Taking a Shot

Random Musings

2013-05-21T16:27:00.004-07:00

Even for me this one is probably going to be pretty disjointed. Here we go.

Aruba was fun, but I completely understand why nobody really goes there from California. Other than being a little bit cheaper and with seemingly a little better food, Hawaii really is just a better way to go from here. You don't have to leave the country. The weather is better. The flights are way shorter and way cheaper. Like I said I had a great time, but objectively if you're coming from the left coast just go west young man! There were only about 70 people at the wedding, and nearly half of them were my fraternity brothers and their dates. It turns out the guy getting married is one of the more hidden pieces of glue that holds us all together, reaching down to my class and all the way up to a good number of guys who graduated before or right when I arrived. So that was pretty fun.

Flying really does suck. Danielle hates it, and I usually don't understand her beef but this time on the way back I was pretty miserable. The dude in the middle was just too big and we kept bumping each other and the temperature was wrong and we sat on the runway and I still think I have a headache from the fumes and it was just kind of shitty. And that flight from Miami STARTED about 7 hours after we left our hotel. We did discover valet parking at the airport, which is pretty awesome. The dude just picks you up IN YOUR CAR and takes a shuttle back to his office after giving it to you. A little more expensive, but at 11:15pm when you've been traveling since 9am local time saving 30 minutes is worth...well...a lot.

Swimming....yikes. I snorkeled three times in Aruba and did one of them without gear (just racing goggles, probably swam a mile or so) but I have regressed a fair bit. I should still be OK, but it's not gonna be easy.

WSOP....It's here and shit! I am going to avoid backing people this year, although I sure am tempted to get a piece of professor ben as I say this.

Records that likely will never be broken....In my time as a swimmer I had occasion to set some team, pool, and meet records. I bet a lot of them still stand to this day, but honestly I have no idea. My high school ones probably do, since we sucked. My YMCA got torn down so those don't really count. And the pool and meet ones who really knows. I think I hold (or likely am tied for) the record for times quitting the MIT swim team. I gave up twice, and I doubt anyone has ever quit three times. Sort of like the dude who threw back to back no hitters; I mean really, is anyone ever going to throw three? Today I lapped a load of Danielle's laundry for a second time. The stuff she did has been sitting in the dryer for close to two weeks I think, and I have done two full cycles as it's been just hanging out. Lapping a load of laundry three times seems impossible.

My cat...she is upset we were gone for so long but is in super duper lovey dovey mode. She actually purred the entire time I brushed her this morning (something I have done like exactly once, ever, before today) and is hoarse from meowing so much. As an aside I brushed her wearing only my last pair of clean boxers, which demonstrates just an unimaginable lack of foresight.

I am working on a theory of readiness, where by some people actually become unready for an activity simply by way of time being allowed to pass (for example, in the car on the way to an event). I saw this happen with some of my friends this weekend, and I think it is worth exploring.

That is all. No poker content. None :)

Aruba, Jama....Well, Just Aruba Actually

2013-05-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a week in Aruba. It was great. I'll write more later, promise.

Humorous Interaction

2013-05-11T06:50:00.003-07:00

So I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to get just two little things and was left in awe of the checkout girl. First of all, for the 17th time in a row when I started reading off the phone number for our rewards cards (those things are such a freaking scam...can't you figure out a better way to track what I buy?) I was asked, after the first three digits, "is that the area code?" You see, both Danielle and I have "not from here" numbers because we got our cell phones "not here", but the checkout persons at the store somehow think that here, in 2013, we are going to try and give them seven digits and call it a day. I was going to ask her "when's the last time someone said "oh my mistake" and corrected it? does anyone EVER screw this up?" not so much to be a jerk but really because I was curious. Are there people out there that just say "867-5309" and walk away? I realize it's almost certainly not her fault; they do this so regularly that it has to be some sort of mandate or training they get that management has decided makes things run more smoothly. Just as my mind settled on "you should ask, but do so in a funny, joking way" I was hit with another whammy. My total was $12.xx you see, and when I dove into my wallet I found only 20s and a slew (but non 13) of 1s. I say to myself "Self, you can solve this problem with gusto and flourish!. You have been educated at arguably the finest university in all the land. What you must do is hand her the twenty dollar bill (which alone will cover the sum of your purchases), AND ALSO hand her not one, not two, but three of the Washingtons. You will receive a single $10 bill as change and everyone will be happier; your wallet will have fewer bills (always desirable) and her drawer will have more (always desirable). Self, you are a master of efficiency!"

My coup is met not merely with a vacant stare. If only that were the case! But not here, no no, here my efforts are met with open disdain bordering on hostility! "I don't need these...just the twenty" are the words I hear as my chin grows heavy, seeking desperately the floor, and the Washingtons are thrust back across the divider. As the change rattles out of the dispenser two feet further down the line (those things should be against the law I forget to grab it half the time) she goes for the death blow. Her drawer? Out of 5s. So what do I get right behind the three washingtons she just handed back to me to add to the six were patiently waiting in my wallet? Seven. More. She practically shoves the flowers and diet pepsi (serious business here) at me straight away, without even attempting any sort of bagging procedure, as I'm still stuffing the additional washingtons into my billfold. Ambling towards my car I am left with the distinct tingling sensation that I have just witnessed something magical.

Patience and Apathy

2013-05-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

I seem to be on a bit of a kick here. Confidence is good; overconfidence is usually bad. It's ok to be ignorant; it's definitely not ok to be a bigot or evil. As I was swimming I realized something else today, and that's that having the correct amount of patience in your life is something that a lot of people THINK they know, but in truth haven't really ever thought about (just like all the stuff in How to Win Friends and Influence People which by the way if you have not read you should). It occurred as I was slowing down during a set of 10 150s (on 2:30, my progress has been just great the last two weeks) and decided to try the 5th rep making sure I took as few strokes as possible. You see the tendency when you swim (and are out of shape like I am) and want to go faster is to take more strokes. Strokes are the thing that make you go forward, right? If you take more, you'll go forward more, right? Nope. So what happened? My fifth rep was actually faster than my 2nd (usually the fastest for me), AND I expended less energy because I had drastically increased my efficiency (for the record I was trying to keep these under 2:00) while it absolutely felt like I was moving more slowly. Neat stuff that patience and discipline. If I'm going to make it 26.2 miles in 7 days I'm going to need every trick I can muster; this has been the closest development to a silver bullet I could possibly have hoped for.

Then I got to thinking on the drive home that while most people suffer from a lack of patience in many endeavors (their relationships, their jobs, poker, etc), if one were to have an excess of patience it could manifest itself outwardly as a sense of apathy. The analogy isn't perfect, but you can probably see where I am going with this. If you're too patient waiting for some good result to happen, but aren't actively pursuing it, what you're actually doing is being apathetic. Sometimes the only thing you can do is wait, and when that's the case taking action can actually get you into trouble. Letting your partner cool off after an argument is a great example. It's fucking HARD to go to your corner and think about how on Earth you just got into a heated discussion over something that silly and just let it be for a little while. But most of the time in that spot that's the exact right thing to do. But waiting patiently for the situation to change, without taking action, being the correct course of action is likely the exception, not the norm (thank goodness, as I am horrendous at actively pursuing the course of action of "just wait for it"). There is a balance that needs to be struck. If you want to affect change in your life you need to be working towards it, but at the same time you need to have patience and not get frustrated when you don't see those changes immediately.

