Tecmo vs The World

A great song for your listening pleasure whilst you read this blog -

 
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Part 2 of the Tommy Angelo interview is now up on our latest podcast! As always, be sure to subscribe on iTunes or download directly via the links below. Feedback is also greatly appreciated

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/badugi-all-stars/id433967767

http://badugi.nixonthegrouch.com/

For those of you who listen, this picture will make sense.

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In other news, the website that I’ve been working on, www.OwnIvey.com, is coming along. We recently starting tracking some of the big name fantasy leagues, such as Daniel Negreanu’s 25k league and ESPN’s league. In addition, we are offering to track WSOP prop bets for all you degens out there. Next on our list of priorities is the overall look and feel of the site. Due to our first web guy being a thief who bailed on us, we had ~2 weeks to put the whole site together. Functionality was key at the beginning, but we are now hoping to give it a nice “45 year old lady trying to look 18 again” facelift. Who knows, we might even get bigger….buttons.

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On top of all of that, my other website, www.BuyIntoGiving.org, is also surviving. Black Friday (the day that the DOJ shut down the biggest online poker sites, effectively killing online poker in the U.S. for the time being) caused a great deal of the momentum BI2G was gaining to come to a screeching halt. I’m now picking up the pieces and doing what I can to ensure people continue to help others. I’ve got a great team of 46 people already, and I’ll be looking to spread the word when I get to Vegas. I ordered 250 business cards and hope to dispense them to various people in Vegas. Also, I’ve talked with Annie Duke and I’m hoping she joins our team in the near future! We’ve topped 500 loans and $15,000 raised so I’m really happy, but never satisfied

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And finally, on a more personal note, I’ve continued my foray into rock climbing. I started a “5.8 challenge” and am happy to report that I only have one route left to climb to complete that challenge. For those unfamiliar with rock climbing, they rank the difficulty of climbs from 5.4 up to 5.12 (it can go higher, barely does). 5.8s are categorized in the intermediate category so I’m slowly inching my way toward 5.10s, which is where the advanced level begins. Those rankings are for rope climbing, as opposed to bouldering, which use a V0 to V12 type system. I’ve been beating a fair amount of V3s lately and hope to continue to work my way up there as well. At this point, I may need to incorporate some core workouts to improve my core strength and overall climbing ability and I’m looking forward to crushing harder climbs!

Oh, and one more thing. My girlfriend and I have been fostering a 2 year old black lab named Jake for the last 2 months. If you or anyone you know is interested, please share the following link with them! He is an energetic, smart boy who just loves everything, especially tennis balls. He had previously never been inside a house and likely didn’t receive much personal attention. Now that he knows what it’s like living with a family, you can tell he absolutely adores every minute of it! Once he learned what toys were, he was like, “you mean I get to play with this and it’s mine?!”

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19153283

So again, be sure to share that link with anyone who you think would be interested in adopting a great friend! Here’s Jake with my pit bull Kali enjoying the “now owned by dogs” couch

Howdy Gents/Ladies,

A myriad of exciting happenings to report so I shall waste no time!  Whilst reading, enjoy some classic tunage.

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First, a new episode of Badugi All-Stars is out!

Episode 4: We Have A Lot of Podcasts – Guest: Tommy Angelo (Part 1)

“Topics include Tecmo’s most photogenic desserts, fantasy poker site OwnIvey.com, the Boom! trailer, Erik Seidel, Subject: Poker, and Full Tilt rakeback payments.  In the first part of a two part interview, Tommy Angelo stops by to discuss his new book “A Rubber Band Story And Other Poker Tales”, advice for internet players transitioning to live play, and to offer a million dollar prop bet.”

You can find the podcast at either of the links below.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/badugi-all-stars/id433967767

http://badugi.nixonthegrouch.com/

In other news, a few friends and I recently launched a fantasy poker site!  You can check it out at OwnIvey.com.  At OwnIvey.com, you’ll be able to draft a team of poker players to compete against other teams in the World Series of Poker. It’s simple – the team that wins the most money wins.  You are given $1,000 to spend on exactly 10 players. Once you’ve created a team, then you can enter that team in one of our many leagues! Check out the Leagues page to see a breakdown of the prize structure and formats. We do allow registration after the WSOP has started, but you won’t receive credit for any results that your players have until after your league has started.  Once you’ve entered a team into a league, then you can make more teams, enter more leagues, or just sit back and enjoy sweating your players in each WSOP event!

