Deadspin is always the first site I visit in the morning when grab my bowl of cereal and OJ. I was a bit worried it would lose it's flavor when Leitch left but it has retained it's appeal quite a bit. From their weekly mailbag:

Honorable mention: Christopher Lloyd yelling "I was frozen today!"

Always been a big fan of stand-up comedy as an art form. I've been taking some improv classes to get used to the stage element because I have pretty bad public speaking anxiety (like pretty much everyone else) because I want to take a run at doing some stand up routines at the clubs here in Ann Arbor and Detroit. A friend of mine has been doing the same thing and we bounce ideas off each other a lot. Anyway, I've been listening to a lot of stuff lately and brainstorming my three favorite. Now I 'm not claiming these are the best practitioners of the art, just my favorite. Obviously people like Richard Pryor and George Carlin contributed to the form more than anyone else but they aren't from my generation. I can admire them from a distance but in terms of pure enjoyment there are a lot of other contemporary guys I prefer.



1) Bill Hicks - Sadly he passed away before the mainstream was able to embrace him but I would die to know what he would say about current events. He is one of those comedians who can be political without being an annoying twit (see Cross, David). He was a true anti-establishment maverick who sacrificed mainstream fame in the stand up boom of the eighties and nineties by not pandering to the masses. Some of my favorite lines:

"People say I'm like Koresh except without the guns or pussy. So basically I am a real annoying guy."

"Let's lighten up things and talk about abortion. Boy, I've never seen an issue so divisive. It's like a civil war, isn't it? Even amongst my friends, who are all very intelligent; they're totally divided on abortion. It's unbelievable. Some of my friends, for instance, think these pro-life people are annoying idiots. Other of my friends think these pro-life people ... are evil fucks. How are we going to come to a consensus? You ought to hear the arguments around my house: 'They're annoying, they're idiots.' 'They're evil, they're fucks!' Brothers, sisters, come together! Can't we once just join hands and think of them as evil-annoying-idiot-fucks?"

"There's a new party being born: The People Who Hate People Party. People who hate people, come together! "No!" We're kind of having trouble getting off the boards, you know. Come to our meeting! "Are you gonna be there?" Yeah. "Then I ain't fucking coming." But you're our strongest member! "Fuck you!" That's what I'm talking about, you asshole! Fuck off! Damn, we almost had a meeting going. It's so hard to get my people together."



2) Louis C.K. - Unfortunately unlucky Louie hasn't had the greatest run in terms of television shows and movie appearances but judging strictly his stand up performances the guy is unrivaled in terms of stage presence. He is an every day blue collar guy that isn't playing up stereotypes or path of least resistance fodder. He is the kind of guy that can make dick jokes but doesn't depend on them to carry him for a whole set.



3) Jim Gaffigan - Alright this is my guilty pleasure. A lot of his jokes are really "easy" but he has such a great delivery and chracter voices I really can't get enough. He has a knack for taking oft-used topics and reworking them into something original.

"My wife's gotten really lazy, or as she calls it 'pregnant'."

"I didn't know this, organic is a grocery term for twice as expensive. My wife bought me organic deodorant and on the label it said "did not work." I bought some Speed Stick. The interesting thing about Speed Stick is it smells worse than BO."

Pretty sure this is my best day ever. Mostly $119 6-max and full ring.

Braminc and I have finally got our stable off the ground. I am a bit nervous as it is by far the biggest investment I have ever made. We have eight horses right now and may add a few in the future if things go well the first month or two. A couple of hands I thought were fun.

http://www.pokerhand.org/default.aspx?4843617


Whitesnake1 is one of the most notorious rakeback grinders on Full Tilt. He has a zero percent ROI over a 20k game sample but still pumps out 2500-3000 games a month which is admirable. I'll give him credit with this hand and say he did tank on the end and chat "I'm a fish" in the chat before calling. Obviously the standard on the flop is to bet, but I quickly decided checking back was by far the superior play. When WS checks he never has anything - he is always bombing his overpairs and sets. Random in big blind can have any two cards as far as I am concerned. I'm not too worried about "protecting my hand" here since the value I get when someone catches up to a slightly worse hand outweighs giving random four outers a look. On the turn, WS flips his hand up on the table as AK. If I raise the turn I turn my hand up as well. WS isn't particularly good but he isn't an idiot either and he can basically insta muck his TPTK. On the river I still think he has AK which is why I decide to bet big and try to frustrate him into calling since he probably thinks he underrepresented his hand which isn't really true at all. I think this is a good example of a spot where you don't always need to be aiming to get your whole stack in the river by bet bet betting or raising the turn. If I bet the flop of course I have an easier time getting my stack in but on average I think I get a lot more value vs. a semi-competent regular than I would otherwise.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4831582


