Lessons from a LAG

Sat at a table yesterday where my stack more or less stayed static over the course of my session. Winning a few modest pots before bleeding back to around starting stack. During the course of my eight hour session I was able to observe seat two spin his stack up from a $300 starting stack to $2300. An impressive streak where he played aggressively, bluffed a lot, and managed to get paid off when he made nutted hands. Once he had hit the high water mark he continued to play aggressively, bluff a lot, but did not make any nutted hands and bled his stack down to around $450 before leaving the table. I started in a seat two positions to his right which was not a good place to be. Managed to end up moving to 3 seats to his left which was a much better position. A couple of reasonable players moved to positions 1 and 2 seats to his left. It was to those players that he bled a lot of his stack.  Having recently re-read Ed Miller's "Playing the Player" I was trawling through my mind to see if I could recall all the lessons from Ed's book on how to approach playing a LAG like this. Today I'll be browsing through the sections on how to approach playing with this type of player again.  In one pot where I started UTG with JJ I raised to $15, a mid position player called, the LAG called, and the Big Blind thought about what to do for a few seconds before calling. Flop came K45r. The action was checked to the LAG on the button who bet $40 into $60. The Big Blind called. My original plan was to either flat the LAG and hold on to the river, or perhaps to check-raise. However, something about the Big Blind's original call and the call on the flop pushed me to folding. I folded. Turn 7. BB checks. LAG fires $75.  River Q. No straights. No Flushes. BB checks. LAG checks behind and turns over 10-9 off suit for no pair, ten high. The Big Blind shows 54 off suit for a  flopped two pair. His intent was to call all streets for any bet and if the LAG had out drawn him so be it. He was following Ed Miller's plan of information denial by check-calling rather than check-raising with bottom two pair. In the likelihood that the LAG was simply barreling to get people off hands.

"I know what you've got. But I'm going to call anyway"

This afternoon shortly after I sat down I received two Aces on the button. Always a nice feeling to get this hand preflop. Then the Under The Gun player (UTG), first to act, open  raised to $50. With the blinds at $1/3 this was a vast over-raise. Most big raises first in are of the order of $25. The action folded around to me.  I decided to shove and announced "All In". The UTG player, an older guy who tends to play tight looked at me and said "I know what you have. But I'm going to call anyway". He had a pair of Kings. The board ran out kindly for me until the river when a King landed to give him a set and the winning hand.  He then said "I knew what you had. I just got lucky enough to be hit on the dick by the card fairy...."

August Review

Poker was going well in May, June and July. Then along came August and I decided to play a few tournaments....  Hindsight being 20/20, not such a great decision. The positives for this month is that I've been able to keep my poker study going. After catching a respiratory infection in the first week of August throwing off my ability to focus and study, I've managed to recover my daily routine. Most days see:

• meditation session of at least 30 - 45 minutes. Stretch goal is for an hour but always, always happy when I've had a 45 minute session or longer
• push-ups. Most mornings managing to crank out 50 push ups. They may not be classic in style but I count them. 
• Stretching. Janusirasana. Both sides. 
• five minute journal. Focusing on finding three things to be grateful for each day, re-reading my affirmations as a way to remind myself on attitudes I need to take into poker sessions and looking forward to the day to work out what a good day would look like
• Daily pages. A stream of consciousness journal where I document a little of the events of the previous day, any emotions of the moment and plans for the day ahead. Derived from recommendations found by following links from Tim Ferriss's podcasts. And part of the reason I seem to have dropped my blogging frequency
• Poker study of around an hour or more. Have been focusing on Ed Miller's "Playing the Player". Slowly grinding through the book as I mind map a bunch of pages each day. The mind map technique is one I use to ensure I engage in the material in a deeper way than if I simply read it. 

After that it is off to Crown and see how I go. Every second day I read / re-read some of Zachary Elwood's "Exploiting Poker Tells" or "Verbal Poker Tells".  For these books my take is that if I can increase my win rate by 10 - 20% through developing my ability to read people then the investment will have been well worth it.

The best book I've read recently, by a country mile, has been Tommy DAngelo's "Painless Poker". This is one of the few books where I would be happy to write an Amazon review recommending the book. However, as Tommy has produced a masterpiece anything I write praising it would feel to me as though I hadn't done the book justice.  With the focus on poker and "medding" (as Tommy refers to mindfulness / meditative practices), this book brings together two of the major interests of the past ten years for me.  The chapter towards the back of the book, that deals with objections to medding that Tommy has had to deal with when advocating medding to his poker students, is superb.  If anyone wants to play the "Yes I would meditate but..." game, then that chapter deals with pretty much all the "Yes, buts..."

The two major areas that Painless Poker has helped me with are:

• Helping me understand my "Quit leak". This is where I continue playing beyond my intended quit time and subsequently usually lose a chunk of money. While the leak still exists, there have been fewer instances of it happening. And more instances of my quitting. Both on time and prior to the scheduled time
• Helping me with staying focused at the table. There is so much information happening during hands where your cards have been folded. People's betting patterns, possible tells that can be tracked to see whether the tell is reliable or not and so on. For example, last night I realized one of the regular players on the table bets in two different ways.  Sometimes he articulates the bet. And if he has verbally bet the flop, he usually verbally bets the turn.  And other times he does not articulate the bet. He will bet silently on the flop.  Unfortunately, while I see there is difference in his betting behaviour, I have yet to see enough hands go to showdown to see whether there is a meaning to this difference in betting styles. I have a suspicion one is associated with strength.  In addition to this, I've noticed another reg making donk bets on the flop after check-calling the flop. After noticing his donk betting on the turn strategy I noticed that twice his turn donk bets have been raised. And twice he has folded.  I'm thinking, for this player, and this player only at this stage, this pattern is worth going after. 

My goal for September is to have a profitable month at the tables. There is a mountain of study sitting there waiting to be done. And a bunch of material already consumed that needs to be reviewed. Therefore my study goal is to keep pecking away with the goal of putting in at least one quality hour of study per day.

Mid Year random post

Into the second half of 2017 and back in Melbourne for a week after a lengthy house sit in Lindfield. Looking after Fernie the 3 year old Labradoodle. An easy dog to look after. Happy and well trained. The only hard part for a poker player is the need to be up between 07:00 am and 08:00 am 7 days a week. This requirement can interfere with the random desire to play through the night. However, having a mansion to stay in with such a lovely dog more than made up for that slight issue with my time scheduling.

The word from the Melbourne regs was that the play at Star was wilder than Melbourne. There was a slight degree of anxiety prior to my first sessions at Star. Surprisingly I found that the set up of the Star $2/3 game to be a better fit. With the buy-in for $2-3 being a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $500 at Star, compared to $100-$300 for Crown, buying in for the maximum of $500 and about 175 big blinds seems to be better suited for my game. Having been back at Crown for several sessions and seeing that many at the table buy in short and play a more short stacked game means I'll be more than ok with going back to Star in the future.

