i play best drunk/hung over and tired. i'll be drinking the night before. see everyone sunday!


it's not just us. if you check their official thread here, or the SwC thread on the 2+2 forum, players consistently can't get reliable email support lately. there's been a lot of weird stuff happening, and i've seen some speculation that ownership has changed hands.

none of this bodes particularly well for our series going forward, but all we can do is wait and see.

wow, how did i miss this? with deribit and now bitmex falling in line, the wild west is really coming to an end.

after it becomes official, i assume traffic will flow elsewhere---bitmex is horrible for so many reasons that KYC must be a deal breaker for many.

what will be the new chosen casino? bybit? are there any other contenders? kucoin futures caps leverage on unverified users at 5x IIRC so probably not them.

here's a better one for next time: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214582.0

it's been dead for a couple weeks so i'm not surprised you didn't see it.


this is a simplified take:

consider the overall odds of hitting your straight---when you flop an open-ended straight draw, the straight will complete something like 34% of the time by the river. after a blank turn, it's more like 17%.

in this situation, you also need to consider whether your opponent is on a heart flush draw. if he is playing the heart draw, your odds drop considerably, since a Qh or 7h could lose you the hand. that leaves you only 6 outs, making your odds to win after the flop about 26% and after the turn 13%. if you put him on the flush draw, pot control is very important.

determine the pot odds required to call. let's say it was a rainbow flop instead of 2 hearts, so your chances of hitting the nuts are around 34%. (it's actually slightly worse because of backdoor flush draw and paired board/full house possibilities but let's ignore that for now) that means if the winning pot will pay better than 2 to 1, you generally have proper odds to call. if you can see a cheap turn (either by checking or calling a small bet 1/3 pot size or less) then it makes sense to stay in the hand.  

a more advanced approach would incorporate fold equity---the chances you can make your opponent fold based on semi-bluffing your draw, rather than passively calling. betting your draws increases your overall equity because the villain may fold, but puts more money at risk if he has a hand.

and also implied odds---the money you'll win if you hit one of your outs. if you hit your straight, you can probably extract more money out of your opponent. that's additional equity not captured by a pure pot odds analysis.


nice!

this is going straight into my notes on you.


that old school DN play doesn't pay off like it used to IMO. lots of people call it light these days.

the best strategy is probably one that can't be pinned down---consistently switching up your style/range, especially based on table dynamic.

i doubt you'd recognize most of the names---probably fly-by-night russian domains. that's why there is no mainstream media news about this. there was no large/well-known exchange shut down.


not a fan at all:


binance is brown-nosing, trying to earn points with governments, so they'll either continue letting them operate or only slap them on the wrist if sanctioned. as a bitcoiner, i hate to see this sorta shit. innocent people with tainted outputs from p2p trading, coinjoins, mixing, etc can get caught in the net.

for anyone shopping odds, betfair is pricing trump at 2.42. not great compared to a few weeks ago, but still much better than 2. they've also got biden at 1.77 vs 1.5 on betmoose. https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.128151441


i assume the book is hedging against its punters' bets. either that or they believe biden has a better chance of winning, or a combination of both.

to be fair, the 2020 democratic VP candidate is being groomed for the 2024 presidential nomination. there's no way biden is running again in 2024. she's got a better shot than any other woman i can see.


some have been speculating that all along, given biden's potentially poor cognitive state. the chances are very slim prior to the election IMO, but him stepping down sometime between 2021 and 2024 seems plausible.


how much experience did trump have?

she's been in public office since 2004 and was attorney general of california---nothing to sneeze at IMO. she might have just the right background too.

only for casino/table games, where you're playing against the house. fortunejack doesn't have an actual poker room where you can play against other real players.

there is no skill or strategy involved with video poker. it's pure gambling.

i reached out to ACR a few months ago and never heard anything back either. i'm pretty sure it's SwC or bust---particularly re any sort of sponsorship.

unfortunately, it seems like SwC has much bigger problems right now than dealing with us. they are a very small team and we're an afterthought. all we can do is wait and play it by ear. hopefully they'll eventually get back to @efi. if we have to push the consolation tourney back a bit, no big deal. if SwC doesn't come through, maybe a few of us can match on a donation and put something together. i'm open to that.


i'm cool with a weekly cash game. the variance of these tourneys is killing me.

the winning auction prices aren't released to the public, at least with USMS auctions. but think about the auctions that have occurred so far. remember tim draper? he outbid every single bidder on every single lot of BTC in that auction, all 30k of them. you think he did that by paying below the market price? logically, i would assume the opposite---he won every lot because he paid a premium. and IIRC this was during the worst of the 2014 bear market. other auctions have taken place during much more bullish times, when i would expect stronger OTC demand and therefore a stronger willingness on the part of bidders to pay a premium.

