my thoughts on everything

i'm at a crossroad in my life.

I feel so confused as to what to do.

i tried (and failed at) poker, in the end it wasn't the dream scenario - I would attribute naivety and life leaks to that. I went to Korea to work as an English instructor, fell in love with a girl here -but i am absolutely bored here in general. 

I feel like I don't know what the best plan is for my future. By all accounts anyone who has met with me on a personal level just says 'you can do it' or 'you are gonna make it', but i'm now 25; no savings, no real plan, aside from 'keep travelling and see the world then make my mind up when the time is right'.

now i've heard myself say that dozens of times, it just sounds like a convenient excuse.

at the moment i plan on working online as an instructor for a Korean tutoring company. Thing is though, I don't have a big plan yet. It's just (again) so convenient. Give it twelve months and will I be satisfied? I doubt sincerely. 

I need a goal, a vision, a mission, a purpose so to speak. It's a mixture of apathy and regret and potential yet unfulfilled that i'm in this state about, soju doesn't help the matter either.

this is a TL;DR but should you happen to cross this part of the interwbs, give me your perspective. Or just trololololol

http://inanitylane.blogspot.kr/2012/05/philosophy-of-poker-introduction.html

interesting read from Haseeb Qureshi

Raise a lot, call a lot is beaten by Don't raise a lot call a lot

Don't raise a lot call a lot is beaten by Don't raise a lot Don't call a lot

Don't raise a lot Don't call a lot is beaten by Raise a lot don't call a lot

Raise a lot don't call a lot is beaten by raise a lot call a lot

These are the basic strategies to beat certain player types. These days it is good to mix it up so that you have all these various weapons in your arsenal.

If you already have a big stack avoid high variance situations, especially when you have an edge on the table. Adjust your play according to the size of your stack. 

When you play a hand of poker you should always know the answer to the question "what am I trying to accomplish?"

Play unpredictable hands against predictable players

Avoid bluffing calling stations unless it's for their tournament life. Over bet the pot for value, targeting 75% of their stack.

In general it is easier to bluff an opponent who raises your flop c-bet than one who just flat calls.

With a stacksize of 30-35 BB, size your bets so that all-in is about 20bb. Othewise you will lose fold equity.

It is frequently best to lead out on the flop against weak players who have raised preflop and been called multiway.

A small cbet in a multiway pot allows you to keep the lead and control the size of the pot.

The moment antes kick in, you should open up your range for just about everything you're capable of preflop.

100BB and above, your open range should be as wide as you think is profitable. You can also 4bet with the intention of folding when stacks are this deep without committing yourself.

75 - 100BB, comparable to 100BB+ however 4bet folding is a more awkward enterprise.

50 - 75BB, is the optimal stacksize to 3bet your opponents with a fairly wide range of hands, especially IP.

40 - 50BB, you have a near optimal stack to 4bet with a wide range.

30-40BB, you need to be more selective

25-30bb, awkward stack size to play. 3betting light is out of the question

18-25bb, This is a stack size to 3bet shove over peoples raises. 

17bb and under, pick your spot and ship pre. Don't expect any fold equity vs peoples open raises.

When OOP consider keeping the pot small or try to get all in. Fold equity, the value of your hand and position should be the only factors in your decision.

The goal of studying equilibrium charts is to gain and understanding of why we should pick a certain strategy, not to follow it blindly.

Poker is a game of skill. Period.

Think about what size of bankroll makes you feel comfortable and go from there.

Buy in for 100bb min, if you can buy in for more, buy in for the max.

Use table ninja.

Use HEM and use a HUD.

Lump players into these categories: Nits, TAGs, Semi-LPs, Fish, Maniacs.

Play really tight.

Play with the initiative.

Play in position.

Adjust your range by position.

Raise 4x UTG until 3x LP.

Raise more with limpers.

Raise more when OOP.

3bet 3x IP 4x OOP.

3 bet mostly for value.

Bluff players only if they have fold to 3bet over 70%.

You should fold a lot facing 3bets especially OOP.

Call more min 3bets than usual, especially when stack to pot ratio is large.

4bet for value the vast majority of the time.

