Suck and re-suck

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: Table Camino Del Santo - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:29:51 ET - 2007/12/29
Seat 2: ($32.40)
Seat 3: ($24)
Seat 4: ($3.10)
Seat 5: ($23.30)
Seat 6: villain($11.05)
Seat 7: ($9.75)
Seat 8: hero ($25)
Seat 9: ($53.35)
Seat 3 posts the small blind of $0.10
Seat 4 posts the big blind of $0.25
hero posts $0.25

The button has just gone by, so I decided to post rather than wait. So this is the first hand at this table for us.

The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [5h 8h]
Seat 5 folds
villain raises to $0.75
Seat 7 folds

Well, the odds we're being offered here are 2:1. That's actually about right for this hand. You see pros make these kind of calls on TV. They don't make them because "any two cards can win," they make them because a combination of the immediate pot odds and the implied odds are favorable. But you have to play it right - either it flops a monster catch or you check-fold.

hero calls $0.50
Seat 9 folds
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 calls $0.65
Seat 4 folds
*** FLOP *** [4c 8d 5d]

Nice!

Seat 3 checks
villain bets $1

Not only is this likely to be nothing more than a continuation bet, but even if it wasn't, look at the flop: the best hand he could likely have is a big pair, which we have crushed. We can't give the flush draw a free card, but there's no need to go crazy.

hero raises to $3
Seat 3 folds
villain calls $2
*** TURN *** [4c 8d 5d] [Qh]
villain checks

With that last call, he is now pot committed. Time to make him pay.

hero bets $8
villain calls $7.30, and is all in
hero shows [5h 8h]
villain shows [Qd Ac]
Uncalled bet of $0.70 returned to hero
*** RIVER *** [4c 8d 5d Qh] [Ah]

ARGH!!! I hate it when 5-outers catch on the river.

hero shows two pair, Eights and Fives
villain shows two pair, Aces and Queens
villain wins the pot ($21.95) with two pair, Aces and Queens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $23.10 | Rake $1.15
Board: [4c 8d 5d Qh Ah]
Seat 2: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: villain showed [Qd Ac] and won ($21.95) with two pair, Aces and Queens
Seat 7: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: hero showed [5h 8h] and lost with two pair, Eights and Fives
Seat 9: didn't bet (folded)

PokerStars native Mac client!

It's finally here! PokerStars now has a native Mac client. If you're familiar with P* on Windows, you won't find anything out of place here.

Of course, my first two tournaments with it were met with unbelievable cold deck losses, but it's been a bad night all 'round. I'm just happy to be able to get back on P* without the hassle of firing up Windows.

Just go to PokerStars (no, I don't get a kickback for the link) and click download. If you're using a Mac, you'll get sent to the mac download page. Like most Mac software, you just open the disk image and drag the application to wherever you want.

Nuisance bets

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:36:26 ET - 2007/12/17
Seat 1: villain (1,395)
Seat 2: (1,695)
Seat 3: hero (1,680)
Seat 4: (1,500)
Seat 5: (1,230)
Seat 6: (1,500)
hero posts the small blind of 15
Seat 4 posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to nsayer [Jd 3s]
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
villain calls 30
Seat 2 folds
hero calls 15
Seat 4 checks
*** FLOP *** [Js 7d 7h]
hero bets 90
Seat 4 folds
villain calls 90
*** TURN *** [Js 7d 7h] [Ts]
hero checks
villain bets 30

Oh come on! There's 270 chips in the pot. Why would you bet a ninth of the pot? A bet should always have a purpose behind it. What purpose could possibly be served by offering your opponent such ridiculous odds? Normally, I take nuisance bets (as I like to call them - bets that are, say, less than a quarter of the pot) as a sign of weakness and make a pot-sized raise, but here I decided that since he called a pot-sized bet on the flop that he had at least a 7 or a jack, and I'd either be throwing chips away or wouldn't be able to chase him away from the split-pot.

hero calls 30
*** RIVER *** [Js 7d 7h Ts] [8h]
hero checks
villain bets 30

This bet represents less than a tenth of the pot. That bet gives ace-high proper odds to call. A better play is to just check. That, at least, can look like step 1 of a check-raise. But a wimpy little 30 chip bet just looks like stupidity.

hero calls 30
*** SHOW DOWN ***
villain shows [Jh 5s] two pair, Jacks and Sevens
hero shows [Jd 3s] two pair, Jacks and Sevens

Figures.

hero ties for the pot (195) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
villain ties for the pot (195) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 390 | Rake 0
Board: [Js 7d 7h Ts 8h]
Seat 1: villain showed [Jh 5s] and won (195) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
Seat 2: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: hero (small blind) showed [Jd 3s] and won (195) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
Seat 4: (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)

Checking the river

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:58:52 ET - 2007/12/17
Seat 1: (3,435)
Seat 2: (975)
Seat 3: hero (1,620)
Seat 4: villain (1,470)
Seat 5: (1,500)
Seat 4 posts the small blind of 15
Seat 5 posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [5d Kd]
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
hero calls 30

In position with a suited king and no limpers or raisers. I suppose I could have raised here, but it's early yet.

villain calls 15
Seat 5 checks
*** FLOP *** [9d 2d 4d]
villain bets 90
Seat 5 folds

Nice. The 2nd-to-nut flush and the opposition is betting into me. Let's trap.

hero calls 90
*** TURN *** [9d 2d 4d] [Tc]
villain bets 270
hero calls 270
*** RIVER *** [9d 2d 4d Tc] [Jd]
villain checks

There are two possibilities. Either he has the ace of diamonds and is getting ready to check-raise, or we have him beat. But look at it from his perspective: There are four diamonds on the board and no pairs. If he has either a small diamond or no diamond at all, is he going to call a bet here? What's the upside if I make a bet here? Nobody is likely to just call. Either they're going to raise with the ace of diamonds or fold. If the ace of diamonds is trying to check-raise, then I save chips by not falling into the trap, and if nobody else is going to call, I gain nothing by betting. What do I do if he raises? Fold, having probably lost another 600 chips or so? At the very least, checking it down let's me show that I was trapping with a good hand when I called on the flop and turn and will hopefully improve my table image.

hero checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
villain shows [9c Ah] a pair of Nines
hero shows [5d Kd] a flush, King high
hero wins the pot (810) with a flush, King high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 810 | Rake 0
Board: [9d 2d 4d Tc Jd]
Seat 1: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: hero (button) showed [5d Kd] and won (810) with a flush, King high
Seat 4: villain (small blind) showed [9c Ah] and lost with a pair of Nines
Seat 5: (big blind) folded on the Flop

CSI:Miami's DX4 "vaporizer" isn't entirely vaporware

The latest episode of CSI: Miami featured a plot that revolved around a weapon they called the DX4 or the "vaporizer." In the opening scene, three gun smugglers are blown into tiny pieces my a mystery weapon later revealed to be an electronically fired multi-barrel gun. Though lots of folks may have thought it a flight of Hollywood writer fancy, there is a grain of truth to be found.

The technology behind the DX4 is, in fact, been in development by an Australian company called Metal Storm for some time now. The animated technology demo given on the show to illustrate how the gun worked was wrong. They had a single shot per barrel, making the DX4 the biggest single-shot blunderbuss I've ever seen. The real Metal Storm system uses stacks of ammunition in each barrel.

But after getting the technology wrong, which is de rigueur for Hollywood, you have to look at more basic plausibility issues. And if you do, you won't like what you see. For one, it's unclear why the perpetrators of the three opening scene murders resorted to such ridiculous over-kill when a double-tap would have been just as effective (and given the victims' line of work would have raised far fewer eyebrows). Then there's the problem with assassins moving swiftly and silently through the shadows lugging a giant sedan-chair sized weapon around - never mind aiming it properly at 3 armed stooges who presumably are trying not to be shot. Lastly, if you were to set off all the barrels in such a gun at once, with the purpose being to vaporize a human target, the recoil would be, well, memorable. Do we even need to mention the ever present exploding gas tank myth?

But despite all that, the episode was rescued at the last minute by Horatio Caine shooting the perp in the forehead in mid sentence. In that one instant, I was transported back to "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," and Tuco's memorable advice to all would-be villains who find themselves with the upper hand on their nemesis: "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

So close, and yet so far.

More cash game action.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: Table Ann - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:24:39 ET - 2007/12/13
Seat 1: villain ($25.10)
Seat 2: ($25)
Seat 3: ($11.45)
Seat 4: ($15.15)
Seat 5: ($29.75)
Seat 6: ($5.15)
Seat 7: ($9)
Seat 8: hero ($25.35)
Seat 9: ($78.65)
Seat 9 posts the small blind of $0.10
Seat 1 posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Td Ad]
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 raises to $1
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds

Early position raise. We have a medium-to-big suited ace. Let's see as cheap a flop as possible, especially being on the button, and see how we fare.

hero calls $1
Seat 9 calls $0.90
Seat 1 calls $0.75

The blinds came along. That's a bit unfortunate, since it raises the possibility we'll flop an ace and be out-kicked. But the ten wasn't a big enough kicker to re-raise with before the flop.

*** FLOP *** [Jd Kc Qd]

Lawdamighty!!!

The nut straight and the royal flush draw!

Seat 9 checks
villain bets $2.50
Seat 3 calls $2.50

We've got this one. The goal here is to try and get as much money into the center as possible. My thinking here is that at least one of these two limped with a bigger ace and thus has two pair [Stupid Nick, there was no ace on the flop]. If I raise, I'm sure to get at least one caller.

hero raises to $10

It's a slight over-raise because it's designed to put one of the two of them all-in.

Seat 9 folds
villain calls $7.50
Seat 3 folds

Seat 3 later claimed in the chat window to have AQ. I'm rather surprised he got away from it, but perhaps that's a consequence of my over-raise [Of course he got away from it, dummy, he had 2nd pair with an ace kicker].

*** TURN *** [Jd Kc Qd] [8h]
villain checks

We're both committed now. No point waiting.

hero bets $14.35, and is all in
villain calls $14.10, and is all in
hero shows [Td Ad]
villain shows [Kd Qh]

Aaaaaaw!!!! He had my Kd for the royal flush! Too bad.

