Mr. Mimi Rogers and Plagiarism

Sweetie and her friend really enjoyed their treat I arranged for them Saturday night: room at the Buckhead Ritz-Carlton, dinner reservations at Dish, nice leisurely breakfast this morning for them. I got knocked out of an $11 Party MTT last night, getting short stacked then coming over the top with AsKs, getting three callers, then a flop of QsJsTd. Q on river gives the TT their boat and I'm sent packing. I couldn't find any decent limit table so I hopped on a little NLHE. Couldn't get paid off with my big hands (AA or JJ flopping top set). Around midnight I started the falling-asleep play, where you either time out or barely wake up. Did that for an orbit, then I literally woke up with AA (when I saw I woke up with it I mean there they were staring me in my face with AdAc and action to me). $0.25/0.50, I raise to $2.00, and the guy on my left makes it $6.50. I shove for another $4o or so, insta-call, 75663 with three clubs, and aces actually hold up against QQ. I teeter on thinking of NLHE as simply a set-farming exercise rather than outplaying folks or whatever. I've had a couple of successful NLHE sessions, but I'm hardly proficient yet.

We saw M:I:III tonight. I actually think the former Mr. Mimi Rogers has some serious risk that he'll need to navigate over the next eighteen months regarding his image. I totally couldn't watch his intimacy scenes without being cynical, thinking of what a wack-job he either is or has become. Sweetie adored it; of course, I also accidentally saw her Vanilla Sky poster hanging on an inside storage door while we were moving boxes.

I took a step back and looked at position for my LHE play in the last few months.

	Top BB/Hand					Bottom BB/Hand
Button	KK	AA	A2s	QQ	Ako	86s	A5s	A8s	A8o	J8s
1	QTs	KJs	76s	KK	Ats	K9s	86s	KTs	Kto	Qto
2	44	98s	A8s	KK	QTs	66	76s	KJs	Aks	97s
3	99	44	98s	KK	QTs	KTs	TT	76s	Q9s	Ats
4	TT	A9s	55	KQo	KK	A8s	Ats	77	KTs	A5s
5	KK	98s	65s	JJ	88	Aqs	A6s	55	J9s	KQo
6	Aks	Ats	A9s	QQ	AA	KQs	KJs	98s	Ajo	33
7	A4s	JTs	Aqs	T9s	55	A5s	QTs	Kjo	87s	Aks
BB	97s	AA	Aks	TT	QJs	KJs	55	K7s	K6s	Qjo
SB	Aqs	Ajs	AA	97s	88	98s	A4s	A3s	J9s	J8s

Some of my results are skewed by some monster losses in certain positions; e.g., AKs flopping top two pair vs. flopped set, raising then being re-raised or trapped by later position. More analysis needed, but would be interested in any initial thoughts.

I had bought Bluff Magazine a couple weeks ago for the Ivey-Beal article by Michael Craig. I'd like to spend a bit more time on this, but after skimming the other articles, I have to say that Bluff absolutely is unreadable. I always pick up CardPlayer when I'm in a casino and have always enjoyed the diversity and quality of it. Bluff, at first appearance, seems like an absolute shotgun approach to editing, trying to put as many player-penned articles as they can cram in. ADDENDUM: 2+2 Forum thread on Bluff and 2+2, compliments of Felicia. While I don't know Mason Malmuth and agree with most of what he says, his commentary reeks of arrogance. Let me put it a bit differently: as a relative poker newbie, I appreciate how little I know about LHE much less poker in general, and I thank 2+2, Sklansky, Harrington, and others who give of their time, experience, and mental capacity to share with people like me. But when you consistently belittle folks, you become less accessible to some of us. Should we be diligent enough to be corrected and try again? Maybe, but I'm not that diligent. And thanks Felicia for directing me to the thread. Fascinating stuff on both sides of the rhetoric.

WPTE (World Poker Tour Enterprises) first quarter financials in. Market cap of $122MM, stock hovering 10% above 52-week low. The problem? WPT doesn't have a revenue model of any substance. It looks like they've finally found a home for their PPT investment.

My brother emailed a Financial Times article from a leading economist. He gets into the history of game theory and now bots in the poker world. May be old news for some, but it's an interesting read.

In honor of Kaavya Viswanathan (the Harvard undergrad who got in a bit of hot water for copying a whole bunch of her first novel from someone else's book) and Clonie Gowen, who accidentally did the same thing for her poker tips associated with FullTilt, here is this week's Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, followed by a paragraph made from a sentence on each of their blogs. Should be a nice interesting story.

• Aimlessly Chasing Amy: A new blog from Amy Calistri, the former editor of PokerPages. I don't know Amy at all but know she's in the inner circle. I always would email Mike Paulle alot when he was blogging. Should be some good stuff.
• Creativity Breeds Madness: fuel55 is a forty-something Ph.D. from Canada who is a successful tourney player. We'll see him in this year's WSOP.
  
• Project Dirtbag: Vaughn Sandman is a playing professionally open about his struggles and challenges as he's trying to make a go of it.
  
• Jenn Chantal: A lovely lady who's pursuing the game. Some neat photos.
• Allison's Brain: In one ear, out the finger. A nice cutie-pie, and you can see her take on M:I:III. Very pink.
• Maybe I Am: A just turned thirty lady, dark hair, very nice, nice looking fellow, saying stuff that I don't necessarily get.

OK, here is the paragraph from these folks. "At my age, anyone I'm inclined to meet reminds me of someone I've met in the past. I do not know a single person who could not be helped by good psychotherapy. When greeting a co-worker, you shouldn't walk up and shake genitilia. Becca, I'm only doing this because I love you. I ask you to consider the dynamics of this move and use it in your own play. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I liked it." Copying seems a heck of a lot harder than writing as you don't have to correct so much or cut and paste all the time. Too much work, so I'll just wing it more. By the way, Clonie's Poker Tips. We might as well have cc's poker tips for that matter.

Sorry for the random gobbly-gook. Bankroll back up to $8,800 or so. Hope everyone had a good weekend. Hitting the bed tonight (Sunday night), so have a great Monday.