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Around The Blogs
Nov. 10th, 2007 09:34 am50 Outs Twice has been subsumed into Intellipoker, and Jan hadn't posted since mid-July. However, his latest post is on a matter dear to my heart -- weight.
http://50outs.intellipoker.com/index.php/2007/10/27/weighing-the-odds-uhm-pounds/
Clearly any bet on "who loses the most weight" is far too simple for the German poker-playing community -- where debates can last for five hours on whether it is better to sit down with the minimum buy-in and keep it, or whether you should always reload to the minimum buy-in (logical arguments in favour of the latter are welcomed, by the way.
No, for a weight-loss bet in Germany, you might as well bring in the lawyers ... here's the contract:
+++++++++++++
Over At Tuscaloosa Johnny Land, a return after a long absence to announce that he got married. See, there's hope for us all, even as we age.
See http://pokernation.blogspot.com/ for tales of this.
Jamaica, as such, shouldn't be much of a culture shock, in that US dollars are fine (indeed, preferred) currency and the language is English.
Then again, I would probably find Mexico a far more significant culture-shock.
Johnny comes up with some interesting finds of the "and you thought this" kind.
One of them is the "Manhattan bought for just $24" line. The bargain of the millennium, you might think. However, if you made a business investment at about the same time and generate an RoE of 8%, after 100 years that $24 would be worth about $60,000. After 200 years it would be worth $135m. After 300 years it would be worth $275bn. After 360 years this would have increased to about $24tn. With that $24tn today, you could buy all of the privately owned land in Manhattan. Actually, you could probably buy all of the privately owned land in New York State and I have a sneaky hunch that you might be able to buy all the privately owned land in the US.
+++++++++++++++
The world and his wife, damn the pair of them, are preparing for the December blogging event -- which is put on just about the worst possible weekend for me the entire year. So, no Vegas for Pete this December.
Bad Blood recounts an interesting non-poker bad beat relating to soap (http://badbloodonpoker.blogspot.com/ Wednesday November 7). He recounts an adventure with Grey Goose, a Martini, and an uncleaned cocktail mixer. Mr Gryko once ordered a Grey Goose with something vodka-mixerish, drank half of it, felt something was miss, looked at the colour and realized that he had instead been supplied with a Famous Grouse. Once, when I was in France, I ordered a Scotch and ice. It tasted wrong. I told the barman (who knew nothing of whisky - these were the days before Gin and whisky were the peak of cool for French youngsters) and he just threw it away and poured me another. This too tasted bad, but I didn't want to make a fuss in a bar surrounded by old guys supping their Pernods, red wines and beers.
It was only 10 minutes later that I noticed the guy washing up all of the glasses in a single sinkful of water. So many of the people in the bar drank pernod, that a film of aniseed had clearly got itself embedded in every glass (you didn't know that glass was porous? Think again). Unless you wanted to drink pernod in that bar, virtually everything else (I except, for example, Drano, or Fernet Branca) was undrinkable.
+++++++
The Double As blog seems to want to print in a column a single word wide on my Internet Explorer. Not sure what happened there. Anyhoo, he's back from LV, having seen the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam (interesting point, Hoover Dam seems more overwhelming to the naked eye than does the Grand Canyon. Discuss). http://doubleas.blogspot.com/
+++++++
Pauly and Change 100 are in Sydney. Pauly had an excellent post on dislocating his little finger and the tendency to "self-medicate" in the US, because going to hospitals is too darned expensive. http://taopoker.blogspot.com/.
There are lots of things wrong with our health service (administrators, consultants and woeful IT systems being just three), but in the "take as I find" mode, I must say that, when the chips are down, the NHS delivers. Pauly felt the same about the Australian system, where the service he received meant that, as far as he was concerned he was two grand up on the deal.
We all know that gamblers are degenerate. I thank the lord for that because, if they weren't, I wouldn't win any money. I shall return to degeneracy in a couple of seconds, but let's look at Pauly's comment on the Star City in Sydney...
Me? I would have been out the door.