I still have him crushed. He has 4 outs for a boat. If he had any other king but the king of diamonds, he'd have only 3 outs, since the Kd would give me my royal.

Uncalled bet of $0.25 returned to hero
*** RIVER *** [Jd Kc Qd 8h] [9s]
hero shows a straight, Ace high
villain shows two pair, Kings and Queens
hero wins the pot ($52) with a straight, Ace high
villain is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $54.70 | Rake $2.70
Board: [Jd Kc Qd 8h 9s]
Seat 1: villain (big blind) showed [Kd Qh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Queens
Seat 2: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: folded on the Flop
Seat 4: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: is sitting out
Seat 8: hero (button) showed [Td Ad] and won ($52) with a straight, Ace high
Seat 9: (small blind) folded on the Flop

Oh, the irony

So one of the latest Get a Mac TV ad has the the PC saying, "If your printer doesn't work with Vista, buy a new printer!" As if Vista is guiltier than most OS upgrades at breaking older hardware.



Uh huh.

When we upgraded to Leopard, one of the things that didn't survive the upgrade was our HP PSC-1610 printer/scanner. So what did we do? We bought a new printer. Because our printer didn't work with Leopard. Pot, kettle, black.

Turkey Frying - Safety First

We're going to fry our turkey again this year. I don't think I'd have ever even considered it until I saw Alton Brown's "Turkey Derrick."

When you consider the turkey frying act, it is fraught with danger. You have a tank of propane about 4 feet away from the culinary equivalent of a rocket engine, atop which you've placed 4-6 gallons of peanut oil which you have heated to about 300° Fahrenheit (150° Celsius for you foreigners), into which you're going to drop 16 pounds of room temperature, damp meat. I don't know about you, but I don't really want to be too close when that happens.

I don't yet have a picture of this year's festivities, but here's a picture from last year.



As you can see, the rope allows you full vertical control of the poultry from a safe distance. And, of course, if you're going to fry a turkey, please keep a fire extinguisher handy. The house you save will likely be your own.

IPv6 and Leopard

After a while of not having it working, I've managed to get IPv6 connectivity back to my house from the office. Huzzah! Now I can work around the broken Juniper VPN that we normally use.

Having got this working again (it's a combination of OpenVPN and the MacOS X port of the tun driver), I've rediscovered that AFP file sharing works over IPv6, like it used to in Tiger. Not only that, but Screen Sharing works over IPv6 too! The only hiccup there is that so far as I can tell, Screen Sharing can't figure out how to connect to IPv6 only DNS names. I've tried flushing the DS cache (with dscacheutil -flushcache), but that doesn't seem to help (nor was it necessary to get AFP by DNS name to work). Connecting to literal IPv6 addresses (wrapped with square brackets), however, does work.

So Big Ups to Apple for their commitment to IPv6! Now they just have to fix that one thing.

Apple has a sense of humor

This is kind of funny. In MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard), convenient file-sharing functionality has been added to the Finder. It will show all the machines on the local network, and if it's an Apple device, it will use a picture of the machine as the icon. However, if it's a Windows machine (or anything else using SMB), you get a picture of a monitor with the BSOD. Ha ha.



It may be a little hard to see in the preview. Click on the picture to see it full size.

I hate donkeys

It's been another ridiculous week for me. Shit like this. By the way, this was the very first hand of the tournament:


Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:05:26 ET - 2007/11/17
Seat 1 posts the small blind of 15
Seat 2 posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Ad Ah]
Seat 3 calls 30
Seat 4 calls 30
villain raises to 165
nsayer raises to 450
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
villain calls 285
*** FLOP *** [9c 5d Qd]
villain bets 1,050, and is all in
hero calls 1,050, and is all in
villain shows [Kh Td]

Stupid donkey.

hero shows [Ad Ah]
*** TURN *** [9c 5d Qd] [Jh]

And I get fucked again.

*** RIVER *** [9c 5d Qd Jh] [Jd]
villain shows a straight, King high
hero shows two pair, Aces and Jacks
villain wins the pot (3,105) with a straight, King high
hero stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,105 | Rake 0
Board: [9c 5d Qd Jh Jd]
Seat 1: (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: folded before the Flop
Seat 4: folded before the Flop
Seat 5: villain showed [Kh Td] and won (3,105) with a straight, King high
Seat 6: hero (button) showed [Ad Ah] and lost with two pair, Aces and Jacks

Wii would like to play

We bought a Wii last night. The concept of position and motion sensitive controls is truly revolutionary. Nothing that has come before has been as immersive. Our Wii came with the Wii Sports title, which includes Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling and Boxing.

The baseball game is sort of one dimensional and boring. All you do is pitch and bat. It's a lot more like Over The Line than Baseball. I don't like it so much. Tennis is a bit more challenging. Tennis is played as doubles, and in addition to swinging the controller at the right time, you need to pick whether to swing forehand or backhand correctly depending on where the ball is. Golf is kind of fun. You can't swing too hard or it will just accentuate any hook or slice you've imparted on the ball, so controlling your swing is what it's all about. Boxing is played with the numchuck, which is a second controller wired to the first one (the primary controllers are wireless). The numchuck also has a position sensor in it, so with the controller in one hand and the numchuck in the other, you throw your fists around like real boxing.

But the pièce de résistance is Bowling. You swing the controller just like it was a bowling ball, and let go of the trigger button to let go of the ball. The english you put on your swing gets imparted to the ball. It has to be the single most accurate sporting simulation since the treadmill.

Scarlet and I really got some exercise last night. We bought a Wii because we decided to see if it really was true that you could get into playing the games as an exercise program. Well, the hype is true. I think this is going to be very good for us.

The only issue now is that I'm not sure what other games we'll want to buy. I'm sure we'll get tired of Bowling some day, but I can't really see that day from here.

Football sucks around here

I would really, really enjoy watching football on TV if it weren't for the fact that we live in the San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose TV market.

The problem comes about because of the NFL blackout rules. The rules say that if the 49ers or Raiders play a road game or a sold-out home game, no other local station may air a competing game. That means that we never see a game that doesn't involve the Raiders or 49ers except for the Sunday and Monday night games and weeks where either team has a bye week.

And if you haven't been paying attention, this is not the same 49er team that was helmed by Joe Bill Walsh [ed: how'd I get that wrong?!] back in the day. And I'm not sure the Raiders have ever been worth watching. The most memorable Raiders moment I can recall was seeing a fan with a paper bag over his head with the words PSL HOLDER written on it.

It's almost worth signing up for the DirecTV NFL package, but that's $180 a year. I don't like football quite that much.

Maybe if we're lucky folks will realize just how bad the 49ers and Raiders suck and they'll stop selling out their home games. Then we'd at least have a 50:50 chance of a choice.

We can but hope.

Earthquake damage

Humpf. The earthquake really did do some damage.

Two things, in fact.

One of Scarlet's porcelain angels fell over on the bookshelf and broke. I'm not sure what it cost, but though I offered to glue it back together, Scarlet said it was a total loss.

And the shaking must have rattled something a bit too hard between the hot water heater and the circulation pump I installed. It started leaking. Fortunately, it was caught by the flood sensor I installed as part of our alarm system. We got a call at 6 AM from the alarm people that the flood sensor had gone off. Just to be on the safe side, we called our favorite plumber (Gus from Castle Plumbing) to come out and fix it - mostly just so we could get him to check to make sure it wasn't more serious. He said it was just loose, so he tightened it. $100.

Earthquake etiquette

We had an earthquake this evening. It was a 5.6.

Everybody has an opinion, and here's mine: A quake doesn't even count until it's a 4. Between 4 and 6, it's either an amusement or a nuisance. 6 and above, and you can expect stuff to actually break. A 6 in the Bay Area, and you can expect the San Francisco marina district to (once again) fall down and burst into flames. Why they simply don't pave it over, I'll never understand. It's not as if San Francisco couldn't use the extra parking. But I digress.

Of course, anytime there's an earthquake big enough to get on the news, the first thing everyone does is call us. That's the worst part of anything between a 4 and a 6 - the phone won't stop ringing. It's damn annoying.

We get it that you're concerned. Thank you for that. It shows you care. BUT...

1. If it's not at least a 6, don't be concerned. Maybe it knocked a picture or two off the mantle. But probably not.

2. If it's a 6 or better, well, then you can expect that the phone lines will be needed for much more important phone calls. People needing emergency help from fire and rescue folks, for example. Your call will be taking the place of a potentially much more important one.

So, in short, let us call you. If things have really hit the fan, we'll call someone out of town and let them relay the news. If not, we'll probably want to talk about how fun it was.

Recognize counterfeits

A little cash game action, for a change.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: Table Churchfield - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:17:17 ET - 2007/10/27
Seat 1: ($26)
Seat 2: hero ($6.45)
Seat 3: ($34.80)
Seat 4: ($10.90)
Seat 5: ($25.35)
Seat 6: ($7.65)
Seat 7: villain ($13)
Seat 8: ($39.95)
Seat 9: ($23.65)
Seat 6 posts the small blind of $0.10
villain posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [4d Td]
Seat 8 calls $0.25
Seat 9 folds
Seat 1 folds

Let's gamble. They're soooooted. :)

hero calls $0.25
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 calls $0.25
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 calls $0.15
villain checks
*** FLOP *** [Th 9c Tc]

Whomba!