Now it is time for a hand that I sweated!

The SK opens stone cold UTG in a pretty full game and hero three bets a few spots later with the ace and the jack of spades. SK calls, they see a flop hu

964ssc

Or something like that. There is no straight. SK checks and calls.

5r

Again, I think that was the card. Maybe it was a 3, but it was pretty much a blank regardless. SK checks and hero..checks it back! My immediate thought at the time is that he needs to be betting that card because he is at the stone cold bottom of his range in terms of showdown strength (I think....maybe he wasn't but I sure would have been) and has a flush draw. Ergo he must bet. But the more I think about it thinking about GTO stuff here is pretty silly. He has the ace and the jack high, and we are in a decidedly narrow range spot. The SK is going to be super good (even better than you know) against his specific holding in this specific spot, so maybe he does need to be checking. I just don't know.

He rivers the 6 of spades because "that's the second best sweater in the business back there SK" and gets to raise and snap off two of the three remaining aces (whoopsie) and we all have a good laugh. But I thought the turn spot was kind of interesting I guess.

Swimming Report

2013-05-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

One thing I hadn't really taken into account was just big of a pain in the ass it is to try and swim a legitimate workout in the pool in our community. The 24h fitness pools can be crowded (and one time I even got kicked out by a water aerobics class) but at least there are lane lines, pace clocks, and no little kids splashing around trying to get themselves clobbered (except that one time). Seriously, a lot of people don't realize this but collisions with someone of mass actually swimming at a reasonable rate of speed can be rather violent, especially because their pointy parts are flailing all about in every which direction. Growing up I saw not one but two foot bones broken during swim practice, just from a simple breast stroke kick. I guess the point is that I weigh 170 pounds and even if I'm only going 2 miles per hour if my head slams into your head it's not gonna be good for anybody. The last time I tried to swim down there there must have been 10 kids running around, and they just don't get the picture. I'm trying to swim in the three feet of pool next to the wall and well...yeesh. And no pace clock...not cool. Also very sunny; I'm getting a nice tan that I don't really want.

But it's good. I should be able to make the 26.2 miles physically, and am now just sweating the mental side of things. Conservatively I need to be in the water for an hour twice a day all 7 days to get this thing done; and that's a lot of boredom, a lot of driving, and an awful lot of patience.

Life otherwise is pretty good I guess. I had more to say but I don't seem to have any idea where it went :)

You Learn Something Every Day

2013-05-02T13:26:00.001-07:00

If you're not careful, that is. If you are too careful, or even in many cases reasonably careful, you will go through a day and not learn a single god damn thing. But if you do something stupid or silly you're almost certainly going to learn something. Today I had to meet a friend in town who wanted to meet up for lunch; he didn't have much time, not even really lunch, more like coffee and brunch you see, so I suggested we just go to Starbucks and catch up for a bit. He countered with "have you ever had Vietnamese coffee?" to which I responded "just what they serve at Commerce." He insisted that I try the real thing and gave me directions to a place he said was really good. I say to myself "self, why not? this is a good friend, he must know something you do not know. Vietnamese coffee it is!"

So I roll up to the place and am immediately struck by how...hidden...it is. Like, it's way back sorta behind a restaurant in this weird corner of of strip mall, there is construction blocking one and a half of the ways in, it's just kind of strange you know? Then the building itself just has some nearly indecipherable characters on the front (that spell some Vietnamese words) and big, giant, tinted one way glass on the front. Immediately memories start rushing into my brain, memories of Kevin and Walter talking about just such a place, where they serve coffee, no drinks, but the atmosphere is...visually pleasing. Sure enough I walk into the place and three things strike me instantly. First, I am the only white person in the entire building. Second, at least 25% of the patrons are smoking. And last, the servers are wearing lingerie. I don't really dig Asian girls that much, but even I had to admit that the talent level was...considerable.

So it turns out that this is just sort of what my friend (and a lot of Asian dudes, actually) does with some of his spare time. Sit in a coffee shop, flirt with girls in lingerie, and order expensive and overly caffeinated non-alcoholic beverages. It was...well...it was an experience, let's just leave it at that. We had three "rounds" of drinks (regular Vietnamese coffee, super strong super cold with condensed milk just delicious), weak un-sweatened iced tea which we didn't actually order but was presented sort of as water, and fantastic avocado milk shakes. It was almost too loud to talk, almost too dark to see, and almost too smokey to breath, but we caught up and I excused myself after about an hour. He was sort of disappointed I didn't want to stay longer; I felt like my effort had already been herculean. So today...we learned something :)

Delusion and Arrogance

2013-04-29T15:04:00.002-07:00

The world really does run on delusion. We have all heard that something like 90% of drivers think that they are above average, and we can all see that obviously this is completely ridiculous. At a minimum 40% of people are getting the answer to a true false question incorrect here (and that's if 100% of the people who actually say they are below average actually do suck at driving). There should be a little bit more signal, or so you'd think, but that wouldn't take into account the fact that most of the human population is completely delusional when it comes to rating their own competency. I read somewhere that only the clinically depressed do well when it comes to accurately assessing one's strengths and weaknesses. That's pretty absurd, if you think about it, but it kind of makes sense from an evolutionary point of view if you make the simple assumption that confidence helps us survive. And while I'm not necessarily sure that was true millions or even thousands of years ago (you can make cases both ways, obviously. being confident that you can catch the prey or win the fight helps, if you're right...), it is definitely true in modern society. Confidence in men is most certainly sexually selected for by the finer sex, and therefore it stands to reason that as we go down through the generations we should end up with more confident people and fewer with low self esteem; those guys just have a harder time getting laid, right? Or at least that's what women's magazines would have you believe.

None of that is really the point that I'm trying to make, though, so if you disagree as usual I'd say you could well be right and read on anyway. What I want to talk about here is how our society, and particularly the segment of it that I wade through day in and day out, is set up to take advantage of this chronic over-confidence. For an easy example let's take the housing boom. What fueled that? Well OK a lot of shit fueled that but one of the primary problems was that confident, aggressive people were SURE housing had nowhere to go but up (despite the fact that since our population was not sky rocketing it made no sense that "space to live" was doubling in value) and therefore made not just an effort to become more exposed, but rather a herculean one. And what happens when people make a herculean effort to buy something they probably shouldn't? Businessmen bend over backward to sell it to them, that's what! Bang...housing bubble!

