My first 25-50 NL session

Yes, I'm not kidding, I barely play cash or tourneys, when I play cash it's usually 3-6 or 5-10 6Max NL, I don't have a bankroll, I don't have the passion for poker I used to have, never study anymore and today I just decided to play a little 25-50 NL, ha, I'm such a strange gambler.

My session went pretty smooth, I lost about $1500 playing 5-10 earlier, so I just wanted to win some $2000, easy right?, just sit down with better players than you, more experienced than you and the money will come.

Well, for once I was pretty concentrated, these high stakes made me take things seriously and to be honest, I really enjoyed the session, at one point I was down some $3000 (total), but I ended winning $2100 in the 25-50 table, so, I won some $700 for the day and I was pretty happy my gambling didn't cost me a leg.

Probably my most interesting hand played today was the following:

PokerStars Game #20342650078: Hold'em No Limit ($25/$50) - 2008/09/12 7:34:53 ET
Table 'Sculptor' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: IamTazz ($850 in chips)
Seat 3: Krazyball ($1025 in chips)
Seat 4: fumbo420 ($7907 in chips)
Seat 5: sirio11 ($5424.50 in chips)
Seat 7: FUTURE102 ($3322 in chips)
Seat 8: firas71 ($5337 in chips)
Seat 9: good2cu ($5075 in chips)
fumbo420: posts small blind $25
sirio11: posts big blind $50
Bullitos: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to sirio11 [Qd Td]
FUTURE102: folds
firas71: raises $100 to $150
good2cu: calls $150
IamTazz: folds
Krazyball: folds
fumbo420: calls $125
sirio11: calls $100

*** FLOP *** [8s Jd Ts]
fumbo420: checks
sirio11: checks
firas71: bets $450
good2cu: calls $450
fumbo420: folds
sirio11: calls $450

*** TURN *** [8s Jd Ts] [Th]
sirio11: bets $650
firas71: calls $650
good2cu: raises $1750 to $2400 !!!!
sirio11: folds
firas71: raises $2337 to $4737 and is all-in
good2cu: calls $2075 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($262) returned to firas71
*** RIVER *** [8s Jd Ts Th] [8d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
firas71: shows [Kd Js] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
good2cu: shows [Tc Ad] (a full house, Tens full of Eights)
good2cu collected $11547 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $11550 | Rake $3
Board [8s Jd Ts Th 8d]
Seat 1: IamTazz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Krazyball (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: fumbo420 (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 5: sirio11 (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 7: FUTURE102 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: firas71 showed [Kd Js] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Tens
Seat 9: good2cu showed [Tc Ad] and won ($11547) with a full house, Tens full of Eights

KJ guy was a litle on tilt, and that made me think about calling the turn raise with my set and straight draw, but I thought good2cu had 88 or ATs and decided to fold. I think it was a good fold, but of course I'm not used to this stakes, but I felt good about it, even before I knew the showdown. Good thing firas decided to call, so I could see their cards. Don't know if I'll play more 25-50 in the near future, for sure I don't have the bankroll, but I liked my overall play in the table and to be honest it's pretty nice to be able to concentrate and enjoy a poker game played at a pretty good level.

This weekend I'll be training my students for the next Mathematical National Olympiad, if I have the time, I'll probably play the WCOOP tourneys on Sunday.

Batman: The Dark Knight

Just went to the midnight opening of The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento).
My first impression is I need to see this movie again, and what a fantastic movie it is. Write it down, Heath Ledger will be nominated to the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and not only because of his tragic death last January, it will be because his is a magnificent piece of acting, I can't believe you can't forget now about Jack's Nicholson performance of the Joker, who was pretty, pretty good, but Heath gives the character a new dimension, a new deep, man, I almost felt identified with the Joker and his vision and philosophy about how society as a whole is not worth it. Definitely a great movie and you have to see it. I liked Aaron Eckhart and Christian Bale as well and in general all the cast did a pretty good job, and the directing and editing was amazing. Thumbs up for sure.

