doctor, fewer. not less.

I stand corrected.

Any comment on the hand?

take it fwiw. i'm not exactly a long term winner in post legislation online games. my 50/100 sample on ftp is only 13k hands, with a +1.41BB/100 though. you ask if he should call with one fewer cc. i'm more inclined to play it HU or 3 way than 4 or 5 way. hard to find ranges against an utg raise where you have even moderately decent equity in a 4+ way pot. even with a discount you have to be a perfect hand reader to overcome your oop rio.

Udoh is more a power forward, and not really a complete one (see Ronnie Turiaf). Monroe is a great passer to play a high post game getting Randolph the ball down low on post up and lobs etc.

I figure it means they plan on trading Randolph, which is funny cause he is going to crush somewhere else. Weird to be planning to make trades of your best players while the team is for sale. I mean dead weight like Ellis with a big contract makes sense to move, but their best guy on a rookie contract?

F'ing Warriors......

A9 - I don't like BB's river bet at all, but I think you are still ahead enough on the river to bet (you can probably fold to a raise there read depending).

AQ is a tough spot, I'm not really sure between any of the options. I don't even think checking the river is out of the mix. I guess b/f river tho.

I think it looks like you have AQ, QJ or JT or Ax (and some irrelevant diamonds that you could bluff with), b4 u bet the river and that makes every option have some merit (even c/r/f).

i may have leveled myself into making too big a fold in that case hehe... i had 87s... i felt the hand played out kinds weird since i was expecting 8sup to call the turn 3bet a pretty high % of the time, in which case i figured you might cap somewhat wider and i'd just call down. but when he folded for some reason i 100% convinced myself that you'd always go for a river cr w the nuts, hence i insta/spite/tilt folded the river...

what you would get back for monta and his contract is really unlikely to make the team better. plus you're handcuffed by only going after players who work in nellyball. the gm has no leverage.

Of course you can't really get anything for Monta - you trade him not to make the team better in that specific deal, but make it so that it is possible your team might actually be good in the future (see Maggette trade - which was a good move despite only saving 1 year of his contract).

Management is so bad, they have 4 power forwards, 1 center, 2 Pgs and a bunch of D-league players - in the NBA which is pretty much a SG, SF league right now (PG too, but while Curry is a nice piece, you don't want him to have to put up the kind of numbers he was putting up in the second half of last season).

obv I can't deny that it's bad. but it's not as if they were all healthy and played in the east they couldn't win 40 games. the whole have 3 guys play 45 minutes every night thing is just bad business though. it's unique in that they all seems to love that part of it.

Eh, the health stuff is just a red herring. All their guys are basically all interchangeable. IMO if they didnt have a single injury last year they would have had the same record. They can win 25 games just from NBA fatigue of other teams with their system. No team wants to run around that much to play defense versus them, but they know they can score at will, so they just run up the score on both ends until the end of the game and then start trying. Occasionally the Dubs can squeek out the win or are up a ton already.

The conference doesn't matter either, they would stink equally in the east. They were 11-19 last year versus the East. The worst part is they have some good young players. If they brought in Avery Johnson as coach and let him start with Curry, Randolph, Monroe and Bierdins (who actually could theoretically play defense before he realized that his coach didnt care) with Morrow as a bench shooter they could get something going pretty quick and be one player away from a playoff team. Nelson has permanently destroyed any chance Ellis had of being a useful player on a good team.

Right now they have Ellis, Gadzuric, Radmanovic, Bell, Claxton, Bell and Azubuike taking up $41M !!!! in cap space. That is amazing to assemble that list of fairly useless players. Not one of those guys should really be in anyones rotation (Ellis would make a fine microwave type guy, but he won't ever be happy in that role). That is some GM'ing of Isaiah type proportions (sadly my fav team). With any kind of management they could have had a shot at Carmelo next year - would result in a pretty sweet core of Melo, Curry and Randolph.

