Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Robin Hood: good guy or common thief?
A friend of mine was telling me I should try to get food stamps and unemployment, and he thinks I am an self-righteous idiot for not wanting them. I consider myself employed.
My reasoning for not taking the handouts is that the stuff is there for people who need it, and if I need it I will take it, but I don't so I won't--and besides if less people used it, less would be taken from taxpayers to pay for it. He claims this is stupid and pointlessly self-righteous and everybody is going to be selfish anyway, so I'm hurting myself for nothing, and besides the Big Brother is just going to keep it anyway and so on...
So then he suggested if I really want to set an example, I should go get food stamps and unemployment and donate it all to charity. Then the money isn't sitting getting interest for "evil fat cats" and it does real good for people. I thought this was an interesting proposition. On the one hand, I am fraudulently siphoning money out of taxpayers pockets. On the other hand, I help people in a way I couldn't otherwise afford to do.
I'm leaning on not doing it for ethical and legal reasons, but I'm curious what people think about it. I mean, after all, Robin Hood was nothing more than an outright crook, right?
-Max
.
My reasoning for not taking the handouts is that the stuff is there for people who need it, and if I need it I will take it, but I don't so I won't--and besides if less people used it, less would be taken from taxpayers to pay for it. He claims this is stupid and pointlessly self-righteous and everybody is going to be selfish anyway, so I'm hurting myself for nothing, and besides the Big Brother is just going to keep it anyway and so on...
So then he suggested if I really want to set an example, I should go get food stamps and unemployment and donate it all to charity. Then the money isn't sitting getting interest for "evil fat cats" and it does real good for people. I thought this was an interesting proposition. On the one hand, I am fraudulently siphoning money out of taxpayers pockets. On the other hand, I help people in a way I couldn't otherwise afford to do.
I'm leaning on not doing it for ethical and legal reasons, but I'm curious what people think about it. I mean, after all, Robin Hood was nothing more than an outright crook, right?
-Max
.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
so tempting to say screw america and disappear...
I am so annoyed with the state of things in this country. There is now irrefutable proof that at least three inmates at Guantanamo Bay were tortured and killed... and 100% innocent. Nobody is being prosecuted for this. Obama the saint wants to “move forward” rather than hold people for their crimes.
The Patriot act was recently renewed with all the shit-all-over-the-Fourth-Amendment parts intact. We have been in Afghanistan twice as long as we were in world war two, and there are less than 100 members of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were Saudi Arabian. I was actually in favor of going into Iraq merely for the purpose of killing Saddam Hussein, who was a truly genocidal and horrible person and who was worth getting into Iraq. But what the fuck are we doing now?
Most Americans don't even realize that the rest of the civilized world treats us as Hagrid's half brother in the Harry Potter books—a big dumb giant who we let alone because he's so powerful, but who doesn't really understand what goes on around him. We are heavily in debt to the rest of the world, and if China and others choose to collect, our illusion of power will dissolve and we will finally suffer the inevitable collapse that I am predicting will happen within the next 500 years. We produce very little, consume very much, and borrow from others in order to do this. We are effectively no different than addicts, and if the world decides to cut us off, even our large military won't be able to save us.
Speaking of saving us, Obama gave a nice speech to Congress about health care and guess how many times he brought up the public option... that's right, zero. Nada. Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner are still in charge with Obama's full support. Obama better be one hell of a master chess player because it looks a lot like he's in for it, but I guess it's possible I'm being check-mated in a move or two and just don't see it coming. I get it, politics is hard, and everybody is bitching and the shit is hitting the fan and it's impossible to move anything along with all this happening—but that's why you are supposed to bulldoze through all that and get it done. We KNEW that's how it was working and your whole campaign was based on plowing over the stalemate to make real change.
