Challenge: find a way to mention that the love interest in the story has large breasts in a tactful and respectful manner and without getting cancelled. Car chases are a given.

looks like a flopped flush that wanted to make sure another heart did not come. I like the fold.

Full Disclosure: I suck at tournies and hate playing 'em.

This is a no-brainer. The most vicious prison fighter is an incarcerated archaeology professor with an obsession for finding the Lost Ark of the Covenant, and is played by...



This is all coming together rather nicely.

Sounds right. Remember, I am also a poker amateur.



I have run a lot of shitty dialog through my head over this, and of course none of it works. I'm just going to tell the story and see if a respectful portrayal of big tittedness can show up organically.

Another down week for the challenge. I didn't play at all during the work week; I kept pushing it off to the weekend, which happened to coincide with my one-weekend-a-month drinking concept.

It didn't end well. Sunday morning I woke up with less than 1/3rd left of a 1.75L bottle of cheap whiskey, along with an empty refrigerator and freezer. Since the supermarket was only a stone's throw away from my apartment, and easily reached on foot, I decided to pour a little glass before I went out for food.

I never went out for food.

ACR has a great $6.60 $25k gtd tourney every Sunday at 3:30PM. I regged, then I passed out around 45 minutes later, punting my buyin, and waking up several times during the night to throw bile up from my empty stomach.

Also, I found out that the big baddie in Space Jam 2 is an evil algorithm.

The critics are savaging the movie, but in any case my book idea, with its evil algorithm, is going to have to be retooled thanks to LeBron and company.


ACR $0.19 to $10000 Challenge: Week 5

Previous ACR bankroll: $174.56

Tournament: (-$17.60)

Current ACR bankroll: $156.96

Yeah, you should probably give up drinking.

Jesus dude, um maybe you shouldn’t drink. Or least don’t drink alone. My wife had a family emergency last Thanksgiving and had to go to Europe on her own. I was by myself spent Thanksgiving smoking meats in the bbq and drinking. Made a bad drunken pumpkin cheesecake. I probably drank a similar amount of whiskey those few days. That being said didn’t pass out and obviously didn’t end up puking after not eating anything for a day.

Yeah, I don't want to be the annoying anti-binge drinking voice, but it was definitely a hurdle in my life for years (and not just an obstacle as far as rising up the poker world). Looking back, it is insane to what extent having a drinking problem limits potential in all areas of life. I went dry for 6-7 years and it has only been a couple of years since I have trusted myself again in having A drink without the binge ensuing. GL friend

Thank you for the wise words, gentlemen. I'm going to head into next month with a plan that has some rules and limitations in place. It didn't occur to me to try that...until last weekend.

I just don’t think you’re built to be alone with a 1.75L of whiskey. You’re self aware that’s good.

Tourney Time!

Test run on the Lucky Venom Socks that ACR sent me.

Not sure I can endorse the socks. Normally I'd lead out on the river here, big, hoping V has AK, AJ or AT, but V has a very high aggro number, so I choose the clever checkraise.

Yatahay Network - 600/1200 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 137.02 BB
BTN: 139.89 BB
SB: 32.4 BB
Hero (BB): 42.89 BB
UTG: 123.77 BB
UTG+1: 58.95 BB
MP: 54.72 BB
MP+1: 65.1 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) A A 9
Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, UTG bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

River: (9.5 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero checks, UTG bets 4 BB, Hero raises to 15.25 BB, UTG raises to 30 BB, Hero raises to 38.77 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 8.77 BB

Hero shows Q Q (Full House, Queens full of Aces)
(Pre 72%, Flop 0.1%, Turn 0%)
UTG shows 9 A (Full House, Aces full of Nines)
(Pre 28%, Flop 99.9%, Turn 100%)
UTG wins 87.03 BB

Another down week on the challenge. I had to relegate the Lucky Venom Socks to the Hamper of Fate, where they will sit--for longer than they should, in their state of being dirty clothing--and hopefully atone for their lack of rungood.

Here's a hand that illustrates a villain who is not a value fish, though he/she has HUD stats that are indistinguishable from one.

