Voting in Kitchener Centre (Federal 2021)

I would describe my political view as “progressive”. What does that mean? In general terms it means I believe in climate change and building lots more affordable housing and probably increasing taxes (provided we have accountability for this). Decriminalize all drugs. Defund the police (to a certain extent). There are many more ideas I have but don’t want to get bogged down in those topics. My “left wing, always NDP” friends probably see me as too conservative on some things, while my centre and “right-ish” friends think I’m a left wing anarchist or something.

I have voted for the Green Party (back when a federal vote gave them money), NDP and Liberal, depending on who I thought had a hope of winning my federal or provincial riding. Basically, I’ve voted “anyone but conservative” although it is possible I would vote conservative in some ridings. For example, Michael Chong is more to the left in the conservative party in many respects so I’d like to support his continued presence with them.

I thought I’d put down my thoughts on candidates in our Kitchener Centre riding, just because.

Firstly, most of us believe this election is completely frivolous. Obviously a power grab attempt by Justin which is sad and expensive. But not surprising. I was pretty happy with the way things were going in parliament. The NDP supported most of the Liberal’s legislation and occasionally the other parties got together and took over a committee and made the Liberals pissed about that. It was amusing and brought a slightly higher level of accountability to the process. I had hoped the Liberals might have developed some humility, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. I have often voted Liberal, and like the most progressive parts of their agenda. But I cannot stand to listen to Justin talk (but then I cannot stand to listen to most political folks talk except for Bob Rae, Bill Clinton, Tom Mulcair (remember him?) and a few others).

Basically, the Liberals promised electoral reform, they held a few meetings, saw how complicated it really was and did not get a huge push for one solution and had a majority anyway, so abandoned it! That led to a lot of disappointment though from the beginning I felt it was a 20% probability at best. Anyway, a minority parliament is the closest thing we can get to that ideal of proportional representation, so I was enjoying this one.

The Liberals did: legalize dope, de-politicize the senate, establish a carbon tax and go to court over it against several conservative premiers, ban plastic bags, get us vaccinated to one of the highest rates in the world. And some other stuff.

The debt is enormous. Ouch. But the Liberal’s CERB and other programs saved people from starving or being evicted or, like in the USA, dying. No party is really in favour of knocking down the debt. CBC had an interesting article on this last year on the Sunday Magazine: its point was that a lot of economists feel the debt is no big deal with such low interest rates and decent economy. Basically, it’s complicated.

My take on the candidates. BTW, I do get fairly disgusted by all the people who call politicians “trolls” or “libtards” or other stupid things. I have worked and talked with many politicians and yes, some of them do talk a little too much b.s. But most of them are in that arena to try and make things better and in any election you have 3 or 4 candidates running, spending money, leveraging friendships, working very hard, and only ONE gets elected. So I appreciate all of their dedication.

Raj Saini (Liberal)

Incumbent. My wife and I were home on a 2014 (2015?) weekend and Raj came walking down our street, alone, knocked on our door and asked for our support run for the Liberal party’s nominee in our riding. I thought it was pretty gutsy of him to knock on random doors and be very upfront about who he was and why he was running. He was a successful pharmacist who had supported the Liberals and when I asked him “why” he was running, he said “to give service to the community” that had allowed him to earn a living. Raj also wanted to help defeat Stephen Harper who he really did not like (neither did I!). He was also passionate about a national pharmacare program which has had some uptake, but still is not “a thing”. I generally don’t join political parties, but we liked Raj so signed up and supported him at the nomination where he was running against Tony Maas who was also an excellent candidate. It was actually exciting to see their speeches because they were both articulate and compelling and offered a slightly different emphasis in their ideas. Raj was, apparently, the candidate liked by the riding folks and did win, but very narrowly.

Since then, I’ve seen Raj at a few events and occasionally at the airport since I used to fly to Ottawa a few times a year (in the beforetimes). Most pundits have described him as a “typical backbencher” which perhaps is not fair? He is around, but doesn’t seem to be part of any inner circle. He sits on committees but certainly doesn’t have the profile of someone like Bardish Chagger who represents neighbouring Waterloo and was also elected in 2015. Her background was as an executive assistant to the Liberal MP Andrew Telegdi,  a director of special events for the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre and then she ran for office. I appreciate Raj’s long history of running an independent business for over 20 years and being part of the local community.

So Raj is a nice guy, but I really don’t like the fact this election was called, and would like the Liberals to retain their minority. So what to do, eh?

Mike Morrice (Green). In the 2019 election, Mike Morrice did something historic. He and his team took the Greens from 3% (in 2015) to 26% which is pretty crazy. In 2015 they raised/spent $1300 and in 2019 it was over $72K. The riding has historically been a battle between Liberals and Conservatives over the years, but the Greens displaced the Stephen Woodworth group (who spent $86K) to take second place.

Morrice certainly has a devoted (fanatical? excited? crawl through glass?) group of volunteers. As soon as the writ was dropped, his signs were on lawns around the riding. In 2008 he founded Sustainable Waterloo Region and in 2013 he founded Green Economy Canada. They both have websites, but I have no idea if either of them actually do much besides publicize good things. He certainly likes to talk. To anyone, anytime. And he will even phone you to chat if you sign up. He stands for all the “right things” like fixing the funding in long term care and of course the “green issues” and his Blog displays nothing except compassionate enlightenment. So why not just “go with Mike”?

Well, there are a few things that give me pause:

–he is running for the Green Party which has been tearing itself in public for the past year. It is strange and brutal, and although many in the party say once the executive members who are stirring up trouble leave, things will be fine again. But on the Canada Land podcasts, and other places, I’ve heard stories of deep seated racism in the party. Yet Mike and his crew never mention that elephant in the room. In fact, it really seems like he’s running as an independant. Which leads to the second issue.

–I’ve talked with Mike and read his blog, and he is totally into how the Green party is “not whipped” so he can have his own opinion about things and represent the riding as he (and we, I guess) want. That is just fine, but I really have to question that because, why have a party anyway? It seems he is running as an independant and uses the fact he can have independent views as a big plus, so why involve the Green Party at all? We have a party system, so I think they should have some discipline around big issues.

–And of course the Green Party (at the Federal level) will never hold any balance of power, or be able to create any legislation. So the main reason to elect a Green member of parliament is to frighten (coerce?) the government in power into adopting green policies so they can win back those seats. Hmmm, not so compelling.

Mary Henein Thorne (CPC)

Mary also ran in the provincial election for the conservatives and lost to the NDP’s Laura Mae Lindo. Mary’s bio states she has lived in the riding for more than four decades working as an entrepreneur and small business owner, was a constituency case manager for MPP Michael Harris (before the party gave him the boot) and was special assistant in the office of Diane Finley, former Minister of Public Works and Government Services under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mary was appointed VP Ontario Trillium Foundation board (from which she is on leave during the campaign).

Wow, so pretty much a total party insider (hack?) perhaps? She takes over the riding from Stephen Woodworth who managed to make Stephen Harper look centrist when he (Harper) had to keep pushing off Woodworth’s anti-abortion legislation.

Anyway, this is not a place where I would ever vote conservative, and Mary helped me confirm that: CBC asked the four major candidates about their vaccination status and the other three said they had been ‘double vaxxed’ but Mary said that was ‘personal’ information that she did not share. Really? OK, see you later.

Beisan Zubi (NDP)

This is Zubi’s first time running and her bio says she “is a social responsibility and equitable communications consultant and small business owner. She’s previously worked in communication roles at Communitech and the Centre for International Governance Innovation”. She also “worked with” Jack Layton.

I have to say that my father was a mechanic who wound up in a partnership running a auto repair and salvage business for years (where I worked on weekends and a couple of summers sweeping floors, rebuilding cylinder heads, washing parts in solvent and doing some mechanical work very slowly). So I appreciate the fact that Raj ran his own small business for so many years and that business is actually named. Zubi and Thorne both stick on “small business owner” and “entrepreneur” to their bio, but no information is given about what that actually means.

It also says Zubi has “been in Waterloo Region for about five years and lives downtown with her dog.” Nice.

In 2019 the NDP received just over 11% of the vote, which was down 5% from the previous election. Zubi is new to the area so it is pretty unlikely she will do much better and will just get the “die hard NDPers” to voter for her.

Summary

Where does that leave us? Or me? I’d like the Liberals to win another minority, perhaps have Justin step down as leader and have Chrystia Freeland step up, since she is already “minister of everything”. But the only candidate in this riding who can challenge Ray is Mike Morrice and I have many reservations about his platform (and the Green party in general).

So there are the issues as I see them. Decision is, so far, unresolved.