Anyway, wtf, this is nothing that isnt complained about every day by basically all GS fans (at least the non-delusional ones).

to be perfectly honest i was always a gambler. poker just enabled me to gamble at a larger scale and to substain it. the very first time i played poker i went in to play blackjack but decided to give poker a shot. i think if you ask anybody who's been playing poker a long long time they can tell you that poker was fun in the beginning. everything was brand new and exciting and hopefully you would get good enough to win. after learning the game, studying, grinding it, playing it it no longer is gambling to you. you're not even playing a game anymore, you're sitting there making calculated decisions and determining EV, pot odds, etc etc. where is the fun in that? obviously i still enjoy playing the game and i still find it fun, but a different kind of fun, i wouldn't be doing it as much as i am if i didn't have the passion for it, but it's just a completely different mentality now than when i first went in to it.

pit games on the other hand is true gambling, true chance, maybe the one activity in the world where your fate can truly be decided by the flip of a coin, the whim of the gods. if you knew everything that would happen in your life, what's the point? obviously i know if i flip this coin enough times i'm going to go broke, so this isn't the perfect analogy to what i'm getting at, but you sort of get the point, in a sort of poetical rationalized way of irrationality.

what is my origin in gambling? i was born an asian. end. of. story.

okay to answer your question somewhat seriously, when i was younger my relatives would often play mahjong (in fact i still play with my grandparents on the weekends occassionally). obviously we weren't playing for anything big, but the concept of playing a game for money intrigued me. also my dad used to gamble quite a bit and we'd go to reno every now and then and every so often he'd pull out a roll of bennies and give one to us to go play with which impressed me a great deal. (at that time i was more interested in the arcades and the spectacle known as circus circus. imagine spending 100 dollars in quaters in arcades in one weekend! we also had a ridiculous amount of stuffed animals from the games at circus, but i never was able to get that damn ring around the coke bottle head, that **** is impossible).

also in high school, i played a good deal of pasoy with my friends. we rarely bet for real money but obviously was very doable with the point systems. for a long period of time my family would also play pasoy. also, spades was super fun. this period of time made me familiar with the standard 52 card deck.

i would also make sports bets with friends. i even remember looking at the lines in the newspaper, then offering my friends a spread to entice them, them not even realizing i was getting the better of it. for instance, say michael jordan and the bulls were playing the warriors that night. obviously nobody is going to bet that straight up. even 13 year old kids understand the concept of favorites and underdogs. but i would look at the line and see the bulls at -8. i would offer my friends warriors +5. some friends were taken in my the free points, other friends were skeptical if 5 points was enough or not, but would take the bet anyways! ahhh fun times.

then when i was old enough naturally i was curious about the casinos myself and would play here and there when the mood struck or how much i had (often the two would be correlated). the rest as they would say is history.

i called specifically because the weak player cold called and a decent suited ace in a maybe 4 way pot isn't too bad. if the other player did not call, i would fold A9s to a strong players UTG raise in this spot a vast majority of the time.

i'm pretty sure i had Q8 that hand. with KQ i would have just capped the flop and hoped for you to raise the turn. with Q8 (or 87 which i would play this way too i guess) my hand is *slightly* weaker and i wanted to make sure i liked the action/card. plus how often do i get to go for two checkraises?! i didn't worry too much about giving you a free card as i can't ever recall you 3betting this flop with like AQ and checking back the turn.

when you bet-folded the river so fast i was pretty sure you had two pair. shocked you folded a straight and so fast. (only thing i was really worried with is if you had KQ yourself, didn't really think Q8 or 87 was in your utg raising range) i'm wondering though, how would you play JT on the turn/river? because TT/99 wouldn't be too much worse than 87 and it's not like you could 3bet my c/r with JJ or TT anyways... anyways i'm not really sure i could/would play a set like that myself.

