...

Sometimes I find commercialism based on exploiting misery very disturbing, and can start ranting about why games like Conflict: Desert Storm just rely on cheap tricks (and it doesn't have anything at all to do with me thinking that the guys at SCi are incompetent morons), and shouldn't be selling in the millions.

That all pales in comparison to something I heard in a recent press conference from Rosenbad. The names of missing Swedes can't be made public, because when this has happened in the past, their houses and appartment have almost always been burgled. This is so sick it makes me want to throw up.

The poker year in numbers

My first year of online poker is coming to an end, so I thought I'd compile a little list of deposits and withdrawals, from my first $25 deposit at Ultimate Bet, on the 19:th of January, to the monster $700 withdrawal from Ladbrokes on December the 27:th ($500 of those did get put into my Expekt account, but anyway :)

Ultimate Bet
Deposited: $225
Withdrawn: $0
Bankroll: $0.59
Net: -224.41

Party Poker
Deposited: $150
Withdrawn: $0
Bankroll: $1.18
Net: $-148.82

Expekt
Deposited: $1180
Withdrawn: $2010
Bankroll: $1200
Net: $2030

Ladbrokes
Deposited: $100
Withdrawn: $1900
Bankroll: $1200
Net: $3000

Hey, pretty cool. I've made around $4600 in a year playing poker. And I owe it all to my friend Rasmus, who told me that he had started playing when we were out boozing on Christmas Day, 2003. I said that I'd check it out, but that, of course, I would never start playing for real money :)

Time to start thinking about that New Year's poker resolution..

I think I'll stick this in here just to reward the people actually reading the poker junk. So, I've got a friend to whom I've been suggesting that we have sex for the past five-six years, and constantly been turned down. Well, I've think I've finally made a break-through! She said we could make ourselves in Sims 2 and let them get down and dirty. Excellent!

A quickie on Doyle

After reading some more Super System, I realize that a few players seem to have adopted the style of play that Brunson promotes. Well, thankfully not the whole package, but just some of the moves. Which is good, I suppose, because my 2-bit analysis is that you need the whole aggressive system to be able to afford the gambles.

It involves picking up loose pots by constantly betting, betting draws heavily (even reraising/pushing on draws), and also pushing with overcards. Some of the beatings I've received that I call bad beats, seem to be taken out of Brunson's playbook.

I guess you could call his style amortized odds, where he constantly picks up small pots to be able to use that money to gamble when he's a dog.

I was out shopping when it struck me that this looks like the strategy that high stakes NL players like Dared use. And that it must be a real pain to play against. It's sort of like what the villian says in the movie where Clint Eastwood plays the president's bodyguard, "it's easy to kill the president if you're willing to risk your own life". I wonder if Echelon is picking this up, by the way..

It's pretty cool that the plays Doyle wrote about in 1978, and was probably using since the early fifties were recently published in an article in the first 2+2 Internet magazine. No offence to David Sillers, or anything..

The most entertaining session to date

Wow, as soon as I sat down at the table I knew that I just had to win money from these guys. Throw odds out the window, these guys were calling inside straight draws, bottom pair/no kicker, and all kinds of funky stuff. Plus, they all had around $40 - $50 stacks.

But I wasn't getting any cards. Chilled for about 90 minutes, before I had pocket sixes, that made trips on the flop, followed by a boat on the river. $90 for me, thank you very much.

A hand that really set things off was when a guy lost his KK to another guy's hammer! Hammer guy hit bottom pair on the flop, and called all the way to the river, where the 7 came. The table errupted!

Dannesan> watch out rod.. this man hits
> RodziIIa shows One Pair, Kings
> halfjack shows Two Pair, Sevens over Deuces
> halfjack wins $32.25 with Two Pair, Sevens over Deuces
RodziIIa> *
Dannesan> lololol
doozX> haha
RodziIIa> pocket kings
Pharxity95> hahahaha
doozX> nh
RodziIIa> loses to THAT *
RodziIIa> that's gay as *
Pharxity95> wah wahhhh wahhhh
RodziIIa> shut up
Pharxity95> can i offer you a kleenex?
Condorcet> danne right as always
RodziIIa> oh I suppose KK was supposed to lose to 72 off
RodziIIa> right
RodziIIa> because THAT happens every day
TheJoca> rod whining again...
RodziIIa> stfu moron

It was a proper hammer too; none of that suited garbage. And he called a preflop bet with it. Classic!

(A small update: I checked the hand history just for kicks, and I noticed that the reason halfjack probably played the hammer was because he won a $60 pot with it when he flopped a boat at about the same time I joined the table.)

