Bill Whittle - Afterburner: It's a Miracle!

I love Bill Whittle.  He makes so much sense, and takes the liberals to task with a calm rationality that just makes me smile.

Live at the Bike

"What I hear, I forget.
What I see, I remember.
What I do, I understand."

- Confucius

For the last two months, I've been religiously watching the broadcasts from Live at the Bike online. While there is some good entertainment value there if you're a poker aficionado, I think it's pretty good as a learning tool for playing in live cash games.  At least, that's how I'm treating it in light of my upcoming two-day poker bender.

The broadcast is hosted by some combination of Bart Hanson, Dave Tuchman, Nichoel Jurgens and Owais Ahmed. It is a three hour broadcast, twice a week, of a live cash game from the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. Since it is target at hardcore poker fans, the commentary is much more advanced than you'll see on the World Poker Tour or the ESPN broadcasts of the WSOP.

I pay the $10 per month membership in order to have access to the archives, simply because I can't always watch the episodes live as they air (they're free when they're live). For instance, I don't work at the hotel on Friday nights, so tonight I'm watching the Friday episode.  I'll watch the Tuesday night episode starting about an hour after it begins, and later I'll go back and watch that first hour.

Watching a cash game with the hole cards exposed is very enlightening, and the strategy that is discussed will, I believe, be very helpful on my next trip to the poker room. I'm considering the $50 three-month subscription that will also include Bart Hanson's Crush Live Poker videos. Maybe if I do well at the tables at the beginning of September, I'll treat myself.

I just wanted to put in a plug for LatB, since I think it should be required watching if you take cash games even semi-seriously. It's amazing how much you can learn just by watching. You can pick up on the feel of a live game. I think it will help me with reading situations, and with my hand-reading when in a hand. Hand-reading has always been a weakness that I've needed to work on, but when you can't spend quality time at the tables it's hard to work on that kind of thing. Getting to watch this game is a big help to me.

I just hope that I can apply the things that I'm learning. I also have to remember to adjust them slightly, because I'm not going to be playing $5/$5 (at first) but $2/$2. The quality of player in Florida is going to be, on average, less than those in L.A. Those L.A. players have been at this for years, while the Florida players have only been able to play real poker for a little over two years, ever since the $100 buy-in cap was lifted.

My plan is to start out at $2/$2, just to get back into the swing of things. I plan to do this because I haven't played since the beginning of April, when I logged a $563 win in just 7 hours. If I can do well at the $2/$2 table and double my stack, I'm going to take $300 to the $5/$5 table and give that a shot. I think I can handle the $5/$5 players, I've just been too risk averse in the past to try it. I have sat at a $5/$5 table for an hour or so once, and didn't play any hands because I was card dead. I did notice, however, that the players didn't seem to be better than the $2/$2 players to any great degree, just that they were deeper stacked and tended to be a bit more aggressive. To that end, I think if I tighten up a bit to start, and wait for some decent hands, I can put myself in a position to profit nicely.

We'll see how that turns out.

On Guns and Self-Defense

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.

--Dalai Lama XIV

Yesterday afternoon I became aware of the mass shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Six innocent people were killed, four were wounded, and the gunman was killed by a police officer who is also among the wounded. This follows closely on the heels of the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado several weeks ago. My prayers and sympathies go out to those involved in both incidents, as well as their families. I can't, however, help but feel a personal sadness due to what I know is going to follow.

There is no doubt that sometime today we will again hear the cries of the leftists in support of more stringent gun control. Even in light of all evidence that suggests that less guns do not result in less crime, that call will be made. In fact, a preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that less guns actually equals more crime.

Take a look at two of the cities in the US that have the strictest gun control: Chicago and Washington, D.C.. These cities are among the top cities in the country in regards to violent crime. Compare those cities to cities that have less restrictions on guns and how people carry them. Those cities have considerably less violent crime.

And it makes sense. If you were a criminal, would you be more likely to attack an unknown person in a city where you knew that he or she would not be armed, or in a city where there was a great probability that they may be able to fight back with equal or greater force?

Let me point out something else:

• April 20, 1999: Columbine High School, 13 killed and 21 wounded
• April 6, 2007: Virginia Tech, 32 killed and 17 wounded
• November 5, 2009: Fort Hood, 13 killed and 29 wounded
• January 8, 2011: Tuscon, Arizona Political Rally, 6 dead and 8 wounded
• July 20, 2012: Aurora, Colorado Theater, 12 killed and 58 wounded
• August 5, 2012: Wisconsin Sikh Temple, 6 killed and 4 wounded

What did all of those events have in common? They all happened in "gun-free zones". They all happened in areas where law abiding individuals were legally prohibited from having personal firearms. They all happened in areas where the victims were left defenseless by the very laws that were ostensibly designed to protect them.

