marrying pocket sixes

If Women are the Rake, Ivey is the Tax: Thoughts After My First WSOP.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:07:00 +0000

I remember in college while playing poker we'd run one of the most famous college DVDs for any poker degen: Rounders. Whether you picked up cards at a home game, fraternity, or social event, it was hard not to sympathize the romanticizing of Matt Damon's run for the World Series.

Even though I own the Collector's Edition, I don't touch it anymore. It's so far from the truth it's almost lethal to mire in its mystical vapors. After this trip and re-living what can only be described as the "euphoric hell" that grinders go through, I now understand how lucky I used to run in the $2-$5 games.

Here are three things that I learned that can be quickly applied to startup/every day mentality.

1. Preparing to Win Not Just on Special Occasions

The morning/day before the tournament I was meticulous in my planning. I made sure I ate non-greasy, light breakfast food and that I'd chew 20 times (which is insane, but the recommended number per mouthful) per bite, which I never do. I prepared snacks for each break, coordinated when I'd do bathroom breaks, down the wire.

Then I realized, "Why don't I do this every day?" Why can't I prepare the crap out of each day wanting to win the daily baby seal cereal prize? I had chosen to not kick ass every day, which is falling short of my potential.

Play like you're gonna win.

2. Variance Builds Character

There's a saying in poker that amateurs think it's all skill, intermediate players think it's all luck, and the pros know it's both. Even if you're making the right decisions, sometimes the deck is just a cooler. You can constantly adapt to the table's aggression, the type of tournament, or type of cash game. But nothing will prepare you for a bad down-swing.

And by bad, I mean you can be running for months or years bad. You're putting the money in ahead, but oops, he just two-outtered you on the river. All the best pros have known that fateful experience of "busting" out of Vegas and having to recoup a bankroll.

This trip reminded me that you need to have the balls and chubby skin to make through scrappy times. Boot-strapped startups are akin to such variances where you don't know when your next cash flow is coming from. But you believe in yourself and the cause, so press on.

The world doesn't reward scared money.

3. Paying Your Dues to Be a Killer

One of my poker pro buddies that I happened to meet up during this trip gave me a great explanation of why Phil Ivey is the best poker player in the world now.

"It's all about balls," he said as he pulled a drag on the cigarette (his smoking was proportional to the amount of poker he was playing). "Phil Ivey plays the best when he's broke. He has a terrible gambling habit, but that's actually what makes him a f-cking killer." Basically, he wasn't saving anything for the trip back home. Money was just a language of expressing how much he'd dominate you. He could care LESS about anything, and just focus on the poker.

And so the pecking order develops. The penny games come up to dump money to us $1/$2 lifers, and we dump money upwards when we think we can play at those $2/$5, $5/$10 games, and the chain goes all the way to the top of the circus: Phil freaking Ivey.

With that, it brings us to a savory lesson: dont' be afraid to fail and lose. It kind of ties with number 2 about not being scared money, but if that didn't tickle you, this is the other flip side of the coin. There are NO short cuts anywhere, even in poker. Long-term success is still a very tangible metric within this community, and the boom-bust of gambling is the measuring ruler of our poker civilization.

Learn as much as you can as you move up in your game with the due diligence that is needed, and someday you'll be smoking a cigarette talking about the f-cking killers you swam with.

Action Report for Lucky's

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:01:00 +0000

In preparation for the upcoming World Series of Poker, me and a shall-not-be-named-friend Canuk got the bright idea of practicing playing in tournaments at the closest casino in Colma, Caifornia: Lucky Chances.

Summary: I busted, but I learned a lot about the pacing of tournaments like these, and actually got in around 25th out of 70+ players. I also picked up some nuances & leaks in my game as well.

Long Story:

"Let's do this!" This was Canuk's consistent chant since he showed up at my door at 8:40am in the morning. I could still smell the booze on him. Possibly hung over. We were off to a good start.

After a missed exit and getting in just as the registration was closing, we got seated at the same table, Canuk in Seat 2, me in Seat 8. A $65 Re-Buy NL Tournament ($50 for 4k more).

Immediately I saw this structure was actually quite similar to the Sit-N-Go's I used to play out East and online, so with blinds going up every half hour, you had to play close to premium hands. My table was a pretty bad draw, with only Seat 4 and 7 live fish. Everyone else was either regular or seemed pro. I also soon realized it was pointless to NOT re-buy (almost everyone did before the tournament even started).

I got settled in, and didn't even try to set-mine with pockets when I was UTG or early position because the raising was pretty aggressive. There was not a single free BB pass for the entire time I was there.