What about poker? It's sort of the same thing as the preposterous driving statistic from above (for the record I believe that my "A" driving game is probably in the 75th percentile across all humans, perhaps slightly lower if you account for the fact that good drives drive more miles...My "B" game, however, degrades rapidly). I have never done a study on this, but I'd be willing to bet that something like 90% of poker players over-estimate their skill (and edge) in a given situation. There are lots of reasons for this. People who run poorly to start their careers tend to quit; those who run hot tend to stick around and then assume they are running badly for the next 15 years. People who think they are losing players don't have much fun and therefore quit. People who think they are winning players enjoy their time at the club and come back again and again. Pros don't realize that they are in tough games where people just aren't making idiotic mistakes. People get drunk and don't realize how bad they play when they do (except Medium Bob....that dude plays SOLID when he's drunk. And honestly 8 mile too....props guys). I mean just run the numbers on how much money is going down the hole in your average 40/80 game at Commerce and it'll make you cry. 40 hands per hour, almost no chops, 5+1+ tip that's something like $250-$280/hour. That's $30 EACH! You have to win about 1 bet per hundred hands just to break even; what percentage of the population is capable of that? 10? 20 seems absurd. And yet there are routinely 4, 5, 6 games at that level, not to mention a 60 or two, and a half dozen other games. And let's not even talk about 8/16 and below which I am close to convinced is completely unbeatable. The point is that people think they can win, they really do, and the owners of the casino are very, very happy to just let them try their hardest and wonder why they never seem to catch that big hot streak. Good lord I can't imagine how badly some fish can run, given that in theory I am one of the people who does win and I have taken 300 bet downers. Imagine if my "true win rate" was actually -1 instead of +.5 for those 150 hours! I'd have lost another 225 bets!

I was planning to pick some more things to talk about but honestly this post is probably long enough. Make sure you assess your own skills (and your ranking among your peers) accurately. Confidence is probably a good thing, but when it creeps towards arrogance or delusion it can really get expensive.

Yikes

2013-04-27T06:52:00.003-07:00

Another week has gone by and I've had nothing to say. Danielle and I went to the happiest place on earth last Wednesday to celebrate her birthday (for a second time) and as usual it was a lot of fun. Not as usual, however, we got what in my opinion was a perfect day. High of 64 degrees or so, zero sun whatsoever, just overcast and "dreary" all day, with even a few sprinkles here and there. It was glorious, honestly. I wasn't hot all day, and after she made me run down main street to make rope drop, then run halfway across the park to get in the front row on the first run on matterhorn, the rest of the day was very peaceful. We ate way too much way too bad food, but that's to be expected at Disney Land. We rode splash mountain 3 times, which is great since it's a very fun ride and she used to be unwilling to go on it. We hit all the usual suspects, but some of them were closed due to osha (sp?) violations (lol....if Walt had to deal with those bastards I wonder if we'd even have Disney Land).

Swimming is going still just sort of OK. By now I need to be swimming something resembling real workouts, or at least half real workouts, or the week itself is going to be very tortuous. It's just...so...boring. My goal is going to be to ramp up to about 2 miles a day from my current...1....over the next week or so, then get up to swimming some two a days so that the actual marathon itself isn't that big of a jump. I should be fine, it's just hard to stay motivated to keep swimming after about 30 or 45 minutes.

Poker....lol. Why would I talk about poker? If I had something I wanted to say on that subject I'd have written in before now :)

Data Structures and The Hungry

2013-04-20T18:19:00.004-07:00

So as I was browsing through netflix to put something reasonable at the top of the queue (last night we watched The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill and if I took no action The (original) Manchurian Candidate was inbound....these movies are not awful but I mean...we can do better. We have the technology!), I got hungry. Then I began browsing our reserves in the kitchen and it occurred to me that, sadly, our food is basically organized as a stack. As I was rooting around for my old stand by favorites and striking out on one after another, I realized that I was basically digging deeper and deeper down the stack. No soft tortilla shells to make a cay sah dilla? OK. No yogurt (except the big container Danielle admonished me not to eat because it was for her you only have to tell me once that by the way expired in mid march), no double fiber wheat bread from the store, already had like three pieces of the loaf the bread maker outputted yesterday. Out of tuna? For serious? Eventually I found myself eating baby carrots (in theory expired weeks ago but they seem fine), almonds, and a bowl of cheerios. After that I was still hungry, so I ate a bowl of...Lucky Charms! I don't even really like lucky charms, but they were there, and I was far enough down the stack to dig right in! Dinner of champions!

In other news....well, there really isn't much other news. I haven't been playing very much, have been working out a fair bit. Played a softball game Wednesday and didn't make an ass of myself (two good plays at 2nd base, no errors, two hits and three runs). And I guess that's about it.

A Real Set

2013-04-18T20:09:00.001-07:00

First of all, my straight swim warm ups are getting longer and longer. I don't really know how to describe this, but when you're in shape and swimming regularly you can just sort of swim forever, kind of just like walking. It gets boring (very boring) but you can just sort of go and go and go and you don't really get tired if you maintain the right pace. At the peak of my powers I'm sure I could have just jumped into the pool and swum 3 or 5 miles straight with no problem whatsoever, and gotten out of the pool and honestly not even felt that worked; doing so at a slow pace would have been far easier than the work outs we swam.

Swims like this will eat up a large chunk of the mileage I need to cover, and I was a little scared the first day when fatigue set in around 75 yards. Today I was cruising though five hundred yards with really no problem, and if I keep at it I should probably be able to do a mile straight without much difficulty. The actual plan for getting the 26 miles done is going to require two workouts a day (or maybe even three on some days) just so I don't go insane. A four mile session is just more than I can handle right now without some companionship (a master's team). If I can start them with long paced swims, that'll help tremendously.

Today's "main set" was 10x100 IM on 2:00, and you know what? Piece of cake. I swam them in about 1:20-1:25 (with cheating back to breast flip turns...there are no flags yo!) The problem I'm running into now is exactly what I feared; shear boredom. All the injuries are under control; not a hint of shoulder problems (the only real potential show stopper), elbow is doing just fine, and my wrist is actually getting BETTER from all this. So that's just great. I don't miss that itchy tingling bleached feeling I seem to have every day, and Danielle has complained once that I smell like a fish tank, but it is what it is. I suppose my next goal is to be able to a set of 200 IMs, but that's probably a fair bit off unless I don't take the butterfly leg very seriously.

Poker. Meh. Who wants to talk about poker? Fine, fine, fine, I share a story of the KK's greatness!

The KK is stuck and running out of time, and therefore playing almost every hand. I love it when this happens (as an aside my track record setting on the left of maniacs is getting so bad I am seriously questioning if I'm doing something seriously wrong...not in this hand though), and bust his balls to no end. I think he honestly thinks that his strategy of hit and running the game for $600 seven days in a row, then playing stuck 60 bets on the 8th is optimal! Anyway....he opens in the cutoff and I three bet on the button with the king and the nine of clubs. It is what it is, yes it's probably a LITTLE lose but it's CO vs Button with huge whales in the blinds who...wake up with monsters. The SB calls three cold (could be anything) and the big blind caps a range so narrow it makes me want to cry. KK calls, blah blah blah, four ways. Remember, he's stuck 50 bets and just trying to steam his way even.

