staying healthy

"He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything."
-Arabian proverb

Over the past week, I have spent the majority of my time recovering from one sickness or another. Starting about wednesday of last week, I caught a cold that was a lot worse than normal. I'm pretty sure that at one point or another I had a fever, but I truthfully didn't have time to be sick. Wednesday night was poker night as usual and going in I believed I was close to turning things around. I decided to play in the tournament and basically just coasted till about the fifth level where the only notable hand of the night came up. I had Ad 10d, raised 3x BB preflop and got one caller. Flop came Ah 9d 5d. It was a beauty because I had top pair, nut flush draw. I bet out 1/3 of pot and was called. The turn was a 3h, and I decided to get tricky and check it. The other kid bet out, and I moved allin. He thought about it forever and called with Kd Jd, meaning that he was drawing dead because he had the second nut flush draw. Both Nick and I made the final table and when we were down to 7, we were 7th and 6th in chips and only 5 places paid. Nick busted in sixth, but I doubled up with AK against Q9 to put me back in the running. We took a break with three left and I was chip leader, even though blinds were huge. I ended up busting in 3rd when I moved in with A2 and was called by A8, and I failed to improve. I sat down at 1/2 and nothing really happened until I had AA UTG and raised to 12. I got 5 callers which is about 2 too many for aces. Flop was Q 10 2 rainbow. I bet out 30 and get one caller. Turn is a jack, and I'm thinking, fuck, one of the worst cards in the deck to come. I check, and the other guy moves allin. We have about the same stack and I call. He shows Q 10, which means I have 11 outs(24% to win). I whiff and lose a buyin at 1/2 like that. I took creighton home after that and came back to play 2.50/5. That's when the game really started to heat up. I was up about 150 when this hand came up. I have 7c 9c and it is raised to 20 preflop. There are 3 callers in front of me so I decide to call. Flop is 8c 4h 2d. Checked around to the original raiser who bets 30. Folded to me, and I decide to call(either going to make a play on it on the turn if I improve at all or give it up if I whiff). Turn is the second best card to come, the Jc. Now I have 13 outs to hit it on the river. I check, and he bets 55. I raise to 155 and he calls after some hesitation. River is a Ac and I move allin and he calls immediately. I show the winner and he was completely stunned. He said something like "That flop really helped your hand huh?" Not to be speculative, but I'm guessing he had queens, kings, or AK, all of which he could have got away from either when I raised on the turn or bet allin on the river. The next hand I will remember for a long, long time. I have 88 and raise to 20 and get one caller. Flop is Q 10 2 with two spades. I bet and he calls. Turn is a 10, I bet 55 and he raised to 110. I call thinking I have the best hand. River comes a rainbow 3. I check and he makes a huge bet. After some deliberation, I call and he says "Nice call" and shows J9. Ship it! I also made another nice call against that guy with the king high flush and one against john when I had a weak full house. All in all, the night turned out well.

Friday night Nick and I decided to go out to oakridge to play. To sum it up, I played in a 1/2 and dumped a buyin trying to make a play at the pot. In 2/4, I was up about a buyin when I moved allin with AK on a A 8 5 3 board. I was called by KK and the river came the case K to bury me. That was a toughie for sure. I was thinking of playing some more, but I was really not feeling well that night. Saturday I bowled and then went to laser tag later with a few people. Sunday, I was beginning to recover from the cold so I did accounting and calculus homework in the morning and watched the two games at night. The first game was really shocking to be truthful. I thought that once NO made it 16-14 that they were going to come back and win. Chicago's safety was the thing that turned everything around and sent them to Miami. The AFC game was the best game of the year(far and away) and it was really weird to see someone as surehanded as the Patriots blow an 18 point lead and for Brady not to lead another game winning drive when he needed one. At the end of the game, my stomach started to feel a little queasy, but I needed to run to nick's and then skyview to pick something up. When I got there, I decided to play even though I wasn't feeling well at all. At first, it was affecting my decision making. I semi-bluffed off my first buyin at 1/2 with an ace high flush draw. Tom called with a lower flush and I whiffed on the river. From there on, I began to recover as I cracked phil's aces with my kings(flop was KQQ ) and somehow he mucked after I check-raised allin. I had him on aces and was hoping I was making a play at the pot with AK. Good fold there by phil. I ended up getting all of phil's chips anyway when I held 58 and the flop was 3 4 6. This is a great flop for me becuase I make a straight with a 2 or 7 and make the nut straight with the 7. Well, some people are blessed and the 7 came on the turn. Phil bet into me and I moved allin. He quickly called and showed 45. No 8 on the river and I won the pot. When the night was over, I ended up about even and feeling a little better.

