Don't play during the day

I have a day job, so I don't play during working hours. Even if I didn't have a day job, I think I would refrain. Here's a small example of why:



This is the SharkScope dump of a $33+$3 tournament that started at about 12:30 PM PDT today. There are 4 players with positive ROIs and 1000+ tournaments of experience, and one of those has a 20% ROI. Two out of the three negative ROI players have too small a sample size to be significant, and one of the players at the table is a fish.

If I've learned anything as I've improved it's to recognize when it's best wait for a better opportunity.

Sharkscope and Safari

So for a while now, I've had to use SharkScope in Camino. It turns out, though, that if you use the "Develop" menu in Safari to change the user agent to Opera for mac, the page will work correctly. I managed to get the page sort-of working with the IE5 user agent as well, but the login widget wouldn't work. Opera for mac, however, seems to do the trick.

It's also possible, however, that the whole thing is just a heisenbug, and that it just happened to work best when I picked Opera. I rather doubt that the SharkScope developers test their site with Safari (though now that they can get Safari for Windows, they have less of an excuse).

All rise for the royalty, redux

PokerStars Game #_: Tournament #_, $15+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/19 - 21:37:59 (ET)
Table '_ 1' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: (1545 in chips)
Seat 2: hero (1460 in chips)
Seat 3: (1515 in chips)
Seat 4: (1390 in chips)
Seat 5: (2955 in chips)
Seat 6: (1250 in chips)
Seat 8: (1600 in chips)
Seat 9: (1785 in chips)
hero: posts small blind 15
Seat 3: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Ad 6d]
Seat 4: calls 30
Seat 5: folds
Seat 6: folds
Seat 8: folds
Seat 9: folds
Seat 1: calls 30

Ordinarily, this is supposed to be a fold so early on in the tournament, but for half price, let's see if we can see a cheap flop.

hero: calls 15
Seat 3: checks
*** FLOP *** [Jd 8h Kd]

The nut flush draw? Sure!

hero: bets 90
Seat 3: calls 90
Seat 4: folds
Seat 1: calls 90
*** TURN *** [Jd 8h Kd] [Td]

And there it is.

hero: checks
Seat 3: checks
Seat 1: bets 90

Let's not scare anyone away.

hero: calls 90
Seat 3: calls 90
*** RIVER *** [Jd 8h Kd Td] [Qd]

WHOMBA!!!!!

And, of course, we're out of position. What to do? Value-bet here or hope that one of these two bluffs at it? Let's try the slow-play.

hero: checks
Seat 3: checks
Seat 1: checks

ARRGGGHHH!!!!!

*** SHOW DOWN ***
hero: shows [Ad 6d] (a Royal Flush)
Seat 3: mucks hand
Seat 1: shows [Ts Qs] (two pair, Queens and Tens)

Well, the board was four-flushed. Nobody was going to call a value-bet without a diamond.

hero collected 660 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 660 | Rake 0
Board [Jd 8h Kd Td Qd]
Seat 1: (button) showed [Ts Qs] and lost with two pair, Queens and Tens
Seat 2: hero (small blind) showed [Ad 6d] and won (660) with a Royal Flush
Seat 3: (big blind) mucked [Kh Ac]
Seat 4: folded on the Flop
Seat 5: folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Final TV setup

I've finally decided on how our TVs are going to be set up from now on. I thought I'd share how I did it.

In our house, we've got 4 TV receiver type devices. Two of them have DirecTV HR21 DVRs, one is a TV in the guest bedroom with an ATSC tuner, one is an HD HomeRun ATSC decoder on the network for the computers.

We actually have 8 RG6 cable runs in our house, which is a lot given its small size. To the extent possible, it would be nice to give all of these cable runs the same signal, so if we decide to move a receiver around it won't be a problem. It also turns out that splitting the signal that much causes problems for some of the channels. Plus, we only have two cable runs to the living room, which causes a problem for the HR21 (ordinarily) because it has 2 tuners plus the AM21 ATSC tuner (which would require a third cable run for its antenna feed).

Fortunately, all of this can be worked out.

We start at the TV antenna. There are actually going to be two of them - one is a ChannelMaster 4228 UHF antenna. This will capture most of the DTV signals. However, we are going to have a couple of VHF-hi channels post 2/09 - KGO and KNTV. For those, I have an AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 VHF-hi antenna. Both of those feed into a ChannelMaster 7777 mast-mounted amp. The 7777 can take a separate VHF and UHF input and amplify and combine them into one feed into the house. The amplifier is necessary because of all of the losses caused by all of the splitters used to feed all of the drops.

