Soul Searchings

I’ve never wanted a team in any sport in any league to win a game more in my life. The sport in question here is football, the league is the NFL, and the team is the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the game is with the Miami Dolphins on September 7th. Actually, I don’t care much at all for football, the NFL, or the Steelers. The reason I want them to win so badly is because I’ve put down a US$1100 bet on them. Considering I’ve never bought a SportsAction ticket in my life and the only time I’ve ever bet on sports was several weeks ago with the free money from Ladbrokes, this might seen quite ludicrous. Well, it actually is. Why would I put down that much on a team in a game in a sport that I care absolutely nothing about? Because it’s risk free. Mansion, a well established online gaming site, is offering a promo, where if you place this specific US$1100 bet, you can’t lose. In short, if the Steelers win by 5 points or more, I pocket US$1000. If the Steelers do not win by 5 points or more, then I get my US$1100 refunded to me, for a net loss of $0.

Sounds too good to be true? Yeah, a lot of people think so… including myself initially. I did a lot of research into this, and there isn’t a single red flag to be found to indicate this could be a scam. Most of the people on the 2+2 and PokerSourceOnline are all over this promo… and these are some of the more savvy people when it comes to online gambling.

Could they really be offering to give everyone US$1000 for nothing? Well, possibly. Mansion isn’t some shady two-bit site that is likely to run off with all the money. They have built themselves a very solid reputation over the past several years, and the founder is a billionaire. They just started the whole US$60M Poker Dome Challenge on the Fox Sports Network a couple months ago, which is slated to go on for another half year… and they are sponsoring Evander Holyfield’s comeback attempt to win the World Heavyweight Championships again… and they just signed a sponsorship deal with the English soccer club Tottenham worth US$65M (and they had offered Manchester United US$130M)… so maybe Mansion does have money to blow on a crazy promotion like this.

Even if 10,000 take advantage of it, if Pittsburg doesn’t cover, they would lose nothing… but if they do cover, then they lose $10M, which it looks like they have no problems affording.

On top of this, Mansion actually offered a similar free bet last week on a soccer game, but that was for GBP100, or roughly US$200… and when the team lost, they did live up to their word and refunded everyone’s money within 72 hours. I could not find a single person that has complained about not receiving their refund.

So… the bottom line is… I won’t be so naive as to say there isn’t any chance this is all an elaborate scam… but I can’t help but to believe this is all on the up and up. If this really does end up being a scam… then damn, this will go down in history as one of the best scams ever.

Nevertheless…

Go Steelers!

Friday afternoon, I got the most retarded ticket ever.

I just left work a little after 6:30pm and was going southbound on Shell Road, making the onramp turn to Highway 99 northbound, towards the Oak Street Bridge. There were a bunch of police officers there, right at the entrance to the freeway, stopping cars for routine checks I imagine, but have no idea why. They wouldn’t be catching speeders there, and it’s much too early to catch drunk drivers. Whatever the case, there was one officer standing closer to the onramp turn, and I took the turn at speed, maybe 50kmph. I’m not even sure whether my tires made a squeak or not, but if it did, it was for a split second, while mostly it was just the regular gripping noise of the tires. He pulls me over and goes "I’ve seen 200 cars take this turn, and you’re the first one that made noise." What’s funny is just as he finished saying that, the very next car that takes the turn makes the gripping noise as well, and I know for sure he didn’t squeal his tires at all, but he gets pulled over as well. The cop then actually decides to give me a ticket for this regulation:

7A.01 states: No person shall start, drive, turn or stop any motor vehicle, or accelerate the vehicle engine while the vehicle is stationary, in a manner which causes any loud and unnecessary noise in or from the engine, exhaust system or the braking system, or from the contact of the tires with the roadway.

On the ticket, he wrote "unnecessary noise from tires". I think that even IF my tires did squeal for a split second, I still shouldn’t have received a ticket. Even one of the resident cops on RevScene says usually that regulation applies to people doing burnouts or revving their engines… that sort of thing. He specifically stated that it’s not likely for people taking turns to receive a ticket for this. By the definition of the regulation, the noise needs to be both unnecessary AND loud. It’s definitely a stretch to call that gripping noise, or even the split second squeal "loud", especially considering the location - right at the entrance of a freeway, with no residences or businesses anywhere close by.

