Poker Pub Poker Blog: personal and slightly off-topic

2008/12/05

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Offtopic - Walk Down Memory Lane or "I speak Scottish"

2008/01/06

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Happy New Year's Update and stuff...

2007/03/25

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2007/02/02

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This week has been the first "normal" week I've had in quite some time. I'm two weeks removed from Australia and I think my body has readjusted to the timezone, though I know I'll never adjust to this cold weather. No matter how long I live here, I won't ever get used to winters. My natural inclination is to just fall asleep... hibernate even. Unfortunately, life does not always allow for such luxeries.

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I've cut back significantly on poker play and time spent writing/on the computer this week as well, as many of you might be able to tell. I've been spending every waking moment with my kids. I missed them while in Oz, and can't get enough of them now. We've been having Sorry tournaments every night this week. Last week too. Zack was champ last week, and this week Abby has captured the title. Daddy's next?

So, while adapting to "normal" it would seem as if I've neglected my blog just a little bit. No worries though... I suspect I'll be back to writing regularly again very soon. I've just needed time to downshift, decompress, and regroup. While doing so, I managed to accomplish two big things this week. I grabbed myself a full time job, as I suspect the party is over with regards to online poker... Additionally, I re-enrolled in school. This job is surely nothing I'm married to, but is flexable enough so that I can let it work around my life. School is set to start up in April and I'll be going straight through until Sept of '08.

The funny thing about this whole school gig... I've started school twice. Both times, I've quit without completing the degree. I landed the job I was looking to land each time, so why bother, right? This time around... no matter what, I'm goin wire to wire. If I've been able to quit smoking, I should also be able to finish school, it's that simple.

Moving on --- next week, look for more memories and photos from Oz, and also some CheckRayz news... specifically dealing with our February plan. Also, keep in touch with the Poker.com blog and the BPT home page, as my Aussie Wrap-up should find it's way there within the next few days...

Mike

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2007/01/08

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More preparing and thoughts...

2007/01/07

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Random thoughts and notes...

2006/12/31

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ironic

This again is more of a personal post, so if that's not your bag, tune out now.

Yesterday, I spoke of not waiting until New Years to make resolutions. It's ironic... Ironic because usually, a short while after midnight, after drinking champaigne, swapping spit, saying good riddance to the old, and ushering in the new year; I typically excuse myself for about a half hour or so. It's during this time that I go through my telephone and send out individual happy new years wishes via text message. Sure, it is not terribly personal, but it is my way of reaching out to those I care about that I've not taken the time to keep in touch with over the course of the past year.

This has become somewhat of a tradition of mine. Sometimes, people call me right back. Other times, I get a return text message, and other times, I hear from the people a day or so later.

One girl in particular is typically on that list... a dear friend of mine named Tierney. She played on my co-ed soccer team, as I first met her through my best drinking buddy Sandy. Tierney and I immediately hit it off. God help us, but our minds worked very similar. She was brilliant, such a beautiful mind she had. We spent many a day and evening talking stuff that people did not normally talk about... Deeper, more philosophical and/or conceptual conversations were the norm with us. People often had a difficult time keeping up, as one either was on that wave length or they were not...

Anyway, fast forwarding a bit... she moved away a few years ago to "chase her dream." I admired that in her; when she knew what she wanted, she acted. It was then that we began conversing, for the most part twice a year... on July 4th and New Years Eve. I missed the 4th this year...

Yesterday evening, Sandy calls me... asks me if I've heard. Of course, I didn't as my head has been lodged up my ass as of late from a social standpoint. I'm assuming she's going to give me some great news - proposal, with child... something of that sort.

Turns out Tierney was in an auto accident on Wednesday night. Both she and her boyfriend died as a result of injury from said accident. Sadly enough, I'll be spending new years eve with her, but at the funeral home... not via our traditional phone conversation. T - I'm sorry I waited, you're always on my mind and a topic of conversation in the group... I can only hope you knew how beautiful and special you were and are.

Love ya angel...

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2006/12/30

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Resolve

2006/12/11

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Didn't you say...? What the...?

2006/05/30

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"2-7'd" during "birthday week..."

