Tried my hand at PokerStars yesterday. I think it was a wise choice. They have a type of tournament that FT doesn't have: Double or Nothing. Basically, all you have to do is finish in the top five of a 10-top, and you double your money, hence its title.
I like this option a lot, and I think that despite what I think is a cheeseball interface, I'll be playing Pokerstars from here on out.
Double or nothing rewards my kind of play, I think. If you are patient, and pick your spots well, all you really need to do is win one or two big pots and you've pretty much won. More importantly, you don't need to be in the top 5 percent of players to win consistently; just be in, say, the top 35 percent and you're a consistent winner. Now I'm by no means a great poker player, but I could hold my head up and put myself in the top 35% without shame. Therefore I think I'll win consistently here, and isn't that what it's all aboot?
So it's Double or Nothing for the next few weeks exclusively, to give me time to fine-tune my game accordingly. I'll report my gains/losses in the upcoming posts.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Best of The Crafty Southpaw: Learning to Fly
Since it's the weekend, I figured I'd reprint a particularly funny post from some years ago. Hazel Mae, by the way, was a Filipino (I think) sportscaster with gigantic breasts. Enjoy.
LEARNING TO FLY
Humans, I found out the hard way, are not meant to fly. It's neither exhilarating nor, ultimately, pain-free - but I get ahead of myself.
A little background on Your Humble Scribe, for those of you who don't know him or know him well: I wear socks to bed. Yes, it's strange, I suppose. I have to have my feet covered more or less all the time or I kinda get the willies. Sure. It's a thing. But at least I'm not turning the lights on and off six times before I can go to bed. As things go, it's pretty mild.
The second and third things you need to know to get maximum impact from this story are these: my house has hardwood floors, and a sunken living room. The perceptive among you already can see where this is going. But for the slow, I continue:
This past Thursday, upon awakening, I staggered out of bed and, as is sometimes my custom, made my way to the living room to watch Hazel Mae doing SportsDesk and dream my little dreamy dreams about being her mug of Dunkin Donuts Coffee. Except I never got there.
Right before the step down into the living room, my left foot went completely out from under me and my momentum sent me, for one long moment, airborne and completely parallel with the ever-approaching earth.
Time stood still. A thousand thoughts raced through my head - most of them some variant of, "this isn't going to end well."
I was not wrong in my assessment of the situation.
I landed, ass first, on the unyielding hardwood floor, the step having lodged itself cozily in the small of my back. The pain was exquisite. Toots, putting on her face in the bathroom and hearing both the sickening thud and the subsequent howls and whimpers of pain, asked me if I was ok.
"I don't know," was my honest reply.
I took a quick inventory. Toes: wiggling. Good. Limbs: seemingly intact. Also good. Shards of broken bone piercing the skin: absent. So it appeared as if there were no permanent damage - but I couldn't help but feel like I got run over by a boxcar. And there was this unsettling fact: my ass hurt. Real bad. I had landed right on my tailbone and I learned quickly and poignantly that a tailbone injury was no laughing matter.
Thoroughly out of options - staying upright was unthinkable - I staggered back to the bedroom and threw myself, face down of course, on the bed to collect myself and take a more accurate assessment of the harm my body had just taken. Thankfully, after about a half-hour and three Advil, I was enough of my old self to drag this miserable excuse for a body into the shower and get to work, only about 45 minutes after I normally do.
However, the (pun intended) kick in the ass is, my ass still hurts. And the only two positions in which the pain is gone is standing up, or lying in such a way as to put no pressure on the offending area - neither option of which is palatable to my day job, or to the pressbox at McCoy Stadium, where I'll be this evening, squirming like I've sat on an anthill and wishing I'd taken my Advil with me.
So the moral of the story is this, and it holds true in many walks of life: Don't mess with your own ass.
LEARNING TO FLY
Humans, I found out the hard way, are not meant to fly. It's neither exhilarating nor, ultimately, pain-free - but I get ahead of myself.
A little background on Your Humble Scribe, for those of you who don't know him or know him well: I wear socks to bed. Yes, it's strange, I suppose. I have to have my feet covered more or less all the time or I kinda get the willies. Sure. It's a thing. But at least I'm not turning the lights on and off six times before I can go to bed. As things go, it's pretty mild.
