. But thanks for exchanging your thoughts with me.

To summarize the points I wanted to make:

1. A large-scale attack against civilians on American soil is enough for me to consider this a war.
2. Wars are drastic and ugly and expensive, but sometimes necessary. Whether any one is necessary can be debated, but debating in the middle of it can be dangerous.
3. This is a different kind of war than America is used to fighting, and that should force us to reconsider some things that we've always taken for granted (just like in many of the wars you mentioned, the stronger force should have/did reconsider things in the face of asymmetrical attacks.) Debating things like if we should be spying on citizens in the future is something we should do, but looking back on what has already happened we should give the President the benefit of the doubt because he was faced with a drastic situation that called for drastic action.
4. Debating these matters gets really tricky if we take sides based on the political game, something both sides do way too often.

Books

I've read the following books and recommend them.

Non-fiction:

Understanding People

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond

How the Mind Works
by Steven Pinker

The Language Instinct
by Steven Pinker

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
by Steven Pinker

The Moral Animal
by Robert Wright

Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny
by Robert Wright

The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
by Spencer Wells

Freakonomics
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

The Number
by Alex Berenson

Liar's Poker
by Michael Lewis

How to Win Friends & Influence People
by Dale Carnegie


Understanding the Universe

A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking

The Universe in a Nutshell
by Stephen Hawking

The Elegant Universe
by Brian Greene


Understanding Poker

The Theory of Poker
by David Sklansky

Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players
by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth

Small Stakes Hold'em
by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth


Fiction:

Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand

The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Popular Modern Authors I've enjoyed

Clive Cussler
Michael Crichton
John Grisham

Guns, Germs, and Steel

I finally finished reading Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. I highly recommend this book.

It had the paradoxical properties of being difficult to read yet impossible to put down, because Diamond uses many detailed and dry examples to paint a fascinating picture. Basically it took me a few months to read it in 30 minute increments, compared to the "average book" that might take me a couple weeks to read in 90 minute blocks.


From the Wikipedia summary:

According to the author, an alternative title would be: "A short history about everyone for the last 13,000 years". But the book is not merely an account of the past; it attempts to explain why Eurasian civilization, as a whole, has survived and conquered others, while refuting the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies do not reflect cultural or racial differences, but rather originate in environmental differences powerfully amplified by various positive feedback loops.

Cuban is the man

Great investment advice from Mark Cuban:

So here is my investment advice for anyone who doesn’t have enough saved to walk away from their job and retire…

1. If interest rates stay where they are or go higher, look at 5 year or shorter maturity vehicles. It doesnt matter if its a bank CD, a money market fund, a tax free fund, treasuries or combinations there of. Bottom line is this, 4plus percent taxed, or up to 6 plus percent tax free equivalent (depending on your tax bracket), is not a bad way to go. If rates go down, do the same thing, evenif you earn a lower rate. At the end of the year, you are guaranteed to have more than you started with.

2. Evaluate your lifestyle. People forget that sometimes the best investment they can make is in wisely buying things they know they will use. If you track what you use and consume, whether its gas vs bus fare, buying bulk quantities or other discretionary spending, you can save more and earn a far greater return than you could in the stock market. If you can save 10pct per month on a hundred dollar per month budget, thats 120 bucks you can put in the bank. Thats the equivalent of earning 12 pct on a 1k dollar investment. If you can cut 100 bucks per month off 1k dollar monthly budget, thats like earning 12 pct on 10k dollars. Thats pretty darn good. Spend smart, put your savings in risk averse, interest earning offerings.

3. Invest in yourself. Do the things that can get you closer to your goals and dreams. It wont come from a brokerage commercial. It will come from preparing yourself , working hard and standing apart from your competition. You Inc is the best stock you can ever buy…if you are willing to do the work.

I'd rather get lucky than work hard, because I'm lazy. That's a nice fantasy but a really stupid plan. Mark's advice, in the form of a blog entry that took him less than an hour to throw together, is better than any of the bullshit I learned about investing in college. It is pretty cool that a self-made billionaire regularly blogs his thoughts on this kind of thing.

Taxes

I just spent some time starting to organize my poker records for tax purposes. Good times.

Belief in God is comfortable - why take that away?

I recently indicated here that I do not believe in (anything remotely resembling the biblical idea of ) God or any religion. Furthermore, I believe that organized religion is dangerous and intellectually irresponsible, because it encourages irrational belief and behavior. Because of that, I am often tempted to try to convert people from their religious beliefs. But attacking ideas that give people comfort can feel pretty bad. So should I try?

From the Atheist Manifesto:

It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, "“This belief gives my life meaning,"” or "“My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,"” or "I wouldn't want to live in a universe where there wasn't a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator."” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot.


So the point is that irrational beliefs can make people look like an idiot. If I care about you, I'll probably try to talk you out of things that make you look bad. (Note the fine distinction that in the quote the "madman or idiot" is someone who puts forth comfort as a reasonable basis for belief, not someone who believes in God.)

Reason #1 to try to talk someone out of something in spite of the discomfort it might cause:
You care about them and believe that your suggestion will help them.

The excerpt below from an interview with Richard Dawkins makes a great point about when an anti-religion argument is and isn't appropriate, in regards to the comfort factor.

You've criticized the idea of the afterlife. What do you see as the problem with a terminally ill cancer patient believing in an afterlife?

Oh, no problem at all. I would never wish to disabuse or disillusion somebody who believed that. I care about what'’s true for myself, but I don'’t want to go around telling people who are afraid of dying that their hopes are unreal.

If I could have a word with a would-be suicide bomber or plane hijacker who thinks he'’s going to paradise, I would like to disabuse him. I wouldn'’t say to him, "Don't you see what you're doing is wrong?" I would say, "Don'’t imagine for one second you'’re going to paradise. You'’re not. You'’re going to rot in the ground."

Yeah, I'd rather see the dying person take comfort in something real - fond memories, hope for a bright future for loved ones, an end to the pain. But I wouldn't want to try to take away a misplaced source of comfort because nobody gains from it, and the patient loses. When I would want to make the argument is when someone still will do things that matter to other people.

Reason #2 to try to talk someone out of something in spite of the discomfort it might cause:
If successful, your persuasion of that person will have a positive effect on the lives of other people that is more significant than the negative effect on the person.

Obviously reasons 1 and 2 are both subjective, and it can get pretty nasty when you start telling other people what is best for them. Whether it is worth it depends on your judgement of how strong the positives and negatives are.

