Writing from Work
The install did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. It actually took three tries to get everything up and running, and two and a half hours later (when I finally gave up and went to bed) it still hadn't gotten exactly what I was hoping for.
What went wrong.
Well, the first two installs both bombed out at different places. Truth told, the first try I was actually expecting to fail exactly where it did... It got all the way through the install process, then crashed and burned on the reboot. Same spot that it did when I first switched over: the error messages were a little more helpful this time around, but it seems that the old Presario does not like to boot Linux when the BIOS's default video adapter is set to PCI instead of the on-board. All sorts of low-end memory conflicts. The prescribed fix -- to disable the motherboard video completely -- is not available with my particular BIOS. I've ran into this problem and enabled my video card before, so I know how (lspci to find the address of the video card, then adding the card's address and driver - ati - to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file), but even if they knew what was causing it, a novice wouldn't know the fix without hitting the support channels.
Instead of fixing, I purposefully went the n00b route and tried the install disc again. This time was a little different... the fail was actually unexpected. GRUB failed to install. So I tried the LILO bootloader. It ran, but apparently didn't actually take, because I was given a "Welcome to GRUB" message on restart. I had also played with the install options, and apparently messed up X enough that it wouldn't redisplay the log-in screen.
Third time, I thought, I'll just let it do its thing. So I leave the preseed ubuntu-desktop. I hit the noapic, nolapic, acpi=off options, but not the expert. I answer the setup questions (Language, Keyboard, Time Zone) and let it do it's thing.
So What's Missing
Whenever there is an 'alternative', there are going to be differences. Aside from the obvious (and changable) things -- font differences, menu and quick-launch bars at the top of the screen, color palette -- there are some working differences - or at least inconveniences - out of the box.
The most noticible of them are the multimedia codecs: wmv, mov, and mp3 all require codecs that aren't among the initial install. Flash and Java get the short shrift as well. All are easy to get running, most with one or two clicks and a password. iPods are more of a problem - or so I understand... I don't have one[1].
Really, that's it. Silverlight would be a problem, but there really isn't that many websites using it, and the Moonlight replacement works nicely.
After I quit jerking around and actually let the installer do the work, it was a breeze, took maybe 40 minutes. Most of that was waiting on the mirror; not a big surprise within the first week of a release. Local install and DVD options are available that would have eliminated that.
Not the best experience in the world, I will admit; but even with the two false starts, it still took me less time than the last non-recovery install of Windows did.
[1] My wife does, but it's synced to her computer, not mine.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Ubuntu 9.04 Install log.
Posting from Windows
After much consideration, I decided to wipe the Debian part of my home system and install Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackelope). The main reason being I love to tinker - I hate leaving well enough alone.
So, I backed up my files (a DVDs worth of tarred MP3s, some pics, and some old writing samples I've lugged around since Win98 was shiny and new) and decided to approach installing from a fresh point of view.
I don't think many people are going to have a spare hard drive lying around, so I (surreptitiously) checked to see what programs I use -- if any -- don't have a version or equivalent available for Ubuntu. For me, the list was short: Windows Media Encoder 9 -- which muxes video for my daughter's MixMax -- is a MS only thing requiring a registered version of Windows to download and use. A lot of Windows-native programs that don't have an analogue can be run with WINE. And you can find out if a program you want to use will work by looking it up in Wine's application database. Unfortunately, neither my WME9 or Full Tilt Poker client (which has a Mac version, go fig) play well with WINE. No big deal; I can dual boot. [1]
First things first, I went to ubuntu.com and download the Jaunty alternate-install disc[2]. Like most distibutions, it came as an ISO file. ISOs are bit-by-bit copys (images) of a CD or DVD -- in this case a CD. XP doesn't handle ISOs natively, and if you don't have a program like Nero that can burn an image to disc, I'd recommend a program like InfraRecorder. From Ubuntu's download page, you can choose which version to download and grab the file directly from Canonical's servers. Down the page is another couple options. I have uTorrent installed on my windows side, so I used the torrent download. For me, this has a couple advantages. The most important for me is built-in MD5 check-summing. MD5 is an algorythm that creates a number (a sum) based on the contents of a file. If the contents of the file are changed even slighty - for example, say from packet loss or corruption during download - there is a large change in the MD5-created sum. By checking the sum of your downloaded file against the sum of the source, you can ensure that the data that was received is the same as the data that was sent. This becomes especially important when dealing with programs and the underlying framework that will run your computer. The difference is multiplied: doing a checksum just at the end means you would have to redo the entire ~700MB download if the checksum was wrong. The torrent protocol's incremental checksum means that you the client (program) can discard corrupt sections as it's downloading -- meaning it only has to re-request 1 or 2 MB at a time instead of 700.
There are other advantages of using the P2P transfer; One, once a file is sufficiently seeded it takes a tremendous burden off of the original servers, and two, it is often faster than the single-point download.
Once the ISO was downloaded, checksummed and burned; I used the disk cleanup and defrag utilities to make room on my hard drive for the install. I come up with 15 GB of free space on my first hard drive. Since this is a dual-boot system, I'm going to use that 15GB to store stuff that I'll want to be able to access from either platform - music, small vids, etc. Since XP can only natively access FAT and NTFS file systems, I'll format that as NTFS and make it a shared folder -- since it is a single-user system, there should be no problem with permissions. If there comes a time where I need more users, I can change that at a later date.
Since I do have a second HD, I'll just use it as my bootable linux partition.