Q42cch

Bing. Action happens. I think the big blind bet/3-bets and I raise/cap. The small blind calls two cold twice, and KK gets four bets into the pot on the 1-2-1 installment plan. Let's do this a little differently and look at the hands, shall we?

SB - The man with blue tooth holds an Ace and Queen. He has called 4 times so far, three of them being multiple bets.

BB - Aces LDO

KK - The King and the Ten of Hearts. That's right. The king. And the ten. Of hearts. No pair. No draw. Cannot win on the next card and somebody has a flush draw.

Me - 40% equity in a four way pot about to get a free card.

So on the turn we see:

Q42cch-Tr

And I do exactly what I'm supposed to do and take a free card. Honestly, and this is just amazing, given the hands out there and that none of them were raising I actually had a value bet. You all know where this is going though....

River Ten, the blinds both check, KK bets, I fold, they both call, KK wins. He's the best.

Man I Don't Know

2013-04-16T20:15:00.001-07:00

Blogging is just getting to be kind of tiresome. Lots of things are getting to be kind of tiresome, to be honest. I probably haven't been on two plus two in two weeks, and to be honest I don't even really miss it. I kind of miss my friends, but the ones that I really want to talk with, I try to go out of my way to call on the phone or talk to on skype. And if I haven't reached out to you in that way I apologize and would like to point out that email communication goes both ways and I guarantee a response within a few hours of reading your message. The two plus two party in vegas is officially not happening (from what I can gather) but I will still try my best to head out there if everyone else is going.

Turns out I haven't written a blog post (or even considered writing one) in 11 days, and Danielle has actually been harping on me to provide training updates and what not. She seems to think that people will be more likely to donate if I put up some sort of counter or something on here; I dunno, I don't really feel like doing that to be honest. Elizabeth has donations of over $3k now, and I think she should be able to get to the $5k she promised in order to compete in the event. Some of you out there have donated, and for that I am very grateful; honestly I was expecting a little more money to flow in a little more quickly, but I completely understand. Some of the people I emailed probably hadn't heard a word from me since the last time I asked them for money almost 2 years ago, and this cause is a little different than the Aquathon so yeah...do quote a wise man....I understand. If you're considering donating, though, go ahead and do it now on Elizabeth's page.

My training has been going pretty much OK. I am considering joining up with a Master's team of some sort to make a real push, and I think right now I could actually survive such an endeavor. It comes back pretty quickly, and to be honest I feel great. I've been doing real sets and stuff now pretty consistently, although my workout tends to last only 45 minutes or so simply because I get so damn bored. Today I did a set of 8 150s on 2:30 without much trouble at all, finishing them in around 2:00 flat. Back in high school that would have been decidedly loafing my way through a set (such a think would have been a viable warm up before a meet actually), but for a now 31 year old who hasn't swum a real workout in a decade. Decidedly not awful IMO.

And another thing. I'm getting old and to be honest it's getting pretty old. Like, seriously? I'm 31 now? It's 2013? There has to have been some sort of mistake or clerical error that can account for these seemingly preposterous statements actually being, apparently, rock solid facts. I'm coming up on FIVE YEARS as a professional poker player. That'll be longer than I've ever done anything other than swim and play baseball in my entire life. All kinds of scary going on. I did recently share a childhood memory with Danielle about hitting a grand slam to mercy rule our arch rival baseball team; one of the proudest singular moments of my life, honestly, it was just so awesome.

And then there is this thing that happened in Boston. You know what, actually I'm not even going to go there. It was fucking awful that's all I'm going to say.

So that's about where I'm at. Poker is just sort of...going. I have won a bunch recently, but my yearly results are still pathetic. They officially shuttered the bike 40 game (they will no longer spread the game for us) and that's just a kick in the ass. Of the like 5k I have won this year, 18 of it was in that game apparently. Yeah that's not good...not good at all. I was just always so, I dunno, comfortable there. So now I must, as my swim coach always used to say, adapt, improvise, and overcome. And that's exactly what I'm going to do :)

Hand of the Day Number 412

2013-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Somebody limps and somebody raises and I 3-bet with AKcc and the blinds come along and we're about 5 ways, it's not really important, big pot is all.

AT8hhd

I bet the SB check/raises me everyone folds and I call.

4h

He bets, and I call. What else could I possibly do?

Ah

He looks at the board (which has 5 red cards and 4 hearts), then realizes what's going on and refers to his hole cards. He is obviously looking for a heart, and even more obviously doesn't find one, and then checks. I realize that I hold precisely the nut no-flush, so I fire a value bet. He disgustedly calls. I turn over the AKcc and he turns over the ATss for the stone cold nut top boat.

Random Thoughts

2013-04-05T11:38:00.001-07:00

Swimming is going well. I am getting stronger and the only injury that seems to be threatening to linger is the sore elbow. But it's also the most manageable one, so I should be fine. Donations have started somewhat slowly, but thank you very much to the people who have already chipped in.

I played a softball game this week. It was fun, but sadly the team already had an old fat short white guy with double knee braces, so second base was occupied. This means they had to put me in right field, where not only am I not comfortable, but also the balls tend to spin funny and break back towards the line off of right handed bats. One did that and probably also hit a divot (these fields are not what you could call manicured), made a hard right turn and got past me to turn a bases loaded single into a grand slam. But the next three guys hit doubles, so it's not like it mattered a whole lot. My performance at the plate was unfortunately 0-3, but with solid contact all three times (one hopper to short, line drive to second, grounder up the middle that the short stop booted).

Poker...well...Some funny shit happened yesterday in what had to be one of the worst logistical nightmares of my life. I won't go into details of that, but here are the stories. First, after our must move game broke a player managed to get himself taken off the board and then be at the end of the list when it restarted. He waited patiently the whole time and made the call right before the game started (75 minutes after it went down and oh by the way of course I was 1st up the whole time). I told the floor this. He told me what happened. I told him that was an angle shoot. He told me "that's what I told him" to which I responded "but you let him do it?" He looked at me like I had two heads.

Our next story is a bad beat. I was winning a ton and decided to play another hour or so, and so obviously raised a limper with 55, got 3 bet, and my favorite showdown bound maniacal lag called 3 cold on the button. Big blind calls 5 ways:

AJTr

Checks thru. Seriously.

5d

I bet, the lag calls and so does the big blind. Obviously I lose the pot to a small diamond on the river, but here is the fun part. The lag shows me KJdd. Not shit box diamond diamond. King. Jack. He was on the button and checked back the AJT flop after calling three cold with the KJdd. In a 15 bet pot. Then of course I get the spectacular asshole card on the turn to lose three bets and I end up making a comment I shouldn't make but I mean really...this guy wonders why he loses 8 racks from time to time.

I could tell KK stories all day now but I just don't feel up to it.