One of the first hands I get involved I pick up Ad Qc. Blinds at 25-50 I made it 150 to go. My friend Canuk in the BB looks down and flat-calls.

Flop: Q x x. Rags to rainbows. We both check it around.

Turn: J. Canuk shoots 400. I call.

River is another useless rag. This time Ian bets out 700, and I min-raise it to 1400. He folds.

I stack one of the fishes when he goes all in for a short-stack. I look down at Qc Qd. I iso-raise all-in, and he flips up AK off. I win the race, and am chipped up to 7,000.

Then a late registration comes in, Tony. I've seen this guy everywhere and immediately we sized each other up.

"Why aren't you at the cash games?" I asked.

"Taking a break," he says while shrugging. Going forward, he would be the de facto table captain, raising hands like J 5 and the range was all over the place. I knew I had to play back at him at some point.

A few failed pre-flop raises only to see myself fold on the flop led me to a critical hand at pocket 7s. I had roughly 10x the BB at this point, and felt like I needed to make a move. Tony was BB. I raised mid-position to 400. A regular calls, and it gets to Tony. He flat-calls.

Flop 9c 9s 3c. Feeling confident, I make it 1,500 to go, a pot-sized bet. Regular folds, and Tony blows it 5,000. With my remaining 4,000 I go all-in, and insta-call. He tables 9h Ad. I'm out.

"Should I buy back in?" Canuk shuffles his chips. "How long are we staying man?"

"It's up to you." And then I flip out another $50 in resignation. The table murmurs in agreement, probably thinking I'm dead money. At this point I felt like it too.

Playing a few hands and building up my stack again, on the last hand before the 1st break, I pick up pocket 8s. I min-raise, and the two short stacks at the table wake up and jam around 750+. The other surviving fish, Seat 4, flat-calls them in. At this price, I had to call for this four-way pot.

Flop is a K high rag of cards. Fish and I check it down.

Turn is help to no one, and again we checked.

Here's where it gets sick: an 8 spikes the river. Fish again checks. I shuffle some chips, and I try to imagine what I'd do to over bet the pot.

"I'm all in." And I toss in the rest of my stack. He looks up at me incredulously, and folds saying, "I should call...but I won't."

We turn it over, and suddenly I'm up to 8,000 in chips. Canuk later talks to me during break, "That was a dirty river, and I knew you caught it or someone filled out somewhere."

Unfortunately after the break on the way up I got it in on the button with 10s vs Canuk's 6s all-in, and mine held up. He made his exit, and wished me luck as he looked for a cab. Now I was on my own.

At this part of the tournament, Tony begins to make insane 5x pre-flop raises with heavy continuation betting. No one stands up to him, and if we do, he catches amazing hands (his J5 spikes a J on the river against AK or he gets runner-runner straight to pockets).

I easily make my stand when I look down at red AAs. Delightful. With the antes and blinds making the pot already 1,400 I make it 1,500 to go. Tony is the only caller.

Flop is a rainbow 10x 5x 4x. Tony check-calls 2,000.

Turn: 5x. Tony again check-calls my 3,000.

River 4x Check. At this point I'm almost certain I have him beat, but I wanted to see his hand. So I checked.

He flips over Q 10, and I table my Aces. As the pot is shoved towards me, Justin (a new arrival to the table with a monster stack) notes, "You could've gotten another 3,000."

"I know, but I wanted to see his hand." The table then discusses that I could've actually asked for the hand, though it's considered bad poker etiquette. Who knew?

By the second break, I'd chipped up to a decent 18,200. Blinds though had crept up to 600-1200, antes at 50. We were already down to 36 players from 70.

This part of the tournament was where it became a race to keep up with the blinds. I made some pretty hardcore AJ folds pre-flop (correctly), but I'd win on the river. I had to constantly remind myself the results were not relevant, and that I made the right decisions.

Somehow I swing around between 25,000 and 20,000. The most critical hand in the tournament ironically was the most curious hand.

I look down at some 4c 4d and made it 3,000 to go. The dealer suddenly tapped the table saying "you need 200 more." Instantly I realized the blinds had moved up another level, and I didn't put in enough. "Discount!" I said, laughing it off.

It folds around to this tight Vietnamese player. He snaps, "All in." This is the part of the tournament where I had to accumulate chips, and I felt I could make a stand here.

"How much more?"

8,500. It was giving me almost a 2.5 to 1 on my money. I pulled all the tricks out in the bag.

"Why did you go all in? You were short-stacked last time with sixes when you jammed, but why didn't you want to bait me in? Maximize your hand value?"

