"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread

With 19 years sober I really don't miss beer at all. This newfangled weed you kids are smoking nowadays is my greatest temptation. Never tried any of the near beers. The taste was never the point for me, just the buzz.

had some gluten free beers in the past, there's always something just slightly missing

Yeah, I'm familiar with your disdain for hazy IPAs. Fwiw, I fully believe the brewery matters. I haven't had a proper good one outside of the northeast. Many try, and all of them fail. Colorado has a ton of them (WeldWerks, New Image, New Terrain, 4-noses), and they all miss the mark by a large margin.

Whereas the northeast has Treehouse (best in show), Trilium, Alchemist, Fiddlehead, and Grimm, just to name a few, that are all top notch. The worst representation among this group is still better than the best offering of any other brewery I've tried.

I fully realize I sound like those stoners who say "you're just smoking the wrong strain," to anyone who doesn't like weed. But it's especially true with hazy IPAs.

Anyhoo, I get a hangover just thinking about drinking one of those beers these days.

Congratulations. I hope to hit my 1 year in 11 days.

one of the biggest letdowns i've had in life was finding british made IPA in a shop in China and buying up the lot thinking I struck gold, finally being able to have the original version of the beer I so very much love

it was awful disgusting swill that tasted nothing like the American version of it that I grew to love

would weed constitute a violation?

Congratulations mark & donat3llo on your sobriety anniversaries.

Anyone watching Shogun or 3 Body Problem?

First is elite. Second is good not great

I am old enough to remember the original Shogun series. It was peak Saturday night viewing

I mean, I don’t answer to anyone so the concept of a violation doesn’t really apply. Having the slightest chance of me ending up driving around blackout drunk or getting strung out on coke or meth makes it not worth the risk.

So I've been running super badly recently, and my best friend suggested to me that I move down to $5/5 temporarily to build some confidence. I kind of scoffed at the idea because confidence in my ability is something I've never lacked, and I'm used to being the best player at the table and backing down from no one, etc...

But I decided to try it out anyway, and in 2 sessions so far at $5/5 I'm already up over $4K. Sure I've been running ok, but the difference in skill level between $5/5 and $5/10 is night and day. At $5/10 I'm competing with 2-4 pros at most tables, and although the games are very beatable, it's nothing like $5/5, where I'm facing no decent pros and just constantly bullying people out of pots, and outmaneuvering people by inducing spew or making razor-thin value bets that I'd never be able to make vs better players.

I likely vastly underestimated my potential winrate at $5/5 and might stay here for a while.

More importantly. Is Ohtani guilty?

I think so but nothing will be done imo.

I don't buy that Ohtani didn't notice several million dollars missing and think his interpreter is just taking the fall for it. Who knows, I don't really care anyway.

100%

he wont miss a single game because of it.

when they fail to do anything about Ohtani they really should lift the ban on Rose, but they wont. Rose will bitch a ton more.

did farha hack your account venice?

Very unlikely we'll ever know for sure. However, an interpreter is never going to be able to a hold of his money to take 3 figures out, let along 7 figures without Ohtani knowing. The interpreter might have been betting on his own, but Ohtani had to be aware of it and condoning it. Of course, the interpreter is a great beard for his betting.

Ohtani brings in multi-millions annually in endorsement money - his current salary is not where his real money comes from. While I do wonder whether the interpreter could unilaterally access the charity account the payments supposedly came from, I also am fairly sure that there are other people involved in managing Ohtani's accounts, and given that apparently [/B]all[/B] communication in English with Ohtani went through the interpreter it might have been feasible to convince financial managers that Ohtani approved payments.

But as Venice said we will probably never know for sure.

the way the Leagues and TV networks are in bed with gambling companies makes it all so dirty

Sports betting is insidious

I don't think you truly understand the skill difference between a 5/5 regular and someone who can crush higher stakes.

It's not just about having more money. To beat much stronger players requires a stronger knowledge of GTO, and knowing how to mix bluffs and traps into every line to really punish people who are unbalanced, which at 5/5 is going to be literally everyone.

They are too passive preflop? Cool, we get to open more hands and realize equity. They are too passive postflop and underbluff a lot of spots? Cool, we get to value bet way thinner. They stab certain spots too often? We get to mix in more bluff raises and value raises, etc...

How do you expect people to "adjust" to me when they have no idea what good poker actually looks like? I do expect plenty of over-adjustment though.

Snow season is getting close to over. Turtle, Jr, and myself went to Keystone today and stood in zero lines outside of first chair. ~2.5 hours and got 11 lifts in. That’s not a normal Saturday.

Jr went BIG today. Told me he was going to hit a kicker in this tree cluster and I was thinking here comes the ollie barely off the ground. Dude zips through the tree, comes out the other side and is AIRBORNE. Easily got more air than he is tall and went quite the distance. He just about stomped the landing, but there was some kid in the way trying to film his friend, so Jr had to last second bail. This Russian judge gave it a 10. Judging by the comments around me so did everyone else. “Typical” 8 yr old Colorado kid. 😃

Not saying we're getting older, but the folks who bought the early entry VIP tickets to tonight's concert made a beeline for the balcony, where there are stools, instead of heading for the front row in the pit.

Sadly, we had to join them, as wive has a sprained MCL. We got her one of the last available stools. Meanwhile, pit was only 5 deep so far.

I skied today... at Key.... as well. Mostly off the Summit Express lift; mainly Santa Fe bump run. Alas, no air for me.

We have been stompin pow all week out here. March has been bananas