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the AP poll got it right and somehow the coaches got it wrong. sure, i’m a biased fan, but who had a better week than stanford?

• defeated the no. 25 team in the country (USC) on thursday by 15 points
• defeated the no. 2 team in the country (UCLA) on saturday by 7 points

sounds a little bit like shady coach voters to me:

• texas defeated an unranked nebraska team by one and an unranked BAYLOR team by five. they move into the top 25.
• kentucky was #25 in the coaches poll last week, they lost to an unranked georgia team and defeated tennessee by a bunch. they moved UP one spot to 24?
• indiana was @24 in the coaches poll last week, they lost to illinois and beat michigan (both unranked), they stayed on the top 25?
• unlv was unranked, they defeated the national powerhouses san diego state and new mexico, earning them a ranking?

i think the rest of the country has to get used to the fact that the pac-10 is a monster conference this year. it is deep, talented, and (actually) gritty. anyone who watched the game last night should be able to see that a ucla team who has beaten up on other top 25 teams this year, had real trouble against us in the second half. we deserve to be AT LEAST in the top 25.

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hey AIM . just wanted to let you know that i’m officially never using AOL anything again, including you. we had a good run of it. we started hanging out back in high school, when i was trying that whole internet thing for the first time. you were pretty handy for chatting with my friends. i was a real believer in you. and then you started doing all kinds of crazy stuff. your (inter)face just got remarkably ugly. you started whoring yourself out for ads everywhere, particularly the really f’ing annoying ones where i would accidentally roll over the ad and be greeted by loud, obnoxious noises that made me fear for my life. even so, i pushed on, especially since all my friends were hanging out with you too.

and then you started doing that annoying shit where every damn time i upgraded you (why were you always needing upgrades, by the way?) you changed all of my preferences and launched that STUPID AIM Today page just to get your idiotic portal in front of my face. very frustrating. maybe that shit works on other people, but it just made me pissed. actually i started hating everything about you. i’d post an image to point out some of your pains in the ass, but i already uninstalled your shit and there’s no way in hell i’m bringing you back.

then came that whole google talk thing. clean and simple. no extra fluff that i didn’t need. NOT ugly. NOT a pain in the ass. but all my friends were still chilling with you, so i used both. then i started into the whole working world, suddenly i was plugging and unplugging my laptop a lot and, lo and behold, your stupid application would lock up my computer all the time.

now? most people that i want to talk to are on google talk anyway. so, as marty schottenheimer once told a misbehaving great player: “i can’t cut you now, because i need you. but the moment i don’t need you, i will cut you.” and so it is today that i vow to never use a piece of software from AOL ever again. a company that doesn’t respect my saved preferences really doesn’t deserve pixels on my screen. goodbye and good luck.

maybe we’ll see each other again when i’m using meebo some time.

14.55.05: unintentionally spin around backwards, now descending headfirst on my back. this perspective allows me a view of amazon woman. she is descending perched atop a miniature avalanche, giving her the appearence of an ice goddess in a frozen chariot pulled by snow stallions. she is also moving faster than me.

it’s friday, so i feel like i can take some creative liberties with the last few hours of my day and do some personal writing. after all, i did work a lot this week.

one thing that has been striking me all day is the realization that i learned a tremendous amount of “stuff” in two years at oracle. when people ask me “what was it like working at oracle?” i usually fall short with a succinct answer. how do you really sum up two years of life experience in 30 seconds? time (and really, words) are wholly inadequate for describing life experiences. the truth is that whenever someone asks you a question like “how was australia?” or “how was going to stanford?” or “how was raising a hyena in your backyard for five years?”, you usually end up coming up with a completely crap, regurgitated answer that sounds like what they want to hear. my traveling friend will and i have had many discussions about this.

anyhow, today was one of those odd days where it seemed like so many daily nuances reminded me of oracle and, specifically, what i learned there. the biggest lesson from my first real job?

