Posted by Johnnymac 10:36 AM
The new website is finally up. This one is closed down.

Please reset your bookmarks and links to:http://www.itaintgambling.com

Go check it out when you get a chance. There are still some formatting issues to be resolved and the design will be evolving for a while (like this cobbled together POS has over the years), but I think you will agree that things will be better on our self-hosted site.

Have a good day and thanks for reading!


(28) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 9:01 PM
"Fuck me"

That's not a very nice thing to say. I't's also not a very nice thing to type on a blog.

It was the last sentence I uttered as I stepped away from my table at Winstar on Saturday.

I sat down at 1pm and got up just before 7pm. I played $1-$2 for about 20 minutes before my $2-$5 table got going. I stayed there for the remainder of my 6-hour session.

It was 2:30 - an hour an a half after I started - before I won a real hand. During that hour and a half I split a pot (netted $3 profit) an won the blinds ($7 profit) once.

Over six hours I never got AA. Nor KK. Nor QQ nor AK. Do you know the odds of that? There is a 2.56% chance of getting one of those on a give hand. There's a 97.4% chance of avoiding all those hands on a given hand. Assume that they deal 30 hands per hour. For my 6 hours play that makes 180 hands. .9744^(180) = 0.9% chance. So less than 1 time in 100 attempts would you never get those hands in a 6-hour session.


The best hand I got was JJ. She had QQ and won a big pot.

Once I got 66, and the same chick got 55. She flopped a set. I did not.

On the last hand of the day, I found myself heads-up holding top pair (King) against a known bluffer. He made a big bet on the flop which I correctly called. He then runner-runnered a backdoor flush. I lost a $650 pot on runner-runner. I was so pleased with how brilliant I was to call his bluff that I simply couldn't believe my eyes when the river was dealt. It must have been a 20-second delay before I uttered those two words and walked out to my car.

For the most part, I lost because of terrible cards. There was no way to win that day in that seat. Yet, I think I could have played differently and limited my losses substantially. One common problem was getting junk cards that I intended to chunk. By the time it came around to me, there were 7 limpers in the pot. For a small price, I could see a cheap flop. So I called with junk. It seems that every time I did that, I ended up with the second best hand at the showdown.

I'm not exactly taking a poker break due to my loss. However, with March Madness coming up, with an international trip coming up, with some family coming in town, etc., I don't think I will play any/much poker between now and my Vegas trip in late April. And that's fine with me. I'lll finish Dan Harrington's book and spend some time analyzing the 4,600 hands in my poker tracker hand history. I could do with a break any way.


(5) comments

Posted by Junelli 2:03 PM
My little sister has been seeing a guy who fancies himself a poker player.

Yesterday he entered the $200+$15 NL tournament on Pokerstars. There were 8118 players. Below is the email he received at the end of the tournament...

=============================

From: PokerStars Support [support@pokerstars.com]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 4:13 AM
To: XXXXXXX
Subject: Results for PokerStars Tournament 144032321

PokerStars Tournament #144032321, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $200.00/$15.00
8118 players
Total Prize Pool: $1623600.00
Tournament started 2009/03/08 17:30:00 ET


Dear XXXXXXX,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A $198,891.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 2,974.72 tournament leader points in this tournament. For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/


Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.


(4) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 12:36 PM



(1) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 1:59 PM
High Stakes Poker Season Five debuts tonight. I haven't been this excited to see something on my TV since I stole Junell's "video collection" when we lived at the frat house.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 10:20 AM
I have a leak in my game.

Actually, I have several leaks, but I have one that I recently discovered.

Here it is: I never suffer bad beats.

Seriously, and I should be concerned.

Let's do a little math to prove a point we already know. Say you have a made hand on the turn and your opponent is drawing to beat you. There is $200 in the pot. Let's say he has an 18% chance, which is about an average amount for the various things to which he could be drawing.

If you bet precisely $56.24 then he is getting exactly the 4.56:1 odds he needs to call. To bet anything less than that would be giving money away. If fact, from an EV perspective, you give away $36 in equity by checking instead of betting.

If there is a 100% chance that your opponent will fold to any bet of $56.25 or more, then there is absolutely no difference between the EV of betting $56.24 or betting anything more than that. Of course, there is never a 100% chance of your opponent playing perfect poker. So, you should try to figure out what is the highest bet > $56.24 that will still get a call. I bet that if you throw $75 into a $200 pot, you will get a call from a drawing hand quit a bit more often than not. A $75 bet gives you $12 more equity than a bet of $56.24 does. Each incremental dollar bet both increases your EV if called and decreases the chance of getting a call.

