jpmassar wrote a moving and insightful post entitled Mourn For the Future Dead, For Those who Need Not Fall. I don't want to excerpt it here because I don't think a small quote will do it justice. It's not long. Go read it.

A few hands of note, in chronological order:

The game starts when I get there (hmmmmm...). I buy $2200. Second hand, I have KK in the blinds, raise preflop, bet the flop, and push in on the turn. I get called down and win -- he started with 1500 and busted.

A while later I'm up to 4500 when Marcus arrives. He bribes a player $300 to give him his seat, and we pretty quickly get into a hand. Emre and Marcus limp, Eldon raises to 220. He only has 1200 back, but Emre has 3500 and Marcus has infinity, and I'm pretty sure they'll call if I do, so I call with 77 on the button and they in fact call behind. The flop is K(74), ding. Checked to Eldon who jams for 1200. I think for a while and smooth call, Emre folds, and now Marcus pushes all in. I call of course, and the turn and river blank off. Eldon shows A2s for the nut flush draw, Marcus claims a straight flush draw, and then tells me I got lucky that everything worked out the way it did. Indeed.

Eldon rebuys and opens for 80. I raise to 280 in the cutoff with QQ, he calls. The flop is (AK)T, we check. The turn is a Q, he bets out 360. Hm. I call. The river is a K, and he bets 600 with 800 behind. Well, what could he have? I think he'd fold a J if I raise, and I'm behind most of the boats. So either he has a bluff, a J, or a better hand, so raising seems bad unless he specifically has TT. So I just call. He was in fact bluffing with 99.

I have 10,000 and AK late. Marcus opens for 80 and gets a call, and I raise to 320. Marcus now reraises 1000 more. Hm. What's his range here? QQ+/AK? JJ? Actually I think not only will he do it with JJ, he'll also have some random bluffy hands in there too. How will he respond to a raise? I think he'll put me on a giant pair and fold QQ and AK and so on, which makes a raise look really tempting. Ok, I raise 3000 more. He thinks for a while and folds, then asks me if I had AA. No, I tell him, just cowboys. (I wonder if he reads this? This seems like the kind of hand I should probably not reveal. Shhh, don't tell anyone.)

Then I open utg with 99, Emre calls, and Marcus raises 200 more. I call as does Emre. The flop is K92r. I bet out 560, hoping to get raised. Emre folds and Marcus calls. The turn is an 8, putting the second club on the board. I check, Marcus fires 1600, and I check-raise to 4500. Marcus thinks for a bit, then tells me that "it's almost impossible for you to have this hand beat." That strikes me as extremely good news. I have the second nuts, and if he had the nuts I don't see him thinking it might be possible to beat it. Plus that sounds like an unlikely speech to give there with the nuts. Eventually he calls. The river is a J, and I put him in for his last 6500. He sighs, says he has top two, and then tells me I must have 99. Then he calls. Yup, 99, nice read. He shows KcJc for a pair and a flush draw on the turn.

So... you have top pair, ok kicker facing a $3000 bet on the turn and you think it's almost impossible for you to be beat? That deep in a hand I either have top pair beat or a bluff, and mostly not the bluff. You should be thinking, "How likely is it that he's bluffing," not "My hand sure looks good." Though to be fair, he will definitely get the other 6500 on the river if the backdoor clubs show up. He gets up and leaves.

I later relate this hand to a friend in the following way: "I open for 60 early, and you raise with KJs..." and so on. We get to the turn and I ask what he does in Marcus' shoes after he gets check-raised. He replies, "I don't make any of those actions." Yeah, good point. Me neither.

Then a couple of smaller pots. Several people are in for 60, and so am I with ATo on the button. The flop is A66, they check, I bet 260, Eldon calls. The turn is an 8 and he bets out 500. Hm. This looks a lot like a delayed steal, which is a play I've seen him make from time to time, and he's stuck which makes stealing a lot more likely. I think he doesn't really have to have any kind of draw here -- a pocket pair, or KQ, or whatever is definitely possible, so I don't mind giving a cheap card. And if I raise, he can't bluff again. So I call, planning to call the river again. The river is a 7, and sure enough, he bets his last 1200. I call and get shown... 77. Nice hand sir, well played.

