Happy New Year, Da_Nit!

My friend Will has been on the wagon for a few years now and he swears by frequent good walks and hikes. I've had a couple of nice walks this year so far, and I'll keep up with that.

Hi Natamus! Thanks for stopping by.

I'm going to extract the gold while it's still in the hills. This generation of slots likely has a year left in it at this rate. Meanwhile, I've been keeping up with my poker instruction videos and putting in more play time. It comes to mind, though, that I haven't been reviewing hands. I should start doing that again.

Watched this for the first time minutes after my post above.

Day off today, and I've decided to start catching up on 30 years of unwatched television, now that I have the tools to do it.

I haven't had cable or satellite or broadcast TV since the early 1990s. At an estimated average of $50 per month not spent, I've saved around $18000...which I spent on booze, mostly.

However, while I've sat unsteadily up on my cheapskate high horse, I've missed—if not The Golden Age, then at least—a golden age of television.

So far I've finished or caught up with three shows: Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Shoresy, and What We Do in the Shadows.

I've already watched Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Lost, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, Venture Brothers, and some of the Star Trek series through DVDs or YouTube or what have you.

Here are the shows that I'm watching or would like to watch. I'm open to further suggestions, but I don't really like cop shows, medical shows or procedurals, so stuff like ER, CSI or The Wire are out.

11.22.63
30 Rock
Andor
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Barry
Blackadder
Better Call Saul
Bojack Horseman
The Boys
Castle Rock
Community
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Expanse
Fleabag
Game of Thrones
The Good Place
Handmaid's Tale
I, Claudius
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The Last of Us
Mad Men
Mr. Robot
The Office
Parks & Recreation
Rick and Morty
Seinfeld
Squid Game
The Sopranos
Stranger Things
Ted Lasso
Twin Peaks
Under the Dome
Westworld
Wheel of Time

Speaking of cheap: my local dispensary is offering a sale on a certain brand of gummies: 10 gummies for $5. That works out around 60c per gummy after taxes. I bought 4 packs.

On with the show...

Missing a few elite shows in that list :

- True Detective (S1 is a must)
- Stargate Universe (if you like dark metaphysical and existential)
- Devs (by Alex Garland on predetermism)
- Queen's Gambit
- Dark
- Watchmen
- Black Mirror
- Peaky Blinders
- The Night Of
- Ozark
- Dexter
- Godless

Mr Robot is my favorite all time

Not sure if you're into political satire, but I'd add Veep to your list. Of course, it was a lot funnier before it happened IRL.

nice list, Suited. I came in to mention True Detective (S1 only) but Dubn beat me to the punch (and now I've added Mr. Robot to my list )

I'd consider including Atlanta. It's probably the best show I've seen in the last 4-5 years, alongside Andor and Bedda Call Saul.

GL in 2024!

FWIW, i second the following from Dubn:
Ozark
Peaky Blinders
Queens Gambit

and would add:
Slow Horses
Lazarus Project

Oh yeah, an Aussie show, Mr. Inbetween. Only three seasons, IIRC, but quite good.

Shows not mentioned yet:

- 24
- Santa Clarita Diet
- Sherlock (BBC). Sort of a cop show though.

Thanks to everyone for these excellent suggestions! I've added most of them to my list.

I have seen the first season of True Detective. Really excellent stuff. I've always felt that Woody Harrelson is underrated. Watch him in Natural Born Killers, The Grand and True Detective and you'll get a good idea of his range.

I'm not watching everything at once. My plan is to have 5 shows going at a time. When I get to the end of one series, I'll add a new one into the mix of 5.

The current 5 are:
11.22.63
Better Call Saul
The Boys
The Handmaid's Tale
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

We're getting a foot (30cm) of snow today, so I'm home again. Back to the tables tomorrow evening if the road conditions allow. MGM has brought back their excellent football promo for Sundays only, so I need to be there for the sweet rakeback.