The difference here lies in observation outside of the HUD. I had seen V make a bad bluff, get snapped off, be left with 18bbs, then open shove 3 hands in a row without being called, before being transferred to another table, then arriving back at my table a few hands later with what looks like a freshly rebought starting stack.

I would not have made this call on the river with any other kind of player besides V, who I had tagged as an aggrodonk and not a value fish, thanks to the above shenanigans.

Yatahay Network - 150/300 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 66.67 BB
BTN: 83.7 BB
SB: 91.57 BB
BB: 116.76 BB
Hero (UTG): 60.32 BB
UTG+1: 69.46 BB
MP: 65.93 BB
MP+1: 50.09 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.57 BB) Hero has 9 9

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, CO calls 2.5 BB, fold, SB calls 2 BB, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (11.07 BB, 4 players) 4 5 5
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 5.03 BB, CO calls 5.03 BB, fold, fold

Turn: (21.13 BB, 2 players) A
Hero bets 11.07 BB, CO calls 11.07 BB

River: (43.27 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, CO bets 47.93 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 41.59 BB and is all-in

CO shows 2 8 (One Pair, Fives)
(Pre 12%, Flop 5%, Turn 9%)
Hero shows 9 9 (Two Pair, Nines and Fives)
(Pre 88%, Flop 95%, Turn 91%)
Hero wins 126.44 BB

Alas, one fun call does not make for a tournament win.

ACR $0.19 to $10000 Challenge: Week 7

Previous ACR bankroll: $156.96

Tournament: (-$23.92)

Current ACR bankroll: $133.04

Off the tables, I have had some interesting ideas for the story, which I may post here in the near future. It seems to be catching fire, in any case.

I've started some preliminary research. Imagine getting a letter that begins like this:

Greetings, We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to participate in a Prolific Offender Program run by the Pasco Sheriff’s Office in cooperation with the Department of Justice Strategies for Policing Innovation Initiative. This program provides you with an opportunity to receive assistance from the Pasco Sheriff’s Office and several community partners who will work with you to identify and overcome barriers that have hindered you in your life’s journey. Ultimately, the goal of this program is to empower you to live a lawful, productive and fulfilled life.

and continues like this:

You may wonder why you were enrolled in this program. You were selected as a result of an evaluation of your recent criminal behavior using an unbiased, evidence-based risk assessment designed to identify prolific offenders in our community. As a result of this designation, we will go to great efforts to encourage change in your life through enhanced support and increased accountability. If you refrain from criminal activity over the next two years, your Prolific Offender designation will be removed.

And then the cops start showing up at your house on a regular basis, without warrants, harassing you, searching your house, writing tickets for things like overly-long grass on your lawn.

This is a real thing. The people they're harassing are not on probation or otherwise in the court system. They are the victims of an algorithm that has picked them out as potential future offenders.

Pasco Sheriff’s Office letter targets residents for ‘increased accountability’

WTF?
Reminds me of the movie "Minority Report" (with shades of "A Clockwork Orange").

Ha halfway through the above and I was like is this SJ fiction or is this reality?

For some reason this popped in my head.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ

Sunday morning found me up a bit online, thanks to a pair of "on demand" tournaments. These tourneys start similar to Sit N Gos--once you have a preset number of players signed up: say 6 or 10 or what have you, the tourney starts automatically--but unlike SNGs, on demands add a few levels of late registration, which in turn adds to the prize pool, as plenty of players choose to rebuy and/or jump in late.

I'd been avoiding the on demands because I'd found their shallowish turbo structure to be too light on poker play and too heavy on push/fold play, but I'm starting to realize that this type of tourney makes up for those shortcomings by having small fields: say 20-45 players, and smaller fields knock down variance. They also allow you to finish in first place more often, which I managed to do twice in a row on Saturday. Both of the ships were small cashes: around $30 each, but it's nice for the confidence level to finish in first every once in a while.

On Sunday, I decided to finally spend my $88 ticket, and from that I picked up a mincash.

