I was listening to a client talk and here’s what he said…
“I’ve been running great lately. My bankroll is at an all-time high. It’s nice to have a little breathing room.”
And I thought to myself…
Yes it’s nice to have a little breathing room. Everybody should have one.
My cousin Eddie and I went to Yosemite Valley. One day we were walking up the trail that goes to the top of Yosemite Falls and Eddie said something very funny.
Yosemite Falls is the tallest in North America. It has an upper and a lower. Here’s a picture of the back of Eddie’s head as it looks at the bottom of Upper Yosemite Falls. We had already gone up a long way to get here.
The first part of the trail is very steep, with many short switchbacks and lots of rocks. I was walking in front for a long stretch. Now and then we’d encounter others on the trail, going down. After a while, Eddie spoke up to tell me that he had noticed that I looked at the people in the face as they went by, ready to say howdy if they were the howdy types. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t.
Next Eddie shared with me the observations he’d made about the difference between the people in Warren Ohio, and the people in Minnesota where Eddie had recently visited. Ed’s conclusion was that the Minnesotans tend to say hi to strangers, whereas the Warrenians (Warreners? Warrenites? Warrentia?) are more likely to gaze intently at the ground while passing. Both cultures have now passed a tipping point where it feels equally odd, on average, to not say hi in Minnesota as it does to say hi in Ohio.
I pointed out that if he wanted a case in point, he could point to my case. I was a ground gazer when I lived in Ohio, and now, after much walking around in the California walking places, I’ve been helloed at so many time that I transformed into a hello-sayer. I can even initiate. Which I decided to start doing, for Ed’s amusement.
The next couple that came by did not look up as I looked right at them and said “Hi!” But I did startle them into a belated grunt of acknowledgment and a slight stumble.
I turned around to Eddie and said, “I think they were from Ohio.”
We got to the top of the steep ascension and the switchbacks stopped. The trail was now a slowly curving, nearly level piece of cake. Up to now we had been in a heavily wooded area. Suddenly we were clear of the trees, and we were getting our first huge views of the whole valley, from 1200 feet up, cliffside. We stopped in silent reverence for a while, and moved on.
We could see a couple approaching from 30 yards away. We could hear them too, gloppitting along. It was a combination of moaning, groaning, and the messy, clackety sound of poorly packed supplies and uncomfortable clothes.
By the time they were next to me, I was giggling inside, ungraciously. I could feel Eddie behind me doing the same thing.
“Good morning!” I chirped.
Nothing. They didn’t look up. Their sounds remained the same. Right on down the trail they went.
A moment passed, and Eddie said, “I think they were from Michigan.”
A few months ago I wrote about how destroying computer equipment could be the correct play for some poker players at certain times. That post is here.
That post inspired some guy named Greg to write the article below that Greg calls, “My mathematically driven project to find out the real EV behind tilt-induced mouse annihilation (or ‘TIMA’ as it’s never referred to).”
I saw Greg’s article at meltedfelt.com.
Greg’s own poker resource site is: http://www.thepokerbank.com
Enjoy! I sure did!
The EV of Smashing Your Mouse (mathsy version) – by Greg
So there I was reading this article by Tommy Angelo on the EV of mouse smashing. It’s really interesting and sheds a whole new light on one of my favourite pastimes.
The idea is that rendering your mouse inoperable prevents you from being able to continue playing poker whilst on tilt. Therefore, because the cost of your mouse is less than you would have lost had you continued to play, you actually save money.
However, like all sports fans my age I was left feeling a little empty due to the lack of mathematics. Just how +EV or -EV is it to smash your mouse? We need numbers. I needed to act quickly.
So I called up the Olsen twins, cancelled our threesome and started work on my mathematically driven project to find out the real EV behind tilt-induced mouse annihilation (or ‘TIMA’ as it’s never referred to).
The variables.
To come up with our equation for the EV of pitching your mouse to the nearest and firmest wall, we need to identify the variables that will effect how much money the act can save/lose us.
1) The cost of the mouse. Needs no explanation.
2) Collateral. Unless you’re playing outdoors, there’s a fair chance that the mouse isn’t going to be the only expense you have to deal with.
