An Apple a Day

So, going to start with some off-topic musing. Last year I read a book called The Tipping Point. It was about how trends started and what caused them to happen. Ultimately, it comes down to a group of people who are recognized as leaders by their peers triggering a behaviour. It happened in Greenwich Village in the 1980s with Hush Puppies, some skate board kids wearing a particular brand of trainer or one boy in a Polynesian culture taking his own life. Each of them triggered a cult like rise to fame for their actions.

Personally, I work in the IT industry, am a bit of a geek, good with numbers and particularly patterns. Last week I was at a meeting with, er, lots of other geeks, all working at big IT companies like Dell, Oracle, IBM, CA, HP and Symantec. The one thing that stood out was how many of them had an Apple Mac, or were planning to buy one in the near future. In fact, it was probably 80% of the people I spoke to, with the guy from Dell winning the prize for owning the most with 3. Two years ago at the same meeting, the same group of people were just getting into the Nintendo Wii and wondering if they needed an XBox or a PS2 to go with it.

The point of all this? I think Apple might just be about to break out of the zealot user base they have owned for years and into the mainstream. In my world, I started with an iPod, graduated to an iPhone and will be getting a Macbook - as soon as Apple announce whatever it is that will be their Windows 7 release spoiler. But I'm not the only one. I'm not sure Linux is for me, certainly it won't have many poker options, but there are some available for Mac. I am also fed up with Windows just breaking - having worked with it for nearly 20 years it's turned into a right dog and as Vista has proved, you really cannot polish a turd. So, get some shares in Apple now if you have some spare cash, with the exclusive iPhone distribution agreements coming to an end, the next wave of new owners will be wondering how they ever managed to do anything with a Windows interface - and looking at the other kit they sell. [BTW, didn't bump into anyone from Apple or Microsoft at the meeting]

Back to the intended topic for this blog.

Eventually got back to winning ways in September. Ended the month $420 up with no outstanding highlights, just solid returns on SNGs and even some positive returns from capped 6-max PLO cash tables. Also played a few games on Pokerstars and finding that the $5 O8 STTs are slow, but easy to beat. Trouble is they take too long and even on there take a while to fill. All this meant that at the end of the month my Full Tilt balance was bouncing around the $1k mark again. With $1k tucked away in a savings account, it is starting to look like I will be able to afford a trip to the WSOP in 2010 (only 1 year late) with the aim of playing a $1500 PLO or O8 event.

Highlight so far this month was last night, deciding on a whim to play the $4k gtd $24 PLO knockout on Full Tilt. Started at 9:15pm, ended about 2:00am when I finished 4th for about $500 profit including bounties. Interestingly I only had 1 bounty when we reached the money (27) and 4 by the time I went out. Actually think I played awesome apart from 2 hands, one where I rivered to win a pot that put me into the top 10, the other where I blew more than half my stack min-betting into a calling station with 4 left. Thought that perhaps trying consecutive min raises on flop, turn and river might be interpreted as strength - but not by a useless Italian fish...

Anyway, couple of my better hands - this was a total soul read:

Full Tilt Poker Game #15167418576: $4,000 KO Guarantee (111043850), Table 5 - 800/1600 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 19:32:30 ET - 2009/10/06
Seat 1: trubbzz (18,178)
Seat 3: the77pig (57,660)
Seat 4: electric chair (62,060)
Seat 5: il_pata (71,861)
Seat 6: boildoc (4,433)
Seat 8: pempe2 (70,555)
Seat 9: jerome555 (17,388)
pempe2 posts the small blind of 800
jerome555 posts the big blind of 1,600
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Th Qd Js 8c]
trubbzz calls 1,600
the77pig folds
electric chair calls 1,600
il_pata calls 1,600
boildoc folds
pempe2 calls 800
jerome555 checks
*** FLOP *** [6c 7s Qs]
pempe2 checks
jerome555 checks
trubbzz checks
electric chair has 15 seconds left to act
electric chair bets 4,000
il_pata has 15 seconds left to act
il_pata folds
pempe2 folds
jerome555 calls 4,000
trubbzz folds
*** TURN *** [6c 7s Qs] [3c]
jerome555 checks
electric chair bets 16,000
jerome555 calls 11,788, and is all in
electric chair shows [Th Qd Js 8c]
jerome555 shows [As 9s 4c Jc]
Uncalled bet of 4,212 returned to electric chair
*** RIVER *** [6c 7s Qs 3c] [3h]
electric chair shows two pair, Queens and Threes
jerome555 shows a pair of Threes
electric chair wins the pot (39,576) with two pair, Queens and Threes

And this was a golden hand that took out an overly aggressive player:

Full Tilt Poker Game #15167599179: $4,000 KO Guarantee (111043850), Table 5 - 1000/2000 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 19:41:47 ET - 2009/10/06
Seat 2: wolverine6 (50,288)
Seat 3: the77pig (18,260)
Seat 4: electric chair (87,949)
Seat 5: il_pata (73,761)
Seat 6: boildoc (46,515)
Seat 8: pempe2 (73,768)
Seat 9: dinamo15 (55,808)
the77pig posts the small blind of 1,000
electric chair posts the big blind of 2,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [3d Qd 8h 3c]
il_pata folds
boildoc calls 2,000
pempe2 calls 2,000
dinamo15 folds
wolverine6 calls 2,000
the77pig calls 1,000
electric chair checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah 3s 9h]
the77pig checks
electric chair bets 10,000
boildoc folds
pempe2 raises to 40,000
wolverine6 folds
the77pig folds
electric chair raises to 85,949, and is all in
pempe2 calls 31,768, and is all in
electric chair shows [3d Qd 8h 3c]
pempe2 shows [Kh Ac 9d 8s]
Uncalled bet of 14,181 returned to electric chair
*** TURN *** [Ah 3s 9h] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [Ah 3s 9h 3h] [6d]
electric chair shows four of a kind, Threes
pempe2 shows two pair, Aces and Nines
electric chair wins the pot (153,536) with four of a kind, Threes

Checking through the rest of the hand histories I can't actually find that many hands where we went to showdown, this was pretty typical, just taking the pot with a continuation bet on the flop from OOP:

Seat 1: LUu-9 (73,924)
Seat 2: wolverine6 (41,258)
Seat 4: electric chair (147,592)
Seat 5: il_pata (122,329)
Seat 9: dinamo15 (81,208)
electric chair posts the small blind of 2,000
il_pata posts the big blind of 4,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to electric chair [Jc Qs 9s Qh]
dinamo15 has 15 seconds left to act
dinamo15 folds
LUu-9 folds
wolverine6 has 15 seconds left to act
wolverine6 raises to 10,000
electric chair calls 8,000
il_pata folds
*** FLOP *** [2c Ts 3d]
electric chair bets 24,000
wolverine6 folds

Anyway, net impact is that Full Tilt balance is now in excess of $1500. Just realized that BA now fly direct to Vegas and I have enough BA exec club miles to fly there 1 1/2 times :)