I'm thinking about making the switch over to PokerStars some time later this year.  It's pretty sad, really.  Full Tilt's kind of been like that first puppy you had that you found on the street with a limp and half a tail. Yeah, it's not perfect, but you grow to love it.  But at the end of the day, I can probably make another $40K a year playing on Stars, which is not a ton of money but it's not insignificant either.  It's basically that sweet new ride I was thinking of getting next year (later post).  Below is a summary of Stars' bonus plan:

There are a few caveats to the table.  The full details are in this thread for anyone who's interested.  Right now, I'm on pace to pay 185K in rake this year, which means I'm on pace to qualify for SuperNova Elite.  SNE starts at a rakeback percentage of 58%, compared to the 35% or so I would get at FT (27% rakeback + rake race + FT Points + Ironman).  After I get to SNE, I wouldn't have to play anywhere near as much to maintain it - so I just have to play hard for a year.

There are a bunch of reasons for the move:
* The $40+K a year in rakeback.
* Some of the games seem to be dying on FT - notably the full ring games 2/4 and higher.  PS has over twice as many cash game tables.
* Twice as many customers means the tournaments are much bigger. 
* PS's customer service is first rate.
* My FT rakeback provider seems to be cutting back a little on its rake races - for the next two months, instead of the rake race, they have a massive freeroll tournament.  That's $2500 down the drain for me.  Part of the reason for this may be that FT has been putting downward financial pressure on its affiliates, and that will probably not go away.
* I have bought up just about everything I need from the FT store, so my future FT points will not be worth as much to me.  Also, at PS's store, you can buy anything you want and send them the receipt to be reimbursed.

The main things holding me back are:
* I like the FT software
* I'm developing a weird addiction to Rush (which is only available on FT).  But my long term plans don't involve playing 1/2 Rush.
* PS is allegedly harder - something I'm not too concerned about.  I think the difficulty difference is minimal because in equilibrium, you would have more Stars regs move to FT if this was the case.
* FT is supposed to come out with another rewards program later this year, but I'm suspecting it might be lame.  I'm hoping they use the affiliate money for the rewards program, but who knows?

I'm going to wait until the end of the year to decide, since I can only try to qualify for SNE on a calendar year basis.  Sainter's probably breathing a huge sigh of relief that I'll be staying for a few more months at least.

Week 4 was very meh.  I had that shallow table abortion that's clearly visible on the graph, but otherwise, it was an okay week.  I seem to be losing money at soft 2/4 tables but making decent money at 1/2 Rush.  For the week, I was up almost 20 buy-ins (which is decent), but it's hard to make much money when you make money at Rush 1/2 and lose money at 2/4.

Thank god for rakeback!  I think this must be very close to my high for number of hands played in a week - almost 50K.  There's so much stuff I want to watch on TV - World Cup, Wimbledon, and golf - that I figure if I'm going to be in the office watching so much TV, I might as well fire up some tables.  Rush also makes it easy to mindlessly grind.  I also don't mind getting in a lot of hands this month, since we're driving down to Virginia for five days to see the inlaws for the long weekend (later post).  My sister is coming with us this time, so I won't be so outnumbered this time (later post).

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

We haven't had lamb in a few months, so this really hit the spot.  Mrs. Fly discovered the secret to making awesome lamb rice.  I have been sworn to secrecy, but it rhymes with "mutter."  :-P  I'm not afraid of you, Mrs. Fly!  C'mon!  You want a piece of me?!?  (I'm secretly hoping she runs into my office and "hurts" me)

She made this mint herb crust that was really good.  But at the end of the day, when you have good lamb, it's pretty hard to go wrong.  This was some lamb we got from Stockyards.com - and it was slightly better than the regular Australian lamb we get from Costco, but I'm not sure it was worth the extra money.  This is similar to the salad I had with the leftovers a week ago, but she added some jicama, which is not one of those vegetables you have every day, so it was a nice change of pace.  Damn!  I'm talking about veggies again.

So we got invited over to another BBQ yesterday.  The family had moved out to the neighborhood from Manhattan last fall and were trying to get settled in.  There are two other families on their street who have kids in G's grade, so they were invited, as well as an older retired couple from their neighborhood.  We were especially touched since she's due to have their second daughter in 3 weeks!!!  So for them to invite us over in this heat to feed us was absurdly thoughtful.

The food was pretty good - a Japanese twist on grilled short ribs, and some chicken wings.  Some ziti-like dish, flavored rice, eggplant, broccoli rabe and corn.  The husband did the grilling, but wife was pretty much working the whole time getting the good ready and baking a homemade strawberry shortcake.  So after a while, I was starting to feel really bad that an 8+ month pregnant woman was working so hard.  I would have offered to help except...

She's HOT!!!

Even for an 8+ month pregnant woman - and I'm not one of those freaks who are into pregnant women.  Having been married to Mrs. Fly for 10+ years now, I know I'm a dead man if I show the least amount of interest in another woman.  If you haven't figured out what the secret to a successful marriage is...

That's Right!  It's FEAR!!!  Fear of your woman, who may only be 40% of your size.  Don't believe all that lovey-dovey crap about everlasting love, mutual respect, common goals, bleah bleah bleah.  If you're scared of your woman, you're going to be together for a loooong time.  Period.

Oh, all right!  I'm just joking - feeling a little goofy from too much wine, being up 5.5 buy-ins in only 2K hands, and being incredibly happy I'm in my air conditioned office and I don't have to be sweating to death outside any more.

