Forgot to write about this - we just got back from the Simply Red concert. I didn't really want to go but I'm glad I did - it was a good concert.
The lead singer looks pretty old but he was absolutely phenomenal - I don't think I've ever sung that good in my life and I doubt I ever will. Every single note was spot on, and he just sounded amazing.
In other news, Clau and I realized that we live in a fantastic location for going to concerts - 20 minutes on the subway and we're there. Nice.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Vacation!
Finally taking that vacation - we leave for Thailand tomorrow, two glorious weeks of solitude, beach, tropical fruits, and scuba diving. Really, really looking forward to this...
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Poker hand on my mind
OK, just got back from Salzburg, among many other things I went to the casino last night and played some poker. One hand in particular sticks with me.
The table's a mixed group, 7-handed. Twice have I have watched one fellow get all-in when he had the other opponent absolutely crushed, and the other guy sucked out on him. One time a opponent hit a two-outer on the river after being put all-in on the turn, and the second time the opponent actually hit a runner-runner full-house. I don't even know what you call that, when the opponent needs two specific cards on the turn and river and hits them both. I call it "time to call it a night" but I'm sure there's a more technical term for it.
So anyway, I'm playing 2/4 NLH, the only game available at this swanky place, and I've got maybe 120 in chips in front of me. I look down at AKo (that's Ace-King off-suit) in about 4th position. The aforementioned guy in 1st position limps in for 4 along with the fellow behind him, I raise it to 12, everybody folds, and they both call the 12. Flop comes Jh-4c-Th. I now have two over-cards and a gutshot straight draw. Not particularly great, but not terrible, and even if one of these guys has paired the board I probably have 10 cards that will give me a better hand (any A, K, or Q). Both players check, I c-bet out 30 (about 2/3 of the pot), unlucky bastard smooth calls, the other guy bails out.
Turn is a rag, something like 5d. Unlucky fellow checks. The only thing that really makes a lot of sense here is that he's chasing the flush or less likely a straight of his own. I figure if he's chasing the flush, I'm gonna make it totally unreasonable for him to do so. I bet out 60 this time, which is a bit more than 1/2 the pot (leaving me with only about 35 in front of me), and he...calls. So this doesn't make any sense, unless he's just willing to chase the flush at any price. I mean, I know not everyone thinks about odds and all that, but I saw this guy make spectacular shoves before and get screwed, so I have no idea what he's doing. River card is a very unfortunate Qh, giving me my straight, and most likely giving him the flush. He looks at me and says "I put you all in". At this point it's about 35 more to call, and there's already about 200 in the pot, which means that I kinda have to call, even though I fully expect to get beat. I shove my chips in and patiently wait for him to show his hand. Eventually he turns over two tens, for a flopped set. I guess he misread my immediate facial expression (confusion) for defeat, but I very promptly turned over my AK for the rivered straight. He gets a completely disgusted look on his face and starts going off about folks sucking out on him on the river. I said something like, "sorry man, but I had to make that call".
Here's what really confuses me. Thinking about this from his perspective, what should he have assumed I had?
Pre-flop - I've been playing pretty damn tight at this table, so I gotta have something pretty good to be raising on top of two limpers in middle position here - at minimum a med-high pocket pair (like maybe 99) or else two paint cards like AK, AQ, AJ. When the flop comes with two high-ish cards and two hearts and I c-bet, and he's flopped a set, then by far the best thing for him to do is to raise me. Actually, he probably should have bet out in the first place, but check-call is about the worst play he can possibly do. Best to just bet out or check-raise after the flop and put the pressure on me to decide if it's worth it or not. Maybe I've got a flush draw, in which case I'll either call or fold, maybe I've got two overcards, in which case I'll either call or fold (but more likely fold), maybe I've got JJ and I'll re-raise him, and maybe I've flopped a pair or already had an overpair, in which case I'll come along like a lamb to the slaughter. If he just check-calls he's really got very little idea, particularly when it's a c-bet. But, I'm guessing he wanted to milk it - not a good idea with a textured flop (two connected cards and two hearts). Same goes for after the turn when a completely unconnected card showed up - he should have just put the pressure on and forced me to go all-in or fold right there. Now, admittedly he probably thinks I've got an overpair here, so maybe he's just letting me hang myself with my own rope, but a set's not enough of a powerhouse hand to get away with that, unless you've got a completely unconnected board and you've got top set, and even then you're living a bit dangerously.
