Growing up, I loved basketball. If I had one great passion during my teen years, basketball was it. I played, watched, read about, and talked about basketball 24/7. I saw many amazing players growing up in New York. I saw Stephon Marbury win the PSAL championships when he was the best high school point guard New York had ever seen (with maybe the exception of Kenny Anderson, although I was too young to have watched him play). I saw Felipe Lopez when he played for RiceHigh School and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for being the best high school player in the country. I saw a few Knicks games too, but Knicks tickets were too expensive usually for my family, so I mainly watched the Knicks on TV. They had a great team when I was growing up, so I have so fond memories, and some heartbreaking moments, as well. Losing the 7th game of the NBA Finals on my birthday was one of them. Sigh. However, my biggest regret is not seeing Michael Jordan play live. MJ was the best player in history, and I never got to see him in person. I kind of made up for it last Wednesday, March 5th. I got to see Lebron James play. At MadisonSquareGarden. I took the kid I mentor/pay for his schooling, Daniel, as part of an event for SSP, the organization I belong to. Daniel wasn't the biggest basketball fan in the world, but nevertheless he got to see a great show. Lebron dropped a 50 ball on the Knicks, not to mention damn near messed around and got a triple double. He dominated in every way possible, with incredible acrobatic layups, precise passing, and dropped 4 threes in the 4th quarter to pull away from the Knicks. The Garden gave Lebron a standing ovation, and he later called it one of the greatest moments of his career in a post-game interview.

It was awesome to watch, and it was also nice to go to the game with Daniel. Like me, he grew up in a single parent home, and having a male influence around to give him advice about various situations is important. I feel, at the very least, if I can give him a realistic example of someone who came from a relatively similar background who has "gotten out" of his situation, it's a good thing. For a lot of the other mentors, they can't relate to the kids they mentor (and most likely, vice versa). I can speak to Daniel with a comprehensive empathy, and treat his revelations with sensitivity and genuine compassion and understanding. I feel like I can give him "advices." Advices are basically nuggets of advice, but for some reason, the word is pluralized. I'm not sure who came up with it, but I love pluralizing random words, so I think it sounds good.

One thing I told him was to always analyze the potential upside and downside in a given decision or situation, and to analyze alternative solutions. I walked him through a concrete example. We saw a bunch of scalpers outside the Garden. I asked him if he could analyze the upside and downside of scalping. We made up numbers. He buys a ticket for 100 bucks, and sells it for 200. His upside for scalping that ticket is 100 bucks. His downside is either 1) he doesn't sell the ticket, or 2) he gets arrested. We talked about what happens when he gets arrested, how that affects his future business, what's the emotional and monetary cost of his getting arrested. We concluded that the downside far outweighed the upside. Obviously, this was a simplified example, but providing Daniel with a kind of framework for decision making might cause him to think twice before he makes a foolish decision in the future, which is all I can hope for. Anyways, the game was fantastic, and Daniel seemed to have a great time.

In poker news, I have been playing a bit lately, with some mixed results. Right now I am basically playing 5/10-10/20 online and I have to say I'm struggling with my game. I got somewhat depressed when someone asked me to send them some information about myself and I sent them the "in the spotlight" feature cardrunners put out back one year ago this month, in March 2007. That month, I made around 180k, and felt so strongly about my game. I was constantly analyzing situations, talking with really smart people about the game, looking every day to find ways to improve. And the results followed. Nowadays, not being able to devote as much time and energy to the game, I know I'll never be a great player. That knowledge is frustrating, but at the same time I have a whole new slew of challenges and interests, and I'm getting quite fond of putting the same energy and effort that I put into poker into finance. Hopefully the results will follow there, as well. All is not lost, I'm up around 80k this month, so I can't really complain, but poker for me was always about challenging myself to be better, and I know gone forever are the days when I can mess around and put up big numbers.

One sick live hand recently (private game): Me and the villain are 60k+ deep, game is 25/50. Villain thinks I like to reraise him light, and he's not incorrect. Already during this session he has 4-bet me and I folded, and he has done this in the past as well. He opens to 200 utg, gets a few callers behind. I am in the BB and I wake up with the 65dd. I decide to reraise for a few reasons: 1) we are so deep I don't mind doing this and it will be easier for me to get paid off big if I flop a monster because of deception, 2) he will be less likely to reraise me given I had done it before, 3) I will pick up the pot a large % of the time. I make it 1500. As soon as I put the bet out, I realized I "mis-clicked" and put out 2500 in chips. Villain thinks for a while, looks at the people behind me, and makes it 10k straight. Everyone else folds and it gets back to me and I am forced to fold. We agree to show each other what we had. I showed the 65dd, he showed the AA. We ran the flop, it was Axx all diamonds. Turn blank. River blank. I felt sick. 120k+ poof vamoose it doesn't exist!!

dp