Suggested adds for the streaming list:

Justified
Falling Skies
The Expanse
Burn Notice

I could add a bunch of crime series from England, Australia and New Zealand but i gather this is not your sweet spot

I would add The Bear to the list. Two of the episodes in the second season are two of the very best episodes of anything I have seen.

Justified is a must - move it way up the list!!
Hell on Wheels - great western!

The Wire is not a procedural, and not really a cop show, but a show about rebels in institutions; you might even say you learn how the US works in that show. I would consider giving it a shot. My favorite scene:




+1 to Veep; a similar British show is "The Thick Of It", where Peter Capaldi plays the Enforcer of the British PM.



On the Sci-Fi side, I can recommend "Foundation"; that's ongoing though with 2 seasons out.

Series that I really liked not mentioned yet:

Fringe
Yellowjackets
Big little lies

Happy belated new year everyone. That's good value with the gummies, as mentioned before amazing how cheap it has become in the US. That'll glue you to the sofa, unfortunately you will prolly not remember half of it

Anyways here are my picks from the list.

Babylon 5. Timeless classic. Season 5 falls off a little bit, but a must-watch for every Sci-Fi interested person anyways.

Parks & Recreation. It's basically Nick Offerman's brilliant play of the main character that makes it what it is. Mind you there is a lot of episodes I have not seen. But this is not a must watch through anyway, just episode by episode for the funs.

Seinfeld. How can you not have watched that as a Murican?

and ofc Twin Peaks. Same question as before. Season 1 is some of the best at least my sore eyes ever saw on a rectangular screen. Season 2 is a little bit too much David Lynch, if you know what I mean, and everybody admitted that later. But still has brilliance. Season 3 is brilliant in its own right, prolly best to be viewed as a homage to Season 1 +2.

Since that makes four, which is a terrible number and others added suggestions I'll have one, which is (IMO) a completely overlooked and undervalued piece of art.

Flash Forward. Sci-Fi series based on a novel. Was unfortunately cancelled after one season. Most likely because the first couple episodes are more like building up and not that beautiful in their own right, so peeps lost interest. Also maybe a little bit too odd for the mainstream.

Some of the titles in your list I have watched a little bit but didn't find particularly thrilling, but like at least half of them I have not watched either...

Thanks again, guys! Most of these have been added to the list. This should keep me in sweet couch potatohood well into the late 2020s.

I'll need to fund all those hours that I'll be sitting on my ass, soaking up the best of American culture, so it's off to the casino...

I'm working on a couple of leaks related to preflop 3-betting. Firstly, I haven't been doing it enough. My excuse was that $1/$2 players limp mostly, instead of open/raising pre. And they do limp a lot. Some players will only open/raise between 3% and 10% of hands. When that is the case, I should be 3-betting with only my premium hands.

That's what I've been doing. But I was wrong about that; only a minority of $1/$2 players fall into that category. Many more will open/raise around 15% to 25% of hands, and then limp the 10% to 30% of hands below that.

These players allow me to have a wider 3-betting range, assuming that I've done my due diligence, and properly identified the player as being in that second category.

Most $1/$2 players do not play 3-bet pots well, especially out of position. Knowing this, I've been flat calling opens way too much in position and not putting these openers into that 3-bet crucible, while also allowing the pot to go multiway when it shouldn't.

Anyways, I put in a few extra 3-bets today, and I will endeavor to do the same tomorrow.

My second leak is that I've been folding too often to 3-bets, especially in position. This has been based on a faulty assumption that 3-bets from $1/$2 players are mostly QQ+ and AK+. Once again, that's only the case for some $1/$2 players. I need to do my observational work and identify players who have a looser 3-betting range—there are plenty of them—and I need to call their 3-bets more in position.

I actually cold-called a 3-bet on the button today; first time I've done that in a dog's age. That's not something I'm going to do often, but I think it was the right play in that particular spot.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 6 hours
+$98.00
MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hours
+$137.75

2024 Running Poker Total: 17 hours, +22.00
2024 Running Slot Total: 15 hours, +$924.66

2024 Grand Total: 32 hours, +$946.66

This is a great thing to work on, imo, because it can be used at higher levels when you move up. These players don't completely disappear until much higher levels.