2006/05/27

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Turning “21” again…

Well, its that time of year again. Sometime throughout this long weekend, the Beer Guy turns 21 yet again. Yes indeed, we’re in the middle of “Birthday Week.” So today, we’re in for a history lesson on the legends of the infamous Birthday Week as well as what is the deal with the whole “turning 21” thing.

For starters, I started doing this whole “Birthday Week” thing with my friends, as there were always one or two people who were “preoccupied” for the birthday celebration of a given group member. This seemed to be the case with every birthday celebration within the group. Someone, for one reason or another had something else going on, be it work, school, family, significant others, etc. So, we decided that if we made the actual celebration a week long gig, we’d be able to fit everyone in. For the most part, this worked out and was, by my own admission “in character” with everything we did. Any group that ran with me seemed to have a knack for “over-doing” things (read: we enjoyed beating a dead horse long after everyone else stopped). So, initially birthdays were celebrated as a one week event.

Over time, we noticed a steep increase in “goods and services.” Inflation was taking its toll on the price of things such as cigarettes, beer, gas (no kidding?), food, etc. So, it was decided that in the spirit of beating a dead horse and respecting the reality of inflation, we needed to expand birthday week to keep it real. In 1998, birthday week expanded to a two week celebration. This was the case until 2004, when the birthday week’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve Board of Directors met to discuss the state of Birthday Week. We collectively met to study birthday week and decided that in an attempt to “control inflation,” and to help “stimulate the economy” (not to mention bring balance to the whole birthday week concept), we unanimously voted to increase the duration of birthday week to three weeks. Celebration would commence one week prior to the actual birthday, pick up pace the week of, and cool off the week after.

As an added bonus, this pretty much ensured that we’d have some sort of “birthday week” going on every week of the calendar year. In fact, the logistics of a new member’s birthday week coming into the group is more important, perhaps, than the actual character of said applicant. We would often meet new people just trying to fill the calendar up when noticing an “opening.”

Now, my “birthday week” is a bit different than anyone else’s in the group. This comes as no surprise, given the conversation we had at one of the post-game watering holes about how I am the exception, not the rule in most everything we do. It should be noted that this is not because I am breaking the “rules of the group,” but instead because I seem to influence and enforce policy. A comparison was made to “The Godfather” of the group, as no one enters the circle without my blessing, nor do they “act out” without risking consequences set forth by yours truly. So, given that I am the policy maker, its only fair that I decide what we are celebrating when it comes to my birthday. I decided we were going to celebrate my “turning 21” every year. And yes, there is a reason for such a decision.

I did not get to celebrate my 21st birthday in the fashion most of “the other kids” got to celebrate theirs. Most peeps got to do the whole bar tour, 21 shots, etc. Not me, though I am surely not complaining. I turned 21 on the beaches of Palma, Spain. Turning 21 over there was not a big deal, as it was “legal” to drink prior to the 21 mark. Of course, we made a big deal of it. We hit the beach nice and early and made ourselves a nice “home base” which was roughly 25 yards from this place called the Daiquiri Palace. We had a waitress bringing us a different flavor of daiquiri every half hour. Water accompanied the daiquiri at the top of every hour. The “palace” was to the daiquiri world what Baskin Robins is to the world of ice cream. It was nice.

Well, correction… It was nice until we noticed the severe blistering from being in the sun entirely too long. Apparantly, its not the best of ideas for a bunch of peeps pulling duty on an Aircraft Carrier rarely seeing the light of day to hit the beach and soak up some rayz for more than 1 hour tops. Needless to say, we headed for lower ground (preferably to find shade of some sort) after receiving our 21st Daiquiri, thus hitting for the cycle. Everyone, less myself and Jason bailed, due to blistering in the sun. Jason was a tropper though. He and I purchased some aloe, and some replica football jerseys. Jason purchased a Scotland national team jersey for some ungodly reason, while I grabbed myself an FC Porto jersey. For some stranger reason, football jerseys feel a bit better on the burned skin than regular shirts do. Anyways, the Scotland jersey would come into play later in the evening. We hit a club called BCM. Jason and I were ~~buzzing~~ ~~drunk~~ 2-7’d (read: hammered). One of us was holding up a bit better than the other though, I suspect.