The second and third things you need to know to get maximum impact from this story are these: my house has hardwood floors, and a sunken living room. The perceptive among you already can see where this is going. But for the slow, I continue:
This past Thursday, upon awakening, I staggered out of bed and, as is sometimes my custom, made my way to the living room to watch Hazel Mae doing SportsDesk and dream my little dreamy dreams about being her mug of Dunkin Donuts Coffee. Except I never got there.
Right before the step down into the living room, my left foot went completely out from under me and my momentum sent me, for one long moment, airborne and completely parallel with the ever-approaching earth.
Time stood still. A thousand thoughts raced through my head - most of them some variant of, "this isn't going to end well."
I was not wrong in my assessment of the situation.
I landed, ass first, on the unyielding hardwood floor, the step having lodged itself cozily in the small of my back. The pain was exquisite. Toots, putting on her face in the bathroom and hearing both the sickening thud and the subsequent howls and whimpers of pain, asked me if I was ok.
"I don't know," was my honest reply.
I took a quick inventory. Toes: wiggling. Good. Limbs: seemingly intact. Also good. Shards of broken bone piercing the skin: absent. So it appeared as if there were no permanent damage - but I couldn't help but feel like I got run over by a boxcar. And there was this unsettling fact: my ass hurt. Real bad. I had landed right on my tailbone and I learned quickly and poignantly that a tailbone injury was no laughing matter.
Thoroughly out of options - staying upright was unthinkable - I staggered back to the bedroom and threw myself, face down of course, on the bed to collect myself and take a more accurate assessment of the harm my body had just taken. Thankfully, after about a half-hour and three Advil, I was enough of my old self to drag this miserable excuse for a body into the shower and get to work, only about 45 minutes after I normally do.
However, the (pun intended) kick in the ass is, my ass still hurts. And the only two positions in which the pain is gone is standing up, or lying in such a way as to put no pressure on the offending area - neither option of which is palatable to my day job, or to the pressbox at McCoy Stadium, where I'll be this evening, squirming like I've sat on an anthill and wishing I'd taken my Advil with me.
So the moral of the story is this, and it holds true in many walks of life: Don't mess with your own ass.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Two Years Ago Today
May 5th 2008 was actually a day exactly like this - unseasonably warm, bright sun shining in an optimistic sky, a glorious Spring day bringing word of warmer, brighter days to come.
My mom was inside the house, watching TV. My father was outside in a lawn chair, putting pebbles in a flowerbox. After the pebbles would come the soil; he was going to plant some four-o'clocks in there. He went to the side of the yard, presumably to the hose bib, to put some water in the box, so the four-o'clocks had a decent shot at taking.
And there it was that my mother found him, fallen on a cement stoop in front of the hose bib, glasses askew, skin cut but not bleeding. His heart, weakened from three heart attacks and genes that always work against our family, finally just gave out. The cuts that didn't bleed told the doctors that he was dead before he fell.
Cyril Robert Jacobs, my father, the anchor of our family, was 75. And his death broke my heart, in ways from which I still have yet to recover. Two years have passed since that awful, awful day, and I have made no more than an uneasy truce with it.
I sunk into a depression that lasted 18 months. In the last six months I have been able to laugh freely again without guilt; I can remember my dad without tears most days; it cannot but be admitted that the slow passage of time has some curative value.
But I'm still broken. And days like today, where he is all I can think about, and the sun is shining brightly in an optimistic sky, are very hard to endure.
So I'm sorry if I'm not quite myself today. I'll be playing the Very Josie tonight. I hope I play well; my dad was tickled at the fact that I showed some small aptitude at poker.
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm sure this was an incredible downer but it helps to type it out.
My mom was inside the house, watching TV. My father was outside in a lawn chair, putting pebbles in a flowerbox. After the pebbles would come the soil; he was going to plant some four-o'clocks in there. He went to the side of the yard, presumably to the hose bib, to put some water in the box, so the four-o'clocks had a decent shot at taking.
And there it was that my mother found him, fallen on a cement stoop in front of the hose bib, glasses askew, skin cut but not bleeding. His heart, weakened from three heart attacks and genes that always work against our family, finally just gave out. The cuts that didn't bleed told the doctors that he was dead before he fell.
Cyril Robert Jacobs, my father, the anchor of our family, was 75. And his death broke my heart, in ways from which I still have yet to recover. Two years have passed since that awful, awful day, and I have made no more than an uneasy truce with it.
