CardRunners

1. Take better care of myself. This includes: vitamins every morning (I need suggestions here, researching this tomorrow), more healthful diet (grocery shopping for more of my meals, no snacking after 10pm), and working out 5 days per week. I do a great job of the working out part when I get on a schedule, I just need to motivate myself. I am also doing a little “detox” over the month of January. I will not drink any alcohol for the entire month as I get back into the swing of things (only exception would be business situations where a drink may be borderline necessary). Finally, I’ve ordered the Herman Miller “Embody” office chair for my office. My posture is noticeably worse than it was a few years ago, so this chair should go a long way towards making sure it doesn’t get any worse.
2. Keep a written log of every poker session I play. So many times I just don’t feel accountable for my wins and losses. I don’t really “care” about every single hand, which is something you just have to do. I’m going to write down every session’s results and I think that will help me play my best game more often than not. I may or may not update this blog with results, probably depends on how successful I am J.
3. Get involved in one other business. I always see opportunities for side projects, but over the past year I’ve let them all go by. I’d like to take on at least a small role in another company, preferably an internet start-up. I’ll have to make sure I can fit this into an otherwise busy schedule, but I think I’m ready to stomach it.
4. Keep enjoying life. Every time I look back a few years I think, “Man, things were so great back then, if only I could go back and do X again.” Well I’m tired of that attitude; I’m going to start enjoying things while I am actually doing them. I’ve only recently really started to appreciate some of the opportunities I’ve had. In order to do this, I need to: Take more pictures (camera suggestions please), continue to travel (Asia trip this spring and backpacking trip this summer), and spend less time worrying about things I can’t control. I do a pretty good job of this, but I can do better. I’m sorry this part of the post was a little vague, I don’t feel like discussing everything in complete public.

I have almost officially survived a hellish week.  If I can make it through the 0 degree weather tonight at the Bears Packers football game then I will have made it through my own personal hell that was this past week.

Things that sucked about this week:
-The flu aka the sweat.

-Lost my keys while digging out my car from under 8 inches of snow.  Ironically, I only shoveled that day to test how I was doing after resting in bed for 3 days.  I thought it was the "smart" thing to do so that my car didn't pile up too much snow, even though my car is dead and needs to be towed to the dealership.  

-Computer broke.  I ordered a new one that should be shipped to my parents house for christmas.  merry christmas to me.  i'm typing this on a keyboard that has no spacebar key, just the button that the real spacebar should mash down to type spaces.  if that doesn't make sense, rip out your space bar and you'll know what i'm talking about.

-Fell behind on lots of work.  I probably won't get to totally kick back and do nothing from tomorrow until NYE like I wanted to.  Also, I'm going to have to miss the PCA to go to Europe for some CardRunners stuff.  That's not really a good or bad thing, I was hoping to go to the PCA but Europe should be fun too.  I'll be in London for sure so I'll probably try to arrange a CR gathering if possible!

-worst shape of my life.  pretty self explainatory, but sitting on the couch for a week, no working out, and generally mediocre eating habits have put me north of 200 lbs for the first time ever.  i will be back down at or below 190 by spring time.  no doubt about that.

That's enough emo'ing.  We had our Christmas party the other night.  It was pretty awesome.  I think everyone had a fun time.  I'll save the details for a blog post and pictures from the party later.

What I did want to talk about are more: "signs the recession is upon us" stuff.  I really enjoy taking seemingly everyday observations and trying to think a little bit more deeply about them.  Take spam for example.  We all get spam, in fact something like 99% of all email sent is spam (seriously, the Gmail Blog once had a post about this -- it was pretty fascinating to see how much spam goes through their system, and more importantly, how much of it google is able to block).  Spam is annoying and useless, but then there is a different class of promotional emails that aren't completely unsolicited, but generally aren't all that desireable to open each morning.

For exmaple, you buy a rug at Pottery Barn and you have to give them your email address in order to schedule a delivery.  Now for the rest of your life you hear about anything and everything that's going on at the Pottery Barn; not exactly my idea of a good time.  The problem is that you've basically signed yourself up for this, and the other problem is that you never know when they might actually send you an email that you might be interested in.

These are the types of emails I'm getting more of these days.  Nordstrom, Barney's, Tribeca Grand, anything/everything Vegas, lot's of mid to high end companies are absolutely spamming the hell out of me.  WIth discounts, too.  Hotel rooms that are 40% off, free shipping on just about anything online, even discounts on designer brands.  It's just interesting for me to see these companies change they way they are doing business in these tough times.  