++++++++++++++++
Ah yes, degeneracy. Well, for this you need luckyjimm.blogspot.com
Rivalling Bluescouse for a car crash in motion, Luckyjimm might at least get some admiration from Andy Ward in that at least Jimm is spending some of the money on hookers before he goes broke, again. You need to open up a Blogspot account to post to Jimm's blog, and that final hurdle had prevented me (several times) from posting a long comment on the psychological themes at play here (ones that I recognize so well from other gamblers in my past -- all of whom went badly broke). The odd part of the whole blog is how flashes of self-analysis mix in with screeds of gross self-deception. In the old days I felt sorry for people like this, but now my line is closer to that mentioned in "Once Upon A time In America" and in that marvellous (third?) series of The Sopranos where Tony bankrupts a compulsive gambler with a style and efficiency that you could not help but admire. luckyjimm.blogspot.com
++++++++++++++
I recommend a read of http://malfairepoker.blogspot.com/ . Come to your own conclusions.
+++++++++++
Simon Young, one-time Deputy News Editor at The Sun, then a freelancer in the poker world, and now the content editor of the Party Poker blog, will obviously be posting less on his own blog. However, once you go over to the "dark side", by which I mean virtually any editing of a professional poker blog/forum, you are hidesouly restricted. How, because you can only show the "light side" of things. As Simon puts it in his latest entry, which is basically touting for free copy:
Think fun, spreading the good word.
The Hendon Mob and Gutshot have long attempted to maintain this myth, and I will long support them for so doing. The concept of "poker for fun AND profit" goes back a long way, and has proved the downfall of many a blogger who thought that it was a soft and enjoyable way to make a living. Of course, the last thing you want is a room of MOGs a la Binion's on a wet Thursday (or even the Vic) where conversation opf any sort is discouraged. But, trust me, these MOGs were once young enthusiasts, just like all those 20-somethings "thinking fun". They took the money-making route, and these are the survivors. If anyone wants proof that poker is never about fun AND profit, look at the MOGs; that's what the game can do to you.
So, part of the art is to keep the losers happy, so that they keep coming back. When you become a MOG, you just want the loser to turn up, hand over his cash as quickly as possible, and then fuck off. because, as a MOG, the profit has become all and the fun has been thrown out of the window.
Talented winning poker players know better than this; they know that there is show business involved. To keep these losers happy about losing, they have to not mind giving you money. As Mr Young sagely observed, what's in it for the losers online?
I've often wondered that myself. Part of it could be the "weekend fun", but I suspect that most money that's won is won from people coming up from lower levels who aren't good enough, or from self-deceivers. The great thing about the marginal win rates at online games is that you can be a loser for a long time before the stats tell you that it almost certainly isn't standard deviation (most, indeed, go broke first).
http://suffolkpunchpoker.blogspot.com/
++++++++++++
Hugo's posts at Poker With The Sweep are always good value, although, like some other once-regular posters, they are becoming rarer. His latest tale from the Vic (finely self-deprecatory and, for that very reason, rather useful) has some other interesting stories attached. One relates to a guy who exploits the rule about being allowed to talk about your hand.
Now, the old "silence" rule was stupid, but it had one advantage - it did tend to speed up the game. This guy to whom Hugo refers is a perpetual talker about his own hand, and also a gross overbettor p[re-flop; about 11 to 13bb being standard.
Ken Wong waited in the wings with a relatively short-stack, and counter-played these overraises with a pre-flop shove. Hugo recounts:
How do you counteract these huge dwell-ups when you know the guy is going to fold? I'd quite like an "anti-dwell-up alliance" where players who know each other agree to rotate calling "time" on known dwellers after, say, a reasonable period (five seconds would be my recommendation). If the dweller says that you aren't in the hand, you can point out that you are paying a time charge, so the dwell-up is costing you money. And if you can rotate the calling of 'time', then it isn't just one bloke who has to take on the responsibility that should be shared around the table.
http://pokerwiththesweep.blogspot.com/
++++++++++++++++++
Mr Young recounts a hand from the Vic where he won 325 big bets with JJ in the big blind, unimproved. As DY observed, there is no way that this could happen in an online game.
