Yeah Robert Oberst was on Rogan a few months ago saying DeadLifts are no bueno because the risk of injury is way to high. And if that dude says it I'm out on deadlifts.

forgot to reply to this earlier. I've run pretty good vs. Ryan, last two hands I can remember getting it in with him was when I got it in with ATcc vs 99 on Ax9c8c for like 300bb deep and won, and the other I 3-bet/barreled T9s on a J7338r board and was called down

I go to LA Fitness, but yeah since my injury I haven't been in a few weeks
Thanks

Hmm damn. Yeah I might consider just not do them anymore and replacing with something else

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Thanks for the comments! I really want to put in an effort into making this thread active again and I am ready to appreciate anyone who wants to contribute

I wasn't involved in this one but it was one of the funnier ones I've witnessed recently

2/3 w/ straddle to 6. New player sits opens 20 UTG in very first hand, nit 3-bets to 45 from UTG+1, folds to UTG who calls. 300 effective (cap for this game)

Flop T85, pot $90
Check, UTG+1 cbets $60, UTG calls.

Turn 3, pot $210
UTG jams $195, UTG+1 snaps with QQ. UTG shows 93, doesn't improve and says "damn I thought you were trying to punk me with Ace King"

Jesus. Nice.

Don't you dare.

seemed pretty obvious right away if you think about it like a bet, you have $400 and risk that to win $800, or if you're wrong then you only lose 50% and not the whole $400.

is that blue toe nail paint in the paddle board picture?

Ah why? As someone who is not that well-versed in gym, it seems like there are close to a bajillion different possible exercises you can do. Surely deadlift isn't mandatory?

That logic seems very not-obvious to me. The way you worded it sounds to me like you're saying half the time you win $400 and half the time you lose $200, which would imply switching is correct when in fact it is irrelevant.

Yes! I have painted fingernails now too

I was in a weird prisoner's dilemma situation today

We were attempting to open a really good 5/5, but was short 1 player. I had first choice in taking the only open seat at a decent existing 5/5/10 game, but would rather just wait (at 1 PM it's not likely to be long). However, by not taking it, the person behind me would have taken it, which would almost ensure that the 5/5 didn't go since that would have also discouraged 2 other players.

The guy behind me implied he wouldn't cooperate, so I took the seat :P

Doesn't make sense to me but ill assume youre right because it was your riddle

The point of the riddle is that swapping is completely meaningless, but when you word it like the way you did, it can appear like it's +EV to swap.

Hope that clears it up haha

everything possible in a gym or outdoors is and heavy lifting correlates with injury.

Heavy lifting correlates with injury because people are stupid and try to lift too much and/or have bad form. Don’t stop deadlifting.

+1 most would be well served significantly lowering weight on the bar and focusing on formfor

I wasn't even lifting that heavy when I hurt myself (145 at the time when I had done 205 before), I was just dealing with some friend drama during the day and was extremely distracted. Gotta try to make sure to not make that mistake again and concentrate on the lifts.

At any rate, going to be MIA from gym for awhile so I'll have plenty of time to think about whether to continue deadlift

Thanks for the comments everyone!!

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Taking a break from poker today. Kinda feel like writing. Anyone have any topic suggestions?

Retirement, money, the FIRE movement. You seem less interested in financial independence than I would expect. Is it just a massive optimism about your ability to always provide for yourself? I'm late forties, so much older than you. Maybe that accounts for some of the difference. Generational differences. (Not to open it up to stupid comments re generational differences, but I would expect some interesting views from you, if you've thought much about it.)

Well you have to provide for a family, one big difference for me is I'm VERY confident in not ever wanting to raise children. Otherwise I think I would definitely be trying to make and save more money.

It is true that every once in awhile I do think "man I wish I worked more hours when I was younger" because well, I am relatively super-poor compared to what could have been since I put in so few hours mainly due to depression (also, when I worked at Riot for 2 years that was a massive pay cut).

However, those thoughts are usually fleeting because I typically don't regret my life choices. I strongly believe in butterfly effect and that all my decisions, even "bad" ones, are necessary to make me who I am today. Additionally, I also believe it's really important to make mistakes in order to learn from them- if you never crash while upswinging, then you won't be equipped to deal with the inevitable big crash.

I'm actually in the mode right now where I'm like "alright I actually NEED to put hours in to be able to afford things" for the first time in awhile. But I'm OK with that, I do have a lot of confidence in my poker winrate, and I also have a lot of confidence in the future of poker. I know some people on 2+2 have this doomsday narrative but I'm pretty sure there will always be some people who want to stick in 200bb preflop with QTo in 2030 at the Bicycle Casino.

Thanks for the prompt!