Aside from death-bed cases, the negatives shouldn't be very severe if you talk to someone with an open mind. Alas, almost everyone thinks they have an open mind, but many do not, since anyone who isn't open to the falsification of their beliefs is therefore close-minded. They tend to call such close-mindedness "faith" and take pride in it as a virtue.

Pokertracker slice

December
30,000 hands played. Averaged 3.82 tables at a time. Won 1BB/100 hands. Postflop aggression factor 2.15.

November
35,000 hands, 4.11 tables, 1BB/100, AF 2.09

October
16,000 hands, 2.01 tables , -0.3BB/100, AF 1.8

September
17,000 hands, 2.34 tables, -0.4BB/100, AF 1.8

Drinks with Megan

I met up with Megan for drinks last evening. She promised to be on best behavior after what happened last time we held a public rendez-vous. I figured she was lying, but agreed to the meeting anyway. I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for her.

Megan certainly does not have a soft spot for me, because her heart is made of the blackest obsidian. Volcanic glass is hard all over, bitch.

I got there 15 minutes early and saw that Megan was already there. She took a booth near the window so she could see everyone who drove up to the bar. She wanted to see if I had been tailed. Megan stood up to embrace me, and I noticed she hadn't touched her beer.

"You look good," she said.

Then she punched me square in the face. As I tasted the blood dripping into my mouth, I muttered to myself, "I knew she was lying."



---
Hours after that beating, I realized I was lucky.

The cut on my nose will heal; the black eye will fade; the my swollen testicles will eventually return to their regular size. Even my wounded pride wasn't a permanent condition. Not many, few immortals even, walk away from such an encounter with Megan. I danced with the devil and lived to tell the tale.

See, I knew it wasn't personal. It was just business and that's why I didn't attempt to flee (fighting back was never an option). Take it like a man.

She knew that I knew, and appreciated it, which is why she bought me a beer afterwards.

And I knew that she knew that I knew, which is why I stayed and enjoyed a few more rounds with her.

And I think she knew that I knew that she knew that I knew, which may have been why she offered me a ride home but then dropped me off at a highway rest stop 45 minutes from where I live. Actually that was probably because she was drunk.

Atheism

Sometimes I end up in the uncomfortable position of discussing my views about religion with a devout believer. Often those conversations have involved the believer labeling me an atheist, which always made me cringe. After reading An Atheist Manifesto by Sam Harris, I must begrudgingly accept the label. He has articulated my thoughts on so many matters so much better than I can (his quotes in italics below).

I've never wanted the atheist label, because it shouldn't even need a label:

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist does not want.

Continuing that thought, revealing one's self as an atheist alienates you from everyone else:

As Richard Dawkins has observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor. Only the atheist has realized that the biblical god is no different. Consequently, only the atheist is compassionate enough to take the profundity of the world's suffering at face value. It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion--to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources--is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places the atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

But not only am I out of touch, not only do I reject organized religion and belief in a magical God, but I believe that widespread acceptance of religion is wildly irresponsible. How dare I?

The truth, astonishingly enough, is this: A person can be so well educated that he can build a nuclear bomb while still believing that he will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Such is the ease with which the human mind can be partitioned by faith, and such is the degree to which our intellectual discourse still patiently accommodates religious delusion. Only the atheist has observed what should now be obvious to every thinking human being: If we want to uproot the causes of religious violence we must uproot the false certainties of religion.

You don't believe in God, you atheist heathen!!

Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One's convictions should be proportional to one's evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn'’t--indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable--is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to make them his own.

Inevitably the discussion involves something to the effect of "sometime you have to believe without evidence. That's why it is called faith."

The incompatibility of reason and faith has been a self-evident feature of human cognition and public discourse for centuries. Either a person has good reasons for what he strongly believes or he does not. People of all creeds naturally recognize the primacy of reasons and resort to reasoning and evidence wherever they possibly can. When rational inquiry supports the creed it is always championed; when it poses a threat, it is derided; sometimes in the same sentence. Only when the evidence for a religious doctrine is thin or nonexistent, or there is compelling evidence against it, do its adherents invoke 'faith.'” Otherwise, they simply cite the reasons for their beliefs (e.g. '“the New Testament confirms Old Testament prophecy,'” '“I saw the face of Jesus in a window,'” '“We prayed, and our daughter'’s cancer went into remission'). Such reasons are generally inadequate, but they are better than no reasons at all. Faith is nothing more than the license religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail. In a world that has been shattered by mutually incompatible religious beliefs, in a nation that is growing increasingly beholden to Iron Age conceptions of God, the end of history and the immortality of the soul, this lazy partitioning of our discourse into matters of reason and matters of faith is now unconscionable.

The conversation usually ends with "well if that's how you feel, there's nothing else I can say." And then they hope that some day I'll see the light. Or else I'll burn in hell.

Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and--all too often--what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. Only a fundamental willingness to be reasonable--to have our beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments--can guarantee that we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas.

It is sad to me that expressing my thoughts on this matter is sure to upset people that are dear to me, especially in my Catholic family. I hope that someday they'll see the light.

thank me later

If you know anything about poker and don't have an account at Absolute, read this hand and then go sign up immediately. When you make your first deposit, use code AP200 and get a 200% bonus. Proceed to enjoy playing against these kind of opponents:


4 handed $5/10 hold'em

preflop

utg calls $5
adspar raises to $10 with K♦K♥
sb calls $7
bb raises to $15
utg calls $10
adspar caps $20
everyone calls.

flop - 16 small bets in pot

2♣ A♣ 4♦

sb checks
bb checks
utg checks
adspar bets $5
everyone folds

WHY POKER GODS WHY

I had been overdue for a post where I tell another horror story about Party 6max games. So here's another one.

I've been crushing the $5/10 games on Absolute the last few weeks, playing mostly shorthanded and feeling very comfortable. In my previous forays into shorthanded play online I was always confused and disoriented but this time I've been seeing everything pretty clearly. Maybe the sheer volume of hands I'd been playing of low limit fullhanded has knocked some sense into me and given me more feel for the game that I was finally able to translate to shorthanded.

So this evening I decided to spend an hour 4-tabling Party's $3/6 6max game to see if my success at Absolute translated to Party. It didn't. I lost 70 big bets in under an hour.

I'm so completely baffled. There seems to be a heavy consensus that Party's games are the softest around and that Absolute is a bit tougher. So why the hell can I not for the life of me figure out what I'm doing on Party?

I know it could be all just luck. I've run very hot on Absolute and I've taken some pretty devastatingly bad beats on Party. But if it is possible to set results aside and give an unbiased assessment, I feel like the Absolute games are very easy, and I feel completely lost in the shorthanded Party games.