3) Your winrate whilst on tilt. This should in theory be very much negative thanks to your raging stupor, courtesy of a horrific bad beat.
4) The time in hours you would normally spend playing on tilt. The more blindly vengeful you are, the longer this glorious time period will be. This may be hard to judge however as severe bad beats tend to send us in to a tilt-coma that melts our own perception of space and time.
5) The time in hour you miss out on playing due to the lack of a pointing device for your computer. Can be referred to as “the downtime”. Assuming you manage to cool down before purchasing your next mouse, there will be a period where you’re actually missing out on playing poker and winning money.
6) Your standard winrate. We’ll need to combine this with our downtime to figure out how much cash monies we’re missing out on.
Now let’s force these all together to form an equation.
The equation.
• EVms = EV of smashing your mouse due to tilt.
• Play time is measure in hours.
• Winrates are measure in $/hour.
If you’re not good with maths don’t worry, just take it as it is and calm yourself down. It does make sense. If you are good at maths, I apologise for my god-awful notation (or lack of it).
This equation is all well and awesome, but it’s not really interesting unless we can plug in some numbers for different player types and work out the actual EV of mouse rape-age.
The EV of mouse smashing for different player types.
Let’s assume that each player experiences a 2 outer on the river and loses 200bbs. They then launch their mouse in an outward direction toward any hard surface or spouse. We’ll assume that if they didn’t break their mouse they would continue to play as they would under the influence of however much tilt they would experience thanks to the bad beat in question.
To make my life easier, let’s also assume that each player type plays $1/$2 NL Texas Hold’em cash and has the following:
• A mouse that costs $50.
• Collateral damage worth $25 on average per throw.
• A standard winrate of 6bb (big blinds) per hour when playing well. That’s $12/hour.
• Misses out on 4 hours worth of good playing time on average because they have no mouse after cooling down. That’s $48 in total.
The totally balanced player – The “Tommy Angelo”.
Tilt winrate = 6bb. Tommy Angelo doesn’t get tilted, tilt gets Tommy Angelo’d.
Tilt time = 0 hours. See above.
EV of mouse smashing for Tommy Angelo = -$123
If you never tilt, mouse smashing is never a +EV move.
The average player that gets a little pissed – The “Me or You”.
Tilt winrate = -25bb. Not great at all, but could be worse. We have a tendency to make more speculative shoves than normal. “Speculative” as in “bad”.
Tilt time = 1 hour. Sounds about right.
EV of mouse smashing for someone like yourself = -$73
Not really what I was expecting to be honest; I thought it would be a little closer to being +EV. Saying that, the “average” player type can vary by quite some margin, so you’re better off filling in the blanks for yourself.
The irate gambler – The “Phil Hellmuth playing a cash game”.
Tilt winrate = -200bb. Absolutely f*cking livid, one could say. Any skill you once had at the table is replaced by a new high-aggression frustration-driven strategy.
Tilt time = 3 hours. The vengeance factor is high here. The reason for stopping is due to lack of funds as opposed to actually coming to one’s senses.
EV of mouse smashing for Phil Hellmuth playing a cash game = +$277
It’s also worth noting that we have to keep an open mind whilst assuming that Phil Hellmuth would be able to achieve a winrate of 6bb at an NL cash table in the first place. Nonetheless, it’s very clear that irate gamblers benefit from a self-imposed suspension from play.
Conclusions.
Mouse smashing can pay off under the right conditions. Not for most level headed players though.
Don’t throw your mouse if you’re playing at micro or small stakes games. It’s unlikely to ever pay off.
Buy a cheaper mouse if you’re easily annoyed. The cost of the mouse should be inversely proportional to your susceptibility to uncontrollable rage.
A weighty mouse should create a much more satisfying smash, but increases the cost of collateral damage.
Phil Hellmuth shouldn’t play cash games.
It’s probably more +EV to just control your tilt rather than throw your mouse. Maybe.
Funny post went up today at DeucesCracked.com about The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment. This is in the thread for episode 4 (out of 8).