In any case, I should be playing more poker now that I've finished up my most recent Fallout 4 run, a run which I'm embarrassed to say ate up more than 200 hours of my free time over this summer, going back to when I still lived in Las Vegas.

I haven't much addressed my video game habit here, mostly because it's not as compelling as some of the other addictions, and so I'll try to be brief. Of all my addictions, video games have caused me the least amount of physical and mental harm, and they've been a reliable stand-in during the times when I've been recovering from various substances, and for that I'm grateful.

Why spend several hundred hours playing a game that I've already beaten a half dozen times? The answer in this case is purely passive-aggressive spite towards a certain NPC who plays an ample role in Fallout 4.

That NPC is a character named Preston Garvey



Garvey is a good guy: unabashedly righteous and uncomplicated and wholesome. He runs a faction called the Minutemen, who base their look on the US Revolutionary Minutemen militia--thus Preston's tri-cornered hat and Revolutionary-style jacket.

Preston is also a quest giver...an infamous quest giver. His interests lie almost solely in establishing and protecting various human agrarian settlements in Fallout 4's post-apocalyptic wasteland. Preston
Garvey wants nothing more than to bring civilization back to all corners of the nuclear-ravaged wasteland, and he wants you to do it for him--all of it, either by yourself or with him as your companion/henchman.

Consequently, your character cannot get within 100 meters of Preston without him throwing a settlement-related quest at you. Trying to avoid speaking to him does nothing; if you are in the same map square as him, you will be quested--somehow hearing his voice carrying through the breeze from afar--and you will get no experience points from completing any of his quests unless you go near Preston again, and subsequently pick up yet another quest.

And if you balk at doing these settlement quests, the clock will start silently ticking, and after a few game days, you will fail the quest, and the poor settlers with their kidnapped relatives or their ravaged crops and shot-up water pumps will become very disappointed with you, and the game will direct you to go back to Preston and to tell him of your abject failure, and you will pick up yet another settlement quest while you're at it.

Fans of the game have long-since made a meme of Preston and his endless settlement quests. I think the developers' idea was to use them to introduce you--as a new player--to the many and sundry areas of the wasteland, to get you out exploring and building farms and defenses and collecting materials and whatnot.

That's all fine on the first playthrough, but it becomes annoying and tiresome on subsequent runs, whereas almost all the other aspects of the game are still fun and tend to hold up, playthrough after playthrough.

One of the first quests in the game involves rescuing Preston from a museum where raiders have trapped him and a few of his friends. The museum quest is designed to serve as a starter/tutorial dungeon in Fallout 4.

Once you rescue Preston, he starts giving you the settlement quests at a rapid clip. On this playthrough; however, I chose to take a spiteful stand, and I let Preston and his friends sit and stew in the museum for more than a full year in game time, while I went around and established and built every single possible settlement in the game, including the DLC, solving all of the settlers problems, making them happy, and getting them all on side.

Only after I'd finished that monumental task did I free Preston. I wanted to see how he would act when he found himself with no quests to give, right out of the gate, due to me completing all of them before he could start in.

The time came when Preston faced me and started his infamous spiel: "I've heard about a settlement that needs our help--" then...nothing. Preston and my character stood for two full minutes, staring at each other, saying nothing, while the game's camera panned back and forth between our faces, the moment growing in tension until it became almost unbearably awkward and charged. And I thought that I had done it; I'd finally gotten Preston Garvey to shut up about the settlements.

But eventually Preston recovered his composure, and then he turned to my character and gave her a quest that was just a blatant repeat of one that she'd already done for that settlement.

200 hours.

In any case, I'm done with Fallout 4 for a while.




Here's Dan Harmon with some more on Preston.





ACR $0.19 to $10000 Challenge: Week 8

Previous ACR bankroll: $133.04

Tournament: +$177.61

Current ACR bankroll: $310.65

I've never played Fallout 4 (or any other edition), but that Preston story made me chuckle. Great stuff, Suited!

This will serve as a good baseline for some of the patronizing and cheerfully threatening texts and emails my protagonist is going to get from the Prisoner Rehabilitation Corporation's Recidivism Prevention Program, aka The Program.