Another interesting thing I've noticed is the excess availability of New Years Eve options.  Last year it was insane, every place we tried going to was sold out at least a month in advance.  My friends were paying $100-$150 a head just to go to a bar down the street that they could get $4 drafts from any other night.  Now, I'm getting emails daily from bars and clubs, ten days before NYE, offering discounted packages for parties on NYE.

Vegas should probably be seperated into its own category.  I would say I get an email from a Las Vegas hotel or casino at least 4 times per week.  Usually it's just a low rate (100-150/night for a top tier hotel room), but lately its getting even better.  I got a phone call a week ago offering me free air fare for 2, 3 nights of free hotel, and gambling money if I was willing to go to Tunica, Mississippi for 3 nights mid week.  Out of principle I almost took it.  Even the Wynn sent out an email last week offering 3 free nights at their hotel during some off peak times.  I had some friends who got this email as well, and none of us could actually get the promotion to work, so maybe they were just testing to see if people were interested in it or something.  Steve, if you're reading this, I'll gladly stay at your hotel for free, so hook a brother up and I'll come out to the Wynn whenever you want me.

To continue on the Vegas topic, I am going on record saying I think Las Vegas is going to look substantially different this time in 5 years.  By different I mean there are going to be massive bankruptcies, failures, whatever you want to call it during this time span.  The biggest problem I see is not that the town is overbuilt (which it is, very overbuilt), it's that they have overbuilt the Strip and closely surrounding areas with high-end stuff that so few can afford.  As far as I can tell, the construction that remains in LV is mostly ultra-high end stuff, such as City Center and one other Condo building that I don't know the name of (it's the one that has some Vegas people up in arms because its going to block the Strip view of another pricey condo bulding out there, for those of you that know the area).

The hotels themselves have all classed up over the past few years.  The Hard Rock is becoming a top tier destination.  A lot of the dumpy places are now nice to very nice.  The question I keep asking myself is: "who are all the people that can afford this stuff?"  Another problem that is almost as big, that I don't think many of these developers bothered to consider, is that the global landscape for gambling is undergoing a massive change.  First, Las Vegas isn't the only game in town anymore.  There are riverboats all over the place now.  Atlantic City now has at least one very nice property in the Borgata.  Chicago now has the Horseshoe.  Globally, Macau is becoming a gambling hotbed for the Asian gamblers.  Finally, anyone not living in a facist country that also has an internet connection can gamble online.  I suspect this will have a larger impact than most think on Vegas' revenues over the next year or so.  Think about it, in tough economic times, the guy who likes to go to Vegas once a year to blow through a couple thousands bucks might instead decide to deposit $500 online.  This way he can save himself the travel expense, and also can find limits as low as he wants to gamble.  You can also make money last a lot longer online due to being able to get deposit bonuses, rakeback, and the ability to play for only a few minutes a day if you so desire.

All of these factors adds up to tough times for Las Vegas in the coming years.  I don't know what is going to happen out there, but my money is on some large, fundamental changes in the landscape of the town or at least in the way they do business.  I went out there a few months ago to look into buying a condo for our company and walked away thinking we are at least 6-12 months away from when I should even be thinking about that.  I hope to find some opportunities to make money off of this thesis, but sadly, I have none at this point.  If anyone has any of those, or thoughts on this subject in general, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message.  Also, if you have any interesting observations about the current economic crisis, feel free to post them here!

Take it easy, go bears!
 

During my substantial downtime yesterday, I spent some time reading my blog archives.  It was pretty funny reading some of my posts from may/june 2006.  First of all, damn, I can't believe I've been blogging for that long.  I'm not even sure it was "cool" to be a blogger back then.  It's so cool now.  But I was reading some posts and laughing at my idea of variance, and also thinking about how I'm a much better player now but I'm not playing nearly as high stakes.  It was great to go out and grind a few hours of 50-100nlhe whenever I felt like it, make 6-7bb/100, and move on with my day.  Oh well, times are different right now, but I'm happy with the way things have turned out for me.  What also surprised me about reading my old blogs was that I had totally forgotten about half of the fun stuff I did. 

