Thanks!

Blinds started off at 500/1000/100- can’t say enough about the great structure tournament director Matt Savage put together! My 17K chips gave me the perfect stack for shoving over raises. The first time I was in the BB, action folded to one of the internet guys in the SB. I felt like he was probably going to raise any two, because most of those guys just cannot bring themselves to open fold. He made it 2400, which unfortunately told me he was probably good, capable of choosing just the right bet size. But I had 44, moved all in, and got him to fold quickly. “I’m gonna pump your stack up 2400 chips at a time,” he told me, with a hint of disdain in his voice.

“Feel free,” I responded.

My second BB, one of the weaker players opened to 2100. I hate calling raises with such a short stack, but with Q9 I felt like I had to. I check-folded to 4500 on a ragged flop.

On my third BB, action folded to the SB again. He opened to 2400 again. It’s hard to say what his range is here, given that I shoved on him last time. I could see him open shoving some hands that he didn’t want to raise-fold or raise-call, stuff like QJ and suited connectors. But I doubt he was open folding anything, so he probably had a lot of bluffs in his range anyway. I shoved with K3o, but he had AA and that was that.

I’d only wasted half an hour on the tournament that morning, so Emily and I took off for Santa Cruz, where we camped by the beach. There are worse consolation prizes!

George Carlin, one of my favorite stand-up comedians, died yesterday at the age of 71. I was fortunate enough to see him live at the Orleans in December, and of course now I’m doubly glad that I took advantage of the opportunity to see him when I had it.

I saw him perform the bit on death shown here. In the last few seconds, he even mentions online poker as possible entertainment for people in heaven!

Needless to say, a George Carlin stand-up routine is NSFW.

There really aren’t that many books written by successful internet players, so if you play internet poker tournaments, this will almost certainly be worth buying. And if you’re going to buy it, please use my affiliate link at the right. It won’t cost you anything extra, and I’ll donate 100% of the proceeds to my non-profit organization, the Boston Debate League.

Apparently this is fake, pretty funny though.

The truth is I want to do something important with my life, and I don’t think poker’s that important or meaningful. Given that I eventually need to quit, now’s as good a time as any. And that’s why I’m quitting poker.

A lot of his very long post on the subject (though not the bits about degenerate gambling or the six-figure scores) is quite reminiscent of my own thinking and background. We’re both young, but not quite as young as many internet pros, and educated by elite universities (he’s a Yale alum). I’m familiar with his sense that dedicating his life and skills to poker would be a waste. And I’m quite sympathetic his desire to do something “meaningful”.

Except that in his case, that’s… trading for a hedge fund? I was really surprised by that, since I was otherwise digging his post. But a trader is basically a larger-scale poker player. Just because you wear a suit and have something people recognize as a “job” doesn’t make you’re work meaningful. Of course I know nothing about FF’s interest in or qualifications for trading, and I don’t doubt that he’ll be good at it. I was just surprised to see that as the culmination of his very thought-provoking essay.

I got to bring about 70 students, coaches, administrators, and supporters of the Boston Debate League to a special advance screening of The Great Debaters last night. Judging from all of the clapping, laughing, and even cheering I heard, it was a huge hit, especially with the kids. Fewer than half of them were already members of the debate team, so I’m hoping we’ll get some reruits out of this as well. This is about as cool as it is ever going to be to be on your high school debate team.

As for the movie itself, it’s very useful for my purposes, but I can’t say it was particularly good. The cast was amazing, Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker of course, but the others were pretty good, as well. Unfortunately, almost every character was a walking stereotype, and the entire story was a predictable cliche.

That’s pretty much what I expected from the trailer, and as I said, it was well acted. Overall, then, I wasn’t really disappointed, and in fact it was a pretty good rendering of the classic ‘underdog’ picture.

The thing that was disappointing to me was that the debating was really not at all central to the story. I mean it was constantly in the picture, but there was no real conflict related to the actual debating. The conflict was all amongst the main characters and occasionally with racist white folk (and even they were never being racist about the idea of an all-black college succeeding in such a ‘white’ activity).