It's 9:38, and I'm shutting down to do the install now.
1> Yes, I already knew all this before. Just like I knew that my particular model of Presario (SR1103WM) doesn't play well with LiveCDs, and needs the noapic nolapic acpi=off flags in order to actually install the Linux kernel. All this info -- and probably the ones for your computer as well -- is fairly easy to find with google.
2> See [1]. One other issue that poppe up on a google search: This presario model -- and linux on Compaqs in general apparently -- have had a problem in the past with kernel panic if the BIOS defaults to something other than the onboard video. We'll give it a try both ways -- it's a bug that's harder to find, and maybe the latest kernel has addressed the issue.
After much consideration, I decided to wipe the Debian part of my home system and install Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackelope). The main reason being I love to tinker - I hate leaving well enough alone.
So, I backed up my files (a DVDs worth of tarred MP3s, some pics, and some old writing samples I've lugged around since Win98 was shiny and new) and decided to approach installing from a fresh point of view.
I don't think many people are going to have a spare hard drive lying around, so I (surreptitiously) checked to see what programs I use -- if any -- don't have a version or equivalent available for Ubuntu. For me, the list was short: Windows Media Encoder 9 -- which muxes video for my daughter's MixMax -- is a MS only thing requiring a registered version of Windows to download and use. A lot of Windows-native programs that don't have an analogue can be run with WINE. And you can find out if a program you want to use will work by looking it up in Wine's application database. Unfortunately, neither my WME9 or Full Tilt Poker client (which has a Mac version, go fig) play well with WINE. No big deal; I can dual boot. [1]
First things first, I went to ubuntu.com and download the Jaunty alternate-install disc[2]. Like most distibutions, it came as an ISO file. ISOs are bit-by-bit copys (images) of a CD or DVD -- in this case a CD. XP doesn't handle ISOs natively, and if you don't have a program like Nero that can burn an image to disc, I'd recommend a program like InfraRecorder. From Ubuntu's download page, you can choose which version to download and grab the file directly from Canonical's servers. Down the page is another couple options. I have uTorrent installed on my windows side, so I used the torrent download. For me, this has a couple advantages. The most important for me is built-in MD5 check-summing. MD5 is an algorythm that creates a number (a sum) based on the contents of a file. If the contents of the file are changed even slighty - for example, say from packet loss or corruption during download - there is a large change in the MD5-created sum. By checking the sum of your downloaded file against the sum of the source, you can ensure that the data that was received is the same as the data that was sent. This becomes especially important when dealing with programs and the underlying framework that will run your computer. The difference is multiplied: doing a checksum just at the end means you would have to redo the entire ~700MB download if the checksum was wrong. The torrent protocol's incremental checksum means that you the client (program) can discard corrupt sections as it's downloading -- meaning it only has to re-request 1 or 2 MB at a time instead of 700.
There are other advantages of using the P2P transfer; One, once a file is sufficiently seeded it takes a tremendous burden off of the original servers, and two, it is often faster than the single-point download.
Once the ISO was downloaded, checksummed and burned; I used the disk cleanup and defrag utilities to make room on my hard drive for the install. I come up with 15 GB of free space on my first hard drive. Since this is a dual-boot system, I'm going to use that 15GB to store stuff that I'll want to be able to access from either platform - music, small vids, etc. Since XP can only natively access FAT and NTFS file systems, I'll format that as NTFS and make it a shared folder -- since it is a single-user system, there should be no problem with permissions. If there comes a time where I need more users, I can change that at a later date.
Since I do have a second HD, I'll just use it as my bootable linux partition.
It's 9:38, and I'm shutting down to do the install now.
1> Yes, I already knew all this before. Just like I knew that my particular model of Presario (SR1103WM) doesn't play well with LiveCDs, and needs the noapic nolapic acpi=off flags in order to actually install the Linux kernel. All this info -- and probably the ones for your computer as well -- is fairly easy to find with google.
2> See [1]. One other issue that poppe up on a google search: This presario model -- and linux on Compaqs in general apparently -- have had a problem in the past with kernel panic if the BIOS defaults to something other than the onboard video. We'll give it a try both ways -- it's a bug that's harder to find, and maybe the latest kernel has addressed the issue.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Mad Merlin
I've always been a bit enamored with the Arthurian mythos --- to be totally honest, that would be myths and legends as a whole, but the stories of King Arthur and his knights in particular. And as a country founded primarily by [former] citizens of the British Empire, I suppose that it is natural to explore the stories that shaped our culture.
Which is why I picked up - and read with interest - J. Robert King's retelling entitled "Mad Merlin". The plot will be no surprise to anyone remote familiar with the mythos - even half-remembered from the old Disney movie Sword in the Stone. All the pre-Lancelot standard set pieces are here. Arthur is born, fostered by Ector without knowledge of who he is, goes to London, pulls Excalbur from the stone, builds Camelot, marries Guennivere, sires a son (Mordred) by his half-sister, and defeats the Saxons at Badon Hill.
Where Mad Merlin differs from many retellings of the legends is in the origin of Excalibur and the treatment of Merlin himself - and injecting a rather post-modern sentiment about the power source of gods in the process.
What drew me in was the same thing that drew me into the old AD&D Planescape setting -- that for the gods, belief is power. Here, when the Saxons invade the Roman Britain, they bring with them their pantheon -- in particular Wotan (Odin), and Loki. With the Roman pantheon already displaced by Christianity and the Brittanic gods driven underground by the Roman conquerors, the visible -- and very deadly Saxon gods would be free to decimate the Brittanic forces.
