PokerBlog: Be Very Afraid.

Just for the heck of it, I'm going to do a bit of blogging while Bryan Alsworth and I play a 5000 man freeroll no-limit hold 'em tournament on JokerStars. This is some seriously awful poker--you wonder whether half these players even know the hand ranks without looking them up--so it's not for the faint of heart. Abandon hope, all ye who continue.

Only three sitters at my table. (Sitters = people who are 'Sitting Out', who registered for the tournament but never showed up for it and never will show up.) Usually it's four or five at the first table of the tournament.

Bryan limp-folds on the first hand. At a different table (of course), I fold 54 offsuit.

Aaaaand on the second hand, we have our first jackass that lets his entire clock run down before checking. Ladies and gentlemen, the #1 reason why online poker sucks!

Bryan's still ticked off about "guys like the clownshoe who thinks his JJ is made of gold." He's got a point: Only an idiot takes JJ and puts all his chips on it in the face of three other players that are also all-in. One of the many problems with these donkaments is that the stupidity is somewhat infectious. That is, even a reasonable guy might decide "eh, it's a freeroll, I don't have much time anyway, and with all these idiots, JJ is probably the best hand right now" and take a shot at quadrupling up. That's often the thought process. And truth be told, the clownshoe with Q5 offsuit could just as easily have won the dumb thing.

54 offsuit for the second time in three hands. (The other one was 98 offsuit.)

Very quiet play at both tables, uncharacteristic of these donkaments. Of course, the first time I get a half decent hand and try to limp (threes), somebody with K5 offsuit shoves. He gets called by AJ, and needless to say, wins. He then immediately sits out. That's another common strategy for the kind of morons these freerolls attract: Double up early and then sit out for awhile to protect your stack.

We're now playing five handed, with four sitters.

44 on the button, but the cutoff raises. I fold. You know a four is coming on the flop. (It doesn't, of course. I just always expect it to.)

Bryan gets all his chips in with KK against a guy with JJ... and loses when he catches his set. Bryan's out in 3880th place. He's taking it well: "I'm going to walk out on this 9-man. And uninstall again." And that's what he did. I had to talk him into installing just to play tonight for my amusement.

I limp K9 in the hijack seat. I don't know why. Flop comes A2Q and I'm done.

More from Bryan: "Getting your chips in right means nothing here. This isn't poker. This is a bunch of ignorant donks who can't even SPELL poker." I can't argue. The guy with JJ won, but there were also a couple of high-low unsuited hands that happily went into a four-way all-in there.

Tables got reshuffled. Now there are actually eight players. I call a minraise in the big blind with Kd-4d, because it cost me $30 and the pot was $270. Flop is 6J3 rainbow and that's that. Here's the action on fourth street, with the pot still at 270: bet 30, call, fold, fold.

Ladies and gentlemen, JokerStars!!

I'm now sitting next to a guy whose handle is LinuxH@CK3r. Not only is there no real Linux hacker alive that would use that script-kiddie kind of handle on a poker site, but somewhere out there Richard Stallman just put his fist through his computer screen and doesn't know why. That's an insult to hackers everywhere.

I fold A9 on the button to a raise to $240 (blinds are 15/30). Easy fold to me, even though there's a 85% chance he has nothing better than 88.

Open shove under the gun from the same rocket scientist that shoved K5 on the second hand and doubled up. He gets insta-called by the guy to his left, who has a much shorter stack, and then it's folded around the table to the big blind, who is a jackass and decides to let his clock run all the way down (that's about 90 seconds) instead of just folding.

The open-shover had Q6. The insta-caller had K7s. The insta-caller catches a straight (T-A) and wins.

Another shove from the big blind, same guy, with T9. Called by 22 and A4.

T9 wins. The moron donk that keeps shoving rags is now among the chip leaders. Time for a long, healthy swig from the Super Stein. (It's filled to the brim with spring water. No, really!)

And I'm back in time to fold J3 offsuit. If you're keeping track, I've seen the flop once in 16 non-blind hands. I get bored and limp 76 suited, with predictable results: Moron boy shoves and gets one call. He shoved QJ and got called by 42 suited. Needless to say, 42 wins. He shoves again the next hand; no call this time.