Luckily I have another house sit in Sydney lined up from 24th July for a couple of weeks. This will mean I'll be able to scratch my Star Casino itch earlier than I thought I would be able to.

My poker study progressed slowly while at George's. Managed to review a webinar with Jonathan Little and Ed Millar on "Information Dominance". Have a mind map of the webinar that I'll be able to review at some stage in the future. Subsequent to producing that piece of IP, I managed to work my way through Ed Millar's "The Course" and produced a mind map summarizing this book. Having the mind map has proved to be useful already. The mind map was created in freemind on my PC. From there I emailed it to myself and then opened it on my ipad with iThoughtsHD so I could review the mind map whilst travelling from Lindfield in to Star. Technology is wonderful.

I had finished working my way through the course towards the end of May / Early June. And my intention was to re-read Ed Millar's "Playing the Player" and possibly his later work "Pokers 1%". But then I decided to treat myself and instead purchased Tommy Angelo's "Painless Poker" and Zachary Elwood's Verbal Poker Tells and Exploiting Poker Tells.   Painless Poker is the best value for money poker book I have consumed in the past two years.   Two pieces of information stand out for me. First is that I have had a major leak with quitting. Angelo addressed this issue in his "Elements of Poker" book, yet I had failed to take in and fully act on the information in that book. Having the idea that impromptu quitting trumps scheduled quitting is an extremely valuable idea for me. Second, amongst the many valuable ideas around meditative practices at the poker table, the one that stands out for me is the idea of using mindful breathing at the table to stay focussed. I have been trying this out over the past two weeks and have found that my ability to stay present mentally during all of the streets for hands that I am not involved in has increased to a point where I am being present in way more hands than previously.  There are still hands where I wake up and wonder what happened on the flop. But far fewer than previously. And to be present during more hands means more information about other players betting patterns is available for my brain to process.

Have had a few emails from #1 son over the past month or so. One of which had a photo of him catching a wave at Raglan.   About ten years ago we went on a family holiday to Raglan and, at that point in time, I helped him with his surfing by helping him launch himself on the board and catching beginner's waves into the beach.  Very impressed with the progress.

A reminder of when I gave a shit for my ex

Watching SBS insight program discussing intestinal health that touched on the subject of Fecal Microbial Transplants. Many years ago now my ex was suffering intestinal problems that her gastroenterologist suggested may be helped by way of poo transplant. And it came to pass that, after passing the tests of my blood and poo, one day in a cubicle in a medical center, I took a dump and passed the contents of the dump to a waiting nurse. After being tipped into a blender and converted into a more suitable mixture, my poo made its way into my ex's gut via an enema. Decades ago now. But at least I can be quite confident in saying that my ex can never say I never gave a shit about her.

Getting comfortable at Star

I'm close to two months in to my house sit in Sydney. With a bit over another month to go before heading back down to Melbourne. In the lead up to this house sit I had mentioned, while at the cash tables in Crown, that I was going to be house sitting in Sydney for three months and would be checking Star out. The consensus had been was that the game was different in Sydney. And there were some tall tales, that, in retrospect, may have been designed to wind me up a little. With tales of the game being a lot wilder than in Melbourne.  So far, at the $2/3 NL tables I have, in general, not found that to be true. There have been some wild patches, but in general, once I had been there a while I started to feel comfortable.

There are differences. With the rake at Crown being 10% capped at $15 and a one off $5 seating charge Vs Stars 10% rake capped at $10 with an hourly $5 seating charge. Overall I prefer the Star rake / seating charge system.  In addition, Crown has a Royal Flush on the Flop jackpot running that is funded from the rake. This results in changes to peoples play at Crown when they are three bet with suited broadway cards. With the tendency being that many people will call large three bets with hands like Kd10d.  And sometimes cracking AA or KK.  Which can lead to some angst by those people who have three bet big pre-flop with KK+.

Another difference between the casinos is the table buy-in limits. With Crown's $1/3 game having $100-300 buy in limits, and Star's $2/3 game having $100-500 buy in limits. I've been buying in for $500, topping up when I drop below $400, and loving having the extra chips in my stack. In addition, after listening to a Red Chip Poker podcast with Doug Hull, I've started to aim to take $1,500 to the Casino, so that I never fell like I'm going to run out of cash if I burn through a buy-in or two. This has been a positive as far as mental state at the tables has been concerned.   Having a larger stack means that losing $100 off a $500 stack does not seem to such a bad thing compared to losing $100 off a $300 stack. And instantly topping up after dropping below $400 seems to allow me to play in a more relaxed fashion. I will be interested to see whether my impression is correct when I return to Crown and start playing with a max buy-in of $300 again.

Study wise, as usual, I continue to do less than I'd hope I would do. But, in general, I am getting through some study each week. With the content varying between podcasts, tidbits off twitter and youtube, some Ed Miller content I've been mind mapping (The Course, and an "Information Dominance" webinar), and some SnapShove training on the train in to Star. The transit time to Star from the house sit in Lindfield takes me over an hour, and often seems to hit around 90 minutes.  An indulgence to make the trip more pleasant has been a subscription to Spotify Premium. And I'm a convert. The daily mix's Spotify has been suggesting have thrown some interesting pieces of music into my head phones. One of the best investments I've made in the past year is to subscribe.

House Sitting in Lindfield

Tim Ferriss has had an influence on my life over the past 18 months. One of the changes has been a modification to my daily routine to fill in a 5 minute journal. Anyone interested can see the process described in Tim's book "Tools of Titans".  And over the past month, a recurring item on my gratitude list within my 5 minute journal has been the fact that an old friend invited me to house sit his mansion in Lindfield, Sydney. Along with the house is Fernie the labradoodle. This is a three month gig and I've enjoyed the experience so far. For the first three weeks or so I took the opportunity to binge on Netflix, do some poker study and generally chill out in a great house. Then, after 3 or 4 weeks, chose to make my way in to Sydney's Star Casino for some live $2/3 cash sessions.

A different experience to Melbourne's Crown Casino for sure. Melbourne, with the Royal Flush jackpot changing the mix of hands that people are prepared to call three bets with, plays quite differently. Surprisingly I found myself quite nervous on the first couple of sessions. As I became more familiar with the environment I've found myself to be more relaxed. One of the bigger changes to my game in Melbourne had been the recording of hands in an Evernote file on my mobile phone. This has not been possible in Star as, unlike Melbourne where you can use your phone in your seat if you have folded,  you have to stand if you want to use your phone. And I'm not going to stand up after each time I've folded to note details of previous hands. The result is that my ability to keep track of the information at the table is lessened at Star.   Like a beginning meditator I have to keep returning my attention to the action at the table. And often feel like I've missed important information in a hand.  On the plus side, when I have been able to maintain my focus during hands, and incorporating some of the information from  some poker tell videos, I feel like I've started to pick up some reads on some of the recreational players.

