3-18-22-31-34-39

I really, really like Sunday mornings. Someone needs to bottle that stuff and sell it, because I would buy the hell out of it. Or, you know, I need to win the lottery so that every morning is Sunday morning. I usually get 70% of the work I get done in any given week on Sunday morning, getting up early, drinking the hell out of some coffee, and just grinding away. All that's missing is a full slate of NFL games, instead of a weird melange of baseball, basketball, and dudes on ice skates.

I hope my post on PageRank and blogs wasn't taken in the wrong light, or inadvertently added fuel to recent assorted blog fires. I was trying to stay pretty agnostic and to just throw some stuff out there, as far as mechanical stuff going on behind the scenes that not everyone is aware of.

As far as assorted blog fires, not much to say about that. I think as long as blogs exist, communities of like-minded people will form. Inevitable, like the tides.

Although the members may share a certain percentage of like-mindedness, pretty much any "successful" community I've ever seen is also, simultaneously, headed in ten billion different directions and composed of people with ten billion different motivations. If you demand that everyone conform and follow a rigid set of expectations, well, that ain't much of a community, really, besides the fact that such endeavors usually fall apart pretty quickly.

In "successful" communities there's usually just enough of a common thread to keep things from spinning haphazardly out into the ether, but very few other demands that might cause friction. With poker blogs, that common thread is, der, poker.

Ain't nothing wrong with blogging for yourself, and no one else, whether it's to improve your writing or to simply capture your thoughts. Ain't nothing wrong with blogging for the sole purpose of building an audience and sharing thoughts and words with someone other than your brain, to get satisfaction from having an audience and to bask in that attention. Ain't nothing wrong with blogging for profit. Ain't nothing wrong with blogging for yourself/others/profit, simultaneously.

You can analyze and formulate and postulate until the cows come home but in the end it really doesn't matter. If you want people to read your blog, post things that people are interested in reading. If you want to improve your writing skills, post well-written posts. If you want to profit from blogging, post valuable content that will enable you to profit.

Getting caught up in PageRank and rankings and reciprocal linking is ultimately a zero sum game. It's really much simpler than all that. Here's the million dollar secret to fame, riches, and mad writing skillz that make all the hotties swoon at your feet, ripping off their panties:

Find something you're really, really interested in and write about it every day.

That's it. That's all there is to it, no matter what your motivation is. Do that and whatever else you're looking for will eventually land smack dab in your lap.

(Shoot me your email address so I can provide wire transfer information for the $1 million dollars to be transferred to my bank account.)

In other news, is Matt Millen the dumbest human on earth? Seriously. Leinart lands smack dab in your lap and you're too stubborn to admit that you've completely and utterly botched the QB position your entire tenure, choosing instead to pretend that Kitna/McCown is a long-term solution, and drafting a LB with a cracked noggin', who could be one more concussion away from never playing another down? For years your crow eye seemed fascinated by shiny, gaudy WRs, which you kept drafting, year after year, yet you somehow seem intent on ignoring that you need a QB to consistently deliver the ball to them.

The Knicks or Lions seriously need to scrap management and run a reality TV series with the winner getting to serve as GM for two or three years. Because, honestly, I think any sports fan with two brain cells to rub together could do as good a job as Millen or Isiah has, and they'd at least get some cash/ratings/ticket sales out of it.

Poker kicked my ass yesterday. No two ways about it. I picked up a few tokens at Full Tilt in the peep Sex SnGs (you guys are right, good lord those things are soft) but that's about all that went right. Dropped 150 BBs in a matter of twenty minutes at TopRankedPoker, when the crazy monkeys at the 6 max games suddenly caught fire and I couldn't win a hand, despite many overpairs and sets and flopped straights. Boo, poker.

ScurvyWife fired up her new kiln last night and the house didn't burn down, so thumbs up for that.

The Friday Ramble

These honest-to-Jebus five day work weeks are killing me, what with telecommuting still on hiatus at HyperMegaGlobalCorp.

Not much to relate on the degenerate front. Still grinding away at the TopRankedPoker signup bonus, trying to get it done before the end of the month. Pretty much boring, breakeven play over the last few days, without much excitement. Played in the Omaha Hi/Lo Bracelet Race last night but never really had chips or cards and went out 40th or so.

