smallchou.com/blog

i’m currently sitting downstairs in our building at work, watching a live feed of senator hillary clinton chatting with our ceo in another building. there are some really interesting insights when you watch someone in a live, off-the-cuff setting (and truth be told, it’s very possible she’s been fed these questions ahead of time, but still).

first impression is how clear she actually is. by clear i mean in the way that she speaks. and clearly she’s a politician so she’s very polished, but i find it amazing how perfectly structured and correct her sentences are. it sounds like a really small thing, but try talking non-stop for ten minutes and never uttering a grammatically-incorrect sentence. is that something to be impressed by? i don’t know, but i find myself impressed by it.

the other thing that strikes me is how high-level she speaks. i remember once in 2002 john kerry came to speak at stanford. they billed it as “come listen to john kerry talk about technology and science!” but it turned out to be an extremely boring stump speech. this was even before he became the democrats’ candidate for president. as i listen to hillary, i kinda get the same feeling, albeit without quite the same level of canned-ness. she speaks in big waves of “national vision” and “making americans’ lives better.” i almost wish she would just have a real conversation, plainly and honestly.

on the whole though, i find her to be much more impressive than kerry was. there’s something actually commanding about her presence, which unfortunately was never something you saw in senator kerry. she’s actually funny when she lets herself be, and she doesn’t seem oblivious of the person she’s talking to.

it’s not something you elect a president on, but it’s something at least.

sorry for not writing in a bit. i don’t really have any reason for it other than just not finding the time to write. february and march is sort of an odd time of year. it’s like you’re on a multi-month hangover from the holidays.

some random things…

nbc’s poker after dark is now my favorite poker show on television. thanks to the power of my roommate’s tivo, i’ve been recording it daily during its 2am time slot. what’s good about poker after dark? well it’s on late, so they can show a lot of hands (they seem to show ALL of them) and the players have reasonable deep stacks that can really show off some interesting play. as i type this i’m watching the “commentators” week of play, including lederer, gordon, mike sexton, chad brown, and a couple of other guys. it’s a fun show and you get to see some of the fun banter in-between hands. it’s like real poker! amazing…

i’ve started running in the mornings, just like i used to do back in college. i have to admit, while i haven’t gotten to the point where i’m used to waking up at 7am yet, i do enjoy getting up so early. it’s pretty refreshing and gets the day started off well. it doesn’t feel great as i’m trying to stop slapping the snooze button on my alarm, but it’s really nice about half an hour later. well, maybe an hour later.

more thoughts this week, i swear…

fascinating article about the dynamics of praising your children that’s i clicked on at reddit.com. in short? praising kids with broad compliments (“I’m proud of you, you’re really smart”) actually causes them to turn into wusses who can’t sack up and get shit done [that's paraphrased].

mark cuban’s a very passionate guy. so passionate that he likes to blow lots of things out of proportion and personally attack people. i once called him out for being a a huge hypocrite as he overreacted to the knicks-nuggets incident and he responded to my comment with an email that started with the words: “You are wrong,” following that up with a terribly lame justification for why he wasn’t a huge hypocrite. something about how he was referring to multi-player actions not single-player actions. i guess if one of your players is doing something wrong, then it’s NOT management’s responsibility, but if more than one takes action than it is? anyhow…

today he posted an entry in his blog ripping dwyane wade for taking a shot at dirk nowitzki (who, honestly, has been the definition of a sore loser after the finals last year). let’s look at his comments in full:

I hope Dwayne Wade was misquoted in an article today in the Miami Herald. I know the Herald has issues with accuracy and they are still probably looking for the boat I dont own in Miami, but according to the Herald, and i have a hard time thinking even the Herald could get this quote wrong, Wade said the following:

DIG AT DIRK

After the Heat practiced Thursday at Quicken Loans Arena, Wade was asked if he believes players are ultimately remembered for what they do at the end of games.

Wade, who usually is selective and subtle with his criticisms of opposing players, took the opportunity to take a jab at Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki, who has failed to give the Heat credit for beating the Mavericks in the Finals last season.

”At the end of the day,” Wade said, “you’re remembered for what you did at the end. . . . I think that’s the reason — Dirk says they gave us the championship last year, but he’s the reason they lost the championship, because he wasn’t the leader that he’s supposed to be in the closing moments. That’s because of great defense by us, but also he wasn’t assertive enough as a leader’s supposed to be.”

up to here i was seeing cuban’s point. that is quite the directed quote at cuban’s player. to be fair, dirk has been very un-complimentary about losing in the championship last year. he has repeatedly said that they “gave” the heat the finals, which is generally considered “a bitch move” in the sports world. that being said, wade knows better than to make comments like that. surely he’s unhappy that dirk is being a huge bitch, but you know what? when you have the ring, nothing else should really matter, should it? it’s a little like getting a promotion at work and being bitter that the one guy you didn’t get along with is talking smack about you while he works in the mailroom (note to mailroom workers everywhere, i didn’t mean anything by that). anyhow, back to mr. cuban, because this is when he really “takes the gloves off”:

Say what ? Is this the DWade of some of the lamest , boring commercials known to man ? Commercials that are singlehandedly responsible for selling more commercial skipping Tivos than anything else on TV ?

um, what? i don’t really know that people dislike wade’s commercials that much. in fact, most people really like that “fall seven times” spot, even though it doesn’t make any sense (aside: i’ve had several 15-minute conversations about this commercial. if you only fall seven times, why would you have to get up eight times? is the eighth symbolic of “getting up” for a dunk? i don’t know. i need to know these things.). but even if the commercials are boring, what in the world does that have to do with anything? besides just making cuban look like an angry 10 year-old child.