I think I’m going to try calling the cop up and see if he’ll consider dismissing the ticket, or I may dispute it. It’s only $109, so it might not be worth fighting over. I really wish there was a system in place where cops get punished for handing out bogus tickets that are successfully disputed in court, and if there was, I would definitely try disputing it just to spite that cop.

Anyways, on Saturday night, went out to watch the international volleyball match between Canada and Australia. This may be the only time I’ll ever get to watch volleyball of such caliber. It was fun seeing Fred Winters play live for the first time since we played against him back in the 1998 BC Provincials. He was already incredibly impressive back then, while only in grade 11, where he won the spiking competition with this monster smash, but nobody could have guessed he would have gone on to become a starting left side on the Canadian national team! He played a great homecoming match, putting away pretty much every set he got.

Well done, Fred!

It’s been a pretty hectic couple weeks since the last post.

So last Friday was my birthday, and I became another year older. I think I’m 25 now. I stopped counting years ago, when age seemed to not matter as much anymore. In fact, several times now I’ve replied incorrectly when asked my age. I’m just living my life in the present, not really planning for the future, as in I don’t have any guidelines that say I want to be doing X and having Y money saved up by the time I’m Z kind of deal. I feel fairly content with my life as it is, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Without the desire to want more, one can never live up to their full potential.

Last week started to get quite hectic at work, where we were getting ready to launch a new service offering. It’s been quite awhile since I had been that busy. I almost felt bad when I left Friday evening to head up to Whistler for the weekend instead of working extra shifts. But alas, Elaine and I had planned to go there again for this second of two summer volleyball weekends. Started driving up quite late, at about 8:30pm. It didn’t help that there was an accident on the Lions Gate bridge, which stalled us for almost an hour. But after that, we made good time, and it helped that I was driving Elaine’s RX8 this time instead of my Yaris. With the 238HP, passing was a whole lot easier to accomplish. However, there were still a few times while passing uphill where I wished I was able to unleash more power under the foot. Got it up to about 150kmph at one point, and maintained 140kmph for a lengthy stretch where there were two lanes and not a car in sight. Took about 80 minutes from the north end of Lions Gate bridge to Tantalus Lodge.

I drank my first ever shot that night, and it was tequila. I’ve never been a drinker, with the most I’ve ever consumed at a time being a cooler. It’s not that I can’t drink… it’s that I just don’t. The tequila shot didn’t seem to affect me at all.

On Saturday, I was supposed to play in the co-rec 6’s tournament, but they cancelled it because of lack of participants. So I actually just pretty much vegged out all day in the hotel room, watching coverage of the PGA Championship and some good ol’ Spike TV action shows like "Disorderly Conduct: Video on Patrol" and "When Good Pets Go Bad" 1 and 2. I love watching these types of shows. I remember years ago, they had this series "America’s Wildest Police Videos". They should air those again. Watching car chases never gets old.

That night, I drank a few light alcoholic beverages, so I never got to even feel buzzed. Some day, I’ll drink enough to get drunk, but hopefully not so much that I’ll end up puking. Ended up sleeping after 4am in some cramped sleeping quarters, and had to get up soon after 8am to play in the Men’s 2’s tournament.

I was partnered up with Gary, and we were going to play in the lower B division, but they didn’t have enough teams signed up, so they put all the A’s and B’s together… which led to a very diversified range of skill levels playing each other. Our round robin pool was very tough, and both our opposing teams easily should have been in the tier A. Against the first team, we put up a respectable fight, and even took a set off them for a moral victory. The second game, we played Nick and Ivan, and we didn’t have a prayer to beat them. We didn’t have any of the tools needed to stop their attack. They put away balls at will, whether it’s a sharp cross court hit or a perfect placement shot to the back corner… we didn’t have any answers. For the playoffs, we ended up playing Ron and Mike, and we won that one in two sets. Next, we played a team that was similar to us, where it was one shorter guy and one taller guy. It was a very tight match, and we lost 22-20, 21-19. We played pretty close to the best of our ability this game and just came up a little short. I was very unreliable for hitting in the round robin, but picked it up significantly for the playoff, finally being able to roll the ball properly for placement shots. Guess I just don’t have enough experience playing grass or beach to have great ball control. I thought my setting was particularly good on this day though. Not sure why, but both my calves started cramping as early as the second game. Maybe playing 2’s is just that demanding, and maybe the intense heat had something to do with it too, but I had to fight it off the rest of the day.

