Ryut's World O' Curiosities

Now that it is even more clear that Clinton has lost the democratic nomination to Barack Obama, I wish I could say that Hillary Clinton is finally starting to coast her way to withdrawing from this campaign. You know, she could enter a mode where she spends only on her personal travel and apperances and does not organize in the upcoming states. This, so she can squirrel away all contribution money to offset her debt rather than further her campaign.

These appearances would be followed by a (*cough* *cough* sudden) withdrawal contrary to every statement she makes leading up to it. A take-the-contribution-money-and-dissapear kind of thing. Normally, I would expect this, even if it is typical despicable politician behavior.

However, as I've said many times before, Hillary is going to the convention. Even if she loses the remaining contests, she is going. Even if she is blown out, she is going. The only thing that may stop her is enough superdelegates committing to Obama so that Obama has, not a simple majority - that won't stop Hillary, the complete magic number of total delegates as stipulated by the primary rules.

And even THAT, I think might not be enough for Hillary. Since superdelegate commitments are not recorded votes, there's still a convention scenario for Hillary, where back room dealing can win the day.

The only question is, how much uglier will she get. Brace yourselves. She ain't no Huckabee.

~Ryutgarve~

Girlfriend, you need to shut up and let your man Barack speak. You need to stop interrupting him. You need to stop telling people he's a goof that has no authority at home. You need to stop telling people he snores. You need to be deferential and respectful. No one is electing you, so just STOP IT. You need to sit there and fill the dutiful spouse role. That is all that is required of you.

You don't need to fix education, or do anything more than be unfailingly supportive of your candidate husband at this time. Your sarcasm is lost on Joe Sixpack, who would vote for Dubya again if he could, so just stop it already. I would go on, but this is so obvious, I'm astounded I have to mention it... yet I feel I must.

These Princeton/Harvard people are supposed to be intelligent, but my God, they are effing stupid at times.

~Ryutgarve~

Yes, it's another mind-numbing poker post. OH CRAAAAP!

In trying to build my puny poker bankroll, I have been playing mostly NLHE (No Limit Hold 'em) SNGs (Sit and Gos). These are unscheduled tournaments that kick off when enough people sit down to fill up a table. I find this preferable to cash games due to the simple fact that people value money differently. At the micro stakes I am currently playing, people think nothing about doing some crazy/risky move, losing all their chips and simply reloading. I mean, what's a few bucks? It can be devastating combating these wild-ass players. In a tournament, however, the chips of all players are worth the same and we're all trying to be the one left standing at the end.

Now, to bore you further, poker players tout the concept of "playing within your bankroll limits", meaning, don't play games you can't afford, because when you lose, you'll loose too large a portion of your overall bankroll. This has devastating cumulative effects that I won't go into here.

I'm playing mostly $2 and $5 tourneys, but I can't resist taking a shot at bigger tourneys once in a while. I don't yet have the "roll" for, say, a $26 tournament, but it's just irresistable to try. So far, I have managed to cash (finish in the money) in all but one of the big dollar (to me anyway) tournaments I have played. My Sharkscope graph(www.sharkscope.com - a site that tracks sit and go results) looks like a series of higher and higher plateaus because of this behavior. Win some, lose some, win some, lose some, take a shot at a big game, win big, up goes the graph, creating a new playing plateau, after which, I revert to my normal game size for a while.

This results in an average ROI (return on investment) stat that is negative, while profit is very positive. At first glance, this indicates that a player is playing more to win or go deeper in tournaments rather than just playing to sneak into the money. If you did not look at my graph, you might think this of me.

However, if you look at the dollar spreads, it is clear that I am climbing a ladder with rungs created by the bigger wins. I'm afraid that the negative ROI indicates that my investment, plus the rake (cost of the tournament, money that goes to pay the poker site) is, on average, outpacing my profit -  only on AVERAGE. Overall though, there is a good profit number.

Now, does this mean I'm a losing player or does this mean I tend to win "when it counts"?