Seat 6 checks
villain bets $1.25
Seat 8 calls $1.25

Let's not scare anyone away yet.

hero calls $1.25
Seat 4 folds
Seat 6 calls $1.25
*** TURN *** [Th 9c Tc] [7s]
Seat 6 checks
villain checks
Seat 8 checks

Now the potential straight is too scary. Time to pull the trigger.

nsayer bets $4.95, and is all in
Seat 6 folds
villain calls $4.95
Seat 8 folds
hero shows [4d Td]
villain shows [9d 7h]

Now, I'm fairly confident that the villain here called because he thought his 9s over 7s was good. What he neglected to notice is that pairing his 7 was worthless - his hand was already two pair (9s and tens) on the flop. It was actually a really dumb call. Let's look at it from his perspective. He flops two pair with the over pair on the board. That means that probably nobody else at the table hit, but if they did, he's almost certainly crushed. He leads out and gets 3 callers. That should scare him. Perhaps one of them has a straight draw, but at least one possibility is that there's a ten out there. If I'm in his spot, I shut down. The turn was a potential straight card (68, 8J - remember, nobody raised before the flop). Of course, it also gave a boat to pocket 7s, but you can't look for monsters under the bed. So he checks and a short stack moves in. What is his 3 pair hand beating? Maybe he's got one card to come to pull what he sees as a 6-out draw for a boat to beat a straight (which is already pretty thin odds - about 7:1). In actual fact, he was drawing completely dead. Any card that gives him a boat gives me either quads or an over-boat.

*** RIVER *** [Th 9c Tc 7s] [2d]
hero shows three of a kind, Tens
villain shows two pair, Tens and Nines
hero wins the pot ($15.35) with three of a kind, Tens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $16.15 | Rake $0.80
Board: [Th 9c Tc 7s 2d]
Seat 1: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: hero showed [4d Td] and won ($15.35) with three of a kind, Tens
Seat 3: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: folded on the Flop
Seat 5: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 7: villain (big blind) showed [9d 7h] and lost with two pair, Tens and Nines
Seat 8: folded on the Turn
Seat 9: didn't bet (folded)

Stupid call du jour

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:14:57 ET - 2007/10/14
Seat 1: (1,285)
Seat 3: (1,975)
Seat 4: (2,540)
Seat 5: villain (1,220)
Seat 6: (2,040)
Seat 7: (675)
Seat 8: hero (2,535)
Seat 9: (1,230)
Seat 1 posts the small blind of 40
Seat 3 posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [5h 5c]
Seat 4 folds
villain raises to 220
Seat 6 folds
Seat 7 folds
hero calls 220
Seat 9 folds
Seat 1 folds
Seat 3 calls 140
*** FLOP *** [7h Kh 7s]
kcher checks
villain checks
nsayer bets 1,000
Seat 3 folds
villain calls 1,000, and is all in
hero shows [5h 5c]
villain shows [Qh Qc]

And that, dear readers, is the stupidest call I've seen all week. There's no way I had a king? I'll admit that having a 7 would have likely made me slow-play, but how could he not put me on a king?

*** TURN *** [7h Kh 7s] [6s]
*** RIVER *** [7h Kh 7s 6s] [Ts]
hero shows two pair, Sevens and Fives
villain shows two pair, Queens and Sevens
villain wins the pot (2,700) with two pair, Queens and Sevens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,700 | Rake 0
Board: [7h Kh 7s 6s Ts]
Seat 1: (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: villain showed [Qh Qc] and won (2,700) with two pair, Queens and Sevens
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: hero showed [5h 5c] and lost with two pair, Sevens and Fives
Seat 9: (button) didn't bet (folded)

Intelligent comments on meat and adrenaline

I have a couple videos on YouTube. One of them is rather popular. One of the downsides of that is that it is a target for comment spam. Comment spam sucks. Whether it sucks more than other kinds of spam, I'll leave for some other debate, but one thing you can definitely say about comment spam is that the subject matter is far, far less varied. Virtually all of the comment spam is one of these exact topics:

• heaven


• naked chicks


• read this comment and you will die in an hour unless you spam 19 other videos


• hit F5 for the name of your next gay lover


• go sign this petition to tell the Japanese to stop slaughtering dolphins

That's it. The Nigerians are at least more creative.

The last one on the list is the topic for today. The spam decries the Japanese for engaging in a dolphin or whale slaughter or whatever and makes particular mention that the hunters involved attempt to inflict in their victims a maximum amount of fear and pain because the adrenaline released makes the meat taste better.

Now, the spam is bad enough, but the claim that frightened animals taste better than others always seemed like something rife for either confirmation or rebuttal. Well, after googling relentlessly for a minute or so, I've found the best argument on the proposition I think I could envision.

Get in touch with your inner Gus

Of course, by Gus, I mean Gus Hansen.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:11:08 ET - 2007/10/07
Seat 1: (1,485)
Seat 2: (1,455)
Seat 3: hero (1,425)
Seat 4: (4,515)
Seat 5: (1,500)
Seat 8: (1,500)
Seat 9: (1,620)
Seat 4 posts the small blind of 15
Seat 5 posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to nsayer [?? ??]

Let's just play this one in the dark for now.

Seat 8 folds
Seat 9 folds
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
hero raises to 105
Seat 4 calls 90
Seat 5 folds
*** FLOP *** [Jd Ac 7h]
Seat 4 checks
hero bets 240
Seat 4 calls 240
*** TURN *** [Jd Ac 7h] [4d]
Seat 4 checks
hero bets 530
Seat 4 calls 530
*** RIVER *** [Jd Ac 7h 4d] [5s]
Seat 4 checks
hero bets 550, and is all in

Ok. I'll let you all in on it. My hand? Qc 9c.

This isn't about what I have, it's about what I can make him think I have. I'd like to think that he's thinking hard about A4o, or at least AKo. Maybe even pocket 4s.

Of course, the danger is that I'd be up against a donkey who likes his 3rd pair despite the evidence in front of him.... and makes the spectacular suicide call.

Not this time, however.

Seat 4 folds

I always wonder what I got my opponents to fold in spots like this. I'm thinking perhaps it was a small ace. Nothing else makes much sense. Why would he hang in there with anything less? For that matter, why would he keep up with me worrying about his kicker?

Uncalled bet of 550 returned to hero
hero mucks
hero wins the pot (1,780)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,780 | Rake 0
Board: [Jd Ac 7h 4d 5s]
Seat 1: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: hero (button) collected (1,780), mucked
Seat 4: (small blind) folded on the River
Seat 5: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: didn't bet (folded)

MST3K lovers rejoice: RiffTrax!

Those of you more connected to MST3K than I am will deride me for being so out of touch, of course, but better late than never.

Since the MST3K crew reunited as The Film Crew, I've come to realize how much I missed MST3K. I also managed to connect to a bit of my own personal history having found some clips of Disasterpiece Theatre, which was an MST3K like show that aired on XETV in San Diego when I was 12. I used to stay up way late to watch Sal U. Lloyd and The Other Guy skewer bad 50s B movies. They mostly used chroma keying and Chyron rather than voiceovers, but it was still funny stuff.

Anyway, by chance I managed to learn that Mike Nelson came up with a compromise allowing him and his co-riffers to skewer movies without having to actually obtain rights to them. How? By writing and performing commentary tracks that you play along with the movie. Of course, you need to synchronize the two streams, but they have a pretty ingenious method for doing so - a disembodied computer-like voice periodically chimes in during the commentary with lines from the movie that should synchronize precisely with an actor in the movie delivering the same line. If the movie line is late, you pause the commentary for a little bit. If the movie is early, pause the movie. It even works with Netflix's instant watching feature (I tried The Matrix).

Keeping them in sync isn't as hard (or as critical) as it sounds, and the riffing is just as good as it ever was on MST3K or The Film Crew. And to top it all off, the RiffTrax are for movies you've actually heard of!

Go check it out. Most of them are either $2.99 or $3.99 and they're DRM-free MP3 files.

FTP tiered satellites

I think I've found something fun.

FTP, for a while now, has had $26 and $75 satellite tokens you can win in some tournaments. They're good for any tournament of any kind with the given buy-in amount. I haven't been too hot on them in the past, since they're usually available in tournaments with fairly low percentage payouts - usually you have to win the thing outright.

Well, I've discovered a pair of satellites in the structure that are much, much better. They are 18 handed, but pay out the top 6 players (though 6th place gets cash). That's 30% - certainly doable. In fact, I won a $26 token last night. Tonight I will try and parley that to a $75 token. Once there, there is a $69+$6 satellite into the $200+$16 $750,000 guarantee tournament on Sunday. At the moment, that tournament will pay over $130,000 to first place. For a total cash investment of $8.70!

The one thing that's odd about satellite tournaments at FTP is that once you get to the point in the prize structure where everybody gets the same thing, they should just end the tournament, because any further play is moot. They don't, though. I guess they figure people are going to want to play it out for pride. The trouble with that idea is that a large fraction of the table all simply goes all-in with any two cards just to get it over with. I did and lost 3 hands in a row, coming in, officially, in 4th place. But who cares? 5th through 1st were all the same. So if you want to stick around to collect first for pride, it's meaningless since you're going to play it against people who have nothing to lose or gain. Like play-money tournaments. Why waste your time?

Justice is served!

This was quite nearly another lament about a bad beat dished out by a donkey making a horrendous call. But then, shit changed.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: Tier One $8+$0.70 (_), Table 2 - 30/60 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:53:12 ET - 2007/10/04
Seat 1: hero (3,830)
Seat 2: (3,155)
Seat 3: (725)
Seat 5: villain (1,100)
Seat 6: (1,720)
Seat 7: (2,085)
Seat 8: (3,005)
villain posts the small blind of 30
Seat 6 posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [7d 7s]
Seat 7 folds
Seat 8 folds
hero raises to 180
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 folds
villain calls 150
Seat 6 folds
*** FLOP *** [2d 3d 3s]
villain checks
hero bets 920
villain calls 920, and is all in
hero shows [7d 7s]
villain shows [3c 5c]

35?! I haven't played a hand the whole tournament so far and you call my raise with 35? What, because they were sooooted?!

*** TURN *** [2d 3d 3s] [Qd]
*** RIVER *** [2d 3d 3s Qd] [8d]

Serves him right!

hero shows a flush, Queen high
villain shows three of a kind, Threes
hero wins the pot (2,260) with a flush, Queen high
villain stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,260 | Rake 0
Board: [2d 3d 3s Qd 8d]
Seat 1: hero showed [7d 7s] and won (2,260) with a flush, Queen high
Seat 2: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: villain (small blind) showed [3c 5c] and lost with three of a kind, Threes
Seat 6: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: didn't bet (folded)

Go Cats, 2007 AFL premiers!