We also have DirecTV. The fix for the living room running out of cables is an SWM-8. The SWM-8 allows a single feed to be split with conventional splitters and drive up to 8 DirecTV tuners. Not only that, but the SWM also has an input to diplex in the terrestrial antenna feed too! The downside of that is that we need to power the pre-amp. So we need to inject power into the antenna line, but after the SWM, which is awkward. Fortunately, there is an RG6 run from the distribution point out back into the garage, where the pre-amp's power supply can live. The only thing left is to figure out how to inject that power into the line after the SWM.

Well, it turns out that you can use an ordinary satellite diplexer to do just that! Just connect the VHF/UHF line to the OTA-in port on the SWM with a short length of RG-6, connect the satellite port to the line coming from the power supply in the garage, and connect the combined port to the lead going to the CM7777. The satellite leg of the diplexer has a DC power-pass on it, and the VHF/UHF side has a DC block. A regular power injector would probably do this job with slightly less loss (since the diplexer has a needless low-pass filter on the VHF/UHF port), but it was handy and worked.

The SWM also has its own power injector. If you use a splitter on the SWM1 port, it needs to have a power-pass port, and that port must be connected to the port in the house to which the SWM's power supply is connected. In our case, however, I just connected one line from the bedroom directly to the SWM-1 port. Inboard of the SWM power supply, I am using a diplexer to break out the VHF/UHF and satellite signals for that receiver.

The SWM-2 port has a 1-4 splitter feeding two lines to the living room and one line each to the guest bedroom and the port for the HDHomeRun (which is actually in the dining room). If we want to upgrade the guest bedroom from standard TV to DirecTV, we simply need to diplex that port.

The only downside to this setup is that we now are only able to use SWM compatible receivers. Turns out that isn't likely to be a problem going forward, since we already have the two HR21s we're probably going to have for the foreseeable future, and if we wanted to add a receiver later, we would probably only be able to get compatible ones new.

More on the DirecTV HR21

So we've had a few days now with the HR21, and I have to say, it's nice. As I said in my last post, I don't particularly miss the TiVo menu system. The HR21 shows a picture-in-picture view of the current program while you're in the menus or in the guide, unlike the TiVos. I also hooked our receivers to the network, which enabled home media viewing and DirecTV on demand. It took a day or two for the on demand feature to work, but now that it does, it's quite compelling. I've already downloaded an episode of Californication that Scarlet had missed from last season (of course, you can't get shows on-demand for channels to which you do not subscribe). They also have some extra channels that have concerts, Olympic stuff, and even an Adult Swim VOD channel.

Among the new niceties with the HR21 is that PPV events now are not charged until you actually watch them. It is free to record a PPV event - or even download one with on-demand. You only get charged when you start watching it. The downside is that, like iTunes rentals, you have a 24 hour window in which to finish watching.

The AM21 seems to work pretty well. The only quirk is that although we've selected "channels I receive" as the default guide, the over-the-satellite local channels still show up, even though we don't actually get them. This means that when you're picking a show to record, you have to make sure to pick the one that is over-the-air. Fortunately, they're easy to spot - they have a sub-channel number (like 9-1 instead of just 9).

The HR21s have an eSATA port on the back, which allows you to replace the internal hard drive without any tools. I don't know if we'll take advantage of this or not. Unfortunately, it doesn't cascade the two drives, so when you plug in an external drive, you lose access to the recordings on the internal drive. But adding a 1TB drive (and they're not that expensive anymore) would triple the capacity. Time will tell if that is necessary or not.

Wiring the system up with the SWM module was just as easy as wiring up any older multi-switch. I decided to keep the terrestrial wiring separate, but the SWM-8 does have a terrestrial input so that you can diplex everything together. DirecTV apparently has a new LNB in the works that integrates an SWM-8. That will make DirecTV much more like cable TV than it is now - just one wire leaving the dish that can be split with ordinary splitters as many ways as desired (feeding up to 8 tuners). But with the SWM-8, you can achieve the same thing right now if you want (though the SWM modules are not cheap, unfortunately).

There's only one feature missing from our setup that I'd like to see added - the ability for two DVRs in the same household to share content over the network. Right now, I have to set up a series link (aka season pass) for The Soup on both DVRs to be able to watch it in either room. If DirecTV would allow sharing content over the network - even if they don't allow downloading directly to a PC - that would be just about perfect in my book.

