10k month? FAIL

ok, so all in all April was a pretty solid poker month. But it couldn't have ended in a more frustrating way. I flirted with 10K all morning, after having made 1.3k in a little under 1 hours work, then spent the rest of the day running like absolute dog poo. The closest I ever got was a mere 200 dollars away, as I needed 1.5k for the win. Here's the Day graph, and the month graph.

Day

Month sigh...so cloooose

next month 10k for sure with a secondary goal of 15k

I guess Its time to get this all on paperrrrrr

Foxfields

Foxfields is basically an excuse for Uva to dress up in the most ridiculous outfits ever and all cram into little areas called "plots" then proceed to get absolutely shithammered, while maybe taking in a horserace or two...if you are unlucky. It is also a chance to catch up with old friends, old enemies, exes, acquaintances that you're just not sure deserve a hello, and new friends that you just haven't met yet.

This picture is of the entrance, a horribly coordinated multiple colored ticket mosh pit of sexually charged sun dresses. There is nothing quite like it, especially when you're hauling Titanic-like coolers of beer and vodka that are breaking faster than Arlen Specter's allegiances before a primary. Once inside this glorious donk fest, its a mere mile walk to the alumni plot. On the way I saw the first ex, Fiza plastered already and in great form. It was her birthday weekend and she looked fabulous and truly happy to see me. We exchanged pleasentries and passed like ships in the night. So we get to the plot to find that It is overrun by the med school tent. This is ok though as they have a ROBUST buffet. Me and G decided to talk transplants really loudly while snagging some raisin canes and chocolate chip cookies. No one was the wiser. Then the drinking commenced....jk we had been drinking since 7am.

So the first excursion into the orange plots (the youngins and the graduate schoolers) took me to Marky's. It was great to see him and meet my future wife and whatnot. However, this was short lived as Ex number 2 walked up with mutual friend. Heather Koo was not nearly so kind as Fiz, and despite 90 degree weather an arctic chill went down my spine....somewhere in the distance Socrates wept. The festivities continued with the arrival of george however, and we ran around meeting greeting and judging various annorexic women dolled up like easter eggs. The whole scene was so classically UVA, and it truly was a fantastic, allbeit nauseating at times expression of southern douchebaggery. It's like a trip to vegas, it's absolutely incredible until you realize you're mired in filth and disdain for your fellow man. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. So the whole shebang comes to a close and then the game of, find the sober person to drive home, begins. We walked to some convinience store and sat in the grass waiting for a taxi as a line of cars passed by exitting the field. I decided to hitch-hike home (a genius drunk move) with a friendly couple from Washington and Lee that looked sober and seemed kind enough. Fortunately I made a good read and arrived back in time to snag some christian's pizza and walk back to Tom and Eric's for some post game passing the F out and Frosty consumption.

So then It was off to the bars for some post game antics. We decided to walk to Bhuddist, but upon seeing a mass of people cramming and jamming (a little too remeniscent of the foxfields entrance) their way in the front door, a detour to Biltmore was quickly executed. I got the first round, saw my favorite bartender, and made sure everyone had a drink in hand before peacing. Why? Because I had something on my mind that I just couldn't purge. An insatiable cruiousity. So I left the bar and headed to the tennis courts, when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Nari Song, decked out in tennis gear.

This was a pretty big shocker. I had received a text earlier in the night that said, "hey this is Nari, I thought you might be in town, would you like to play tennis?" I think, right then and there I understood what it must have been like to open the door and find publisher's clearing house guy with a giant check and big balloons outside. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised.

So I played a little tennis while buzzed ( a feat that makes serving quite difficult I might add) until they shut the lights off at 12:30. The rest of the night involved a lot of planet earth and water... one more foxfields in the books, and it couldn't have ended happier :)

Hockey Games

So as of late, I've gotten really into watching the Washington Capitals hockey team. It's basically a bunch of young guns playing flashy hockey, with Alexander Ovechkin leading the acrobatics. OV as he's known can plain and simple do things on the ice that no other player in the NHL has been able to do ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO1TuEp8eqI

The best part about this highlight reel goal was....I WAS THERE! Peacock hooked Dan and I up with some amaaazing seats for game 5. I must say, that playoff hockey games live might be the most exciting sporting event I've ever been to. It definitely rivals some of the greater college football games. I'm not entirely sure why hockey hasn't become the next big sport in America. It has everything, hitting, constant action, star power...I think if more people watched the Caps and Penguins play, they'd realize just how beautiful the game has gotten. It's no longer about fighting and forechecking, It's about fast skating, threading needles with passes, and deflecting pucks going past you at ~100 miles an hour. How anyone can be a good NHL goalie in today's game, with scorers like OV and Semin on the ice...it just baffles me.