BigGamesJames is a friend of mine who I have coached before. The hand is pretty simple, but I think it is a great example of a spot where you can get regulars to spaz out vs you when you play a hand in an unorthodox fashion. We have to assume he is opening fairly wide because he has the chip lead and I am really hand cuffed with my stack size. Most times I will have to shove 20 blinds to win 3.5 so he will know I have an extremely strong range that he can play perfectly against since there are two significantly shorter stacks. On the flop, he is always going to continuation bet hoping to get me to fold my AJ/KQs/66-88 type hands. The problem is when I check raise he is never paying me off with anything I beat except maybe JJ so I decide that although I always pick up his c-bet here I would rather induce him to get out of line since I have to a huge hand to call a raise on the flop and I am repping a medium strength hand. I assume he also believes I would 3-bet JJ+/AK preflop so I actually don't hate his play. You always want to do the opposite of what your opponent thinks you are going to do in no limit. Unfortunately you don't get to apply that too often in sit and goes since 80 percent of the time you are bet bet betting vs donks or open shoving.




Here is a picture of my office. Just got a new 30 inch Dell in. I have a 32 inch plasma to my left as well. I've also got a new Velocity Micro PC arriving in the next few days (8 gigs of RAM, terabyte HD, nice video card), so I should have a pretty sick set up overall when it is all said and done. 3,000 games this month - I'll let you know how it goes. Take care everyone.

If anyone can tell me how to get the CR hand converter thingy working I would love you long time!

Does it still bother me after 20,000 sit and goes when my KK loses to A2 on the bubble? Yes it does! Although I probably tilt as much as the average sit and go player, I have always prided myself on not bringing it beyond the computer. I really think it would be unfair to my friends/girlfriend if I brought all that negative 3-outered energy into the real world. The way I have learned to unwind quickly after a 3 hour session is to flip on an episode of "The Joy of Painting" with Bob Ross. In case you don't know who he is, here is a picture:



He paints "happy little trees" and "beats the devil" out of his brush. His voice is extremely soothing...I remember as a kid I would watch episodes when I came home from school on PBS (they ran at about 3 p.m.) and inevitably I would be asleep by the end of the program. The art is nothing special - mostly Thomas Kincaid type paintings of various landscapes (Ross was stationed in Alaska during his tenure with the Air Force) - but there is something truly surreal about his method and it brings me a lot of joy. By the time I am done with an episode, I have reached my equilibrium point and have no problem walking back into the real world. A bunch of the JOP seasons are on ISO Hunt and other torrent sites if you want to check him out.


{CRYOUTUBE v=itXVW1U3QLM&feature=fvw}

I erased my old blog entries, but one of them in 2007 read:

But now I have a renewed interest in the game. I want to be able to control my emotions to the point where bad beats, variance, etcetera have no effect on my psyche. Joining CardRunners has increased my overall understanding of the game, and I am very excited about a fresh start. I am starting off with a $300 bankroll that I grinded up courtesy of some old rakeback I had and grinding out a few bonuses on Full Tilt. Wish me luck!

Funny how quickly the tide can turn. I've always believed hard work will lead you to whatever you desire. Having someone to guide you along the way (thanks Cardrunners, Braminc) never hurt either. I recently finished Primo Levi's "Is This A Man" (the American title is "Survival in Auschwitz"). Above the iron gates of the concentration camp were the words "Arbeit Macht Frei." It is German for "work brings freedom."



As Levi points out, the labor camps at Auschwitz were a mockery of actual work, an absence of any real labor. Those three words have inspired me because - even though their origins are barbaric, homicidal and unquestionably racist - I think everyone who has the ability ought to lead the most productive life possible because so many people were or are not afforded that opportunity.

I've tried to position myself in recent months to a path of diversification that does not rely on my ability to play 2,000 games a month to attain my desired level of income. Braminc and I have started a stable and we have give or take ten horses we are going with at the moment. I'm excited about the proposition because I have always wanted to run my own business, and while the zero sum game of No Limit Hold 'Em wasn't what I had in mind, perhaps it will lead to other opportunities. Plus, making money is always fun.