Ted

MacBook Air M1 review

I have owned about 5 MacBooks in total over 15+ years (beginning with the white plastic one with 2GB of RAM). My 2013 15″  MacBook Pro still works very well: I upgraded it to Big Sur and its 16GB of RAM, 500GB SSD and i7 processor give excellent performance (its battery will need replacing soon as it is good for only about 50 minutes (and has had a pesky “requires service” symbol for over a year). I had bought my 2015 (8GB RAM / 128GB SSD) Air because of its battery life and the ease of taking it to meetings etc. Recently, with increased Zoom resource needs it was flagging in performance and the lower resolution screen was limiting the number of applications I had open, and I’d been using Brave to cut down on the resources for browsing.
I decided to sell my MacBook Air and buy a new M1 Air which would be my ‘go to’ machine and leave the MacBook Pro upstairs as part of my home studio. This should make it easer to sit down and record music because it will be all set up. A great thing about MacBooks is they are all built very well and retain resale value for many years. 

Air versus Pro:
The M1 Air is virtually the same machine as the Pro, except it is $400 cheaper (in Canada). There are some minor things like the Pro has a fan which, theoretically, means it could handle heavier tasks but I don’t think those are anything I do ever (like render 3D graphics etc.). In fact most of the performance tests I’ve viewed in online reviews are encouraging and exciting, but simply way out of my general use cases. I do use GarageBand a fair amount and that is probably my most resource intensive work (along with two dozen or more browser windows being open). 

So the $400 savings allowed me to ramp up the Air to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. For my day job I do run Virtual machines and the 16GB gives me the option to do that with the M1 machine as well. From the reviews I’ve read 8GB seems to be enough for the vast majority of tasks people perform.

The Pro is also supposed to have slightly better speakers with a special ‘stereo’ effect. But I did not think that was a big enough reason to select that computer. Both machines have ‘3 mics’ but the Pro has ‘studio quality’, whatever that means. Because I’m a musician I don’t believe they are anywhere near ‘studio quality’ and I have 3 excellent USB mics I use for recording music anyway. 

Oh, and the Pro has an 8 core graphics processor while the Air has a 7 core. But so what? Again, I’m not into rendering heavy graphic applications and, frankly, even my older Air was fine for watching movies, YouTube etc.

Nits: the Air has 400 Nits and the Pro has 500. I’m sitting in my well lit kitchen, beside a window, and my brightness is under 60% so 400 Nits is more than enough unless you want to type outside in the sunlight. 
One other issue: It was only after a specific comparison video that I realized “oh yeah, the Pro has that irritating Touch Bar!” I’ve never owned a computer with that “feature” and I realized I really just wanted my function keys at the top so that sealed the deal for the Air. 

Why buy now rather than wait?
We all know that the ‘next big thing’ will be even more amazing. I wanted to buy now because 1. I use mostly Apple apps so don’t need to worry about compatibility 2. The current specs sound -great- and I don’t need to wait a year for even better specs and 3. my MBAir was getting 2 – 3 hours on the battery and was not so  powerful with Zoom calls, audio etc. Plus, I bought it with only 128GB of RAM which was getting a little tired (even though I had bought a separate 128GB SD card). If I was running a 2019 or 2020 MacBook Pro I certainly would have waited another year or two to upgrade.

How fast is it?
It was not ‘fast’ getting here from China with a few days spent in Japan (apparently) waiting for documentation. But I have now used it for more than a week and it is FREAKING fast! Programs start up almost instantly, Safari operates with 20+ tabs and doesn’t slow at all. I feel like for so many things I do, it is just sitting there waiting for me to demand something else. It is really all, and more, than I imagined it would be. 

One thing that is always obvious is the simple process of viewing a web page. They just ‘snap’ open. And I would have thought “well, the internet itself is limited by the speed in my house and from the servers on the web”. So you would think there should not be huge difference from one machine to another. But on the M1 Air the pages load REALLY fast. Like, whoa!

Garage Band loads in under 2 seconds. Then to get a new project up and running with ‘software instruments’ it is under 2 seconds as well (or as fast as I can click/type). 

So I see myself using this for years. Really. I mean, my 2013 MacBook Pro is still very solid, and this machine is so much faster. 

The keyboard is also very good. I like my 2013 MacBook Pro keyboard a little better perhaps (A-), and the 2015 Air was ok, but not great (C+). The M1 Air is about a B/B+. The 2013 Pro keyboard has a bit more travel and bounce in the keys which I prefer. 

Battery Life:
This is pretty fabulous. One day I took it around the house, played music, surfed the web and watched 2 streaming music concerts for a total of around 4 – 5 hours on battery and it was just down to 50%. So it seems very good which was another reason for my purchase.

Speakers:
I am a musician so sound and music are important to me. These speakers are really good with immersive sound and great stereo performance. You will always be able to buy far better external speakers, and ear buds etc. will offer a richer and more immersive sound, but these are really solid. You can play something from YouTube/Apple Music and actually hear all the parts clearly, even the bass line. You can even put this in a room and play a songlist and it sounds great throughout the kitchen, living room etc., no need to connect a better Bluetooth speaker unless you -really- want to rock it out. So the vastly improved speakers make it very convenient to listen to music and enjoy the experience.

Problems? Quibbles?
The M1 has just two ‘thunderbolt/USBC’ ports. It’s hard to know what to call them actually. This is probably what I dislike the most because almost everything I use (microphones, audio, external drives) are USB2. And even my old MacBook Air had an SD slot, but not the M1 machine! One good thing is that with the excellent battery life, you don’t have to worry about using one port to charge the computer for quite a while. But these shifting standards are very frustrating when you have so many peripherals that use USB. Or even lightening for iPad, iPhone etc. 

There was a 2 week gap between ordering and my laptop arriving, so I ordered a pack of 2 tiny thunderbolt-USB2 adaptors. They are about an inch long so really work as an extension to any cable you plug in. I’ve used them and they work for recording audio on my Lewitt 650 mic which I think is a good test since that is something most likely to fail. 

If I used a Mac for professional work, or with external monitors and advanced recording setups, I would probably wait for the next generation when I’m sure more ports will be available. It is also irritating that both ports are on the left side which reduces flexibility even further.

Compatibility:
One of the big arguments against ‘early adoption’ was the fact that “sure, Apple applications will work well but what about 3rd party apps?” Various reviews have stated that Rosetta has worked extremely well for allowing these apps to run very fast on the M1. Most of the apps I use are all from Apple: Garage Band, Pages, Safari, Apple Music etc. But I have run into a couple of glitches.

1. Google Drive. I use this a lot and have used 61GB of my 100GB storage I pay for. I installed it locally but every time I tried to sync even a portion of that data onto my local drive, it crashed! This was irritating but I have not investigated it yet. However, I connected to Google Drive through Safari and this machine is so FAST that moving/opening/saving files through the browser interface is just as fast as using the drive!  The only irritation is that when downloading files, I cannot put them directly in Drive: I have to download to the \downloads folder and then move/copy them into the web version of Drive. 
2. Evernote. I use this a lot as well, and when I opened the app, I could not type in it! Or read some of the notes! It was very frustrating and I got no real answer from the online forums. So I opened it in Safari and the web interface works perfectly (which is what I’m writing this review on). 

So two fails so far but neither is having a serious impact. I care about Drive working more than Evernote so we’ll see if that gets fixed soon.

Conclusion:
For my purposes, this was an excellent purchase. I love the convenient size, the high resolution screen, much improved speakers, battery life and…..POWER. Despite a few imperfections, I am very happy with this small beast and I’m sure I’ll keep it for many years.

My configuration is MacBook Air, Apple M1, 16GB RAM / 1 TB SSD. MacOS BigSur 11.1

Ongoing Poker Blog, WSOPc, Playground Poker, August 2019

 

I posted the following trip report on a Canadian poker site, but relatively few people see that. I thought I’d post it here in case others are interested.

Citizens who don’t play poker often say reading my posts is like trying to understand a foreign language and it is true that there are certain terms used that are unfamiliar to people who do not participate in this great game.  A few years ago I created a “Guide to No Limit Hold ’em” in case anyone is interested.

Poker is a fascinating hobby and playing in these larger tournaments is a lot of fun because you get to see, and play with, a wide range of humanity. You have to adjust to how people you don’t know play and that is exciting and challenging.

Anyway, here is the story!

On Sunday, Aug 25 I drove 7 hours, checked in at the AirBnB, and then drove to Playground Poker to enter the final ‘regular’ entry of the $330 Colossus (there was a final turbo entry later in the evening). Eventually, this would have around 3538 total entries!

Although the Colossus is known for all the re-entries people make and the rapid play (i.e. the blinds go up every 30 min instead of 40 or 60 min in more expensive tournaments), I think it is a decently structured tournament. You start with 20K, the blinds are every half hour and the blinds start at 50/100 which is 200 bb! Not bad, really. At the beginning of the 3rd hour (level 5) they are 300 which is still 66 bb.