He smiles. "Do you have AJ like last time?"

I call time on myself, and shuffle up the chips required to make the call. I had him on A overs, a race situation, but I'd be ahead. He just couldn't be this strong with a strong jam. The way he postured his chips forward and made his 1,000s in small piles to make his stack look bigger was suspicious as well.

I make the reluctant call, and I table my Fours before he can even get his out. He slowly opens up A9 off!

Feeling the rush, I yell, "Oh man you got your hand caught in the f-cking cookie jar!" The table immediately protested on my swearing, and I immediately apologized.

Flop: 10 2 x rag.

Turn: 9. At this point, he yells and hugs a supporting friend (the one I knocked out with Qs). I only have one more card, and one out. I pat the felt saying, "Nice hand."

The river is a meaningless 5. I see the chips shoved the other way. I'm now down to 7,000 and crippled.

After getting the BB/SB in, I was down to 4,500 and just shoved with Jc 9c. A regular jams his stack all-in to isolate my money and then flips up Ax Qx.

Flop: 10 X Qc. WHAT A FLOP. I now had the backdoor flush, running cards, and an open-end straight draw. 30% to 70% favorite.

Ac. 20% to 80%. Now I semi-filled up a flush draw and he two-paired up. Still yummy.

4 spades. A blank.

And then suddenly I saw myself put on my jacket and wishing everyone at the table good luck in the tournament.

Conclusion:

I felt overall I had a solid table image and made the right calls for the most part except when I went broke on the pocket 7s. I feel though I really need to button-steal/bluff way more (I did once, and got snapped off immediately by the BB, which just threw me off). The whole time though I was pretty snug, stack-wise, always hovering around 10-18 for my M factor.

If you guys have any thoughts and comments, I'd love to hear 'em. I thought this was a great segway back into the live tournaments, and I think if I can do alright in this structure, I can definitely make something happen at the WSOP $1,000k NL Tournament.

Shuffle up & deal!

I Miss Your Comics.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 06:38:00 +0000

There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
― Bill Watterson

Men.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:18:00 +0000

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him….I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than man…I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me…but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts…Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith HIs demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man’s creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

- Napoleon, while exiled on the rock of St. Helena.

Few Notes.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:30:00 +0000

On my road to achieving 50,000 hands online at the .25/.50 level (which is insanely difficult), a pro-friend of mine says that if one can make it there, they can make it up the $1/$2 up.

Ironically, I had a lot more success playing short-stack at $1/$2 vs. playing full-stack at .25/.50 level, surprise, surprise. I make too many c-bet moves and make marginal calls. Ironically I remember reading that online you have to give people less credit. I don't know if I believe that anymore.

Some points for self:

- LEARN TO FOLD OVERPAIRS/TOP PAIR TOP KICKER SCENARIOS. I keep getting my ass kicked in this department. Definitely a leak I need to address asap, or it's going to kill me.

- You know I keep reading that it sucks to limp, but when there are people before you who limp-call, I feel it doesn't hurt too much to limp behind. I need to consult this one with 2+2 peeps/friends.

- Playing live at higher levels vs. online, does that mess with you?

- Read FTP's Common Leaks article.

"Suffering" to Three Percent.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:00:00 +0000

What really sucks right about now is the realization that I must go in on this alone. Nobody really believes the dream except a friendly, perhaps pitying, "Good luck!" and hell, whom am I to say that I'm even sure of this myself either.

There was some statistic rattled off somewhere either on the Internet or at the poker table I do not remember about how only three percent of this occupation can making a profitable living with poker. I do not know if it's one, or maybe even 10, but you, dear reader get the idea. It's going to be tough, and it's a reach to say the least.

Let me just time-stamp this Kinko copy and say that I know absolutely nothing about how my poker dream will transpire. But there will be suffering, and the suffering will tear me from my insulating, comfort life. I want to shed all that is unnecessary for this journey. If it will not help, then it is a burden. However, as Rob Bell said in his Drop Like Stars, "What every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential."

I want to TRY for once in a big way. Just go out and reach for a dream without compromise. If I fail, this would be one of my life's masterpieces.

Prometheus, You Screwed Me.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:20:00 +0000

As you may or may not know, I believe the worst part about break-ups in any relationship isn't the actual break-up itself. The relationship actually takes on a life of its own after everything's over, depending on what kind of person you are. Paranoia, mescaline use, self-loathing, or Deathcab for a Cutie may occur, in no particular order. But this is also where your mind becomes fearfully acute and Skynet self-aware, ever sharpened by the sudden evacuation of that love source and the body's attempts to reconcile such coils.