Left for home at about 4pm and made a pit stop at Taco Bell as always. After getting back to Elaine’s place, ate our pseudo Mexican food, watched some TV, then I hit the hay fairly early, as I expected to work some long hours this week.

Little did I know the reality of the situation. So I came home yesterday after a 9-5 shift. Not your standard 9-5 shift, mind you… since it started at 9:30am Monday and ended 5:00pm Tuesday. Yes, that’s right… I worked a 31.5 hour shift. In that time, I had three short power naps that didn’t even last a half hour each, but it was enough to get me by.

The drive home was quite labourous, and if it took five minutes longer, I might have had to pull to the side of the road to take a quick nap. I vowed to never fall asleep behind the wheel again, after an incident back in high school. I think it was the summer of grade 11, where we, as a group, would routinely stay up pretty much all night just hanging out, since pretty much none of us had jobs and didn’t have any responsibilities or cares in the world. Those were some of the best times of my life. Whatever the case, after not having slept the previous night and being up for probably around 36 hours, I was driving home that night and after making the turn from Kingsway onto King Edward westbound, and seeing the red light on Knight as I crested over the small hill, I fell asleep at the wheel, and my Toyota Corolla station-wagon, known as the PMS-mobile, slowly rolled down the hill and hit a minivan broadside in the intersection. Fortunately, I must have had my foot covering the brake pedal before I lapsed into unconsciousness, so the car was travelling quite slowly upon impact.

Of course, the accident could have been much, much worse… so from that experience, I vowed that I would never drive if I’m too tired again.

After finally getting home, I climbed into bed straight away and I must have fell asleep within 15 seconds of pulling the covers over me.

Hopefully the madness is over now, and I can get back to a more routine working schedule…

As many of you probably know, my online alias is InvisibleSoul. I’ve actually been using this moniker for a very long time now… and by that, I’m not talking about three years or five years - I’m talking about twelve full years, or about half my life. I can’t pinpoint exactly when I started using it, but it had to have been in early high school.

The story of how I came to be InvisibleSoul is as follows:
I had started calling BBSs in grade 6, I believe, when I was introduced to EdNet, which was run by the Vancouver School Board. Mainly, people called into EdNet to chat with others, and it was just an interesting new experience back then. Before the Internet became what it did starting in the mid-late 90’s, BBSs were pretty much all people had to interact with others via the computer. From EdNet, I discovered other local BBS’ and started logging in on those and playing some of the earliest online games. One of the most popular of those was LORD, which stood for Legend of the Red Dragon. I was an avid player of LORD and even created some menu sets for it. When a new version of LORD was released that allowed players to add colours to their name, I discovered a bug that would allow me to make my name completely disappear, and thus became immune to being attacked by other players. Because of this, I named myself InvisibleSoul… and to this day, that is what I use for all my online activities. Years later, when I finally joined the Internet revolution, there weren’t any other InvisibleSouls to be found. I was able to sign up for any service, like Hotmail, with the name, uncontested. Nowadays, it’s a different story. It seems that there are now many people using the alias InvisibleSoul, and frequently when I try to register for an account on sites such as YouTube and MySpace, I find that someone has already snatched it up. It bothers me a little bit, because I consider myself the original InvisibleSoul, and I hate having to resort to using a modified username. I decided that I wanted to sign up for my GMail account early, just in case someone else wanted to register it as well, so I actually paid a couple bucks to someone selling invitations on eBay. I actually don’t use my GMail account very often though. Several years ago, even www.invisiblesoul.com was registered. If I had the chance now, I would register it in a second.

So that’s the story of InvisibleSoul.

Anyways, back to the present…
Played a doubles tennis game with Ed against Gary and Kent last night. Kent rolled his ankle earlier in the session, so he had limited mobility, and that contributed to us winning 6-1, 6-4.

Later in the night, tuned into the hijacked ESPN PPV streaming coverage of the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event and watched that for several hours before going to sleep. ESPN did a horrible job of protecting their streaming content. All they did was restrict access to the link to paid customers, but once someone gets the link, there is nothing stopping them from passing the link on to others to use. This is unlike the Wimbledon finals match that I paid for, where that streaming content was protected via Windows Media DRM, which means each user has to have a license in order to watch the stream. ESPN was charging $25 for this event, which I suppose is somewhat reasonable, given that it did last over twelve hours. There must have been hundreds of people who watched it for free, since the link got passed around on many online forums.