Day 2

2013-03-28T11:33:00.001-07:00

I swam pretty much the same workout today. The notable deltas:

Lungs: Way better already
Chest Pain: Went away completely as I expected
Wrist: A bit worse but probably won't become a problem
Elbow: Far worse, could become a problem
Shoulder: Far better, most important thing

Now it's time for a 12 hour poker session and a midnight LAX pickup.

Two More Fun Hands

2013-03-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

Hand 1

The nittiest of all nits opens UTG, Mr. 40 month winner calls, a mega-fish calls, I call on the button with a wired pair of eights in the pocket, the blinds call because they are in the blinds and we see a flop 6 ways.

A75ss

All five of them check. So I bet. Why am I betting? Nitty McNitterson will probably fold the best hand, and he's the only one who should have me beat, and everyone else will call with worse and it will be awesome. One of the blinds calls with JThh (there was a heart out there), the big blind folds, and the nit tanks, hems, haws, and folds. Mr. 40 months calls with probably like QTdd, and the fish calls.

2s

The spade flush comes in, and all three of them check. I'm not bluffing anymore, now I'm value betting! The small blind missed the eliminator so he is eliminated, Mr. 40 months finds a fold and the mega fish calls.

5

OK so we have the only draw...check. And bottom card paired...check. So the fish checks and I....check. He has 98o send papa the money. Nitty McNitterson? He folded queens and declares "Well done!"

Hand 2

Some people limp and I raise in late position with KK. We see a flop about 6 ways, maybe 7, I don't really know.

Q33ss

The woman on my immediate right donks into me and I raise. THREE PEOPLE CALL ME, then she calls, and I start counting to see if there are enough spades in the deck for me to still have the best hand. Doesn't matter....

Q33ss-3

They all check, I bet, and now only the mega fish from the previous hand and the woman call. Yahtzee, I have this thing pretty much already won they should be drawing dead practically when.

Q33-3-Q

Mega fish checks, lady donks, I snap fold, mega fish calls. Lady tables AQ, megafish tables AJ and fully expects to chop.

Day 1

2013-03-27T19:12:00.003-07:00

I went to the pool and swam what could perhaps be considered a workout today. Not by anyone with any sort of swimming ability whatsoever, but it was the most I've done in years and afterwards I felt both good (that tired sore feeling I actually sort of like) and bad (all of the joints in my right arm have some serious problems). If the shoulder soreness goes away I should be fine; if it doesn't, however, it could be a deal breaker. The workout was simply:

300 warmup mixed
10x100 on 2 minutes (I swam them in around 1:25)
400 cooldown mixed

Yeah, that's all I did, but like I said my shoulder was hurting pretty badly by the end and it seemed like I shouldn't hurt myself on day one. I'll try again tomorrow. I'm a bit worse off than I expected, but definitely still a big favorite.

Jesse Swims a Marathon

2013-03-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night Danielle and I went to a spaghetti dinner fund raiser to support her friend Elizabeth's effort to raise $5000 for the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride to end AIDS. It got me to thinking about how I used to swim in the Abilities United Aquathon every year but had to skip it in 2012 for a wedding, and how good it usually makes me feel to do something difficult or good (or both). So I decided I'm going to do something about it and try to help her out. The event is a 545 mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and while there is a zero percent chance I could make it halfway through such an endeavor, I am well qualified for a different type of endurance task. So as Elizabeth is biking down the coast from June 2nd-8th of this year, I'm going to be in the pool, attempting to cover 26.2 miles (a standard marathon) in those same 7 days.

No, I haven't been in the pool training for years now, and yes it's going to be pretty tough for me to pull this off. I'll post training updates here, and when the rubber hits the road so to speak I'll update you on my progress day by day (maybe even session by session...this could require 2 a days) as well. There is a chance I will fail. If there wasn't, it wouldn't be hard and I wouldn't .be as excited to try. And here comes the pitch....

If you've enjoyed my blog, or even if you hate it but can't bring yourself to look away, sort of like watching a train wreck, and agree that this is a good cause, please consider making a donation on Elizabeth's personal page. Donations of any size will be graciously accepted. And if this isn't your cup of tea, that's fine too. I promise we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming of me misreading the board in preposterous ways just as soon as possible.

For Great Justice

2013-03-25T13:22:00.001-07:00

My game has fallen to crap, but for some reason (convenience, mostly) I've decided to wait it out. It'll get better before it gets worse (it can't get worse), and besides honestly it's just bad by local standards. Objectively it's still just fine. To wit....

UTG limps, and card runners man raises his HJ post. 40 month winning streak elects to cold call in the cutoff (for serious...how awful is that? We're talking about card runner's man raising a post. And on top of that his range is very easy to figure out), the button and small blind fold and I 3 bet the AJss. They all call and we flop

J96r

I fire, UTG peels, card runners calls, 40 month's now raises, I 3-bet, UTG folds, card runners calls two cold (he's never seen two bets he didn't want to call cold on the flop) and Mr. 40 month's puts the lid on it. I call and start thinking about what he has and how it's probably some sort of draw or combo hand but then realize there is no flush draw, exactly two open enders, 87 and QT, and (I think) zero pair + straight draw hands. So basically I'm putting him on exact 8 combos of 87s and QTs and trying to decide if my read is strong enough to "donk" the turn because I mean...what else can he have? He's probably not even raising the flop once with less than a jack, and he's certainly not capping without a monster, so unless he has something just bizarre (AA, 66) that should be ruled out from preflop (and that he'd likely wait to raise the turn with), he pretty much has one of those hands, right? But the turn doesn't help my cause.

J96-5

Well half his reasonable range just made the nuts, so I check. Card runner's checks and of course he checks it back. So now it occurs to me that he could have been doing the old "where am I at" raise with a weaker jack, then upon learning the answer was "way the fuck behind" trying the old "cap for a cheap showdown" play. This irritates me because I knew he had bullshit and I'm upset I got a turn card that I had to let his bullshit take a free river with. So we see the river 3 ways.

J96-5-7

On the surface that looks like a very scary card, but who's supposed to have fucking anything here? Card runners didn't have a pair on the flop (he'd have raised it) so unless he somehow has exactly 75 I should be OK. I mean sure there is stuff he can have I guess, but J8 98, 86, A8...none of them make any sense. Even he'd fold the A8 for two more bets. He's supposed to just have something sorta straightening, like the KT, KQ, etc.....And Mr. 40 months? He checked back the turn, so he can't have the 87, and he four bet the flop so he really can't have the 98 (just raising the flop makes that unlikely) and of course 88 is absurd and well at this point it's pretty much a weaker jack or the QT. So what do I do?

Value bet lol

Card runner's snap folds (so yeah he had a million outs with like some overs and a gutterball or some such) and Mr. 40 months...RAISES! Seriously, he raises. All that analysis (which I hadn't really done completely at the time...all I had so far was "jeeze he doesn't have anything" running through my brain) and he just raises it up in a huge pot on the river and I have the naked one pair stone cold bottom of my range hand and well I stand up and look at it and just can't see how he can have the 8 other than just a full scale abortion of the J8s so I call and he shows me...QTs. And I feel like a champion.

