Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Curses!

Played a tournament today.  Wasn’t going to; however I played yesterday (same tournament, two ‘Day 1’s) and was upset enough by my poor play that I figured I pretty much owed it to myself to put things right.  You see, yesterday I made the amateur mistake of over-playing a posh A-J in diamonds on an A-5-7 flop (rainbow, one diamond).  Guy under the gun bet it rather large and I min-raised it.  He quickly pushed all-in and I, like a special-needs student, quickly called.  Granted, that was stupid – basically the only hand I beat there was A-10.  My opponent proceeded to show his hole cards – A-5.  Suffice it to say that I missed my 3-outer on both the turn and river.  To add insult to injury, the turn – although not the J I was looking for – was in fact a diamond.  This actually brought my number of outs for the river up from 3 to 12 as any diamond would have flushed me.  The river was one of the other 32 cards that made my hand a loser.  You see that’s what happens to me when I play poorly – I lose!  Unfortunately, if the roles had been reversed there, something tells me I still would have lost.  Don’t know if it would have been the runner-runner diamonds or a J showing up, but the poker gods would have done one or the other.  That’s just the way the “luck” aspect of the game works for me.  It’s this damn curse I appear to be carrying around with me.

Now granted, the above hand wasn’t the hand that knocked me out of the tournament yesterday; however it was the hand that crippled me beyond repair.  Don’t rightly recall whether this was during level 1 or 2 but I do rightly recall that I was eliminated prior to level 2 completing.  There’s really not much worse than getting crippled so early in a tournament.  Granted, the blinds are still relatively small, but the path ahead to success is so long that you’re going to have to do something to re-build your stack quickly else blinding-out becomes an issue as the blinds steadily increase.  For you see, everyone else sitting at your table notices your situation and they’re most definitely going to make you pay to see anything.  You’re forced to rely on pure luck in this situation; and luck and I don’t seem to be getting along these days…

So I headed back this morning (well, noon, actually) to see if I could redeem myself.  I was not going to make any bone-head, amateur mistakes today.  I was going to play smart and let my skills overcome the issue I’m having with luck.  That was the plan…  If you continue reading, you’ll discover how well it worked for me.  Spoiler alert:  it didn’t!

As seems to be standard with me, the hand that crippled me today came early as well.  It was in level 2 where the blinds were a mere 100/200.  That’s quite small in these “deep stack” tournaments as each player starts the game with 15,000 in chips.  As it was only level 2, both me and my nemesis where approximately hovering around that starting stack-size.  I was dealt a K-J, posh – both hearts.  I was also sitting on the button which, of course, gave me final play for any action post-flop.  Everyone else folded around to me so I decided to put a bit of pressure on the blinds and made a standard raise to 600.  This, of course, steals the blinds (granted, a mere 300) if neither call; however it also gives me information if either chooses to make the call.  Granted, this early, and with the blinds being as small as they are, the information obtained isn’t very meaningful; however you’re pretty certain that your complete garbage hands won’t be making the call.  It’s just not worth risking 6 times or 3 times your already forced bet for a chance to win such a small pot.  The small blind folded.  The big blind called.

So now there’s 1,300 in the pot.  I’m sitting with a K-J of hearts and my opponent is sitting with an A-10 of diamonds.  Of course I did not know that he was sitting with that hand but, to help clarify the story for you, the reader, I’m going to let you know early what I was up against.  It was an A-10 of diamonds.

Flop comes Q of diamonds, 10 of hearts and 5 of hearts.  This, of course, gives my opponent second pair with three diamonds to the nut flush.  It also gives me an open-ended straight draw with four hearts to the second nut flush.  Those are both pretty decent hands.  My hand, although behind to the second pair, is actually much better as a drawing hand.  There are eight cards that fill my straight (four 9’s and four A’s).  The observant reader will see that this number is actually seven being that one of the A’s is in my opponents hand; however, I did not know that and my calculations are being written as I was calculating them during the game.  Besides the eight for my straight, there are seven cards that make my flush.  There’s actually nine, but the 9 of hearts and A of hearts are already accounted for in the outs for the straight.  That gets me to 15 cards that make my hand a winner.  Now, if I want to be a bit optimistic, I could also include the three K’s that would give me an over-pair to the board which would increase my number of outs to 18.  With and without the K’s I’m looking at a winning draw percentage of 60-72% – better than a coin-toss either way.

