Narrator: But, unlike someone under a banyan tree, all publicly traded corporations have been structured, through a series of legal decisions, to have a peculiar and disturbing characteristic. They are required, by law, to place the financial interests of their owners above competing interests. In fact, the corporation is legally bound to put its bottom line ahead of everything else, even the public good.
Noam Chomsky: That's not a law of nature, that's a very specific decision. In fact, a judicial decision. So they're concerned only for the short-term profit of their stockholders who are very highly concentrated.
Robert Monks: To whom do these companies owe loyalty? What does loyalty mean? Well, it turns out that that was a rather na¯ve concept anyways as corporations are always owed obligation to themselves to get large and to get profitable. In doing this, it tends to be more profitable to the extent that it can make other people pay the bills for its impact on society. There's a terrible word that economists use for this called 'externalities'.
Milton Friedman: An externality is the effect of a transaction between two individuals on a third party who has not consented to, or played any role in the carrying out of that transaction. And there are real problems in that area. There's no doubt about it.
---Quotations taken from the flm documentary The Corporation

So...I was looking at my earlier blog entry in which I was complaining about my live 5-5 game. Got nothing to complain about now. Bought in for $200 (I know, I know - it's too low) and cashed out at $1,065. The majority of the game was me drinking a Corona and folding, but hey, I'm OK with that. The only thing that was a little problematic for me is that apparently I have a million live tells - I lower my eyebrows when I'm going to raise, etc. I don't know if I believe them but the whole game was a little screwy that night, I think. First off, they wanted to play that stupid 7-2 game that they were playing on HSP (I think that was it) AND they are also obsessed wiith making deals. Everything is want to run it twice - three times, etc. My general policy is not to run it twice, but I think I should maybe rethink this and make more situational dependent decisions on whether to run it twice.

Here was a weird situation that I may have handled badly - opinions welcome -

Villain has around $300. Hero has around $650. Hero has position on the Villain. Hero has KhQd.

Villain raises to $25. Hero reraises to $75. Everyone else folds. Pot is around $115.

Flop: Qh7h3h.

Villain checks. Hero bets $100.

Here's the weird part: Villain starts talking to me - "Do you want me to fold? Tell me what you want me to do." And then he flips up his cards - AsQc. He says that he is either going to move all-in or fold and he wants me to tell him what to do - either call or fold. He claims that he will keep his word and do whatever I tell him to.

I didn't know what to do - I had a 4-flush but my queen was obviously dominated. I told him to fold.

And he actually did fold and I scooped the pot.

Disclaimer AND Warning: This blog post may ramble a bit. Beware of meandering thoughts and run-on sentences.

I bought a new book, eat pray love by Elizabeth Gilbert, that I heard various people giving rave reviews. Generally, I tend to shy away from the best seller lists and Oprah book club selections because I am a literary snob and the books on those lists (generally) irritate me because they are either mundane and predictable and/or overwritten, which leads them to being greatly over hyped. So, with great trepidation, I bought this book as I was meandering around Target trying to remember what I was supposed to be buying there. (And yes, I have heard of those things called "lists" in which pencil and/or pen is put to paper and items are written down, but I tend to forget where I put the list after it is made, so in the end, lists are just useless to me.)

Shortening story - book is good. It flows well, she has a very clear and concise writing style, and her voice is distinct and honest throughout. I also like how she includes all of these didactic little bits that fit in with her interests/places she's visiting, i.e., the Italian language is derived directly from Dante and the Commedia, etc. It's almost like you're talking to the smartest friend you know and they're just casually slipping their gems of wisdom into the conversation. Here are two small snippets that I thought were kind of interesting:

Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be -- that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there...

Giulio asked, "What's the word in New York City?"
I thought about this for a moment, then decided. "It's a verb, of course. I think it's ACHIEVE."
(Which is subtly but significantly different from the word in Los Angeles, I believe, which is also a verb: SUCCEED. Later, I will share this whole theory with my Swedish friend Sofie, and she will offer her opinion that the word on the streets of Stockholm is CONFORM, which depresses both of us.) pg. 103-104

