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Wildhorse Fall Round Up 2015 Results

November 24, 2015

First off, I have to say that I’m quite pleased with my performance at the Fall Round Up last week. It was my first undeniably successful trip to Pendleton. Even taking expenses and time off work into consideration, I still managed to turn a hefty profit. I have previously cashed in the Main Event twice, cashed some other tournaments, and done okay in the cash games, but whatever meager profits I’ve managed to accumulate would always be wiped out by expenses. I’ve never experienced that 5-6 hour drive home with anything but bitter disappointment in my head. I think my first trip to Pendleton I lost my entire bankroll… To Cherish Andrews… who’s now a well known enough pro to get invited to Poker Night In America. On a separate trip, I had the worst 4/8 session of my career by a large margin. So booking a solid win was a nice change of pace and Wildhorse went from possibly being my worst all-time casino to becoming my second most profitable location in 2015.

In a nutshell, I did extremely well in the tournaments even though my end results weren’t exactly amazing. I showed up 45 minutes late to the Omaha 8 event after driving for 5 hours straight and I didn’t bust out of that tournament until there were three people left and I had a $5764 score in the books before I had even unpacked my car. So I was able to immediately cross two things off my goal list by setting a new career high for a tournament score and by making a Round Up final table. Clearly, a great start to my trip.

Still, this Omaha tournament was a testament to how influential variance can be in tournament poker. There was a moment with two tables left, when we were already in the money, where I got scooped by an unlucky river card and I felt like my final table chances were all but finished. And then I went on a Joe McKeehan-like heater and entered the final table with the undeniable chip lead. It was a testament to the concept of never getting discouraged because good things can always happen. I stayed hot at the final table, knocking out multiple players and by the time we were down to three, myself and the other big stack had 80% of the chips in play. It looked like a guaranteed payday of $7000+ and a chance to play Steve Stencil, #2 on the Round Up’s all-time winner’s list, heads up for my first bracelet and a shot at a $10K score. And then variance struck again: I opened on the button with AK62 and the small stack raised me and we got four bets in preflop before getting the rest of it in on the K76 rainbow flop. I had two pair with the nut low draw; he had AQJT for… nothing. No pair, no flush draw, no low draw, NOTHING! Obviously he was committing himself preflop, so he had to go with it, but it’s hard to imagine a hand I could have more crushed than his… and then a 9 hit the turn for a sweat… and then the Jack on the river gave him the nut straight with no low on board for the scoop and the full double up. I never recovered from that hand and busted third while that kid went on to win the tournament. As they say, that’s poker.

I finished 19th in the H.O.R.S.E. tournament the next day, but only 16 players cashed. While bubbling may sound brutal, I never really had any momentum in this tournament – it was a grind the whole way as I was somehow able to take a stack that was never above average and almost crack the money. My starting table in this tournament was amazing and full of terrible play, but I was never able to take advantage of it.

After taking a day off tournaments for a successful session in the $10/$20 Omaha 8 game, my first NLHE tournament of the series looked to be a thing of destiny. I was running absurdly hot. Every break I had more than twice as many chips as the last break. At dinner, with about 55 people left, I likely had the tournament chip lead. My buddy Vince was telling me how he had one big pair the whole tournament. I had already had Aces four times and I had KK-TT maybe 8 times total and they were all holding up. My big pot to that point, I had flatted the second big stack at the table with AA on the button and we got to see a K97 with two spades flop heads up. He made a strong bet into me and I decided this wasn’t the kind of board I wanted to let him barrel into, so I raised him on the flop and he jammed it on me. It gave me pause because he had a ton of chips, but since my hand was so disguised and the player was aggressive, I didn’t think about it too long before sticking my stack in there. Fortunately, he had AK and my hand held and I turned my above average stack into a monster stack.

And then I did something stupid. A new player had arrived at the table, two to my left, and he was already giving me problems. I had already lost three small pots to him and we had built up a history of him playing aggressively and me giving up routinely. So when he made a small raise from early position and it folded around to me in the big blind, I decided to take the attractive pot odds and see a flop with the K6o. The flop came all clubs and I had the K of clubs and I decided to continue taking a passive line against this overly aggressive opponent and planned to throw him some rope if I turned a king high flush… which I did. I check-called a decent sized bet on the turn and I made it look like I was strongly considering folding because a) I wanted him to keep betting and b) if he did happen to have the Ac I didn’t want him to think he could get maximum value from me. Unfortunately, when I checked the river, he jammed on me for more than a pot-sized bet of 36K. It’s a great move. It polarizes his range into either a) I have the nuts or b) I am bluffing – and given our brief history so far, my image of him was that he was totally capable of shoving the river with air to try to get me to fold a flush. Even though the river shove was for more than half of my remaining stack, I didn’t give it a ton of thought on the river because when you try to manipulate an opponent into doing something and then they do it, you probably shouldn’t second guess yourself. Unfortunately, in this case, he did have the ace of clubs. Although I think my postflop line is fine and that, against this villain, I will win a monster pot on the river picking off his bluff a good portion of the time, I’m having a hard time forgiving myself for defending the hand in the first place. I have K6 offsuit, out of position, against a good LAG with a big stack. Is this really a spot where I want to put my big stack at risk? Playing the guessing game against a good player? It’s one seemingly small error that lead to a huge loss.