Another item on my radar that came in during the last month was the Psychedelic Science Forum 2017 that was held in April in Oakland, California.  Luckily for me the sessions from the conference have been uploaded to YouTube.   With a playlist of the sessions being available. Since the conference my twitter feed has provided links out to articles which discuss content that was presented at the conference. With the latest I stumbled across being a link to an article that discussed the use of Ibogaine to treat addiction.  Once again micro-dosing was discussed by James Fadiman and Sophia Korb.  Lots of interesting videos to view. It seems as though momentum is gathering with respect to the evidence that there are medical uses for psychedelic substances and my gut feel is that within five to ten years MDMA and Psilocybin (at the least) will be licensed for medical purposes.

A change in habits

Over the past 15 months or so I've become addicted to the Tim Ferriss podcast. And have incorporated some of the information from various podcasts into my life.   Over the past month or so a couple of changes to my daily routine has led to a decline in the posting frequency on this blog. The relevant changes are the addition of two items to my daily routine:

• The 5 minute journal process as described in Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans
• An attempt to execute a "daily pages" process. As referenced in Tools of Titans and described in "The Artists Way" 

The unintended result is that, after spending some time on those two activities, I seem to be lacking in the desire to write a blog post. This post is an attempt to see if I can incorporate an intermittent blog post into my weekly routine

In addition to the change in routine, March had a couple of elements that weighed against my posting. A sinusitis / bronchitis infection that resulted in poor sleep for the best part of three weeks. Being awoken most nights over that time coughing in an attempt to clear the mucus and phlegm that was leaking down the back of my throat. Plus I was without my laptop for about ten days as the keyboard became munted when I spilt some liquid on it. A remarkable act of stupidity that cost me in terms of poker study time, money to fix the laptop and anguish at having to shell out a considerable sum to regain the use of a device that I have fallen in love with.    Now in Sydney house sitting at G & J's house. Have a three month house sit lined up to look after their house and Fernie, the well trained and lovely mutt.  The rhythm of the house sit will be one of daily walks with Fernie, some poker study, and an occasional visit to Star Casino.

Another April 10th has come and gone. With this one having been the 35th anniversary of the ex and my meeting on Easter Saturday 1982.   

Add another book to the queue...

Sitting in "The Fox Den" coffee shop in Gloucester, imbibing my complimentary cup of coffee from Drifta, and browsing the internet, I followed one of brainpickings tweets to an article discussing Sam Harris's "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion". My first encounter with Sam Harris was through an interview on Tim Ferriss's podcast.  An episode that I would be more than pleased if my kids should happen to listen to it. There is a second interview on Ferriss's blog, but the first one did enough to stimulate my interest in Sam Harris's work that I've monitored his blog from time to time. I've been aware of "Waking Up.." for some time, but have not been that inspired to purchase and read it.  This article on the brainpickings site has now pushed me over the edge to wanting to read the book and it is now on the queue of books I want to read.  There will likely be a battle with my inner nit regarding the spending of money before I eventually cave and purchase the kindle version of the book.

The Van project progresses

Headed north out of Melbourne today after four nights in Moreland road in a surprisingly quiet and very pleasant AirBnB on a main road. The end unit of a block of six, down a narrow, skinny block of units, meant that there was no road noise at all inside the unit. And it felt like a stand alone house.  Driving north for a chunk of time in my noisy brick of a van. Road noise is a little unpleasant in this van on a long trip. Ended up listening to a few podcasts with the head phones on which made the trip a little more pleasant. Ended my day in Goulburn. Checked out a few places. Including the local caravan park and ended up in the first place I looked at which, it turned out, had the best deal of the places I looked at.  During my last days at The Bend I managed to do a reasonable job of painting the roof of the  van. The paint on the rest of the van is in reasonable shape, but the roof was a bit of a mess with some surface rust in a few spots. With the prospect of the rust progressing to leaks in the roof niggled away to the point where I knuckled down and, over the course of three days, sanded, filled, painted, sanded, refilled, repainted, sanded and painted again. A close up look at the paint job shows a pretty amateur job has been completed. But from a functional point of view the paint that has been applied is going to protect the roof from the rust progressing for at least a few years.

On Monday/ Tuesday the van will have the drawers/carcass for a bed and the electrical work done to the point that, should I end up in Goulburn on my return trip to Melbourne, I won't need to check into a Motel. I'll be able to find a quiet spot and have a doss in my van. Which is the whole point of the trip. Poker wise I've been able to study quite productively over the past week or so. And have been able to keep my nose to the study grindstone.

The 15 minute journal exercise that bookends the start and end of each day is proving to be a useful exercise. Looking for three things to be grateful at the start of each day has been a revelation. I can usually find at least one standout item from the day before that I'm grateful for. At least one relatively small thing about my environment in the present moment that I'm grateful for and it is usually a snap to be able to find another item from my life that I can be grateful for.  This is proving to be a useful exercise.

The lack of Blog posts has correlated with the start of my Daily Pages exercise. Where I spend some time dumping text into a word document each day. But now it is time to start putting some text on to the Blog again.  If only to have a bit of variation between the content in the daily pages and the blog posts.

If I fold will you call?

Observed a hand at Crown Casino last night that led to an older, middle-aged man having a melt-down. At the end of the hand he was In Position and had bet strongly on the turn. The river card delivered a possible runner-runner back door straight. The older guy bet strongly on the river. The Out of Position guy started talking. And said "Before that river card it would have been an easy fold. Now not so easy....... If I fold, will you call?".  The older guy immediately nodded his head and the younger guy insta-called saying "I call". The older guy showed his cards - K7o for two pair. The younger guy then showed K10 for a better two pair. The older guy looked confused when his cards were mucked and the pot was shipped to the younger guy. The dealer explained the action. Others at the table explained the action. But he has not impressed. He either did not understand, or did not want to understand, that the phrase "If I fold will you show" was not a fold. It was a question about what may happen should he hypothetically fold.
He revisited the scenario and was muttering about the younger guy being an a**hole on and off over the course of the rest of the session.   The very next hand he received AA in the hijack. An early position player opened to $15  and he flats. The SB pops it to $65.  The initial raiser calls. He jams for $252. Everyone at the table assumes a tilt-jam. The SB calls, The initial raiser calls. He scoops the pot. But it didn't help calm his feelings. Even though he had more than recovered the money he had lost in the previous hand, he was still on tilt.

Taking Notes at the Cash Tables

Both Jonathan Little and Alexander Fitzgerald advocate taking notes at the table. Jonathan Little recommends taking notes in a spiral bound notebook. Alex advocates taking notes in Evernote on your phone.

I've gone for taking notes in Evernote. And tonight was my 3rd Cash session taking notes. I've been taking notes in any live tournament from about October 2016. And had felt a little self-conscious about taking notes in live cash. However, after watching Jonathan Little's note taking video, I found the impetus needed to start taking notes at the tables.  And today was the 3rd session that I've taken notes at the table.

