stevesbets

As I walked home from lunch today I heard basically the only question I ever hear when I’m walking down the street by a random person, “do you have any spare change”. As is my custom, I walked by without saying much, maybe i muttered a “sorry, no”. I have one friend who routinely gave whatever change he had to beggars on the street. The reason he cited was, “it means more to them than it does to me”. Obviously if you extend this reasoning to every situation where someone who needs something more than him wants something he will end up in bad shape, but in the micro sense I suppose its noble. I am often moved to give a little bit to these sad cases, but anytime I am close I remind myself of the bigger picture.

Giving money in this form encourages bothering people on the street, and even acting belligerant if they refuse to give change. The plethora of beggars is a bad problem in Philadelphia and I’d imagine many other parts of the country. Aside from lowering the value of all the real estate and businesses in the city, they make some people feel unsafe walking around at night and sometimes refuse to go out. On a more personal level, they condition everyone to be less friendly and sociable with everyone else in the world. If ANYONE approaches you on the street, aren’t you most likely to just ignore them and walk right by? This is the opposite of the natural human inclination to be social beings. These social desires are made clear by the massive popularity of networking sites like facebook and myspace. I fully realize I’m not stating any good solution to the homelessness issue, I’m just giving my own philosophy for not giving money.

On the weird things that happen after dark subject, my friend and I went to a diner last night at like 2 am.  On our way home we saw a cab driving down the street with its back door wide open. The driver seemed to be aware of it, but was too lazy to get out and close it, he was seemingly indifferent to the possibility of the door hitting something and causing danger to himself or others. We also saw someone peeing off the chestnut street bridge into the river. He honestly cant find a better place? What is wrong with people?

Borgata tourney report still to come

There was recently a thread on NWP where someone asked if its unreasonable to ask his roommate to pay an additional share of a skyrocketing electricity bill due to his roommates serious girlfriend basically becoming a 4th roommate. Lots of disagreement ensued and popular poster DanDruff was heavily criticized for saying that its not unreasonable to ask him to pay more. I thought that what he said wasnt as crazy as what some other people thought, but here is how i responded to it:

Whole thread can be found here: (but if you arent familliar with neverwinpoker, its pretty  uncensored and obnoxious) http://www.neverwinpoker.com/forums/content/Shooting-Off/48456/Roomates-and-electric-bill-tilt/

I lived with two roommates a couple years ago and had a serious girlfriend who was over alot. I was also home more than either of my roommates since one worked and one was addicted to live poker, therefore using way more electricity. Had my roommates asked me to pay an additional share of the electricity bill, I would have happily done so, however it would have curtailed any future generosity that I may show to them since I think its kind of a nitty, girly thing to do. I am very generous with my friends and I’m sure I more than made up the difference over the course of the year. So while I understand what Todd is saying, I think in this case it is best not to say anything and hope that human generosity will prevail. However, if your roommate is a CONSTANT leach and never gives back in any way without u asking, then it may just be time to cut him out of your life, but i once again would not ask for money. Friendship is about, many things, one of which is giving and receiving value. Value can be measure monetarily or otherwise. If someone provides no value ever then just cut them out, but don’t ask for 10 more dollars. Just my two cents.

Stevesbets

Anyway, I just busted from the Borgata winter open. I’ll write a tourney report soon

I get multiple emails a day ranging from mundane to inane. I have a few simple requests to try to cut down on the emails because I want to be able to respond to everybody but with the current volume it would be impossible. First of all, I don’t think you should be asking me questions that can be easily googled such as, “what is a flop?” or any other simple poker rule/terminology question. Secondly, don’t ask for money in any form, stake or loan because you won’t get it unless you are my little sister coming over to clean for an obscene hourly rate. Thirdly, I’m fine with people attacking me or tilting on me, but I’d appreciate it if you make some sort of argument so I don’t waste my time reading things that could be directed at anyone a hothead lost a pot to. Lastly, if you want a response it is probably better to post your query in the form of a comment as opposed to an email to me.

I’ve coached several students so far and they have all made great strides in their game. If you want coaching, check out that section of my site. I will not deal with anyone that doesn’t pay in advance to prevent scamming me out of my time. I can accept payment on stars, full tilt or UB. I’m going to try to get some of my students to post reviews soon.

I once again have been lagging with my blogs, this is because I have been putting the finishing touches on my business school applications. This has required a good bit of writing so when it comes time to blog I haven’t felt up to it.

If you are looking for a TV show to watch during this writer’s strike I recommend the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I suppose you should take my plug with a grain of salt since I have always had a thing for the Terminator movies, but I love the ideas and the two night series premiere was very entertaining. As long as you don’t expect it to be something it’s not you will enjoy yourself. If you are looking for books to read just for fun, I recommend Michael Connelly, I love all his police dramas and you will too.  If you are looking for books to read to help your poker game…wait until my book comes out in a year or two:)

My buddy and I walked over to 30th Street Train Station for a late night snack tonight. While we were there we noticed that a train was leaving for Atlantic City shortly. This was the 6 dollar “gambler’s express” that we used to love taking in college to play 2 4 holdem at the Taj. We used to go at any hour and enjoyed it like few other activities when we were learning poker. As we were walking home I asked him how much it would take for him to just leave at 2am tonight, and take the train to AC for a 5 hour 2 4 holdem session just like the old days. He said he would need to be paid 700 dollars. I question whether he would even do it for that much.