I flop another set or two for small pots, and cash out the biggest win I've ever had in a cash game.

Winning is fun. I recommend it to everyone.

I'm in the 10-10-20 lc game and discussing sports betting. I had a friendly bet with another player where I had laid 185:100 on the yankees to win the series. I offered to let him out for 70 after looking up the odds on wsex. If you pick the middle of the lines the Yankees are -675, or almost 7:1 favorites. He told me there was no way he'd settle since he was getting 2:1.

Ok, that sounds like an opportunity. I offered him a further 3:1 bet on the series outcome. He immediately accepted... as did three other people. Uh, ok. Too bad I don't have an account on one of the betting sites -- I could bet the middle. Or icoukd just enjoy having such a good bet. One odd thing is that this bet feels huge to me despite having several times that on the table -- but this an order of magnitude more than I've bet on sports before.

In the meantime I doubled up in the first three hands dealt at the table, so I can lose the 1200 and still be ahead. :)

Yesterday's session at Lucky Chances was entertaining. One of the players I talk a lot about is Eldon. I think his A game is the best I've ever seen -- his hand reading is tremendous, and when he's in tight/aggressive/selective bluff mode, he's really tough. But I'm pretty sure he is a decent to big loser in the game because he periodically blows up and bluffs off thousands in a session.

Yesterday he took a beat, started playing looser, lost with AQ all in preflop against 96s for 2000, played looser, lost again to a 5 outer for 3000 after the money went in on the turn, and was in full steam mode. He started offering various bets to people. He offered me this: ever time he wins a pot he pays me 100; every time I win a pot I pay him 80. Blind steals count. I was three seats to his right for a moderate positional advantage.

So on the face of it, this is a super good bet for me. In our normal games he plays more hands than I do; when he's steaming he plays a ton of hands. But it does mean we can almost never play a hand, and certainly never raise preflop unless the pot is already big. Pot-building raises preflop only.

I declined for two reasons. One is that I'm not sure I'd be better at adjusting than he is. It would take me out of my regular, winning game. The second is that it would give him a good reason to tighten up, and I really didn't want that. So I declined.

Here's why I didn't want to take the bet. Some time later, he's lost more again mostly due to bad beats, and still hot. I open for 60 from the middle with AdJd, and then learn that it's a kill pot so it's 80 to go. Bah, ok, I limp for 80. The kill (between the sb and button) calls, and Eldon in the bb calls. The flop is As4c2s, they check, I bet 140. Eldon calls. The turn is another 4. He bets 500, I think and call planning to call on any nonspade river, and maybe on a spade river too. The river is a J, ding. He bets 2000, and I decide not to raise my last $140 and just call. He has A9.

Somehow I don't think I was getting 2500 out of the prop bet. If he's in his normal game he would never ever make such an insane river bet.

Bonus Eldon hand: Eldon opens for 80, one call, I raise to 380 with red AA. He reraises 700 more. I have 4400 back and smooth call. The flop is Q84cc, he bets out 1400, I push for 3000 more. He thinks for a while and folds what he claims was KK, telling me I could only have AA, or maybe possibly QQ. Huh. That's a pretty good read. I reward it when he bets with another player about my hand and pays me $40 bucks. Eldon won if I beat or tied his claimed KK, he lost if I didn't -- so he got a $500 refund from a third player.

So there's a journalism class at Northwestern that investigates claims of wrongful convictions and innocence in inmates. It's called the Medill Innocence Project, and it's been around for a decade, and gotten 11 innocent men out of jail, including 5 from death row.

So of course, they're still at it, this time investigating a 31-year-old murder conviction. The Cook County prosecutors are having none of it this time, though. They are subpoenaing grades, transcripts, and so on for the whole class.

Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.

The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas.

Wow. Intimidation much?