Across the room, we see these two babes, who I overheard mention something about Scotland. I “radio” Jason telling him to get into formation and stressed the importance of my wingman following my lead and not breaking formation under any circumstances. I introduce myself to the ladies and as I suspected, they immediately comment on Jason’s Football Jersey, asking if he’s from Scotland. Being both a man of principle and of honor, I tell them he is in fact from Scotland. Edinburgh, to be exact. He catches on and decides to play the role of a drunken Irishman meets hammered Canadian and slurs to them “you’re damn well bloody right I’m from Scotland, ey?” Its revealed at this point (I’m laughing too hard at his response) that I’m not from Scotland, but instead I am an American and Jason was my foreign exchange student. We’re “on holiday” tearing it up in Europe, and its my birthday. They “seem” to buy the story, at least initially and are thankful we’re not one of those “dirty sailors” that are ruining their vacation. It should be fairly noted that there were 2 U.S. Ships and a British ship in port at this timeframe, so they could have been referring to either one when they dropped the “them people“ bomb.

Anyways, they bought me a birthday shot. Jason reciprocated buying them drinks. We danced it up for a while, talking and dancing, dancing and talking. My wingman was doing me well. I admit he did go a bit overboard when he began speaking in what he believed was a foreign language. We almost lost him there, however I righted the course and said he was doing his impression of a drunken friend that he met when he was my exchange student.

Jason excused himself to the “W.C.” In his absence I was working on arranging the closing of the deal. I received the green light for landing, as we were planning to take off and go back to their hotel, as it was a bit “too loud” in the club. I radioed the wingman telling him we were ready to land. Instead of putting the landing gear down, Jason breaks formation. We start our final approach heading outside and towards their hotel. Its at that point I hear the last words I wanted to hear. Jason slurs (hick-ups included) “Mike, we have to go back to the boat. I think I’m going to die.” I try to cover for him, but that’s so not happening.

He breaks formation and clips my wing in the process. We’re going down, mayday mayday! We crashed and burned. The girls flipped and were not nearly as understanding as I thought. I enacted the one standard deviation rule, citing he has ancestry traceable to Scotland, and each of us hosted an exchange student at one point in time and we did not consider ourselves one of “those people.” No such luck. Crash and burn, live and learn, nice hand good game, total suck out, etc.

Anyways, that event combined with the absence of a “traditional” celebration in the U.S. led me to make up for it by turning 21 every year. We just celebrate my 21st all over again in traditional U.S. fashion. Really, until retirement age, there’s no meaningful birthday, so why not celebrate the anniversary of the 21st in the interim? Besides, there’s no better way to honor the memory of the survivors of the crash than to memorialize it forever in celebratory fashion. To keep score, I just add yet another roman numeral to the end of my stated age “21” and I’m within my one standard deviation rule.

Tonight, birthday week continues with SuperDonk’s “band” playing at one of the local clubs. This is sure to be an amusing event, as the thought of their “band” cracks me up. Monday, the group will be sitting outside overlooking the lake sipping on 50 cent drafts watching the sunset with the Beer Guy reflecting on life XIII years ago.

Mike

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Turning “21” again…

2006/05/25

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Housekeeping items

2006/05/10

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Scatter-brained...

I just discovered that CheckRayz have two tournaments scheduled for tonight. First there is the CheckRayz-Celeb heads up poker challenge at 9pm EDT. At 10pm, we're at poker4ever. This was a scheduling error. I totally missed it - never saw it coming. I did not intend to have the tournaments on the same day, for those of you keeping score. I suspect my wide range of focus has caused me to be scatter-brained, and its showing.

My attention to detail has seemed to drop off lately. I typically work on multiple tasks at the same time with little difficulty. In fact, this typically plays to my advantage by having many things going on at once. One of my "known issues" is that I am easily "distracted." One of my friends once talked about how the universe works against him by nature. He "knew" certain things to be true. For example, when he was in a hurry to get somewhere, he'd hit every traffic light in town... and God help him if we were in road construction season. He was often in a hurry, needless to say. Additionally, in his spare time, he loved to read, though he was "always" interupted when he was in the middle of a good book. In fact, interuption after interuption would occur when he found his place.