The final big screwup is when that last card shows up. Puts three connected hearts on the board, and should definitely be a warning sign. I could realistically have a few hands that just connected, like QQ or AK or even AKh for the royal flush (I didn't, but I could have!). So, at that point, perhaps he should have played it ever so slightly safer and just checked, figuring that he'll call if I push all-in. Or, to put it another way, what could I possibly have that would mean that I would fold to the final all-in bet (nothing that I can think of) vs. what might I reasonably have that would beat him?
So, to summarize, he played that hand terribly. I think he got a lot of sympathy based on what other folks had seen before, but anyone who seriously thought about it would probably also conclude that he did a bad job of it.
Incidentally, the session went really interestingly. I started with 125 in chips, at one point was down to about 60 or 70, mostly from just giving away the blinds when the cards were not coming and from a couple of times where my promising pre-flop hands went nowhere. I lost a quick 20 on AcQc when the flop came down with Kc-xQs-x and two cowboys started getting into a pissing match (but at least I got out of the way quickly, needless to say I would have lost it all if I had stayed in) and was starting to wonder if I wanted to try to use my ATM card in Austria or if I should just call it a night. With about 40 or 50 left in my stack I limped into a pot in 1st position with Ac7c with about 5 other players, the BB popped it up to 12, three players call including me. We see a four-way flop of A-3-7 rainbow, BB checks, I push all-in (less than the size of the pot, but the only thing that would make this a bad call is if someone happens to have 33 or 77, and hopefully someone has Ax and wants to come along for the ride), everybody folds to BB, BB calls me with KK, meaning that there are exactly two cards remaining in the deck that can save him, or to put it another way making him about a 10-to-1 underdog. Amazingly he does not suck out on me (this guy had been on a serious suckout roll and I think everyone was actually expecting a king to show up), and suddenly I'm back to about my starting stack. That and the hand I described earlier put me at about 325 when the casino shut down at 2:30am. I got there at about 12:30am so it was definitely a good session!
I just love playing live - it's so much more fun than playing on the computer. I met a young guy there who lives in Munich, he said he comes down once in a while since it's only about 75 minutes away. I might have to start making Salzburg road trips more often.
The table's a mixed group, 7-handed. Twice have I have watched one fellow get all-in when he had the other opponent absolutely crushed, and the other guy sucked out on him. One time a opponent hit a two-outer on the river after being put all-in on the turn, and the second time the opponent actually hit a runner-runner full-house. I don't even know what you call that, when the opponent needs two specific cards on the turn and river and hits them both. I call it "time to call it a night" but I'm sure there's a more technical term for it.
So anyway, I'm playing 2/4 NLH, the only game available at this swanky place, and I've got maybe 120 in chips in front of me. I look down at AKo (that's Ace-King off-suit) in about 4th position. The aforementioned guy in 1st position limps in for 4 along with the fellow behind him, I raise it to 12, everybody folds, and they both call the 12. Flop comes Jh-4c-Th. I now have two over-cards and a gutshot straight draw. Not particularly great, but not terrible, and even if one of these guys has paired the board I probably have 10 cards that will give me a better hand (any A, K, or Q). Both players check, I c-bet out 30 (about 2/3 of the pot), unlucky bastard smooth calls, the other guy bails out.
Turn is a rag, something like 5d. Unlucky fellow checks. The only thing that really makes a lot of sense here is that he's chasing the flush or less likely a straight of his own. I figure if he's chasing the flush, I'm gonna make it totally unreasonable for him to do so. I bet out 60 this time, which is a bit more than 1/2 the pot (leaving me with only about 35 in front of me), and he...calls. So this doesn't make any sense, unless he's just willing to chase the flush at any price. I mean, I know not everyone thinks about odds and all that, but I saw this guy make spectacular shoves before and get screwed, so I have no idea what he's doing. River card is a very unfortunate Qh, giving me my straight, and most likely giving him the flush. He looks at me and says "I put you all in". At this point it's about 35 more to call, and there's already about 200 in the pot, which means that I kinda have to call, even though I fully expect to get beat. I shove my chips in and patiently wait for him to show his hand. Eventually he turns over two tens, for a flopped set. I guess he misread my immediate facial expression (confusion) for defeat, but I very promptly turned over my AK for the rivered straight. He gets a completely disgusted look on his face and starts going off about folks sucking out on him on the river. I said something like, "sorry man, but I had to make that call".
