I Have A Dream

I would vote for Barack if he gives me just one:

"If you smelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... what Barack... is.... COOKING!"

Just once... that's all I ask...

-KD

Candid Camera?

So you still want poker content? Ok - suck on this one: this is probably the sickest situational beat I've ever taken. I say that because it's not so much the bad beat (ok, I'm spoiling the story) - as the situation it occurred under. I suggest you make sure you are sitting down and have nothing in your mouth - but you still may throw up on yourself. If you're into schadenfreude, then, this Bud's for you:

I've been running pretty bad lately- flopping sets against made straights, turning sets against unlikely flushes, getting big pairs cracked by J-8 on an 8-8-4 flop, etc. Nevertheless, this week I again returned to the green felt to battle with the demons of cold decks and bad beats, and try to get back on the winning track. Yesterday I ground out a small win, and today I had another win lined up: I was up about $950, and went to get a rack - I leave at 5pm every day, and it was 4:55.

"You made your rate today," Richie nodded to me, as he eyed my chips.

"A lot can happen in the next two hands Richie," I responded, but didn't think there was much of a chance of that, as I was just playing out the last two hands until my blind came around.

This is one of the side effects of being an EV Whore. As Dirty Dave would insist, once you've paid your blinds, you might at well look at all the hands until your next big blind - they are FREE! Kinda like the quote from Animal House: "Grab a beer - it don't cost nothin'." I always look at my free hands - there's no reason not to. The worst I can do is muck it if I don't like it!

So I muck the first hand, and then I'm under the gun. I have my chips racked up - they are actually IN the rack, which is on the rail in front of me. I toss the dealer my three odd $1 chips, and think silently to myself "just don't cold deck me on this last hand." I guess I should have said it out loud.

I look down at my first card: Ace of Diamonds. I smile. I'm praying I don't have to get involved in a maniacal deep stacked poker game out of position with AK or AQ on my last hand... And no such luck... my second card comes and I peel it: ace of clubs.

I calmly pull $10 out of the rack to call. We're playing $5-$10NL. Two more callers, and then a maniac in the cutoff makes it $100 to go. This is the same guy who stacked me in a $5k pot LAST Thursday when I flopped bottom set against his flopped straight. Anyway, I'm glad for the raise, as it gives me a chance to re-pop it.

I take one stack of greens out of the rack. Then another. I remove all my chips from the rack. People at the table snicker a little bit. Richie mumbles, "I'd love an x-ray view of those cards," and I am not fucking around: I make it $800 to go. The maniac only has about $1200, so I'm sending him the message that I'm not folding, and that he should just give up, I'll book my win and go home.

It's folded back to the maniac, who QUICKLY says "ok let's gamble" and pushes his chips in. I close my eyes, laugh, and call. I'm wondering if this is a joke - like did they set up the deck when I wasn't looking so I'd get cold decked on my last hand? I was LITERALLY one foot out the door - until I'd peeked back at the ace of clubs. He KNOWS I can't fold to his extra $300 with $1600 already in the pot.

So the dealer runs the cards, and it's all kinda a blur to me. Td 7c 8c..... the maniac doesn't do anything.... 7d on the turn.... 5d on the river, and before I can table my hand the maniac says "FLUSH."

I leap out of my seat, "WHAT?"

He turns over 3d 4d.

I look at the dealer, "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" I am incredulous. Is this real? This is a joke right? Hah hah KD, we knew you were leaving and we set this up while you went to get a rack... just kidding....

Now look, I've taken beats before. I've taken beats of this exact type for double the amount - it's why the game is good. But here, the utter sickness of the situation shook me. The fact that I had my chips racked up and had even considered just walking away, but I couldn't leave the ONE FREE HAND! And even after getting sucked into a hand, getting it all in preflop, I was a 4-1 favorite! AIYAHHHHHHH!

I text Eric: "Holy fuck - you would not believe what just happened"

He quickly responds: "you are such a tease"

I call him up, and he answers, "I feel like this might be one of those 2 Girls One Cup situations - like I'd be better off if I just didn't know. Maybe you shouldn't tell me this story," but he can't resist - he knows it's a train wreck in the making, and cringes as I recount the hand. Eric was way too logical in the analysis of the hand - he thought that I was sunk my the middling T-8-6 flop, reasoning that my opponent gambled with a medium pair. Nope.

Then I hit up the Big Show, who gamely listens to the gore, and concludes: "It's a good thing you're rich, and hey - I birdied 17 and 18 today!"

Fahhhhhhhhhhk.

-KD

Take A Load Off Fannie

via Barry Ritholz's Big Picture blog.

oy vey.

-KD

Bajungi Tilt - Mega Post

I am somewhat inebriated right now. I can't remember if I've written about Bajungi tilt before.

