Fun games

The last post was actually going to be this post but turned into a rant about education. The point was (going to be) that with our new schedule, Ben catches the bus at 8:30 and gets home at 4:00. I swear that we finished school at 2:00 when I was in elementary school. It's been a hard adjustment since Ben was still napping until school started. He is tired and usually a little cranky when he gets home. Anna still needs a nap since she's only 3 1/2, but if she naps, then she'll be up until 10:00 and Ben needs to go to bed at 8:00. Ben needs to get to bed this early because he wakes at 6:30 come hell or high water. The new plan was that we get the kids into bed at 8:00. For the first month or so, that happened one time. It was hard to get dinner ready by 6:00 and then finish by 7:00. That leaves no time for fun since if they need a bath and we start reading at 7:30. There was a lot of fussing and whining and gnashing of teeth while we made the adjustment. But at this point, the kids are almost always in bed by 8:00, which is nice, because then my wife and I can spend some time together.

OK, I'm getting to the point. What can we do for fun in 30 minutes? We have found some new games, and the kids love them. The current favorite is Sleeping Queens (by Gamewright). The kids are crazy about this game and we've played it every night since we got it (2 weeks ago?). Anna can handle this game even though she's only 3 1/2.

We also like Castle Keep, where you build a 3x3 castle. This game is just a little too hard for Anna, although she will play and we help her.

Ben likes Clue Jr. and Anna will tolerate it. Both kids like Cranium Hullabaloo which involved a lot of movement.

I've enjoyed playing games with the kids so much that I've ordered a mess of new games for Christmas:

• Rat-a-Tat Cat
  
• Hisss
  
• Thing-a-ma-Bots
  
• Wig Out
  
• Chomp!
  
• Slamwich
  
• There's a Moose in the House
  
• Rush Hour, Jr. Brain Teaser
  
• Enchanted Forest
  
• The a-MAZE-ing Labyrinth Game
  

The first seven should be easy enough for Anna. Rush Hour, Jr. Brain Teaser is a cool puzzle where you have to slide a car out of a traffic jam. Enchanted Forest and the a-MAZE-ing Labyrinth Game are board games that I think Ben will really like.

I'll report on all of these games after Christmas.

- schneid

The state of education

The biggest adjustment we've made lately hasn't been moving to our new house, but rather adjusting to our son's new schedule at school. Last year, kindergarten was only 2.5 hours every morning. He learned an amazing amount that year in a short amount of time, in no small part due to his terrific kindergarten teacher.

Let me pause for a moment to give kudos to elementary school teacher, particularly those that teach kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Some days I have trouble handling my own two kids, much less 22 kids (or, god forbid, in some schools, 32 kids). A teacher that teaches well at the elementary level is a special person. Watching my son with his kindergarten and first grade teacher reminds me of how much I love my own elementary school teachers. They really are like having a second mom.

Most of the teachers I know are doing a terrific job with the resources that they are given. My complaint is with the apparent lack of those resources.

When I was in elementary school (in the 1970s), schools didn't lack for funding. I assume that this is because the government gave enough money to the schools. But lately, it seems like every time the doorbell rings, it's a kid selling something for his school. Have we really resorted to having our children begging so that they can be properly educated? The schools have Market Day, which I'm sure is a huge windfall for the company that created it and not a huge profit for the school. Kids sell wrapping paper, candy, and other miscellanea.

In large part, I assume this is due to lack of government funding. And that, I believe, is due to a huge problem that we have with our political system. The senators and congressman making decisions about our education live in upscale towns with the best schools or send kids to private school. They make decisions about national health care, meanwhile they have their own terrific health care plan. They decide about social security when they receive pensions, honoraria for speeches, book deals, and who knows what else from their constituents. They send our children into war when few of their own children are in the military. I would really like to see our legislative branch populated with the common man who wants to contribute to the greater good, rather than a bunch of greedy rich lawyers who want to make a career of taking legal bribes from lobbyists. There should be reasonable salaries and term limits, and some restriction on donations and lobbying. This myth that is takes years just to learn the system is a crock. I learned most of the legislative system watching "I'm Just a Bill" on SchoolHouse Rock on Saturday morning when I was 7.

Another problem is the growing tutoring industry. Of course, if your child needs extra help, you have plenty of money, and you don't have time or the ability to provide it yourself, you will send them to a tutoring company. That's what will benefit your child and who can blame you. But your child can only get tutoring if you can afford it. I assume a larger percentage of lower income children need help, but they can't afford it.

The worst part is that the government is now paying for the tutoring! If children are underperforming according to the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, the school can pay a private tutoring company to tutor them! That is outrageous! Why doesn't the government just give that money to the schools for more teachers and resources? Because then big business wouldn't be getting its cut. And that cut is estimated to be in the billions.

And don't get me started on No Child Left Behind. This is probably the worst education initiative in our lifetime. The teachers are now "teaching the test" to their students. They spend too much time preparing the students to perform well on the test, and too little time teaching them things like, oh I don't know, reading, writing, math, science, history, etc. Teachers are penalized or reprimanded if their students aren't up to par. The economist Steven Levitt proved that teachers in the Chicago Public School system were cheating for their students on the standardized tests. When the teachers inflate the test results of underperforming children, then those children won't get the help that they need. And let's not forget that No Child Left Behind is underfunded by anywhere from $6 to $27 billion.

You may argue that with donations and selling items for schools, the people who want to support the school get the opportunity, and those that don't want to can just pass. But education benefits everyone and therefore everyone should bear the burden. Who do you think will be running this country when you are old? Who do you think will take care of you when you are in a nursing home? Would you rather have educated or ignorant people making the decisions that affect your life? Life in an educated society is better for everyone in that society, not just the educated people.

The nearby town of Huntley is very fast growing. They grew from 6,000 in 2000, to 12,000 in 2003, to 18,000 in 2005. Almost 10,000 of those residents are retirees that live in Sun City. They banded together to fail a school referendum in early 2004 almost 10 to 1, partially due to low voter turnout among people with school-aged children. Later that same year, another referendum passed with a higher voter turnout. The Sun City residents complained that they couldn't afford the tax increase due to their fixed income. Hey, they chose to move into one of the fastest growing cities in Illinois! The lesson learned by the children of Huntley is "look out for #1". It will be amusing in 24 years when those kids have grown up, outnumber the retirees by 4 to 1, and decide "Hey, let's burn down Sun City and throw those old people in the street."

Another part of this problem is how Illinois funds their schools. The school gets its funding for the current school year based on how many children were enrolled at the start of the previous school year. Not the end, mind you, and not a projection. This means that in a town with a constantly growing population, the school is always underfunded.