Switching from live to online and back is problematic for just this reaason -- you have to adjust the ranges of your opponents' hands drastically. If I start playing live again, I think I would do better to ease myself in during the tighter afternoon and early-evening games, solely because these would require less of a shift for me than the late-night action events.
I found myself in a game online that turned out to be very laggy and to have some fools in it. Unfortunately I picked up the relevant hand when posting.
The majestic 74o actually got to see a flop against the small blind, the big blind and an UTG limper. Board came 44K (two hearts). SB checks, Big blind bets $6 into a $8 pot. UTG raises to $20 and I raise to $60. Small blind calls and Big blind goes all in for $160 or thereabouts. UTG calls the all-in for $130 or so. What do I do?
Much though I hate folding here, I can't see how I am in front in an afternoon game on Full Tilt. I put Big Blind on something like A4 or even K4, and UTG might have AA and now be cursing that he limped UTG pre-flop, but be unable to get away from the hand. So, I pass.
Small blind also passes and the two remaining players turn over the same hand -- KJ off.
Wow.
It took me a lot not to go on immediate mega-tilt, but I calmed myself down by recalling that many of my big losses in the past had been when I have been unable to lay down trips with a bad kicker.
+++++++++
http://50outs.intellipoker.com/index.php/2007/10/27/weighing-the-odds-uhm-pounds/
Clearly any bet on "who loses the most weight" is far too simple for the German poker-playing community -- where debates can last for five hours on whether it is better to sit down with the minimum buy-in and keep it, or whether you should always reload to the minimum buy-in (logical arguments in favour of the latter are welcomed, by the way.
No, for a weight-loss bet in Germany, you might as well bring in the lawyers ... here's the contract:
We are comparing the percentage of the loss from the initial weight
Each percent has defined value, so the bigger the gap, the more one wins
Each participant has the right to ask once a month about the opponents weight and he must give a true answer.
There is a buyout option each month; this start cheap but gets more expensive with each month
The values for Andre: EUR 100 as base value for the first percent, multiplying for each point. So, lets say by the end of the bet I have lost 24% of my inital weight, Andre has lost 11%, the difference being 13%. In this case Andre has to pay me EUR 9100 (first percent=100, second percent=200, third percent=300, 4th=400, 500+600,700,800,900,1000,1100,1200,1300).
The buyout option follows the same system, base value EUR 1000. So, Andre could buy himself out of this mess in November for 1000, in December for 2000, in January for 3000, in February for 4000, in March for 5000 and in April for 6000. The last buyout chance is April 30th.
The base values for Klaus are EUR 50 per percent and 500 per month, so half of the bet with Andre.
No surgery allowed.
+++++++++++++
Over At Tuscaloosa Johnny Land, a return after a long absence to announce that he got married. See, there's hope for us all, even as we age.
See http://pokernation.blogspot.com/ for tales of this.
We honeymooned in Jamaica, the first trip for either of us out of North America. (She's been to Mexico; me to Canada.) The two of us have decided to do a lot more international travelling in the coming years if possible.
Jamaica, as such, shouldn't be much of a culture shock, in that US dollars are fine (indeed, preferred) currency and the language is English.
Then again, I would probably find Mexico a far more significant culture-shock.
Johnny comes up with some interesting finds of the "and you thought this" kind.
One of them is the "Manhattan bought for just $24" line. The bargain of the millennium, you might think. However, if you made a business investment at about the same time and generate an RoE of 8%, after 100 years that $24 would be worth about $60,000. After 200 years it would be worth $135m. After 300 years it would be worth $275bn. After 360 years this would have increased to about $24tn. With that $24tn today, you could buy all of the privately owned land in Manhattan. Actually, you could probably buy all of the privately owned land in New York State and I have a sneaky hunch that you might be able to buy all the privately owned land in the US.
+++++++++++++++
The world and his wife, damn the pair of them, are preparing for the December blogging event -- which is put on just about the worst possible weekend for me the entire year. So, no Vegas for Pete this December.