Thanks Sheep!

Did you ever try to make the moves on Preston?

How about an example of bad writing? Below is one of the worst pieces I've ever turned in. It's a complaint email to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, posted after I'd heard they were receiving an unusual number of complaints about the Encore in Boston and the MGM in Springfield dragging their feet on reopening their poker rooms. I figured I'd add to the pile and--like this post--it was dashed off at work in between phone calls and emails and bosses walking past my computer screen.

It's just awful; worse than a standard first draft, hurts my head just trying to read it.

My friends and I want to play poker again at the MGM. The original agreement was that they would have a 25000 square foot poker room that would provide that form of entertainment as well as jobs. They used COVID as an excuse to shut the room down and line it with more profitable slot machines, which they have all over the rest of the floor. They need to be reminded of their agreement and serve the community by reopening the poker room.

I tend towards playing women and--if there's a romance aspect in the game--my female characters in those spots are always lesbians. And I feel the same sort of creeping unease as Dan Harmon does about this. I mean why not? Why won't I romance a guy in a video game? The situation is make-believe, with zero stakes.

I don't have an answer for that.

You would 100% be romancing a guy.

There's nothing wrong with this. It's straight and to the point. I like it.

These particular games are single-player, so the romance object is a bit of computer programming, and not another person. The idea is to gain some sort of perk and/or experience point boost for your character.

All right, but just for fun, let's try another draft, see what it might have looked like if I'd been slightly more patient.

To the Massachusetts Gaming Commission:

Hello. I hope the day finds you well. I was looking over your original agreement with MGM regarding their casino in downtown Springfield, mainly because my friends and I are curious as to when they are going to reopen their poker room. Even though COVID-19 restrictions on the number of players per table have been lifted, MGM announced instead that they would not even be making a decision on reopening the poker room until the end of this year. I found and read their agreement with you because I thought I'd remembered that maintaining a 23-table poker room was an express part of it, in order for them to receive permission from you to open; and that was, in fact, the case.

The idea, I believe was to open and run an "integrated resort casino [...] designed to enhance the entire urban center of Springfield." and not to open or run, say, a medium-sized slot parlor of the type one can drive past on a disused secondary road on the dusty border of Northern Nevada and Utah.

Also from the agreement: "MGM Springfield expects to bring 3,000 permanent jobs and 2,000 construction jobs to Downtown Springfield."

Slot machines create very few permanent jobs; they clean out the wallets of local players with a minimal amount of human maintenance and upkeep, yet slot machines are what the MGM Springfield has used to line their promised 25,000 square foot poker room, because slot machines make them more money per square foot than table games, mainly because they don't have to hire people to run them.

Where does that leave Springfield: a city that has run a deficit in sustainable jobs for as long as any of us can remember? The profit motive is not going to bring back poker, nor other table games, nor any further variety in entertainment, nor any more jobs to Springfield. The Gaming Commission needs to step in and remind MGM of their original promises and their current duties to their customers, to the city of Springfield, and to the State of Massachusetts.

Thank you for your time,
Best Regards,

-Suited Justice

Down week on the tourneys. In some ways it's to be expected. Tournament poker is about taking 1 or 2 big steps forward then 8 or 10 little steps back. In any case, there's no question that I need to revive the study routine. Poker is always progressing, and if I don't follow along, I will fall behind. Starting today: one hour of poker study per night.

Also stating today: one year of PlayStation Now.

Holy ****, they have a lot of great games in that service. I have a PS4 and a PS3, and I haven't even tried to buy a PS5 yet, but I recently tried to fire up my old PS3 and found that it hadn't survived the move back to New England; however, I can play all the PS3 games that I own on my PS4 if I buy into their streaming service so...no choice but to purchase that...if I want to live like a goddamn human being.

Now all I have to do is to hammer out my free time schedule so that it will allow for both of the above paragraphs to work.

ACR $0.19 to $10000 Challenge: Week 9

Previous ACR bankroll: $310.65

Tournament: -($59.40)

Current ACR bankroll: $251.25