I keep saying that sooner or later I'm going to need to be able to beat Party's shorthanded games. I really thought that I was finally there. And a single terrible session isn't enough to rule me out, but I'm pretty frustrated. Maybe I shouldn't have jumped into 4 tabling. I don't know. I suck at the pokers.

more King Kong

I don't have the motivation. Last night I was working on elaborate conspiracy theories to explain this, but now I just don't care.

The bottom line is that at no point in the movie did I care what happened to any of the characters. They took a full 90 minutes before any action happened, and I have no idea why they even bothered with more than 5 minutes of intro. I assume they were trying to develop the characters, but none of it worked for me at all. In fact, as all the characters were introduced, I felt confused because it was like they didn't even try to make them real. They were like stupid cartoons that you couldn't relate to at all, which can work in a pure comedy or a pure action movie, but King Kong wasn't trying to be either of those. Ugh.

Naomi Watts starts out boring and is only interesting because she's pretty. Adrian Brody starts out boring and stays boring. Not surprisingly, I didn't have any interest in the boring love story between Adriann Brody and Naomi Watts. It seemed like they were trying to set up all kinds of stuff with the crew of the ship, but none of it ever went anywhere. The only characters I found remotely interesting were Tom Hanks' son (that character goes nowhere, but I just liked his acting) and the goofy guy who played the male lead of the film Jack Black was making.

This brings me to Jack Black. I love Jack Black, and I think he can be a great actor went he wants to be. I think he took this part and did everything with it that they wanted him to do. But he was terrible for this part. To explain why, I need to reference another movie - Wedding Crashers. Christopher Walken was horribly miss-cast (sp?) as the powerful politician father. If you are going to cast Walken in a comedy, you have to take advantage of everything Walken brings to the table. He can be brilliantly intense or totally hilarious and goofy, but the role asked him to be just this bland straight-man. Why use Walken for that? It doesn't make sense. Walken didn't do anything wrong with the role, he just wasn't right for the part.

Same thing with JB in Kong. The role called for a mildly goofy and amusing dude who puts his own obsession with making his movie above everything else. In the scenes of Kong where Black was supposed to be amusing, you could tell he was holding back. His character was always somewhat comedic, but when he was supposed to be serious, I felt painfully aware that I was looking at a brilliantly funny guy trying to play a mildly funny guy acting serious at the moment. It was just awkward and painful to watch.

The action scenes on the island were very very cool, and the CGI was excellent. I have no problem with suspending disbelief and overlooking the many things that didn't make any sense and just enjoy the show. King Kong fighting the T-Rexi was awesome. Basically there were 30 minutes of the 3 hour movie that I found entertaining.

I'm trying to figure out why people are saying such good things about this movie. I think that film geeks liked it because it is a remake of a very old movie that everyone has heard of but only film geeks have ever seen. So that's 1 point in their book. Plus the plot of the movie I assumed to be a big spoof of the movie industry, so I'm sure the critics love that.

I think Peter Jackson is a good director, so I'm going to acknowledge the possibility that this could even have been a good movie in the sense that Heart of Darkness was a good book - respect the art, but god it is boring. Maybe the first 90 minutes were spent painting a picture and establishing allegories that I didn't care enough to notice. Maybe they delivered some poignant message in the last hour that I totally missed because I was too busy wondering why anyone would possibly care about a huge monkey being in love with a blonde.

But how could anybody care about anything that happened? It baffles me. I must have asked myself a dozen times while watching it, "what is the point of this movie?" It isn't a cool story (giant ape falls in love with woman, shows her the sunrise, and fucks shit up??); it isn't an action movie because they spent way too much time on other stuff; in spite of a few funny moments it isn't a comedy. It is just a boring festival of crap.


This is a terrible blog entry. Sorry.

I hated King Kong, more to come

I saw King Kong tonight and I hated it. I've been trying to write about the movie, but I'm struggling to express myself.

I started out writing a story about a lovable jackass (me) that hated a movie, but as I was writing what amounted to a stream-of-consciousness rant I started to stumble onto some pretty good points. Then I started trying to put those points together into an actual reasonably thought-out review.

That left the whole blog entry a mess because in trying to pull off both the entertaining story and the intellectual critique, I failed miserably at both. The challenge is that in order to adequately explain why I hated a movie that got such great reviews, I have to codify what I want to get out of a movie, a task which is actually very intellectually challenging. And its even harder to write about that in a way that would be interesting to anyone but myself.

So for now I'm giving up, but I'll try again tomorrow.

Gifts: bah-hum-bug

Sooner or later I'm going to run out of new thoughts to write about, at which point I'll just start repeating myself. I don't think I've written about my theory of gifts, but I've definitely ranted about it to several people.

My theory of gift exchange is that it is largely a huge waste.

Assume that over your lifetime you'll give and receive roughly equal value in gifts. So you give $1,000 worth of gifts and receive an equal amount. For now consider only the traditional gift exchange occasions - birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, etc, and only gifts exchanged between "equals" (as opposed to gifts where the older generation takes care of the kids).

So we're all just passing around $1,000 but we rarely get to choose exactly what we receive for that money. Who knows better than you what you want for your $1,000? Nobody. But you don't get to choose it. In fact, people love nothing better than keeping your gift a surprise and not directly asking you what you want. So you usually get a decent gift, but maybe it is only 70% as satisfying as the way you would have spent the $1,000. So basically we've all wasted $300 worth of value because of this goofy gift-giving tradition.

Some of us are starting to get the idea and are willing to ask people what they want. This is progress. Hopefully someday we'll all just cancel gift exchanges and just go buy stuff for ourselves. Actually we could order everything online so we never even have to leave the house or talk to anyone ever again. That would be awesome.

Anyway the main exception to this are gifts given in commemoration of some kind of service - like giving a dinner host a bottle of wine. I approve of these kinds of gifts. So continue giving them, secure in the knowledge that you have adspar's full endorsement.


SPECIAL NOTE - This doesn't apply to you specifically. I love every gift you've given me. And I love buying gifts for you. It makes me happy to think how much you will love this _____ I got you. Every time you use ______ you'll think of me. This really solidifies our relationship.

Wherever I May Roam

...And my ties are severed clean
The less I have the more I gain
Off the beaten path I reign

But I'll take my time anywhere
I'm free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll never mind anywhere

I've called 6 different places my home since 2001. Lately I'm thinking about selling this house and moving again. All 6 of those places have been in Maryland, so maybe it would be good for me to try a new state. I'm restless. Is it possible that I just can't be in one place for too long? Perhaps I'm just a rover.