You can imagine my delight when Game 7 went our way completing the comeback from 3-1 down in the series. Diana had to witness my apartment in all its ridiculous manhoodyness...sp?? Scotty, Joey, Ben, and Peacock's dad all argued about every miniscule detail of sports history...all the while Diana sat bewildered (I may have been too shhhh) wiping testosterone from her face every five or so minutes. I felt kinda bad, but at least we got to have a normal dinner at 1Gen thai, which was delish.

This post has gotten kinda long, so i'll save some stories for the next one. Until then, gl in all you do.

Graphical Update of 10k month

So far so good...I think I need to make about 1.5k more in 6 days...should be doable if current trends continue

Oh and I run good lol...sorry kev :/

Music post

So i haven't posted in a while, mostly because things have just been craaazy around here, and I've just not been in the mood to write it all down. And I'm still not. What I am in the mood to do is hopefully help some of you expand your musical horizons. Think of me as your pandora.

I'll do it by genre...I'll name the band and their best songs, and maybe who i'm targeting with the group.

For the Indy fans (kev, liz apparently, prolly zach tho he knows much more than me annnnd my sister:

Razorlight (I can't stop this feeling i've got, Golden touch, Before I fall to pieces)

Band of horses:( Monsters, The funeral, Ghost in my house [or something])

Kings of Leon: (Sex on fire)

Dredg: (Sang rial, ANY OF THEIR STUFF REALLY)

Guster: (airport song, most of their stuff is awesome [especially live])

The strokes: (reptilia, rockband song i know i know)

80's fans (more for me really maybe Mogle etc.)

The outfield: (your love)

Phil collins: (Air tonight, all his stuff is similarly golden)

Genesis: (black and white, tonight tonight tonight)

Sting and The Police: (don't stand so close to me, Message in a Bottle, wrapped around your finger)

Steve Winwood band: (Valerie)

Queen: (under pressure and bohemian rhapsody of course)

Techno Trance and Dance fans

ATB: all his stuff

Armin Van Buuren: all his stuff (Sound of goodbye is a good place to start)

Tiejsto: duh

DJ Trevor Simpson: any of his remixes are soooolid! (it's all in the name)

Bill Laswell: Ohm Shanti

Lady Gaga....sigh POKER FACE :P

Schiller: Troy (the phoenix from the flame)

Evolution: walking on fire

Prog fans:

Get the new steven wilson Cd its pretty money!

Pure by pendragon (thanks pops)

As for poker stuff...i'm back on pace...(i think...its gonna be close) for a 10k month.

here's the graph and add like 300 from my PLO play so far. PLO is an interesting game and i'll make a post about it soon, but I'm still trying to figure out where I stand on it.

Hickup

FML

Maybe i'm spoilt

So yeah...I was getting kinda used to positive days...and today i didn't have one. I think it broke a streak of like 10 straight or so too...so sick...anyway, my dad was talkin about how risky my job was to me as I filled out taxes. So in order to show him the REEAAAAL riskiness. Here is a graph of my last 200k hands or so.

The blueline is the real bottom line for my last 200k hands of poker played. In this graph one can see there is some variance, but a clearly positive trend. In the section in the middle, I think i ran colder than the ice caps and still ground out some sort of profit if rakeback is included. Furthermore, the odds of me having a negative month playing hu have decreased dramatically since I started playing Heads Up (hu) as my winrate is much higher (one can see this in the latter 4th of the graph where I made the switch to all heads up). Hu is an interesting beast, because actual variance is higher, whereas odds of having losses over an extended period of time go down. The standard deviations I can expect to see from my winrate in HU are very large, but since my winrate is higher against open-mouth breathers (fish, donks, spewtards, monkeys, Kevin Sivaneri's, bad players...whatever you call them) when I have them all to myself more of my standard deviation range lies in the positive territory. This is why good heads up players should never ever play eachother. This is why Durrrrr's challenge to the poker world is absolutely terrible.

