Yes, I'm Protesting Math

I've been putting a lot of my time into Rush PLO lately and have been doing pretty well. Don't want to post the jinxing graph but it's amazing how things work. I'm profitable at HUNL but am not at 6max NL. Then I'm profitable at 6 max rush PLO and am god awful at HUPLO. Rush works well for me though since I have smaller windows to get hands in during baseball season and am able to play and get a good amount of hands in in small doses. 

KasinoKrime has been huge in helping me understand PLO. He was nice enough to send me a couple videos from PLOquickpro.com and they're really good. I'm not sure when his site is going live but anyone that can afford it should absolutely buy it. I promise you won't be disappointed. Everything is top notch from the presentation to the material in the videos.

Furthermore he sent me an interview one of his partners did with former MLB pitcher Orel Hershiser. They mainly talked about the mental game of poker and how to focus in. Despite not being young enough to watch Mr. Hershiser in his heyday I have always been a fan. If you've ever seen his stuff it's nothing impressive however he had some great years with the Dodgers and was huge in their big games. 

While I love Tommy's video series, the material in this interview was much more applicable to me. He used many baseball analogies and talked about how he was able to focus on the mound with thousands of screaming fans in attendance. The interview gave me a bunch of new ideas and again, not sure what it's going to go live but I'd encourage any poker player to do what they can to get their hands on it.

Yesterday I went to youtube something and an hour later I was  still clicking on related videos. Two youtube videos I thought I'd share

 Thought this youtube comment summed it up well.

first was a strike, 2nd was a toss up, 3rd was racist.
    As3sinoL0C0 1 month ago 25 

 Second youtbue video is actually a baseball brawl. My thoughts:

•  What the catcher did was extremely bush league.  
• I've never seen a high school baseball fight like this one, a lot of the times I blame altercations that get out of hand like this on the coaching staff although I don't think they could've done anything here.
  
• I'm guessing this was brewing for a while, something must have happened earlier or in the previous game
• I'm not sure how all 4 guys got around the bases on the walkoff grand slam without another fight happening.

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Failure is blindness to the strategic element in events; success is readiness for instant action when the opportune moment arrives. 
Newell D. Hillis

I've been a baseball nerd for a while. Knowing all sorts of advanced stats about a lot of players and teams. I knew which teams were running well, were lucky, and were unlucky. While I don't mention these stats to most of my friends, I do to a select few as well as my brother. My brother has become very annoyed with it in the past and I've never been exactly sure why.

 For hockey it's the opposite, I only pick up things from the games that I watch. I've watched about every Bruins game so far this year and think they have a good chance to make some noise in the playoffs. Reading the 2+2 hockey forum I've come to realize that the stat geeks say that Boston is overrated and I gotta tell you it's incredibly annoying. So from now on when I'm watching baseball games with people who aren't into advanced stats, I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself.

On a completely different note, I love Saturdays during baseball season. Often times it starts with an early practice and from there I'm allowed to be productive before noon. From there I generally grind then grab lunch and watch some afternoon baseball. It's actually byfar my most relaxing day of the week as I'm forced to get up early. I should probably take note of that and make it a habit.

Finally, I'll leave you with this outstanding commercial.

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"Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer."
Ed Cunningham

Opening day is here, for me it's my second favorite day of the year behind the first day of the baseball playoffs. It's a new beginning, there's day baseball, and despite the weather it marks the beginning of spring for me. In addition, I know from April-October I'll have something to watch a night. I also know there will be countless second guessing and debate which makes this game so great. Many people find baseball too slow but for me it's a chess match that we get to see unfold.

Here are my predictions.

AL East- Redsox

AL Central- Tigers

AL West- A's

Wildcard- Yanks

NL East- Phillies

NL Central- Brewers

NL West- Giants

NL Wild Card- Braves

AL Cy Young- Jon Lester

NL Cy Young- Roy Halladay

AL MVP- Robinson Cano

NL MVP- Troy Tulowitzki

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- Joe Dimaggio

This goes without saying but I'm a huge fan of Brad Stevens, the head coach of the Butler Bulldogs. I've mentioned him numerous times in this blog, I've devoted 5 minutes talking about him and his mannerisms in a Down on the Farm video, and just have the highest level of respect for him. For the second consecutive year he has led his team to the final four when < 1% of America picked them to make it. He has a great eye for under-appreciated talent and he's perhaps the best tactician in college basketball. For example, today with his team struggling against a fast Florida team he put in a quick guard that barely played at all this year. The kid only played about 5 minutes but started Butler's comeback with a great no look pass and then drained a 3 on their next possession.

Not only that he has the perfect temperament for a coach. Never gets too high or too low and his kids translate that to the court. They rarely make stupid mistakes late in games and it's fun to watch. I of course had Butler losing in the first round this year, but being a coach myself and it's hard not to appreciate what Coach Stevens is doing at a small school. I was rooting for them since the sweet 16 and I'll be rooting for them to win the national championship. They have 2 more games to win and they'll be fairly substantial underdogs in both games. If we could all incorporate his mannerisms and calm demeanor into poker playing, we'd make a lot more money

I was recently talking to a bored friend on AIM. I asked if he had ever read J-Mac's blog on DC. He mentioned he had not and I immediately linked him to it with the best posts. He read them all and loved it. My brother despite not playing poker is a huge fan. He has a great knack for telling stories and putting jokes in the right places. I'll leave you with a few of my favorites but really every one is very good. I wish he'd post more as I'm very entertained each time he makes a new post.

