3/30

this girl is going to be trouble.

Dwan is a monster

This hand was on the new season of high stakes poker season 6. And it is probably one of the most interesting poker hands that I have ever seen.
This is a cash game, no tournament chips, cash game. The blinds were at $300-$600 with a $100 ante from each player. The game was 6 handed when this hand went down. I think Ivey and Dwan are $700k or so deep.
My thoughts:
-Dwan is a beast. He’s just on a completely different level than most poker players. The entire poker community has admitted that Phil Ivey is the best poker player in the world. To even attempt to triple barrel bluff Ivey is insane. He has balls of steel.
-I think the flop call is standard because Ivey is in position. Position is huge in this hand. Because just think, if the diamond comes on the turn or river, Dwan could bet big and represent the flush. And he would be in for a big raise.
-The turn call is interesting by Ivey. I mean, he understands that any diamond gives him the pot. But, he can’t conclude that an ace would give him the best hand. Even a jack would most likely split the pot. But even so, a Queen of diamonds would pair the board, and if Dwan has what he is representing (pocket queens or kings), dwan would have a full boat. So, only 8 clean diamonds would give him the ‘nuts.’ I’m assuming Ivey probably figured that if he missed, and Dwan checked, that he could bet and take it away.
-On the river, Dwan shows how big his balls are. He fires the third bullet after the pot it already above $400,000 which is just incredible. Most people wouldn’t even think of bluffing Ivey in this spot. But how badass is Ivey, the first thing he responds with is “how much is that, and how much do you have left”. I mean are you kidding, that’s sick. If I were Ivey, I’d let out a big sigh and complain. But no, he makes Dwan sweat it out for a while. I honestly thought he was going to call, but in the end, Dwan scoops the pot. Just sick.

-It’s funny how Negreanu thinks he “knows” what Ivey has. Bull shit, are you kidding me. I hate it when poker players say they “knew” something. Like after they call with the losing hand, they say “I knew you had that.” Bull shit, you didn’t know. And I like how Eli falls asleep during this hand. I would have paid so much money to just sit at the table and watch.

heartless

I would definitely say Nicky is way more emotional than I am, but even she surprised me this time. I was flipping through the channels, and I came across The Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan on the Disney channel. (I thought there were actually two girls in the movie for the longest time, til high school maybe, I hope I’m not the only one) But anyway, it was the part when the Dad beats the mom back to Europe and surprises her. It was def the happy part of the movie, and they kiss and blah blah blah. I look over at Nicky and she is absolutely captivated, and then I see a tear run down her face. Haha We were seriously watching the movie for about 8 minutes, and in those 8 minutes, she got so attached to the movie that she actually started to cry. I thought it was pretty funny, just kidding. No, it was pretty funny.

oma

Went to visit Oma at the mall today, and it was hilarious. She was talking about random things like normal. And then she just asks me ‘what does premature mean’
I just start laughing and tried to explain it. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just said, ‘that when a baby is born before the due date, that baby is premature.’ She said ok, and that was that. But then, all of a sudden, she starts saying “mimi is premature” multiples times

ucsb +17

Andrew Bynum needs to make some changes.
I like Andrew Bynum a lot, I even drafted him in my fantasy draft last year. He’s very solid. Can shoot with a high percentage, can rebound when Pau is out, block some shots, and shoot decent from the free throw line. But he’s missing something. He has no swagger. He reminds me of a rich kid who doesn’t know how to play ‘street.’ I know I always claim to hate kobe, but kobe has ‘it’, Michael Jordan had ‘it’.

They know they’re good. They want someone to start talking crap so they can punish them in the end. They’re just winners.

I just want one time when Andrew Bynum dunks it, to just look the defender in the eye, and yell something. He just looks so damn timid all the time. I mean, even Spencer Hawes yells after he dunks. He just needs to let out a kevingarnett-type yell. I want to see him dunk it and just yell “get the fckk off me”. He needs to watch some Kendrick perkins tape, and do what he does, just try and look as pissed off as possible during the entire game.

