lol at you guys not thinking the world is flat.

Is it perfectly flat--like two-dimensional? Or is it an inch thick? Or several hundred miles? If you poke a hole in the bottom of the Marianas Trench, will the oceans leak out? What's on the flip side? It's not Australia; I've seen a flat-Earther map and you're on the bottom, just above the inaccessible wall of ice that rings the Disc .

One last thought exercise on travelling forward in time but not backwards. Let's take time, the 4th dimension, down one level and try to picture it as a 3-dimensional construct for the sake of the exercise.

Imagine a hallway, the start of which is the Big Bang and the end of which is either the Big Crunch or the heat death of the Universe. All 3-dimensional matter in the Universe is represented as a hologram ball, located partway down the hallway when we enter the scene, moving slowly through the Hallway of Time in one direction, from the beginning to the end.

We, the intrepid inventors of a time machine and therefore 4-dimensional travelers, are free to move anywhere in the hallway that we want. To travel forward in time, we merely need to walk further down the hallway and wait for the hologram ball Universe to catch up with us. In this case the waiting part, which would normally constitute time itself, would actually involve a higher, 5th dimension, since the physical hallway here stands in for the 4th dimension.

So, if we can move in 4 dimensions we can travel forward in time and reconnect with the physical 3-D universe when it gets there, though I'm not sure what having to wait will do to us when it's done in the dimension above time.

What we can't do, I believe, is travel back in time by walking to an earlier part of the hallway and meeting up with the 3-D universe hologram ball there, because the ball has already been through that part of the hallway and it's never coming back that way. That ship has sailed.

Don't forget the problems of releasing (or gaining) kinetic energy to match the differences in those vectors from point A to point B.

I recall reading short stories about this back in the 80s or so. Can't find them now, but I want to say one was Asimov and one was Larry Niven, where they discussed the actual logisitics.

I can explain everything at my next conference.

$5k per ticket.

I haven't read enough Niven. I'll have to fix that. He pops up in a lot of places. I think the only thing of his I've read was Niven and Pournelle's Footfall, which was a good mid-80's alien invasion yarn. The aliens only had 4 fingers on each hand, so their math was base 8 instead of base 10.

I think that if I'm going to reduce time to 3 dimensions for the exercise, I should also reduce space to 2 dimensions, so instead of a hologram ball, let's make it a perfectly flat disc...


If you want the possibility of an infinite universe represented, we could make it a perfectly flat plane instead of a disc, and then expand the x and y dimensions of the plane out to infinite lengths, while still not having it take up any space along the Hallway of Time's z-axis.

Back to work for 2020. I can't make this a breakthrough year without getting to work and staying there for solid chunks of time.

Not a bad day at the Golden Nugget. After I paid rent I had $200 in cash on me. Rather than hit the ATM I took my 100bb stake to the table, win or lose. After one hand (which I may post tomorrow) wherein I made a questionable semibluff raise on the turn with a good draw, I was down to $85, but I caught a good hand on the next one and tripled up.

Not long after that, a lady sat at the table with her husband behind/beside her and they blatantly played two people to a hand for the next two hours. No one called them on it because both of them were pretty bad; I think the husband may have been the worse of the two--example: 5 limps to the couple in the big blind, the husband says, "Make it $4." I ended up with a good chunk of their stack, thanks to nobody being a rules nit.

Golden Nugget: 5.5 hours:
+$327

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Part 4

I didn't see myself doing a multi-part deep dive into what's considered to be one of Dostoevsky's minor works, but here we are. The more I look into this story, the more it stares back at me, so let's bang out another section on this baleful, fascinating novella.

The young Underground Man's next subjects are his old school "mates." Young U.M. is a government clerk in 1840's St. Petersburg, and he and most of his schoolmates are part of a fledgling middle class created by the Tsar's massive bureaucratic machine. Here--unlike with the upper caste officer from Part 3--U.M. is dealing mostly with his purported equals, so he's able to at least find his voice this time.

He uses that voice to invite himself to the group's farewell dinner for Zverkov, an officer who's being transferred out of St. Petersburg--a different officer, not to be confused with the one from Part 3. As it is, only one guy in the group barely tolerates U.M. Everyone else hates him, but he uses the one guy as a sort of wedge into the event, and no one else is rude enough to outright disinvite him, although the idea of doing so is thrown around for a bit, right in front of his face and much to U.M.'s consternation.

"What possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them?" I wondered, grinding my teeth as I strode along the street, "for a scoundrel, a pig like Zverkov! Of course, I had better not go; of course, I must just snap my fingers at them. I am not bound in any way. I'll send Simonov a note by tomorrow's post..."

But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go.