For those of you who don't know, Durrr (Tom Dwan) has put up 1.5 million dollars to any opponents .5 million dollars, that over 40k hands he can be up >1$ heads up at either texas holdem no limit or pot limit omaha hi. From what I've described above, one should quickly see that if a winrate of a heads up player approaches 0, the range of what he should expect to see will have a large portion in the negative realm. In order to win, if Durrrr really is the better player, with a 95% confidence interval, Durr would have to play over 1 million hands with anyone even close to his ability level. Patrick Antonious took him up on the challenge (wisely I might add) because essentially Durr is flipping a coin laying 3 to 1 against ur winning. A laughable proposition. They are in the midst of playing their challenge and the lead is waffling back and forth, but regardless of the outcome, Durrrr is a moron....a rich rich moron.

Regardless, From the above graph, one should be able to see my risk of ruin is very very low. I will never "go broke" unless I do something truly retarded (along the lines of drunk playing or something). Anyways, I will try to get some pictures up here sometime soon that aren't poker related...as all these graphs i'm sure are monotonaus. But to do so may require a trip somewhere....Foxfields is coming up in cville...and if last year was any indication, mayhem will ensue and pictures I will do!

yet another wild weekend in the district

So last night was an interesting, awesome, embarassing, sobering experience. The day started at the bowling alley where I tried to repeat my previous performance against Dan. Fail...the high score was around 140, but I still won :). Then I started crushing donkeys in poker to the tune of 800 or so (graphs to come). Peacock got it in his head that he was going to cook out. So we had a FEAST! Amaaazing steaks, great chicken, solid potatoes...a meal fit for a king. The S's came over (Shay and Siobahn) and the party games began.

So the game of choice was kings. Now i've been running red hot in poker of late, but I assure you all that is offset by my icecold run in kings. Let's just say I ended up without my pants on, with beer all over my shirt and I broke a chair. Sigh, all in a days work...and ironically all while stone sober. In fact, the whole night my tolerance shown through and while the rest of the crew was getting absolutely retarded, I played mother hen and made sure people got home and got to dance their fill. It was interesting to say the least. We went to Whitlows and heard a good cover band and some solid convos.

Today I mostly sucked in tournaments and crushed cash games. I ended up about even. Here's the month and the race to 10k.

so far so good!

now we're on pace baby

What a great past couple of days! My confidence is at an all time high.

here's the monthly graph...I dunno what happened around 8k, but I think it was around my trip to freddytown...so perhaps its all about good food and travel with good people. Let's hope this boomswitch continues.

It was asked whether I still write poetry, the answer is no not really, but here's a go.

Shadow Play

One light flickers in the window

the ghost of a party dances below

Nothing is left but the cigarette smoke

and shadows that play where her glass broke

the cards on the table in solitaire rows

sirens fade in the distance

echoed by a murder of crows

guiding souls in broken prose

one light in the window

guides the shadows below

and the ghosts of departed in cigarette smoke

meh this will be edited (classic hedging :)

quest for the 10k month

Well i'm not on pace....yet but things are turning around....note the EV line...this cannot last!

my forray into plo

Okay so here's a pretty good day at the tables. All hunl....except for one hand of plo to be detailed later.

So anyhow I played a bunch and got to sweat peacock a lil bit in some really donk action. It's always fun to extract moneys from complete monkeys in front of people. So anyway I sat at one table of PLO for fun 25/50 cent table, but its pot limit so u can sit in for much more. Anyway

I get dealt something along the lines of 3456 I raise on the button he calls.

flop: 3 3 10

villian:checks

hero:bets pot

villian: pots

hero calls

turn: Q

Villian pots

Hero calls

river:3 giving me quads

Villian pots

Hero shoves all in

villian calls and mucks qq1010

Basically I one outtered him while playing for fun hehe...goot times. If you didn't understand a word of this i'm sorry...I barely did either, plo is a silly game played by silly people!