If he starts yelling or not, he needs some tattoos. I think every basketball player needs a couple tattoos. Basically, he needs some street cred. I’m thinking something like ‘sacrifice’ ‘trust’ ‘loyalty’ or even his area code, just something. I mean, anything will work. I don’t know one of JR smith’s tattoos, but damn, he has instant street cred. And if he wants to be a super bad-ass, he should get a tat on his neck.

If he doesn’t like those options, he should get a DUI. Too much maybe

do one of these

destined to lose

I need to stop watching bay area sports. It depresses me more than anything else in the world. It’s so frustrating. Of course I watched the Warriors blow a big lead to Portland on ESPN the other day. Before every game I watch, I say to myself over and over, “The warriors are going to lose tonight, but I’ll just watch the game.” And during every single game, they give me a sliver of hope that maybe they can win. Then bam, I get emotionally attached to the game, and they end up breaking my heart. I can’t do it anymore.
It’s so sick how they give false hope, but seem to never close the deal. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I have this mentality with every game that I watch, that the team I’m rooting for is going to lose in the most crushing way possible. Games that come to mind are:
1. When the giants lost to the Rockies with a walk off grand slam
2. When the Warriors were up by 2 with like a second left to the nugs, and jr smith draws the foul and drains the free throws FTW
3. When the 49ers lost to a miracle pass by Favre for their first loss of the 2009 season
This ‘bay area mentality’ has me scared to death about fantasy bball playoffs. I’m the number 1 seed after a very very lucky draft day. I have a bye, but I just have this feeling that I’m going to lose and not make it to the championship. I mean, how could I win? That just wouldn’t be right.

-luol deng gets hurt
-andray blatche messed up his ankle

first round exit?

I used to catch cats

It's true. I saw a person walking a dog today at school and i remembered how I used to catch cats. We had a stupid cat named Tiger when i was probably 10 or 11 years old. We didn't treat him very well. We kept him outside, and we didn't have a liter box for him. We kind of just let him do his own thing. But anyway, a couple of times, there would be a couple of kittens walking around in our back yard. The kittens would eat the cat food and drink the water. I didn't want the kittens to think that this was their home, so I caught them. I had this big tub type thing and I propped it up with a stick. I tied a piece of rope to the stick so that I can pull it, and the tub would drop down. So, I put food under the tub, and when the kittens would go to eat it, I would pull the stick and bam, kitten caught!

Thinking about it now, this is so messed up and illegal. I didn't kill the kitten or anything, but i'm sure I scared the crap out of it.

The Last Lecture

After work today, I went to Borders to clear my mind and try and study a little bit. As I was walking toward the seats in the back, I stopped and picked up “The last lecture”. Before I knew it, I read half the book. I couldn’t believe how attached I was to this book, and I hate reading. The author’s story is so captivating. It’s weird, because the story is not very interesting, but I think it’s the build up. I can’t wait til I reach the end. My plan is to go back to Borders after work tomorrow to finish the last half. I don’t want to spoil any of it, but here are some thoughts:

In a nutshell, the lecturer/author is married and has 3 young children. He has been diagnosed with cancer, and is asked to perform his last lecture. And the book is about that lecture and his life. One of the lines that stood out to me was “Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.” It really hit me, what the hell am I doing with my life? It made me realize how precious time is. I realize that I waste my life away with certain things. I mean, I have hobbies just like everyone, and they are important to everyone, but I feel there’s more out there. In 3 months, I’ll never get to hang out with my roommates and go to the gym to play basketball. I’ll probably never get to watch Sportscenter’s Top Ten with them and talk sports. I’ll never get to play beer pong with them after we graduate. I take all these things for granted, and it’s really disappointing.

Another thing the author says is something like “brick walls are meant to keep some people out.” He kept talking about dreams, and how everyone should dream. He talked about never giving up, not settling. Blah blah blah I’m rambling about nothing

Things I want to do in the next couple months.
1. go skydiving or bungee jumping with jt
2. read more books: The Last Lecture, Big God, I heard the Andre Agassi biography is good
3. spend more time with my roommates

Mark_esq04 owns me

In a husng, it starts as soon as 2 people register. Usually, the ‘reg’ or good player sits first. This allows other good players to recognize the good player, and not join. This causes the bad players to sit. So, on Bodog, I usually sit first, and only bad player have been “sitting” me because the other regulars respect my game I assume. Except for Mark. Over the last 3 days, he has probably “sit” me about 8 times. I would say he has won 6 or 7 of those matches. He absolutely crushes me every single game. He owns me so badly that I question sometimes if he can see my “hole” cards. Seriously, he’s been that dominating. And the sick thing is he knows it, and I know it. He just owns me. I’ve been thinking of how I can play differently, but he has beaten me up each game.