So check out the latest Ep of Badugi Allstars and head over to OwnIvey.com to draft your fantasy poker team!

I had some big plans in mind to start a website where poker players could easily donate money to various top charities. That plan isn’t dead, but it has run into some issues so I’m going to start small and see if I can build up my Kiva team first. If you’re saying, “heck yea I want to join your Kiva team! Just..umm…right after I find out wtf Kiva is….,” then you’re in luck!

Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending. You can find out more at www.kiva.org or by watching the video below.

If you’d like to join my Kiva Team, all you have to do is go to the link below and sign up! Once you’ve signed up, you can get your loan on whenever you’d like

http://www.kiva.org/team/buyintogiving

And remember, these are LOANS, not donations. You will get your money back! Then you can lend it out again or withdrawal it! Just think about how much money you probably have sitting in a poker account doing nothing. Why not take a small part of that amount and lend it to someone who really needs it? As my man Nike says…

Ok, I’m going to stop being lazy and finally write this trip report. This one will detail the non-poker stuff.

Vegas was filled with activities this time. My gf got to come so we planned some events as opposed to me just grinding poker or railing peeps as per my usual schedule in Vegas. I found a great website that had sweet discounts on Cirque de Soleil shows so we booked tickets to Ka and Love (the Beatles one).

We went to Ka with two other couples and even though I didn’t follow the story completely, it was still a fantastic show and I highly recommend it. The presentation and special effects were phenomenal. The seats we had were also great. They were $150 seats that I managed to get for $62.50 and they were in the section right in front of the stage. It was my first Cirque show so I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but it was WELL worth $62.50.

The gf and I also attended Love with my friend’s wife and PygmyHero. Lysistrata (Pygmy’s wife) was supposed to come too, but she didn’t end up making it out to Vegas because she STILL hadn’t finished her wedding scrapbook and I wouldn’t let her come without finishing it. Again, I struggled following the “story” of Love. Unbeknownst to me, Love takes you on a chronological journey from something like the 1950s to 1970s, utilizing various Beatles songs to narrate the time period. This show was decent, and everyone else seemed to really enjoy it. My inability to follow the “story” made it less enjoyable for me. Also, this show was more about dancing around rather than impressive feats or amazing effects. It was also very weird at times (I’m guessing during the Beatles more ‘experimental’ phase.) I’m sure most people would still enjoy it, but it paled in comparison to Ka for me.

Before hitting up Love, the gf, my friend’s wife, and I all decided to check out Onda Ristorante, an italian restaurant in the Mirage. The atmosphere was great and it felt quite fancy, but I felt the food was very underwhelming.

Onda Ristorante

We stayed at Bally’s for the whole trip except the last night. My friend was able to get us a free room at The Palazzo so we decided to try that out for our final night. Because we had to pack up our stuff, check out of Bally’s, and catch a taxi to The Palazzo, we almost didn’t even worry about going, fearing it wasn’t worth the hassle. Boy were we glad we decided to go through with it! The room, as you can see below, was AMAZING. There was a sunken living room area, 3 flat TVs (1 in the bathroom), an incredible bathroom, and a sick view from the window overlooking the giant Palazzo pool and the strip.

During the final night, the gf and I met up with various DC peeps, including DeathDonkey, RiverBoatKing, DJ Sensei, Soepgroente(pronounced Vincent), FoxwoodsFiend, and WhiteLime, at the very fancy steakhouse named Cut at The Palazzo. The steaks were around $80 at this place and I’m sure they were delicious, but ultimately, the gf and I decided to head over to the Grand Lux Cafe (also located in The Palazzo) to partake in a slightly more affordable meal. RBK ended up losing credit card roulette that night and got stuck with a $1200 bill. The Grand Lux turned out to be a fantastic restaurant. The owners of the Cheesecake Factory also own this place and the food was very, very good. We obviously got dessert and because we couldn’t take anything with us, struggled to stuff down as much as possible.

A good review of the Grand Lux Cafe can be found here.

All in all, it was a lot of fun getting to experience the non-poker side of Vegas, especially with the gf. The only downside is she now refuses to stay anywhere but The Palazzo if she ever comes back!

I’ll detail the poker stuff in my next blog

Mr. Wooden,

You made me a better person and I can’t thank you enough for it. The world will miss you greatly and I hope they don’t forget your teachings. Rest In Peace.