Card Runners Man

2013-03-21T18:03:00.001-07:00

So there is this basically mute Asian man who plays all over LA. He's a self taught lag, who I'm pretty sure has been running hotter than the sun basically forever, which has reinforced to him that he is in fact the best player in the city. But recently he's stepped down, probably because raise bet bet bet bet every single hand wasn't working for a few days (or a week or whatever) and I got to play with him Monday and well...he was still trying it out. I mean seriously, full ring limit hold 'em this guy was probably playing something like 50/30, just any possible excuse to get every possible chip into the pot, c bet every single flop no matter what cards come or how many players are out there, just barrel barrel barrel every single time. OK, so that was fun, I beat the crap out of him, neat. The next day he's back (I think he think's he's a pro or something) and I see him on his phone emailing...DUN DUN DAH!!!!! Cardrunners support. I mean maybe I shouldn't be looking at his email but whatever, that's just the most awful thing every I'm allowed a little moral lapse in light of something so awful.

He played a little better than day (still god awful), and he's back today and seems to have toned it down another notch. Pretty soon he probably will be break even, then he'll become a small winner, then he'll go on a huge downer and give up, but until then it'll be fun to watch. Except when this happens.

Five players limp in (including mr 40 month win streak) and the dealer starts dragging my chips into the pot from the big blind and I behold the monster that is the ten and the eight, all hearts. ALL HEARTS! I have been firing these pots up from the big blind for half a decade, since Shannon the Cannon was teaching lessons in the Garden City 20 (may it rest in peace). There is no way I'm stopping now. So I raise it up and everyone chastises me for doing so. "You think your aces are gonna beat 7 people?" and "We'll teach you a lesson!" and the like. So the flop comes down 7 ways and it is...and I'm not kidding....

9d 7h 6h

That is the flop. I have the stone nut straight and four to a straight flush to boot. Of course I bet, 40 months raises, card runners calls, mega lag calls two cold, the small blind folds, I 3 bet, we see the turn 4 ways.

6r

I bet, 40 months calls, card runners now raises. This is obviously terrible, but as I'm contemplating what to do the mega lag calls two more bets cold and I realize I pretty much have to 3 bet. I do, 40 months finally gets the picture that whatever shit box he over limped with is drawing dead, card runners calls and the lag calls.

Qh

Terrible card obviously. I bet card runner's calls lag mucks. I show my hand, he looks super confused and shows the 96 double suited for next to bottom boat. The small blind declares "I folded a 6!" which always makes you feel great in this spot (he starts with 4 outs, the 9h just lets him lose infinite bets, and the 6 is in the muck, so that's just 2 now) when you've just lost a 25 bet pot to a guy who has a card runner's membership thinks he's a pro but likes to limp along with the 96o.

A Win!

2013-03-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

I actually came home today carrying more money than I had when I left in the morning. If I have touched the low water mark (which is obviously far from a guarantee) the depth of the swong was 290 bets. I don't actually keep that stat, but I don't think I've ever taken one much worse than that (although I can think of two that were in the ballpark). This one was particularly painful since close to a 1/3rd of it was in pretty large games (1/2 and 60), which someone makes it feel worse than if the whole thing had just happened in the same game. The dollar figure looks to be a shade under $30k, but like I said, there is no guarantee it's over. I could simply do the exact same thing again, starting from here, and after that I really would just give up I suppose. I made a tilty comment to J-dub as Hasan was binking a two outter on me for the 15th time in 3 days (in my last three sessions with him, his Q8 has cracked my 22 on Q72, his 44 has cracked my 22 on 632, and his KK has cracked my AQ on A63) that I shouldn't have made, something like "That's how you lose $30k straight" and he actually responded "hey don't talk to me I am the king of the 1500 bet down swing." Like, he said that. Really. He thinks he lost 1500 bets playing in games where he had an edge. That's just phenomenal to me, really, but doesn't even take the cake for the most amazing thing I heard in the last week. I was talking to "long time grinder pro from the great state of Montana" and he confided in me that he has posted, and I am not making this up, "over 40 straight winning months". I cannot even imagine the chicanery he has been pulling in order to do that. He is the nittiest game selector I have ever seen, but three and a half years without a losing month? Are you fucking kidding me? I have already had one this year (and am staring number two right in the face I have like a 3% chance of pulling out of it), and I had three last year and two in 2011, so that's going to be 7 out of 27 vs 0 out of 40. Talk about a life time heater.....

Fine. Poker.

2013-03-14T20:52:00.001-07:00

I think it was DougL who pointed out that you can really tell how I've been running simply by having a good look at my post rate on my blog. Originally I ranted and raved on here quite a bit; I still do that now, but the older, gentler, maybe even wiser(?) Jesse has tended to just let that sort of shit slide more and more these days. Writing a big long post just gets me all riled up and I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is these days, but I'll share some of the stuff that allowed me to turn a large winner (how large? I don't know, but the zoo was fully stocked) into a medium loss today in one of the more glorious 40/80 games you'll ever find. And you know some of it will be from yesterday also.

I open A9cc in the cutoff, casino employee 207 3 bets her own big blind with an extremely unbalanced range. The flop is Q99ss and I cannot defeat her AJhh.

Same villain opens the J7s in the HJ, I 3 bet the QQ and obviously lose the max for getting it in so badly.

I raise a limper with QJ, the small blind calls and peels the KKTr flop with Q7o, I check back the blank turn, and he fires the river dark which is of course a 7. He then asks if I think I'm playing with kids and encourages me to keep three betting and burn those chips I swear he has an IQ of 50.

Same guy obviously have 54o in the small blind. I open 97cc in the HJ we see the flop 5 ways, the board runs out 557c-Jc-4c. For serious.

He has AKhh, I have AQcc, the flop is Q73hhh. Managed to fold that one on the turn.

He has K2hh I have AhJs the flop is QhJh3h. Managed to only spend 3.5 bets on that one.

I open KJ, he cold calls with KQ, the flop is K55.

6 way raised pot I have QJdd OTB, flop is QQ3 I have 3 outs and of course miss.

I open AT, he has A9, KQ3 we chop.

BvB, he flops a flush I flop top pair.

I have JT, big blind has QT, flop is T87-3-6. I check back river yay for me.

It's just absurd, it truly, really is absurd. And I know (I am sure) that I'm playing awful because of it and I really am not sure how to proceed.

