tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11666805892949722432024-02-19T01:06:58.814-05:00The Short Stack HeroChronicling Over a Decade of Pro Poker DecadenceLorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-76917945261831879562018-10-31T10:56:00.002-04:002018-11-05T12:42:42.739-05:00Why You Should Hire a Short Stacker to Protect Game Integrity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frank Abagnale: Proof that working for the law is more beneficial than working against it.</td></tr>
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Short stacking and game integrity may sound diametrically opposed, but before you instinctively roll your eyes, let me tell you how they can work peacefully together.<br />
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Let's start by setting the record straight, I'm not an angle shooter...I'm an opportunist. That is, I probe the system to look for exploits and vulnerabilities <i>within the rules</i> for personal gain. The final outcome may offend (many) players' concepts of how the game should be played and their aesthetic sensibilities, but I have learned firsthand how making it too easy to practice can create a hostile gaming environment, yet efforts to completely thwart the practice will lead to predatory play and ultimately the collapse of a delicate poker ecosystem both in NLH and Omaha.<br />
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Before considering setting your default buy-in level above 30BB, I urge you to <a href="https://www.parttimepoker.com/how-the-buy-in-increase-you-demanded-may-have-killed-your-favorite-cash-game" target="_blank">read this article I wrote for Part Time Poker</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTexV-PkUWLQAGS7neB64Ep2lH4ILbvoggwXV-KC7wiSO1dy4hlL_PZDn4a55oqq5JwQtIv9PnfQkd6oJTTL2yRIlluZwUEQwENc1VKo9HW8649i1wMyppgGRhF5CH2vca5evyIRVhd04/s1600/Buy-in-amount-graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="700" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTexV-PkUWLQAGS7neB64Ep2lH4ILbvoggwXV-KC7wiSO1dy4hlL_PZDn4a55oqq5JwQtIv9PnfQkd6oJTTL2yRIlluZwUEQwENc1VKo9HW8649i1wMyppgGRhF5CH2vca5evyIRVhd04/s400/Buy-in-amount-graph.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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However, please note that in setting my sights on your Operations Team Leader/Game Integrity position, I am not advocating the creation of an environment where short stackers can thrive, but rather, a new one where the presence of professional short stackers can not exist, while simultaneously keeping the barrier of entry low for recreational players. Again, please reference the above article for a common sense (but neglected) view of how raising the buy-in even slightly too high can destroy a poker ecosystem.<br />
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Here is a brief list of my goals for your company:<br />
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<li><i>Create and balance an ecosystem via setting the optimal buy-in level.</i></li>
<li><i>Monitor the ecosystem for potential exploits or imbalances that may be caused by rake or rewards systems.</i></li>
<li><i>Eliminating or curbing the practice of using a heads up display while still offering the ability to track one's own play.</i></li>
<li><i>Work to create and simulate new games with low barriers to entry in a non-predatory environment.</i></li>
<li><i>Prevent the practice of multi-accounting and VPN'ing from excluded countries.</i></li>
<li><i>Provide hands on and excellent customer service to both fellow employees and players alike, while closely monitoring customer input and concerns. </i></li>
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I had originally wanted to propose precise examples of how I could achieve these goals, but rather, decided to hold off until our interview.<br />
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Given my long history of working outside the system to exploit it within, I will now state on record that not only am I a good candidate for this position, I am the ideal one. If the description so far isn't quite what you had in mind for the position, then you are obligated to create one :)</div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-51346246591125132152017-02-23T23:22:00.002-05:002017-09-06T09:29:28.145-04:00Karmic EV<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Early last year, I played in a top heavy $80 buy-in tournament at my local riverboat casino. This tourney is a weekly ritual that commences every <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">Friday at midnight</a>. It has the dual benefit of being +EV and keeping me out of trouble. The obvious drawback is the late start, meaning that I'm often pretty drained and unfocused upon arrival, especially following a forty minute drive.</div>
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I'll spare the details and fast forward to the final table. Even though it's now approaching <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">3:30 AM</a>, the atmosphere among the nine remaining is jovial- everyone has been getting along, chatting it up, joking, and having an overall good time. Of course, every man there wants to win, but no one is really rooting against the guy next to him, either. With each player that drops, there's a round-table discussion about cutting a deal, yet each time the subject comes up, there's always at least one player sitting on a stack large enough that he politely decline the offer with little thought.</div>
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Fast forward another hour and it's now <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.blogger.com/null">4:30 AM</a>. There are five of us remaining and I've just knocked out the sixth. I'm now leading with a stack of just over 300k with blinds of 15k/30k and an ante of 3,000. I (humbly, mind you) admit to having a large skill advantage over my obviously recreational opponents, even in this late stage of the tournament. Despite being effectively short stacked at this point with limited maneuverability, I'm in my zone as a short stack specialist. I'm getting a bit tired, but I'm comfortable in this situation and more than happy to keep playing.</div>
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As has become a ritual at this point, the guy to my right immediately calls for a deal. Here at the Horseshoe Indiana, deals involving multiple players in small buy-in events are traditionally <i>not</i> settled by chip equity. Serious players of the game are advised to stop reading here and move on to the next article, as the following text is likely to make you physically ill.</div>
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Given the friendly atmosphere and recreational culture of this tourney, a deal is an even split of the remaining prize pool, regardless of stack size. Even though I'm leading by a fairly significant margin with regards to chip EV, should I agree to a deal and request a bigger cut, in their eyes I would be, for lack of a better word, a complete dick.</div>
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Everyone present is more or less aware of this technical unfairness, so the question isn't whether or not one or more players have an advantage, chip-wise. It's whether or not it's anyone's game at this point, or more importantly, if the deal proposer is insulting anyone's intelligence by asking for a chop when he is practically busto.</div>
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In this particular instance, the deal advocate was a guy who had a consistent stack for the last several blind levels and had been sitting next to me at two of the last three tables. He was friendly, funny, and was rooting for me in every all in pot that he wasn't involved in. At this juncture he had the smallest stack, but was still sitting on about 100k or so and still had a reasonable shot to win it.</div>
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Everyone else has been more or less amenable to a chop until this point. However, up until now, there was always a dominating stack that vetoed the deal. Shorthanded with an M of about 9, with blinds scheduled to rise in about 5 minutes, I broke two Cardinal rules of professional poker:</div>
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<li>Admitting to myself that the money at stake was important to me, and finishing last would be a hit to my presently pathetic liferoll.</li>
<li>Giving up a proportionally sizable amount of chip EV, especially when the request came from the shortest stack.</li>
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I had already passed on a chop during an earlier blind level myself when the seventh player busted and no one objected. This time, however, the situation was very different. With higher blinds, the average stack was considerably smaller, and the remaining players were all happy to end it. They all looked over to me expectantly with the implicit understanding that I had the undisputed power to kill the deal.</div>
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I didn't feel any pressure to buckle, but it was really late and everyone was tired and eager to pack it in for the night, including myself. In the act of dreading the long drive home, my professional instincts quickly seized my remaining higher cognitive functions and started calculating what I would be giving up if I accepted the deal, but then a new and unfamiliar feeling started to flow through me: magnanimity.</div>
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It was perfectly within my rights to bring in the tournament director to divvy up the prize pool according to classic chip EV. However, the prize distribution was really top heavy and an even chop meant that we would all leave with just under second place money. That's not too shabby. I could have been the aforementioned dick and argued for an extra hundred bucks or so, but that rather insignificant amount of money might cost me in terms of goodwill amongst my new acquaintances.</div>
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I know it makes me sound soft, but everyone was enjoying each other's company and I liked everyone who was present. I was faced with a choice: waiting around while the prize pool is appropriately cut up and take the extra money for short term gain, or essentially swap out my additional share in exchange for four new friends. Four new friends who could leave on equal terms with each other and go home to their wives or girlfriends and proudly tell them they won the tournament. With this thought in mind and before I could think about it long enough to second guess the decision, I approved the deal and we ended the tournament.</div>
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What's the practical value of four new friends? To put it in terms that poker pros understand and perhaps even feel comfortable with, it's quite simple: a feeling of indebtedness that can pay off in the future in unexpected ways...with my odds of unexpected payoff multiplied by four. That's not nearly as cynical as it sounds. A grateful new friend is now the guy who might give you a few bucks for the vending machine when all you have are chips and no cash, the guy that might give you a lift home if your car breaks down, even though he's in a rush to get somewhere, the guy who might fold his small blind to you with a borderline hand when you have just a few big blinds on the bubble, and of course, the guy who will cut <i>you</i> a break and give you a chop when you<i> </i>find yourself as the smallest stack in the same scenario. </div>
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Taking my fair share of the prize pool certainly isn't a bad thing and says nothing about my character. Likewise, sharing my tournament equity is also morally neutral and says nothing about whether or not I am a decent human being, particularly in light of the fact that I did it for vague strategic reasons that are admittedly unlikely to pay off. Yet it doesn't change the fact that option one sends a negative vibe as per the rules of the local culture, which almost always supersede concepts of fair play as understood by online poker professionals who have yet to gain a solid grasp on the social (human) elements of the game. Option two, crudely put, allows for everyone to leave happy on my dime. I'll take option two every time!</div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-65173569774847644922017-01-30T10:26:00.000-05:002017-01-30T10:26:05.365-05:00Getting Acquainted With the Megaraise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">The following article was originally published on <a href="http://www.parttimepoker.com/getting-acquainted-with-the-megaraise" target="_blank">Part Time Poker</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">The following bit of advice will probably come as quite shocking to some people, as it contains no theoretical backing. In other words, you cannot measure the EV of this kind of play in a simulator such as CardrunnersEV. It is highly situational and only profits more than conventional plays by means of gross human error. In other words, you can pull it off against someone wearing a Full Tilt jersey at your local cardroom, but <a href="http://www.parttimepoker.com/upcoming-brains-vs-ai-rematch-more-than-just-a-game-for-ai-developers" target="_blank">Libratus</a> just ain’t buying it. Should you choose to widen your arsenal by applying the concepts below, prepare to be amazed at just how little your opponents really understand pot odds and implied odds when they call over-sized raises, only to fold on the flop or make unbelievable calls with little or no equity.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">I am not asking you to take my word on its effectiveness...you are going to have to take a leap of faith and try it on your own. Just be advised: when it fails, you will look (and probably feel) like a moron. However, even when it works and you squeeze out additional chips, you will still appear as if you had grossly overplayed your hand, thus still looking like a moron. The upside of this is that few people will be able to figure out what you are doing, making them less likely to copy your successful new tactics and increasing the overall longevity of their profitability.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;"><b>WTF is a Megaraise?!</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">It will vary from situation to situation, but normally has the following criteria:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">You are in the blinds and therefore act first after the flop.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">You make a raise or 3-bet that is ~1/3 of the effective stack, with a goal of setting up a postflop SPR of ~1, which maximizes your postflop fold equity.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">The effective stack is usually somewhere in the range of 20-30BB.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">The raise appears inappropriately large compared to conventional bet-sizing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">You are 100% committed and intend to shove or re-shove the flop regardless of texture or opponent action.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">I don't claim to have invented the concept, but I did coin the term "megaraise", which you have probably only heard if you happen to travel in close-knit communities of short stack tradesmen who play in 20BB CAP or Hyper SNG's. While best used against fish who can't find the fold button preflop, it can even be used against seasoned pros, typically if there is at least one other fishy caught in the middle. More on that in future articles, as we first need to build upon the basics.