Just finishing up watching the AFL Grand Final for 2007 between the Geelong Cats and the Port Adelaide Power. Geelong thoroughly pwn3d. The final score was an incredible 24.19 163 to 6.8 44. I've never even heard of a margin even half that wide, much less in a Grand Final. Wow.

Alas, that means that there's no more footy until next year. Sigh.

Watch me play!

I've decided to join the latest poker blogging phenomenon - I bought some screen recording software and a USB mic and have recorded myself playing a SnG at Full Tilt!

I was fortunate enough to actually win the tournament on my first attempt to record one - I would have posted it regardless, though.

Check it out:

Idea for Apple

We have a mac Mini hooked up to our HDTV in the living room. Originally, the thought was we'd use it as a media player (DVD, Netflix Watch Now via VMware, games, etc), but over time it's become the machine I spend a large fraction of my time using. It's just very comfy to sit in the recliner and... well, whatever.

So when we upgraded from the old full sized plastic bluetooth keyboard to the new aluminum one, I was quite pleased.

But there is still one thing that isn't quite nirvana.

The mighty mouse is nice, but it needs to sit on a flat surface to be conveniently used. We have a mouse pad sitting on a fold-down faux table built-in to our sofa, but that's not very convenient for right handed users sitting on the right side. It's ok, since I usually set on the left, but I've got a better idea: A bluetooth trackpad. Such a device could be designed to attach to either side of the new aluminum BT keyboard, or Apple could come out with a new BT keyboard and trackpad combo. In fact, the trackpad could be designed to work with both the USB and BT keyboard. It could use some sort of mechanical attachment system combined with a (proprietary or USB) electrical connection that could be provided by both versions of the keyboard.

So let's get cracking, Steve!

There's always a better time

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $5 + $0.50 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:24:17 ET - 2007/09/28
Seat 1: (1,400)
Seat 2: villain (1,415)
Seat 3: (2,095)
Seat 4: (900)
Seat 5: (1,455)
Seat 6: (1,250)
Seat 7: (1,320)
Seat 8: (1,200)
Seat 9: hero (2,465)
villain posts the small blind of 20
Seat 3 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [As 4s]
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
Seat 7 folds
Seat 8 folds

And ace in the cut-off, folded around? Let's steal.

hero raises to 140
Seat 1 folds
villain calls 120
Seat 3 calls 100
*** FLOP *** [Ks Ac Jh]
villain bets 210
Seat 3 folds

Maybe he has me out-kicked, maybe he doesn't. If he does have an ace, maybe I can make him think hard about QT. I need to raise here anyway so as to not give out a "free" card, but a raise here is enough of a fraction of his stack that he'll be committed, so let's just commit him now.

hero raises to 2,325, and is all in

At this point the villain calls me a bully in the chat window. He then thinks for a very long time, and then...

villain calls 1,065, and is all in
hero shows [As 4s]
villain shows [Ts Kd]

?!

We've not gotten very deep into this tournament. Would I really, really throw down for half my chips with a hand that could be beaten by kings in this spot? I mean, maybe if he was really short, but if he was short, then he'd be pot committed, which would make him unbluffable.

If he knew his king was no good, was the 4 outer inside straight draw really worth his entire tournament life?

Uncalled bet of 1,050 returned to hero
*** TURN *** [Ks Ac Jh] [Ah]
*** RIVER *** [Ks Ac Jh Ah] [7h]
hero shows three of a kind, Aces
villain shows two pair, Aces and Kings
hero wins the pot (2,970) with three of a kind, Aces
villain stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,970 | Rake 0
Board: [Ks Ac Jh Ah 7h]
Seat 1: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: villain (small blind) showed [Ts Kd] and lost with two pair, Aces and Kings
Seat 3: (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: hero showed [As 4s] and won (2,970) with three of a kind, Aces

Desecration of a classic

They could light up a small town with the energy created by Keith Moon spinning in his grave tonight. The only reason we can't all live a carbon-free existence is that the same cannot be said about Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend.

What am I talking about?

The theme song to CSI:NY has, since its inception, been a slightly edited (for time) version of Baba O'Riley, by The Who.

This year, for whatever reason, they have decided to totally ruin it.

Though the Roger Daltry vocal track is still there, the music bears little resemblance to the original. It's a bizarre mishmash of synth instruments and way, way, way too much drum solo. While they were at it, they totally redid the actual opening credit video as well. That didn't offend me so much. But farming out the audio to some low-rent MIDI programmer? I call that a bargain. The worst I've ever had.

Full Tilt lowers the cash-out bar

I used to complain about FTP's cash-out policies. Requiring $300 to get a check was just too hard a level to reach. But I've actually been getting close to $300 lately and I've come to discover that they've lowered their cash-out level down to just $100. Not only that, but they'll do an electronic bank transfer. We'll see very soon how well that works, but I'd expect the recent legislation to make it harder to get money in rather than out. But if you don't trust the electronic method, they'll mail you a check for a $100 minimum.

So now you just have to double-up. Sweet!

All in all, I have to say that $100 is a reasonable minimum. PokerStars has a $75 minimum, which is even more generous, but they also have a minimum deposit of only $10 instead of FTP's $50.

That was a tough one

I only played one tournament tonight. It was a $10+$1 STT SnG at Full Tilt. Big deal, right?

This one was tough. It took an hour and 20 minutes, and 115 hands. The blinds got all the way up to 250/500 before it was done. And with a total of 13,500 chips, once we were heads-up, it came down almost to nothing more than a game of showdown.

We spent forever in bubble purgatory - everybody playing super tight, and the blinds going up and up and up. But since everybody was being so patient, you had to respect their raises.

It was tough, but I was patient and wound up taking it down. Yay!

Nice call, Eeyore.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:41:17 ET - 2007/09/17
Seat 3: (2,132)
Seat 4: villain (4,208)
Seat 6: hero (2,660)
hero posts the small blind of 50
Seat 3 posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [?? ??]

Let's keep my hand a secret for now. In fact, let's play it from the other perspective: The villain has [4h 4s]


villain raises to 200
hero raises to 700
Seat 3 folds
villain calls 500
*** FLOP *** [8d Jh Th]
hero bets 1,960, and is all in

Now. Hands up if you think that his pocket 4s are good.

My range of hands at this point include such hits as AT, AJ, perhaps even A8, not to mention every pocket pair north of tens. 79 and Q9 are perhaps a stretch, but we are 3 handed at this point. Maybe I have 8x of hearts. Maybe I just have a flush draw, but if I hit it, the villain is down to about a thousand chips or so, so it may not bust him, but it puts him in a pretty bad place.

Still like those 4s?

villain calls 1,960
hero shows [Ah Kc]
villain shows [4h 4s]
*** TURN *** [8d Jh Th] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [8d Jh Th 3c] [3s]
hero shows a pair of Threes
villain shows two pair, Fours and Threes
villain wins the pot (5,420) with two pair, Fours and Threes
hero stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5,420 | Rake 0
Board: [8d Jh Th 3c 3s]
Seat 3: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: villain (button) showed [4h 4s] and won (5,420) with two pair, Fours and Threes
Seat 6: hero (small blind) showed [Ah Kc] and lost with a pair of Threes

iPhone store credit

I got my Apple store credit for being an early iPhone purchaser. The procedure was painless. You need the serial number, which you can get from iTunes with the phone docked, the phone's phone number, and a number that Apple sends to you via an SMS message. When you're done, they give you a PDF to print out. You can use the numbers at the online store, or the barcode at the physical stores.

Thanks, Steve.

Another great one

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:01:41 ET - 2007/09/13
Seat 1: (1,395)
Seat 2: (1,275)
Seat 3: (1,415), is sitting out
Seat 4: (1,020)
Seat 5: (1,440)
Seat 6: (1,815)
Seat 7: hero (1,385)
Seat 8: (1,980)
Seat 9: villain (1,775)
Seat 3 posts the small blind of 20
Seat 4 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [5s 5c]
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
hero calls 40
Seat 8 folds
villain raises to 130
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 calls 90
hero calls 90

What do we always say about small pocket pairs? Get in cheap and try for a set (that means limp-call). Get out if you miss.

*** FLOP *** [5h Kd 5d]

YOWZA!!!!

Someone please, please have a king!

Seat 4 checks
hero checks
villain bets 300

:)

Seat 4 folds
hero calls 300
*** TURN *** [5h Kd 5d] [4h]
hero checks
villain bets 750

And there it is. He's pot committed now - that is, my all-in re-raise is too small for him to fold.

hero raises to 955, and is all in
villain calls 205
hero shows [5s 5c]
villain shows [Ac Ad]

Ouch!

Flops that have a pair generally miss everybody, so it's easy to see how that flop would have made him feel good. He was only losing to a 5 - which would be a hand unlikely to call a raise out of position, or pocket kings - which you'd expect someone to re-raise. Just about the only hand he could reasonably have put me on that he was losing to was pocket 5s. And you just can't do anything about that.

*** RIVER *** [5h Kd 5d 4h] [Th]
hero shows four of a kind, Fives
villain shows two pair, Aces and Fives
hero wins the pot (2,920) with four of a kind, Fives
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,920 | Rake 0
Board: [5h Kd 5d 4h Th]
Seat 1: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: hero showed [5s 5c] and won (2,920) with four of a kind, Fives
Seat 8: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: villain showed [Ac Ad] and lost with two pair, Aces and Fives

More crushing cold decks

Once again, I get my money in with better than 4:1 odds and get ass-raped.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 25/50 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:42:47 ET - 2007/09/11
Seat 2: villain (6,280)
Seat 5: hero (1,915)
Seat 6: (805)
Seat 6 posts the small blind of 25
villain posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [7h 7d]
hero raises to 175
Seat 6 folds
villain calls 125
*** FLOP *** [9d 9c 8d]
villain checks
hero bets 375
villain calls 375
*** TURN *** [9d 9c 8d] [4s]
villain checks
hero bets 1,365, and is all in
villain calls 1,365
hero shows [7h 7d]
villain shows [Jd Ah]

Nice call, Eeyore.