Dwayne I don’t blame you for not looking at tapes of the finals. You obviously didn’t. You would have seen your unbelievable skills and some other unbelievable elements that if I could discuss honestly here I would get fined for.

clearly here cuban is referring to what mavs coaches, players, and fans think was bad officiating during the finals. so you think the refs treated you badly: GET OVER IT. the most annoying thing in sports (and the thing that gets people more angry than anything) is the team that loses and continues crying. people hated it when the colts did this years ago. people hated it when the seahawks did it last season. the truth is that at the end of the day, if you lose, you don’t get to say anything. don’t be a sore loser. grow up.

years ago, there was a guy named michael jordan and he got a lot of calls also. he was more aggressive than other players and eventually refs started giving him the benefit of the doubt because he was, oh, the greatest player ever. but you know what’s funny? you NEVER heard the utah jazz (who played against mike in his last two championships) bitch and moan about it. probably because stockton, malone, hornacek, and the boys were all class acts on the court. maybe the mavs need to take some “how to lose with class” courses.

You are right, endings are remembered. And the ending of 3 of the games of the Finals will be remembered alongside Game 6 of the King vs Lakers Conf Finals a few years ago.

um, unfortunately not mr. cuban. everyone else besides mavs fans have already forgotten what happened, besides the heat winning the series and wade hitting big shots. sorry, that’s just the truth. actually, most people probably don’t even remember that.

I guess you have earned the right to criticize Dirk with an obvious display of your own leadership skills.

I know Shaq appreciates your leadership as well. He called out your team a few weeks ago saying it was “embarassing’. Great leadership DWade. Your coach sat players for being fat. I guess you couldnt lead them away from the buffet.

You are an amazing player Dwayne. I love watching you shoot free throws.

once again, exhibit W of mr. cuban and the mavs as incredibly sore losers

What you know about Dirk’s leadership skills is non existent.

let me just break up mr. cuban’s string of personal attacks by noting that TERRIBLY written sentence. sorry, that was just KILLING me. back to personal attacks!

You don’t have a clue. Your ability to evaluate leadership skills….well you obviously have an overinflated value of your own. Did you take business classes at Marquette ?

this one is my absolute FAVORITE comment because it is SO ridiculous and irrelevant.

Now we know why Charles won’t put you in his 5.

And Im pissed for one more reason. Im going to have to miss our next game against the Heat on Feb 22. A previous engagement. I guess its just a missed opportunity to bring a local business class to the game and try to let them interview you about your leadership skills.

if we were in a writing class, this would be a great example of a horribly-written response to a question/comment. he completely failed to refute the commenter’s opinion by presenting opposing evidence, and then he went off in a direction that was completely orthogonal to the whole topic (“dirk’s not a good leader? well… well… you’re a huge jerk! YOU’RE not a leader!”). clearly mr. cuban has an inability to detach his own personal emotions from objective reasoning. does that make him a good owner? i don’t know. does it make him look like a huge ass? probably. a few weeks ago i wrote about how the patriots fans are making other fans hate the patriots by acting like completely morons. today, i would say that mr. cuban is making other fans hate the mavericks by posting on his blog like a 10 year-old with an 11 year-old’s writing skills.

i officially hate the mavericks now.

hope they like my answers:

i haven’t looked at the espn poker club “blog” lately, mostly because i once found an egregious error in andrew feldman’s math and wrote him about it (anyone who can’t add up the chips to determine some simple pot odds really shouldn’t be telling people how to play poker). he wrote back saying, “ah thanks! i kenw i did something wrong there.” for some reason i went there today and read the ‘back-and-forth’ debate between feldman and some guy named Cosmo. you can read the hand here: espn poker club

i found myself gasping at the lines written by the two authors. amazingly, in a two-sided debate, they manage to BOTH screw up several streets in a SINGLE hand. now that is talent.

PRE-FLOP: raising to about $300 is correct here. given a tight limper UTG and a tight player min-raising to 100, you really have to define your hand here clearly. you could be facing two marginal hands and you could be facing one or more monsters. raising to 300, 350, or more is standard. raising to $250 or $275 as feldman suggests? pretty silly. you want to try to price people into the hand as much as possible?

