A/S/L ?

Just a heads up, for those of you who like to get cute, the DOJ agreement requires Stars to hand over "all account information" which could perhaps, I am not an expert, be shared with other unnamed government agencies.

14/f/fla

hit me up on aol chat! ^_^

hi, whats going on here?

http://www.highstakeslife.com/toronto/

I have to disagree with food being average and and shopping being bad. I'm probably biased but I feel like this is something a person would say who knows the city well but not very well. I'd say Toronto is the nuts for 6 months. Winters are pretty bad. You don't get any of the good parts of the cold ie snow and skiing since the snow never stays on the ground for long at all and their is no good mountains close by.

Furnished condos are a bit tricky for long term rentals but you should be able to find something good if you take some time to look. For shorter term rentals there are tons of options but I'm not sure if you could use those options as a permanent place of residence which you might need to play online. Also they tend to be overpriced.

For location anywhere "downtown" is good. I would use the guideline of West of Yonge (except a few cool areas), East of Dufferin, North of lakeshore (being on the lake is kinda ****ty, and a bit isolated), South of Bloor (a few cool areas just North of Bloor but I wouldn't go much past. If you want feel free to shoot me a PM with the type of area you are looking for and I can give you some ideas since what I outlined is a pretty huge area.

In short, I also wanna get on the "lets flee America" boat and find somewhere nice to live,
more later.

so what restaurants and shopping malls would you consider to be spectacular?

You're welcome to write a page on TO, infact I'd love another perspective. I think people who don't want a different lifestyle would find moving to TO fine.
I think it's a waste of time for anyone else who wants some kind of variety in their life.

Just wondering how safe it is to cook something at that temp. 130F is below the recommended storage temperature for meat and hot foods. Its often called the "Danger Zone"(40F-140F).

I am not sure if the Vacuum seal and water immersion lowers your chances of bacteria forming but all in all it seems like a poor idea.



How temperature affects food.

Malls are not anything special. Eaton Centre and Yorkdale are pretty cookie cutter but they get the job done. Lots of really good shopping areas though. Queen West for cheaper stuff and Bloor/Yorkville for high end are the two areas that come to mind.

Food, even though this has been done before...

Cheapish- Salad King for good cheap thai, Zoe's for sandwiches/lunch is somewhere that I should go to more but always end up at Reggie's which is good but not great unless you are wasted at 4am, Duffs for wings, Cafe Diplimatico for calzones.

Mid- Tutti Matti is awesome Italian with very good service, Foxley Bistro was really good although they are always packed and don't take resos, Pizza Libereto is supposed to be amazing but I haven't been yet.

Higher End- North 44 is awesome, went to Scaramouche the other day with some out of town poker people and I'm pretty sure they would agree with me that it was bomb, Harbour 60 is really good steakhouse, Barbarians is a cool old school steakhouse that is good as well. Toronto isn't New York or LA food wise but it also has a fraction of the people/restraunts and the good places in Toronto can hang with any other city, and I've been really lucky to have tons of very good meals in a lot of cities.

Another two fish places I like are Chiado and Joso's.

For going out sure Musik etc is fun sometimes but there are tons of good bars that are not clubs.

I would agree that Toronto isn't going to give a different vibe then a lot of metropolitan areas, but it does have almost anything you could want. I was actually talking to someone today who was looking to relocate because of poker and said I would rather live in Vancouver but all my friends and family are in Toronto. Still I think Toronto is pretty sweet though, especially when it isn't freezing cold and a great place to live long term, especially if you have the luxury to travel often and during the cold months.

I'm travelling now but could write up something when I get back home.

The USDA is pretty conservative with their food safety recommendations.

According to what I've read, several hours at 130 is sufficient to pasteurize meat: http://sousvide.wikia.com/wiki/Impor...eurizing_times

Max is bang on with all of his advice, also, Toronto's restaurants scene is phenomenal and there are at least a dozen world class restaurants and a ton of hidden gems. It's amazing in the warmer months when patios are accessible, they are packed everyday past 4pm

Jacob's steakhouse tops everywhere I've been in Vegas by a good bit, including Wolfgang Pucks's, Batali's and Craft Steak. Scaramouche is fantastic as mentioned in Max's post

Thanks for help with the NBA watching guys. Seems dumb that they don't offer any kind of paid playoff package, at least outside the U.S.

re: NBA. i am unsure if i'm allowed to link this here, but since it's a topic of conversation (sort of) and i figure i'll be given some leeway since i've been around here a while.

a few months ago we started an nba analytics site (think of it as freakonomics for basketball): http://www.pointsperpossession.com/

Its possible we start off with a "clean slate" when it comes to how online poker operates. Sure they will emulate proven models to an extent, but if it becomes legalized in the us we will have atleast some voice if we begin to focus our efforts. I plan on making that post, likely in a week or two when things settle down. Here are some of the issues I can think of the top of my head that have a ton of grey area:

Multiaccounting
Huds
Datamining
Heads up tables
Waiting lists/changing seats
Table abusers (see the state of stars hsnl was in, I believe this is same as the above subsection but is so important it warrants its own discussion)

I'm quite passionate about these subjects and look to hopefully guide people who will listen to what I feel is the "right" way. This post will obviously be slanted, if someone wants to work together we can have two essay type things with the pros/cons. This interests me especially if we are polarized on many issues. Ill be busy for quite some time, but anyone who thinks this is a cool idea let me know, also everyone feel free to add whatever subjects of debate you'd like to see.

