i am an online fish

last week, i started playing online poker for the first time. i’ve always told myself not to start cos i might get addicted, but with the lack of lower limit home games around now, online poker is a convenient alternative. so i have allocated a 500SGD bankroll, and if i get busted i’ll stop playing online.

Currently online i have started at 0.25USD/0.50USD cash games, and i’d like to say that its been a breeze but to be honest i’m having alot of difficulty adjusting to online poker. in fact its been incredibly frustrating. what is of particular concern is my variance. my bankroll has gone from 500SGD to 600SGD on day 1, 740SGD (day 2), 400SGD (day 3), 570SGD (day 4), 540SGD (day 5), 510SGD (day 6), 680SGD (day 7). i’m really not used to this as my variance at all. what also bothers me is that i’ve been playing so differently from how i play live.

over the past 3 years, ive been playing a super tight and moderately aggresive game, and what happens is that i’ll win abit per session (half to one and a half buy-ins), win abit, win abit, win abit, win abit, win abit then lose alot (2 buy-ins). over the past year that has helped me to grow my bankroll fairly comfortable, considering i havent been playing that often. i’m definitely not anywhere near the most profitable of my friends, but overall i’ve been a winning player. i think that’s also because some of the times that i’ve been playing badly have not been exposed, as the standard of players of what i’m used to in the casinos or in home games is not as high as online. but the fluctuations i’ve experienced online have forced me to search for the leaks in my online game, and this is what i’ve come up with.

– i get restless online

in a live game when i’m out of a hand, i start to talk to people, i look around, basically i dont get bored. i can sit there and fold every single hand for hours and still be fine. online i start itching to play hands after 15 mins. as such, my hand selection online is much much wider than in live games. this is asking for trouble in a 10 handed game

– i am overly loose (in a 10 handed game)

i realised that at 10-handed 0.25USD/0.50USD tables online, everyone plays pretty tight. as such, i have taken to raising with any 2 hands in the dealer button and cutoff in a limp pot. i never do this in a live 10 handed game. with that i have stolen alot of blinds, but when i get called, i’ll continuation bet the flop if it gets checked to me. this sucks when the guy makes a hand cos i’ll blow off a whole lot of money to him. so while some people can turn water into wine by playing mediocre hands and outplaying opponents post flop, from now on i’m only playing solid hands in 10 handed

– i need to be more passive when playing raised pots

somehow in raised pots out of position, when i make a big hand and i bet out they either fold (online players seldom pay you off with a mediocre hand), raise or call (then i am tempted to fire on the turn if there’s no danger card). so that way i dont make if i have the best hand, and if i’m against the nuts i lose alot. i seem to have made more by letting the pre flop raiser take the lead again post flop.

– i need to stop paying off on the river

again this is a bad habit i have developed since playing online. why do i keep thinking people are betting or raising me on the river with nothing? in live games i’ll throw my hand away so fast on the river if i have nothing. this has been costing me quite abit. it seems that online players at these low stakes seldom get their money in bad when they’re all in.

yup so thats the update from week 1. i’m probably giving away alot of information on my play, but i’m still learning the game so any advice is most welcome. that and i know there are so many of friends who are better players than me read this blog so guys help me out!

payback is a bitch

well what can i say, they got me good. damnit!

one day after my birthday (which was friday), i was supposed to go to steve’s house to study cos i had exams on monday. and lo and behold, alot of my friends were there to surprise me. army friends, smu friends. what nice friends i have, taking time when its only days to the exam to celebrate my birthday!

so i was having a good time, catching up mostly with my army friends. what was strange though, was that many of my friends, steve especially were saying that i had to do a birthday dance or song, if not i would regret it. i was like ya right whats the worst that can happen, so i told steve to get a life.

and then it happened

steve said “you better apologize”. i was like “no apologize for what?”. then he said “dont want to apologize right” then he opened the door. “you open the door like someone is going to come… WHAT THE HELL??”