Man I am very close to going stateless. I am so super pissed and don't want to support this country, and maybe no country. It's so easy to disappear too. Most people don't realize how they are being traced or spied upon, but being a security nut, I know (almost) all the ways and how to thwart them. For example, did you know that your passport can be tracked—that's right it has a computer chip and locater inside of it. Did you know that Skype-to-Skype calls are encrypted? Did you know that in March of this year an investigative journalist tried 4 times to get a US passport under a fake name using fake documentation under the names and SSN of real people who were minors (but he claimed an older age on the application) and got it EVERY TIME without suspicion? Did you know you can buy a small laser cutter and etch pictures of fingerprints into a blank PC board and put a special thin gel and oils on that, then super glue that to your fingertips and voila you have new fingerprints that feel similar to your normal skin, all for less than $1000. Did you know I could hop online and buy, for $40, a hardware-based keylogger to stick between your keyboard and computer to get your passwords, no matter what software security or encryption you have? Oh and of course everybody has heard of disposable cell phones and pre-paid credit cards right?
I am in such a fury at the moment. And I could be off the face of the planet within a month... And with poker being my income, and as online poker players are spread far and wide across the globe, I would have no trouble making money and getting to it (transfer money to a player online and meet him in person for the cash). Shit I could live invisible here in Vegas without any problem. Before the internet, this was after all the money laundering capitol of the world! It would be so easy to say fuck it all, and give up on this country, and right now I am very very tempted. I probably wouldn't become stateless though; I'd just move to another country and renounce US citizenship after becoming a citizen there. I'm thinking of going through all the hoops to become a British citizen, renouncing American citizenship, and then living in Vegas as a legal alien, since Britain doesn't tax gambling winnings at all, and has socialized health care. But I'd feel bad for being a leech. If I do something like that, I want to at least still be contributing at least what I take. But boy oh boy do I not want to be contributing to the society that is the USA right now.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Feeling good, doing good
This past month has been going very well both poker-wise and personally. A few bad things happened, most notably the death of my dog last month, and less notably some personal emotional outbursts, but all of that sort of culminated together into me telling myself “okay I have to get my shit in order and get my head in the right place”. I've been exercising for about an hour at least 4 or 5 days of the week, and I've been putting in a lot of hands. I've also been trying to reduce my variance a bit, which has worked well for my confidence, as well as my winrate because I'm guessing that many spots I thought were “close” were actually -EV.
(Quick note: I stopped going to Harrah's for their promotion after about 3 days. Having to play 8-10 hours a day was bad enough, but not being able to take a break or quit when I didn't feel like playing was absolutely horrendous emotionally and financially. I did not realize just how bad it would be, and thought I could tough it out, but boy was I wrong. It was terrible, and I'm not going back! It did at least serve to invigorate me about playing on my computer, and showed me that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought!!!)
Anyway, back to the story... An example of a variance reduction spot is being checked to in position on the river with a marginal hand that I feel is probably best but not certainly best. If I bet, I may get called by worse hands, which is good, but I may also be called by better hands (bad) or raised by both better and worse hands (also bad since I'm not calling). Usually in those spots I have leaned on betting because I feel my opponents aren't good enough to bluff raise with any reasonable frequency, and thus folding to a raise costs me very little because I would have lost anyway. Therefore, if they aren't bluff-raising, my folding to a raise is equal to them simply calling my bet with a better hand. Therefore, if I beat half of their hands which will call a bet, I should bet and get that bit of extra value.
However, I have been checking back in that spot (and done similar things in other spots) recently to reduce my variance and I have found that I am making more by not betting. This means my bets have been bad, which means I have misrepresented my opponents' range of hands on the river as being weaker than it actually is. With that knowledge I have been double barreling on the turn more often because I know that the range of hands they have when we get to the river is significantly stronger than I felt it was previously. The turn bet costs less and now gives me similar enough information by the river that I can save a big mistake on the last street.
Similarly, I have all but stopped 4-bet bluffing at my current limit but increased my 3-betting by a fair amount, mostly in position. I have found that the response to aggressive 3-betting at the stakes I play is not to raise less often or to 4-bet light, but to call 3-bets more often, and even out of position, which is just fucking terrible.
They are mostly playing to hit because they aren't used to playing 3-bet pots, and certainly not out of position. The most common scenario is for them to check-fold when they miss, or lead into me when they hit. This means I win about three quarters of the 3-bet pots. Add to that the times when a player who calls 3-bets light leads into me on a board they can rarely hit like K25 and then fold to a min-raise and 3-betting becomes insanely profitable.