I always find it interesting to post poorly played hands, as far as the comments they generate. It makes sense (and I'm guilty of it, too) that we gravitate towards sharing in great detail the difficult hands we're involved in that have a happy outcome, but quickly gloss over (or just ignore) the hands that we butcher pretty badly. Maybe I just suck more than the average monkey, but I can't remember a session or tournament of late that I haven't played at least a hand or two really poorly, including hands that ultimately worked out in my favor, due to the activation of luckbox powers.

I just find the reaction and comments to sharing such hands interesting, as they usually run the gamut from very helpful, valuable advice, to advice to keep such horribly played hands under wraps, to the "Der, take up knitting instead," one liners. And those are all valid, natural responses, that I've had myself when commenting on hands. Just interesting, is all I'm saying.

ScurvyWife has been kicking much ass at work lately, getting a promotion recently and is basically being groomed to replace her boss, when boss retires in a year and a half. Obviously makes me happy and proud, in and of itself, but it's also a larger relief in many ways to see her succeeding and making longer-term commitments to work and career, instead of looking at it as a temporary evil that hopefully would be replaced in the future by being a full-time, stay-at-home mom.

I'm still really, really far from wanting to get on the kid trolley, and fighting it tooth and nail, but it's a pretty large relief to see her back down a bit from the insistence that the only way to properly raise a rug rat is for her to not work and be at home with said rug rat, on a full-time basis. I realize that's an entirely different debate, with all sorts of valid, differing opinions, but I'd be lying if I said it hadn't been looming and nagging at the back of my mind, as far as how to plan for that and to financially make it feasible, if it had to be that way, when push came to shove.

I've been dipping my investing toes into the options waters of late, with decent success. I've been taking sort of a Jekyll and Hyde approach to investing of late, as far as the bulk of our portfolio dollars getting parked in ostensibly solid, long-term funds, ETFs, and equities. Basically the boring, smart stuff you're supposed to do, with a 25-30 year time frame in mind, blah blah blah.

I've also, though, been setting aside a much more speculative chunk of investing money, from some of the profits generated via all my degenerate activities, the idea being that I can scratch the speculative itch and not "risk" money parked in much more smart places. (Yeah, I know, that logic is very flawed. What can I say, I'm a very flawed monkey.)

So far I've been on a nice roll on the speculative side, despite a few bonehead moves here and there. A lot of the gains came from getting into a couple of Kazakhstan oil and gas juniors in mid 2005, both of which proceeded to run up 200% or so in a matter of months. Gave some of that back shorting Google twice at inopportune times, then doubled up on Fronteer Development Group, getting in before uranium stocks started getting hyped all over the place.

Lately I've been loading up on May $25 Calls in CryptoLogic (CRYP), buying in the 1.80-2.00 range. 'Tis more than a little risky, especially with the short window due to the nature of options, but they're releasing earnings on May 8, and all signs point to a pretty good quarter, based on recent earnings releases from Party and Playtech. CRYP got as high as 29 just a few weeks ago but has given a good bit back over the last week, dropping down to the 25.50 range, mainly from a kneejerk reaction to a downgrade from some largely unknown analyst. Good earnings could easily punch it back up to $30, which would make me a very happy monkey.

Pretty busy weekend looming, what with much grinding at assorted poker bonuses and other general monkey work.

Gah, The Poker Bonuses, They Are Too Strong For Willie!

Despite my recent lemur activity in the degenerate challenge, things are cruising right along poker-wise. I'm nearly done with the Bowmans signup bonus, and am pretty solidly in the green. I'm going to try to blast out the TopRankedPoker one I mentioned yesterday, finishing it up in April hopefully, and went on a tear there yesterday, mainly at the baby .50/1 NL tables.

The following hand came towards the end of the run, and I thought was fairly interesting. It's a 6 max .50/1 NL table, and I have €150 or so. The button is the only player that's been remarkable at all, as everyone else seemed fairly weak/tight and nondescript, but the button has been pretty active, overbetting marginal hands pre-flop (re-raising to €10 or €15 pre-flop with hands like 85s or J10o), and bluffing at a lot of pots, especially when he has the button/position.

