Merry Christmas!

Fortunately this morning I was not forced to get out of bed until 9:30am in order to open presents.  In past years, the time has been closer to 5:30 or 6:00am.  I'm glad that was not the case this year since I stayed up watching Kill Bill vol. 2 until 3am.  Sleeping in on Christmas morning is definitely a good present.

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family.  Here are some more photos of Christmas in the Leu house.

The tree on Xmas eve:

A fire in the fireplace:

Sarah opening gifts:

Dad opening my gift; espresso cups.

Mom with the book I got her.

My pile of loot... a bunch of DVDs, some books, a video game, candy, and gift cards/cash.

Sarah waits for breakfast while watching Miracle on 34th Street

A shot of espresso in one of the cups I bought my dad.

Traditional Xmas breakfast at our house; Eggs Danielle, english muffins, and a glass of eggnog.

Foxwoods on Xmas eve morning

I had plans for a long, story-filled blog post, but instead I'm keeping this one short and sweet.  Got to Foxwoods just before midnight on the 23rd and found an 8 person wait list for 1/2.  It didn't take all that long to get seated, but that is unusual - even for a holiday.  Got seated at a table I was in love with (lots of weak passive players, and no one that I felt I really needed to watch out for), but could not catch a hand to save my life.  I didn't have very many stellar preflop hands (JJ once, AK once and that was about it), but fortunately, as I mentioned, my table was fairly passive so it was easy to limp with marginal holdings and also relatively easy to steal after my table image had been established.  Finally connected with a few boards and after about 4 hours of play had made $200.  At that point, the table had just had some new players come in, I was tired, and knew I had stuff to do later that day, so I played my last free hands and cashed out. 

There were some funny antics at my table, but I'm not really in the mood to recount them now...  Suffice it to say this one guy made a hilarious play (bluff) by showing a nine.  For at least an hour after that, jokes about "showing the nine" were flying around the table.  I also got some standard TFD* abuse, but the guy who was the worst offender paid me off every time, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Don't know if I'm gonna get there again this trip since I'm leaving Wednesday afternoon, but I might try to go play later today (Xmas) at some point. 

*TFD: Typical Foxwoods Donkey - A player who is generally from the Boston area, sexist, and drunk.  They also think they are the best player ever but insist on paying me off every time, most likely because I am a girl.  As a result of calling station tendencies, suckouts are also possible.  They populate the 1/2 tables at Foxwoods on the weekends and love to make jokes about female dealers/players.  I feel worse for the dealers because they have to take the jokes without getting anything out of it.  At least I can hope to take their money. 

Charlie Wilson's War

Went to go see this tonight with the fam...  It's funny how two people can leave a movie with completely opposite impressions.  My dad thought it was inspirational.  I found it rather depressing.  Don't want to give too much away for people who haven't seen it, but it's all about the US's involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980's.  Mike Nichols directs and it's written by Aaron Sorkin.  Worth seeing if you have the time/inclination. 

Photo dump

GVPT holiday party:




Anne shares something very interesting with Melissa, Dan, and Jim

Jill and Maren manage to mug for the camera...the rest of us are enjoying the free food...

The first years enjoying the party...

Degenerate Drinking in PA:




Cooking our dinner at the Tiki Bar

Group shot one

Group shot two

Blevins

Billy

Christmas in Connecticut (minus Barbara Stanwyck):




the job of annoying your younger sister is never done

My parents have a really nice fireplace, but the stockings never go there because their contents would melt

Dad tells Sarah how he got through knee surgery

The pumpkin-tini I got at our swanky dinner out...it was very good.

Oysters...they made the mignonette sauce with red wine vinegar...yummy.

Beef Wellington with a slice of the best fois gras I have ever had...even in Paris.  If I could have, I would have licked this plate clean.

After we have all stuffed ourselves, a family picture

Happy not to be the only one with foot-in-mouth disease...

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/12/YE_foot_mouth

I Come From a Pretty Cool Family

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm up for adventure.  In college, one of my friend's mom's started calling me crazy Katie because I spontaneously decided to get in my car and drive by myself overnight from DC to West Palm Beach, FL to hang out for Spring Break.  I love roadtrips.

My mom just sent me the link to my Aunt and Uncle's new website.  They are selling up and retiring on a boat with plans to sail around the world.  It's actually cheaper to live on the boat than on land, and I'm sure they are going to have an awesome time.  I hope i get the opportunity to meet up with them in port someday and check out their new home.