[...] I dreamed of getting the upper hand, of dominating them, carrying them away, making them like me--if only for my "elevation of thought and unmistakable wit." They would abandon Zverkov, he would sit on one side, silent and ashamed, while I should crush him. Then, perhaps, we would be reconciled and drink to our everlasting friendship...

The farewell dinner is a disaster for U.M. The group has changed the meeting time from 5 to 6 PM without telling him, so he finds himself cooling his heels at the restaurant for an hour. Then after they finally arrive, the group, led by Zverkov, starts to pick apart everything about U.M.: his position at work, his salary, his clothing and his thinness, leaving him sputtering about changing the subject to something more intelligent, which only brings more of the group's mockery down upon him.

"You intend to show off your intelligence, I suppose?"

"Don't disturb yourself, that would be quite out of place here."

"Why are you clacking away like that, my good sir, eh? Have you gone quite out of your wits in your office?"

Mercifully, they change the subject and ignore U.M. for a while. He spends that time drinking glass after glass of sherry and wine until he builds up the courage to propose a rambling, insulting toast to Zverkov. The speech is meant to be insulting, but he's drunk and all over the place, and Zverkov chooses to let it pass. One of the other guys proposes that someone should punch U.M. in the face for it and U.M. challenges him to a duel, only to be met with everyone's laughter and scorn.

After that, they ignore him again for several hours, during which he refuses to take the hint and leave, instead spending the time drinking and loudly pacing up and down the empty end of the restaurant room.

"Oh, if you only knew what thoughts and feelings I am capable of, how cultured I am!" I thought at moments, mentally addressing the sofa on which my enemies were sitting.

Finally, the group gets up to leave for a brothel, still trying to ignore U.M., but he jumps in front of them into the doorway.

"But let us pass. Why are you barring our way? What do you want?" Zverkov answered disdainfully.

They were all flushed; their eyes were bright; they had been drinking heavily.

"I ask for your friendship, Zverkov; I insulted you, but..."

"Insulted? You insulted me? Understand, sir, that you could never, under any circumstances, could possibly insult me."

"And that's enough for you. Out of the way!" concluded Trudolyubov.

U.M. stews for a bit after they leave, then he decides to follow them to the brothel and try to start a fight with Zverkov, but when he gets to the brothel he finds that the men have already gone off to their various rooms.

I'm going to skip past the brothel scene for now and cover it in the next (and hopefully the last) part, because his relationship with the sex worker he meets there and then sees at his apartment is the key point of the story, and it happens in two parts, which respectively take place before and after U.M.'s meltdown at his servant, Apollon, which I will cover now.

That a middle class or lower middle class clerk like U.M. would keep a servant is not so surprising when we remember that Russia still had medieval serfs toiling on its farmlands as late as the 1860's (not that I, an American, can wag my finger at them given what happened here up until our 1860's).

A manservant back then was the close equivalent of today's personal assistant, to the point that I have to believe that the job title of PA is essentially a modern euphemism for servant. Apollon's monthly salary is 7 rubles, which, according to the Internet, is around $210 in today's dollars, so we're taking an obvious jump down in social class from U.M. and his peers, and with that we see an accompanying jump in U.M.'s ability to verbally lash out, as Apollon's sense of dignity enrages U.M., just as it does with all of his other subjects.

He was in love with every button on his coat, every nail on his fingers--absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! In his behavior to me he was a perfect tyrant, he spoke very little to me, and if he chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically self-confident and invariably ironical look that drove me sometimes to fury. He did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favor. Though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, consider himself bound to do anything.

U.M. plays a game with Apollon's meager wages every month, always trying in vain to take him down a peg by holding off on paying him. Apollon typically counters this by walking into U.M.'s room at all times during the late days and staring at him while just sighing occasionally and saying nothing, then leaving, only to return an hour or two later for a repeat performance in what will be a series of them until U.M. finally freaks out and relents and pays him.

Now this new month comes along, just after U.M.'s dinner humiliation at the hands of his peers.

"Stay." I cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning, with one hand behind his back, to go to his room. "Stay! Come back, come back, I tell you!" and I must have bawled so unnaturally that he turned round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, he persisted in saying nothing, and that infuriated me.

[...] "Listen," I shouted to him. "Here's the money, do you see, here it is" (I took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven rubles complete, but you are not going to have it, you...are...not...going...to...have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. Do you hear?"

"That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

"It shall be so," I said. "I give you my word of honor, it shall be!"

"And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as though he had not noticed my exclamations at all."

This scene devolves further into a one-sided shouting match until U.M. realizes that the young sex worker from the brothel, whom he had impulsively invited to his apartment, has quietly shown up in his front hallway and has been watching a good portion of his screaming meltdown on his long-suffering servant.