The weekend

Okay, so this weekend lets seeeee what did I do. Firstly there was Friday. On Friday, Dan and peacock took a "personal day" to work from home or in dan's case not work at all. So Friday was a good ole fashion day of rest. Thursday was a friggin wet hot mess as we went to car pool to get the run bad demons off my back and meet up with some of B Laub's coworkers. So here are the stories from the weekend:

Friday: Trevor, the professional bowler

So around 12:35am we stumble in from Carpool to find Dan drunk on the couch. We fire up a game of Wii tennis or something and the smack talk begins. Somewhere along the way, Dan decides to challenge my bowling prowess (real bowling not wii bowling). He decides to wager 250 dollars that he can bowl a better cumulative 3 game score than I can. Drunk Trevor quickly accepts because a.) drunk Trevor is FOS and will legit think he's the best at everything. and b.) drunk Trevor remembers Dan bowling in the 80s the last time they all went. Either way, the bet was set for later that day (3pm ish).

3PM rolls around, we've had I <3 class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">thai, and watched a little bit of HBO. Then it hits Dan and I, the bowling urge. We drag Peacock along to moderate the bet. The first two games I absolutely destroyed Dan (no offense Dan, I just dunno where u were). I was up by 80 pins headed into the last game and decided to offer Dan a "best ball" sort of situation using peacock's now vacant frames. He quickly accepted and ended up bowling like a 130something to my 125. Ship the Cheddar my way Dannyboy. NOT SO FAST! Double or nothing!....sober Trevor considered his options, he hearkened back to his 3rd grade spelling test, the last one of the year and his incredible 19 test streak of spelling all the words correctly (wouldn't know it by the looks of this blog). He remembered how on that 20th test he spelled everything correctly....except for his name. Sober Trevor remembered the state tennis tournament, where he choked in straight sets to some kid who just got to every ball and put up sitting ducks the whole time. He'd never been clutch in anything but soccer.... he shook all that off and accepted the challenge.

The next part will only be pertinent to those of you who've seen rounders. Ya know that scene just after Mike has taken all KGB's money the first time, and they flash forward in the second match...and KGB says the line, "you myust be kyickying yourself myike. You shyould hyave quyit whyen you were achhhead!" Well that's how my 4th game started! Dan got what we here in Beer fest land call the "eye of the Jew". He started of strike strike spare. My arm was a virtual noodle, and I started off 5 89. On a side note, WOW I'm sore from bowling, that is quite sad! So the stage was set for one of the greatest comebacks of all time. The next five frames looked like the sign on a sex shop. X X X X X it was beautiful, and I don't know where it came from. I was truly in the zone, see previous posts about Rafa and Fed. By the end of this epic game, both Dan and I had bowled the highest scores in our lives, with me besting him 186 to 174. It was a pretty sweet moment worth 400 dollars (why am I such a degen sigh).

Saturday: trip to Freddyburg.

So to celebrate a great lil 1k day streak in March, I agreed to make a trip down to Freddytown to visit Diana and get some great food. It was a trip that almost wasn't because my car decided to die again and fortunately Sam jumped me for the 3rd straight time I've wanted to use that car (Great success!). At the Point B end of my Iphone's google map stood a beautiful 2 bedroom farmhouse complete with cows, a pasture, and the fluffiest cat I'd ever seen. Diana truly is living the life in her Grandmother's house (sans Gma). So I get the tour and we then make way for "La petite Auberge" or the lil inn, a delicious French restaurant. I got the Sirloin Bearnaise, cooked pretty darn rare. It was deeelish.

We then headed home and watched breakfast at Tiffany's, that Audrey Hepburn is HAWT! The movie was solid for an old movie, I generally detest old flicks as they just don't relate to me all that well. This one had a skank for a lead though with more family issues than the Osbournes, so it was all fairly amusing.

Sunday: Caps game and Poker.
So Sunday rolls around, and I roll into DC in time to get some lunch with the crew and surmise that it is nearly impossible to tell the founding fathers apart. The only discernible ones are George Washington and TJ. Gobbled up some I <3> and made our way back home. Dan snagged some tix to a Caps game, so we hit the metro around 3 (SO PACKED)! The game was awesome, and the people behind us actually won a "shirt off our back" prize and snagged a game jersey at the conclusion of the 6-4 victory. It was fan appreciation day, and it feels like everyone in the stadium won something. We picked up some sweet caps towels. I won all 3 prop bets -- a whopping 2 dollars each -- and shipped 3 beers in the process. All in all it was a great game with lots of high fiving and craziness. As for poker, I came home and passed out for 3 hours. I'd won 500 in the morning in about 5 minutes of play, and came back only to lose 700 in about 4 hours of play....sigh whatever, I was getting truly atrocious set-ups and hopefully i can remedy all this junk today. QQ to AA aipf was retardedly common yesterday, 3 times all for stacks, but w/e.

