The Poker Nerd

Normally the message I got in my e-mail just now wouldn’t be cause for comment:

PokerStars Tournament #60481274, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
1077 players
Total Prize Pool: $10770.00
Tournament started - 2007/09/13 - 21:15:00 (ET)

Dear ThatJekke,

You finished the tournament in 72nd place.
A $21.54 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 77.77 tournament leader points in this tournament.

But, it’s been three weeks since I placed in a NLTHE tournament (roughly a run of 0-25.) At this point, I’ll happily take McDonald’s money.

In Neal Stephenson’s book, Cryptonomicon, the character Enoch Root describes a low-tech, but arguably secure encryption algorithm which he calls both Solitaire (to describe its nature) and Pontifex (to obscure the fact that it’s done with two decks of cards.) The algorithm, invented by Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, is an output-feedback mode stream cipher that uses a deck of cards for the cyphertext and can use a second deck of cards for the key. Schneier describes the algorithm in detail on his website. (more…)

So, I finally got around to taking Subversion and Tortoise SVN for a spin this weekend and have come to the conclusion that I won’t be using them—at least during this phase of the project. (more…)

1. The Poker Nerd and the COBB-Webb group spent four days over Labor Day weekend in Atlantic City including a trip to the Borgata. We liked the poker room. There was nothing special about the play. I was in the middle of a big dip, so it’s hard to judge whether it’s going to be a profitable room for us. Unfortunately, we’re probably not going to make it back there very often unless somebody builds up some reasonably priced hotels around the casino. The ability to take a nap between sessions is important, but not so important that we’re going to pay US$300 a night for the privilege.

I played badly the first two sessions and would have been down almost US$800 if I hadn’t made up half of it in the last session. Two and a half weeks in Vegas, I did fine (other than the front-loaded US$10,000 loss.) Four days in AC, I fall apart. I guess that’s poker.

2. I continue to have limited success with online NLTHE and remarkable success with all the other tournaments. I won two back to back on PokerStars, something I’ve never done. One was in HORSE, the other in Stud/8. My placement rate in mixed games, stud, and Omaha is absurdly high while still remaining awful in Texas Hold ‘Em.

3. My little sister is descending into moral degeneracy at a remarkable rate. We in the COBB-Webb group have great hope for her continued development.