I also just got a video Christmas card from another Uncle who took off a few years from work to roadtrip around the US and Australia/New Zealand....

I guess now I can see where I get my love of travel.

Trivia Choking

So a few weeks ago when I started showing up for pub trivia on Tuesdays, Keenan was joking around that I was the Randy Moss of trivia and now we would win.  Sadly, the past two weeks we have worked our way into second place only to choke on the final question.  Last week in particular it was brutal because we made an awesome comeback from second to last to second place...with only 30 points separating us from the leaders.  The set up on the last question at Orange Ball is like final Jeopardy...you have to wager.  We wagered a lot and ended up with a measly 80 points...putting us from second place to somewhere close to dead last.  Plus we lost to a team of tools who called themselves "Team PokerStars."  We started joking around to them that we were Team FullTilt because FT has better pros...

Losing the glory is bothering me!  And we won't be able to try to actually win one of these damn things until 1/8.  I think it's time for a game of Trivial Pursuit so I can assert my trivia dominance. 

Bonuses of the evening: In Bethesda two weeks ago at Union Jack's we saw a bar fight between a bunch of guys in suits.  Ha-freaking-larious.  Only in Bethesda.  And, at Orange Ball, Curtis bought me and Billy a shot of Patron.  Free drinks are always good.

Pitch

I'm going home for Xmas on Saturday and my sister will be there.  That means a few things: 1) we'll play lots of TCM Scene It, 2) We might watch Centennial, and 3) we'll play some cards.

I think I'm gonna try to get people to play pitch.  My sister and I used to play it with my Great Aunts and Uncles on my Dad's side (we are talking like ~15 years ago here) and we both used to be good at it.  So much so that the very competitive Leus would frequently get cranky that they were being beat by a twelve year old and an eight year old.

Anyways, I haven't played it in quite a while, but I thought I'd post up the rules for people who might be interested in playing some time.

You start with a 53 card deck (52+one joker).  The deal rotates each hand (just like poker!) and you are supposed to deal out six cards to each person, three cards at a time.  One of my cousins always had an issue with the deal out three at a time, and it probably doesn't matter if you deal one or three in the long run, but it's supposed to be three. 

So after the cards are dealt, players bid the number of points they think they can make on the hand clockwise from the dealer.  There are five possible points and you can bid between 0 (a pass) and 5 (shoot the moon).  The five points are high (the highest card of trump), low (the lowest card of trump - aces are high not low), jack (the jack of trump), joker, and game (all tens are worth 10 points, all jacks are worth 1, Q=2, K=3, A=4.  The total in the tricks you took at the end of the hand are added to determine the winner.)  Only high, low, and game are guaranteed to be out in any given hand, depending on the number of people playing.

So the person with the highest bid then gets to determine trump suit (if no one bids, the dealer must bid at least 1).  The highest bidder determines trump by playing whatever card they want to first.  The suit of this first card played is then trump for the hand.  Then it plays like hearts, only trump is obviously broken immediately.  Card ranking is: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T joker J Q K A, with trump taking precedence over the other suits.  High and Low are determined not based on who took them in the trick, but who played the lowest or highest trump card (i.e. whoever was dealt the lowest/highest card).  Sometimes in the middle of a hand you will pull out your contender for low or high and set it to the side instead of putting it with the taken trick because you don't necessarily know if someone has a better card, unless it is the A or 2 of trump.  The other points (jack and joker) are up for grabs; they go to whomever takes them in the trick they are played in. 

At the end of each hand, the bids are determined and if people did not make their bid they lose that number of points.  Otherwise they gain that number of points.  A game generally goes to 11 points and if someone shoots the moon successfully they win the game regardless of how many points they or anyone else have.

To my degenerate friends...oh yes, you can also play for $$$.  LOL

Ummmm...Mike Caro is right.

I don't remember if I read it in his "Book of Tells" or one of his columns in CardPlayer or what, but somewhere I read an article by Mike Caro explaining that it was better for people to have a positive, friendly image at the table because then people are less likely to be gunning for you and also because you are probably not getting the floor wet by tapping the glass.

There was a hand last night that made me realize this first hand.  I frequently play at E and Ricky's Monday night game.  It's a great game and I've made money at it more than once, though I have taken some silly beats.  Anyways, I buy in for the max and after a few hours I have a couple hundred in profit.  By the wee hours of morning I'm sitting on ~$650.  I've been pretty proud of my play all night...made some big folds, made some successful moves at the right times, extracted value from my hands by getting called down to the river, won a decent sized pot with pocket fives on a flushed board against someone I knew was bluffing.  I was not as distracted as I usually am at that game, and the difference was noticeable.  There were a few hands that I screwed up, but none of the screw ups were very expensive or massive.  I had three big pocket pairs the whole night (AA, QQ, and JJ) and somehow won all of them, though my AA never saw a flop after my limp pop move got me heads up with Billy and he folded).