I sunk into a depression that lasted 18 months. In the last six months I have been able to laugh freely again without guilt; I can remember my dad without tears most days; it cannot but be admitted that the slow passage of time has some curative value.
But I'm still broken. And days like today, where he is all I can think about, and the sun is shining brightly in an optimistic sky, are very hard to endure.
So I'm sorry if I'm not quite myself today. I'll be playing the Very Josie tonight. I hope I play well; my dad was tickled at the fact that I showed some small aptitude at poker.
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm sure this was an incredible downer but it helps to type it out.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Must See TV
If you enjoy watching poker on TV, and who here doesn't, you have got to catch Poker After Dark for the next two weeks. NBC, 2:05AM - 3:05 AM. It's usually a winner-takes-all 1 table affair but every so often (a couple, three times a season) they run a two-week cash game. If you're not an inveterate night owl like myself, you can TiVo, DVR, or hell, even videotape it.
Why?
I don't want to give up the juicier details, but - SPOILER ALERT - Phil Hellmuth gets his ass handed to him BUT GOOD. Now me personally, I think Hellmuth is a wretched, ill-tempered, ill-mannered gasbag who is pathologically unable to admit to poor play or to keep his trap shut after a bad beat. When you combine that with his Caesarian ego (the metaphor is apt; he makes his entrace at the WSOP main event dressed as Julius Caesar himself) it all adds up to a particularly odious human being for whom I've lost all respect. Better still he's lost the respect of his peers, by the sound of it: He hasn't changed his game since 1989 and he's been getting hammered for the last few years, just hammered.
One little story that might have escaped the casual watcher of TV: At a very early WPT event, season 1, Hellmuth made a final table with Esfandiari, who knocked Hellmuth out. When he did so he did this wave-kinda-sorta-thing before he shook Hellmuth's hand. Apparently the insult of making Phil wait with his hand out for a second or two prompted him to say, "show some class, kid, shake my hand when you beat me." And THAT'S how I like my irony, friends. Here is the unquestionably LEAST CLASSY person in the whole poker world, bar none, schooling someone on poker etiquette. Screw you, Hellmuth. Seriously. And you know what? If it's all an act, a sort of poker Grand Guignol of the mind? Drop it. It makes people want to spit hot solder in your eyes. Yes, your enemy would have burned his mouth in so doing, but that's how much the world hates you.
Anyway, watch the show. It's so good you'll be licking your fingers afterward.
Non-Poker Content: The by-god Boston Bruins have opened up a 2-0 lead over their second round opponents the Philadelphia Flyers. If they win this series, which is looking at least a little likely, they'll be playing for the Eastern Conference championship and the right to win the Stanley Cup, for the first time in about 20 years or so. Heady times for the Black and Gold. We need the Montreal Canadiens to do their best to defeat or fatigue the Penguins, putting me for the very first time in my life in the awkward position of saying these words: GO HABS!
Why?
I don't want to give up the juicier details, but - SPOILER ALERT - Phil Hellmuth gets his ass handed to him BUT GOOD. Now me personally, I think Hellmuth is a wretched, ill-tempered, ill-mannered gasbag who is pathologically unable to admit to poor play or to keep his trap shut after a bad beat. When you combine that with his Caesarian ego (the metaphor is apt; he makes his entrace at the WSOP main event dressed as Julius Caesar himself) it all adds up to a particularly odious human being for whom I've lost all respect. Better still he's lost the respect of his peers, by the sound of it: He hasn't changed his game since 1989 and he's been getting hammered for the last few years, just hammered.
One little story that might have escaped the casual watcher of TV: At a very early WPT event, season 1, Hellmuth made a final table with Esfandiari, who knocked Hellmuth out. When he did so he did this wave-kinda-sorta-thing before he shook Hellmuth's hand. Apparently the insult of making Phil wait with his hand out for a second or two prompted him to say, "show some class, kid, shake my hand when you beat me." And THAT'S how I like my irony, friends. Here is the unquestionably LEAST CLASSY person in the whole poker world, bar none, schooling someone on poker etiquette. Screw you, Hellmuth. Seriously. And you know what? If it's all an act, a sort of poker Grand Guignol of the mind? Drop it. It makes people want to spit hot solder in your eyes. Yes, your enemy would have burned his mouth in so doing, but that's how much the world hates you.
Anyway, watch the show. It's so good you'll be licking your fingers afterward.