What the students have found is pretty interesting, too.

The students said they had found, among other things, that two eyewitnesses had recanted their testimony against Mr. McKinney and could not have seen him commit the killing because they were watching a boxing championship (Leon Spinks vs. Muhammad Ali). The students collected an affidavit from a gang member who, they say, confirmed Mr. McKinney’s alibi that he was running away from gang members when the shooting took place.

The students have also suggested alternative suspects in the case and offered witnesses who said they had heard the others admit their involvement.

It doesn't surprise me that prosecutors don't like to admit that they were wrong. It does somewhat surprise me that prosecutors don't like to admit that their predecessors 30 years ago might have been wrong. Why fight to keep an innocent man in jail if he's really innocent? Why not find out and let him out if they were wrong? It's not like you have to say you yourself made a mistake; indeed, you can play yourself as the hero righting a wrong.

Or you can go after a class of journalism students. Which, btw, seems like a stupid group to try to intimidate. It seems like the perfect place for them to go to the press, with whom their hoping to work and would love some real contact.

I was only in one of them.

1) John opens for 80 from the cutoff, I have Ah9h on the button and contemplate reraising but just call. I have about 5000, he has me way covered. The flop is Kh9x4h, ding. He bets 200, and again I just call. The turn is another 9, ding again. He bets out 520. I think this is a fine place to just call, since it's really hard for him to have more than about two outs against me, and if I raise and he pushes I'm probably in trouble. The river is a blank, and he bets 1600.

That river bet is scary. He's not doing with with AA or AK, those are checking, or maybe a small blocking bet. At this point I think he has KK, but he could have a worse 9, maybe? Since I have the pair+flush draw hand there are almost no draws he could have. QhJh or similar, I guess. Anyway I eventually crying call hoping to see a 9. Which he has, but has a K to go with it.

2) John limps for 40, I limp along, a tight/aggressive/good player named Mike raises from the button to 200. John cold calls. They are both very deep, >$10,000. I fold. The flop is 7d3x2d. John checks, Mike bets 340, and John raises to 900. Mike calls. The turn pairs the 2, and John bets 1600. Mike thinks for a while and calls. The river is an offsuit 8, John bets 4400, Mike tanks for a good while and then folds what he claims was rockets.

John immediately racks up and leaves, and the table spends the next hour arguing about what he had. He's very tight, but he's also capable of running a bluff in the right situation. Eldon is 100% convinced he flopped a set and improved on the turn, and offers 10:1 on John's hand (full or better). There are immediately a big pile of takers, including me, so he backs off to 5:1. Still a bunch of takers, and he weasels down to 3:1 and books $1200 worth of action (not including me). Sam, who took the bet, reveals he folded a 7.

So what could John have? He claimed as he was racking up that he was going to leave right then no matter what. If that's true he might play a little looser than normal. He limped, then called 160 more. He'd do that with 77 for sure, and probably with 33 and 22. Would he do it with 54s? Maybe. A5s? I dunno about that. ATs? Probably not. His hand is totally polarized on the river: he either has a full house or quads, or he has a total bluff. Would he play a hand like 5d4d like that? Certainly sometimes.

So let's count. If he plays like that with his flush draw+straight draw hands, those are A4s, A5s, 54s. I'm going to discount the vanilla flush draws down to nothing, because he folds most of them preflop and would only very, very rarely play them that strongly. So that's three ways. He could have 77 one way, 33 three ways, 22 one way, and that's it. But I think you also have to discount the bluffs, because he often folds those preflop or doesn't play them that hard postflop.

So if I were getting 5:1 on the river I'd call. 2.3:1 or whatever Mike was getting is a clear fold (though I'd have folded his AA on the turn).

One thing I think is amusing is that there was no consideration that John might not be totally honest. There's $1200:400 of action on his word. That's a fair amount of trust. I did bet Eldon $20 that John would not reveal in the next four weeks.

Iphone, meet cement floor of the Lucky Chances parking garage.