One of the dealers has jumped in the game because it was short.  He plays a really good game, but is very LAG, and he and I seem to be getting heads up a lot.  One time I have a big hand, but I fold because I KNOW I am beat.  Then there are a few hands after that where I really feel like he was pushing me around and I just couldn't pull the trigger.  And after those hands, he starts tapping my tank, trying to put me on tilt by making little comments about the hand after it was over. 

I didn't think I was on tilt at that point, but my judgment was definitely affected by feeling he had been pushing me around.  So we get four handed and I get A8 on the button.  I really don't remember how the hand went down because after it went down, I was feeling kinda extremely sheepish.  The flop came out AK6.  I do remember me raising and being re-raised and then just calling that re-raise on the flop.  There was a large bet on the turn where I realized I was probably in trouble, but the devil in the back of my head was saying: HEY YOU COULD BE AHEAD (eventhough there's probably no way I am with my pair of aces and a bad kicker).  STOP LETTING HIM PUSH YOU AROUND.  YOU HAVE HIM COVERED BY $100...WHO CARES IF YOU SHIP YOUR ENTIRE PROFIT AND $200 OF YOUR BUY-IN IN THIS HAND.  The devil overpowered the side of me that was saying: "Um more than half his stack is in the middle now...you better hope you have outs since for some dumb reason your ass fell in love with your raggedy ace and decided to put half of your stack in the middle too." 

An eight comes on the river and suddenly I am praying my two pair is good.  I don't think he flopped a set because I don't think he would have played the flop so strong.  I was really expecting him to turn over AK for top two and he tabled K6 and I didn't even see that that was also a flopped two pair at first because I was expecting to be even more crushed than 75/25.  Anyways, instead of going home stuck like I should have, I went home up $700+.  I am such a fish.

Morals of this story:
1) I am a fish at poker.
2) I suck at short-handed play and know it.  I know for a fact that in January it will be much easier for me to get my butt out of the chair when a game gets short.  I feel pretty good about my heads up game.  I can play well when I want to at a full or close to a full table.  I really need to work on my short play though.
3) When you are provoking someone, and you are a LAG player, they might suck out on you more often than they would on another player.  Yeah, you want fish like me to have their judgment impaired so you get paid, but you will probably get sucked out on more than your average player because people will talk themselves into believing you always have the bullshit...especially if they are gunning for you because you have been tapping at their glass.
4) Hey, even I can get lucky every once in awhile!

Seriously, that's not even that bad of a suck out relative to some things that I've seen, but it's the worst beat *I've* given anyone in quite some time...probably the worst one in more than a year (not counting times when I've mushed being short, though even then it's up there).

"Australia" wraps

I have loved history since I can remember.  Many of my Halloween costumes growing up were historical figures, when I used to travel for work I would make sure to hit up any nearby historical sites, and historical fiction is one of my favorite genres of books.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like there have been all that many historical movies out recently (the sequel to Elizabeth is a noted exception). 

Because of that, I've been waiting with baited breath for Baz Luhrmann's "Australia".  It doesn't hurt that I am a Luhrmann fan either.  According to Cinematical it wrapped filming this weekend.  I hope it doesn't suck.

Overheard at the GVPT Holiday Party

Overheard 1:


Steve: I think if you stand near Katie you are 8% more likely to break a law.

Overheard 2:
(While complaining that I had gotten more assignments than other people in our State and Local class)
Steve: To be fair, he did assign 6 to Katie and 3 to Katherine.

2008 WSOP Schedule

The powers that be just released the 2008 schedule.  Find it here.  They're running 8 different $10k buy in events this year...

Wonderland

Last night around 8:30 I realized I left a book in my office that I needed, so I trudged to campus, ran up to the 5th floor of Tydings, grabbed the book, and...got a text message from Anne asking if I wanted to go out.  I tried to protest. 

Me: I look scrubby.
Anne: It's Thursday, no one cares.  You can borrow some makeup when you come pick me up.

Me: I have to be up early tomorrow for sections.
Anne: Fine, we won't stay that late.