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;"><b>When You Should Use It</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">You should generally be using this play with non-paired holecards when you are at a postflop positional disadvantage in a situation where you are likely to misplay your hand or lose potential value. The ideal scenario is when a fishy player open limps or overlimps and the quality of your hand doesn't justify the risk/reward ratio of shoving, yet you are unlikely to be able to get a read on him postflop or push him with a standard c-bet. Complicating things further is that when playing with a stack this size, your postflop SPR is such that it becomes difficult to fire multiple barrels against an unknown holding if you whiff the flop completely.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">What I describe is a situation where player who is a habitual calling station that pays off is not currently working to your benefit. He limps constantly, floats randomly, and accidentally balances his poor play by mixing in random slowplays. The megaraise punishes all of his poor tendencies while also preventing you from making a single error. It's the ultimate win/win scenario!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">I will start with the assumption that you are wary of the concept and understandably don't want to look foolish while embarking on what amounts to anecdotal advice.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">That's OK.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">It took me several months to work up the courage to try it myself after first witnessing a pro cash game short stacker pull off what looked both brilliant and stupid at the same time, and was really only lent credibility from based on his verifiable excellent results. For this reason, I will start with the example of megaraising OOP from the blind against a single button limper with AK, with an effective stack of 25BB.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">The scenarios below are taken from a tournament with blinds of 50/100, with stacks of 2500. You are often going to find yourself doing some quick mental math to figure out what 1/3 of the effective stack is, so I specifically chose to round up to 900 for these megaraises. You will have to improvise frequently, so it doesn't need to be exact. Just try and get the amount as close as possible, so as to leave roughly one pot-sized bet for the flop.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">Note: The actions you will see villain making below look positively stupid and beyond belief, and that's exactly why I chose them. I have personally seen much worse, as will you once you start experimenting with it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;"><b>When You Miss Completely or Flop a Vulnerable Hand</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">Believe it or not, this is actually the default scenario, as your odds of pairing up or better with AK on the flop are 2.1:1 against, and you should never forget that fact. I intentionally chose the worst possible flop here, as you can only really see its profit potential when the deck misses you completely. Sure, he called with J5, but that's only because he was "lucky" enough to have flopped the ass end of straight draw. But what if he had J4? That's kind of a sticky hypothetical, as they sometimes will call with just such a hand, and every so often you will see two random cards that seemingly have zero equity. However, it's the J4-type hands that you can expect to blast out on these nasty flops where you will probably assume from the outset that no hand that would call such a large preflop raise could possibly fold. Just try and imagining navigating this flop using a standard iso-raise against a calling station and you will quickly see why you need to add the megaraise to your arsenal.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">You are going to continue using the default close-your-eyes-shove line when flopping vulnerable made hands as well, such as a board of KcTc8h. Giving free cards when the pot is this large is a huge error if you are not an overwhelming equity favorite. Even though I might seemingly contradict myself in the next two video examples, you can't just expect villain to try and snag the pot from you if you check or play back at you against small bets. Once you go down this road, you will have to accept that you cannot predict their behavior once the flop comes down. You can only take the most appropriate action for the situation that you find yourself in, and what you see is based upon my own experience and that of others who have experimented with this play and reported back on their findings. Don't forget-- if they were playing anywhere near correctly, they would have never called the preflop raise!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;"><b>When You Flop Strong</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">By "strong", I mean a flop that you would have committed to had you made a conventional iso-raise. There is no sense in blowing them off the hand with a shove if you have no reasonable fear of giving cheap cards. If you start with the assumption gleaned from the previous example that they are likely to call it off with anything that remotely catches a piece, then you cannot worry about giving them cheap shots to make two pair or fill a set of deuces that may have folded to a shove. Maybe it would be helpful to think of making a tiny bet as the greatest form of limit hold'em that never existed that allows a guy to dump his entire stack with nothing. The odds you are appearing to give him are only an illusion, as you can fire in the rest on the turn if it becomes necessary, but don't be afraid to check if you pick up a great card, such a king or an ace. The smaller the remaining the stack, the more likely he is to take the "fuck it" route and toss in the rest, as the pot in the middle now seems to justify hopeless bluffs where he is concerned.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;"><b>When You Nut It</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">I check 100% of the time in the example, as the board is crippled. Again, you can't predict how he will react, but a crippled board facing a small bet now reeks of suspicion. He might play poorly, but don't assume complete stupidity. He isn't likely to play back with his 74o against a small bet, as anyone can recognize that if you call any raise, he can't possibly hope to improve. Checking, however, not only might give him hope, but also gives him the chance to pair up with a 7 or 4, giving you the chance to stack him on future streets. Should he check back, keep checking all the way through the river before going for a check-raise. Don't let any runner-runner flush draws deter you, as they will have put so much of their stack in play at this point that you can expect them to call for the rest if they have any hope of winning at all.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">Similarly, should you find yourself in a way ahead/way behind scenario, such as a flop of K22 or ATT, I would recommend just check calling it down. You aren't afraid of losing, but there is nothing that they can likely call any bets with, so let them bluff it off or just chalk it up to bad luck if they do wind up having it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Bitstream Charter, Times, serif;">Future build-offs of this concept will be more situational based and juggle some potentially complex variables, yet for the most part, can't really be grasped unless you start by jumping in feet first and experimenting right away. For those of you who are brave enough or bored enough to buck convention and try it out, make sure to share your most ludicrous hand histories or Boom Player replays in the comments section on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PartTimePoker/" target="_blank">Part Time Poker Facebook page</a>!</span><br />
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-12395652101688027912016-12-31T06:14:00.000-05:002016-12-31T06:14:07.999-05:00PPC Poker Tour Facing Demise Amidst Aruba Final Table Payout Scandal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>The following article is my first go at reporting for my new gig with Part Time Poker. I have loosely known the guys who run the site for quite a few years now, and I have always found them to have both the best poker content out there, in addition to running the best business. I am happy with the fruits of my first assignment, although unfortunately started to fall very ill during the home stretch and wasn't up to the task of doing a few final edits, particularly with regards to shortening some of the longer sentences. Luckily, it seems I will have the opportunity to go back over it and give it some touch up work, so if you happen to drop in to our site and everything seems perfectly fine, just disregard this part and enjoy it!</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2Wy7Dz7S_25gMdjI2ZVicN-iyBtjyNlftfCHyIqkewEWYwJPb0lBN-7yHtu8Cgwsml6geamDF84YZ4aENef3s58tXAHjVk_pwiyza_WLhAYIIQZjz7rzIKpnafJXvplj5dkMuluvVv0/s1600/PPC+Winner+Stephen+Deutsch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sandy Swartzbaugh and Bryan Oulton of the PPC posing with Aruba Main Event winner Stephen Deutsch" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2Wy7Dz7S_25gMdjI2ZVicN-iyBtjyNlftfCHyIqkewEWYwJPb0lBN-7yHtu8Cgwsml6geamDF84YZ4aENef3s58tXAHjVk_pwiyza_WLhAYIIQZjz7rzIKpnafJXvplj5dkMuluvVv0/s320/PPC+Winner+Stephen+Deutsch.jpg" title="PPC Poker Tour winner Stephen Deutsch" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandy Swartzbaugh and Bryan Oulton of the PPC Poker Tour posing with the as of yet unpaid winner of the No Limit Hold’em Main Event in Aruba, Stephen Deutsch.</td></tr>
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For what in hindsight now appear to be suspiciously vague reasons attributed to gaming laws in Aruba, the PPC put a cap of $10,000 to be paid out to winners at the event, with the promise of full payment coming within two to three weeks via wire transfer. In the time since Philbin broke the news, it has come to light that the PPC has had a history of delaying payments to its winners, a fact that was not considered to be newsworthy until very recently, as reportedly virtually all of the players in question were eventually made whole within a few weeks’ time.<br />
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It appears that this time around, however, patient players won’t be getting so lucky. Current news of payment delays not only encompasses recent tournament winners, but also several PPC employees and at least one sponsored pro. The tournament co-owners, Sandy Swartzbaugh and Bryan Oulton, have been dodging the spotlight and gone dark on their communications with the media and debt holders. As news of the tournament’s Aruba troubles have gained traction, they have failed to respond to inquiries regarding the missing funds, deleted any messages or criticisms concerning payouts on their Facebook page, stripped information and links from their homepage, and deleted their Twitter accounts.<br />
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<a href="http://www.parttimepoker.com/ppc-poker-tour-facing-demise-amidst-aruba-final-table-payout-scandal" target="_blank">Continue reading at Part Time Poker...</a><br />
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-9684817329752546532016-12-19T23:28:00.001-05:002016-12-19T23:28:51.833-05:00What's the Difference Between Pro Poker and Pro Daily Fantasy Sports?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The following article is a piece I had written for publication while I working a brief stint with <a href="https://www.pokertube.com/poker-news/poker-gossip-opinion/whats-the-difference-between-pro-poker-and-pro-dfs" target="_blank">PokerTube</a> this past summer. Until <span style="font-family: inherit;">I offered to do a random topic that their editor needed ASAP that none of their other writers wanted, I knew very little abo</span>ut Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and cared even less. I gave myself a weekend crash course on the subject that consisted of articles and podcasts and it turned out to be some pretty fascinating stuff. While I have no interest in pursuing any profit motive within the game, given the (hopefully) more or less accurate info I came up with below, I am certain that if I had applied myself to that endeavor with the same intensity as poker, I would have totally kicked ass at it as well....only to find myself broke and homeless again in another 11 years' time!<br />
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<i>P.S. Bonus points if you can spot where I whored myself out to the industry!</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd-YX1QUpAx5Vf_kxLMP-ZADGkVMQSng-hUaN_pFipCCPoi6kE695oAjUVBa6YsGc3T2d2rPgcTybtKHdlefvyr2CVrCXrE-6WChFtCiJ7XdG0wrXx6XNYvjwkgegvHgsGyth3lqpf4fE/s1600/pro+daily+fantasy+sports.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="There's money to be made in football..." border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd-YX1QUpAx5Vf_kxLMP-ZADGkVMQSng-hUaN_pFipCCPoi6kE695oAjUVBa6YsGc3T2d2rPgcTybtKHdlefvyr2CVrCXrE-6WChFtCiJ7XdG0wrXx6XNYvjwkgegvHgsGyth3lqpf4fE/s320/pro+daily+fantasy+sports.jpg" title="Pro Daily Fantasy Sports" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If your guy catches that pass, you be gettin' that ass</td></tr>
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What's the Difference Between Pro Poker and Pro DFS?</h1>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;">The ma</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">ssive popularity of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> has reached the point that it is now a viable contender with </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">poker</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> as a </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">career choice</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> in professional gaming. Assuming that you have the basic understanding of the level of commitment needed to succeed in each of these options and are starting off completely from scratch (like I did in poker), there are several important differences that you need to consider with respect to each when choosing to pursue one of them as a profession.</span></span></div>
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Scheduling flexibility</h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", "helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Poker may allow you to escape from being oppressed by demanding bosses and a glass ceiling, but in the very short term, you are actually more tethered to your job than just about anyone else. Pro poker players m</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", "helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">ay often find themselves stuck in one spot much longer than they would like, but they do have the option of sleeping in and compensating by grinding it out through the night. This means that players are not beholden to the schedules set by others. Of course, this must be done within reason, as even degenerates halfway around the world get a bit stingy with their vices after </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", "helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2 AM Eastern Time</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Open Sans", "helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's a reason that pro DFS players can take a swig off a Mountain Dew bottle without sniffing it first to make sure it's not yesterday's piss. Once you have opened up Draft Kings and bought into your matches, you aren't going to be penalized if you are forced to get up and answer the door for the FedEx guy or have a sudden onset of diarrhea. <span style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many aspiring poker players stray away from tournaments precisely because of the lack of scheduling </span><span style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">flexibility</span>, but even cash game players will find that spending too much time on the toilet will quickly eat into their profits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Waiting for the blinds to come back around to restart your session, or worse, having the fish you were targeting get felted in your absence will inevitably hurt your bottom-line. Having some time being isolated in a tiny white room with no distractions can actually be beneficial to the avid DFS player, as there is no more appropriate place to pick up a copy of Sports Illustrated and stay current!</span></div>
