Poker, Shaving, But No Links
1:40 PM
Sorry, I've been lazy. Not so much lazy I guess as I've just had other things on my
mind. Hopefully the length of this post will make up for it.
First of all, I finally got all of my poker chips and the carrying case. I can't
wait to use them. I'm trying to get together a monthly poker game to play at out
house, but I'm having trouble finding the players. I don't want to resort to
inviting people I don't know that well, but I may have to. I have a preliminary
page set up to show the structure I'm planning on using that you can see here. I've also started
playing in the Win Your Way
In poker league. The quality of play isn't the best, but it does give me
practice playing live and reading people. About the only downside to the league is
that their blind schedule is awful. The increments go up way too fast at the end,
making the final table a crapshoot at best. So far I've made every final table I've
played. But I've finished no higher than fourth (I've done that three times
though!).
My online poker career has taken off a bit as well. As I've said before, I want to
invest no money into it. I created a small bankroll by winning freeroll
tournaments. I built it up slowly until I had over $6 (I know, a regular high
roller I am). I've taken the money and started playing in $.01/$.02/$.04 no limit
cash games. In less than two weeks, I've grown that up to $26. I figure that at
that limit I average about $1/hour in profit. My goal for the year is to have
earned $500. If I continue to play at this limit, I'd need to play over 450 hours
to get there. There's no way I'm willing to play that much, but as my bank roll
grows I can move up the limits and hopefully my profit grows with them. Wish me
luck!
I've found the quality of player at this microlimit to be pretty awful. Of course
that means I occasionally take bad beats (I lost $2 on a hand last night when I gave
a guy 2-1 odds on his money to hit is 4 outs, which he took and miraculously did
hit), but it the long run I'm coming out ahead. So well in fact I've started
limping with very marginal hands, because I know I can outplay everyone on the flop.
An example hand will illustrate this exactly. I'm in the big blind, and the person
under the gun raises to $.06. Everyone folds to me. I have the ace of clubs and
the three of clubs. I decide to take a flop and call. The flop comes down ace of
hearts, ten of clubs, six of clubs. A very good flop for me. I have top pair (with
a lousy kicker) and the nut flush draw. I bet out half about half the pot ($.08) to
see where I am. I expect him to call with any ace, and raise me with ace/ten or
better. He raises but only $.08 (the minimum). I'm getting nearly 4-1 odds to call
so of course I do. The turn is the two of diamonds. I figure at this point he must
have an ace; and he hasn't made two pair; so he probably has ace/king, ace/queen, or
ace/jack. I check and he bets $.10. I ponder that a bit. That gives me nearly 5-1
odds to call, which means there is nothing he can hold where I wouldn't call him.
If he'd bet $.30-.40, I would have had to lay it down; but with those odds I'm
forced to call. The river comes three of diamonds. Other than a club, that's the
best card I could get right there. Since I've represented a flush draw all the way;
and I obviously didn't hit it I figure I'll check and let him value bet. I expect
him to bet about $.10. Instead, he bets $.75. Another weird move on his part. If
I hadn't made two pair on the river and had really been on just a flush draw, there
is no way I'd call that bet. I'm not sure what exactly that means. I'm really only
behind to a few hands at this point (pocket tens, threes, sixes, twos, ace/six,
ace/ten). He didn't play it like he had ace/ten or ace/six so I rule those out. I
can't see him calling my bet on the flop if all he had were a small under pair. And
he sure didn't play like he made trips on the flop. I reason that I have the best
hand, so I put him all in. He calls me and shows ace/queen. I take the pot with my
two pair aces up. You can probably gather that he played the hand poorly and gave me
a chance to suck out on him. On the turn he could have forced me out easily with a
big bet. Instead, he made a play that puts the long term profit clearly on my side.
His bigger mistake though was on the river. When you put your opponent on a flush
or straight draw, they don't hit it, and they check to you, what should you do?
Usually I would say check behind them. If you make a big bet, and they really did
miss their draw; then they'll just fold. The other option is to value bet. The
problem with that is, what if that last card improved their hand in another way as
it did mine? They'll raise over the top of you. That puts you in a bad situation.
But you can still fold here and only lose that small extra bet. He bet so much into
me, that he was committed once I raised him and he had to call. With players like
these it's no wonder I'm showing a consistent profit!
Enough about poker. I'd like to talk about something else, shaving. You may wonder
why I would talk about that considering I have a beard. Well, I still have to shave.
My beard is quite huge and thick, so my neck and cheeks still need to be shaved.
Part of the reason I grew the beard in the first place was because I hate shaving.
I've tried the Gillette Sensor, Mach 3, a Norelco Electric, and most recently the
Schick Quattro. None have made me really happy. All of the manual razors give me
razor burn and ingrown hairs so bad that I only shave about twice a week (that
doesn't look bad when you have a full beard). Of course, by then my hair is long
enough that it clogs the blades and is really hard to clean out. This gets worse
the more blades they add to the razor. The electric razor simply never gave me a
close shave. If I went more than a day without using it, my beard was too long for
it to cut. I almost had to shave twice a day with the damn thing. The last time I
went and bought blades for the quattro, I got fed up. It was $10 for 4 extra
cartridges. Even with the way I shave they only last about a month each. So, I did
a little research and found that you can still shave the old fashioned way. I found
tons of good information at the shave
my face forums and shaveblog. Who knew there were people geeky
about this kind of stuff. Any way, I had Kathrine order me a safety razor
and shaving
cream for Valentine's day. Even though you need a brush to lather up the cream
for it's best effect, I can already say that this is the only way to shave. I loved
it so much I bought a badger hair brush
today. Even without the extra lather this is the most comfortable shave I've ever
had. No razor burn, and no ingrown hairs. To make it even better the blades are
about $.45 a piece in packs of 10 and can be had for about $.15 a piece in packs of
100 on ebay. If you have to shave I'd say this is the way to do it.