Post at DeucesCracked.com by RakeFactoryIMO on 3.25.10:
Hmm. I’ve been enjoying the series up until now. I started to watch this video, trying to relax and forget about my sinus infection making me feel miserable by focusing on something else for a while. What does it tell me to do? Focus on my breathing. Grr. I am mindful that I am angry about that. No, it is not helping. Life tilt ensues. I better watch something else for now or I might become the first person to smash my computer because I life tilted while watching a Tommy Angelo video.
Is this right quitting? LOL, haven’t gotten that far. <= somehow that helped
Dear congested,
I think you should try lying on one side until you get one nostril unplugged and then use that one to breathe through. And buy some computer calamity insurance.
Tommy
From an old folder, here’s a poker hand from 2002:
I was playing $20-40 limit hold’em at Lucky Chances during the thinning hours. The game had gone from too-loose when it was full, to just-right when it was seven-handed, to not-nearly-as-good-as-it-just-was when the last white guy busted out, and now we were down to six players. The next dealer was standing behind the current dealer, which meant that on the next hand it would be time for the half-hour time collection of $5 per player. It also meant that the game might break, since time-collection time is when people tended to quit, and this game was at that tender stage where one falling domino could wreck it all.
It was my small blind and I posted it. The big blind quit. The next player, who would now be the big blind, quit. The next player posted the big blind. We were now down to four players. I called time out and asked the floorman to come over.
This was tricky, a double cusp. I was on the small blind cusp which meant I didn’t want to post my small blind unless I knew I was going to get full value for it by then getting to play my button and cutoff. And I was on a quitting cusp because the game was looking like it might not be worth playing in. But I didn’t want to pay the $5 house collection for just three hands. Plus, for all I knew, the game would break right after I played the small blind. Cusps.
The floorman knew there would be a rush for the cage if he charged us anything at all this time around, so he made the standard and proper ruling, and he said we could play the next half hour for free. We the people said okay, thank you, deal us in.
I posted the small blind. The next guy posted the big blind, and we were in action. The first player folded, the button folded, I now it was just me and the big blind, an opponent who I normally chop with. I gave him a question-mark look, asking with my eyes, “Do you want to chop?” He said “Okay, we chop this time, but after that, we play, we shorthand, we gamble.”
“Gamble, we gamble,” the other three of us sung somewhat in chorus. “No more chop chop. Now we play. We gamble.” There was that happy little moment when a shorthanded game settles into phase.
Next hand, I had the button. The under-the-gun player limped. Yamaha Tony we called him, because he wore the same jacket everyday for like three years that had the word Yamaha on it. I raised. One of the blinds called and the other blind folded. Tony called my raise (recall that call later!) and there were three of us heading to the flop.
The flop came. The blind checked, Tony checked, and I checked.
The turn came. The blind checked, Tony checked, and I checked.
The river came. The blind checked, Tony bet, I folded, and the blind folded. That was it. Tony won the most least contested pot of the night.
Tony, in an animated Chinese accent several pitches higher than usual, said, “You guys say you gamble you no gamble none of you gamble we going to gamble or go home?”
Then he turned over pocket aces.
And laughed. As did we all.
And went home. As did we all.
Gonnagowalkin
Look up and around
Gonnagowalkin
And notice the ground
Gonnagowalkin
Stepping and breathing
Gonnagowalkin
Bridle the seething
Gonnagowalkin
And sit by the creek
Gonnagowalkin
Seems the sky sprung a leak
Gonnagowalkin
Watch myself blinking
Gonnagowalkin
Gaze at my thinking
Gonnagowalkin
With trees in a puddle
Gonnagowalkin
With selfs in a huddle
Gonnagowalkin
And sit on a rail
Gonnagowalkin
Here comes a train, bail!
Gonnagowalkin
See only what’s there
Gonnagowalkin
See:
Gonnagowalkin
Hip hip hooray!
Gonnagowalkin
It’s how I pray
I remember decades ago hearing about Van Halen’s singer David Lee Roth and his outrageously persnickety demand that there be M&Ms waiting for him backstage at all of his concerts, with all the brown ones removed!