Against all opponents at the micros, only get in two hands preflop for 100bb+ KK and AA. Make exceptions for maniacs.

4bet size 2.5x your opponents 3bet.

Set mining, if your opponents stack is 15 to 1.

Make your decisions for later streets before you actually get to them.

cbet 75% of the time. 

cbet 60% pot when the board hasnt helped your hand
cbet 75% pot against good players when you have a good hand
cbet 100% pot against bad players and even some regs when I have a hand like TPTK or better.

Overbet when you know villain won't fold and you have a great hand.

When you get raised, fold most of the time. Min raises, do the math and act accordingly.

Turn play, if you don't have top pair or better by the turn, you shouldnt be putting another penny in the pot the majority of the time at the micros

Don't bluff.

The heart of it all - Extraction

GET THE MAXIMUM VALUE OUT OF YOUR GOOD AND GREAT HANDS. Seriously, that's it.

An alternate title for the book could have been "Flop a Set: Hit the Pot Button."

these are totally random, I need to get a hangul keyboard so I can actually write out the words in the korean alphabet.. but alas, romanized korean will have to do for now..

ee bal - haircut

sut ga we - thinning

yorum hyuga - summer holiday

nam ja chingu isso yo? do you have a boyfriend?

olmanah olreay issonee - how long have you been here?

Shiro - don't like

jua - like

aishibal - fucking hell!

jen jang - damn it

eo mo hey yo - what is this?

erum mo hey yo - whats this called?

chaga man yo - just a minute

XYZ chom bil il su in a yo - Have you got XYZ i can borrow? 

hindero - tired

pigun hey yo - exhausted

chiru hey yo - im bored

key bun jua - im in a good mood

sang gwan obso - i can't be bothered

oren man yo - long time no see!

nail bo yo - see you tomorrow

anja yo - sit down

jip jung heh ju say yo - attention please!

ka ja - lets go

jip eh ka ja - let's go home

jin jong eh yo - calm down

dak cho(r) - shut up!

Kop jon ma yo - Don't worry

al yo jo - let me know

ma ja - true

nail mo ha ko eh yo - what are you doing tomorrow?

onjay gun ayo - When will you finish?

oorri onul mo hay yo - What will we do today?

chil go wo so yo = Nice talking to you

nah hung ee bah - see you later

chigum - now

chigop ee moh hey yo - what do you do for work?

(m)bana so bang ga wa yo - it's good to meet you

joun haru poh neh - have a good day

joun chumal poh neh - have a good weekend

jay me geh nora - have fun

yol lock ha ja - keep in touch

chal res so - good job!

In other news, applied for a bunch of online teaching jobs, as well as jobs in Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Korea. My contract is up here in 4 months so I'm getting the ball rolling with the next job hunt. A goal I have is that I'm going to finish my 120 hour TEFL this month. It's kind of a pointless certificate in my view, but a lot of countries think it is good, and in some cases a requirement. Anyway, I'm done.

Peace

I've recently started to attend a language exchange on the weekends, I've picked up a few more things in Korean

Ou you bo dan - caught between two stools (idiom)
Il sok ee Zo - Kill two birds with one stone (idiom)
bul ka nung han - as soon as possible
chung bun ayo - that's enough
sul teah obso - useless
papa yo - im in a hurry/I have to rush
kai ya hey yo - I have to go
chal ja - sleep well
no doh - same to you
naa doh - me too
Nanun mekju jua hey yo - I beer like it - I like beer
Nanun ku-yo-ya jua - I that girl like - I like that girl
mi an ham ni da - I'm sorry (informal)
Jo song hab ni da - (formal)
Nuh jon soh - I'm late
mul da geh say yo - I don't understand
hangul mal lo XYZ ga moh ay yo? - Korean language XYZ how do I say it? - How do i say XYZ in Korean
yang-oh chal ha she neh yo - You speak very good English

coming soon..

3 bet pots have an interesting post flop dynamic

1. The 3bettor is most likely OOP (assuming villain is playing correctly) and is representing the strongest range
   
2. Ranges are narrower, resulting in players mostly either completely hitting or missing the flop
3. Stack to pot ratio is small, meaning if they fold too often, they lose too much money

factors 2 and 3 above result in an interesting situation; you must win the pot often, but you also miss the flop often. Therefore you must play very aggressively in 3bet pots.