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The role of study</h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not everyone has the stamina or patience to slog through long poker sessions and large tournament fields. Harder still is doing this while maintaining tight focus and keeping your emotions in check. Any poker pro who has had a lengthy track record of success will tell you that in order to stay competitive, time must be allotted away from the tables to study. Nevertheless, poker study is no substitute for actual play, and there are many existing superstars who have never read a book on poker, nor have any grasp of mathematics beyond the sixth grade level, yet still succeed through logical deduction and a strong awareness of psychology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In DFS, your study time <i>is</i> your play, as there is no room for intuition. Confidence that the <span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Patriots</span> will mop up on <span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Monday Night Football</span> means nothing if <span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tom Brady</span> slams his fingers in the car door four hours before game time and you were too sloppy to double check if he was actually starting. One hundred percent of your results are determined by your efforts prior to kickoff. Provided that you have done your due diligence in picking your lineup and do your final revisions before game time to ensure you aren't crippled by last minute player substitutions, you can apply all your efforts when you are at your sharpest.</span></div>
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Skill scales in DFS</h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we start with the assumption that the king of the hill at Draft Kings is the site's very best player, he got there by being the consistent highest scorer. This means that the strategy he employs at the highest stakes will also be the highest scoring at every buy-in level below. This gives him the ability to click a button and enter every single contest using his top line-up at stakes so low relative to his skill level and bankroll that he is practically on a small stakes freeroll.*</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This factor wildly separates DFS from poker. Barring some crazy prop bet, world class poker players have no financial incentive to play all the available high stakes games while diverting their attention to pummel microstakes minnows. When deciding whether or not to go DFS or poker, you should give serious consideration to the pros and cons of this feature. This creates a barrier of entry lower for poker players, as you won't face superior competition while building up your bankroll. However, if you possess enough skill in DFS, you can use this to your advantage as you rise through the stakes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Poker players moving up the ranks will often experience culture shock once they reach a certain level and the general style of play diverges drastically from what they are accustomed to. This can even happen when switching to </span>a new site<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> with a different player pool, making it seem as if they are playing an entirely different game.</span></span></div>
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The importance of diversification</h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unless you are playing very high stakes poker, it's perfectly acceptable to choose to specialize in either <span style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NLH</span> or <span style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PLO</span> and make a career from a single game. This is not the case in DFS, as choosing to wager on just one or two sports means that you will be spending several months driving <span style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Joey Knish</span>'s truck. Since all major sports are seasonal, you are likely to have to get out of your comfort zone if you want to stay busy 365 days a year. This could very well mean that if you want to maximize your earnings potential, you will have to start taking an interest in sports you just plain don't like. The upside of this is that it should be easy to carry on a conversation with the old barflies at your local pub on any day of the week.</span></div>
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Current and future markets</h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lastly, and in my opinion, most importantly, before putting all your eggs in the DFS or poker basket. Poker has proven its longevity and is well established, but has suffered through many scandals and is under constant threat from regulators and legal uncertainties. DFS is decidedly legal, but relatively new, and will doubtless face its own challenges. It's very strong at the moment, but don't let the hard lessons we all learned from poker go to waste and stay vigilant!</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* DFS sites are taking steps to limit this practice in the hopes that the games become less predatory and more welcoming to new, casual players.</span></i></div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-84833961409448396532016-12-14T18:21:00.000-05:002016-12-15T18:01:22.331-05:00Where's Karl??<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I now have a new service that I can add to my writing resume! While it is quite likely that I will never get an opportunity to do something like this again in such an important context, I've always found that one's talents are best applied when doing good things for good people. Thus, when my best poker friend, and one of my best and most trusted friends, <i>period</i> asked me if I could write him a character reference as part of a CV (curriculum vitae) to submit to the Kenyan Gaming Commission on his behalf, I told him it would be ready by the time he wakes up. Even better, he not only allowed me to post this on my blog, he actually thought it would be great to add a back link to it to give it some heft, lol!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4qFy_iNPLKjKY8VxtLgB6tBk7jWdq24IaMX9kNycQg-WG0n0pD3Rwh0KKHtt-R-BqyfCSWGawEjBOw1NbPwH5dwA5ZiNTlMLFgstpXkCfZWZGgz-F2Gg3xm19DItMV7fIDwwuQ1sU1R8/s1600/Karl+Javadi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Karl Javadi posing for a selfie with a gorgeous Kenyan native." border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4qFy_iNPLKjKY8VxtLgB6tBk7jWdq24IaMX9kNycQg-WG0n0pD3Rwh0KKHtt-R-BqyfCSWGawEjBOw1NbPwH5dwA5ZiNTlMLFgstpXkCfZWZGgz-F2Gg3xm19DItMV7fIDwwuQ1sU1R8/s320/Karl+Javadi.JPG" title="Karl Javadi in Kenya" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karl doing what he does best: making friends and winning <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">hearts at his new home in Nairobi, Kenya.</span></td></tr>
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What a strange idea that this blog has taken me from struggling poker pro, to short stack scum, to widely regarded voice on strategy and the industry, to a paid writing position with <a href="http://riverstreetwriting.com/" target="_blank">River Street Writing</a>, and ultimately to a trustworthy source to vouch for a great man's character. While I sincerely hope that this most recent development will pay off in Karl's favor, I am honored that he would choose me to do so, nonetheless. I'm going to gush and ramble here for a bit, so don't be surprised if the following letter looks different after Karl has had a chance to review it and tell me if and where I may have gone on too long. Here goes....<br />
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<i>To whomever this may concern in the Kenyan Gaming Commission:</i><br />
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<i>I have known Karl Javadi for just shy of two years now. I was getting a Sonic the Hedgehog tattoo when he added me as a contact on Skype by request of a mutual friend and poker coaching client of mine. Being that I was forced to stay in one spot for several hours with very little to preoccupy myself, I was able to chat with Karl at length as he laid out the details of what he was currently doing in the world of poker. At that time, Karl had secured a spot as a customer service agent/liaison of sorts for a skin operating on the Klas Gaming poker network.</i><br />
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<i>In our first encounter, Karl immediately revealed himself to be an interesting and forthright character. Having spent many years in the pokersphere, I have learned to take first impressions with a grain of salt, yet I still left the conversation with the strong sense that I had a new ally in the poker world. Later on that evening, when speaking to him further on a Skype voice call, I felt like I had made a new friend.</i><br />
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<i>First and foremost, Karl is very transparent with his self-interests. Being that poker on the professional level is, at heart, a business venture, I am very comfortable with the aspects of one forming new relationships with a profit motive in mind. In this regard, Karl separates himself from the pack in the best way possible-- by making sure that not only are his motives clear, but that he will only move forward with them in a business relationship if he believes that it is also in the best interests of the other party. He very clearly states the risks involved, and makes no promises that he can't make good on personally if the worst case scenario does occur. As the gambling laws of the land vary widely from country to country and sometimes even state to state, Karl is very keen to the idea that what may be legal in one locale may be explicitly illegal in another. Thus, he always advises to exercise caution in any undertaking that may or not put the other party at risk, and makes it known when he is uncertain of the legal implications of moving forward.</i><br />
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<i>In the world of poker, a man's honor is always at stake, and this almost always comes down to matters of money. Currency and trust in poker are deeply entwined, and often transactions of hundreds or thousands of dollars are traded back and forth on a whim and guaranteed by nothing more than a digital handshake. This is where Karl's character has truly shined over the time we have known each other. He always gives first and often asks for little or nothing in return. For example, he has always offered the very best percentage deals in terms of staking arrangements, as he has a strong sense of the notion of taking care of the people he invests in and making sure that these people leave the deal happy, even if that means carrying the burden of additional financial risk himself. On more than one occasion, Karl has even swallowed losses to ensure that his friends and partners are taken care of if something unexpected on the higher level falls through, though it be no fault of his own or otherwise outside of his control.</i><br />
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<i>Going beyond matters of money, Karl has always been available to be a sympathetic ear for personal matters. The most memorable time was when I had gotten into an awful argument with my then-wife and subsequently fell down the stairs (don't ask!). In the figurative sense, Karl picked me up and dusted me off. He listened to the entire story, and then his first move was to hold me accountable for my share of the blame before going on to help me resolve the issue. While it may feel great to be able to vent about personal matters, even though I had only known him for less than two months at that time, I knew that he was exactly the person that I could go to for an unbiased opinion.</i><br />
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<i>I can offer many additional examples if required, but hopefully I have painted enough of a picture of this great man already. Please let me know if anything else is required and I will be more than happy to oblige.</i><br />
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<i>Sincerely,</i><br />
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<i>Lorin Yelle, aka "The Short Stack Hero"</i><br />
<i>My Blog: http://smallstakeshero.blogspot.com </i><br />
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-28769573161593856642016-06-08T01:56:00.000-04:002016-06-08T01:56:11.564-04:00Did Dan Bilzerian Make His Millions Playing Poker?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4r5T5ng32Ms46SVHeKxDjo_JVd51hturgFUBDNvxwzlZuuYWhV4cdH2oTDtXgRUPWalgrQoYCDLp3GR1XI1taP5dCfJJQfyOxgcLKMV9FkLbYU6fusgjARI4z5viP8KC-usvscCzubE/s1600/dan+bilzerian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dan Bilzerian surrounded by tons of scantily clad women" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4r5T5ng32Ms46SVHeKxDjo_JVd51hturgFUBDNvxwzlZuuYWhV4cdH2oTDtXgRUPWalgrQoYCDLp3GR1XI1taP5dCfJJQfyOxgcLKMV9FkLbYU6fusgjARI4z5viP8KC-usvscCzubE/s320/dan+bilzerian.jpg" title="Dan Bilzerian" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Did I really make all my money playing poker? Who fucking cares?"</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I rarely claim 100% knowledge on the affairs of people I don't know personally, but I can say with 99% certainty that the answer is "not a chance". Please note that the following text isn't, nor is meant to be, quoted verbatim, yet read on to see why the details aren't important.</span><br />