*** RIVER *** [9d 9c 8d 4s] [8h]

Oh fucking hell!!

hero shows two pair, Nines and Eights
villain shows two pair, Nines and Eights
villain wins the pot (3,855) with two pair, Nines and Eights
hero stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,855 | Rake 0
Board: [9d 9c 8d 4s 8h]
Seat 2: villain (big blind) showed [Jd Ah] and won (3,855) with two pair, Nines and Eights
Seat 5: hero (button) showed [7h 7d] and lost with two pair, Nines and Eights
Seat 6: (small blind) folded before the Flop

New kitchen sink

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that we've been doing some home improvement work from time to time. We were impressed when we moved in with how new and modern everything was. Well, in the time we've owned the house, we've more or less discovered or realized now that all of the work the previous owners did was all done with the cheapest, crappiest Home Depot junk money could buy. Now, we don't really have many complaints. We're not saying we were ripped off or anything. It's just that every time we've decided to redo something, we've been astounded at how much better it was after we were done. Case in point was our kitchen sink. We didn't like it because the bowls were rather small, weren't flat on the bottom, and because we had a dishwasher, we didn't really need a two bowl sink. Our garbage disposal was also very loud, and the reverse osmosis system would gurgle loudly too.

So we decided to buy a new sink. If you're going to bother buying a new sink, you might as well replace the garbage disposal while you're at it. We decided to go with an asymmetric two bowl design. The smaller bowl has the disposer in it, which sort of makes it the equivalent of a wet trash can, sort of.

This time we had a plumber come in and do the work. Not that I couldn't have done it, but it was a trade-off of time and money I was willing to make. While they were at it, we had them re-plumb the washing machine drain. It used to drain out on the lawn. Not kidding. I didn't think such an arrangement was even legal, much less good for the grass. They even added a clean-out just in case something ever clogs. We also added a proper air gap for the dishwasher.

We've had the whole set up for a few days now. There's only been one mishap. I ran some corn cobs down the disposer a little too quickly and one of them managed to get stuck in a way that blocked the dishwasher inflow. Oops. The disposer can actually take corn cobs. It's just that it's so quiet I wasn't able to distinguish between it being done or having one stuck. The disposer is actually a "compact" model, which means that it was easy to clear. One downside of it being so small is that you need to cut things like corn cobs in half before you send them down or else their top halves will spin around above the rubber drain cover and fling water all over.

So what's next?

Honestly, we're running out of easy stuff, but there are a couple left. We have some folding doors on the office closet that need to be replaced with sliding doors - or just simply removed. We could replace the master bath shower door, I suppose. We could replace the HVAC system, but I'm not sure there's enough gains to be made now that we've insulated. We could remodel the kitchen, but unless we make it larger it's probably not worth it. Then there's the "small" remodel idea (wall in the raised part of the patio as a kitchen extension), and then the "large" remodel (2nd story master suite and office).

iPhone ringtones

Come on, Steve. Here was your big chance to do the right thing.

You could have simply allowed people to assign any song on the iPhone as either a general ringtone or the ringtone for a particular contact. Instead...

1. You have to buy the song from the iTMS (though if you have bought it before you don't need to buy it again).

2. They only let you make ringtones from a smaller subset of available songs.

3. You have to pay extra to make it a ringtone.

There are shareware apps out there that will let you simply copy any audio file into the ringtone folder on the phone, but at the moment they clash with iTunes 7.4. And who knows how hard Apple will work to protect this revenue stream. Personally, I suspect that AT&T insisted on this functionality, and I suspect they're getting the lion's share of the 99¢ ringtone fee.

I have only one song I want to turn into my ringtone, so I'll still probably go about it the "official" way - simply because it's cheaper than the shareware options and less trouble in the long run. But Apple, being the imperfect institution it is, sometimes is capable of disappointing in a big way.

The Price is Right - mastering the wheel

Scarlet and I want to see if we can't go see The Prices Is Right (TPIR) at some point. The overwhelming factor as to whether you get to actually play a game or not - the opinion of the audience interviewers - is largely out of your control. The fight to escape Contestant's Row depends - like poker - largely on position. The individual pricing games vary pretty wildly, but there is one aspect of the experience that potentially could be mastered - the Showcase Showdown wheel.

The wheel is, more or less, just like a Wheel of Fortune turned on its end. There are 20 sectors on the wheel numbered in multiples of 5 cents up to a dollar. Your goal is, in one spin or two, to get closest to a dollar without going over. Get a dollar exactly and you win $1000.

While this may seem random, the important difference between this wheel of fortune and the ones in Nevada is that you get to spin it, rather than a croupier. That means that the velocity of the wheel is under your direct control. And the velocity of the wheel and its decay function are the only things that control where it is going to land.

First question's first: Where do you want it to land? Obviously you'd like to land it on the dollar on your first spin and be done with it, but the reality of the situation is that perfect control is going to be almost impossible. If you actually graph the wheel's positions, you'll see that they were not chaotically arranged.



You can see that they alternate high and low numbers to some extent, but there's an even more important pattern. It emerges somewhat better if you graph the average of each spot's value with its two neighbors:





That's pretty evil. Assuming you don't win the dollar on your first spin, you want to either spin a very high number or a very low number. The "death zone" is in the 40-60 or so range. On the low end, you're forced to spin again where you have almost an even money chance of going over, and on the high end you're forced to stand with an excellent chance that your following opponents will beat you. But you can see from both curves that the sweet spots are separated into two pieces near the beginning and end of the wheel. The "back" of the wheel is particularly dangerous territory for the first spin, as it has a high average, which is dangerous for a potential second spin.

So the ideal strategy is to aim for the front half of the wheel for your first spin, as you'll have a shot at the dollar spot, but more importantly you'll be more likely to land on something big or small. Then if you hit low on the first spin, aim for the back half of the wheel where there are only a couple of potentially dangerous numbers and lots of medium sized numbers that will boost your total to a safe range.

Well, that begs the question - If you know exactly how many sectors you must move the wheel from its current spot, how hard do you spin it so that it lands where you want? For that, we need to work out the decay function of the wheel and do a little math and figuring. The first half of that assignment will require a bit of time with a few TiVo'd episodes and some audio capture software. I'll get back to you...

It's not all tournaments

Since attending the WPT Ca$h camp, my interest in straight cash games has increased, as has my interest in GSM's "High Stakes Poker." One reason I didn't like it much in the past was that GSN is too stupid to label the episodes correctly, so TiVo never reliably tapes only the first-run episodes. Which means I have to tape all of them, which means I get a lot of re-runs.

Anyhow, HSP does have its moments. Like last season when Jamie Gold said, "I guess I need to become a better player," and Gabe Kaplan (who was playing rather than commentating) replied, "maybe you should try tournaments" (this is funny because just a couple weeks prior Gold had won the biggest poker tournament of all time at the WSOP, picking up more than $12 million).

The first episode of the season started off with a bang with the players agreeing to pay $500 each to any player who wins a pot holding 72. Not a minute later, Phil Helmuth Jr bluffed Mike Matusow with 72o getting Mike to lay down pocket kings.

Anyway, what prompted me to make this blog post was a hand between Elie Elezra and Jennifer Harman. Elezra had 83h and Harman had KhJd. The hand started out as a family pot, but when the flop came AK5 of diamonds and Elezra bet out at it, only Harman called. The turn was the 7d. Elezra bluffed at it and Harman just called, which was curious. Harman in this spot would really want to know whether or not her jack-flush was good or if Elezra might have the Queen. The river was a blank (Jc) and Elezra shut down, but Harman thought it might be a check-raise, so she just checked. Elezra then announced, "I'm playing the board," which got a laugh from the whole table (in fact, his 8 was higher than the 5 on the board, so his hand is really AKJ87) and Harman's jack-flush was the winner.

In actual fact, though, having had time to think about it, I can't fault Harman too much. If she raised she might not have been able to easily differentiate between being beat or not if Elezra just called. If he had the Qd, he'd probably just call, and if he had, say, the 9d, he'd also probably just call. The only other likely outcome would have been Elezra folding anything but a flush, in which case she wouldn't have won any more than she actually did.

Meanwhile, while all this was going on, I spent 12 minutes playing 10¢/25¢ No-Limit and made $5. That's 20 big blinds in, oh, call it a quarter hour (to make the math easier), which is 5 BB/hr, so I feel good. :)

P.s. Paul Wasicka just limped under the gun with pocket aces, got seven callers, then folded them on the flop after the big blind led out! The flop gave one player a set and another a flush draw (which made it). Had he stayed in, he'd have had the 3rd best hand and likely gotten crushed. He was hoping to limp/re-raise before the flop, but when it didn't work out, he knew he was a huge dog in the hand (pocket pairs typically only have two outs to improve, which means they're trouble if they're behind).

It never ends

We here at Nick's Blog celebrate bad beats. Because we know that venting makes us feel better and entertains at least 3 or 4 of my 15 readers. This is particularly sick because it knocked me out on the bubble.

Why would I even play a hand on the bubble? The villain here had been getting way, way out of line.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $2 + $0.25 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 80/160 - No Limit Hold'em - 11:35:49 ET - 2007/09/03
Seat 2: villain (4,740)
Seat 3: (3,890)
Seat 7: hero (3,250)
Seat 9: (1,620)
hero posts the small blind of 80
Seat 9 posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Qd Ac]
villain raises to 4,740, and is all in

Don't worry. That doesn't mean a thing at this point.

Seat 3 folds
hero calls 3,170, and is all in
Seat 9 folds
villain shows [Jd 6s]

Yeah. That's not a surprise.

hero shows [Qd Ac]
Uncalled bet of 1,490 returned to villain
*** FLOP *** [7h Ad 6d]
*** TURN *** [7h Ad 6d] [8d]

Now he's worse than an 8:1 dog. He only has 5 outs - 2 sixes and 3 jacks.