I remember it always used to be very exciting to go, but then something about getting no sleep, usually coming home broke (when our whole bankroll for the trip was $100) and sharing a 5 am train ride with an eclectic mix of mostly miserable degenerates was really depressing. The funniest part of the whole thing is, even though we remember clearly that coming home stunk, and that now we wouldnt repeat that sort of trip now even for a very nice hourly wage, we have very fond memories of doing the exact thing for no payment of any sort.

I’m pretty sure that GA says a sign of a gambling addiction is a loss of interest in formerly desirable activities. To me this begs the quesition, does it still hold true when the formerly desirable activity for which interest is lost happens to be degenerate late night low limit gambling?

I just watched the Bruce Willis movie 12 Monkeys (set in Philadelphia) for the first time, I really liked it. Very well thought out, thoroughly entertaining, if you haven’t seen it I recommend it.  Random thoughts on it:

-I like movies about time travel and the chicken and the egg thing about what changes the future when someone comes back from the future, it always gets my mind running around in circles

-To get Brad Pitt to act like a hyper manic mental patient they just took away his cigarettes, I laughed when I heard it but he’s awesome in the movie

- If there were some sort of apocalyptic event in which only a random 1% of the world survived, would you want to be among the survivors?

-If you would be king of the new world order (such as the scientists in 12 monkeys) would you take steps to insure that the apocalyptic event does in fact happen?

-Christopher Meloni of Law and Order SVU plays a detective in 12 monkeys, its funny how some people play roles very similar across different mediums (read: Carl Winslow as the goofy cop in die hard)

- I like when movies pull me into a world far different than my own

-The way actors are able to go from normal looking to unreal fit for roles in no time makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong in the gym

Yesterday I got this email:

Your parents must be real proud of ya!

A nice jewish boy grows up to be an online flea hoping to be one of the .5 % that actually makes it at poker.

VERY SAD SON!

This email is pretty dumb for a whole host of reasons but I”m only going to point out one. I don’t hope to be one of the .5%, I am one of the .5%. Just because the writer of this email is not he feels the need to project his crap on everyone else, I think that is what’s pretty sad. With all that said, I don’t want to play poker forever as my sole profession. I think it’s weird that many people today consider what construct their identity around what they choose to do professionally at the age of 22 as opposed to who they are. I think you become a person first and then you can figure out what you “grow up to be”. Anyway, I appreciate the email.

I would first like to apologize to everyone out there for a lack of updates lately, the holidays have been hectic and I plan on updating much more now that things are clearing up a little bit. I appreciate the kind words I have received about my blog during this downtime and I promise more to come.

I would like to wish all my readers a happy new year and hope they accomplish everything they desire in 2008 (unless it involves taking my money). I’m slightly bothered by the idea of new years resolutions. I’m as guilty of making the best laid plans that end in the most obvious ways as the next guy, but it seems odd to me that people use the end of the year so often to do so.  The spike in the traffic at the gym since Jan 1 speaks to this nicely. I expect it to wane by Jan 15 or so.  I believe one should always be striding towards self improvement as much on Jan 1 as any other day of the year. With this in mind, I’m going to present some Feb 1 resolutions when the day comes…at least that way the gym will be emptier :)

A side effect of playing online poker is keeping odd hours. As such, my buddy and I have few dining choices around Philadelphia when we’re often hungry for a post midnight dinner. We have become regulars at the 24 hour Philly diner on Penn’s campus.  We have gotten to know one waiter there pretty well and I have to say he is one of the more mysterious people I have come across. First of all, he always seems to be there. On Jan 1, some friends and I went to the diner for brunch around 1pm and he was there, then that night around 3 am I went back and  he was still there, he told me he was on the tail end of a 31 hour shift. What dedication! This is made more bizarre by the fact that I have seen he carries an iphone and sports pricey “rock n republic” apparel. I suppose he can afford such things as a result of working such long hours…but either way there is something strange going on over there.

Another consequence of being up late is the late night commercials. One such ad was for a drug for restless leg syndrome. I forget the name of the drug, but one of the side effects cited was “increased gambling urges”. I thought it was crazy that taking a drug could actually effect ones impulse to gamble. Does that really mean that you can’t blame addicts for their lack of self control since it is out of their hands??

The NFL playoffs start tomorrow and I”m excited to root for the Colts (though they have a bye this week). I’m an Eagles fan at heart, but when I was in Vegas in September I bet the Colts to win the superbowl at the price of 7 to 1, I now wish I had bet the Patriots at 6 to 1, but so it is. I love rooting for Peyton Manning because I think he’s so much fun to watch, especially compared to the current Eagles alternative. Lets go Colts!

On the hometown note, many people that I talk to who come to Philadelphia from other cities do not like it here.  They complain that it’s ugly, small, polluted, uncultured  and boring. Some college classmates even used to call it “Filthadelphia”.  I think there is something that you feel when you have grown up around this city that outsiders just can’t understand, a sense of underdog pride, “Rocky” style. Maybe it is because our sports teams are always terrible but we love them anyway, maybe it’s the working class vibe, but there’s just something you have to love about Philly.

The writer’s strike really pisses me off, mainly because we won’t get a new 24 season this year and the Lost season will possibly be incomplete.

I would like to announce a new feature of my blog. If you would like my opinion on a topic, send me an email with the subject line “Ask Steve” I will try to use them for interesting blog topics. Note that any question asking for money will just be deleted so don’t waste your time. I do this as an alternative to the mail bag from earlier so that I can more directly respond to the questions from my readers.  This is a pretty long entry so I’m going to go to bed without proofing it. Send your complaints to my editor.