smallchou.com/blog

the best way to finish up the longest work day you’ve ever had? DEFINITELY getting out to your car and seeing that you have a flat, because the thing you really want to do at 9pm is put your spare on. yay!

i was plugging away on the treadmill at work just now, watching a little wsop coverage on espn. they were showing phil hellmuth at the featured table of the first day of the main event, when i saw some young kid in seat seven squeeze four chips into the pot in the MOST familiar way. when i saw his last name pop up next to his cards i did a double-take: he’s a guy that i played with in a bunch of homegames while at school. i came home and checked up his name on cardplayer.com, finding him in the player database with four recent tournament cashes…these moments always give me pause. as i spent my time at the company gym, trying to work off thanksgiving turkey, he was probably sitting behind deep stacks in a nice cash game somewhere. strange the routes that our lives take us.is he envious of me? i’m envious of him…

back when i was working at oracle, i used to have a real commute (note: i say that because i do not have a real commute now, as 1.9 miles doesn’t count). after working at oracle for a few weeks, and making the drive back up to san francisco, i started noticing something funny about the traffic: as i approached oracle from the north, there would be a horrific traffic backup every day at the ralston exit, but it wouldn’t actually start at the exit, it would start just after the hillsdale exit, which is one north.while heading north home, there would always be a hellacious backup from oracle all the way to the bend left on 101 around burlingame. i started paying attention, as i couldn’t figure out why there were these tiny little jams, when there was never an accident.what i discovered one day driving to work early is that there was no traffic around the hillsdale exit until around 8am, when inevitably one idiot merging onto 101 from hillsdale would do something stupid, like slowing to 15mph so he could merge, causing a cavalcade of brake lights behind him. on the same day, i left early for home and realized that the traffic jam from oracle to the burlingame veer left happens because every day (EVERY DAY) some number of morons gets freaked out by this slight left turn and slows down to like 20mph. suddenly everyone thinks king kong is hiding around the corner and they slow down too. an hour later? that moron’s mistake turns into me waiting for 20 minutes to get onto the highway.

so what’s the point? well i started trying to FIGHT the traffic slowdowns by driving slower than other people, but just driving consistently (not hitting the brake lights). i’d have huge gaps in front of me, but intuitively it would help since people behind me would never freak out by seeing red brake lights in front of them, so they wouldn’t propagate the “wave.” i had no idea if this worked, but i did it every day anyway.

well, to my surprise, i saw the following link on reddit.com (great site by the way, as long as you’re a little geeky) today: Traffic Wave Experiments. apparently it actually works! awesome… just thought i’d share. if you’ve got an ugly commute, you might want to try it. it won’t help you, but it’ll help those poor saps behind you…

as a good google employee, i’ve decided to stick my google reader “shared items” in a clip on my blog (over on the write. look!).i use google reader to subscribe to a dizzying variety of blogs, including: a random law school student in chicago, a myspace blog for a poker radio show, a well-read web 2.0 blog, a wine blog, and countless sportswriters. if you haven’t tried out an rss reader, go take a look at google reader; it’s a really nice reader now that i used even before i started at the big g.anyhow, sticking the clip on my blog is really simple and hopefully you’ll find some of the random links interesting. if i remember to tag things to share, you’ll get an idea of the random unconnected nature of my interests .

happy thanksgiving!

so just got back from booking a nice win at garden city. i arrived around 8:30pm and found a ridiculous list on every game but 6-12, so i was quickly sitting at (seriously) one of the BEST limit hold’em tables i’ve ever seen. anyhow, rather than regale you with silly stories of donkey players, i’ll just recount one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me at a poker table (good story, even for non-poker players):about 90 minutes into the session, a young asian guy (YAG) sits down to my left. i can pretty much tell right away that he’s at least a pretty good player, just by the way he handles his chips. well, no matter, because the other 7 at the table are all TERRIBLE with deep pockets and we can both pick on them. yet somehow, YAG has some bizarre alpha male syndrome, where he resents all other decent players at the table. very strange. he’s constantly re-raising me and trying to bully me, which i just decide to let happen for a while.anyhow, in one key hand, he sucks out on my QdQs by hitting a pair of aces on the turn (with A5 after re-raising me preflop and calling two bets on the flop). when i re-suck out on the river by hitting a flush to win a monster pot, he starts mouthing off about how lucky i got. whatever, i’ll take the pot and he can talk more. but wait, that’s not the GOOD part.