How author King (not Arthur, King) uses these facts is a treat for the comparative-mythologically inclined and a spoiler I'm not willing to share, but it is safe to say that the wizened Merlin is much older than he first appears.
Pick it up, give it a read. It's pretty much supplanted White's The Once and Future King as my interpretation of choice.
Which is why I picked up - and read with interest - J. Robert King's retelling entitled "Mad Merlin". The plot will be no surprise to anyone remote familiar with the mythos - even half-remembered from the old Disney movie Sword in the Stone. All the pre-Lancelot standard set pieces are here. Arthur is born, fostered by Ector without knowledge of who he is, goes to London, pulls Excalbur from the stone, builds Camelot, marries Guennivere, sires a son (Mordred) by his half-sister, and defeats the Saxons at Badon Hill.
Where Mad Merlin differs from many retellings of the legends is in the origin of Excalibur and the treatment of Merlin himself - and injecting a rather post-modern sentiment about the power source of gods in the process.
What drew me in was the same thing that drew me into the old AD&D Planescape setting -- that for the gods, belief is power. Here, when the Saxons invade the Roman Britain, they bring with them their pantheon -- in particular Wotan (Odin), and Loki. With the Roman pantheon already displaced by Christianity and the Brittanic gods driven underground by the Roman conquerors, the visible -- and very deadly Saxon gods would be free to decimate the Brittanic forces.
How author King (not Arthur, King) uses these facts is a treat for the comparative-mythologically inclined and a spoiler I'm not willing to share, but it is safe to say that the wizened Merlin is much older than he first appears.
Pick it up, give it a read. It's pretty much supplanted White's The Once and Future King as my interpretation of choice.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
New addition
The task I find myself doing the most often with my computer is probably one of the most banal exercises known to man. If I had stuff on there I needed to keep private, or if the possibility existed someone might hack into my computer, I'd feel it would be one of the most important things you can do.
Of course, it is entering my password.
A mix of settings encourages -- actually, it requires -- this situation. Not only do I enter my password when logging in (for both CLI and GUI[1]), I enter it whenever I make changes to my system, when I pipe the view from my monitor up to the office, and even when I let my screen saver kick on.
So, I got to thinking. I'm entering 16 keystrokes every time I put in my password. Is there anything I do normally right after restoring my screen that I could automate?
The result? weatherd.py
In this case, I've decided to take advantage of the National Weather Service's automated feed -- that's the 'weather ddc' line. 'Weather' is part of the weather-utils package available for Debian. 'DDC' tells it to grab the current conditions from KDDC: the Dodge City Municipal Airport. Then we use feed that information to pyNotify, which makes it look like this:
Useful? Right now, that's debatable. It saves me from opening a new terminal and searching, or Firefox and getting the radar. But, writing this thing three different ways before making it work gave me some time to work on my programming skills.
TODO:
[1] CLI: Command Line Interface. Like DOS, if you were using a computer that long ago. I use this when I need to get results quickly: type in a command, get an answer back. Graphical User Interface. It shows the pretty pictures. I use this when I need to see what I'm doing -- photo viewing/editing, surfing the web (for the most part).
Of course, it is entering my password.
A mix of settings encourages -- actually, it requires -- this situation. Not only do I enter my password when logging in (for both CLI and GUI[1]), I enter it whenever I make changes to my system, when I pipe the view from my monitor up to the office, and even when I let my screen saver kick on.
So, I got to thinking. I'm entering 16 keystrokes every time I put in my password. Is there anything I do normally right after restoring my screen that I could automate?
The result? weatherd.py
So, what does this do? Well, a lot of programs on my computer send a signal when something happens. That session_bus stuff listens for those signals, and when it hears the screensaver saying "I'm turning off", it tells the function called 'screensaver_changed' to do its thing.
#!/usr/bin/env python
# weatherd.py v0.3: Current Weather Conditions when you return
# to your desktop.
# Stolen ruthlessly from
# PyGlue's Pause_Rythmbox_on_XScreensaver
# http://code.google.com/p/pyglue
# And the PyNotify Examples
# /usr/share/doc/ptyhon-notify/examples
# GNU GPL 3 licensing applies.
# http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
import dbus
import commands
try:
import dbus.glib
except ImportError:
from dbus.mainloop.glib import DBusGMainLoop
DBusGMainLoop(set_as_default=True)
def screensaver_changed(state):
"""This method is called
when the screensaver starts/stops"""
import pygtk
pygtk.require('2.0')
import pynotify
import sys
if not pynotify.init("Basics"):
sys.exit(1)
currentweather = commands.getstatusoutput('weather ddc')
n = pynotify.Notification("Current DC Conditions", currentweather[1])
if not n.show():
print "Failed to send notification"
sys.exit(1)
session_bus = dbus.SessionBus()
session_bus.add_signal_receiver
(screensaver_changed,
'SessionIdleChanged',
'org.gnome.ScreenSaver')
def main():
import gobject
loop = gobject.MainLoop()
loop.run()
def daemonize(func):
import os
import sys
try:
pid = os.fork()
if pid > 0:
# exit first parent
sys.exit(0)
except OSError, e:
print >>sys.stderr,
"fork #1 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
sys.exit(1)
# decouple from parent environment
os.chdir("/")
os.setsid()
os.umask(0)
# do second fork
try:
pid = os.fork()
if pid > 0:
# exit from second parent,
#print eventual PID before
print "Daemon PID %d" % pid
sys.exit(0)
except OSError, e:
print >>sys.stderr,
"fork #2 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
sys.exit(1)
# start the daemon main loop
func()
if __name__ == "__main__":
daemonize(main)
In this case, I've decided to take advantage of the National Weather Service's automated feed -- that's the 'weather ddc' line. 'Weather' is part of the weather-utils package available for Debian. 'DDC' tells it to grab the current conditions from KDDC: the Dodge City Municipal Airport. Then we use feed that information to pyNotify, which makes it look like this:
Useful? Right now, that's debatable. It saves me from opening a new terminal and searching, or Firefox and getting the radar. But, writing this thing three different ways before making it work gave me some time to work on my programming skills.