Non-Poker Content: The by-god Boston Bruins have opened up a 2-0 lead over their second round opponents the Philadelphia Flyers. If they win this series, which is looking at least a little likely, they'll be playing for the Eastern Conference championship and the right to win the Stanley Cup, for the first time in about 20 years or so. Heady times for the Black and Gold. We need the Montreal Canadiens to do their best to defeat or fatigue the Penguins, putting me for the very first time in my life in the awkward position of saying these words: GO HABS!
Monday, May 3, 2010
An Open Letter to the Scumbag I Played Poker With Last Night
FUCK YOU.
It's just shy of 4:00 in the morning, you self-important shit dick. But even if it wasn't, there is no reason on earth why it took you 18 seconds to make every single decision. Playing poker with you was less like a game of skill and chance and more like fucking root canal surgery.
We're playing for 33 bucks - not the crown god damned jewels of the British Empire. If it takes two minutes to play every hand because you're doing the god damned ROBOT and clicking your mouse in super slo mo, nobody is going to want to play you. I know I've made a note, and will never willingly play you, as long as I live.
My boiling white-hot hatred for you knows no bounds. You should accidentally swallow a Ginsu knife and die, horrible and slow. You should get bitten by a rabid mongoose, go crazy with rabies and die, horrible and slow. And then the rabid mongoose should eat its fill of your entrails and take an extremely satisifying CRAP right where your chest cavity used to be, and when the mongoose is done, the flies will come and use your now-decaying corpse as a combination hotel and all-you-can-eat buffet. Then your rotting, flyblown corpse, stripped of sinew, bones bleached white, WILL TAKE THE SAME FUCKING AMOUNT OF TIME TO PLAY A GOD DAMNED POKER GAME THAN YOU DID LAST NIGHT, YOU WORTHLESS PRICK.
It's just shy of 4:00 in the morning, you self-important shit dick. But even if it wasn't, there is no reason on earth why it took you 18 seconds to make every single decision. Playing poker with you was less like a game of skill and chance and more like fucking root canal surgery.
We're playing for 33 bucks - not the crown god damned jewels of the British Empire. If it takes two minutes to play every hand because you're doing the god damned ROBOT and clicking your mouse in super slo mo, nobody is going to want to play you. I know I've made a note, and will never willingly play you, as long as I live.
My boiling white-hot hatred for you knows no bounds. You should accidentally swallow a Ginsu knife and die, horrible and slow. You should get bitten by a rabid mongoose, go crazy with rabies and die, horrible and slow. And then the rabid mongoose should eat its fill of your entrails and take an extremely satisifying CRAP right where your chest cavity used to be, and when the mongoose is done, the flies will come and use your now-decaying corpse as a combination hotel and all-you-can-eat buffet. Then your rotting, flyblown corpse, stripped of sinew, bones bleached white, WILL TAKE THE SAME FUCKING AMOUNT OF TIME TO PLAY A GOD DAMNED POKER GAME THAN YOU DID LAST NIGHT, YOU WORTHLESS PRICK.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
20 Reasons Why Poker is Like Life
- You can do everything right and still lose.
- You can do everything wrong and still win.
- Sometimes the bastards win.
- Sometimes the idiots win.
- When the chips are down, you usually lose; but when you win under those circumstances it's incredibly sweet (and memorable).
- Every so often you don't deserve what you get but you get it anyway.
- There is no substitute for hard work.
- You can be cruising along, thinking you have the world by the balls, and something will come out of nowhere to bruise and bloody you.
- It's not what you deserve; it's what you take.
- You will get the feeling that your friends, life, and God Almighty Himself are conspiring against you. Sometimes you will be right.
- Coming in second place can win you acclaim, notoriety, and money - but it's a pale shadow to winning.
- Having friends is more fulfilling than being a lone wolf. Defeats are softened, and victory sweetened, when shared with friends.
- If you don't learn from your mistakes, you are bound to repeat them, over and over again.
- Know thy enemy as you know thyself.
- Chance favors the prepared.
- Boorish, brash, uneducated behavior wins you little but the silent contempt of your peers, bearing in mind rule 4.
- In a perfect world, you either win with honor or lose with honor. Sometimes your adversary does not believe or practice this rule - but you should still, all the more because he does not.
- If you don't love it, it's an excruciating way to make a living.
- If you swim in waters too deep for you, it rarely ends well.
- There is always someone smarter than you.
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