Nomad Wanderer
Vagabond
Call me what you will

Or maybe I'm sick of this house because I never leave it. Maybe I'm restless because I still don't know what I want to do with my life. I like my poker life better than I liked the office drone life, but I still think poker is a better hobby than career. I just don't know of anything that I could do for a living that I'd like more.

I suppose I should try to figure something else out. Or I could just keep roaming.

-Metallica.

Injury, Loss, and Scars

Reflections a year after losing Melanie.



When you break a bone a few different processes are set in motion:

Pain

You feel immediate severe pain. This severe pain lasts minutes, hours, or days depending on the severity of the injury. After a while it rolls into more of a dull aching pain, which gradually subsides. Eventually the pain decreases until it is gone.

Healing

I haven't taken any biology classes since my sophomore year of high school, but there is a pretty well understood physiological process by which your body heals a broken bone. It can take weeks or months, but eventually with good rehab, your broken bone can be as strong as ever, although usually an expert could detect evidence of a healed fracture on an x-ray.

Learning

You learn to avoid situations that are likely to lead to similar injury. You also learn how to cope with pain, and how your body's healing process feels. Veteran professional athletes have often learned enough to be masters of their own body - knowing where their limits are, how to avoid dangerous situations, when they can play through pain and when they need to sit out.



I think grief is a lot like physical injury. Sometime in this year since Melanie died, the pain went away. And just like the finger I broke in April doesn't hurt any more, every once in a while something happens that makes me remember that pain. Sometimes I can even feel it, just for a second.

What is tricky about psychological injury is that the healing and learning blur together. Healing from loss is going on with your life, and being able to be productive and happy. That can be really hard for some people. You have to learn how to put aside your pain when you can, and take time out to deal with the pain when you need to - basically you have to learn how to heal yourself.

If someone asked me how I was feeling about the loss, I'd think about it and say that while the pain is mostly gone, I feel pretty much the same as I did that day. I don't think there's really any way to fully wrap your mind around the devastating completeness of death, which I realized painfully a year ago and I realize it peacefully now.

But learning from previous experiences with loss helped me heal quickly. My philosophy of life - part of which could be crudely expressed as "enjoy what you have and don't take anything for granted" - made it pretty easy for me to be happy and productive.

I got to spend a couple years working with a great girl, and I enjoyed it. Melanie got to live 25 years and I know she loved her life, because I saw it on her face every day. So I was able to get past feeling sorry for her, and I got past feeling sorry for myself. I probably haven't been very good about helping others deal with it, but I hope that by writing about it, maybe that will be of comfort to someone.

We're all born with the certainty of dying. All of us. I guess you could take that and see all life as tragic since it leads to death, but I just can't see it that way. I'd rather enjoy what I get.

There's a quote from Fight Club that was something like "you don't want to die without any scars do you?" Well, I have a nasty scar on my palm from tearing it open climbing a fence. I have a scar on my forehead from the chicken pox, and a scar under my eye from a car accident. I probably have one of those x-ray scars on my pinky from a basketball collision, and I have a scar from losing Melanie.

I'm glad I have scars.

Why would I hunt penguins?

Don't think that I'm out somewhere hunting penguins cause that's not where I am.

What a waste of time that would be. You got these small little dinosaurs running around and then they learn to fly and over time they evolve into birds with feathers and it is sweet. But then they decide to move to the frozen south pole and stop flying and eat fish and be all black and white. Why would you want to hunt an animal like that?

Traditional reasons to hunt things:

1. For food.
2. For sport.
3. To try out your sweet new weapon.
4. Revenge.

I can't see how any of these reasons apply in the case of penguins. Food? Please. Give me a fucking chicken sandwich. Those are way better than penguin. And don't try to tell me there's any sport in hunting penguins, unless you only like games that you know you can win. I guess if you're a weak gutless hunter maybe penguins are your choice of game. But that still leaves us with the problem that rules out #3, and that is that penguins live really far away from where you live. I guarantee there are closer places to try out your sweet new weapon or easier game much closer. Go hunt a cow. That would be really easy! They are way bigger than penguins so you'd hit it more often, plus they don't run or swim fast. Or better yet just play Contra with the up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-start turned on. You'll win that every time and you'll get cool weapons like the swirling fire gun and the badass spread gun, which you might even combine with rapid for an unbeatable combination.

That leaves us with revenge as the only motive anyone could possibly attribute to me in thinking that I'm out hunting penguins. But that is pretty thin too, because nobody knows of anything that a penguin ever did to me. Which isn't to say that I don't have ample reason to hate penguins, cause I do, but its just that I've only ever told one person about that, and I killed her 8 years ago. She was my daughter.

So unless my dead daughter told you about the penguin insults, I don't know why you'd possibly think I'm out there hunting penguins. Get real man.

At ease brother! I ain't after you.

Reader response

I feel like this comment from a reader of my BLAST! post deserved to be highlighted.


SugaryMexican said...

You were in a high school marching band which, while suspect, cannot touch the stratosphere in comparison to the gayness of a collegiate marhcing band. The high school band, particularly yours, is certainly more of a spirit thing as opposed to an outlet for "nerds", and while not being as cool as the bands from "Drumline", was always enjoyable to watch and really was never the target of disdain from what I can remember. I seem to recall alot of the band guys in high school being darn good athletes.

Once you decide to be in the college version, well then you've pretty much given up on caring, in the same way Jerry feels George is sending that message of surrender to the world by wearing sweatpants out in public.

So, I have in the past made numerous soap-box speeches about the absurdity of the college marching band, and specifically how a college band has its own sickening social hierarchy, i.e. whereas a section leader for trombones is probably a reject elsewhere on campus and is not allowed to go to any hetero-parties, he is somehow revered by the other band members and is seen as cool within that group.

And this is all well and good, everyone needs their group of pals, such is the way the world spins. I might add though, that the trouble about which I am going to rant (because it is icy as fuck outisde and I am not going anywhere for an hour) is that being a non-band guy and trying to date (God forbid) a band girl is quite a foray into idiocy. This is so for many reasons.

First and foremost, it can be nearly impossible to find a halfway decent looking band girl in the first place. This is not to say there aren't any, I am just emploring you to watch some NCAA football on tv and I dare you to find a good looking girl when they pan over the band. Now, and I know this first hand, the camera guys either go out on their own vigilanty searches for hot girls in the crowd or are told to do so by the producers. This is fact, anyone who watches football knows this. Thus the fact that they never show any hot girls within a school's marching band can only lead to so many conclusions. Of course they don't pan the band on tv in the stands nearly as much as the cheerleading or dance sqauds, so their are some mathematical issues there, but again - why do you suppose that is?