FWIW, I think Mrs. Fly is better looking, but Mrs. Fly doesn't think so.  But you don't meet someone every day who's attractive, a good cook, a good parent and charming, so I'm glad we met them.  The husband seems like a good guy, so since Mrs. Fly and the wife seem to be getting along really well (they have a play date today), I'll probably get to know him better.  On second thought, since they're having another baby soon, maybe we won't see them for a while.

Some days, I wonder why I bother playing.  The other day, I played 1/2 Rush for 1 hour and made 5+ buy-ins.  I jokingly posted on 2+2 that I should just stop playing for the day because I *knew* it was just going to be downhill from there.  Of course I don't actually think like that, so I take a few hours off to hang out with the family and then played an EIGHTEEN HOUR SESSION (new DoubleFly record) and made no money.  Oh well, at least I was still up the $1000 from the earlier hour session.  I was only intending to play my usual 8 or so hours, but being breakeven was so annoying for some reason that I just kept playing.

It started off well - I made another $700 in a few hours, but then it was just mind-numbing poker the rest of the way.  I didn't realize I was playing that long because I was watching some World Cup matches, Yankees games, Wimbledon matches and PGA golf I had recorded.  The nice thing about all those sports is that they are not *so* riveting that my eyes need to be glued to the TV all the time.  It's not like American Football (handegg, as the Europeans like to call it, which sort of makes sense since the football looks like an egg and is held in the hand) or World's Strongest Man or anything.

Oh well...  At least I didn't lose money during the 18 hours and I made another $500 in rakeback for the DAY, which is pretty ridiculous.  I'm actually thinking I should move to PokerStars, because that $500 could be $1000 since I put in enough volume to be SuperNova Elite (later post).  It's not like I actually make any money playing poker or anything.

CONVERSATIONS

So I decided to have a new segment of my blog where I present a transcript of conversations I have in my everyday life.  Here's a conversation I had with my son the other night before I read him his bedtime story.  Anything in "( )" are comments and anything in "{ }" is what I'm thinking:

G: Dad, you're different from R's dad (R is a friend from school)
DF: How so, son o' mine?
G: R's dad has a hard belly and yours is soft.
DF: {FFFFUUUU!!!!}  O Really?  That's silly.

I suppose it could have been worse...  instead of bellies, that conversation could have been a woman talking about our genitalia.

A few people asked me about multitabling so I will now begin my multi-part posts on multitabling.  Just to give you a feel for what it's like, here's a link to a guy 24-tabling.  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KV8ENC1W

That may look a little crazy, but it's not.  But maybe it's because I only 12 table.  I know a guy who 40 tables from time to time.  Pretty crazy.  I actually find multi-tabling really relaxing.  They "key" is to get some software that will allow you to click one button for your preflop actions.  I use TableNinjaFT.  So to make a preflop raise on a table, your options are:

1. scroll mouse over to the table you want, highlight the bet amount box, type in your bet, scroll mouse to the "raise" button, click the button. or

2. press "C" on your keyboard or game controller.  TN will put your default flop/turn/river bets in the box for you, and all you have to do is click a button to enter.

And multiply that a few hundred times a session.  I really can't understand why anyone would want to go through Option 1 when Option 2 is SOOOO much easier.  It saves you maybe a few seconds a table, but those few seconds a hand are probably the difference between what makes the multitabling experience feel hectic or relaxed.  And those same few seconds is where you can review any player reads or think about the hand.  The whole process of moving and following your mouse around on the screen, making sure it's where you want is very taxing on your eyes and hands.  Minimize your risk of eye strain and carpal tunnel while you can!

TableNinja also clicks the auto-time bank.  The poker sites give you less than 10 seconds to make a decision, but you have up to like 60 seconds of a time bank in case you need more time.  My numbers may be off - but they are pretty close.  It also handles pop-ups, wait lists, auto-post and sit-out boxes. With TN, I can basically play with solely my non-mouse hand for extended periods of time.

TableNinja and TableNinjaFT are two separate products, but the $60 price tag each pretty much pays for itself after a handful of sessions.

/ TN commercial.  Next I'll talk about table layout.

Not sure what's going on, but whenever I blog about running good, I start running bad. Whenever I start whining about running bad, I start running good.  The Poker Gods have a sick sense of humor.  Twisted bastards.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

Forgot to take pictures, but yesterday was taco night.  It's just Ortega out of the box, so it doesn't take a lot of skill to make it, and you all know what it looks like.  I guess tacos are one of the few foods from when I was a little kid that I still enjoy now.  I suppose over the last 10 years or so, I've tried some of the other foods I really had good memories of as a kid and I couldn't believe how crappy it was.  Below are:

MY TOP THREE FOODS I LOVED AS A KID BUT CAN'T BELIEVE I EVER ENJOYED IT:

3.  Bologna (sandwich) - seriously, WTF is that crap?!?  Mrs. Fly saw bologna at the supermarket and decided to buy it.  We were watching Diners, Drives-Ins and Dives (on the Food Network) the day before and the host went to some place that had fried bologna and I think this made Mrs. Fly crave some.  So she puts some in my roast beef sandwich.  It tasted so so, but it would have been better with just the roast beef.  Thirty minutes later, I started getting the runs.  I mean I love fat on my meat as much as the next guy, but that shit is just nasty.