A few hands later, I called an 11 big blind shove with AQ and lost a race to 66 and suddenly I had a below average stack. Just like that. My momentum never picked up again and eventually I jammed a small pair into Aces and somehow didn’t even make the money of a tournament I had the chip lead in at dinner. Gross. However, any time you can learn from your mistakes is a chance to improve and get better and next time I have a huge stack in the late stages of a tournament, I’ll remember to be a bit wiser about the spots I pick to get involved in.

I made the dinner break of both the $330 NLHE event and the Main Event, but never really got the ball rolling in either tournament. I just kept grinding in both events waiting for something good to happen and the rush never arrived.

I wrapped up my series by dominating the Last Chance Turbo event until I lost a huge chunk of chips 10 off the money with AQ to KK against an opponent that was showing a very wide jamming range. I did manage to quadruple up when I was down to less than two blinds and found a way to get another cash for the series, ultimately finishing in 16th place.

All in all, I cashed 2 of 6 events, made a final table, secured my biggest cash ever, made the dinner break in every tournament I played, and felt really good about my play overall. Having made deep cashes in the last two Muckleshoot Classic series and now making a Round Up final table, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I really arrive with a huge win.

Now if I could just figure out how to beat that 8/16 game again!

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An Overdue Update

November 2, 2015

Just when I was starting to show some consistency with my posts and get some steady traffic to my blog, things have gotten so hectic that blogging has fallen way down on my priority list. In July, my wife and I moved to Tacoma and my part-time job (playing poker) started to take up a lot more of my time with an $8-$16 game always in action a mere 15 minutes away. In late August, I was hired by the Palace Casino in Lakewood and what used to be an easy, part-time job in a one table poker room where I spent most of my time on the clock playing poker has turned into a mentally and physically exhausting, frequently intense, and often difficult 30 hours a week of running the floor of a poker room with never-ending traffic and few moments to catch your breath after noon. Needless to say, when I finish my work day now, I just want to go home and try to relax a little before I fall asleep far earlier than I ever have in my life. So, aside from my time at work, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays result in basically no productivity from me. I literally come home and do NOTHING. On the bright side, I’m guaranteed to work all my hours and to have multiple games going every day, so while my hourly wage remains similar, my net income has increased dramatically. I also have Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays off, which is optimal if your primary goal is to play poker.

Speaking of poker, August was the best month of poker I’ve had in years and September was also considerably profitable. I spent the vast majority of my time in $8-$16 and saw my win rate for the year climb to over two big bets per hour, thanks to nine straight winning sessions that resulted in pretty large upswing. While I feel like my results are a testament to the hard work I’ve put in towards mastering the game of limit hold em, I don’t think anyone is beating low stakes limit for 2 big bets an hour long term, so even though my sample size is pretty substantial, it’s important to recognize that luck has played a large role in my success. While I personally don’t feel like I’ve been overwhelmingly lucky (others would disagree), one thing is for certain: I have definitely not had many extended periods of bad luck this year. I did, however, end my winning streak with an incredible -$1800 session, the worst I’ve ever had in any limit game – in terms of big bets lost – by a mile. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to leave a game because I was no longer emotionally equipped to sit in it. I mean, I’ve had bouts of anger, frustration, even tilt – that’s normal – but after I was already stuck $1600 and flopped top set in a capped 7-way pot and lost to 65 on the 942J3 run out and a few hands later I was shown the 53 on the AK2A4 board, I no longer felt like I was fit for being in public. My internal dialogue was screaming so loud I felt like everyone at the table could hear it. So I made a swift exit. That happened in early October, which has turned out to be a difficult month of poker for me, as I’m in danger of having my first losing month of 2015 if things don’t turn around over the next few weeks. Still, I can hardly complain, as poker has gone amazingly well since I relocated to Tacoma.

(Note: since I started writing this, October has passed, and while I did mount a serious comeback, I still fell short of the black, resulting in my first losing month of 2015.)

I played three events in the Muckleshoot Classic Series in September. I felt like I was playing really good poker, but I lost every flip I was involved in during the first two tournaments and hit the rail earlier than I wanted to. In the third event, I got my 99 in against an overpair and turned the miracle set and then finally started winning some flip situations, which I was able to parlay into a 13th place finish. I felt like I was freerolling after spiking that set, so it was nice to make a deep run, but it was still ultimately a frustrating finish, as I lost two critical pots with two tables left where I was a heavy favorite and I’m still yet to final table a major tournament at Muckleshoot. Next week I’ll be heading to Wildhorse Casino in Pendleton, Oregon to play five events in the Fall Round Up, another poker room where I’ve struggled to break through. Despite multiple cashes and deep runs, I haven’t final tabled at the Round Up either and variance has never been on my side in the cash games when I’ve been there. In fact, if I had access to all the data I’ve ever compiled, I probably would discover that Wildhorse Casino is my worst location lifetime. So needless to say, I’m looking forward to finally doing some real damage on Oregon soil. You can only hold me down for so long.

