Travelling in Taiwan

I just got back from a 5 day trip in Taiwan and just wanted to post some of the notables. Was there for an exhibition fair and some factory visits, but did get a chance to go around a bit

1. Taipei 101 - 2nd tallest building in the world. Great view of Taipei city especially near dawn. Entrance fee was quite expensive at NT$400 to get to the observatory near the top. (around 600 pesos)

2. Rode a 70 m. tall ferris wheel on the rooftop of the Miramar mall. 1 revolution took 15 minutes.

3. Excellent food - try the xiao long bao(its like a small siopao/dumpling combination with meat and some sauce inside the bun) at the Din Tai Feng restaurant. Very Tasty and the prices were quite reasonable.

4. Betel Nut Girls - scantily clad girls inside small glass structures selling cigarettes and highly stimulating / addictive betel nuts to truck drivers. Hard to explain if you have not seen it firsthand. So I've attached some pictures from the net. These girls earn around NT$30,000 a month just selling the betel nuts. My Taiwanese friend says that for NT$500-1000, some will flash you their boobs. Heheh ... kung meron tayong "only in the Philippines". This is "only in Taiwan". Don't mistake it for some kind of prostitution thing. It's a real job. The girls are basically selling products primarily to male drivers, so if you think about it, baring their bodies to attract customers is just a form of marketing.

Overall, I would have to say that Taipei is nice for a short visit. Traffic is surprisingly good considering that it is a highly populated city. Language barrier may be a bit of a problem as most of the population still cannot speak english. Mandarin and Hokkien are the common language. But there are lots of english signs so it is easy to get around. Taxi drivers are polite and don't try to fleece you.

Since this is still a poker blog, let me just say I did get to play some online SNGs during the night. Hotel offered free internet and the connection was lightning fast. I don't think poker as a game is popular in Taiwan, though. Casinos are currently still illegal but I heard Taiwan is also planning some kind of Macau style casino in one of their small islands. High stakes Mahjong is probably still the game of choice if you're looking for a rush.

Almost Lover

Let me just qualify this post by saying firsthand that I am not a person who likes music. I mean I listen to the radio sometimes. I appreciate good songs, but I don't go out of my way to let's say buy a CD or watch a concert. I don't even own an Ipod or an MP3 player. I don't know any of the new artists and I only surfed the net for Britney Spears once because of the infamous beaver shot. =)

The fact that I am talking about a song in a poker blog means something. The first time I heard the song "Almost Lover", I was surprised by how much it affected me. It was both lyrical and haunting at the same time. It brought up images of long forgotten stuff. The voice of the singer, Alison Sudol, is amazing. But again as I said, I am not a song listener and I don't know if my opinion is valid.

So I am just going to post it and let you hear it for yourself. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It also gives me a chance to embed a youtube video for the first time. Heheh ..

On the verge

On the verge : (dictionary meaning) the limit beyond which something happens or changes.

The Boston Celtics are on the verge of winning the 2008 NBA Championship. MVP Kobe Bryant with all his skill and the Gasol trade (trade doesn't seem to be the right word, robbery sounds better), appears to be not enough to deny the Big 3 their ring.

Even though I would normally root for the Lakers against the Celtics, I am a long time admirer of Garnett and this is one time that I hope that the Celtics take it all the way for the sake of the veterans who have shown everyone how teamwork and sacrifice can work wonders. The Lakers are young and with Bynum coming back next year. They will be the team to beat in the 2009 season and for the years to come.

So go Boston !!!

In poker news, I was on the verge of breaking my monitor last night. Heheh.... $22+2 SNG in FTP. There were 5 players left. Had a medium stack when I get dealt AAs. I make the perfect trap and got the chip leader to go all in with his KJ in a King high board. Turn is a blank and river is a K. Good game me.

Another SNG, I think an $11+1 this time. I get KKs and again I got somebody to go all in with his spade flush draw after the flop. River is the spade. Arrgh....

Makes you wonder if you just want to overbet the monsters pre-flop to at least get the blinds instead of succesfully outplaying someone by having them lay all their chips in the middle a huge underdog, but getting drawn out in the end.

Poker.... hayy ...

In hindsight, should have broken my monitor. This way, I can get the 19" inch LCD widescreen that I've long been craving for. heheh

Not made for grinding

I recently had a chance to review my Full Tilt SNG stats for the month of May. And here are the results according to sharkscope.

Games played : 106 games
Limits played : Combination of $6+0.50s and $11+1s
Ave ROI : 34%
Profit Made in FTP site for May : approx $300

*I do not include rakeback in any of my computations.

Of course, I played some games in the other sites but I would say that these only total up to somewhere around 30 to 40 games. So overall for May, I played a total of around 140 SNG games give or take together with an occasional MTT tournament.

If you analyze my stats, the logical conclusion to be made is that I should play more games. If I can maintain this level of ROI, wouldn't I be making a killing just by playing more games ?

Unfortunately for me, I believe the answer is NO. Believe it or not, that 140 something games is the most I've played in a month from the time I started playing online poker. YEP.

I regularly only play around 3 or 4 games a night and to me this number is just right as it falls somewhere around 1 to 2 hours of playing (2 tables at one time). During these 3 or 4 games, I can really stay focused and more often than not do well. I've tried stretching out my poker playing some nights and what happens is that I end up playing sub optimal as I'm already sleepy. Working a full work day and battling Metro Manila traffic does suck out some of the excess energy I may have. Considering that I don't play everyday due to other commitments and you can see that 140 games is a lot for my schedule.

I will not deny that like most poker players, I've had the dream of playing poker for a living. And stats like these reinforce this belief. But I've realized as I grow more experienced in this game that I am not made for grinding. I go on tilt quite easily and I don't think I have the stamina to stay in front of my screen more than a few hours at a time.

In hindsight, this actually ends up protecting my bankroll. My full schedule forces me to quit after a few games even if I have this intense desire to still play after a losing session to make up what is lost for the day. Forced to quit because I have to go to bed sounds wimpy, but that is essentially what happens.

So will I forever be the casual player that I am now? Most probably. It is nice to know that I can always fall back on poker to earn a few hundred dollars every month. And that is I think what makes the game enjoyable for me. If I had to do it for a living and go through the stress of suckers sucking out every few minutes of every hour of every day. I'll probably curse the game and quit.

But to be honest, the poker dream will always be in the backburner simmering. But my version is now different than before. I don't really want to play poker for a living anymore. That's a brutal life. Guys quitting their jobs with a bankroll and grinding day in and day out is not for me. I'll probably die of some cardiac thingie a few months down the road.

My poker dream is now basically hoping for that one big score. That someday, you end up getting all the balls bouncing your way, all the planets aligned, all the gods listening and you suck out with your pocket fives against KKs to win an eight figure payout. (converted to peso of course)

And once it does happen. I pack my bags, quit everything, invest the money in some kind of stable investment, live off the interest in some sleepy beachside town in Palawan with my family. And play poker for fun. That for me is the ultimate poker dream. =D

Lakers vs Celtics

Woohoo! Dream Finals Matchup. I am sure David Stern is jumping for joy. Can't wait ....

Sharkscope HUD Update & Pokerbility

After using the Sharkscope HUD for a couple of weeks, I decided to just turn it off. It wasn't that it was not helpful. But it sort of confused my game.

The first effect that I noticed was that it made me play looser against the fishes to the overall detriment of my game. A case in point, I got AQ in cutoff. No action beforehand. So I raised 3x BB. The guy in the SB reraises me. Everybody else folded.

Normally, my play is just to call, take advantage of my position and see the flop & take it from there. I would also sometimes fold if I strongly believe he has KKs or AAs.

This time around, the HUD was there and it shows a flopping fish. HAHAH!! Bluffing, eh. So I put him all-in. Of course he shows AAs and I am a huge underdog. This kind of false tell happened once or twice with different kinds of hands. Hands which I could have easily gotten away from if I had played my normal game turned out to be bust-outs against certified fishes.

So I decided after a while to just turn it off and play my usual game without any enhancements. And surprisingly, my overall results were much better.

So what this does show? Well, for one thing, it shows that just because they're a fish doesn't mean that they don't get lucky. The often quoted "you don't need skill to play them Aces" also come to mind.

The HUD has some value especially near the end game where knowing who is good or bad is relevant to end game SNG play. But at my low limit levels, playing with it especially in a full table just makes me play looser. And that's bad. We all know that playing disciplined ABC poker in the lower levels is enough to keep a good ROI. So I don't think I'll renew it once my free subsciption ends.

Another product which I installed lately is Pokerbility. This is more of a traditional odds calculator which attaches to the main game window and gives you the percentages of hitting certain hands. It also has a hand ranking system for your opening hands with real time advise on whether to fold, check, call or raise. Sounds good in theory, right ? But at the end of the day, I also ended up not using it.

Why ? Well, it didn't give me any information that I already didn't know. After playing more than a year now, some of the odds I already instinctively knew. Chasing a flush draw while the opponent is overbetting is neg EV and vice versa. It doesn't work for multi-tabling as you can only attach it to one table and you also cannot adjust table size while using it. Finally it doesn't take into account implied odds in certain situations. So not much benefit for me.

But I believe this product is useful especially for a beginner. It allows you to be more disciplined in your starting hands and gives logical advice if you end up flopping good hands. So this product I would recommend wholeheartedly for those newbies just learning the game. But for some of you veterans out there, it's kind of redundant. Attached a screen shot in case you are interested to know how it looks

So there. Two "supposed to be helpful" poker products and I end up using not one of them. I guess nothing still beats the human mind. =)

Sharkscope HUD

I don't know if anybody uses the Sharkscope HUD software, but I recently got a free 2 month trial of this thru a promotion with Luckyace Poker.

Instead of opening sharkscope and typing your opponent's name to check his stats. It superimposes the stats like Ave ROI, Total games played, Ave profit etc on top of the playing window. It also tells you if the guy is a fish, a shark or on tilt. See sample below.

Theoretically, it should give you some sort of advantage as you can see who the good and bad players are. You can be wary of the good players and consequently try to take advantage of the bad players who have a tendency to overplay their hands.

I've only had time to try it once on a Full Tilt SNG and I finished 1st in that game. I'm not sure if it was because of the stats I saw. But there was one hand where I definitely used the knowledge given. I was in the BB and I get AAs. Two limpers. I checked out their stats on the display and both were negative profit players. One of them had a -16% ROI. I would usually raise my AAs here around 3x to get money in the pot.

But the HUD showed me a fish so I went all in. The other player folded. But as expected the neg 16 player called and showed 66s. No improvement and I immediately doubled up. As we know, an immediate double up near the start of the SNG almost always assures you of an ITM finish.

Right now, its still in Beta testing and only works with Full Tilt and the Ongame network as well as some minor sites. I will try to get some volume with this HUD and see if it can improve my game. After the trial period ends, I might then be tempted to buy it.

The danger I see is that I might encounter a fish who gets a legitimate hand but you end up thinking its a bluff because of his stats. Oh well, pros and cons for everything. I will give an update after maybe a month of use. This should be enough time to tell if it was helpful or not.

What do you guys think ? It is not an odds calculator but more of an indirect way of reading opponents online. So should have some value one way or the other.