2. Sloppy Joes - When we were younger, my siblings and I were latchkey kids.  Being the oldest, I would frequently make Manwich sloppy joes and the three of us would go to town.  I just couldn't believe so much meaty saucy goodness could come from two pounds of ground beef and a can or two of sauce.  A number of years ago, I saw it in the supermarket and got some.  Not sure if it's because Mrs. Fly's bolognese sauce is so good or I've had some awesome pulled pork and bbq brisket sandwiches in my day, but you could almost take random spices from your spice rack and make a better sauce.

1. Chef Boyardee - When was the last time you had Chef Boyardee?  I can tell you he is no chef.  It just pisses me off they are making so much money off of such crap.  Our excuse for eating it was because we were latchkey kids and didn't know any better.  We just saw the photo of a distinguished-looking chef on the label and thought it must be good.  What kind of lazy parent do you have to be to serve your kids Chef Boyardee regularly?!?  Is boiling water, throwing some pasta in and pouring a jarred sauce too much work?  Nasty.

Wow.  Just when you think you've started figuring some things out, poker has a way of smacking you back down.  Yesterday, I thought for variety, I would focus on playing the shallow 6 max tables, and I just got smoked for FIFTEEN 40bb stacks.  I mean 7.5 stacks were just off of -ev (bad luck), but still!  FIFTEEN STACKS!!!  I'm sitting at tables with a lot of players who look really bad, but maybe they're not that bad?  I'm thinking there might be some strategy adjustment I'm missing there.  Or maybe I should just stick to my ultra-nitty play-only-the-nuts style that seemed to have worked somewhat well.

I had noticed that people generally flat hands like AA rather than 3bet in this game because the stacks are so shallow.  But most people also had slightly higher 3bet numbers.  In previous sessions, people would fold when I 4bet shoved, so I decided to go to town.  It all started innocently enough when I 4bet shoved AJ over a 3bet (we're only playing with 40 BB stacks) and ran into AQ.  Cooler.  But towards the end a guy with almost a 20% 3bet raises me preflop and I 4bet shove K3o, and he shows up with QQ (the nuts).  Oddly, I thought this was +ev because if they're unlikely to 3bet AA (and maybe not even KK), and not calling *that* often with a wide 3bet range, then there's a ton of dead money in the pot and I have over 30% equity vs their calling range.  Doh!

On the bright side, I didn't run well at Rush either, but I still made a small amount of money.  I've been putzing around with playing more 3bets in position, but not seeing any concrete results.  It'll take some time to get enough hands to evaluate.  I'm really trying to make a push to work on things this month so that I can feel comfortable going back to 2/4+ by August.  We'll see.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

Leftovers at the Fly house.  Mrs. Fly was busy, so she whipped this up in less than 10 minutes.  She took some leftover skirt steak and Italian sausage and sauteed it in a light tomato cream sauce and served it over some nuked leftover rice.  The salad was just some tomatoes and cucumbers tossed in some seasoned oil.  The cucumbers are actually really good (considering it's not dead animal).  They're English cucumbers from Costco and they are so light an crispy - really nice texture for a salad.  Uh oh...  I'm talking about vegetables.  Mrs. Fly's "bad" influence has begun.

So I just found out that the poker player I most want to be like, Nanonoko, started making videos on http://strategy.pokernews.com.  I'm not referring to style of play, but just the fact that he makes $100K practically every month playing similar to slightly higher stakes as I play.  That is basically a graph of like 90+% of his hands.  He plays up to 24 tables at a time and so over the same time span, he's played twice as many hands as I have and his win rate is twice as high as mine.  But I think I can get here.  Or at least somewhere close.

I definitely don't think I can play as many hands as he does.  I used to play up to 16 full ring tables at a time, but I can't play more than 10-12 6 max tables at a time.  I have no idea how he can play 20-24 6 max tables at a time.  Such fast hands - he must be a hit with the ladies.  Ummm... Don't want to go further - let's move on.  He has a web site, if you guys are bored:  www.randylew.com

It looks like the site just opened up this month, as there are no videos before June 1.  I don't know all the big names in the other poker disciplines, like HU, PLO, Limit, and MTTs, but the other bios seem decent.  Anyway, in case you are super bored, check it out.  I would say Nano's videos were decent, but not great.  But it's hard to say, after watching only 1.5 hours of live play video footage.  Live video only lets you discuss a topic for a short period of time (because you're playing other hands), so it's hard to get too in-depth.

Week 3 showed much improvement.  You probably can't tell because I didn't make much money last week, but all the losses were at higher stakes and all the gains were at lower stakes.  That's actually a 30 buy-in swing from the bottom to the top.  So I actually had very good results and I'm very happy with how the week ended.

I realized that some of the things I was working on the past few months we not the right approach for me.  So I went back to what had been working for me, and I'm having much better results.  Trying to emulate everyone else's play is not such a good thing, at least not for me.  I guess what caused the light bulb to go off was a few regs in the small stakes forum posting their session summaries, where they were up like 80-90% of their sessions.  And I thought to myself, "Hey!  I used to be like that.  I was once up over 25 sessions in a row (altho the games were probably softer back then).  Wha happa?!?"  So now, I'm taking bits of what I liked about the "standard" style and mixed in some of the things I used to have success doing.  I'm up six half sessions in a row!