My opponent, however, does not know what I am holding and needs to make his decisions based on “his” hand alone.  As I said, his hand is also pretty decent.  He’s already got a made hand of second pair with the 10’s.  He most likely also believes that he’s got outs with the two 10’s that would make him a set as well as the three A’s that would give him 2-pair.  Of course we already know that the A’s are bad for him as they fill my straight; however he is not aware of this.  He also might be able to see that he’s got a slim chance (approximately 1-in-25) of drawing the runner-runner diamonds to complete his nut flush.  As a matter of fact, many players over-value this rarity and play it as if it were destined to happen.  These players are correctly designated as the “donkeys.”  They can be dangerous at times…  He does, however, have the pair of 10’s and decides to bet 1,100 – basically a pot-sized bet.

Now, since I pretty much know where I stand here – even if he flopped a set, I’m still a 3-to-2 advantage at drawing a hand that beats him – I min-raise the bet to 2,200.  This should give him some pause with his second pair.  I just raised his pot-sized bet on a flop with a Q and two hearts.  He thinks about this raise for a minute or so and then calls.

So now the pot’s at 5,700.  The turn is then dealt – a 9 of diamonds.  Interestingly enough, my opponent decides to check his bet here.  Most likely it was because of my raise on the flop.  Perhaps he was concerned that I might have hit a straight with that 9 (which, of course, I did – the nut straight) and didn’t want to risk betting his pair of 10’s again even though he was also now looking at a river-draw to the nut flush.  Or, as it probably actually was, he was trying to set a trap for me.  It’s only a 20% chance to draw the flush; however donkeys are donkeys – why worry about probabilities…?

I bet 3,000.  I’m currently holding the nuts.  It is impossible for my opponent to be holding a made hand that beats me.  I’m concerned by the two diamonds on the board but really can’t fathom anyone calling my flop raise with the intention of drawing a runner-runner flush.  I mean that would be just stupid, right…?  Besides, even if I am up against a donkey here he’s still a 4-to-1 underdog at hitting a diamond on the river.  And heck, to justify a call like that, the pot would need to be 15,000 as opposed to the 8,700 I’ve just made it.  Granted, a K on the river could be trouble as well.  That would give anyone holding an A-J a “Broadway” which, of course, would actually beat my K-high straight.  Either way I’m pretty sure he’s not calling…

Without any thought, whatsoever, he calls my 3,000 chip bet.  So the pot has now grown to 11,700 and the river is dealt – a fucking K of diamonds!  I mean sweet Jesus, no worse card could have been played.  Now I get to worry about both the flush and the “Broadway” beating what was, prior to the river, my nut straight.  It’s here that my opponent bets 6,600.

I find this bet interesting as it is the perfect bet to justify his call of my 3,000 on the turn if he were drawing for the flush.  It basically gives him his needed 5-to-1 payout on his 1-in-5 odds.  It’s also an excellent bluff for the exact same reason.  After contemplating this for a bit and concluding that an A-J would not have thrown a pot-sized bet on the flop and that my flop raise and turn bet would have gotten rid of any non-donkey runner-runner draws, I incorrectly make the call.  Boom!  Just like that, I’m crippled … sitting with less than 1/3 my starting stack as those around me are steadily chipping up.