Here's what really confuses me. Thinking about this from his perspective, what should he have assumed I had?
Pre-flop - I've been playing pretty damn tight at this table, so I gotta have something pretty good to be raising on top of two limpers in middle position here - at minimum a med-high pocket pair (like maybe 99) or else two paint cards like AK, AQ, AJ. When the flop comes with two high-ish cards and two hearts and I c-bet, and he's flopped a set, then by far the best thing for him to do is to raise me. Actually, he probably should have bet out in the first place, but check-call is about the worst play he can possibly do. Best to just bet out or check-raise after the flop and put the pressure on me to decide if it's worth it or not. Maybe I've got a flush draw, in which case I'll either call or fold, maybe I've got two overcards, in which case I'll either call or fold (but more likely fold), maybe I've got JJ and I'll re-raise him, and maybe I've flopped a pair or already had an overpair, in which case I'll come along like a lamb to the slaughter. If he just check-calls he's really got very little idea, particularly when it's a c-bet. But, I'm guessing he wanted to milk it - not a good idea with a textured flop (two connected cards and two hearts). Same goes for after the turn when a completely unconnected card showed up - he should have just put the pressure on and forced me to go all-in or fold right there. Now, admittedly he probably thinks I've got an overpair here, so maybe he's just letting me hang myself with my own rope, but a set's not enough of a powerhouse hand to get away with that, unless you've got a completely unconnected board and you've got top set, and even then you're living a bit dangerously.
The final big screwup is when that last card shows up. Puts three connected hearts on the board, and should definitely be a warning sign. I could realistically have a few hands that just connected, like QQ or AK or even AKh for the royal flush (I didn't, but I could have!). So, at that point, perhaps he should have played it ever so slightly safer and just checked, figuring that he'll call if I push all-in. Or, to put it another way, what could I possibly have that would mean that I would fold to the final all-in bet (nothing that I can think of) vs. what might I reasonably have that would beat him?
So, to summarize, he played that hand terribly. I think he got a lot of sympathy based on what other folks had seen before, but anyone who seriously thought about it would probably also conclude that he did a bad job of it.
Incidentally, the session went really interestingly. I started with 125 in chips, at one point was down to about 60 or 70, mostly from just giving away the blinds when the cards were not coming and from a couple of times where my promising pre-flop hands went nowhere. I lost a quick 20 on AcQc when the flop came down with Kc-xQs-x and two cowboys started getting into a pissing match (but at least I got out of the way quickly, needless to say I would have lost it all if I had stayed in) and was starting to wonder if I wanted to try to use my ATM card in Austria or if I should just call it a night. With about 40 or 50 left in my stack I limped into a pot in 1st position with Ac7c with about 5 other players, the BB popped it up to 12, three players call including me. We see a four-way flop of A-3-7 rainbow, BB checks, I push all-in (less than the size of the pot, but the only thing that would make this a bad call is if someone happens to have 33 or 77, and hopefully someone has Ax and wants to come along for the ride), everybody folds to BB, BB calls me with KK, meaning that there are exactly two cards remaining in the deck that can save him, or to put it another way making him about a 10-to-1 underdog. Amazingly he does not suck out on me (this guy had been on a serious suckout roll and I think everyone was actually expecting a king to show up), and suddenly I'm back to about my starting stack. That and the hand I described earlier put me at about 325 when the casino shut down at 2:30am. I got there at about 12:30am so it was definitely a good session!
