Monthly Archives: June 2004

Poker

MultiPoker Freeroll Tournaments

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MultiPoker’s got these twice-daily freeroll tournaments that get about 100-200 registrants, requiring a commitment of only 1-3 hours. Not bad. In fact, it’s possible to play both the 2PM and 5PM tournaments back to back. It’s good practice if you’re a limit grinder like me.

Unlike PokerStars, you don’t have to wait out a couple thousand maniacs who go all in with anything and suck out on your pocket rockets and cowboys; these players are relatively good and are more likely to respect your bets. It’s still a freeroll, however, so even a good player won’t mind risking his stack if he hasn’t invested much time in the game.

Also unlike Pokerstars, the top 20 spots get paid cash, which is a great overlay on the 100 registrant side, and still decent on the 200 side. Top spot gets $30, spots 11-20 get $1.

Yesterday I placed second and won twenty bucks.

Poker

Slaughtered at the weekly game

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Last night we broke out of the rut and opened up the last hour of play to non hold ’em games. We dusted off Anaconda, Heinz 57, Baseball, Little League, 357, Roll Your Own High Chicago Kings and Low-men, the Jake, and Follow the Queen, and the pots instantly escalated to stack-devastating amounts. I had the second best hand in at least three different games and ended down a few bucks for the night:

Anaconda Hi-Lo: Heads up, Kings full of Jacks going down to Aces full of Fives. Cavebutter raked the whole pot with his low hand also beating mine.

Baseball: Heads up, five Queens going down to five Kings.

Some other game: My hand, second best again to the winning hand. Ugh.

Considering the size of the pots in these games, I think I did reasonably well in the other games, since I could have easily been out my entire buy-in.

There was also an unusual Roll Your Own game where both players at the showdown had five aces, but one had the King for Chicago, resulting in a 25-75 split that caused a little grumbling. It’s easy to forget how Chicago can sometimes make the nuts worth less than half the pot.

After months and months of almost exclusively playing Hold ‘Em, it was hard for players to recognize the strength of hands, and the likelihood of improvement. This, combined with the size of the pots, caused some of the group to fold more quickly than they would have back when we were playing these games more regularly. Probably a good thing. One rule change we might consider is ditching the spread limit and no cap betting we typically have in games with lots of betting like Anaconda and Roll Your Own.

Blog

What the hell is this blog all about anyway?

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A few days back, Boy Genius started to write about the blog phenomenon, and then segued into the liberal blog phenomenon, mentioning StudioGlyphic (what you’re reading) in the process:

I was talking with Pauly on Saturday, in very general terms about, to borrow a phrase, the viral phenomenon of blogs.

Pauly’s line, one that I feel is apt, is that “blogs are the new tattoos.” Everybody is going to have one, or already does.

Viral, actually, is a terrific adjective to describe blogs, as the Howard Dean campaign proved early on. For better or for worse, Dean’s supporters utilized blogs to at once rally and corral the troops.

I mention the “for worse” part because what this marketing strategy has wrought is the political regurgitation blog. No offense to Phil at Studio Glyphic, because I wouldn’t read him if he didn’t have interesting content besides the various links and quotes, but what has grown weary and tiresome in the blogosphere is the link-it-and-leave liberal blog (frankly, I haven’t come across a conservative blog, although I’m sure they’re out there too). Link to an op-ed piece from an unabashedly liberal outlet, quote the first two paragraphs, and that’s it. Congratulations, you now have “content.”

Ha ha, guilty as charged.

In my defense, I guess the number one reason for this blog is to keep a personal historical record. So years from now I can read back through some of these entries and know that during the WSOP 2004, my cat got neutered. That two days after I learned about Toyota’s hybrid supercar concept vehicle, the cutest member of Congress got elected. That George Tenet resigned as the head of the CIA around the time that I got back onto Empire to play online poker. I think the juxtaposition of the personal and public helps keep both in context. Why it’s important, I don’t know, but I’m a strong believer in context.

Which is why the quote/link post (in moderation) is okay with me.

At the same time, there have been times before I started this blog that I wrote things in email that I would have liked to have saved, or somehow put up for permanent display. More often than not, it was just good information, and not necessarily great writing. For instance, now that I have my Mutual Fund Primer on my blog, I can just point people to that and have them read it so that they can get some really basic background on using a mutual fund to save for retirement.

I also like to bloviate about how things should be.

Maybe this is the stuff Boy Genius refers to as the “interesting content.” Who knows? The interesting content I want to see on BG’s site is his hot neighbor. One of these days he’s got to take a shot of her so that the poker blog reading world can commiserate with him on his bad fortune.

At any rate, yesterday was the one year anniversary of this blog. With 809 posts, I’ve managed to post +2.2BP/day (that’s blog posts, mind you).

Craziness.

Happy anniversary.

Useful Stuff

The Purchase of Manhattan Island

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According to legend, the island of Manhattan was purchased from the Lenapes by the Dutch for $24.

“Wow, what a bargain!”

Perhaps. Over the past 75 years or so, the stock market has had an average return of 8%. If the Lenapes or the Dutch had taken that $24 in 1626 and invested it at 8% a year, it would currently be worth $103.4 trillion. I’m not sure what the value of the real estate in Manhattan is today (quite high, I’m sure), but if you were trying to forecast several hundred years into the future and knew you could get 8% on your money, you probably would have been better off investing the money vs. speculating on the future value of land. One man’s Manhattan is another man’s Calico.

Of course, the Lenapes likely had no concept of land ownership, so the $24 was merely transferring the right to use the land to the Dutch. So the questions to put to the lawyers would be:

Since the Lenapes had no conception of property ownership, would that invalidate the agreement between them and the Dutch?

If the Lenapes still own Manhattan and the Dutch paid $24 for a perpetual lease on the land (which is likely the way the Lenapes thought of it), does this mean there is no way for them to cash in on the value of their land?

When New Amsterdam became New York, did the rights of the Dutch transfer to the English?

When New York joined a union of rebel colonies, did the rights of the English transfer to the Americans?

Just where did this bizarre idea of owning land come from anyway? No matter how you slice it, there’s no good justification for it. That said, if you have the opportunity to buy some cheap land in LA at a good interest rate, it’s probably a good investment.