Bell the cat

Season's greetings to one and all. Oh and I am tying the knot on the 16th of Jan.
Good game bachelorhood ... sigh :(

Mission Saree

No not for me, but tomorrow someone's gonna try it wearing it for the first time herself. Wish her luck (and me too).

As an aside if the said saree is the one that Draupadi had purchased, then as Baburao would say "pehente pehente poti paida ho jayegi"

ship the $$$$

Got my biggest online tournament score in poker yet---> 2 sundays ago--->on full-tilt,


Wait for it wait for it wait for it

$ 7 5 , 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0

YUPPPIEE ....
SHIP IT ALL BABY
though a good part of sunday late night, after the win, was spent at a certain posh gentleman's bar blowing $1 bills with friends ;-), that 75k could have gone way bit lighter by the time the night ended ;-)

effffff it

On a bad bad 10k downswing in poker.

Poker can be a brutal game and without proper discipline it can break a player. There could be extended periods where you put in the money as a 80-20 favorite only to see your donkey opponent catch a miracle card to bust you. This is what we poker players term a BAD BEAT.

One of my favourite online tournament pros Chetna "Rex55" Joshi puts it best in her blog, and curiously this does not just apply to poker, it applies to any difficult journey that anyone might decide to take up :

Bad beats are non-exclusive. They are blind to race, creed, and gender. They are merciless. Every single player that sits down to play cards, takes bad beats. The more you play, the more you take... the more hands you are dealt, the more likely it is statistically that you will take a bad beat.

So now if every single poker player is taking bad beats across the globe.. how is everyone dealing with them?

What is your standard reaction when you get bad beat?

*Do you curse and chat box spew?

*Do you donk out of all other tournies that are going well?

*Do you throw things or punch walls?

*Do you reach for alcohol and/or drugs?

*Do you tilt off your roll?

*Do you copy and paste your hand history and send it to all your buddies on messenger so they can now relive your bad beats along with their own?

*Do you take it out on your family and/or significant other?

*Do you take it out on yourself?

or..............

-Do you assess your play, your own decision, your role in the hand, learn what you can and move on?

The true damage of a bad beat isnt the hand itself....it is the aftermath that ensues...It is our inability to accept it for what it is...The damage lies in the snowball affect it has on everything else... when we allow it to permeate into other tournies... into a bankroll we grinded so long and so hard for... into our personal lives.... that is where the true damage of bad beats take place.

How many poker players are equipped with the armor to tolerate the "blows" poker will undoubtedly fire at you?

The field is narrow...Most fall victim to the grimy hands of 'Tilt,' and SELF-defeat...
Don't let this be you...

Poker is all about perspective.

Don't wallow in your defeats or self-pity...
Don't question your abilities or skills...
Don't let yourself fall into a cold, dark abyss, with a tape recorder on repeat playing
"you suck at cards...you are a loser...how could you not have folded that hand? you donkey...stick to your day job...you have no hope...."

And Please don't surrender to bad beats...

It's all about our perspective...
Mind over matter...it is amazing how powerful self-perspective can be...
it is what we make of it...
what our mind creates of it...
it is what it is...
what we allow it to be...

Once you are able to keep bad beats in proper perspective for what they are.. an inherent part of the game that every participant has the choice to deal with, in his or her own way... then you will see how much more of your time and energy is spent constructively, as opposed to destructively...

and not only will you emerge a stronger Poker Player...but a stronger Person...

But even then its YUCKS and sucks to be in this downswing, and seeing a big chunk of my YTD profits beinf wiped out.....

honesty

Filmy Chakkar

Via Jabberwock, links to some darn great non-Indian Bollywood blogs:
Beth, filmiholic, postpunk.

Some very good reads, not to mention the very different perspective that you might get.

Live poker crushing --> continues

I absolutely dominated the final table of a 40 person poker tournament over the weekend and frankly no-one had a chance. My live record this year:
Live Poker tourneys played : 6
1st: 3 (!!!!!)
3rd: 1
$200+ buy-in tourneys played : 3
1st: 2

Let me run this good online, just one time, pleeeeeseeee GOD.

Oh dear

From the New York Times


And my driving routine:
1000 miles+ per month. I should be broke pretty soon.

National doughnut day

Go get your free doughnut at Krispey Creme

blood on the streets

wall street, dalal street, ching-chong street---> all being painted red by the big bloody bear. Time to buy some more of your fav stcoks?? Maybe. But I am holding off for now. 15% + in cash.

$133 oil

And I am attending a conference on advanced oil and gas exploration techniques in beautiful golden, colorado.

Times they are a changing

For the first time in my life I am rooting for Shoaib Akthar to uproot Sachin's middle stump for a golden duck.

dogfight dognames dog-eat-dog dogma

Please be seeing.