Thus I've become my own creative director that seeds my own self-destruction or recovery. I have all these saved drafts of posts I want to share, but they're incomplete thoughts. I have tinder all around me, and the spark, but not the heart to test such fires.

However, as fate would have it two events happened. Certain muses have sparked this particular post (Grace Inspired! What a fitting title in this context) along with an encouraging e-mail came into my mailbox to compliment my very first entry in the blogsphere. I will defer no time, for delays have dangerous ends. I'm actually surprised that I haven't blogged about this story since it ties in so closely to poker and its shady dealings. Hopefully this monologue will transpire other thoughts along the way as I'm writing up the next entry. It better be good.

I've been wasting my life through Hung (excellent new series by HBO...again), Entourage, trying to tap into a $100+ fantasy football league (I know, it's a problem), and two point five seasons of Burn Notice. It's not everyday that a 39-year old woman makes an extremely good case of the hots; thank you, Gabrielle Anwar.

Lillian posted about people of excellence. It's not a foreign concept to me, but it made me realize the man I must become. God must be a priority back in my life. I used to preach that singledom was simply a time for self-improvement, so now I will sip my own Kool-Aid. I've picked up the 5K challenge. I'm buying vegetables and fruits on a semi-consistent basis (anyone who knows me would find this stunning).

I didn't see this paning out to the way it did, but I'll make the best of it. It's a life catalyst I can ill-afford to waste.

I promise.

The Opportunity Cost.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:12:00 +0000

So what happens after Last Vegas?

Words can't even describe what I've learned from this trip.

First of all, I learned that Bill Gates is notorious for being the richest man and the poorest tipper (a dwarf named Bill told me that he plays a $3-$6 card game, and doesn't tip dealers or waitresses for the drinks). A cabbie who loved how I bought AAPL (Apple) and another who had a $1 million dollar home.

I ended up seeing over five different casinos from the Venetian to the Hard Rock, even the Hooters casino (yuck). From my orbits of gracing different poker halls, I'll skip the bad beats, the variances, my growing love for craps, and a hooker who said it "got busy for some reason for some big poker tournament a few months ago..." (it was the World Series of Poker for those who don't know)

One of the most insightful conversations I had with bonds trader-now poker pro named Steve Frederick. His resume was quite impressive, he was lean, and moved in a sleek, Nike track suit set at 10 in the morning. Steve constantly chirped about crack and strippers. He was notorious for missing his big blind when he got up for breaks. By the time I left him, Steve would end up playing two eight-hour sessions.

I have never in my life seen anyone play more brilliantly than this man. He'd call and show you bottom pair before you could flip over your cards, chirping that Ace high was no good. He was a man in his own element at the felt table.

But the more I saw the city, and his wry stories about his divorce ("Oh she hated other things as well besides poker," Steve added), and the strange desperation that crept quietly beneath the glitz, the more I realized the opportunity cost I'd have to pay to play poker as a career.

This trip definitely changed my perspective about playing poker full time, which is something I would never want to do. I'd still want to do something, anything. Volunteering, helping someone start a business, what have you. But I also realized that if you have a steady hand and a good carrot, even a donkey like me can be steered in the right direction.

To cap off this entry, I'd give it up to Steve for summing up the trip from two texts he sent me later that night I met him:

"Left the table & got a massage & bj 4 $200."

20 minutes later at 1 am.

"Made 1k u playing tonight or tues?"

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:16:00 +0000

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

"That's not forever."

"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't forever."

"Will, it will last our time, won't it?"

"So would the coal and uranium."

"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."

"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."

"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did all right."

"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

"I'm not thinking."

"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."

"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."

"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

"The hell you do."

"I know as much as you do."

"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

"All right. Who says they won't?"

"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'"

"It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

"Never."

"Why not? Someday."

"Never."

"Ask Multivac."

"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.

"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've ----"

"Quiet, children," said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for "analog computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

"Why for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."

Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."

"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase."

"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done, " whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back.

"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

Jerrodine said, "and now children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?"

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --"

VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we'll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?"

VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it's sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

"Why not?"

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, "See!"

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it, " had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF."

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."

"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

"They must all die. Why not?"

"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

"It will take billions of years."

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal AC answered. "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic AC," said Man, "How may entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT."

"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

Man said, "We shall wait."

The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light----

Poker-Related.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Warning: before you read anymore, this is pretty much about me. Me, me, me. If you can stand the narccisstic musings, proceed.