I'm UTG and get dealt 1010. Which I'm obviously happy to see, but it's got the potential to be problematic, especially with the hyped-up monkey on the button. I'd normally raise to €3 or €4, but he's likely to come over the top with all sorts of hands, and I'm not sure I want to invest €20 with 1010 and bad position, just to see a flop, as I have to fold on lots of flops if he plays back hard at me.

I end up just limping, as does UTG+1. Folds to button, who bumps it up to €8. Folds to me. I call and, surprisingly, so does UTG+1, who had the habit of limping a lot pre-flop and folding to a raise. I've got around €140 or so at this point, UTG+1 has €125, and button has €70.

Pot is €25 or so, and the flop comes 4c 5h 7s. I check, planning on check-raising, UTG+1 checks, and button insta-bets €25.

Hmm. Button is capable of having just about anything, and only has €50 behind after his flop bet. I'd be more than happy to shove here if it were heads-up with the button, but UTG+1 is lurking, and his smooth-call of a sizable raise pre-flop worries me a bit, as the only other time I'd seen him do that he had QQ.

Shoving here might clear up some outs by folding out UTG+1, as well as generate some fold equity versus the button. But the button's €25 bet is likely enough to fold out UTG+1 anyway, even if I call and sweeten the pot. If I just call the €25 bet and UTG+1 does have a bigger pocket pair, he'll likely check-raise, at which point I can possibly (maybe) find a fold, depending on button's reaction.

I end up just calling, as does UTG+1. Damnit.

Turn is 8d, putting 4c 5h 7s 8d on the board. Pot is €100 or so. I check, UTG+1 checks, and button checks. Hmm.

River is 2c, for a board of 4c 5h 7s 8d 2c. I check, UTG+1 checks, and button insta-bets €30 of his remaining €45.

Do you call? Fold? Shove?

I dwelled for forever and finally folded. Yeah, I know, the pot is laying me pretty juicy odds with my overpair and a crazy monkey on the button who loves to bluff at pots, but UTG+1 is still hanging around. I didn't like the size of the button's bet, either (or the check on the turn, for that matter), as he's perfectly capable of having a 6 in his hand, as well as some sort of junky two pair. Heads-up, I probably make the call, clutching my junk. With UTG+1 lurking, though, I'm not certain that it'll just be €30 to call, and I think I have to fold if I call and he comes over the top for €70 more.

I fold, and UTG+1 ponders for forever, and finally calls. Button rolls over J10o for jack high and UTG+1 has Q5s, taking down the €160 pot with a pair of 5s.

Doh.

Still not sure how to play that flop, given the way things played out. In hindsight the easy answer is to check-raise it up, like I planned on, but nothing in UTG+1's play to that point suggested he could have anything like Q5s, so I'm still not sure that lumping in more than the button's €25 bet gains me much either in the way of position or information.

But, you know, I have the capacity to suck at NL, too, so there is that.

Mmm, TopRankedPoker Poker Bonuses...

TopRankedPoker (on the B2B network) just changed their signup bonus to a pretty juicy 5x bonus. It's a 100% up to 600 euro signup bonus (deposit $750 if you're in the US), with 30 days to clear it, paying out 20 euros for every 100 VIP points you accumulate. The bonus code is SIGNUP600.

You can also get an extra 25 euro referral bonus. Use referral name "scurvyTOP" when creating an account, then use the above bonus code when you make your first deposit. If you try to use both when cretaing an account, it won't work. Use referral when creating, bonus code when depositing. You'll get the 25 euro referral bonus after clearing 200 VIP points, then the signup bonus will be paid out 30 days after creation of your account, based on how many VIPs you accumulated.

They're also giving away 2 decks of BEE cards for anyone who signs up right now. Create an account, deposit, and "...send a mail to info@toprankedpoker.com, with your user name, name and adress, and we will send you the decks the same day."

On top of all that, the site is part of the B2B cashback program, that pays you a cash reward based on your play each month. If you accumulate 3001 VIPs in a month, you'll get an extra 50 euros back, on top of everything else, for your play. Note, though, that it's based on the calendar month, so if you split your play up over two months you might not get the full 50 euros, as they play less for lower levels of play.

These 5x bonuses on B2B sites usually don't last long, so you might want to hop on it while it's there, if you have any interest at all. If you clear the full 3001 VIPs in the same calendar month it ends up being a 675 euro bonus, plus two free decks of cards, which ain't bad at all.