Hi all! I'm best addressed and known as '****' because my name, if written without the (rather random) number, gets censored. Hence the thread title.

Due to popular demand, I figured I should start a thread to contain Q&A about all kinds of my weird ways, so here you are.

I'm writing this as post #7050 because this number is very special - it can be represented as both a sum and a product of two cake numbers: 15*470 = 6580+470. (By a funny tradition, cake is recognised as one of the symbols of asexuality, though not everyone involved likes it.)

In other news, I have severe general and especially poker performance anxiety because of being overly controlled by the mother in youth.

I'd like to move from Russia to somewhere in Latin America in order to improve the time zone. Even though Spin & Gos run round the clock, I prefer analogous formats at other sites, which are populated pretty only in the evening.

Let's not talk much about poker here, though. Let's talk about mentality and Zen.

Random thoughts unrelated to poker strategy will also go here. I maintain no PGC as I think that public exposure of my results for free is emotionally -EV to me. I 'm sure can beat some games for a kind of a living, though.

I'm known quite well in SSPLO and the Spin thread in HUSNG, but if you wish to look up some previously disclosed info about me, you can visit the old 'getting to know me' thread in SSPLO, but don't bump it without a need, ask here instead.

You're all welcome

Have you ever used headspace?

Of course I haven't I learned about the usefulness of meditation from the poker circles, so I'm rather Thich Nhat Hahn's disciple. The mindfulness school is represented broadly on Headspace, right?

I've only done the 10 day trial so far. I'm debating if it's got enough content to be worth a year sub.

How is its content populated? If it's taken from only several approved producers, then lack of content indeed might be an issue. Youtube is free from this shortcoming, and it's free.

I think it's all only his content. So what do you recommend for free youtube vids?

I haven't done much research on this. TheHonestGuys seem quite good producers and have a big collection of guided meditation videos of various size which, importantly, don't dwell on any particular religion.

cool thanks.

What kind of dog is that in your avatar?

It's an olinguito. The avatar was adopted soon after the news about the species appeared on Wikipedia.

Actually, I'm in bad relationships with dogs, meh with birds, OK with cats though I haven't had a pet for 14 years.

Why do you have a dog as an avatar if you have issues with them?

Again, it's not a dog, it's a species of the Procyonidae family that is separate from the Canidae family. So olinguitos are closer relatives to raccoons than to dogs (so the avatar is a play on the username). Actually, in Russian, the Procyonidae family is called "Енотовые" ('Raccoonish') in honour of its most prominent genus (procyon = raccoon in Latin).

Anyway, I have avatar display turned off on 2+2, so I sometimes forget how my own avatar looks like.

If you have any suggestions on what my avatar should be, don't hesitate to voice them.

A raccoon born in 1974

Alas raccoons don't live that long (up to 20 years in captivity, 2-3 years in the wild).

Rocket Raccoon was 'born' a bit later, in 1976. I was born even later than that. The '74' in my nickname is a Hold'em hand that I was thinking of when signing up.

I don't even know in which exactly Playtech slots of the Marvel Jackpot series Rocket Raccoon appears. If I encounter him at Coral's casino-in-poker, I'll take a screenshot for sure, but I don't play slots for serious money without a bonus.

Edit: there was / is a slot 'The Exterminator', but it's not offered on iPoker currently, and anyway, the Raccoon, as depicted in that slot, can be easily mistaken for a dog.


Edit 2: OK, the avatar has been changed to a picture of a raccoon playing 5-card Omaha

All right, I have a question to the readers.

Is it true that hetero male sexpats actually run a 'future game simulation' every time they see a dressed attractive woman, i.e. they imagine how she performs or looks like in bed?

I find that this mindset really clouds judgement because the appearance can be easily altered by clothes and makeup and also seems not to have no direct causal connection with intimate performance. The link is only indirect: a pretty woman usually, but far from always, has more experience that an unattractive woman of the same age on average. However, experience is much more correlated with age than with appearance, isn't it?

I'm not really thinking of their experience level, just the shape of their body, are they overweight etc. Can't really alter those things too much with clothes or make up.

Maybe I've read too many female magazines, but I've got an impression that there are a few dressing 'hacks' that allow to change the perception of the body shape, e.g. a blouse with sparse vertical or dense horizontal stripes makes the body look thinner, whereas one with dense vertical or sparse horizontal stripes makes it look wider.

Also, in your attraction mechanism, what's more important and by how many %s roughly - the perceived body shape or the projected intimate behaviour? Do you think the latter becomes less or more important for a man as he gets older?

Definitely body shape.

Do you have a rational explanation why it matters to you, or do you think it's better for you to submit to your instincts thoughtlessly?

I guess my brain associates good body shape with health and vitality. Curves, bit of muscle tone, not too much fat, etc. So a good person to mate with and replicate my DNA, maybe? Not that I want to reproduce yet. Or it could be an ego thing, that it's more of an achievement to sleep with a girl with a good body shape, because that's something she probably worked hard for.

So your subconscious criterion for choosing women isn't aligned with your life goals so far, is it?

You see, I'm a big believer in that attraction can be eventually mastered like a tumbler than can be toggled on/off, using mindfulness methods similar to those that put in and out of 'the poker zone'. Or at least one can be more observant of getting attracted to a wrong person, just like of poker tilt, and be able to quit in time.

Zen, meditation and analysing women bodies are not bad start Woman hardly can fake work of body and waving of body parts in movement (best in summer). Tell me your approach to mindfulness: are you blocking thoughts or are you doing it right?

I try to observe thoughts instead of blocking them. It would be really hard to do the latter anyway because my mind is hyperactive

OT: does anyone here know any native Latin Spanish (preferably Rioplatense) speaker who would bear with me as a pen / VoIP friend / language student?

http://www.language-exchanges.org/

Might want to try here.

Yeah, thanks, I had stumbled upon that site already

There are actually surprisingly many native Spanish speakers who're in currently in Moscow. I'm not sure if I want eye-to-eye contact with them, though

And the main problem is not their availability, but what topics I could discuss with them and whether I have to tell them that I spend most of my time either playing or (mainly) thinking about cards.

Somehow I find it easier to converse with fellow poker players than even with fellow asexuals.

Perhaps I should just post more on Spanish poker forums, though it sounded counterintuitive to me because English is the language that I find most convenient for poker discussions.

That said, there's an interesting Argentine strategy for cash games that has never been translated into other languages, to my knowledge.