I was really enjoying the consistent movie reviews I was posting and I plan to get back in the zone of posting them again, but aside from being too busy to post, I’ve also been too busy to watch any movies. Since I started my new job, I haven’t seen a movie in theaters or at home. It’s been nearly two full months since I last watched an entire film. All of our TV time at home has been dedicated to watching the entire series of “Parks And Recreation,” which is a great show, but I prefer a bit more variety in my entertainment programs. I suppose this is a minor downside of the streaming services as you can “literally” watch 100 episodes in a row without having to wait for a new disc or the next one to air on TV. Meanwhile I’ve had Interstellar at home since June and The Drop and Ex Machina since late August. It’s getting to the point where I probably would have been better off buying these movies rather than paying my Netflix subscription the last few months. We are on season six of Parks & Rec though and I’ve never been so excited for a show I actually enjoy to end. Sorry babe!

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The Closer By Mariano Rivera with Wayne Coffey

September 4, 2015

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Maybe following up Andre Agassi’s Open with Mariano Rivera’s The Closer wasn’t the greatest idea because the drop off in the quality of the writing was immediately noticeable. Whereas Open was incredibly descriptive, intense, and gripping, The Closer is quite bland in comparison. It probably doesn’t help matters that Mariano Rivera’s story pretty much starts with the Yankees contacting the Panama native about signing a contract with them. As baseball fans know, Rivera quickly arrived with the Yankees and I’m very well versed in how things went from there having read Joe Torre’s The Yankee Years and Ian O’Connor’s Derek Jeter biography The Captain, so this is literally my third time reliving the Yankees’ glory years. I suppose I can only blame myself for that, but needless to say, it made The Closer relatively uninteresting for me.

Although most of the book was redundant to me, there were some things that stood out. For one, Mariano Rivera is a pretty good study of what separates naturally gifted athletes from the all-time greats: unwavering confidence and a short memory. If you are to believe Rivera’s account of things – and I do – his state of mind was pretty much always get in the game and get these guys out. He didn’t let the batter he was facing or the gravity of the situation affect his mental state – he just went out there and did his job. And when he failed, sometimes traumatically, he would completely forget about it by next time he took the mound. It’s an approach that makes a lot of sense, but is hard to execute, and it’s easy to see how he had the long and extremely successful career he did.

A big reason Rivera was able to maintain his superb confidence level was through his faith in God. By his account, there were multiple events throughout his life that could only be explained by divine interference, such as when his fastball suddenly increased by 5 mph early in his Yankees career or when it started cutting naturally, becoming the devastating out pitch Rivera was famous for. Now, I’d never be one to go out my way to knock someone’s faith, but as an agnostic myself, I really have no interest in it and I can’t stand being preached to and, honestly, there’s a good amount of that going on in The Closer. It’s one thing to share your life story and the role religion played in it; it’s quite another to tell people why they should have Jesus Christ in their lives. No thank you.

There was an interesting passage in the book where Rivera shared his thoughts on Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano. While he had plenty of good things to say about the two superstars, he was also pretty honest about their weaknesses. Concerning A-Rod, he describes Rodriguez as his own worst enemy and how he doesn’t understand why he always needs to be the center of attention. His description of Cano couldn’t echo my own feelings about my Mariners’ second baseman more accurately. He says Cano has the ability to be one of the all-time greats, but shows a frustrating lack of interest in putting in the effort and hustling. It’s something I’ve seen time and time again from Cano – the dude just doesn’t look like he cares. It’s refreshing to hear a highly regarded former teammate express the same sentiment.

While I lived through the Yankees’ long string of dominance and have read about it on multiple occasions, The Closer does offer one piece of possibly critical information that I did not know beforehand. We all know the Boston Red Sox defeated the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS after trailing 3 games to 0, the most epic comeback in sports history, before going on to win the 2004 World Series and ending one of the longest championship droughts in baseball. What most people don’t know is something that happened outside of baseball before the turning point in Game 4. There was a tragic accident in Rivera’s family during the 2004 season, when his nephew and brother-in-law were both electrocuted and drowned in a swimming pool. As Rivera was warming up in the Fenway bullpen before he came in to close out Game 4, he overheard a fan in the stands taunting him by referencing the tragic death of his family. While Mo claims that this did not affect him before he went out to the mound that night, eventually coughing up a lead that led to a Red Sox win that opened the door for them to take the series, I’m not so sure. Even a mental game champion would have a hard time not letting that kind of low blow (the lowest of low blows) enrage him. If Mariano was incensed by this fan’s comments, maybe it actually did contribute to the Red Sox comeback. Who knows.

All in all, The Closer was an okay sports biography that doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s probably a must read for die hard Yanks fans or big Mariano Rivera supporters, but I enjoyed The Yankee Years and The Captain much, much more – and Jim Abbott’s Imperfect for that matter. Interestingly, I’ve long considered myself to be a staunch Yankees hater, but I have now read four separate books that spent a significant amount of time detailing the Yankees dynasty of the mid-to-late 90s. At the end of the day, I have a lot of respect for the core group of players that were there for pretty much all of the championships: Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, and Jorge Posada. Those guys were all class act players that came up through the Yankee system and played their whole careers with the organization. The Closer might not be the greatest sports bio I’ve read, but Mariano Rivera is almost certainly the best closer in the history of baseball.