<br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Dan tipped his hand when he said in an interview with Howard Stern that he won $50 million playing poker in a single year, with the implication that he must have made far more than that by getting his start as a poker pro. He then thumbed his nose at other high stakes overachievers by saying, "really, who else has done that?"</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">So how am I so certain that he actually didn't get his start as a poker pro? I've been involved in online poker for 12 years and more or less know of all the biggest names in the game. From what I've read, I'm not the only one who never heard of Dan Bilzerian until a few years ago when he made a deep run in the WSOP $10,00 Main Event, and that's because other than this rather "meh" non piece of news, he never made any significant mark on the poker world. No big tournament wins, no WSOP bracelets, etc.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Ok...no big deal. All serious players know that besides a handful of outliers, </span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><i>all </i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">of the biggest winners in poker play cash games, not tournaments. Online players also know basically every single player who plays in the biggest stakes in the world, which one would </span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><i>have</i></b><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">to play in order to make anywhere near $10 million, let alone $50 million. </span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I say "basically" because there were some players who tried to be anonymous in order to get action, but since players who regularly play in games where millions of dollars are won or lost in a session draw a lot of attention to themselves, the desired anonymity never lasts and their identities are eventually outed. Dan's name was never among these players, and someone boasting of making so much money is completely contrary to the idea of being anonymous.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">So we have established that he has no public record of winning a significant sum of money. However, that doesn't rule out one last possibility: that he made a boatload of cash playing in private, ultra high stakes home games populated with celebrities and other wealthy people with money to burn.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I have read that he has played in games with Toby Maguire, and even was able publicly to vouch for Major League baseball star, Alex Rodriguez, that he </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">was not </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">present at this home game on a specific date, implying that Dan was, in fact, a regular at this home game, and thus a reliable witness. Admittedly, since I don't have any real interest in this subject (a total contradiction after writing this much, I know :), I haven't even bothered to verify whether this particular tidbit is true. However, it's not necessary because....</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu2yEHEBgbFx-HDqy1uzlcun3OjpMNHSCotxZUDNnnLIQklHvAnPTVdU6HifxmkFOaewmUxP7iqFC8wNB9hv_SPteVt2-Xm_ldR41E4sXsNuNL6coB6zSkPhyZh93MjZUI0EvZWo8e1dI/s1600/dan+bilzerian+silver+car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dan Bilzerian driving an expensive convertible" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu2yEHEBgbFx-HDqy1uzlcun3OjpMNHSCotxZUDNnnLIQklHvAnPTVdU6HifxmkFOaewmUxP7iqFC8wNB9hv_SPteVt2-Xm_ldR41E4sXsNuNL6coB6zSkPhyZh93MjZUI0EvZWo8e1dI/s320/dan+bilzerian+silver+car.jpg" title="Dan Bilzerian silver car" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paid in full, courtesy of Alex Rodriguez</td></tr>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><i>People don't get invited into private, ultra high stakes games, unless they first have a ton of money in the first place!!</i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> In other words, the other players in the game aren't going to ignore their itch to gamble for stakes higher than anything available in public casinos just to let Dan grind up his roll in $5/10 games, even if he is funny and brings entertainment...although it's quite likely that these would be reasons why he would be invited back :)</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Final note: </b><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">In another interview where Bilzerian continued the outrageous claim of making $50 million playing poker, he followed that up with a peculiar humble brag, saying that his skill level is somewhere between a good high school player to perhaps the minor leagues, yet he is able to win so much because the players he fleeces play at the tee-ball level (again, not a verbatim quote, but close). Again, this doesn't fit the narrative, as anyone publicly insulting the generous benefactors that they have been hustling isn't likely to ever get invited back in those games.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I do, however, find it to be quite likely that he </span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><i>has </i></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">won millions in these games, but hopefully we can finally shut the door on whether or not this is how he became wealthy in the first place.</span></div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-50861572547685393792016-06-03T17:51:00.001-04:002018-12-01T19:33:26.292-05:00When A Poker Player Becomes a Man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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With moist eyes that are hesitant to aim in your direction, your special ladyfriend finally looks up at you and softly utters, "I'm pregnant."</div>
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At odds of approximately 4 to 1 against with one card to go, your nut draw finally hit. Maybe you didn't buy enough condoms and were underrolled for the high stakes you were playing, or maybe you just drank too much one night at the casino and carelessly blew your wad in the pit.</div>
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Seriously, what did you expect? When you keep pumping your dough into a slot machine, the alarm is eventually going to sound and you will be forced to present your ID and pay taxes on your big score. Rejoice little man, you're about to be a dad!</div>
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If you have seen the movie <em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A Beautiful Mind</em><span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">, the quasi-historically accurate account of mathematician and game theorist John Nash, I'm sure you remember that cringe-worthy scene where Russell Crowe attempts to proposition his wife-to-be by saying:</span></div>
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<i><b>I don't exactly know what I am required to say in order for you to have intercourse with me. But could we assume that I said all that. I mean essentially we are talking about fluid exchange right? So could we go just straight to the sex.</b></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7i0VRNxX_Fcc1h38-df0_0SbW_muEuW5clsKeWekzn742nLk6fNoXzoS0256pOItPopx1Er9fyeYeEhf_hjl-b62Kx4ST7CuoBgRi4F0YUGLI1WvNcdhEd2Y49LJhUyBatkoG6YwkVM/s1600/a+beautiful+mind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A Beautiful Mind sex quote scene" border="0" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7i0VRNxX_Fcc1h38-df0_0SbW_muEuW5clsKeWekzn742nLk6fNoXzoS0256pOItPopx1Er9fyeYeEhf_hjl-b62Kx4ST7CuoBgRi4F0YUGLI1WvNcdhEd2Y49LJhUyBatkoG6YwkVM/s320/a+beautiful+mind.jpg" title="John Nash A Beautiful Mind" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Um...no."</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 22px;">Since the girl you have been shagging all this time just told you she's pregnant, it's safe to assume that you have only been stealing John's math formulas for personal gain and not his horrid pick up lines.</span></div>
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Nash's direct approach may give him a distinct advantage in a competition to seduce Siri in the fewest possible moves, but this is a delicate situation that must be handled with finesse. In fact, it's probably best that you just turn off your analytical poker brain for a bit and do as little thinking as possible. Any hesitation will be perceived as weakness, so just absorb the information below and keep your mouth shut until you are certain she is done talking.</div>
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There are two main questions on every guy's mind as soon as he hears this news. At the point of delivery, the only thing that matters is that you</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">do not</em></div>
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ask them out loud. This, my young poker padawans, is the relationship equivalent of a negative freeroll. You don't win anything by playing it right, but you have the potential to withstand heavy losses if you blow it. Let me go ahead and answer them for you.</div>
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<b>Q: Are you sure you're actually pregnant?</b></div>
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<b>A: <em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Yes dumbass, she is</em><span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">. </span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">She's got the test results in her purse right now. She most likely has one or two backups as well in preparation of thwarting any lame argument you were going to make concerning the statistical rates of false positives. By asking to see the results, all you are doing is insulting her intelligence and stalling for extra time. Don't worry, she'll explain later.</span></div>
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<b>Q: Is it my baby?</b></div>
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<b>A: <em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Don't you dare go there, asshole</em><span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">! </span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">If you managed to suppress your shock long enough to hold your tongue through the first question, if you ask this, it's going to be replayed back at you in every single argument like the world's worst bad beat story. Sharing a roof with her will be like being locked up in prison with an Alzheimer's-stricken Phil Hellmuth.</span></div>
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If it's not your baby, then it's better to just assume:</div>
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A) She probably wouldn't be here in the first place.</div>
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B) You would have already heard about it from her much less attractive friend who has secretly wanted to sleep with you since high school.</div>
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For now, just concern yourself with disarming the bomb while you are within the blast radius. After she falls asleep in your loving arms, steal her phone and start sifting through her text messages. The truth should come to light immediately</div>
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Whether you want to believe it or not, you are a lot closer to John Nash by nature than you are to Neil Strauss. You may think you chose poker as a profession, but it's just as likely that poker chose you. That's why instead of shredding guitar on a stage in front of 20,000 fans, you are quietly mashing buttons in the world's most cutthroat MMO while trying to convince your mother that what you are doing in her basement is actually gainful employment-- right before asking her to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.</div>
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The good news is that not too long ago, Neil Strauss was probably a lot closer to being like John Nash than you are right now, proving that your current uber-dork status is more likely to be a temporary ailment than a terminal disease. Any guy with enough practice can memorize a few psychological techniques strong enough to get a girl's number, and applying a little more skill was probably enough to get you into her pants. From there, it's quite likely that being with you long enough lowered her self-esteem to the point where she actually she convinced herself that you were boyfriend material. If this was the route you took to get this far, getting blindsided by news such as this can hit you hard enough to cause your entire PUA house of cards to collapse in an instant, exposing you as the fraud you really are in front of one of the few people in the world whose opinion actually matters. We can't let this happen.</div>
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I'm not entirely convinced you are understanding just how important this moment is, so let's drive the point home a little harder, shall we?</div>
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Erik Seidel might be your poker idol, but to the outside world, he is just that scrawny douchebag wearing the ridiculous long billed red visor who donked off all his chips to Johnny Chan when heads up in the 1988 WSOP Main Event. Meanwhile, 28 years later, Johnny Chan as the poker player may not matter at all to you, but to everyone who has ever seen <em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Rounders</em><span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">, he is that Asian stud who brilliantly manipulated some random, scrawny douchebag who would be completely forgettable save for that strikingly hideous red visor.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadil7MNCjWfBM2k5aPZYI8wQr1mtYaP3Sdicxz6ssC3nFJX26R9Vkw582bIt0b5Sr0ymHFEgYvejWfnz5NuQ_dYqPF1U2FfxcySeAqly6strzeubqKIMro9_N-7baoexWtXezTyWe4eE/s1600/erik+seidel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Erik Seidel wearing a stupid visor." border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadil7MNCjWfBM2k5aPZYI8wQr1mtYaP3Sdicxz6ssC3nFJX26R9Vkw582bIt0b5Sr0ymHFEgYvejWfnz5NuQ_dYqPF1U2FfxcySeAqly6strzeubqKIMro9_N-7baoexWtXezTyWe4eE/s320/erik+seidel.jpg" title="Erik Seidel" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erik Seidel back in his "good looking days".</td></tr>
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I'm a poker pro, too, so yes, I get it. Over the long haul, variance evens out and Seidel wins the big money. We agree on that. Yet whether you play cash, tournies, SNG's, or whatever, there are always going to be some pots that matter more than others. Ask yourself how many of those TV sponsored players that you publicly criticize (yet privately envy) have launched their careers based on the outcome of just a single big bluff or call while the cameras were tilted their in their direction?</div>
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You have the rest of your life to be Erik Seidel, but this is your Johnny Chan moment.</div>
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Wait...scratch that. You are never going to be Johnny Chan, period. You can, however, avoid having your infamous Erik Seidel malfunction. While he did earn $280,000 for his runner-up finish, I'm sure he would happily trade all that money and throw in a few bracelets as well just to squash the feeling of dread every time there is a possible straight on the board or he overhears someone making a Teddy KGB impression at the next table over.</div>
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Besides...he's Erik Seidel, for god's sake. While I doubt that Matt Damon can actually play cards worth a shit, there's not a single woman in the world who would pass him up in favor of Erik Seidel, whose natural charm evokes all the excitement of an all night fisting session with HAL-2000 in subzero temperatures.</div>
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Let's get back to the situation at hand. You just got the biggest news of your entire life and your knee-jerk response is to preserve your pathetic, lackluster bachelor status and retreat into cowardice. Even if this is the worst thing you could have imagined, steady yourself with the consoling thought that there is</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">at least one </em>person in the world who will be forced to publicly testify that your junk is in workable condition.</div>
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Now...</div>
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Put on your best poker face, remove your stupid red visor, imagine you just double-barreled some bullshit hand and backdoored a gutshot, then look that sexy woman straight in the eye and say,</div>
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"You're pregnant?! That is <em style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.57143em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">sooooo </em><span style="line-height: 1.57143em;">awesome!"</span></div>