We need to consider how tight our villains 5bet range is. If it is so tight that our range contains hands that have less than 33% equity, we should opt to make a pot sized four bet. If our opponents range is looser, we should only shove or fold against his 3bets.

Calling 3bets OOP is a bad strategy, so we should opt to fold many of our hands

It's best to 3bet mostly with hands that give us certainty about their strength on the flop

1. Strong suited connectors - they make strong draws that have huge equity when the hit the flop and allow us to play very aggressively
2. Smaller pocket pairs - we know we are generally behind when they miss and ahead when we make a set
3. Non-dominated broadways AK and AQ. You can consider widening this if you opponent has a wider 4betting range

As a general rule, you should bet most flops due to factors mentioned earlier (smaller SPR means folding too often is too costly and both players miss the flop often). If your opponent is unaware of bet sizing, or will fold at the same frequency regardless of bet size then bet smaller, it's more +EV

There are several factors that influence the profitability squeezing:

• How loose is the initial raiser?
• How likely is it that the cold caller(s) is(are) slow playing a big hand?
• How likely are the other players to bluff shove all in?
• How well can your hand do by simply calling along rather than 3betting?
• How aware are your opponents that you could be capable of squeezing without a great hand?

For squeezing, we need to have hands that are not dominated post flop. Very similarly to the hands we would opt to 3bet OOP; strong suited connectors, small pocket pairs (WAWB) and non-dominated broadways.

Dealing with getting squeezed is fairly easy.  Don't call often OOP. Exploit a player who is squeezing with a large range by either calling and slow playing your big hands, or 4bet shipping a wide range of hands.

Peace

Over the past few weeks I have been involved in an exchange with several smart and reasonable people on this forum (that's why I like DC, it's like the oracle, so many gifted thinkers in one place) about the 9/11 discussion. The thread is here. 

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/4-General-Discussion/topics/488971-Bad-People 

I hope this is the last post I make on it as getting flamed for asking reasonable questions is not my cup of tea. Go ahead and flame me for being a Leeds fan or liking the Arctic Monkeys on facebook, because we all know that's irrelevant chit chat anyway. This issue however is more important because it has dictated the entire political landscape for more than a decade. 

I got called out on the 9/11 debate by one member who I respect for his posts on the HFLC diet which I agree with. We disagree on the matter of 9/11 however, and it seems at the moment that the debate has transcended into a mud slinging contest.

Let me define first this discussion.

Essentially, there are two sides to the debate.

One side asserts absolutely that the US governments account is 100% correct, no further investigation is needed, the US governments account completely satisfies all anomalies and there is no need to ask any more questions. 19 hijackers fooled a multi billion dollar industry four times in one day, and they achieved their aims of hurting America because they 'hate freedom' and 'got lucky' (The opposing side of the discussion)

The other side states that there are several holes in the story put forward by the government, that absent from sufficient investigation will remain a large question mark over the official account and ultimately when looked at from a critical view point will be a black eye for the US government. (my perspective in this discussion)

The main points of contention are:

- Funding for the attacks, who, what, where, when, how... Yet not answered
- 60% of family members questions are not answered by the commission. (See family members steering committee)
- Collapses of buildings in NYC (see ae911truth free online docus)
- The fact that hijackers could succeed at all.. when so much money has been spent on 'defence' for decades.
- Five Dancing Israelis 

The rest is an aside, and irrelevant to the discussion. Either you a) think the US governments account is 100% correct and are happy with it, or b) Think there are too many flaws in the current perspective of the investigation and therefore a new fully funded investigation should be carried out to fully follow the money and find those directly responsible. 

Follow the money

"When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket, and then that society vanishes in a spread of ruins and slaughter. Do you wish to know whether that day is coming?

"Watch Money. Money is a barometer of a society's virtue.

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - then you may know that your society is doomed.

"Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection, and the base of a moral existence." 

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

That's it.

Peace

 :)