I'm curious what makes you optimistic about the future of poker. My local live poker economy has deteriorated significantly every year for the last several years. The other ones I've played in and put in some consistent effort to monitor also all seem to be on a steady decline. Online options (at least for Americans) are getting shadier and more bot-infested as far as I can tell. Do you disagree with those developments, or alternatively do you foresee some kind of boomerang and, if so, why?

Also, congrats on the physical health progress! I think you'll find it has a lot of positive compounding effects.

Excellent point! I was thinking live poker when I said that. I think online looks kinda gloomy. The creators of Liberatus said they can probably run it on a cell phone in 5 years, so yeah that will be extremely hard to circumvent- I guess if everything was like zoom where its fast with no timebank then maybe it's doable?

As for live poker, I'm still very proud of this post I made about a year and a half ago.

It's true that the overall skill level is higher, but everything is relative. I think looking at video games that have very clear cut ranking systems (that poker doesn't have) is a good analog here. Let's just take League of Legends for example. A player who was a rated Diamond (top 2%) player in season 1, if they played the exact same way today in season 9, they would probably settle in Gold (top 20%), because the playerbase always gets better as time passes. However, does that mean it is harder to obtain a Diamond ranking (i.e., top 2%) today in League than it was in season 1? I don't think it is. I think both are equally difficult. And I think the majority of players who achieved Diamond in season 1 are capable of achieving Diamond today. I have the same feelings towards poker.

Going back to poker. My anecdotal experience is that on average, the hourly winrate of anyone who was pro in 2016 and still is in 2019 has not changed for the worse throughout the years. I didn't experience Full Tilt etc. so I can't comment on that. I also don't have a huge sample size either, I'm basing this off of chatting with my peers- would love for anyone who has been playing for 3+ years to chime in.

I know there's a sampling bias for me here too but I would say an overwhelming majority of the people I know who consistently played throughout the last 3 years (not me sadly, but of course I don't regret my days at Riot) have higher hourly winrates in 2019 than they did in 2016. This includes both live and online.

And also I forgot to say thank you for the compliment on physical health, much appreciated. And thanks for the prompt as well

For me the deadlift is one of the best and most rewarding excercises. If done correctly (meaning you're focused and have good form) the risk of injury is minimal.

The important thing is to remember that you are not trying to pull the weight up, you are actually holding the bar (and yourself) tightly and pushing yourself off the ground.

Most of the doomsday stuff is def just from the viewpoint of online poker/bigger stakes live poker. If someone is content grinding out $30-$50 an hour at prob a 2/5ish avg stake I'd be confident to say that that will still be very doable for as long as poker games in casinos are around. Unless they keep raising the rake steadily that is. Personally wouldn't appeal to me but everyone is different.

Thanks for the reply, Aesah. I agree re: winrates for the best players not really changing much over the years despite the promulgation of easily accessible strategy content and self-selection of bad players being weeded out at a rate higher than being added to the universal poker economy.

I think the problem is more the availability/volume of games worth playing (ie, $50/hr+ games), as Tyman was suggesting. For example, in my city 5-5 PLO used to get off every Thursday-Saturday without fail. Then, a couple years ago, it started only consistently getting off Friday. It's reached the point now where it only gets off maybe once or twice a month. I've observed the same phenomenon with 5-10 NL in a lot of cities where the # of hours it is actually available has declined significantly. It's possible LA hasn't experienced anything like this yet, but if not I suspect it probably will. It just seems to me like way more people are leaving poker than coming in, although there may be a boomerang at some point. That being said, I think LA is a strong enough market there should be plenty of hours of quality poker available for a long time.

On a completely different note, I was researching Toastmasters earlier tonight then remembered you were a member for awhile. Thoughts as to whether it's worth it? I've been thinking about joining.

Yeah this back injury has been a fk'ing huge pain in the ass. I haven't been able to go to my weekly badminton meetup/etc, hopefully it's a lesson learned.

Alright, yeah very good point about bigger games. I concede that. I've been moving in the opposite direction so I haven't experienced it

I did an in-house toastmasters at Riot, was never a member. I'm not sure if it's prohibitive to just try it out one time and see if you like it, but if not, that would be my recommendation (for pretty much everything, not just Toastmasters!)

Pretty uneventful session today

Hand 1 Ambitious flop bluff here, probably bad

Extremely loose rec villain limps UTG+1, I raise $25 in CO with A9, loose rec SB call, pro BB call, V calls. 1200 effective

Flop J63, pot $95
Checks to me I bet $75, fold, fold, V calls.

Turn A, pot $245
Checks through.

River 2, pot $245
Villain leads $100, I consider raising for a moment but just call, he announces Q high (??)

Hand 2 Another lucky bink off a standard barrel spot

Loose rec limps UTG, I raise $25 in CO with A2, UTG call. 800 effective

Flop T85, pot $55
Check, I bet $40, call.

Turn 5, pot $135
Check, I bet $100, call.

River A, pot $335
Check, I bet $140, call MHIG