This is not a man with a blog.

Would anyone like to explain this to me…

By Shabbir | August 6, 2008 | Comments Off on Would anyone like to explain this to me…

….I’m not inclined to believe that drilling in our environmentally sensitive areas is going to solve our energy problem, but I guess I’ll play along for a minute. Isn’t oil simply sold to the highest bidder?  Why would there be any guarantee that even one drop of this stuff would come to the US?  Won’t…

Coming to terms with one’s own past

By Shabbir | July 20, 2008 | Comments Off on Coming to terms with one’s own past

This week’s Sunday New York Times has a great piece by David Carr where he goes back 20 years in his life to when he was a crack addict.  He investigates his experience through interviews with people that knew him, medical and arrest records, and most powerfully, people that took custody of his twin infant…

Things that make me happy

By Shabbir | July 18, 2008 | Comments Off on Things that make me happy

My poker tutor doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot.  He sat behind me today while I played a 3 hour session at my local cardroom and gave me a lot of really good advice, none of which was, "You need to go find a lower stakes game while you figure out how to play poker."…

Modeling $3/$6 players

By Shabbir | July 5, 2008 | Comments Off on Modeling $3/$6 players

I’m doing some math modeling of hand equity of various hands with pokerstove.  What happens to JJ at a table when someone raises,and you’ve got 2, 3, 4 players?  What if they’re solid players?  What if one is a complete donk?  Does the hand have a positive or negative expected value? If you were doing…

How do you play Aces when there’s an Aces cracked bonus available?

By Shabbir | June 26, 2008 | Comments Off on How do you play Aces when there’s an Aces cracked bonus available?

For reasons more complicated than I can explain here, my weekday schedule has me awake when everyone else is asleep from 4:30am or 5am onwards.  Tuesday through Friday I’ve been spending 2-3 hours every morning at my local poker room.  (Yes it’s surprisingly full at that time of the morning) From 6-9am they have a…

A raid in Maryland; my poker game; my big yard project

By Shabbir | June 23, 2008 | Comments Off on A raid in Maryland; my poker game; my big yard project

It hasn’t hit the news yet, but there was another SWAT team raid of a poker game in Maryland in the last week.  This time it appears they just confiscated the money and chips, cards, and tables.  Perhaps they will press charges later, but on the whole, I suspect this is just easy money and…

My 2008 poker year thus far

By Shabbir | June 4, 2008 | Comments Off on My 2008 poker year thus far

So its not quite mid year but it’s close enough that I’m going to do a little bit of analysis out loud.  (I’ve also been traveling like a fiend and my company is in the middle of living a genuine Business School Case Study, which let me tell you, it’s not fun to live.  They…

Scoring material goods from Buddhists

By Shabbir | May 18, 2008 |

There’s some combination of irony and sadness in this story, I can’t really tell you how much of each you should feel. For a number of months I’ve been listening to the lectures on Buddhist thought from the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City.  I am not a Buddhist, and I share the same attitude…

And it was good.

By Shabbir | April 28, 2008 | Comments Off on And it was good.

So very soon I get a new, hopefully permanent office. I currently work either at home, where I have poor output because I refuse to be dismissive of my son when he comes into my office, or at Starbucks where you can’t hear me on the phone because of their music, or downtown in an…

Funniest thing I heard all day

By Shabbir | April 22, 2008 | Comments Off on Funniest thing I heard all day

Some of you know that I take my poker game very seriously.  I’ve been working for four years on my game, through books, occasional coaches, analysis, and tons of practice.  I recently picked up a new poker coach and he said something that I found hysterical. "If you enter the pot and your opponents aren’t…