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Straight Outta Compton (2015)

August 20, 2015

Starring: O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Paul Giamatti
Director: F. Gary Gray (Friday, Set It Off, The Negotiator, Law Abiding Citizen)

Bottom Line: I can still remember when my mom took my Dr. Dre The Chronic CD in disgust and hid it from me all the way back in 1993. I can also remember her driving me to Blockbuster Music to buy Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle just a year or two later. Go figure. Regardless of how ambiguous my parents were about whether or not I should be listening to gangster rap music when I was just becoming a teenager, they made one thing abundantly clear: rap was crap and there was no way it would last. Well, it’s 25 years later and not only has hip-hop become one of the most financially lucrative genres of music in the entire industry, but we are getting Straight Outta Compton, a biopic detailing the rise and fall of the pioneering rap group N.W.A. – a movie that is generating early Oscar buzz from a group of voters that probably used to make my parents look like radicals.

I loved it. As a hip-hop aficionado, Straight Outta Compton felt like a gift from F. Gary Gray given specifically to me. It’s an epic picture that covers the formation of N.W.A., a group consisting of MC Ren, DJ Yella, Easy E, and two entertainers that are still superstars today, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. From their humble beginnings coming from next to nothing in the ghetto of Compton, California, to their rise to the pinnacle of hip-hop while becoming public enemy #1, to the fragmentation of the group due to contract and payment disputes, to on record beefs with Ice Cube after he left the group, all the way up to Dre’s time with Death Row Records and Easy E’s tragic death due to HIV, Straight Outta Compton misses very little in the retelling of N.W.A.’s story.

Maybe it was because the Biggie Smalls biopic Notorious left such a bland taste in my mouth, but for whatever reason, I had little expectations for Straight Outta Compton up until I saw its first trailer and saw how authentic everything looked. The casting seemed solid and the idea of using Ice Cube’s son O’shea Jackson, Jr. seemed like a stroke of brilliance to me. Let’s just hope he can act! And boy can he. At least as his dad, which might not be the biggest stretch of his now promising career. He channeled Ice Cube so well and looked so much like his father, that it really feels like you’re watching a young Cube play himself in the film. It’s a remarkable performance. Jason Mitchell was stellar as Easy E and the rest of the supporting cast was solid as well. Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre was the only actor in the main cast that I didn’t love. He wasn’t exactly a dead ringer for a young Dre and there were a couple moments in the film where I actually winced at some of his acting. All in all though, the cast really brought this story to life and I was impressed with how genuine it felt. There were plenty of intense scenes involving encounters with police, other rap figures, gangs, good ole Suge Knight, and, sometimes, each other. Perhaps the best sequence in the film is when Ice Cube embarks on his solo career and the group makes a subliminal remark about him, sparking him to respond with his classic “No Vaseline” – and then watching as the remaining N.W.A. members and their entourage react as they listen to it for the first time. It’s comedy gold.

Now, while I was super impressed with Straight Outta Compton it was hard not to notice some inconsistencies as someone that grew up during the late 80s and early 90s. First, in the great opening sequence of the film, Easy E is seen trying to evade police during a drug house raid in 1986 while wearing a Chicago White Sox hat with a logo the MLB team wouldn’t adopt until the early 90s. Also, there’s a scene at Death Row Records where Tupac is seen recording his record “Hail Mary” right before Dre plays him the beat to “California Love.” While this certainly could have happened, it seems unlikely considering that “Hail Mary” appeared on the Makaveli album after “California Love” was released on Tupac’s previous album All Eyes On Me. Also, I couldn’t help but feel that Dr. Dre’s executive producing credit had a direct affect on his portrayal in the film. For one, there was no mention of his assault of female rapper/television personality Dee Barnes. For two, it’s pretty common knowledge in the hip-hop world that Dr. Dre is a studio gangster – I’ve heard rumblings about how “soft” he is for years. Straight Outta Compton paints a pretty picture: Dre is seen throwing blows and getting buck on multiple occasions, including getting right up in the face of notoriously scary Suge Knight and telling him he’s leaving Death Row Records. It’s a scene I just can’t imagine ever happened. Suge Knight was, and remains, a completely psychopath, with an affinity for violence and no moral compass. There is no way he let Dr. Dre talk to him like that and walk away unharmed. It just didn’t happen. Finally, the film completely skips past the on record beef between Easy E and Dr. Dre, which seems like a pretty substantial part of the N.W.A. story.

Still, those are small nitpicks and they don’t bring down the quality of the film at all. Straight Outta Compton was a total thrill ride. As a huge rap fan growing up, this movie was like eye and ear candy to me. There are tons of references to songwriting and performances of classic N.W.A., Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre songs. I enjoyed almost every minute of it’s absurdly long (yet seemingly too short) running time. It’s an absolute must see for hip-hop fans, but I also think it has a broader appeal since it’s such a great movie. In fact, I think I’ll be going out of my way to recommend it to my mom and dad, and you know what, they’re going to love it.