So I guess I just experienced my first "official" tournament for my run at the World Series of Poker 2008, which ended rather abruptly by Day 1 (haha!). I was pretty well-stacked (doing very healthy for the average chip-stack). But I made a few moves against the same guy, and he had my number. Every. Single. Time. Finally, some old man comes along to take me out with this:

Hero: JJ
Opponent: 22.

Flop peels off a 2. 7 6 2 rainbow. Death & mews ensue.

I wasn't too peeved; after all, making even into that tournament (I had to win a qualifying tournament to get there) was my personal goal, and everything else was bonus. I saw Bernard Lee (he was the guy who came in 13th in the WSOP 2005). He's kind of cocky, and from what I heard from the rest of the locals, he gave some negative commentary during the final table for EPT last year.

But this week I have been EATING & pooping poker it seems. I won a tournament on Wednesday, did a night session at Foxwoods on Friday, and barely woke up to come to the EPT WSOP tourney. I keep track of my session stats on cardplayer.com, so I promise I'll post my results by the end of the summer!

I know I'm doing straight at the $2-$5 cash tables ($5000 is the goal for three months!), but I feel that I'm holding back somewhat still. Parents are quietly protesting; friends are wary.

But I'm hungry for a tournament title for some reason. Maybe the amount of money, cameras, pros hobbling around made me a little star-struck.

Lifez.

So it's been a year and two days since I've started working for the man. A lot of my personal goals were measured against this bench-mark, so I'm making a bunch of frequently-asked-questions that you, dear reader, would have a burning desire to ask. Believe me. It's going to kick holy ass.

Considered yourself warned: this may be offensive like handicapped porn.

How is post-college life adjustment. For real.
Honestly, pretty sweet. I'm one of those sleazy bull sh-tters that somehow managed to land a decent job straight out of college and make decent bucks. My only small gripe is the free time. Doing nothing is something now. I definitely don't have the same social network that I used to kick it with. But it's right as rain. Quality control is up in this.

You also start experiencing weird discussions. M-words like "marriage" and "mortgages." Better-salary envy, too. People start going into cycles around you. Exactly half of your friends will break up from wifey-year-long relationships, and other half break off some spring love. The rest of you, break a leg.

New revelations?
People come and go. You just can't take anything personally, even if say you two were bffs during college. Moving the vineyard to California doesn't make Bordeaux anymore.

Ultimately, I found that my true friends stuck around, despite how useless I am (I never call anyone). And to those who know who they are, I cherish deeply.

Are you fat?
I guess ramen and campus food is the college student's equivalent to the supermodel cocaine diet. For me, college was so much more active that post-college. So long answer, yes, asshole. I am. Fatter.

So what's next?
Vote for Obama, pull up a chair and let's have lunch soon! I miss seeing a lot of you cats. For some reason NO ONE knew I worked in the Back Bay area, so come play. I hope everyone's summer is kicking.

Oh, dinner if you're hot.

p.s. Does anyone else think Google stock looks MIGHTY attractive below $550?

2008 Action Report.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Sorry this is for playing-notes only. If you were looking for anything deep, romantic, or depressing, read no further.

1st WSOP Satellite: Q-8 limp, BB limps, three-way.

Flop: Q 5 2. 1 bets, BB re-raises, I raise all-in. 1 mucks, BB thinks hard; finally calls.

Notes: BB specialed. Nothing spectacular. Blinds were coming up, and I was playing relatively mute. I just made a move with top-pair.

2nd WSOP Satellite: 8-7. LAG-sub-par player raises a ridiculous raise. 6x blinds. Loose image, has been showing down mediocre hands. I just call because one other guy calls, I have 3 to 1. Why not. 3-way.

Flop: 10 9 x. LAG over-bets AGAIN. I just move all-in. It's a 3,000+ chip pot. Only 900 more to go (the chip-stack ratio I couldn't help). He mulls, knowing I'm tight, and calls. Shows J-9. Turn: 8, which actually gives him a ton of outs now (sigh), river is nothing.

Notes: I guess the way this Satellite is structured is almost like a sit-and-go, TT style. I noticed this other guy I've befriended (seen him both times, he actually won the first Satellite I went to), and he selectively draws for his all-ins, and finds places to push. Moral of story: need to win a pot before the first level is over. I won a minor pot, but by the time the second levels came around, I was basically one of the two lowest chip stacks; everyone else either had a crazy-donkey moment or made moves.

Foxwoods (May 30): Wow, unbelievable.

Highlight of Night: A-K suited. $2-$5 NL. Guy raises $30 to go. I just call.

Flop: A K K. LLamas! I think I was giving myself a hand job after seeing that flop. It even had a cute flush draw.