It doesn't help that maximum impact fees are rarely charged to home developers. Impact fees are those paid by developers for each house built, as a stopgap for the year in which no property taxes will be paid on the new home. In Oswego, the population doubled from 2000 to 2005. In 2003, it was reported that no developer had ever paid the maximum impact fee. Deals were always made to entice the developers to build. Frankly, the developers don't need any enticement to build, since they're falling all over each other to get into growing towns like this. And the difference between the maximum and the average is probably $1000 to $2000, which a developer can certainly afford; but more than that, they can just pass that cost directly onto the buyer! Someone that will buy a house for $249,000 will certainly buy it for $251,000. Once again, big business gets a break while the people of the community get screwed.

So back to the topic at hand, lack of school funds. In addition to sending the students out begging, the school is constantly barraging us with requests for volunteers in the classrooms and library. While my wife does volunteer at the school, I feel that we are already paying for the school (in the form of property taxes) and shouldn't need to contribute more. But since we believe in the greater good, my wife does volunteer.

I hope that with the recent changes in Congress, we'll see some improvement in educational funding. But since big business donates billions of dollars to elect our politicians and spend billions more on lobbying, who is more likely to benefit from new legislation - big business or me and you?

- schneid

Online tournaments

I've really been enjoying the rebuy tournaments on UltimateBet. Most have been $1 or $3 buy-ins, because I don't really feel like rebuying 5 times for a $10 tournament; but for $1 or $3 I have no problem rebuying 5-10 times. My goal is to double up or better before the rebuy period is over. I try to get all-in with a decent hand and have often tripled or even quadrupled up on a single hand. When the rebuy period is over, there is a lot of play because the stacks are so deep.

The last stupid play I made was a few weeks ago, where I busted out 13 out of 313, with a good shot at winning several hundred dollars. I had been in several pots head up against a particular opponent, who would make really weak bets on the flop, I would jam, and he would fold. On my bustout hand, I called in the small blind with 43o, he checked, the flop was harmless and he made another tiny bet, so I pushed all-in, knowing he always folded in this spot, plus the pot was about the size of my stack since the antes and blinds were big. He insta-called with two pair. He set the trap very well, and I should've known better since he was in the big blind and could have anything. Instead, I could've jammed before the flop, or just folded that hand.

Since then I've been playing pretty tight and that's been working well. It's amazing how important it is to win the pot when the antes and blinds are big. The pot can easily be 1/2 your stack-size before the flop, so you want to win it, but it's hard to win because even if you push all-in, your opponents are getting good odds to call.

I re-read Erick Lindgren's book, and although I'm not great at small ball, I've been making more min-raises preflop. I really have to push myself to make a continuation bet on scary flops that I completely miss, but it's amazing how often your opponent will fold there. The min-raise is nice because most players will fold to any raise, you keep the pot small so that it's harder for them to call on the flop, and you lose less money when you're beat.

I've had about the usual number of bad beats, such as when I had AA vs AQ and the flop came QQx. But I've won some lucky hands too, so I would say my luck has been good. All of my recent bustouts have been bad luck, being forced all-in with a short stack, or needing to call because I'm getting such good odds. I can live with that...it's better than busting out doing something stupid. My best recent finish was 17 out of 500+.

- schneid

Latest poker results

I've been basically breaking even playing in $11 single table tournaments (STT) on PartyPoker lately. About a week ago, I discovered some small multis on PP - 20, 30, and 50 player tournaments. I played in a 50 player tournament that week, and was nearly the chip leader with about 7 players left when I got involved in a hand that I shouldn't have, and busted out, probably making about a $9 profit. I was the chip leader or near to it in almost all of these, which is typical for me. My early play in tournaments is pretty good, and I'm working on improving my later play.

This past Sunday, I played in some single tables and 2 50-player tourneys (all $11), and here were the results:

50-player tournament: busted 10th out of the money ($11 loss)
50-player tournament: won it! ($139 profit)
STT: 2nd ($19 profit)
STT: 3rd ($9 profit)
STT: 5th? ($11 loss)

I know it doesn't sound like much but it's a nice result. The 50-player tournament is the largest tournament that I've ever won. There were some tough spots in that tournament, like when I was moved to another table and there was a huge stack to my immediate left, and he was pushing everyone around. He went over the top of me preflop quite a few times, and I had to lay it down. Eventually I got a chunk of his chips when I had a decent hand and he was overly aggressive. I did get pretty lucky several times, but was very happy with my overall play.

When the blinds get high, the flop gets pretty damn big if someone calls your preflop raise. So if you've got AK or AQ or whatever, it's hard to fire again when you miss the flop, because you're committing yourself to the hand. At least 3 times, I had to force myself to bet there, and my opponent folded.

- schneid

Half baked ideas

Check out the web site
http://www.halfbakery.com

It is chock full of people's half-baked ideas. I don't know what's funnier, people's really stupid ideas or that they sometimes take them seriously. It's hilarious!

- schneid

There are still some good people

Usually I'm a cynic and believe there aren't many generous people left in the world. But occasionally, I'm surprised.

At work, I met Soren, a very animated and interesting guy from Denmark. For a couple hours, we talked about software development and the process that they use at our Denmark facility. He was only in the US for a few days, having just attended an Agile conference in Minnesota. One of the topics that came up was wikis, in which he has a great interest.

Later, I remembered that my good friend Kevin was going to Denmark for a Wiki conference. To put it mildly, let's say that Kevin is only extremely interested in wikis. I assumed that Soren would attend that conference, so I put them in touch with each other. It turned out that Soren would not attend the conference but would like to meet up with Kevin if he was traveling through Copenhagen.

Now I've heard that Soren is going to pick up Kevin from the airport in Copenhagen, take him home, then drop him off at the train station later in the day. We're not talking about a friend of a friend here, but a bare acquaintance of a friend! This is so generous, and I'm sure much of a relief to Kevin. I recall how confusing European mass transit is to us non-city dwellers. Maybe it shouldn't be so surprising, since Wikis are essentially about sharing and community, something I believe is sorely lacking in the US lately. Maybe it's karma too, since Kevin is exactly the kind of nice guy who would do something like this for someone else.

- schneid

We have finally moved

We finally moved on Sunday, August 13. It was a long day, in particular because U-Haul decided to give me a round-trip rental instead of a one-way, where I could've dropped the truck off 1 mile from our new house. Thanks to Greg T, Pete, Petey, Bill, and Kevin for their help. We're in the new house and if anyone needs my new address or phone, contact me.

- schneid

My family meets presidents...

I check my personal email for the first time in 3 weeks, and there are messages about two different family members meeting US presidents!

My Great Uncle Ben and Aunt Shig Kuroki were invited to dinner at the White House when the Japanese Prime Minister was visiting the US. Ben was a US war hero during World War II. My Uncle Denny has a page with a lot of links to information about Ben Kuroki.



My cousin Bob Levin is a doctor and has spent most of his career participating in Doctors without Borders in impoverished nations, mostly in Africa. Currently he is in Rwanda, where he was fortunate to meet Bill Clinton and Bill Gates.