I stayed for another hour or so, managed to get a guy all-in when I held AA, which was nice. The chat was almost flooded the entire time either by Joca insulting Rod, Rod bitching back, or just general abuse of halfjacks bad play. A great time for all!

Dannesan> i dont have a fold button and i fancy hands like 27 and 8Q off..

TheJoca> lol, your like a schoolgirl rod
RodziIIa> at least I know the proper uses of you're, your, and you are
TheJoca> yep, ur right good one!
TheJoca> you're = you are moron
TheJoca> so why say it twice
TheJoca> man, what an idiot you are!
RodziIIa> that's still not a proper english sentence

TheJoca> refill rod!
Pharxity95> nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey hey hey, gooooodbyeeee

Doyle is the king

I started reading Doyle Brunson's Super System (also known as "How I made $1.000.000 playing poker"), and I have to say that Doyle is the man! THE MAN!

I am just such a sucker for stories where people drive around in a beat up old car, and just do cool stuff. Be it Kerouac, Brunson, Amarillo Slim and Sailer Roberts, or the four dudes from Road Trip, I'm hooked.

Oh, oh, and reading about poker sessions lasting for days on end just makes me want to pool my bankroll and jump in on some crazy 25/50 NL action.

I need this stuff now, to avoid falling to pieces reading about the catastrophe in southern Asia. It's just so fucking unreal.

Addendum
Kerouac was mainly namedropping. On The Road was ok reading, but I think you really had to have been there to really appreciate it. Give me Hunter S. any day of the week. Except for his Hell's Angels book. I haven't really got through that one yet..

The unofficial I_Knockout_U fanclub

[Observer]railbird1> I_Knockout_U how many money do you make on ladbrokes a month?
[Observer]railbird2> how mutch, not how many!

Join now, before the asteroid strikes!

I'm a misanthrope

I just got back from Christmas dinner with my girlfriend's family and relatives, and I'm probably the worst person in the world to invite over for these type of events. Alot of people I just can't fucking relate to.

I guess it boils down to me just not being interested in what 99% of people do (wow, crazy lady, you raise dogs, and this little bastard knows circus tricks. What the hell am I supposed to say?), and probably being quite immature for my age. When people start talking about their friends getting married, having babies, building summer houses and shit like that, I just don't know the proper etiquette. Oh, and the endless babble about grandma knitting socks for everyone, that not everything at Ullared is of pristine quality, a story about some distant cousin that even I've heard so many times it's lost whatever little charm it once had. Aaargh, just kill me already..

I suppose I'm really just being an asshole, and should accept the fact that sometimes I have to do stuff against my will, if it will make someone I care for happy, and just not bitch about it.

Damn, I miss being a child, when openly displaying your discontent was just considered cute.

Christmas Greetings

A merry Christmas to all you guys out there!

It's been a pretty soft last couple of days. Mostly last minute Christmas shopping and beer drinking with my sister.

Christmas with the family was nice too. I think we all know each other well enough to know which topics to avoid if we want to keep the peace. My dad started on a "well, I think religion and christianity are a good thing", got angry glances from everyone at the table, and I quickly interjected "Hey, I'm slacking off at work". Crisis averted.

I had a two day losing streak at Ladbrokes, dropping $150, and the doubt started creeping in. Pokertracker if invaluable in these situations, and it helped confirm that I was playing my regular game, but had just been a bit unlucky. Ok, I'd played a few stupid AJo from early position type hands, flopping an A, only to end up betting a dominated hand, but that's stuff I'm working on at the moment. The games at Expekt seemed easier now (maybe it was just the glögg talking), so I'll probably be playing alot more there, trying to build up my bankroll towards the 1k mark (it's just over 500 at the moment. Make that 600 ;) ).

More to come?

Lunch time ramblings

I had some wicked bad cravings for Chicken McNuggets today, so I rushed off to my local McD, where I was promptly told to chill for 5-6 minutes while they fried my chickens to perfection.

Now, their isn't really that much to get excited about in the house of our lord, Ronald McDonald, but I can't help giggling everytime I see one girl's name tag (she's called Youmama), and admiring the sarcasm with which another girl wishes people bon apetit. She's got a McJob, and she's making the best of it. Cudos.

Ok, now I've finished those little buggers off, so it's time to get back to work. It looks like I might actually get the stuff done today that I've supposed to have been doing for the past two weeks!

Some late breaking news! I was just informed that the Christmas "bock" in Gävle has been burned to the ground. The police have no clues, but are working under the assumption that the fire was intentional. Geez, you think? :)

Impeccable timing, dislodging the thumb and a mystery solved

So, hokay, I've been goofing off at work for about six months, arriving late, leaving early, and basically not doing all that much. I've gotten used to it, my co-workers seem okay with it (seeing as they're not really doing all that much either), and management isn't really complaining either.