The first two sessions were losing sessions at -$15 and -$175. With this session being +$425.  Far too often  when not taking note, I've slipped away mentally while at the poker tables and, while there are still hands I miss when taking notes, the number of hands missed has been getting lower with each note taking session.  A side benefit of this process is that I'll finally be able to take advantage of some poker coaching that I paid for in 2015 but have yet to take advantage of.  There are a couple of hands from today's session that will be suitable for review with my coach. Those hands will be entered into the ShareMyPair app, along with some notes into a mind map, with a pointer to the ShareMyPair hand. This will allow me to build up a bunch of hands for review.

Taking notes takes mental energy. And you cannot be as social at the tables. But that is a small price to pay for focusing on the action. Especially in hands that you are not involved in. It is those pieces of information that are available in the hands you are not involved in that may allow you to know when to fold, or when to bet for value, or when to bluff.  Still much to learn. However, I feel as though an important step has been made in my poker skill set.

Daily Pages vs Blogging

In "Tools of Titans", one of Tim Ferriss's guests refers to the daily practice, recommended in "The Artist's Way", and known as daily pages.

Wednesday Feb 7th marked the start of my experimentation with a "daily pages" exercise.  I'm deviating from the recommendation to write the pages in long hand. Partly because I didn't have any journals lying about when I started, partly because I am itinerant, and carting around unneeded weight is an activity I wish to avoid, but mainly because I have an element of discomfort when writing by and have been touch typing for near on 30 years. My preference would be for avoiding any need to allocate any of my brain cycles to the act of writing by hand. Touch typing is an activity which needs little in the way of conscious thought to perform The same would not be able to be said should I write by hand. Frankly, the daily pages activity would be destined to die a very quick death if I adhered to the recommendation to write longhand.

Blogging will continue intermittently. And it may even come to pass that I manage to execute the daily pages routine along with blogging at a reasonable rate. Time will tell.

Poker wise my results have been up and down over the past week. With a significant losing session on Friday being balanced by winning sessions on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Monday being the best session in a while. To be fair, after having some bad beats in Jan, it was nice to be on the receiving end of some good beats. Always nice to have a set when someone has two pair and they are betting into you.

It seems I am having more good days than bad days at the moment. And often having some really good days.

Several fasting days were thrown into the mix with Saturday and Sunday being days where food did not pass my lips until 08:00pm each night. It is a good feeling to start a day with the thought "Think I'll fast today until at least 04:00 pm. Then to reach that goal and go beyond it. Weight wise I continue to carry a little too much fat. Although, at 88Kg I am now down from the 95Kg I started 2016 at.

Comparing Echo Cardiogram costs NZ Vs Aus

In late 2014 I had my first echo cardiogram in Auckland, New Zealand. From memory, that cost a pretty large chunk of change. And most of it had to come out of my pocket, despite my having health insurance in New Zealand

Fast forward to today and I've had an echo cardiogram in Melbourne, Australia that has been bulk billed to Medicare. And the amount billed was around $219 or so.

Today I'm grateful that I took out Australian Citizenship back in 1993 and that Medicare means that low-income people do have access to a pretty darn reasonable health system.

Another Psilocybin article

A psychedelics expert says he's 'absolutely sure' magic mushrooms will be approved for depression before 2027.

A small recent trial of psilocybin in people whose chronic depression had not responded to repeated attempts at treatment with medication suggested that this may be the case. While the trial, co-directed by Amanda Feilding, who founded the Beckley Foundation, was designed to determine only if the drug was safe, all of the study participants said at a one-week follow-up that they saw a significant decrease in symptoms. The majority said at a follow-up three months later that they continued to see a decrease in symptoms.
"We treated people who'd been suffering for 30 years, and they're getting better with a single dose," said Nutt, who was one of the authors of the study. "So that tells us this drug is doing something profound."

The Artist's Way

Tim Ferriss's "Tools of Titans" made it's way onto my ipad last week and I've been dipping in and out of this cook book since then. One of the recommendations resulted in my purchasing "The Artist's way" for #2 son, who I believe has great creative potential, with the book due to arrive at his residence sometime in the next few days. However, while I have yet to read the book myself, I have acted on one of the recommendations and started today to trial the "daily pages" routine recommended by the books author, Julia Cameron.

While the book recommends writing the daily pages in long hand, I will be writing on my laptop. Touch typing has been my preferred mode of writing for about 30 years now. It would be tough to start writing by hand again after so many years at the keyboard. And my last experience with hand writing, during my written exams for a graduate diploma in Psychology between 2008 - 2012, was a very unpleasant experience. Hand cramps, poor, illegible writing, spending more mental time trying to keep the hand writing semi-legible, all these factors contributed to a sense of relief when the last exam was over and I knew that I could return to the keyboard for any writing where I had to communicate with others.

Watching the Super Bowl with sports gamblers

Watching the Super Bowl yesterday with a couple of sports gamblers was an educational and amusing experience.

Matty had a betfair account and he was able to view the odds changing throughout the match. The odds for a Patriot win, at one stage, went all the way out to 20 to 1. At the same stage the odds for a Falcons win were around 1.14 to 1. Brett, who has followed the sport more was saying when the Patriots were well behind at 28-3 that you shouldn't bet against the coach of the Patriots. That "He made a deal with the devil 20 years ago. You don't bet against him". And so it proved eventually. With the Patriots staging an amazing comeback to win the match.  My intention had been to head into town and spend some time at the library studying some poker related materials. This is one time I'm glad I was able to change my plans and take advantage of a changed situation.

one of my worse poker sessions

A C class session yesterday. Bombed out of Sundary Arvo NLHE tournament at Crown with a poor call. And, in the cash session, made a tight fold that cost me a large pot when I was against a guy who bluffs a lot. Reminds me again of Ed Miller's book "Playing the Player". Having pegged him as a guy who bluffs a lot, I needed to call down wide against him. Super scary board with 4 to a straight, and a paired board.  Holding KK on 6c7c10d6h9h. Any eight beats me. Any 6 beats me. Any Full house beats me. Recent episodes where my KK has been beaten may have been front and centre in my mind.  Earlier in the same session had folded AA on a board QdJdJh8d5d.   Had raised a guy who had limped. He called, which at Crown can mean small pocket pairs, Suited Broadway cards (because Crown runs a jackpot where, if you flop a Royal Flush, you win the jackpot). So any suited broadway cards are eligible candidates preflop. And you often see people with those hands calling large raises in hands they would otherwise have no business being in.  And so it was with this hand. If he had called with a broadway hand that included a J he beat me. And if he called with Ad10d he beat me. Kd10d beat me.  Any diamond beat me. And, while the flop checked around, he bet into me on turn and river. Calling the turn was easy. The river being an easy fold with a paired board and 4 diamonds

Time to take some time out and study, study, study. And meditate, meditate, meditate.  I will invest in a guided warm up tape from Eliot Roe to see if that helps me to be in the right mind frame going into a session.

Van wise I'm finalizing the order to have a bed built in the back.  That will be installed March 6/7th.  I will have to do some maintenance work paint wise as the paint on the roof has taken a bit of a battering. I will need to acquire a ladder to make this happen.

Knowing when to quit

Today was a day where Tommy D'Angelo's advice with respect to quitting was followed. One of my better study days was followed with my fronting up at the Casino at around 5:45pm with the intention to play some cash before entering a tournament that kicked off at 07:10pm (on a Friday evening). Past experience suggested that somewhere north of 100 players would enter and that the Final Table would probably wind up sometime after 03:00am.

Shortly after 06:00pm I began to feel slightly off color. To the point where I suspected that playing in the tournament may well be a negative Expected Value (EV) proposition.   Previously there was a high chance my desire to play would have won through and the chance of it all ending badly, with my exiting the tournament through poor play due to playing my C or D game would be high. This time, with Tommy D'Angelo's advice about quitting when it was a negative EV proposition to continue being front and center, the decision was taken to quit.

With the cash session having been a profitable session, I'm a thinking that I saved the entry fee and some physical discomfort by heading back to my digs early. With the time now being 09:00pm, I can easily get to bed early and have another day studying tomorrow.

Getting back to an even keel

After my encounter with the cardiologist on Monday my equilibrium was given a nudge. And I chose to stay away from the Casino since then as my mind was distracted. Today it feels as though I'm getting back to equilibrium.

The information has been shared with the ex and our offspring.  The headline being "Long Story Short: Probably all ok for another year".

Today is the second day of my five minute journal. And putting the information in this blog post that I've started a 5 minute journal hopefully nudges me into continuing with the exercise.

Catching up with Disco

During my time at Vipassana in 2016 I became friends with one of the blokes who served at a couple of the courses I served on.

For a time he went by the name "Disco", after he raided the lost and found and borrowed a jacket that was reminiscent of Michael Jackson at his sparkling best.  After a while that name went sour for him but to me he will always be Disco.

Disco has returned to Melbourne after six months in and out of Vipassana with the intention of finding work in the near future. And he was available for a chat today. A chat that I needed to help process the information my cardiologist had put front and centre on Monday. That is, that I was going to most likely need major open heart surgery sometime in the next 5 to 10 years. Surgery that carries a reasonable amount of risk.  

And Disco was a good person to talk to. Having a chat is a good way to alleviate anxiety. Especially if the person you are talking to is having their own drama that is causing them suffering.

Disco had fallen hard for a lady who served on the same 30 day course in August. An attractive lady with a great personality that had flirted with all the males on the course.  Disco fell hard. And I've heard his agony with respect to his unrequited love many times. Unfortunately it seems that there were some drunken phone conversations about two weeks ago where he had consumed too much alcohol, phoned the lady and then let slip to this lady that he loved her. And now he has to deal with the fall out. Which is specifically that there is no hope of a romantic partnership developing.

And as usual, when you come across someone who is suffering more than you are, you end up feeling better within yourself. Disco's expression of his suffering has nudged my mood back towards equilibrium.  For which I am grateful

Review of Tools of Titans

Today I started a five minute journal as per the recommendations in Tim Ferriss's book "Tools of Titans".  The Tim Ferriss podcast became a highlight of my week during 2016. Many enjoyable hours listening to Tim interviewing his guests and learning from some high performers across a diverse range of occupations and careers.  "Tools of Titans" was gifted to my sons for Christmas 2016 and hopefully they will have read the book and picked up some useful tools from the book. There is much wisdom in the book and more can be found by listening to the podcasts. The hope is that they choose to read the book and/or listen to the podcasts so that they can have a better path through life with the wisdom they consume. However, as with leading horses to water, there is no way to ensure they inhale the wisdom. I am well aware that in a certain age bracket, often offspring will reflexively ignore any information that they perceive as having come via their parents. All I can do is what I have done. Which is gift the book and hope.

During a moment of non-frugality I chose to purchase the kindle edition for myself and have been reading Tools of Titans this week. This morning I went over the 5 minute Journal section and decided to give it a whirl. The fact that about six months ago I had set up a google calendar daily reminder to do five minutes journaling per morning probably helped nudge me over the line. I'm pretty sure the calendar reminder was set up after having listened to a podcast where Tim mentioned that he uses a 5 minute journal each day.  Having set up a daily reminder, then failing to act on it possibly could be a point of public discomfort. However, as I'm sure no one reads this blog other than me, what harm can there be in publishing my inability to follow through on my reminders.

Son #2 will be receiving the book "The Artist's Way" this month. Another recommendation from one of Tim's podcast guests.  Son #2 had quite some painting ability in his younger days. Which unfortunately he did not follow through on once we stopped sending him to art classes. He also has a passion for drama and I have seen him working on manuscripts (none of which I have seen at anything but a distance).  And while we effectively have pretty much zero bi-directional communication since my move to Melbourne, I continue to believe he has high potential somewhere in the artistic world.  Sending "The Artist's Way" is an attempt to continue to encourage him to look at working towards improving his creativity via persistent effort.

To quote from the section on Brian Koppelman in Tools of Titans:

  “[ Every morning,] what I do is based on the Morning Pages by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. It’s three longhand pages where you just keep the pen moving for three pages, no matter what. No censoring, no rereading. It’s the closest thing to magic I’ve come across. If you really do it every day in a real disciplined practice, something happens to your subconscious that allows you to get to your most creative place. I’d say— and I know you’ve had this experience with other things you’ve given people— I’ve given that book to 100 people and said, ‘I’m telling you, you need to do this….’ Of the 100 people I’ve given it to, maybe ten of them have actually opened the book and done the exercises. Of those ten, seven have had books, movies, TV shows, and made out successful. It’s very spiritual and I’m an atheist.”

Ferriss, Timothy (2016-12-06). Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers (p. 614-615). Ebury Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

In some ways, the Morning Pages idea reminds me of the "Sharpen the saw" concept I first say in Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of highly effective people".   Writing each day is likely to strength the creative muscles in  your brain.

A chocolate box of cardiologists

Off to another cardiologist today.  Dr James Wong. So far, out of the cardiologists I have seen, he is my favorite.

Although I wasn't that keen on the information he delivered. Given my Aortic Aneurysm is just under the threshold for surgical intervention, one of the aims of treatment is to extend the amount of time I stay under the threshold as long as possible. And having a blood pressure that comes in under the 130 systolic mark is his desire.  Unfortunately I have had a run of measurements between the 140 to 150 mark. Thus a new pill, to lower my blood pressure, has been added to my medication list. Sigh. Another marker of age.

I'll be seeing him again in late March after I've been on the medication for a while. Plus I'll be having an echo cardiogram to see whether the measurements from the original echo cardiogram have changed at all.  And while I like his bedside manner, the only disappointing feature for me was that, when asked the odds of my having had surgery for my condition within the next ten years, (Aortic Aneurysm plus Bicuspid Aortic Value with mild to moderate regurgitation)  the body language said it all.  There was significant emotional leakage which suggested my odds for avoiding surgery sometime in the next ten years, all else being equal, are no better than 50:50 and likely to be worse than that.