So I've both reduced my variance and also used the consequences of my new plays to find very profitable spots in other areas that were simply unavailable to me when I was making the higher variance plays. In addition to that I've started playing on a different site than I normally do, which is much softer. I came for the sign-up bonus, but I stayed for the player pool! I expect and am hoping to be bankrolled for taking shots at 200NL within three or four months, at which point I will be able to make a very nice amount of money per month rather than just scraping by.
To illustrate the difference these changes have made, I have taken screen shots from a site which simulates poker outcomes. Prior to this month, let's say my winrate including rake back was about $3.50 per 100 hands, with a standard deviation of $55 per 100 hands. Now, my winrate with rake back is about $5.50 per 100 hands with a standard deviation of $34 per 100 hands. The following graphs illustrate the range of outcomes of 1000 fictional players over a 250,000 hand sample, which is between 4 and 11 months of play for me, depending on how much time I put in. The top graph is the potential outcomes prior to the changes I've been talking about, and the bottom one is with those changes. The thick red line is the average expected value. You see in the first one I could end up after 11 months of play (playing less than I should be if it takes 11 months to play 250K hands!) having made anywhere from $3,500 to $14,000 but in the second one it's between $10,500 and $17,000. That's about a 1/3 slash in the variance, as well as about an increase of $4K in average money made.
Of course it's highly likely that I am also running extremely well, and after reviewing my hands for the month, I'm sure that that is definitely the case, so I'm guessing that my realistic range for this new style over the given time period is between $7K and $15K centering around $9K. Here is my graph for the past month:
I am very hopeful that my luck will continue and that I will be able to move up to 200NL soon and make buttloads of money there. If I can just get there, I will be able to make a reasonable living without playing every second of every day, which will be very VERY nice.
Aside from poker, I am looking forward to going home to Seattle for Christmas and taking a long needed week and a half rest from poker (although my mom is letting me use her laptop and I will probably put in at least a few thousand hands while up there). I really enjoy the holidays and the whole Christmas spirit. While I am an theist and have no delusions about the divinity of Jesus, I do enjoy the fact that there is a designated time where we are supposed to get together with family and be good to one another. I think those reasons are excuse enough for a holiday. (Incidentally, I also think St. Patty's Day is a really well thought out holiday—wear a color you don't normally wear, and get drunk! It's really a perfect holiday—no pretext, just random dress code and lots of drinking.) I'm a big fan of tradition, repetition, and excuses to be with family, have fun, get drunk (though I don't drink much), and donate to charity. Any reason they want to come up with to designate a day to get off work and do these things is fine by me.
Anyway, as I was saying. I like Christmas, and I am looking forward to going to Seattle for a bit. My dad and step mom are in New Zealand, and I am looking forward to vising them there as well, although it will be a few months later. New Zealand sounds like a great place, and I am very excited to see it. (And maybe if I can move up to 1/2 eventually like I am hoping, I will be able to afford my own damn vacations!)
That's it for now...
-Max
.
(Quick note: I stopped going to Harrah's for their promotion after about 3 days. Having to play 8-10 hours a day was bad enough, but not being able to take a break or quit when I didn't feel like playing was absolutely horrendous emotionally and financially. I did not realize just how bad it would be, and thought I could tough it out, but boy was I wrong. It was terrible, and I'm not going back! It did at least serve to invigorate me about playing on my computer, and showed me that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought!!!)
Anyway, back to the story... An example of a variance reduction spot is being checked to in position on the river with a marginal hand that I feel is probably best but not certainly best. If I bet, I may get called by worse hands, which is good, but I may also be called by better hands (bad) or raised by both better and worse hands (also bad since I'm not calling). Usually in those spots I have leaned on betting because I feel my opponents aren't good enough to bluff raise with any reasonable frequency, and thus folding to a raise costs me very little because I would have lost anyway. Therefore, if they aren't bluff-raising, my folding to a raise is equal to them simply calling my bet with a better hand. Therefore, if I beat half of their hands which will call a bet, I should bet and get that bit of extra value.