That's all for now, but to everyone involved in a truly classic DC weekend thanks :)

On the ego, and rational egoism

Philosophy post today!...and I'm affraid its time to tackle Ayn Rand. The reason i'm writing about rational egoism today is poker related. I was sitting across from a guy who had the handle, Aynrandhero. So when I called him out on his name, and told him rational egoism was ridiculous he said, "I get into these arguments all the time, I just want to play poker." Fair enough, I stacked him then he left in a huff saying, "you play poker about as well as you argue against rational egoism." So i figure, since I proved I could already best him in one, why not the other!

Rational egoism - is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest.

Okay, there are a number of ways to attack this argument. The first is a very interesting internal problem with the argument, and the one I offer is an extension of this argument that offers a more complete alternative.

The argument of arbitrariness: It would seem that rational egoism puts at the forefront of its argument an arbitrary perspective of the self. Why self-interest? What possible justification is there for choosing concern with self over concern with other people, or other things. How is selfishness more correct than fishishness (the concern about the well-being of fish?) or rockishness (the concern about the well being of ACDC?) The only response offered by Ayn Rand and other rational egoism is that this is the perspective we are all viewing the world from, so it only makes sense to make decisions based on it. Well, this may do for some, but I'm not convinced that one can apply this universally. Detractors say that this is merely a bias and not proof of correctness. I'm inclined to agree.

The argument that I tend to make is that we act correctly or incorrectly based on genetic egoism. That is to say we are selfish in so much as we protect our genes. This probably results from being the son of a genetic biologist and thus a bias towards empirical data and scientific conclusions. So where is this empirical data? It lies as so often is the case, in nature, my favorite lab for philosophical testing. In nature, there is a trend amongst some birds to have one or two (usually alpha males or flock leaders or whatnot) call out when they see danger, drawing attention to itself and warning the flock. It would seem to be against self-interest to put oneself in the harms way, so what possible rational egoism explanation is there? I would argue one would not find it in selfishness, but rather genetic rationalism. Protecting one's progeny outweighs the importance of protecting ones own life. Thus, the trait is passed on through the descendants of the endangered birds. This trait is not limited to birds, and examples can be found across species. Humans often will make sacrifices (some as grave as life itself) for their family and friends, and no one finds them to be silly or ridiculous (save maybe Nietzsche and he may have a point, but that's a different argument for a different day) in fact, most would find it a noble act, maybe make a movie about it (John Q anyone?).

The bottom line is, I can see the inner workings of genetic egoism. It plays out across the world as natural selection selects the traits that improve the replication of genes. The argument is not based on some unfounded bias of self interest, but rather relies on the basis for all decision making...procreation. I think this is like, the third philosophical argument that ends with me advocating decision making based on sex! That has to be some kind of record lol, or perhaps some sad commentary on my current situation....no no definitely the former!

Poker is going well...sorta. I'm still playing well, but luck has other motives, here's the past two days.

March, in like a lion out like a firebreathing dragon

So march was a pretty sweet month, here's the graph.



Keep in mind that I played half my normal hands due to Virgin islands and stuffs...
















my favorite part is the almost complete lack of variance! Add this to the shipping of the 43rd in the sunday brawl, and u get 7k+600 in rakeback...we got ourselves a good month! Goals for next month are 10k and at least one high placement in the brawl.


In other news, its D-day in my world, April 1st...the day liz geddes turns worlds upsidedown. The day the earth stood still. The day all your connections to her will be exploited into making your life a living hell. I've taken some precautions this year. I've turned off my cell phone for the day, I don't have my voicemail set up, so nobody can leave messages. Wish me luck because as the great orator JFK once said, "there are two things I fear more than fear itself, and both of them are Liz Geddes."