Opponent bets $60. I count to 15 (Dan Harrington's tip to slow-playing, raises, calls). I look flustered, and call.

Turn: 10. Nothing, checks all around.

River: A. Whiskey, tango. My heart drops when he chirps, "All-in." I look over in disbelief, like "What the hell, this is so lame." I call. He shows A-10.

akldjf.

Hardest hand was actually my SECOND hand of the night. A-9. I just call (three people in front of me call, dubious? This middle-aged Asian guy, a bit tipsy, calls three positions behind me.

Flop is A-9-7. Everyone checks. I check. No flush threat at all.

Turn: 6. Checks all around. Asian dude bets $75. I re-up to $200, sandwiching a caller. I honestly was expecting to take the pot. Asian guy immediately calls, BB folds. At this point, I'm braced to slow it down. Something is not right.

River: 6. I check. He just puts me ALL-in.

Okay. At this point I'm completely befuddled. Pockets? He rarely raises, and when he does it's like a $15-re-pop (the rest of the table was committing $25-upwards....CRAZY pre-flop action with re-raises too). Deep-stack poker.

The sixes had to have helped him. He kept saying afterwards (and a little bit during the hand), that if he had me on a straight. He had me on ASS?? 8-10?

I think by the end of the night, I put him on A-6. or 6-7. My raise immediately signified I held at least A-x. He could've hit bottom pair, following a two-pair on the turn. Or overplayed an A.

Ugh, that hand basically left me in a funk, (and $200 down), and I was in recovery territory for the rest of the night. Sigh. I think the only other sexy hand was a QQ, where I had some cute raise, then I re-raised. Everyone else folded. I kept limping, and calling raises (EVERYONE was raising, it was ridiculous like Jurassic).

The good news is that I'm so hungry to hit the tables. I haven't hit Foxwoods since March, so it's nice to get back on this ice cream van. Going this Friday.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:19:00 +0000

"Misery is almost always the result of thinking."

-- Joseph Joubert.

Pre-Christmas Massacre.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:39:00 +0000

Wow I just got hit by one of the worst runs, ever. -$800+ in less than three hours.

This raises all my previous doubts of whether poker's my competitive advantage, my schtick, my favorite iPod.

What else am I suppose to do. What is my one-hit song? Should I be world's best stone-skipper? Hold the world record for the longest distance an orange has been rolled by my nose?

This is a privately-funded war from within. Like the war on drugs, terror, or obesity, there seems to be no end in sight. My mind never ceases.

Shoot-outs.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:41:00 +0000

FINALLY, a poker-related entry. I was going to write a completely different entry up until Sunday where I had several epiphanies.

Ageism is Dead to Me.

I keep reminding myself that old people don't always suck. Skill does not favor the meek, skin, or background. You simply account for how they play; plus, sometimes if they're the talkative type they have amazing stories. Sunday's table, the old people were the only ones going pro. We were Donald Gennaro on that flimsy Jurassic Park toilet, and the grand baby-boomers were the poetic-youthful raptors who eat Aussie-shotgun-totting game hunters. Dinosaurs, 1. Tourists, 0.

Tight People Who Think They're "Good."

Moan, "Just give me cards and I'd play with those donkeys! I think we can play just about any card and we'd be good against them har har!" and I just watch them get blinded out or run over by a loose table. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm a bit TAG myself but there are cats out there who play ONLY with premium hands, and that is not the way to go my friend. Dubious 6 times BB pops, and checking on the river EVERY TIME you don't hit is just predictable poker. And we know where that gets us.

Plus, when those ass-hats win money, they just sit on it for another two hours. They hoard their chips as if that crap was giving out free handjobs. As if I have time.

Hot Women are the Rake. Literally.

You just can't play with attractive women. It's arguably the worst combination ever: money & hotties. How WILL you ever spend that cash?

Try calculating your eight outs on a back-door flush draw with a gut-straight draw while you see a beautiful chest in a low-cut top wrapped in a sheer blouse. Nosebleeds, I tell you.

Poker is a Lonely Path.

In the beginning it was all fun and games. Friends were enthusiastic, and determined to go on a tear. Now I find myself in a precarious situation. It's like the recreational drug user suddenly shooting up before the morning shower by himself, and he says, "Uh oh..." That's me. And when you're in self-doubt, it's even worse. I mean, who do you really talk to about that. Interestingly enough, prayer seems like a good anecdote for my short-term bad luck.

Honestly I'm not playing enough to combat the variance. If I have one bad session, I can't just reload the next day and run it again; Foxwoods is another state away. At most I'm playing break-even poker. I win money, buy in tournaments, SNGs, and piss it out there. Which begs the question, "So why do you keep doing it?"