In the end, Jamie Gold never relinquished his massive chip lead that he had held ever since day 3 of the 7 day event, and he steamrolled over everyone to capture the $12M first prize. He played quite well, but it just has to be said that he was incredibly lucky during these last four days of play. It isn’t so much that he put his money in while behind and outdrew his opponents, but rather that he always had the better hand, and that he never got outdrawn, except for one single hand during the final table. Almost unquestionably, Allen Cunningham was the best player at the final table, and many thought he would win, despite Gold’s mountain of chips. But it just goes to show, it doesn’t matter how good of a player you are… if you don’t have the luck and aren’t catching the cards, you just won’t be able to win. Skill will lead to good showings in many tournaments, but luck is most important in winning any single given tournament.

The BC Day long weekend is over now, so it’s back to business. The last several days were quite enjoyable, however. On Saturday, played some tennis with Ken, Gary and Mimi in the toasty mid-upper twenties weather. Played some best of 5 game matches with Gary and Ken, and lost one to Ken for a record of about 5-1. That night, went to the Queensborough Landing Wal-Mart with Elaine and discovered they had the 12-can Simpsons pop for a buck. There was no signage at all indicating this, and it was only after looking at the receipt that I noticed the Bart root beer rang in at $1.00 flat. So I went back in and checked the other flavours at the price check station, and they all scanned in at the same price. There was Homer’s cola, Lisa’s lemon-lime, and Maggie & Homer’s orange. Strangely, there is no Marge flavour, which I think would be grape if it existed. Whatever the case, we ended up stocking up with 11 cases of pop, which should last us… oh, maybe two months at the rate we consume it. Have I mentioned already that we don’t eat very healthily? Later that night, I mustered up the courage to play online poker again, and booked a small $9 win. It allowed me to at least regain my confidence and to not think no matter what I had, someone else had a better hand.

On Sunday, decided to head over to the Lougheed Wal-Mart in the morning, not to get more Simpsons pop, but to see if they had any copies of Zoo Keeper for the DS, because some people had reported finding it at their Wal-Marts for 98¢, and also to pick up a couple other items that the other location was out of stock on. While driving there, I heard on the radio that Lougheed Highway was totally shut down around the Highway 1 overpass area. I was going to go that way anyway, and I wasn’t in much of a rush, so I decided to still head that direction to see what was up. As I neared there, I saw that there was a car on it’s roof right under the overpass. Being the curious cat that I am, I just had to park the car and get a closer look. As I walked up to the scene, I could see that there was a ton of debris, like metal poles scattered around but couldn’t determine how the crashed happened. Then I looked up and it became pretty clear. The Hyundai Tiburon was driving eastbound on Highway 1, and apparently swerved to avoid a box, lost control and skidded across the opposing lanes of traffic, and crashed through the metal railings and fell down onto Lougheed Highway below, upside down. Wow. Amazingly, even with the driver’s side crushed down as it was, the female driver not only survived, but only suffered a broken arm.

Later that day, it was the annual beach BBQ birthday bash for Ken, Ed and Ash. Elaine and I headed down there at about 4pm and it was another scorcher. The sand was hot enough to almost burn my feet while playing beach volleyball. It was much more enjoyable in the evening when the net was lowered and the sun was going down. Was pretty damn tired afterwards. Went home to shower, and then headed out to Justin Russell’s place for a poker game, where Frank, Ash, Jason and Ken also played. Started with 3000 chips and 25/50 blinds. In one early hand, I chased an open ended straight draw but didn’t hit, so I lost maybe 300 on that hand… no big deal. A little later on, got dealt a pretty sick beat. I had KQ in the small blind, and Frank raised to 200 in the cutoff, before the button. I flat called, as did Jason, and I blindly checked the flop, which came Q-rag-rag rainbow. Jason checks, and Frank goes all in for like… maybe 1200. With Frank being the loose aggressive type, I didn’t believe he had me beat… so I called. I was right, and he turns up AJ for just the one overcard and no draws. I just plugged this scenario into the holdem calculator, and basically I’m about 87% favorite. He basically needs to hit one of the remaining three aces to win. Running jacks would also do it, but that’s very unlikely. Whatever the case, of course, when it’s against me, it doesn’t matter if you’re almost an 8:1 underdog. Frank hits his ace on the river to cripple me and leave me with about a 700 chip count. Frank should have been knocked out on this hand, but instead he gets a huge double up, which ends up completely changing the context of the game. Later on, with the blinds still at 25/50, I find myself with AA in the small blind, and after a couple limpers, I raise it to 250, and three others call. The flop comes JT5 rainbow, so after a few moments of thinking, I decide to go all-in with my last 400. Two folds, and then Frank calls, with Q9 for the open ended straight draw. I’m right about a 2:1 or 67% favorite. Of course, it doesn’t matter again, and Frank gets running 9’s of all cards to beat me. So Ken got a first-hand look at just how bad my luck is. Ken didn’t do much better himself, as he busted out next. He lost significant chips on two hands, where he had JJ and Frank had QQ and the flop came Q22. After checking down to the river, Frank bet out and Ken raised him large, thinking he was on a steal, but when Frank re-raised all in, he had to lay it down. Awhile later, he had J2 in the small blind and the board came JJ848 and he had no choice but to lose a bunch of chips to Ash, who had pocket 8’s for quads. In the end, Frank won after he steamrolled through everyone. He was solely responsible for busting out every single player. That’s the absolute scariest type of player - the maniac who is incredibly lucky.