*** RIVER *** [7h Ad 6d 8d] [Jc]

Oh of course.

villain shows two pair, Jacks and Sixes
hero shows a pair of Aces
villain wins the pot (6,660) with two pair, Jacks and Sixes
hero stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6,660 | Rake 0
Board: [7h Ad 6d 8d Jc]
Seat 2: villain showed [Jd 6s] and won (6,660) with two pair, Jacks and Sixes
Seat 3: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: hero (small blind) showed [Qd Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 9: (big blind) folded before the Flop

You know, I don't ask for much. I don't get disappointed when the odds aren't in my favor and I don't suck out. I don't even get bothered when I don't win a coin flip (except when I lose, like, 15 of them in a row). But what drives me insane is getting all my money in in situations where I have my opponent well and truly dominated... and then getting screwed. I had him at 2:1 before the flop, 4:1 on the flop and 8:1 on the turn.

Woo hoo!

No commentary for this one.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $20 + $2 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:34:33 ET - 2007/09/02
Seat 1: (1,485)
Seat 2: hero (1,470)
Seat 3: (1,545)
Seat 4: (1,500)
Seat 5: (1,500)
Seat 6: (1,500)
hero posts the small blind of 15
Seat 3 posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [8s Jh]
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
Seat 1 folds
hero calls 15
Seat 3 raises to 60
hero calls 30
*** FLOP *** [8h Th Qh]
hero checks
Seat 3 bets 30
hero raises to 90
Seat 3 calls 60
*** TURN *** [8h Th Qh] [As]
hero bets 200
Seat 3 calls 200
*** RIVER *** [8h Th Qh As] [9h]
hero bets 1,120, and is all in
Seat 3 has 15 seconds left to act
Seat 3 calls 1,120
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hero shows [8s Jh] a straight flush, Queen high
Seat 3 mucks
hero wins the pot (2,940) with a straight flush, Queen high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,940 | Rake 0
Board: [8h Th Qh As 9h]
Seat 1: (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: hero (small blind) showed [8s Jh] and won (2,940) with a straight flush, Queen high
Seat 3: (big blind) mucked [Ah Ts] - a flush, Ace high
Seat 4: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)

Gap theory

David Sklansky first described the theory in his seminal tome on tournament poker.

"It requires a much better hand to call a bet or raise with than to make a raise with."

In tournament poker, the two governing facts are that when you run out of chips, you lose, and that when you're opponents run out of chips, they lose.

Here's an example of the gap theory at work:

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 100/200 - No Limit Hold'em - 11:54:17 ET - 2007/09/02
Seat 1: villain AO (1,765)
Seat 4: hero (4,890)
Seat 6: (2,980)
Seat 9: (3,865)
villain posts the small blind of 100
hero posts the big blind of 200
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Jc Tc]
Seat 6 folds
Seat 9 folds
villain raises to 400
hero calls 200

Suited connector in position. Let's see a flop.

*** FLOP *** [9s Qc 3s]

Nice. There's the straight draw.

villain bets 600

That's a continuation bet. He could have any two cards. It would have been more convincing if he had done a stop-n-go (that is, bet all-in on any flop). That would have been a very hard call with just an outside straight draw and backdoor flush draw. I probably would have had to lay it down. Instead...

hero raises to 1,365

There's the gap at work. I have an outside straight draw. By straight pot odds, that's not a correct play. But tournament dynamics are different. I am betting his life (not mine) at 2:1 odds. Though he looks pot committed, the kicker here is that if he loses, he is out on the bubble (if he wins, everybody at the table will have about the same sized stack, so really all I am risking here is my chip lead). That gives him extra real money fold equity. And yet...

villain calls 765, and is all in
hero shows [Jc Tc]
villain shows [Jh As]

Yes, his ace-high is the best hand at this point, but unless he was totally convinced that his ace was good (I'd been playing the back half of this tournament fairly aggressively, so it's not entirely out of the question that he might have thought it), it was an amazingly foolish call. I did call a pre-flop raise. There's no way I had, oh say, AQ? maybe QK? Heck, even AK has him beat (though AK in that spot would probably have folded to the post-flop bet).

*** TURN *** [9s Qc 3s] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [9s Qc 3s 6h] [8d]
hero shows a straight, Queen high
villain shows Ace Queen high
hero wins the pot (3,530) with a straight, Queen high
villain stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,530 | Rake 0
Board: [9s Qc 3s 6h 8d]
Seat 1: villain (small blind) showed [Jh As] and lost with Ace Queen high
Seat 4: hero (big blind) showed [Jc Tc] and won (3,530) with a straight, Queen high
Seat 6: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: (button) didn't bet (folded)

Now at this point, our villain starts berating me in the chat window. That, more than anything, is what earned him a blog post. But still, it's worth bringing it up.

Asked and answered

Every action you take at the table should either result in you winning the hand, or obtaining information that will help you make the correct decision going forward.

The best example of the value of this rule I've seen this year came from the WPT Legends of Poker tournament.

Frankie O'Dell and Joe Pelton are playing heads-up for the title. They start out with reasonably close chip stacks - Frankie having perhaps a 5:3 advantage. Blinds are 40K and 80K, antes are 10K - meaning that they are playing with stacks well in excess of 30 times the big blind. Frankie is delt J4h, Joe has Q8o. Frankie calls from the button and Joe checks.

The flop comes QQ4 with one heart and two diamonds. Joe leads out with a 100K bet into a 180K pot.

Now Joe has been doing that sort of thing a lot, whether he hits or not. So that bet doesn't really help Frankie any. Frankie, of course, has two pair on a paired board - he overcame 20:1 odds to get that far. The odds of his opponent having hit trips with unpaired cards is about 73:1. So what does Frankie do? He raises, of course. Why? Because if he just calls, what will he do if his opponent makes a big bet on the turn, which will likely be an overcard to the 4? If he raises here, he can either drive away a bluff hand like, say, JT or A9, or perhaps even drive away a pocket overpair. But if Joe calls a raise or goes over the top, he can know that his fours are probably no good. Frankie makes it 350K to go.

This can only tell Joe he's got it. The only hand that has him beat right now that could have and make that raise with is a Q4 - and if he has that, well, that's just amazingly bad luck. If Frankie had a big queen, you'd think that he might have raised before the flop, and if he had a queen and a 9 or ten you'd think he'd just call. So if I'm in Joe's shoes, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get all the money in at this point. The question is, how? Just call here and bet again on the turn or raise? If it were me, I would just call and try and make a big bet on the turn hoping that Frankie might hit two pair or something. My guess is that Joe was afraid of the flush draw. He decided to raise it, making it 750K to go.

So if you're in Frankie's shoes, what might your opponent have that would allow him to respond so aggressively? Either a queen or maybe a bigger pocket pair than 4s. If he had either of those, don't you think he'd be sure to throw down in this spot? Wouldn't you know that your fours are no good?

Instead, Frankie went all-in, Joe instantly called and Frankie did not get the runner-runner flush or quads.

Joe took a 3:1 chip-lead with that hand. Joe just took that lead and ran over Frankie to win it. And you just have to look back at that pivotal hand to see exactly why.

Battle of the bluffs

PokerStars Game #_: Tournament #_, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2007/09/01 - 13:57:03 (ET)
Table '59946281 1' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 2: villain (3060 in chips)
Seat 3: (6995 in chips)
Seat 5: hero (3445 in chips)
villain: posts small blind 50
Seat 3: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Js Qs]
hero: raises 200 to 300
villain: calls 250
Seat 3: folds
*** FLOP *** [5c Tc 9d]
villain: checks
hero: bets 500
villain: calls 500

So, what could he have here? We're 3 handed, so I can imagine him calling a pre-flop raise with AT. I could even imagine him calling with a flush draw.

*** TURN *** [5c Tc 9d] [2s]
villain: checks
hero: bets 1400
villain: raises 860 to 2260 and is all-in
hero: calls 860

I don't know why PokerStars hand histories don't show the cards at this point.

He had KQo. So it is clear he was trying to bluff. Trouble was, the only possible hand that 2s might have helped was pocket deuces, and I can't see him calling the continuation bet with those. I was bluffing too, but at least I had been telling a consistent story all along - AT, T9s, 55... I could have had any of those. I knew he was bluffing, which means he could have had any two cards - perhaps 78c, which would have given him a much better draw, but would have actually put me ahead in the hand. In actual fact, I was in not-so-great shape at this point. I needed either a king (though he had one of them) or an 8 for a straight. A jack would give him his straight and a queen would give him a pair with a better kicker. 7 outs on the river - about 8:1.

*** RIVER *** [5c Tc 9d 2s] [2h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
villain: shows [Qd Kc] (a pair of Deuces)
hero: shows [Js Qs] (a pair of Deuces - lower kicker)
villain collected 6220 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6220 | Rake 0
Board [5c Tc 9d 2s 2h]
Seat 2: villain (small blind) showed [Qd Kc] and won (6220) with a pair of Deuces
Seat 3: (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: hero (button) showed [Js Qs] and lost with a pair of Deuces

The futility continues

I placed 60th out of about 114. The hand I went out, it was folded around to me in the small blind and I raised with ATo. The big blind re-raised and I went all-in. Yes, it was a bluff, but I had been showing nothing but quality for the entire morning. The two of us started the hand with virtually identical stacks. He called with AJo, which has to be about the dumbest thing I've seen anyone do at Bay 101 all year long. Seriously. If you're in his seat, do you really, really think your AJo is good enough to risk your entire tournament life on?

So I came home and have been playing online some more and being repeatedly screwed. Shit like this:

PokerStars Game #_: Tournament #_, $12+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2007/08/29 - 17:25:44 (ET)
Table '59681430 1' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: villain (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: (1500 in chips)
Seat 4: (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: hero (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: posts small blind 10
Seat 3: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Kd Ac]
Seat 4: calls 20
hero: raises 60 to 80
Seat 6: folds
villain: calls 80
Seat 2: folds
Seat 3: folds
Seat 4: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [Ts Kc Kh]
Seat 4: checks
hero: checks
villain: checks
*** TURN *** [Ts Kc Kh] [2d]
Seat 4 has timed out
Seat 4: folds
Seat 4 is sitting out
hero: checks
villain: bets 100
hero: calls 100

Got him right where I want him.