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Congratulations and welcome to the real world, kid!</div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-11535718372768600342014-12-29T23:47:00.000-05:002016-06-03T02:27:53.572-04:00Review: YourDoom's "How to Play OOP from the Blinds version 2014"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Disclosure: I am affiliated with YourDoom for <b><i>this specific product</i></b>, but the review is completely unbiased. I strongly suggest reading the whole review, or you can skip ahead and purchase <a href="http://www.yourdoompoker.com/testcourse.php?action=add&courseId=240" target="_blank">How to Play OOP from the Blinds version 2014</a> and use my exclusive code Z50 at checkout to get a 10% discount. Purchase comes with a downloadable HUD, access to his private forum, and lifetime updates.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_WCsYuuKM012Zu3QJ35FFi6CL3o0fe_Z2c54AlOw69F4D6MpzhRtt6zUX305unPBRXB4A4w3qQO6flUFbRaHXc1GafTYyINZHHugbcuFAyDuwy0r6gsNnAKZr1vPvrEOzk5zRXVfUqQ/s1600/yourdoompoker.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_WCsYuuKM012Zu3QJ35FFi6CL3o0fe_Z2c54AlOw69F4D6MpzhRtt6zUX305unPBRXB4A4w3qQO6flUFbRaHXc1GafTYyINZHHugbcuFAyDuwy0r6gsNnAKZr1vPvrEOzk5zRXVfUqQ/s320/yourdoompoker.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;"><u>Review</u></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">In an era when lots of long running poker coaches seem to have been coming under fire for no longer being in touch with the modern game by advising worn out, expired tactics and strategies from days past, Ryan Power, aka "YourDoom" has seen his share of critics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Ryan, as an active peddler of a fairly large library of premium priced coaching products is, by default, going to be the ideal target of such criticism, whether it be fair game or just the knee-jerk response of jealous and spiteful trolls. Generally speaking, I'm not interested in the product lines offered by other coaches, but not because I doubt their quality or authenticity. Rather, it is because most of the material on offer is too generalized for my taste.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">With that in mind, one of Ryan's products happened to catch my eye, as it covered a topic that drilled down into an area of my own game that needs the most improvement, and that is defending the blinds out of position.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">In the spirit of self-education and the hopes that I could gain some knowledge to pass on to my own students in an area that is, admittedly, lacking in my own material, I reached out to Ryan in the hopes that he could allow me to personally review </span><span style="font-family: "tahoma";"><b><a href="http://www.yourdoompoker.com/testcourse.php?action=add&courseId=240" target="_blank">How to Play OOP from the Blinds version 2014</a></b></span><span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;"> it for free, and he politely obliged my request. Here is what I have to say:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">First off, for those who may be skeptical of content that simply rehashes old plays that have since been countered and solved, I can immediately put that skepticism to rest. The video is 100% theory based, making it essentially a robust work with effectiveness that won't dilute over time. In other words, it should be just as relevant 10 years from now as it is today, despite any fluctuating changes in the nature of how the game evolves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">This video contains roughly 6 hours of theoretical discussion that is backed up by numerous hand examples that Ryan thoroughly discusses with expert technical knowledge. While it is by no means aimed at a novice audience, Ryan lays out all the information with enough clarity that virtually any player should be able to understand and apply the concepts immediately.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">I was impressed by how he was able to flexibly demonstrate how hands of various classes (i.e. suited connectors or weak Broadway combos) should be played vs. a variety of player types with differing steal and c-bet frequencies, as well as being able to interpret combinations of HUD stats along with NoteCaddy notes to dynamically alter his postflop approach.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">It also covers a wide range of scenarios, such as flatting the small blind with an eye for how an overcall by the BB will affect the dynamic, the criteria involved in choosing the best line amongst donking, checkraising, or check calling, completing the SB to attack weak limpers, and avoiding pitfalls when choosing whether or not to get involved in multiway pots.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Lastly, my favorite part was when Ryan showed his formulaic deduction process of sniffing out potential three barrel river bluffs for hero calls. Using a combination of villain open and c-bet frequencies, flop texture, and a gradual math-based deduction of turn and river runouts to determine a finely tuned probability that villain has what he is representing. He then cross-references that information with regards to pot odds, without having to resort to the simplistic gut-based, lackadaisical approach to odds that most players seem to apply before making crude decisions. At each decision point in the deduction process, he pulls out <a href="http://www.flopzilla.com/" target="_blank">Flopzilla</a>, an excellent offline analysis tool, to illustrate the process visually to allow us to easily follow along.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">After watching all of the videos, it should be clear to the viewer that playing these tricky spots is all about making clearly defined decisions based on logic and a cohesive strategy, rather than making soul reads or gut-based decisions. Furthermore, it should also be clear that the studious player should be able to emulate this process by reviewing hands post-session and running the scenarios through analysis programs such as the aforementioned Flopzilla.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Of course, even great works could be improved upon, but the only minor criticism I can offer is that I would have liked seeing more situations on scary boards, particularly monotone flops when hero might catch a piece in combination with a weak flush draw. Make no mistake, though: the YourDoom "</span><span style="font-family: "tahoma";"><b><a href="http://www.yourdoompoker.com/testcourse.php?action=add&courseId=240" target="_blank">How to Play OOP from the Blinds version 2014</a></b>" </span><span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">is a fine product and worth every penny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Should you be interested in <a href="http://www.yourdoompoker.com/testcourse.php?action=add&courseId=240" target="_blank">purchasing it</a>, don't forget to use the exclusive code <b>Z50 </b>at checkout to get a <b>10% discount</b>,<b> </b></span><br />
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-1920540287551057672014-12-18T23:24:00.000-05:002016-06-03T02:34:42.005-04:00A Practical Solution to Poker Liquidity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Keep on squeezin', my brother!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">With all of the proposed solutions to solving the, ahem, "problem" of the predatory nature of poker, one tiny, but not completely insignificant improvement that I have not seen mentioned is to target the "Player Search" feature found within most poker clients. As far as I can tell, this feature is just a relic from the pre-Boom days when players actually considered online poker to be a fun pastime and would choose to sit and play with their friends, had fun and meaningful chat, and said quaint things like "nh" without the slightest hint of sarcasm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Yet what purpose does this serve in the modern game? Virtually all serious players eliminate themselves from the search by ticking a box within the settings. Since the pros are doing this, and yet a certain portion of the recreational players aren't, it only makes sense that either:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">1) Hiding yourself from the search conveys some kind of advantage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">2) Not hiding yourself from search puts you at a disadvantage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">I actively participate in #1 and can't say if that makes a difference to me as a winning player, but I can say definitively that #2 makes me jump for joy. It means that I can find my new best friends wherever they are sitting, and even though I'm typically not a fan of playing 3-handed, I'll happily jump up a limit or two and seize the best seat to make sure I get a slice of that pie before it gets gobbled up if it just so happens that I like the flavor enough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Clearly, this arrangement is ass-backwards. If the sites won't or can't (seriously doubtful) eliminate this, they should at least make this lame feature opt-in, rather than opt-out. At the very least, this minor improvement would be neither invasive, nor outright disrespectful to the regs and pros who hold the completely contradictory position of simultaneously being a site's best customers and most loathed patrons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Removing this feature or having players choose to be involved should make a small difference, and certainly wouldn't ruffle the feathers of the regulars, who despite obviously being considered to be a burden to the site (which I don't necessarily buy, or at the very least understand, due to the fact that most tables are populated almost exclusively by regs), are consistently being pecked away at by sites who want to ever-lower their winrates, with the absolute scummiest banning them altogether.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">I have no idea of whether or not this matters from a marketing perspective, but so much for selling the dream of becoming the next poker millionaire. This only seems plausible by promoting WSOP winners or having site-owning superusers steal easily from their players unnoticed and untraceable in the anonymous tables. Makes me wonder if there wasn't some internal scandal at iPoker which caused them to eliminate them to cover it up, but one thing is for sure: it hasn't done shit for their cash game traffic. Quite likely the opposite, it appears.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">The never-ending squeezing that poker pros are subjected to is just one more reason why I expect legalized American poker to flub. Quite frankly, if they intend on copying the worst practices from existing offshore sites (which I fully expect), I am hoping that they fail.</span></div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-90428549432980737062014-12-09T02:21:00.000-05:002016-06-03T02:32:07.317-04:00The Human Cost of Opportunity Cost<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stay hydrated, my friends.</td></tr>
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Pro poker players tend to be a big fan of the concept of "opportunity cost", which is defined by dictionary.com as:
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"The money or other benefits lost when pursuing a particular course of action instead of a mutually-exclusive alternative."
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Let me translate it to the definition as defined by poker players:
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"The money lost when mowing your own lawn or otherwise engaging in unnecessary, menial activities that are beneath you when you could be slaving away at your computer and pissing into an empty coke bottle."
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There is a problem here. </div>
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Although the concept is essentially true, it can be used to justify basically whatever you are too lazy to do, while also being cherry-picked to a greater degree than the King James bible.
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How so? Well, ask yourself which of these you would pay for in terms of opportunity cost:
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Put a figurative check-mark next to all that apply.
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1. De-cluttering your garage.<br />
2. Renting the private room in a club with premium bottle service.<br />
3. Assembling your new computer desk.<br />
4. Sleeping until 3:00 PM.<br />
5. Playing video games for 6 hours straight.<br />
6. Trimming your bushes and cleaning up the debris.
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These all have something in common: each one is costing you money in terms of opportunity cost, yet options #2, #4, and #5 are completely frivolous.
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I should know.</div>
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Other paying someone to set up my desk or renting out a private room in a club (however, I once did pick up a $70 bar tab for four previous co-workers to feel cool, which is a super douchebag move), I have done all these things. One could point out that perhaps the trip to the club wasn't during play time, but the resulting hangover and inevitable next-day sluggishness is inarguably cutting into your profits.</div>
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I can't remember the guy who did this, but there was a tourney pro who boasted of being so lazy that he offered his two roommates 1% of his action in a high stakes tourney to assemble his new computer desk. Apparently, he hadn't completely thought it through, because he went on to bink it for $400k and had to pay out $8,000 for a $10 job. He laughed at the notion in a post-tourney interview, but I'm sure that he now cringes whenever he thinks of it.
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For my own part, about two years ago, I hired a guy I found on Craigslist to mow my lawn once a week. It cost me $I5 each time, but I always tossed in an extra $3 as a tip. I did this because I convinced myself that the "opportunity cost" of doing it myself was too high to justify doing it because I would be passing up on more valuable time at the poker tables. Besides, we had a really shitty mower that rattled around, wasn't adjustable enough to cut as low as I preferred, and was too small to have the weight needed to keep it moving in a straight line while passing over uneven terrain. I <i>did </i>want a new one, but my little Hyundai Elantra wasn't large enough to fit one. Thus, the "opportunity cost" of scheduling a convenient time for my good buddy Travis to help me move one in his much larger SUV was simply too much of a burden.
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Really, I was just lying to myself. The times when I would be available to do it are times that I would never normally be playing poker, like right after dinner. It also turns out that unlike what I had convinced myself, I actually <i>could </i>fit a new mower in the backseat of my car, because [feigning shock] they came in boxes, not fully assembled like the display at Home Depot. Who knew?!
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The fact was that I just <i>didn't want to do it</i>.
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I can't remember what spurned it- perhaps I got tired of paying or could no longer afford to have it mowed for me, so I sucked it up, pulled out the wallet and got a new mower. I put it together myself (which took about 5 minutes), filled it up with gas, and got to work with it. Once I was done, sweaty and reeking of gasoline and chopped onions*, I looked back over my work and felt something completely unexpected. It was pride in my home, a connection to my fellow man, and a sensation of masculinity.
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Yes, you read that correctly. Sociologists be damned, a man's need to FEEL like a man is in his DNA, and despite how "cool" you think it might feel to play poker for a living, any activity that has you sitting on your ass for hours on end for a paycheck will inevitably strip away this feeling that is essential to your overall well-being. Tilt-punching your desk and putting holes in the drywall while getting bruised and bloody knuckles is NOT a suitable replacement.
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More surprising than the initial sensation itself is the fact that this event happened over 3 years ago, yet that feeling still hasn't diminished one single bit. Though I realize it sounds silly, my lawnmower is still one of my most beloved possessions and I still get a quick thrill whenever I give that initial yank on the cord to start it up.