STEVEN LIM (YES THAT STEVEN LIM) JUMPED THROUGH THE DOOR!!

steve sterilized his sofa after this photo

i was seriously shell shocked. then i was seriously nervous. i dont know how to describe what he did next. it was like he was screeching, having a fit, stripping and spasming all at once. watch it for yourself on facebook here, here and here. i should have jumped out from steve’s balcony, it would have been less painful.

all i have to say is congrats to geri (she is my girlfriend and she subjected me to this!) steve kong, ian ho (he is in bloody taiwan and he can plan this), zhixin, yoons, gabriel, matt, g, zhennan, hongxi, yinghao, charles boo, emmanuel, yixuan, sacha, vanessa chan, shan jin etc.

I GOT PUNKED

for those of you concerned about my physical well being since the traumatic experience, i can proudly say that the counselling has helped i no longer break into cold sweat when i see yellow things.

at steve’s house,

steven lim: i have morals, there are some things i will never do!

tim: like?

steven lim: i will not dance in underwear!

tim: but you danced in swimming trunks

steven lim: its different! you see! (points to parts of his swimming trunks)

tim: nono please stop

so this is link love…

at podcamp amelia was talking about giving support to other blogs by linking them either on your sidebar, in your text, or through your twitter/plurk etc

as such, i’d like to thank miccheng, derrickkwa and dk for the links. while aim of this blog is not to generate hits, the increase in traffic certainly has been encouraging!

birthday pranks

i’m sure alot of you have heard about the latest uproar about the acjc girl being tied up on her birthday. for those that havent, check the video out here: part 1, part 2 and part 3

basically, it was this acjc girl’s birthday, and her girlfriends tied her up to the pull up bars in school, and started throwing cake and milk at her. clips of this incident were previously uploaded on youtube, and it has been publicly condemned on radio (perfect 10) and on the papers today.

i guess this piece of news caught my eye cos i’ve been the instigator, victim, accomplice and on-looker to numerous similar (most are more extreme, some are less) birthday pranks. watching the clips, it brings back many funny memories. for the most part, these pranks are just for fun, and always look worse from an outsiders point of view. in acsi and acjc, it was tradition for birthday boys get tao poks (laid flat on the ground while others jump and lie on top of him to form a stack) or to be stripped naked.

in army, things went up a notch. just ask the boys from 5 coy, not only do you get stripped, you get tied to a gate, a stretcher, a bed post, AND you get a full assortment of army supplies put all over your body. you’re talkng about camo, black tape, deep heat etc on various parts of your body. a guy in camp even had an old mop rubbed over his groin (this is a story that all plt 13 guys will remember haha).

back in the day, these birthday pranks operated on 2 unwritten rules.

first, if you want to get involved in someone else’s birthday prank, you have to be prepared that someone is gonna get you on your birthday. in other words, if you wanna give punishment you got to be able to take.

the second would be that girls aren’t subjected to such pranks. i dont know why but in our time, it just wouldnt be something that we would consider.

i’m not gonna pass any judgement on the acjc girl incident, it could honestly be that the girl was ok with the prank, or she could have instigated many other birthday pranks. i was just wondering though:

is it common for girls to be subjected to such pranks today? where do you draw the line?

about 3 years ago in camp after the mop incident,

poh: oh my god

tim: why?

poh: that mop that was used to rub his groin

tim: ya?

poh: it has been used to clean up every single merlion, urinal, toilet bowl clog and who knows what else since we’ve been here. it could have even been used for the previous company

tim: oh my god

the tribe has spoken

the truth hurts, steve. but if i had to do project with you all over again, i would. i’d do it in a heatbeat.

i would just get more sleep the night before we work on the project.

i how brother?

Rewind 4 Days Ago:

an email thread between steve and me. read it from bottom to top.

_____________________________________________
From: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:36 PM
To: YOUNG En Timothy
Subject: RE:

Dude, your votes are still more than mine

_____________________________________________
From: YOUNG En Timothy
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:35 PM
To: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Subject: RE:

Suck it look now

_____________________________________________
From: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:14 PM
To: YOUNG En Timothy
Subject: RE:

Whatever bitch, look at the polls now.