- schneid

Finished 2nd in TNP Tournament

OK, it was just our regular tournament with my buddies and there were only 9 guys. It's a $50 buy-in tournament with one rebuy allowed. I always try to go for broke, and either double up or rebuy early. But the last 3 tournaments, I've taken third, which doesn't even get your money back if you rebuy.

I finally broke the curse and took 2nd which was good for a $115 profit. Early on, I flopped top pair top kicker, made a big bet, and Ed went all-in. I hate to bust out with just a pair, but he could easily be making the play with less than that, so I called, and he had middle pair. No help came, and I doubled up.

I played pretty well, in particular making no big mistakes. I got lucky later when I busted Greg T. with my 55 vs. his KQ, a King flopped, but I spiked a 5 on the turn. Mark busted me out with his J8 vs my J9 when he flopped two pair. Mark played well but had quite a bit of luck, like when his AQ made a boat vs. Ed's KK. I also had Mark all-in with my AK vs. his A8, and I had him all the way to the river, when the board made two pair and we split the pot.

I laid down my hand quite a few times when someone came over the top. Most of the guys play pretty straightforward, so I usually didn't think they were making a play on me.

We then played a single table, winner take all tournament for $10 each, with the blinds going up after every orbit. I was out on the first hand. I flopped top pair and bet the pot, there were about 6 callers, this drunk guy made a min-raise, and I went all-in, figuring he could have anything. Sure enough, he only had middle pair, but he also had a flush draw which he rivered to bust me out. At the time I thought that I was about 3:2 to win that hand, but it turns out that top pair vs. a smaller pair with a flush draw is almost exactly 1:1.

The drunk guy then went on to bust out the next two players, each time as the underdog and catching a draw on the turn or river. Frankly, it didn't matter much, because the structure was such (fast blinds and only one winner) that you needed to make a move early. He had a huge stack of chips and ended up taking third, then the remaining two players made a deal to play to split the money, rather than just have one winner.

It was a fun night and we started out with a ton of chips in the main tournament, which gave a lot of room to maneuver and made the tournament more fun. In the past, when the tournament got down to three-handed, there was usually a big chip leader and the blinds were huge, and it ended quickly. This time, when it got heads up, we each had 40x the big blind, so there was a lot more play.

- schneid

Awesome Movies

I couldn't fit all my favorite movies into the little space they give you, so here's a list. Not that anyone cares, but if you really like one of the categories in general, and haven't seen a movie I put in that category, I recommend that you see it.

Comedy

Office Space

Elf

Drop Dead Gorgeous - this is one of the funniest movies you've never seen

Houseguest - it's too bad that Sinbad hasn't made any more movies

Amelie

Daddy Day Care - very funny and Steve Zahn is hilarious

Grosse Pointe Blank

The Princess Bride

Groundhog Day - you have to watch a few times to appreciate how funny Bill Murray is.

What About Bob - the first time I saw this, I thought it was stupid. But the more I see it, the funnier it gets.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Pee Wee's Big Adventure

A Christmas Story

Happy Gilmore

Fletch

Liar Liar

Blues Brothers

This is Spinal Tap

Big

A League of Their Own


Thriller

The Sixth Sense

Identity - great movie that I'd never heard of

Memento

The Da Vinci Code

The Usual Suspects

The Silence of the Lambs

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The Spanish Prisoner

Heist

Signs

Runaway Jury

Seven

Action/Adventure

Braveheart

Saving Private Ryan

Minority Report

Pulp Fiction

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Drama

Catch Me If You Can - I wouldn't exactly call it a drama...it's funny, it's a true story, it has elements of a thriller. An all-around great movie.

Almost Famous

A Beautiful Mind

Forrest Gump

Lost in Translation

The Shawshank Redemption

Erin Brockovich

Stand by Me

The Untouchables

Glengary Glen Ross

Titanic

Hotel Rwanda

American Beauty

Witness


Sports

Remember the Titans

Breaking Away

Rudy

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Twelve Monkeys

Blade Runner

The Matrix

The Lord of the Rings

Harry Potter

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Star Wars

Brazil

Jurassic Park

Gattaca

For Kids

The Incredibles

Monsters Inc

Madagascar

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Over the Hedge

Robots

Finding Nemo

Toy Story

A Bug's Life

Music

Purple Rain

That Thing You Do

Documentaries

Spellbound

Bowling for Columbine

- schneid

Volleyball

I actually played volleyball today at lunch for the first time in about four years, if you don't count Westy's annual beer parties. Now that I'm back at Tellabs, Mike K. put me on his 4-man team, and we play once a week during lunchtime. I didn't think I would survive...that 75 minutes was the longest I've exercised in three years. Yes, I'm that badly out of shape and overweight. 205 lbs. is not a proper weight for someone 5'7". But it actually felt great to be out there, and my body does remember how to play volleyball. I'd like to work my way up to playing basketball at lunchtime too. The courts are right here at the Tellabs facility, which is very convenient. I might ride my bicycle to work a couple of times a week from the new house. Home and work are both near the Prairie Path, so I could ride without getting killed. It's about 8 or 9 miles which is a reasonable distance, and would probably take about 45 minutes.

These social+athletic+fun pursuits are another big reason why Tellabs is such a great place to work.

- schneid

We have paint and carpet!

The carpet has been installed at the new house and the painters are almost done. The only white walls left in the house are in closets - everything else has been painted a different color. Now that the carpet is down, it will be easier to work at the house because we can take the kids with us. We didn't want the kids playing in the house due to the bare floors and tack strips.

Remaining tasks: bathroom countertops, tile, vinyl, and appliances. We're planning on moving in July, although we haven't set a date yet.

- schneid

House is progressing...

The granite countertops were installed at our new house. The painters are in there right now, and I'm waiting to receive one more estimate before getting the carpet and flooring done. When it's complete, we can move in. But we're not sure if we want to leave the old house empty when we're trying to sell it. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

- schneid

Lots of work to do on new house

We have a lot of work to arrange on the new house when I return from my trip. Within the next few weeks, we hope to finish the carpet, tile floors, paint, countertops, bathroom counters, and refinish the wood floors, not to mention general cleaning and landscaping. We're going to be pretty busy and our current house is still for sale.

- schneid

Trip Report

I've almost finished a long two weeks of traveling. I plan to write a few posts on the details of the trips, but here's a quick summary.

I've been participating as a member of the appraisal team in a CMMI Level 2 appraisal of an organization in Tellabs. This is a very intensive process which, not including prework, has lasted 10 working days at 3 sites - Naperville, Dallas, and Petaluma. We started each day at 8:30 and almost always finished around 6:30.