DirecTV - good product, incompetent service

So we finally decided to move with the cheese. Every DVR we've ever owned has been a TiVo, and the last few have been so-called "DirecTiVos" - DirecTV DVRs powered by the TiVo software. But not so long ago DirecTV ended their relationship with TiVo and started making their own DVRs. They also launched new satellites to carry HD programming that were not going to be compatible with the TiVo DVRs. So we were going to face a stark choice some day - either switch to Comcast and buy real TiVos, or go with the "can't believe it's not TiVo" DirecTV DVRs.

I'd been watching the various forums for a while and finally decided that the software on their DVRs was ready enough and called them last week to get them to install the new 5 bird dish and a pair of HR20 DVRs. Well, when they came on Saturday, they said that they had HR21s, which do not have an ATSC receiver in them to receive local channels. Well, that ruined the plan, so I told the installer I didn't want them. I then called up DirecTV and spent an hour on the phone with them. Turns out that the HR21 does not have an ATSC tuner, but you can get one as an accessory add-on (the AM21). But you can't just add an AM21 to your order and have the installer bring it, you need to have an HR21 on your account first before their computers will let you buy one. Stupid. So, fine, I had them come out Monday.

The next problem is that we have two RG6 lines running to the living room. Since one of them is going to be dedicated to terrestrial signals, that means that if I want the two-tuner functionality, I will need to use the new SWM technology. When I explained that to the installer that came Monday, he said that they could not do an SWM installation except for new customers with more than 5 tuners. Grumble. So I told him to just install it with one tuner and I would do the SWM thing myself. So I've placed an order for the two AM21s and an SWM-8. The good news is that the cost of all the stuff I need to buy to make it right is about the same as the cost that I expected to pay for the new receivers and the installation (which it turns out was free).

The installer left before the software updates were complete. Of course, the receiver in the living room got stuck. My brother-in-law called DirecTV up and read them the riot act, and they said they'd send the installer back, but he never showed. I finally power-cycled the thing and that fixed it.

Now that it's all in (except for the AM21s), I have to say I'm reasonably happy with the functionality. I don't really miss TiVo's menu system. Time will tell, but I may miss the suggestions (the HR21s don't save anything you don't actually request), but it's nice to see Discovery channel programming in HD.

More later.

Hit by CalTrain - learn from my mistake

This morning on my way to work, I got hit by the northbound CalTrain train that I was supposed to board at the Santa Clara station. I was taken to the hospital to be checked out, but only suffered from bruises and scrapes and needed two stitches on my forehead. Service was delayed for everyone else for 20 minutes while the police investigated. For those inconvenienced, and to the crew of the train, I offer my apologies.

The Santa Clara station is one of the few stations remaining that are so-called "hold out" stations. That is, there is a platform between the two tracks intended for use by passengers boarding (or disembarking) trains on the far track - which are the Northbound trains. Well, today, the Northbound train was on the opposite track. When I heard the train approach ringing its bell, I glanced over in that direction and saw the train approaching and slowing down, but did not see that it was on the wrong track. So I started to cross the Southbound track - where the train was - and got hit. The train was going maybe 5 MPH, but it still threw me 10 feet onto the platform. I thank my lucky stars that it threw me onto the platform rather than onto the tracks.

Generally, I wait until the head of the train passes me before I venture across the crossing. Today I didn't do that, and it nearly cost me my life. I don't intend to repeat that mistake. Please don't anyone else repeat it either.

I'd like to see CalTrain fix all of the "hold out" stations. They're working on California Avenue right now, and they've shut down weekday service to Atherton, but I haven't heard about any plans for Santa Clara.

WPT Champions Boot Camp

I just spent 3 days at the WPT Boot Camp Champion's camp. There they teach advanced no-limit hold'em tournament strategy. I won't spill the beans on everything I've learned, but I did pick up a few tweaks to my game that I hope will make the difference. I came in 3rd in the STT, and made an early exit in the MTT, but both of those were just cold decks. I've learned first and foremost that you have to have a plan. Chance favors the prepared mind, and all that.

Let's see if things will be a little different now.

Extra class

Passed my Extra today. w00t.

Back in college, the extra was a written exam that was slightly easier than the Advanced class exam, plus a 20 wpm code test. I passed the extra written once, but could never get the 20 wpm code, so I gave up on that. Now that they've gotten rid of the code requirements, the extra written is a little tougher than before (since it has some of the Advanced stuff, I think). I tried a couple weeks ago to pass it without any study, but that didn't go well. Since then, I've taken practice exams on the AA9PW exam page, and every question I got wrong I took the opportunity to learn something new. Some of the questions were formula based. For that, the W5JCK site's cheat sheets were invaluable. After taking enough practice exams, I felt confident enough to try again.