btw my two favorite players on the warriors are morrow and azubuike. those two would be servicable on just about any team imo. morrow is a lights out shooter and while not being great, at least tries his best on defense, with better coaching he could be okay in it. 'buke can shoot quite well, can play very physical (have you seen his biceps?!) and is one of hte few guys who would actually go to the boards and try to d up). obviously if these guys are playing 30+ minutes a game it is a problem though.

obviously the team isn't going to win with ellis as their centerpiece though. everybody remembers him being great a couple years ago, but again, he was great because he was the third option behind baron and jackson and had no pressure on him. obviously baron being a great pg for that team/system and being THE MAN helped ellis tremendously. now ellis thinks he's better than lebron because he has free reign to to shoot 25 shots a night and is never taken out of games, no matter how badly he's shooting/playing.

i'm not nearly as high as you are on randolph though. not putting on ANY weight at all since he's been in the league and losing most of last season to an injury really hurt his growth. obviously the raw talent and athleticism is there, but it remains to be seen if he can pull it together which is always going to be the question as long as nellie is involved.

he's asking if the bb should fold the A3, not you with your A9.

regarding the AQ hand: i bet the river and he called with AJ and i won. i think i could safely bet/fold this hand as i don't think he's ever turning any of his made hands into a bluff on this board, especially since many of his made hands on this board should be two pair minimum, thoguh he could concievably turn a hand like A8 into a bluff, but i mean, i should have a straight here a lot and i think i would always check any broadway two pair and aces up (though AQ is the only aces up i could have here).

regarding the A9 hand: for bb to bet the river with A3 there he has to believe that nobody else has an ace and that a worse hand will call. i don't know what he thinks i have after i bet the flop and turn and "give up" on the 7 which gives J9 (OESD) the straight but i mean, i'm not calling with, like a ten, in that spot. for utg to call bb's bet with JJ obviously he doesn't put him on an ace, but the only reasonable draw (J9) got there so bb has to be stone cold bluffing in this spot (but stone cold bluffing with what that would play the flop and turn like this?), though since he does have two jacks in his hand it's less likely bb has J9, but the way he played his hand it looks a lot like J9 or an ace.

i'm not really sure what both of these guys think my flop betting range is here. i could concievably bet-bet a ten like this in this spot hoping to get utg to fold KK, QQ or JJ. since utg did call my bets twice with JJ i guess that is exactly what he put me on.

obviously the interesting spot for me is the river: the main reason why i checked is that i'm not exactly sure i am getting called by worse. it looks like i have an ace here a lot right? if i bet and bb folds, should utg be calling me with JJ? if i bet should bb even be calling me with the worst ace possible? i guess it all boils down to what these two guys think i have because it seems obvious (to me) that i have an ace here and i'm giving these two credit for being really strong players who can read hands.
bb played his hand up to this point exactly like J9 (or a weak ace which he may or may not play more aggressively). and it seemed to me that utg has a weak ace himself or a ten trying to spike two pair. anyways i thought J9 was a huge possibility for bb, but i do have the best one pair ace imo and if bb or utg has a medium ace they might bet it. i just didn't know they would bet the worst ace possible.
also, i don't consider this really overcalling because i'm fairly certain i have utg beat anyways so it's a matter or not if i think bb could value bet a worse ace here.

I agree with all of your logic here, but I do not think J9 is a big enough part of either of their hands to warrant a river check - I think you have the best hand here a lot of the time and with 2 opponents should bet. Sick how you managed to get 2 bets here on the river though in the only way that could happen. I've seen you make plays in the past similar (i.e. checking a river multiway, that I thought was a bet) and end up winning two bets where there is no way you could have done so by betting, so maybe I am just missing something in the situation (even tho you have to kind of cry call when it gets back to you for an overcall).