SPEAK SLOWLY THE FIRST TIME AND ALWAYS SET CONTEXT: when i first started working at oracle, i started talking in the same speed that i thought about things. that was a pure disaster. i would talk about a concept, people would look at me blankly, i would try to ‘explain’ it, they would look more confused, i would start over, S-L-O-W-L-Y… and it wasn’t because i was so much more brilliant than they were, but it was because i was thinking at the speed of my head. in other words, i would start speaking with the same assumptions and inferences that i had built up in my head. i used to stop by my manager’s desk to talk about some obscure design point and completely confuse the hell out of him. the conversation would go something like:

jack: “hey, so we got that thing figured out. we’re going to go with a concurrent program to do the thing. it’ll be awesome.”<

rahul: “wait, what are you talking about?”

jack: “you know, the thing. yeah? awesome. great.”

clearly that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point. after a while though, you just get used to starting slow and speeding up later. that way people don’t feel like they’re trying to jump onto a moving train.

it’s funny, at a place with as many smart people as google, people strangely mistake “not setting proper context” with being really smart (because the speaker is talking way ahead of everyone else). i’ve often heard people say ridiculous things like: “so and so is brilliant. he’s a genius. i can never understand what he’s saying.” that’s just crazy. the smartest people always seem to make sense when they talk, not the other way around.

part of working in the valley means that you get a constant deluge of bizarre startups that make their way into your consciousness. you hear about strange companies that you don’t think would ever catch on at all. sometimes though, you hear about something that’s kinda cool. doesn’t mean it’ll catch on and be huge, but you never know…

i think the twitter product is one of those.

pretty simple idea: take a half a second to update what you’re doing and let all your friends know. they do the same. you all feel nice and connected. it’s pretty low-maintenance and it seems like a lot of fun. go try it out or something: http://www.twitter.com

got back from an interesting weekend in vegas on sunday night. some interesting things:

BEST QUOTE: sitting at a no limit table on friday nigh-, er, saturday morning was a drunk guy who looked like a cross between dane cook and an alcoholic. he was actually a pretty good player, but he was hammered, which made him hilarious. every time any player at the table bet or raised against him, he would shout out:

hey… what would you do if i made it $650?

the pot was usually around $30.

BEST BET: thank you to the colts for coming through in a big way for me on sunday. i parlayed the colts to win with the o/u on the game (47) for a tidy sum of money. the joy of winning sports bets in the last minute of the game can never be overstated. if you don’t believe me, go sit in a sportsbook during a big game just once…

WORST DAY: on saturday, i was stuck for a non-trivial amount of money, playing in a few different games. early in the day in a no limit cash game, i raised under-the-gun with 4h6h (don’t ask why i did that, i was just doing those types of things this weekend). when the flop came 8h6s3h, i bet a healthy amount, a late position player raised me, and i immediately moved in on him. i figured i was probably in good shape, given the action and the player, until he called quickly with 5h7h, crushing my heart draw. when he spiked a heart on the river. fun times. the day was fairly enjoyable though, as i played in a mixed game (omaha-8, badugi, stud hi, razz, 2-7 triple draw, and stud-8) at the venetian. honestly, the real shame of the poker boom is that all of these other games get no exposure, which is unfortunate because they can be so much more interesting and fun than boring old hold’em.

BEST DAY: i had my biggest tournament cash ever this weekend on sunday, getting down to heads up and making a deal with a 3:1 chip disadvantage. it wasn’t a TON of money, but i felt like i played really well and overcame several cold decks, battling back from being the short stack with 12 players left. in general i played a very aggressive and loose game for the tournament, which matched up really well with my tables, as i was able to take down 2 or 3 pots every orbit uncontested. position is awesome. i also had an interesting insight this weekend: if you play as many pots as i was trying to play, you sure do have to make a lot of difficult decisions. on a couple of hands, i had to call opponents’ pre-flop all-ins with 2d2c, Kh6h, Jc8s, and 6s8c, just because the math was right. i also had to lay down JJ, 88, and AQ pre-flop multiple times. by the way, calling someone with 68 offsuit, having him turn over KT, and spiking an 8 on the river against him? hilarious.