One suggestion: you'll want a scientific calculator for the test, but you don't want one that is "too smart" - particularly a programable one, since the VEs may disallow its use if they have any concerns that it is may have answers or formulas or anything like that programmed in. So for the test, I went to Walgreens and bought a cheap $8 sharp calculator. You want one that has trig, inverse trig (preferably in degrees), square root and 10^x. That's all you'll need.

I don't really care all that much about the extra 200 kHz or so of HF spectrum. This was really all about checking off another box on the life experience list, I guess. That, and now I can be a full fledged VE if I want to.

WAS... not... :(

I went through all my old QSL cards this evening. Alas, I can no longer claim WAS (worked all states) 20 meter AMTOR. I actually am 11 states short of that, though for 9 of those states I have QSL cards for other bands or modes. Somehow, however, I don't have a card for Rhode Island or West Virginia.

The WAS rules state that you must work all states from either one QTH or if from multiple QTHs, none can be more than 50 miles away from any other (fancy way of saying that you have to have done it inside of a 50 mile diameter circle). Fortunately, the old QTH in Stockton is just barely less than 50 miles away from the current QTH. Barely.

So now I must somehow manage (while we're in the ass end of the solar cycle) to find a band open to RI and WV and have a QSO and get a QSL card. That'll be a challenge.

Don't ever limp

In general, far too many people limp in in early tournament play. The only excuse for limping - particularly in early position - is as the first part of a limp-reraise play. Other than that, you should only limp with a hand that you'd be willing to call a raise with. And there aren't many of those given that with tournament poker there is the gap rule, which says that you should call a raise only with a hand better than that with which you'd be willing to make the same raise.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (_), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:34:09 ET - 2008/05/06
Seat 1: (1,400)
Seat 2: (2,170)
Seat 3: (1,260)
Seat 4: (2,445)
Seat 5: (525)
Seat 6: (3,180)
Seat 8: (1,270)
Seat 9: hero (1,250)
Seat 1 posts the small blind of 20
Seat 2 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Ad 4d]
Seat 3 calls 40
Seat 4 calls 40
Seat 5 calls 40
Seat 6 calls 40
Seat 8 calls 40

Come on. Everybody limping? None of that!

hero raises to 340
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
Seat 8 folds

Uh huh.

Uncalled bet of 300 returned to hero
hero mucks
hero wins the pot (300)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 300 | Rake 0
Seat 1: (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: folded before the Flop
Seat 4: folded before the Flop
Seat 5: folded before the Flop
Seat 6: folded before the Flop
Seat 8: folded before the Flop
Seat 9: hero (button) collected (300), mucked

An important lesson in tournament strategy

The setup:

This is a super-satellite tournament. We are 5 handed. 6th place was the bubble. 5th place gets a booby prize. 4th through 1st tie for the win.

Full Tilt Poker Game #_: Super Sat to FTOPS Event #16 (_), Table 2 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:09:21 ET - 2008/05/05
Seat 1: victim (910)
Seat 2: hero (11,925)

Heh. Nice stack, dude. :) I caught lucky once or twice, but for the most part, I played a good game and didn't get screwed.

Seat 3: (3,625)
Seat 4: (3,870)
Seat 5: villain (3,670)
hero posts the small blind of 60
Seat 3 posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to nsayer [Qd 8d]
Seat 4 calls 120
villain raises to 240
victim raises to 910, and is all in
hero calls 850

What?! With a suited queen?

Well, it hardly costs me anything to make the call, and tripling him up, if that's what happens, doesn't really change the table significantly from my point of view. On the other hand, if I catch, it's over. But the villain may have a better hand than me. It is in our joint interest that one of us have a better hand than the victim.

Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 folds
villain calls 670

Remember this moment carefully. I tip my hat retroactively to the villain here.

*** FLOP *** [4c 7s 4d]
hero checks
villain checks
*** TURN *** [4c 7s 4d] [Qs]

*DING*

But what if the victim has pocket kings, the villain has ace high, and an ace is coming on the river? It is still better to simply check it down.

hero checks
villain checks
*** RIVER *** [4c 7s 4d Qs] [6d]
hero checks
villain checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
victim shows [Th Td] two pair, Tens and Fours
hero shows [Qd 8d] two pair, Queens and Fours
villain shows [Ad As] two pair, Aces and Fours

Oh ho!