Of course, getting called means that you will lose sometimes (bad beat). But when you win, you will win enough to more than compensate for that. I have been letting my fear of the bad beat keep me from betting optimally.

So here is my problem: I'll bet something like $150 in that situation. I almost never get a call because few donkeys are so donkelicous that they would call for those odds. So, I get to feel good about myself for winning the pot, but I should be criticizing myself for not trying to win more money. It's one of those leaks that hard to spot because it doesn't involve losing a pot. It is just an opportunity cost of not winning a big enough pot.

I'll pause right here and admit that we are only talking about pot odds and not implied odds, which are more relevant. Implied odds require a lot more math and words to work through, and they wouldn't change the gist of this post, which is that you should try to get the biggest possible call you can get that is -EV for your opponent.

A simple formula helps determine what the right amount to bet is. Figure out the pot odds your opponent needs to call...let's say it is 4:1. Subtract 1 off that first number and get 3. Divide the pot by 3, and you have your magic number. Then just bet an amount that is a bit higher than that. Using our example from before, we'd take 4.56:1 and subtract 1 to get 3.56. The $200 pot divided by 3.56 gets that magic number of $56.24. Now that we have our magic number, we can comfortably bet an amount that is a little more, say $75. Doing this math will make sure you don't accidentally underbet. It should help you to not overbet, either, as you know the target from which you shouldn't stray too far. Betting $150 is so far above $56.24 that I should realize that I am needing to slow down a bit. Of course, the other (circumstantial) evidence that you need to bet less is if you never suffer a bad beat.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 1:30 PM

I closed the books on 2008 finally. It was a good year, but the year was really carried by a couple big scores. That is, I don't think there is a lot of predictive value in these historical results:



It is pretty comparable to 2007.

(5) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 3:51 PM
It's only about 5 more weeks until Season Five of High Stakes Poker. Evidently, Barry took a bit of a beating this time. As a reminder, even if you don't get GSN, the show is uploaded to YouTube in 4 separate 15-minute increments shortly after each airing.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 9:08 PM

I finally got off my ass on the ball and dowloaded Poker Tracker. It's pretty damn cool. I am still figuring out all the bells and whistles, but here's 3 neat things:

1. I learned that I am paying just south of $9 per "hour" in rake at $3-$6 NLHE. When I play two tables at once, I pay $18 per hour. Seems steep.

2. I definitely don't have enough hand history, as demonstrated by what hand is my third most profitable starting hand (sample of 3 times I was dealt).

3. You can run neat graphs on how you did each day. This is today.

I'm sold.

(3) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 7:37 PM
When the Dallas media takes a break from covering the Cowboys, they occasionally cover something that I find interesting. Today's paper had an article on poker.

It mainly covers the underground scene, but it also makes brief mention of the bill proposed last session by Rep. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio.

Maybe the economic downturn will force the state to look for new sources of revenue. I think we'll get it some day, but probably not soon.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 2:29 PM
WWYD?

Hold'em No Limit ($3/$6) - 2009/01/23 21:45:03 ET
Table 'Soyuz-Apollo' 9-max Seat #2 is the button

Seat 1: wobbly_au ($1039 in chips)
Seat 2: phreaux ($533.70 in chips)
Seat 3: deuces85 ($934.90 in chips)
Seat 4: cyberpeogh ($469.65 in chips)
Seat 5: LSP16 ($600 in chips)
Seat 6: BIGLivesOn ($659.55 in chips)
Seat 7: alanzao ($354.60 in chips)
Seat 8: Frogg 'em ($340 in chips)
Seat 9: amcawker ($593.55 in chips)
deuces85: posts small blind $3
cyberpeogh: posts big blind $6

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to phreaux [Ad Jc]
LSP16: folds
BIGLivesOn: folds
alanzao: calls $6
Frogg 'em: folds
amcawker: folds
wobbly_au: raises $24 to $30
phreaux: calls $30
deuces85: raises $96 to $126
cyberpeogh: folds
alanzao: folds
wobbly_au: folds
phreaux: calls $96

*** FLOP *** [Th Ks 5c]
deuces85: checks
phreaux: checks

*** TURN *** [Th Ks 5c] [5h]
deuces85: checks
phreaux: checks

*** RIVER *** [Th Ks 5c 5h] [Js]
deuces85: bets $702
I have $407.70.

What do you do? You can probably guess what I did, but tell me what you would have done (and why), and I will tell you how it ended.


