stevesbets

    During a conversation today a concept I remembered from a freshman year philosophy class came up. It’s one of my favorite “if it were possible would you…” questions. The basic idea of the experience machine (TEM) is that you program in your ideal life and then you get to live it out. You can be Bon Jovi, Lebron, or any other megastar. You can mix and match the best attributes and possessions of anyone in the world or anything you can imagine and it’s all yours in the experience machine. That is, it’s all yours in your head. Once you get in the machine you will absolutely not be able to understand that what is happening to you isn’t real, it’s all simply the machine tricking your brain.  Once you decide to get strapped into it, there is no turning back. You will be sitting in that chair consumed by the machine until the day you die.

The question then, is would you get into the machine?

As a freshman in college when I first heard of this concept, it seemed obvious to me that I would run, not walk, to be the first in line to have access to TEM. Who wouldn’t want to experience the life of Billy Joel, Tom Brady, Brad Pitt, or Phil Ivey. Better yet, all four of them rolled into the marvel of me…in my own head.

The main argument against using TEM that I have heard is that you will give nothing back to mankind in either the smaller or larger sense. You will not contribute to the happiness of your loved ones or make anyone’s life better for you having lived.  At this point I can honestly say that I’m not sure enough of what’s important to me and therefore don’t know if I’d get in TEM. I think it’s safe to say that at least 90% of the world or so would climb in happily to escape the misfortunes of their lives, but the people I have asked seem to respond negatively to it. So anyway, I’m putting it out there for all of you to decide on.

The experience machine is setting sail, are you going to climb aboard?

In an attempt to keep my blog fresh, I’m going to weave in serious posts like the last one with amusing anecdotes from my poker career, this post falls into the latter category.

When my freind’s and I first started playing in Stouffer (Our dorm at Penn), we all were interested in gambling and winning, but we also were all naturally different in our styles. We played very low limit with each other along with 2 4 full ring limit holdem at the Taj and on Pokerroom. Learning poker, like most things worth learning in life, takes practice, dedication and willingness to fail. Of the 5 of us that played the most, only one of us, let’s call him “Mitten” seemed remotely capable of winning. In fact, it got to the point where everyone of the rest of us owed him money (although all very small amounts of course). To this day I can’t be certain of the reasons for his immediate success amidst the wretched stench of failure all around him. Maybe he ran better, maybe his naturally tight and stingy inclinations were better suited for the full ring low limit games than the rest of our natural mentalities, or maybe he simply saw through the matrix in a lucid way that the rest of us did not.

Anyway, it got the the point where all of us owed Mitten some small amount of money. Mitten did not relish collecting debt from his friends who he felt a certain level of pity for due to our incapacity to win. One guy in particular, lets call him “Gaston” wanted to rid himself of the debt he owed (I don’t remember the exact amount but I believe it was around $150). Mitten offered an option in which we would all order food from a local hoagie place and Gaston would go to the bottom of the Stouffer stairs to pick it up from the delivery boy at the gate. Stouffer had an elevated patio that in part overlooked steps which headed down past the gate and to the street. At some point after paying for our food, Gaston would kiss the delivery boy on the lips. After that it was up to him, but if he did the kiss, his debt was cleared. I guess when you are a freshman in college, $150 seems like alot of money and Gaston agreed to this deal.

With an audience camped out on the patio with cameras in hand, Gaston descended to meet the delivery boy who rode in on his bike. After paying for the food, Gaston said as quickly as possible “Don’t kill me but this is for debt!” and planted a quick peck on delivery boy’s lips. The audience erupted in laughter as pictures flashed, I really feel sorry for the delivery guy in retrospect, he seemed astonished and pissed. Gaston ran up the stairs through the safety of the gate as quickly as possible. With no other real option, the delivery guy rode away.

It’s actually funny now how similar each of our tendencies are to those days when we all began playing, Mitten is still really tight, Gaston is still wild and unpredictable, and I am loose, calculated and often too terrible for my own good.

    What movie popularized the quote of Papa Wallenda above? If you are reading my blog then you most likely recognized it immediately from Rounders, a poker movie from ‘98 that came out ahead of the poker boom and ahead of it’s time.  Many of us watched it over and over again during home games and homework. We could probably recite every line, particularly the one above from memory. Now I’m wondering how many of you really understand what Matt Damon means when he quotes it?

I ask because I watched rounders with a friend about a month ago and I realized that I didnt know what it meant. I decided to swallow my pride, and admit my ridiculous ignorance about a line I’d heard literally hundreds of times and asked my friend, I was shocked that he didn’t know either.

