Cubanlinks.org gets a mention during a Q&A between Red Herring and Dave Sifry (founder of Technorati). My involvment stems from a -again-.html#permalink”>posts I wrote.
Of course, RedHerring.com neither links to my site nor to the specific posts or comments in question. This is disappointing, but I imagine fairly typical of print-to-net mags.
My alma mater (William and Mary) is one of only two Division I or Division I-AA schools in the nation to boast a 100% graduation rate. Pretty amazing.
Last night was the first time in a long time that I played poker live. When I say a long time, I mean three weeks. The last three times I’d played live, I recorded losses of $40, $120, and $80. Obviously, I was not running well. Some of those losses were suck-outs, but I was obviously throwing good money after bad in an attempt to claw my way back. So, maybe I needed a break.
The break ended last night when Stephen got 7 of us DCPoker folk together for a $40 NLHE tourney.
We all started with T2000 and the blinds began at 25/50, escalating every 20-30 minutes. The game ended on the 5th level (200/400 blinds) after about 2 hours. I wish I had taken better notes, but here are some memorable hands of mine:
Hand 1: AK beats JT on a AKQxK board. Yes, a classic battle of a flopped straight being beaten by a top two-pair that rivers the house. Amazingly, the straight did not go broke on this hand. I didn’t put him on a straight since I didn’t think he would have called a decent pre-flop bet with JT. So, I thought I was dealing with Ax (maybe AQ). So, instead of going all-in, I just wanted to bet enough to get a call.
Hand 2: I’m dealt AQs and choose to limp into the pot with some other callers. I seem to recall Stephen raising here, but I just called. I hate slow playing, but it’s an absolute necessity to do so once in a while, to mix up your play in a tourney. The flop comes up Axx with 2 suited cards. I’m ecstatic. I make a healthy raise and Stephen comes over the top all-in. Fuck. I drop into the tank. Knowing Stephen, he could easily have played Ax and hit two pair. Ace-rag is his wheelhouse. After some egging from his neighbor, I gamble that he’s full of shit, and call. He turns over A7o, gets no help, and is gone. He felt that his all-in was good, given the low odds of someone else having an Ace (seeing as how 2 were already accounted for). Personally, that logic doesn’t work for me. Given my call of his raise pre-flop, and my raise post-flop, he should have put me on an Ace. Unless he thought I was completely insane. Why risk your tournament with A7o?
Hand 3: I’m dealt 99. There are probably 4 players left at this point. I call the BB, and Matt doubles it up. Fold around to me. I think about it, and double his raise. He pushes all-in. Hmmm… I think I’m screwed. I’ve invested quite a few chips to the pot, and his all-in was about 2/3 of the pot. I hate how I played this hand. If he has an overpair, I’m in trouble. If he has overcards, it’s a coin flip. I announce to the table “normally, I’d fold this, but I’m tired and need to get home.” I call and he flips over 55. Presto! No magic trick for him, and I win.
Final Hand: I’m heads up against Phil. The difference between 1st and 2nd is $200. So, I really wanted to win. Chips go back and forth for a while. I win a nice pot, he wins one right back. Eventually, I cripple him a few times with all-ins for big raises that cause him to muck. The last hand sees me dealt TT. I raise it up some, and he calls.
Sidenote: Phil was a calling station all night, much to his benefit. No one could put him on a hand. He was my worst nightmare.
The flop comes down Qxx. I can barely contain my joy, and I just know this is it. I just didn’t think he had that Queen. I check to him and he put in a decent raise (1-2x BB). Naturally, I go all-in. He’s flummoxed by this. He wants badly to fold, but that would leave him at a huge chip disadvantage. He looks at me and says something like “ok, let’s go” and turns over AJ. I’m up against overcards with 2 cards to come, giving me a 3:1 advantage. A King falls on the turn, giving him some more outs (a T will give him the straight, but I have two of them). I’m a 5:1 favorite now. Not help on the river for Phil, and I win.
So, over my last 4 outings, I’m only $40 down. If I double-up during the next cash game, I’ll break even over 5 nights of poker. Pretty steller, eh? 
Via Glyph. Please read in its entirety:
Dear Friends,
I never forward mass emails, but this one comes directly from me. It’s important. And I need your help. Please send an email to ABC and 20/20 by clicking the link at the bottom and forward this along to anyone who can help.
As most of you know, a few years ago my writing partner, John Wierick, and I wrote the screenplay for the movie “The Matthew Shepard Story”. The film documented the life and tragic death of Matthew Shepard, who was tied to a fence and beaten to death in one of the most savage anti-gay hate crimes in recent history. It also told the story of Matthew’s parents, Judy and Dennis, and their astounding act of mercy: a decision to put aside their emotions, and convince Prosecutor Cal Rerucha to forego the death penalty for Aaron McKinney, one of the two men responsible for their son’s brutal murder.