I just love playing live - it's so much more fun than playing on the computer. I met a young guy there who lives in Munich, he said he comes down once in a while since it's only about 75 minutes away. I might have to start making Salzburg road trips more often.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Mashups
I am soooo into mashups. I really need to thank my buddy Matt for starting me on this road. You already saw the youtube mashups, which I still think is one of the most genius things ever. My buddy James shot me a link for this video and it's also brilliant. Here's the youtube version for those of you without facebook (the FB version is much higher quality, though):
Also on the mashup front, I may have mentioned earlier how in love I am with the 2007 Best of Bootie album. Go download it, it's free, and listen to "Funky Goes to Hollywood" or "Tequila Lip Gloss". I am constantly on the lookout for new and awesome mashups though, so send them my way if you have any good ones...
Also on the mashup front, I may have mentioned earlier how in love I am with the 2007 Best of Bootie album. Go download it, it's free, and listen to "Funky Goes to Hollywood" or "Tequila Lip Gloss". I am constantly on the lookout for new and awesome mashups though, so send them my way if you have any good ones...
Chillin' - gettin' paid
After the NDTV project finished, I've been doing probably an average of 3 hours of work per day, and the rest of the time is dedicated to cleaning, errands, catching up on blog posts and TV, etc. It's been grand.
My in-laws are in town for the next few weeks, then Claudia and I are heading to Thailand on vacation. We have booked ourselves into swanky places the whole way though - it's a total red-carpet situation and should be very relaxing.
After we get back from vacation, we have about a week free and then my mom will hopefully be coming to see us. She's never been to the continent before so I think she'll like it.
After that, we'll see. I really, really want to work out a trip back to the states, but that will probably have to wait until late August, since plane fares for June / early August are ludicrously high.
And, of course, at some point there will be another project! Till then, I'm mostly chillin' and gettin' paid...
My in-laws are in town for the next few weeks, then Claudia and I are heading to Thailand on vacation. We have booked ourselves into swanky places the whole way though - it's a total red-carpet situation and should be very relaxing.
After we get back from vacation, we have about a week free and then my mom will hopefully be coming to see us. She's never been to the continent before so I think she'll like it.
After that, we'll see. I really, really want to work out a trip back to the states, but that will probably have to wait until late August, since plane fares for June / early August are ludicrously high.
And, of course, at some point there will be another project! Till then, I'm mostly chillin' and gettin' paid...
Cars for po' folks
While they're not generally my type of folks, I have over the course of my many years become friends with some pretty right-wing people. Of these, a few (maybe 5-10) are people that I am truly happy to call my friends, the rest are folks who I ended up meeting or working with and occasionally keep in touch with for whatever reason.
So, a post from one of them (not one of the close friends) got me thinking - he was referencing this article (which in turn references this article) and he had this to say about it:
Out of the 200 families, 40 ended up losing the job within the first year but keeping the car. Out of those, 2 ended up re-employed and are no longer receiving welfare assistance. Out of the remaining 38, we're pretty sure that 15 of them intentionally gamed the program just to get the car. The rest, we don't know.
Out of the remaining 160 families, another 10 lost the job after the 1-year period was up and are back to full-time welfare assistance.
Out of the remaining 150, 100 families have been completely without state assistance since receiving the car. Out of those, 5 have risen to a family income of more than $60,000/year (or whatever middle-class benchmark you want to use), etc. etc.
To get most of that data would be a simple matter of looking up the case files of the folks who received cars - for the rest, you would have to talk to 200 families or case workers to catch the really interesting details (like, for example, that one guy who started his own business using the car and is now a successful entrepreneur, or those 10 families who realize that they were actually better off before they made the deal to get the car, and would gladly go back in time and reverse it if they could). Call it an average of 10 minutes per family / case worker, and you're talking 2000 minutes, or about 30 man-hours to get a decent picture of every single family who participated in the program - throw in another 40 hours (and I'm being pretty generous here - it's probably a lot fewer hours) to run data analysis and write a report on it, and you can have a detailed picture of this government program, what works, what doesn't work, and how it can be tuned to improve. Or, if the data is not at all encouraging, then maybe the program should be scrapped.