_____________________________________________
From: YOUNG En Timothy
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:07 PM
To: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Subject: RE:

Please just watch the poll results

_____________________________________________
From: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:06 PM
To: YOUNG En Timothy
Subject: RE:

Whatever man. I am asking everyone to vote for you.

_____________________________________________
From: YOUNG En Timothy
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:05 PM
To: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Subject: RE:

Let the voters decide

_____________________________________________
From: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:03 PM
To: YOUNG En Timothy
Subject: RE:

You are bitch. King Yau and Lionel can testify to that. You don’t see them working late for corp rep!

_____________________________________________
From: YOUNG En Timothy
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 8:55 PM
To: KONG Yee Mun Steve
Subject:

Aye now we’re gonna see who is pulling who down

Fast Forward to Present Day:

Steve Kong – 24 votes

Me – 21 votes

Geri – 19 votes

Bad luck – 6 votes

Others – 2 votes

top 5 worst project nights (and technically the next day) ever

its week 12 and 13 in term 1 in smu, so not only have i had no time for poker, but also no time for anything other than projects, presentation and reports. the past tuesday night i had possibly one of the worst project nights in my entire 4 years in smu. as such i have decided to make a commitment to NEVER WORK LAST MINUTE FOR A PROJECT EVER AGAIN.

for those of you that have heard me make this commitment before, i am dead serious this time, even though i make this commitment every semester. i’m year 4 goddamnit I CANT DO THIS ANYMORE!!!!!

the past tuesday actually brought to mind many horrible memories of past project stayovers, so here’s my top 5 (there are actually many many more so i’m starting to think that its me):

TOP 5 WORST PROJECT NIGHTS (starting with the least bad)

5) LTB in year 1

location: smu gsr

time: from 10pm to 5am

the happy campers: u-jin, me

after our LTB (leadership and team building its a module in smu) presentation, my group including myself was damn relaxed as the presentation had gone pretty well. good, everybody was happy. everything appeared smooth until the day before the report submission, i happened to take a look at the compiled report. this was at 830pm the night before.

MY GOD IT WAS ESSENTIALLY 7 INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS AND NOT 1 REPORT

not only was the writing style different (which is common in report compiling) but they totally did not connect. i quickly called up u-jin and we met at 10pm and proceeded to spend from 10pm to 5am the next day chopping and changing the 7 totally independent parts. seriously from 4am to 5am i tell you i experienced an extreme brain slowdown i think i typed like 3 words in that 1 hour. oh well, i guess i have nothing to complain about seeing as i didn’t attend the talk that my group organising as part of the project.

4) CAT report and powerpoint in year 2

location: at the benches near ice cold beer in smu

time: 3pm to 12noon the next day

the happy campers: vincent, geri, farhan, me

CAT is a module that teaches excel skills. for this project i was a super dead weight. not only do i suck at excel, i also suck at powerpoints so basically i was of no help except for maybe the report and buying food and drinks for the group. anyways, we worked on the project from 3pm (day before submission) to 12 noon on the day of project submission. vincent was the one man show he came up with the whole excel model himself, with geri doing up the ppt.

one observation from this experience: it is an incredibly depressing to see multiple groups of people who you know leave school at certain intervals the night before, and to see them come to school fresh and clean the next day while you have been there slogging the whole while, eyes struggling to open and hair all oily.

3) APB final presentation in year 4

location: my house

time: 2pm to 5am

the happy campers: shaun yoon, geri, hongxi, sacha, me

my god i dont know why this took so long. basically from a personal point of view, i was just too tired from the night before to think properly. mistake of the night was calling kfc delivery for dinner. there is nothing that can put you to sleep as fast as 2 drumsticks, 2 wings, a large whipped potato and a medium coleslaw. thankfully presentation went very well cos everyone presented well, but honestly our project and content was not as good as it should have been so we were pretty lucky overall.

