But doesn't it get cold in the winter? And what would i do with a banking system?

Before we get too far ahead, I just want to give some recognition to Mick Taylor who to me is as good as any guitarist the Stones ever had.

I wondered if Sticky Fingers would come up - that's when I became a Stones fan

You wouldn’t be planning on living on the streets would you?! Wear a coat and studded boots when outdoors.

Banks are required institutions for civilization to survive. If you find then personally repugnant keep your money under the mattress.

Due Diligence

Yesterday I showed up at 9AM to secure a spot for the MGM's scheduled 1PM football promotion, only to find that the game didn't start until after 3PM. MGM's schedule had it wrong.

So I settled in for an 8+ hour day. I figured it would be a good preview of my Plan A schedule for full-time poker play: I'd like to have a 4-day week at the tables, 8 hours per day. I've always wanted to work a 4-day week.

I did not have a good full-time day at the tables. I took beat after beat. I can identify 5 hands as being either coolers or bad beats. I will not detail them here, as I am not Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler on Twitter.

To be fair to Allen: he needs to let his backers know what happened in his tournaments; not that anyone would suspect him of punting off his stack with 73o.

I will touch on one hand where I didn't do my due diligence, just for the lesson in it.

This one was vs Old Man Fish. He wasn't an Old Man Coffee, as he limp/called my $16 open oop with T9.

I had 77 and the board ran out 10997A

Standard cooler. We get to the river and he leads for $70 into a $200 pot. He's sitting third to my right along the straight part of the table opposite the dealer. He has pushed out a remaining stack of around $100. I shove, only to find that he's been concealing an additional $250 against the rail, blocking it from my sight with his left arm.

It's likely that I would have just called his $70 bet if I'd known he'd had $350 back instead of $100. Bottom boat on this board is a good hand, but it's far from the nuts.

I didn't get mad. I didn't call the floor or berate him for his angle. I'm only mostly sure that he did it on purpose. I marked it down as a lesson learned. I will do my due diligence in the future and actively check for attempts to conceal chips before I shove.

After that, I took a few more beats. I took the fifth one right at the 8-hour mark. I had planned on sticking around for the second football game, as the promo--which had given our table $150 during the first football game--was so good. But after the fifth beat, I felt the heat starting up in my temples. I was finally starting to steam a little. So I wrapped it up.

On the slot front, I ran into another grinder on the circuit. There are now 4 of us that I know of. Nevertheless, I found some slot plays which helped to partially offset the poker loss.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 8 hours
(-$155.00)

Running Poker Total: 146 hours, +$6579.00

MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hour
+$104.80

Running Slot Total: 18 hours, +$873.05

Grand Total: 164 hours, +$7452.05

I'd shove that all day against this player type, you will get a ton of calls with a flush or a single 9. Yeah, occasionally he will have T9, A9, AA or what have you but pretty sure it's +EV. If you are sure or highly suspect he is concealing chips then it might be a different story obv

Listen to this one with headphones, Da_Nit. It's not mindblowing, but it's a lovely use of the 3d sonic space.

Excellent production on their albums from this era, as good as anything from Pink Floyd, without being as ostentatious about it.

^Interesting I like yourself have always been a Beatles man but do enjoy a number of Stones songs. When I saw you listening to the Stones albums I started doing the same with Bruce Springsteen but not as religiously as you.

I’ll need to do Sticky Fingers, does have a favorite of mine.

Never been a Pink Floyd fan.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d5CTEQ8SeIs

It occurs to me that if he had a flush or just trips with 9x, he might make a small $70 block bet on the river, while trying to give the appearance of having only $100 back, so I wouldn't try to bluff shove him off his marginal (for that board) hand, given that he had so "little" left and would be priced in to call.

That's not what happened, of course, but it gives an alternate reason to try to hide chips. It's interesting that--in either case--if I knew that he was trying to hide chips, I shouldn't have shoved, as he'd be folding his marginal hands there and I wouldn't get any value from shoving. At least he should be folding a block bet...a fair number of players just can't bet/fold the river.

No promos at the Springfield MGM today, other than their usual bad beat jackpot, as well as a $500 payout for a royal flush using 2 cards, or $250 using 1 card, neither of which I've ever had the pleasure of picking up live.

I wanted to see what a typical Saturday looks like, as I'm choosing the three days of the week that I'll take off around my prospective 4-day poker week, and I'd like for one of them to be on the weekend, so that I have the option to go and do fun stuff with friends on one of their days off.

Saturday seems like a good candidate to take off. At 6pm, it took me 25 minutes to leave the little casino, because the sheer number of cars piling into the garage caused a several block long gridlock that also pulled in the cars trying to leave the garage.

Also, my table was reg infested. That's the first time this has happened at the Springfield MGM since I've been back from Las Vegas. So I wrapped it up after 3 hours. I did play one hand that I enjoyed.

I open 33 for $10 UTG. MP calls, BTN calls and BB calls.

Pot ($41) - four players

Flop: K54

I usually play straightforward with 3 other players in the hand, but this is my flop. This flop is in my house. I remind myself that with four of us in the hand, I only need to get everyone to fold this dry-ass flop around 1/3 of the time to print money over time.

I bet $25. MP and BTN fold. BB calls.

Pot ($91) - heads up

BB is a Greek-American gentleman in his 60's, and not a bad player. He's fairly tight and straightforward, with decent hand reading skills. In this hand, he looks super comfortable, like he should be wearing LL Bean slippers and a Snuggie® and puffing on a pipe in an easy chair by a roaring fire.