WSOP: To go or not to go

The WSOP is running at full speed as I write this, I have been there every one of the last 4 years, but probably I'll miss this one. We already have booked some nights in Vegas (at the Rio) for the end of June and the beginning of July, but most probably I won't play any event. It's a mix of money management discipline and self-impose punishment because I haven't played the hours I should have played this year. It's a punishment because I love the WSOP, oh man do I love it, I seem to play my best there, since online I'm always distracted, and over there I'm all over the table absorbed by the action and enjoying every moment, most of my online poker players peers feel bored by the slow action, and of course it's slower compared to online, but for me it's not boring at all, and the mix of characters playing is really interesting, I have some very good memories from my playing there. I have 8 cashes there and one final table out of about 28 tourneys, but my number of cashes won't increase this year, besides I'm pretty busy with the Mathematical Olympiad, I think we have a real shot to be the #1 state ranked in the National (México) Mathematical Olympiad this year and if we do it I'll be very proud. It would be nice to go to the WSOP and win some bracelet and then go to the Olympiad and win first place, have a happy life with the family and in the meantime solve the oil crisis, but I have to accept no WSOP plans will be better this year, that's the plan as today, but I know the day I will be in Vegas at the Rio in the middle of the WSOP environment with all those strange characters who call themselves poker players from all over the world, it would be pretty hard not to play, the WSOP, such a beautiful temptation ..... and Vegas is sin city after all ......

Our students go to Math International Contests !!

Yesterday I received the news that 2 of our students will be representing Mexico in 2 international Math contests. Manuel Guillermo Lopez Buenfil will be representing Mexico at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO 2008) next July in Spain, and Manuel Enrique Dosal Bustillos will be representing Mexico at the Centroamerican Mathematical Olympiad in Honduras. Both students are high school students from Ciudad Juarez (for the Geography-impaired, Juarez is the Mexican city that borders with El Paso, Texas), the Mathematical Olympiad is one of my hobbies, I have been involved in the Olympiad since 1991, some friends and I have a pretty good team to prepare students for the National contests in Mexico, we do it for free, because of our love to solve challenging Math problems and working with gifted students, and we are very happy with such fantastic results and very proud of "our boys". This is for them, hoping they can bring home those Gold Medals.

Baseball bets Sat-Apr-12

WAS +158
CHN +158
NYY +148
ARI -128

Year to date: 24-26 +3.00 Units

I use to post these on the Sports Betting forum on 2+2, I'll try to post them here too.

Coaching

Ultimamente me ha estado tentando la idea de ser coach de poker, para jugadores hispanos. No se si haya mercado para ello, pero pues ando explorando posibilidades, siento que seria una buena forma de combinar el ensenar con el poker, ademas de quizas ganar algo de dinero. Ahorita no se de la existencia de sitios de training en Espanol, quizas los haya por ahi.

Ademas siento que me ayudaria en mi juego, siempre el concentrarse en ensenar ayuda a hacer mejor las cosas. Anyway, just rambling about it.

OBAMA

I just can't wait for the Bush administration to go, man, these have been like the dark ages of politics in the US. I can't believe the guy has been in office for 7 years, hopefully the nightmare is over and the Democratic nominee will be the next president. As today there are still 2 candidates standing for the democrats, Sen Hillary Clinton (NY) and Sen Barack Obama (IL); I like Hillary, but for me this election is all about the Iraq war and that's the main difference between the 2, I have always been an antiwar advocate, since the beginning, now it's easy and even kind of cool to be anti-war, but back in 2002-2003 we were in the minority; Hillary voted for the war and as you can see in this youtube video, Barack was against it from the beginning, I have read the whole Barack's speech of October 26, 2002; and there are 2 amazing things, one, how right he was and how he predicted the whole mess the war is right now, and two, it's like hearing me talk back then at the antiwar rallies we were.
The man is amazing, after I listened to his keynote speech at the Democratic convention on 2004, I told my wife, this guy is going to be president.
Yesterday we went to a meeting with the Obama campaign here at El Paso, my wife and I are volunteering and we have some phone calls to do and many other things between today and Tuesday. I'd say Texas is looking good for Obama and I have no doubt he will beat Sen John McCain (AZ) on the general election next November to became the next US president.
Now let's hope the change is for real, USA and the world can use some of it.