In the levels of TILT, there are varying degrees: simmer, steam, boil, TILT, Mega tilt, and the highest level, Bajungi tilt (sometimes incorrectly transcribed as bajunky tilt).

Today, in my regular poker game, I lost a $5000 pot after flopping bottom set (44) on a 4-5-8 two diamond board in a raised pot, and running into a maniac who had flopped the nuts. Ok. Believe it or not, I wasn't tilted. I felt sorry for myself, I complained that I was running bad, I wasn't happy, but I realized that the hand played itself from my end. It was a cold deck.

So I went home and started drinking, as I threw in the new Phish Walnut Creek dvd and fired off a few texts to Dr. Pauly. I met up with a few of my college friends, and we went out for more drinking to one of my old haunts, the Barrow Street Alehouse. Most of the TVs in the bar were showing the Mets of Yankees games, but I was lucky enough to be facing two different TVs showing separate Olympics broadcasts.

There was one problem: the TV on the right was showing the Women's 100 mile Walk. cue: tilt. It doesn't take more than 5 minutes of watching competitive walking for me to skip the first few stages of tilt and cruise right into BOIL. Seriously - competitive walking?

Now, I happened to have it in my head that one of the rules of walking is that you cannot have both feet off the ground at the same time - and it turns out I was correct about this. I was a little surprised when they showed the lead walker, a Russian chick who would eventually WIN about 4 hours later - in a slo-mo replay where she CLEARLY had both feet off the ground.

I watched the Men's 200M last night, where Usain Bolt again dominated the field in an impressive performance - but what was notable was that both the second and third place finishers were disqualified after replays showed that they had stepped on their inside lane lines. But wait - in Olympic walking, according to the link I found above in a simple google search (and if you think I care enough to waste any more time on this, well, you overestimate my sympathy for Olympic walkers) - the infractions in walking must be seen by judges with the naked eye! This quelled my hope that the leader would truck along for the duration of the race, swinging her arms and looking like she had a dump in her pants, only to be told at the end that she had been disqualified for illegal steps in the third kilometer. (It turns out this was only a 20km event, not a 100 miler). What are the other requirements of racewalking? Swing your arms like you're trying to elbow your way to the front of a line, and don't let any of the dump in your pants spill down your legs? A friend I was with wondered aloud, "Why isn't running backwards an Olympic event?" Things got somewhat interesting when they showed a replay closeup of the lead women sticking her fingers down her throat!!! I'm not making this up! Is the 20km walk such a brutalizing event that the athletes need to make themselves puke in the middle of it? Most disappointingly, NBC did not show her puking! Brutal beat for the viewer. I mean, you remember when Uta Piipig pooped herself while she was running the 1996 Boston Marathon right? That was a frickin MARATHON! not a 12 mile WALK!

So anyway, I'm working into a voracious state of tilt, as the women's race walk refuses to abate, when the other TV begins to show the 100m relay prelims. First they show the men's relay, where the US team had qualified for the finals in EVERY Olympics except 1912 and 1988. I have never been a competitive relay runner. However, I was on the track and field team in high school, on a good, well coached team. Even though I was on the "field" side of the equation, I remember one thing clearly that we were taught, that I constantly see done differently by top class athletes: the passing of the baton. First of all, you NEVER turn around to receive the baton like this. That, however, is not where the US team went wrong.

Our high school coaches, and I'm hesitant to believe they were splitting the atom when they taught us this - made it clear that you receive the baton with your hand back and palm spread open with your fingers closed and thumb out - imagine the motion a 4 year old kid makes when he's learning to tell his left from his right hand (yeah - the LEFT hand make an "L") - then put that behind you. Now this is the IMPORTANT part: the runner who is doing the passing, puts the baton into his teammate's hand on the UPswing!!! Simple! Why? because the baton hitting the "V/L" of your thumb and index finger naturally results in your hand closing around the baton, and the hitting of a naturally open downward facing target.

Somehow, though, if you watch competitive relays, I'd say at least 85% of the competetors do either the "I've never received a baton before" move where they turn backwards and look over their shoulder, giving up significant time, or the baton passer passes the baton on the DOWNswing, which is completely unnatural for the receiver, and results in the passer trying to slam the baton into a narrower target.

Where was I? Oh yeah - the men's 100m relay. So the US men are cruising heading in to the last pass, and what happens - they go to do the exchange but Davis Patton went to hand the baton to Tyson Gay with an OVERHAND pass! Did I mention it was a rainy day in China? Gay missed the baton, and the US failed to make the finals for the third time in history.

I heated up to full TILT. It's not that I really care - but this is something that's been bugging me ever since I, the non-runner, learned it in high school, and I cannot comprehend how professionals still fuck it up. I'd love for a competitive relay runner who reads Kid Dynamite's World to tell my that I'm wrong about this and that the overhand pass makes more sense.

