layout

it is changed

i liked the green. but i had to change it cos the layout was broken. between posts there was no spacing between the end of one and the start of the next!

i looked in the html but couldn't fix it, so i had to get rid of it. it was annoying me greatly. i think i have mild ocd/retardation.

variance

i don't think many poker players truly understand the beast that is variance.

its not even whether you are up or down in equity that is the biggest bit imo.

the biggest bit is simply the hands you are dealt and the hands that others are dealt. whether you play them, whether they play them and how it's played leads to showdowns and all in ev.

for example, i played 700 hands earlier today. got dealt very little, never got a decent spot preflop, managed to break even/win a little.

next session this evening, played 300 hands, got dealt good hands, other people got dealt slightly worse hands, i win lots of $$$

being able to fold the slightly worse hands in the right spots, and figuring out which is the right spot to fold is the skill that saves lots of monies.

the all in ev after that is out of your hands and therefore irrelevant.

this is why bad play by me annoys me as it's what i can control.

control is a funny thing in life. some people i know like to drive, and not be driven! i cannae believe it.

i haven't had many funny thoughts recently. i'm not depressed. and i haven't put on the weight that i wanted (all in muscle form obv). i've noticed depressed people are fat. i see a plan on the horizon...

it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

i hate playing against retards. it feels like you either take candy from a baby, or lose to people who have trouble dressing themselves in the morning. lose lose situation.

today i played like a retard. sadly however, this is also a lose lose situation.

i also watched all of entourage recently. not all that funny, but good enough to purchase.

i first watched it all in 3 days. i often do things like that. it's good because you watch it all at once. however, when you have finished, you want more to watch. i guess it's sometimes good to space things out. the machine from men in black that can erase your memory would be good in certain circumstances if you could control it specfically. you could erase the memory of a film say, and watch it for the first time, many times!

blogs of note

i just read the last four blogs of note on blogger.

i think the only notable thing, which i should add they all have in common, is that they are incredibly dull. notably dull.

one was i think some sort of cookery blog. ok, wat? second was a picture of random cats not doing funny things. a third was some random guy with a job. the fourth i don't even remember.

i, on the other hand, have been hitting the town. what is depressing is how little alcohol it now takes to get me drunk, and then hungover. i didn't eat before i went out, and this helps reduce time spent at bar since less drinks are required. i also threw up in my sleep last time i ate during a heavy night. that was pretty disgusting. i then read the next day about some kid who choked and died on his own vomit in his sleep. i guess i escaped with just a hangover. hangover + vomit + less money is worse than hangover. so eating didn't really achieve anything positive.

still, i'd rather throw up in my sleep than be a blog of note.

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.

deposit limits

went to play betfair for a week to get a hoodie and chip set, and found i'd previously set a deposit limit. this is a problem when it's now 2 buy ins. which i lost.

still, almost halfway there, and should be able to win when i get round to redepositing there.

it's kinda weird to think about the small stakes i played when i started. £5 tournaments back in the day. quite pleased to see progress. progress is hard to measure in oneself on a day to day basis.

going to wales for the day tomorrow. obviously not out of choice. now in one of those moments where i don't want to go to sleep becuase i know that when i wake up stupidly early, i will have to get up and go to wales. the first should never be done in a hurry, the second should never be done.

so i got a letter from mobile company 3 today, where they informed me all calls for less than 1 minute would be billed as a minute. every thing over that will be per second.
doesn't fill me with much confidence. who's to say next week they won't say, "hallo mugs, it's all per minute now"
which reminds me of when i called up to get my phone, and the first person got annoyed with me asking questions about the tariff she hung up on me! i laughed a little, but somehow they've had the last laugh since i ended up getting a contract with them.

again so close

anyway, i just solved poker.

2 things that have blighted me in since mid april. 4 months and i finally work it out.

i've said this before, and usually get complacent which is part of the problem.

however, someone just ate all my ice cream before i even got a chance to taste it. it was a new ben and jerry sorbet flavour. you're making me crazy, i think it's called. so i definitely need to buy my self a house and fridge freezer. this shall be my motivation.

anyway, if you'd like to know the answer, send me a message, and $1k. i will only sell to the first person.

if you accept and appreciate the answer, you will become a much better player instantaneously. let's just hope you can cope with the responsibility, eh?

oh, yeah, my funny for today:

running at night makes me feel like a criminal.

FORMAT

i don't know what happened in the previous post.

i think its also deleted something cool i wrote.

i think i've been hacked. didn't hurt as much as i expected

still playing terribly

dunno whats wrong with me. can't concentrate properly. worst month of the year so far!

this is where that missing blog post is

i bet it was really funny too

.weak

been repeatedly donating funds to society.

had one of my worst ever days recently. played bad, nd down about $1k in ev luck

decided to really focus on the first 200 hands of sessions to just not be losing lots.

last night started alright, lost some profits but ended up winning a little for the first time in ages. all i need to do is the same each day and i'll be back in the black in no time.

CONCENTRATE PLEASE!

as for funnies,

a chicken and an egg are lying in bed. the egg is smoking. the chicken says "well, that solves that then"

so close...

...to two posts in a day

here's a graph

note the mental inability to be consistent till after i repeatedly unload multiple buy ins to my fellow tards
on wards and up wards.

things to learn

not to lose 10 buyins in the first 100 hands and spend 3 hours getting it back

i seem to have been playing breakeven poker for about 4 months now and its annoying. i guess it's only about 80k hands.

i'm gonna go back to carrying a notepad around with me to write down the funny thoughts i have during the day. there are so many but my memory doesn't like me remembering them. maybe it's because i'm just having the same three thoughts over and over and if i remembered them, i wouldn't be able to laugh so much every day.

added a new blog to the left. brucie, named after the bruce lee. quite funny, although obviously doesn't mean he's a good person. not that i mean he's a bad person.

i do find humour is very specific to people. it's usually hard for me to be funny to be new people. i think i spend the first few conversations working out whether or not they have a sense of humour. i don't like wasting good jokes on bad people.

i went to argos the other day to buy a wii. (not really for me). the guy at the counter proceeded to tell me how he had one. i suggested it was supposed to come with a second controller, and he said that it didn't and you had to buy it separately btu for an extra few quid you get a bunch of games. so i agreed. he then told me how he had the same deal.
next he offered me insurance. i said no, it's covered by nintendo if it goes wrong. yeah, he says, but if anything goes wrong we replace it quicker. he then proceeded to tell me how he got insurance for it.
it was at this point i became convinced that if i suggested i planned on going to the moon for a penguin hurling competition he wuld try to sell it to me, telling me he'd been there, done that, how good it was, and how argos would be the best people to get it from.

so i ran home, played wiitennis, got frustrated and dropped a bunch of by ins when i logged into poker.

hit 5kvpp already this month, and roll is at about 10.2k