Friday, June 28, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
Still Alive and Kicking
Don't worry, I am still alive and kicking. Just been extremely busy the last two months, but things have started to slow down. Although I expect things will get extremely busy for me in the upcoming months as we head into August. Early morning Friday insomnia finds me with some quiet alone time at home.
I took the LSAT on June 10. Not exactly sure how I did. The LSAT consists of five 35 minute timed sections along with a 35 minute writing sample with a 15 minute break in between sections 3 and 4. The graded portion of the test is comprised of 4 sections, 2 logical reasoning sections, 1 analytical reasoning, and 1 reading comprehension. The astute reader will notice that only adds up to 4. There is a fifth timed section of the test that is called the experimental section that is used to test drive future LSAT questions. So there are 3 possibilities for any given LSAT, there could be 3 logical reasoning sections, 1 each of analytical and reading comprehension, or 2 logical reasoning 2 analytical reasoning and 1 reading comprehension, or 2 logical reasoning 1 analytical reasoning and 2 reading comprehension. The test I took, I had 3 logical reasoning, and 1 each of the the other two sections. On the analytical reasoning, I unfortunately ran out of time, and had to guess on the last 5 questions or so, and on one of the logical reasoning sections, I did not mark on answer on one question that I had skipped and intended to come back to, but ran out of time. I was shooting for a score between 165 and 170. I may have fallen a little short of that mark, but should hopefully score in the solid 160s. We shall see, the test score should be reported back in early July. My law school application for University of San Diego school of law, starting in the fall of 2013 has been submitted. My personal statement first draft initially consisted of almost 1500 words and was 4 pages in length. Most personal statement essays should not be longer that about 2 pages, double spaced, so I had to do quite a bit of editing to get it to fit within the required length. So now, I am just playing the waiting game.
Since April 1, I have put in 283 hours worth of poker and I am up a a tad, nothing to write home about. Although this past Wednesday I lost 4000 playing 40/80 mixed half holdem half Omaha high only in a short handed game. I was definitely the favorite in the holdem rounds, while a dog in the Omaha rounds.
Back in middle May, I started playing a gentleman from LA heads up fairly regularly on Wednesdays. We have a standard agreement. We try and start by 9am. Loser can quit at anytime, winner needs to play until at least 1pm, unless the game gets to at least 5 handed and then the winner can quit too at anytime, otherwise the winner must stick around to at least 1 pm in that case as well, in case the game gets short again. I also negotiated with the casino manager a time charge of $5 per person per half hour when the game is heads up. So that definitely makes the game worth playing now. Before the casino was dropping $1 per hand even heads up, which makes overcoming that drop very tough unless you have a very large edge on your opponent.
My opponent is not the worst heads up player, I have ever played, but he's certainly not the best and I certainly have an edge over him. Although he's currently up about 500 on me after about 18 hours of play, including our very first session that lasted only 2 hours where I lost 6000 to him in the most absurd ludicrous fashion. Our first heads up session consisted of me essentially losing every big pot, with just absolute coolers like, over pair versus over pair, two pair versus better two pair, set versus set, straight versus straight, and flush versus flush. As I am not afraid to put in action when I have a big hand, you can imagine how big those pots were and how quickly I got decimated. And unfortunately our first heads up session, we hadn't negotiated our deal yet and we got started late at 11 am, and he had to quit at 1 pm. Remove those two hours from hell and I am currently winning at a clip of 343.75 an hour or over 4 big bets per hour.
In our last session, we started heads up last Friday at around 8:45 am. Two hours later, he quit me and waited for the game to fill up before he would start playing again. We're supposed to play again this morning, so we'll see how it goes.
In our last session, he went absolutely bonkers over a hand I played, in which he thought I played it horribly, but only because he didn't remember the board or the action properly. I opened the button with 86o, and he 3-bet the big blind with what he claims is AA. Flop comes A45 rainbow. He bets, I called. Turn is a 2. He bet I called. River was a 3, and he check/called, and I of course won with a 6 high straight. Now he claims that I raised the the flop with 8 high and called his 3-bet, with no pair no draw, and that the board came A52,3,4. He was willing to offer me 2:1 odds that the board wasn't A45, my $500 against his $1000.