Replay Value: It’s a must own for me.
Sequel Potential: None. (Edit: Apparently I spoke to soon. While there probably won’t be a direct sequel, the success of this film already has the industry rumbling about a biopic detailing the rise of Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Nate Dogg, and the Dogg Pound.)
Oscar Potential: This is where it gets interesting. My initial feeling after watching Straight Outta Compton was that it was my favorite movie of the year so far. Then I started wondering if other people, like potential voters, might feel the same way, and early reviews and buzz has this movie receiving some consideration. I think the actors playing Ice Cube and Easy E could be seen as long shots for acting noms, and the movie itself should have at least an outside chance at a Best Picture nomination… of course, with those kinds of possibilities, also comes possible nominations for directing, cinematography, writing, and various other technical aspects. It will be curious to see how things develop as, right now, Straight Outta Compton doesn’t have a lot of stiff competition just yet.

Grade: 8/10 (Excellent)

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Open By Andre Agassi – an absolute must read

August 14, 2015

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Somewhere in my memory banks I feel like I remember hearing that Andre Agassi’s Open was an extraordinary autobiography. I’m glad for the recall, because by the end of the vivid, brutal prologue in which Agassi describes one of his last tennis matches, I could tell that I was in for something special. It was an incredibly detailed and powerful introduction to the book and I was immediately hooked. There is no co-author listed, so Agassi seems to have written this book mostly on his own and the quality of the writing is stunning for a star athlete – and high school dropout.

I was surprised by this book. Not just by how engrossing and well written it was, but by how wrong my impression of Andre Agassi was. I’m no tennis fan, so as one of the most notable stars of the sport during my lifetime, I just assumed that a) Agassi was a confident athlete and b) that he dominated the sport for his entire life. Open tells quite a different story. In fact, two of the biggest themes in the book are overcoming constant failure and battling a severe lack of self-confidence. We’re talking about a man that was so insecure that when his hair started thinning, he wore this catastrophe on his head:

Agassi says that one of his brother’s was nicknamed “born loser,” but after reading this book, it’s a pretty fitting description for Agassi himself throughout much of his life. Though Agassi clearly reached the pinnacle of his sport, it was a roller coaster of a ride with plenty of ups and downs and his biggest obstacle throughout his career was frequently himself. Throughout his book, he states that he “hates tennis” and never once wavers from this stance. From his days as a child when his father forced him to return tennis balls in their backyard in scorching Las Vegas heat against a serving contraption Agassi coldly refers to as “The Dragon,” for hours upon hours day after day, to his days at #1 in the tennis rankings, he consistently expresses contempt for a profession he never really chose for himself. It’s a life his father chooses for him, unrelenting pressuring Andre, until the day his son’s body physically can’t take it anymore. My favorite moment in the book involving Agassi’s father is when NFL legend Jim Brown is looking to play someone for money and Agassi’s father gets Brown to agree to play a 9 year old Andre heads up for $10,000. Unfortunately for Team Agassi, someone warns Jim that he’s going to get smoked and they wind up playing for a measly $500 and Andre destroys him.

While Agassi’s relationship with his father was hard and single-sighted, he develops plenty of father-like relationships throughout his career. In fact, if one is to believe Agassi’s description of his psyche, I’d say the team of men he surrounds himself with is highly responsible for most of his success. Without this incredibly strong foundation, Agassi seems like the kind of individual that would have eventually crumbled under his own self-doubt, rendering himself irrelevant in the tennis world. The team consists of Gil, Agassi’s strength and conditioning coach, sometimes bodyguard, and frequent rock; JP, a pastor with a unique approach that helps guide Agassi spiritually and mentally; Perry, Agassi’s lifelong best friend; and Brad Gilbert, his tennis coach and the final piece of the puzzle to get the struggling star to the top of the tennis world. There’s little doubt that without these men in his life, helping him along, Andre Agassi would have been remembered for his ridiculous hair and little else.

The women in Andre’s life don’t seem to have quite as profound an affect on his career, but were still very notable due to his high profile relationships. He spent a significant amount of time with Barbra Streisand and Andre leaves things quite a bit vague as to how intimate things actually were with the famed singer/actress, who had a whopping 28 years on him. While it’s pretty clear that they dated, he never goes into detail about their sex life and their relationship seemed platonic enough that maybe they didn’t even have one. Though Agassi winds up marrying and staying with Stephie Graf, his Holy Grail, that he declares an infatuation with from a young age, it’s his troubled marriage with Brooke Shields that takes center stage in Open. From the beginning, if one is to believe Agassi’s depiction of things, the Shields-Agassi union seems to come to fruition more so because it can than because Andre actually wants it to. So when they eventually become married, things quickly unravel because they just don’t seem to have any real chemistry together. Perhaps the most interesting moment of his time with Shields is when she gets a guest appearance on the hit show “Friends” and Agassi steams off stage after watching Brooke lick Matt LeBlanc’s hand. It’s a moment I’ve seen a number of times on the show that now carries a little extra weight to it.

