Bacon - Nuff' Said...

MondoHawkins on Starting to get into live play. Where to begin Reddit?

2012-02-08T21:04:44.238116+00:00-0700

If you had no concept of position, odds, outs, etc and you still won, you didn't beat the game. You got lucky. Fool yourself on that point at your own peril. Everyone suggesting you should take a shot at 1/2 with 2.5-5 buy ins is wrong. Just plain, flat out wrong. That is not a bankroll, it's what one takes out of their bankroll to play one night of poker. To be properly rolled for a 100bb 1/2 game you need a $4000 bankroll, minimum. (20 buy ins) It's pretty obvious you're itching to play though, so here's my suggestion. Deposit a 20 buyin 100bb bankroll online for the lowest stake (eg. $80 for 4NL at Merge). Play 10,000 hands (which is still a very small sample) and check your winrate. If you can't beat the lowest online microstake, you damn sure shouldn't be playing 1/2 as a college student with a part time job and no disposable income.

MondoHawkins on How should i go about building or buying a solid circular poker table?

2012-02-08T17:59:55.909203+00:00-0700

$154 - http://www.pokerchips.com/48-octagon-poker-table-with-folding-legs-blue.html

MondoHawkins on Need input from SD redditors: planning on moving to San Diego from FL and need advice on neighborhoods

2012-02-06T15:06:01.040664-07:00-0700

If living near the beach is your thing, you should be able to find lots of 2bd in Ocean Beach for under $1700. It's a very dog friendly area too.

MondoHawkins on Taking a shot - Am I crazy?

2012-02-06T14:02:47.759930-07:00-0700

Gotcha, I assumed IT was your chosen field as opposed to something to make money at for now.

MondoHawkins on Taking a shot - Am I crazy?

2012-02-06T13:45:05.598494-07:00-0700

I've been in IT (software engineer) for 16 years. The industry is booming right now (in the US at least). I get at minimum 2 emails a week interested in me for job openings. IMO, there is no safer industry to be in right now. Sounds like you're just at the bottom of the ladder experience-wise. Quitting to play poker at this stage of your IT career isn't a +EV move in my book. Assuming you're decide to continue pursuing IT, get on LinkedIn if you're not already. That's where most of the interest I receive comes from.

MondoHawkins on A question from a noob: maximum buy-in.

2012-02-06T08:20:05.450912-07:00-0700

If you know you are the weakest at the table, you should find a new table. Table selection is key to winning poker.

MondoHawkins on Does anyone play on a Mac?

2012-02-03T07:45:20.058400-07:00-0700

I have the VM installed for software development. I never really intended to play through it, so I only tried it once. I just tried it again out of sheer curiosity though, and it was running at normal speed this time. Already had the drivers installed and acceleration turned on. Dunno why it was so bad the last time I tried it.

MondoHawkins on My wife is texting a guy 80–100 times a day and meeting with him secretly

2012-02-02T17:32:31.370645-07:00-0700

Please make sure you do this. My ex-wife was texting another guy like this. I called her out on it being an emotional affair. She denied it at first and then a day or so later told me I was right. She told this guy (who was a friend of mine too) what I had said and he cut off communication with her out of respect for me. Mere weeks later, she got blacked out drunk at a party and cheated on me with a different dude. I only found out because his wife emailed me and told me about it. I blew up at her and started packing my shit to leave. Eventually, after much begging and pleading, I agreed to give her one last chance provided very strict conditions were met. 1. Marriage counseling. 2. She had to go to individual therapy. 3. No going out without me until she rebuilt trust. She never went to individual therapy. She stopped going to marriage counseling after a few months. About 10 months after this she started going out without me again, was doing coke, and eventually moved up to crystal meth. That's when I left her. (April, 2011) The point I wanted to make though, is that I started going to individual therapy when I found out she cheated on me. I continued going until I lost my medical insurance about 6 months later. As soon as I got new medical insurance I went back. I'm still seeing my psychologist once every two weeks and it has helped immensely. I'm in a very good place in my life now, couldn't give a fuck less about my ex anymore, and would never put up with this kind of bullshit again. Be strong, brother. You will get through this one way or another.

MondoHawkins on Does anyone play on a Mac?