Today is my last day at work before the holidays, and this morning I get an email from the boss, asking me if I could send along a bunch of files and utilities that I said I'd look into a couple of weeks ago. Which I of course had completly forgotten/neglected. I frankly never thought this would come up, seeing as most other tasks have a way of just disappearing.

Darn, I fired up the projects in my compiler, and noticed where I'd left off. The bloody thing doesn't even compile anymore.

I guess the gist of this is that I'm stuck with a shitload of work, very little time, and even less motivation.

Following this rather glum introduction, I have several positive notes!

I think I'm on my way towards dislodging my thumb from my ass, and finally getting some real coding done at home. I finally got round to hammering out a simple bug yesterday that has had me stumped for the past several weeks, and I felt that I might actually get something done during the holidays. Hooray!

On a related note, I hope that having one's thumb up one's ass is a valid English expression. If not, it damn well should be.

I've solved the mystery of the disappearing shirt!

As the astute reader may recall, my blue-striped shirt went mysteriously missing last Friday. Well, this morning I found it lying on the floor, and next to it were three of my stuffed animals, Franklin, Wilson and Sam, and they all looked very guilty indead. Sam tried to give me the "how can I have commited a crime when I'm obviously lying on my head"-look, but I didn't fall for it. The motive for the theft is still unclear, but I assume it has to do with the guys feeling abit neglected. Sorry guys.

Coding by candlelight

After more than a year, I finally managed to figure out how to turn the flash off on my digital camera. The picture quality is total crap, but I don't care.

'Twas a shame that I didn't have any wine at home. I had just loaded the cd-player with Jewel and Nico, and some booze would have made the evening perfect.

An uneventful journey

Just got back from Göteborg, and I haven't really got that much to report. I'm still mildly amused by the fact that the "telephone free" section of the train really is just the first 16 seats in a regular compartment, and that the good people of SJ are oblivious to the fact that sound actually does travel!

I started reading Erlend Loe's "Expedition L" today, and I really love his style. I've read "Naiv, Super" before, and remember that I enjoyed it too.

The author is tired of being 29 and still not having contributed anything towards putting Norway on the map. One day divine inspiration strikes, and he realizes that maybe the indiginous people of South America got to the Polynesian Islands by ice-skating, so he decides to put together an expedition.

Following his train of thought, and reading the delusional parallells he draws between himself and the great explorers before him is very entertaining, and his easy going, slacker attitude really works for me. Alot of the logical conslusions when facing adversity are brilliant; nobody seems to want to finance his expedition, so he draws inspiration from Magellan, and starts dating a 19 year old with a rich father, in hopes of marrying her and getting the dad to throw in some cash. Pure genius.

Just one more day at work before Christmas holidays! Yay!

By the way, how cool isn't Postman Pat?

Ladjokes is rigged!

I'm sorry, but I just love people complaining that the site is rigged.

I win with an A-high flush over a K-high. The betting is capped on the river. We each have a heart in the hole, AT and K2.

Mrs_Magic> lol
bjrish> fixed
bjrish> rigged
Mrs_Magic> 4 sure
Mrs_Magic> KK ... 10 10.... loose ... wtf is this
Mrs_Magic> and against people who cant play to
bjrish> its the most rigged site on internet LADJOKES
Mrs_Magic> u got that right
me> then why do you play here?
bjrish> where im gonna play? then?
Mrs_Magic> i play here couse its fun to c all the stupid people every now and then
Mrs_Magic> everyone has so mutch luck
bjrish> not me
Mrs_Magic> u can live on luck on poker

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent)

Being right and still losing

No limit hold'em can be so frustrating, and sometimes you just have to take a break to avoid going mental and pissing away your money.

Last night, I held 66, the flop came J63 rainbow, so I decided to slowplay my set for once. I got lucky, as there was a small betting war between two players in LP, and I just kept calling. The turn brought another J, and I made my boat, so I started raising, and it was left to me and one guy in LP. After a few rounds of betting, we were both all-in (the pot was around $120 now), and I was feeling pretty confident. The river was another 3, and LP showed AJo. Ok, he did have 7 outs, but being a 85% favorite and losing just hurts like hell.

The range of emotions you go through afterwards is pretty interesting (not at the time, though). It's mainly a combination of anger and disbelief. You just stare at the screen, thinking, why not a 2? Or another 6? Or perhaps a king. And if anyone tries to comfort you, they better beware.