In exchange, the Shepards were given one small consolation, proposed by the defense attorneys in the case. In exchange for his life, McKinney would agree to a plea bargain similar to that of the other killer, Russell Henderson. The deal would keep McKinney in jail for the rest of his life, with no possibility of parole or appeal. More importantly, like Henderson had already done, McKinney would agree to a permanent gag order, which would prevent him from talking to the press. For the Shepards, it meant the closest thing to an end to the most horrific event of their lives. They would never have to hear from their son’s killers again, or worry about them doing the same thing to someone else.
Unfortunately, recently, McKinney and Henderson have mounted a new effort to overturn the terms of their plea bargains—terms that were proposed by their own lawyers and accepted by the Shepards at a time when it seemed there was no question that McKinney was heading for a death sentence. And disturbingly, it seems that ABC’s 20/20 is planning to help them achieve their goal.
On November 26, the Friday after Thanksgiving, 20/20 will air a segment featuring an interview with Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson—in direct violation of their agreement with the Shepards and the terms of their plea bargain. For the Shepards, it means Thanksgiving will be spent once again reliving their son’s murder. For the killers, it means political capital in their quest to reverse the terms of their plea bargain
In their interview, McKinney and Henderson attempt to rewrite history. They claim that the murder was not a hate crime but a robbery linked to crystal meth addiction. In doing so, they attempt to recast themselves as victims. Desperate addicts who lost control of a terrible situation. Don’t believe it.
Here are the facts. Matthew’s murder was a hate crime. In his original defense, McKinney and his lawyers even argued as much, claiming that when he saw Matthew, McKinney experienced a state of “gay panic” during which he could not be held accountable for his actions. Now, suddenly they ask us to believe that homophobia had no role in the murder at all.
As if this weren’t enough—after beating Matthew at least 20 times with a pistol, shattering his skull in 6 places, and leaving him tied to a fence (where he hung, still alive, for 18 hours in the freezing cold, before he was finally discovered and taken to the hospital where he died)—the two went on two commit ANOTHER hate crime that same night, in which they beat an Hispanic youth so violently he ended up in the emergency room.
Despite their eagerness to violate a court order to help two convicted murderers rewrite history, 20/20 has shown little interest in the other side of the story. While Aaron McKinney was signing gloating autographs from prison, Judy Shepard was teaching tolerance in schools, fighting for hate crimes legislation in Congress, and talking honestly about her son’s life with parents throughout the country. Yet 20/20 did not even interview her for the segment.
Aaron McKinney should be grateful to Judy and Dennis Shepard. Were it not for their compassion he would almost certainly be on death row today. But he and Russell Henderson have shown no more compassion to Judy and Dennis than they showed to their son. McKinney and Henderon’s interview is an insult to Judy and Dennis’ Shepards’ act of mercy, and a dishonor to Matthew’s memory. And if they proceed with their plans to air it, 20/20 will be equally culpable.
Fortunately, we can still stop them:
Please join me in sending e-mails to audience relations at ABC at netaudr@abc.com and to the producers of 20/20 at 2020@abc.com urging them not to air the McKinney interview. You can also call ABC at 818-460-7477 to let them know how you feel.
You can copy this message into your e-mail if you like:
“I stand with Judy and Dennis Shepard, urging you to recognize the agreement embraced by Aaron McKinney and his lawyers at the time of his sentencing, which, in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty, prohibited Mr. McKinney from talking to any news media organizations regarding the criminal case against him. Please do not air the McKinney/Henderson segment or any part of it, scheduled for November 26th, 2004. Sincerely, (Your name).”
Please forward this e-mail to as many people as you can. The more pressure brought to bear on this issue, the better.
Thank you,
Jacob Krueger
Writer – “The Matthew Shepard Story”
For more info about Matthew Shepard click this link:
http://www.matthewshepard.org
Dave Sifry (founder and CEO of Technorati) dropped by yesterday to comment on a post I wrote on some of my he’s done this, but I’m still amazed when it happens.
He apologized for any problems I was experiencing, but also pointed out that the service seemed to be functioning correctly. Naturally, I checked, and indeed things seem to be back up. Must have been a temporary outage.
In any case, I appreciate the amount of work Dave is obviously putting forth on behalf of his users. It’s just that in the age of Google and other hyper-architected systems the stakes and expectations are raised for everyone involved in trying to build a customer base.
Moving forward, I thought I’d use this space to address a couple of issues that I’m still having with the service. I’m sure this feedback (assuming its shared in the vast aggregate of the Net) will find its way to the development team.
1. Currently, my cosmos search says that I have 260 links from 32 sources. However, my claimed weblog summary states that I have Inbound blogs: 16 Rank: 63524 . Is that an inconsistency, or is there a difference between a source and an inbound blog?
2. When running a cosmos search on myself, I notice that most of the 260 links are from me. I think I’d prefer if Technorati didn’t count self-referrential links.
3. Hitting the “next” button should more or less instantly show me the next page of results. Sitting through the “searching…” screen is not something you’d expect to have to do and is discouraging.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Hope you find this feedback helpful in improving the service, Dave. Best wishes for the holidays.