I was able to survive a bit into level 5; even managed to grow my stack back to near 18,000 for a bit.  In the end though, it wasn’t enough.  The tilt the above hand put me on was too much for me to get over.  I don’t know … seems to me that I’m playing a constant tilt.  It’s this damn curse, I tell ya!

bis später,

Coriolis

Friday, October 16, 2015

Hey Car ... Kill Me

Has this world – or, at least, this country – lost its mind completely?  With all this investment that many companies are putting into autonomous (aka “self-driving”) cars these days, I’m going with an answer of “Hell yeah!”  Let’s step out of the Jetsons bubble … oh wait, the Jetsons, a cartoon from the 1960’s mind you, aren’t even absurd enough to have George mindlessly abandon all control of his car – a flying one at that – to the unknown whims of said vehicle…  I guess we need to step out of the Google bubble to actually discuss the pure absurdity that truly autonomous vehicles would be.  I’ll lead the way; come along and join me.

For starters, when was the last time you eagerly threw down way too much money for the latest, greatest piece of technology; brought said purchase home; eagerly tore through the packaging and were delighted to have this new, “can’t live without” toy work flawlessly as expected upon its first boot?  “Never” is the word you’re looking for here; and that’s because in today’s world nothing technologically advanced enough to become a needed life changer is ever really complete.  What we always get is, at best, a beta version released to the public in an effort to avoid financial collapse of a company that has already spent multiple times the estimated development cost pulled out of thin air by said company’s marketing department back when the initial idea of the product being developed was nothing more than a brain-fart in some forward-looking engineer’s mind.  Any bugs that still exist can be fixed with future software updates.  Just look at the amount of updates that are constantly being delivered to your PC’s operating system; your cell phone; your watch!  (Well, “your” watch I’m guessing as I have not bought into – nor will ever buy into – the idea that I need to have a doppelganger of my cell phone strapped to my wrist. The effort it takes to slide my existing cell phone from my back pocket isn’t that cumbersome…)  And it’s perfectly fine to be running advanced beta versions of software on a computer or phone, but a freaking automobile?  I think not!

“It’s a shame that your daughter was killed by your car but I’ve heard that the next update is going to fix that bug.  In fact, rumor has it that you’ll also be getting a 10 MPG increase in fuel economy; so that’s good.”  Could you imagine…?

I mean just contemplate the seemingly endless variables that we would be relying on programs to be able to deal with.  You’ve got a several thousand pound mass capable of reaching speeds greater than 100 MPH traveling on a multitude of surfaces.  Inside said mass is you; your friends; maybe even your family.  Outside said mass is the world and everything that the freaking world contains.  The first thing that needs to be done is that we need to have these vehicles selectively start to ignore things.  It’s done by having these vehicles sense things nearby.  Yeah, it’s a race to have one company’s vehicle able to sense more than its competitors; however the truth of what’s happening here is that each company is really making a decision as to what their car is going to be ignoring.  Let’s hope that all the companies working on these cars choose wisely.  Let’s also hope that the devices used to sense things work flawlessly.  Oh wait, what am I thinking?  I’ve never had to repair any malfunctioning parts on any car I’ve ever owned.  They’ve always worked exactly the same as the day I drove them off the lot.

And, in today’s world of ever-growing legal dockets, who do we blame for the accidents that are sure to ensue after literally millions of these soulless beasts are set free upon the roads?  Do we go after the owners of these cars?  The manufacturers?  The governmental entities that were stupid enough to allow this madness to even happen?  That’ll be a mess for sure.  I foresee customers being forced to sign away legal rights during purchase much like HOAs currently force homebuyers to sign now.  People will need to procure the services of a notary public, sit down with their salesman and sign several papers of legalese in order to be allowed to have their new car drive them home.  Well hidden in these documents will be multiple statements alleviating both the manufacturer and sales entities from any and all future lawsuits brought forth from the destruction caused by the vehicle being purchased.  At least that way nobody will have to worry about company profits getting affected by anything as silly as people getting killed.

If only there were an alternative way to allow people to get from one place to another that didn’t require us to risk our lives on whether or not our car’s software was 100% bug-free, all possible variables were contemplated and covered in the coding of this software and all hardware associated with the correct execution of this code was working flawlessly … if only…

bis später,

Coriolis

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