Bigotry, Ignorance, and Evil

2013-03-14T14:37:00.002-07:00

Sometimes it becomes very difficult to tell the difference between these three characteristics. They result in many of the same outward manifestations, and to be honest a lot of times trying to figure out which one you're seeing only causes you more pain, more hurt. It only does more damage to decipher if the comment you just heard was born out of simple ignorance (they don't know better), bigotry (far worse), pure evil (obviously the biggest concern), or some combination of the three. The things I hear on a day to day basis would literally make your blood curdle. Speaking to fishy but respected businessman several months ago, he just casually dropped the following pearl of wisdom:

"I don't really like basketball. It's just a bunch of monkeys running around"

He wasn't making a joke. He didn't pause for me to laugh or turn white and then punch me in the arm and say "I gotcha!" or anything like that. He didn't even have the slightest inclination that what he said could possibly have been construed as anything other than a commonly accepted fact! The conversation continued on, with me virtually unable to continue holding up my end because I mean really, are you fucking kidding me? This guy is in his late 20s. He's an immigrant himself. He runs a successful business. It's America, and it's 2013, and he just casually dropped that knowledge on me like it was fucking nothing. Maybe I took it too seriously, but honestly I'd have been less shocked if he'd simply fired off the N-word. Is this man evil? I don't think so; I have a fair bit of evidence suggesting he's not. But it can't simply be ignorance, right? I don't think so. He's a bigot, plain and simple. Why does it matter? I guess it doesn't, but the force of his statement just struck me, almost physically so, and I haven't been able to let it go since. It eats at me, it is wrong, and when I see things that are wrong they bother me. Is it my place to worry about it? No. But every time I let something like this go, every time I turn a blind eye to a "human" treating another human poorly like this, or making a statement like this, I lose a part of myself, a part of my decency, a part of what makes me worth keeping alive.

Today another one happened. The South African was just joking around, egging on the the fish who got me barred, and eventually got him to declare:

"No way! No gays go to heaven. And no lawyers. If you want to go to heaven, you better not become a lawyer or a gay!"

I mean, the man is 84 years old and basically a dottering idiot. As an aside, I just remembered that the two men here actually arm wrestled for $50 last week, surveillance footage I'd consider committing some lesser misdemeanors to get my hands on. Anyway, he's a senile idiot, but I don't really think his comment is simply ignorance. It's bigotry, too; has to be. And again, why do I care? He's 84 years old, he'll be dead soon (not soon enough, but soon) and when he kicks off the world will be a (slightly) better and more enlightened place. Why should I worry about him bumbling around for the next decade or so? I just don't have an answer for this question, but I do. I do care. Seeing him continue to take in precious oxygen and use it to make statements like that, in 2013, in America, just makes me feel so awful inside. If comments like these can happen here in California in the present day, how awful has it been for so many countless millions of people throughout the last two thousand years? And what am I doing to make it better? Nothing. Every day I am presented with countless situations where I am forced to choose (often subconsciously, but far too often actively and these are the decisions that haunt me, the ones I realize are happening and make passively, make without causing conflict, the wrongs I allow to continue to live, those are the ones that hurt me, that stay with me, that lay down to sleep with me at night) simply, do I say something or let it slide? Every time I say something I end up in a conflict. I end up barred, or angry, or in general at least unfocused. But when I don't say something, when I let it slide, when I let the idiot or the bigot or the evil just be it costs me something, too. The cost is small, but over thousands of days and tens of thousands of interactions the damage adds up. A scratch here, a dent there, a nick there and all of a sudden my armor just isn't up to code.

That's all I got. Sorry if you were expecting me to talk about poker.

And Yet I Still Wonder

2013-03-05T21:20:00.002-08:00

Today I played so many hands so badly that I find it to be a small miracle that I'm even still in action, let alone a respected pro that a lot of people look up to. I mean, I just played...so...fucking...bad. It was beyond reason. Nitty prop guy capped it, then checked the flop of AQ3 3 ways, so what did I do with the ten and the ten? I fired a bet out there. Am I bluffing? I better be, because I am losing 114% of the time here, and when he c/r why did I peel? Did I really want to hit the jackpot that badly? I must have because I certainly can't win the pot. When other super duper nitty guy checked back the 976-3 turn after c-betting the flop, why did I bet the 9 river? What exactly was I hoping he'd call my pair of 6s with? I mean, really. It's an awful awful bet that he's going to play so close to perfectly against it blows my mind that I even considered making it, let alone actually fired it. Sure it's preposterous, but I really do need to check call, check check, check/fold a pair there. I do, I really just do he's that awful and by not doing so I'm sinking to his level and letting him off the hook for no reason whatsoever. And when he checked back the A63 flop after three betting me preflop, what exactly was I hoping to accomplish by check/raising the 5 turn and betting the deuce river with A8? Again, he's playing perfectly....He showed me the Ace and the Ten, obviously. If he'd had the king and the king even he'd have snap folded to my check/raise. I have to stop going for thin value against this idiots and commence bluffing them relentlessly. It is the only way. Or when I opened AQ otb and the blinds defended and the sb donked the KT3 flop and said "raise me!" after the big blind just called I...raised him? Really Jesse? Really? Stone cold fish I was there. You check/raise me on the KT3-4ddd turn? I will showdown red eights. Why not, I could win sometimes right? OK actually that one was pretty much fine, and when I started writing this post I had more hands in mind wherein I played like total garbage but they are now escaping me. The point is that I've lost $20k straight and honestly I think I'm pretty far off my A game and might be in need of a break.

Stream of Conscious Rage

2013-02-28T18:58:00.000-08:00

So I head into the bike today to play because the game has still been ok and I just am not willing to give in to going to commerce yet. I was supposed to maybe take the day off, but honestly I didn't have much else to do and it just didn't seem like I REALLY needed it and I am not playing Saturday Sunday or Tuesday so I figured it'd be a good idea to play. So we get the cards in the air around 10:20 and that's all well and good, and the game is pretty much fun but then eventually my phone starts blowing up and it's Kimmy, first telling me there is a great short 60 that I should go play, then a few minutes later letting me know that Eagle will be landing briefly and wants to play simply the 1 and the 2, not something absurd like the 4 and the 8. So these two reports are enough for me to race over to Commerce only to find myself shut out of the Eagle game. That's not so bad, the 40s look good and the (now lone) 60 is also amazing so I wait it out and get a seat in the 40 and take my blind and...get called for the 60 literally 4 seconds too late. So I play the lap, blah blah blah, and sit down in what can only be described as magically unicorn and pixie dust fairytale poker game. I mean really, if I could sit in that game all day for the rest of the year I'd make a quarter of a million dollars this year and everything would be right with the world. Zero chance I was less than $100/hour winner, just zero, even though I had already played like shit three or four times at the bike (I fell for Annie's reverse tell and tried a bluff, I gave Randy some free cards, blah blah blah) and was clearly not at my absolute best.