Secondly, rumor is they don't put out. This is likely an extension of whatever moral decency and social conservativism led them to be in the college band in the first place. Taking a sample of the population would probably show that band members are much less likely to be felons than the rest of mankind. Probably. Although I cannot say the same for maybe a specific offense like being a child predator or serial killer. I just mean, you know, normal non-sicky crimes like robbery and murder and such.

Thirdly, and most absurdly, should you find a decent looking band girl who will in fact let you feel on her boobies a little bit, it is likely that the band members who know her and have met/seen/heard of you will 1. hate you on principle and 2. advise her when you're not around that you suck and she should be dating one of the. Invariably, the band guys (at least in my school) just loved having female friends and they always advise band girls to date their own. It is not so much a "date within social class" thing, as alot of the band guys at school were pretty decent kids by all accounts. It is more that (sickeningly enough) the band guys felt in an "evil governor in Braveheart" way that it was their right to have the band girls to themselves. As in, "I have made it to 3rd assisant drum major, I now have the royal right to have my pick of the litter within the band, whereas I likely have no shot out in public." Take this with the fact that your girl is stuck with them for hours at a time on buses to games and in sleazy hotel rooms, you have to realize she will be bombarded and pressured to no end about this. And then couple that with the ridiculous bond that the college band people have, both in lingo and in how nobody else but them can complain about the "evil band director", it can be an almost unwinnable situation. This is made worse if you happen to be a wise-ass who openly mocks the band and all it stands for.

It is now that you realize you cannot put the band pussy up on a pedestal like that. So you laugh and find someone hotter, younger, and dirtier and the world is good.

J.J. Redick's poetry

My life story is read in poetic stages
I was once weak-minded, now I'm courageous
The cause and effect of a thousand actions
The mathematical breakdown of micro-fractions
It's difficult to fathom the coming of the rapture
What if I awoke in an empty pasture?
Suddenly every ounce of passion had been depleted
And all my determination had been defeated
The rain pours, my tears fall
The pain subsides, I stand in awe
A lightning bolt strikes, I feel a sudden energy
Thunder clouds approach, I can't run from destiny
A tornado tears me down, but I will stand again
My life is a hurricane, but I'll weather it to the end

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH thanks bro

I'm a professional writer, HA!

Full Tilt offered me a flat monthly fee to post a banner on my blog. They said they believe that the poker blogging community (I guess that includes me) is worth investing in, and I think they're right. Lots of potential players read poker blogs every day, and lots of poker blog writers are always looking for new sites to play.

I didn't like Full Tilt very much when it first started, to be honest, but I think they've made great improvements since then. More than most of the major sites, they really seem to try to give their players what they want. I had started to play there a lot in the last 6 weeks or so, and even more since they made this offer.

So now someone is paying me to write stuff. Sweet. (Not very much though.)

I feel a bit pathetic that I've been steadily increasing my advertising while my writing has slowed down. I've been playing a ton of poker and just haven't had time or inspiration to write lately. But I really appeciate their offer, so I added my thoughts on Full Tilt to my overview, and removed some of the other banners that were starting to clutter everything up. The only banners I left up are for Full Tilt and for Absolute, which are the 2 sites I'd recommend the most.

If you signed up for a site using a link from here, thank you very much. If you are interested in signing up for any site I mention, let me know if you have any questions. If you think I'm a pathetic sell-out, that just means you are jealous.

Updated: Online Poker - Sites I play

I'll post my thoughts about a few online poker rooms here. The links to the sites offer you signup incentives and I'll make a little money if you sign up through me. If you have questions about these sites, or general questions about getting started in online poker, post them in the comments here.


FULL TILT POKER

Full Tilt is an up-and-coming room, and they are improving every day. In my opinion they are much better at trying to keep their players happy than Party, Paradise, and UB, although they don't have as many players yet. But they have lots of top pros working with them (Phil Ivy, Howard Lederer, Jesus Ferguson among others) and an aggressive marking approach, so I wouldn't be surprised if they grow into one of the most popular rooms. They offer a huge 100% sign up bonus up to $600, so take advantage of as much of that as you can.

If you sign up for them and want to give me credit for the signup, make sure you click the link below instead of the one in the sidebar that just links directly to the site.



100% Bonus up to $600 at Full Tilt

I've been playing a lot of $3/6 at Full Tilt in the last month. They have a nice software feature that allows you to rotate the table so your seat is anywhere you want, which is especially convenient if you play multiple tables.


ABSOLUTE POKER

A great place to start is Absolute Poker. They offer by far the most bonuses of any site I've played, so you can start with a very small bankroll and quickly build it up even if you just break even in your poker results. You earn the bonuses just by playing a certain number of raked hands, and they release it $10 at a time. If you are thinking of getting started playing for real money online, Absolute Poker is my recommendation for where to start - deposit $100 there, play low limits and earn your bonus.

Click this link to sign up and you'll get 150% of your first deposit up to $150, and you'll hook me up with a few referral dollars.


Absolute Poker 150% First Deposit Bonus

When I play Absolute, I play mostly shorthanded limit hold'em, at $5/10, $10/20, and $15/30 limits.

LIMITED TIME 200% Bonus with code AP200. Info here.


PARTY POKER

Party Poker has the most players, which means they have the best game selection at a wide variety of limits. They don't have great bonuses, but the vast ocean of fishy players should make it very profitable after you gain some experience by playing enough hands to clear some bonuses at other sites. I like their software, and you can play up to 10 tables at once if you are so inclined. The link below hooks you up with a 20% bonus up to $100, so I recommend signing up when you're ready to deposit at least $500 to get the full bonus.


20% First Deposit Bonus up to $100 at Party Poker.

I've played a wide variety of games at Party. Most often lately I play full-handed $10/20 and $15/30 hold'em, but I've played almost every limit they offer up to their $20/40. They have good shorthanded games, and tons of No-Limit action. They've got good Omaha and Stud games, and they run lots of tournaments.


PARADISE POKER

Paradise was the first online poker site I ever played. They have a decent variety of games and a very cool promotion going - the $1,000,000 freeroll where you get free entry to their $1million tournament. Use bonus code "FIRST25" to get a 25% bonus on your first deposit up to $50.


Paradise Poker link

I've played a variety of games at Paradise, but these days when I play there, it is usually for their tournaments. They don't have a great selection of games at the levels of limit hold'em I like to play, otherwise I'd play there a lot more often. I like their "Sit-N-Go" tournaments (Single-table tournaments) the best of any online site. You can also play blackjack there for as little as 10 cents per hand. I think I've won over $1.20 off Paradise blackjack.