He checks in the dark.

Turn: 7

Okay, comfy doesn't always mean that he has a king. He could have 99-QQ and just need another bullet sent his way to let them go.

I bet $40. BB snap calls, and somehow he makes it seam casual.

Pot ($171) - heads up.

BB checks in the dark again.

Okay, he has the king. No question. I need a damn 3 or a 6 or my stack's going to take a medium-sized knock here.

River: A

Damn. Damn damn damn.

Wait a minute. My story so far looks very much like AK. So much like AK. AK from EP is baby's first hand read, and BB is more than capable of it. But can he fold his own K?

I watch my hand slide over to one of my red chip hundo stacks, and it swings that $100 out into the center felt. Weeeeeeeeeee.

Pot ($271) - heads up

BB goes deep into the tank. I console myself with the idea that I'm going to show my 3s when called, and that some of the regs will at least see me get caught trying a triple barrel bluff. That sort of thing could make me a lot more than $100 in future value bets

BB flashes me his K. I present the pokeriest face I can muster. He goes back into the tank. Eventually, he folds. I do not show my 33.

On the slot front, old Cashman Bingo struck back. Determining EV for Cashman Bingo is by far the least scientific process out of all the games.

Does the bingo board have a fair amount of money on it? Seems like it. Is it kind of close to a bingo? Sure. Why not? Then let's gooooo. That's the vetting process in a nutshell. At the higher denominations, it is a volatile game to say the least. I'll be back tomorrow, Cashman.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 3 hours
(-$6.00)

Running Poker Total: 149 hours, +$6573.00

MGM Springfield Slots: 1 hour
(-$169.35)

Running Slot Total: 19 hours, +$703.70

Grand Total: 168 hours, +$7276.70

I woke up late this morning, late enough that it would have been a 5+ hour wait to get on a table at the MGM--if the last two Sundays were any indication--so I didn't play.

I've made it to the penultimate Rolling Stones album from 2006, A Bigger Bang. It's quite good, with a few songs that could have been hit singles, if hit singles worked the way that they used to.

The same thing happened to Pearl Jam on their later albums. Some of these older bands are still putting out good work, but it's for no one's appreciation, other than their diehard fans.

Unfortunately, the Stones have said that they won't put out another album, now that Charlie Watts is gone. Same thing goes for Pink Floyd after the death of Richard Wright. Technically, The Endless River came out after Wright's death, but it's tracks were mostly instrumental outtakes with him on it.

*its tracks.

Goddamn it. I knew something didn't look right.

And...done. 26 Rolling Stones Albums under my belt. The last one: 2016's Blue & Lonesome, was a real barnburner; just deep Chicago blues covers and nothing else. I enjoyed it thoroughly from end to end.





I've listened to the complete studio runs from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath*, Pearl Jam and Tool. Who's next? Maybe The Who? Yeah, it should probably be their turn.

I was going to suggest Dylan but this is much better.

Lol. Tay Tay is a talented songwriter in her genre, and easy on the eyes, but I'm not really in her demographic.

I did some work a few years ago on the demographics for Band Maid and Baby Metal. They are supposed to be primarily young adult males, but turned out to be surprisingly diverse.

I wonder what the demos for Tay Tay are.

The Who is next, unless you pick that other British Group: The Kinks.

Age-wise, it's about what you would expect. More guys than I'd expect. I don't know if it's mostly a gay male audience, like with Britney Spears...

https://resources.audiense.com/blog/...-you-can-learn

A quick report from Audiense shows that out of Taylor’s audience:

55.28% are female, 44.72% are male
18.80% are aged between 13-17
40.19% between ages 18-24
24.57% between ages 25-34
8.84% between ages 35-44
7.6% for the rest

There's also an article called "The Unbearable Whiteness of Taylor Swift's Fandom," but I only skimmed it, as it seemed more anecdotal than scientific.

I love The Kinks! They'll be after The Who.

I’m a straight male geezer (>40) happily aboard the TayTay train. I just listened to all of her albums, in chronological order, on a recent crosscountry road trip.



As for your own journey through musical raditude: enjoy The Who! Seems like the clear choice.

Oh, one final thing and then I’ll shut up: don’t sleep on Mac Sabbath. I recently attended one of their concerts and am a changed man.

I appreciate the candor, brother!

I will try to match it.

I consider Madonna's Ray of Light album to be a near-masterpiece. It's in my top 20 of all time.

I think the influence of Madonna on pop music over the last 30 years is greater than anyone's except, perhaps, Depeche Mode.

Seems about right. I'm not a fan of either act, at all, but Ray of Light is fantastic from start to finish. William Orbit was the producer and co-composer. His solo techno stuff goes back to the late '80's. It tends to be a very good, if a bit cold and pretentious.



Madonna's warmth and vibrancy at that point of her career made for a kind of perfect storm on the album.

I'm doing a dry February, which is nice, with it being the shortest month of the year.

I've been wanting to do a dry month for a while now, but I'd always seemed to have a near-full bottle of rotgut sitting in the freezer at the end of every month. It occurred to me that this was likely no coincidence.



Ah well, some may see this as alcohol abuse, but I see it as making a good (-$15) call on the river.

Me neither. But I bet if I followed your lead and listened to their catalog, I would find more to like.