I recall thinking, what a dick. This is rockstardom gone too far. How terrible it must be to have to work with or for this creep. Or really to have anything to do with him at all. The thing is, I always liked Van Halen’s music. I was never a huge fan the way I am with some of the other rock bands. But I always listened to their songs when they came on the radio. Even though their lead singer was a prima donna asshole.
Up until yesterday, if you had brought up Van Halen to me, the first thoughts that would have popped into my head were: Great rock band. Spectacular and innovative guitar player. Great drum and bass grooves, and great drum and bass sound. Great singer too, as a singer, but personally, I can’t stand the guy. That final opinion, the one about the singer David Lee Roth, had grown in my mind over the years, without me even realizing it, because of the M&M thing.
Everything changed yesterday in the span of a few sentences. Kay showed me an article by Dan and Chip Heath that was in the March issue of Fast Company. The writers referenced David Lee Roth and the M&M story for their purpose, which was to make a point about businesses. I will reference the M&M story for my purpose, which is to make a point about assumptions. Here is the pertinent part of the Fast Company article:
Consider Van Halen. In its 1980s heyday, the band became notorious for a clause in its touring contract that demanded a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with all the brown ones removed. The story is true — confirmed by former lead singer David Lee Roth himself — and it became the perfect, appalling symbol of rock-star-diva behavior.
Get ready to reverse your perception. Van Halen did dozens of shows every year, and at each venue, the band would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical complexity, the band’s standard contract with venues was thick and convoluted — Roth, in his inimitable way, said in his autobiography that it read “like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages.” A typical “article” in the contract might say, “There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes.”
Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, “There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he’d walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he’d demand a line check of the entire production. “Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error,” he wrote. “They didn’t read the contract…. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show.”
In other words, Roth was no diva. He was an operations expert. He couldn’t spend hours every night checking the amperage of each socket. He needed a way to assess quickly whether the stagehands at each venue were paying attention — whether they had read every word of the contract and taken it seriously. In Roth’s world, a brown M&M was the canary in the coal mine.
Today, wanting to verify all of this, and also curious as to why Roth would let the M&M story live and thrive since it painted him ugly, I searched the web, and I found everything I was hoping to find in one paragraph at Wikipedia:
In 1997, Roth wrote a well-received memoir, entitled Crazy From the Heat. The 359-page book was whittled down from over 1,200 pages of monologues, which were recorded and transcribed by a Princeton University graduate who followed Roth around for almost a year. Among the book’s revelations, aside from stories about backyard parties, Van Halen, and catching malaria in Third world jungles, was the infamous “Brown M&Ms” clause written into Van Halen’s early contract riders. The clause was included in contracts not because of ego, but rather to make sure that structural stage specifications in the contract were read thoroughly and were adequately provided. Roth writes of a time when he found brown M&Ms in a bowl and subsequently had a fit. In the press, he was accused of causing US$85,000 worth of damage to the arena. Most of the monetary damages were due to Van Halen’s staging sinking through the floor. Roth writes, “they didn’t bother to look at the weight requirements or anything, and this sank through their new flooring and did eighty-thousand dollars worth of damage to the arena floor. The whole thing had to be replaced. It came out in the press that I discovered brown M&Ms and did $85,000 worth of damage to the backstage area. Well, who am I to get in the way of a good rumor?”
If I had a nickle for every time I have made a wrong assumption about someone that caused me or them suffering, I’d have an incalculable sum, because most of the wrong assumptions I make remain wrong forever because I never find out they are wrong. Or at least that’s what I assume.
Here’s what was particularly wrong about my wrong assumption about David Lee Roth and his M&Ms. One of the traits I most admire in a person, and especially in an artist, is someone who, in the words of the Heath brothers, is an “operations expert.” A detail freak. A geek in expressionist clothing. A minutia man. A preparer. Not surprisingly, I admire these qualities because that’s how I want to be. So for 25 years, I have been scolding Roth in my mind, when actually, I should have been praising him for his admirable priorities, and his clever tactic, but I couldn’t, because one wrong assumption has been in the way.