We played from 4:30 pm to around 1 am. Here are a couple of hands:

At one point I doubled up to 40k, courtesy of the passive / aggressive player I called the “sticky guy”. I believe the blinds are 125/250. He limps, I am in the cutoff and raise to 700 with A 10, 2 callers. Flop comes 8,8,A (2 diamonds) he checks, I bet 1200 one caller then he goes “all in.” I had to think because he could have an 8, but in that case he should have called for value, not shove to try and push me off the hand. Someone called time, I called (other player folded). He had 72 diamonds and did not make the flush so I knocked him out. Yes!

Had no cards for quite a while, then doubled up again to around 70k. I raised with QK and one caller. I hit two pair QK and the other guy had hit 2 pair, Q6. 3 hearts were on the board. He jammed and I did not believe he had a flush so I called and won.

Here is a link to a story they wrote about me. A big hand that kept me in toward the end of Day 1.

https://www.playgroundnews.ca/wsop-c…8UJa2JqHtOl3mc

I made it to day 2 with 48,000 in chips!

Jishant Sapra is the guy who busted me out of the Colossus and he made the final table. He had been raising almost every hand, calling every raise and usually hitting the board well, or having many high pocket pairs. Really insane luck. Of course, he had doubled me up a couple of times, for example when my A4 beat his AJ (4 on the river!). In this case, he’d raised, I called with A4 in one of the blinds and when an ace came on the flop I jammed (went ‘all in’) since I was short-stacked. He called but the river saved me.

Sapra runs a poker club in Toronto and I played in the Main Event with his brother a couple of days later who assured me Jishant was a genius at putting people on hands. So there’s that, but at this table he just was having an insane run and was getting KK, JJ etc.

Final hand, Sapra raises (which he was doing constantly) and the guy to my right goes all in. I look down at AK and go all in. Sapra calls! Guy to my right has A 10, I turn over AK and Sapra has….AA. Ooops. You have to be a little lucky to win tournaments so I’m out in 218th place.

Everyone who made day 2 got $600 and I wound up cashing for $1000 which I thought was a pretty good return for my ‘one bullet’ $330 entry.

Day 1 Monster Stack, $660

After getting knocked out of the Colossus, I had about 40 minutes to have lunch at the fabulous Rail Grill and then bought into the Monster Stack. This is my favourite tournament: you start with 30K in chips, first blinds are 75/150 or 200 big blinds and all levels are 40 min. Last year I made 20th place out of around 550 entries for $2600. This year I think we had about 430 entries.

I had a headache most of the day, so wore my sunglasses which helped, sat next to a very “aggro” player, a woman who talked a lot about her playing skill, called almost every raise and managed to always make a pair or two and knocked out several people. I’m pretty sure she verbally goaded at least two or three players into going all-in because of her constantly berating them (and the table in general). I really wanted to take advantage of her incredibly loose style and did take some chips off her, but had almost no playable cards for most of the day. Strangely, or inevitably, she was chip leader after the third break but did not make the money! The hours I sat at that table were among the most bizarre I’ve spent playing poker, for sure. For example, there was a guy at the other end of the table who had his own, uh, idiosyncrasies, and they were trash talking for several hands. Eventually, she said she was going all in without looking at her cards and she encouraged him to do the same (I guess to prove he was man enough, or something). He actually shoved all-in without looking and he had 7,2! She turned over pocket 9s. Hmmmm. I suspect she had looked at her cards but cannot confirm. Anyway, she knocked him out!

(n.b. Listen up kids, advice from the ‘rec player’: I always look at my cards and think about it before I make a decision.)

Got moved to a new (quiet!!) table at the end of the day. After about 30 minutes mid position raised, late position called and I was in the big blind with A3 so I was getting good odds and called as well. Flop came A38. Yes! However, they were all spades so I decided to go all-in and the initial raiser went into the tank for 2-3 minutes. Eventually he called and the other guy folded. Caller tuned over AJ with no spades. Yes! I doubled up at that point.

My major achievement later in the evening (after making it up to around 90k in chips) was to get it all in with KK against AA and A9 (A9 made the spade nut flush) and survive! My KsKc made the second nut flush and I knocked out the AA guy (who was the same unlucky fellow I doubled up against with my A3). Yikes! (The A9 of spades guy had a shorter stack which is how I survived).
So between day 2 of the Colossus and Day 1 of the Monster Stack, I played about 13 hours of poker on Monday and we started day 2 of the Monster Stack at 1 pm, Tuesday.

End of Day one: 58,800k

Day 2 of Monster Stack.

I played pretty well but bad things can happen. I raised with AQ, and had one caller (a younger, aggressive guy). The flop came KQ8, with two diamonds, and I put in a continuation bet because I felt I could easily have the best hand. The younger guy went all in. It was his 4th all in within 40 min so he was fairly aggressive in trying to build up a stack. I tanked for 2-3 minutes and really thought about it. There were two diamonds and I finally decided he did not have the K and was on a diamond draw so I called. I was correct, he had called my raise with 4,7 of diamonds. No more diamonds came, but he made a straight and knocked me out. Ouch!

I was 62% to win so I made a great call. However, his 37% gave him the win which is unfortunate.

After getting knocked out of the Monster Stack I went back to my AirBnB and binge-watched the rest of Russian Doll. Restorative. Plus, it’s nice that a Harry Nilsson song got a great slot in a show.

I decided to play in the $125 satellite to the Main Event on Tues evening which started at 8 pm. I figure these satellite’s involve more than a little luck but what the heck, eh? And, again, the structure is not so bad for 20 min blinds and you start with 20K in chips.

One guy gave me a lot of chips in a couple of hands. Hand 1: hijack raises, I just call with AQ in late position and the button calls. Flop comes AQ6. Not bad! Initial raiser bets 2000, I just call and the big blind re-raises to 10K! Initial raiser folds, I go all-in and get called. I turn over AQ and the big blind turns over Q6. So we both flopped two pair, but my pair was better.

Later, the same guy gave me another 10K of chips when my 33 made a set on the flop and a boat by the river, but he had paired the Jack (the lone high card).

So I caught a few hands and made it from 380 entries down to 45 and they were giving out 38 $1100 seats into the Main Event. I think I played very well and got some cards when I needed them. But now it is 4 am! And the pace of play has really slowed down which is irritating. The blinds go up every 20 minutes and it is taking some people 2 minutes to decide just to call or raise! In fact I called clock on a couple of people (so they have to make a decision within 30 seconds) and so did another guy because it was really insane to only get in 5 or 6 hands per orbit! They really need a 1 minute limit at this point but I know that is difficult to enforce.

At 4 am I have about 120K and the blinds are 5/10K. So it’s 12bb, but you also have to put in the 10K ante so each round costs you 25K which gives me an M-ratio of 5 which is not much. I pick up KK and think “great, I’ll raise and if someone jams all-in, so much the better”. However, the guy 2 seats to my right goes ‘all in’. The same guy had AA about an hour earlier when he went all-in and I had AJ. At that point I’d said to him “can’t you just raise and we can see a flop” and he said something like “you’ll thank me” so I folded and he showed the AA. Here he is again going all-in with the same expression. I really wondered if he had AA and considered folding KK. In fact, if we had been 3 away from the ‘money’ I really would have tried talking to him a bit to get information and possibly folded. But it is pretty hard to fold KK and it was probably going to take one or two more hours to get another 7 people out. So I called with KK and….he turned over AA! No king came and that’s all she wrote so I get back to my AirBnB at 4:30 am. Brutal.

<Interlude>At this point I stopped to work out some interesting poker statistics: since arriving on Sunday night I’d played approximately 32 hours of poker. A normal poker hand takes between 2 – 3 minutes to play. So let’s say 30 hands per hour x 32 hours = 960 hands that I have been dealt. Whoa.

Probability of getting KK is 221 – 1. And out of those 960 hands I think I have seen KK about 4 times which is fairly average.

Now the odds of you being up against AA when you hold KK are about 4%. But in my small data sample it has actually been 50%!  The odds of KK beating AA are about 18%. In my case, it’s been 50%.

While playing the Main Event I picked up KK a few more times and don’t believe it ran into AA again. 🙂

</Interlude>
The Main Event:

You start with 50K and one hour blinds so the structure is quite good. However, the buy in is ‘only’ $1100 and many people treat it like a big re-buy tournament. And you are allowed one re-entry per flight plus multiple day ones and tons of satellites so the play can be pretty aggressive.

After almost 6 hours I was up from 50k starting stack to about 81k so things were going well so far. Dinner break soon, and then we play 4 more levels (one hour each).

This trip report has been long enough as it is, so I’ll consolidate my experience since it revolves, rather elegantly, around various people flopping a set of Queens.

To get from 50K to 81K I flopped a set of Queens which turned into a full house (Queens over 5s) and wound up getting it all in with an unfortunate player who had a lower full house (8s over 5s).

Towards the end of the third last level of the day, my flopped set of Queens wound up losing to a flush! I was knocked out.

So with two more levels left I re-bought (everyone seemed to be doing it!) and ran the 50K up to 75K by the end of the night.

