Friday, April 28: Vindicated

(Alright, with law school exams now essentially behind me, I look forward to getting back to posting here more regularly)

If you followed the two monster 2+2 threads (1, 2), you will see that the issue with my mother's PokerStars account was finally resolved, although it took some very involved intervention on my own part. It turned out that the Stars' security supervisor had simply made a mistake in interpreting the data...whereas he originally maintained that she had, at one point, played 43 consecutive hours, he admitted (after being told incessantly by me that there must be some mistake) that he had erred. Although I am frustrated that it took a lot of my own time (plus some serious heat from the 2+2 threads) to finally get this escalated to a level where the truth was ultimately discovered, I will say that both Jeff (the security guy) and Lee Jones wrote very gracious and humble apologies to my mother for a) accusing her of using a bot, which she clearly was not, and b) writing her very condescending and contemptuous emails. They were badly in the wrong, but ultimately realized their error and apologized with class. While I would like to, for now, put this ugly incident behind me, I encourage everyone to re-read the email that my mother sent to me, which I pasted in my last post. It really highlights the risks we all take in trusting offshore companies who really don't answer to any regulatory body with large sums of money.

So how have I been doing at the tables? Pretty well -- I hadn't posted a progress chart in a while, which I figured I would do today for 2006-to-date (below).



But wait! The above chart, while quite pretty, precedes by a day my admission into a very exclusive club: the "Five Figure Downswing Society!" While I await my membership card in the mail, I enthusiastically concede that I am currently on the receiving end of a $10,500 rectal rooting from party+stars. Thanks guys!! Displayed pictorially below:



Despite this, the foray into NL has been going quite well, although quite frustrating at times -- yesterday I got stacked by losing on a A,A,2,4 board holding 3,5 when opponent turned over only hand that he rationally could have beaten me with given the way he had played the hand (A,A). But on the whole I've been very happy with the way it's allowed me to expand my hold'em skill set. And it really is a far more intellectual game -- I'm at a point in my LHE education, where I can more or less turn my brain on autopilot, or come home very drunk, open a few tables and still manage a very good winrate, but have really noticed that I can really get my ass handed to me when I try to sit at the bigger NL games when my mental acuity isn't peaking. When I played a little short-stack bitch NL game, I managed approx 2.5 to 3 PTBB / 100, whereas I'm at around 4.5 to 5 PTBB/100 over my first 15,000 NL hands playing with a full stack (and it's far more enjoyable than short-stack anyway). No, my 5 PTBB isn't going to send any of the more skilled NL players cowering in fear, but I'm very much enjoying the game.

Very lastly (and although I have some more things to write about, I'll save them for the next few days), I know this is completely beyond the scope of this blog, but back during my fateful "$40,000 in 30 days" challenge detailed here, I got a lot of questions about just why I needed to have jaw surgery, then have my jaw wired shut for a month. Long story short, I always had a F'd up bite -- teeth were straight and healthy, but they simply dind't overlap like they should, which you can't fix with braces alone. So I needed to get surgery, and unfortunately braces too as part of the procedure. But they're off now, and here are the before (Dec 2004) and after (Mar 2006) pictures from the orthodontist's records. I am quite happy with the way everything turned out (click for larger image).