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

Now that summer is upon us, Mrs. Fly is making some "lighter" versions of some of her winter classics.  This is smothered pork chops, but instead of the hearty awesome gravy she makes when it's cold, this one has a more watery, vegetable-like sauce on it.  Kitty says meh.  All joking aside, it was pretty good, but if you're going to ask me if I want the awesome gravy or the watery sauce on my dead animal, 99/100 times, I will pick the awesome gravy.  The other 1/100 would be like if we invited my doctor over for dinner.  "Really Doc!  I have no idea how I'm so fat."

Yesterday, I'm finally able to play poker on a Sunday, so I decide to enter some of the online tournaments.  Four entries, no cashes.  And my tournament successes continue.  In one of them, I have a 20bb stack (decent stack) with like 270 players left and 160 players cash.  The button shoves all-in for like 20bbs, I stare down at T9s in the big blind, move the mouse to click "fold," and inexplicably, I click the "CALL" button!!!  Aaagh!!!  He has like K8o, so that's about the best I can expect, but of course, I lose the flip.  That's just how my month has been going.

I don't think I was tilting after that misclick, but if I wasn't tilting, I mysteriously lost 2.5 buy-ins in the cash games in the next 15 minutes.  Is that the Twilight Zone theme music I hear?  I played for a little longer, but I realized my head was not in the right mindset to play good poker, so I took a break and spent some time with Mrs. Fly. Sometimes, taking a little break from time to time is not the worst thing.

We finally saw Twilight: New Moon.  I just don't get the appeal of Robert Pattinson in that movie.  I'm not saying he's a bad looking guy, but he just looks so dopey in that movie.  For the female readers, I chose a photo where he's not looking pasty and constipated.  Teenage girls have such weird taste in men.  I remember when I was younger, Michael Jackson and Ralph Macchio (the Karate Kid) were considered teen heart throbs.  Michael friggin' Jackson - considered a hottie!!! 

After the movie, I went back to play and made some more money.  I definitely feel like I'm playing better.  Well, to be honest, since I'm playing 2/3 of my hands at 1/2 Rush, it's probably a combination of me playing better and my opponents being worse.  But nothing like getting a little confidence back   I can actually feel myself consistently making money.  That's not to say I don't have runs where I lose a bunch of big hands, but overall, I feel like my stacks are growing all the time.  Still have more work to do tho.

Happy Father's Day! It takes a lot of hard work to be a good dad and a day of appreciation is certainly called for.  Unfortunately, not all dads on Full Tilt deserve this day of thanks.  Below are the five worst dads on FT:

5. Mad Scientist.  Being stuck in a castle all day because your dad somehow pissed off the villagers is not a good way to grow up.  You can't even go out for some good Korean barbecue because the patrons will start lighting their torches and chase you back to the castle.

4. Brokeback Cowboy.  I'm reminded of that Officer and a Gentleman quote: "the only two things from Oklahoma are steers and queers, and I don't see any horns on you boy."  He doesn't care abut you or mom - he just wants to figure out how to get back to his special buddy.  I wish I knew how to quit you. 

3. Pimp.  I suppose there are some advantages to having a pimp for a dad, like free samples.  But at the end of the day, what are you going to say when the smart-assed school kids tease, "your mom is a ho!"?  Also, I suspect he's going to be an aggressive disciplinarian, with a trigger-happy back-of-the-hand.

2.  Spy.  You're probably saying "Whaaa?!?  The spy would be awesome!"  But think about it - he's never around, gets called away all the time, and never spends time with your mom because he's with other women all the time.  At least you can commiserate with your dozen step brothers and step sisters, since he never uses protection. 

1.  The Don.  While it may be cool to have your dad be the leader of the underworld, think about it...  There's a 90% probability you will die.  The Don never dies - it's always his kid.  Sorta like how when Kirk, Spock, Bones and Ensign Smith go down to the planet, there's a 90% probability Ensign Smith gets killed.  Get out while you still can!

Well, gotta go now and see Mrs. Fly about my Father's Day "geeeft."

Yesterday, we had some neighbors come over for Mrs. Fly's home-made fajitas.  They were pretty good considering we bot pre-made tortillas (both wheat and corn).  I wish I took a photo for the blog, but I was starving and the lack of sugar to my brain caused me to forget.  Or maybe it's just old man senility creeping in.  So just imagine a wooden cutting board full of grilled skirt steak and chicken breast, along with a bowl of grilled peppers and onions, and little containers of Mrs. Fly's chipotle sauce, guacamole and cheese.  You may be wondering, what's up with the chicken breast, DFly?  Yes - normally, we would have grilled chicken thighs, but the guests looked like they may enjoy chicken breast, so we bought some.  Or at least that's what Mrs. Fly told me.  I hope this isn't another ploy by her to sneak in "healthy" stuff like chicken breast into the house - especially after the whole veggie burger incident.  As they say, "once a cheater, always a cheater."  I'm on to you, Mrs. Fly!  We were very relieved they were fellow beef eaters. 

One of the nice things about living in the burbs is that you get to know your neighbors a little better.  I lived most of my life in New York City (Queens and Manhattan) and you could live next to the same people for like 10 years and never never get to know the people whose front door is five feet from yours.  We pretty much know all the families with young elementary school kids in our area.  It wasn't always like that tho.

