ev

i was $2k down in ev today.

i don't even care about it. it evens out over the month/year/large enough sample

i think anyone that complains about luck doesn't understand variance and will not fulfil their potential in this game

what is much worse ev is i forgot to eat tonight.

i had a plan to eat 4 times a day. 8am, noon, 5pm, 7pm

but if i forget when im hungry this doesn't bode well.

month has petered out. need 1k vpp tomorrow to get platinum and ever closer to supernova.
sadly, it won't be till about april that i can claim the $4k in actual monies.

still not so good

my hot streak of poking ended with my enforced week off as i went to scotland

i'm now running as fast as a negatively powered usain bolt. i wonder if he will do a "marvellous marvin hagler" and change his name to lighting. i think he will.

i think i had a goal for $50k by the end of this year. there is a very very very small chance that i'm gonna make it. in fact, it's many orders of magnitude less than the previous sentence indicates.

i don't have many more constructive things to say. i do however have a riddle for you.

you have an ordinary pedal bike with stabilisers to prevent it toppling over, and you tie a cord to one of the pedals. the pedal you have tied it to is in the lowest possible position. (and the other is in the highest). the cord is parallel with the ground and in a backwards direction. you are standing at the end of the cord.

now you pull with a constant force on the cord. in which direction does the bike travel?

i've worked this out and am gonna try it on monday. so you have 2 days to answer. winners will get a choice of prizes.

since i apparently don't know the answer, i am also trying to win the prizes. wish me luck!

things aren't going well

in society right now.

i'm no expert but i think it has got to do with schooling.

in the uk, the generation* above mine learnt the three r's in school

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

I can almost see how they got away with writing. it does sound like an r, although, as it does refer to the written word, they should have checked what it starts with when you write it.

arithmetic however, takes this two steps too far.

if this passed off as edumacation, then we're all in trouble for the foreseeable future.

which brings me to my starred point of generations. when people say, for example, "the previous generation", i've never understood when it started or stopped. if it was maybe 20 years ago (arbitratily chosen figure) then what about the years in between. where do they fit?? and how long do generations last?

it only make sense to me on a personal, family scale, but no other scales. like a fractal without the pretty pictures.

this is one of those things where i just go with the flow and wonder if i'm the mental, or if everyone else are the mentals.

roundabouts

my hot streak has alas come to an end and it's back to eeking out a profit. except the profit being eeked is a loss.

more alarmingly after my last post, i went to get some ice cream. avid readers will be well aware of my last calamity involving some sorbet which was entirely devoured before i got a chance to try it. that made me crazy. ironically, the ice cream was called "Jamaican me crazy". which it did.

so after my last post i went directly to the freezer with a hungering for ice cream. i found a magnum. i was a little peturbed that it had written on it "touch of spice" or something to that effect. spice with ice cream is not something that i would think goes well together even though i like ice cream, and i like spicy foods. but i sometimes live on the edge. also, the picture made it look like chocolate ice cream. so i tried it. and it was chocolate! but it was infused with more than just a hint of cinnamon. the most foul of all the weird flavours. i couldn't even find someone willing to finish it, so i had to send it to ice cream hell.

the next ice cream i have better be bloody marvellous.

estrange

i'm not sure why but when i'm winning i find i harder to play more hands, but when i'm losing i have no problem playing lots. it should be vice versa

in my last session i played on a total of 7 different tables, losing on 6 of them and still finished in profit. an unlikely feat.

have played very few hands this month, yet doing remarkably well. Have been playing tighter than usual, especially when i level'd up, though have begun to loosen up a touch at higher levels.

everyone keeps talking about the toughness of pokerstars, though i am yet to see this at my meagre levels.

on my driving today down the almost motorway i noticed something in the road in front of me. from a distance i expect anything stationary and small to be a roadkill. today however, it was a shoe. well, more a timberland boot. i did wonder how it got there and if the person misses it. it looked in good shape but it's hard to stop on that road.

i bought some headphones the other day online. the last pair i bought disintegrated after about 6 weeks of rare usage so i went for something ever so slightly pricier. however, i bought the completely wrong thing which is pretty hard to do when it comes to headphones. seeing as i cant be bothered to ebay them i will be giving them away to someone who can answer me this:

which is worse in a person you have to share a bed with, drooling or snoring?


edit: i've had to read and edit the post because lots of words were misspelled. firefox's built in dictionary is supposed to notice imaginary words like pokerstars and alert you with a red underlining. however, of late, it has become inconsistent in it's ability to work. this i find strange. computers are supposed to be able to do things consistently. that's why we built them. not just to work when they feel like.