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Like it or not, your days as a poker player <i>will </i>end at some point. If you have simply been throwing your money at all your problems or anything that inconveniences you, not only will you have nothing of value to put on your resume, you will have a complete lack of skills concerning <i>anything </i>essential to your survival out in the real world. Just get out of bed, drop the attitude, and make your mama proud.</div>
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Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention...keep the piss bottle handy. The cost of sitting out and flying down the hall with your dick spraying everywhere is the only thing you <i>really </i>have to worry about ;)<br />
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*Green onions grow wild on a lot of patches of grass in Louisville and therefore the scent is usually associated with cut grass and summer.</b></span></div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-70451312965320899452014-11-16T01:52:00.002-05:002016-06-04T01:06:08.006-04:00Student Hand Analysis: Hero Flops Nut Straight vs. Cutoff Limper<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>*Note: comments below have been paraphrased for ease of readability.</i></span></div>
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<u><b>STUDENT COMMENTARY</b></u></div>
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<i><b>"Opponent plays a 29/5/2, and bets flop in position 75%.</b></i></div>
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<b><i>What are your thoughts about the turn bet? </i><i>On the river I was choosing between a shove or a check/call. What do you suggest is the better play here?"</i></b></div>
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I love the hand as was played, but let's start from the beginning.</div>
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<u><b>PREFLOP</b></u></div>
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Villain's stats are fairly fishy, but just as important, if not moreso, is the fact he open limped on the cutoff, which is the weakest spot to do so. Open shoving preflop is a profitable option, albeit marginally so with this specific hand, therefore completing the small blind is perfectly fine, while folding is clearly not an option.</div>
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<b><u>THE FLOP</u></b></div>
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The flop play is good, but it is probably very close when compared against the other two options of donking out or checkraising. This flop hits very well against both limping and opening ranges, so unless he has a small pocket pair, he is usually catching a piece of this. </div>
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Of the three options of check/calling, donking out, or checkraising, I like check raising the least, since there are a lot of ways that he can catch a piece of this flop, yet still be far from being committed to it. When playing with small stacks, any checkraise is putting him to an immediate commitment decision that he may not be thrilled about, such as when holding something like T8 or Q9, which he would love to see a turn card with. By letting him see the turn by donking out or check/calling, you giving him a chance to improve in a way that is much more likely to suck him in and stack him. Of course, if he is ready to commit now, then taking the lines of donking or check/calling aren't going to change his decision.</div>
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<u><b>THE TURN</b></u></div>
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I like the line of choosing to lead out, because this is a spot where villain::</div>
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1) Will likely check back and pot control with good/decent hands that have been ruined, such as two pair or sets, and the potential of pocket aces, which, given the fact that his PFR is very low at 5%, makes it more likely to be in his limping range than a guy who is open raising 100% of his cutoff range.</div>
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2) Is unlikely to barrel behind on <i>both streets</i> unless he has now caught up with you holding a single Q, or in the rare case, beating you with exactly AJ.</div>
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3) Facing a checkraise is highly unlikely to get him to stack off in a way he <i>wouldn't also</i> do vs. both a turn and river bet.</div>
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Leading out in this spot is also how the good mid and high stakes players play, as this type of board texture allows them to make very effective float/bluff lines vs. other regulars*, such as if you had Kx with a backdoor flush draw and chose to turn your hand into a bluff. Since you are representing a very specific hand on this board with the implicit threat of a pot-sized river shove, he is therefore only left with two options: call or fold, but never raise.</div>
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<i>*This would be a situation where you were defending the BB against an open raise from a regular, as it is extremely rare for them to open limp the cutoff.</i></div>
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<b><u>THE RIVER</u></b></div>
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In my opinion, against all player types, a shove is the best play, even if there is now a reasonable chance you are beat, as the J is a very crappy card. Since you never intended to fold, and since he <i>obviously</i> had enough to call a potentially pot committing bet on the turn, he is either going to stack you with a boat or check behind a lot of hands he may have called with, like trip Jack's.</div>
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Furthermore, suppose he did have trip Jack's and thought it was worth a small thin value bet if you had checked to him. He would probably also make the same sized bet with a rivered full house, since the board has now gotten so bad that most players, both good and bad, should see that you have pretty much run out of hands that can reasonably call a larger bet.</div>
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The problem with this scenario is that if this situation had happened, you would be forced to <i>only call</i> with your one-card straight, since by checkraising you can only beat a bluff (which obviously won't call), or exactly trip Jack's. The logic, of course, is that if he were willing to bet and call a shove with trip Jack's then he certainly would have called the shove.</div>
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Well played, sir!</div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-90276032847630027822014-11-11T01:53:00.003-05:002016-06-03T02:36:24.788-04:00A Recreational Player's Perspective on Rake Changes at PokerStars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've been spending a lot of time recently on something very...special for this blog, so I just wanted to keep everything moving along (posting) until it's ready. Even though this wasn't at the top of my list to put here, as I have plenty of other articles basically ready for print, I realized that I had been burning up all my time with the other project, so they will be rolling out more or less on schedule. I also plan on releasing some in depth strategy stuff as well...it's been way too long!</div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">-Lorin</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not every fish fits the profile...</td></tr>
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<a href="http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/waaay-tl-dr-post-rec-player-regarding-poker-stars-negreanu-statements-1487134/" target="_blank">This was a notable post</a> from a self-described recreational player, and even though he doesn't fit the profile of what we would consider to be a "fish", it was quite enlightening to see that they come in all shapes and sizes.</div>
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If you want to understand my reply in context, I suggest reading the full initial post and then the first few pages. This is what I had to say on TwoPlusTwo:<br />
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<i>Great read from OP. I only got to the third page, so pardon me if someone already pointed out this fact somewhere between pages 4 and 10:</i><br />
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<i>I was thinking the same thing as many people here, that OP isn't really representative of the recs because he uses HEM, played 300k hands, etc., etc.</i>
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<i>Perhaps the most important thing he pointed out was that he didn't realize how much rake he was paying to PokerStars until all this b.s. became such big news.</i>
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<i>So in a sense, he still fits into a rec category, perhaps if nothing more than for the fact that he previously turned a blind eye to a very important factor in what determines a winning player.</i>
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<i>However, this makes me wonder....</i><br />
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<i>Does a player like this ultimately have more value than someone who loses 40bb/100? After all, the -40bb guy can dump it all in 50 hands and then everyone sits out. That means no more money for regs OR Stars. However, if a guy like this takes a seat, surely the game will run a lot longer, so now Stars gets the drop from all the regs as well, and maybe the game runs for 1,000 hands.</i><br />
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<i>I mean, seriously...isn't this the ideal situation? After all, letting the fish hold on to their money longer to generate more rake is the reason the term "rigtard" exists </i>:)
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-77197853537331139082014-10-30T14:01:00.003-04:002016-06-04T01:07:21.194-04:00PokerStars Increases Rake in Attempt to Eliminate Concept of "Poker Pro"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rakeback Grinders Union (RGU) are not ones to fuck with.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "droid sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.9999942779541px;"><a href="http://pokerfuse.com/news/live-and-online/26002-pokerstars-increases-rake-ends-25-million-year-promotion/" target="_blank">This is just...sickening</a>. In the interest of fairness and being as impartial as possible, I don't do their accounting and haven't looked at their books, so I have to ASSUME they have a good reason. Perhaps their business is tanking and they are implementing a desperate measure to stay afloat. If so, then good for them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "droid sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.9999942779541px;">I had originally assumed that PokerStars targeting <a href="http://pokertableratings.com/" target="_blank">Pokertableratings</a> with accusations of stealing their intellectual property (a charge no one believes, but a billion dollar company can basically "extort" smaller companies with highly paid lawyers and the threat of a long and drawn out legal battle that the defendant can't possibly afford) as a means of shielding their sponsored pros from public humiliation. Pokertableratings also had (and still has) a horrific commenting feature which only serves as graffiti wall for shame and schadenfreude motivated trolls. A friend of mine pointed out a much more plausible scenario, in which Stars didn't want the public at large to see how much rake people were paying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "droid sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.9999942779541px;">The rake idea makes sense (and even more sense as of today's breaking news), yet another idea just struck me at this very moment as I was heading into a related point. Why didn't other big players in the industry, such as iPoker not use the same reasoning to go after Pokertableratings? It's all clear to me now. The obvious answer is that there is a solid base of active players who are putting up fantastic winrates at 6-max tables, often in excess of 4bb/100 over large samples. PokerStars, out of shame, don't want people to know that even most pros are putting up negative to breakeven winrates and only squeezing out a modest living by virtue of collecting bonuses. Bonuses and rakeback, lest we forget, are simply a rebate on the rake that WE, as players, pay. This means the house is still getting their cut of the action, even from the so-called "winners" who are somehow destroying the games. PokerStars' choice to extort Pokertableratings into "voluntarily" eliminating their players from searches no longer seems to be in the public's best interest, it is now bordering on simply being unethical.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "droid sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.9999942779541px;">In light of the new crushing rake changes, Hyper SNG's are almost certainly going to be unbeatable, as the current pool of regs seem to collectively agree that a 0% ROI is "boss". For those of you on the outside, this means that people who are playing thousands of these ridiculously high variance games are only "crushing" by reaching the highest tier of bonuses in the form of Supernova Elite status, while not making a <i>single fucking dime</i> at the tables. The players who move beyond "boss" status into the realm of the truly elite are earning an ROI of just 1-2%, but surely these new rake changes should drive at least the 1%ers into the breakeven range or negative, especially because many of the weaker regs will no longer be able to beat the game and depart of their own accord, leaving only stronger competition with even fewer fish to feed them. Oh yeah, there will be plenty of clingers who spend a few more months battling it out before being bled dry and broke from the rake. But hey, those guys are just ruining the games, right? Good riddance!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "droid sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.9999942779541px;">Well played, PokerStars. With <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amaya-completes-acquisition-of-pokerstars-and-full-tilt-poker-2014-08-01" target="_blank">Amaya's purchase of Rational Group</a>, the company that owns Stars and FTP, I am thinking that a name change is now in order, since there won't be any stars anymore. How about something like "PokerMoon" or "PokerClouds"? The idea of reaching for the stars is now no more than just false advertising.</span></div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-33522438081080769692014-10-22T23:55:00.001-04:002016-06-04T01:20:13.884-04:00The Truth About The Next Poker Boom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Sorry folks, but it ain't gonna happen. There are simply too many hurdles to overcome, but the most important one of all is the one that is probably the most difficult to measure scientifically: Americans just don't really give a shit anymore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Those longing for a new Boom have either forgotten or never knew what the driving forces behind it were. Texas Holdem was a new cultural phenomenon. Watching people play televised for hundreds of thousands of dollars in huge dramatic pots was exciting, and after rank amateur Chris Moneymaker parlayed a tiny satellite win into $2.5 million in the world's most prestigious poker tournament, it was poised as the latest and greatest get-rich-quick opportunity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">If the Boom were measured simply in terms of traffic and interest, the dollars generated by the industry would be scoffed at by today's standards. What made this time so magical was just how bad everyone played. I clearly remember the days when I was the only person sitting at a full ring $2/4 limit Hold'em table who knew it was possible to check raise. I also have the fond memory of reading a comment in one of the chat boxes back then saying, "this is a pretty good table- except for the PFR." It was explained to me that "PFR" meant "preflop raise", implying that my refusal to open limp was ruining an otherwise good game. It just now occurred to me that if the game was good *except for my raising, what exactly made for a better game? An average of 8 players open limping instead of 6? Nowadays, your average competent player in a free pub tournament could have probably made a solid living during that tiny 2-3 year window.