Me: It's cold.
Anne: That's a lame excuse.  They have heat.

The lure of good beer was too strong.  Anne lives really close to campus and I was only like 5 minutes from her apartment...and Wonderland is close to her apartment.  I drove over and picked her up.

I'm glad I finally got there.  I know a lot of people who love that bar and now I can see why.  Good music and GREAT beer on tap.  Friendly barkeep. 

Anne had just gotten through telling me that she always runs into people she knows there when all of a sudden some guy with a beard comes up from behind me and gives me a hug.  I turn around and it's my friend Alex from school who tells me he's trying to drown his end of semester stress.  I raise my mug of Anchor Steam (which they have on tap!) and tell him I can relate. 

Anyways, I can imagine it gets very crowded on weekends because it's pretty small, but for midweek drinking it's a perfect bar.

On being the first

Warning.  Deep thoughts ahead. 

I have always been a loner.  In elementary school I think some people thought something was wrong with me because I liked to just sit and look out the window like a cat for long periods of time.  Really I just like to think, and quietly sitting somewhere is conducive to that.  Even today, people frequently think I'm upset when in reality I'm just thinking.  My quietness and the need to be alone is also often misinterpreted by people as standoffishness or disinterest.  Not so - I just need some alone time to maintain my mental health.  I have always been contemplative.

Up until my freshman year of college, this side of me bothered me a lot.  In school the focus always seemed to be on fitting in and I definitely was different.  I had plenty of friends and I liked hanging out with them, but my difference really bothered me.  None of my friends just liked to sit quietly by themselves or to be alone for any length of time. 

My freshman year of college was really a life-changing year in a lot of ways.  One of the many was when I realized that in life, really EVERYONE is alone*.  I was sitting in the lounge on our floor at some wee hour of the morning discussing life with some of the guys on the floor.  Somehow we started talking about this and one of them said that everyone is really alone in life.  When it comes down to it, the only person you can ever really count on is you.  We go through life and we have friends and family we can count on, yes, but ultimately we are all traveling through life alone.  At the end of the day, you and you alone have to make peace with yourself. 

At first I fought him because this realization was really disturbing to me, but over time I came to embrace it and agree with him in his analysis.  Now, I actually find it kind of empowering.  I've made it through some bad situations thanks to my own personal strength.  I've certainly had support from others (and I am very thankful for that).  But ultimately decisions about life have to come from within.  E.g., you cannot force an addict to quit their addiction unless they themselves make the choice to.  It's the same with life.  In tough times we have others who help us get through, but ultimately, getting through it has to be a conscious choice of our own.

As someone who is very introspective, I frequently find myself relying on others to provide a reality check.  Do the thoughts I've been turning over in my head make sense on their face?  What about people who have gone through similar situations?  Can they relate to how I am feeling?  I have the brain of a scientist (researcher, analyzer, etc.), so I like to seek out multiple data points to confirm my own feelings.

And that is the downside of being the first among your friends to go through a lot of life events.  For better or worse, I have been the first among my friends to go through many life changes (though not having kids).  That makes it hard when you want to get advice from someone you trust that has experience in what you are going through. 

* I don't believe in God.  I suppose people who are believers would say that you are not alone because you have God.  However, the person who originally brought this up is a pretty religious person.

Prospect theory and poker

Remember last week when I posted a comment about prospect theory?  You might not have read the link to the journal article that I posted.  You might have even given up on the link to the Wikipedia entry explaining the basics.  However, I just read a post by Gary Carson on one of his blogs about enticing calls and was immediately reminded of my favorite scholars, Tversky and Kahneman, so I thought I'd give another go at explaining how this is related to poker.

Gary Carson writes:

I don't know why this works, but it does.

In a 1/2 game I limped UTG with KK. The limp left me with a stack of $125. Another early position player made it $15 and two players called. The raiser had another $75, the other two each had a couple hundred. I made a huge overbet, moving all in.

The initial raiser went into the tank and gave me his best imitation of a TV staredown.

Then I said the magic words. "Can you beat two jacks?"

Somewhat taken aback, he said, "Maybe".

I said, "Well, then you know what to do".

He called. One of the other two called, the other folded.

I turned my hand over, the board got dealt, they both mucked.

I don't know why causing them to focus their thoughts on a pair of jacks makes them call, but it does.

I have some thoughts about what the reason might be though.