Dinero que deje ir en los Oscares: Gambling discipline

Me fue muy bien con mis picks, 18 de 24 is pretty good; lo unico malo es no haber podido apostar por no tener dinero en los sportsbooks, mala planeacion de mi parte, en vez de apostar un monton en la NFL debi haber dejado para invertir en los oscares. Como quiera pude ganar algo, a traves de mi amigo Oscar aposte a No Country For Old Men a mejor pelicula y a Tilda Swinton a mejor actriz de reparto, ganando ambas apuestas (unos $600). Ademas gane $1200 en la polla que se hizo en el MTT forum en 2+2, asi que no me puedo quejar, fue un buen dia, aunque de haber tenido el capital, hubiera ganado bastante al igual que el año pasado. Las apuestas que hice en la NFL a pesar de perderlas, siento que eran buenas apuestas, pero para nada se compara con la ventaja que tengo en las apuestas de Oscares. Un error tactico de mi parte que espero no cometer el año entrante, rompi una regla basica de un gambler profesional, dado un capital limitado, no usarlo de la manera mas eficiente posible.

Note to self: If you have a finite amount of money to invest with 2 possibles option investments A and B where A is marginal and B is HUGE, just wait bonehead !!

My Oscar Predictions

Since after my January NFL debacle, I'm not betting for a while; I won't bet this time for the Oscars, but still I love to predict the winners and here they are my predictions:


BEST PICTURE
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

DIRECTOR
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Since Julie is the overwhelming favorite (I don't know exactly why), there's value in betting for Cotillard. I still think Julie has the odds to win, but I liked Marion more and as a gambling man, I'm taking Marion.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Here I think there's value betting both, Swinton and Ryan; Cate is the favorite but I don't see her winning this.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Beaufort, Israel
The Counterfeiters, Austria
Katyn, Poland
Mongol, Kazakhstan
12, Russia

ANIMATED FEATURE
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

ORIGINAL SCORE
Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Alberto Iglesias, The Kite Runner
James Newton Howard, Michael Clayton
Michael Giacchino, Ratatouille
Marco Beltrami, 3:10 to Yuma

ORIGINAL SONG
"Falling Slowly", Once
"Happy Working Song", Enchanted
"Raise It Up", August Rush
"So Close", Enchanted
"That's How You Know", Enchanted

ART DIRECTION
Arthur Max, Beth A. Rubino, American Gangster
Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer, Atonement
Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock, The Golden Compass
Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo, Sweeney Todd
Jack Fisk, Jim Erickson, There Will Be Blood

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Roger Deakins, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Seamus McGarvey, Atonement
Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Roger Deakins, No Country for Old Men
Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood

COSTUME DESIGN
Albert Wolsky, Across the Universe
Jacqueline Durran, Atonement
Alexandra Byrne, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Marit Allen, La Vie en Rose
Colleen Atwood, Sweeney Todd

Here, I'm split between Atonement and Sweeney; if the Academy decides Atwood has already too many Oscars (2), Durran may end up winning

MAKEUP
Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald, La Vie en Rose
Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji, Norbit
Ve Neill and Martin Samuel, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

No end in Sight is the favorite, but I just love Michael Moore, and Sicko is a pretty good film

SOUND MIXING
Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis, The Bourne Ultimatum
Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland, No Country for Old Men
Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane, Ratatouille
Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe, 3:10 to Yuma
Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin, Transformers

SOUND EDITING
Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg, The Bourne Ultimatum
Skip Lievsay, No Country for Old Men
Randy Thom and Michael Silvers, Ratatouille
Matthew Wood, There Will Be Blood
Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins, Transformers

VISUAL EFFECTS
Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood, The Golden Compass
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier, Transformers