Open is a great piece of writing. Agassi makes a sport that I’ve never found particularly interesting to watch on T.V., incredibly riveting just by listening to his descriptions of his matches. It’s an incredibly thorough and brutally honest book. I’ve read some borderline scathing biographies before (I’m thinking Mickey Mantle), but Andre Agassi gets so personal and self-deprecating in this book that readers have little reason to doubt anything he says. He admits to using crystal meth while he was bottoming out in his career and there are very few moments in the book that are undeniably happy. It’s a dark book from a man that doesn’t seem to understand himself until after his legendary sports career has come to an end. I couldn’t possibly recommend this book more – it’s easily one of the best sports biographies I’ve ever read and this is coming from someone who is in no way, shape, or form, a fan of tennis.

Finally, kudos to Erik Davies, who reads the book for its audio format. Davies gives quite easily the best non-fiction reading I’ve heard to date.

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The Gift (2015)

August 10, 2015

Starring: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton
Director: Joel Edgerton

Bottom Line: The Gift is a surprisingly solid thriller from first time writer/director (and co-star) Joel Edgerton. Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall play a seemingly normal and happy couple buying a new home in his old home town only to have things turned upside down when an odd man from the husband’s past (Edgerton) shows up with an unhealthy fascination with getting involved in their lives. It’s a pretty simple plot that is unraveled masterfully by Edgerton in his feature film directorial debut. The Gift is the ultimate slow burn – at times it can feel like the pacing is snail-speed, but it’s all worth it, as there’s an undeniable tension throughout the film, even during scenes of what seems like banal dialogue. For a movie with very few obligatory scare moments – there is one scene that made the entire theater jump in terror and then laugh at how silly we all are – The Gift is patently chilling.

It’s refreshing to see Jason Bateman play against type in The Gift. While he provides some moments to chuckle at, his character is no comedian and his dramatic, sometimes mean, performance is pretty impressive. Even though Bateman gets top billing, Rebecca Hall is quite obviously the film’s star and her performance is top notch. She shifts gears with ease and displays a wide range of emotions throughout the film; this is a fully realized character with an acting job to match. Joel Edgerton is wonderfully mysterious and creepy as the old schoolmate, but his work off the screen as writer and director is what he should really be praised for.

I thought The Gift was going to be in the horror genre, but it’s clearly in suspense/thriller territory. Though my expectations were dramatically raised by strong reviews by the time I watched it, The Gift is a very pleasant surprise for 2015. Several months ago, I would have never guessed I’d even want to see this movie. It’s certainly worth the overwhelmingly positive praise it’s been receiving and gets a strong recommendation from me.

Replay Value: I would watch it again because it was good, but a lot of the film’s strength is based on the suspense of not know what’s going to happen.
Sequel Potential: There is some remote chance of a sequel, but I think it would be a bad play.
Oscar Potential: Rebecca Hall gives a strong performance, but it would surprise me to see this type of movie get awards attention.

Grade: 7/10 (Must See)

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Poker Goals – July 2015

August 6, 2015

July 2015 was one of the most turbulent and frustrating months of poker I’ve ever experienced. I started the month off hot, winning 8 of 9 sessions, including a solid showing in the Muckleshoot spread game on Super Sunday. All in all, after 5 days, I was up over 60 big bets at my normal limit.

I followed that happy start with back-to-back-to-back -$800 sessions over a three day period, which amounted to the largest downswing (in terms of money lost) I’ve experienced in at least five years – or since the days when alcohol used to wipe my entire bankroll out on a regular basis. Of course, now that I’m playing $8/$16 regularly instead of $4/$8 I’m not surprised to have bigger financial downswings, but having it happen so severely in three short days was a bit jarring.

It was a short lived disaster, however, as I quickly recovered by going on a massive heater that included nine straight winning days and profits in 12 of 13 total sessions. All in all, this stretch was good for a 260 big bet upswing and changed my game plan for the month. I initially planned to play the Muckleshoot deep stack tournament every Tuesday night, but since I was running at around $100 an hour in my normal game, I couldn’t really justify wasting my time in a tournament where my best result so far has been getting my money back. Even though running in the 4-5 BB/HR range is totally unrealistic, this wasn’t my first stretch like that this year, and running extremely well can affect your emotions and game just as much as running bad can. It’s easy to forget how hard poker can be when you go through a hot streak like this.

I was quickly brought back to reality over the last week or so of July. I played a mere 20 hours over 5 days, but I got clobbered again. I was losing hard and I was losing fast. My starting hands were running pretty good, but I was whiffing the flop almost every time I raised and when I did connect, I would win a small pot or lose a big one. My draws were pretty much never coming in and it really felt like an impossible task to show down a winner. Not only did I run at -$108/hour over this period, but I also lost more money in a single limit session than I have since I’ve started tracking all my results five years ago. Again, now that I’m an $8/$16 regular, this is to be expected. Not only are my downswings and single session losses going to be bigger financially, they are also likely to be bigger proportionately since the $8/$16 game I play in is significantly more volatile than the $4/$8 games I used to play. My worst result in a normal $4/$8 game was -66.25 big bets. That’s over thousands and thousands of hours – so probably as bad as it was ever going to get. In what is probably less than 1000 hours of $8/$16 lifetime, I’ve already far exceeded that bad result, by posting a -77 big bet session during this stretch of run bad.