Yesterday, I slept till about 1:30 trying to sleep off my sickness. I ate very little all day and went to accounting class from 3-530. Accounting doesn't even feel like a class because it is so enjoyable to me. When I first signed up for it, I thought it was going to be a boring waste of time, but it is actually really relevant to what I want to do. I would say that Calculus is my next favorite class with statistics being last. It's not so much that I don't like statistics but I think it's pretty boring most of the time. Oh well, I'll survive the class for sure.

Right now, I feel at about 90%, probably a positive result of going to bed early last night and this being almost the one week mark for my sickness. But this is going to be the end of the post because I'm tired(up since 730) and I want to play a little online poker before I have class in 20 minutes.

Until next time,

mh

diversification

"When it is sunny, who the heck needs an umbrella or a raincoat? But when it is raining or stormy diversification is your shelter, your virtual brick house that can't be brought down by the elements."
-Jim Cramer, Sane Investing in an Insane World

I have always said and written that the most difficult times in your life are the times that prepare you for success to come. Seeing that everything moves in a circle, eventually you have to hit the bottom if you ride the high for long enough. That's what happened to me over the course of this week. There were telltale signs all around saying that something like this might happen, but you can never really predict the exact moment that you will begin the long plunge into decline or the time when you've reached the bottom of it and the only place you can go is up. Over the last month, it has been running horrible for me in poker. I can recall booking two winning sessions and close to ten losing sessions. It got so bad last night that when I got home from skyview I wrote down on a piece of paper today's date and a few other numbers that have no significant value to anyone but myself. The treachery began in 3/6 as I decided to have a seat before a 1/2 NL seat opened up. I was down about 50 when this hand came up. I have KK and I'm UTG so I raise it to 6 and get something like 6 callers. In my head I'm thinking, I have to flop a set to win this hand. Bang, the flop is K 6 2 with two spades. I bet and get four callers. Turn is a rainbow 10, I bet, older lady to my left who I've played with before and whom I know plays very, very tight raises to 12, and two folds back to me. I think for a second and raise to 18, and she quickly calls. At this point, I put her on two pair. River is a rainbow 7. I bet and she calls and shows 22 for set over set. It was beautiful to say the least, but against any other player at the table I make more money. When I got moved over to 1/2 finally, I was thinking that it was going to be a good night. I had JJ on my last hand at the 3/6 table and no over cards came on the board and I cashed out up 60. I went to 1/2 and the third hand I'm dealt is AK. I pop it up to 16 and get two callers. Flop comes K 9 6, two spades. I bet 24 and get one caller. Turn is a rainbow 10 comes off. He checks to me and I bet 30, he thinks about it then moves allin. I got up and called out his cards exactly, 78. After talking myself into the call(thinking maybe he had a KQ or KJ and he moved with top pair and a straight draw), he turned up 7d8d, just as I had called. It's good that I know what people have, but at that point I had committed a bunch of chips to the pot and wasn't going to fold(in the case that he did have something like 9 10 or 6 10 in which case I'd be a 7 to 1 dog to win the pot).