Took it really easy on Monday, and just spent pretty much the entire day lounging about at Elaine’s place, watching Duke of Mount Deer 2000 again. Played another hour long session of online poker in the evening, and won about $40. Finally things started to go my way again. I had two near identical hands play out pretty much exactly the same way on two tables simultaneously: I flopped bottom two pair, made a significant bet on the flop which was called, and the other player went all-in on the turn with just top pair, which I called both times, and the river didn’t pair the board to screw me like it would have last week. Another hand, I had KK and got someone all in with AJ. The flop came AKJ, so even though the villain flopped two pair, I was in the lead with a set of kings. The turn came a rag, and the river came another J, which gave the villain jacks full of aces, but gave me kings full of jacks for the win. Last week, it would have been another ace on the river, having me lose with kings full of aces to aces full of jacks. All in all, I have regained my confidence and believe I can win again. Just have to understand that bad streaks do happen, and just have to do my best to survive them.

Monday night, I had my absolute worst run playing online poker since I started, and in two hours I managed to lose five full buy-ins. The only positive I can pull out of this is that at least I was still playing just $25/NL, so the whole fiasco only cost me about $125 total. That’s peanuts to the high rollers, who can lose ten times that or more in a single hand and not bat an eyelash. But I’m a low rolling penny pincher, and I’m not happy even to lose $125. In this case, it’s not so much the amount I lost, but rather how I lost it. I’m not going to bother detailing the specifics, but basically I’ll sum it up as follows: Anytime I hit a set, someone would get a straight. Anytime I get a flush, someone would get a full house. Anytime I get pocket kings, someone would have pocket aces. Of course, it also goes in reverse. Anytime I had a full house, nobody had a flush. Anytime I had a straight, nobody would have a set. Anytime I had rockets, nobody would have cowboys. So it’s either I win a tiny pot, or lose a massive one. Bye bye money.

I came to a realization, that unlike many others, I don’t view playing online poker as a way of making money. To me, it is more so just a hobby. In general, I enjoy just playing it, and if I can win a few dollars while doing it, all the better. But the problem is, as exemplified above, I can also lose a lot of money… and when that happens, I get pretty upset. Hobbies are supposed to be fun. Hobbies are not supposed to get you pissed off for an entire day. I know I just have to brush this off as variance and take it for what it is, just a run of bad luck. I can’t imagine how anyone could have not lost money with my hands. Regardless, I’m going to take a break from online poker for awhile.

The World Series of Poker $10,000 Buy-In Main Event is well under way now. To truly appreciate how much Texas Hold’Em has exploded in popularity, between 2000 and 2003, the participants only grew from 512 to 839. After Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 event and $2.5M as an absolute nobody who qualified through the smallest of online satellites, I guess all amateurs started having hope that they could do the same. That is why in 2004, the number of participants more than TRIPLED to 2576 players, with $5M going to the winner, Greg Raymer. The exponential growth continued in 2005 with 5619 entries for a $7.5M top prize, won by Joseph Hachem. Finally, this year, the total number of players stands at 8773, and the eventual champion will go home at least $12M richer.

I’ve been following the coverage of the event online, and I’ve got to say, I would be so incredibly pissed if I was one of those people who lost with quads to a runner runner straight flush, which has actually happened this year. There was also one strange incident where someone in the BB was dealt pocket aces and right away turned them face up before people started betting. Why did he do that? Because the aces he received were suited. D’oh!