In addition, my mom took us to Las Vegas for four days in the middle of the appraisal to celebrate her 60th birthday. The appraisal was coincidentally scheduled around my vacation. So, here is my travel/work schedule from the last two weeks. Monday and Tuesday in Naperville, went to Dallas Tuesday night, Wednesday in Dallas, went home Wednesday night, left for Las Vegas on Thursday. I was supposed to come home to see my kids on Sunday, but our flight was cancelled. If I went home on Monday, I would have missed my flight to San Francisco on Monday afternoon, so I flew directly from LV to SF. I arrived in SF on Monday, and came home on the red eye on Friday night, arriving at my front door at 7:00 AM on Saturday. At 11:45 on Sunday morning, a limo brought me to O'Hare to return to Petaluma. I continued to work on the appraisal in Petaluma until Wednesday, then took a red eye back to Chicago. Whew. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off.

When we were in Las Vegas, that was the first time that my wife and I had left our kids with anyone for more than one night. My mother-in-law flew in from Florida to watch our kids. Including the first half of my Petaluma visit, I was gone for 9 days which is by far the longest I've ever been away from my kids. I really missed them.

We had a fantastic time in Las Vegas and were fortunate to stay at Bellagio and saw Cirque de Soleil and Danny Gans, and had dinner at Circo. Thanks Mom! I also played some poker, saw lots of poker pros in Vegas, shook hands with Phil Ivey. Hung out with Rodney and Rebecca in Mill Valley, played poker in Petaluma, had dinner at The Girl and the Fig and hung out with Rodney in Sonoma, had dinner with the appraisal team in Bodega Bay, visited my cousin Mimi and her husband David in San Francisco.

These will probably be the only details I'll add: the poker pros that I saw playing at the Bellagio were: Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, Chip Reese, David Sklansky, David Gray, Johnny Chan, Eli Elezra, Scott Fischman, Minh Ly, and Eskimo Clark. I'm sure there were others that I didn't recognize.

I was only in Dallas for 18 hours and I can't even remember it now.

- schneid

Working on the New House

We've been busy cleaning up the new house. We removed all the carpet and pad. We are washing all the walls and ceilings, which is very tedious. We had the furnace and A/C serviced and the humidifier replaced.

My dad arrived yesterday to help us out, in particular with getting estimates from contractors on a lot of the work to be done - painting, carpeting, countertops, vinyl floors, and refinishing the wood floors.

Some of the work that we will probably do ourselves includes repairing drywall, replacing the light fixtures and installing cabinets in the laundry room.

Greg T. and I are going to finish the basement when the other work is done. The plumbing is roughed in for a full bath, but we need to get a plumber due to city code. I'd like to have a bar, rec room, bedroom, bathroom, and storage room.

You know, it's a real pain having two houses. We need to spend all our spare time at the new house, but things still need to get done at our current house, like moving the lawn, cleaning, etc. And you have bills for both houses too!

Hopefully we are on track for moving in June.

- schneid

Buying a House Before Selling Your House

Here are some lessons learned about buying a house before selling your current home. I'll try to add more information as things happen, since we only just closed on the bridge loan today and haven't closed on the new house yet.

We obtained a bridge loan, which allows you to purchase a new home before selling your current home. It doesn't allow you to just sell your current home at your leisure. You need to put your current home on the market quickly after your offer is accepted on the new house.

The bridge loan pays off the mortgage on your current home. It is an interest-only loan, and the monthly payment is a similar amount to our current mortgage + taxes monthly payment. When we sell the current house, the proceeds (equity) from that house will be used to pay off the bridge loan in whole, and we get any leftover money. If we weren't going to use that money for home improvements on the new house, then there might be tax implications for the capital gain, because the price of our new house was much less than the sale price of our current house. When we signed the bridge loan, we also receive a check (which is basically some of our equity) that is used as the down payment on the new house. Starting in May (a month after closing on the new house), we will have a monthly mortgage payment on the new house and a monthly payment for the bridge loan; therefore, it's prudent to get our home sold quickly.

- schneid

We Are Moving!

In case you didn't already know it, I left GE Healthcare and returned to working at Tellabs in November, 2005. It's without a doubt the best (and easiest) decision I ever made. Except for marrying my wife, of course. And having kids. So it's the third best decision that I ever made. The drive from our current home to Naperville is 65-75 minutes each way, and I've never cared much for a long commute. I would much prefer to spend the time with my family or even pouring lemon juice on my paper cuts. But I digress...

Based on our criteria of nearness to work, great schools, and reasonably affordable houses, we narrowed down our search to Batavia and Geneva. Naperville is out because most of it is not affordable, and the traffic is ridiculous where it is affordable. Oswego (where we used to live) is too far, Aurora and North Aurora have poor schools, etc. etc. So we found a house in North Aurora. But wait, you said North Aurora had poor schools. Well, there is a small pocket of North Aurora, 75 houses to be exact, that butts up against Batavia and is in the Batavia school district. The houses on the opposite side of our own street are in the North Aurora school district (Schneider Elementary School, to be specific). My friend Greg T. lives three houses over and has about 12 kids and a pony (or is it a Great Dane?), so it will be fun for our families to get to know each other. They built their house and really like the neighborhood.

We actually signed the contract on the new house before putting our current house on the market. We obtained a bridge loan and were prepared to move quickly in case something good came up. Well, something good came up. For the first time in three months, a home was available in our preferred neighborhood, and it was listed about $30,000 under market price. In fact, we bought it for $60,000 less than a house we had looked a week before. So the answer to our question of "Should we buy a cheap house or a nice house?" was "Both!". There were three offers on the house within three days of going on the market, and we just barely won with our offer over the asking price, no contingency, and closing by the end of the month. We take possession on March 27, and our own house just went on the market. We hope to close on our new house in a couple of months and complete our move to the new house in early June when the school year ends.

I can't even begin to list all the great features of our new house. OK, I'll try. It's in a great location next to a country club, a large wooded cemetary, Marmion Academy, and the Fox River. So it's not in the middle of a sea of houses like our current house. There are two parks within two blocks. We live about 1/4 mile from the Prairie Path, which also rans almost right by my office, so I could ride my bike to work. It's a 15 minute drive from my office.

We are 5 minutes from downtown Batavia, 10 minutes from downtown Geneva, 7 minutes from I-88 (the house is north of Butterfield and just east of IL-25 if you want to see it on a map), 20 minutes from the Fox Valley mall, 10 minutes from the grocery store, and only 10 minutes from my weekly poker game. Heck, I can host the game myself now that I live near the other guys.

Our lot is 180 feet long, so we have a huge back yard. The house has a pretty large front porch, a large paver patio, and two swingsets, one of which is big and has a tornado slide. There is a three-car garage, and in the house, running the entire length of that garage, a huge 20x7 laundry room with an exterior door. The family room is pretty big and the kitchen is decent. The kids' bedrooms are large and both have walk-in closets. The master bedroom is a huge T-shape, 20x14 and 15x9, with a tray ceiling in the master and a cathedral ceiling in the sitting room. The master bath is large and has a separate tub and shower, actually a separate room for the shower and the toilet, a dressing table, plus a 8x11 walk-in closet.