Having said that, given I don't have private health insurance, it seems that once the threshold which indicates surgery is required has been passed, there will be no lengthy waiting. It seems that for the combination of conditions  I have, that when the threshold has been passed and I am through the gate, Dr Wong assured me that you head towards the front of the public health system queue.  Which is oddly both reassuring and a piece of information that is mildly worrying.  My emotional equilibrium has been given a challenge today and I will be keen to see how long it takes for me to return to an even keel. From my previous experience with the initial diagnosis it may be up to two or three weeks before my equilibrium is restored. It may be a good thing to focus on poker study for two or three weeks and give live poker a miss.  I will ponder on this in the near term

And for anyone who may want to delve into the guidelines for surgical treatment of Bicuspid Aortic Valves with Aortic Aneurysms, Pubmed is a useful place to search. I found one article that seemed to be a fairly good summary of the issues that need to be considered.

Sunday hot and sticky

What feels like a hot and sticky day in Melbourne only turns out to be about 24C.  Up early to attend webinar streamed by Alexander Fitzgerald. Original start time of 06:00 am AEST pushed back to 07:00 due to Alex's computer being corrupted by a house guest having downloaded files that ate some of his hard drive. Poor security by Alex and I was surprised but that is life. Some lessons are delivered the hard way.

Unable to give full focus to the webinar due to fatigue. And will have to review the webinar again when a download becomes available. A feeling that there is still so much to learn was very evident at many points during the webinar. With a title of "Test Your Poker 2" there were many multi-choice type questions posed to attendees. And it would be fair to say that I was all at sea for many of the questions. Thus a review will be required.

On the positive side I have been able to study for between 1 to 3 hours per day for each of the past 5 days.  And while I was keen to go to the Casino after the webinar, an internal self-check told me that a visit to the Casino was likely to be negative EV due to the fatigue I was carrying. Off back to bed for a couple of hours extra kip, then watch some Aussie Millions final table, then an hours meditation, some stretching and some push ups.

Diet wise I am getting urges to deviate from the Modified Atkins diet / ketogenic diet that I've been trying to keep to. With some ice cream and potatoes entering the diet from time to time. Plus Jan has been a month of only a couple of days fasting.  With February around the corner I'm thinking I need to look at a 2 or 3 day fast to give the system a chance to reset.

This last week has seen the anniversay of my arrival in Melbourne come and go. Which is also the anniversary of the last time I saw son #1, son #2 and the ex.  All three make regular appearances in my thoughts every day. Especially as I include them in the loving kindness meditation part of my hourly meditation.

When we first met my ex was particularly mischievous and cheeky. Over the past month I have realized this aspect of her personality had disappeared during our last ten years together. At least while she was around me. For her sake I hope that part of her personality resurfaces and she gets joy from having fun interacting with people in a cheeky, mischievous way.   I'm grateful for the times she was mischievous while around me. Those times were fun.

What constitutes a good day for me

From a goal directed point of view a good day will have the following components:

• Meditation. Aiming for one hour per day. Pretty much the first activity after attending to pressing biological needs in the morning
• Hamstring stretches. Long term goal of being able to touch my toes easily. A long way off. Aim is to stretch for 2 to 3 minutes each morning after meditation
• Push ups. Fifty push ups per day. After the hamstring stretches. Gaol per week is for five days out of seven
• Poker study. Aiming for a minimum of one hour per day. Ideally to be implemented shortly after the above activities.
• Playing some live cash No Limit Hold'em at Crown Casino

With those activities in place my mental strength will be maintained or enhanced, my flexibility will hopefully improve and my upper body strength will be maintained.  And while there is little to no cardio in my routines I am ok with that at this time in my life.

The poker study is the part of the day that I struggle with. I don't really enjoy the study that much. My brain is much less keen to learn these days than in my earlier years. My meditation experience has shown me that it is possible to change the brain even in later years. And, that while I may be a bit slower on the uptake in my later years, continuing to put the effort in will, over time, yield results. Hopefully before I go broke!  

My biggest leak at the moment seems to be the avoidance of study. Therefore I need to implement a routine and habits that make the study part of my day. And to avoid letting myself play until the study part of the day has been executed.

I am more or less happy with my study over the past 3 or so days. With some effort going into starting to learn how to use CardRunners EV, reviewing some of the Live Poker 101 Webinar material and re-visiting Alex Fitzgerald's "Dissecting the Donk Bet" Webinar.   

The Van is insured.... and the story of the bored dealer

The van is now insured. Yah!

Third party only at this stage. When it has been modified to have a bed in the back the cover can be increased to comprehensive cover.

Yesterday at Crown, while playing cash, one of the dealers was delivering a schtick about being bored and attempting to come across as so cool with his boredom. Mildly amusing until he cost me money.

With the hand in question I was in the Big Blind with 84o.  Limped pot.  Flop comes 10h8h4d. I bet, one caller. Dealer starts to deal turn. One player yet to act. I interject "Wait!" but too late, the turn is dealt. 4c. Giving me a Full House. Dealer decides that card has to be put back in deck and deck shuffled. Last player to act folds saying it wouldn't have mattered he was folding anyway.

River card is dealt as the turn card.  5h. Giving a Flush.  And of course, the guy who called my flop bet had a flush draw. He checks behind after I check. River is a blank. And he bets small. I call and show the dealer the cards I had.  A mild serve about his schtick not being so funny now is delivered and the atmosphere at the table turns icy. The guy that folded says "He was going to get his flush on the river anyway" and goes quiet when I say "Yeah. And the original turn gave me a full house"

Aussie Millions Main Event to remain on bucket list

Had a crack at a couple of $250 phase 2 Aussie Millions main event satellites over the past 3 days. Managed to win a phase 3 ticket from each satellite. Sold the first phase three ticket I won for $1100 - a discount of $50 on the entry price.

Played the second phase three ticket tonight as it feels like a free roll after having cashed out the first phase 3 ticket.  Had enough luck and reasonable play to get reasonably deep. Ended up busting around 55th from 242 runners after jamming my 8 BB stack over a 2X raise from Early Position and being called by 77 from someone with a 15BB stack. Sadly, with a 7 on the flop, I was drawing thin and didn't manage to spike an Ace on the turn or river and my run was over.  Winning that flip would have given me an average sized stack with the need to nurse it into 24th place being more than feasible.

As the $250 satellites have now finished that will be it for me. I have no appetite for spending $1150 on phase 3 tickets with one in ten gaining an Aussie Millions main ticket. Back to cash for me for the next week or two. There are so many visitors to Melbourne for the Australian Tennis Open and for the Aussie Millions Tournament series that the next two weeks are likely to be the busiest for the year in the cash arena at the Crown Casino. An opportunity to play against people who I've never played against. And hopefully make some money.

windirstat to the rescue

Today my shiny new laptop made my heart flutter with a message that I needed to perform storage maintenance.  It appears my C Drive had very little space left.