To me this reflects how many of us pass through life. Sure that others have answers we don’t, and often befuddled by how educated everyone around us seems. We put up fronts and act in the know when really we all don’t know much. To me this is the first step to no longer being out of it. Many people  in all walks of life take words that come out of their own mouth as gospel. Especially older people don’t seem to comprehend that simply because their own experiences reflect certain truths does not mean that they can be extended universally. In the end, there’s only one certainty concerning matters that can’t be proven and it’s this: no one should be certain. To be so reflects a lack of insight or interest or something else that I can’t find the word for.

Now that I’m done ranting about that, onto the content of the quote. For those of you who don’t know, it’s speaker, Papa Wallenda was a great tight-rope walker reflecting about the banality of everyday life. To him the only excitement came from this physically intense, life wagering activity. To me this seems to be true for everyone to a point. What makes life new, exciting and worth living for you? For awhile I found life in poker. Excitement over winning and losing sums of money that I didn’t quite feel truly comfortable winning and losing. The idea that a life changing moment was a mouse click away for me whereas almost impossible for many others really got me going.

As with most good things, excitement dries up over time and suddenly this just doesn’t get my juices flowing anymore. So the search begins for my new wire (and I’m really not sure it should ever have been poker to begin with). I think many people don’t mind the “waiting”, they go through life never on the wire, reliant on routine, calm, collected and corpse-like. Hell, they even fear asking what a quote from their favorite movie means.

In the end I don’t know what or where life is for me so I don’t really have any sort of good ending to this blog. I guess I’ll go lie on my couch and watch fresh prince until 4 in the morning like most nights :)

A quick word about comments on my blog. I encourage EVERYONE reading to leave feedback. I will approve anything that is above a 3rd grade level. So basically, anything that is not some sort of pointless insult that will interest no one such as,  “I hate you Steve” I encourage and appreciate. I’ll also try to respond to questions as much as possible.

Welcome to my blog. I will be posting random stories, anecdotes and tilts each and every day. I will post hand histories from my perspective, and angry rants about other players.

For tonight I got to discuss the utter hypocrisy of all poker player. I was playing 200 400 o8 on full tilt tonight played the following hand:

Full Tilt Poker Game #4299181439: Table Vero (6 max) - $200/$400 - Limit Omaha H/L - 23:22:17 ET - 2007/11/25
Seat 1: tommyboy83 ($13,436)
Seat 2: BigBadMomma69 ($8,250.50)
Seat 3: what is 7×6 ($7,190)
Seat 4: Aaron Bartley ($20,685), is sitting out
Seat 5: stevesbets ($5,936.50)
Seat 6: Magic Aces ($5,889.50)
stevesbets posts the small blind of $100
Magic Aces posts the big blind of $200
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to stevesbets [2h 8d 9s 7h]
tommyboy83 folds
BigBadMomma69 folds
what is 7×6 raises to $400
stevesbets calls $300
Magic Aces has 15 seconds left to act
Magic Aces folds
*** FLOP *** [2c 6d Kd]
stevesbets checks
what is 7×6 bets $200
stevesbets calls $200
*** TURN *** [2c 6d Kd] [9h]
stevesbets bets $400
what is 7×6 raises to $800
stevesbets calls $400
*** RIVER *** [2c 6d Kd 9h] [Kh]
stevesbets checks
what is 7×6 checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
what is 7×6 shows [8s 3s 6h Ac] two pair, Kings and Sixes, for high
stevesbets shows [2h 8d 9s 7h] two pair, Kings and Nines, for high
stevesbets wins the pot ($2,997) with two pair, Kings and Nines
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $3,000 | Rake $3
Board: [2c 6d Kd 9h Kh]
Seat 1: tommyboy83 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 2: BigBadMomma69 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 3: what is 7×6 (button) showed [8s 3s 6h Ac] and lost with HI: two pair, Kings and Sixes
Seat 4: Aaron Bartley is sitting out
Seat 5: stevesbets (small blind) showed [2h 8d 9s 7h] and won ($2,997) with HI: two pair, Kings and Nines
Seat 6: Magic Aces (big blind) folded before the Flop

. What is 7×6 immediately responded in the chat saying what is 7×6: 2-7-8-9. Now if you are at all familiar with his o8 play you know that he plays hands far more speculative than that especially at a short table. This is not a dig at him but just each and every poker player out there who criticizes the play of anyone he comes across when he makes very similar plays. Note that I am not judging the actual play, I don’t really care to comment on either of our play in that hand. The thing that drives me nuts is the hypocrisy.

I’ll have far more interesting blogs in the future, for now I”m going to go to the diner with N 82 50 24 and CF tourney