TODO:
- Change the Notify template from Basic to Markup, add hyperlink to a radar site.
--Note... possible with www.crh.noaa.gov/[TLA] - Un-Hard Code weather station, make it user selectable from command line.
- Grab and use the most recent weather radar image as the popup icon.
[1] CLI: Command Line Interface. Like DOS, if you were using a computer that long ago. I use this when I need to get results quickly: type in a command, get an answer back. Graphical User Interface. It shows the pretty pictures. I use this when I need to see what I'm doing -- photo viewing/editing, surfing the web (for the most part).
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Importance of pre-flop play
Poker is a game of skill... at least according to a number of studies done by various researchers world-wide. Luck plays into it, of course; but out of every conceivable way a hand could be played, there is only one situation when which of the 2652 different starting card combinations you were dealt have any bearing on the outcome of the hand: the Showdown. Which is why good poker players avoid going to a showdown as much as possible.
I had a hand this morning that reinforced Chris Ferguson's advice from FTPA... if a hand is profitable for a call, it is more profitable for a raise:
The game is a $2+.25 No Limit Hold'em SNG. We're on the bubble -- 4 handed, 3 pay -- and blinds are getting a little higher than I'm comfortable with: 80/160, and I've got 1600 after posting my big blind. UTG folds, Button smooth calls, SB folds, I check my 9-4 off suit, with every intention of folding to the first bet.
Until I see the flop. 9-6-4 rainbow. Just like that my hand o' crap becomes two pair. I lead out, putting 300 into the 400 chip pot, figuring I'm short stacked anyway, this is probably going to be my best bet to get my money in. I haven't played very many hands to this point, and I figure a 3/4-pot bet will either push him out or make the pot nice for me.
The Button raises to about 1000. I trip my time bank and think. Dude has played so many hands in the last two blind levels I don't think he even has a starting hand range. What I don't put him on are pocket pairs -- I'm pretty sure he would have raised preflop with 6s or better, and I figure odds are that he doesn't have 9s or 4s. Which to me means he has done one of three things: 1) paired the bottom half of his Ace-rag, 2) picked up a straight draw, or 3) is trying to price me out of the hand with 2 over cards. Best case scenario, he's looking at a 6-outer, that's about 76/24 in my favor. What don't I put him on? A 9-6. I've got to figure, even with him limping in, that my hand is good. So I push.
He quick calls, shows 9-8. This is good news and bad news. Good news is that there are 6 cards that could make his hand better than mine right now -- any 6, any 8. Bad news is that if a seven comes, he goes from 6 outs to 13 outs (28% to hit) -- any of the three remaining 6s or 7s would give us the same two pair with him having the better kicker, any of the three 8s gives him a better two pair, any of the four 5s gives him a straight. Now, if the board paired 6s on the turn, I'd be behind, but I'd have a lot more outs: even though only the two 4s would give me the win, I'd be happy with a split pot, which meant any of the four 10, J, Q, K, or Aces left in the deck would save my arse: 22 outs, or about 45%.
Good news was, I doubled up when the final two board cards missed both of us.
You could see button steaming through the wires, I didn't have the heart to tell him if he would have raised instead of limping, I would never have seen the flop.
I had a hand this morning that reinforced Chris Ferguson's advice from FTPA... if a hand is profitable for a call, it is more profitable for a raise:
The game is a $2+.25 No Limit Hold'em SNG. We're on the bubble -- 4 handed, 3 pay -- and blinds are getting a little higher than I'm comfortable with: 80/160, and I've got 1600 after posting my big blind. UTG folds, Button smooth calls, SB folds, I check my 9-4 off suit, with every intention of folding to the first bet.
Until I see the flop. 9-6-4 rainbow. Just like that my hand o' crap becomes two pair. I lead out, putting 300 into the 400 chip pot, figuring I'm short stacked anyway, this is probably going to be my best bet to get my money in. I haven't played very many hands to this point, and I figure a 3/4-pot bet will either push him out or make the pot nice for me.
The Button raises to about 1000. I trip my time bank and think. Dude has played so many hands in the last two blind levels I don't think he even has a starting hand range. What I don't put him on are pocket pairs -- I'm pretty sure he would have raised preflop with 6s or better, and I figure odds are that he doesn't have 9s or 4s. Which to me means he has done one of three things: 1) paired the bottom half of his Ace-rag, 2) picked up a straight draw, or 3) is trying to price me out of the hand with 2 over cards. Best case scenario, he's looking at a 6-outer, that's about 76/24 in my favor. What don't I put him on? A 9-6. I've got to figure, even with him limping in, that my hand is good. So I push.