Day 2:

I started with 48 bb which was ok. I played for a couple of hours before my AA lost to…..a flopped set of Queens! That turned me into a short stack and I played for another three hours, doubling up a couple of times, but never getting over 45K.

Eventually I jammed in the cutoff position with AdJd and was called by AQ and QQ. In fact, a diamond came on the flop and turn, so if I’d rivered one I would have been up over 100K but that did not happen.

Overall, I believe my play was solid and I took notes on a number of hands and have ideas about how to improve. It is a rare opportunity to play with a ton of different people and see different styles (some good, some crazy). It is, however, a long grind if you want to play the Colossus, Monster Stack and Main Event. It was disappointing to get knocked out, but also very nice to drive home and spend the Labour Day weekend with my family.

 

My Rocky Horror Story

First there was the Rocky Horror Show (1973) which played in London England for a few years and Tim Curry originally starred in it. Then it was made into a “Hollywood” film with a rather modest budget and two American actors (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) were hired to play the lead roles of Brad and Janet (perhaps the original cast actors said “dammit”!). When first released in 1975 it had limited success.

I had no knowledge of this history when I came across the movie’s soundtrack album in the record section of Kelly’s Music in Whitehorse, Yukon a couple of years later. It looked strange and exciting:

I read the front and back and thought “this looks weird and interesting. I think I’ll buy it!” Of course there was no internet back then and I learned most of what I knew about popular music by reading Creem magazine and occasionally Crawdaddy (I rarely bought Rolling Stone because I felt they had sold out rock and roll to become mostly a political magazine!).  I had not seen anything about the Rocky Horror Picture Show in those sources.

When I played the album at home I loved it! The songs were melodic, had quirky lyrics, the musicians and arrangements were excellent: it was an amazing discovery. Of course, having never seen the movie, I was not sure what was going on, but you can get a general idea through the song progression.

Towards the end of high school some of us from the chess club had formed a “poker club” and we played on Friday evenings. Usually we would have records playing in the background and I brought my Rocky Horror album and everyone liked it. But of course none of use knew if we would ever get to see the movie since it seemed to have been released and then disappeared.

The next year I went off to the University of Alberta in Edmonton for an ill-fated half year adventure. I wanted to study music but had been too late sending my audition tape to the Music department so I was in a general arts program taking a couple of music courses. I practised saxophone and was living in residence which I grew to loath (especially after our floor Don leaned a plastic garbage can filled with water against my and my roommate’s door so that when we opened it all the water spilled over onto our carpeted floor).

After a month or so of University life I was pretty excited to see that the Rocky Horror Picture Show was going to be playing at a drive in movie theatre at the edge of town! My friend Robert had also been in the chess and poker ‘clubs’ in Whitehorse and was attending U of Alberta as well and living in residence. He had really loved the album and was as eager to see the movie as I was!

There were not many students living in residence who had cars. And of the few that we knew, no one was interested in driving out to see the movie! Robert and I could not believe this because we thought it would probably be good but few people had heard of the movie and no one shared our enthusiasm. This was pre-VHS and we had no idea if we would ever have another opportunity to see the film. After striking out finding anyone with a car who was interested, we made a bold plan. We checked the bus schedules and decided we would just walk into the drive in and watch the movie standing up!

As I recall, we had to take a bus from the University into town, and then another one or two to get to the edge of the city where the drive in theatre was located, but we were excited by the adventure.

The strangest moment was when we walked up to the entrance of the drive in and the women in the booth was quite puzzled by our lack of a car. She thought perhaps our friends were coming soon, but we said, “no”, it was just us. She apologized and said she would have to charge each of us (instead of just the “car”) and we said that was ok. I believe the cost was around $7 and it was a double feature so we thought it was a good deal!

I will digress slightly because the double feature paired Rocky Horror with Phantom of the Paradise.

I later thought this was quite a coincidence because in this movie Jessica Harper plays “Phoenix” and she has an amazing voice. Phantom was released in 1974  (one year before Rocky Horror). In 1991 the movie Shock Treatment was released and it was sort of a sequel to Rocky Horror in that Brad and Janet are now married and living in Denton. It is not nearly as good as Rocky but there are a couple of great songs and the role of Janet is played by…..Jessica Harper!

Throughout the 70s and 80s these two films were often paired as a double feature and I think it is kind of neat that, through the casting of Jessica Harper, at a certain point the present and the future were aligned with this “science fiction double feature”.

Anyway, getting back to the cold October night: we were standing in the drive-in movie with tinny speakers on either side of us and about a dozen cars in attendance. We watched Phantom of the Paradise which was the first movie to play. It is a pretty good movie, though that “lo fi” experience was not the best. After it was over we were cold, so we went into the food service area and warmed up and ordered popcorn. Then we went out to see the MAIN EVENT.

I can still remember the excitement of finally seeing the movie after having listened to the album dozens of times. The opening scene is at Ralph and Betty’s wedding and the disguised Transylvanians have performed the service. As Riff-Raff, Magenta and Columbia are preparing for a funeral (cycle of life!) they show no emotion as they sing their “Janet” and “oh Brad” lines! I thought this was SO amazing to finally see how cleverly the movie was put together. The whole movie was one revelation after another and finally the whole thing made sense! For around 90 minutes the universe was unfolding in a marvelous and exciting path.  Every now and they we jumped up and down to keep warm.

After it was over we just had to walk two blocks back to the bus stop and catch what was probably the last bus to head downtown. But we did make it back to the residence and we were excited talking about the various scenes and how the movie was the same or different than what we imagined. One month later the Rocky Horror Picture Show played the student theatre on campus, so we watched it again sitting on comfortable seats in a warm room with excellent sound.

I know that I’ve seen Rocky Horror over 15 times but only a few stand out enough to be remembered. My time at U of A was limited: I failed some classes and also needed back surgery (for which I came back in January) so the year was an academic write off. But I did re-group and pursue music at the University of Victoria and I had three great years there and met some excellent friends with whom I still keep in touch. (I was also in a rock band called The Tumours, but that is another story).

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was beginning to pick up a cult following so it was increasingly being shown at “midnight” at repertoire theatres including one in downtown VIctoria. At one point I dressed up with several of my “music student” friends. I had hair then and went as Riff Raff and it was fun. People were starting to throw popcorn at the wedding scene, take water pistols to make “rain” when the car breaks down and to talk back to the actors (e.g. Brad says to Janet “I love the way you BEAT….the other girls to the bride’s bouquet” and after “beat” everyone yells “with a whip!”). Part of the cult appeal was the audience participation. I have a photo of our little group somewhere but the rights to display it are currently in litigation due to the sensitive nature of some of those involved. So let’s just pretend we were all sitting amongst these fine people:

To keep in the spirit of things I had a custom t-shirt made. It was black and on the front it said “antici ” and on the back it had “pation”! (If you are reading this and somehow have not seen the movie (really? how can that be?) you will come across that line when you do watch it). Many people would see just the front and ask if “antici” was an Italian word, or a city in Italy?

Another interesting viewing occured in 1981 when I attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. I really loved U of Victoria but there was no jazz being taught and since I was studying saxophone I thought this was important. I had one year left on the grant the Yukon government gave students to study “outside” the territory so I decided to use it to go to Berklee which was the big jazz school. And it still is, although Humber in Toronto has a lot going for it as well. And UVic now has jazz as part of its music program. Boston was (and is) an amazing city. Large enough to have several universities, tons of architecture, important history and so much more.

But a really important fact is that Boston was there at the beginning of the movement to have live actors actually perform alongside the movie. This repertoire concept was duplicated in many other cities but I believe Boston’s was the first. So on one of my first weekends in town I went to the theatre and saw the show. It was pretty cool; I remember “Eddie” making his entrance by coming down the aisle of the theatre riding a motorbike! OK, there was no engine in it, so he coasted down, but it was very neat. And they had an almost full size “tank” for Rocky to be born in, so it was pretty elaborate. I checked out things online and it appears to still be going (wow!) and even more professionalized than back in 1981.

The element of audience participation certainly helped keep Rocky Horror alive and important culturally (compared to, for example, Phantom of the Paradise which is a great movie and still plays occasionally, but does not have much of a cult following. At one point I even had a book that detailed the history of the stage productions, the movie and included many of the phrases you could call out to the screen (“Hi Oblivion, how are the wife and kids”?). It was a great choice when they made the movie to include most of the original cast instead of getting all new actors and the scene towards the end, where Frank N. Furter is singing his sad ballad “I’m going home”, was filmed in the original theatre and when it fills with people clapping, it is quite touching.

But after a few screenings I did get tired of all the “extra” baggage one encountered when viewing the movie. I saw it once in Whitehorse and the audience was frequently yelling at the screen and throwing popcorn throughout and it was not a pleasant experience. I did buy the DVD of course and when our son was old enough to view it I decided that he needed to see most of the movies mentioned in the opening song (“Science Fiction Double Feature”) before seeing the Rocky Horror movie. So we watched The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet and many of the others. We saw Leo J. Carroll over a barrel and even Dana Andrews passing runes!

“Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in!”

Other than watching with my son, there were many years when I did not see it at all. With over 15 viewings, one could say “enough, there are other movies out there!”.

Then the Stratford Festival added The Rocky Horror Show  to their lineup for 2018! I wasn’t sure about going at first but a friend highly recommended it and I’m fortunate to live a short 45 minute drive from Stratford. It also helped that it was extended into December and they were selling some seats for half price. So I went!

This was the first time I’d seen the Rocky Horror Show (without the word “picture”) so it was kind of like going back to its “roots”. Everything at Stratford is done exceptionally well and this show was really excellent and it received great reviews. I heard that many people went to this show several times.  For example, the usher I chatted with said one women was going to the final show in three days and that would make it 41 times she had seen that production! At over $100 per ticket, that is a major commitment in time and money!

One big difference with this stage show was the different timing of the lines and the fact that most of the audience’s comments were from understudies planted among the seats. In fact, the night I saw the show there was an understudy playing the role of the narrator and when the actor walked out for the first time someone in the audience yelled “hey, where is the other guy?!”. Cruel! But the audience’s barbs were “professional” and often very funny. The actress who played Magenta also sang the opening “Science Fiction Double Feature” and although she was a great singer, I found her voice a little harsh and preferred the Richard O’Brien version.

Anyway, I’ve very happy to have seen this production and I thank my friend to urging me to go. All the actors did excellent jobs and it was a great version to cap my life long Rocky Horror experiences. I cannot say this is the last Rocky thing I’ll do, but I suspect there are not more versions I would find interesting. There was a “made for tv” version, The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again, made in 2016 but I have no interest in seeing that. I’d say, “let’s NOT do the time warp again”, ha ha.

So this wraps up my Rocky Horror experiences. I hope everyone has the opportunity to “do the Time Warp” and that you never have to encounter an “audio-vibratory-physio-molecular transport device”.

 

 

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My letter to the conservatives regarding official party status

I sent forms of this letter/email to three conservatives: Christine Elliott, Todd Smith and Caroline Mulroney.

Just recently I have learned that the PCs are worried they might have party defectors going over to the Liberals and give them enough seats for official party status. Then, gulp, they would be a more effective opposition. Increasing the seat requirement is cynical and petty, two of Doug Ford’s favorite things.

Here is the text of my email:

“Progressive Conservative House Leader Todd Smith says the new threshold — to be laid out in the fall economic statement later this week — will be 10 per cent of the house, or 12 seats, up from the current eight.

Smith says the move is meant to provide clarity and denies it is an attempt to stymie the Liberals, who fell one seat short of official party status in the spring election.”

Ms Elliott: It is a sad day when the conservatives cannot just be satisfied with their majority and destroy what the Liberals built up in a quiet manner. Instead, you cut the Toronto council in half, in the middle of an election, and now threaten to change the rules for ‘official party status’.

It is clear you do not want to be threatened in any way by other parties and their criticisms. In a functioning democracy, more voices are better. As a steward of the province, you should be open to vigorous criticism by as many parties as possible so you are required to defend your policies. And this goes for the NDP, Liberals, or whomever forms the government.

What “clarity” needs to be provided? Who is confused about the current rules? This is the policy of a bully. It seems like it comes right from Doug Ford and I hope you are at least a little ashamed of what your government is doing.

You were one of the more reasonable voices in the party and I had hoped you would win the leadership. Things are going from bad to embarrassing for this province and you are now part of it.

My friend, Jim Tubb

About four years ago I was walking in our local neighbourhood in Kitchener and noticed an artist had taken over the space that had formerly contained Schipplings Bike Store. I had bought my saddlebags from the owner of that store years earlier and he was quite elderly and had passed away. A larger bicycle store wound up buying the inventory (mostly for historic purposes) and eventually the building’s second floor had an apartment rented and this studio appeared on the main floor.

I went into the studio partly because it had a friendly sign saying “Open” and met Jim Tubb. He was hard of hearing and was playing jazz (loudly) on a record player while painting abstract art. We talked a bit and he said that music was a big inspiration for him. I really liked some of his work and about a week or two later I returned to buy the picture above from him.

As a musician I think I get the order/disorder elements of that painting (and many of Jim’s other works) because it is similar to how jazz is an improvisation built on a structure (chords, melody, other player’s notes etc.). I still love it whenever I see it. It resembles a musical score.

Jim did not charge much for his paintings and gave away many to help charities raise money. I would drop by occasionally and we would talk about music and art. He was always friendly and excited about ideas. I think he used the word “striving” a lot to discuss his own painting. He was breathing with an oxygen tank which is never a great sign, but he always had a zest for life.

It was difficult for him to get around but he had a show at the Kitchener Library around 2015. I attended the opening and he chatted with old friends who know him from when he had been a financial advisor. I’m sure some of them were not sure how to reconcile the solid financial investment manager with the wild abstract paintings he produced.

I released my first CD at the Jazz Room on November 25, 2015 (after four years of recording) and Jim came to this event which was a real treat for me. He was tiring easily and only stayed for the first set but he often spoke warmly of the CD later on. He said he played it sometimes while painting and one of his favourites was “My Brother’s a Mormon”!

My wife and I bought the above painting for our anniversary. Something about it “spoke to us” and Jim said it was his take on a nude! Many of his paintings are a great combination of abstract and order so you can see relationships in them that are fascinating.

It was wonderful to have Jim in our neighbourhood and to be able to drop in and talk to him about music, art and life in general. As Facebook friends I called him our “neighbourhood artist” and he really liked that idea. So he made a “Neighbourhood Artist” sign and put it outside his studio. Jim had many visitors including people that loved his work and wanted to help him out so they “curated” his works and organized them onto walls so more could be displayed. He was amazingly prolific.

Jim gave away paintings to charity (and, towards the end of his life, to friends and family), he put paintings outside his studio some nights for “free” and he sold many as well. Yet he still had so many! Although I can see certain themes running through the works, I loved the diversity. I could view 3 of them and think “hmm, not very interesting really” and then the 4th would would be fascinating! He had stacked up his years of work throughout the studio so a visit would mean sifting through dozens of paintings in back rooms as he continued to paint out front.

In the summer of 2017 Jim told my wife and I the sad news we’d been expecting: he did not have long to live. In fact, the doctor had felt he’d been living on “borrowed time” for months.

Jim wanted to give us a couple of paintings and we chose the one above. It hangs above our tv and every time I view it I see different relationships and ideas. As Jim would say “Well, I like making abstract art because everyone can see something different in it, eh?”

Jim and I had talked a lot about music and art but I had always wanted to play guitar or piano for him. On several friday afternoons in the late summer I visited him in his studio with different guitars and an amp and I would play jazz, blues and other styles of music. Some of it was improvised and sometimes I sang songs and accompanied myself. He really enjoyed that and drew on paper and worked through visual ideas as I played. I talked to him about the differences between my (Collings) Waterloo guitar and my Martin and he was surprised that they had such different sounds since they were both “acoustic”. He was so thoughtful, he ordered me a Waterloo t-shirt as a gift!

My wife would visit him some Saturday afternoons as well and they would talk about life, books, spirituality and many other topics. In fact, in his last few months I believe Jim gave us all a course on “how to die with grace and happiness“. He was so pleased to know his paintings would be enjoyed by his family and friends and strangers. Even as his health declined he continued to order books from Amazon and posting poetry on Facebook (as well as rants against certain politicians in the USA). He was still eager to read new things, to think about new ideas. He was still giving so much to life.

Jim passed away on February 3rd, 2018. He felt he was failing in the winter months and had said he wanted to “make it to Christmas” which he did. I am deeply saddened when I think he will no longer be in his studio listening (loudly) to an lp of John Coltrane and that I won’t be able to talk to him about Robert Frost or the intersections of art and music. But fortunately his art is all around us. He created, and was happy, which is a great way to leave this earth.

 

Jim Tubb (self portrait)

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for blocking me, dude!

Thanking my conservative friend for blocking me from his Facebook page

On of my conservative friends blocked me, for a second time, on Facebook a few months ago and I’m just writing about it now. This time he says it is “permanent” because of the Michael Moore quote I posted in response to the “fake news” item he had posted.

In a way I’m relieved this has happened and had kind of expected it. My conservative friend is a nice guy in person and is a “family man” who posts good rock videos and some other content that is often amusing. He also likes Nickelback, and that could be forgiven as harmless though in poor taste. We used to work at the same company and he has solid technical skills and understands hardware and software issues very well. There is a lot to like about the guy.

But with the 2016 election in the States things began to get a bit tense all over and especially on Facebook. I am a fairly left-leaning person and most of my friends have similar ideologies. We disagree over issues like Israel and government spending but rarely do huge disagreements erupt. (In fact, to some of them I probably seem to be more right wing: I often vote Liberal rather than NDP…..Oh well).