To be concluded...

Just realized the it's Notes from Underground not Notes from the Underground lol, though given the cavalier way that definite articles are used or skipped in stereotypical depictions of Russian-accented English (Teddy KGB being a notable exception), that may not matter all that much.

Enjoying thread and I’m rooting for you SJ.

As someone who played for a living for 17 years, my advice is to be more accountable, and to work MUCH harder.

You won’t make it drinking and playing video games instead of playing poker. You just won’t. Ask yourself what the best 1-2 player in the world would do...and do it until you’re playing much higher stakes.

I could be wrong, but IME URMeowed gave you good advice regarding AKs hand. When you have good habits, time is your friend. Do your best so that you have no regrets.

Good luck, and remember it’s up to you.

Most Slavic languages, including Russian, don't have articles, be it indefinite or definite. In my experience these are the most common mistakes:

• Adding a definite article where no article is required
• Omitting a definite or indefinite article where one of these is required
• Adding a definite article where an indefinite article is required

I guess both 'Underground' and 'the Underground' are correct.

Thanks, wateronrock, for the sound advice and the real talk. My general goal this year is to be happy, engaged and productive in my endeavors. For poker, that does rely on ramping up the study and the table time, along with continuing not to drink at work. It's early times, but I'm still checking off all 3 boxes.

Nice breakdown. Sheep speaks Dutch, Polish and English at the very least. What else, brother?

I took $400 to the Orleans today with the same not topping up plan as I had on Friday. Make no mistake, letting yourself get short live without topping up is a recipe for getting chewed up by the rake, so I almost never do it but...it would amuse me to no end to play the entire year on my starting $200 "stake" from Jan 3rd without once hitting the ATM for more.

After calling down a good aggro player while holding only a bluff catcher, I was down to $120, and then a bit of rungood hit me again.

Orleans: 4 hours:
+$253

I used to be able to bleat Russian, but nowadays I prolly won't get any further than a very basic conversation. My Polish ain't that good either.

I like the green numbers. Green is good. Winning is nice.

Beat me to it, love the green.

My bold prediction for 2020, SJ will be a $2/$5 reg by YE.

The first post ITT had me pretty hooked, slowly making my way through the thread.

How long ago was your last drink? I quit a while back and it's been really rewarding

Thanks brothers

Back to work today-Monday. The next baby step is putting together a five day run--playing, not necessarily winning; though I'm considering playing a tourney on Monday instead of cash. Wynn has a good $140 $5k gtd with 30 minute levels. I've played it a handful of times without a cash. Time to change that.

Thanks old savage! It makes me happy to know that you're enjoying the sober life. Keep it up. Not pouring poison down your throat every day has its advantages. I haven't yet forgotten waking up feeling like a million bucks on 95% of mornings for months on end.

I started drinking again not long through the blog, towards the end of my Reno stint. I have recently stopped drinking at the table, so I have that going for me at least.

So far in this life I quit heroin (just snorting, never needles) in my 20's, then I quit speed in my 30's, then cigarettes in my 40's. Alcohol has been the toughest for me.

Today at the Golden Nugget we had an aggrodonk at the table, playing around 85/65 (raising or reraising 65% of hands preflop and involved in some way in 85% of hands preflop). As is often the case, I didn't make much money off him, getting only his last $38 after he'd built up then punted a stack of $850. I made my money off the other players who loosened up their holdings and stayed in longer in order to double up vs the aggrodonk, but who didn't think to adjust and tighten up once he was out of the hand.

Golden Nugget: 4 hours:
+$215

Nice job SJ!

Loving the streak of green results

Re: Regs not adjusting. I think we can all agree playing looser is more enjoyable/fun in a vacuum. When the aggrodonks loosen up a table the regs become comfy and happy making a little/breaking even in the splashy game. When the donk leaves he doesn’t take their good feelings away with him, ergo the newly loose regs are happy to keep enjoying their session and playing a looser style, to their chagrin and your benefit

Thanks brothers! Yeah it's interesting how thoroughly just one player can change the rest of a table. I'll be heading out for today's session soon; I've found that showing up between 5-6:30 PM oftentimes gets you a spot quickly. All of the afternoon tables have already been built up, but now people are heading out for dinner with friends and family, so you have a window where people are racking up faster than the spots are being filled, but not so fast that they're combining tables.

Very nice, sj you can do it !!! lets goooooo

Playing at GN tonight?

Yes sir. GN tonight, then Orleans tomorrow and Sunday.

Thanks Gambelina! That's a good catchphrase, let's goooooo! I might start using that