He quick calls, shows 9-8. This is good news and bad news. Good news is that there are 6 cards that could make his hand better than mine right now -- any 6, any 8. Bad news is that if a seven comes, he goes from 6 outs to 13 outs (28% to hit) -- any of the three remaining 6s or 7s would give us the same two pair with him having the better kicker, any of the three 8s gives him a better two pair, any of the four 5s gives him a straight. Now, if the board paired 6s on the turn, I'd be behind, but I'd have a lot more outs: even though only the two 4s would give me the win, I'd be happy with a split pot, which meant any of the four 10, J, Q, K, or Aces left in the deck would save my arse: 22 outs, or about 45%.
Good news was, I doubled up when the final two board cards missed both of us.
You could see button steaming through the wires, I didn't have the heart to tell him if he would have raised instead of limping, I would never have seen the flop.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Poker: 4/7
After post last night, I ponied up into a few SNGs and picked up a few bucks. Bankroll to start the day sat at $12.93 / $T9.00.
An aside on FT Bankrolls: FT pays out in 5 different currencies. Most people will play with "Play Money", which is just that: you bet play money, you win play money. On the real money side, the base currency is the standard US dollar ($), and you use them like you would cash in a casino. The rest are a bit more involved.
First you have Full Tilt Points (FTP). They're Full Tilt's version of a customer loyalty program. Garner enough and you can enter into points tournaments, or trade them in for prizes -- a range of things from branded apparel to instructional videos and courses to electronics to a car (a Mini Cooper S, only 6,000,000 FTP). You earn FTPs by playing real money games: 1 FTP for every dollar raked in a cash game you're involved in, and 7 FTP for every dollar in tournament entry fees you pay.
Then there's Satellite Tokens. Available in $26 and $75 denominations, these prizes are awarded for winning certain satellite or points tournaments. Tokens can be used to enter any $24+2 or $69+6 tournament (respectively). I don't have any of these. Mostly because I don't want any of these. Even if I won a $26 Token, it'd have to sit. There's no way I'm good enough right now to play in a $26 tournament. I'm doing good to place in the 1.25, 2.00 and 2.25 tournaments I play. Strange thing I've noticed though. I do better in the 2 and 2.25 tournaments than I do in the 1.25s. I think its because I've got enough theory under my belt that I start looking for my opponents to have recognizable betting patterns, or some logic to their play and starting hand range. I can't count the number of times in $1.25s I've reraised the flop with top trips only to be outdrawn by what at the time was a middle pair that turned into a boat.
Finally, there's tournament dollars ($T). Certain tournaments - notably points tourneys - pay out in $T instead of cash. You also get credited $T (instead of cash) for winning a satellite and then un-registering from the main tournament. $T can be used to enter any tournament, but $T can only be used to enter tournaments. If you want to play in a ring game, you'll need to exchange the $T for cash. The exchange rate is $T1 = $0.95; or rather, there's a 5% commission (rounded up) on a tournament dollar exchange.
I managed to bust out of the $100 US Freeroll really freaking early. Trip 10s vs. a board set to flush that I did not see until after I had pushed all-in.
The Daily Dollar isn't going nearly as well for me, either.
150/300/25, I'm sitting with 8350 chips, putting me in 849/(1418/5773)[1]. Good news is my chair position, most hands I'm acting directly after the high stack on the table - who's sitting in 7th place in the tournament.
200/400/50 Pocket Rockets just doubled me up. Button -3 I raise 3x bb with AA. Big Blind calls me off. Flop comes Q/rag/rag. She bets, I push, figuring she has top pair (to my over pair), she calls; showing Q5. Aces hold up, I double up and put her on tilt. She goes out the next hand on A-rag vs A-J to the big stack, and the table breaks up. I've bumped my position up to around 400/(1200/5773)
250/500/50 Less than 30 people below the bubble. The current bubble boy has 1340 in chips.
300/600/75 Woo! I'm In the Money! --470th currently, but the blinds keep getting bigger...
400/800/100 A tense double-up (KK vs AQ) vaulted me up near 200th position as another prize level falls. I'm at 29K, next prize bubble currently has 6.5K .
500/1000/125 As the blinds keep getting bigger, my stack is holding up fairly well. We're into the $3.00 prize level (720-541); I'm in 275th with a 25.5K stack. I haven't been able to play many hands because of a lack of cards; though it seems the 23o I was just holding would have been good against the pusher's A10. Right now the next prize bubble is around 10K.
600/1200/150 Another blind level, another prize level. 260/530, next cutoff is 360th. Again, need to make some moves if I want to stay in the competition -- I've only got 7K on the bubble boy.
600/1200/150 A8 in the big blind vs A4 in the small, A on flop, SB leads, I raise, he re-raises, I push, he calls. Safe river and turn mean I double up and bounce myself up to about 125th /460. Don't feel too bad for the SB though; he doubled up the next hand.
3rd Break (800/1600/200): 133/436. After a slow start, I'm doing much better than I had imagined I would be at this point. I've locked up $3.50 -- a 350% ROI -- and with 49K chips, look pretty good to make the next prize level (360th place, currently ~16K). And the best part is, I'm not doing anything special: I'm making good lay downs, playing position fairly well, and keeping a low profile.
1000/2000/250: Another run of dry cards. I'm still holding in with 40K, thanks to some timely folds; and I've made it to the next prize level (next cutoff: 270th, ~20K). Still, with 20BBs, I should probably think about loosening my starting hand requirements a bit.