~Ryutgarve~

P.S., if you want to look me up on Sharkscope, search on FullTilt, I don't mind

is basically a piece of garbage, I'm sorry to say. Unless he is absolutely stupid, his completely lack of concern for the Obama campaign must mean his ego is out of control, he is a Clinton supporter, or both.

My theory though, about why he's stepped back onto the stage, is not about his ego. I believe Wright is trying to set himself up for a lucrative public speaking career. After seeing how Bill Clinton raked in tens of millions over the last several years, I mean, who can blame him? Love him or hate him, you have to admit Wright is a damned powerful speaker, too. Some of those video clips had him out-Pacinoing Al Pacino. Just the thing for your next rah-rah corporate retreat!

Wright's antics have inspired a good bit of backlash, so his strategy may have backfired. But I doubt that the black church leaders hating on him right now are his target market.

~Ryutgarve~

As I suspected, the kitty barf issue has completely gone away. We have not had any barfing since I went back to the full food dish policy. I think it was the "empty dish anxiety" caused by the fat kitty food rationing plan that caused the wolfing and subsequent refunding of meals. Now kitty's dish is piled good 'n' high 24/7!

What this portends for kitty's pork belly remains to be seen...STAY TUNED! Hehe

~Ryutgarve~

Ok, I have had it with lowered expectations for filmic entertainment. I'm going to look at Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper here, since they seem to be the standard bearers of the movie reviewing biz.

I started to wonder why most movies reviewed by Ebert and Roeper receive a thumbs up when most of these movies only barely meet the minimum standards to be qualified as entertainment. Too many of the movies they give a spanking thumbs up to are just garbage. Definitely not worth your time to spend $20 per person to go see (ticket + food + gas), let alone rent. This got me thinking about what a thumbs up rating really means.

I started looking back at some of Ebert's reviews. In his own writing for the Chicago Sun Times, he uses a 5 star system. After looking at quite a few "borderline" movies, I determined that the tipping point at which a movie receives a thumbs up recommendation from Ebert is right at about 2.5 stars. Now this is a decidedly AVERAGE movie that is getting a thumbs up, go-see-it rating. So what does that mean when Roeper gives something a "qualified thumbs up"? Does that mean the movie is basically a 2 star clunker. Uh, YES!

And what is "Two thumbs up, Way Up!"? A 3 star movie? Even "Best comedy/drama/whatever of the Year" isn't worth a damn when it's early in the calendar year. I'm getting to the point now where the only Roeper review I put any stock in is when he says a movie is an "modern classic". That means to me that the movie is at least worth the money to see in the theater. Everything else he recommends is a crapshoot.

But why should this be? I believe these uncritical reviews are the result of where the reviewer sits. You see, it's easy to be easily amused when these movies come to you, you don't have to pay a dime to see them and you have the luxury of a private screening room. It's very easy to be forgiving in that scenario. Just about any movie will be "worth your time", especially when the time you devote to seeing it is a mandtaory requirement of your JOB.

I think taking a reviewer's rating and cutting it in half takes the edge off it and gets it back to reality so that it is more in line with the movie's actual quality. Chop that that thumb at the first knuckle!

~Ryutgarve~

Ok, my sister just had a kid. Everyone is clamoring for me to see it. It is just like that Seinfeld episode where the Long Island mammas repeatedly implore Jerry and Elaine to see their newborns with accented, pleading cries of "Jerry, Elaine.. yah gottah see thuh baaybee!"

I mean, I have some laundry to do and some golf to watch today. Or, what I meant to say was - I'm A GUY. What would I find appealing about running to see a miniature food processor that stares blankly into space? I think if my sister got a new pet, I would be at least as interested to see that, if not moreso.

When the kid can do something, like juggle, then I'll go see that. Until then, have fun with those diapers!

Sheezus, I can smell the brimstone already...*sniff* *sniff*

~Ryutgarve~

Of late, my little 3-year old kitty started barfing frequently. She's an indoor kitty and doesn't get much exercise. She's not a fat kitty, but she has that loose skin that flabby indoor cats seem to have. To try to turn this unsavory flabby tide, I started to more carefully ration her food - one Dixie cup in the morning and one in the evening. This seemed to work well and has been the pattern for months. More recently, I went even further and changed her food to the diet variety. She's not finicky and will eat anything.