*** RIVER *** [Ts Kc Kh 2d] [6s]
hero: bets 200
villain: raises 200 to 400
hero: raises 920 to 1320 and is all-in
villain: calls 920 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hero: shows [Kd Ac] (three of a kind, Kings)
villain: shows [6d 6c] (a full house, Sixes full of Kings)

Fucked again.

Seat 1 collected 3110 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3110 | Rake 0
Board [Ts Kc Kh 2d 6s]
Seat 1: villain (button) showed [6d 6c] and won (3110) with a full house, Sixes full of Kings
Seat 2: (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: folded on the Turn
Seat 5: hero showed [Kd Ac] and lost with three of a kind, Kings
Seat 6: folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I just don't know what I have to do to win anymore. It's really, really, depressing.

Bay 101 Open short-handed tournament

Well, I'm here at the one Bay 101 Open event I'm willing to miss work for. This event will be 20 tables of 6. Very unusual for a B&M site to play that way. The entire poker floor looks like it's shut down just for us.

I've had a really rotten week at FTP. Let's hope things have chosen this exact moment to turn around.

Tournament strategy

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:19:19 ET - 2007/08/24
Seat 1: (100)
Seat 2: hero (1,515)
Seat 3: (1,455)
Seat 4: (1,960)
Seat 5: (1,440)
Seat 6: (2,530)
Seat 1 posts the small blind of 20
hero posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Jc 4d]
Seat 3 calls 40
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
Seat 1 raises to 100, and is all in
hero calls 60

What?! Calling a pre-flop raise out of position with jack-crap offsuit?!

Yes. Because he was extremely short and because I was partially invested. The goal of a tournament is to get rid of everybody else at the table. The more people who call a short stack all-in the more likely he will be beaten. The same reasoning leads to the other cardinal rule of tournament poker: Never, ever, ever bluff into a dry side pot. By bluffing into a dry side pot you could chase away a hand that has the all-in player beat. You can't bluff the all-in player. All you can do is lose to him. If you're going to lose the pot anyway, better to lose it to a big stack than chip up a small stack.

Seat 3 calls 60
*** FLOP *** [8s 3c Ac]
hero checks
Seat 3 checks
*** TURN *** [8s 3c Ac] [Kc]
hero checks
Seat 3 checks
*** RIVER *** [8s 3c Ac Kc] [Tc]

Nice. I've caught my flush, and it's the 2nd-to-nut flush. I said the rule was to never bluff into a dry side pot. Not never to bet into one.

hero bets 300

I suppose making it a pot-sized bet was potentially a mistake. Better to try and bet for value, but I really wanted to know if my neighbor in the side pot had the queen of clubs. Besides, it's clear that the goal here is to get rid of the short stack. Better to send the message that I'm not bluffing.

Seat 3 folds
Uncalled bet of 300 returned to hero
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hero shows [Jc 4d] a flush, Ace high
Seat 1 mucks
hero wins the pot (300) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 1 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 300 | Rake 0
Board: [8s 3c Ac Kc Tc]
Seat 1: (small blind) mucked [Ks 6h] - a pair of Kings

See? What would have happened if, say, Seat 1 had bluffed at the pot post-flop with, say, Qd 4h. He would have chased me away and lost the pot to the short stack. He'd have still lost his pre-flop call, so for him the outcome would not have changed, but we'd still have 6 players at the table instead of 5.

Seat 2: hero (big blind) showed [Jc 4d] and won (300) with a flush, Ace high
Seat 3: folded on the River
Seat 4: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: (button) didn't bet (folded)

Syndrome of a down

Serj, the lead singer of System of a Down has a solo album that's starting to get air-play on SquiZZ. I have a message for Serj:

Gilbert & Sullivan called. They said you should stop biting their style.

Why me?

I really don't understand why this sort of thing keeps happening. I really don't.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $5 + $0.50 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 30/60 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:42:42 ET - 2007/08/21
Seat 2: (1,465)
Seat 3: hero (3,845)
Seat 5: villain (3,690)
Seat 2 posts the small blind of 30
nsayer posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Jd Ts]
villain raises to 210

This guy has been getting out of line all tourney long. His pre-flop raises no longer have any value.

Seat 2 folds
hero calls 150
*** FLOP *** [7c Td 9h]

If he has an over-pair, then so be it. But I just don't think he does.

hero checks
villain bets 450
hero raises to 1,800
villain raises to 3,150
hero raises to 3,635, and is all in
villain calls 330, and is all in
hero shows [Jd Ts]
villain shows [9c 8d]

Uh huh. Outside straight draw. He's a 2:1 underdog at this point. He can't get the 8 for two pair, since that'll give me the better straight.

Uncalled bet of 155 returned to nsayer
*** TURN *** [7c Td 9h] [6d]

Naturally.

*** RIVER *** [7c Td 9h 6d] [4s]
hero shows a pair of Tens
villain shows a straight, Ten high
villain wins the pot (7,410) with a straight, Ten high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7,410 | Rake 0
Board: [7c Td 9h 6d 4s]
Seat 2: (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: hero (big blind) showed [Jd Ts] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 5: villain (button) showed [9c 8d] and won (7,410) with a straight, Ten high

One of these things is not like the other

I went to the Apple store at Valley Fair today to pick up a new monitor and have some lunch (Genghis Khan's mongolian BBQ in the food court. Almost as good as our normal mongo on El Camino, but they're open for lunch on Sunday). While I was there, I stumbled upon the Dell kiosk. Since I had my iPhone, I decided to snap a picture:



Now, the Apple store is actually under construction right now. They have a temporary store open in a little sliver of space next door to the real store. The temporary store isn't nearly as large or nice as the real store used to be. I can only hope that the new store will be an improvement. Anyway, with all that as a prologue, here's what the Apple store looked like at about the same time as the picture above of the Dell kiosk:



Uh huh. I don't think anyone needs to wonder if it's really true that Apple is gaining market share.

Turned the corner at P*!

I've done it: I have become profitable lifetime at PokerStars. I now am +$20 lifetime with a +2% ROI. I've also once again repeated my cycle of cashing in for $25, tripling up to exceed the $75 check limit and cashing out. I am a happy man today.

The original plan was to stop playing at P*, since I like the FTP mac software better than having to run P* in VMWare. I still may do that, but it is tempting to stick with what works, I have to say.

Tired of bullshit suck-outs

Played in the Bay 101 midnight points qualifier this evening. This is a re-buy tournament. I hate re-buy tournaments. But I came out of the re-buy period relatively unscathed. I re-bought once before we started (everybody did), and I did the add-on (everybody did), but didn't re-buy anymore than that with about the third highest stack at the table. About the 4th hand after the first break I'm in the small blind and get ATo. It's folded around, so I raise. The big blind calls. The flop comes KK4. I decide to represent the king by check-raising, so I check but then the big blind goes all-in. Now, if the flop had one king, I could fold. But would he really push if he flopped top set? Wouldn't he want to get value? So I went with my read that my AT was good and called. He turns over 56o. The table was suitably awed with my read. But then he rivers a 5 and I am out. Let's see: a 6 outer on the river is, what, a 7:1 dog?

Last night in the last midnight tournament for this group I got fucked just as badly. I had AQ suited and was short, so I went all-in and got two callers. The flop missed everybody, so both of them went all-in. One had 7s, the other had 8s. I got my ace on the river, which made me a 9:1 favorite. And the river came a 7.

So, I say to the poker Gods... whatever it is that I've done, I'M SORRY!

Just how pot committed are you?

For those who don't know, being pot committed means that either your opponent has gone all-in for such a small amount that the pot odds demand a call or that your stack is so short that the same thing applies.

When you're in the latter situation, I think pot odds become a less than deciding factor - after all, your tournament life is on the line, and that's worth whatever the tournament buy-in was in real dollars.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $30 + $3 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 25/50 - No Limit Hold'em - 6:23:40 ET - 2007/08/13
Seat 1: villain (420)
Seat 2: (1,405)
Seat 3: (4,358)
Seat 5: (1,237)
Seat 7: (160)
Seat 8: (3,150)
Seat 9: hero (2,770)
Seat 2 posts the small blind of 25
Seat 3 posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [4h Ad]
Seat 5 folds
Seat 7 folds
Seat 8 folds
hero raises to 150

An ace in the cut-off folded around? Sure.

villain calls 150
Seat 2 calls 125
Seat 3 calls 100
*** FLOP *** [9h 4d As]

Nice!

Seat 2 checks
Seat 3 checks
hero bets 600
villain calls 270, and is all in
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 folds
hero shows [4h Ad]
villain shows [6d 5c]

Say what?

If he was going to call the pre-flop raise short stacked, why didn't he just move in? I probably would have folded my crappy ace. What was he really hoping to get with his 6-high post-flop? The back-door 78? Even if he thought I was just making a continuation bet, say, with KQo, I still had him down to 6 outs. Yes, there was 1200 in the pot and it cost him 270 to make the call, but it was his last 270, and against the pre-flop raiser. There's no chance at all I had an ace?

Uncalled bet of 330 returned to hero
*** TURN *** [9h 4d As] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [9h 4d As 3d] [8s]
hero shows two pair, Aces and Fours
villain shows Ace Nine high
hero wins the pot (1,140) with two pair, Aces and Fours
villain stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,140 | Rake 0
Board: [9h 4d As 3d 8s]
Seat 1: villain (button) showed [6d 5c] and lost with Ace Nine high
Seat 2: (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 3: (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: hero showed [4h Ad] and won (1,140) with two pair, Aces and Fours

King Kong says, "It's loose!"

It's been a bad poker morning. Every coin flip has come up tails, everybody has sucked out. It's just been stupid chilly.

Here's a hand where the lessons of position were drilled in once again.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:52:29 ET - 2007/08/12
Seat 1: (890)
Seat 2: (2,310)
Seat 3: hero (1,515)
Seat 4: (1,410)
Seat 5: (1,240)
Seat 6: (1,635)
Seat 1 posts the small blind of 20
Seat 2 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Kc Jc]
hero raises to 120

A loose raise under the gun, I admit. But I had been very tight and thought it was good enough to try for a steal.