1200/2400/300: Still on a dry run. Down to 30K, I'm well below the cutoff for the next prize level. So at the moment, it really doesn't matter if I bust out: I just don't have enough chips to stall through this prize level. So we up the agression a tad. Still not gonna play crap hands, but I'm gonna have to actually play.
I'm holding KQ off-suit UTG+2. Action folds to me, I raise 3 times the big blind, and everybody else folds. And that's how you steal the blinds.
**sigh** Got a little too anxious. Reraised all in from the big blind with AK. The board gives my one caller a pair of jacks. Oh well, I still upped my bankroll 5 bucks. Now, I need to scoot over to the ring tables to pick up a FTP, to qualify for the $5 bonus for the Take 2 promotion. I was dumb, didn't read the rules closely enough and pissed away my chance at the $25 bonus. Oh well.
06:32 am Quick update... over the past 24 hours, my bankroll has went from a combined 21.93 to a cash only $32.28. So, discounting the $5 for the Take 2 bonus and the $5 from the Daily Dollar tourney, I netted about 35c on SNGs and rings tonight. That's not as bad as it sounds, though. I'm not good at cash tables and the only reason I have been playing ring games at all was to pick up that Take 2 bonus. I even had to re-up on one table because of a misread (didn't notice that the board paired threes, so I didn't take into consideration the dude might have raised preflop with A-rag in early position). Cash games just play differently - and take a different set of assumptions - than tourney play. And I know that, I just failed to take it into account.
[1] That is, sitting in 849th place out of 1418 players remaining in the original field of 5,773.
An aside on FT Bankrolls: FT pays out in 5 different currencies. Most people will play with "Play Money", which is just that: you bet play money, you win play money. On the real money side, the base currency is the standard US dollar ($), and you use them like you would cash in a casino. The rest are a bit more involved.
First you have Full Tilt Points (FTP). They're Full Tilt's version of a customer loyalty program. Garner enough and you can enter into points tournaments, or trade them in for prizes -- a range of things from branded apparel to instructional videos and courses to electronics to a car (a Mini Cooper S, only 6,000,000 FTP). You earn FTPs by playing real money games: 1 FTP for every dollar raked in a cash game you're involved in, and 7 FTP for every dollar in tournament entry fees you pay.
Then there's Satellite Tokens. Available in $26 and $75 denominations, these prizes are awarded for winning certain satellite or points tournaments. Tokens can be used to enter any $24+2 or $69+6 tournament (respectively). I don't have any of these. Mostly because I don't want any of these. Even if I won a $26 Token, it'd have to sit. There's no way I'm good enough right now to play in a $26 tournament. I'm doing good to place in the 1.25, 2.00 and 2.25 tournaments I play. Strange thing I've noticed though. I do better in the 2 and 2.25 tournaments than I do in the 1.25s. I think its because I've got enough theory under my belt that I start looking for my opponents to have recognizable betting patterns, or some logic to their play and starting hand range. I can't count the number of times in $1.25s I've reraised the flop with top trips only to be outdrawn by what at the time was a middle pair that turned into a boat.
Finally, there's tournament dollars ($T). Certain tournaments - notably points tourneys - pay out in $T instead of cash. You also get credited $T (instead of cash) for winning a satellite and then un-registering from the main tournament. $T can be used to enter any tournament, but $T can only be used to enter tournaments. If you want to play in a ring game, you'll need to exchange the $T for cash. The exchange rate is $T1 = $0.95; or rather, there's a 5% commission (rounded up) on a tournament dollar exchange.
I managed to bust out of the $100 US Freeroll really freaking early. Trip 10s vs. a board set to flush that I did not see until after I had pushed all-in.
The Daily Dollar isn't going nearly as well for me, either.
150/300/25, I'm sitting with 8350 chips, putting me in 849/(1418/5773)[1]. Good news is my chair position, most hands I'm acting directly after the high stack on the table - who's sitting in 7th place in the tournament.
200/400/50 Pocket Rockets just doubled me up. Button -3 I raise 3x bb with AA. Big Blind calls me off. Flop comes Q/rag/rag. She bets, I push, figuring she has top pair (to my over pair), she calls; showing Q5. Aces hold up, I double up and put her on tilt. She goes out the next hand on A-rag vs A-J to the big stack, and the table breaks up. I've bumped my position up to around 400/(1200/5773)
250/500/50 Less than 30 people below the bubble. The current bubble boy has 1340 in chips.
300/600/75 Woo! I'm In the Money! --470th currently, but the blinds keep getting bigger...
400/800/100 A tense double-up (KK vs AQ) vaulted me up near 200th position as another prize level falls. I'm at 29K, next prize bubble currently has 6.5K .
500/1000/125 As the blinds keep getting bigger, my stack is holding up fairly well. We're into the $3.00 prize level (720-541); I'm in 275th with a 25.5K stack. I haven't been able to play many hands because of a lack of cards; though it seems the 23o I was just holding would have been good against the pusher's A10. Right now the next prize bubble is around 10K.
600/1200/150 Another blind level, another prize level. 260/530, next cutoff is 360th. Again, need to make some moves if I want to stay in the competition -- I've only got 7K on the bubble boy.
600/1200/150 A8 in the big blind vs A4 in the small, A on flop, SB leads, I raise, he re-raises, I push, he calls. Safe river and turn mean I double up and bounce myself up to about 125th /460. Don't feel too bad for the SB though; he doubled up the next hand.