(6) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 3:19 PM
I told you so.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 9:30 PM
This is why I love internet poker

PokerStars Game #23879440451: Hold'em No Limit ($3/$6) - 2009/01/13 22:25:44 ET

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to phreaux [As 2h]
BrokerOf$$: raises $6 to $12
jmar2209: calls $6
SQUi5HiiFiSH: calls $12
kabutze joins the table at seat #7
phreaux: calls $9
xfactr21: folds

*** FLOP *** [7c 7s Ac]
phreaux: checks
BrokerOf$$: bets $26
jmar2209: folds
SQUi5HiiFiSH: folds
parkview888 joins the table at seat #2
phreaux: calls $26

*** TURN *** [7c 7s Ac] [9d]
phreaux: checks
BrokerOf$$: bets $56
phreaux: calls $56

*** RIVER *** [7c 7s Ac 9d] [4s]
phreaux: checks
BrokerOf$$: bets $116
phreaux: calls $116

*** SHOW DOWN ***
BrokerOf$$: shows [6c 5c] (a pair of Sevens) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
phreaux: shows [As 2h] (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
phreaux collected $448 from pot


(3) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 8:08 AM
Hey, he is from Ohio.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 8:23 PM
I'll try to get all my final thoughts on the college football season into one, final post

BCS Championship Game
Could the announcers have loved Tim Tebow any more than they did? Thanks to Corby Davidson (Here he is, the Cooobra) for this link. You gotta listen to it. These guys basically put Tim Tebow in second place all-time for best guy ever against Jesus (yet he finished third in the Heisman...)

Here's a thread making a similar point.

Big Game Bob was a media darling for his first few years. One reason why was his machismo, caution-to-the-wind approach. Since Mack Brown was Mister Play-It-Safe (who fortunately, when after waiting his whole damn life to take that flight, his plane most definitely did not crash down, but he did say "well, isn't this nice?") and since Bob had a nice streak against Mack, the media attributed their relative successes to their gambling or lack thereof. Fake punt? Brilliant! Bob's machismo approach doesn't look so pretty when it fails. His decision to go for it on fourth down was nothing short of reckless. It was stupid. I doubt he learned his lesson.

The announcers pointed out that the referee, Ron Cherry, was the first African American to ref a BCSB Championship Game. They failed to mention that he is also famous for this.

Bowl Season
The officiating was bad the whole bowl season. Actually, the officiating is always bad in college football. There is no such thing as holding in the Big XII. Excessive celebration is called on such an arbitrary basis. So much as breath on a QB or punter, and it is unnecessary roughness, but a WR can push around a DB all he wants. It is all so stupid. Good coaches (of which there are plenty) adjust their game to the know whims of the crew. It is a sad state of affairs.

A lot of the teams looked out of sync. The Fiesta Bowl and the NC game were the best examples. This isn't surprising since those were the games with the longest time off leading up to it. I really wish the games would end on January 1.

I also got sick of the announcers on ESPN asking each other: Which game are you most looking forward to? They all answered "the Rose Bowl". No fucking way. Really? What a coincidence - that is the only BCS game covered by ESPN/ABC. How convenient.

Of course most things in football can be explained by TV. The demise of the Southwest Conference has been written about extensively, and every book explains the role of TV contracts. ESPN's conflict of interest in being "journalism" and also a broadcaster of games compromises their ability to do either. Speaking of TV...

Notre Dame won their bowl game (now it's A&M's turn), and people want to know if they are "back." I think it is helpful to look at why they used to be good. I have no idea why they were good 80 years ago, nor do I care. I guess they just had some good players and coaches. But they kept it up to the modern era and managed to get the sweetest TV deal of all time. It wasn't about the money, it was about the recruiting. Notre Dame could go anywhere in the U.S. and tell kids that if they came to South Bend, they would be on TV (almost) every Saturday. National TV. That meant their mama back in Smalltown, Nowhere could watch the kid on TV, too. This was a tremendous advantage. It was a tremendous advantage that compensated for some natural disadvantages (higher academic standards and being located in the middle of nowhere to name two).