2012-02-02T16:42:14.444043-07:00-0700

I do use PT3 on a Mac. PT3 has a subscription based table finding service. http://www.pokertracker.com/products/TT/ Regarding VMs, I have a May 2011 Macbook Pro with an SSD and 8gb of RAM. I run a Windows 7 VM (VirtualBox) that I've given 2gb of RAM. The Merge client is horribly slow. I think it's related to the graphics emulation. PStars client may be better, but you'd have to give it a shot. Also, I'm in the PT4 private beta, and it is friggin' awesome. Giant UI improvement and tons of cool new features. It's a free upgrade, when it's released, for anyone buying PT3 now.

MondoHawkins on It never sounds as good at the party as it did in my headphones.

2012-02-01T17:29:33.712251-07:00-0700

If studio monitors will create a big problem with your neighbors, you can still mix with headphones and do the multiple system referencing thing. It's just that with studio monitors, once you learn their quirks, you'll get a lot closer to a good mix before you start referencing. Edit: Also, it's best to mix at a medium volume and not the level it will be played at a club. Check that later when you think your mix is good.

MondoHawkins on It never sounds as good at the party as it did in my headphones.

2012-02-01T17:20:30.827819-07:00-0700

>as it did in my headphones There's the problem. Mixing with headphones, even "studio" headphones with a flat response, is no where near optimal. Get yourself some studio monitors and reference your mixes on as many systems as you can get your hands on.

MondoHawkins on Going All-in Pre Flop. WTF?

2012-02-01T16:51:11.096956-07:00-0700

I enjoying playing maniacs as long as I have position on them. I just open my 3 bet range to isolate and raise a bit less than 3x. Works pretty well at the lower micros where there's not a lot of light 4 betting.

MondoHawkins on Black cats have been found to have lower odds of adoption in American shelters compared to other colors. Share their cuteness to battle this!

2012-02-01T16:13:08.747347-07:00-0700

Yep, it's all about the lighting. Here's a few of my black cat. http://imgur.com/a/nNRaX For the first, the room was really dark. I had to take a long exposure, and still ended up brightening with post processing. Thus the soft focus. I took the second when I was when I was first learning photography years ago with a P&S that decided to focus on her ears instead of her face. Didn't have the skills to do it better back then.

MondoHawkins on Black cats have been found to have lower odds of adoption in American shelters compared to other colors. Share their cuteness to battle this!

2012-02-01T16:03:03.845625-07:00-0700

Those are grainy as a beach. Seems like you're also using a high ISO setting or doing some post.

MondoHawkins on Going All-in Pre Flop. WTF?

2012-02-01T14:58:40.926019-07:00-0700

Assuming you're talking about cash games, these players are rarely a factor for very long. I've never seen one of them go for more than 20-30 hands without getting felted at least once. The more resilient of this type may even reload a few times, but they leave the table in fairly short order too. I've had great luck felting this type of player at the micros with medium pocket pairs, medium aces, and broadways.

DIY kit to build an RFID poker table & video overlay system (not sure how I feel about RFID decks though)

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:49:42 -0700

submitted by MondoHawkins to poker
[link] [5 comments]

MondoHawkins on Switching from Java to .net

2012-02-01T14:40:36.468197-07:00-0700

This just about sums it up. I'd only add that there are .net ports of many popular Java libraries. They almost always have an "N" at the start or their name. (eg. NUnit = JUnit, NHibernate = Hibernate, etc...)

MondoHawkins on Has anybody else not heard anything yet?

2012-02-01T14:15:01.830738-07:00-0700

>Even with all of the cloud computing/"scale up to wherever you need" stuff? Exactly. As a software engineer, my opinion of their development team is very low.

MondoHawkins on Biggest pet peeve ever.

2012-01-30T14:28:38.064104-07:00-0700

> I'm sure there are some people out there who do it just to bug you (and it works, apparently) I keep chat turned on solely to listen for people complaining. Then I do whatever they complain about over and over in an attempt to get them to tilt. It works really well against the people who type "zzzzz..." or something similar when someone is tanking. Those people aren't usually thinking players anyway, but they almost always stop thinking entirely when I do it.

MondoHawkins on Determining opponents' hand ranges (noob question #103)

2012-01-27T08:48:31.898267-07:00-0700

It depends on how positionally aware they are. A player who understands the value of position will open and call wider when they have it.

MondoHawkins on Texas Hold'em Tournament Set Up Help. 1 Hour Tournament. 8-10 People Playing.