I'm not trying to act like some hotshot, but I really do get to do a lot of fun stuff.  When you're living life, I really do feel like everything just sort of blends together if you aren't careful.  There are so many fun and interesting parts of the day that you'll probably never give a second thought to unless you write them down.  Looking back on some fun times I had with friends over the few months directly after graduation was really nostalgic for me.  For example, I casually referenced sleeping till noon quite a few times.  I can't even sleep till freaking 8:30 now, damn job.  I also made a point to emphasize how it was weird that my friends and I got together to watch basketball on a Thusday night, as if it was shocking that we weren't out at a bar drinking.  It's practically a special occasion just to see other people on a Thursday night these days.  I'm also lucky to get to the bars two times a week, much less the 3+ that I was doing on a regular basis just 2.5 years ago.  Man, if only I had kept a blog during my college years, now THOSE are some times I really wish I could relive, blog style.

So anyway, I'm going to becomea better blogger.  Maybe it's just my insatiable desire to compete (read: I want that top CR blog position!), but I'm going to give more frequent and more thorough blog updates now that I can stand the appearance of my blog.


Overall, I am starting to feel better this morning.  I was still sweating like crazy all day yesterday and into the middle of the night, but after my change of clothes at 3am, I slept through the rest of the night and woke up bone dry.  Go me, i'm BACK.  This morning I just feel groggy and a little grumpy, but I think I should be back to full strength by the end of the weekend.


I'm going to rest all day, try to get in a little bit of work, and then get a good night's sleep tonight.  If I'm feeling better tomorrow, I'm going to try to go out and do some Christmas shopping, or at least look online for stuff and see if my mom or dad will pick up some stuff for me at stores back in the suburbs (it's really hard to get around in the city today with all the snow, especially considering my car is broken).  I've got tickets to the Bears Packers Monday Night game on Monday, but I'm thinking I might not want to spend 6 hours out in the cold after being sick all week.  I don't know what I'm going to do though, because two of my best friends that moved away are going with me to the game, and I hardly ever get to see those guys.  I feel like this is one of those times where I should probably just suck it up and go, but I am geniunely afraid of a flu relapse.


I've got some good material coming up in the next few days.  I'll have a 2008 recap, 2009 goals post (obligatory), and the much anticipated by those in the know "my views on online dating" blog as well. 
 

Enjoy the weekend,
Taylor
 

The good news is that the new CR blog network is finally out.  I can finally not be embarassed about how my blog looks, so I am really happy about that.  I love how the new blogs look and I'm sure I'll get back to wasting way too much time reading about people I'll never know.  We reset the counters because some people had run scripts to bump their counts up.  I suggest you start blogging today and you too can climb to the top of the blog ratings :).

The bad news is that I have the Flu.  I started to feel pretty terrible on Tuesday evening.  My girlfriend got the Flu on Sunday and she is still sick herself, so that doesn't bode too well for me.  This is particularly bad news because Andrew and I are throwing our annual Christmas party on Saturday, which it looks like I may miss.  For those that didn't read my blog last year about it, it's quite a spectacle, and I really hope I get to go.

I slept for 17 hours yesterday.  One time when I woke up, my roommate was like, wow, that must feel good.  Typically I would say yes, but I feel like death.  Everytime I wake up I am COVERED in sweat.  Literally I have to take off any clothes I was wearing.  I'm also laying on top of a towel because I've already sweated through the rest of my bed (which is a King bed, to tell you how much I've been sweating).

I feel a little bit better today, but probably a lot of that is due to just having slept for about 10 hours.  We'll see how I feel the rest of the day, and hopefully I can make a complete recovery before Saturday.  My agenda today involves taking 4-5 hours of naps, watching some Simpsons re-runs (the good episodes), and hopefully getting to writing a letter of recommendation for Raptor for college (ha ha).

Take it easy,
Taylor

Hello.

I've been bad about blogging lately but hopefully this post will make up for it a bit.  I'm feeling incredible right now as I went to bed at 930 last night and got over 9 hours of sleep, which hasn't happened in a very long time.  I'm always able to fall asleep immediately after hitting the pillow, but I typically always wake up 7 hours or so after falling asleep, which is quite annoying.  I don't think I've ever gone to bed this early on a Friday night before, but I decided I wasn't going out last night, mostly because I've been absolutely punishing my body lately and I needed a break.