Seat 4 calls 120
Seat 5 calls 120
Seat 6 raises to 480
Seat 1 raises to 890, and is all in
Seat 2 folds

And, of course, that's pretty much the worst case scenario. The one nice thing about raising with a less-than-fantastic hand is that it's easy to get away from it.

hero folds
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 calls 770
Seat 6 raises to 1,635, and is all in
Seat 5 calls 350, and is all in
Seat 6 shows [Ad As]
Seat 1 shows [Th Qd]
Seat 5 shows [7s 9s]

Obviously, the rockets I can understand, but 79s? He called a raise, then called a re-raise and all-in? And QTo went all-in after a re-raise?

Ironically, I had them all beat apart from the aces.

Uncalled bet of 395 returned to Seat 6
*** FLOP *** [6s 5c 5h]
*** TURN *** [6s 5c 5h] [2h]
*** RIVER *** [6s 5c 5h 2h] [6h]
Seat 6 shows two pair, Aces and Sixes
Seat 5 shows two pair, Sixes and Fives
Seat 6 wins the side pot (700) with two pair, Aces and Sixes
Seat 1 shows two pair, Sixes and Fives
Seat 6 wins the main pot (2,950) with two pair, Aces and Sixes
Seat 1 stands up
Seat 5 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,650 Main pot 2,950. Side pot 700. | Rake 0
Board: [6s 5c 5h 2h 6h]
Seat 1: (small blind) showed [Th Qd] and lost with two pair, Sixes and Fives
Seat 2: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: hero folded before the Flop
Seat 4: folded before the Flop
Seat 5: showed [7s 9s] and lost with two pair, Sixes and Fives
Seat 6: (button) showed [Ad As] and won (3,650) with two pair, Aces and Sixes

Bread machine bread recipe

A slight variation on Alton Brown's bread recipe from Good Eats episode Dr. Strangeloaf:

1 pound bread flour
10 ounces water
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast

Measuring the flour by weight is the key.

Add to bread machine pan in the right order (water flour, sugar, salt, yeast).

Use 1½ pound white cycle.

The future of Microsoft

With the release of iWork '08, Apple now has a competitive answer that lines up perfectly against Microsoft's two main monopolistic pillars: Windows and Office.

If Apple continues to gain installed-base share, it won't be too long before the automatic nature of the purchasing policies of business stop being quite so automatic. When that happens, the curve will get a nice knee in it and Apple will at the very least achieve a duopoly.

At that point, what does Microsoft do?

It took them 6 years to release Windows XP.2, aka Vista. And the world has not stopped yawning. Will Vista be the last monopoly Windows product?

I think everyone can agree that without the monopoly propping it up, Windows has nothing to recommend it. And it's interesting to note that the only competition left are Unix clones of one sort or another (in fact, MacOS X recently passed the Open Group's Unix certification, so it's safe to say that MacOS X is not just a Unix clone anymore - it IS Unix).

The Windows NT architecture is dead. It hasn't seen any significant development since Windows 2000. Microsoft's development cycles are doubling in length for each minor release (though if that trend continues, Vista's successor won't appear until 2019, so it's unlikely that it will). Microsoft has, in the past, stated that .Net was the way forward, but most apps for Windows still use the WIn32 api. In that sense, the applications barrier to entry is now working against Microsoft in exactly the same way it has worked against Java and all of the rest of its competitors.

No, it's clear that Microsoft's only alternative to move forward is to do what Apple did when it was in the same spot 10 years ago. Microsoft needs to throw away the underlying architecture and start over. And as it does so, it can provide a backwards compatibility layer for legacy Win32 applications.

So what should they choose?

Linux.

Shocking? Not so much. I didn't say GNU/Linux. I don't suggest that Microsoft should adopt the Gnu LIBC implementation. Microsoft would likely make a clean-room reimplementation of the basic Unix library set. Why would they do that? Because they'll be falling back on their old bag of tricks: embrace, enhance, destroy. By making subtle, incompatible changes to the API, they can re-achieve platform lock-in. Doing this in the kernel will be virtually impossible because of the GPL. But the kernel is irrelevant. Make the libraries proprietary and Microsoft will realize the revenue stream anyway. See also: Mach and MacOS X.

What would Microsoft gain from this strategy? Well, assuming they didn't do it in an asinine way, they'd gain a lot of security improvements. They'd gain incalculable political points - they'd be able to claim that they were based on an "open" system, even though the most important bits would be closed. They'd pass off development and maintenance of their kernel to someone else, effectively, which would dramatically reduce their costs. And to top it all off, this is the exact same play that Apple made when they brought out OS X, so it's not a completely unprecedented move.

It would take some imagination for someone in the upper echelons to grasp this concept. It's not something I think Steve would be able to figure out without help. But maybe Bill still has enough imagination left.

Casino Royale

So a while ago, before I created this blog, I saw Casino Royale and, since they played a lot of poker, I'd been asked by a couple of friends for my opinions on the depiction of poker in the film.

The very first scene, where Bond was at a ring game and the dealer insisted on table stakes was my first "Yes!" moment. So often in the movies they make a big deal about one player or another trying to either add a marker to a bet or what not, where the reality of modern poker games is that table stakes is all you ever see. I don't think the casino would have (or should have) allowed the car as a bet, since there was no way to quickly establish the value of it so that Bond could correctly match the bet, but whatever.

That takes us to the tournament. Which had some issues.

1. They splash the pot a lot when making bets, particularly all-ins. If you are a monster chip-lead at the table and you go all-in, the usual move is to put out a small token stack of chips as you say "all-in," not to take your hands and mush a big pile of chips forward. After the hand, if you win, you don't have such a mess to clean up if you do it the right way. If you lose, the dealer will count your opponent's stack and tell you exactly how much to count out to double him up.

2. This was a tournament. That being the case, the apparent relationship between the buy-in amounts and the tournament chip denominations is fiction. The players were regularly making "million dollar" bets and raises, but it would be far more likely for them to start with T$10000. And if this was Montenegro, wouldn't it all have been in Euros?

3. Vesper should not have had any qualms about giving Bond the re-buy. His entire explanation should have been, "Bad beat (shrug)." Her response, "That's poker. Go try again." If he was bluffing with 72o, it would have been a different story, but he had LeChiff beat until the river.

4. The last hand had some issues. When the two short-stacks moved all-in, there was $30M in the pot. LeChiff's raise of $6M was way, way, way too small. Given his hand, he should have pushed all-in at that moment. The showdown was also wrong. Bond was the last player not all-in to take aggressive action, so he would have been first to show his hand. He would have shown the straight-flush and everybody else would have mucked. Not nearly as dramatic, of course. But if LeChiff had raised the correct amount, then he would have had to show first and Bond would have shown second - the side pots always come before the main. Another way that play could have gone would have been for LeChiff and Bond to just check the hand down. Their real interests were in getting rid of the short stacks and going heads-up for the tournament. It's hard to make a case for that play with a boat and a straight flush, but it would have been a reasonable alternative. The saying is, "Never bluff into a dry side-pot." Finally, What was Bond doing anywhere NEAR that last hand with 57s? That's a donkey play. It would have been defensible if he was the big blind and was allowed to check, but from what I could tell, he was on the button. Maybe he raised on the button to steal, but then I'd be surprised that he got 3 callers. It would have been far more plausible for him to have shown A8 for a better boat than LeChiff's Aces-over-6s (he would have had top two pair on the flop, too, though at that point the two short stacks had a set of 8s and a flush and were both beating him). In the film, until the turn, all he had was the 7-flush with an outside straight-flush draw. Yes, it's a flush, but it's vulnerable to an over-flush (which in this case the short stack actually had). Last, but not least, if there was $20M in the pot before the flop, why weren't the short stacks already all-in? ESPECIALLY the guy with 8s? What, exactly, were they saving the extra $5M and $6M for? He could have easily pushed Bond out pre-flop, and probably LeChiff as well. The two blinds would have battled it out and the flush would have been sent packing and the 8-boat would have doubled up. The three-handed chip-stacks would have been not entirely unreasonable, with LeChiff and Bond both about even with about 40% chips each and the short stack with 20%.

5. At the end, Bond tipped the dealer with what would have been a tournament chip with no actual monetary value. Asshole. You know that's the case because of all of the real money shenanigans with the passwords and the telephoning into swiss bank accounts and on and on that followed. If the chips were money, then he wouldn't have bothered with any of that. He simply would have cashed them out.

Out in one hand

When you see someone lose a tournament in one hand, it either means that one of the players in the hand is a complete donkey or one of them got ridiculously unlucky. And there aren't many situations that match that description. Pocket Aces vs. pocket Kings is certainly a qualifier. Just about the only other one that comes to mind where all the money went in and nobody is to blame is set over set.

Guess what.

I played at tonight's midnight tournament. I started on the button (lucky me). The blinds start at $25/$25 with a spread of $25-$1000 with stacks of $3000. I was dealt pocket 5s. 2nd to act raises by one chip, but he didn't actually say it. I suspect he was trying to limp and thought the blinds were $25/$50. The hijack (one to the right of the cut-off, which is to the right of the button) then raises to $150.

So what do we do with small pocket pairs in position? We get in as cheaply as possible and try to flop a set. Was I worried about being re-raised by the initial "raiser?" No, because I interpreted it as a limp, and he probably did too. Would I have called with 5s if it had been raised to $75, then re-raised to $225? Probably not, because I would have worried about a re-raise.

I call, the blinds fold and the limper/raiser guy calls. The flop comes 562 with two diamonds (I have the 5d). The first guy checks, then the hijack bets $400. I raise to $1400. The limper guy folds. The hijack raises to $2400, I go all-in, he calls. And turns up pocket 6s. The turn is a diamond, so that makes him sweat a little, but the river is a spade. And I'm out in one hand.

This is, of course, the very first hand, so none of us have any information about the other players.

So, gentle readers... what do you think? I think folding 2nd set in that spot is definitely -EV. Statistically the next time it'll be against pocket aces and I'll be the happy one.