Here are four great J-mac blog posts with this one being my favorite.

My schedule problems are solved. One of my good friends who is an Athletic Director told me he E-mails himself his daily plan each night. This is prefect for me since E-mail is the first thing I check each morning and seeing a structured plan there will help a ton. I've always worked better with things mapped out. My first college practice where the practice schedule was posted on the dugout wall with times for everything my mind was blown. I've used that for every team I've coached since and E-mailing myself a schedule is probably the best thing for me. 

That's all I have for now, hope everyone is running well.

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Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

Spanish proverb

2+2 was having a $250 random bracket tournament and I got in for 2 brackets with a buddy of mine. Unfortunately we're pretty much out of both. We needed SDSU last night since we drew them to go to the final 4 in both of our brackets but UCONN and Kemba Walker ruined that dream. Now our only hope at the $50,000 first place prize is Richmond vs Marquette in the finals with Marquette winning. I wish I could say stranger things have happened but I don't think they have.

Every time baseball season rolls around I always set an artificial schedule for myself to allow me to play poker during the daytime and I never stick to it. I really need to figure out a way to force myself to get hands in. Especially since hockey season is winding down and when the playoffs hit and baseball season starts I usually won't be playing at night. It all comes down to me waking up at a reasonable time, 11 AM wakeup times are just unproductive. and only leave me with a couple hours to get things done before practice.

Speaking of hockey, the Bruins are the most bi-polar team I've ever seen. They have stretches where they look like the best team in hockey and other instances where they look like the worst. Last night was the former as they destroyed the Habs 7-0. With playoffs only a couple weeks away it'd be a great time to hit their stride and start to play well. Either way hockey playoffs are always full of emotion so I'm sure it'll be a crazy ride. The last 3 years the Bruins have lost in game 7 and I really don't even want to think about last years Flyers series.

Finally ending with a story of a buddy who works at the library of a high school. He basically monitors the computers at the library making sure there's nothing against the rules going on. He sees the websites everyone is on and can pull up their screen if need be. So one day he was monitoring and saw pornhub.com on the screen. Pulls up the monitor and you can guess what was on there. He goes over to the kid and tells him to collect his belongings and takes him to the principles office.

Ah the youth of America, he has to circumvent the school's filter just to get on it and from there hope that my buddy is not paying attention. Quite the roll of the dice, unfortunately for him it came up craps.

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I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.

 Jewish proverb

So I was recently told about Rebecca Black's Friday music video and how bad it was. I tuned in and I gotta say, it's fantastic. Obviously not from a song standpoint but the unintentional comedy that comes from it. Here's the song and a few great gifs that go with it.

 Where else can you get lyrics like this?

Tomorrow is Saturday 
And Sunday comes after ... wards 
I don't want this weekend to end 

And follow that up with the random dude rapping in the middle of it, it has everything. Enjoy the gifs.

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Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
Winston Churchill

Well, the bad part about only choosing one bracket is your bracket could be destroyed on day 1. Last year it was with Georgetown losing to Ohio, this year I have Louisville to thank for that. I was watching it with some of my players before practice  and felt safe when they went up by 4 with a minute left. I was able to make a comeback last year and win one of my pools, but that's extremely unlikely. This picture sums up my thoughts.

Joe Posnanski, largely felt to be the best sports writer in America by many recently wrote this article. It really hits home since I'm sure when we were younger we all did stuff like this. Either in the basement, the living room, etc. It's such an awesome time creating game scenarios and acting them out. One thing that really stood out is when you're simulating games such as basketball you always go down by 20 points and then start climbing back. Never do you pull within 8 before losing by 12. No matter how ridiculous it is, it doesn't matter.

During my lunch with Krantz we talked a bunch about many different topics. He had a couple hilarious stories including one about staking. Looking back on it it was weird that despite making a lot more money than me we both had similar goals and neither included many poker ones. Him being 26 and myself being 25 is sort of ancient in poker years and are at the same stages. I'll be the first to say mine is on a much smaller scale and our routes through the poker world are much different. However as far as where we want to go from here, it was similar.

So where am I at in my poker career? Honestly I don't have any intentions of moving higher than 200. I'm currently back at 100 and just don't have the drive to put in the time to deal with the 400-1000 regs anymore. I'm fine making my current hourly and with the amount of studying I put in it's still enough to beat the games. That may change, but I doubt it.

Furthermore the amount of bumhunting that goes on nowadays really bugs me. Going to date myself but before PTR and before HUNL became popular most regs would play anyone. You play a session, learn from it and move on. Now it's completely different. I've been tilted before, tried to play 5/10 and the only players that would play me were the best at the level (I know, don't tilt). It can be disheartening I'm sure for the mid stakes regs to wait for an hour with no action. It's the main reason I tried to learn HUPLO but that has kicked my ass twice.