3rd Break (800/1600/200): 133/436. After a slow start, I'm doing much better than I had imagined I would be at this point. I've locked up $3.50 -- a 350% ROI -- and with 49K chips, look pretty good to make the next prize level (360th place, currently ~16K). And the best part is, I'm not doing anything special: I'm making good lay downs, playing position fairly well, and keeping a low profile.
1000/2000/250: Another run of dry cards. I'm still holding in with 40K, thanks to some timely folds; and I've made it to the next prize level (next cutoff: 270th, ~20K). Still, with 20BBs, I should probably think about loosening my starting hand requirements a bit.
1200/2400/300: Still on a dry run. Down to 30K, I'm well below the cutoff for the next prize level. So at the moment, it really doesn't matter if I bust out: I just don't have enough chips to stall through this prize level. So we up the agression a tad. Still not gonna play crap hands, but I'm gonna have to actually play.
I'm holding KQ off-suit UTG+2. Action folds to me, I raise 3 times the big blind, and everybody else folds. And that's how you steal the blinds.
**sigh** Got a little too anxious. Reraised all in from the big blind with AK. The board gives my one caller a pair of jacks. Oh well, I still upped my bankroll 5 bucks. Now, I need to scoot over to the ring tables to pick up a FTP, to qualify for the $5 bonus for the Take 2 promotion. I was dumb, didn't read the rules closely enough and pissed away my chance at the $25 bonus. Oh well.
06:32 am Quick update... over the past 24 hours, my bankroll has went from a combined 21.93 to a cash only $32.28. So, discounting the $5 for the Take 2 bonus and the $5 from the Daily Dollar tourney, I netted about 35c on SNGs and rings tonight. That's not as bad as it sounds, though. I'm not good at cash tables and the only reason I have been playing ring games at all was to pick up that Take 2 bonus. I even had to re-up on one table because of a misread (didn't notice that the board paired threes, so I didn't take into consideration the dude might have raised preflop with A-rag in early position). Cash games just play differently - and take a different set of assumptions - than tourney play. And I know that, I just failed to take it into account.
[1] That is, sitting in 849th place out of 1418 players remaining in the original field of 5,773.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Poker: 4/6
8am. After some good luck building both my bankroll and FTP balance, I had busted out of a $1+.25 SNG this morning on what I thought was a bad beat. Big blind, J2. Cutoff smooth calls, and there's no way I'm raising with a Jack-duece. Flop comes 2-2-8. I bet my trip 2s, dude raises me all-in. I call, thinking Ace and face card, or at worst over pair. I show my trips, he shows pocket 10s. Turn's clean, but dude hits a 10 on the river. Good news, I had the right read on him and I got my money in when I had the better hand; bad news, he sucked out and knocked me out in 5th when top 3 pays. Balance: 9.97.
9:20 pm: Generally following the FTPA[1] advise has gotten me in decent position as I'm creeping up on the second break -- and cashing -- in the Daily Dollar ($1, $10K guar, 1080/6119)[2]. Right now, with blinds at 300/150/25[3], I'm sitting at 14.6K chips, and sitting around 463rd out of the 1502 players left in the tournament. I've been doing fairly well, and have seen an inordinate number of pocket jacks. Best part is, they've been good to me. I've only not won with them tonight once:
UTG+1 smooth calls; I'm cutoff (Button -1), raise 3.3x, dude calls. Flop comes K9A; dude bets pot, I fold. With the Ace/King falling on the flop, there's no way I can really call with just Jacks. When someone in early position calls, I'm thinking he probably has either and A or K, and when he calls a raise from late position, I'm thinking he probably has A/Face or KQ, something of that nature. That makes a pot-sized bet really hard to call with AK on the board. Now, if it had came AKQ or AK10, I'd have considered it longer because instead of 2 cards that would improve my hand, I'd have 6 outs, which would be about 1/4 chance of improving my hand rather than less than 1/10.
9:37 pm: 200/400/50 Knock-out! BB's antes all-in. I'm UTG+2, and I raise to 2000 (5xBB) on AdKd. Cutoff raises to 4800, I push All-In 13,560; Cutoff calls AI, shows AcKs; big blind has 6s2d. Best cutoff can hope for is the flush to go his way, otherwise we're looking at a split pot.
Board comes 6d,8d,9h; pairing BB, but I'm more interested in the 25K side pot than the 270 chip main pot. Turn gives me 3d and the diamond flush. I'm over 26K chips and top 200 with around 1200 left in the tourney.
9:55 pm: 300/600/75 I'm In The Money! As the first $2.20 prize gets paid, I'm sitting in 226th position. The next payout level is 900th.
10:07pm: 400/800/100 I'm In The Money! As 900th place gets paid $2.50, I'm sitting in 230th Position. The next payout level is 720th.
10:23 pm: 500/1000/125 I'm In The Money! I wasn't even paying attention as 720th paid out, right now, i'm sitting at 293/661... 540th is the next cutoff, which will earn $3.50.
10:36 pm: 600/1200/150 I'm in the money! 3.50 is mine now, as I'm sitting in 348th as the 540 place player goes out. 360th is the next cutoff, so I should probably look to play some more hands.
10:42 pm: Third Break. OK, I've made the third break, and I'm still playing as 398/472. I'm happy with my play so far tonight; not only have I at least tripled my entry fee, I'm playing smart poker. No bad beats either way, and even though I'm down to about 13 BB, I can tell I'm not in 'panic mode' yet. I'm playing for another 70c - a 1c/2c table starting pile, really.