We may be on the brink of getting legal us online poker, let's try everything we can to get it right this time.


X post of mine from NVG, now I understand if I'm not the go to guy to be acting like a spokesperson for these kind of issues(not agreeing with the majority's pov, just that I understand it) but I believe the idea of having someone(s) polarized to my views co create said post, especially the controversial ones, will help shed some light to the people who don't think of such things as often as me(hopefully us?).

Yea patio time in the summer is amazing. Clubs generally do worse in the summer then the winter since most people go to bars with patios. I really wish WSOP was earlier since I hate missing a chunk of the good weather.

Few recommendations.

Black Bull on Queen is good spot to pop in if you are down there and want to grab drinks during the day. Cadillac Lounge has been one of my fav places to go recently. They have cover sometimes since there is live music inside but the back patio is massive and almost always has room. Madison is a College bar with 3 different patios and is massive/usually really fun. Green Room is good and has a chill backyard feel going on.

Rooftop- Oasis is awesome and pretty big, always rammed after work especially Thursdays and Fridays although it can get a bit of a douchey business crowd vibe, The Pilot is pretty good for laid back drinks. Drake Hotel is also always good.

High End Rooftop- Panorama and Park Hyatt both have awesome views of the city. Park Hyatt is a bit older crowd and has really good snack food but the patio is pretty small and will probably have a wait on nice days. Super good date spot. Panorama is overpriced, food is ok but not great but it has a really awesome view of both sides of the city and is bit more modern then Park Hyatt but can get a douchey crowd.

I've heard really good things about Jacob's but had a pretty meh meal there. Food was really good but service was awful which soured the whole experience.

uhm, they do?

https://ilp.nba.com/nbalp/secure/registerform

been watching from germany for months now without ever having any issues

they do?

nba league pass


- ah i see already posted. nfl have one too.

Ah I'll have to check it out when I'm back in Europe. When I was there during the regular season I watched my existing league pass on gametime on my iPad but it didn't have ESPN/ABC/TNT/NBA TV games. Does the purely international version get around that?

The big point you and most of HSNL don't understand is that the sites don't really care what we think. The sites want to maximize their bottom line, generally that doesn't align their interests with those of the high stakes professional poker players.

I hear MSNL/HSNL players say all the time "omg, how can [this site] do this to me? do they realize how much rake i pay??? I pay $120k per year in rake!"

well actually, you pay 120k in rake but you withdraw another $xxx,xxx from the poker economy each year. when you consider that a significant percentage of the money you pulled off would have been raked off otherwise, you aren't nearly as valuable to the rooms as you think you are.

we also forget that collectively there might be 10k regular MSNL/HSNL players across the net. there are millions of regular players, our total rake generated and collective "voice" isn't as powerful as we think. also keep in mind that the sites are smart enough to know that we will play poker as long as playing it professionally is a better proposition than some other source of income.

in short, our incentives aren't really aligned with those of the poker sites as much as we think and therefore this plan has little to no shot at working. much better to spend our time getting the word out poker regulation and hope some people with the authority to make decisions will listen.

Well said GP

cliffs: the maddy (madison) is the nuts

Everything GP said has been obv for years dunno how some ppl don't comprehend/accept.

Also, PPA seems like a bright buncha folks
http://ftrain.blogspot.com/2011/04/p...e-stopped.html

And, does anyone know where to find how much PPA has received in donations? I've searched around and can't find it. Also, their salaries?

I'm more of a fan of ****ty dive bars. If that's your thing, check out the Dakota Tavern on dundas/ossington, the red light on dundas/ossington, last temptation in kensington, green room when health inspectors allow it to open, the one with that huge ass brass ball in front on college and grace has a heated patio ... uhm sneaky dees if you're really wasted and need nachos i guess.

This is fuzzy logic. We provide action, and action generates rake for the poker sites. They don't really care about money getting drained from the poker economy by us, provided it keeps getting replenished by new fish. By way of creating more games, we help them take money from the fish faster, even though we siphon much of it off in the process.