Bad Blood recounts an interesting non-poker bad beat relating to soap (http://badbloodonpoker.blogspot.com/ Wednesday November 7). He recounts an adventure with Grey Goose, a Martini, and an uncleaned cocktail mixer. Mr Gryko once ordered a Grey Goose with something vodka-mixerish, drank half of it, felt something was miss, looked at the colour and realized that he had instead been supplied with a Famous Grouse. Once, when I was in France, I ordered a Scotch and ice. It tasted wrong. I told the barman (who knew nothing of whisky - these were the days before Gin and whisky were the peak of cool for French youngsters) and he just threw it away and poured me another. This too tasted bad, but I didn't want to make a fuss in a bar surrounded by old guys supping their Pernods, red wines and beers.
It was only 10 minutes later that I noticed the guy washing up all of the glasses in a single sinkful of water. So many of the people in the bar drank pernod, that a film of aniseed had clearly got itself embedded in every glass (you didn't know that glass was porous? Think again). Unless you wanted to drink pernod in that bar, virtually everything else (I except, for example, Drano, or Fernet Branca) was undrinkable.
+++++++
The Double As blog seems to want to print in a column a single word wide on my Internet Explorer. Not sure what happened there. Anyhoo, he's back from LV, having seen the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam (interesting point, Hoover Dam seems more overwhelming to the naked eye than does the Grand Canyon. Discuss). http://doubleas.blogspot.com/
+++++++
Pauly and Change 100 are in Sydney. Pauly had an excellent post on dislocating his little finger and the tendency to "self-medicate" in the US, because going to hospitals is too darned expensive. http://taopoker.blogspot.com/.
There are lots of things wrong with our health service (administrators, consultants and woeful IT systems being just three), but in the "take as I find" mode, I must say that, when the chips are down, the NHS delivers. Pauly felt the same about the Australian system, where the service he received meant that, as far as he was concerned he was two grand up on the deal.
We all know that gamblers are degenerate. I thank the lord for that because, if they weren't, I wouldn't win any money. I shall return to degeneracy in a couple of seconds, but let's look at Pauly's comment on the Star City in Sydney...
Star City's poker room has the reputation for being the worst poker room in the world. Ask the locals and they will tell you. The wait list is always long. The players are atrocious. And the rake is insane. For a 5/10 limit game, you have to pay 75 cents just to get dealt a hand! There's no rake for that game, but it cost you $7.50 to see a full orbit. The low limit NL tables charge you $5 an hour time charge plus a 10% rake while they 2/5 NL tables charge you $10/hour plus 10% rake. Since there is zero competition, they own the monopoly.
There was a huge wait so we put our names down.
Me? I would have been out the door.
++++++++++++++++
Ah yes, degeneracy. Well, for this you need luckyjimm.blogspot.com
Rivalling Bluescouse for a car crash in motion, Luckyjimm might at least get some admiration from Andy Ward in that at least Jimm is spending some of the money on hookers before he goes broke, again. You need to open up a Blogspot account to post to Jimm's blog, and that final hurdle had prevented me (several times) from posting a long comment on the psychological themes at play here (ones that I recognize so well from other gamblers in my past -- all of whom went badly broke). The odd part of the whole blog is how flashes of self-analysis mix in with screeds of gross self-deception. In the old days I felt sorry for people like this, but now my line is closer to that mentioned in "Once Upon A time In America" and in that marvellous (third?) series of The Sopranos where Tony bankrupts a compulsive gambler with a style and efficiency that you could not help but admire. luckyjimm.blogspot.com
++++++++++++++
I recommend a read of http://malfairepoker.blogspot.com/ . Come to your own conclusions.
+++++++++++
Simon Young, one-time Deputy News Editor at The Sun, then a freelancer in the poker world, and now the content editor of the Party Poker blog, will obviously be posting less on his own blog. However, once you go over to the "dark side", by which I mean virtually any editing of a professional poker blog/forum, you are hidesouly restricted. How, because you can only show the "light side" of things. As Simon puts it in his latest entry, which is basically touting for free copy:
Think fun, spreading the good word.