After that, I decided that it was best that I not play anymore that night because I wasn't in the right mind frame. When you call out someone's hand then can't lay down top pair to save yourself, you should not be playing. Looking back on it driving home, it was a horrible call(even though it was a little lucky for him to hit a open ender, and here's why. A 10 there looks very innocuous because a spade automatically looks more dangerous than someone hitting an open ender. If I was in his position, I'm not sure I would have called because if a 10s or 6s comes off, you just might be in over your head if the original bettor was semi-bluffing and hit a spade when you just hit your straight.) Either way, the point of this post is not to tell you a bad beat story or how to tell you when not to call, because I've done plenty of that in the past. That night was a very long one for me because I really had to evaluate my position in life. It seemed a lot worse than it actually was. In most areas of life I am much better off than I was a year ago. A year ago, I had a girlfriend who was obviously cheating on me. Now I have one who just threatens to do so if she ever meets jordan staal :-). Even though we fight sometimes, I am happy with her. We have similar personalities which makes things a lot more relaxed than relationships that I've had in the past. It's not like I have to try to be someone else when we hang out, and that's really important to me in a relationship. This time last year I was beginning to make my name known around pittsburgh as a player in the bigger NL games, and this year it appears I will have to re-establish that reputation. Also, you don't find out who a lot of your true friends are until you are in a little bit over your head. One person in particular(who I have helped several times in the past) has agreed to give me a break similar to the one that I gave him over the summer, and hopefully that will help to re-energize my poker career. If not, I figure that I'm young and I can afford taking a chance because I have many, many years to make back that money if I do end up losing it. I've learned from all this down time that one of the most important things in life is to be diversified. If one friend sells you out, have other ones to fall back on. If one poker game is bad, try another one. Or, in a market sense, if one stock begins to depreciate, have faith that your positive positions in other stocks will save it. The golden rule that I've got out of this whole mess is to not put all your eggs, chickens, or whatever it may be into one basket. A truly diversified individual will not only get the most out of the many people he or she meets and the many different things he/she experiences, but that person will also not be crushed if something goes wrong in one area. And that's all I have to say about that.

To conclude this less than epic post, I'll give you some song lyrics since I've been posting a lot of poems lately. If you ever get a chance to listen to this song, take it, because the instrumental is what really makes this song great. Enjoy

Time in a Bottle
By: Jim Croce

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with.



mh

the national championship gone wrong

"The question is, do you have the stones to sink a putt when it counts?"
-Dr. Cox, Scrubs

As most of you are aware by now, Monday night proved to be something out of the ordinary. For the first time in several years, a one loss team is the national champion in college football. Then again, the rest of the bowl season was pretty messed up as well: A team that loses one game all year by three points is relegated to the Rose Bowl and then smashed to pieces by a team that just lost to UCLA(ha), a team from Idaho goes undefeated and then beats Oklahoma in the most thrilling bowl game of this century, a Navy team blows a last second lead to Boston College as the kicker from BC(playing in his first year of football ever) nails the longest field goal of his young football career to give the Eagles the win, a subpar Notre Dame team is crushed by LSU and leaves the Rutgers fans wondering why they weren't part of the BCS, and then there was the national championship. I watched the game over mark's house with several other people. From what I could see, it was about a 50/50 split as to who people were rooting for. When Ted Ginn ran back the initial kickoff, all I could think was 'Good, this is the way it's supposed to be.' Beyond that though, Ohio State did nothing right. They were outrun and outmuscled by Florida and the Gator defense did something that almost nobody did to Troy Smith all year: pressure him. Seriously, Smith panicked like the kid in the neighborhood game and was even outran by a defensive lineman. All in all, I was surprised by the outcome(as I was rooting for the Buckeyes). The Big Ten and mid-major colleges were definitely the big losers in this bowl season. Actually, I believe that Penn State(what?) was the only Big 10 team to even win its bowl game(Wisconsin might have won, I'm not sure). PSU looked impressive against Tennesse and Morelli didn't look completely lost out there for once. The Big East looked really impressive(with good wins from Louisville, West Virginia, and yes, Rutgers in the Alamo bowl or whatever god forsaken bowl they were stuck with) and that was good to see because the legitimacy of the Big East was in question after the departure of several schools to the ACC a few years back.

As far as my life goes, I've continued to read Cramer's Sane Investing and he makes a comparison that I knew existed before and that is between stocks and gambling. In the second chapter of his book, he says that as much as nobody wants to admit it, stock trading is like gambling, and I couldn't agree more. I would back this up by saying that in poker as in stocks you need many different tools to be a winning player. If you are focused on playing way too tight and everyone around you is playing tight, you're missing out on free money to steal! Just like in the world of stocks, if you refuse to sell when the stock begins to plummet in the hope that it will rebound, you just may have missed an oppurtunity to make big money. The many comparisons between the two is probably one of the reasons that I find a life in the economic and financial field so appealing. Running a hedge fund is really a fancy way of gambling with other people's money.

In other news, I got a letter Monday from poetry.com saying that I was a semi-finalist in their poetry contest and that as a semi-finalist I would be published in an upcoming book called Immortal Verses. Don't look for it at your neighborhood Border's(because I doubt it's for sale to the public), but still very cool none the less to have a piece of your work published.

That's all for now. I truthfully just felt like writing about college football and jumped off into a little tangent with stocks and poker, but that's okay. Here's a poem to close things off.