Basically every character was an amazing debater from her very first speech and the team as a whole never really struggled with learning or getting better at the activity. They just bounced from school to school, winning and winning, and there was never even much tension over whether they were going to win their climactic debate with Harvard University. Also, the Wiley College debaters seemed to only ever debate the side of the topic with which they personally agreed: they argued for welfare, against segregation, and for civil disobedience.

I found the most interesting parts to be the asides related to Coach Tolson’s (the Denzel Washington character) labor organizing and the tension it created within the black community. Some felt they should be radical, others didn’t want to rock the boat, some were in favor of allying with white laborers, some didn’t trust them, etc.

It’s an entertaining movie, fun enough to watch, occasionally engaging emotionally, and very well acted. The story leaves a lot to be desired, but I still it’s going to do great things for the popularity of debate, especially in urban communities such as those where I work.

SB: $1,408.50
Hero (BB): $1,525

Pre-Flop: 4 4 dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $30, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) J 7 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $40, Hero calls $40

Turn: ($140) 6 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB checks

River: ($140) K (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $130, Hero raises to $505, SB folds

Results: $400 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero mucked 4 4 and WON $399.50 (+$199.50 NET)

Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

SB: $1,198.50
Hero (BB): $1,734.50

Pre-Flop: 7 5 dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $30, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) 7 7 J (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $40, Hero raises to $154, SB calls $114

Turn: ($368) T (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB checks

River: ($368) 6 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $110, Hero raises to $400, SB calls $290

Results: $1,168 Pot ($0.50 Rake)

SB mucked J 6 (two pair, Jacks and Sevens) and LOST (-$584 NET)

Hero showed 7 5 (three of a kind, Sevens) and WON $1,167.50 (+$583.50 NET)

The New Frontier was significant because it was the first of the ‘theme hotels’ that have become a Vegas staple.

My girlfriend was there in person and said there was like two inches of dust on the cars and sidewalk and everything in the vicinity and that the people nearby had dust all over their faces. Also, the dust hung in the air for like twenty minutes and drifted slowly across the city like a cloud in the sky. She’s not the one who shot this video, by the way, I just found it on YouTube.

When visiting Mike at Princeton, I also got to have dinner with him and his girlfriend, whom I’d never met, at a fantastic seafood restaurant called the Blue Point Grille. I honestly can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a meal so much. We had grilled octopus and Thai coconut shrimp appetizers which were both delicious, and then I had an Arctic Char so tender that it literally melted in my mouth.

But it was really the company that made the meal. I’d never met his current girlfriend, and frankly I didn’t much care for the last three people Mike dated. But this woman was really lovely: charming, intelligent, a great conversationalist (even though English isn’t her first language), and most importantly, very happy to be with Mike. It is quite nice to know that he is in good hands.

Similarly, there is something very special about seeing Jen and Logan, two of my best friends, in love and preparing for marriage. It’s kind of like watching lesbian porn- I think they both have great taste!

I don’t know the third couple, Darren and Sukaina, as well as the rest, but they are great hosts and I’ve always had a lot of fun with them. In particular, Sukaina is an amazing cook and on this particular evening, prepared a delectable Indian dish called Salmon in Banana Leaves. She’s been kind enough to let me share to recipe, which she tells is from a book called 30 Minute Indian:

a large bunch of fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

3 tbsp. chopped mint leaves

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp. grated fresh ginger

4 fresh red chilies, chopped

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. ground coriander

2 tsp. soft brown sugar

2 tbsp. lime juice

½ cup coconut milk

4 thick salmon fillets, skinned

4 squares of banana leaf (each approximately 12 x 12 inches)

sea salt and pepper

Tip: you can substitute banana leaf with parchment paper

one Place the chopped coriander, mint, garlic, ginger, chilies, cumin, ground coriander, sugar, lime juice, and coconut milk in food processor and blend until fairly smooth. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

two Place each salmon fillet on a square of banana leaf and spoon some of the herb and spice mixture over it. Carefully cover the fish with the leaf to make a neat parcel and secure with wooden skewers.

three Place the parcels on a large baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven, 400 degree F, for 15 minutes.

four Remove the parcels from the oven, place on a serving plate, and open the packages on the table.