ULTIMATEBET

UB has decent limit action in small and middle limits, and excellent no-limit action at every level. You'll find a wide variety of games at this site, including Triple Draw, Royal Hold'em, and Pineapple, which are hard to find anywhere else.

UB also hosts some of the largest games online, with $300/600 heads-up limit action and a very popular $50/100 no-limit hold'em game. I doubt you're playing those levels yet, but its fun to watch some big name pros splash their chips around.


UB offers a 40% first deposit bonus, up to $200.


I played a lot the $10/20 limit hold'em on this site. They have good action both shorthanded and full. I don't play a lot of no-limit these days, but when I do it is usually here. I love playing their triple-draw lowball games as a fun change of pace (Watch out, Aces can't play low in the 2-7 version! I see people blow that all the time). There is usually at least 1 low-limit lowball game going, often more. Whenever I just want to sit and watch some crazy high-stakes action from the rail, I check out UB.


FUNDING AN ACCOUNT

I use Firepay to make deposits and cashouts at most sites I play. Neteller is also very popular, but they don't accept customers from all States. They are like online bank accounts, very similar to using PayPal. In fact, back when I started playing online, PayPal was my payment method of choice, but they stopped doing business with online gambling companies. Most credit cards also will not let you make deposits with gaming sites, so you'll definitely want a Firepay or Neteller account. I've always found it very easy to move funds between my checking account and my Firepay account.

Al the sites have plenty of information about their various funding methods. Every site and payment method I've mentioned here has been secure and reliable for me so far.

BLAST!

Last Friday my girlfriend dragged me to see "BLAST!"

Kira saw highlights of the show on public television and, being a former marching bank geek, decided it would be fun to go see the live show. She offered me the option not to go with her but, being a former marching band geek, I figured the show would probably be entertaining and that I'd appreciate the performance.

But that didn't mean I wasn't going to give her shit for "making me" go to it. The whole way there I referred to the show as "QUEEF!" She reminded me several times that I had the option not to go. I really know how to make my lady feel special.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. A decent description of the show from their website is that "they bring the power, passion and precision of outdoor pageantry to the stage in a musical performance that we now call BLAST!"

A better description of the show would be that they "bring the power, passion, precision and homosexuality of outdoor pageantry to the stage in a musical gay orgy we now call BLAST!"

I always knew that marching band can be a bit gay, even when I was in it. I just wanted to play some fight songs at half time, but I went along with the goofy costumes and the flag formations and the making out with dudes. Thats just what being in marching band is.


And we all know that theatre can be a bit queer as well. Lots of artsy creative energy in the gay community. So I don't know why I was so suprised that this production was like they took the gayest of gayest of the gay that our nation's marching bands had to offer and pranced them out on stage. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Once you got past the gay, it was an entertaining show, and I had a lot of respect for their musical skills. But I wouldn't recommend it to any homophobes.

Probably the highlight of the show for me happened during a number called Tangerinamadidge, which featured cast members walking through the aisles of the crowd playing didgeridoos. The girl who graced our section looked cute from a distance, but seeing her up close revealed some pretty nasty acne. The drunk Chris Moneymaker look-a-like sitting next to me (who obviously had no idea what he had signed up for by coming to this show - "this is going to be like Stomp and Blue Man Group, right?") leaned over to me and said "That chick needs a face transplant. You know they did that in France, just like in that movie!" Classic.

Quick poker thought

While I'm feeling frisky, here's a poker boom thought that recently occurred to me.

I've had concerns that this whole poker explosion would dry up. The popular doomsday model is that the bad players lose enough money that they stop coming back, so without any fish, the sharks just have to feed on each other and everything gets much harder. Poker is a huge fad right now, so tons of dollars are flowing into the poker economy, enabling decent players like me to (barely) make a living. But when the fad dies, that money will stop coming. The best players will probably still make a living, but lots of marginal players like me will have to reenter the work force.

But what occurred to me is that poker's popularity has increased with its availability. 10 years ago, how many people lived close enough to a public card room to play poker regularly? It was basically just AC, Vegas, southern California and maybe a few other spots near Indian casinos or riverboats. So availability of poker was fairly limited. Today anyone with a computer and a credit card can play poker any time they want.

And even in those areas near the casinos, poker rooms were very mysterious and intimidating. But now coverage all over the TV has stripped poker of its seedy image, and commercials for online gambling make everyone forget about its ambiguous legal status.

People play games that are fun and available. Poker has always been fun, but it wasn't always available. Now people know that poker is a widely available entertainment option, and they'll spend a little less time in the theaters or bowling alleys. I'm sure eventually the poker craze will slow down, and maybe it already is doing that. But unless the government explicitly criminalizes online poker, there's going to be plenty of action for a long time.

Ron Artest

I never post here any more. But here's a Sports Guy quote on my favorite non-Terp NBA player. Go Terps tonight!

Highlight of my Clippers season so far: During a stoppage in the second half, Ron Artest was standing right near us by the 3-point line, with the name of his record album carved in the back of his head, of course. So somebody screamed out, "Hey Ron, I bought your album ... IT [STUNK]!!!!!" First, everyone giggled. Then we quickly realized that he might charge into the stands and inexplicably beat the hell out of one of us. So Ron turns around, searches the faces to see who yelled at him, finally finds the guy ... and gives him a big wink. High comedy. I like Ron Artest. He's my favorite NBA player who was ever suspended for a season for attacking a fan.

another birthday, more pictures

Happy 23rd birthday to my archnemesis girlfriend. It has been widely suggested that she is way out of my league, and I cant really dispute it.

I've been asked to clarify that the picture of me was modified by some photoshop effect that squeezes the image in towards the middle. It disturbs me a bit that people didn't realize this. I'm ugly, but I'm not quite that ugly.

Top Pure Comedies

My favorite pure comedies. As this list changes, I'll bump it up.

1.) The Big Lebowski
2.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
3.) Office Space
4.) There's Something About Mary
5.) Dogma
6.) Swingers
7.) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
8.) South Park: Bigger Long & Uncut
9.) Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
10.) American Pie Movies
11.) Old School
12.) Zoolander
13.) School of Rock
14.) This Is Spinal Tap
15.) Clerks
16.) Me, Myself and Irene
17.) Road Trip

Honorable Mention: Dumb and Dumber, Mallrats, Austin Powers Movies, Freddy Got Fingered, Dirty Work, Dead Man On Campus, Mr. Deeds, Napoleon Dynamite, Dude Where's My Car, Groundhog Day

Noteworthy Omissions: Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Ace Ventura, Caddy Shack

JUAN.