When they mention a pair of jacks they'll tend to think about your hand as it relates to jacks, not as it relates all the other information they might have. They'll tend to think, "He might have jacks, he might have overcards to jacks, he might have a pair smaller than jacks and he might have a pair bigger than jacks. But he's thinking about jacks, so he probably doesn't have a bigger pair, he probably has TT and my KQ is a coin toss".

I don't really know though. But it works.

T+K's prospect theory (a nobel prize winning theory, btw) basically says that people's decisions in terms of risk are dependent on how their choices are presented.  They have proven this repeatedly with various experiments.  For example, someone might drive across town to save $5 on a $15 book, but would not drive across town to save $5 on a $1500 piece of jewelry.  Rationally, this does not really make any sense... $5 is still $5.  The expected value is the same.

Another way to see how this is explicitly related to gambling:

One of T+K's experiments told people to assume there was disease affecting 600 people and they had two choices:

Choice A: 200 of the 600 people will be saved.
Choice B: There is 33% chance that all 600 people will be saved, and 66% chance that nobody will be saved.

72% of people chose A, showing a preference for certainty.

They then offered another choice:

Choice C: 400 people will die.
Choice D: There is a 33% chance that nobody will die, and 66% chance that all 600 people will die.

78% of the same people then chose D, seeking to avoid the loss of 400 people.

You might notice however that the outcome of all four choices has the same expected value: 200 will be saved, 400 will perish. The only difference is the way in which the information is presented. 

Prospect theory shows us that if we want people to choose something, we should focus on potential gain.  If we want them to reject something, we should focus on the potential loss.  Whether this is something that can be successfully employed at the poker table remains to be seen, but Carson's story about the jacks is clearly a case of trying to get people to focus on the potential gain and having it pay off when they make a bad choice.

SNOW SUCKS

Actually, it's not the snow's fault...it's the fault of the drivers around here.

I had a 9am meeting on campus...left the house at 8, figuring hey the roads are not bad at all and it only takes me 20 minutes to get to campus...

2 hours later I park in Lot 1...only to find out that the people I was supposed to meet with are still stuck in traffic.  Oh well.  I have another meeting at 11:30 and plenty of work to do.

Before I even got to Beltsville this morning I had already seen 5 accidents.

Rediscovering music: TMBG

Way back in the 90's I went to a They Might Be Giants show at the 9:30 club with some friends (there's some real good stories that came out of that night, but that's another story for another blog post).  I was tagging along; completely unfamiliar with the band.  But my friend who told me that I would like them was right - their music cracked me up.

People who know me probably know that my ringtone on my phone has been TMBG's "Birdhouse in Your Soul" forever.  It's one of my favorite songs by them - a song about a freaking night light.  It is perhaps second only to "James K. Polk." 

Anyways, I have not listened to TMBG in quite awhile.  They're not on my ipod for some reason and I can't find my cd.  However, I just went ahead and downloaded them onto my ipod and now I'm happily rocking out to "Birdhouse in Your Soul" whenever I want to, not just when someone calls me or texts me.

Repost: DCist Winter Beer Roundup

I love DCist (and actually, I am a regular reader of Londonist also, though doing so is kinda torturous at times because I miss that city so damned much).  Today they posted a review of different winter beers to be found around the city.  Time to organize a winter beer bar crawl, methinks.  I still need to try Brasserie Beck and this is as good excuse as any.

Also on an unrelated note, let me add number 986 to my list of things I will never understand: 

#986: People who honk their horn at you to move forward when traffic is not moving, there is less than one car length between you and the car in front of you, and you are not causing them to block an intersection.  WTF?

Mummified Dinosaur

Every once in awhile I like to pretend that I am not a huge nerd.  I mean, I was in a sorority, I know lots of hip musicians the general public has never heard of, and I own >30 pairs of shoes.  But then something will catch my eye and I am reminded that, yes indeed, I am a nerd...

I caught this blog post on my feed reader and had one of those: "Wow this is so cool.  Oh my, I really am a nerd" moments tonight.  But, it really is cool, so check it out.  Dinosaur mummy found.

My birthday

Went out to Mon Ami Gabi and then to the 4P's and a good time was (hopefully) had by all.  I definitely had a good time...how can you have a bad time when your friends are buying you dinner and alcohol?  It was also kinda funny to see my school friends and the degenerates hang out together.

Ozan, E, and Travis

me and Ozan

Some of the grad school crew at the 4P's

degenerates

I don't even know how to describe this picture

Keenan and Billy making it rain...why does this always end up happening at people's birthday parties?

The end of the night...Billy giving me a foot massage.  It pays to be the bday girl.