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” – John Wooden

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1WOjpegGyA&feature=player_embedded]

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFbZckxrTTQ]

So I recently flew on Delta Airlines where they have an In-Flight Trivia game (among other things) on a small, poorly-designed touchscreen monitor attached to the back of every seat (except the last row I’m assuming, but it wouldn’t surprise me if those had them too). After napping for a bit and playing my sweet tower defense game on my phone, I decided to fire up the trivia game. It’s similar to various restaurant trivia games in that it has a wide variety of questions, 4 multiple choice answers, you play against whomever else is concurrently playing, and the quicker you respond the more points you get for a correct answer. Each “round” was 20 questions. The person with the highest score at the end of those 20 questions obviously wins.

I played the game straight up twice and won both times. Then some jerk named Craig signed on and ran really good and I took 2nd in my 3rd and 4th attempts. After playing 4 games, I realized that the winning score at the end was often slightly below 3000 points, with the occasional big score. I had 3500 in one of mine, but that was definitely above the average winning score. This seemed pretty low considering you can get a score of 600 per correct answer if you respond immediately. There are 20 questions so the maximum score one could achieve is 12,000. Of course, the odds of that happening are extremely low.

I began to think about it in terms of EV (expected value). With 4 choices on each question and 20 questions, if you randomly guessed every time you would on average get 5 correct. If you instantly answered every time, you would get 600 points for each correct answer. Therefore, on average, you should end the round with 3,000 points strictly from guessing.

The trick to the game is not only answering correctly, but quickly. If you think or just select your answer slowly, you give up a ton of points. Because of this, I decided that on my 5th game I would instantly select answer A on every single question. If my luck was at least break-even, there’s a good chance I’d win since my EV is 3,000.

Unfortunately, just as my poker results have been this year, I ran way below my EV. A was the correct answer only twice, thus giving me a dreadful score of 1,200. If only I had picked B, C, or D to be my guinea pig answer. Considering A was right only twice, the EV of each of the other answers went up a full 600 points!

Oh well, the experiment died right there, but it was fun either way. I decided to go back to playing the game straight up after that and managed to win my last game

“Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.” -John Wooden

So I’m getting ready to head out to Salt Lake City for the week for some work-related training. I’m not a huge fan of traveling, but I’ve heard some good things about SLC and am looking forward to checking it out. After my recent trip to Seattle, I’ve realized how much Baltimore sucks and that it actually is possible to have a clean city that doesn’t top the charts in murder. I’m hoping to check out some of the scenery and maybe even go skiing one night. I’ll try to post some pictures when I get back.

I’m about to begin work on a video series for Deuces Cracked. I am going to work my butt off to make it the best series I can and I hope to learn a lot from it, and hope others do as well. It should come out next season, which starts at the end of May I think. Be on the lookout

I just started an insane workout program with my girlfriend, Meagan. Literally. It’s called Insanity. Details Here

It’s really freakin’ hard, but I can already tell a difference in my cardio and I’ve only been doing it for a week. I took some before pictures and should there be any noticeable difference at the end, I’ll post the before and after pix

In addition to Insanity, I’m trying to eat better as well. I’m working on taking a lunch so as to have healthy AND cheap meals. I’m also trying to cook more meals for myself at home. I don’t really mind eating healthier (I’m actually a big fan of fruit), but shopping for the food and making the meals and cleaning them up is very, very time consuming. I guess it’s worth it, but that’s definitely the hardest part for me.

I was supposed to get Lasik surgery a week ago, but since my eye hasn’t fully healed from my last complication I have to wait another month or so. It’s extremely frustrating because I can’t wear contacts (they caused the complication which was the catalyst for getting Lasik) and I hate glasses, especially since the ones I am currently wearing aren’t even my current prescription. And with Lasik pending, it would be stupid to buy new glasses. So I’m just stuck for now and I CAN’T WAIT until I can get the surgery done. It doesn’t help that football season starts this Sunday and it’s really hard to play at my best with glasses on (would also suck if they broke since they are my only pair). Oh well. Nothing to do but wait.

Ok, will post again after I get back from Salt Lake!

Check out this link for more great pictures like this one haha.

I recently held my first of hopefully many home games. It’s a small stakes 8 game mix rotation where our main goals are to learn new games and have fun. I think I have a huge edge in 2-7 Triple Draw just by the fact that I think I’m the only one who actually plays that game haha. It was also probably the toughest table I’ve ever played at live or online. The lineup consisted of a couple of my friends IRL who are good players, TubaSteve, PygmyHero, and BigBagBabar. Not exactly good table selection. You can read more about it on Pygmy’s blog below.