I realized in 2016 I had two or three right wing American Facebook friends and one of them I wound up un-friending after he called Hillary a “bitch” for the second or third time. He was offensive and stupid. My #2 conservative friend would never use such language; he sounds reasonable as he posts links to anti-climate change articles and others that called Clinton a criminal. He was originally a supporter of Cruz and then fell behind Trump when he won the nomination.

My friend and I had disagreed over many things but I believe the idiot/narcissist Trump is on another level. In one post he said both Clinton and Trump were “despicable” but he wanted a conservative supreme court judge so he was going with Trump. Throughout the campaign he refused to criticize anything Trump said regarding beating up protesters, grabbing women by the pussy, pretending not to know who David Duke was or anything really. I do believe that Trump cannot read past a grade 5 level.

We fell into a rhythm: he would post ridiculous and reductive posts from the internet: like the “fact” that Clinton had defended a rapist and laughed about it. Not true. She did not want to defend a rapist but didn’t have a choice and it was a big moral deal. It is ridiculous how easily many of these stupid statements (with offensive pictures) could be disproven. He would post more and cite conservative websites to back him up. I started to complain about many of his posts and prove them wrong but then he would say that the “fact checkers” like Snopes and Politico were biased. I would respond that they may have a bias, but they actually checked statements and described their research whereas Trump just lied about everything, every day. Things got heated towards the end he blocked me. Oh well, life went on and at the time I felt safe because Nate Silver told me Trump could never win.

Oops, I guess Nate just said the likelihood of Trump’s winning was less that the likelihood of his losing. OK.

After the election he unblocked me again and I thought the USA had committed a huge mistake but I kept hoping there would be some evidence of Trump’s earlier, and more liberal, self come to light. When he said he was not going to pursue criminal charges against Hillary I thought that was a good sign.

Pretty soon Trump began reverting back to his previous form and even got worse (probably as he realized on some level how unprepared he was for the job of President). My friend unblocked me and I could not help responding again to the lies and misrepresentations. Here are a couple of examples: he posted a link demonstrating how the MSM create “fake news”. It was to an ABC print article about the Russian ship off the US coast (about which Trump had joked that if he shot at it he would be very popular). The article showed a stock photo of a ship and the shore and seemed well researched and straightforward. It discussed the potential threat from the ship and quoted experts from the navy and the lawyers. I could not understand how this constituted “fake news” so I had to ask, why? My friend’s answer was that the picture and caption were misleading. They implied the ship was -much- closer than the 20+ miles the article discussed. I was really astounded this was the “fake” part because the article itself contained only researched facts. He was complaining about the use of a stock photo which happens all the time. I explained that “fake news” was when the president tweeted about three million people committing voter fraud with absolutely no evidence. His response: “how do you know there is not that amount of fraud”? Really? That position is either stupidity or willful ignorance.

My friend’s main claim was that Trump “is doing exactly what he said he would do” and that was admirable. In fact, mostly what is was doing was issuing unconstitutional executive orders and staffing some positions with people unfit to serve and leaving may other positions open. My “friend” barely acknowledged the steady stream of lies, the berating of friends like Australia, the increasing violence caused by right wing nut jobs, the rumours of ties to Russia that won’t go away, the undying support of white supremacists, the truly stupid and tragic banning of immigration and travel from countries that have produced virtually no terror on American soil (while it is business as usual for Saudi Arabia). And so much more. It is one thing to sell your soul for a supreme court vote. It is another to turn your back on so many acts of petty despotism and genuine white rage.

And as time progresses it is more obvious how woefully unprepared Trump was for the job and he is making the USA simply fodder for cartoons and ridicule.

But what really hurts is the sustained insults to common sense and logic. The refusal to understand that CNN, the “failing” New York Times, Washington Post and others employ full time journalists who have won awards, studied ethics and usually try to do a good job of research while so many of the other sites post articles that are based on supposition and often have -no- byline to identify the vacuous source.

He finally banned me because, in response to some post about Ryan Owen’s widow, who Trump turned into a photo opportunity, I posted a couple of paragraphs of Michael Moore’s response which was apparently “too much”.

Ultimately, the blocking is a good thing because that whole exercise of trying to battle blinded ideology and stupidity with logic and reason and facts just goes nowhere. You really cannot change some people’s opinions about certain things (this fact is discussed right at the beginning of How to Win Friends and Influence People). And having a “friend” like that on Facebook is really like a kind of crack addiction: the fact I can click on his name and be instantly submerged in an alternate universe. It is like visiting Mars without needing a spaceship or spacesuit.

The one thing I miss is that my friend’s bizarre postings were strangely reassuring because, in so many ways, he is a “solid citizen” and a sane, hard working guy. It helps me believe that things might eventually be ok if many of Trump’s supporters are decent folks who like good rock music (aside from Nickelback) and take their families on vacations and can talk intelligently about many topics.

Oh well, life goes on and my time is better spent playing guitar/piano etc., hanging out with my family and participating in various community activities. I am trying to engage in positive activities, like music and volunteering with our Neighbourhood Association, and be happy in my life because that is all we can really do! 

WSOP 2016 Adventure: Day 5

This was my final day in Las Vegas and had a rather slow start. I did not get to sleep until after 4 am from the previous night of intense excitement but still wanted to play the $150 tournament at the Golden Nugget at 1 pm. So I dragged myself out of bed by noon, got in my car and drove downtown again. Grabbed a coffee and some food at the Starbucks and went into the hotel and registered.

I did not make any money in this tournament but I did gather a few valuable insights. I had virtually no playable cards for the first 2 hours and anything I did play wound up being beaten by better hands. By around 3:30 – 4:00 I was down to under half of my stack.

To my left was a very talkative guy who turned out to be a bartender who worked in Henderson (a suburb of Las Vegas). He had a lot of great stories and entertained us for an hour or two. I like this social aspect of poker. At one point we had a female dealer who was quite pretty and in her mid to late 40s. She told us she had lived in Japan for 25 years and I will leave it to everyone’s imagination as to what she was doing there. Her math was terrible, so if anything complicated happened with the chips (e.g. raise and re-raise, or three people in a pot that needed to be divided at showdown) she just kind of laughed and let the players do all the chip counts. This was pretty unprofessional but, as I said in an earlier post, casinos in Vegas are desperate for dealers during the WSOP. Actually I did not find her that bad because her actual mechanics of shuffling and dealing were O.K. so the hands went fairly quickly. Unfortunately, she had this strange habit of asking people were they were from! After she was replaced by another dealer our friendly bartender said “you know, someone should point out to her that this is not Blackjack and she is not saving us money by stopping her dealing and asking us questions. We really do want to see as many hands as possible and do not want to talk about our home towns!”.

There was a point when I  had A2 in late position and I believe someone had raised the minimum and there were two or three callers. I was a bit distracted by the talkative bartender and frustrated by my lack of hands and folded the A2 despite getting about 5-1 odds for calling! On the flop there was an A and a 2! This was quite frustrating because I would have gone all in and probably been called by someone with an Ace and better kicker and I could have doubled up! But this is a good lesson and it taught me to “never give up”. Instead of listening so closely to our bartender friend, I should have been paying attention to the game a lot more and called since I was in late position and getting great pot odds.

In fact, I played a tournament at the Talking Stick in Phoenix in the fall of 2016 and lost about half my chips (down to 5,000 from 10,000) in the first 6 hands! My first hand was KK which lost to A9 and there were a few other “problem hands”. Anyway, I just dug in and was helped by the fact a lot of people were limping in for the first several rounds and I got to see many cheap flops. At one point I had Q,5. There was a min raise which had two or three callers. So I called as well since I had great pot odds. The flop came Q, 5, 3 (bingo!). I checked, a player on the other side of the table bet , I went all in and he called with Q, 10. A 10 never came so I doubled up! Eventually I made the final table and wound up chopping the prize money with several other people and I made a few hundred dollars. So my motto should always be “never give up and wait for your spots”.

At the Golden Nugget tournament I got knocked out around 5 pm. I had A,J and one person had raised and two others called when the action came to me. I had two options: raise or call. I did think of going “all in” and probably collecting all the money in the pot. But simply calling would disguise the strength of my hand. So I just called and the flop came A, 6, 8. One player bet, 2 folded and I re-raised all in. The initial bettor called and turned over A, 6! He won. If I had played more aggressively and gone all in I probably would have won the pot. Oh well.

I was not terrible disappointed to have gotten busted since I love walking along the strip and had hardly done much of that since landing in Vegas. I was going home the next day so I decided to walk over to New York, New York and take the tram down to Mandalay Bay which used to be my favourite casino.

