Late Start to the Month

The month of October has been pretty hectic so far, hence the lack of updates. Just came back from a 5 day trip wherein I attended the autumn edition of the Hongkong Electronics Fair.

If you haven't been to one of these things, then they're quite the experience. Thousands and thousands of people of different nationalities (and smell) scurrying about and looking at the next electronic wonder. The place is huge and crisscrossed with booths from one end to the next. Take a look at some of these pics which i downloaded from their website (forgot my camera) just to give you a fair idea of the scale. Of course, the canton fair is even bigger, but that's another story.

With this many people, you'd think it'd be utter chaos. But surprisingly it is quite organized and very well managed. Of course, if you're dumb enough not to register online and just show up there, then you'll be spending a fair chunk of your time standing in line. Registering online gives you a barcode which they scan and out pops your ID and in you go in less than 5 minutes.

Of course, having a fair of this magnitude running concurrrently with a china sourcing fair jacks up hotel prices tremendously. I had to stay in a 3 star hotel away from the main commercial areas and it was still around US$160+ per night which is highway robbery. At least the exchange rate was in our favor for once due to the strong showing of the peso.

Out on the poker front, pretty thin news. Haven't had time to play any MTTs. So had to satisfy my poker craving with the once in a while SNG over at Pokerstars where I'm chasing a small bonus. Results have been fairly good and have managed to eke out a decent positive ROI. This was after a horrendous start. I don't know what it is, but everytime I play somewhere new, it always takes me time to get the groove of things. As I've suggested before, I really believe that each site has its own unique card flop texture and play needs some adjustment from site to site to maximize profit potential. I've had the same experience with Pokerroom, FullTilt, Poker.com and now pokerstars. So I'm fairly convinced.

Of course, it could all be in my mind or it could be just plain variance as I can't really explain the mechanics of it. All I know is I had to tone down the aggressiveness which worked in Full Tilt to start winning consistently in Pokerstars. So take it with a grain of salt.

Gambling is in my genes

I read an interesting article somewhere in the NET a couple of days ago. It claims that the reason why a lot of good poker players are broke is not because of their poker playing. It is primarily because they engage in a lot of gambling on the side in neg EV games like sports betting, blackjack and other games where the house has an advantage.

It is a paradox of some sorts if you think about it. One of the primary skills of a good poker player is his ability to think logically and to compute odds so that he is able to get his money in when he's got the best of it. So why would a logical person like this engage in a game where he knows ahead of time that he is behind?

Heck if I know. Some scientific theories propose that there is actually a gene somewhere in our DNA that triggers compulsions related to gambling. A lot of mumbo jumbo about D2 receptors etc. But what does it all mean? Well, basically it says that some of us were born to be gamblers. Heheh ...

I for one cannot deny our family history. Before he passed away, my dad was a compulsive gambler of the highest degree and was a regular in the casinos around town.

The fact that I enjoy poker very much and have dabbled in some other forms of gambling do give credence to the gene theory. I am just glad that I have seen the bad effects firsthand and that I am now able to temper this impulse somewhat.

So my question is, are we all gamblers at heart? And all this talk about poker being a skill game is just our excuse to engage in this activity that undeniably gives us the rush that we all crave for.

Fantasy Basketball

Don't know if any of you guys play fantasy basketball, but I've been playing for the past 3 years and the new season has just started. One of the regular leagues I join in Yahoo has already finished its draft and here are the players I got. This is standard Yahoo Head to Head 12 teams with 9 categories with a 500 buyin. I am listing down the players I drafted and in what round.

Round 1 Steve Nash 8th Overall
Round 2 Ray Allen
Round 3 Deron Williams
Round 4 Luol Deng
Round 5 Zach Randolph
Round 6 Lamar Odom
Round 7 TJ Ford
Round 8 Monta Ellis
Round 9 Lamarcus Aldridge
Round 10 Nene Hilario
Round 11 Andres Nocioni
Round 12 Rudy Gay
Round 13 Darko Milicic

Overall, I'm satisfied with what I got. Wasn't able to get a top tier center, but from previous experience, quality PGs are more important. So I went with that strategy and getting Nash and Deron is pretty cool. I may have reached for Deng in the 4th round but I think he's just gonna explode this year. Was surprised to get Odom in the 6th as he would usually go on the 4th round but his injury last year may have affected his ranking.

Nocioni and Gay are what I call the "speculative with lots of upside picks" and I was happy to get them in the last few rounds. Milicic because I needed a shot blocker and I thought that he would get some burn in his new team Memphis.

Biggest Surprise : Nobody drafted Shaq. Yep. He's still available on the waivers. I'm guessing nobody wanted the FT% killer in their teams. I am actually hugely tempted because of my lack of quality centers. But I am wary of his injury history and the horrendous FT percentage.

Comments from other basketball junkies would be highly appreciated. =)

China and the Internet

As a follow-up to my previous post where I described how laggy and weird the internet connection in my China hotel was. Well, it seems I was actually correct in my suspicions. I just read in the Wall Street Journal today the following and I quote

"The China government blocks any site with words that might indicate objectionable content, according to University of California at Davis researchers. Although the blocking is inconsistent. 28% of Web sites with blacklisted words still reached their destination"

Poker Discrimination

I've played online poker for quite some time now and there's 2 leaks in my game that I've been trying to address.

The first one I will call poker discrimination. Much like racial discrimination, this is when you make certain assumptions about other players based on certain data that is available to you. And you then adjust your play accordingly which usually ends in disastrous results.

An example of these false assumptions are like the following:

1. See a player from China. Immediately assume gambler type. So you give no respect to raises until he catches a monster and you overplay your hand and get trapped.

2. A player with a girl avatar and a name like "littlemissmuffet" or "blondbombshell". You immediately discard her poker skills and think timid or worse dumb. What you don't know is that behind the avatar is a 19 year old math genius who's going to eat your fishy behind.

3. A guy who never stops yapping at chat. Continually berating you and other players such that you slowly get irritated and before you know it, he's gotten under your skin and you start playing marginal hands against him.

Let it be clear that I'm not talking about your reads on other players during the course of a tourney as these are crucial to going deep. I'm referring more to those online actions that act like a false tell. Since you can't read facial expresssions or movement unlike brick and mortar play. Some people take advantage of what's available and give you signals that provide a fake impression. If you fall for it, then you're playing sub-optimal poker which was their intention in the first place.

So how do I avoid these? Well of course, being aware is the first thing. Also, I've long turned off avatars whenever poker sites allow it. When somebody starts to talk trash in chat, i immediately block him off. This way, I can concentrate on the hand in play and play it according to its own merits with no external factors involved.

The 2nd leak is playing like crap after an MTT win. I'm pretty sure most of us are susceptible to this "human" reaction. Obviously after a big win, you're sitting pretty with your fat bankroll feeling all content. Your usual buy-in feels like peanuts compared to the amount that you just won. So what happens? Well, it's like you don't really care whether you win or lose. If you lose, so what. It hardly made a dent to your BR and you didn't even feel it. So you play loose and fast. The other possible effect after a big win is you feel invincible, you act like Hellmuth after winning his upteenth bracelet so you now play fancy with those semi bluffs on open ended straight draws and other tricky stuff. We can guess what happens next. You start a downward spiral and we all know how hard it is to get out of a losing slump.

So what can you do? Well, there's one thing I now do as part of my bankroll management. I make it a point to immediately withdraw half of the winnings. I do not keep it in the poker sites one second longer than necessary. Why ? It's still your money whether its in the site or not. Because for me, its more mental than anything elses. A $10 buy in with a $1000+ bankroll is more or less equal to playing like crap. There's no real penalty that I feel if I lose. So I try to cheat myself into thinking I have less money. I know its kind of lame. But it usually works for me. My focus is better and the incentive to win is there. Although I admit to a lesser degree. Taking a short break after a breakthrough win may also be a good idea. It allows the euphoria of the win to die down so that you go back to playing your normal game. Although, some may react strongly against this especially if you believe that poker is all about "riding" the moment.

What about the option of going up in limits? Well, this is actually a good idea for some of you out there. But since I now play a good amount of MTTs while still treating this as a hobby. I've come to respect MTT variance and I know how cruel the bitch can be. So this would depend on a lot of other factors before I make this decision.

Whatever you do to get yourself out of the afterwin funk, you have to admit, it's certainly a better problem to have than not winning at all. =)

Only in China

Well, as the title of my post suggests, I am currently in China on another one of my "product development" trips. I am actually sitting in front of my laptop inside my 5 star hotel room typing this post.

Why, you may ask, am I not playing poker and instead writing? Well, its because the internet is so crappy here that I can't seem to get a decent connection. It just keeps getting cut for some reason.

Actually, what's weird is that the other sites like google, yahoo and ebay work well. But I've tried to log into Pokerroom, Full Tilt and Pokerstars and they are all unavailable which is kind of impossible. So I'm logging this post at Thursday 9PM just to see. I have the suspicion that China censorship is responsible in some way.

The only poker site that's working is poker.com but the connection is so laggy that its like I'm playing in slow motion. I've tried some tourneys but my actions are so delayed that I'm checked or sit out automatically by the software even though I'm trying to bet. WTF!! After awhile, I just gave up.

To test this censorship theory, I tried to log into a porn site. And true enough, the connection suddenly cuts and I get the explorer message that says that internet is not available. I try another one and it suddenly works.

Hmmm... I'm thinking that they have some kind of filter installed in the ISPs that are blocking some of the known controversial sites but since there's tons out there, they can't block everything which kind of explains whys some sites work and some sites don't. Heck, I don't know if that's even it as I'm just guessing.

OK, but that's not really why this post is called Only in China. As you know, sometimes when you stay in a 5 star hotel room in the Philippines, and you open the side table drawer, you see a Bible. Well, that's the Philippines. Guess what I found in my side table drawer.

Heheh... a box of DUREX condoms. And its for sale for 30RMB.

Talk about proactive customer service. =) I'm guessing that some guest brought back a China Prosti, then suddenly realize he doesn't have any shield. Calls up the concierge and asks if the hotel has some. The hotel realizes what an embarassing situation this is and voila. Some chinese guy comes up with a great idea. Why not leave a box of condoms in the drawer and sell it for a profit? Brilliant !!! LOL

2nd Chance

Not too sure if the image is clear, but I just took down 2nd place in a $30+3 MTT over at Pokerroom tonight. (Still getting the hang of attaching images, but I think you can click it and it becomes bigger).

The ITM is doubly sweet because I came back from a very low stack of around $2o0 in chips ($1500 starting stack) . And the $30+3 buyin was from a $7 satellite.

Overall I was pretty satisfied with the way I played and am not the least bit disappointed with 2nd. Dealt out one sick beat during the bubble part when my AQ held up against a K3 two pair with an AK3 flop. River Q. Heads up was a 1 game affair when villain raised and I reraised all in with JJs. He called and showed A6.

Ahead 70-30 with all your chips in the middle. What else can you ask for ? The flop was 345. The turn was a 2. And that's all she wrote.