All in all, it was a pretty bizarre month. I ended up with a pretty dinky profit for July which I guess is pretty nice considering I not only experienced my worst downswing of the past five years, but also my second worst downswing. On the other hand, it’s also pretty disappointing, since three weeks into July I was having an amazing month and felt like I was basically printing money. Oh well. It was a good exercise for my mental game and while I was incredibly disappointed with myself during that six rack loss – I felt physically ill and I was incapable of even pretending to be interested in what anyone was saying to me – the feelings didn’t linger and I felt normal by the time I got home usually and certainly by the next morning. So even though I felt some emotional collapse at the table, I could still see that my mental game has grown overall by my ability to move on quickly and put things behind me.

I decided to abandon the style of poker reviews I’ve been posting since the start of the year since it was a bit repetitive and a lot of the goals I set are shoo-ins to be met – for instance, playing most of my hours in $8/$16. Really, the only time I’m in a $4/$8 game these days is when I’m waiting for a seat in the bigger game or when I’m propping.

I did keep pretty studious notes during this past month, however, in order to post about hands that gave me trouble and to help identify how variance is affecting my results in the short term and to better help evaluate my own play. Here are the results of what I consider to be the key hand categories:

AA: 7-12 (58.33%)
KK: 13-17 (76.5%)
QQ: 6-9 (67.67%)
JJ: 7-10 (70%)
TT: 2-5 (40%)
99: 3-15 (20%)
88: 3-9 (33.33%)
77: 5-10 (50%)
66-22: 6-37 (16%)

AK: 6-29 (20.7%)
AQ: 13-33 (39.4%)
AKs-ATs: 8-31 (25.8%)
KQs-KTs: 11-23 (47.8%)
QJs-JTs: 10-20 (50%)
Sets: *14-21 (67.67%)
Flush Draws: **29-73 (39.73%)

*note: I made a set when I played a pocket pair about 16% of the time, which seems about average considering I’m including the times I made a set on the turn and river.
**note: I lost six times when I made a flush.

I ran well with my big pocket pairs and ran about average on making sets and flushes, but I lost a whopping 33% of the time I had a set and I lost over 20% of the time I had a flush. That seems unlucky. My AK results look less than ideal, but the rest of the hands look to have run pretty average overall. Variance seems to have had a modest affect on my results last month, it just seems worse because a lot of the losing hands happened in the last ten days of the month.

I missed the first Muckleshoot deep stack of August, but I likely will be playing them on Tuesdays going forward. I’m better off spending my time in cash games, but I plan on playing multiple events in the Muckleshoot Fall Classic next month so prepping for that series in the Muckleshoot deep stack makes a lot of sense.

Here’s to hoping August will be a smoother ride than July was!

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Trainwreck (2015)

August 3, 2015

Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Lebron James, Brie Larson
Director: Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Funny People)

Bottom Line: Trainwreck is comedian Amy Schumer’s first starring role and she quickly establishes that she can carry her own comedy. More impressive, she wrote the film herself and it’s plenty funny while providing an entertaining narrative. In the film, Amy plays a 20-something career girl that was taught by her father that a life of monogamy is unrealistic, so she spends her nights bar-hopping and bringing various men home only to send them on their way before they can even think about sleeping over. Through her job, she meets a sports surgeon played by Bill Hader and they develop a relationship unlike any she’s experienced before.

I have to say I was impressed with the cast in this movie. I wasn’t surprised at all that Amy Schumer was funny and likable even though her character had some rather despicable traits. I could tell by watching her stand up that she has plenty of charisma and that she could be a rising comedic star. Trainwreck proves this fact. It will be interesting to see if she can keep the ball rolling, as a lot of comic actors have a tendency to wear out their welcome rather quickly (does anyone still look forward to a Will Ferrell movie?). What did surprise me was Bill Hader, who really seemed to have only one gear during his Saturday Night Live tenure and I never was a big fan of his style on the show. He plays it rather straight in Trainwreck and it’s a nice change of pace. Hader actually has some acting ability – and he still managed to be pretty funny. What surprised me more than anything was how awesome Lebron James was in his role. Granted, most of the credit should go to Schumer for writing LBJ a great role, but Lebron hams it up wonderfully without being so tongue-in-cheek that he comes across corny. He crushed it and his appearances on screen were the best parts of the movie, which is unfortunate because he mostly disappears during the second half.

Like most Judd Apatow movies, Trainwreck runs unnecessarily long, which makes it feel like it’s dragging at times, but Trainwreck is his strongest film since 2007’s Knocked Up. It provides just enough humor and drama to give the audience a genuine investment in the film’s story. Trainwreck is a solid step in the right direction for Apatow and a coming out party for Schumer and Hader. I’m looking forward to what everyone involved has in store for the future.

Replay Value: I will watch it again, for sure.
Sequel Potential: No spin offs for bit characters please.
Oscar Potential: I was impressed with Bill Hader but this isn’t the kind of movie that the academy will think about or remember.