The basement is huge and very open, since the stairs and mechanicals are next to walls. We plan to finish it with (approximately) a 13x10 bedroom, 12x10 full bathroom, a large storage area, and a 30x25 (maybe 35x25) rec room.

The previous owners have dogs, rabbits, and birds, so we're going to remove every bit of carpeting from the house and replace it, as well as repainting everything, and getting some of the floors redone before we move in. That's going to take some time. I will drop off a box or two most mornings on my way to work, so when we finish the actual move, we will just have movers take care of all the furniture.

We're very excited and can't wait to get in there and start working.

- schneid

Vow to Write More Personal Stuff

This does seem like a pretty convenient way to keep up to date with friends and family. I'm going to be spending a lot less time in the car and thus there will be fewer spontaneous calls from me.

So for those of you who don't give a damn about poker, please check in occasionally and I promise to post what's going on in the life of the Schneider family.

- schneid

Short-handed

I love playing short-handed. I'll play three tables short-handed because four is too many to handle. The action is a lot faster, you are playing a lot more hands, and the decisions are much less automatic than when you are playing at a full table. Inevitably, I’ll win quite a bit on two of the tables, and lose on the other. The loss is usually due to the fact that someone calls down a bluff or two, and then they just keep hanging in there with a small pair and call me down. That’s trouble since the key to short-handed hold’em is aggressiveness.

I played three 6-player max tables of $1-$2 limit hold’em the other night for about an hour, buying in for $50 on each. On Table A, I lost about $40. At Table B, there were several players seated, but they were usually out of the game, which was almost always heads up. The guy I was playing would fold more than 50% of the time if I raised preflop! This is a heads-up dream! He clearly had full-table standards for the hands that we could play, so I raised almost every single time. If he called, then I would play cautiously depending on the flop. He actually started playing smarter in the short time that we played together. I won about $30 at that table.

Table C was the best. A player called down my bluff with middle pair, then the deck starting hitting me hard. Players were calling down my monster hands with crap. I kept saying “man I’m lucky” and showing fabulous cards when there was no showdown. On one hand, I had KK and the flop came AKK. It was checked to me and I checked. My opponent then immediately bet the turn and I raised. He called, and called my river bet too, with a medium pair. My “luck” allowed me to steal a pot a few hands later. I had T4s and limped in. The flop came AKQ. I had an inside straight draw. Checked to me, I checked. The turn was a deuce. My opponent bet, and I suspected that they had a K or Q. I called. The river was another deuce. No flush was possible. My opponent bet, and I raised. He hesitated a long time, chatted “3 2s?”, and folded. I typed “sorry” as if to apologize for getting lucky. He typed “haha”. It was awesome, we had a nice camaraderie going, with everyone in awe about how lucky I was. Shortly after that, with a different opponent (I forget the cards, but they are irrelevant), the flop was checked around and I bet the turn with nothing, no pair, no draw. My opponent raised, and I bluff re-raised him, which I can honestly say I’ve done about three times in my entire life. And he folded. Man, that felt awesome! I won $70 with a $50 buy-in in less than an hour. Yes, I did get lucky, but I felt that I played it well too.

I really like having three or four people at the table. This is nice because you don’t feel obligated to play or raise every single hand, like when it’s heads up, so you can actually limp or fold preflop with your poor hands.

An interesting phenomena has occurred on PartyPoker in the last year – the players have improved quite a bit. There are still plenty of fish, but many of the players have improved. They know that they should bluff when three suited cards flop, and if you ever check and they are the last player, they almost always bet. But I’ve been able to use that to my advantage to call down with mediocre hands when they can’t stop firing in bets, thinking they will win with their bluff. And you can use it with big hands too, letting them bet it for you, then raising on the turn or river. Of course, the good players have used this very strategy against me, and then I need to adjust.

- schneid

Learn How to Calculate Pot Odds

If you think you are serious about poker and you don't know how to calculate odds, then you are a fish. Plain and simple. Look in the mirror and practice your fishy face.

Here is a simple analogy. Suppose someone wants to bet with you on coin flips. If he offered to pay you $1 whenever it's heads, and you pay $1 whenever it's tails, you would accept because that is a fair bet. Why is it a fair bet? Because there is a 50% chance of coming up heads, also known as odds of 1:1. This means that whatever amount he is willing to pay for heads, you should be willing to pay an equal amount (or less, but who would accept that) for tails (= 1:1).

Now suppose he wanted to flip two coins. You win if they are both heads and lose otherwise. You can see that you lose when one coin is heads and the other is tails, or both are tails. What are the odds and what is an appropriate bet? Well, there are two ways that the coins can come up heads and tails: the first coin is heads and the second coin is tails, or the first coin is tails and the second coin is heads. There is one way that they can both come up tails. And there is one way that both can come up heads. This means that he has 3 ways to win and you have 1. This is odds of 3:1 against you winning. In order for the bet to be fair, for every $1 you must put up, he should pay $3.

How does this apply to poker? When you call a bet, you are paying the amount of the bet in order to win the whole pot. So if someone bets $5 and there is now $25 in the pot, then you are paying $5 to win $25. The pot is laying you $25 to $5 which is odds of 25:5 or 5:1. This means that as long as the odds against you winning are 5:1 or better (lower), this is a fair bet, and you should call the bet.

Of course, most of the time you will lose, but it doesn't matter in the long run. Suppose you take the above bet 6 times. Odds are that you will pay $5 and lose 5 out of 6 times. One time you will win $25. So you lose a total of $25 (5*$5) the five times that you lose and win $25 one time - you have broken even.

Now that you know how to calculate the odds that the pot is laying, you still need to know the odds of making your hand to determine if it's a fair bet. The general assumption here is that you don't think you have the best hand and are drawing to the best hand, such as when you have a flush draw or a straight draw, or just overcards. When you think you already have the best hand, such as top pair, you should bet or raise in order to prevent your opponents from having the proper odds to chase their draws. So how do you calculate the odds against making your hand? It's simple - it's the number of cards that don't help you vs. the number of cards that help you. It's easiest when there isn't another potential draw. For example, you have Ts9d and the flop comes Jc8d2h. You have an open-ended straight draw. How many cards will help you? The four 7s and the four Qs will make you a nut straight. A T or 9 will give you a pair, but it will also put a possible straight on the board and both are underpairs, so I wouldn't count those as outs (cards that will help you). Therefore, with the 7s and Qs, you have 8 outs. How many cards don't help you then? Well, we've seen 5 (2 in your hand and 3 on the flop), so there are 47 left in the deck. OK, technically, they are not all in the deck, some are in other players' hands, burned cards, etc., but if you can't see a card, then it doesn't really exist. Look up Schrodinger's Cat if you don't believe me. Anyway, there are 47 cards left and 8 help you, which means that 39 don't help you. Thus the odds against you making your hand are 39:8 which is very close to 5:1 (it's actuall;y 4.875:1). Approximations are close enough for these decisions unless you suck as approximations. Since you are 5:1 against making your hand, then you are getting the correct price from the pot as long as it's paying you 5:1 or more on your bet. If there's $30 in the pot and the bet is $5, then you can call because the pot is paying you 6:1 to hit your 5:1 shot. If you miss on the turn, then you MUST recalculate because in limit poker, the turn bet is bigger, and you might no longer have the correct odds for your draw.