2) FIIM presentation in year 3

location: steve’s house

time: 7pm to 7am

the happy campers: steve kong, geri, patrick, me

i cant really figure out why this was so last minute. we had met a few times within the week, and it was a relatively straightforward project (we basically presented about what happened during the 1997 asian financial crisis) and we met several times in the week but somehow still ended up working the night before.

it came to a stage at 3am where geri finished up on a graph that showed the depreciation of the various asian currencies, but the axis were wrong so you had to look at the graph upside down to get the right picture. so at 3am steve and i put the laptop on the floor, and were trying to stand on our heads in order to view the graphs correctly. dont ask me why but at that moment this was the most incredibly funny thing to us. we absolutely COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING. god, we must have spent half an hour laughing continuously, and after that we were so shacked from laughing that we both fell asleep with the project still incomplete.

finally when we woke up steve said he had enough and kicked us out of his house (the project was finished though). i told him to get out of my life and never bid for a module with me again. we are in the same environmental science group this sem. so much for that.

1) FPA report in year 4

location: bondue room, tables outside on level 3, chairs outside the seminar rooms

time: 12 noon to 7am

the happy campers: geri, yinghao, vincy, lionel lin, king yau, me

i dont want to talk about this, the pain is still too recent in my memory. warm and fuzzy nostalgic moments to be taken away are still a long time away.

Honorable Mentions:

– BGS presentation in year 1 (vincent, steve kong, joycelyn, ariel, me)

– marketing presentation in year 2 (steve kong, vincent, ian, yiwei, wen kai, me)

– TWC report in year 2 (calvin thng, david thong, shaun to, see hau, me)

– foundation in comms research report in year 3 (steve lau, cheam, seng song, me)

all i can say is, NEVER AGAIN!

actually i just noticed that there are a few constants in my painful late nights. steve kong, vincent, geri and me. it definitely can’t be vincent, so who could it be? actually i dont think it is geri too she has helped me alot. i shall include her just for fun.

THE TRUTH BEHIND MY LATE NIGHTS WILL BE KNOWN SOON. STAY TUNED!

in school while working on corp rep project,

kenneth: actually i dont need to come to school cos we’ve finished the other parts except the excel sheet

tim: oh so why did you come to school? i thought steve is the only one in your group who’s working on the excel sheet for corp rep? i heard  last night he dreamt of excel sheets cos he spent the past few days continuously staring at excel sheets

kenneth: oh i came to watch steve in case he goes crazy and deletes the excel sheets or eats his computer

where are the easy online games?

gonna start playing online when the sem in school ends.

being a total online poker newbie, i was wondering which poker sites are good to play at for low limit cash games? any sites with easier games?

also, what poker software should i download? comments please!

the singapore home game return

its been a hectic few weeks, with tests and projects jam packed. fortunately there was some time to breathe on sunday and so i made my way down to alvin’s place for some $0.50/$1 which also marked my first home game in singapore since jan this year. it was nice cos i got to catch up with some guys i havent played with in a long time like alvin mustopo, lukas, baey, andri, yoons, jiaxing, shi siong. poker-wise it was pretty uneventful. made a big mistake and was down $250 but managed to come back and win $100. its not much but thats the story of my poker life.

The Good:

honestly poker-wise the only good i can think of from last night is the fact that i seem to be able to take swings much better. if this was last year, i think i would have been on mad tilt if i had been $250 down. just ask alvin, sim or jiaxing they’ve seen me in that stage before. nowadays i just get back to business and grind it out. i probably have lugner city to thank for that. i’m not saying that ive totally eliminated tilt from my game, its just that i feel it affects me less now.

having said that i must declare that when i’m playing poker everytime i’m losing i will keep very quiet and everytime i’m winning i will be making alot of noise, cracking jokes etc. but yeah if i’m down you wont here a sound out of me.