That's right, Amanjyaku. Proper 3-betting is fundamental poker at any level. I'm going to spend some more time getting better at it.

"Pink Horizon? Pink Horizon? Does anyone want a Pink Horizon?"

INGREDIENTS
1 oz Watermelon Reàl

1 oz Finest Call Single Pressed Lemon Juice

1.5 oz Blanco Tequila

0.75 oz Aperol

2 basil leaves

GARNISH
Lime and Tajin rim

"Jack on the rocks? Jack on the rocks? Would anyone like a Jack on the Rocks?"

"Corona. I've got a Corona here for anyone who wants it."

Last year, when I was drinking (in moderation) at the table at MGM Springfield, I would wait for what felt like hours for a cocktail waitress to come around and take my order. Now that I've stopped, they're walking around loudly pushing the free drinks other players have ordered and abandoned.

It happened 3 times during my last session. I don't recall it happening more than once or twice in the last year.

It would be so easy to wave one of the waitresses over and adopt the orphaned drink. I'd practically be doing a good deed, and no one here knows that I'm on the wagon.

Not today, chimerical Judeo/Christian/Islamic avatar of evil. I resisted temptation, three times—the same number of times that Peter denied Jesus, and yet Peter still merited the title of the first Pope for whatever reason.

I would like to make 2024 a dry year. I stand to lose a bunch of weight, save a lot of money, and give my liver an extensive break from its overabundant workload.

I can do this. My main enemy to sobriety, believe it or not, is my love for meta and abstraction. It's a chink in my armor.

What do I mean here by meta and abstraction? It's leveling, basically. As poker players, we understand leveling. If your opponent is only thinking about his hand and not considering his range or the board texture or your range, he is thinking at the first level of poker, and you need only to think one level higher than that to outplay him.

The first level of returning to alcohol is wanting a drink. Simple enough. The second level of returning to alcohol is thinking about wanting a drink. Why do I want one? What can I do to resist? The third level then becomes congratulating oneself for resisting, and reviewing the history of the struggle, however brief it may be by that point, as if it were some sort of clip show. The fourth level is talking about ones thoughts on the struggle with someone else, or perhaps writing about it in a blog. The fifth level, for me, is thinking about what one is going to write in the blog regarding the struggle, which is where I was yesterday. The sixth level is writing about thinking about writing in the blog, which is what I am doing right now. You can see how this can go on.

All this abstracting has the effect of six people shouting at me about drinking in slightly different but equally annoying ways, and the only way to get them all to shut up is to give in and have a drink. In any case, it's not helpful.

I have tried an AA meeting, and it wasn't for me. People get up and talk about their drinking (level 4), and if I were to speak in public, I should like to think about what I wanted to say (level 5), and perhaps write about it in this blog (level 6).

This time around, I've been diverting the navel-gazing into thoughts of the positive effects of quitting: clear mind, good sleeping, diminishing waistline, no more instances of waking up coughing and sputtering from acid reflux, a better poker game, and so forth.

Also, I get to brag about it (level 4, I know) to my friend Will, who was my inveterate drinking buddy for 25 years before he quit a few years back. Will and I are not overtly competitive, but I do admire his long run without the booze, and I would like to emulate it.

Speaking of better poker games: I'm still going down several hundred in the first hour of my sessions. Yesterday, I ragequit after 90 minutes, but I came back to the tables and finished my session after I'd calmed down a bit. That's something I would not have done if I'd been drinking.

I did not claw back any of the money during the rest of the session, but I played well and I got in my hours, which are the two things I need to do more than anything else.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 5 hours
(-$271.00)
MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hours
+$108.73

2024 Running Poker Total: 22 hours, (-$249.00)
2024 Running Slot Total: 17 hours, +$1033.39

2024 Grand Total: 39 hours, +$784.39

I know you're trying to shake off your bad habits, but a bit of watermelon sugar makes you feel you are levitating.

Here's a better sugar song.

While I'm at it...

Good version of Friend of the Devil