robert david keane

i'm not sure why itv decided to give his full name on the telly vision tonight. at first i didn't even realise who it was. (robbie keane just in case you're not sure)

anyway i'm back from roma. i have realised there are some universal constants in life.
cats sound the same everywhere.
taxi drivers (specifically mini cabs not prebooked) try to create rapport but almost always it's a cover for the screwing they're about to apply to you.

i also went to the place where caesar was allegedly stabbed by brutus. it's at the centre right of this picture. in front of the arch's, behind the tall pillars.

it's now inhabited by cats. lots of them. and they're very lazy. they get fed by a charity, set up just for them.

i've always thought it was a bit weird that rome lies much in ruins. lots of the marble and bronze etc was stripped a few hundred years ago for weapons and things according to my tour guide. but they have never since replaced it. and they expect you to use your imagination instead. most people i think use the film gladiator instead of their imagination. it's easier.

and just incase i forget later in life, i did get the ipod from littlewoods for more than the price of buying one in a shop. i also got a chipset and other goodies from betfair for a few pounds. i broke even after attaining an insanely high number of suckouts. i even had other people at the table thinking i was a superuser. but then they stopped playing in pots with me so i had to leave. which is kind of the opposite of the saying every cloud has a silver lining. i wonder if anyone ever says, every silver has a cloudy lining. probably not. it doesn't make much sense.

i deserve it!

so i read this post on another blog about someone hitting some results after a barren spell and them thinking it was what they deserved for all their hard work.

the problem i have with people thinking they get what they deserve is it means that something is ensuring that they get what they deserve. basically, this is a higher being/g-d. which they do not mention or refer to, or probably even acknowledge to themselves.

this is akin to the the idea of karma, although who makes sure the karma is dished out evenly is ignored by karma proponents as far as i am aware, though i have done no looking into this whatsoever.

this brings me on to the next point. how do you know what you deserve? you aren't really in an objective position to judge it. you probably cannot comprehend what is, in an absolute sense, right and wrong. nor you cannot compare yourself to anyone else since you do not know the choices they have made and experiences they have undergone.

the final point that strikes me about this, is that at no point in their bad run did this player think, "this is what i deserve." they think when they win, this is what they deserve, and when they lose, they are unlucky, but still deserve to win. i think an attitude like that in life is poor.

brian townsend once wrote, you have to be responsible for your results.
i found that idea helpful. whether you win or lose, do not blame luck, other people, or any other factors. ultimately the responsibilty and accountability lies with you. once i accepted this, my outlook and mindset improved significantly.

this is one of those things i've been thinking about for a while and is also one of those things that has been drawn out of my mind from poker, but is readily applicable to life. however, i do think that this is a problem to explain to most people, especailly being able to tell them that you 'discovered' this outlook from a card game.

that's been on my mind for a short while now. i'm gonna stop writing for two reasons.
1) i hurt my wrist at football today
2) that's enough words.

sponsorship

people ask to be sponsored to run marathons

i don't quite understand the concept. i think the idea is someone runs a marathon, and people then give money to charity. yet i fail to see the correlation between the two. you can run a marathon wihtout sponsorship. i'm sure it's possible, even if it means you're a bit mad. and you can give money to charity without needing an excuse.

it's a like a bet where the loser has to pay money to charity, but you've pre-arranged who the loser is. though some would say the one who runs 26miles for no reason, is the real loser.

all in all, a highly illogical process from start to finish.

la di da

more on 3!!

i called them to find when my contract ended so i can terminate it asap. the guy asked why i wanted to, and i had many reason, not least customer services. i also mentioned that the phone recently would continually cut out, and it didn't seem the reception was dropping at all (though possibly could have been momentarily)
as we get into some discussion about it, it cuts out! ironic. and he didn't even call back.

last few days poker been going well. had one hour of bad play a few days ago where i tilted briefly.
began to make a few mistakes again today, but still got one thousand hands in, for a small profit in the end. thankfully the three big hands i played my hands held up. one was aa v aks aipf, the second was btm set v flush draw+gutshot, the third was aa vs qq aipf. thinking about it, i definitely played poorly tonight, especially compared with the last few days where i barely put a foot wrong.

i played earlier in the day than usual today. i think table selection is probably the most underrated was to improve winrate.

i went past a church a while ago in a place i wasn't familiar. there was a sign on the outside which read "lost? come in"

even though that's a true story i think i might claim that as my joke.