I’ve stopped registering first because I know that he knows he owns me. So today, I dropped down to the $11+$.050 turbo husngs. I had a pretty good day and didn’t see Mark. But I know he’ll be back. I honestly just want to tell him to leave me alone and that other players are much worse than I am, but that’s pathetic.

I’m assuming this is how Kobe and Lebron feel like. They know they are the shit, and that they can own anyone they want.

But UCSB won tonight! Russ, Bassy, and I put $30 on the Gauchos -1 and they won by 5. It was a pretty close game, and it was def a good sweat. Should be fun to watch them in the NCAA tourney.

From Busto to Robusto

http://vimeo.com/3124662
I saw this documentary about a year ago and thought it was really good. I’m not sure if that is because I’m an online poker player or not.
-It was very interesting when some of the poker players were talking about the dollar amounts that they play. The biggest online poker players can lose over a million in a day. I just can’t get my head around that. But anyway, I think I’m a pretty good player and have played the $20-30 for the last 2 years. I think my game has gotten better in the past 2 years. But I haven’t made any big jump in stakes. I think the reason is because of my view of money. In the documentary, Phil Galfond (who just won 1.6 million in a single session yesterday) said that you can’t think of the money in terms of what you can buy. But instead, think of the dollar amounts as just a say of “keeping score.” But I do just the opposite. When I win or lose $150 in a day, I think about what I just won or lost. In a sense, I think this is good and bad.

For example, in my case, I’m pretty disciplined. As far as bankroll management goes, I’m pretty conservative. I have lots of medium to small wins. But when I’m getting unlucky or playing badly, I have the ability to quit or switch sites. In a sense, I don’t go on monkey tilt. However, I do tilt and I’ll discuss that in another blog. But anyway, the bad side of this mentality is that I’m not taking any risks. This is exactly why I haven’t moved up to the $50 HU sngs as my regular game. I’m confident that I can beat this level, and my results have showed that I can beat these games. But, it’s inevitable that sometimes you are going to lose 4 or 5 games in a row, no matter how good you play. The feeling of being down $200 will definitely affect my game. I have thought about looking for a stake from someone, and could possibly look more into it in the future. To explain, if I do receive a stake, I would be playing with half my money, half my staker’s money. In effect, the variance would be lowered. But that would take a lot of time, trust, and pressure.

In the other case, where someone does not respect the value of the dollar, it’s completely different. This person thinks of dollars as points in a video game. This allows the player to play fearlessly at higher stakes and possibly win more money. The typical routine for this player would be to win big, but slowly or quickly lose all of it back. And repeat. Tilt would also be a bigger issue. So there’s definitely positives and negatives for each type of player.
But anyway,the next episode comes out in 3 days with Andrew Robl as the subject.

How to Cheat the Mail System

I’ve never tried this, but find no way that it wouldn’t work. I actually thought of this when I was a lot younger. I used to write letters to basketball teams in hopes the players would sign some cards for me. I actually received quite a few autographs. I still have them somewhere at my house. But anyway, on a typical letter, there is a place for the destination address, a return address, and the stamp corner. So let’s say, you live in Tracy, and want to send a thank you card to your Uncle who also lives in Tracy. But you don’t have a stamp. So here’s what you do, write your uncle’s name and address in the return address section on the envelope. And, on the destination section, write “Bobby” or “Steven”. But do not put an address. And lastly, don’t put a stamp on it. And then drop it in the mail box. When the letter reaches the post office, they will see that there is no stamp, and will return it to the ‘return address.’ And bam, they will send it to your uncle FO FREEE. I think it would work.