11:05 pm: 1000/2000/250 Lucky Break: I get dealt JJ sitting in the big blind. Fold to the small blind who raises 3x, I raise all the other couple hundred to put me all in, he calls; shows A3o. Flop AJ10. I ride the river out to almost triple up because of the antes. This puts me just far enough ahead that I scoot past the 360th position into $4.20. 270th pays $5, but I don't think I'll get there. A few more good hands, though; and who knows?
11:12pm: 1000/2000/250 A 4x bet in early position backed by QQs nets me some blinds, I'm at 17K in 300th place.
11:13 pm: 1200/2400/500: Got my money in from the button on a 60/40 shot. My AcJs/Kc3c. So of course, flop comes 2 clubs, turn shows club (his flush), and the river... Qh. Damn. Out in 302nd quadrupling my entry fee. Not bad for about 4 hours work.I'm gonna hit the Late Night Happy Hour for double FTPs a while (trying to cash out that next $5 on my first deposit bonus).
[1] Full Tilt Poker Academy. Basically, their advice involves what hands to play in what position, how much and when to bet/raise.
[2] That is, a $1 entry fee, $10,000 guaranteed prize pool, and 1080 places pay out of the 6119 entries.
[3] Ante of 25, 300 chip big blind/minimum bet, 150 small blind.
9:20 pm: Generally following the FTPA[1] advise has gotten me in decent position as I'm creeping up on the second break -- and cashing -- in the Daily Dollar ($1, $10K guar, 1080/6119)[2]. Right now, with blinds at 300/150/25[3], I'm sitting at 14.6K chips, and sitting around 463rd out of the 1502 players left in the tournament. I've been doing fairly well, and have seen an inordinate number of pocket jacks. Best part is, they've been good to me. I've only not won with them tonight once:
UTG+1 smooth calls; I'm cutoff (Button -1), raise 3.3x, dude calls. Flop comes K9A; dude bets pot, I fold. With the Ace/King falling on the flop, there's no way I can really call with just Jacks. When someone in early position calls, I'm thinking he probably has either and A or K, and when he calls a raise from late position, I'm thinking he probably has A/Face or KQ, something of that nature. That makes a pot-sized bet really hard to call with AK on the board. Now, if it had came AKQ or AK10, I'd have considered it longer because instead of 2 cards that would improve my hand, I'd have 6 outs, which would be about 1/4 chance of improving my hand rather than less than 1/10.
9:37 pm: 200/400/50 Knock-out! BB's antes all-in. I'm UTG+2, and I raise to 2000 (5xBB) on AdKd. Cutoff raises to 4800, I push All-In 13,560; Cutoff calls AI, shows AcKs; big blind has 6s2d. Best cutoff can hope for is the flush to go his way, otherwise we're looking at a split pot.
Board comes 6d,8d,9h; pairing BB, but I'm more interested in the 25K side pot than the 270 chip main pot. Turn gives me 3d and the diamond flush. I'm over 26K chips and top 200 with around 1200 left in the tourney.
9:55 pm: 300/600/75 I'm In The Money! As the first $2.20 prize gets paid, I'm sitting in 226th position. The next payout level is 900th.
10:07pm: 400/800/100 I'm In The Money! As 900th place gets paid $2.50, I'm sitting in 230th Position. The next payout level is 720th.
10:23 pm: 500/1000/125 I'm In The Money! I wasn't even paying attention as 720th paid out, right now, i'm sitting at 293/661... 540th is the next cutoff, which will earn $3.50.
10:36 pm: 600/1200/150 I'm in the money! 3.50 is mine now, as I'm sitting in 348th as the 540 place player goes out. 360th is the next cutoff, so I should probably look to play some more hands.
10:42 pm: Third Break. OK, I've made the third break, and I'm still playing as 398/472. I'm happy with my play so far tonight; not only have I at least tripled my entry fee, I'm playing smart poker. No bad beats either way, and even though I'm down to about 13 BB, I can tell I'm not in 'panic mode' yet. I'm playing for another 70c - a 1c/2c table starting pile, really.
11:05 pm: 1000/2000/250 Lucky Break: I get dealt JJ sitting in the big blind. Fold to the small blind who raises 3x, I raise all the other couple hundred to put me all in, he calls; shows A3o. Flop AJ10. I ride the river out to almost triple up because of the antes. This puts me just far enough ahead that I scoot past the 360th position into $4.20. 270th pays $5, but I don't think I'll get there. A few more good hands, though; and who knows?
11:12pm: 1000/2000/250 A 4x bet in early position backed by QQs nets me some blinds, I'm at 17K in 300th place.
11:13 pm: 1200/2400/500: Got my money in from the button on a 60/40 shot. My AcJs/Kc3c. So of course, flop comes 2 clubs, turn shows club (his flush), and the river... Qh. Damn. Out in 302nd quadrupling my entry fee. Not bad for about 4 hours work.I'm gonna hit the Late Night Happy Hour for double FTPs a while (trying to cash out that next $5 on my first deposit bonus).
[1] Full Tilt Poker Academy. Basically, their advice involves what hands to play in what position, how much and when to bet/raise.
[2] That is, a $1 entry fee, $10,000 guaranteed prize pool, and 1080 places pay out of the 6119 entries.
[3] Ante of 25, 300 chip big blind/minimum bet, 150 small blind.
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