MOST FUN HAND: on one particular hand in the tournament, i raised in late position with AQ, four people called me (this is what happens when you’re an “action” player), and the flop came 633. everyone checked, i bet 700 into a 1550 pot. this guy on the button, who was audibly frustrated, raised all-in for 2000, making the pot 4200. 1300 to call. i thought for a while and then called him, getting more than 3:1 from the pot with two overcards and a possibility that he was bluffing. anyhow, i obviously spiked queens on both the turn and river, beating his 77. anyhow, that wasn’t the fun part. the FUN part was when he came back to the tournament a few hours later, telling his friends, “hey, that’s the guy that beat me in that race in the tournament.” he was generally being an ass, talking about how bad i played, but he was also getting it wrong: we weren’t racing, he was way ahead of me at that point. so anyhow, i got to say the not often-heard line: “oh no, we weren’t racing. i put a bad beat on you. you were ahead 3:1, but i thought it’d be a lot of fun.” his buddy, still playing at the final table, nearly choked on his water laughing. now that is fun stuff.

MOST INTERESTING HAND: with around 9 players left in the tournament, i played a big pot against the guy who i was most worried about at the final table. i had around 12000 chips and he had around 22000, with the blinds at 200-400 with a 50 ante. he limped in late position and i called out of the small blind with 7hTh. the pot had 1950 on the flop, with four players. the flop came 7dQdQs. we checked around to him and he bet 1100 into the pot. i called, not quite believing him and wanting to slow him down (he’d have to be worried about a Q from me if he didn’t have one). i also figured i could probably bluff hard if a diamond fell. the turn came with a 5s. i checked and he checked behind. now to me, that felt like he didn’t have a Q. when the 3d came on the river, i made a play at the pot of 4150 by betting 3000. he proceeded to think for a long time and i didn’t have a good read on him. he then raised me to 7000. i thought for a long while, finally deciding that i wouldn’t be able to move him off the hand, and folded.

as i thought about the hand more later though, i’m now fairly sure that he bluffed me out of the pot. he was a very good player. i spent about 20 minutes talking to him after the tournament. he mentioned off-hand, in a very humble way, that he used to play professionally in vegas until he had kids, at which point he moved to montana with his wife to raise them (montana?!). since his kids were grown, he was now spending lots of time back in vegas, playing tournaments. he noted that he was surprised i took the deal, since he felt i could outplay the other guy. anyway, as we chatted, i realized that he thought i was very capable of moving at that pot.

i arrived at this conclusion: if he had a bare Q or a flush, he really wouldn’t have raised on the river, as he had to be aware of being beat by a full house. if he had a hand of that sort of value, he’d almost have to just call on the end, as he would only get called by a big big hand (since i had to also be scared of the full house), and i had played the hand like i could have a monster.

really the only reason to raise on the river was to either make a bluff look believable or get value out of his full house. but he was not the kind of player who would have been playing a hand that made a full house there, save for 33. i realized this as i was talking to him, thinking that i probably should have pushed all-in. as we finished talking, i asked him a parting question: “hey, on that QQ7 hand, did you hit a flush or a boat?” he looked at me and warmly smiled: “i’m sorry, i can’t remember.”

damn it.

particularly for us that don’t get the whole “Second Life” thing: Get a First Life: A One Page Satire of Second Life

In response to Bill Simmons’ column today, I wrote him this email…

=====================

Hi Bill,

Big fan. Love your columns. But I think you’re missing the big point, and your column today exemplifies it: it’s not that we’re unable to recognize a great team anymore, it’s that we dislike the Patriots FANS. Here’s a synopsis of how most football fans think now:

• Average sports fan: Man, those Patriots are tough and gritty and great. They have a great team. I think they’re always on the short list of Super Bowl contenders
• Pats fan (before/during season): Our team’s so underappreciated. They’re such underdogs. If they win the Super Bowl it’ll be a miracle.
• Pats fan (during playoffs): See? We won another game. You guys are so stupid, we know best. It’s us against the world. We’re so untalented. We’re such overachievers. etc. etc. etc.