Anyone getting Technorati to work for them? According to them, I have no claimed weblogs, and the URL “http://cubanlinks.org/blog” appears nowhere in their system. Incidentally, neither does “http://www.chrishalverson.com/” or “http://www.pokergrub.com”. Sigh. I was really hoping these guys would become the Google of the blogging world. But the service has been flaky (not updating my rankings, etc) for months and now seems flat-out crippled. I think its time for someone to step into that space with a service as reliable as most other web-apps we all rely on.
…at least according to Prof. Lessig. Of course, I don’t see McCain going out on any real limb. His reputation as a “maverick” and efforts of behalf of the little guy (and his Arizona constituents) constitute an incredibly shrewd political stance. And that’s fine by me. I’d vote for this guy in a heartbeat, and hope to see him make a run in 2008.
…which stands for Obligatory Poker Content:
I’m playing at a $1/$2 NL table on Poker Stars. I’ve been getting into it with one of the players at the table. A combination of a decent run of cards and my mood had turned me into a very aggressive player Friday night. For a stretch it seemed like I was raising every blind. The max buy-in was $200, and I believe I had worked my way up to $330 or so.
I any event I’m in the middle position and look down to see AQo. I raise to $6. It folds to my “nemesis” who is in the BB. He thinks for a second and raised me to $24. I’m more than just a little upset at this. Not thinking clearly, I put him on a “blind defense” and “pot steal” move. So, I re-raised him all-in.
He types in the message box: “I have KK”. I retort (much to my chagrin): “I have 72o”. I wish I had just zipped it. Anyway, he calls (using reverse-reverse psychology to put me on a non-AA hand).
But you know how this story ends, right? The board comes out diamond-diamond-diamond-diamond-Ace of diamonds. Yay, I paired my Ace! Boo, the board is showing a flush (split pot). Yay, I have the Queen of diamonds! Anyway, this poor bastard was in utter disbelief and I was $280 richer. Is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes! Don’t listen to anything I have to say about poker. I suck. I make Al look like Dan Harrington.
Sidenote: I know I don’t make very many “poker blogger” rolls or link lists, and that’s cool. My writing blows and I don’t talk about poker nearly as much as most A-listers do. BUT, for those who want to filter out non-poker-related content, you can always just bookmark http://cubanlinks.org/blog/section/Poker.html. Hell, if your an RSS junky, you can also subscribe to http://cubanlinks.org/blog/section/Poker.xml. And that goes for all of the “sections” on this site. If I get around to it, I may try to enable the ability to filter OUT sections (for instance, MLA hates it when I blather about poker). We’ll see.
Update: I can’t believe I forgot to mention my SnG win. I’d been oh-for-alot playing the dinky $5 SnG’s on PokerStars. I suck as tournies and yet find myself drawn to them. It’s very bizarre. Anyway, for the uninitiated, you start off with 1500T. About 40 minutes into the tourney, I found myself sitting at 130T. Pretty horrific, eh? I mean, you pretty much give up at this point don’t you? But wouldn’t you know it, I end up battling back, playing the aggressive short-stack, and end up winning the 18-player tourney. The final hand was cruel. It’s heads-up and I’m dealt 95o in the SB and raise to steal his BB. He calls. The flop comes A9x. He checks to me, I “sense weakness” and feel like my 9 is good right now. I push all-in. He calls. WTF?!?. He turns over AK. Wow, I’m screwed. As I’m thinking “I need a 9 or a 5”, a five hits on the turn. Game over. Ka-ching!
This past Saturday I drove up to Chevy Chase to catch the reception following the performance of “The Weir”. The venue for the play was actually just up the road from where I work, so it was easy to find a quick to get to. I rolled up there around 9:45pm on Saturday, expecting to find the play over and people milling around drinking wine and beer. Grubby organizes a group of young theatre goers, and had about 24 people out to watch this play.
So, we’re chatting it up after the play. He introduces me to his friend Maggie, and we sit around and chat, drinking the Guinness he kindly provided. I tell him that I need to take off and meet some friends at a bar in Georgetown (Blue Gin). Much to my delight, he and Maggie decide they’re going to come along.
So, we get to Blue Gin and I proceed to sling back Jack on the rocks, one after another. Hege, Taurus, and Matt have met up with us at this point. Taurus bounces early when he mortally offends Maggie (whiskey talking?) and the night started to descend into madness from that point on. My memory gets shaky, but I definitely remember haggling with some bouncer about getting into the upstairs party. Eventually, Maggie pulled some strings and spirited me upstairs. However, my stay was short-lived since I had to go back downstairs and keep Hege company. I tried to get him up, but I think the bouncer was still pissed that I got up there.
Oh, did I mention this place was super-trendy and everyone there was too-cool-for-school? Anyway, things spun out of control shortly thereafter. I can neither confirm nor deny the alleged events that occurred after leaving the bar. Certainly not in a public forum such as this. But, let me tell you, I was paying for it the next morning. Monster hangover.
Thanks to an anonymous contributor, I’m an now aware that Asylum has great happy hour specials from 5pm-9pm, M-F:
