Posts Tagged ‘narrative’

This is the conclusion of a trip report, the first part of which can be found here, from a high school debate tournament at which I recently volunteered. I founded the Boston Debate League in 2005 to bring competitive extracurricular debate to students at some of the city’s more troubled public high schools and continued to serve as the part-time, volunteer executive director for several years. In 2008 we hired a full-time executive director who has grown the organization into something much larger and more influential. He was out of town this weekend receiving an award from his alma mater for this excellent work and asked me to fill in for him at the tournament, which I was more than glad to to.

Round 3

Saturday morning proves far more hectic than anticipated. There’s a surprising amount of turnover, meaning students who competed last night but who if they plan on coming at all today have not arrived as of 8AM. Frustratingly, I’m not getting good information from coaches about which of their students have not showed up.

I am used to leading by moral authority. When I ran the BDL, the coaches and students all saw how hard I worked, and most of them knew that I wasn’t paid. I more or less shamed them into making my job easier and doing what I told them to do.  Read the complete post...

Sorry for the recent silence – I was in Boston over the weekend running a debate tournament for the Boston Debate League. I don’t have a WYP for this week, so instead please enjoy this Trip Report which hopefully will provide a behind-the-scenes insight into the world of high school debate, or our own little corner of it anyway:

There are 174 high school students registered for the debate tournament I am running this weekend. Roughly 135 will actually show up to compete, but not all of those 135 will be among those who registered in advance. These students will compete Friday evening and all day Saturday. Most of them will, anyway – a few show up, without warning, on only one day or the other. Just as many will be competing simultaneously at another of our schools, most of which are not large enough to host so many debates at once. That other school is not my responsibility at all.

About half as many middle schoolers will debate in their own separate competition at my school on Saturday only. They are kind of but not really my responsibility.

When I stepped down, three and a half years ago, as executive director of the Boston Debate League (BDL), we were lucky to get 40 kids at a tournament. Obviously there was no need to spread them out across two sites. There were no middle school debaters.  Read the complete post...

I don’t play pit games, I don’t go to strip clubs, and I don’t get table service at Las Vegas nightclubs. Whole Foods is my leak.

Last night I was there for the second time in two days. My girlfriend has been cramming for the GRE and just had her bike stolen, so I wanted to get her a treat. At the bakery counter, they sell these mini chocolate mousse cakes that she likes.

The couple ahead of me in line were in their late 60′s. They looked lifelong outdoors people, he with scraggly beard, she with close-cropped hair and weather-worn face, both rail-thin.

There were two mousse cakes left in the display case. The woman behind the counter handed one to the old couple. “We need two, please,” the man corrected her. The last two.

The woman took out the other cake, inspected it for a moment, and then showed him a small blemish. Perhaps 0.5% of the icing had fallen off. “It’s a little broken, do you still want it?”

“We get a reduced price, right?” the man asked aggressively, leaning over the counter.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“It should be a reduced price, if it’s damaged.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t do that. We donate imperfect items to the food kitchen, we don’t ever sell them at a discount.”  Read the complete post...

If you’ve been enjoying my BCPC trip reports, be sure to check out my write-up from the WSOP Europe, now appearing in 2+2 Magazine:

Loose-aggressive play has become so common among the best players that many of them tend to assume that anyone who doesn’t open 50% of hands from the CO can’t be all that good. No American in the tournament is going to be bad, since we all had to travel quite a ways to play, but I think that playing the way I did gave the impression that I was merely competent and perhaps uncomfortable in deep-stacked spots. That’s a fine image to have as long as you know how to exploit it by stealing in spots they don’t expect.

As always, please let me know what you think!

I once final tabled a small-field, small buy-in PLO8 tournament at the PCA, but otherwise the final two tables was the closest I’d ever made it to a live final table. It was exciting to keep seeing (some of) the same people day after day, and to feel the envy of those who did not make it through.