When we first moved in two years ago, none of the neighbors came by with a "welcome to the neighborhood" pie or even to say hi.  So after a month or two, we just said, "WTF kind of neighborhood did we move in to?"  So we decided to have an outdoor barbecue and invited the neighbors.  Turns out the neighbors were really nice, but when you live in the Northeast (especially with a bunch of former Manhattanites) getting out of the house to get to know the neighbors is not high on the list of priorities.  I guess it's a weird (bad) habit you get into - NYC doesn't have the "unfriendly" reputation for nothing.  One family even said that they had lived in the area for ten years and they had never been over to anyone's house before.  Anyway, since the ice was broken, we all socialize from time to time, and if the have younger kids we see them very regularly.  Sometimes, if you make a little effort to be friendly, it goes a long way.

I grabbed a bite and watched the last quarter of the USA-Slovenia soccer game.  That was quite a finish - the US was down 0-2 and made a furious rally to score two goals.  It was probably one of the more exciting soccer games I've seen.  AND IT ENDED IN A TIE!!!

I really want to see the US do well - just like I always root for the US in any international event: basketball, hockey, synchronized swimming, table tennis, curling, midget wrestling, wet T-shirt contest, etc.  Maybe if they make a decent run in the World Cup, it'll spur some more interest in soccer in the US.  But soccer, especially in its current form, is never going to be a premier sport in the US.  NEVER.

It's pretty shocking that professional soccer is so unpopular in the US considering it is probably the most widely played sport in schools.  I like watching all kinds of sports.  I even enjoy watching a lot of perceived boring sports, like golf, the America's Cup, darts, etc.  Soccer reminds me a lot of NHL hockey before they made those rules changes to allow for more scoring.  Way boring before, less boring now.  I'm not saying soccer needs to be a scoring frenzy, but having the possibility of a lead change or two would dramatically improve its appeal.  Someone was telling me that at a FIFA discussion a long time ago, someone asked what would make soccer more popular in the US, and the reply was to increase the goal size by two feet.  Maybe.

A less boring soccer would still struggle in the US.  The US viewer probably has the most sports / entertainment options in the world, and it's just difficult for soccer to compete with the big three of football, basketball and baseball.  At the end of the day, for soccer to gain more viewers and fans, they have to take that time away from something else.  Considering there are always new ways of people blowing their free time (like facebook, itunes, video games, etc), I just don't see how soccer is going to be compelling enough to take time away from another activity.

The two words I would use to describe soccer is BLUE BALLS.  All this frantic activity and nothing.  More frantic activity and nothing.  Rinse and repeat.  And whenever there is a goal, it is so fast and furious that it can only be described as premature ejaculation.  And just like after a prolonged bout of blue balls, the end (even when it leads to a score) is just not that satisfying.  So I hear.   :-)

While I've been playing Rush, I've been watching the World Cup matches.  I think I would enjoy it so much more if I didn't have to hear the constant droning of the vuvuzelas.  If you're not a soccer fan, it's basically a horn that sounds like a swarm of bees.  How dorky do you have to be blowing on that thing for nearly two hours?  It takes away from the ability to drink beer, eat food, talk to your buddies - you know, all the reasons to go to a game (aside from watching the game ldo).  I would turn off the volume, but I need to hear the commentary to figure out when someone scores (because I'm obviously looking at the poker tables most of the time).  Thank God for the US Open that starts today.


An excerpt from an article I read: "they ... found that the vuvuzela emits a noise at 127 decibels. This shockingly is louder than a drum, 122 decibels, and the ref’s whistle, 121.8 decibels. A 10 decibel increase in sound means that a 127 decibel noise is twice as loud as a 117 decibel sound."  What we need are a few soccer hooligans to make an example out of a few of these locals who blow those horns incessantly.  O wait...  maybe white guys beating up black guys wouldn't go over well in the land of Apartheid.  Scratch that.

I'm trying to figure out if there's a sporting tradition that annoys me more than those horns.  The Florida Seminole tomahawk chop and chanting is pretty annoying.  Rednecks mocking native Americans - great tradition.  Those really loud blow-up bats (I think they are called thunder sticks) are pretty dopey.  Can't think of anything else, so it must be the vuvuzelas.  And it's seriously causing me writer's block, so that's all for today.

Wow. Just when you think things can't get any worse, they do!  I went from marginally winning player to losing player.  WTF?!?  Anyway, a lot of it is just being card dead and my good hands running into better hands and all the other standard reasons for downswings, but still!  But what this does do is show me that my current approach to the game is not working.  Not because of this ferocious downswing, but because I have noticed a consistent pattern of losing money in certain areas of my game over the past few months.  I took the night off from playing and thought about what it is I'm doing and what needs to change.  Back to the drawing board!

But during the day, I played some 1/2 Rush, just to get a little confidence back and to convince myself that online wasn't rigged.  Mission accomplished.  I think I'll play Rush for another week or two to retool (again).  I think one of the mistakes I'm making is that I'm trying to play like everyone else and I get stuck at points where I face resistance.  I suppose it's all part of the learning process.  There's a reason why good players play the way they do, but when everyone plays one way, sometimes it's not incorrect to play a different way.