Anyway, NBC then showed the women's 100m relay. Would you be disappointed if I cut to the results and told you that THE EXACT F'N THING HAPPENED!?!??!?! cue: MegaTilt. Could the Weston High School track coaches in 1993 have been so far ahead of their time that the US Olympic Track Team still hasn't learned of their baton passing techniques? I just don't get it.

But wait... I'm not done yet. After enduring more than 90 minutes of the women's 20km walk, the race finally ended, only to be replaced by... wait for it... a REPLAY OF THE SAME RACE!

HOLY BAJUNGI TILT!

Water polo? beach volleyball? table tennis? weight lifting? wrestling? they have to show us a REPLAY of the 20km WALK that they just showed - in PRIMETIME on a THURSDAY night?!!? Is my advanced use of CAPITAL LETTERS getting my point across?

You got it. I'm on Bajungi.

-KD

Roast

If you missed the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, I think they are replaying it tonight, and I'm sure it will be in their rotation for the next several weeks. The Comedy Central website has some clips, but you need to watch the broadcast for the full acts. I know what you're thinking - who gives a fuck about Bob Saget? That's not the point - if you've never seen one of these roasts before, all of the comedians basically just rip on each other, and then also rip on the featured roastee, in this case, Bob Saget.

Jeffrey Ross had the best line of the night, when he followed up "Bob Saget has two daughters in college, and three girlfriends in high school," with "Bob Saget's girlfriend is so young, R. Kelly won't pee on her." Great stuff.

Gregg Geraldo is also a very funny and no holds barred comedian.

In other news - did you see Usain Bolt's record setting 100m dash at the Olympics? Now, Michael Phelps' 8 gold medals was a tremendous feat, but for me, watching Bolt absolutely destroy his competition - slowing down for the last 30 meters, looking around, raising his arms before the finish, and STILL breaking the world record in a race as short as the 100m was the most dominant performance of the Olympics so far. I can't wait to see what he does in the 200m finals on Thursday morning. CNBC's Darren Rovell has an interesting conspiracy theory as to why Bolt didn't want to run faster. Basically, Bolt can probably get future endorsement bonuses for breaking the world record - so why would he want to lower the record to a point where he won't be able to break it again?

-KD

Ruminations

So, you may have noticed that I've been ruminating on the state of our financial markets lately. My basic view was pretty well echoed in this piece from James Quinn, senior director of strategic planning at Wharton. The essential quote is the last paragraph:

The U.S. banking system is essentially insolvent. The Treasury, Federal Reserve, FASB, and Congress are colluding to keep the American public in the dark for as long as possible. They are trying to buy time and prop up these banks so they can convince enough fools to give them more capital. They will continue to write off debt for many quarters to come. We could have a zombie banking system for a decade.

I am of the opinion, which Quinn echoes above, that we are walking a very fine line on very thin ice running a massive Ponzi scheme of deception and capital raising, hoping the government and the press can talk their way into the bottom of the market. Alas, I don't see this happening. And remember - when someone can't pay back their loan, it's not the lender's fault - it's the borrower's!

For reading through my bearish financial ramblings, I reward the reader with this "if-that's-not-crossing-the-line-it's-awfully-close" ad from Guiness, which supposedly Guiness denies making:

-KD

Well Said

from Barry Ritholz's Big Picture blog:

"Take A Report, the outrageous, raunchy, and at times, hysterically funny anonymous blog from an unknown Trader has been outed -- and fired.

Large -- thats the pen name of the trader/blogger who writes Take A Report -- worked at Citibank, and was shitcanned for "blogging during company hours." Or at least, that's the excuse they gave. (WHOOO-HOOO! Thirty day weekend!)

...

Here's a boffo idea:
Citigroup should swap out their Risk management team (who missed billions of dollars in bad buys of garbage paper) with their Compliance team -- who somehow spotted an obscure blog that never even mentioned Citi's name.

Someone should inform Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit that the more important division is asleep at the switch, while the lesser division (AKA Department of Business Prevention) is sharp as a tack."

Well said Barry, nothing to add but quotation marks.

-KD

Let's Talk

See, the great thing about Kid Dynamite's World, apart from the fact that you the reader get to enjoy the benefits of me being a cunning linguist, is that I take requests. After the anonymous commenter who has since been outed as "Chris" requested poker content, I gave you poker content. Unfortunately, The Bracelet threatened Chris with bodily harm because his brain almost blew up pondering my multi-level thought analysis, so I'll pacify The Bracelet with this great clip he sent me the other day:



There's something about the Blackface Robert Downey Jr. that absolutely kills me.