The Hendon Mob and Gutshot have long attempted to maintain this myth, and I will long support them for so doing. The concept of "poker for fun AND profit" goes back a long way, and has proved the downfall of many a blogger who thought that it was a soft and enjoyable way to make a living. Of course, the last thing you want is a room of MOGs a la Binion's on a wet Thursday (or even the Vic) where conversation opf any sort is discouraged. But, trust me, these MOGs were once young enthusiasts, just like all those 20-somethings "thinking fun". They took the money-making route, and these are the survivors. If anyone wants proof that poker is never about fun AND profit, look at the MOGs; that's what the game can do to you.
So, part of the art is to keep the losers happy, so that they keep coming back. When you become a MOG, you just want the loser to turn up, hand over his cash as quickly as possible, and then fuck off. because, as a MOG, the profit has become all and the fun has been thrown out of the window.
Talented winning poker players know better than this; they know that there is show business involved. To keep these losers happy about losing, they have to not mind giving you money. As Mr Young sagely observed, what's in it for the losers online?
I've often wondered that myself. Part of it could be the "weekend fun", but I suspect that most money that's won is won from people coming up from lower levels who aren't good enough, or from self-deceivers. The great thing about the marginal win rates at online games is that you can be a loser for a long time before the stats tell you that it almost certainly isn't standard deviation (most, indeed, go broke first).
http://suffolkpunchpoker.blogspot.com/
++++++++++++
Hugo's posts at Poker With The Sweep are always good value, although, like some other once-regular posters, they are becoming rarer. His latest tale from the Vic (finely self-deprecatory and, for that very reason, rather useful) has some other interesting stories attached. One relates to a guy who exploits the rule about being allowed to talk about your hand.
Now, the old "silence" rule was stupid, but it had one advantage - it did tend to speed up the game. This guy to whom Hugo refers is a perpetual talker about his own hand, and also a gross overbettor p[re-flop; about 11 to 13bb being standard.
Ken Wong waited in the wings with a relatively short-stack, and counter-played these overraises with a pre-flop shove. Hugo recounts:
Every time Will would go into a huge dwell up and song and dance about he actually had a real hand and how could Ken do this to him, but every time he would fold.
How do you counteract these huge dwell-ups when you know the guy is going to fold? I'd quite like an "anti-dwell-up alliance" where players who know each other agree to rotate calling "time" on known dwellers after, say, a reasonable period (five seconds would be my recommendation). If the dweller says that you aren't in the hand, you can point out that you are paying a time charge, so the dwell-up is costing you money. And if you can rotate the calling of 'time', then it isn't just one bloke who has to take on the responsibility that should be shared around the table.
http://pokerwiththesweep.blogspot.com/
++++++++++++++++++
Mr Young recounts a hand from the Vic where he won 325 big bets with JJ in the big blind, unimproved. As DY observed, there is no way that this could happen in an online game.
Switching from live to online and back is problematic for just this reaason -- you have to adjust the ranges of your opponents' hands drastically. If I start playing live again, I think I would do better to ease myself in during the tighter afternoon and early-evening games, solely because these would require less of a shift for me than the late-night action events.
I found myself in a game online that turned out to be very laggy and to have some fools in it. Unfortunately I picked up the relevant hand when posting.
The majestic 74o actually got to see a flop against the small blind, the big blind and an UTG limper. Board came 44K (two hearts). SB checks, Big blind bets $6 into a $8 pot. UTG raises to $20 and I raise to $60. Small blind calls and Big blind goes all in for $160 or thereabouts. UTG calls the all-in for $130 or so. What do I do?
Much though I hate folding here, I can't see how I am in front in an afternoon game on Full Tilt. I put Big Blind on something like A4 or even K4, and UTG might have AA and now be cursing that he limped UTG pre-flop, but be unable to get away from the hand. So, I pass.
Small blind also passes and the two remaining players turn over the same hand -- KJ off.
Wow.
It took me a lot not to go on immediate mega-tilt, but I calmed myself down by recalling that many of my big losses in the past had been when I have been unable to lay down trips with a bad kicker.
+++++++++
