here's to a good year!

First

Happy 2019!

Third!

Man 2018 was a challenge. Almost 1/3 of my poker income was earned in a single week in vegas during the world series, playing 40/80 at the B.

Rest of the year was fine, but slow, swingy, and frustrating. Still happy about my decision to quit working and hoping for a great 2019.

Good luck on the felt boys!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J7IrPVLc4U

Hey Nineteen.

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Spent the weekend in the middle of nowhere. My only direct human contact was the three times I got food delivered. Nice retreat. Listened to a few albums from start to finish, which I rarely do nowadays. Made a few youtube videos with a 12 string guitar I found in the garage(11 strings but who's counting). So basically I played a lot of zeppelin for the dogs and cats.

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Good luck in 2019. May your eyes work as well as they did last year. I hope to be more sensitive to certain things. For example I have a friend that is going into her 3rd year of sobriety in a few months. Particularly around the holidays, I'm sure she sees people that remind her of drinking(I'm one of them), and that she tries to be friendly with those people without letting herself go down the paths that lead to drinking. I've also began noticing(usually after the fact) myself saying things, or posting social media bs, that might not be good for her. I know she's an adult and is responsible for herself, but I would feel terrible if I had a hand in future relapse.

**** like that is what I hope to change this year.

No, I don't equate this at all with the "baby it's cold outside" debacle of 2018. There's a difference between being sensitive to people's needs and censorship.

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oh and does anybody know how to fly a plane?

Double subscribed!

2019 thread will get a title soon I hope. I'll submit an idea within a week.

I appreciate the critique ending 2018. HHs will be posted. Commentary will be had.

There is actually a website called DietBet where everybody in a "game" deposits $35, you state a weight loss goal, and those who reach their goal not only get their money back but split up the deposits of those who didn't! My mind went CRAZY processing all of the similarities to a poker tournament!

No, not really. But sort of related, I've decided to play much less poker in 2019 and instead spend a lot more of my free, recreational time flying drones and remote control (RC) planes.

I studied Math for undergrad, and Computer Science for my masters, but those are both very theoretical, at least compared to the practical engineering I've been learning in the last several months as I've gotten into drones. I've been learning about aeronautics, electronics, wireless signals, antennas, batteries, video formats, photography, FAA regulations, and more.

While I'm enjoying the learning process (mostly via YouTube videos), actually flying my drones is the best. I mostly like to fly FPV (First Person Visual), which means I put on a pair of VR goggles and look out a live feed from a camera mounted on the drone as I'm flying.

Instead of spending beautiful summer days in a poker room this year, I hope to sign up for some drone races (I expect to come in last - but it will still be fun), and drive around to some local scenic destinations and use my photography drone to take some cool pictures/videos.

Happy New Year everyone!

I spent about 5x more time on RC cars than poker last year. Also got destroyed for $20k in the first 10 hours of 2018, hope to avoid that this year!

Hope all of you had a good holiday season.

There have been 2 or 3 forum weight loss pools along these lines. There were minimum and maximum body weight % limits. You picked your goal and amount to bet (there's also a min/max). There was a gentleman's agreement not to manipulate water weight. People who succeeded split the loser's pool based on their goal and initial bet. Don't remember who came up with the structure, but it seemed to work well.

We did this 3 years or so ago, and I'm still within 5 pounds of the end goal of the bet. I was actually under the goal number over the summer. It seemed like the people who failed did so in epic fashion, like one or two people gained weight.

There are probably some health and psych reasons that these sorts of bets aren't great ideas. Still, degens are gonna degen.
That's good advice. Don't drop $20k in 10 hours. Check. Will try not to.

Fold pre.

You're being an adult by looking out for your friend. That's not nanny state libtard snowflake PC censorship, it's simply being not-a-jerk.

The holidays are really tough times for a lot of people. It's important to love those around you in the way they want/need to be loved.

Good for you, best wishes in 2019.

The first time I saw this I thought it was the greatest idea ever. The feeling of flying and doing stunts without the risk of death or injury. I still haven't tried it yet. I'm kind of worried about how expensive it would get.

People are eventually going to start shooting down the drones that fly over their property.