Juan is getting some love from Walton on ESPN's coverage of the Blazers game tonight.

I love foosball

Not that you care, but this is a real IM conversation between me and Walt.

Walt: i wish i had work tomorrow so i could play foosball

Adspar:

step 1: go to sports authority

step 2: spend $350 on the best foosball table they have

step 3: buy a case of sam adams winter brew

step 4: inform sparks of your completion of the 1st 3 steps

step 5: play foosball and drink beer with sparks for 25 consecutive hours

Walt: im not going to spend $350 on a foosball table that will get used all of 3 times

Walt: if that

Adspar: dude its worth it

Adspar: if you have a foosball table, i'll come over at least once a month

Adspar: my presence is definitely worth a one time $350 hit

Walt: haha

Walt: we'll see how big my bonus is this year

Walt: it's also difficult to move a foosball table in a miata

Adspar: they come in a silly box probably

Adspar: or they deliver

Adspar: or we could rent a uhual

Low limit so far

Since Sunday I've played 8,047 hands of $3/6 and won 2.05 BB/100, which is a rate I'm happy with. I've spread that play around a few different sites to step up my bonus-whoring efforts. I'm reasonably pleased with the volume of play I'm putting in, but I can't allow myself to let up on that.

Most of that play is 4 or 5 tabling during the day, which is kind of weird. I've been getting up at 5am and playing off an on until about 5pm. I've been able to listen to the Junks and Bill O'Reilly, while I play and go for runs around lunch time. It is a fairly enjoyable routine.

tiny good deed

For as much as I criticize and complain, I don't really do much to make anything better. But here's something that even a lazy bastard like me can do.

Go here.

The link contains information about "Jessica's Law" and gives you the option to automatically send this email to your state's governor.

I urge you to do everything in your power to see that our state enacts a version of "Jessica's Law." As you probably know, the Florida law was named in memory of 9-year old Jessica Lunsford, who was raped and killed by a repeat sex offender. The law establishes a minimum 25-year sentence for anyone convicted of molesting a young child. It also requires that paroled sex offenders wear a GPS positioning unit so police can keep track of them at all times. Research shows that criminals who prey on young children tend to repeat their crimes many times. Far too many young boys and girls have been brutalized by sex predators that should have been locked away. These abusers need to be kept off the streets and out of our neighborhoods. Enacting some form of "Jessica's Law" will protect our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, and will save lives. I hope you will get behind this legislation immediately. Thank you very much for your concern and your help.

Its a tiny thing, but I feel like I did something worthwhile.

Followup: the email from the link above didn't work for Maryland, so you can go here to send Governor Ehrlich a message.

poker = work

Many wannabe poker pros pursue the life out of a desire not to work. These people are in for a rude awakening. Playing poker well requires hard work. It is nice to work at something you love — but it’s still work. And to succeed, you need to treat it that way.
- Roy Cooke

He's absolutely right, which I have learned the hard way. I'm hoping that since I was able to (barely) get by while doing it the wrong way, I'll be very successful doing it the right way.

Ultimate Bet

In honor of my return to lower limits, I've added Ultimate Bet to my poker site information page. I've played more hands at UB than any site other than Party. Click the banner, sign up, and play lots of hands! Its like welfare for your favorite poker chump.

Back to where it all started

Going back to 4-tabling $3/6. Fortunately, I'm able to view this as a simple business decision. I don't have any problem playing lower, in terms of ego. I need to maximize income given my risk tolerance, and this move is the best way to do it.

Two big advantages to playing lower: the players are so much worse, and I don't have to be afraid of a big loss. Another noteworthy advantage is that it is easier to find a good game any time.

Worse Players: Loose/Passives vs Loose/Aggressives

• There are some loose players at the mid-levels, but there are fewer and they're usually much more aggressive. Loose $3/6 players routinely call til the river and then fold when they miss their inside straight draw. Loose $15/30 players check-raise that draw on the turn just to fuck with you. Not that money can't be made from the latter, but on a weak bankroll, I want my opponents to be as passive as possible. More aggressive games = more variance. I can't afford variance any more.

Worse Players: Tight/Passives vs Tight/Aggressives

• The majority of players at $3/6 and up are somewhat tight, but again they are more aggressive at higher limits. In my return to $3/6, I was amazed by how often all my opponents folded to my flop continuation bet (After raising preflop I almost always bet the flop, regardless of whether my hand improved. There are exceptions, but not many.) This rarely happens at mid-limits. It is so much easier to steal small pots at the lower limits.

Fearlessness

• As my losing streak worsened and my bankroll crumbled, it got to the point where I was afraid of losing. 50BB fluctuations are a very common occurrence in limit hold'em, but I couldn't handle a $1,000 swing at $10/20 any more. Playing scared takes away some important tools, and even bad aggressive players know how to pounce on weakness. I can play fearlessly at $3/6, giving me a big advantage.

Unfortunately, its harder to make a living at lower stakes, so I'm going to have to drastically increase my volume. 30~40 hours per week of 4-tabling is still better than 40 hours per week in an office. I might try 6-tabling.

Hopefully after a few months I will have rebuilt my bankroll and my confidence, and I'll be in a much better position to succeed at the mid-limits. While I was able to post a winrate of 1BB/100 hands in 50,000 hands at $15/30 and $10/20 I still think there are some big flaws in my game, and not all of them fall under the "if my bankroll was bigger..." excuse. I need to patch those holes.

Alternatively, if I find that I am unable to beat these games for enough to make ends meet, I'll know that I'm just not good enough to play poker for a living, and I can walk away knowing that I gave it my best shot and went down swinging.

easy equation

saturday night, tiny bankroll, no confidence...

clearly a visit to low limits is in order.

totally lost

In the short time since this post, I've managed to lose another $1,700. Whatever remained of my confidence is completely gone, and I doubt I will keep playing $10/20 since my bankroll is at about a third of where it was a couple months ago.

outlaws!

this is bullshit

Computer problems

My computer has been getting slower and slower, so I've decided to reformat my hard drive and get more RAM. Preparing for the reformat, I'm trying to set up a home network so I can easily transfer a bunch of my files onto Kira's computer, but we can't figure out how to do the network right. We've gotten it so that I can see her computer on the network, but can't access her shared file. She's never been able to see my computer yet. Neither of us are money enough to figure this out. Argh.

I can't play Civ4 at a reasonable speed until I figure this out, which is a big problem.

much props to Kira for snapping this picture last weekend

Methodology

Problem:

I've had 2 losing months in a row.