In an Opinion piece today entitled, “How China Got Religion,” he discusses Beijing’s pronouncement in August that Buddhist monks may not reincarnate without government permission. This order was derided in the West as a laughable excess of totalitarianism, but Zizek argues that China is actually taking a page from America’s book by ‘tolerating’ a minority culture to extinction. Although the government is officially secular, Buddhists are now encouraged to practice their religion in China, only its political teeth must be de-fanged. Thus, the order aimed at preventing the emergence of a new Dalai Lama outside of China who would be both a religious and a political leader. As Zizek concludes, “Perhaps we find China’s reincarnation laws so outrageous not because they are alien to our sensibility, but because they spill the secret of what we have done for so long: respectfully tolerating what we don’t take quite seriously, and trying to contain its political consequences through the law.”

Can I make “The Executioner” my new nickname?

Although I did not get to meet him, a group of debaters from a camp I was working at at Howard University a few years ago ran into him in the lobby of a Senate office building during a tour. The camp director introduced himself and told McCain what the camp was, and the Senator stopped and talked with the kids for about 20 minutes. The debate topic that year was about civil liberties and the war on terrorism, so they were asking about Guantanamo and treatment of enemy combatants and that sort of thing.

Afterwards, the kids were excited to tell me about meeting him, but shocked to learn that he was a Republican. From what I’ve seen, Republican is an expletive in most urban communities, and the idea that this friendly, funny, down-to-Earth man represented the dark side was really shocking to the students.

I think that also makes McCain’s willingness to hold an impromptu Q&A with them especially notable, because there was really no political gain in it for him, the way there is when candidates visit a little league game or go to some small town Bingo night or something. The vast majority of these kids were not of voting age, and the color of their skin alone would be enough to tell McCain that no matter how much of an impression he made on them, it wasn’t likely to translate into political support from them or their families.

Anyway, enough glowing. Check him out with Jon Stewart, I found him pretty entertaining:

And the song starts off appropriately enough: “Some folks are born made to wave the flag; Ohh they’re red white and blue.” I can see how someone who only listened to the first few lines might think it was a patriotic song.

But if you listen a few seconds longer, we come to, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son.”

Fortunate Son is a great protest song, and it’s both funny and sad to hear it misappropriated as a star-spangled anthem.

Anywho, I’m off to play in the main event. Hopefully you won’t hear from me until tomorrow.

At the moment, there are just a few links to some of what I consider my best poker writing. I’m hoping eventually to add a section for reviews of poker rooms, books, computer programs, web sites, etc. I’d also be very interested in suggestions for other interesting content.

You can expect to see some ads on the site and the blog soon, as well. Sorry, hippies, but I’m giving away valuable information here, and damned if I wouldn’t like to make some money off of it myself.

Please let me know what you think!

The flop is KQ5r. I bet 250, and he raises to 1000. Obviously this is not a good flop for TT, and I’m not happy to be raised. But I’m really having tremendous difficulty putting him on a hand. I’d be surprised if there are many if any K’s in his limp-calling range, and of those, I’m not sure that he’d raise the flop. I guess with KQ, a flop raise is justifiable, but this just isn’t how a “solid regular” usually plays KQ.

55 is another reasonable holding for him, but while I’m almost always a fan of fast-playing sets, this really isn’t a great spot for it. He ought to put me on a fairly tight range raising an early position limper out of my blind. In general, he might expect to get paid off by AA and AK, but he’s going to get stacked by KK and QQ (not that that’s avoidable), but also scares me off worse hands that might bluff or pay off smaller value bets later. It’s just a rare situation where you don’t necessarily want to play a big pot with bottom set. Which isn’t to say that my opponent will necessarily think this way, but it’s also kind of uncommon to see such a large raise with bottom set on such a dry board.

(By the way, if he doesn’t put me on a very narrow, strong range pre-flop, which he doesn’t necessarily have to do, then he may not have the implied odds to call off 5% of our effective stacks with 55 pre-flop. This is why I’m just kind of working under the assumption that he puts me on a big hand pre-flop the times he shows up with bottom set.)

So the more I thought about it, the more I felt like JT (probably suited, not that that mattered much now, but in term sof hands he’d limp-call), semi-bluffing with an open-ended draw, was his most likely hand. So at first I was going to shove, then I decided to call and get it in if the draw missed on the turn, which it did. I check-raised all in, and got called pretty quickly by 55. Oh well.