That sounds like fun!

I have several tiny, indoor racing drones, an outdoor racing drone, an outdoor photography drone, and am now adding some RC planes - they all fly slightly differently. I haven't tried RC cars. What is it about the RC cars that you enjoy? Do you race, or just enjoy building different models of real cars?

Hopefully you run good at poker this year - and win lots of money you can spend on RC cars!

I started out with the cheaper stuff, but am liking the hobby and now spending more money for better equipment. I initially had a $30 toy, but the video was awful. To get started flying FPV, a cheap pair of goggles runs around $100, and a decent drone with camera runs about $100, and you should get a good radio to control the drone for $100 (some drones come with the radio controller, but the radios are typically cheap and will only work for that one drone).

That happened most recently (that I've heard of) in November in Austin, Texas. The guy who shot the drone was arrested. Another story from 2017 I saw was a guy in Oregon who shot a drone - and the drone got a picture of the shooter. That guy also was charged by the police with criminal mischief (a class C felony).

Invading someone's privacy is wrong. So is destruction of a drone that isn't yours. If you see a drone that you think is violating some law or regulation, the proper response is to call the police.

Even scarier are the drones in Venezuela with explosives that appear to have been used in an assassination attempt against their president.

Look into DCS World. It's combat oriented and the detail is unreal. You have to flip the same switches on the control panels as in real life. It also gives insight into how difficult it is to fight in the air. It's nothing like Top Gun.

The gubmint has already authorized itself to do that.

https://gizmodo.com/congress-gives-f...nes-1829530565

And while looking for an article about that, I came across this gem from a 2013:

Happy New Year. Started tracking live play for no reason other than I was playing more than occasionally in mid-2015. Won less than a SB/hr but was ok with that given the amount of study I was putting in (~0).

16 was less spectacular still but still positive, so didn’t sweat it too much because entertainment.

17 was a disaster featuring 2 separate 300+ BB downswings. Was seriously considering quitting playing so much (~15 hrs/wk)

Stubborn tho, and ended up 18 making like $9/hr playing mostly 6/12 so yay? I’m up there with an Asian sweatshop worker “long term”!

ETA: with all that said, stuck pretty good so far in today’s first sesh of the year so getting a head start on my next comeback!

Congratulations. I know from experience that keeping the weight off is twice as hard as losing it in the first place.

Ha ha - very funny video. Thanks - I enjoyed that.

I think the FAA re-authorization bill just told the FAA to study how best to deal with drone threats. I've seen several proposals, but none seem perfect. An authorized person could try to shoot a drone down, with a gun or a laser or an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse generator) - but what if they miss? What happens to the bullets or laser after it misses the drone? Planes have some sort of identity beacon, but those are expensive and would add a large cost to every drone. DJI (the company that sells nearly all commercial photography drones) proposed the radio signal from the controller to the drone is used to encode the GPS coordinates of the take off spot (to locate the pilot) because their systems already do that and their drones already have GPS, but what about drones from other companies, or home made drones, or drones where the pilot is not close to where it launched?

It is the classic freedom/security debate. If people aren't being ignorant or stupid, they should be allowed to do what they want when flying drones. But there are some idiots out there who will do something dangerous (e.g. flying a drone near the runways of Gatwick Airport which shut down that airport in England for a few days before Christmas - and they still don't have any suspects). So what kind of government regulation is required to stop the idiots? None means accepting any and all risk, which could be significant. The other extreme of outlawing drones would take away the freedom of many law abiding citizens due to the actions of a few morons. Is there a compromise that would deter people from doing something extremely risky?

Anyway - sorry for the derail - back to poker, which I've solved around Thanksgiving. I had 0 winning sessions out of 11 casino visits in November, and all (5/5) winning sessions in December (more than making up for November losses). Poker is easy - just hit more than your fair share of draws while your opponents miss theirs, have your big hands hold up, be right with your reads when you call down with A high, go runner-runner to the nuts, and occasionally hit a 2 outer. I should have tried that sooner.

I should do some studying to up my game (4/8 to 8/16)

Where the **** do I start? It's been at least a year since I've really put effort into actively learning

I recommend the last paragraph right above your post!