July Recap (Part 1)


Just wrapped up an eventful six weeks or so out West. I got to Vegas at the end of June and spent 10ish days WSOPing. Didn't spend a ton of time at Paris/Bally's (and played no poker there) but I was around enough to take in the new digs, and my impression is in line with pretty much everyone else's: solid upgrade from the Rio. Parking wasn't a problem, the playing floor is nicer, and everything seemed accessible/running smoothly, from what I could tell. Numbers were also very good. I imagine we'll break the Main Event #entries record within the next year or two.

Overall, the trip was great. Got to play tour guide for a bit with a Vegas tyro, caught up with friends, and donked around at the cash tables.

OG Ipod still going strong

Getting full value on the Strip
NBA Preseason @UNLV

I was priced in!

I'd never cheat on the Nugget

Antsy fluffball pining for a road trip


moar pics coming in part 2...

July Recap (Part 2)


The route was roughly southern AZ --> northern AZ --> southern CO --> northern NM --> too-hot sections of the middle of the country I'd prefer to forget --> Hot Springs, AK --> Vicksburg --> NOLA

Sedona sunset

Where Jesus lives

Monument Valley

Mesa Verde National Park

A stubborn jaywalker

The Rio Grande

Taos's best bookstore

Our guardian fluffball

August Recap


Back to school!

First class: Work and Play

Second class: Medical Humanities

One of my students already sent me a pic of her pet lizard, Ms. Keisha, so the semester is already a win

As we head into the fall, there's really only one thing to say: may all your cards be live and may all of your flops be monster!

Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron & Wine might be my favourite 2000+ album.

Gfanofthebeardtoo,ldoG

I'm rite with you. It's definitely my favorite I&W album--not sure about 2000+ overall

Speaking of, they just dropped a mini-album

Never been into reading blogs beyond casual clicking now and then, but I'm glad to see bob_124 still doing his thing.

What's your favorite part of this adventure so far bob?

Always nice to hear from my doppelganger! Welcome back Bob.

My favorite part so far is--surprise surprise--the people and the stories. The big pots and the long sessions fade away, but I've met so many interesting people on this journey, thanks in part to this foolish thread.

Awesome updates! Do you play any WSOP events at all?

Holy **** Oklahoma got rough on me. I ended up getting bit by a Brown Recluse spider and took me out for 3 months. Ended up settling out of court with my corporate landlords. The picture of the bite got on the front page of Reddit and Newsweek did an article. Shows the power of the media as my legal adversaries were scared shitless and helped my case.

You got these spiders in Louisiana, they are the devil.

https://www.newsweek.com/man-bitten-...d-rash-1728423

Glad you're enjoying! I've played a handful of WSOP events in the past. Haven't played any in a few years, and am just now getting back to LOLive cash. Donkaments are great when you run deep, but in general the (even higher) variance + long hours isn't my thing

Yikes, how you feeling? Crazy story. Glad you recovered and managed to work something out with your landlords. You staying in OK?

I'm with you on the donkaments, but would love to play one WSOP event in my lifetime.

Yah was crazy, I never heard of those spiders and sure learned a lot about them. I'm gonna stay till at least May and see where at with business. I can relocate if needed. I really like it here but the last summer was pure hell and not sure if want to do it again. The payoff months which is now till December will be glorious, the weather is perfect now.

You should definitely flick in buy-in for one of the WSOP Events. Plenty of different price points and experiences to choose from.

GL with the biz. I was talking to a guy who's building a weed compound in Missippi--he's getting in on the ground floor and hoping to score big.

Tom Murphy, the Chess Hustler Who Will Stare Down Anyone



The hustler is the bad boy of chess. The person who takes his skill and directly applies it as a livelihood. Just like any other game—poker, backgammon, golf—there is the professional and there is the hustler.

The professional relies on pure knowledge. The hustler relies on craft: outwitting through psychology. The psychological war is more important than the over-the-board war. There is joy in pulling off the brilliant swindle!

Season 2 of the podcast Gamblers is out, and one of the episodes features the legendary chess hustler Tom Murphy. I It was an enjoyable episode, and the next one is about the birth of Texas poker, apparently.