I've kinda lost momentum with this post due to being forced to work (gasp!) many times during the writing of it, so I'll stop here. I guess if I had to make a conclusion, it would be this: I expect people to be reasonably good at what they do, particularly when there's theoretically some sort of hurdle or test (like an election) that they need to pass in order to get the job. I would expect that folks who come up with programs like these would have a process and resources in place to determine the program's efficacy, hopefully accounting for some of the factors that can't easily be expressed quantitatively. Maybe everything I've described is already being done, but I'm guessing not...
So, a post from one of them (not one of the close friends) got me thinking - he was referencing this article (which in turn references this article) and he had this to say about it:
Disgusting. The state ought to have no part of this - I have no problem with private charities and enterprises taking up the cause of providing for those who are lacking the resources to get by, but tax dollars that are automatically deducted by payroll cannot and should not be used for this purpose. I'm having a hell of a time paying for the car I have already and saving for a minivan, I'm not about to go buy the poor people in my neighborhood cars!!!Which, sadly, is so often the conservative approach to things.So, my response to his post (which, due to a fat-finger, I didn't send):
From TFA: "Kehoe defended the program, saying the state breaks even by cutting welfare payments to the family - about $6,000 a year."I continued on with some other stuff (before I accidentally erased it), but you get the gist. I often wonder about government programs; I mean, it's impossible to account for all the ramifications of these things when you're talking about tens or hundreds of thousands of people, but at least small program like this, you could try! 65 cars per year, the program's been running since 2006, so let's call it 200 cars so far to make the math easier. Spend 10 minutes following up on each family that received a car, you might come up with something like this:
So I guess it evens out, although since there's apparantly a 20% recidivism rate (for lack of a better term), it still ends up being about $1200/yr/car, and at the rate of 65 cars/year, that's still a net cost of $78k/year for the program.
Also from TFA: "To get the cars, they must be unable to reach work by public transportation and have a clean driving record. The program is only available to families on welfare with children."
You know, this always bothers me; people come up with ideas like this, and in general I think they're a good idea, but could we PLEASE try to come up with a control group?!? I mean, I'm guessing there are a lot more families that qualify for the program than actually receive a car, so can we try to get some stats on families that qualified but for whatever reason (didn't ask for a car, a car wasn't available, etc) didn't get a car. Take the differences in control group vs. families who got cars, and if the cars statistically cost less than the amount of welfare payments you're _not_ giving to the families who receive them, then it's a good deal. If not, then it's a expense that needs to be seriously examined. Why can't we ever get data on these things?!?
Out of the 200 families, 40 ended up losing the job within the first year but keeping the car. Out of those, 2 ended up re-employed and are no longer receiving welfare assistance. Out of the remaining 38, we're pretty sure that 15 of them intentionally gamed the program just to get the car. The rest, we don't know.
Out of the remaining 160 families, another 10 lost the job after the 1-year period was up and are back to full-time welfare assistance.
Out of the remaining 150, 100 families have been completely without state assistance since receiving the car. Out of those, 5 have risen to a family income of more than $60,000/year (or whatever middle-class benchmark you want to use), etc. etc.
To get most of that data would be a simple matter of looking up the case files of the folks who received cars - for the rest, you would have to talk to 200 families or case workers to catch the really interesting details (like, for example, that one guy who started his own business using the car and is now a successful entrepreneur, or those 10 families who realize that they were actually better off before they made the deal to get the car, and would gladly go back in time and reverse it if they could). Call it an average of 10 minutes per family / case worker, and you're talking 2000 minutes, or about 30 man-hours to get a decent picture of every single family who participated in the program - throw in another 40 hours (and I'm being pretty generous here - it's probably a lot fewer hours) to run data analysis and write a report on it, and you can have a detailed picture of this government program, what works, what doesn't work, and how it can be tuned to improve. Or, if the data is not at all encouraging, then maybe the program should be scrapped.
I've kinda lost momentum with this post due to being forced to work (gasp!) many times during the writing of it, so I'll stop here. I guess if I had to make a conclusion, it would be this: I expect people to be reasonably good at what they do, particularly when there's theoretically some sort of hurdle or test (like an election) that they need to pass in order to get the job. I would expect that folks who come up with programs like these would have a process and resources in place to determine the program's efficacy, hopefully accounting for some of the factors that can't easily be expressed quantitatively. Maybe everything I've described is already being done, but I'm guessing not...