Anyway, if you've made it this far, I'm impressed. That was quite a word wall I put up there to dissuade you - who says people have no attention span anymore? I'm trying to hide these thoughts at the bottom of this random blog post. Brutal honesty is the ultimate objective of this poker blog so here is the unfortunate truth: some part of me enjoys losing at poker. That's the only rationale I have for why I do some of the stupid stuff that I do. It has to be more than tilt because it's just so nonsensical. I think that I am attracted to the drama - and the bitching - of losing. You can't really complain and go on and on when you're winning because then you just seem like a cocky and annoying asshole. It's more of a communal affair when you lose - when you win, you're alone in that winner's circle. So, I had vowed to myself that I wasn't going to play poker until February 4th, but that didn't happen. I played some on Pokerstars last night and I did the dumbest and most irrational plays that I have ever done. It started because I was playing $1/2 Limit Razz and got really irritated because I was losing for no good reason other than the fact that I wasn't catching anything. Then, I decided to try and make up my losses at NL 25/50. And I basically just threw money at people - I would be up to around $200 one minute and then down to $40 the next. I even handled a bad cooler well wherein I lost a BI when I had AK vs. A10 and the board came 10-10-A. But I just lost it at some point - I went all-in when I had 2-4s vs. this guy who had been overbetting me frequently, but he actually had a hand this time - JJ. It ended up beinging a $150 pot. But I coolered him but catching the butt end of a straight. This positive reinforcement for negative behavior is not good for me. I should have lost everything but I didn't.

And no, I'm not going to be telling ANYONE what my log in name is on Pokerstars - though if the mob of my annoyed opponents has anything to say about it, I may have "F'in Nemo" tattooed on my ass in the near future.

I've decided to write a book about poker, focusing upon how I play the game. I think how I play the game vastly differs from other players - here are some potential titles:

Shove: The Fine Art of Losing Buy-Ins
How to Lose 4BIs in Under 20 Minutes (subtitled When You're the Nemo at the Table)
or maybe just this:

Pokerstars 25/50NL: WTF?

I must be the worst table selector in the history of poker players as I always seem to find those tables with good players because I never fail to find those tables with regular and good players who completely overwhelm me. Maybe they have me tagged - that's a possibility. I'm trying to follow Brystmar's 6-max guide, and it seems to work well - except for the fact that the sharkies at the table seem to know what I'm doing. I would estimate that my raises get re-raised at least 50% of the time - and then what confuses me are the re-raise amounts. In the 25/50 NL game, I try to raise 4x the BB - to $2.00 usually. And then someone will re-raise me either the min or $1.00 or $1.50 or something bizarre. And what's with all the shoving - that's MY patented move.

Another problem: c-betting. I c-bet WAYYYYYYY too much. I'm not so transparent that I only c-bet when I hit the flop and check when I miss, but apparently my c-bets are enticing to the other players because I get called at least 65% of the time. I think that I"m going to have to re-evaluate the art of the check. Honestly, I've realized that the players that frustrate me the most are the ones that check/call, check/call, check/call. This strategy seems to be highly effective against me because all the cool sharkies that took my money tonight were doing it.

Anyway, back to the CCCCCC strategy: I don't know where they stand when they just keep check/calling. If I"m chasing my flush/straight etc., then I just keep betting and betting into the 3rd pair (usually the ducks), when my flush/straight draw misses. Or they just check/call, check/call, check/call with their monster hands and trap lil' ol' unsuspecting me as I continue to bet into the monster - they are the Audrey II and I am poor Semour, I guess (LSoH).

This game makes me feel dumb - and apparently, in the mood for a musical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRN39oifsE

Sometimes I play in a 5/5 NL home game which should be quite profitable for me but - to my ever-increasing frustration - hasn't been. The style of play is text-book loose-passive, i.e., limp-limp-limp, call-call-call, often with a straddle. And the starting hand requirements are ANY TWO CARDS from any position. Literally. Now, anyone reading this should probably take a moment now and wipe the drool off of their computer screen and rethink how easy you may think this game is by figuring in the frustration factor when your AKs is outdrawn by KJo AFTER he calls a significant raise out of position. Or when you are playing "like a rock" and raise to $50 from the SB with 99 after 6 people have limped in and they ALL call you. Each and every fricking one (with the last three or so being "priced in").