I also played one SNG (single table tournament), to take a break from the cash game and came in first.  When we got two handed, I had 2/3 of the chips and asked the guy if he wanted a deal - meaning we take a split of the prize pool based on our stacks.  I only asked because he seemed somewhat competent and at that point, I didn't think the amount of time I would spend playing and the potential future aggravation if I lost was worth the small bit of +ev I may be giving up.  The guy tells me "no" because he's a "head's up specialist."  I look at his stats and he's only raising 35% of his buttons in HU play and I'm thinking to myself, "Whaaa?!?  I don't even think the micro heads-up guys open so few hands.  Play Money Heads Up Specialist, Bro?  Okay, fool.  Let's just keep playing."  I whittle him down and few dozen hands later, I get him on a flip.  Anyway, I only mention this because I think some people think they are better than they actually are and a lot of times, that will impede your progress.

WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?

Mrs. Fly just made me a veggie burger for lunch.  I guess when you're good at poker, you get steak, and when you suck at poker, you get a veggie burger.  I'm going to tell you guys right now, I don't plan on eating veggie burgers for long!

My ex-manager and friend now lives in Utah - probably one of the lesser known meccas of outdoor activities.  He loves skiing and mountain biking and seems to engage in a lot of outdoor activities.  One time he almost drowned his kids in a white water rafting trip.  Like I always say, it's hard to get hurt sitting on your ass all day.

So my first week of work, the markets are slow so he calls a broker to take us to a Yankee game.  Man, prop trading really had its awesome moments.  If you ever wondered who would pay those exorbitant rates for field level seats at Yankee Stadium, it's mostly companies that have to entertain clients.  The view from there is so awesome - like you could almost slap Tino Martinez (the old first baseman) in the ass.  Not sure where the ghey imagery is coming from - maybe I'm still a little perturbed by the "threesome with a guy."

At the time, we were business casual, which meant we didn't have to wear a suit, but I had to keep a jacket and tie in the office because I never knew when we were getting taken out to for lunch.  We ate at some of the best restaurants in Manhattan.  Sadly, I only worked with him for a little over a year because the bank had a bad year and they stiffed him on his bonus.  So he did what any normal person would do and left for better pay at a hedge fund.

It was great seeing them again.  Lately, we've been trying to get better with the smoker so we made... you guess it wings and ribs.  This time, I tried 3 hours smoking, 2 hours in foil, and 1 hour more smoked.  Still not tender.  I have no idea how to get these ribs tender!!!  Mrs. Fly liked the ribs (because she likes them with a little chew), but it's starting to annoy me that I can't get the ribs fall-off-the-bone tender.  My sister braises them in wine and herbs, but I didn't get a smoker so that I can bake them in the oven!!!  I need some Pitmaster coaching.

Poker is just soooo painful right now - the only way I can win a hand is if some guy gets cold-decked.  Because at all other times, if I don't get a bad river card, it's a bad turn card.  Sometimes, FT is merciful and they just screw me on the flop so there is no anticipation.  Thank you sir!  May I have another!

Summer is soon approaching and we need to figure out what we're doing.  We're sending G to day camp (later post), but as one of the entertainment options, we'll probably sign up for a season pass to one of the local amusement parks.  It's only $70 - it pays for itself after 2 visits.  Since I work from home, 2 visits won't be a problem.  I hate going on weekends because it gets pretty crowded, so we usually go during the week.  Ahhh... the perks of playing poker - I feel bad for the people who have to work Monday thru Friday because the parks get disgustingly crowded on the weekends.

The choices are a local family park called Lake Compounce, or the more national Six Flags.  There are three Six Flags parks all within 2-3 hours of where I live, but Lake Compounce is about half as far.  We were leaning more towards LC, but then I found out Six Flags New England opened up a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine attractions.  Sold!

G loved Thomas when he was younger and D *loooooves* Thomas now - well, technically he likes Percy more.  Thomas the Tank Engine has got to be the #1 Evil Empire in the toy industry.  WTF at at a wooden train costing like $20.  We have well over $2K worth of TTE crap in our house - train table, Tidmouth Shed, a bajillion pieces of tracks, like 60% of the engines, most of the dvds, books, etc.  They have not only the wooden trains and tracks, they have plastic as well as metal - and of course all the tracks and accessories are of different sizes which are not compatible with each other.  So that in itself is enough to get labeled as an Evil Empire.  But at my last visit to the toy store, I noticed they came out with a new line called "lights and sounds" - basically the same trains, but they have lights and makes a sound when you press a button.  Evil Empire.

I just realized that I'm an Evil Empire magnet.  I'm a lifelong NY Yankee fan (the Evil Empire of baseball).  I own 4 active computers and therefore 4 sets of Microsoft products (the original Evil Empire), and now the Evil Empire of toys.  All this Empire talk any my poker breakeven-ness is making me want to whip out the Civ 2.

We're part of a "dinner club" that meets almost once a month.  I think I may have mentioned it before, but basically, it's a group of 20 or so families in the area who are also from the homeland.  It's a nice way to meet other families in the area who have a similar cultural background.  I basically grew up here, so I consider myself "American," but it's not a bad thing to maintain ties to your roots.

The turnout wasn't that big - maybe only half the families, but everyone had a good time. The host grew up in the Caribbean, so he was thinking of roasting a whole pig in the ground, but apparently his wife nixed that idea.  Thank you, wife.  You had the opportunity to go down in the annals of Dinner Club history, and you blew it.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Apparently on the evite, too many people offered to bring dead animal.  So the wife sent out an email asking people to bring more veggies and carbs instead.  What happened?  Too many people listened to the email and there wasn't enough meat - all we had were ribs, grilled pork and squid.  Plenty of salad, beans, corn and rice tho.  Thank you again, wife.  You are Bill Buckner and Bartman rolled into one.