I declined, as I saw no upside potential in taking a wager like that. In any case he kept pestering me about it, so I offered him $100 straight up with the winner getting $80 and giving the floor $20 to go look at the tape. I won of course, and he still wouldn't let up, implying that I colluded with the floor man to angle him out of $100.
Now let's think about this logically. First, the $100 is a fairly meaningless amount of money in the grand scheme of things, and why would I want to damage my reputation over that? Second, he's seen me play enough at this point, that he should realize that I do play somewhat sanely and have folded to his flop bet in 3-bet pots somewhat regularly as one should given my wide button opening range, and his super narrow big blind 3-betting range. Given that when these pots occur, he's putting in the 7th bet out of position and I can call getting 7:1 immediate, with implied odds of usually at least 6 more small bets, given that his showdown percentage and turn continuation bet in these 3 bet pots is almost 100%.
So I can call the flop with as little as single over card if I think it's live and still be mathematically correct in doing so. Calling with a gut shot to the nuts is a no brainer. Turn or river comes a 7, I may get infinite bets from him with his supposedly top-set. In any case, I don't really care what he thinks of my heads up play, but I got super annoyed that he kept pestering me about it, so that's what really motivated me to get the floor to look at the tape, so I could hopefully shut him up, but to no avail. It's not super surprising to me anyways, as he's shown through comments to me previously while we've been playing heads up, that his memory of the board cards and the action is circumspect.
Family vacation plans are still in the works. My two older kids are attending vacation bible school (VBS) at the local Korean Catholic Church this week. And then starting next week, the two older kids will be attending Gateways Summer School in the afternoon. We still need to go to the San Diego County Fair and we'll probably do that next week some time. After the kids are done with their Summer School, my wife has a planned a trip up to northern California to visit her sister and her brother-in-law. Her mother and her nephews from Minnesota will also be there, so our kids will have some other kids to play with as well. She wants to make a couple of side trips as well, one likely to Lake Tahoe, and another to the Bay Area. And there's talk of us going to Wichita as well. I'd still like to sneak in a boys trip to Las Vegas, but we'll see about that.
This update killed about an hours worth of my morning, so I guess I'll sign off now, grab a shower, and start heading into the "office."
I took the LSAT on June 10. Not exactly sure how I did. The LSAT consists of five 35 minute timed sections along with a 35 minute writing sample with a 15 minute break in between sections 3 and 4. The graded portion of the test is comprised of 4 sections, 2 logical reasoning sections, 1 analytical reasoning, and 1 reading comprehension. The astute reader will notice that only adds up to 4. There is a fifth timed section of the test that is called the experimental section that is used to test drive future LSAT questions. So there are 3 possibilities for any given LSAT, there could be 3 logical reasoning sections, 1 each of analytical and reading comprehension, or 2 logical reasoning 2 analytical reasoning and 1 reading comprehension, or 2 logical reasoning 1 analytical reasoning and 2 reading comprehension. The test I took, I had 3 logical reasoning, and 1 each of the the other two sections. On the analytical reasoning, I unfortunately ran out of time, and had to guess on the last 5 questions or so, and on one of the logical reasoning sections, I did not mark on answer on one question that I had skipped and intended to come back to, but ran out of time. I was shooting for a score between 165 and 170. I may have fallen a little short of that mark, but should hopefully score in the solid 160s. We shall see, the test score should be reported back in early July. My law school application for University of San Diego school of law, starting in the fall of 2013 has been submitted. My personal statement first draft initially consisted of almost 1500 words and was 4 pages in length. Most personal statement essays should not be longer that about 2 pages, double spaced, so I had to do quite a bit of editing to get it to fit within the required length. So now, I am just playing the waiting game.
Since April 1, I have put in 283 hours worth of poker and I am up a a tad, nothing to write home about. Although this past Wednesday I lost 4000 playing 40/80 mixed half holdem half Omaha high only in a short handed game. I was definitely the favorite in the holdem rounds, while a dog in the Omaha rounds.