There was recently a snippet I read online from one of those forgotten-hacker-novels before The Matrix came into existence by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash:

"Until a man is 25, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherf-cker in the world. If I moved to a martial arts monastery in China and studied real hard for 10 years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

Sic writing. It's a pretty good read, too for those loose in reading morals. But to answer the question, I suppose poker's my outlet for vice in my youth. It kindles the hope of overcoming all the failures and short-comings that we all inevitably suffer.

So I scratch away a small bank-roll near an associate of sins in hope of wild success that we've only dreamed of, not planned.

Legendary Difficulty & Oranges.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:23:00 +0000

Sadly, it's been nooooo poker WHAT so ever. Except parties, tennis, and Halo 3.

Just to show how ridiculous the Halo 3 release was on Monday to the oh-so non-video-gamers (bad timing is what it is for you peeps), Microsoft poured a $10 million PR campaign across cookies, Mountain Dew, and if they could, your children's pillow sheets (which Halo’s game developer Bungie Studios has denied).

Sure it's over-hyped. But I am playing the co-op campaign right now and we've barely scratched the surface on Chapter 1. I am already in the freaking Serengeti sniping Brute aliens on Legendary difficulty and I need to save not just Earth (add the fate of humanity, etc.), but the galaxy itself because of the impending epic Death-Star equivalent Halos simultaneously about to explode across the solar systems. This is better than a good girlfriend spooning-session. This perhaps explains why I'm single right now.

Numbers aren't out yet, but Halo 3's 24-hour sales are expected to pillage the "Spider-Man 3" MOVIE, the summer blockbuster that grossed $151 million on its first day. Not a fair comparison on Halo's part (it's only a video game serving a less-broader audience), but makes it only an even more amazing feat. Microsoft stock went an extra 1.5 points just because of Halo 3. There were an estimated 25% of absences in schools on Tuesday as a result of Halo 3. MIT vandalized their beloved John P. Harvard statue to celebrate this pseudo-U.S. holiday. Gwen wasn't kidding about BANANAS.

Speaking of fruit, Natalie Imbruglia's video "Wrong Impression" is on repeat right now. For so many years, I've hummed this song not knowing who sang it because it’s insanely catchy…and makes absolutely no sense. So it wouldn't hurt.

But it's weird, I had a Reunited moment when I saw that it was THIS song. And hot damn. Natalie is smoking in this video in that healthy-skinny-wholesome way. I mean, seriously she looks so sexy just peeling that orange, I kid you not. They have her peel that bastard tangerine throughout the whole song.

Unfortunately kids, Natalie is a true testament of how much hotter (in most cases, disclaimer disclaimer) long hair is. If you see her on the UK air waves with "Glorious," she cropped it. UGH. I suppose it works out in the end; she's married now.

There is no experience unmatched of her staring into you from above, a human waterfall cascade of intimacy brush your face. You bask and roll in it, taking in her post-shower shampoo scent and natural pheromones. And for the kinky, there’s nothing like taking a nice clump of it, viciously yanking, and eliciting screams of orgasmic pain. There's something for everyone. You sick, sick man.

With that said, why would you ever cut your hair short anyways. Less maintenance/change-up?

Wow, what a self-revealing entry. Didn't want to leave you with the wrong impression, didn't want to leave you with my last confession…(yeahhhh) of love.

Yeahhhhh.

All I Got Was a T-shirt.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:38:00 +0000

So much for the two-posts-a-month foreign policy.

If anyone ever goes to Las Vegas, take a night-flight. When I saw it through the plane window, it seemed like the world was on fire...and the rush of all the things I saw & heard about Vegas, the rush of fish money, cheap dreams, beautiful people, and buffets came all at once. You need at LEAST a week to fully turn that place inside out. Well, pictures will help capture the unspoken elements:

The Stratosphere, where we stayed.

The one & only "Bobby's Room" at the Bellagio.

National Dodgeball!

In motion.

The Top of the World.

The remains.

SKITTLES.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 01:16:00 +0000

So officially since the kick-off of this blog, I finally hit the tables at Foxwoods. AND, out of stupidity (even more so since I knew I was violating improper bankroll management rules), I moved UP on my blinds to the $2-5 NLs. Frankly, I should be posting more, but I've been busy with some friends in town, and just a lot has been going on adjusting as a post-graduate. Oh wait, what? I'm still stupid.