Contrast that with the conclusion from this article by Davi Barker (Google Cache copy here):

• The average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 14.3
• The average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by a civilian is 2.3.

That's pretty compelling.

Now we'll get to my personal situation. I work a night shift at a hotel. We deal in cash. We're always open. Regardless of the policies of my place of employment, I carry a firearm at work. I have a Georgia Weapons Carry license, so if you see me in public, and we're not in one of the few prohibited locations, you can be darn sure that I am carrying a firearm. I carry a firearm for the protection of myself and those around me. I refuse to be a victim. If I'm ever in a situation where I have to defend myself or others, I can, and I will.

Most of the politicians have it wrong. Outlawing guns only makes for a safer working environment for criminals. They do break the law for a living, after all. If the politicians were truly worried about protecting the citizenry, they would be finding ways to make it easier for the law-abiding among us to provide for our own protection. Maybe you've heard the saying, "When seconds count, the police are minutes away". I can not rely on the police to respond in a timely manner in a life-or-death situation. I choose to be responsible for my own security, as well as that of my family.

I pray for the victims of the recent shootings. I pray that they will find peace. I pray that this kind of thing will never happen again. But until the world becomes perfect, I'll keep providing for my own security. I encourage you to look into providing for yours as well.

A Poker Update

I believe in poker the way I believe in the American Dream. Poker is good for you. It enriches the soul, sharpens the intellect, heals the spirit, and - when played well, nourishes the wallet.

--Lou Krieger

Over the last few years I have started taking poker more seriously, at least from an academic point of view.  I study it with a focus that I wish I had been able to manage when I was in college.  I rarely get to put this study into practice, however.

When we lived in Atlanta I would periodically play in some home games, and when we go to visit my in-laws in Florida I'll play sometimes at the poker rooms in Jacksonville.  I've come away from these stabs at playing on the positive side more than I've come away negative, and I truly feel that if I had the time to devote to playing more often I would just get better and more profitable.

Getting time to play is hard, though.  When we are in Florida it means that I have time off from both of my jobs, and my wife wants me to spend that time with the family.  That's understandable, and I can't blame her. I want to spend my spare time with them as well.  I feel this calling to play, though, that I am unable to explain to her in such a way that she will excuse my absence with any degree of regularity.

That's why I'm so happy that she has agreed to give me two days around Labor Day to go do my thing.  The BestBet Jacksonville Poker Room is having their WPT Summer Series, and I'll be playing on September 2nd and 3rd.  I'm planning to play cash games on the 2nd, and possibly play a satellite to the main event the next weekend.  I will then be playing the $340 PLO8 tourney on Monday the 3rd.

A word about the new room in Jacksonville: It's freakin' huge.  And nice.  They took an old Garden Ridge store and converted it into a poker palace.  They have over 70 tables, with room for another 50 or so if they need them.  They hosted the spring WPT televised event in April of 2012, and without exception all the pros that I follow on Twitter talked about how nice the place was. And the games are really, really good.

I had a week vacation planned to go play at the spring series, but had to cancel it for personal reasons.  I really want to take a week and just play poker. I want to see if I can adequately supplement my income with my play. It would be so nice to be able to just go somewhere and play poker for a week and then be home with my family for the rest of the month, instead of having to go into work four nights a week and sleep during the day like I currently do.

Hopefully, I'll be able to put together this week trip for either the fall series in November or the big spring series next year.

Getting back into the swing of things

The best part about procrastination is that you are never bored, because you have all kinds of things that you should be doing.

--Anonymous

So much has been going on in my life over the last few years that posting to a blog has seemed to be such a minor thing that I just haven't done it.  I'm hoping that moving my personal blog as well as our family blog to Blogger will encourage me to post more often.

Frankly, I need somewhere that I can vent other than Facebook before I piss off most of my friends.  I have a vicious Libertarian streak, and some of the things that have been going on in this country lately have me spinning around on my eyebrows.  At least if I post my rants here my friends, who care about nothing more than who will win American Idol or who the Bachelorette will pick in that fake-ass show that fools women into thinking it's about love, will be somewhat insulated from hearing the result of my early transition into Grumpy-Old-Man-Hood.

I'll continue to post about politics, aviation and poker.  I'll most likely keep the family stuff on the family blog, if for nothing else than to separate the loves of my life from my extreme anger at political issues.

Stay tuned...