So of course I get myself buried so fast I don't even know what fucking hit me. DHL is on a rampage (he always delivers). I'm quickly into the game for a cool $10k (that's the trick with the zoo...you need at least 3 racks on the table to make it reasonably zoo-like so if you're stuck a couple racks all of a sudden you get in SUPER deep) and just stone cold cannot win a pot. The jack and the ten in a button vs big blind hand with the J57ss-J board? Cannot beat the jack and the eight. The King and the king, both red, on the 432ddd flop? Drawing dead to the running full HOW. Blah blah blah I get buried, then I win some hand because holy fucking shit these people are terrible (the pot is capped 4 ways, by me, and the board reads J53J and FOUR OF THEM call me on the turn.....this would be less exceptional if I didn't have the deck crippled with quad jacks) and eventually though it comes apart...the centre? It cannot hold. DHL racks up his $6k win and Mr. Lee decides he's going to take his seat. It'll be the third time he's moved, and I challenged him on the first one and then just let him have the second one (shouldn't have done that) even though it kind of hurt me a little. So this time I tell him no I want it and he basically tells me I never challenged him (which is true regarding his most recent change...but I did challenge the one before that) and eventually he calls me a liar to my face and it's everything I can do not to just attack him violently. He is perhaps the biggest piece of shit going in an environment that is just full of world class specimens, and to boot if I hit him I'll get barred and won't ever have to come to Commerce again! What could be better?!!? But somehow some way I just take the seat, don't hit the man, and eventually realize I need to get the fuck out of there.

To the real rage now. The 5 is stone cold fucked, but I decide I can take surface streets to get around it. LOL yeah, great idea Jesse. As I'm parked on Telegraph and eventually make the right on garfield and am checking traffic on my phone I remember the last time I tried to do this and swearing to the lord almighty I would never attempt it again. But it's too late now, I'm committed, like you read about, and well to make a long story short 40 minutes after I left the building I am literally 4 miles away stopped at subway eating a sandwich. My plan is to browse the web on my fancy chromebook, but there are two problems. First of all, it's 60 degrees inside the subway, too cold for even my taste, and second of all, and this is truly one of the most unbelievably coincidences of all time....aside....

I probably put this story up here but in case I did not.....the fish who got me barred from the bike (he's back, btw, and selectively chopping as usual) makes a big deal about someone buying him coffee. So one day I'm playing 20/40 and this porter walks up to me and tells me I'm buying his coffee. I look at him and respond "no, I don't want to buy his coffee" and hand the man $3. He then proceeds to go directly to the fish and complain that I only tipped him 65 cents, and that was no doubt part of the unintelligible gibberish said fish spewed at me at some point or another. So...

THAT PORTER IS EATING A SANDWICH AT SUBWAY. I swear to you, he's there, eating a sandwich, and he sees me and I see him and I just turn away and walk out of the building with my sandwich. Every man has his breaking point; that was mine. Eventually I got back on the freeway and got him in the licketty split time of 100 minutes (curiously the same length of time I was shut out of a game earlier this week). Seriously, have you ever been driving home and decided you needed to stop for dinner, on just a regular commute? Has that every happened

Light On My Feet

2013-02-21T21:44:00.001-08:00

Here is the post on 2p2. And for those of you who can't follow that link because you work for a place that frowns upon reading about gambling at work (but somehow hasn't figured out that my blog is exactly that), here is the content of the hand, and some of my ensuing commentary:

Midstakes game in LA. I open two kings in early position, and the player on my immediate left 3-bets. We will call him EP. It folds around to the big blind who opts to cap it. I obviously call and we see a flop three ways.

EP is pretty average preflop. His three betting range in this spot should be rather strong. If I had to guess, I'd say something like 99+ and AQ, maybe KQs. He could go a little lower, but I see him cold call raises quite a bit, and I'd imagine he's doing that with the next tier of hands (things like 77, QTs, etc), and as you'll see none of those hands matter on the board we get.

The big blind is an old white guy I've never seen before. I've been playing with him for about 30 minutes and I don't think I've even seen him 3-bet yet (although I have seen him cold call). The only hands I'm sure he can have are QQ, KK, and AA. AK and JJ need to be discounted, and TT and AQ seem very far-fetched. And again, once you see the flop action you'll be able to discount anything but premiums even further.

So in short...we have very, very narrow ranges already.

933r

The big blind leads and EP sends me a telegram that he's raising, so I just call. EP raises, and the big blind three bets. I again just call, now because honestly I no longer like my hand. EP caps it, and we both call.

At this point things are looking pretty grim. There is no flush draw on the flop, so I can discount either player having UI high cards almost down to zero. For EP that's a pretty devastating thing to say, since he chose to cap the flop. At this point I'd be shocked if he didn't have QQ+. It's also worth noting that there is a pretty good chance he'd slow play the 99; while he may have raised with it once, there is almost zero chance he'd cap with it. As for the big blind...he's pretty much got what he started with, which is QQ+. I mean sure, he might have JJ, but that needs to be discounted pretty heavily by now, and 99 is also far-fetched for him (both because of the preflop action and my guess that he'd slow play at least a little with it). To the turn, which is meaningless:

933-4

The big blind checks, I check, EP bets, the big blind calls, and I push call for the 5th time in a row.

EP still has a big mitt, obviously. BB is now less likely to actually have the AA, since there is some chance he'd just "donk" the turn with that strong of a hand. I'd say he's more than 50% at this point to have exactly two queens. I'm just planning to call one more river bet and occasionally get shown all four queens, or get half the pot, or have a gross misread. But then the river comes.

933-4-A

The big blind checks and I...donk!

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I'm donking for a few reasons. On the river I trust EP to play perfectly against my hand if I check. He will certainly check back QQ-, he'll bet 99 and AA, and I'd assume he'll even check back that one niggling combo of KK. So in theory I should do what captain R says, and probably check and not over call except that the BB's hand and call would be close to meaningless and in reality I'm probably not going to fold the river getting 17:1 here. So if I bet and fold to a raise, it doesn't cost me very much, if anything.

But if I bet...what does my hand look like? Remember, I've pushed the call button five times in a row. It looks like exactly AK, so much so that I think there is a chance the other two kings will fold! It's only a single combo, but the ranges have gotten SO narrow that it might be enough. We literally have 3 combos of AA that I lose to, 1 combo of KK, and then 6 combos of QQ. If something else shows up I have a misread, and if I do it's got to be a bank error in my favor because of how many combos of JJ and TT there are.

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This kind of gets at the reason I posted the hand; it's not super interesting, as Mr John champion of the deuce to seven Locke has already stated (well done btw). The point of the hand was to illustrate the concept I mentioned in a thread a little while ago, the idea of staying light on your feet during a hand. The question "was my river play premeditated" was a good one also, and I have to admit it was not. During the course of a hand as players drop out, ranges narrow, and the board grows drastic u-turns of strategy can be required. In a sense this is probably the only part of "many way, exploitative, big pot" poker that is actually more difficult than "heads up three bet pots vs experts" poker.

I have seen live players who seem to have had amazing results for a long time (MikeL comes to mind, obviously, but there are others included) do stuff like this rather frequently. It's very, very hard, and I felt like I took a (perhaps misguided) crack at doing it in this hand. The next time you play, try to stay light on you feet during every hand you play; look for spots where drastic u-turns could show big profits, and don't be afraid to try them out.

We're all here to make money, but if you stop learning and the game isn't fun anymore, you won't last long