FILM EDITING
Christopher Rouse, The Bourne Ultimatum
Juliette Welfling, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jay Cassidy, Into the Wild
Roderick Jaynes, No Country for Old Men
Dylan Tichenor, There Will Be Blood

Prery rare a film without best pic nomination wins here, so NCFOM may be a better bet, but I still think Bourne will take the Oscar

SHORT FILM – ANIMATED
"I Met the Walrus"
"Madame Tutli-Putli"
"Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)"
"My Love (Moya Lyubov)"
"Peter & the Wolf"

SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION
"At Night"
"Il Supplente (The Substitute)"
"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)"
"Tanghi Argentini"
"The Tonto Woman"

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
"Freeheld"
"La Corona (The Crown)"
"Salim Baba"
"Sari's Mother"

Card Player Article: Sirio11 plays back at the bubble abuser

On the last Card Player Magazine, there was an article by Craig Tapscott on the Inside Straight Authors section (well, at least looking at the online version, since I don't have the magazine with me), about a hand I played in a $1000 buy in online tournament. Craig made very good questions and I think the article is pretty good.

This is the link, there are some other pretty good articles in that section, like the one by Dani Stern (a must read), a 2+2 friend and a very successful online player.


Sirio11 Plays Back at the Bubble Abuser
By Craig Tapscott

Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successful players? In this series, Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent.

Event: PokerStars $1,000 no-limit hold'em tournament
Players: 313
First Place: $70,425
Stacks: sirio11 - 19,494; Villain - 56,984
Blinds: 400-800

Craig Tapscott: Set up the scenario at the beginning of this hand.

David "sirio11" Cossio: This hand happened on the bubble with about 47 players left. It shows a way to play versus bubble abusers, like the Villain was in this hand. He was the chip leader at the table and was raising a lot, since 46th paid nada and 45th, $1,700. His activity had increased proportionally as we approached the bubble. I knew his range was huge, and decided to take advantage of his play, based on his image, my image, and the stage we were at.

CT: What was your image at the table previous to this hand?

DC: I was involved in very few pots, so my image was solid/tight.

Villain raises to 1,800 from the cutoff. Everyone folds to sirio11 in the big blind, holding the Jd 9d.

CT: Do you reraise him now or wait to see what the flop brings?

DC: One option here is to reraise, but with my stack, I don't like the play. I think that by just calling, I can win the pot most of the time when we both don't flop anything, and I can win even more when I flop something. Even when my play backfires, I'm not afraid to lose half of my stack, since I play pretty well when short-stacked.

Flop: Kh 8s 8c (4,000 pot)

DC: Perfect flop, as he most probably doesn't have anything.

Sirio11 checks.

CT: Why perfect? You missed. What are you going to try to represent?

DC: There are no draws at all, and no coordinated board. So for him, if I play back, I "must have" the 8 or the king at the very least (I can't be drawing), and he may fold a hand like 9-9.

Villain bets 3,400.

CT: I'm sure you were expecting the continuation-bet. What's the right bet size here to take it down and why?

DC: Yeah, I was expecting it. My bet size of 8,000 will look like I want to take the pot now. I would be check-raising almost any continuation-bet versus this player.

Sirio11 check-raises to 8,000.

DC: I had a good image, and that helped me with the check-raise. With my image, he'll think I can't be bluffing, since we're on the bubble. And he can't bluff me back, because it looks like I'm committed.

CT: Some people will call with medium pocket pairs here. When do you know that someone is a thinking player and "knows" from your bets that you're committed?

DC: Given the flop, my image, and my action, I think it is pretty hard to call me with a medium pocket pair, even if you're a bad player. This was a $1,000 tourney and we were at the final stages, so chances were that he was a good player.

Villain folds. Sirio11 wins the pot of 11,360.

DC: I showed my hand. I wanted to send him a message, and most importantly, a message to the table. I had some walks after that.

David Cossio lives in El Paso, Texas. He has a master's degree in mathematics. He has been playing poker since 1997, and has eight World Series of Poker cashes, including a third-place finish in 2005 for $79,450. He also has multiple tournament wins online and is a solid threat in any cash game.