Oh, I will hopefully NEVER: a) talk about bad beats. Everyone's gotta go through them, and I'll hopefully take my fair share & b) talk much about the technicals in poker unless there is an interesting sliver of theory I would like to address. Which I actually will for self-reference's sake.

The first night on Monday was ridiculous. It was a mixture of amazing flops, bad LAG players across the board, and cold-hearted calls. I think the only premium hand I was dealt with was QQs, and even so, the flop blew out overs. I pretty much ran over the table, and I didn't even play a full session: an hour and a half, tops. I came with $300, leaving with $1300, EVEN AFTER the fact I tipped the dealer $25 every single time someone pushed all-in against me (three people did) & I showed a winning hand. It was the talk of the table: one player said I rightfully should, since it seemed to be giving me a lot of good luck; another player was bitchy at me and the player sandwiched between us, saying, "It's your call, it's your call" if we didn't look at our cards quick enough. He was CONSTANTLY griping about how he received an amazing bad beat (his AAs vs. Q-rag, with the Q tripping on the river). I felt for him, but man, talk about the lack of sportsmanship. If I was a in a bad mood/getting run over, I'd just be quiet, and smile in resignation (which I did the very next night). My winrate was roughly 1.2, and when I hear about online limit guys generating 2-3 BB/100, I get somewhat turned on. That is RIDICULOUS, and it's for even larger blinds. Think about the VARIANCE! KICK A CAT DANG, SKITTLES.

Enter after going to the bars in Boston, around 3 AM Friday night. I have this sensational idea to go to Foxwoods again. When I checked in, I thought it was going to be a soft table until probably three minutes in I recognized that these people grinded. Not grinding my crotch dry-humps style, but like the bad kind. Grinder-Rounder-Gosu. This black dude was KILLING it too. It was MJ Magic Wade because he just had SIC flops with a nice set-up. The opponents would hit top pair; he'd have sleeper trips or two pair. A guy got cleaned flopping a low-straight; he made his high-straight on the turn. I had the unfortunate event of flopping bottom two pair, while he made another straight on the turn.

The worst one was this Slavic dude he just kept finger-raping hand, AFTER HAND. Case in point:

Slav: A-9 clubs.
100-Cent: 66.

Flop: 6, X, 3, all clubs. Checked all around, some guy bets out, Slav RE-RAISES some ridiculous amount, 100-Cent calls behind.

Turn: X. No help to better either hand. Slav checks, 100-Cent checks.

River: 3. Slav bets out, 100-Cent goes ALL-in.

Slav literally jumped out of his seat, running his hands through the rough, oiled hair. For a second, I saw the monkey brain flashing the natural flight-or-fight lightening when his entire stack is threatened, and I swear I'll never forget this: the image of a man who knows he's beat. He counts his bills/chips, shoves it towards him in disgust, "TAKE IT."

100-Cent shows the house, and he FREAKS. Security came.

And wow, these people are cheap-ASSES. They tipped $2 the most. I guess I probably need to start thinking like that too, if I am to survive & manage a bankroll.

But yeah, I realized I need to liquidate some stock, pull up the tent pegs, and run with this. I never chased a dream to burn myself to the ground, so I suppose this is my moment to live a spectacle worth writing. I'd write more, but this entry is becoming almost too-lengthly, so I'll call it a night.

It Began With a Woman and a Cello.

noreply@blogger.com (hip-hip --) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:17:00 +0000

I thought this would be mostly about poker. But I suppose it'll insert some life indigestion as well.

Just the other day in the most appropriate setting ever, I had a musing about girls during a worship set at church. It wasn't my fault really. It was simply the circumstance presenting itself and my brain acting funny. Don't tell me you never made a mental jump from animals to kite-flying and it didn't feel good.

Anyways. The brunette wasn’t attractive, but appealing enough for you to perhaps flirt with the idea. And she was playing PRO-cello for the worship team. From the vibrato in her fingers and the head-bobbing sway, all signs pointed towards the passion she had for praising God. It confounded me how quickly I began to admire her. For the non-musicians out there, playing music, especially for an audience can be an intimate AND nerve-wrenching experience.

And it hit me that every single meaningful small attraction that I had for ANY human being began with a thing that had a glimpse of some super-hero talent. Stuff that you'd never attach with an everyday gal's performance inventory and thus challenges me to explore deeper.

Acid piano. Modern dance. StarCraft. Throwing a football with alarming accuracy to my face at 30 yards. When a girl can impress me with an x activity, that is amazingly awesome.

Unless of course the chick was just skanky hot, and the sports-sex-with-no-meaningful-relationship-scenario becomes an increasingly strong argument. Go me.