This is an excellent thing about being in a relationship where both people play. It doesn't help the situation saying "Aw, that's too bad. I'm sure you'll win it back", when all I really want to do is rip the guy's balls off, and the other person knows it.

This sort of brings me to a point that I've never seen mentioned in books or forums, namely: what size bankroll do you need to not care about beats like that? I should be exstatic about losing to a 15% dog, because this means I'll be able to double up 85% of the time. Easy money. But for me it just doesn't work like that. It probably has to do with the situation I've put myself in. If my bankroll is above $2k (cool Otto, isn't it :), I withdraw my winnings, which means I really hate falling below this mark. I should probably try to build up a buffer of some sort. But I just luuuv the green so much ;)

Today I took a similar beating. KK in early position, I raise about 4BB, and get a single caller. Flop is JJ2. In situations like this, I often think it's better to be fearless, so I bet the pot. The guys goes all-in (for about $25), and I call. All I can really do here is hope that people in late position aren't calling preflop raises with AJ, JT, and garbage like that. And he isn't. He has AKo, three outs. And he spikes an ace on the river. Ok, thank you very much, that's enough poker for today.

I've been involved in five or six large pots in the past two days, and won four of them, so I'm up about $100, which I can't really complain about. And of course you can't expect to win every single hand, this being poker, where any two cards can win ;) It just somehow bugs me knowing that I could've won twice the amount with just a bit more luck. I'm not calling with gutshots without odds, backdoor flushes and crap like that, but I'm winning when I should, and losing when I shouldn't. Bugger.

Cool, I'm beginning to sound like this guy.

Of heavy machinery, disappearing shirts and small children

"Everybodies here, the puke smells like beer". I was listening to an old Live album on the bus this morning, and the lyrics just struck me as, well, odd. I wonder if it feels strange singing about beer-scented vomit.

Live must be a great band name, if you don't want people just googling and finding mp3s. In much the same way that xXx is an excellent movie name.

Ok, imagine I had a piece of heavy machinery (mommy, what's a euphemism?). Something that when used, could shake a whole appartment complex, effectively pissing off everyone in say a 50-meter radius. What would be an appropiate time to use this weapon of mass destruction? A show of hands, perhaps? Anyone think that 7.00 am is a good time? Anyone at all? No? Then why the hell do you bastards do it?

There is nothing worse than being woken up after just a few hours of sleep by some sadist who thinks that the crack of dawn (haha, I just can't write that without thinking of Nvidia) is a good time to be pounding his jackhammer.

Can't we just pay an extra $5 per year on our rent, and bribe these guys? Oh, no, I would like an extra "don't fucking wake me up before 10 am" tax. I mean, this is Sweden, after all :)

But, seriously, what do they do at 11.00 am when they're done for the day? Go home and sleep because they got up so damn early?

My sister likes to point out that people without any real problems (as if being a white, heterosexual, well educated dude, with a high income job isn't a burden in its own right), shouldn't really be complaining. I invite her to tell me att 7.05 next time, because I won't be able to hear her :)

Next topic. The disappearing shirt. I actually wanted to write a sad piece on what it would be like if clothes had feelings, and the horrible rejection they would feel when I bought a new pair of trousers that suddenly became my favourites, and I wore day in and day out, while the old ones just lay on the floor by the bed, gathering trouser-dust. Instead I'll just complain because I couldn't find my blue striped shirt that I wanted to wear to a party tomorrow.

And finally. Where do all the little kids go that rush past you when you're sitting on the bus? I was in middle position (busses have positions, don't they? The driver, of course, being under the gun), when about 100 kids got on, and bouncing and screaming they all run past me, until they were gone. Every last one of them. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Everything about you is how I wanna be
Your freedom comes naturally
Everything about you resonates happiness
Now I won't settle for less
From Bliss on Origin of Symmetry, by Muse.

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Four outs should be enough for everybody

Ok, now I'm not really the vindictive type, although I might silently hold a grudge against someone, which, of course, I might not so silently ventilate when drunk, but tonight's poker felt sooo good.

I played a hand yesterday where I flopped the Q-high flush (the board was K92), and I bet the pot on the flop and on the turn, trying to protect my flush from the A high. I got a single caller, and on the river the second 9 came. He pushed for about $20 (the pot was probably around $30 or so by now), and I called. He had K9, and had chased his 4 outer despite my best efforts.

I don't normally bitch at people, but someone had the audacity to utter those two letters I absolutely despise in a situation like that, and that really can piss me off, "wp". What the fuck? Are you insane? Well played? Well played calling pot sized bets when your a 80-90% underdog? My ass..