Aw, I'm just joking, the wife is a very sweet woman, and makes a mean sangria.  Mojitos were a little weak, but plenty of wine and other beverages.  I mean, I guess if there was no alcohol, that would have been strike three and I would have just gone berserk at that point.  Kidding!

This was also the first dinner party where the kids were invited.  We all have multiple kids between 2 and 8, so it was super gracious on their part to try and keep the kids entertained.  They had a whole bunch of water activities in their back yard.  They didn't have a pool, but I kind of felt like I was watching that clip on Caddyshack where all the caddies get to use the pool and they're just in a mad dash to get to the water activities.  Whatever it takes for the kids to be occupied so that mom and dad can get a buzz going.

Today, an old friend of mine from the West is coming over for dinner.  He was my first manager and hired me out of business school.  I was going to start writing about him, but then I realized I should save it for tomorrow, because we had a lot of fun times together.

OMG!  Mrs. Fly's cheating on me!  And in the tenth year of our marriage.  I had a few signs here and there - like she's been working out more (running on the treadmill, taking pilates classes, etc), eating healthier and dressing better.  But I didn't put it all together until it was too late.  I actually caught her red handed!  IN MY HOME! IN MY KITCHEN! Where my wife used to cook... and my children play with their toys.

Okay, maybe I'm overreacting a *little* to the veggie burgers in the house.  It's probably not like getting shot at - that quote is from Godfather II... sort of.  But I've never been shot at so I wouldn't know.  To be honest, it tasted okay.  Not sure if it was just psychological, but it wasn't as filling.  And I suppose it's not that much worse than 95% lean turkey burgers.  But poultry is basically vegetable so I suppose the point is moot.

POKER

In my quest to be a better poker play, I'm losing more money than ever.  While the last few weeks have been a lot of bad breaks after another, I feel like I'm just constantly losing money and only picking up money on huge stupid plays by my opponents.  I'm guilty of the occasional stupid play myself - just not as often as my opponents.  I guess the reason I'm a little concerned is that as time goes on, you expect the number of huge stupid mistakes by opponents to decrease.  The reasons for this is that players will continue to get better and the players that don't won't be playing that much longer. I suppose I could pray that the stream of fish never ends, but I would prefer to have a more solid poker plan.  I've identified some of my huge areas for development so it'll be a work in progress for a while.

Lately, I've been noticing a huge surge in the number of shallow tables at FT, especially in the afternoons.  Some days shallow and cap tables comprises of over 40% of all mid stakes cash tables (more in 6max and almost none in FR).  The number of shallow tables falls off in the evenings.  I'm not sure what is causing this - not sure if there's a second wave of European short stackers who are playing during the day.  Since I pretty much go where the the poker trend is (i.e. the games with the most number of tables), I'm going to have to start learning to play the shallow tables (again).  As much as I think shallow stack poker is retarded, as a poker pro I can't ignore the fact that almost half of all players want to play these games.  The only thing I've figured out so far is that betting 3.5x preflop is retarded for this game (2-2.5x is better), and people don't 3bet AA preflop because the stacks are so shallow.  For the novices out there, something seemingly as small as going from 100bb to 40bb stacks has a bunch of strategic ramifications.

I've been a little lazy about including food photos in my blog lately.  I took a bunch of photos, but what happens is that whenever D sees me in front of Mrs. Fly's laptop, he wants to sit on my lap and have me go thru the Thomas and Friends or Sesame Street websites.  So I never get a chance to upload the photos onto my blog.  I present to you the "food from the last few weeks" edition of my blog.

Not sure which gathering this is from, but on the left are some random chips and salsa, on the right are some frozen egg rolls and dumplings that Mrs. Fly fried up, and on top are her homemade summer rolls.  Basically, some of the appetizers from the usual rotation.  Some more from the rotation at the bottom of the blog post.

This disaster was from the second time I tried to make ribs.  Mrs Fly wanted a crust on the outside and I left them on the grill too long because I was chatting with someone.  Doh!

This was over at my brother's house.  Clockwise from the upper left are the shrimp and gorgonzola wrapped in prosciutto, then porterhouse, our ribs, salad, some weird grain that SlawFly likes that I don't know the name of (kind of looks like cous cous but not cous cous), grilled vegetables and corn in the middle.  There was more food but I was too lazy to take more than one picture.

I think this was from the 30+ people gathering.  We also had other meats, but we put the chicken wings and skirt steak on one plate.  Not sure why I didn't take photos of the rest of the food.

These are also from the 30+ party.  On the lower left is shredded roasted pork belly on some toast-like product I've never had before. Mrs. Fly ripped off the idea from David Chang (who owns the Momofuku restaurants).  He serves his pork belly on these Chinese buns, but I prefer Mrs. Fly's version.  She also makes some killer deviled eggs (on the lower right).  We also had chips, pigs in a blanket, salami (including her favorite habanero salami), and dumplings.  That plant on the far right is a Mother's Day gift G made last year when he was in kindergarten.  His teacher can't believe it's so huge and still alive - neither can we.

[OMG!  I wrote a blog post and a half while I was in the doctor's office and it got deleted accidentally!!!]