And of course DO NOT MISS the precious rediff message board accompanying it.

Appetizer from the same:
How to test if a men is gay ot not. now, simple. if they are fan of SRK, very good chance they are gay.
Their early symptom, they like to wear colorful cloths, wear perfume a lot, they have dimple on face like SRK, or they wish that they had. they always take side of SRK in debates, fight with other people, even though it does not matter what they say. They see Karan johar movie 4-5 times.
They respect girls, they love rani mukerji, they hate big B and all who are better than SRK.
They cry easily, and very emotional. They become full gay by the time they reach 30.

Priceless

inter-species molestation

From the BBC dig this. An apparently sexually frustrated fur seal "rapes" a hapless king penguin. Bestial porn limits itself to man/woman with a mammal (preferably donkeys), the fur seal in question obviously decided to put this limit to the test.

In poker news I won a smallish live tournament on sunday for about 1kish, I am absolutely crushing the houston live tourney scene of late, not to mention the fact that I am running like GOD in crucial spots.

Chinese invasion

(a) My group has 16 members, 11 are chinese, 2 are korean and one is a russian. At work my English usage is extremely telegraphic in nature. I dont say "When will this work get done, oh will get done soon, great", instead I say "When done STOP soon done STOP good STOP".

(b) My lunch conversations primarily deal with the "how-tos and what-tos of consuming raw salmon" and being invited for weekend fishing trips which start at 10PM and last till 6 in the morning. Needless to say I politely decline, not because sporting a fishing pole in the middle of the might seem ungodly to some, but because I have to consume whatever I catch the next morning RAW.

(c) I have taken an unwordly liking to those damn crawfish(es).

(d) Watsao (fuck off)

(e) I have no idea why some of the posts and the template have suddenly gone "YO ITALICS"

(f) I feel there is a book inside me, but I doubt there is a publisher out there.

PS: I am getting addicted to SEx and the City. All I need now is to grow a couple of pigtails

World Series of Poker 2008 and telephonic intercourse

On one of the many online sites that I play, last night I won a seat to the World Series of Poker 2008 (WSOP) main event scheduled for early july, via a $150 satellite tournament.

I get : 10k USD(WSOP main event buy-in/entry free)+3k(expenses)+sponsored gear (cap/shirt/tshirt etc) that I have to wear. Now I am thinking of whether actually going or just taking the 13k. I hate travelling and Las Vegas is pretty far away, but then again this might be my only chance of being on ESPN plus 1st place pays close to 10 million USD!! Hmmmm..........Decisions, decisions ....sigh


In what I think is the greatest news of this century a woman has claimed that she was raped while having a super-eroctic phone conversation with a man and doctors confirmed that yes she is no longer a virgin. Apparently she screamed and started having the post-virginal bleeding stuff while her pristine woman-hood was being brutally savaged ala shakti kapoor by the man on the other end of the telephone.

PS: When Brad Pitt wakes up every morning next to Angelina Jolie, does he pat his own back and say "I screwed Angelina Jolie last night... wooooooooo" ??

random babel

Disclaimer: This is a general blabber thread based on the premise that I have time to waste and so I will waste it and if you read it then its a waste of time for you. Goodbye braincells.

As most if not all Indians know, the IPL is underway. There is an interesting snippet on Gaurav Sabnis' blog (too lazy to link it, go search on google/technorati/Baidu(if you are a chinese bored guy looking up cricket)) where he says that T20 is like a shot of tequila as compared to test match cricket which is more like a solid expensive scotch that "not many" can afford. I am a big cricket buff and avid cricket watcher (I have the disticntion of staying up every night from 1AM to 9AM watching the Pommie-Aussie Ashes classic) , and I have been trying like hell to watch and get interested in T20, but unfortunately (?) it doesnt quite cut for me. It seems soo darn BOORING, no excitement no drama, no critical stages/passage of play which you know is going to make or break the match, no stalwarth one-on-one battles, absolutely nothing that matches my definition of super exciting cricket. Complete utter waste.

By the way does anyone believe that Frasier is the greatest sitcom ever made??? I am so in love with it; have been ordering each and every season via netflix. On the same note how did the Raymond show ever gain popularity??? It is the single most braindead sitcom ever made, that coupled with the fact the Ray romano doesnt even make the cut as decent stand up comedian, his one man routines sucked, sucks and will suck. How did his pilot ever get approved???

My head hurts now... I am so enamoured by the sound of my own voice/words.
Anyway, that was that.

meh....

Poker over the past week is summarized in the title above. I am either lacking focus as of now or getting dished out wonderous beats. Last night I played 4 tourneys and the bustouts were:
KK <>
I think I am generally bored.

good start

two 1st place chops worth 4k.
hit me dealer.
gg wp nh ty etc etc etc..