I was just so shocked with what they would be calling me down with after it was obvious that I was playing extremely tight - but the mentality seemed to be that they could bust all of my big hands with their small suited connectors and AXs. I suppose their is some legitimacy to this idea but it incredibly frustrating when I feel forced into the mold of playing fit-or-fold poker because they will call bets on the flop with just about anything as long as they think they can possibly hit something. I went all-in and made an overbet at the pot with pocket 44 (after initially raising the pot since everybody limped it to me in the small blind) when the flop came something like Q-6-2 rainbow. And of course, I get called by the Q-8 off who spikes his 8 on the turn. Maybe I'm easily readable to them, I don't know, but the game seemed to be focused upon outdrawing your opponent and with the worst possible hands. It makes it hard for me to read what they might be holding because they rarely raise, just simply call. And then if they do raise it's always a minimum bet....sigh....

I definitely think the TAG style is the best one to play in this game but damn, it definitely makes me second-guess myself constantly when sitting at a table surrounded by these loose-passive, wanna-be Gus Hansons.

It seems to be inevitable really. Things can be going so well for awhile, winning some pots by trying to play a simple TAG style at 25/50 NL. Then, I get some big hand, raise it up and get called. And when I lose the hand because some villain called my raise, out of position that is a huge underdog to my own hand, I begin to self-tilt. Strangely enough, it's not an immediate tilting process - perhaps I could exert a little more self-control if it was. It begins insidiously enough - calling raises out of position with mediocre hands like K-10 or Q-10 and finally descends into raising out of position with 4-5 because they're SOOTED. Such a slippery slope. It's so ridiculous - intellectually, I know it's just cards and suckouts are just what happends in this game of poker (as I've been the beneficiary myself once or twice). But, the irrational side of me keeps whispering - they're stealing from you - that money should be yours - they' have no right to it.

And so what do I do? Give them more of my money.by playing stupidly myself.

SIgh. I would laugh at someone else acting the way I do if I was watching them in a movie. Such a worthless cycle to get caught up in. And it is such a bitter irony to start doing the same things and acting in the same way as the villain. And then I start to cause someone else to tilt and like the Bubonic plague, the tilt spreads from person to person until it a whole tilty table, spinning around madly like the teacup ride at the amusement park.

OK, some I'm exaggerating just a bit there - just another side-effect of tilting...

I just went to see the play, The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, here in NYC. Here's a link to its website: http://www.seafarertheplay.com/ Really well-written play with exceptional actors, and I highly recommend it, especially if you like things Irish. It's always amusing to me to hear anyone say "fuckin' eedgit (idiot)". It is funny and sad and full of drink - what more could you ask for?

It was also interesting because the 'main event 'of the play is a poker match between "Sharky" and the Devil in which they are playing for - yup, you guessed it - Sharky's soul. They play five-card draw. FYI, for anyone who plays the Devil in poker in the future - he's a terrible bluffer (even I know better). One of the characters in the card game, Nicky, was amusing because he seemed to be mimicking more of the modern form of a poker player by wearing shades during the game - even though all of them - including the Devil - were completely wasted and no one was paying attention to much of anything other than their own cards. It was also funny how they started talking about what their favorite cards/hands were - they liked 3's, 4's, 8's, and 10's (although there was some disagreement about the 8's - apparently they're a little tricky). It made me think of myself - how easily attached I am to certain cards for no reason other than that they may have own me a hand once or twice. But suddenly, that hand just becomes 'magical' and no matter how many times it may not win in the future, it's still my "favorite" hand. And it can't be something rational or logical - like say AK - it has to be 3-7 or 6-10, something *special* that only works for me and no one else. Lucky for me, I guess, that my favorite hand is a pair of ladies...

One of the favorite lines that I remember (probably not correctly quoted):

Devil: "And what is a human being? Two balloons, them's the lungs, and a little whistle at the top where the air goes out."

In a war of wills, there can only be one winner. Who would you choose?

or

(Not bad for photos off a camera phone.)

P.S. At last count, it was Feline 452, Human 3.

The three human victories may not be entirely "clean" as they involved some bribery involving kitty treats...but this is only unsubstantiated speculation...

I know, I know - New Year's resolutions are often self-defeating, but I just can't seem to resist. However, I have realized that I usually forget about my resolution around two weeks afer I have made it because I don't talk about the fact that Ihave made a New Year's resolution. So - in order to keep my resolution, I'm going to post it here.

(Edit: couldn't find a .jpg of the shot that I really idolize - of course, it's the chin-up scene.)

Goal:

No fate but what we make, right? Well, mine will include 25 chin-ups, in a row, without a break...in addition to an overall well-toned body. Sigh...I start tomorrow