The big secret that you don’t know? Everyone knows and thinks the Patriots are great except for, apparently, Patriots fans (I picked you guys to beat SD, as did many people). Tom Brady is great. We all recognize that. We also all recognize that he isn’t too strong or fast, but that (if you watch) he has a cannon arm, amazing pocket presence, and incredible clutchtime characteristics. We all like him. Belichick is great. He’s a tough guy and he’s smart and he just LOOKS like a football coach. In fact, I think we like EVERY player on the Patriots individually and as a team. It’s a great group of overachievers who works its collective ass off, execute well in different facets of the game, and win games that a pure talent contest indicates that they’re not supposed to win. The thing is, we all GET it.

The problem is that Pats fans will NEVER let the underdog “overachiever” stuff die. We keep hearing it all of the damn time. You touched on it a little during your column, but we’re tired of Pats fans talking ALL the TIME about how they’re overcoming so much. They are not. They have the best QB, the best coach, the best front office, the best defensive lineman, and the best character players. They are better than all the teams in a holistic team-oriented way.

A message to you and all of your Pats fans: don’t downgrade your team anymore by needing to spout off about how underappreciated they are and maybe you’ll find people liking them. Every time a Patriots fan talks about how underappreciated his team is, everyone cringes because they’re not. And then we hate the Pats fans who are overzealous and haughty (i.e. Red Sox fans), which is an entirely separate issue.

The truth is that we all like the Pats. We think they’re very good, not in a 40-yard dash time way, but in a football way. We’re all smart enough to recognize that. It’s just that we think they’re great and deserve to be there, and you guys (Pats fans) think they’re good and that everyone else thinks they’re lucky. That’s why we don’t harp on them all the time. The moment you guys start acting like you have the best team in football, we’ll start liking them, because they are very likeable.

Thanks and keep up the good work, even though your wife’s mini-columns are even more entertaining than yours.

Cheers,

Jack

for those of you that don’t know, neteller is a company that deals with the electronic transfer of funds from financial institutions to third parties. sounds innocuous enough, right? you use the company to transfer money from your bank account to some other organization. doesn’t sound particularly useful.

but for those of you that don’t know, neteller has become a huge company in the past few years because of one specific reason: online poker. poker players use neteller to transfer money back and forth from their checking accounts to the various poker sites. that is, we DID use neteller for this purpose, until this happened :

Effective Immediately

Due to recent US legislative changes and events, effectiveimmediately, US members are no longer able to transfer funds to or from any online gambling sites.

and so it begins. thanks, republicans.

taking a short weekend trip to vegas on friday to play poker for a few days. back in the day (read: 2005 or so), this type of trip was a common part of my weekend schedule. i used to spend entire weekends parked at tables, writing elaborate trip reports upon my return. weren’t those the days? in fact, one year i even spent new year’s eve sitting at a poker table at the bellagio, surrounded by seven other degenerates. that sparked this great conversation that i’ll never forget:

player 1: hey, it just hit midnight!

player 2: hey, happy new year guys…

[voiceless shuffling of poker chips]

player 3: i’m all-in

i’ll never forget THAT choice exchange. don’t worry, we recovered and ordered a round of patron shots to celebrate. even the dealer faked taking his shot.

anyhow, these days? poker trips like those are few and far between. i don’t do those detailed trip reports anymore, mostly because i realize in reading them years later that i sound like a jackass*, but it should be a fun weekend. maybe if i learn a thing or two over the course of the weekend, i’ll jot them down and write them here for old times.

i’d like to play in a tournament this weekend (maybe over at the venetian or caesar’s) and hopefully some good mixed game action (if it’s going at the venetian). other than that, just good old-fashioned gambling fun…

*= invariably i ALWAYS realize years later that i knew NOTHING about poker when i thought i did. it’s part of playing an incredibly complex game and constantly trying to improve. and then every now and then you start reading a new book that absolutely humbles your knowledge (like The Mathematics of Poker, right now for me). at this point it’d be like a guy cooking himself canned spaghetti and talking about being a great italian chef.