We Wear the Mask
By: Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile'
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!



mh

vacation

I decided to take the first week off in january to help to recouperate my body, spirit, and mind. It was the most unproductive week in history, except for the fact that I got caught up on a lot of sleep and played a ton of zelda which I got on tuesday. By that time, I surmised that the week simply wasn't going to be productive at all, so I decided to take one of my four weeks that I normally take off during the year. If I must comment, the new zelda game has been fabulous so far. The people that make Zelda decided to return to the format of a longer game with bigger areas, something that was incredibly successful in Link to the Past(first Zelda game for GameBoy) and Ocarina of Time. I haven't gotten too far in the game yet, but it also appears that they have brought back the game in a 3/5/final boss format, which is a great format if you ask me. The graphics are stunning and the only thing that I don't like about the new game is the increased cinematic time(scenes where you stand there and the action passes you by without you doing anything). It might turn out to be good by the end of the game, but the game feels very Final Fantasy-ish with that.

Besides doing mostly nothing for a week, I did read Jim Cramer's Confessions of a Street Addict which was a Christmas present from my grandparents. Also, they got me Sane Investing in an Insane World. First though, I'll get to my thoughts on Confessions. By no means does the book start slow, as Cramer gives a very brief account of his childhood(notably how his addiction to stocks began in the fourth grade). The thing that I like about the beginning is Cramer doesn't make it out like during his childhood he was already on the course to fame and that with every step he took he grew closer to his destiny: being one of the greatest traders in Wall Street history. The book begins to get very boring in the middle as he describes in detail(in my opinion, too much detail) his early career working as a journalist and finally getting his first big break investing marty perez's money. After crushing the averages for marty for about two years, cramer lands a position at Goldman Sachs, a leading investment company. Next, after learning many good lessons there, he decides to open his own hedge fund with his wife(also a former broker) and with the help of a man named Jeff Berkowitz and other investors. The book doesn't really start getting good until he talks about his record year in 1997 where he smashed every record and handed out huge bonuses to all his employees. However, in 1998 the book turns from a walk in the park to a ten month stint in hell as he painfully describes his inability to read the market. By the beginning of October, he has lost 35% of his company's net worth, and by October 8th, his hell finally ends when the Fed lowers interest rates and the market begins to rebound. By the end of 1998, Cramer and his hedge fund turn a 100 million dollar year in the red to a 6 million dollar gain for the year. In the closing pages of the book, Cramer describes how twenty years in the market has worn down his body and severed ties with his family to the point of him leaving five family vacations in a row to fly back and help the fund. At the end of the book, he begins to reconcile with his family and realizes just how much he has overworked himself and strained his ties with others. All in all, it was an extremely well written book. Cramer doesn't fall into the trap of getting too verbose(as many people writing about their lives do). His humility bleeds through the pages and it turns out to be a quality read when all is said and done.

That is that, that's my life right now. This poem that I'm giving you has a funny title and you should remember that when reading the poem. Enjoy as always.

The Emperor of Ice-Cream
By: Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.



mh

some days

"Above anything else, I hate losing."
-Jackie Robinson

I think that quote is the perfect prelude to what this post is all about. Some days, you have to recognize that you are simply not meant to win. Today, I was playing poker, and I realized that this was one of these days. In the tournament, I was looking pretty decent when we got down to 4 tables. I had a little less than 20k(a little above the average), and I thought I had a decent chance to at least make the final 2 tables. Then, I get dealt 10 10 in consecutive hands and double up the kid to my direct left two times in a row! The first time he had A9 and hit a nut flush and the other time he had AK and the flop was AKJ, with a K on the turn to trump any of the 6 outs I had left. The last hand I played was against that kid again. Blinds were 600/1200 and I had about 11,000 left when I pushed with AcQc and he called with KK. He ended up making a flush or something and winning it. In cash, I could never get anything going at all. I simply blinded myself down and tried to bluff at a few pots. The only significant pot I can remember getting into was against this huge dude named hans. I had very little money left, and I raised to 12 preflop with 99. He called, and the flop came down A Q 5. I pushed, and he called with KQ to trump me. Nothing terrible there, I just really could not hit a single hand.