Grade: 6.5/10 (Recommended/Must See)

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Ant-Man (2015)

July 31, 2015

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Corey Stoll
Director: Peyton Reed (Yes Man, The Break-Up, Bring It On)

Bottom Line: When Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World dropped out of directing Ant-Man, I have to say my hopes for the film decreased drastically. I’m happy to report that Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man is a nice surprise and a great addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It probably didn’t hurt that Wright stayed on as a screenwriter and executive producer, thus having a say in keeping his original vision somewhat in tact.

Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a convict fresh out of jail, looking to find work and live the straight life so he can be a good father to his daughter. Unable to hold a job due to his criminal past, Lang teams up with a dopey group of robbers for a heist that he hopes can provide him with enough financial security to keep up on his child support. Unfortunately for this group of “wombats,” they are being set up so that Scott can break into a safe and discover the Ant-Man suit, left behind by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Hank wants Scott to become the Ant-Man because his old company is now being run by Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), a sketchy guy close to unraveling the secret behind the Ant-Man technology and selling it off to questionable government officials, something Hank has long feared could happen.

Paul Rudd was perfect casting as our reluctant hero. A solid comic actor, Rudd seamlessly steps into the role of superhero while infusing Ant-Man with plenty of laughs. In fact, Ant-Man is even funnier than Gaurdians Of The Galaxy, which I thought was hilarious the first time I watched it. Michael Pena, in particular, really steals the show as one of Lang’s ex-convict/robber friends, providing plenty of the film’s funniest lines and moments. The rest of the supporting cast is decent in their roles.

Ant-Man was more fun than the last Avengers movie and it will be interesting to see how Scott Lang fits in with earth’s mightiest heroes when they inevitably cross paths. I will offer a minor spoiler in saying that an Avenger makes a cameo in Ant-Man and it’s quite easily the highlight of the film.

There is a lot that can go wrong with a superhero whose main abilities are shrinking in size and interacting with ants. Ant-Man balances the absurd with a perfect blend of seriousness and humor. It’s pretty funny to see the film cut away from micro-sized, but intense action sequences and pan out to see what the carnage looks like from a human’s POV – in other words, like a whole lot of nothing. The visuals in the film are well done as technology has come a long way since Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. I thought Ant-Man would be must see in 3D, and maybe it is, but watching it in 3D didn’t really add any wow factor.

Ant-Man is a great entry into the MCU, providing a fun story with plenty of good action and tons of comedy.

Replay Value: Definitely worth seeing again but it will be interesting to see how well the comedy holds up on repeat viewings.
Sequel Potential: Ant-Man will probably make multiple appearances in other Marvel movies before appearing in his own sequel.
Oscar Potential: Possibly some visual effects attention.

Grade: 7/10 (Must See)

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Ball Four by Jim Bouton

July 24, 2015

Ball Four has long been considered a highly controversial book – Bouton says it was banned in some places – and essential reading for any baseball fan. It’s also been included on some prominent lists, such as the New York Public Library’s 1996 list of Books Of The Century and Time Magazine’s 100 greatest non-fiction books of all-time. I was kind of expecting the book to blow my mind, but reading it for the first time in 2015 probably doesn’t have nearly the same affect it would have reading it in the late 1960s and early 70s. We live in an age saturated with media exposure where practically nothing is sacred. In a decade where Jose Canseco released his tell-all book Juiced, steroid use amongst MLB players has been exposed, and candid athlete biographies are commonplace – including Jane Leavy’s excellent biography of Mickey Mantle The Last Boy – Ball Four feels tame by comparison.

But in the late 1960s, things were quite a bit different and Bouton’s book detailing his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros, as well as his past career with the New York Yankees, shocked the world. Ball Four is notorious for talking about players use of “greenies,” or amphetimines, as a performance-enhancing drug and for “beaver-shooting,” a specific reference to players trying to look up women’s skirts and womanizing in general. Bouton’s description of the rampant PED use is evidence enough that players of past generations probably shouldn’t be looking down upon the steroid use of recent MLB players and the current Hall Of Fame shuns are bordering on hypocritical. Perhaps the biggest backlash from Ball Four was Bouton’s chronicling of Mickey Mantle’s drinking, something most baseball fans recognize as common knowledge these days. After the publishing of Ball Four, Bouton was shunned by the baseball world for some time and by the Yankees, in particular, for decades.

Listening to Jim Bouton read his own book on Audible was a pretty fun experience. It was definitely the least professional performance I’ve heard so far, but that’s to be expected from a former baseball player. You can hear Bouton swallowing and making all sorts of mouth noises throughout the reading, something you almost never hear from the professional dictators. On the other hand, Bouton gets to relive his stories and you can hear the emotion in his retelling, often accompanied by fits of laughter mid sentence.

My version of Ball Four was accompanied by several additions to the original text, including the tragic death of Bouton’s daughter, a truly heartbreaking and almost unbearable sequence to listen to, Bouton’s post-MLB baseball career, and finally his return to Yankee Stadium for Old Timer’s Day after his son publishes a letter in the newspaper on Father’s Day pleading for the Yankees to lift their ban on Bouton. I powered through these sections even though part of me felt they were mostly unnecessary additions to the original text. Bouton’s personal life certainly wasn’t what made Ball Four so compelling. Regardless, I can confirm Ball Four as essential baseball reading, although in 2015 it’s not quite the shocker it was back when it was originally published.

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