Hypotheses:

• I am a good but not great poker player.
• I have the skills to make a decent living playing limit hold'em.
• I could expect to average between 1.0 and 1.5 BB/100 hands in most full handed mid-limit games on PartyPoker.
• Deviation between actual results and the above is explainable by variance and psychological factors.
  

Background Info/Observations:

Definition: Earning 1.0 BB/100 hands means averaging $20 profit for every 100 hands at $10/20, or $30 for every 100 hands at $15/30, etc.

• A good player can earn 1.0-1.5 BB/100. A great player can make over 2.0 BB/100.
• It takes 50,000 to 200,000 hands to have much confidence in the accuracy of a winrate, because variance is so high.
• It isn't uncommon for a good or even a great player to have 20,000 hand stretches of losing or breakeven results.
• These are based on my interpretation of the collective wisdom of the message boards at 2+2. There are lots of discussions about these topics you can search for at the site.
  

Facts about my overall mid-limit record:

• 19,000 hands at $15/30, won 0.54 BB/100
  
• 32,000 hands at $10/20, won 1.37 BB/100
  

Facts about my record during the last 2 months:

• 8,900 hands at $15/30, lost 2.6 BB/100
  
• 19,000 hands at $10/20, won 0.54 BB/100
  

Discussion:

It seems pretty clear to me that my results are consistent with a good player who has hit the bad side of routine variance lately. When the best way to look at results is in the context of hundreds of thousands of hands, and I'm only playing 15,000 hands per month, my perception of results is going to be pretty skewed while I go through them in real time.

That being said, even if I can conclude I'm a good player, that doesn't necessarily translate to making a living. I've identified several obstacles I'll have to overcome if I want to make my living this way: endurance, multitasking, game selection and discipline.

• Endurance - I struggle to play more than 20 hours per week. Experimenting with forcing myself to play more hours showed me that when I go beyond that amount, my focus suffers and I lose my edge. I like the lifestyle of only playing 20 hours per week, so I don't really have any plans to keep working on this. This doesn't necessarily count me out though, since averaging $50/hr for 20 hours per week gives me enough to make a decent living for now.
  

• Multi-tasking - I've had mixed results with multi-tabling. In terms of handling the pace of it, I had no problem 4-tabling $3/6 and still winning a healthy amount. But my results at $5/10 while 4-tabling were far from stellar. My best results in the mid-limits have come while 2-tabling, so it would probably be best to stick with 2 tables until my I start to improve my results. I do think that I'll be able to increase to 4 tables or possibly 6 or 8 eventually.
  

• Game selection - I'm defining game selection as choosing games where my edge is the greatest. I think I'm generally pretty good at choosing the best available tables based on average pot size and similar statistics, and also based on knowing who the weakest players are. But a big problem with my game selection is that I tend to stay at the tables when games get shorthanded and a weak player is still playing. For whatever reason, I just haven't had much success with shorthanded play online. At that point, the edge that I enjoyed when the table was full starts to disappear, so I ought to leave the table when it drops below 7 players.
  

• Discipline - Discipline encompasses the 3 points above, among other things. I need to force myself to play the most amount of hours that I can do while still playing my best. I need to stick with 2 tables when I can't keep up with the action above that. I need to avoid shorthanded games or tables where my position isn't good. While I'm playing I need to focus and not be distracted by AIM or ESPN.com or anything else, and if I feel tilt setting in I need to take a breather. Poker is a game, but if I'm playing for a living I need to approach it in a professional manner.

Bankroll

Playing poker for a living is a lot like running a small business. If I remember one thing from studying entrepreneurship in college, it is that a large percentage of small business failures can be attributed to undercapitalization. I'll get back to this point in a bit.

I've noted that poker has a huge amount of variance, and my results have certainly shown it that too (the bottom lines of my last 5 months: +8,000, +400, +9,000, -2,000, -500). How do you combat variance in poker? Well if you want your monthly results to be more consistent, the best way is to play a huge number of hands every month. So my lack of endurance and limited multi-tabling experience make me more susceptible to high variance. Some guys have no problem putting in 50 hours per week or more and playing 8 tables at a time, which greatly decreases their variance in the same time period, and increases the chance of their poker business being successful.

So if you don't combat variance with volume, how else can you? Capital reserves. Bankroll. If my expected monthly earn isn't significantly above my monthly expenses, I need a much larger bankroll to minimize my risk of ruin. I've known for a long time that my bankroll is smaller than it should be, given my monthly expenses. Ideally, with my bankroll I'd be playing lower limits. But given my cost of living and the other weakness I mentioned above, I decided I had to be in the middle limits, and accepted the risks.

I think that part of the reason for my weak results at $15/30 was that I was playing scared. I think that part of the reason my shorthanded play sucks is that it naturally has higher variance and I play scared. I think part of the reason for this losing streak is that a few bad sessions while playing well caused me to lose confidence and start playing scared and weak. If I had a bigger bankroll I wouldn't play scared, and my results would be better. I'm going to say "scared" a few more times. Scared, scared, scared.

Conclusion:

Clearly if I can't keep bring in cash, I'll have to get a real job and my poker career will have been an enjoyable failure. It doesn't seem likely that I'll put in a lot more hands, so volume won't be my key to success. So its got to be a combination of these things:

• Improve my hand playing skills
• Improve my game selection
• Improve my discipline
• Decrease my expenses
• Increase my bankroll

Idea: Sell My House

Trading the mortgage payment for cheap rent would decrease my expenses, and the cash infusion from my gains would increase my bankroll. That would allow me to play higher limits with less pressure, which should help improve my playing skills and income.

beatdown

I've been losing for more than 2 months now. That's a really long time.

I've tried just about everything I can think of to get back on my feet:

• more hours per week
• less hours per week
• more tables at a time
• less tables at a time
• shorthanded
• different sites
• taking a few days off
• playing at different times
• sharing hands with friends
• reading more poker literature
• reading less poker literature
  
• adding a 2nd monitor
• killing homeless people for good luck
  

Yesterday I played some no-limit. I'm thinking about 4 or 6 tabling $2/4 for a few hours sometime soon. Anything to give me a fresh perspective and a few dollars.

Since 9/1/05 I've played 34,524 hands in 188 hours, averaging 2.2 tables at any given time. I've lost 0.42BB/100 hands, or $29.33/hour for a total playing loss of $5,500. I've received some bonuses and rakeback that adds up to $2,600.

I've had times where I've felt like I was playing very well, times where I've felt like I was playing very poorly, and everything in between. But the results are always negative. I have no idea how I ever won $9,000 in a month two different times.

This all should explain my recent emphasis on advertising on this blog.

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