Let's just look at your numbers. Suppose there are 10,000 regular MSNL/HSNL regulars across the net. And, suppose we're each paying $120,000 in rake. That's 10,000 x $120,000 = $1.2 billion. How is this a small number, exactly? Consider five years worth of that; that's $6 billion. How much do you think the poker sites have collectively made in rake over the last five years?

Yes, we do take money out of the economy, but if fish can resupply it, it doesn't matter at all to the sites. Thus far, fish have been able to do just that. And, in fact, if you took the top 10 wealthiest poker fish, you would have a deeper bankroll than you would if you took the net worth of all 10,000 of the aforementioned grinders combined. As long as there are wealthy poker enthusiasts prepared to sustain the poker economy, then we are not a threat to the poker sites, and we actually help them.

There may be millions of non-professional players in real money games, but how many hours does each of these spend playing online per year, on average? 10? 20? 50? The overwhelming majority of these millions play online once or twice and then don't play again. Some play semi-regularly, maybe a few times per month for a few hours at a time. Some are degenerates who play a lot; we think of these guys as representative of the millions of enthusiasts, but that's only because we see them all the time. In truth, they are outliers, and most of the millions play very little. Thus, the average time played is very small. The average of those 10,000 grinders, on the other hand, is probably in the neighborhood of 1,000 hours per year. Grinders also play more hands per hour than enthusiasts do, by way of playing more tables and playing each hand faster. Probably about 5x as many hands, on average. Some enthusiasts do multi-table, but some only play one. The number of tables grinders play varies between about four and a ****load. A hands/hour rate about 5x as high for grinders is probably a safe estimate.

Just going off of the guesstimates you and I have made ITT, if we said the average enthusiast plays 20 hours/year and the average grinder plays 1,000 hours a year at 5x as many hands/hour on average, and if there are 5 million enthusiasts, then we have the effective rake contribution share of enthusiasts at 5,000,000 x 20 = 100,000,000 and professionals at 1,000 x 10,000 x 5 = 50,000,000, both out of a total rake pool of 100,000,000 + 50,000,000 = 150,000,000. In this scenario, the 10,000 professionals would be directly responsible for 1/3 of the total rake.

Obviously, you were just throwing numbers out. You also didn't take into account SSNL and the micros. For all we know, that could be where the largest revenue stream is for the sites. The 10,000 pros may include smaller grinders than MSNL, as well. But, the overall point still stands. We do contribute a significant portion of the rake, much more so than you are implying.

But, this is not our most important role when it comes to providing profits for the sites. What we really provide is speed for rake generation. It's true that if we weren't there, we would not take any money out of the poker economy. But, there would be far, far fewer games going. Not only that, but the hands/hour being dealt at tables would be cut considerably, because fish are slower to act. We do the bulk of the multi-tabling, and spend the most hours playing. Fish also start fewer games and quit when games get too short, so waiting lists would pile up. If the games comprised only recreational players battling it out, money would not be getting siphoned out of the poker economy by us, but it would also be collected as rake much, much slower. The sites' annual revenues would plummet. So, not only are we directly responsible for perhaps 25% - 50% of the total rake (as per the 1/3 estimate above), but we are indirectly responsible for a lot more.

Ultimately, we drive the action by way of our willingness to play more tables and more hours than fish. We take money out of the poker economy, but we also force money into the poker economy faster than it would trickle in without us.

Our incentives are not aligned because every dollar of rake is a dollar that goes to the operators and not to us. That's all. If they charge higher rake, they make more money off of us. If they charge lower rake, we get to retain more of our winnings. That is the bottom line. However, maximizing profits on both sides is a balancing act. Both parties want there to be more games generating rake faster (what do you think Rush poker is really all about?). They need us to achieve this, so they have to be willing to give a little. Unfortunately for us, they control the dials when it comes to adjusting the parameters of the game. If we had a collective voice, we might be able to attain some measure of control and say-so as to the parameters of the game. But, right now, we don't. 10,000 disparate, largely apathetic voices are much easier to ignore than one voice speaking for $1.2 billion+ in rake generation. All we have on our side right now is market pressure. The threat of losing business to another operator is the only thing that keeps poker rakes at the levels they are now, but this is not sustainable in a world that is not 100% free from corruption. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world.

Personally, I do not understand why someone like Ray Bitar or Isai Scheinberg should have so much money that nine-figure settlements in court are not a problem for them, while grinders are having a significant portion of their winnings siphoned away to go directly into these ultra-rich people's pockets. But, that's the way things are. Do they have to be that way?

Open Secrets has some info and links about the PPA. If you look at the donor list, you can quickly see it's a who's who of poker operators, their friends and family. Basically, I've been calling out the PPA as ineffective and not in the interest of players for years. They should really be dubbed the Poker Operators Alliance, because that's what they are. It happens that poker operators and poker players often have the same interests, but the players are not the ones the PPA is fighting for. They know where their bread is buttered, and you can see for yourself by looking over their entry at Open Secrets.