So, being a logical guy, and a math major with a minor in philosophy, he saw the potential relationship between these two problems of his. He "knew" he'd be slowed down when in a rush, and distracted when in the middle of a good book. So to solve the time issue, he would bring his book with him when on the road. Of course, he'd hit every light/traffic jam in town. When this happens, he opens his book, quickly finding his place. This causes chaos in the universe as "the rules" state he may not read uninterupted, so the traffic jam imediately is relieved, thus he tricks the universe into getting him to his destination on time at the expense of missing out on reading a book he'd never be "permitted" to finish anyways.

I often do something similar. I know that I am easily distracted, as I said above. So, often when I am playing poker, I'll be blogging, or talking strategy to a friend, or scheduling a tournament, or working on a side project. I know if I am not multi-tasking, I will find something less productive to distract me... so I figure why not "pick" that which distracts? Over time, I get good at this and have three tables open, two IM windows, my blog, and four emails to poker reps all going at once. Did I mention I'm also on the telephone?

Yea, I'm taking on too much at once. Its time to slow down, relax a bit, and focus primarily on the main tasks at hand. Contrary to what I'd like to believe, there's a lot that can be accomplished in the 24 hour day. I lost track of the main purpose of the "controlled distraction," which was to productively control that which captures my "side" attention, to more of a distraction out of obligation (I need to get all of this done NOW!). My work is suffering, my game is slightly suffering, and now its right in front of me.

Time to re-focus... Nuff said.

Mike

2006/05/07

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Please excuse the mess...

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"Bad Beat" on the derby...

2006/05/06

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Derby Day is here...

Finally, (Kentucky) Derby Day is upon us. As per my "normal protocol," I've checked the weather, reevaluated my statistics, crunched them one additional way, and checked the current odds. Below you'll find my derby predictions, which barring a miracle/catastrophy, I'll stick with until post time. I got the majority of my handicapping in on Thursday, so as to avoid the hype. Here's where I take the hype factor, and some other things and combine them with the infamous "pseudo-scientific" method of mine. My assigned odds listed after pp and horse name, morning line odds followed by "current odds" (of close of advanced wagering on Friday night) in parentheses.

Win Contenders - Horses I believe to have a high likelyhood to be racing to first place:

11 Sweetnorthernsaint 4-1 (10-1, 7-1)

3 Keyed Entry 5-1 (30-1, 42-1) "the $42 dollar horse" perhaps? (handicapping reference)

4 Sinister Minister 5-1 (12-1, 5-1)

Money Contenders - Horses I believe to have little likelyhood of winning the race, but stand a greater than random chance of finishing in the money (second or third):

8 Barbaro 8-1 (4-1, 5-1)

18 Brother Derek 9-1 (3-1, 10-1)

9 Sharp Humor 10-1 (20-1, 25-1)

16 Cause to Believe 20-1 (50-1, 26-1)

All other horses, I believe have significantly less than a random chance of winning/finishing in the money.

How do you bet this?

Well, honestly I don't know how YOU bet this. I do know how I plan to bet this though, significant thanks to "chippy" for helping me carve this out into a betting plan that makes sense with respect to the "exotic bets."

For starters, all my win contenders will be bet accordingly. So, count on a ticket reading 11,3,4 win. The horses in that universe will also be bet to place/show providing they're overlays in my odds to the public odds. Additionally, my "money contenders" will get place/show bets if they're in overlay territory. I don't have them as legit win contenders, so I will bet them off as place show (in the money). Right now, assuming the odds do not change (they will), I'm betting 9 and 16 to place and show each.

As for the exotic bets, I was considering going with the superfecta, however, i think the trifecta is more along my comfort level.

11,3,4 with 11,3,4,8,18,9 with 11,3,4,8,18,9 will be my most likely trifecta bet, unless I for some reason bump one of the money contenders off the chart.

Additionally, I'll work through some exacta bets, with 11,3,4 wheeling through my money contenders list.