With some detective work it appeared the largest files were in my user directory!  Normal Windows file system tools didn't show me. With my technical skills being rusty, but not completely dead, I vaguely recalled that hidden files may well be the culprit. But how to see them?  I recalled having used the utility WinDirStat on my old laptop. Started firing that up. But, while I was waiting for that glacier to thaw, decided to download a copy of WinDirStat, paid them a donation, and fired the utility up. All was revealed. Pokerstars.log.o was down my hidden AppData directory structure.  Deleted that file (close to 72GB which was about 70% of my SSDs disk space), and all was well in my laptops world again

Another Life First

As part of the journey towards getting the van registered I attended the Carlton VicRoads offices to move the administrivia part of the process forward.  The answer to one of the last questions asked delivered the realization that I had crossed another marker in my life's journey.

In answering my question with respect to the expected costs of registering the van, a counter-question came back.  "Are you a pensioner?......"

The value of a skype study group

Part of the ongoing value of signing up for Alexander Fitzgerald's Live Poker 101 webinar series was becoming part of a skype Assassinato University interest group.

I shared some information about a live leak with respect to tilt control and have found myself with new options.

• Dennis Pedersen pointed me to Elliot Roe's warm-up MP3s.  I've downloaded the free tilt buster MP3 and will likely buy one of his live Cash warm up MP3s
• As a result of ferreting around on Roe's website, I've been nudged into making some purchases  that I've been wanting to make for some time.  Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans,  The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin  and Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. 

Apart from that specific help, I've been able to watch some discussion between other members of the group and have learned from their inputs.

Every poker player will have their share of bad beat stories

And I am no exception.  I am acutely aware of this with the skype study group I have joined recently.  My level of interest in other people's bat beat stories generally approaches zero. Exceptions  to be made for those stories where someone has done some meaningful analysis to the hand to see whether the hand could be played differently, or whether it was a generally profitable scenario where, over time, if you play the hand the same way, you will be profitable.

Being aware of the fact no-one else in the world is in the slightest bit concerned about my bad beat stories, I am also aware that a bad beat can generate tilt. Being on tilt is negative EV over the long term. So the challenge after a bad beat is to come back to an even keel.  In general terms focusing on mindfulness techniques for several minutes, maybe playing very tight for an orbit then getting up and having a short five to ten minute break seems to help me personally come back to an even keel. Then with the ship righted, it can be back to disciplined play.  A marker for me if I am on tilt after a bad beat is that I'll be wanting to open up my game more so as to be able to win back the money that was taken from me by the poker gods.  I'll also extend a session, where previously I had planned to end the session after a set time interval.  This remains a major leak for me and I need to end the session as planned. Trying to win back the losses remains a leak.

Sometimes sharing the bad beat, while I am aware the universe is not interested, seems to help. Maybe I need to use ShareMyPair app / website to document the hand, then walk away from the hand. Pondering on that approach for my next bad beat where I have the nut straight Vs two pair, and someone hits their three outer on the turn to turn a full house. For the pedants, one of the cards that would have given my opponent a full house in my latest bad beat story would have given me a straight flush, so in this case it was a three outer, not a four outer....

An urge to code again

Never thought I would get the itch to write code again... But it seems I have.  I am resisting the urge for now. But may end up installing Python and/or Perl on my laptop to write some basic scripts to do some web page scraping.

Hopefully this will be a fleeting urge and I will be able to procrastinate long enough to avoid writing any code. Bizarre.

Although from looking at the Perl/Python modules that are available it would likely be much easier to accomplish the task I'm thinking of performing than I anticipated it would be.  So who knows. Some rust may end up being knocked off my very, very rusty Python / Perl skills

Freakonomics - the men who started a thinking revolution

In 1984 the New Zealand Labour party came to power espousing a philosphy of neo-classical model based on the monetarist policies of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. Roger Douglas championed "Economic Rationalism" and there was huge economic change. In my opinion New Zealand came to have a less pleasant outlook largely because of the push to adopt neo-classical economics.

And through the lens of history it is my belief that New Zealand is a society that is much less equal, with the "haves" having done well, and the "have nots" becoming more and more likely to be permanent tenants in their own land. Listening to the Freakonomics podcast about the men who started a thinking revolution was a bitter-sweet listen.  Because their ideas and research more or less proves that the neo-classical economic model pushed by Roger Douglas has fatally flawed assumptions. With the assumption that people make economically rational decisions having been shown to be a load of bunk.  A good listen.  Pity that the information wasn't available more widely 30 years ago.

Brain Pickings, podcasts and intellectual stimulation

Thirty years ago a large chunk of my intellectual stimulation on a regular basis came from reading newspapers. Physical newspapers. Those days are gone. It is a very rare occasion that I read a physical news paper these days.

Today was one of those days. At North Fitzroy public library, while I waited for the results of the roadworthy test on my van, I sat at a table with some other oldish geezers and read four papers.

This evening, I'm back at my laptop and consuming information the way I normally do. Via the internet. And my twitter feed has served up a tweet from brainpickings that had me pondering for several minutes. Then I realized that thirty years ago I would likely have never landed on the information shared by brainpickings. I like the new environment much more. The link from the brainpickings tweet then pointed out to a brainpickings page on positivity resonance. And the information there resonated with me with respect to the some of the meta reasons for the failure of my relationship with my ex

Every Friday   two of my favourite podcasts land.  The Tim Ferriss Podcast being one.  And Alexander Fitzgerald's collaboration with Barry at oneouter.com being the other.  Looking back at 2016 these podcasts have been my friend.  With much in the way of stimulating and useful information being taken from the Tim Ferriss podcast. And from Alexander Fitzgerald, much in the way of inspiration and self-belief that, providing enough hard work is put in, my poker game will improve over time.

House Sit In Sydney 11th April to 12th July

Three months in a mansion on the horizon in the leafy north shore suburb of Lindfield house sitting /dog sitting Fernie the labradoodle. Three months of walking Fernie a couple of times per day.

It would be nice if internet poker was still legal in Australia at that time. But if it isn't I'll have plenty of time to study without having to worry too much about bleeding money in rent.

April/May/June in Sydney.

Melbourne can be a sweaty place

With temperatures of 36 degrees Celsius over the past couple of days in Melbourne the confines of air-conditioned buildings have been very attractive....

Relationship Train Crash at the Poker Table

Two nights ago a youngish (in my eyes) couple turned up at the table I was playing at. Reasonably attractive couple who were probably in their late 20's.  The lady was attractive and seemed like a good sort.

After 20 to 30 minutes they became involved in a heads up pot. Both had fairly marginal hands and both went all-in with the bloke running out the winner with his pocket 4s beating her pocket 3s.

With her money exhausted, she was happy to spend some time waiting for her bloke. But. It was late. Exhaustion was setting in. She asked nicely several times over a reasonable period of time to leave for home.  First request around 01:30 am.

The bloke was enjoying himself and, in my eyes, wanted her to just sit nearby while he played his poker and to not bother him. However the lady in question was coming close to the end of her tether and clearly at one stage was almost at the point of tears due to exhaustion.

From my observers position it seemed like a case of massive disrespect and a relationship that will be heading towards some major conflict.  And while the lady was sitting so close to the guy it was difficult to state in blunt language that he was being a bit of a dickhead and needed to leave the game and take care of his partner.  Did suggest to him that he should leave. In semi-polite language. But without giving the message that he was putting his relationship in jeopardy through being a massive dickhead

A longer stay

I have the chance to spend about a month in one place and am going to take it.  Possibility of having some of the rent shaved off in exchange for a bit of advice and work for a professional sports gambler I met in 2016.

He is ultra busy and has some menial work that takes up some of his time and takes his focus away from where he needs to be in order to make money. Thus I'll have a look at some of the menial work with the intent of either automating it or documenting it so that he can lay it off to someone else.

Take delivery of my van on Monday 9th with the need to get it road worthy. I have a concern with some rust spots just below the front windscreen.  And am hopeful that those spots will not be tooooo expensive to have fixed up.  Have already acquired an unregistered vehicle permit to allow me to drive the van to a place to have a roadworthy test, to be repaired, or to my place of residence.

Poker wise have had a neutral start to the year. With several positive sessions being balanced by a couple of losing sessions.  Once again I was reminded of the need to listen to my inner voice when it tells me to leave. As one of my losing sessions followed a period of my inner voice telling me to leave when I was up a little.  Time to re-read Tommy D'Angelo's Elements of Poker. Especially the section on practicing quitting.  Though I did quit pretty much instantly yesterday when I started to hear the inner voice telling me it was time to quit.  So maybe there is hope I'll eventually make a habit of listening to that inner voice telling me to quit. And also that I'll make a better habit of planning how long to play for and sticking to it.

Maybe I should add a visit to Holland to my bucket list

Especially after reading this article

A mini 2016 review

2016 was a year of change. And if you measure the year by mental health, then the year was a successful year.

Many things to be grateful for:

• While I am bleeding money, I still have enough left that I could AirBnB for another couple of years
• My poker journey has left me with another years experience. And while it was a losing year monetary wise, I feel much better about my skill set than at the start of the year
• AirBnB.  Much like Forest Gump's quote that "life is like a box of chocolates".  AirBnB has much the same sort of lucky dip feel to it.  I am particularly grateful for some of the contacts I made during my journey, and some of the life skills that were passed along.
• Andrew Denton's podcast "Better Off Dead". I just love Denton's work. Listening to Denton explaining complex issues in a way that makes them seem easy to understand is a joy.
• Tim Ferriss's podcast. Lots of life hacks. Some of which I've ignored.  And others that I've experimented with. And best of all, after the intellectual desert that was New Zealand's media environment, intelligent conversations with inspiring people.
• Alexander Fitzgerald's podcast. Positive poker coach who spruiks the virtues of hard work rather than innate talent. I enjoy, at the age of 57, taking inspiration from a 28 year old who has put the hard yards in to improve his poker skill set
• The intermittent emails that I receive from #1 son. I sometimes re-read them and quietly marvel at what excellent written communication skills he has developed. For someone who is pursuing an engineering degree, having his level of written skills will be a great asset
• son #2's mid-year job acquisition. And his continuing employment
• Being able to increase my regular meditation sessions from 30 minutes per day at the start of 2016 to around 60 minutes per day by mid-year.
• Being able to attend Vipassana Blackheath for over 60 days. A significant improvement in my meditation practice in 2016
• The person who introduced me to magic mushrooms. The first trip. And how to identify the species that has Psilocybin present
• The research into Psilocybin in 2016 that showed Psilocybin has great potential as an anti-depressant, anti-anxiolytic and as a treatment for existential angst in terminal cancer patients
• Tim Ferriss's interview with Dr James Fadiman
• The Psychedelic Explorers Guide by James Fadiman
• Sacred Knowledge by William A Richards
• The Spotify playlist that plays the music mentioned in the book "Sacred Knowledge"
• Having lost some weight. Started the year at around 95 Kg. Ended the year around 88Kg. 
• Implemented some of the strategies mentioned in the Tiny Habits Ted Talk to allow me to a) establish a regular push up exercise habit and b) increase the number of push ups completed on a regular basis to around 50 push ups per day around 5 days per week.
• My aero press coffee plunger and portable coffee grinder. With roasted coffee beans readily available for sale at many places through out Melbourne, having self-ground coffee most mornings is both a pleasure and a cost saver.  And is a tool that I use most days. Great value for money
• The Tim Ferriss show episodes with Dom D'agostino around the ketogenic diet. And a pubmed review article on fasting. The ongoing effect for me is that I've started adding coconut oil to my coffee as a way of getting Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT) into my system. And thus adding another way of avoiding  "white death" (aka sugar) to my kitbag.
• People who I have met through AirBnB who have made my life more interesting
• Shayne from Brighton who I met at Crown Casino and invited me to some poker home games
• Konrad from Box Hill who allowed me to store my recently acquired Hiace Van when the transport company unexpectedly delivered the van 3 weeks before I was expecting it. 
• The Thai barber who buzz cuts my hair. Just an over all nice guy who makes me feel better every time I sit down in his chair
• My new MSI laptop. Still less than one month old and still loving having it
• My new telstra $80 smartphone. After living with #1 son's approximately 5 year old hand me down it is a joy to have this new device.
• Public transport in Melbourne. Cheap as chips. And a great way to get around for me. 
• Not having to use a car as a means of getting around Melbourne. If I can avoid being stuck in Traffic I will.
• Catching up with George McIvor and family in Sydney
• Catching up with Jenni and Geoffrey in Sydney

And probably a few other things I've forgotten about.

Big Bang in the sky!

New Years's Eve saw me in Melbourne's CBD area and in a spot that had a great view of the fireworks that were let off in the CBD area last night. Loads of people around and quite easy to get squeezed like a sardine.

The memory I found coming back was of New Year's eve 1998. When we were about to move back to New Zealand and Shelley, Felix, Isaac and I went to Sydney park and watched the fireworks in Sydney Harbour from afar.  Felix, who was just over the age of two made the remark "Big bang in the sky" while pointing at the fireworks in the distance. Shelley and I made an effort to have a good New Years eve earlier in our relationships but we seemed to run into a plethora of problems with respect to having a good night at New Years. The memory of Felix being fascinated by the explosions in the sky still remain, in a good way, after all those years in between. And I was quietly pleased for the New Year's Eve fireworks that brought in 2017 triggered the memory of Felix's experience with fireworks when he was just over 2 years old