Back to the readers: I played Pauly's Pokerstars Birthday tourney last night, and dominated it in my usual fashion. My problem is that I cannot resist a freeroll - it's in my blood - so when Pauly arranged for a $5k Borgata tourney seat and a few nights at the Borgata to be tacked onto the first place prize, I couldn't resist. This was a $5 tourney with about 550 entrants, so another $5k in the prize pool was a massive 200% overlay! Of course, I played for 3 1/2 hours, busted out in 10th place, and netted $23 for my troubles. Aiyahhh! I did have the pleasure of busting the venerable DonkeyPuncher, and several rabid Kid Dynamite fans were kind enough to say "hi" from the rail and complement my blog.

LJ left me a comment asking for comments on the WSOP - a few years ago I did an episode by episode recap of ESPN's coverage. I'm not doing that anymore, because apart from High Stakes Poker, all televised poker is basically a bunch of all-in confrontations edited for tv, and is generally not too interesting. I mean, I could write each week about how Phil Hellmuth is a douche, but really, what would that accomplish? I'll tell you what - we'll definitely have a special "Douchebags of the 2008 WSOP" post. Plus, I certainly don't want to stir up the wrath of William Rockwell again.

Speaking of endorsements, I've heard through the grapevine that one of the WSOP main event final tablists locked up a $1MM endorsement from PokerStars for wearing their logo at the final table, and another $250k from someone else - I think GatorAde. If this is true, then the mission has been accomplished by delaying the final table - the players are benefitting big time, even if it will result in a different final table dynamic.

A few readers commented on my Vegas trip reports - the problem, guys, is that I have to actually GO to Vegas to write a trip report... Fear not - it's been far too long, and something will happen soon with respect to that I hope.

Finally, I just finished my seventh consecutive losing session of NLHE - and these losses are signficant. I'm not too disturbed - the first thing I do after a session is think about how I could have played better. Sometimes I make poor decisions and lose. Sometimes I make good decisions and lose - as long as my decision making is sound, I can tolerate the losses - and I feel like I've been playing some of my best poker lately. Unfortunately, all I have to show for it is a long string of multiple 4 figure losses in my spreadsheet. When someone tells me they play poker, or want to play poker, the first thing I ask them is, "How big is the biggest pot you ever lost?" Poker is an easy game when you're winning - but when you lose, via bad beats, bad decisions or a combination of both, and take sustained losses for a period of time, you will find out exactly how good a poker player you are.

Since I finished 10th in Pauly's prestigious tourney last night, I know that I'm still a world class player.

-KD

Poker?

An anonymous commenter wants poker content... hmmmm... Long ago, this started as a poker blog - it was really so that I didn't have to send my friends a bunch of emails - they could read the blog and comment on the hands as desired. Eventually, I realized that most of my recaps were pretty boring after a while, and that almost every poker question always comes down to "it depends."

Now I play poker daily, and I usually have a good reason for my decisions, so I don't feel the need to post hands here - 80% of them would be bad beat or cold deck stories anyway. Still, today I played a pretty interesting hand, so, for your poker starved enjoyment:

5-10NL, I have $2600.

$20 straddle, and I look down at black 9-9. I make it $80, and get called 4 times, I'll act 3rd out of 5 on the flop.

the flop is: K-8-6 rainbow.

Check-check to me, and I bet $225. Folded around to a loose-aggro player to my immediate right who had been the straddle. We'll call him Laggro. Laggro smooth calls.

turn: 7, making two clubs.

Laggro open shoves. He has me covered. Hmmmm.

This is probably an easy fold (and I eventually folded), and I've lost many a pot by trying to get into 9th level thinking and reason that I must have the best hand, making a hero call and pushing my stack to my opponent when he shows me the nuts, but lets talk about it: Laggro probably has a) hand like KT or K9 b) bottom two pair c) a pair and a straight draw d) complete air

I think he puts me on AceKing. My next question is - does he expect me to call with AK? or fold it? He thinks I'm a tight player... he can't really expect me to call $2300 here with AK - but then again, he knows that I know that he knows that... blah blah blah.. Laggro is a thinking player, and I can certainly apply multi-level thinking to my analysis here, but in the end, I think it's just too thin to call here with the hope that he's just trying to induce a fold.

The good news is that I have outs if I'm trailing, as I've picked up an open ended straight draw. If your advocating a call, would you still be advocating a call if the turn were a deuce instead of a seven?

Perhaps a more interesting question is, if I had AK, would I call here? I'm really not sure...

Now, a few more data points:

1) Laggro has thrown big air balls at other players in similar situations - got called and shown absolutely nothing. So I know he can throw a pure bluff. Then again, I know that he knows that I know this...

2) we played a pot earlier in the day where it was 5-10, 4 people called $10, and he made it $125 from the SB. Knowing that he views me as tight, and having had previous days where he's told me "I'm giving you no action today," I decided to get aggressive with my 88, and made it $425 - leaving me $665 behind. He smooth called me, pushed on the 7-6-2 two heart flop, and showed down Ac6c which was no good.

So. Anonymous Commenters - discuss.

-KD