The villain would normally have been perfectly justified in re-raising pre-flop to make me go away. I certainly would have folded. But my hat goes off to this villain - he recognized the situation perfectly. What if the victim had A4 and I had 58o? The villain would have had the 3rd best hand, the victim would have been chipped up, I would still have been a monster chip lead, but he would have been seriously wounded. By letting me draw all the way to the river, I might have won the pot instead of the victim, and it would have been over.

villain wins the pot (2,970) with two pair, Aces and Fours
victim stands up
villain stands up
hero stands up
Seat 4 stands up
Seat 3 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,970 | Rake 0
Board: [4c 7s 4d Qs 6d]
Seat 1: victim (button) showed [Th Td] and lost with two pair, Tens and Fours
Seat 2: hero (small blind) showed [Qd 8d] and lost with two pair, Queens and Fours
Seat 3: (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: folded before the Flop
Seat 5: villain showed [Ad As] and won (2,970) with two pair, Aces and Fours

Web stupidity

Why do webmasters create "About us" links on their web pages? Isn't the entire site "about you"?

6 times out of 10 when I visit a web page, it's because I want to either call them up or get their address. Typically the best way to get that is to click either a "store locator" link or a "contact us" link. I like it when sites put those on their pages.

The anti-example of that level of cluefullness is the web site for the Camino Medical Group. First, when you go there, it redirects you to their parent organization, which has a deep link back to their site. That's pretty stupid. Furthermore, there is one of those stupid "about us" buttons, but there is no easy way from the front page to find a list of clinics and their addresses. I had to click "find a doctor" and from that page, "find a location."

To quote one of the old VW TV ads, "You get an F."

Amateur PSK31 and Mac

I've been a dormant ham for a while now, but with some encouragement from my wife, I've recently got back on the air. Back in the day, I managed to work all the states on 20 meter AMTOR. Since then, the new AMTOR is a mode called PSK31. It's a digital mode optimized for keyboard-to-keyboard QSOs.

You have to use computer software to work PSK31. It converts your typing into audio, then converts the tones it hears from your transceiver back into text. It does the latter by listening for signals throughout the audio passband of your rig, showing them all in a waterfall display that you click on to choose either a blank spot to call CQ or on a signal to decode it and set up your transmitter to reply to.

So to make it work, you need to do three things:

1. Get the receiver's audio into the computer
2. Get the program's transmit audio into your transceiver
3. Allow the program to control your radio's PTT button

The grand plan was to buy a TigerTronics SignalLink USB. It looks to me to be the best possible solution. It connects to your computer only via a USB cable. It has an internal USB audio device and the signal isolation transformers necessary to keep the two apart. It uses VOX to key the radio (that is, when audio comes out of the audio device, it keys the radio automatically). All in all, it seems ideal. Unfortunately, however, they're 4-6 weeks backordered, since it appears that I'm not the only one who thinks it's an ideal solution.

The next best thing is a RigBlaster Plug-n-Play. It makes 3 connections to your computer - audio in, audio out and a USB connection. The USB connection is for a USB-to-serial adapter that is used for PTT and for an (optional) radio control serial port interface. The port's RTS line is connected directly to the radio's PTT actuator. There is a software download on West Mountain Radio's site that contains an unsupported MacOS X driver. From what I can tell, it works just fine.

On the software end, there is a program called MultiMode, but the interface seems awfully primitive to me. Plus it costs almost $90. Instead, I went with cocoaModem. It has an auxiliary helper program called cocoaPTT that will do the serial port RTS for PTT thing on behalf of cocoaModem. You just have to make sure that the rigBlaster is plugged in, then start cocoaPTT, then start cocoaModem.

What REALLY sucks about poker

I guess the worst thing of all about poker is that literally nobody I know really well cares about it. So I have nobody to talk to about it. I am on a cold streak that, as all cold streaks do, seems to stretch back as far as I can remember. I can tell them about the fact that your heads-up opponent has 20:1 odds of holding a pocket pair, and that losing because you've held the under-pair 6 times in one day is spooky bad luck, not bad play, but they don't get it. I am playing as correctly as I know how, and getting screwed. And there's no one I can have a conversation about it with. I think that, more than anything, is why I keep going to boot camps and trying to find a tutor. At least there I can have a conversation with someone. You can't do that at Bay 101 or Garden City - you go there to take people's money.

Sigh.

This just sucks.