Do Something

So I have been pretty unhappy with the sedentary pace my life has been going the past few months. I was originally going to wait until the end of the year to move out of the country, but at this point the idea of leaving is very exciting. I am 95% sure I will be trying to move to Vancouver very soon. The only obstacle is if I can feasibly bring my dog really. Hopefully I can find someone to take care of him here for a while or get a pet friendly apt in Canada and drive up there. All the research I did pointed at having to do a 6 month tourist visa. After that I'll either have to manage a work visa somehow or marry someone up there. Also the likelihood of playing in US ought to be clearer by then. I can't wait to start making some money again and move on with my life.

Last One

I am going to take a music and starcraft hiatus. I hope you like this last song I will be posting (Shafer did the beat):

Just Making Music These Days

Two Other Songs I Have Been Working on

An Original Tune

Some Jazz Flute I Put Together

Things change. The adaptability of humans as people is so understated that sometimes we hardly realize how inconsistent our surroundings really are. I can remember back in 2006 when I was crushing Party Poker. My father would tell me about how I had such a good thing going and should play as much as possible. I would just laugh, play my 1.5 hours a day and shrug off his subtle wisdom. I sometimes daydream about some solar panel company coming to recruit me to help develop more efficient power cells. I'd like to think I am naturally talented at figuring things out, but ultimately I think it is more weighted towards an unhealthy addictive obsession. In college I remember feeling very unguided. I yearned for some higher up to just tell me what I needed to do and what to focus on. When the universe lacks any clear channel to flow down I get quite sidetracked with the trivial aspects of life. Last year when I was doing online dating I would skim over profiles of women and place high value on promising and valued professions. Lately whenever I am on there I get excited when I see unemployed, still finding my purpose in the world and other drifting feelings. Never finding a girl I can spend the rest of my life with is slowing replacing knee surgery as my number one fear. I feel my social skills are getting better. I used to sometimes joke how I was socially retard, primarily as a method of fishing for complements of proficiency. Luckily those days are in the rear view mirror. I have a few friends that have recently found long term relationships come to a close. Somehow I feel as if I have a deeper wisdom of life in those times. I really enjoy talking with those of broken heart and helping them focus on the positives whist remaining completely realistic. It seems like people are always moving back home, leaving for new experiences or jobs, traveling for unrequited love or finding solace on the open road. I manage to stay put. Uncomfortable settled in my home. I keep just doing what I enjoy. But things still keep changing.

About 9 Weeks of Mail

More gambling junk mail than you can shake a stick at

Math on a Prop Bet

So with my recent influx of even more free time lately I have been spending some evenings at a local 2/5 game. Some of the regulars there like to run a prop where you each just pick one or two cards and you just pay if they hit the flop with according bonuses for hitting multiples of your card(s). I always knew because of card removal (people are more likely to play a hand with an ace in it rather than a deuce) that taking low cards would be some sort of edge [the other players are not so keen on this], but never really had a hard figure in mind. I decided to crunch the actual numbers:

The odds an ace will come out if you flip over 3 random cards is 1 - (48/52 * 47/51 * 46/50), which is around 21.7%

Now since it is nearly impossible to prove what an average flop is in poker I will just have to use my database as a best guess. My full tilt db has 215k hands, so I figured that variance would be pretty low there. Of those hands 60,346 saw a flop. So if things ran true there should be around 13,118 flops with an ace. The actual number of ace high boards was 12,697. So the difference is 421 flops short of where it should be. That equates to a 3.21% shortage of aces on the flop. So if you can take a deuce and get the other person to take an ace the advantage is probably close to double that.

Conclusion:

If you are playing this prop with the deuce vs. ace your edge is around 6% every time one of those cards come. If you are seeing around 35 hands an hour, I would guess 25 go to a flop in a live game. I'd guess you see an average of 4 cards per flop. So you will see about 100 cards an hour. Of those about 15 will be an ace or deuce. So if you are betting 10 dollars a card your edge will be around 9 dollars an hour.

Link

My first online interview was released this week on the Poker Phenoms website. It came out OK I guess. If the mood strikes you it can be seen in its entirety here:

http://www.pokerphenoms.com/poker-tv/

45 Days in Vegas

Before I left for Vegas this year I had a game plan unlike any previous years (mostly added pressure on myself, seeing how things have changed since black Friday). I had a few goals in mind:

• play tons of 5/10nl or tournaments or sit and goes or whatever I thought would be the most profitable hourly rate with reasonable bankroll management coming with somewhat limited cash
• make X amount of dollars

I haven't done any of that really.

The trip can really be divided into two halves. The first half I spent most of my time playing 5/10/25 PLO cash games. Full ring live PLO isn't all that exciting. I figured I would have a decent hourly rate there, but never really realized all too much profit. I played 25/50/100 once and hit an ran for a nice 5k profit. I even played a 100/200 game one time where I chopped action and played a 20k pot with around 78% equity and chopped (it was against Ben Lamb, so I am surprised I got anything back). The game broke shortly after. I also played about 10 tournaments with one cash. Broke about even there. Pretty boring stuff.

The second half of my trip has revolved around blackjack. I am not sure how I am only getting into this game just now. It involves gambling and arithmetic and taking money from evil corporations and comes with freed drinks and cigars. This blog post has enough words already so I will break it down by the numbers:

Casinos that will no longer let me play blackjack: 20 (MGM owns a lot)

Hours played: ~42

Highest count seen on a double deck: 23 (resulted in taking insurance on the dealer's ace up for 7k in bets... she had blackjack)

Profits: ~27k

Batting average for taking insurance: 1.000

Equity in a perfect shoe: +20.00%

I ran the math below:

So as things stand now I am going to have to make the 10,250 chips I have left in the Main Event dance for me on Day 2 to hit my goal and finally shave my playoff beard:

PiMaster Supreme

Vegas

So I've been in Vegas for about a week now and things are pretty bleh. I am down a buy in in the cash games. I played a 1k and fizzled. I am catching a cold. Our house is a lemon. I have been getting to play a fair amount of golf, tennis and basketball though. Luckily there is plenty of time to turn things around. I could be playing better.

Online Dating

I thought reeling in the ladies with the opener: "I play online poker for a living" was tough before April 15th. Forget about it now...

My Vegetable Garden