On the upside, I did win enough money this week to pay for a new one. Also, interestingly, one of the other people in the game bought it from me after I replace it. He gave me $100, and I agreed to give him the phone next week. I think he's going to refurb it and export it, but frankly I'm happy to get anything at all for it.

This is Sam, for those of you who know him. I also made the following two bets with him: I bet $100, even odds, on the Phillies to win the NLCS, and bet $150 to win $100 on the Yankees to win the ALCS. Looking at the odds online, the first bet is bad and the second bet is good. I don't actually know how to back out the house edge, though, so I don't see an easy way to calculate the EV on these bets assuming the Vegas lines are right. This is why I'm not a sports bettor generally.

So according to WSEX, the Yankees are -196 and the Angels are +156, so Sam is getting nearly the deal he could get with them, but I'm getting a much better deal on the Yankees. Similarly, the Dodgers are -122, but the Phillies are even, so I'm getting the same deal as online but he's getting the better one there. Anyone want to tell me who got the better end of this trade by how much? I think it's me but I'm not really sure.

Jackson, being no fan of NPR, likes to listen to music in the car. So I oblige him. Mostly I play requests, but sometimes I can't look at my phone right then or am bored of the same thing over and over, so he does get exposed to various things.

Recently he requested "a train song." I had no idea what he was talking about, but on further discussion, he really wanted a song about a train. Okay... um... I have 8 gigs of music on my phone, there must be a song about a train in there somewhere. I eventually thought of two: I thought I might have City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie, and I definitely had Casey Jones by the Dead. The latter seemed rather inappropriate for a toddler, so I looked for the former. It turns out I didn't have that version, but I did have a cover by Judy Collins, which I had never to my knowledge listened to before. Jackson loved it, asks for it all the time: "City of Moo Orleans!"

I just put the songs he frequently requests into a playlist for ease of finding them. Here it is, the tastes of a 21st century 2-year-old (almost) when exposed to his dad's out-of-date music collection.

If I Had A Hammer	Peter, Paul & Mary
Life Is A Highway	Rascal Flatts
City Of New Orleans	Judy Collins
Suddenly I See		KT Tunstall
Sweet Home Alabama	Lynyrd Skynyrd
Burning Down The House	Talking Heads
Puff The Magic Dragon	Peter, Paul & Mary
Down By the Bay		Raffi
If I Had $1000000	Barenaked Ladies

I'm not really sure what to make of that. He wasn't impressed by the Beatles. Today he heard and liked Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's, but I don't know if it's going to make his standard rotation.

Anyone have a better idea for a train song?

Poll #1462574
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

Things I have heard

I got away to LC for a last pre-baby session, played for four hours and only had two and a half big hands.

First, I open utg with JJ for 60, one call, then Erik, a young, tight-aggressive player, raises 210 more. I have 1400 total and consider calling then betting the flop with no A or K, but decide I have a good amount of fold equity here so I jam instead. He has KK and I don't have any fold equity, or any equity at all on the T high board by the river.

Second, I open for 60 in early position with AQ, two calls, and Marcus in the bb raises 300 more. I have 2100 or so, and know he's doing this with a ton of hands. I consider jamming but decide I'm too deep, so I call. Flop is A94cc, he bets 420 and I push for 1470 more. He thinks and folds.

Third, Marcus opens early in a kill pot for 120, I have 3500 and just call with AK to vary. John calls behind, and then Eldon raises 600 more in the bb, and Marcus calls. Hm, a pot sized raise is 2900, and this seems like another spot with a ton of fold equity, so I jam for my 3500. Eldon overjams quickly for a few hundred more, and Marcus has a long time to consider while we fix the dealer error after she made change out of my stack and randomly stuck a bunch of it in the middle. This involved completely reconstructing the action, and by the end of it, Marcus had decided to call.

Eldon told me I had AK. He's pretty good at that sometimes. He had QQ, and Marcus claimed a pair but didn't show. I hit an A on the flop and tripled up. I didn't win enough to make up for last session, but got a good chunk of the way back. So I got that going for me.