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">More importantly, poker was fucking cool. In the early days, we had something to aspire to. Riches, fame, and perhaps even a ranking among the world's sexiest men, as was bestowed upon the somewhat-better-than-average -looking Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen, whose two early televised WPT titles apparently shrunk down his oversized ears and added about 4 inches of length and 2 inches of girth to his penis. We had out-sized personalities that made it fun for people to watch, even if those people had no idea what a kicker was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">We believed the fairy tales of the old poker road gamblers who spun great yarns of cheaters, robbers, and murderers in their autobiographies. They conducted themselves honorably- they never cheated anyone and always repaid their debts. That didn't even matter, though, as Rounders proved that even a slick and talented poker cheat pushing forward all his chips with pocket kings just to keep from having his legs broken was better than driving Joey Knish's delivery truck for an honest day's pay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Yep, poker was cool...until we realized that it wasn't.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">The Great Dane now holds the Great Debt, having the dubious distinction of being the first player on record to have documented losses that have crossed the $20 million mark, although to be fair, he still looks damn good in those jeans. Danny Robison, a longtime friend and gambling partner of the late Chip Reese, who was widely regarded as the world's best all around player, excitedly told postmortem tales of their past travails on the TwoPlusTwo podcast and made a passing comment on how they used to cheat. One of the podcasters said, "wait, you said you guys used to cheat?" Robison, seemingly blissfully unaware of how badly he was tarnishing the legacy of his dearly departed friend, said "yeah, we all used to back then!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Though we haven't been able to connect any well known legend to a violent crime (as of this writing), we have since been struck with disillusionment on a worldwide scale on Black Friday, when a murderer's row of WSOP bracelet holders that included a gangly Main Event Champion bearing the reverent nickname of a religious figure bestowed us with a miracle of white collar crime of such magnitude that even Jesus himself couldn't undo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">One could probably fill an entire Bible just giving the Cliff's Notes to all the scandals that have happened before and since the Full Tilt Saga. America's confidence in the industry is never going to return to the days of the Neteller debit card cashouts, and even if we could be convinced of such, the notions of poker glory have faded as surely as that white line in the center of the road that the old timers speak of so fondly. Poker has been hijacked from American mythology by the pencil pushing geeks who found a way to make a living from subterranean dwellings who dare not step outside, lest their pasty skin get scorched on contact from a sun they haven't seen in the past three days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Hyperbole aside, if you were hoping that American legalization of poker was going to rekindle the dying light of your poker career overseas, you are guilty of possessing an optimism so perverse as to be a delusion. A simple glance at <a href="http://pokerscout.com/" target="_blank">PokerScout.com</a> of the abysmal traffic of the current legalized sites is just all you need to see. Barring a spray tanned guido invasion on the Jersey shore by meatheads with more money than muscle mass, the only thing that has the potential change any of this for the better is if California decides to jump into the sausage fest. Even so, what are the chances that they will offer to share their liquidity with the rest of the nation, let alone give a piece of that pie to the rest of the world, which, given the current state of affairs, has nothing of value to give in return? California may be the largest blue state in the union and home to millions of illegal immigrants, but I would bet my life that there isn't a politician in that state interested in providing welfare for poker players overseas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma"; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">American online poker is fucked, so don't hold your breath. Learn to play the Spin & Goes or try the good old Work 4 Pay. Those are your two options, sad as it may sound.</span></div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-47500674150826510822014-10-16T22:02:00.002-04:002016-06-06T02:13:54.249-04:00Should Teachers Make as Much as Doctors?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzuht98c9dlTGEnUBgy4oBphDx1OKwqagl9INNzam2JH-xRZH3kViTgWWwhx7qqJk68BIZ2Hl76_cqMcAsBkUEr11Eyt_RmK9x6CEQJ9PP3rkzeAbgbGvFnpIbhY3IlfzWoiGhCGPpgK0/s1600/doctor+and+teacher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Doctor laughing at old woman" border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzuht98c9dlTGEnUBgy4oBphDx1OKwqagl9INNzam2JH-xRZH3kViTgWWwhx7qqJk68BIZ2Hl76_cqMcAsBkUEr11Eyt_RmK9x6CEQJ9PP3rkzeAbgbGvFnpIbhY3IlfzWoiGhCGPpgK0/s320/doctor+and+teacher.jpg" title="Woman and doctor" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"You really think you are worth as much as me? How about I just let you sit in your own piss for the next 48 hours?"</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I probably could have ignored this stupidity had I heard it only once, but I must have heard it at least two more times since then. Although I had originally set out to make this a poker/memoir/comedy blog, my interest in politics, gender, and inequality issues has taken over my thought processes and what I would like to blog about, but I like to look at these issues with the groomed mind of a poker veteran.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps the only issue to get unanimous support across the political spectrum in America is that teachers should be paid more. I do not disagree with this and have never met anyone arguing to the contrary. But how much? Is a doctor's pay suitable? There is absolutely no need to touch on the subject of whether or not they job they perform is just as valuable to society, because I can shoot down this horrifically idiotic statement instantly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If teachers were making as much as doctors, they would be making more, in fact, <i>much more</i> than doctors! In the US, you can teach as high as high school with an undergraduate degree and you can teach college with a master's degree. However, in order to become a doctor, you <i>need</i> 8 years of education...and the financial cost of that education far exceeds that of a simple undergraduate degree. This means that they are paying off much larger education loans and have fewer productive years of employment. Therefore, even if the base rate of pay were equal, paying off that debt alone is a cost that is effectively reducing one's pay. The teacher is also now getting a 2-4 year head start making money.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Next we have the issue of hours worked: doctors work significantly more hours than teachers and often put in time on weekends. US teachers get the summers off due to a now archaic reason that simply no longer applies to the modern world. This was because students used to get the summers off from school so they could help their families with the intensive farm work during the warm summer months.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a nutshell, in the hypothetical scenario (which is never going to happen, nor should it) that teachers made the same money as doctors, we would need at least this much from them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1) A PhD, or some level of equivalent education.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2) Longer hours, specifically in the form of research or devoting services to special needs students.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3) An ongoing certification program required to keep a "teaching license."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4) Zero ability to get tenure, as there is no such thing as a doctor who can't get fired, particularly with regards to malpractice.</span><br />
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-65227537729863191312014-09-22T00:14:00.000-04:002016-06-07T02:48:31.066-04:00Guy Asks: "How Can I Get Invites to Medium Stakes Cash Games in San Francisco?"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Empty your pockets here and get some chips from the back."</td></tr>
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That's kind of a double edged sword if you ask me :) Since you said medium stakes, it is safe to assume that the money involved might matter a lot to some of players, so winning in these games is important to them. Therefore, if guys are begging you to join a game like this, they definitely view you as easy money.If you *aren't* easy money, exercise caution. You could be the victim of a cheating setup/collusion ring. One other thing I found out personally from playing with strangers in a new game is that you could still come under heat even if no one involved has any malicious intent. I played in a $1/2 game with a bunch of super deep stacked fellows who also happened to mostly be drug dealers. Easygoing and pot only, but lawbreakers nonetheless. Later on, after my friend and I left, there was a problem with the chip count and it came up short. Who gets the blame? The new guys, of course. Luckily the friend who brought us talked the guy down and turns out his stoner brain simply miscounted.Bottom line: you should never play in cash games with people you don't know. Maybe a .50/1 game is ok, but the dangers quickly escalate in direct correlation with the stakes involved.</div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-50782930311553455622014-08-31T00:06:00.000-04:002016-06-07T02:51:23.759-04:00The Lottery as a Voting Strategy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_nVVkTYM8Z4QGSFtinxIRBp3GFYPDbryFF5Xv7VB3qjUcVJ_DJnjV5xu-c0j2NR87ymsIFCqQq2VF0XjIPm_kd88-VQQo1hIL5Af8ZbM79ZXnTK8GXoo80X-_dVg1pPFkSnjpZ_yASQ/s1600/lottery+vote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Japanese crazy box with a hole in it to drop your ballot." border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_nVVkTYM8Z4QGSFtinxIRBp3GFYPDbryFF5Xv7VB3qjUcVJ_DJnjV5xu-c0j2NR87ymsIFCqQq2VF0XjIPm_kd88-VQQo1hIL5Af8ZbM79ZXnTK8GXoo80X-_dVg1pPFkSnjpZ_yASQ/s320/lottery+vote.jpg" title="Lottery vote" width="310" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drop in your ballot, get a fortune cookie!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-panel-prizes-voters-20140814-story.html" target="_blank">The Los Angeles Ethics Commission have proposed a lottery to increase the incredibly low voter turnout for municipal elections in Los Angeles, California</a>. It's hard to imagine that L.A. officials could really view the lack of voting turnout as a "crisis". From a strategic political view, this is anything but... politicians, even when not being completely cynical, only care about bringing out new voters who would support their cause. I don't consider myself cynical in this regard either, as I can't see any benefit to bringing in people who are are destined to vote <i>against you</i>. That being said, I believe the following article describes the sort of strategy that I would consider to be a rather under-handed (<i>translation: scummy</i>) tactic to bring out the kinds of voters who would elect those in favor of....legalized online poker/gambling. Just think about it for a second: if a lottery with poor odds of winning a rather paltry sum of a proposed $100,000 prize is supposed to be enough motivation to get losers with no interest in the democratic process off their broke asses and out to the polls, wouldn't it make sense to plaster the poor neighborhoods with posters saying something to the tune of </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stand up for your right to use your money the way you see fit. Online gaming for real money is a victim-less crime. Vote Rich Chance for Mayor on November 15th at the polls.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you really want to see some eye-opening political strategy in practice, I strongly suggest reading the excellent book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-About/dp/B002SB8OMA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409457267&sr=8-1&keywords=gaming+the+vote" target="_blank">Gaming the Vote</a></i> by William Poundstone. If politics isn't your thing, check out one of his works that is sure to interest you, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Formula-Scientific-Betting-Casinos/dp/0809045990/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409457310&sr=1-1&keywords=fortune%27s+formula" target="_blank">Fortune's Formula</a></i>, which details the origins of blackjack card-counting, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Wire_Act" target="_blank">Federal Wire Act</a>, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion" target="_blank">Kelly Criterion</a>. </span></div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-40023698010051280762014-08-18T13:48:00.000-04:002016-06-07T02:54:27.999-04:00Quick Recap: Dan Colman's Placing in the Big One For One Drop Doesn't Matter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinE0SjPMSpSv6jhxV_krUC5XOokoZwsb1tEc2BMeYDjkgEKPajTwj7pgL_ANz3Yc1TQY0tdZqlHN1WtS8SzJyHxPP_2oy9lTrVqP8t0IeMs64HQZvh2qXL1c3Z-McTeImNDk2zwFyTFnY/s1600/dan+colman+one+drop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dan Colman standing in front of millions after winning the Big One for One Drop" border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinE0SjPMSpSv6jhxV_krUC5XOokoZwsb1tEc2BMeYDjkgEKPajTwj7pgL_ANz3Yc1TQY0tdZqlHN1WtS8SzJyHxPP_2oy9lTrVqP8t0IeMs64HQZvh2qXL1c3Z-McTeImNDk2zwFyTFnY/s320/dan+colman+one+drop.jpg" title="Dan Colman One Drop Win" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please contain your excitement for never having to work again.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Obviously, it's old news about Colman's decision not to speak to the media or promote poker after binking the One Drop for $15 million, but I'm not going to rehash my opinion on such since it has already been echoed by many people before. I just want to address the idea of Colman as the <a href="http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/jul/02/reserved-star-or-rich-scrub-daniel-colman-creates-/" target="_blank">so-called "petulant child" as labelled by the Las Vegas Sun immediately afterwards</a> (translation: spoiled brat).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The fact is that whether you agree with or support his comments after winning it, he is the only one who could say that and hope to have it taken seriously- the winner of the tournament, that is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Picture him coming in any place below fourth. What those guys have to say doesn't make the press. Quite frankly, no one gives a shit what they think because they weren't even close.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Placing Third: </b>angry for not winning and striking out not due to being petulant, but just sore for not winning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Runner-up: </b>Read above except multiply that impression by a factor of 10.