Now obviously either player CAN have J9. But I think BB has all weaker aces than yours as well as a bunch of T's (for his made hands). While your obvious holding is an ace here, I think UTG is thinking you could have T8 or maybe J9 when he is calling the turn (getting 9/maybe 10 - 1 with 8 outs to T8 or ahead of the draw which he is holding two outs to) and that you might c/r a lone ace on the flop (also you say you could conceiveable have a Ten here, but I don't really believe that(I know its ridiculous for me to tell you what you can have :-), but if you add that into your possible range I guess it is not as surprising as it seems at first).

So all that leaves is why on earth did BB bet the river? I can't even come up with a theory on that one.



One thing on the AQ hand, why did you think that was a weird hand? I though you played it pretty standard. The turn check? I think betting that turn would be what people describe on here as BadTAG. Also, what do you think about check raising that river (for value)? I Agree b/f is that standard best play there, but sometimes I get an insiration to c/r there (I usually lose the hand tho lol).

The thing with Randolph is, he can do things that almost no one else in the NBA can do at his position. That is a very rare thing. His upside is first team all NBA and he is the only player on the team with that kind of upside. For his size he is a freak of nature and Nelly just can't seem to understand that. Of course he has made a bunch of bad plays, he is 21 years old! All young players are going to make a bunch of mistakes, I have never seen a young player get treated so poorly - even publicly, which has to be killing the poor guys confidence. He was in a pretty good draft class and I would take him probably fourth if that class were redrafted (Rose, Lopez, Westbrook, Randolph). IMO, if he gets with a good coach and stays healthy he will be as good as any of those guys - and I like those guys. Whether he can pull it together as a Warrior or not is a GS issue. He is so young and has such physical talent that he is going to make it somewhere, its just a matter of whether the team lets him go and lets him become an all star somewhere else.

I think Morrow is the most overrated player on the team in the eyes of Warrior fans. I think if you removed him from the team they would win exactly the same number of games as they do now. That said, the guy can shoot, and there is always room on the bench for shooters - but he has to be under 20 min a game. Azubuke too, I mean is he great at anything? Again, he is fine for a 8th man - it seems like the dubs have a whole team of 8th men.

If Morrow is your back up SG and Kelenna is your backup combo guard/F i think you can get by (although in reality you need to have one of the two be a better defender). Turiaf is a nice bench energy player too. They just need starters! lol

It funny that I have a lot of venom on this issue since I am not really even a Warriors fan. I would really like to be able to go to some decent hoops games around here though.........

That's what I was asking. Should bb have mucked preflop?

Lawyer would be much easier than doctor. There are night law schools and schools intended for "adult" students. And if you had to take a break from school for a year or two, it would probably be easier in one of these schools than a medical school.

Why would you have to be? Steve Young got his law degree after football. An engineer friend of mine started night law shool in his late 30's. Plus, lawyers can do lots of jobs other than what you see on tv, where they are either trying to manipulate the system to free murderous criminals or trying to screw people out of their life savings in BS lawsuits. So you don't necessarily have to backstab and cheat and lie your way through the cutthroat mob of young 20-something lawyers. You can do patent work or contract work or whatever, working directly for companies. Or, if you;re a REALLY good liar, er lawyer, you can go into politics!

There was this guy at work (engineer). In his mid 30's he started going to night school to be get his law degree (UCLA). He is now patent attorney in DC area I believe. He was also into gambling a lot (Blackjack at that time). Pretty sharp guy.

im not in law school quite yet (starting in the fall) but everything ive read seems to indicate that its a pretty raw deal if youre not going to an excellent school--unemployment is staggering, and even at some top 10 schools less than 50 percent of people are getting six-figure firm jobs. given that 3 years of law school will often come out to 200k+ i think that its not a great deal unless youre dead set on being a lawyer and willing to take sort of a middling salary for a while.

real question: what is the key to keeping your animal instinct under control while playing poker? how do you avoid spewing in bad spots? as a white guy maybe being a LAG does not come naturally to me.

What's been the best roll you've played? I've seen some epic rolls when I was young, but then I was betting $3 too.

Sounds like just what they need.

He'll be injured in training camp and out for the year.