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...

Peter Principle Surpassed

Peter Principle

(PEET-uhr PRIN-suh-pal)

noun

The theory that an employee within an organization will advance to his or her level of incompetence and remain there.

I can never fault someone for not knowing something. There are innumerable topics about which I know absolutely nothing. In today's world, it is impossible to know everything about your own field, especially when that field is as broad and wide-ranging as technology. There is, however, a basic level of competence that I think anyone involved in technology should possess.

Today, I witnessed a person who had blown the Peter Principle out of the water.
For reasons which will quickly become clear, I don't want to go into much detail at all about the particular clients I work with. Suffice it to say that these companies are some of the largest in the world in their respective industries, and these industries are regulated to such a degree that something as simple as changing your password requires a half an hour on the telephone with their operations managers. The testing requirements for simple applications fill binders that would make the American Tax Code look like a garage sale flier.

For the most part, the people that I deal with in these companies are some of the brightest people I've ever dealt with. Due to the nature of our work, I don't deal with everyday system operators. I deal with IT Managers and CTO-level personnel. That is why it is so jarring to encounter someone who seems to have absolutely no technical expertise at all.

I don't want to rant about the specific employee that I had to deal with today, but suffice it to say he obviously knows very little about technology. He wanted me to test a particular piece of software for him, but having much more important and pressing matters to attend to, I chose instead to simply provide him the five-word command that he could use to test the application himself. All he had to do was copy the command from my email, paste it into his emulator screen, and press Enter.

That proved to be too complicated for him to handle.

I spent the next two hours running this command while he fiddled with settings. I finally got fed up to the point that I just told him to let me take care of everything and I would call him. An hour later, I had un-done all of his settings shenanigans and had the software working.

What I would like to discuss is not whether I should have helped him. We are contracted to that company to provide support for these situations, so it was well within his right to expect that I would help him.

The problem lies in the wisdom of having such a person on your staff. Here is someone who was incapable of copying five words of text, pasting them into another screen and pressing Enter. Here is someone who told me that he had configured this particular piece of software exactly the same as similar package from the same company. The two packages use identical settings files and identical settings screens. When I looked at the settings, not only did he not have half the settings populated, several of the ones he had managed to populate were populated incorrectly!

What is this person costing you? Let's just say that he makes $60,000 per year. That's $30 per hour. Let's also consider the distinct possibility that he spent a good hour trying to get this software set up prior to calling me. Add that hour to the two hours he was on the phone with me, and you're looking at $90 worth of his time that was spent accomplishing a task that should have taken five minutes.

Now let's consider the cost of having me fix his problem. We charge $150 per hour. I spent three hours handholding and reconfiguring. That's another $450 on top of the $90 that they paid this employee. The total cost of what should have been a five-minute configuration? $540.

This is a clear case of an employee that is costing them money. And the baffling part is that he has risen to such a high level amongst others who so completely outshine him in ability that it is almost sad. It baffles me that they have kept this employee on for the last fifteen years, and he hasn't learned how to cut and paste. It is beyond my comprehension that this person has been able to keep a very technical position in spite of his complete lack of technical ability.

The point is that you have to look at your organization and make sure that you have people who aren't costing you money. If you have hired someone for a technical position, they should be able to demonstrate a certain level of technical skill. As the position becomes more and more critical, the greater the level of expertise this person needs to show. Why some companies keep people like this where they are is a mystery to me.

They must know of this employee's limitations. It is impossible for him to have been there for fifteen years without getting labeled as the moron. I just wonder what justification they have for paying what is very likely a considerable salary to someone who is contributing very little except hassle to their goals.

But who knows -- maybe the guy just makes really good cookies for the office every Friday.

Nokia N810

Back during the fall, my truck was broken into, and my Sansa MP3 player was stolen. I have been wanting a new MP3 player ever since. Another thing I have been really wanting is a portable GPS system. I have also been pretty enamored with the iPod Touch, even though I am the farthest thing from an Apple fanboy you'll find. The reason I like the iPod Touch is that you can access the internet with it.

I think I may have found a device that will allow me to keep eschewing Apple products and get all the functionality that I am looking for. The Nokia N810 is an internet tablet, but rather than being the size of a laptop, it is approximately the size of an iPod Touch, a little thicker, maybe a little larger in the other dimensions, but it'll easily fit in your shirt pocket.

It has a web browser, audio player capability, and the ability to act as a GPS. The downside is that it costs $475. I can get a 15% discount, but that's still in the $400 neighborhood. That's more than I can afford right now, so I guess I'll have to keep admiring it from afar. It really does look like a nice device, though. Maybe I'll be able to afford one soon.

Minor Brain Dump

I don't really have anything specific to say today, but I feel like writing something. I'm still waiting to hear something from GSU about the job. I just hope I haven't been passed over for consideration. It sucks not knowing anything.

I'm getting back into the swing of things with my night job. I had a rough time with it over the summer. I was doing three nights a week at one location, and they closed abruptly in the spring. I only had one other show, and that one went away during the summer. I spent about three months just picking up a cover here and there, and doing the occasional corporate event. I finally started picking up some more shows, and now I have four per week. I'm looking for a Wednesday night Trivia show, and that'll give me five nights a week. I hate being away from my family at night, but frankly I need the money. It replaces what Leila would earn as a preschool teacher, and this way she gets to stay home with Camille. Camille is such a happy little girl that I wouldn't have it any other way.

I wish that I earned more at my day job in order to not have to do the night thing, but I doubt that'll happen. Once we get our finances under control, it will be better, but with hospital bills (I had my gall bladder out last April) and other emergency expenses, we're stretched to the limit right now. I have no choice but to work nights.

The good news is that I plan to file our taxes this week, and there should be about a $5k refund. That will help immensely.

I guess that's all. I have the urge to write more, but I truly have nothing to say.