The amusements of Facebook
May. 17th, 2009 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI joined Facebook a couple of months ago. Not because of any pressing interest in Facebook. Truth to tell I think the “we own everything you post to Facebook” ToS is wrong. Which is why I don’t post to Facebook with anything of actual content.
It’s been interesting. The whole, “degrees of separation thing has been pretty interesting to see in action. It’s not the classic, not really, because the people I have rediscovered are people whom I knew, and the network which led to finding them was one which might be, reasonably, expected to contain them (more surprising was someone finding me there, through a third party neither of us had any reason to expect knew the other; which led to the, “forgive me if I intrude, but are you,” sort of comment, which gives one such a glow of pleasure)
So people I’ve not thought of in years are now found. Some with exclamations of joy, some with small amount of wonder (in scanning my high school class I found someone for whom my first reaction was, “he’s not dead!?” and the second was, “he doesn’t look to have changed at all; Now, if only they had my college, or DLI in the list of schools)
So in that regard, I can recommend Facebook.
I’ve also been playing poker. It’s free, and I like poker. Texas Hold ‘em isn’t my favorite game (no limit games tend to have a lot more gambling/brute force in them, and less of careful play), but it’s not bad.
But Lord! the work one has to do to actually find a decent game. The problem is a result of the virtue: it’s free. I try to play it as if I had money in front of me (as opposed to tournament chips). So I pay to see the flop, more often than not. Make value bets, and position bets, and work on actually turning a profit.
This is not the pattern for everyone. I don’t know how many players think a big stack = making money. I play at the 2/4 tables (I’m looking to improve my general play, not get the biggest stack. Heck, the size of the stack isn’t a measure of the players’ skills. One can buy chips for cash. When I see someone who is rated “Pro 1 Million” and they are sitting on a total bank of $25,000 I figure I can, given some time, and patience, strip them of those remaining chips).
Today I saw the best hand I never played. My cards were Q, 10. I called the blind and then folded when someone raised to 400 something. The flop came out 5, Q, 10. Great. Two pair would probably have taken the pot down. Comes another 10... Now I have a ghost ship. Money is pouring in from all directions (three people staying, and that same sort of, “I got lotsa chips, let’s put ‘em to work” going on). Last card comes out... a Q.
So the guy with the case ten took down something like 6,000 chips in a 2/4 table.
The fourth hand, in a row, where the pre-flop raise was more than the stack I was playing, I bailed, and found a table with some poker players. Where lightening struck twice. Play was pretty good. Other people playing in much the same vein as myself. I was up for the day (I cashed a couple of decent pots; my stake was about 800 chip in the black, and I banked the profits... all the rest of the day was free money), when another of that sort of player arrived.
But there was only the one of him. So, like a fencer waiting for a stop-thrust on tempo, I waited. He didn’t pull this all the time, but give him a face-card or an ace (not a small pair) and he’d throw chips at it. I pulled a pair of kings. Saw the blind, he raised something ridiculous, I called. Someone else called.
Flop was K, K, 9. I confess, I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the hand. Barring a pair of ace, the table couldn’t beat me. I tossed a little money out. He raised, another couple of hundred, the other player called, and I pushed all in.
Which put me up about 4,000 for the hand, and after the next couple of hands he tried that (with much smaller stacks... He was re-buying 400 every time he failed to draw out), he left, and the game went back to fairly serious play.
His “rating”... PRO 1 Million. His stake... 6,000. My rating? Shark... 57,000. But you know what, I don’t really expect it to drop much.
It’s been interesting. The whole, “degrees of separation thing has been pretty interesting to see in action. It’s not the classic, not really, because the people I have rediscovered are people whom I knew, and the network which led to finding them was one which might be, reasonably, expected to contain them (more surprising was someone finding me there, through a third party neither of us had any reason to expect knew the other; which led to the, “forgive me if I intrude, but are you,” sort of comment, which gives one such a glow of pleasure)
So people I’ve not thought of in years are now found. Some with exclamations of joy, some with small amount of wonder (in scanning my high school class I found someone for whom my first reaction was, “he’s not dead!?” and the second was, “he doesn’t look to have changed at all; Now, if only they had my college, or DLI in the list of schools)
So in that regard, I can recommend Facebook.
I’ve also been playing poker. It’s free, and I like poker. Texas Hold ‘em isn’t my favorite game (no limit games tend to have a lot more gambling/brute force in them, and less of careful play), but it’s not bad.
But Lord! the work one has to do to actually find a decent game. The problem is a result of the virtue: it’s free. I try to play it as if I had money in front of me (as opposed to tournament chips). So I pay to see the flop, more often than not. Make value bets, and position bets, and work on actually turning a profit.
This is not the pattern for everyone. I don’t know how many players think a big stack = making money. I play at the 2/4 tables (I’m looking to improve my general play, not get the biggest stack. Heck, the size of the stack isn’t a measure of the players’ skills. One can buy chips for cash. When I see someone who is rated “Pro 1 Million” and they are sitting on a total bank of $25,000 I figure I can, given some time, and patience, strip them of those remaining chips).
Today I saw the best hand I never played. My cards were Q, 10. I called the blind and then folded when someone raised to 400 something. The flop came out 5, Q, 10. Great. Two pair would probably have taken the pot down. Comes another 10... Now I have a ghost ship. Money is pouring in from all directions (three people staying, and that same sort of, “I got lotsa chips, let’s put ‘em to work” going on). Last card comes out... a Q.
So the guy with the case ten took down something like 6,000 chips in a 2/4 table.
The fourth hand, in a row, where the pre-flop raise was more than the stack I was playing, I bailed, and found a table with some poker players. Where lightening struck twice. Play was pretty good. Other people playing in much the same vein as myself. I was up for the day (I cashed a couple of decent pots; my stake was about 800 chip in the black, and I banked the profits... all the rest of the day was free money), when another of that sort of player arrived.
But there was only the one of him. So, like a fencer waiting for a stop-thrust on tempo, I waited. He didn’t pull this all the time, but give him a face-card or an ace (not a small pair) and he’d throw chips at it. I pulled a pair of kings. Saw the blind, he raised something ridiculous, I called. Someone else called.
Flop was K, K, 9. I confess, I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the hand. Barring a pair of ace, the table couldn’t beat me. I tossed a little money out. He raised, another couple of hundred, the other player called, and I pushed all in.
Which put me up about 4,000 for the hand, and after the next couple of hands he tried that (with much smaller stacks... He was re-buying 400 every time he failed to draw out), he left, and the game went back to fairly serious play.
His “rating”... PRO 1 Million. His stake... 6,000. My rating? Shark... 57,000. But you know what, I don’t really expect it to drop much.