This brings me to my next point and that is the fact that I absolutely hate to lose. I might not look like it, but I am one of the most competitive people that you will ever meet. As a younger kid, I can remember two distinct examples of myself being incredibly competitive. First, myself, mike nayhouse, bill schleicher, and another kid were in a winter hitting league together. We were the worst team in the league during the regular season, but we made a spectacular run in the playoffs to make it all the way to the championship. In that game, we were winning by almost 40 points going into the bottom of the last inning. The other team rallied and ended up winning it with two outs. I grabbed my bat, stormed out of the place, and started hitting a couple trees outside in a pure fit of rage. Remember, I was only probably 9, but I refused to shake hands or even talk to anyone on my team. Go to Bianco's and till this day you can still probably hear that story.

The next story also involves baseball. Once again, I was much younger, probably 10 years old now. I was on shane liska's team for summer baseball and we were going up against nayhouse and schleicher's team in a divisional clash. Back then, you could only pitch 3 out of the 6 innings, so I pitched the first three and by the end of that time, we were winning 16-0. I came out, and I think shane came in. Long story short, we blew the 16-0 lead and they came all the way back to tie it 16-16 before the game had to be called for darkness. I walked off of the field in disgust and walked all the way across colewood park before being calm enough to accept a ride home. By the time I was 14, I realized how stupid people look whenever they flip out in pure spats of anger. Actually, not until I watched my baseball coach in pony's tip a garbage can and throw it at the umpire after a "terrible mother fucking call" did I realize how silly it was. My immediate reaction was to laugh, but I was able to hold it in until later. That incident made me care a whole hell of a lot less about things for a few years until I went back to playing on a winning baseball team, that being the squirrel hill city team. Our constant winning brought out the best in me as I really did try hard every single game we played.

Even today, I am incredibly competitive even though I have been retired from baseball for about 1 and a half years now. I definitely miss it, but I've taken that competitive fire and applied it to the classroom. When I care in school, I do nothing but great work. It's helpful in that way, but it also causes me to despise things like group work(unless I feel that everyone is contributing equally). I tend to want to do everything sometimes until I feel that everyone can make a contribution similar to my own.

I hope that everyone had a good New Years. My New Years consisted of spending time with a lot of people that I care about. Every year, we have a party either at our house or one of our family friend's house. This year, the fiesta was moved to our house. Around 945, sarah and kathleen came over and I decided to go with them over to their friend's house to celebrate the new year. The party was a little weird but I was with a good friend and my girlfriend, two people that I truly care about. We watched the ball drop and then watched as some girl from MTV dropped the F bomb before the last set. Oddly enough, I didn't hear a lot about it(unlike past mess ups such as the janet jackson incident). We left later on and it was a new year's well spent. Over the rest of break, I hung out with nayhouse and bradburn a lot and saw a ton of people that I hadn't seen in awhile at pizza hut. Last night, myself, mark, and dave, the future PSU roomates had a good night out. I went to mark's first and we played some video games before going over to dave's place to meet his parents. My impression of his parents was that they are nice people, but they are definitely more strict than my parents. From there, we went to the dollar theatre in west mifflin and saw man of the year, a flick that I've caught twice now at the dollar theatre. Dave was thrilled when he found out that we had only spent $1.50 to see a movie. Afterwards, we got some wendys and just sat in mark's car and talked about everything for two plus hours. It sounds gay, but it was a really enjoyable time. I'm excited to spent the last two years of my college life with these fine gentlemen.

Since I've been claiming for a long time that I have been working on my poems, I'm going to post one of them online for you. Remember go to humblevoice.com if you want to see the rest of my poems and even post some of your work yourself. Hopefully, you'll enjoy.

Truth is
By: Matt Hartman


Truth is,
I don’t want to hear how your useless
metaphors translate into “life lessons” or how
the key to life is “in the calm of a night’s flower”.
NO, I know that I have the key to life
inside of me and I don’t need your allegory of the abstract
to tell me how to live my life.

Don’t worry,
I once searched for ghosts too. As a little boy,
I would frighten myself walking down the desolate street
thinking that I too could see lifeless forms
in white sheets(that was until something real scared me).

I know,
I am guilty of it as well; I think we all want to
believe that we can be scared by the hallucinations of our
mind or that we can find the answers to our problems
from above. We know we are just fooling ourselves, history
has shown we cannot build skyscrapers standing on stilts.

So then,
Instead of conjuring up some grandiose myriad of useless words,
wasting your time trying to come up with the“perfect” symbol,
I recommend writing the first thing that comes to mind;
writing about why the grass grows or why it snows on cloudy days.


mh