so if you read my post on “ship it!”, you’ll know how much i detest the phrase. anyhow, we get caught up in a pot. i make it three bets on the button with AhJh and he calls out of the small blind, (as do like twenty other players, many of whom run from other tables just to call me). the flop comes Kh2hTs, probably as good as a flop as i can get without hitting a pair. after it gets checked around to me and i bet, YAG’s the only caller. the turn is a blank (6c), he checks, i bet, he calls. at this point i’m pretty sure he has a shit hand, but he thinks that i’ve been on steal the whole way and is going to call me down no matter what. the Th comes on the river which is a gin card since it makes me the nut flush and he might’ve even improved his shit hand. he checks, i put on the full slow pause and act like i’m thinking about bluffing one last bullet. finally i bet and he insta-calls. i flip up the nut flush and the dealer says “he’s got the ace-high.”

at this point, YAG proceeds to proudly flip up his Ac2s (ragged pair of deuces), standing up and screaming “sorry, BUDDY (sarcastic)… ship it!” he yells it so loud that people from other tables come over to see what happened. in fact, he even starts to reach for the chips in the middle until the dealer grabs his wrist and says, “i’m sorry sir, but he has the ace-high FLUSH.” at this point YAG looks at the board with pure bewilderment on his face. i look at him, smiling while some of the onlookers laugh, and mutter “nice call.” hilarious.

moral of the story: never use the phrase “ship it!” you might look like an ass.

the truth of the matter is that games billed this large (with their own ESPN pages, in fact) rarely ever live up to the hype. that doesn’t stop sports fans from getting excited though.i’ve got no allegiances today, so i’m just hoping for a good game. still, i wish i DID have some allegiances. anyone who has ever been watching a game of that magnitude while rooting for one of the teams knows how tense and exciting it can be and, ultimately, awesome or disappointing. maybe i should have put some money on it…

of all the heinous things to say at a poker table, by FAR the most obnoxious/asshole-like is the phrase: “ship it!”for those of you that have never sat at a live poker table (and don’t realize how mean-spirited this phrase is), let me explain:literally, the phrase “ship it!” is an order to an opponent and/or the dealer to ’ship’ the chips in the player’s direction. seems pretty harmless, right? when would you use a term like this instead of saying, “excuse me sir, would you please graciously pass me the chips that i have just won from you?” well let me tell you:

THE SUCK OUT: you’re sitting in a no limit hold’em game (cash game, tournament, doesn’t matter), and the meathead down across the table with the cut-off t-shirt, jersey accent, and body odor is annoying everyone at the table. you finally get him to stick all his money in as a huge underdog, and he hits a suckout of epic proportions. maybe he hits a straight-flush against your boat, drawing to one card. you’re slightly stunned, and then he says it: “ship it, baby!”

THE FEUD: you’ve been verbally sparring with another player for about an hour. he’s a real jerk and won’t get over the argument. he also happens to have a yankees hat on his head, a duke basketball sweatshirt on his torso, bright yellow lakers sweats on his legs, and a 2cm penis above his peanut balls. you get involved in a hand against him and he comes out victorious. to needle you, he slow-rolls you while flipping over the nuts and, with a dirty smirk on his face, says the words “ship it!” while motioning with both hands towards himself.

THE ASSHOLE FRIEND (less frequent): one of the above two morons (Moron) does not actually use the term “ship it!” himself. instead, one of his drunk idiot friends is standing behind him and has been bragging to the entire poker room for the past ten minutes about how he just made out with a really hot chick at the club. Moron wins a pot and drunk guy stands behind him yelling out the phrase while Moron rakes in the chips.

it’s pretty much guaranteed that anytime you hear the phrase “ship it!” at a poker table, the words will be uttered by someone who is a) angry at his opponent in the hand, or b) a complete asshole.

so what’s the best way to deal with a “ship it” guy? after all, getting pissed (because you will) really doesn’t solve the problem, as you’ll either a) go on tilt and dump off all your chips to the rest of the table, or b) jump across the table and try to strangle “ship it!” guy (don’t laugh, i’ve seen at least five people get kicked out of high-class poker rooms for this exact scenario). i’ve developed a method for online play that is so ridiculous that it is failsafe (and yes, this did happen an hour ago, verbatim):

flop comes AcJhQd, i have JsQh, my opponent (aka Moron) has Ah9d. we get all the money in the middle. final board: AcJhQd5s5d. i lose about $85. and then this occurs in the chatbox:

Moron: ship it!
smallchou: awesome!
Moron: yeah baby
smallchou: great! i’m so happy for you!
Moron: ?
Moron: are you talking to me?
smallchou: yeah! you’re awesome. i just wanted you to know that. that’s why i shipped the chips to you!
Moron: ok buddy, whatever [edit: for dane cook fans, you will recognize that "buddy"]
smallchou: “whatever”! you’re a genius!
Moron: ?
smallchou: i love playing poker with you!
Moron: shut up
smallchou: oh sorry, i thought you were really excited about sucking out on me. i just wanted to be excited with you.
Other Player 1: lol
Other Player 2: hilarious
Moron: go fck yourself

first of all, doing this usually gets me into a really good mood again, if i felt like the beat was actually going to get on my nerves. this particular Moron was of the angry variety, but sometimes you can actually get the moron to laugh and say he’s sorry for the suckout. the angry ones are the funniest though, because suddenly THEY actually get on tilt. then maybe YOU will be the one with the chance to say “ship it!” back. while this option will feel remarkably satisfying, i encourage you to take the high road and just smile. don’t be the “ship it!” guy…

one of the those strange things that you can only ponder after 11pm on a weekday, but i wonder why i never got into sportswriting. or sports writing.when i was a freshman in college, i was deadset on taking some time to figure out what program i wanted to major in. my first quarter i took math, ihum (humanities course), econ 1, and a class called ‘the jet engine’ because it sounded fucking sweet. a pretty good start to “being open-minded about my major,” yeah? yet somewhere along the line, i swerved sharply technical and ended up with a degree in computer systems engineering. it’s true, i did enjoy a large amount of the CSE coursework (notably computer architecture, digital design, and the HCI business), but i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over that feeling that maybe i just fell into CSE because it was “easy”. not easy in a logistical sense, but easy in a personal and mental sense.i just finished reading a beautiful old piece by gay talese called ‘The Silent Season of a Hero’ in this collection The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. originally printed in esquire, the magazine piece is a short peep into the world of joe dimaggio, post-baseball, including his love for marilyn monroe. it’s very subtle and it’s a great bit about a famously-private man, showing so much with a careful frugality of words. emotions evoked: admiration and jealousy (of talese) at the same time.

and i guess i don’t have much more to say beyond, “i sort of wish i had written something so good that it had that kind of impact on someone else.” and why couldn’t i have gotten into writing about sports? after all, do any of these sportswriters love the games more than i do? probably not. did they learn how to conjugate verbs better than me? probably not.

i’m not disappointed by the path i chose, but i just wonder why these thoughts never crossed my mind when i was 17 and spending 30 hours a week reading about, watching, and playing sports. strange, isn’t it…

so first my oakland a’s decide it’s time to hang out in fremont [editor's note: FREMONT?!], and now my 49ers have decided to run from famous candlestick point to the glorious urban center of santa clara? what a week for bay area sports!in all seriousness though, what the HELL is going on? as much as i enjoy both of my favorite professional sports teams moving closer to me geographically, i’m wondering how we’ve come to this. simple answers…oakland athletics: oakland doesn’t deserve a professional baseball team. i’m sorry, but it had to be said. this is, after all, a team that has gone to the playoffs multiple times in the past few years with absolutely zero home-field advantage in the second-most decrepit (more on that later) professional sports venue in the entire country. honestly, it has been pitiful. would i have rather seen the a’s go to a city like san jose, a large city that has already proved an ability to support a team (the sharks! it’s hockey for christ’s sake.)? yeah. but you know what, fremont is a nice-enough place and games will be close by. i just hope they don’t actually call themselves the fremont a’s. yech.san francisco 49ers: network associates (oakland) coliseum is the second-worst professional sports venue because monster park at candlestick point is THE worst. have you ever gone to a game there and tried to exit the parking lot? stoops and i once finished watching the niners-browns game, got to his car, threw a football around for an hour and a half, drank a couple of beers apiece, and THEN sat in traffic for an hour (true story!). and that doesn’t even touch on the horrific nature of the stadium itself. honestly? i’m happy that the niners are leaving, because i don’t think they would have ever gotten the stadium done in the city. yes, it makes me sad to actually agree with john york, but i’ll do it just once. i’m just happy that they’re sticking with the name “san francisco 49ers.”

so there you have it. all in all, i’m pretty happy about the whole thing (surprisingly). after all, finding asian food before baseball games just got ten times easier.