After 3 decent up days, I took the day off from playing last night because I wanted to take Mrs. Fly to the radiologist today to get an MRI on her sore shoulder.  I guess I could have gotten one on my ankle, but I'll give Mother Nature a few more months.  Another nice thing about working from home is that I go with the wife and sometimes kids to all the various doctor check-ups and such.

We're sitting in the waiting room and I grab an issue of Men's Health.  It will come as no surprise to you that I bypass all the diet and exercise articles and head straight for the juicy stuff.  They polled a bunch of men and women about "kinky" preferences, and presented a graph of their results.  Here is a summary and my peanut gallery comments.

* Turns out the top two kinky activities that both men and women prefer are: 1. Public sex; 2. Sex toys.  Meh.

* The top activity that men prefer and women don't is: Threesome with a woman.  No kidding.  O really?!?  We have a friend who's been trying to get his wife to do a threesome.  I haven't seen him for six months, so not sure how that's going / went.  Ahh... the things that come out when you get a few drinks in someone.  BTW, that's a real friend and not a "friend."

* The top kinky activity that women prefer and men don't is: NOTHING!  I got a good laugh because there were over a dozen items plotted on the graph and there was nothing in this quadrant.  Altho now that I think about it, I guess men are easy that way.  Whatever you say, boss!

* The top two things men and women both disliked: 1. S&M, 2. Threesome with a man.  What was surprising to me was that among men only, these two were the neck and neck clear unpopular choices.  They were tied?!?  Whaaa???  Mrs. Fly / Jessica Alba can spank me like I'm a horse in the home stretch of the Kentucky Derby but I'm not having sex with another dude!  WTF?!?  I'm not homophobic, but I just find it weird that the two could be so close.

Being a stats major, I just find poll construction and results interesting.  Another thing I find interesting is operational inefficiency.  Maybe that's why I'm so attached to Full Tilt.  But seriously, why do doctors make people wait so long?  Having gone to business school and worked at a management consulting company, I'm just amazed that systematically doctor's offices have such long waits.  We had to wait an hour for a 12:00 appointment.  I mean I could sort of understand if it was a 4:00 appointment (since you have more appointments that could get backed up), but that's why you have a flexible lunch break - take longer for lunch if your morning appointments go quickly and take less time to eat if you get backed up.  Jesus Christy!  You're running a business - don't keep your customers waiting!  As it is, we're never going back there again.  Thanks to universal coverage, I'm afraid wait times may only get worse.

And if they think their time is more valuable than ours, FU you never-got-laid-in-college-because-you-were-too-busy-studying, massively-in-debt-from-4-years-of-grad-school, minimum-wage-earning-during-your-residency and now-getting-butt-hocked-by-HMOs-and-universal-health-care POS!!!  Hmm...  I shouldn't have had that cup of coffee this morning.  If any of you guys are doctors, I'm just joking.  I have lots of friends who are doctors...  or at least I used to before this post.

Getting back to my Viewer Mail post from the other day, here are a few tips you can try to make your poker sessions more "interesting":

* listen to music or put on a ball-game, stand-up comedy, or anything else that won't distract you, but will make the time go faster.

* give yourself some goals for the session. For example, if you have a passive preflop game and get 3bet a lot, tell yourself you'll make it a point to 4bet bluff once or twice that session, and look for the best opportunities to do so.

* jot down hands you think you played poorly. See if it can be expanded to point to a more general weakness you have, and think about how this aspect of your game can be improved. The process of jotting (or marking hands) will reduce the possibility of you forgetting about the hand later.  The more proactive you are, the less bored you will be.

* try playing something slightly different from what your typical game is - you can try Rush, FR/6max/HU, PLO/Stud/Mixed games, SNGs, or especially MTTs.  They will all require a strategy adjustment, so you'll need to be a little more engaged if you want to do well.  Also, the gut-wrenching agony of playing MTTs will make you miss the "boredom" of your regular game.

* don't feel like you *have to* play if you are not in the mood.  Watching videos, analyzing hands you've played, analyzing your statistics, researching new software and hardware, etc are all ways of working on your poker, and should add to your future win rate.

* assuming you are a good player at your stakes, try playing half as many tables one stake higher than you normally play. Even tho you have the same amount of money on the tables, all the extra money at each table should make you more alert. Disclaimer: I can not be held responsible for you blowing your roll.  I heard this suggestion on a video, but have never tried it myself (since I don't have any problems focusing).

Good luck at the tables!  Not versus me, obviously.  :-P

Aaagh!  When are the poker gods finally going to stop crapping on me?!?  This week has been the week of losing flips, set over sets, villains hitting their gutshots, bad rivers, and my monsters getting crushed by bigger monsters.  I guess I should be happy I didn't lose much money.  Thank god for fish handing me a few pots.

I know this is a little early, but I see no effects of UIGEA at the tables so far.  I would presume most fish are constantly reloading, and I see just as many weakish players and new players as I had before June 1. But obviously, it's only been a week, so time will tell.

I also fell to #21 on my rake race, so it's time to get back on the ball and play some hands!

WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

We've had too much meat lately, so we got a pizza from the local pizzeria. Sometimes, the simplest meals are the best. It just so happens that even tho we're out in the boonies, the local place has an outstanding crust - I think this is one of the few restaurants in the area that wouldn't go out of business if it was located in Manhattan. The sauce is a little watery and salty for my taste, but it's good. They're also a little light-handed with the cheese, but when you've had too much meat, this really hits the spot.

S