But Fro, Notre Dame still has that contract with NBC

Shut up, I'm not done. Notre Dame was last good in 1993 when they ended up #2 behind Florida State (whom Notre Dame beat, btw.) This lines up pretty nicely with the time that two things were happening. First, there was a proliferation of channels available to Americans - channels that were getting into the business of broadcasting football games. Second, conferences (the SEC moved first) were lining up their own sweetheart deals. It was your basic arms race whereby Notre Dame's "advantage" was now shared with anybody. Put another way, Mack Brown can also tell that kid that he will be on TV almost every Saturday, too.

With the massive advantage gone and the disadvantages still present, Notre Dame is in a tough position. Very tough.

I think there is a misperception that "rich tradition" has a causal effect on future success. It does not. The two are correlated, but the relationship is not causal. Rather, they are correlated due to "common causation" In other words, there are inherent advantages at some schools (size, location) that caused past success and will cause future success.

So, I don't see Notre Dame's tradition bailing them out. They can be good enough to not be a joke, but I doubt they will win a championship in the next 30 years.

The BCS
Well, it ended with Florida winning it all and three teams (UT, Utah and SC) with an argument. I have to say that just when you thought the BCS couldn't end in another unprecedented manner, it did. Even in 2000 when 5 teams thought they deserved to play in the NC game, when the dust settled, there was only one undefeated team, OU. It was undisputed. But, the rules of the game are what they are, and only two teams qualified under the system to play, and one of those teams won. In the old system, I might have voted Utah #1. But one thing really bugs me about them (and it bugs me more that nobody in the media brings it up): UT was scheduled to play Utah this year, but Utah backed out. Pussies. The stated reason was that the growth of their conference schedule required them to drop a game. OK, but why did you drop our game? Scared?

Of course, under the old system, all the teams would have played different opponents in different bowls, so it is hard to say how it would have worked out. But, the playoff opponents, whose #1 goal is to have a clear-cut winner come out of a system that gives ample opportunity to all teams, have their ammunition for their argument.

Although I am not thrilled with how the season ended, I still think it highlights an obscure benefit of the current system. The system left many people thinking that no one team clearly differentiated itself from the pack. This is, incidental, a result that accurately reflects the field. A playoff would have manufactured a "champion" that may not have been much better (or even better) than the others. Every season would produce such a champion. I like the fact that we don't have any such manufactured champions. Instead, it is only every once in a while that a team kicks so much ass that they are recognized by everyone as the greatest ass kicker out there. OU did it in 2000. We did it in 2005. It makes, IMHO, those championships have greater weight. And I think that is a good thing. I know, I am a lone voice blogging in the wilderness.

On the subject of coaches politicking and fans "whining". First of all, what coach would not politic for their team? Who would want to play for a coach that wouldn't? You are a fool if you think UT and USC were #1 and #2 that Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops wouldn't be shouting from the highest mountain about them deserving to be #1 or #2 leading up to the penultimate rankings. On the whining. Try for a second to be objective. Of course Sooners and Aggies say that UT fans are whiners. They hate everything about us. Just as we put the coaches in the other shoes, put yourself in our shoes. You are a big fat liar if you would just shrug your shoulders and say "aw shucks, there is always next year". Anyway, you didn't hear this guy whine by any measure.

I am still confused about the final coaches poll. Mack Brown said he would vote UT #1. Then we learned that they only fill out ballots for #2-25, so that is impossible. So, how did Utah get a #1 vote? I did some cursory research and gave up.

Back to the lobbying, but this one by the fans. Remember the 45-35 campaign? If I were the Director of Communications, I would not have gone with that message. As Bob Stoops pointed out, that is stupid. That was the nature of the tie - we beat them, they beat Tech, Tech beat us. A much, much more persuasive message would have been "They lost by 10 on a neutral field." A subtle twist, but if you focus people on the MOV and location of each of the three team's losses, UT would have won out on both MOV and location. Maybe I should get a career in politics. Hope. Change.

My Bowl Game Best-of List
I left out a big shout out to my man, Pat White, for being the first QB to win 4 bowl games. Good for him. I'll be anybody $100 that his record gets tied next season.

I also left out big shouts-out to UH and Rice. UH broke is bowl losing streak and put together a nice season. Rice, who was my biggest bowl pick of the season (ranked highest in my polls that use a ranking system, and the only one on which I bet) was impressive, too. The states of Texas and Florida both had 4 victorious teams in bowls. That's much more impressive than the Big XII South which went 1-3.