the first thing any noob should look at is starting hands and position:
https://www.cardschat.com/poker-starting-hands.php
https://www.pokerlistings.com/strategy/how-not-to-suck-at-poker-play-in-position

beginners should start with a solid ABC starting hand strategy like this:



learning to fold garbage hands preflop, and weak hands when playing out of position, is crucial to becoming a decent player.


sportsbet.io removed their poker room. good riddance---terrible software and therefore no traffic. hopefully they license new software and do something to promote it, but i don't expect that to happen anytime soon. maybe towards year end, or in 2021.

traders need liquidity. coinbase is arguably the most liquid spot exchange.

bitfinex is highly liquid too, but many people don't view them as a legitimate company and are paranoid about the safety of deposited funds. coinbase comes with money transmitter licenses, FDIC insurance and even crypto insurance on their hot wallets, a well known CEO, etc so people feel comfortable with them.

they also have stuff like "coinbase earn" which reels in small casual investors, they offer staking rewards and interest payments on USDC.....this stuff has appeal for some people. now they're offering low leverage loans too.

personally i hate coinbase, but i did KYC there several years ago and don't intend to do it anywhere else, so i still occasionally use them. because their trading fees are so high now, i usually trade BTC against stablecoins on altcoin exchanges like binance and kucoin, then i withdraw USDC to coinbase, which i can convert to USD and withdraw for free. that cuts down on all the fees.

the obvious solution is an off-chain one. find an exchange (like bakkt or gemini) who can instantly deliver bitcoins through a custodial account on the back end. this is how the SPEDN app is set up: https://cointelegraph.com/news/flexa-launches-app-where-shoppers-can-spend-crypto-at-15-major-us-retailers

that seems like a more practical and safe solution than trying to gauge how many customers you might gain/lose by risking (or not risking) zero-confirmation bitcoin payments.

i think trusted off-chain intermediaries like that are the direction things are headed until decentralized and instant point-of-sale solutions built on lightning (or other layer 2 protocols) are viable at scale.

it wouldn't. i assume he's got bigger fish to fry than our little poker game. i just hadn't heard from him and was wondering if anyone had.

there is already a premium for "virgin" coins. i think we can assume any coins blessed by an LBMA-like cartel will carry a premium for the same reason, since it can only limit the available supply for such institutional buyers. LBMA gold is only 5% of the world supply.

the real question then is how big will the premium be, and secondarily what will the world consider the real price to be---the set cartel price, or the unregulated spot price? people mostly defer to the london fix or COMEX for gold prices, but the supply chain issues seen in march/april and the resulting disparity among london, COMEX, and spot prices sure threw a wrench into things. when shit hits the fan, what matters is whether you can get your hands on real bitcoins. they will definitely carry a premium over contracts that can't be fulfilled.

either day works for me. i'm pretty open.

any word on the runner's up game? it'd be cool to run it at the same time.

if only we could get SwC to ease up on the chat restrictions. i hate not being able to respond at the table. i plan to grind up the krill one of these days but just haven't had much time to play outside of our weekly games. i'm also kinda worried they are just gonna jack up the krill requirement again.

EDIT: dang, was hoping to claw back some value in the lottery but no dice. congrats to the winners! this definitely hasn't been my series so far! only one cash IIRC. at least 9-man is more my game than 18-27 mans. see everyone in the final.....

has anyone heard from @BitcoinGirl.Club recently? he's still MIA from our poker league. i thought this might get sorted out fairly quickly, especially with @Sidechain admitting to the whole thing. i guess not.

goddamn it, another bubble, seriously? @Hhampuz is so lucky against me, every single time. he's raising every single hand, i have him dominated of course, jam in his face---and of course he hits his 2-outer. dude is consistently the luckiest guy in our series.

and no, i'm not bitter at all!



you guys are seriously lucky i run so bad in our games. one of these days it'll turn around. losing all the 60-40s is one thing, but these 80-20s fucking hurt! on the bubble no less......

you're welcome for handing you the ITM, @Improved!

ouch---been there!

final table time. i'm just beginning to sober up lol. it's been fun playing LAGgy and short-handed since we only had 12 runners---not surprising since it's the last qualifier.

@Steamtyme has been talking to himself in the chat for 2 hours. what a weirdo!

i hope those green boxes on the spreadsheet are correct---i can't do all the math right now. supposedly @bitmutiny, @arallmuus, @tyKiwanuka, me, @morvillz7z, and @Betwrong are all in the final already!

@Improved, @Steamtyme, @Hhampuz, @Iv4n, and @webtricks are fighting for the last 3 spots. good luck all!

not only did they spend years not moderating anything and cultivating a culture where you could say anything in chat, but they built a goddamn troll box into the site.

needless to say, they shouldn't be surprised they are now alienating regulars with this policy. not to mention noobs who are de facto banned from chatting at tables.

i'd be curious to know if it's affecting their bottom line. traffic has not been stellar as of late, and i've seen multiple people threaten to leave over it, between the chat, 2+2, and here.

i have no experience with higherhighs, but i've heard enough to conclude he is a problem.....