However, on and off barfing has been occuring, usually soon after meals with no hairballs in sight in the barfy flotsam. Now, I could have taken her to the vet and had a lot of tests performed and strange prescription medicines administered for a pretty penny. Before going that route, I decided to stop and use LOGIC to solve the problem. Go figure!

I started to watch her eat and she seemed to be wolfing her food down very quickly. I developed a theory that she is over-eating due to two factors:

1. Psychological concern about the state of her food dish. (She bottoms it out so it goes empty between meals.) Thus, she eats voraciously as if each meal is her last. The result? Too much food too fast.

Yes, I know it's disappointing that my first stop on the great logic train was an area as flakey as cat psychology, but stay with me here.

2. The light cat food may seem less satisfying to her, thus exacerbating the problem.

SO, I have instituted a new program of a contstantly heaping full food dish, piled high 24/7 with a mountain of regular, non-diet cat food. This seems counter-intuitive, but my confidence is high that this will work because it just makes too much darned sense.

It's only been 2 days, but so far, no kitty barf. I will advise all of you should a new barfing occur. I'm sure you will watch this space intently over the next few days! Should I alert the media?

~Ryutgarve~

I ran into this last night during a 9-man Sit and Go (SNG) No Limit Hold 'em (NLHE) tournament. There were six of us left in the middle stages of the tournament. I found myeslf in late position (your position on the table as the action goes clockwise around the table is important in poker. Late positions have a  distinct advantage) with pocket jacks (a pair of jacks), which is a very good hand. The Big Blind raises to a standard amount of 4BB (4 big bets, or 4 times his blind) which is at this stage about 10% of his chips, about 15% of mine.

I don't have much of a read on the villain (the raising player), only that he's been playing tightly (conservatively, playing only premium hands) and I have to respect such a raise coming from the big blind seat. If I go all-in (bet the rest of my remaining chips), I would love to see the villain fold, but am concerend that he will call (match my bet). With a pair of queens, it's an insta-shove for me. With jacks, however, I think I'm only a slight favorite vs. hands like AK or AQ (56% or so? I definitely need to learn these percentages better). I fully expect the villain to have a hand like this, so I shove all-in, to isolate him (causing everyone else to fold so that I am heads up against someone, where we are the only 2 people remaining to contest the pot).

Everyone else folds and the villain calls with, sure enough AQo (shorthand for Ace, Queen off-suit, meaning the cards are not "suited" or of the same suit). The flop (the first 3 community cards dealt at once) and turn (the 4th card) were bricks (improved neither of us), but the villain caught a Queen on the river (the 5th and last community card dealt) to felt me (bust me out of the tourney).

Now, I know it's not the best idea to get into a race (a hand where you have a 50/50 chance to win) with your entire stack even though I was a slight favorite. You want to get your money in with better odds. But what about the villain? Why call an all-in against a tight-aggressive player (I'd like to think that's me these days) with only a 44% chance to win? Which was dumber, his move or mine? I didn't need to risk all my chips and had at least some read on my opponent. He should have read me (if he'd been paying attention) as being super-tight to that point and my all-in should have sounded the air raid sirens in his head.

This was a microstakes $2 game. At this level, I cannot necessarily expect people to pick up on my table image (how you and your play appear to other players). Still, it's far too tempting to not get your money in with the best of it, even if its only slightly better than 50/50. I guess I should be more patient. A call could have worked and if he misses the flop (66% chance of that), a shove at this point would likely force a high card holding to fold.

Dang, I hate pocket jacks and still find them difficult to play. I also hate to play JJ passively and have to throw them away when overcards (Ace, King, Queen) hit the window, potentially giving someone a higher pair.

P.S. You poker players out there, please forgive all parenthetical poker terminology explanations.

~Ryutgarve~

Well, the talking heads on the Sunday morning political shows finally seem to be waking up to the fact that the Clintons are going all the way to the convention with Hillary's presidential nomination bid. If they'd only checked here first, they would have known this many weeks ago.

~Ryutgarve~