I do have a positive EV outlook on my races. I know which horses I like and more importantly why I like them. I'm also keeping my eye on the other horses, and understanding why the public likes them. Using the two perspectives, I've achieved my ideal bets. If the perfect race is run, I'm a winner (based on my figures, and assuming my "pseudo-scientific" method is dead on). If a less than perfect race is run, I'm at least playing the +EV ponys, the ones who I would play every time this race is run based on the information available right now.

Good luck and have fun betting the ponys.

Mike

2006/05/04

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Continuation Bet... errr - Post on the Kentucky Derby

Well, numbers have been crunched... field sorted through, so here we are with my Continuation ~~Bet~~, I mean post on the Kentucky Derby. I must have poker on the brain (surprise surprise).

Anyways, I did my pseudo-scientific number crunching and analysis and have assigned the following odds to the field (note: I'm basing my odds on as near 100% as possible, as opposed to the 137.61% handicappers are using for this race):

Here's how my analysis breaks down:

Group one horses - Win contenders (horses I believe have a very strong chance of winning the race, of which I assigned 5-1 or greater odds --- official morning line odds are in parantheses) - roughly 61% chance on my scale of moneying from this group:

4 Sinister Minister 3-1 (12-1)
11 Sweetnorthernsaint 4-1 (10-1)
3 Keyed Entry 5-1 (30-1)

Group two horses - Money Contenders (horses I believe have a chance of finishing top three, of which assigned odds between group one and group three odds --- official morning line odds are in parantheses) As a group, these horses combined get roughly 29% chance of winning, however, the only potential value plays I'd make are with Sharp Humor... Brother Derek gets just better than "random odds of winning" on my scorecard.:

9 Sharp Humor 8-1 (20-1)
18 Brother Derek 9-1 (3-1)

17 Lawyer Ron less than "random odds" of winning (4-1)
6 Showing Up less than "random odds" of winning (20-1)
8 Barbaro less than "random odds" of winning (4-1)
7 Bob and John less than "random odds" of winning (12-1)

Group three horses - Non Contenders (horses I believe have very little chance of finishing in the top three, of which I assigned roughly a ten percent total chance of any one of them finishing in the top three and did not bother to statistically represent my odds, as they're insignificant to me for my predictions --- official morning line odds are in parantheses) These horses have "significantly less than random odds of winning" based on my calculations:

16 Cause to Believe (50-1)
2 Steppenwolfer (30-1)
12 Private Vow (50-1)

14 Deputy Glitters (50-1)
20 Flashy Bull (50-1)
5 Point Determined (12-1)
10 A.P. Warrior (15-1)

13 Bluegrass Cat (30-1)
19 Storm Treasure (50-1)
1 Jazil (30-1)

15 Seaside Retreat (50-1)

That being said, providing the "perfect race" is run (see 2004 Kentucky Derby) I have the finish going down Sinister Minister, Sweetnorthernsaint, Keyed Entry. All three horses, in addition to being my favorites have significant value based on my card vs. the morning line (4-11-3 boxed). It should be noted, I've first turned this into a nine horse race, then I narrowed it down to five horses who I have assigned "better than random odds" of winning/finishing in the money. For these reasons, I only stated my personal odds on the horses who I assigned better than random odds of winning the race. Consequently, any bets I place will only contain those horses who I give better than a random chance of winning/finishing in the money.

Here we go, tieing this into poker now. It stands to reason that if I play only hands that have a better than "random" chance of winning, I'm only playing those hands in which I expect to win. Additionally, if I play them "well," I'm maximizing my profitibilty over the long term. In the short run though, the hands are not guaranteed to be profitable, especially considering the "perfect flop" does not always come down each and every hand. That being said, I don't necessarily expect the "perfect race" to be run. However, just like playing +EV hands, I've given myself the best chance of capitalizing on my winnings in the event a perfect or near perfect board appears... In terms of racing, I'm only betting on horses that are +EV in my mind.

These, however, are just my thoughts... I'm not a professional pony picker I just play one on the PP (Poker Pub). Feel free to discuss, ask questions, leave comments, request I be deemed insane, etc.

Mike

2006/05/03

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