Is this hard to do? It takes some learning but becomes automatic after awhile. And you can't call yourself a decent poker player unless you can calculate odds. This is one reason why online poker is easier, because the pot always has the $ amount right next to it. It's harder to determine how much money is in the pot in a live game when there's three different colors of chips in the pot. But you eventually get good at doing that too.

Outs are cards that will improve your hand. You really want these outs to improve your hand to the best hand. Here's an example in hold'em: you have JTo (this means jack and ten "offsuit". JTs is jack-ten suited). You are heads-up and the flop comes Ah8c9d. Your opponent bets and you feel confident that he has an ace. This means that catching a J or T won't help you. But you have a nice straight draw. Any 7 or Q will give you the nut straight. There is no flush draw (right now) because the board has 3 different suits. There are four 7s and four Qs left, so you have 8 "outs". This means that 8 cards will help you and all remaining cards will hurt you. How many remaining cards are there? You subtract from 52 all the cards that are known. There are 3 on the flop and 2 in your hand, and if you are confident enough, you can count the ace in your opponent's hand. That means 6 cards are known, leaving 52-6 = 46 cards unknown. Of the 46, 8 will help which means 38 will hurt. The odds against making your hand on the next card are 38:8 = 4.75:1 (estimating is ok, and by the way, this is always the odds of making an open-ended straight draw in hold'em). So if your opponent bets $3 and the pot is now $10, the pot is laying you 10:3 = 3.33:1 to make your hand. That's not enough and you should fold. You need to get 4.75:1 or better from the pot.

Suppose we are playing the above hand but the flop is Ah8c9h, and there are four players in the pot. Now there is a flush draw, and someone might have it since there are a lot of players. That means some of your outs won't help you. You can't count all the 7s and Qs because the 7h and the Qh will make someone a flush. Now you have 6 "clean" outs = 40:6 = 6.66:1.

No, I didn't get into implied odds, reverse implied odds, or even implied tilt odds yet. More on those later.

You can also apply odds to calling bets on the river. Suppose it's heads-up and there is $90 in the pot. Your opponent bets $10. You can only beat a bluff - maybe you have a pair of 3s or maybe even just Ace high. But the pot is offering you 9:1. This means that if you just catch your opponent bluffing in this same situation 1 time for every 9 times that you are wrong, you will break even. Basically it means that if there is a 10% chance that your opponent is bluffing, you should call. And there is almost always at least a 10% chance that your opponent is bluffing. You need to call in these situations, especially in limit poker, unless you know the opponent is very tight and therefore has you beat, or doesn't bluff.

In big bet poker, you can sometimes bluff out an expert opponent on the river with a small bet rather than a big bet. Suppose that on the river, there is a possible flush, and you make a pot-sized bluff. That actually looks like a bluff. If you really had a flush, most players would bet the amount that you think your opponent would call, since you expect to win, and that would not be a pot-sized bet, but more like 1/4 or 1/3 of the pot. The a bluff of 1/3 or 1/4 of the pot can be more scary to your opponent IF he is an expert and IF he thinks you are a good player too.

Conversely, if you are playing against morons and are holding the nuts, you might want to bet hugely because they are stupid enough to call.

- schneid

Start Planning for WSOP 2006

To my home game pals: We need to start thinking about the World Series of Poker this summer. It's from June 25 to August 10. There are events and satellites for those events almost every day.

You can see the schedule here: WSOP 2006 Schedule

My plan is to go at a time when the cheapest events are being played. The cheapest events are $1000 or $1500. Single-table satellites for those events are $125 or $175 - 10 players sit down and play a single table satellite to basically win entry into those events. You would probably play in the satellites one day to get into an event the next day.

It would be cool to play in the super satellites, which are multi-table tournaments for getting into the main event. They cost $230 and pay out an entry into the Main Event for every 50 players in the tournament. But if you were to actually win (doubtful), you would need to stick around for the Main Event. I don't have that much time to spare.

The first couple of days are not a good time to go because it's a madhouse. I would like to go for 3 nights, so I would arrive the day before an event I want to play in. Based on that and wanting the cheapest events, the best time to go is to play in these events:

22-Jul-06 Saturday 2:00 PM 33 Seven Card Razz (2 day event) $1,500.00

23-Jul-06 Sunday 12 noon 34 No-Limit Hold'em w/re-buys (3 day event) $1,000.00

24-Jul-06 Monday 12 noon 35 Seven Card Hi Low Split (2 day event) $1,000.00

24-Jul-06 Monday 2:00 PM 36 Limit Hold'em Shootout (3 day event) $1,500.00

25-Jul-06 Tuesday 12 noon 37 No-Limit Hold'em (3 day event) $1,500.00

or

5-Aug-06 Saturday 10:00 AM 41 No-Limit Hold'em (2 day event) $1,500.00

6-Aug-06 Sunday 10:00 AM 42 No-Limit Hold'em (2 day event) $1,500.00

7-Aug-06 Monday 10:00 AM 43 No-Limit Hold'em (2 day event) $1,500.00

8-Aug-06 Tuesday 10:00 AM 44 No-Limit Hold'em (2 day event) $1,500.00

9-Aug-06 Wednesday 10:00 AM 45 No-Limit Hold'em (1 day event) $1,500.00

The first set of dates is better if you wanted to play some games other than hold'em. The second set is better if you want to be there to watch the Main Event. Two problems with the first set of dates are that we never play razz, and a re-buy event probably isn't a good idea on a limited budget. So my vote would be for the second set of dates.

For details on the fun, see the July 2005 entries in my poker blog.

I'm not 100% sure I'll be going, since I'm moving this summer. But I hope the worst case is that I only go for 2 nights.

- schneid

More Poker Books

I've read a few more since my post Good Poker Books.

I read The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King. This is a great story about billionaire Andy Beal and the contingent of professionals who played against him. I was impressed with how Beal could go home, greatly improve his game, then come back to Vegas months later and beat the pros. He constantly tried to raise the stakes so that the amount of money involved would make even these professionals nervous. In the end, he had trouble maintaining the discipline to follow his own rules, such as not playing long sessions, and lost. But that point is still under debate, according to Beal, who claims that overall, he was a winner.

The book Phil Gordon's Little Green Book : Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em contains a lot of useful observations about no-limit hold'em. It's really making me think about the game a lot more. Since they are so many short ideas, it's easy to pick up just for a few minutes. Then of course you'll be thinking about that one idea during your entire commute to work.