Norm was the first to go. I heard him walking behind my seat on the way to the payout station, muttering about “Ace-Queen against Ace-King”, and that was the last I saw of him. We actually lost three more players in the first half hour, one of whom I eliminated with A4s > KQo.

There were more players than I realized still in the tournament with whom I had no experience. To my left was “Scott”, a hometown hero from Chilliwack with an Irish accent and an inexplicably large cheering section, all of whom were wearing matching “It Could Happen” jackets and shouting loudly whenever he won a pot. Scott eliminated one of the other early departures and was pretty obnoxious about it, getting nervous and calling for cards even as an overwhelming favorite and then celebrating vigorously when his hand held up.  Read the complete post...

I was happy with my table, and the day got off to a great start. I was one of the two biggest stacks, the other one of whom was a young Asian kid in yellow hoodie and designer sunglasses who looked like he could be good. He handled his chips well and raised in a lot of the right spots, but after watching him tank and agonize before calling a 3-bet shove with QTs getting better than 2:1, I decided he couldn’t be that great. He subsequently lost half of his stack with KK to AK, berated the other guy for 4-betting AK, and then tilted off the rest of his chips, so I didn’t have to worry about him.

I did more than my part to bust out the short stacks, waking up with AQ in my big blind when someone shoved KQ and then with QQ when an even shorter stack 3-bet shoved TT. I shot up from 50K to 90K and took the liberty of opening a few more pots. At 300/600/50, I opened to 1300 with T8s and the BB defended. He quickly bet out at an A94 flop, but I called him with nothing but my backdoor draw and he check-folded the turn. The next orbit I raised him again with QTs. He quickly shoved 6600, and I did some quick math to determine that it was close but I had enough chips to establish a “don’t shove on me” image. I called and was pleasantly surprised to see his Q3s, which did not get there.  Read the complete post...

Emily and I arrived in Vancouver less than two days before my departure for Europe. I’ve been back for a little over a week now, so I’m just starting to get settled in. It seems like a very cool city: mild climate (for Canada- still chilly, but the notorious rain hasn’t actually been too bad in my limited time here), good public transportation and bike-friendly, wide variety of bars and restaurants, great coffee, and just all around vibrant and lively. I can see why it’s one of the most expensive places to live in North America.

We’re renting a suite in a beautiful house in Kittsilano, which seems to be the yuppy district. Our landlords are a gay couple, one a wiry, frenetic, chain-smoking Frenchman and his partner a much more easy-going Czech. It seems like the Frenchman did most of the decorating, because the house and yard, though very well laid out, are cluttered with kitschy knick-knacks.

The main event of the British Columbia Poker Championship is a $2700 tournament drawing roughly 500 participants, so while it’s not something I would have considered traveling to play, it was well worth half an hour on a bus and a train to get there. It’s a real who’s who of Canadian poker (with the notable absence of Daniel Negreanu), though this year a number of American refugees are vying for the title as well. I am one of these carpetbaggers.  Read the complete post...

After a low-key Friday night, Nico and I resolved to live it up on my last night in Madrid. We started off having dinner and watching the Barcelona-Seville game at a restaurant/bar across the street from his apartment. It was a bit of a dive but had surprisingly good food and there were a wide variety of people just kind of hanging out there, some drinking and watching the game, some just having dinner. Nico said that Spanish people spend a large percentage of their time in places like this, and that his roommate goes to this place every morning for breakfast. So despite the game ending in a draw, a good outcome for all the Madrid fans in the establishment since they won their game, it was a good time and a neat place to hang out.

From there we took a subway to Tribunal for some botellon, the fine Spanish tradition of outdoor, public drinking. I’ve never been a big fan of bars, since I’m mostly going to talk to the people I’m going with and could do that more easily and cheaply with drinks at home, but there is something to be said for the atmosphere and for being among people. Botellon is the perfect combination: you’re outside with plenty of other people milling around, but you’re drinking your own alcohol rather than buying it at inflated prices!  Read the complete post...