POST-FLOP: honestly, calling is the most reasonable option here. it’s bizarre that neither cosmo nor feldman note this simple fact, but simply calling this bet should be a fairly strong signal of strength to the UTG player. that being said, the UTG player is either WAY ahead (K or 5), or WAY behind (smaller pocket pair). why exactly would you want to willingly stack off all your chips to “protect” your hand when your opponent is either crushing you or completely crushed? lifetime, you gain much more EV by calling here and getting more calls from a player who is very behind. think about it: if your opponent has TT, you want him to call with the pot odds that are there. why would you want to force him out? i think this idiotic comment by cosmo is particularly telling:

His hand ranges increase now [note: your opponent's hand ranges shouldn't be INCREASING during a hand. if it is, you're in trouble], and I still have him on a small pocket, or suited ace. With his smooth call, I know he’s weak. If he’s the chip leader, he can bully and take down this pot. He’s the only one who can bully here, and if he was huge, he would’ve done it [by the way, I don't think this is universally true. if i'm the limper and i have AA. i consider just smooth-calling here. the min-raiser's stack is going into the middle regardless. not a terrible idea to trap our Hero]…. The hero’s play postflop is to also push all-in. Squeeze out the limper and isolate the short stack.

what?! you’ve put him on a smaller pair or a suited ace, so you want to push him out of the hand? the pot is laying him something like 3.5 to 1. the chances of him hitting an A or a set on the turn is somewhere in the vicinity of 9 to 1. calling allows you options to induce a bet, bluff, or call on a later street. pushing leaves money on the table.

cosmo goes on to astutely say, “Calling here does nothing but invite another call.” yes cosmo, you are right. and that is what you want.

POST-TURN: checking behind is just fine here. you can be fairly certain that most any K would have bet the turn. given the size of your remaining stack, you’ll be able to get it all in on the river if you can induce a bluff/bet. you can check and hope he bets if you’d like. if this was a cash game, you might check behind on the turn here also, but for a different reason: to keep the pot small when you don’t have a monster.

RIVER: now here’s where i think both of these espn guys are absolutely nuts. fold on the river? to be honest, this is a dream double-up situation. you’ve played the hand very well so that a smaller pair will fire on the river at you. sure he could have a K, thought unlikely given the play. sure he could have pocket 9′s. sure he could have limped with 56 suited, though unlikely given his style. sure he could have aces even. but with the pot laying you 2.5 to 1, you have to be very sure he doesnt’ have JJ, TT, 88, 77 (all of which are extremely likely in this hand), Ax, or a straight bluff to lay this down. it is a sin to not at least THINK about this before making a decision. i would very rarely lay this hand down here unless i’m against a completely rock.

—————-

i think feldman and cosmo go wrong at several points in this analysis, but the largest problem is this: don’t try to over-protect a hand. if you’re pushing in on this flop because you’re protecting your hand against a draw, there’s just no justification for that. anyone who is trailing you is WAY behind. sure it’ll be scary if an A falls on the turn. but that’s going to happen well less than 10% of the time. the rest of the time you’re going to be picking up nice EV by inducing a call from the limper. sometimes having guts at a poker table doesn’t mean the balls to go all-in. sometimes it means being able to stomach the possibility of a bad beat when the math is in your favor.

i think it’s fitting that steve young is on espn’s postgame analysis as i write. as a huge fan of young, i can remember my relief for him when the niners finally broke through in ’94. perhaps more than any other player, because of his relation to the joe montana niners, young took the personally-directed criticism deeply to heart. you could see it on his face every time a reporter asked him about not having won a championship and you could see it in his smile when he finally hoisted that trophy. he never said it, but you could tell it was a ‘told you so’ to his detractors after being maligned for so many years.

i remember feeling both happy and RELIEVED for young. i was glad that he would never have to answer silly questions about why he couldn’t “win the big ones just like joe did.”

i think the vast majority of sports fans today are very pleased for peyton manning. some of us even feel relief. it’s always a little painful to watch a great player or coach struggle through unfair criticism for “not winning the BIG one.” while manning didn’t display the same level of emotion today as young, you could see his own relief in the postgame press conferences and interviews. he had always been classy in defeat, today he got to be gracious in victory. like so many who had “finally” done it (Mike [notice how we don't even remember that now? if you don't know who that is, we have all sorts of other things to discuss], john elway, young, roy williams with unc, shaq with the lakers, jim boeheim with syracuse, david robinson with the spurs), it’s almost like you could see his face speak, “ok, now i can finally get on with my career.”

and where does peyton manning stand among all-time qb’s now? he’s gotta be right up there. it’s interesting how coming through today opens up all of those discussions. discussions that, before today, manning and dan marino were both seemingly excluded from because of their lack of championships. it’s not a silly conversation to have:

• 2-time nfl mvp
• all the numbers and records he’s supposed to have
  
• and, most of all, super bowl champion.

peyton manning: super bowl champion. it just sounds kind of “right,” doesn’t it?