I'm currently reading The Book of Bluffs : How to Bluff and Win at Poker by Matt Lessinger. This is an excellent book about how, why, and when to bluff, including how frequently you should try certain bluffs and how often they work.

Finally, I'm really enjoying The Making Of A Poker Player: How An Ivy League Math Geek Learned To Play Championship Poker, by Matt Matros. This book details his rise to becoming a professional poker player. It's an interesting read and contains some useful strategic and mathematical information, but not a ton.

End of Second Rebuy Tournament

Well, here's how the second one went. I had an average stack, when the following hand occurred:

I have Kh9h in middle position, two limpers, I limp, 3 more limpers. Flop is Jh9sAh, so I flop middle pair with a flush draw. I might have 14 outs (nine hearts, two 9s, and three Ks). I go all-in, a guy calls with AQo for about 1/3 of my stack. I don't get any help (I'm 50/50 to win this one) and lose the hand.

The very next hand, I get dealt AA. I type "damnit" in the chat box, then go all-in which is pretty big since the blinds are 300/600 right now - I'm hoping some sucker will think I'm on tilt from the last hand. Sure enough, a huge stack calls, and shows KJo. I am an 87% favorite at this point. He flops a J, turns a K, and IGHN.

I'm happy with how I played again and at least I didn't get donked out of the tournament this time. Hell, I got all my money in as an 87% favorite! I should be so lucky. So no problem, shit happens.

- schneid

Rebuy Tournament

On Saturday, I played in the $5/1 Million Dollar Qualifier with rebuys. The structure of this tournament is awesome. You start with T1000, and any time in the first hour that you are under T1000, you can rebuy T1000 for $5. At the end of the first hour, there is an add-on of T1500 for $5. I'm actually playing in the Sunday tournament as I write this blog.

A lot of people really gamble early on with junk, since they can rebuy for $5. I busted early and rebought. There was a lot of limping and min raises. Then they go all-in with draws or mediocre hands. I played somewhat tight, and was able to get all their chips when I had the best of it. I had an above average stack at the end of hour. The cool thing about the rebuys is that you can gamble too, if you want, and don't have to worry about busting out. The other great thing about the structure is that there will be a ton of chips at your table, and overall in the tournament. Since you have a lot of chips in relation to the blinds, there's a lot of play in the tournament and not so much short-stack, all-in strategy. Once you have a big stack, you can push people around or limp in with marginal hands, hoping to flop a big one and get a lot of chips.

Unfortunately, I don't have a hand history. I played decently until the blinds were up to about 50/100, and had a less than average stack. Then in the space of about 5 hands, I tripled up. In the first hand, I was dealt 99. An early player limped, then I limped, and the small blind went all-in for about 20% of my stack. The limper just called, and I reraised all-in, knowing that the small blind could have anything, the limper probably didn't have much, and I didn't want to be against two opponents with live overcards. The limper folded and it was just me against J9o, my 99 held up and I won that one. Then there were 2 more hands in the next 4 where I held the nuts or near to it and made a bunch of money. I wish I could remember them...

The important hands were late in the tournament. I was 4th in chips and there were 20 players left. Top 4 spots paid entry to the Million Dollar tournament (worth $640). I was playing well and felt pretty confident. Then these two hands occurred:

I raised to about 4 times BB in middle position with AQo, Player X (with a large stack the size of mine) reraises about triple my bet. This guy has done this a few times, but we've never seen his cards. I think about going all-in, but I will have a better than average stack if I completely miss the flop and fold. The flop comes KQX. But before the flop, I put him on AA, KK, AK, or QQ, and I'm toast to all of those. I check, he bets, I think about it awhile, pretty sure he has a king, and I fold.

The very next hand, I get KQo. I raise to 4X the BB, and he reraises me again! This time I assume he thinks I'm steaming, plus I don't want to be pushed off the hand again on the flop, so I go all-in, and he calls immediately. He's got AJo, so I'm in OK shape until he flops an ace and IGHN. So I suppose he did think I was steaming, because I assume he wouldn't risk 2/3 of his stack with AJo. But maybe he would, and now I really question my not pushing with AQo, now knowing that he has a wider range of hands there.

I was very happy with my play overall, but not at the end. I think the bigger mistake was the first hand - I should've pushed all-in preflop with AQo. He probably would've folded or I may have doubled up. This mistake led to the second one, and I went from great position to out of the tournament.

In the current Sunday tournament, I just quintupled up (yes, you heard that right). With A5d, I called a min-raise and there were 5 players that saw a flop of Jd6cTd. Someone min-bet, I raised, two callers, two short-stacks went all-in, I went all-in, another guy went all-in, and the fifth guy called. The turn was a diamond and I quintupled up! The hands of the other guys on the flop were: top pair king kicker, open-ended straight draw, inside straight draw with backdoor flush draw and two overcards, and a set of sixes. The pot was laying me great odds. PokerStove says that the set had a 48% chance of winning, and I was 28%, so I got a little lucky. But I had the right price.

As I said before, there's a lot of play in these tournaments. I currently have 130 big blinds. You're in decent shape over 30 BB, I'd say. At some point yesterday, I had over 300 BB.

Maybe today's tournament will go better than yesterday's!

- schneid

Building a home in North Carolina?

If you are looking for a quality custom home builder in North Carolina, you should contact Glory Home Builders. Harvey Schneider builds quality custom homes at reasonable prices. I should know, because he's my dad. I've seen dozens of his homes and they are fantastic. They build mostly in the Winston-Salem area.

- schneid

My BARGE Geek Code

In the old days, I played poker for fake money on IRC. This was the original "online poker", years before the monster that we have now. I played probably from 1993 until about 1997 or so. I actually attended BARGE (Big August Rec.Gambling Excursion) in 1996 in Las Vegas with my wife. Our seminar was conducted by the Mad Genius of Poker, Mike Caro. Some of the attendees are now professional poker players or people well-known in poker circles for other reasons, such as Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, Perry Friedman, Rafe Furst, Kim Scheinberg, Barry Tanenbaum, Patti Beadles, Abdul Jalib M'hall, Lee Jones, Steve Jacobs, and Steve Landrum. It was a blast. They held a no-limit WSOP-style tournament at Binion's Horseshoe. We played in a blackjack tournament and a video poker tournament. We met some fun people and learned to play craps, the "heroin of gambling", as they put it. One event was trying to get banned from the Barbary Coast for counting cards at blackjack. We were surprised to actually be winning but just couldn't get thrown out. I even almost circled a Tiltboy. Perry Friedman, wearing a leisure suit, walked by me. I dropped a chip on the floor and said, "Did you drop that?" while making a circle with my thumb and forefinger. He turned around, looked right at it, and said "That's not below your waist." Doh! So close!

From http://zbigniew.pyrzqxgl.com/bargegeek.html, my BARGE geek code is: A+ G+ PKR PEG+ B+ TB ADB M+

I would like to attend another BARGE, but I assume they've gotten out of hand as far as attendance goes. In addition, I want to attend the WSOP every year, and I just don't have time for two trips.