Pygmy Hero’s Blog

I’ve also been spending a lot of time organizing Mount Robusto, among other DC projects. It’s a massive project and a huge undertaking, but I think it’s going to be great once it gets off the ground. For everyone involved, please be patient as we work out the kinks.

In addition to MtR, I’ve been helping plan the content for DC. We worked hard and I for one am really, really happy and excited about this upcoming season. You can’t please everyone, but this season lineup has received great responses so far and I am glad to be partly responsible for it

I’m also working on a super secret project that is going to be ballllllaaaa, but I can’t say any more right now

In other news, I bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2 because my Modern Warfare 2 addiction has finally worn off. I was not pleased and have since returned it for God of War 3. I played it briefly and can already tell that it is going to kick major ass.

I like the idea of ending with a sweet quote so I’m going to go ahead and steal that idea from Bosoxx. Most of them will be from a great man named John Wooden.

“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”

So I’m finally at the point where I can just chill and enjoy my home. I’ve only got a few boxes left to go through and everything is pretty much set up. Next Spring/Summer I’ll be looking to upgrade the kitchen, possibly replace the windows, and paint the whole house. But for now, I’m just enjoying my new diggs

My mom and brother drove up from Tennessee to spend Christmas with my girlfriend and me. It was really nice having them drive up here since I’ve been driving to Tennessee on an annual basis pretty much my whole life. The drive isn’t great (7-8 hours), but what really makes it a pain is the fact that you have to dedicate two whole days to driving. That really cuts into vacation time and I’ve had to cut my vacations short by two days every time I drive down there. But anyway, we had a great time and everyone got a lot of great gifts.

My first Christmas tree

Kali after ripping apart her first Christmas present

Poker books I received for Christmas

My new waffle maker!

Also, my girlfriend organized (and I helped a little, along with each of our families) a successful campaign to “adopt” two families from the House of Ruth – an organization who helps victims of domestic violence. We managed to collect enough gifts to satisfy the whole list of requested gifts for both of the families we adopted.

Since my mom and brother hadn’t been up to Maryland in quite some time (well, they came up for my college graduation in 2005, but we didn’t have much time for site-seeing then), we decided to hit up the Maryland Science Center. They currently have an AMAZING exhibit on Leonardo Da Vinci. That dude pretty much did it all – painting, sculpting, engineering, inventing, etc. He must have invented or improved hundreds of items, including bridges, ball bearings, bullets, machine guns, flywheels, catapults, scuba diving equipment, and even the early makings of the automobile. Basically, your life would suck without him.

After the science center, we hopped on over to The Cheesecake Factory and loaded up on an assortment of cakes – including The Original Cheesecake, Peanut Butter Fudge Ripple Cheesecake, Red Velvet Cheesecake, Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake, and my personal favorite, the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake. Later on that night, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants – The Olive Grove. No, not The Olive Garden, or the Olive Tree (man, olives are popular). This is the only Olive Grove and it has some of the best Maryland Crab Cakes. The cream of crab soup is amazing as well. Oh, and my mom/bro also brought up food from my favorite restaurant, Ridgewood, a bbq joint in Tennessee. Needless to say, it was a delectable holiday

Ok, without further ado, here are finally some pictures of my new place

The 2 feet of snow we received is finally melting!

Will likely update my kitchen in the summer with new counters/appliances

Restaurant-style booth!

Call of Duty space, oh - I mean - living room

Fully finished empty basement, place of future poker tables and old school gaming section

Light switch in guest bedroom left by previous owners (it was!)

Poker office, all paid for by poker

Close-up shot of my DC quacker

New sweet chair!

Some bed-side reading

Walk-in closet next to master bath

Brand new deck and brand new fence!

Oh, and in the Christmas spirit, here is an AMAZING song that I recently discovered (thanks to Joe Tall). Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So just this past weekend I received an email from my former long-time neighbor, Ms. Linda. She was my neighbor for roughly 20 years – pretty much my whole life. My dad and I lived next door in the house where I grew from a little boy, to young adolescent, and eventually into a man.