After Thanksgiving week, which was filled with way too much drinking and eating, the Team CardRunners pros all met in Fort Lauderdale for a week or so.  The first three days it was Me, Brian, Andrew, Lee, and the Stox Management guys and their lead pros.  It was really nice to get to know some of these guys, although I was disappointed Leatherass couldn't make it down this time, I'm looking forward to hanging out with him at the next one.  I learned a little bit about sports betting from Matt Matros, who was awesome to get to know a little bit.  The Stox group as a whole is a little bit older, MUCH more mature group of poker players.  Some of them have families and I definitely look up to them as people who are able to manage the whole poker scene while staying seemingly productive members of society.  Maybe I like them just because they make me feel less old compared to clowns like Stinger, who is actually only a junior in college.

The place we stayed at overlooked a pretty nice beach.  It comfortably slept 10 people and I think it was around 6,000 sq feet, which was the biggest house I'd ever been in.  I believe it was built at least 70 years ago, although it has been modernized.  This place must have been unbelivably nice 70 years ago, because it might have been the nicest house I'd ever been in, 70 years after it was built.

The first few days we spent just getting to know the Stox guys, hanging out, planning out 2009 strategy, and making some videos.  At night we would make dinner and then hit up a local bar that had tons of fun bar games, pop-a-shot, beer pong, pool, etc.  We must have spent $100 in the pop-a-shot game over the week, which is a lot considering it's 50 cents a game.

On Thursday, most of the Stox guys left and the CR guys came in.  Cole, Schneids, Daut, Benefield, Stinger, Peachy, and Menlo rounded out the CR people there.  After Lee left, Ezra was left to manage the whole process, which I know was pretty stressful for him.  It's just not easy to get 10 poker players to do much of anything, but he did a pretty damn good job of it.

I particularly enjoyed getting a chance to play Stinger HU PLO for a couple hours.  I came out on top, which shows how much variance there is in HU PLO.  After reviewing our sessions, I realized just how much I have to learn about HU PLO, which is crazy because I have come a very long way since last summer.  I do think I am a winning 5-10 HU PLO player right now, which isn't too bad because assuming I can get decent action, my winrate would be pretty nice there.  This series should be coming out in early 2009, so stay tuned if you are interested in learning HU PLO. 

I really can't think of a player that is better at PLO than Stinger.  The guy is just a machine -- he has all the great qualities that you need to be a top poker player, plus he has been playing PLO for two years now.  I give him a lot of credit because he started playing PLO before it became "the thing to do," and now he probably has a couple million extra bucks because of it.  Eventually when the games get tougher and it is harder to make money at the nosebleeds, a bunch of nerdy poker players will whine about how they wish they could have been playing in the games when people like Stinger made millions.  Well this time they only have themselves to blame because Stinger went out and learned the game before anyone else did.  Typically to make extraordinary profits in something you need to have good timing as well as good skill/execution.  People like myself were lucky to be in the right place at the right time for the NLHE boom, but all of us could have started playing PLO in 2007 when it started to become popular at 25-50+.  I guess what I am saying is sometimes it's better to be the first than the best, and if you can be both, then you are going to be in great shape.

As an aside, over and over I see the same thing in the poker world and in life in general.  A new trend or idea becomes popular and profitable for a small amount of people.  There is a huge race for copycats to do the same thing, hopefully better than the original.  I give people like cts/aejones credit for creating new super expensive training materials.  This isn't to say these products are worth or not worth the money, what I am saying is that they did something innovative that gave themselves a realistic shot to make a good return on their time investment.  I would bet that over the next six months we'll see quite a few imitations, with most of them being poorly thought out, rushed to market, and generally unsuccessful.  This isn't to say that in order to be successful in anything entrepreneurial you need to come up with a completely innovative, never before seen idea.  It just means that before getting started, you should think about what is going to seperate your product from whatever else is already out there.  People don't like change, so if your product or service doesn't offer some compelling difference compared to what is already on the market, you probably aren't going to succeed.  It's just shocking to me how often I see people completely miss this point.

The last night in Florida was definitely the best.  We rented a stretch Hummer limo to take us from Fort Lauderdale to Miami.  No one had a camera, unfortunately, so no pics of us trying to be wanna-be ballers.  We grabbed a case or two of beer and enjoyed the 45 minute ride to Miami.  Dinner was at Phillipe, which I think is fairly new and was started by the guy who started Mr. Chows, a famous Chinese restaurant in NYC.  The bad news is that we must have waited close to 2 hours to get our table and get served, the good news is that this meal might have been one of the best I've ever had, definitely the best Chinese food I've ever had.  

I sat at the end of the table with Stinger, Ezra, and Menlo.  The first interesting thing that happened was that a table of French p