a good sweat

It’s a typical Tuesday and I’m bored in class, so I decide to peruse pregame.com which is the sports betting forum. I usually just read the most recent threads and read some of the “free picks” that the so-called “experts” make. There was one thread that was titled Game of the Year or something. The guy was 3-1 on his GOYs supposedly, he said to take charlotte -3.5. He gave a write up and I seemed to agree for the most part. And plus, it started at 4 and I didn’t get out of class til 5. So at least I could get a little sweat in class. At the moment, it was -115 so I decided to bet 23 to win 20. So, the bobcats start out shitty and are down by 10 at the end of the first.
By halftime, the cats were down by 9. I still have hope, and they outscore the heat 23-18 in the third. They get to within 1, and stakjack decides to miss 2 treys which would have been nice. Tyrus Thomas misses 2 jumpers and blah, but hits his last shot to put the cats up by 2 with under 3 minutes left. After a missed Miami shot, felton gets fouled and has to make both free throws to help me COVER! Of couse, he misses the 1st, and we’re up by 3.
So at this point, I’m hoping for overtime. With 7 seconds left, dwade missed the three. So I say blahh, but to my surprise, boris diaw gets the board and gets fouled with 2.3 seconds left. Sinks the 2 free throws, and covers. Such a good sweat. Too bad I couldn’t watch the game, but thank god for espn gamecast and the little graphics.

flowers

I’ve heard that girls love receiving flowers, but I never really believed it. I just thought to myself, if I received something that was going to be worthless in 4 days, would I really be that happy? But, girls are completely different that guys. I’m probably different that most guys, but damn, I think gift cards are the equivalent of flowers for girls. If someone gave me an ebay gift card, I would be touched.

Today was my mom’s birthday, and I decided to send her flowers at work. I went to every damn flower sending site on the internet, but every damn site doesn’t ship on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Wtf, important stuff happens on those days too. But whatever, Andy came through when I asked him for a favor. He picked out some nice flowers and delivered them to my mom at work at 930 this morning. He told me she was extremely surprised and started crying. Jackpottttt. She called me and said that was very thoughtful, and even my dad texted me saying I made her day.

I guess I’ll never completely understand, but girls just love flowers.

don't tap the glass

I’d say most poker players know what that phrase means. But every poker player should understand the significance. The phrase is referring to the fish, donkeys, or very bad poker players. “Don’t tap the glass” means don’t bother the “fish”, let them lose their money in peace. It’s really annoying for good or decent players to get angry at fish for playing badly. I don’t really understand. If you want to play better players, then play for more money. Don’t embarrass the fish and make them want to quit. For example, if a fish gets lucky in a hand and wins, the good player that lost should actually be happy because he is in a good game. But berating or making fun of the fish could encourage him to quit or change games.

Let’s think about it, there is a big luck factor in poker. Everyone talks how lucky or unlucky someone got in a particular hand. Blah blah blah. But the balance of luck and skill in poker is what makes the game so great. If it weren’t for luck, the game would be like chess. The best players would win every single game. And therefore, the “fish” would never want to play again. However, in poker, everyone wins sometimes. And that keeps the “fish” coming back.

I was playing a HU SNG today and I hit a flush on the river and bet and the player called with a losing hand. He called me a fish and said I got lucky. I guess he had the best hand before the river, but that is irrelevant. I could argue with him that he should have bet the flop and turn stronger. But I’m not going to justify my play and help him improve his game. Instead, I told him “sorry, I’m new to this.” He said, “it sure seems like it.” And that was that. He was a weak player and I would love to play him any day.

Back in high school, a group of guys would play about once week. And pretty much everyone in the game was bad to average at holdem. But anyway, I’d say the worst player in the game was Mike. He was bad at poker and always seemed to have lots of cash. He would usually be good for a $20-50 dollar donation, which is huge in high school dollars. But, he was the perfect example, everyone knew he was horrible but no one said anything. I was probably one of the better players that normally played, and he would always ask for confirmation about a play he made. For example, he’d say something like, “how could I fold there Grant, you would’ve folded right?” To which I would always reply with something like, “Yeah, you just got unlucky”
I could’ve told him that it was a close spot between calling and folding and that I prefer that he bet more on the turn to define opponent’s hand and to price out the flush draw. But why would I want to educate him. I was reading somewhere that you should never do two things to fish:
1. berate them
2. educate them.