Back in middle May, I started playing a gentleman from LA heads up fairly regularly on Wednesdays. We have a standard agreement. We try and start by 9am. Loser can quit at anytime, winner needs to play until at least 1pm, unless the game gets to at least 5 handed and then the winner can quit too at anytime, otherwise the winner must stick around to at least 1 pm in that case as well, in case the game gets short again. I also negotiated with the casino manager a time charge of $5 per person per half hour when the game is heads up. So that definitely makes the game worth playing now. Before the casino was dropping $1 per hand even heads up, which makes overcoming that drop very tough unless you have a very large edge on your opponent.
My opponent is not the worst heads up player, I have ever played, but he's certainly not the best and I certainly have an edge over him. Although he's currently up about 500 on me after about 18 hours of play, including our very first session that lasted only 2 hours where I lost 6000 to him in the most absurd ludicrous fashion. Our first heads up session consisted of me essentially losing every big pot, with just absolute coolers like, over pair versus over pair, two pair versus better two pair, set versus set, straight versus straight, and flush versus flush. As I am not afraid to put in action when I have a big hand, you can imagine how big those pots were and how quickly I got decimated. And unfortunately our first heads up session, we hadn't negotiated our deal yet and we got started late at 11 am, and he had to quit at 1 pm. Remove those two hours from hell and I am currently winning at a clip of 343.75 an hour or over 4 big bets per hour.
In our last session, we started heads up last Friday at around 8:45 am. Two hours later, he quit me and waited for the game to fill up before he would start playing again. We're supposed to play again this morning, so we'll see how it goes.
In our last session, he went absolutely bonkers over a hand I played, in which he thought I played it horribly, but only because he didn't remember the board or the action properly. I opened the button with 86o, and he 3-bet the big blind with what he claims is AA. Flop comes A45 rainbow. He bets, I called. Turn is a 2. He bet I called. River was a 3, and he check/called, and I of course won with a 6 high straight. Now he claims that I raised the the flop with 8 high and called his 3-bet, with no pair no draw, and that the board came A52,3,4. He was willing to offer me 2:1 odds that the board wasn't A45, my $500 against his $1000.
I declined, as I saw no upside potential in taking a wager like that. In any case he kept pestering me about it, so I offered him $100 straight up with the winner getting $80 and giving the floor $20 to go look at the tape. I won of course, and he still wouldn't let up, implying that I colluded with the floor man to angle him out of $100.
Now let's think about this logically. First, the $100 is a fairly meaningless amount of money in the grand scheme of things, and why would I want to damage my reputation over that? Second, he's seen me play enough at this point, that he should realize that I do play somewhat sanely and have folded to his flop bet in 3-bet pots somewhat regularly as one should given my wide button opening range, and his super narrow big blind 3-betting range. Given that when these pots occur, he's putting in the 7th bet out of position and I can call getting 7:1 immediate, with implied odds of usually at least 6 more small bets, given that his showdown percentage and turn continuation bet in these 3 bet pots is almost 100%.
So I can call the flop with as little as single over card if I think it's live and still be mathematically correct in doing so. Calling with a gut shot to the nuts is a no brainer. Turn or river comes a 7, I may get infinite bets from him with his supposedly top-set. In any case, I don't really care what he thinks of my heads up play, but I got super annoyed that he kept pestering me about it, so that's what really motivated me to get the floor to look at the tape, so I could hopefully shut him up, but to no avail. It's not super surprising to me anyways, as he's shown through comments to me previously while we've been playing heads up, that his memory of the board cards and the action is circumspect.
Family vacation plans are still in the works. My two older kids are attending vacation bible school (VBS) at the local Korean Catholic Church this week. And then starting next week, the two older kids will be attending Gateways Summer School in the afternoon. We still need to go to the San Diego County Fair and we'll probably do that next week some time. After the kids are done with their Summer School, my wife has a planned a trip up to northern California to visit her sister and her brother-in-law. Her mother and her nephews from Minnesota will also be there, so our kids will have some other kids to play with as well. She wants to make a couple of side trips as well, one likely to Lake Tahoe, and another to the Bay Area. And there's talk of us going to Wichita as well. I'd still like to sneak in a boys trip to Las Vegas, but we'll see about that.
This update killed about an hours worth of my morning, so I guess I'll sign off now, grab a shower, and start heading into the "office."
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