However, I have been checking back in that spot (and done similar things in other spots) recently to reduce my variance and I have found that I am making more by not betting. This means my bets have been bad, which means I have misrepresented my opponents' range of hands on the river as being weaker than it actually is. With that knowledge I have been double barreling on the turn more often because I know that the range of hands they have when we get to the river is significantly stronger than I felt it was previously. The turn bet costs less and now gives me similar enough information by the river that I can save a big mistake on the last street.
Similarly, I have all but stopped 4-bet bluffing at my current limit but increased my 3-betting by a fair amount, mostly in position. I have found that the response to aggressive 3-betting at the stakes I play is not to raise less often or to 4-bet light, but to call 3-bets more often, and even out of position, which is just fucking terrible.
They are mostly playing to hit because they aren't used to playing 3-bet pots, and certainly not out of position. The most common scenario is for them to check-fold when they miss, or lead into me when they hit. This means I win about three quarters of the 3-bet pots. Add to that the times when a player who calls 3-bets light leads into me on a board they can rarely hit like K25 and then fold to a min-raise and 3-betting becomes insanely profitable.
So I've both reduced my variance and also used the consequences of my new plays to find very profitable spots in other areas that were simply unavailable to me when I was making the higher variance plays. In addition to that I've started playing on a different site than I normally do, which is much softer. I came for the sign-up bonus, but I stayed for the player pool! I expect and am hoping to be bankrolled for taking shots at 200NL within three or four months, at which point I will be able to make a very nice amount of money per month rather than just scraping by.
To illustrate the difference these changes have made, I have taken screen shots from a site which simulates poker outcomes. Prior to this month, let's say my winrate including rake back was about $3.50 per 100 hands, with a standard deviation of $55 per 100 hands. Now, my winrate with rake back is about $5.50 per 100 hands with a standard deviation of $34 per 100 hands. The following graphs illustrate the range of outcomes of 1000 fictional players over a 250,000 hand sample, which is between 4 and 11 months of play for me, depending on how much time I put in. The top graph is the potential outcomes prior to the changes I've been talking about, and the bottom one is with those changes. The thick red line is the average expected value. You see in the first one I could end up after 11 months of play (playing less than I should be if it takes 11 months to play 250K hands!) having made anywhere from $3,500 to $14,000 but in the second one it's between $10,500 and $17,000. That's about a 1/3 slash in the variance, as well as about an increase of $4K in average money made.
Of course it's highly likely that I am also running extremely well, and after reviewing my hands for the month, I'm sure that that is definitely the case, so I'm guessing that my realistic range for this new style over the given time period is between $7K and $15K centering around $9K. Here is my graph for the past month:
I am very hopeful that my luck will continue and that I will be able to move up to 200NL soon and make buttloads of money there. If I can just get there, I will be able to make a reasonable living without playing every second of every day, which will be very VERY nice.
Aside from poker, I am looking forward to going home to Seattle for Christmas and taking a long needed week and a half rest from poker (although my mom is letting me use her laptop and I will probably put in at least a few thousand hands while up there). I really enjoy the holidays and the whole Christmas spirit. While I am an theist and have no delusions about the divinity of Jesus, I do enjoy the fact that there is a designated time where we are supposed to get together with family and be good to one another. I think those reasons are excuse enough for a holiday. (Incidentally, I also think St. Patty's Day is a really well thought out holiday—wear a color you don't normally wear, and get drunk! It's really a perfect holiday—no pretext, just random dress code and lots of drinking.) I'm a big fan of tradition, repetition, and excuses to be with family, have fun, get drunk (though I don't drink much), and donate to charity. Any reason they want to come up with to designate a day to get off work and do these things is fine by me.
Anyway, as I was saying. I like Christmas, and I am looking forward to going to Seattle for a bit. My dad and step mom are in New Zealand, and I am looking forward to vising them there as well, although it will be a few months later. New Zealand sounds like a great place, and I am very excited to see it. (And maybe if I can move up to 1/2 eventually like I am hoping, I will be able to afford my own damn vacations!)
That's it for now...
-Max
.
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