2012-01-27T08:44:52.514864-07:00-0700

As others have said, you'd be better off making the tournament longer. At least 2 hours, preferably 3. [Blind Valet](http://blindvalet.com/) will do all the structuring for you.

MondoHawkins on My first 1000 hands (molecule in proverbial bucket)

2012-01-26T00:25:18.072458-07:00-0700

Depends a lot on the style, but somewhere in the mid 20's is considered standard for 6 max.

MondoHawkins on Online poker for extra cash. How viable an option would it be?

2012-01-26T00:21:52.518857-07:00-0700

The final percent assumes you will trade all of your VIP points for cash. Also, you will not necessarily get the exact percent back each month. I break each VIP point down to a cash value based on the tier and multiply it by the total number of points you earn in the month. For example, at the Earth tier, you can trade 500 points for $3. If you earned 700 VIP points in a month the calculation would say you made $4.20 in cash redemptions. You'd only be able to actually redeem 500 of your 700 points for $3 though. You'd see the rest of the rebate the following month unless you carried 300 points forward from the prior month. Here's the whole shebang for 200NL. **Assumptions** * Hands Per Hour: 90 * Tables: 4 * Hours per Month: 80 * Rake (bb/100): 10 * Win Rate (bb/100): 4 **Game: 200NL - $1.00/$2.00** * VIP Level: **Ether** * Hands Played: 28800 (345600 per year) * Hands To Reach Level: 12500 * Hours To Reach Level: 34.72 * Points Earned: 57600 * Rake Paid: $5760 * Rake Rebate: $2016 * Cash Redeemed: $576 * Raw Winnings: $2304 * Winnings With Rebate: $4320 * Total Winnings: $4896 * Total % Back: 45% * Winnings per year: $58752 * VIP Level: **Water** * Hands Played: 28800 (345600 per year) * Hands To Reach Level: 5000 * Hours To Reach Level: 13.89 * Points Earned: 57600 * Rake Paid: $5760 * Rake Rebate: $864 * Cash Redeemed: $506.88 * Raw Winnings: $2304 * Winnings With Rebate: $3168 * Total Winnings: $3674.88 * Total % Back: 23.8% * Winnings per year: $44098.56 * VIP Level: **Fire** * Hands Played: 28800 (345600 per year) * Hands To Reach Level: 1500 * Hours To Reach Level: 4.17 * Points Earned: 57600 * Rake Paid: $5760 * Rake Rebate: $576 * Cash Redeemed: $460.8 * Raw Winnings: $2304 * Winnings With Rebate: $2880 * Total Winnings: $3340.8 * Total % Back: 18% * Winnings per year: $40089.6 * VIP Level: **Wind** * Hands Played: 28800 (345600 per year) * Hands To Reach Level: 375 * Hours To Reach Level: 1.04 * Points Earned: 57600 * Rake Paid: $5760 * Rake Rebate: $432 * Cash Redeemed: $403.2 * Raw Winnings: $2304 * Winnings With Rebate: $2736 * Total Winnings: $3139.2 * Total % Back: 14.5% * Winnings per year: $37670.4 * VIP Level: **Earth** * Hands Played: 28800 (345600 per year) * Hands To Reach Level: 125 * Hours To Reach Level: 0.35 * Points Earned: 57600 * Rake Paid: $5760 * Rake Rebate: $345.6 * Cash Redeemed: $345.6 * Raw Winnings: $2304 * Winnings With Rebate: $2649.6 * Total Winnings: $2995.2 * Total % Back: 12% * Winnings per year: $35942.4

MondoHawkins on My first 1000 hands (molecule in proverbial bucket)

2012-01-25T17:08:15.538427-07:00-0700

I'd definitely start with the Beginner Threads at 2+2, specifically, [The Complete Guide to Beating the Micros](http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/complete-guide-beating-micros-430637/). Theory of Poker would be a good book to start with, or the Harrington on Cash Games books (though only his tourney specific books are listed in that thread). Also, keep in mind that these books will be giving some advice that doesn't apply at the microstakes, basically anything regarding bluffing or extracting thin value.

MondoHawkins on What things similar to mathematics can I use to improve my game?

2012-01-25T17:00:53.370371-07:00-0700

Here's a few books. The first focuses, obviously, on the mental game. The second covers all the relevant math and gives several shortcuts. [Mental Game of Poker](http://mentalgameofpoker.com/) [Poker Math That Matters](http://www.qtippoker.com/poker-math-that-matters/)