I drove back to my hotel (Polo Towers, which was in the middle of the strip) and walked over to New York, New York which had a cool outdoor bar. I had a couple of craft beers and then took the tram down to Luxor and walked through the mall they built between it and Mandalay Bay. I wanted to eat at a nice Mexican place there but it was closed for a private party. I would up next door where they had an excellent vegan meatball sandwich and, guess what?, more craft beer! It was an excellent dinner.

As a side note, I realized I had not spent much on food because I’d been playing poker all the time and had very little opportunity to have a decent meal. The only times I’d deliberately set out to eat somewhere nice were this final night meal the the breakfast I’d had at the Claim Jumper.

Then I walked over to Mandalay Bay and got a seat at their cash game. I used to love this poker room because the casino is nice and roomy and they put poker right next to the Sports Betting instead of trying to hide it in the back. Since then many other casinos have created much better rooms and they do not have any decent tournaments but I felt some nostalgia for it. So I bought into the 1/2 no limit game for $200. In one of my first hands I had AA! One player raised it to $15 and I re-raised to $45 and the guy to my right calls, everyone else folds. The flop comes 9, Q, K. He checks, I bet $50 and he calls. Oops, I think he could easily have QQ or KK and flopped a set and is just going to take all my money! The turn is something like a 6 and he checks again and I bet another $50 (as a blocking bet if nothing else). He calls! I think “am I really going to lose my $200 in this one hand?”. I don’t remember the river but he checks and I just turn over my Aces and…..he folds! Whoa! I breathe a sigh of relief and he leaves the table a little later. Perhaps he had A, K? So I play for a couple of hours and am up about $100 at the end of it. Decent! So it was a nice ending to my five days of poker.

I head have to the hotel around 10 or 11 pm and pack up for my trip home tomorrow. It has been a fabulous 5 days!

WSOP 2016 Adventure: Day 4

 After playing in the $1500 WSOP and $235 deepstacks at the RIO I decided for my 4th day to head to downtown Las Vegas where smaller buy in tournaments were taking place. I had heard about the Golden Nugget tournaments. This is an “old school” casino that has been renovated in recent years (or at least, half of it was renovated with a great swimming area). I had also heard their Claim Jumper restaurant praised so I arrived early for a hearty breakfast. And I can highly recommend this cafe.

The Golden Nugget was hosting a tournament series in their Grand Ballroom. The 1 pm tournament was $150 and started with 15,000 chips while the 7 pm tournament was $100 and you started with 10,000 chips. Blinds in both were every 30 minutes so you got some good play for your money.

I entered the 1 pm tournament and played until around 4:30 when I got knocked out. I do not remember any hands from this event. I decided to play in the 7 pm tournament and the two hours free time gave me an opportunity to do something I’d been looking forward to for a few months: have a drink at Atomic Liquors Cafe! This is a very cool place where the hipster Vegas crowd hangs out. I had a couple of excellent pints of craft beer before heading back into the tournament fray.

I should note that the end of town on Freemont where Atomic Liquors is situated also boasts an excellent bookstore and record store. There is also a cool “container park” and much of this development is sponsored by the Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, “who leads the Downtown Project, an effort to revitalize downtown Las Vegas as a vibrant cultural and economic hotspot, has said he wants ‘to be in an area where everyone feels like they can hang out all the time and where there’s not a huge distinction between working and playing.’”

Anyway, back to poker:

I entered the 7 pm, $100 tournament with $10,000 in chips and there were 140 people registered. My first table was fairly friendly. There were two women to my right, the one furthest away was in her 60s and was a “local”. Apparently she played Omaha with her friends in a weekly game. The woman directly to my right was about 35 and was co-owner/manager of a poker club in Dallas. She had actually cashed in the Collossus tournament but she said it was a “min cash” and she’d bought in 3 or 4 times and had been partially bankrolled.

After about an hour and a half I was hovering around $12,000 chips and I had Ac,8c. I believe the older lady raised and I called with a couple of other people. Two clubs came on the flop so I had a nut flush draw. She bet the flop and I called and I made the flush on the turn! She bet again and I called, and then the river paired the board which brought on the possibility of a full house, but I did not think she had that. The river action went Bet, raise (from me) and call and I won a pretty large pot with my nut flush! I was up over 24,000 chips at that point. The older lady expressed surprise at my flush because she did not realize there were three clubs showing on the board! The younger women to my right made a comment about “well, a pair out there could mean a full house” indicating she may have thought me a bit reckless to be raising on the river. But I was quite sure I was ahead and wanted to get some value from my flush.

After about another 45 minutes I got my dream hand. The blinds were 100/200 and I was in middle position. I looked down at J,J so I raised to 600 and was called by one person to my left and the older woman (again). The flop came with another J giving me a set! However, it was checked to me and I thought “no one is going to bet and they will fold if I bet” so I just checked (the board was “rainbow” meaning all the cards were different suits so there was no immediate danger of a flush). On the turn came another Jack so I now had quads!! Finally the older woman bets 700 so I think “great, at least I’ll make a couple of thousand chips” and I call. A guy to my left calls as well! On the river the older woman goes “all in” for another 2100! Oh happy day! So I just call the 2100 hoping the guy to my right will call as well. He surprises me by raising another 5,000 chips! Oh happy day! I love poker! (At this point the older woman says to the younger one “ok, I know I’m not going to win this pot!”). So I surprise him by raising another 5,000. I could have raised all in, but I wanted to let him have a few thousand chips left because I think this will make it easier for him to call if he is not going totally “all in”. My re-raise really shocks him and he actually says “what could you have? I have a full house!” and he takes a minute or so but reluctantly calls and I turn over my JJ to show quads! So I knock out the older lady and take most of his chips and I’m up to almost 50,000 now. Nice!

I had a few good hands after this including one where a player goes all in, and is called by one other player and me. The flop gives me an open ended straight draw and I check, believing the two of us will “check it down” to have a better chance to eliminate a the all-in player. This is an established practice that not everyone follows. The idea is that it is more important to eliminate a player than it is to gain a few chips. So I check the flop and to my surprise the other player bets. I’m a bit irritated, but I have a good draw so I call and with the turn I make my straight!  The other guy bets again and I call and we both check the river. He turns over the set he flopped and starts to reach for the chips and I show my straight. He looks kind of irritated as the dealer pushes over the chips to me! This guy also looked a little pained throughout the tournament because he was in the process of getting a large tattoo on his arm and had some paper or gauze over it to help with the healing. He pushed me off a couple of other hands with his aggression but by around midnight I think he had gotten knocked out.

So I had several good hands and then there is the inevitable 2 – 3 hours when you get nothing and the blinds are higher and your large stack begins to get smaller. By 1:30 am there were only a couple of tables left and the blinds were very high. I was hanging in with an average chip stack and looking for spots to raise or even jam but mostly I folded. One on the fun things about playing poker is the great “cast of characters” you run into because it is a social game and people talk. There was a guy from New Orleans who, like the woman I had met earlier, managed a poker club back home. He was down to only 2 or 3 big blinds but managed to chip up and make the final table.

By around 2 am (7 hours of playing) I had made the final table! This was pretty thrilling although getting knocked out at that point would still only get you about $330 which is not much profit considering all the time invested. When I made the final table the blinds were around 2000/4000 with a 500 ante. With 10 people at the table, that meant there were 11,000 chips in the pot before any betting had taken place. I had just over 40,000 chips which was 10 big blinds and is not quite short stacked, but not great either.

In one of the first hands I was in early position and looked down to see 5,5 in my hand. I was not crazy about the idea but I felt my only choice was to shove all in. With another 8 players to come it was possible someone else would have a higher pair, but if they called with A,J; A,K; Q,K etc. I was slightly ahead. Understanding how many big blinds you have left is an important factor that dictates how aggressive your play should be. The shorter you are, the lower your range for shoving all in. There is also something called the “M Factor” which Dan Harrington uses in his books. It is a number that shows how many more hands you can last. For example, with the 2000/4000 blinds and 500 ante, it was costing me about 11,000 chips every round so I had an “M factor” of around 4 which is pretty low. There is also a concept called “fold equity” which basically means the more chips I have when I go all in, the greater likelihood others will fold.

At this stage most players had between 40K and 120K in chips so I had a good hand with decent fold equity. So I took the plunge, went all in and…..everyone folded! So I now had over 50K in chips and could be a little patient for a few hands.

There was an older guy to my right and a few times over the next 45 minutes he just called the big blind or “limped in” as we say. So two or three times that he did that I had hands like A,10 and A,J and I was in late position so I jammed all in. He reluctantly folded. At one point I believe the blinds were 2500/5000 he raised to 12,000. I looked down and saw 6,6. I thought about calling but I’d basically be doing that to hope I flopped a set which is going to happen 12% of the time. I had around 60K in chips which is not enough to call in that position. I thought of going all in, but previously he had only limped in and now he was raising so I suspected he had either a high pair or an A,K kind of hand. Against a higher pair my 6,6 is crushed and against the A,K; A,Q range I am still only slightly ahead. So I folded. So did everyone else and he gave me a disappointed look, turned over A,A and said “why did you fold? You went all in every other time I raised”. I shrugged and did not correct his misreading of my play: I’d only gone “all in” when he had called (thus showing weakness) and not when he raised.