Anyway, I had my revenge today. I limped with JJ, the flop came J22, and I slowplayed, min betting, hoping someone would catch up. A third club came on the river, and I could hardly contain my excitement when the guy who busted me yesterday check-raised me. Yes, he hit his flush, and it cost him about $45 of his $55 stack. My hands were shaking when I clicked the button to call his all-in, and I saw him flash A8s. Yeah, baby, yeah! Suck it down :)

I hate facing a huge raise on the river, and almost always feel obliged to call; it just might be a bluff. I suppose this is one of those things that taking notes and studying players would help me with, and as a general rule of thumb, it feels like less than 10% of the river raises are bluffs at these low limits.

I hope this clears up any misconceptions about me being humble ;)

Stuff I just have to pimp

Wow, I can finally make the definitive list of stuff that I just have to pimp:

Coupling. TV Series.
Yeah, I was a really late adopter here, my excuse being that I just couldn't trust the guy who told me about it. Simply brilliant. Except for the fourth session that totally sucks without Jeff. I just love it when characters have a single (exaggerated) attribute that steers most of their actions, but the script writers still manage to create a working (and believable) group dynamic. A few of the "let's watch this from four or five peoples perspective, and it all just fits together in the end" scenes are among the best I've ever seen.

Black Books. TV Series.
Amazing characters here too. It somehow just makes you want to be constantly drunk.

Secret History. Book.
My sister started studying greek, and I found something that actually tore me away from my computer. Sitting curled up in my sofa, drinking wine, and reading by candle light, without a doubt, my best litterary experience ever. EVAR!

The Daily Show. TV Series.
Jon Stewart and his staff of crazy ass reporters in a pseudo-political talk show. Hilarious. Might have calmed down abit after the election, though. Find torrents here.

Johanna Nilsson. Author.
I just love her "generation novels". "Rebell med frusna fötter", "Hon går genom tavlan ut ur bilden" and "Konsten att vara Ela". All excellent.

Reality Bites. Movie.
Ok, I'll just go ahead and admit it; I'm secretly in love with Troy Dyer. "At the beep, please leave your name, number and a brief justification of the ontological necessity of modern man's existential dilemma and we'll get back to you."

Gilmore Girls. TV Series.
I totally thought that those Dawnson Creek bastards had screwed up any chance of me enjoying a series about 16 year olds, but no. It all just works. I love it!

Jeff K. Former hax0r.
HELO FAGORTSAND WELLCOEM TOO MY NEW AND EMPROVED HOEMAPEG!!!! HELLO I USED TOO BE A HAX0R BUT NOW I AM A COMPUTAR CONSULTANT BECUASE HAX0RING SI ILLEGAL!!!



Addendum
I don't really think the situations portraited (sp?) in Coupling are realistic.

The "One Step Back and Two Steps Forward" syndrome

This is a curiously occuring thing that annoys my quite a bit, because it does highlight a certain flaw in my character. You might also know of it as "if it isn't broken, don't fix it", or something else clever.

It goes like this:

Something is working, but it could be better. Making it better means first breaking it, then investing alot of effort building something new, that you hope is better that what you had in the first place.

It happens alot when writing software, and is just something you have to learn to accept. Or you become a dinosaur, live in the past, and coworkers make fun of you when they're drunk. Aaaanyway..

I am experiencing the same phenomenom when I'm playing poker. Now, I'm pretty n00bish, having only played online for 8-9 months or so, but at the moment I'm fairly confident playing 3-4 tables at $.25/.50 or $.50/1 NL, and I'm making an ok profit.

The thing is that I want to improve my game, and I feel that getting a good read on an opponent is a reasonable next step. This means I have to pay alot more attention, which means I have to start playing just the one table, and have to start trying to figure out what starting hands my opponents might be playing, if they hit the flop or are just bluffing, and things like that. I basically have to break something that's working, in hopes of improving.

The guy over on http://blog.pokerodyssey.com/ had a related post a couple of days ago, and at first I thought that it was spot on. Then it struck me that sometimes I'm actually quite content with the pseudo-automatic play, and not really up for that much of the mental wrestling match that alot of the tougher games appear to be. The plot thickens..

And yes, this is one of my biggest problems at the moment :P

Hello world

I finally did it. wow. rotating lights and shadow. wow.

How's this for irony, by the way; If I rant about my work, I'll probably end up being fired, and if I write about poker, I'll end up getting beat. That just leaves wrestling and Beverly Hills 90210, I guess.

On a totally unrelated side-note, these names just crack me up:
http://www.mrballs.com/
http://www.penisland.net/
http://www.bajsbulletin.org/

I always cringe when I hear someone saying "Why do I have to be the only one working?". Why is that..

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