What We've Lost Playing the Lottery

Kathryn Schulz's New Yorker article is a sort of book review of the historian Jonathan Cohen's For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America. Schultz offer a nice overview of where we've been, where we are, and (sigh) where we're headed. She quotes a stat I'd heard before, one that I still struggle to get my head around: these days, nearly sixty percent of Americans have less than a thousand dollars in savings.

No gamble no future, amirite?

For those that don't have any assets, that is pretty nasty. With assets, it matters very little then - except that you are a slave of sort to the markets, of course...

As a Canadian, I can never for the life of me wrap my ahead around the notion that approximately half of the USA is SOOOO allergic interventions... I mean, if you leave pretty much any system unchecked/unregulated, you will see a handful of individuals gather most of the riches and that's before getting into the protection of the environment and whatnot... Meh, end of rant

I think it's intolerable for most of us to consider just how little control we really have in life—doubly so when, as Americans, we've swallowed bootstrap ideologies hook line and sinker.

Safety net? LOL no—work harder, mutha****a!

The USA is very "checked " and regualted.

If the Canadian system is so much better than than the USA why are aren't droves of Americans trying to move there? Why don't they have an illegal alien problem with the USA?

USA has a big safety net.

In fact, just an anecdote to how pointless socialism is: Pennsylvania's unemployment has owed me a significant amount of $$ for over 8 months. (Great safety net! /s)

As an American, I can never for the life of me wrap my head around the fact that Canadians accept having a 25%! lower GDP than USA and accept that. Plus the USA is the world's police, protecting Canda's standard of living. Plus Canda has a much smaller population and is drowning in resources. Sad.

USA excepionalism!

The phenomenon of a few accumulating the most of something is present in every economic system ever known to man. It's even present in things that have nothing specifically to do with economics. Most of NBA titles have been won by two teams, for example.

This is called the "Matthew effect", coined after the bible verse "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”

To say that the matthew effect doesn't really happen so long as the government implements regulations is silly to say the least.

Xi Jinping is worth over a billion, and China is a hard core socialist state.

They do. The surge in demand in immigration/illegal land crossing at the borders, has been unprecedented since 2016, to say the least.

The first time I heard this, was from a USA#1 16 year old kid. I rolled my eyes as much as I do now

To apply a binary answer to whatever nuanced topic, is silly in itself, and yet social-democracy is the best model we have historically (bar to none) in aspects such as quality of life, environment, how to protect the dissolution of the middle-class and etcetera and etc.

Apologies Ben, this is the last I will say on the subject and the end of this derail, but I am just stubborn to let the previous comments go unanswered

If, instead of eye rolling, you challenged yourself intellectually, I’m sure you would come to different conclusions.

Fact: there are 3.1 million Canadians living in the USA.

This will be my last post on this subject as well.

I don't know a great deal about basketball and I'm far from an expert on economics, but to suggest extremes in wealth-distribution have nothing to do with economics is tough to accept. Obviously we're talking about power dynamics here, but the very wealthy accumulate more wealth, often exponentially, because they have such extensive economic capital in the first instance. Even free-market capitalists will accept that monopolies are not a good thing for society, and, therefore, that some type of "governance" is beneficial, whether that be in the form of wealth redistribution and/or regulation of anti-competitive behaviour.

INDEED. We piss excellence. Aussies, Russians, Brazilians, lolCanadians and all the rest—bend the knee!

Allow me to dubble down on the Matthew Effect. As Christ also says in Matthew 26: "The poor will always be with you." I interpret this teaching to mean that poverty is inevitable and any effort to fight for social justice is pointless. Am I getting this wrong?

In all serious, gentlemen, I appreciate the comments! Carry on if you'd like (or not).

So you're saying the Pels are shipping the championship this year?

So, a few isolated cases in 2016 became a few more isolated cases in 2022. I'll take your word for it, but that stat is useless.

I'll restate my question, if the USA is undeniably a much inferior country for the bottom 98%+ of the country to Canada or Denmark or Sweden, etc, why aren't tens of millions of Americans trying to (illegally) enter Canada? Why isn't being a Canadian coyote a huge black market?