I had a few other good hands. I got it all in with A, K against 10,10 and a King came and I doubled up. Another player had had a huge stack and had lost a fair amount raised and I looked down a J,J so I went all in. He thought about it for almost a minute which I took as a good sign. I was thinking he had a smaller pair and eventually he called and turned over 6,6 and I won that hand as well.

There were two German friends who made it to the final table. They both spoke English well but occasionally had to be cautioned about speaking German at the table. I will always remember one player saying “I’m going to raise” and one of the Germans, in a very precise manner, and with his accent, replied “That is always a good idea”. At one point I raised all in with A, 10 and the one German really thought about calling for a while and then folded. I said “I’ve heard Germans are very disciplined and that was a disciplined fold. You should do more of those!”. He smiled.

Eventually we began to discuss a chop because, as one player put it, “I’d be pretty pissed if I played for 8 hours and still only made $300!”. When the final table got down to 8 we did the math and figured we would each make slightly over $1100 so we settled on that!

It was after 3 am when we came to the agreement and it was all very exciting. By the time I got my chips and cashed them in for money and drove back to my hotel it was around 4 am Vegas time and 7 am Eastern. I texted my wife (who was just getting up for work) and expressed my excitement. It was a real thrill to have played for that long and had a decent cash. So that was the poker highlight of my trip!

WSOP 2016 Adventure: Day 3

People often ask “how much luck is involved?” in poker or they call poker “gambling” which is not exactly true. First of all, we don’t call it “luck”, it is “variance” which sounds much cooler. I was in a local tournament a few weeks ago where I was “all in” with pocket 7s and a 7 had come on the flop giving me a “set”. That is a very strong hand. My opponent had QQ so I will win this hand almost 90% of the time. Except in this case, a Queen came on the river! Ouch. 7.8% of the time the pocket Queens will win and that is variance.

So over a lifetime of playing, the better players and professionals will win consistently over amateurs. But for any given tournament skill vs luck is about 50/50. It is possible to play mediocre poker and still win a tournament because you get really lucky–and this is every amateur’s dream. However, the more skillful you are, the better chance you have to win. You can take advantage of certain “spots”, you can detect playing patterns that are “exploitable” and push your edge. And you can keep an even temper when a 7% hand beats you. In Slots the house has only a 1% to 3% advantage but they make a lot of money. If you can be patient and wait for your cards to come in the right situation you can vastly improve your chances to win. But still, when the Queen comes on the river (as above) you have to say “all I can do is get all my money in with the best hand”.

Day Three was the BIG DAY where I played in the $1500 tournament which began at 11 am.

I drove to the Rio and arrived in plenty of time to have breakfast and grab a coffee from Starbucks. I was playing “Event #6” on day 6 of the 6th month! The tournament was in the Brasilia Room which is smaller than the Amazon but (ultimately) there were still around 2000 entries. When I started playing the size was shown as 1700 but some people came later and some re-entered.

You begin with 7500 chips and the blinds go up every hour, so it is a good structure and not rushed. However, even with blinds starting at 25/50 the 7500 chips is not a lot. If you lose 2 or 3 decent sized pots, where you have put in 1500 – 2000 chips, you are quickly on life support.

The first hand I played was 6,7. A player raised to 150 and I called. A 7 came on the flop so I called his 300 chip bet. We both checked the turn and when a Jack came on the river he bet 1000. I called and he turned over KJ and took the pot. I lost around 1500 in chips! I think my original call was fine, and perhaps even the 300 call because I’m floating to get another 7 or a 6 for two pair. But I should have known there was no way I was ahead on the river. So I should have been down 450 (at most) and not 1500.

I lost a few hands and won a hand but after an hour and a half of playing I had around 5,500 I believe. The blinds were 50/100 and I raised to 300 with A J. One player called. The flop contained good news and bad news: there was an Ace (!) but all three cards were diamonds. Ugh. I felt if I checked, I was giving up on the hand right away and I’ve always believed that if the possible flush scares me, it must scare my opponent as well (most times). So I bet $1200 and he called. Ouch. The turn was a blank. I was in early position which is bad because I know if I check, he will probably bet and take down the pot so I bet 2100 and he called! Another diamond came on the river, I checked, he bet and I folded. Ugh! Again, an initial bet of $1200 is ok, but when he calls I know I’m probably not good. I have no diamonds so no further money should go in the pot.

I am now down to just under 2000 in chips! The blinds are 50/100 so that is 20 big blinds which is not terrible exactly, but is very short stacked for this early in the tournament. In the hand before our first break I had 3,3 in late position. There may have been a couple of calls so I decided to go all in. I’m hoping that someone with an AJ to AK kind of hand calls and I’m 50/50 to double up. Unfortunately the same person who took my chips on the “flush” board calls and he has pocket 10s! A 3 does not come and I am out! Ouch.

It is strange to have built up to this moment and then have it crash down so quickly. On the other hand, I always knew this could happen in so many ways and I told everyone “I’m going to Vegas to play poker for 5 days straight. If I do well in the $1500 event that is awesome, but if not, there are plenty of other tournaments.”

I thought of going to another casino like Wynn’s or Aria but ultimately decided to just stay at the RIO and play in the 2:30 “deepstack”.

So I paid another $235 to enter the tournament and sat down with 15,000 chips and the blind levels were 30 minutes. Ultimately this tournament would have 1700 entries so it was a large field. It was held back in the Amazon room and over the several hours I played I saw a real cast of characters.

I snapped this photo of the “man in black” (MIB) who sat next to me for the first few hours (that is my water and bag on the chair). He did not talk much but had a southern accent and his outfit was a bit over the top. It was certainly a “uniform” of sorts. He seemed to play ok but at one point, about three hours into the tournament, a couple of “young guns” had joined the table. They were chatting and carrying on like “junior poker pros” and knew each other from other tournaments around the USA. I’d call them a little “rough hewn” in their manners. At one point the man in black was in a hand with one of the young guns. The young gun bet on the flop and turn and the MIB called both times. Ultimately the MIB won the hand when he made a straight with his KJ. The young gun was livid because he had AQ for top pair and was ahead of the MIB until the river when the MIB had made an inside straight. The young gun yelled “why did you call me? I was way ahead and I bet to get you off the draw”. The MIB replied with is draw “I thought you were floating so I called”. And the young gun said “Floating? I bet out with the best hand, how is that floating?” So that was a bit of drama. The young gun was correct in his analysis that the MIB misjudged what “floating” was and should have lost all his chips. However, as we say “that’s poker” and you have to calm down a bit.

I never had great hands and was mostly short stacked all afternoon, but I hung in and jammed when necessary. It was fascinating to see so many players who accumulated a ton of chips (one kid had a couple of full houses) and then to meet them at another table a couple of hours later when they had very few left. Many of the people playing had also been knocked out of the $235 Deepstack so that was somewhat comforting.

(Above: I thought the Elvis dealer and the guy in his undershirt make an amusing couple)

I played from 2:30 until 9 pm when we had our “dinner break” of half an hour. The other breaks had been 15 minutes and I’d only had time for peanuts. Just before the break there was an interesting hand. We were almost at “the money” and were told the bubble would break after we came back. It was a little confusing because there were several tournaments going on at the same time and our dealer was very slow, and I could not see the tournament information very well, so I thought we had played the last hand. So I actually walked away from the table and then a dealer who was one table over shuffling cards yelled to me. He said “hey, they are calling you back at your table” so I ran back the 12 feet and it turned out they were dealing one final hand! It was very nice of my table to call me back because, technically, if I’m not at the table my hand should be folded. I was in middle position and looked down to see 9,9, so when the action came I shoved “all in”. Eventually everyone folded and I picked up a lot of precious chips. One of the players said “hey, we called you back so you have to show us what you shoved with”. I felt that was fair so I turned over the pocket 9s and everyone nodded since it was a no-brainer move.

I realized at 9 pm that I had not really eaten since breakfast so I went to the “Poker Kitchener” at the RIO where I had a wrap with veggies and grilled salmon for $16. This was amazing food! I ate standing up at a table with two other poker players and we had 15 minutes of shared camaraderie over poker and travel etc. It was a very uplifting break.

When I came back we very quickly played “hand for hand” so it would be clear who was the “bubble boy” and we were into the money very quickly. I played for another hour but had virtually no hands. I went all in with A3 once and was called….with A3! The other player joked “how do you play cards like that”? Eventually I made it to 163rd place (out of 1700) and cashed for $407! This was not a huge amount but it was a moral victory to hang in for so long and gave me a bit of an upswing from my brutal tournament experience. So I played poker for almost 12 hours that day!