In the beginning, Ms. Linda’s son, Dan, who was only 3 weeks older than me, was my best friend. We lived right next to each other, thus had ample opportunities to build our relationship. Thanks to Ms. Linda, we were both fortunate enough to go to Wild World -> Adventure World -> Six Flags together on many occasions. We went out to eat all the time, including a great all-you-can-eat place called Horn & Horn.  We’d go to Harriet’s Happiest Halloween, the May Fair, to the movies, the Joppatowne pool, birthday parties, soccer games, the arcade, and yes – even The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle concert together.  That’s right.  I said concert.  Your loss if you missed it.  When Grammer (my grandmother) would come up to stay with my dad and me, she would come along on our adventures as well.  Ms. Linda would even drive Dan and me to and from school everyday.  I can still remember waiting for Dan every morning while Ms. Linda and me would be in the car wondering just how late we would be on that day haha.  Basically, we did everything together.  I could never thank her enough for all of the things she did for us.

Then a certain historical movie started being made.  Ms. Linda was all about this movie and just couldn’t wait for it to come out.  She wanted everyone to go see it with her when it came out.  She wouldn’t stop talking about how great it was going to be and was really excited.  Then the day finally came and it was released in the theaters.  She bought me a ticket and made everyone wait so that I wouldn’t miss it.  Then, for reasons unknown to me to this day, I told her that I didn’t want to go see it.  After the initial shock wore off, everyone else went off to go see it without me.  Unfortunately, by that time every theater was full and Ms. Linda would have to wait even longer to see her movie.  She eventually saw it, and then went back and saw it again, and again, and again haha.  It’s a little known movie, but you may have heard of it.  Titanic.  Needless to say, I still feel bad about that incident to this day.  For whatever reason I really, really didn’t want to see that movie at the time, but that shouldn’t have mattered.  I hope she forgives me and that she understands I was just a stupid kid and didn’t fully realize…well…anything at the time.

As time went on, Dan and I moved into middle school and eventually high school.  We joined different circles and drifted apart (as much as next-door neighbors could).  We still played basketball together every now and then, but we had just grown up a bit and decided to hang with different crews.  I went off to college and with the exception of some sporadic home visits, I never really saw Dan or Ms. Linda too much anymore.  Then, on June 20th, 2006, I received a phone call stating that Dan had passed away – the result of a methadone overdose.   I’m not going to pretend to know anything about Dan’s situation at that time, his group of friends, or anything like that.  I didn’t really know the grown-up Dan, but I did know the kid I grew up with.  I know that whatever happened, he was a good guy.  Sometimes he was a little too concerned with “being cool” and that may have put him in some dangerous situations, but ultimately he just wanted to be loved by his peers and to make them laugh at every opportunity – a goal in which he often succeeded.  I cannot begin to fathom what losing a child is like, but I do know what losing a best friend is like, even if we had drifted apart.  It’s weird.  Even though he wasn’t part of my grown-up life, I still did and still do feel a void with him gone.  It’s almost as if part of my childhood passed away with him.  I guess it’s just one of those things you take for granted and don’t fully realize its importance until it’s gone.  Dan’s bigger brother, Duffy, made an incredible website for him.  You can check it out at Daniel Staib’s Website.

After Dan passed away, I continued on down my own path, forever cautious of how things could turn out.  Just recently I purchased my own home after my dad sold the house I grew up in.  It was a sad day leaving that house.  It had been home to many events in my life and now I would never step foot in it again.  After packing up the last of our things, I said goodbye to my home.  It seems weird to me to miss an inanimate object, but I do.

Fast forward to this past weekend and the email that Ms. Linda sent to me.

“Subject: Bad News On House

Body:  The neighbors were at White Marsh .   Yvonne Baldwin was driving by and saw smoke.  She banged on our door and we called the fire dept.  The house was engulfed quickly.  Donald & Mr. Joe were trying to break down the front door to get out the dog.  But they could not.  Paramedics are still working on him.  Sorry but the house is really bad.”

Wow.  Just wow.

I found out later that the dog, a german shepherd, had some internal damage from the smoke, but it looks like he is going to make it.  The newlyweds who purchased the home from my dad have several small children and luckily no one was hurt.  I feel very sorry for them, especially so close to Christmas.  An unattended holiday candle seems to be the culprit.  It must be a horrible feeling to see your brand new house and most of what you own turned to ash.  Fortunately the structure of the house is intact and hopefully the insurance will cover the damage/repairs.

Below is a link to pictures from the fire.

House Fire Pictures

It’s kind of surreal looking at those pictures.  That’s my house.  That’s my home.

Well, it was my home.

Here is what it used to look like…

Before the fire…