So yes, I'll continue to play and hopefully beat 100nl and eventually 200nl but that will be it for me and fortunately there's nothing wrong with that.

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Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

--Thomas Jefferson

With the NCAA tournament starting today I'm obviously going to be doing nothing but watching basketball before and after practice. I personally only fill out one bracket and deem it the bracket of integrity. I stole it form Mike and Mike. Some guys fill out multiple brackets but I prefer to make my picks and just go with that. I'm in a few different pools and have the same bracket for every single one. In March during the first weekend, everyone is an expert. Here are the typical people you'll come across if you follow it at all.

"Joey Brackets"- ESPN has a tournament expert called Joe Lunardi. He gets the nickname Joey Brackets. This nickname goes to the guy who picks all 4 number one seeds to go to the final 4 because he thinks they're the best teams. This is just no fun, part of the allure of the tournament are all the upsets, not to mention that all 4 one seeds have made the final 4 only once. My brother and I deemed this person "Joey Brackets" for no reason at all, except it felt like a good time for it.

"How can you pick them?"- This guy is captain hindsight. He rips on your cinderalla picks. Throws in a few "I can't believe you had them going to the sweet 16" after your cinderalla loses in the first round and is just typically not fun at all to watch games with. 

"No way they can lose." This person loves the top seed in the tournament generally. Last year a buddy said to me "I really don't see anyway Kansas loses." Well, his bracket was done after they lost in the second round to Northern Iowa. No team is ever unbeatable, but arguing with this person is worthless. They're convinced that their team can't lose until they actually do.

"Cinderalla man"- This guy is the complete opposite of Joey Brackets. He goes with his gut, has double digit seeds going nuts, and loves upsets. Nothing wrong with this guy and if he gets a few right he'll be in a great position to win his pool.

"First Round Hero"- After the first day everyone generally checks in with each other. There's always some dude that goes 14-2 that thinks he's the expert. Sometimes he's cocky, other times he's humble. Just remember this, it's very similar to being the chip leader at the end of the first hour.

That's all I've got, enjoy the games. Also perhaps the best part of the tourney, when it's over baseball season starts.

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If you're an underdog, mentally disabled, physically disabled, if you don't fit in, if you're not as pretty as the others, you can still be a hero.
Steve Guttenberg

Have about an hour to kill before I leave for the Garden so decided to blog. Trip in NYC has been fun. The two games I saw yesterday were awesome. Kemba Walker is so incredibly quick live it's not even fair. Then the atmosphere was great for the St. Johns-Syracuse game. Fortunately Syracuse was able to win a close one to set up a 09 rematch between Uconn and Syracuse. Madison Square Garden is pretty awesome. I never realized how dark it was in there with the exception of the court but it's a great place to watch a basketball game.

Had lunch with Krantz today at Sushi Yasuda. I'm not big into sushi but I gotta imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a better sushi restaurant anywhere. Sushi Samba in Vegas was pretty awesome, but I think today eclipsed that. He told me about a really cool DC thing he had set up that I don't want to spoil but the outline of it sounds really really cool.

On Wednesday I went to a buddy's baseball practice at a local Manhattan high school. It was pretty cool to watch someone else run practice and pick up ideas and drills. One thing I'm jealous of is the way he runs practice. With the kids he has and the program he has established the practices pretty much runs itself and he goes through and just intervenes when necessary. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to do that with any of my teams. I'm not sure how the other teams in his league look, but I'd be willing to bet they're going to do very well this year.

Looking for a place to eat for dinner on Wednesday I passed by a White Castle. Being a huge fan of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, it was pretty mandatory that I stopped there.

I'm convinced that if you can drive in NYC, you can drive pretty much anywhere else blindfolded.

Off to the Garden, go Cuse!

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Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.
Martin H. Fischer

So I went into my test today feeling 100% confident. I figured the only way I would fail is if I got the 100 worst questions they could ask me. I go and check into the exam center and sit down at my computer. Reading the tutorial stuff that I've seen before, I breezed by that. It then says, you'll be asked 65 questions. I immediately thought "that doesn't look right." I called the proctor over and explained the situation. They took me out of the room and said I have two options. 1) Take the test 2) File a complaint which I won't win so I decided on the former.

I ended up getting a 50% on the test but now I have to E-mail my boss explaining the situation. I can only imagine his reaction when reading that thinking "Why did we hire this guy?". I offered to pay for the test, and hope I can schedule the right one soon. I usually check my E-mail about 20 times a day but am dreading the reply since I can only imagine his thought process while reading and know what mine would be if I were in his shoes.

The good news is I can forget about this one for a while as I leave for NYC on Wednesday.

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Kirk Lazarus: To be a moron.
Tugg Speedman: Yeah.
Kirk Lazarus: To be moronical
Tugg Speedman: Exactly, to be a moron.
Kirk Lazarus: An imbecile.
Tugg Speedman: Yeah.
Kirk Lazarus: Like the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived.