Bad Beat No. 3,115


http://twodimes.net/h/?z=256500
pokenum -h qh qc - qd jd
Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc Qh 1427719 83.38 257434 15.03 27151 1.59 0.842
Qd Jd 257434 15.03 1427719 83.38 27151 1.59 0.158

You can guess which hand I had and which hand won. And this was 4-handed. Man, bad beats bite.

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Things I Learned Today

1. Never, ever live in an apartment beneath someone else's apartment, as you will share the same pipes, and when your upstairs neighbor flushes something down their kitchen sink that they shouldn't, YOU will be stuck with a plumbing headache when the pipe clogs and it all backs up into YOUR sink.

2. Headhunters will not call you back if it looks like they might have to put the slightest bit of real effort into helping you find contract legal work, but that's ok, because you're probably spending most of your afternoon trying to unclog your sink.

3. Strong Bad emails just aren't funny anymore. There. I said it.

4. Rick is an amazingly nice guy who will link to you if you confess to an addiction to playing no limit texas hold'em, even if you do something obnoxious like call it the "cadillac of poker".

5. Today is Cesar Chavez Day here in LA. Now, if you're like me, you might think that Cesar Chavez is a professional boxer of some reknown, but you'd be thinking of Julio Cesar Chavez. Plain old Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association and was some sort of champion of migrant workers. Net effect to you: you will pay $5 more in greens fees at the local golf course because of the "holiday".

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You Gotta Know When to Fold 'em

When you don't have a day job, and therefore don't spend 8 to 12 hours a day sitting in front of a computer, sometimes things get lost in the shuffle for a few days. Like this, for example. It seems that the WTO has decided that the U.S. policy of "prohibiting" (and I use that term loosely) online gambling violates international trade law.

My favorite part of the article is this quote from Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA): "It cannot be allowed to stand that another nation can impose its values on the U.S. and make it a trade issue." I'm sorry, Bob, but isn't that what the U.S. does in half of the world?

Does anyone belive this ruling will have any serious impact on the state of the online gambling industry in the U.S.? If the U.S. was willing to go to war in Iraq without the support of the United Nations or most of the world, then the U.S. certainly is not going to cave in to pressure from a tiny nation like Antigua & Barbuda or even the WTO on the matter of a trade issue. The Justice Department is going to continue to prosecute American media outlets that carry advertisements on behalf of online casinos. And Americans, like yours truly, are going to continue to gamble online.

It may be that the U.S. policy violates international trade law, but given that Americans are continuing to gamble online (in increasing numbers, albeit not at the pace of a year ago), I'm not sure how A&B can argue that it's dropoff in online gambling business is a direct result of that policy.

Maybe we should just invade them and annex them as part of the U.S.

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Watch Out, Coney Island...

As reported in today's issue of the Santa Monica Daily Press:

Members of the City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday to ban smoking on the beach and to limit it to designated areas of the Santa Monica Pier. Santa Monica -- which last year banned smoking in its parks -- is now the third city in California to ban smoking on its beaches, behind Solana Beach and San Clemente.

Los Angeles Councilman Jack Weiss, who addressed the council Tuesday, said his drive to ban smoking on all beaches in LA will go before the LA City Council on April 6. 'They said it couldn't be done with restaurants. They said it couldn't be done with bars,' Weiss said. 'We started that in Southern California and it spread throughout the nation.'

So did bodybuilding, Jack, and look what that's gotten us -- an action hero as governor.

Seriously though, I'm all for the ban. I have no sympathy for smokers, especially since all of the facts about the awful, harmful and addictive effects of smoking are public knowledge, and also because so many smokers seem to feel that a sidewalk, a neighbor's lawn, or the beach is an acceptable place for them to dispose of their cigarette butts. I also don't buy into the "civil liberties" argument that smokers (predictably) will cop here. To me, this ordinance is no different than the one which prohibit glass containers from being brought on the beach.

So puff quickly, Marlboro Man. Your time on my beach is just about up.

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The Virgin Suicides

Has it really come to this? According to the article, the use of children is not a new tactic by the Palestinians, and some parents of teenage suicide bombers have hailed their children as heroic martyrs. Apparently teenage suicide is ok as long as the teenagers take out a few Israelis with them. Just try to imagine that mindset. Right. Neither can I.

Can there be any solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when such animosity not only exists on both sides, but is fostered in children?


ON A LIGHTER NOTE...

Overheard today: "If you get a Predator helmet and mask and a t-shirt that says 'I am The Retarded Predator', I'll worship you."

Ooooooooooooookay.

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Life's a Beach

Today I went to the beach. That fact, in and of itself, is not very interesting, as the beach is a scant four blocks from my current home, and it seems reasonable to assume, living as close to the beach as I do, that going to the beach is the same as going to the Early Bird dinner at 4:30 is for senior citizens who live in Florida. What makes today's excursion interesting, then, is that it was the first time I had been to the beach in quite a while.

When I first moved to my current location, back in September, I was at the beach four or five times a week. Sometimes, it was just for a walk along the surf or to sit out in the sun for a while and listen to the waves. Other times, I would go for a three-mile jog and follow it up with a twenty-minute swim. As the water temperature and the weather turned cooler, I stopped swimming. I also stopped jogging because I kept "tweaking" my right ankle and I decided I needed to let it rest and heal for a while. (Ha. Or at least that's what I told my lazy ass.)

All through November and December, and even for a good part of January, I kept going down to the beach periodically, mainly to walk in the surf and watch the dolphins. One day after a surprisingly long rainstorm, I found a living sand dollar washed up on the beach, which was pretty neat. After watching his sessile self for a little while, I picked him (her?) up and carried him out into the water, to give him a fighting chance of surviving.

In February, however, I pretty much stopped going to the beach. I'm not sure if the novelty's worn off, or if winter has put a damper on my beach-going affection, and that when the weather is warm enough for my jog-swims, I'll start them up again. I know people pay quite a bit of money to live close to the beach, and I wonder if the same thing doesn't happen to most of them. Then, I also wonder, if it DOES, why pay all that money? One answer might be that the area is nice enough without the beach to justify the cost. But given that I've seen the tiny shoeboxes that people around here stuff themselves into (at costs that would make even a New Yorker blush), I have to wonder if that's true.

This all ties into my apartment search, of course. Which also ties into my job search. Which also ties into my apartment situation in New York. Which also ties into the fact that I don't have a damn clue what I'm doing with myself in the immediate future.

Fun.

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A Day in the Life

When you don't have a job (as I don't), you're often asked how you spend your day. Let's look at my day.

04:30am: After attempting to ignore the phone for a while, I eventually answer. It's my girlfriend. She is unexpectedly at my apartment and wants to be let in. I let her in and go back to sleep, noting that she does not immediately come to bed.

10:00am: Get out of bed. Girlfriend still asleep. She better have a good reason for coming over at 4:30am.

11:30am: Girlfriend finally wakes up and claims she was home alone (she has two roommates) and got scared because we had watched The Amityville Horror on Saturday, which was not at all scary. I frown, but even though this is definitely not a good reason for waking me up at 4:30am, say nothing.

12:30pm: After a late breakfast, I leave girlfriend at my apartment and drive to the bank and library. Two police officers are patrolling the library, which I find a bit odd. I check out one book and return a different book that is three days late. The guy behind the counter, who doesn't seem very friendly for being a librarian, charges me forty cents. I decide not to quibble over the extra dime as he glowers at me before sneezing.

1:30pm: Arrive in Bell Gardens at the Bicycle Casino to play some texas hold'em.
2:25pm: Win first hand.
4:55pm: Win second hand, but surprisingly am still even for the day.
5:30pm: Manage to win two more hands before leaving the Bicycle Casino after a frustrating four hours of spinning my wheels.

5:45pm: Absent-mindedly get off the 105 five miles before I should, and wind up stuck in god-awful rush hour traffic on the 110.

6:00pm: Back on the 105.

6:05pm: Go sailing past my exit for the 405 -- still absent-minded I guess -- but decide that it is no problem, I can take the PCH home.

6:15pm: Vow never to take the PCH through Marina del Rey and Venice at rush hour again. Ever.

6:30pm: Finally make it home. Cat greets me by leaping from the bathroom sink onto the back of my shoulders while I am urinating, leaving a deep scratch and several puncture wounds after she slightly misjudges the distance. Vow never to feed the cat again. Ever.

7:00pm: After catching up on email, begin today's work session.

8:30pm: Realize I am hungry, and begin to make dinner. Compose blog entry while dinner cooks.

There it is. A whole day!

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Vegas, Baby. Vegas.

Tomorrow, I am heading to Sin City, a short four-hour drive across the desert. I'm going to meet a friend and her boyfriend, who make the pilgrimmage from New York every year for the first weekend of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. As I've previously mentioned, I'm an avowed texas hold'em player, having already logged 125 hours of live and online play this year, so I'll be sure to get over to the Bellagio poker room at some point while I'm there (and maybe to the 6-12 game at the Mirage, if I do well at Bellagio). The rest of the time I'll just be hopping from sports book to sports book, watching the games.

Having made this trip three times in the last nine months, I can honestly say that "The Fertile Valleys" is starting to lose whatever appeal it once had for me, especially since there are at least five perfectly serviceable card rooms in the Los Angeles area. Vegas trips are becoming more and more about meeting up with friends -- mainly New Yorkers -- I might not otherwise get to see.

Someone's got to pay for my gas, though, and it's certainly not going to be me.

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Cats and Visitors Smell

Where do the boundaries of friendship, hospitality and common courtesy intersect?

Tonight I'm hosting what was originally supposed to be two friends from New York, which turned into 3 friends from New York a week ago, which I learned in a phone call four hours ago has increased to 4 friends from New York. Now, I live in a 700sf one-bedroom apartment. Said apartment is furnished with a queen-sized bed, a couch, a little loveseat-ish type thing, and a large wicker chair with foot rest. It is all extremely crappy furniture, but none of it is mine, so I don't really care. The point is, I am not exactly built for hosting four people.

I suppose one person can sleep on the couch, one person can sleep in the bed with me, one person can sleep on the air mattress I borrowed from my girlfriend's sister, and one person... gets the wicker chair? Or the floor. Whichever. My poor, flatulent cat is going to have to sleep in the bathroom, because she can't sleep with me like she normally does and she can't sleep in the living room, as it will be chock full of scary New Yorkers. (She spooks easily.)

All of this is bearable, I guess. "Couldn't they have chipped in $30 each and rented a hotel room?" my girlfriend asked me tonight. The answer is yes, of course they could have. But originally, when there were only going to be two people staying here, a hotel room would have been twice as much and it would have been no problem for them to sleep here. Plus, they are my friends, and I am trying to be hospitable.

What's not bearable is that one of them called me about twenty minutes ago to say that they were just leaving the Bay Area and don't expect to arrive to my apartment until about 3:30 in the morning. This means that I am either going to have to wait up until 3:30 for them to get here (not likely) or have them wake up me and my flatulent cat (man, she really does stink) at 3:30 in the morning to let them in.

Someone's going to die if they insist on going to Burbank at 7:30 tomorrow morning to get Jay Leno tickets.

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To Boldy Go...

No Spain today. No Russia either, although (surprise!) Putin won, commenting "I promise you that the democratic achievements of our people will be ensured and guaranteed. We will not rest at what has been achieved, we will strengthen the multi-party system. We will strengthen civil society and do everything to ensure freedom for the mass media." Uh huh. Sure you will. And I'm gonna be singing bass for the Red Army Choir.

Instead, let's chat for a minute about science. It was reported today that scientists have discovered an "object" beyond Pluto. As is usual with people who have extremely specialized interests and far too much time on their hands, there has been a bunch of wrangling amongst astronomers over whether this object can be considered a planet, a planetoid, a plutino, or a penguin.

I hate to be the one to ask this question, since I generally think space exploration is pretty fascinating, but does anyone care?

Big deal. There's a frozen ball of rock eighty gazillion miles away from here that's in a 10,500 year orbit around the sun. Yet all of the major media outlets have picked up on the story, and if I had television (don't gasp, Dawn -- it's a choice!) I'm sure I could turn on a local news broadcast and have the story regurgitated to me in 30-second format, complete with a neat little graphic that shows an "artist's rendition" of what the new planet/planetoid/plutino/penguin might look like.

Over 30 years ago, we put astronauts on the moon. That was pretty fucking cool. Then came the Voyager probes, carrying out a five-year mission that turned into a multi-decade mission to hurtle past each of the planets of the solar system and beyond. Also pretty fucking cool. Earlier this year, we sent two little robots to the surface of Mars, where they are scooting around to their robotic hearts' content, chiseling away at rocks and poking around dust. That, too, is pretty fucking cool, although probably not as cool as sending people to the moon or sending spacecraft further out into the universe than any other human spacecraft has ever gone. After all, these are only robots, and, well, Mars is turning out to be not-that-interesting a place. Still, cool. Proving black hole theory? Also cool, even if most of it goes over my head.

But a tiny ball of ice and rock, that some people won't even call a planet, on the edge of the solar system? Pardon me while I yawn. Someone found one of those 75 years ago. I think it's called Pluto. Call me back when one of the Voyager probes bonds with another living being, becomes self-aware, and comes back to Earth looking for its "maker".

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S(pain)

Yesterday, I was determined NOT to write about the terrorist attack in Spain.

Today, I saw a picture of the thousands upon thousands of people demonstrating in Madrid, though, and I changed my mind, because the picture made me shudder. It reminded me of my own feelings of anguish over the uncertainty of the fates of friends who worked in the World Trade Center (they lived), and my feelings of rage that anyone would carry out such a barbarous act against MY city, against ME.

The picture also reminded me of my time in Moscow in late 2002. The first news report that I watched when I arrived showed pictures of people joined together in solidarity after the carnage of a terrorist attack in Bali. A few weeks later, a hostage drama played out at a theater in Moscow less than a mile from my flat. Then, too, there were pictures of anguish and pictures of protest. Some might argue that the FSB bungled its attempt to end the hostage stand-off and should share culpability for the loss of life that occurred, but should that matter? The terrorists who seized a theater full of supporters of the arts went in prepared to die. They strapped bombs to their chests. They rigged the theater with explosives. One bomb I saw, which had been placed in a chair in the center of the theater, was the size of a mini-refrigerator.

Now Madrid has joined the list of deadly terrorist attacks. The cycle just seems to be repeating itself, over and over. It doesn't matter whether this was an attack carried out by Islamic fundamentalists or Basque separatists. Anyone who would commit such a heinous atrocity against unsuspecting, unwitting civilians is a terrorist. Period.

I know our President has declared a "war on terrorism". Presidents like to declare wars. It makes them more re-electable. But haven't we been fighting this "war on terrorism" for two and a half years now? What have we got to show for it?

When I was 12, I went with my family to visit some relatives in North Carolina one summer. I remember standing on the deck at the back of their home on a hot summer day with a fly swatter, swatting as many flies as I could find. My uncle tried to explain to me that no matter how many I killed, the flies would keep coming, attracted by the food on the picnic table, and I'd never be able to claim "victory" over them unless there was something more appealing to grab their attention.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we round up Tony Blair, George Bush, Vladimir Putin and others, tie them together, and place them on a big bullseye target in the middle of a Kansas cornfield. But maybe the U.S. and its allies should be working to give terrorists less reasons to want to blow up buildings and night clubs and theaters and trains in the first place, rather than responding with deadly force after the fact so that the cycle perpetuates itself.

We shouldn't have to see pictures in the newspaper and on television of people joining together to mourn victims of terrorism and demonstrating for peace. Spain, I feel your pain.

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"Player is All-In."

Passion -- it lies in all of us, sleeping, waiting. And though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open its jaws, and howl. It speaks to us, guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?

Passion is the source of our finest moments -- the joy of love, the clarity of hatred, and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow, empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.

No, I can't claim credit for writing the above two paragraphs. They're actually from a second season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer entitled, appropriately enough, "Passion". The inspiration for the reference came from something Dawn said over at Clareified.

This is also not an entry about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, even though I did happen to finally catch a viewing of it on Tuesday. It was better than I expected, though I think he belabored the Stations of the Cross a bit much. And did it really need to be in Latin and Aramaic? I don't think so.

This is an entry about passion, though. Specifically, one of my passions -- gambling. I've been gambling since I was roughly 16. Back then, we would all congregate in the basement of someone's house and play quarter-ante poker games. A big night was a win or loss in the $20 to $40 range. This went on almost every Friday night until I graduated because I was a geek and a nerd and had nothing better to do on Friday nights when I was in high school.

My gambling stayed under wraps through most of college, only to come back out in full force when I got to law school. It seems like a wacky thing to me, to get a whole bunch of risk-averse lawyer-wannabes together in a room to gamble, but that's what happened. Again, the game was quarter-ante and occure pretty regularly, although thankfully by this point my friends and I all had enough of a life that it didn't occur on Fridays.

I continued to play with those guys (always guys -- where are all the women gamblers?) even after we graduated from law school. Most Sunday nights, we would convene in a high-rise on the Upper West Side and play quarter-ante. Then, about a year ago, the most fundamental change to my gambling habits occurred. I enrolled in a long-form improvisational comedy class at The Upright Citizens Brigade.

It's not that there's any sort of special nexus between gambling and improv. In fact, I'm sure that the typical improvisers is just as ignorant of what the "nuts" are as most of the general populace is. The thing is, through my classes at UCB, I met a guy who got me involved in an improviser poker game. There, the game is almost exclusively No-Limit Texas Holdem (the Cadillac of poker, according to poker legend Doyle Brunson), which has recently become popularized on television through programs like Celebrity Poker and the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. It was at the UCB poker game that my passion for gambling and my geekiness intersected.

Several of the other players there were just as passionate about gambling as I am, and, better yet, just as geeky. We started playing not so much with an eye to play, but with an eye to learn the game and become better players. We analyzed hands together. We discussed certain playing styles together, both in person and on an online forum. Most importantly, we played together every Monday night.

What is it that makes me so passionate about No-Limit Texas Holdem? I have no idea. Possibly it's the combination of the fact that it's a game of skill in which luck plays a secondary role. Maybe it's the jargon - terms like "wired pair", "suited connector", "aces up", a "set", and of course, the aforementioned "nuts". Or maybe it's because everything can change on a dime in NLHE - one hand, you're the big stack of your table, and the next you're on the rail with the other railbirds, wondering how your pocket aces got beat by a ten-eight offsuit.

The Latin root of the word passion is "suffering". In NLHE, there is plenty of suffering to go around. Everyone, myself included, has a list of bad beats (where an opponent who is a huge underdog wins the hand, typically on the last card that is dealt) several miles long that we are willing to share with anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. That must be the glue that keeps us coming back -- the fact that we know we were on the right side of the coin, but that Lady Luck, to borrow a phrase from Frank Sinatra, forgot her manners and refused to stay.

Or maybe it's the oodles and oodles of cash that are up for grabs.

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Random Thought

Is there pet health insurance?

I'm sure the answer is out there on the 'net somewhere, but I'm too lazy to look.

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You Can Call Me "Al"

So, after 90 days in the clink for civil disobedience on Vieques and a failed(?) presidential campaign, Al Sharpton has decided to become a television personality. I suppose it's hardly surprising; he's been a media personality in New York City for years, at least as far back as Tawana Brawley, and perhaps even farther. I'm simply not old enough to remember.

He makes an interesting point, though. In the article, he is quoted as saying, "What the left has missed that the right understands is you need a mixture of policy and personality, because people tend to view and listen to people as well as to policy, and we have not developed the personalities." I think he's right. Who are the personalities on the left, besides the very outspoken Reverend? I'm not the most intense follower of politics, but none spring to mind. On the other hand, personalities like Rush Limbaugh most certainly have had a positive impact on the far right and probably helped President Bush defeat Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign.

I'm curious if Sharpton really has broad enough appeal to pull it off. The success of the existing conservative personalities is derived, in part, from the fact that they appeal to such a huge demographic of the country. Because he's a bit of a firebrand, Al Sharpton has often alienated people over the years who might otherwise have supported him or at least been interested in what he has to say. Thus, although he proved in the campaign that he does have a small base of support, I'm not sure he'll be able to translate that -- or his personality -- into media success.

Then again, one of the most popular prime time television series in the country right now features stodgy old Donald Trump, so what do I know. However it turns out, I'm sure it'll be interesting to watch. If nothing else, Al Sharpton has proven that he's a source of entertainment.

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To Live and Die in L.A.

I have been living in Los Angeles for seven months.

It sounds like an admission, doesn't it? "Hi, my name's Nixma, and I'm an Angelino." Of course, it's really not in any way true. Not only because of the fact that, after almost ten years of living in New York City, I consider myself a New Yorker, but also because, in reality, I'm not an Angelino. I live in Santa Monica, which is a separate municipality from LA, surrounded on three sides by the city and the fourth by the Pacific Ocean.

Shhhhh.

LA is weird that way. You're never quite sure whether you're actually in the city of LA or not. I recently had to explain to my girlfriend, who has been living in Venice (California, not Italy) for the last eight months, that she really does live in LA. And that I really don't. She protested at first, until I pointed out the three black and white police cruisers marked "LAPD: to protect and serve" outside of her apartment building that were responding to a drunk and disorderly who was happily urinating on the sidewalk, and how all of the alternate side parking tickets that she's received outside of my apartment building are mailed to the Santa Monica Parking Violations Bureau. She couldn't argue with that, even though she tried.

So, strictly geographically speaking, I'm not an Angelino.

A secondary reason for my reluctance to claim any sort of allegiance to the Los Angeles Greater Metropolitan Area is that my residence here has, from the start, been temporary in nature. I'm currently living in someone else's apartment, sitting at someone else's desk, and sleeping on someone else's sheets. I've been living that way since Day One because I was somewhat wary, as a New Yorker, of committing myself fully to a place like Los Angeles. I wanted an escape valve handy, in case I decided that In 'n' Out Burger and smog can't hold a candle to Grimaldi's and less-visible smog. "I'm just here on a temporary basis," I told myself.

But then, somehow, three months flew by and became six months, then seven months. Now, due to a dispute with the primary tenant of my Santa Monica apartment, I have to move at the end of the month. It could be a convenient opportunity to jettison sunshine and congested freeways for friends left behind and congested subway cars. Or maybe it's the impetus I need to find a place of my own and really settle in here.

In New York, people are always asking, "Where are you from?" For a long time, my response was "New Jersey", as I was born and raised in the Garden State. Eventually, and I'm really not sure when, I realized that "New Jersey" wasn't the correct answer any more. I was from New York. That's what I tell people in LA now when they ask me where I'm from. I wonder how long it would take before I'd say "Los Angeles"?

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