Bottom line: I heretofore commit to continually recommitting to trying to like hell to not make assumptions about people and their priorities and just take things as they are when they are without adding on my usual heaps of judgments and assumptions and other pain-causing crap.
My first year as an altar boy, the masses were in Latin. It took me a long time to learn all the words. I was very proud to have done it and thereby earned the right to be an altar boy. And I was definitely going to be a priest when I grew up.
My second year as an altar boy, they changed everything to English. I was really pissed off at God for making me learn the Latin mass and then changing his mind.
Soon after that, when I was 10, I had my first doubt about my religion. It sprang directly from one specific bit of logic. I already knew that Jesus was the Son of God. He was divine. At age 10 I learned that the Jews thought that Jesus was merely a prophet. He was special, yes, but he wasn’t divine, according to them. And they were absolutely sure they were right. But my side was sure we were right too. This meant that there was a large group of people – either us or them – that was absolutely sure they were right, but must be absolutely wrong, since both sides could not be right. How could I really know for sure which side was right? Wasn’t it at least possible that my side was wrong? I determined yes, it was possible. In that case, it was simply up to me to pick a side. Yet I really had nothing tangible to go on.
And thus was born on the earth another agnostic.
Over the next ten years I morphed gradually until one day I decided to call myself an atheist based on the grounds that I really, really, really didn’t think there was an interactive all-knowing omni-present universe-creating being.
20+ years after that, I started meditating, which is basically a type of concentration exercise. Because of my mental workouts every morning, I am now able to beam myself back in time and do things like feel the rack of bells in my hand that I used to ring during mass when the priest drank from the chalice and ring again when he ate the Eucharist. I can feel my knees on the hard wood of the first of three stairs that lead up to the altar. From side stage, I look up at the priest. I can see him move ever so slowly. I can hear little bits of throat-clearing and clothes rustling from the cavernous reverberating chamber where people are sitting in silence.
I can see the priest lift the chalice to drink. With two hands. Father always used two hands.
From my books on meditation and mindfulness, I have learned how to pay attention to what I am doing. When I first get up in the morning, I walk slowly to the kitchen sink, I turn the water on, I hear it, I see it, I put a glass under the water and I watch and listen as the glass fills. I turn the water off. I stand straight. I put my feet together and make sure again that I am standing straight. I raise the water to my mouth. With two hands. Always two hands. It is impossible to be unmindful with two hands on the chalice.
Saturday night at 8 p.m., I was home alone when my phone rang. It was Kay. “Listen to this!” she screamed. I strained my ears and mind to discern whatever patterns I could. I couldn’t make it out. But I did recognize the sounds of loudness.
Kay was calling from the Oakland Coliseum. She was at the Elton John and Billy Joel concert. Her friend Betsy’s company had bought a box that holds 12, but the day before the show, they only had 11 bodies. Kay got the call. I was way more excited for her than she was. Until I got the call. She was happily hysterical…
“I really really REALLY wish you could be here!” she shouted. “You should see these guys on their pianos! Wow! It’s amazing! They are having the time of their lives! It’s like they are little boys!”
And then there was Daltrey and especially Townshend at the Super Bowl. Pete Townshend, the definition of unleashed chaos otherwise known as rock and roll. His command of the force is no more or less than it ever was. And then there’s the Neil Young concert I went to not that long ago. A man who has never been pretty, but has always been beautiful to me. And there’s the Tom Petty concert a few years before that. I was so inspired I came home and wrote a book. And The Rolling Stones – Yes Mick, I do know that you know it’s only rock and roll, and yes, you’ve convinced me, you really do like it. And I love you for the reminder.
Much of what is me – my philosophy, my outlook, my artistic flow – came directly from the words and music of rock and rollers. When I was young, they were young, and they taught me how to be young. Now that I’m older, they are older too, so now they are teaching me how to grow old, by continuing to teach me how to be young. And that’s the lesson that never grows old.
Dear blog readers:
This is a true story that I wrote up back when it happened. I just found it in a folder called “really old non-poker stories.” Enjoy!