Props

The prop bet involves 3 good tournament poker players: Gavin Smith, Joe Sebok, and Jeff Madsen (ucsb dropout). They were all playing in the Los Angeles Poker Classic last week. They decided to have a last-longer bet which is basically what it sounds like. The person that lasts the longest wins, however, since it’s 3-way, there would be 2 losers. So, the person that lost first out of the three, would be the ultimate loser. The second person to go out would be the small loser. They decided that the ultimate loser would have to get a tattoo of the other 2 players’ faces (the size of their palm) on their body. The small loser would have to get a tattoo of the winner’s face on their body. It’s pretty hilarious to think about it because this bet is so stupid. There is no money incentive. And there is nothing to gain, only something to lose. The ultimate winner does not WIN anything, but just AVOIDS the loss. They said they are going to record Joe and Jeff getting the tattoos, so that should be fun to watch.

Funny story during my freshman year at ucsb. It was Halloween, and jeff madsen was the new kid on the poker block. He had just won over a million at the world series of poker, winning two bracelets. So anyway, I always thought it’d be funny if I saw him around campus. So, on Halloween when everyone is walking around, I see this guy wearing a FullTiltPoker jersey and I run up to him, and it’s him. I’m like holy crap, you’re jeff madsen. I was super excited and just rambling and asking him all different kinds of questions. All of his friends were amused because they think of him as just Jeff. But to me, he was Jeff fcuking Madsen. I don’t know why I was so star struck, but I was. I desperately wanted a picture with him. It was pretty memorable, and luckily for me, one of his friends took a picture of us and sent me the picture. Haha, he just won a tournament recently, so I’m happy for him.

minka kelly

So here’s the deal, picture this, Choose your dream girl. Now think of spending a week with this girl. And in this week, she is in love with you and you guys could do anything. For example, you can stay up all night talking sports, playing poker, or even watching youtube videos of people opening cases of 09-10 exquisite basketball. But hey, in this week, she is all yours. She will do almost Anything. How much time (days, weeks, years) would you take off the end of your life in order to get this week with your dream girl.

I heard this scenario on a poker show a couple months back, and I find it the most interesting discussion topic. I have asked probably 15 people this question and have answers that are all over the board. I’ve heard answers as low as 20 days to 10+ years. Haha. But anyway, I’m sad because I’ll never know how I would’ve answered. Because once you’ve heard ONE person answer it, the whole situation is screwed up. What if the first answer that I heard was 30 days. Of couse I’m not going to say anything over 50 days because that’d be embarrassing. If the first answer would have been 8 years. I subconsciously will think “ok yeah, I’ll be safe and go 5 years.”

Here are the trends that I have observed.
-If you are in a big group of guys, the answer is probably lower because the person doesn’t want to sound desperate. Because think about it, what sounds more odd, 12 years or 2 years. People like to be conservative in a situation like this.

-If a person can think of their dream girl within seconds of asking. The answer will be a lot higher than expected. My guess is that it is because they have thought about what they want to “do” in that one week with their dream girl.

-If the person keeps asking things like “she’ll do anything?!” and “wait, like anything anything?!” It’s an automatic 5+ year person.

talking biznessss

Why don’t the pictures on Girl Scout Cookies ever change?
I ask myself this question every year. My favorite GS cookies are Do-Si-Dos which are the peanut butter sandwich cookies. They are bomb.com with a glass of milk. I passed up some cookies at Albertson’s today because I knew I would eat the whole box during the Laker game. So, I’ll wait on them for a little. But why not change the picture on the boxes. Those damn boxes get so much exposure, the options are endless. For example:
a) they could hold a contest and the girl that sells the most of that type of cookie gets her picture on the box
b) they could use each box as an award. For example, the girl with the most heart-warming community service project gets her picture on the box.
c) but as a Business major, why not make some money (and donate it of course) and sell it as advertising space. Can you imagine how much money you could make if you put a picture of Danica Patrick and her GoDaddy.com racing suit on the front of Thin Mints. Damn, they could raise millions to send underprivileged Scouts to College.