- schneid

Recent Poker Strategy

One thing that has helped my game a ton is to not bet marginal hands on the river. If you just want to see the showdown, then you should just check. If you bet, you're asking for a better hand to raise, and a worse hand to fold. It depends on the opponent but is usually true. If you check, everyone thinks that's a weakness, and they will often bet with nothing, like if they missed their draw. Then you call and take it down. It's commonly known as "inducing a bluff" and it works well.

Another strategy that I've been trying to employ is manipulating the size of the pot preflop. For example, if I'm on the button with AK, and there are already 4 or more players in, I might not raise. At the low limits I play, I know the BB will call and every other limper will call too. If I thought anyone would fold, then maybe I would raise. If I raise, the pot will be 12.5 bets, and everyone will have odds to call with gutshots and all kinds of other crap after the flop. Your preflop raise makes it correct for those players to call with their drawing hands on the flop. And if you don't raise preflop with KK, then you get to see if an ace flops, and get out cheaply if one does.

I've been trying not to cold-call with hands that will be dominated. For example, if an early position player raises, and another cold-calls, I don't want to call with KQo. What do I think those two players have? AK and AQ both have me dominated, and AA, KK, and QQ would be bad too. With an early position raise and cold-caller, odds are good that one of them has one of those hands, plus everyone still has a chance to call behind me.

Pay attention to which players are in the blinds. If everyone limps in, or even worse, if there's a raise and the big blind calls, the flop is J44, and the big blind bets, I usually believe that he has a 4. After all, especially with a raise, who's the player most likely to have a 4? The blinds don't usually like to bluff out of position like this with several players still to act. Of course, if this player is an expert, then it's more likely to be a bluff. Don't try to bluff bad players like this; they won't even notice. In addition, at low limits, players that bet usually have it. Unless everyone has checked to them - the low limit players can't stand to let a flop get checked around unless it's really scary.

What's the difference between holding AT and the flop comes T99, or having AT and the flop comes TJJ? In the first case, if another T comes, you have the top full house. But in the second case, if the T comes, you have the bottom full house and any J beats you. Frankly, I hate being in a hand like that, especially with a lot of opponents in low limit games, because someone always ends up with trips.

Don't tap on the aquarium, as Phil Gordon and the Tiltboys say. Bad beats happen. Hell, 22 is going to beat AA heads-up 20% of the time. That's not lottery odds. Suck it up and be glad that your opponents are willing to put all their money in with bad hands. It's not the results of the one hand that matter, it's the results in the long run. You hear it all the time "How could you call with that?" There are some players out there who want opponents to call only when dominated and fold whenever they bluff. Players with this attitude are just as bad as bad players. And I love them all! In fact, be nice to bad players. That's the way to make the money. In addition, if you're rude to other players, they will go out of their way to get revenge. Some players think this is good, because those players will play poorly, but they might actually tighten up and trap you with a good hand.

- schneid

Job Change

I should mention that I changed jobs in early November. I left GE Healthcare to go back to Tellabs in Naperville. My job at GE was pretty easy and not a lot of hours. But I couldn't take the bureacracy, apathy, chaos, throw-it-over-the-wall mentality, blame, and constant turnover (seemed like about 30% of the employees quit every year). Anyone over 3-4 years of experience was like a senior employee. I knew in less than one week that the place was a wreck. A typical conversation there went like this "How do you do XYZ?" - "I don't know, Bob used to do it and he doesn't work here any more". No one paid attention to anything unless it was on fire. Priorities changed on a weekly basis.

I was told during my interview that they were moving to another nearby facility, so I bought a house 25 minutes from that facility (but 1 hour from the current one). They never moved in the entire 32 months that I worked there. It didn't only affect me, a lot of people moved to be near the other facility; one friend closed on his new house a week before they cancelled the move. Of course, now that I have left, they have finally moved. The total lack of financial rewards didn't help - no bonus, no employee stock purchase plan, no stock options, nothing. Very minimal annual raises, and that's it. Many people think having GE on your resume is great, and they seemed to think that was your reward.

I never wanted to be one of those people that hates their job, but that's who I had become. I did manage to stick it out for 32 months, AND I turned down two (and a half) job offers while I was there. Neither offer would have given me a job that was a significant improvement over GE. What was the "half" job offer? Well, they were asking me to take a HUGE pay cut and I was very tempted to do it, because the job would've been fantastic and a short commute. But they didn't make an offer because there was just too much of a gap in salary.

I'm back at Tellabs, and at the same time have steered my career back in the direction I wanted to go - software quality assurance and process improvement. I had worked at Tellabs for 10 years when I was laid off in January 2003. The project that I'm working with is working around the clock on very short development cycles. They are working too hard and are burned out. Things need to change soon. I've also been putting in extra hours, but nothing like the developers. The company provides dinner every night and food on the weekends, plus free soda and coffee all the time. It's not a reward, just something they must do if they expect everyone to be at work all the time.

The amazing thing is the quality that they've been producing. Of course, there are some silly mistakes with such a compressed schedule, but it's unbelievable that the quality of the product is pretty high. This is due to the fact that the employees are so experienced and talented, 10-15 years experience on average, and totally dedicated to the project. Nothing like this could ever have been accomplished at my former employer.

With the current work environment, people are often asking me "So, you've been back for a few months, what do you think?", thinking it's a loaded question. I tell them that I'm thrilled to be back. And it's true. It's a lot easier to work harder when everyone around you is working harder; it's easier to be dedicated when everyone else is; and it's worth the effort to try to make a difference when you actually think you can.

So here's what I traded: easy, chaotic job with short commute for harder job, longer hours, and long commute. And I'd do it again every day of the week and twice on Sunday. This is the concensus among my other friends that have left GE, and there are a lot of them.

The only unfortunate thing is that I'd like to move back closer to Naperville. I regret not moving somewhere in the middle. But my oldest is only in kindergarten, so we will move this summer when he's done. We're looking at Batavia and Geneva. Naperville would be nice, but the prices are outrageous, and where the prices are decent, the traffic is phenomenally bad. I'll be trading a 2.5 hour daily commute for potentially a 30-60 minute commute. That's an extra 1.5 - 2 hours I can spend with my family every day, so it's worth the expense and pain of moving, not to mention the fact that the houses are more expensive. Our criteria are: good schools, short commute, and nice house at a somewhat reasonable price.

I'm going way off on a tangent here, but there was just an article in the newspaper about people moving way out in the suburbs for more affordable housing. They face a 2 hour or longer commute every day to get a nicer house for less money. You might have a big nice house then, but you'll never be there and you'll never see your family. A short commute is critical for me. I realize that things are different the closer you get to Chicago, where you pay a fortune for an old ranch in almost any town; we are lucky to be in the far west suburbs.

- schneid