Battle of the Bands
This was late 1980’s. I was playing in a very good band that was regionally famous. We’d been together for a long time. All five of us were full-time musicians, making enough to buy houses and raise families and such. We were what one might call: for real.
We played about half the time locally, in major bars that booked us 5 nights per week, and the rest of the time we went on the road, playing the same type of week-long engagements. We had a truck, a van, and CB radios. One day we were traveling from one gig to another, out in the middle of nowhere, and we passed a huge dance hall that had a giant marquee that said, “Battle of the Bands — Today at 1:00 PM — Entry fee: $25.”
It was 11:30 a.m., and it was a full day off for us. We did not have to set up and play that night. The other band members wanted to turn around, go back to the dance hall, and enter the competition. I reminded them that we had taken a solemn vow years ago to never again enter a Battle of the Bands. But the setting was apparently too sweet to resist. We mulled it over, and like an alcoholic falling off the wagon, we turned around and pulled into the dance hall parking lot.
We went inside and met Delbert, the owner. He told us that the dance hall is only open on Saturday nights, except for one Sunday per year, today. He said that the local talent prepares all year for this day.
There were nine entrants. Each act was to do three songs. We were scheduled last. First prize was $500. Second prize was $200. Third prize was an antique accordion.
(I secretly imagined that I could throw the competition so precisely as to land us third prize, since I was the only one in the band who knew his way around a piano keyboard, and I’d often thought about getting an accordion just to have one.)
We enjoyed the show from backstage. My favorite performer was Ginger, a delightful, confident nine-year-old girl who sang Patsy Cline songs. She was good, by any standard. The most amusing performer was Rodney. Rodney was a giant man who played a miniature harmonica. Everyone loved him. Another crowd favorite was a band called “The Boys up the Creek.” They had not been boys for 50 years.
As it became clear what the situation was, I had an attack of conscience. I called for a band huddle, just before we went on stage. I asked the band if anyone else was feeling funky about swooping down like hawks and snatching these people’s $500 and then flying away. They mumbled and nodded and shifted their feet. But we all knew it was too late to back out.
We hit the stage as usual, full throttle. The music, the lights, the crowd, it always infused us with a cohesive energy that was 10 times bigger than the sum of our parts, all in the time it takes to count to four.
By our third song, the dance floor was hopping, for the first time all day. At the end of the song, we were supposed to be done with our set. Delbert got on the house PA and yelled, “You can’t stop now boys!” (Translation: “People are buying drinks now.”) So we played for another half hour.
Backstage again, a wrinkled, gray man approached us. “You guys are the best band that’s played here in 40 years.” He was one of the judges. We were a lock for first prize.
Delbert took the stage. He announced third place. My accordion fantasy was shattered. Then he announced second place. It was Ginger. She radiated pure bliss as she accepted the $200. Then Delbert put on his biggest voice while we anticipated the inevitable, “And first place goes to…”
“Rodney Jones!”
Huh? We were dismayed, yet relieved. Shocked, yet comforted. After we packed up our instruments and loaded them into the truck, we went out into the hall and we found Delbert mingling at the judge’s table. “Great job, boys. Let’s talk some business. I want to hire you guys and work you into my rotation for Saturday nights.”
The person in our band who is our front man, and energy source, and who usually does all the speaking in these situations, is my cousin, A.J. Angelo. A.J. said, “Thanks Delbert. Yeah, we’ll talk. But about today’s contest, I mean, not that we expected to win or anything, but still, we couldn’t help but wonder why we didn’t even get third place.” He was stammering, somewhat embarrassed, but gnawingly curious, as we all were, as to just what the heck happened here.
One of the judges looked up quickly, with concern, and said to us, “Are you saying that you guys were in the competition? Delbert came up to us half way through your first song and told me and the other judges that he had hired you guys to finish off the show with a bang. Delbert? What’s going on here?”
“S’okay,” Delbert said. “These are good boys. They didn’t want to run off with Rodney’s money anyways, did ya boys?”
Delbert had read us perfectly. How did he know? It didn’t matter now. All was right in the world, except for one thing. “Hey Delbert,” A.J. said with a grin. “Do you think we could get our twenty five bucks back?”