The Bad:

i made a HUGE mistake last night. basically i had 67 suited and i raised it up preflop in late position, lukas and andri called. flop came 345 rainbow and we all checked. turn came 7 and lukas went all in, andri called, and i went all in for like $100+ more. andri had 68 and took down the pot. when the 7 fell and when i went all in, i should have considered that in the best case scenario i might be playing for the chop, and in the worst case i’m against the nuts. i would have still paid off a river bet, but if i had just called instead of shoving i would have saved alot.

The Lucky:

had a slightly below average run of cards yesterday, a few lucky hands made my day though. the first was when i flopped a set and baey made top 2 pair on the turn and yoons had pocket aces. i had the short stack though, so i tripled up.

for the second hand baey raised it up to 6 preflop under the gun and got 5 callers including myself. i was one before the cut off with 2c6c. flop came 224 with 2 spades on the board and baey went all in for $80+. the first thing i thought was baey has AsKs so i called and the others folded. turn and river came blanks so i took it down. that was real lucky cos baey made a mistake, and when you call $6 with 2c6c a flop of 224 is about as good as it gets. baey had a tough day yesterday, getting sucked out on alot but i do have to admit that he is a better player than before i went for exchange.

outside koufu:

tim: when you loves somebody, i think you should be willing to change in some aspects for the other person. like for example i love geri, therefore i try to change some things for her and vice versa

hongxi: no, the guy should change for the girl

tim: so isnt that unfair?

hongxi: life’s unfair

tim: ok so isnt that a double standard

hongxi: no there’s no double standard

tim: nono so if the guy is willing to change, shouldnt the girl be willing too?

hongxi: no only guy should change

tim: so dont you find that unfair?

hongxi: life’s unfair

tim: thats damn double standard what

hongxi: there’s no double standard

tim: ok never mind

sick laydown

was doing my work when my friend just sent me this clip, my god it is so sick how do you lay that hand down seriously.

on an entirely different note,

somewhere in school:

steve kong – if you say that again i’m gonna… i’m gonna… ah i’m gonna bite off your cock

tim – um.. nobody says stuff like that it’s damn gay

tale of 2 hands at the grand lisboa

the man himself

this is teo jiahao aka jaul. he’s one of the people i used to play with when i first started playing poker. he started out as a cash game player, but has since been successful in a number of big online tournaments, winning and cashing in several this year. he’s gonna take the next year to decide if he’s gonna turn pro or not but boy he is earning some serious cash man. also, jaul promised that i can go watch him at his first appt final table, which would be really shiok! i’m gonna put that here so that it can be on record.

anyways, these hands take place at the grand lisboa, which is one of the casinos owned by stanley ho. jaul and sacha were playing at the 10hkd/20hkd tables and jaul got into a hand with a guy from hongkong (call him H). H was under the gun and jaul was in the cutoff (one to the right of the dealer). jaul had 8J hearts and it was a limp pot. the flop came 998, H bet 3/4 pot and jaul called. turn came Qh bringing jaul a gutshot straight flush draw. H bet 3/4 pot and jaul called again. the river came a blank, and H bet half of his turn bet. jaul called and H flipped over A8. jaul mucked and the guy went “what? no straight? no 9? no flush?”. he was probably thinking that jaul was some fish to call on a board like that without a straight, 9 or flush.

about 1 orbit later, those 2 played another hand in the same position. H raised under the gun and jaul flat called with AKs. Flop came A 4 6 and H bet 3/4 pot. jaul called and turn came 4. H checked and jaul bet half pot. strangely H then min raised. jaul didnt put him on a 4 or pocket 6 (H raised under the gun remember) so he shoved all in. H folds his AK face up and goes “i put you on A6”. jaul flipped up his hand and the guy started swearing in canto, following which he said “the only thing you had over me was position”.

i think its interesting the way the hands played out cos if jaul didnt make the call on the first hand, H might not have put jaul on A6 for the second hand (it would be so much easier to put jaul on a more solid hand like AK, AQ, AJ if not for the first hand). also strange that H checked the turn in the second hand.