Speaking of which, the Big XII vs SEC talk tire me out. I have no problem conceding that the SEC was better this year, but I will not concede that the NCG was proof of that. Florida beat OU by 10? Join the crowd. Had we played Florida, the result could have been different. Plus, OU showed they were a good team, but good teams can't win when they blow it TWICE on the goal line and also have a brilliant pass to their tight end called back for holding. Those three things could have been worth 21, but they were worth nada. It only proves that Stoops isn't the messiah he once was thought to be. But this "SEC speed" thing is old. Congratulations to the SEC for winning the last three championships; they are the best conference, but not by as much as they think.

My Pre season Predictions
What, this old thing?

Here they are, along with the grading:

1. UT will win 10 games. We won 12


2. OU will win the conference... Unfortunately so


3. ...and go to a BCS game They sure did


4. ...but not win the NC No they didn't


5. A&M will start Jerrod Johnson at some point Yes, they did


6. The SEC will win the NC ... Boy did they


7. ...over USC Not really


8. Tebow gets the Heisman He got a ticket to NYC, but no hardware


9. Pat White is the runner-up Not even close


10. WVU to the BCS Kinda close


11. UT finishes higher than Tech in the B12 I guess if you apply the tiebreaker


12. UT finishes higher than Tech in the final AP By a mile


13. Coach Mangino manufactures a controversy Not that I know of


14. The SEC is decided by a blocked field goal attempt. It was a blocked PAT that was of importance, but it did not decide the championship


15. Junell is still gay at season's end. Last I heard, he lost both his heterosexuality and his dignity in a big game for which he had insufficient poker skills and bankroll.


16. Kansas loses to South Florida Yes, sir

My Pools
Pool #1 Heath Pool
Cost was $31. Season long pool against the spread. I tied for third (would be $780) but lost the tiebreaker by 1 point and got 4th ($520). I also tied for a weekly prize, taking home $75 for that, too.

Pool #2 Hickey/Higon/Boyer Pool
Cost was $52. Season long pool straight up. I got first place (as I did in 03 and 07). I won $700 for my effort.

Pool #3 Watt Pool
Cost was $100. I lost on a controversial ruling. You bet on games based on the posted opening line on USA Today. They posted a line that was waaay off from the line on any other service. Rules is rules, so I bet it. They ruled that was a breach of (their interpretation of) the rules. That put me on tilt; then I lost.

Pools #4-6 Misc
I did three bowl pools. Total cost was $55. In each of the three, I was one correct pick away (i.e., the bubble boy) from getting money.

So, I netted $1,017. I have to give $200 to ARH for the second year in the row for the position we take in each others picks, so I end up with 8 hunksie. Maybe I should quit my job. Not really, but that is quite a bit better than Dr Fro did in the stock market. We aren't talking about that any more.

That's it for college football. It's just poker for the next two months. Then basketball. And jokes about Junell being gay. And heavy drinking.


(4) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 3:08 PM
Maybe I should renew my subscription to S.I.





(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 10:52 AM

I make a lot of blog posts when I am on boring two-hour conference calls...

I took three weeks off for Christmas. I'll spare you the 100+ photo slideshow and give you a 4-photo summary of my time off:

We started out the holiday by going to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a few nights. Santa was also resting up for his upcoming busy season:

We went to the zoo one day. Elise is getting better at walking. She can go about ten yards on her own but a lot farther if Daddy holds her hand:

I did a lot of honey-do projects. Only one is photo-worthy. Here is the newly painted wall in our den with new moulding:

Both kids on Christmas Eve. I don't know who their dad is, because they are too damn good looking to be my kids:

(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 10:17 AM
Fly Eagles Fly, On The Road To Victory.
Fight Eagles Fight, Score A Touchdown 1-2-3.

Hit 'Em Low.
Hit 'Em High.
And We'll Watch Our Eagles Fly.

Fly Eagles Fly, On The Road To Victory.
E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!!!





(3) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 8:39 AM
We've had a consortium of guys sharing Astros season tickets since the 'Stros were in the Dome. Unfotunately, a combination of the economy and the quality of play has led to people dropping out of the consortium.

The tickets are great - field level, in between home and third.

We typically get about 9 guys to get 9 games each. The greatest benefit of being in on season tickets is the ability to get post-season tickets at face value (in good seats at that).

Let me know if you are interested. You can get full shares (4 seats * 9 games) or any fraction of a share you want. Cost is just face value * number of tickets.


(0) comments