</span></div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-38054168770920585292014-07-26T01:40:00.004-04:002016-06-07T15:05:10.595-04:00Full Tilt Player Rakes $1 Billion Play Chip Pot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYdsMEiny7_cM1bBUu491ZU8NOAYH7G54yqCfVuetuqNrgLg730Gp0Dj9xGfFfo3VV7B1EiOnMK4fjarzohjdcEtMyEkji4bMwNaA_WsSp_Lz2LcpC7wW_Sv0EdKTjKzH9numbN9FD2k4/s1600/one+billion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Fake one billion dollar bill" border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYdsMEiny7_cM1bBUu491ZU8NOAYH7G54yqCfVuetuqNrgLg730Gp0Dj9xGfFfo3VV7B1EiOnMK4fjarzohjdcEtMyEkji4bMwNaA_WsSp_Lz2LcpC7wW_Sv0EdKTjKzH9numbN9FD2k4/s320/one+billion.jpg" title="One billion dollar bill" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b>This bill and my sociology degree is just enough to buy you a cup of coffee at White Castle.</b></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><i>This has to be one of the cutest poker posts I had read in a very, very long time. It's not even the fact that these guys were wagering with $1 billion worth of play money with a "street value" of $2,000--it's the fact this this landmark play money pot was won with a king high flush....in Omaha. Given that the relative hold'em value of this hand is somewhere between top pair/top kicker and top and bottom pair, it really begs the question: WTF did the other guy have??? I suppose I could do a little searching and find out that he had something like top set with a redraw, but I find it much more satisfying to imagine that he was drawing to the jack high flush :)</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><i>-Lorin</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Tuesday, July 22, the first ever $1 billion play money chip pot was raked in by a player on Full Tilt Poker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The 10-figure “for fun” payday occurred at a six max table in a 6-Card Omaha game.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although Rational Group poker sites Full Tilt and PokerStars award 1,000 play chip reloads on demand without any charge, the two sites also allow players to purchase the play chips using real money.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cash purchase packages on Full Tilt begin at 200,000 chips for $1.99, with 100 million chips being the largest option currently available for a price of $199.99.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Based on these shop prices Full Tilt player 1shini1 earned the equivalent of approximately $2,000 real US dollars when he showed down his winning hand of a King-high Flush for 1,006,260,000 in play money.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://pokerfuse.com/news/live-and-online/2014-07-25-full-tilt-player-rakes-1-billion-play-chip-pot/" target="_blank"><i>Originally published on Pokerfuse.com</i></a></span></h4>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-20716977678115142342013-11-01T14:44:00.000-04:002016-06-08T02:21:53.102-04:00Jungleman12 vs. PokerSnowie Heads Up Challenge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The opportunity cost of making this short video is measured in the $1,000's.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I just saw <a href="http://www.pokerlistings.com/videos/v/man-vs-machine-jungleman-heads-up-with-pokersnowie-ai-c8846788" target="_blank">this video</a> on Pokerfuse.com and got really excited. My friend Bob seems to work this program into every conversation we have had the past four days, and even though my free trial bombed out several times a few months ago and caused me to move my attention elsewhere, I'm eager to try it again. Although I'm still unclear (although perhaps by reading the documentation I will understand more fully) how game theory optimal [GTO] ranges have been derived for a variety of different cash game formats, this new challenge that PokerSnowie is promoting shows an unprecedented amount of confidence in their program, which in my opinion is probably a -EV decision, but impressive nonetheless. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a quick aside, to show why I think this is -EV, a similar semi-public issue came up over a year ago in which a transcript of a chat box conversation between Daniel Negreanu and Matt Marafioti surfaced in which an obviously tilted or drunk Marafioti challenged Negreanu to a heads up $200/$400 match. Rather than take the challenge, Negreanu just decided to needle him by saying stuff like "lol, you so baller!". At the time i thought that Negreanu was just chickening out, but a day later <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">I realized that this was a wise move on his part since the money he stood to gain was insignificant, but yet he would face an abundance of scrutiny for his decisions and face an undue amount of criticism for losing, which makes no sense because even if he had a 70/30 advantage on Marafioti (not possible IMO) he is still losing his fair share. The end result is that Marafioti was on a total freeroll- the masses expect him to lose so it's quickly forgotten, winning means an excess of unwarranted media attention.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);"><br /></span></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip4RUvzk7beI6SmaFeKPSMIxDMZicedXgAFwmkzn3AJDvoBHRskpOG-9qbHTf9h9XRMuQ29QjWTXeRfAA5_vsV9PqBeBbdDxIn6H4SionD-UJH76_BhPyn44ezA-5dmzzY7yrWHJiGL8Y/s1600/Matthew-Marafioti-Poker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Matt Marafioti shirtless with two black eyes" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip4RUvzk7beI6SmaFeKPSMIxDMZicedXgAFwmkzn3AJDvoBHRskpOG-9qbHTf9h9XRMuQ29QjWTXeRfAA5_vsV9PqBeBbdDxIn6H4SionD-UJH76_BhPyn44ezA-5dmzzY7yrWHJiGL8Y/s320/Matthew-Marafioti-Poker.jpg" title="Matt Marafioti" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Take your best shot, Negreanu...you have everything to lose."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-64338583863412613702013-09-20T10:21:00.001-04:002015-07-30T17:50:23.909-04:00A Problem with Navy Yard Conspiracy Theories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After reading this article on <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/09/navy-yard-conspiracies/">Wired.com</a>, I came to a realization that I am really surprised to not have seen written before. The usual fodder is present, and even though it certainly is plausible that the powers that be could be manipulating this event as a "false flag" to implement something like strict gun control, one thing is for sure: the shooter was NOT under mind control. Rahm Emmanuel made the famous public statement "never let a tragedy go to waste", no matter the event, it would be the optimal political strategy.<br />
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Again, I have no idea what technologies exist to accomplish this, let alone what could possibly be under development, but if the powers that be wanted to take this route, we would see many of these..a lot more. Maybe they would be strategically spaced apart so as not to attract too much attention, but there would never be events spaced 6 months apart or more. This isn't Sandy Hook, which will easily be recalled even a decade from now (reference Columbine shootings). Sure this happened at a navy base, but the random targets weren't children and the body count was low. I'm pretty sure that no one remembers the name of the Fort Hood shooter and most people have probably forgotten it altogether.</div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-29374847146282487622013-08-06T01:33:00.002-04:002013-08-06T01:33:41.068-04:00A Really Impressive Hand<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Kevmath tweet of the Bad Beat Jackpot hand at Mohegan Sun. Drink it in, you probably will never see this again as long as you live....</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gTQ2mjcRBbE/UgCKjtugNPI/AAAAAAAAAZo/U5pLBRBIJWI/s1600/badbeat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gTQ2mjcRBbE/UgCKjtugNPI/AAAAAAAAAZo/U5pLBRBIJWI/s320/badbeat.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-27179357341890155562013-07-16T21:16:00.002-04:002013-07-16T21:16:24.592-04:00Hold Me Closer Tiny Donker: A Ridiculous Yet Common Spot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <object height="267" width="400"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Note: The above hand was submitted from a student playing NL50 CAP. It was altered slightly to make the donk bets tinier in order to fully illustrate the point. The advice for this hand is geared to small stakes guys who may have a tendency to over-analyze certain hands. This hand is not really unusual and will probably seem shockingly mundane to a lot of people, but it is a great example of </i><b>choosing</b><i> whether or not to accept negative implied odds.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Advice:</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unless playing mid-high stakes where a certain amount of deception is necessary, I have found it to be a rather poor idea to float the flop with this kind of hand. It is NOT because it isn't profitable and it's not because you have a fear of him drawing out on you. Rather, it is combination of these factors:<br /><br />1) Your hand isn't likely to improve, so for all intents and purposes we need to analyze it with consideration to the fact that it <i>won't</i> improve.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />2) His hand is probably weak, but on future streets, he isn't likely to put in much money as a bluff (or else he would be doing so now), in addition to the fact that he will probably keep betting small unless he improves, as he did in the scenario. His tiny donk bet is a foreshadowing of what we can expect from him in the future.<br /><br />I would prefer to play the hand strong because of the fact that under the circumstances of the read, your hand has negative implied odds because when you are good, playing it this way will win the minimum, but when he catches it can be extremely difficult to figure out what he did or did not hit and you will be forced to pay a larger bet.<br /><br />On this board, I would narrow his range down to:<br /><br />1) Pure bluffs<br />2) Gut shot or open-ended straight draw<br />3) Any pair as well as Kx all the way up to KQ<br />4) Rarely better than a pair<br /><br />As you can see, if he is only going to make tiny bluffs and/or value bets, we don't gain value by letting him bluff, so we don't care if he goes away right now. Same thing with his draws. He will bet tiny on the come and then probably just a tiny bluff if he misses, but then pot it when he hits, but unfortunately, enough strange things can happen that you will be (or at least feel) obligated to call a lot of river bets that you wish you didn't have to.<br /><br />The same thing happens when he has any pair. The action will go tiny bet, tiny bet, then right up your sweet ass when he improves.<br /><br />So what do we do? We are left with two options: shove or make a large overbet, like 5bb with the intention of shoving any turn, except perhaps a K. This will get max value from all his top pairs as well as his draws, with the occasional call from a real crappy pair.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #e7e7e7; font-family: Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #e7e7e7; font-family: Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In sum, this is a hand that can not be overplayed, and underplaying it is the only alternative.</span><br />
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Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1166680589294972243.post-27548030678129713742013-06-20T21:30:00.003-04:002013-06-20T21:30:52.485-04:00Jumps in Logic: A Rare Glimpse Into the Mind of the Shepherd<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nw2IRo0NB7w/UcOsWgKbUZI/AAAAAAAAAXg/r2nUFIA-RHs/s1600/large_uk_human_centipede_blu-ray_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nw2IRo0NB7w/UcOsWgKbUZI/AAAAAAAAAXg/r2nUFIA-RHs/s320/large_uk_human_centipede_blu-ray_6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not all doctors are incompetent...</span></i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe it’s not fair to label this as being “conspiracy
minded”, but the subject in question is a member of that camp’s philosophy. I
also should point out now that since my viewpoints so far has the seemed to be
in complete opposition to Alex Jones that I am not in any way saying that these
things are not occurring, as I do understand that I have no knowledge of what
my neighbors are doing behind closed doors, let alone what happens in top-secret
on the national stage. I guess that part of my problem with this is the
conspiracy camp’s extremely condescending label of “sheep” for those people who
are apparently “asleep” or “kowtowing to authority” or “locked into the system ”.
Perhaps I just get a little bit of joy from picking apart their logical
fallacies, as you shall see in this mind-boggling conundrum of logic that isn’t
exactly what you could label as “conspiracy”, but it is certainly plucked from
the same point of view as those expressed daily at Prison Planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With regards to what I’m going to say about wheat, I’m not
contesting that. In fact, from the little bit that I’ve heard and all the
hullabaloo surrounding gluten, I’m actually giving this the benefit of the
doubt and it is not what this blog post is concerned with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A friend of mine recently visited his doctor for a routine
checkup and I believe was discussing his recent weight loss and had mentioned
how reducing/eliminating wheat from his diet was credited as being the cause.
He then told me how he expected his doctor to disagree with him and was
surprised that the doctor agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did you spot the problem with that? While those two
sentences make perfect sense grammatically and probably wouldn’t even raise an
eyebrow if scanned over quickly, that is a confounding flip-flop in logic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s decode:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A layman is expressing hereto unknown medical knowledge to a
medical professional with the expectation that said medical professional is
either too stupid to understand it or is too indoctrinated into “the system” to
comprehend it without dismissing or ridiculing it. This is only the first
layer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second layer applies to the expectations of the layman,
who said “I was surprised that he agreed with me.” Why should anyone be
surprised that someone who has a minimum of 8 years of rigorous study just to
get a PhD have the knowledge that a layman can get from a Google search?
Admittedly, a layman does have a certain open-mindedness when peering into
fields in which he has little to no knowledge, but that sort of open-mindedness
is of the brand that gets you duped and conned. Any professional or semi
professional poker player can attest to this, as they bear witness daily to
what happens when outsiders stumble into their domain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The part that is unclear is whether or not my friend was
impressed with himself or the doctor, in which case neither scenario makes much
sense. If he had to convince the doctor that his relative inexperience somehow
trumped the doctor’s pseudo-scientific worldview, then by default, doctors aren’t
nearly as stupid as they are believed to be by conspiracy enthusiasts. On the
other hand, if he was happy that the doctor somehow validated his Internet
knowledge, then by default, doctors actually aren’t so stupid or hopelessly
entrenched in the system after all and you should vaccinate your children
without fear of autism.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Lorin Yellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00217221028351659344noreply@blogger.com0