Moron boy is officially in shove-every-hand-no-matter-what mode. That's his fifth straight open shove. He gets called by the same guy that had the 42; this time he has QJ suited, and moron boy has K4. Moron boy loses, but still has 3000+ in chips left.

The Adventures of Moron Boy, chapter 376: He shoves A9 this time, and gets called by A4. An ace and a pair come on board, and it splits.

Moron Boy shoves 47 offsuit and gets called by KQ offsuit (same guy he keeps butting heads with.) Moron Boy catches a full house and busts him, and once again is among the chip leaders.

Of course, all this time I'm getting nothing but rags. Not a single pair to look up Moron Boy with. Meanwhile, Moron Boy is openly chatting about the drugs he just took ten minutes ago. I'm not making this up. Somehow, I'm inclined to believe him. Should I call the cops?

I've now played 3 hands out of 28 even including my blinds, thanks to an unending string of rags and Moron Boy. He's back to shoving every hand, and it's been three hands now with nobody calling him. Meanwhile, the blinds have caught up to me; I have to get the first decent hand I see and try to double up through Moron Boy.

Moron Boy's Q6d shove is called by an AJ and a 7Q. Moron Boy busts both of them.

Bad news: I got moved to a different table, away from Moron Boy. He was my best shot at doubling up and staying in this thing. Now I'm going to need to catch a hot run to stay alive.

Terminal84 overbets the river (500 into a 300 pot) on a TQ5QJ board. JayGee folds. Terminal84 probably had the Q.

I limp A3s in the cutoff with five others in the pot. I'm grasping at straws here... The flop is Ah-9s-Kc, giving me top pair and a runner-runner draw, but no kicker. Four checks to me; I bet $400 of my remaining $1110 into a $500 pot. I probably should have just shoved if I wanted to keep playing, but it got folded down to me anyway. My first pot of the night! I'm now 1356 out of 2141 remaining players. It's worse than that, though, since two-thirds of the players behind me are sitters.

A guy down to 745 (blinds 50/100 now) shoves from the hijack seat and gets called by the button. That's another example of bad poker; if you're going to call a shove with three players live behind you, you need to shove your stack and eliminate them. Two of those three also called, and then the button shoves the TA6 flop with AT. His hand holds up, and with the elimination, I get zipped to a different table, where, with 1610 in chips, I'm the short stack among eight active players.

At the new table, there's an aggro-donk with a sizable stack directly to my right, which is pretty much going to force me to pick a decent hand and put all my chips on it before long.

I take that back -- he put all his chips in pre-flop against a guy with an even bigger stack and pocket queens. That's the end of him, and someone else takes his seat.

I'm able to check my huge 72 in the big blind. Flop is 655 rainbow. The cards are unusually dry tonight even by my lofty standards of dryness.

We have a typically overzealous series: With a pot of 600, we have bet 300-call, shove 1200-reshove-fold on a 655 flop. The original better and reshover had: Jack-ten. Needless to say, the original overzealous shover had trip fives.

I limp T5 suited in the small blind getting 11:1 odds, but whiff on the flop again. That's probably for the best. A flop like T63 is death when you're in a blind and hung around with ten-five. I've lost all my chips in those kind of situations too many times (catching trips with a bad kicker and losing to someone's better trips is also popular, for me.)

Q9 on the button, and the sad thing is that's one of the better hands I've seen tonight, and I'm tempted to play it. Blinds are now 75/150 and I have $1410 in chips left. I fold it. I have six hands (before the blinds reach me) to pick a hand and shove my chips in, and I have a feeling none of them are going to be better than that Q9. Indeed, my next hand is: Four-deuce.

The newcomer to the table shoves his chips in preflop with Jack-ten, and gets called by pocket aces. As you dedicated students of JokerStars have already guessed, the JT catches a straight and wins, and is now the big stack at the table. Meanwhile, in hand two of six, I get: Five-deuce.

The same guy that lost with aces to a jack-ten catches jack-ten himself and figures, what the heck, jack-ten is the freaking nuts around here, and--I'm not kidding--he shoves it. He gets called by ace-king suited, but--I'm not making this up, either--catches a straight and wins. Theory proven! The next time I get jack-ten, I'm jamming that sucker like I have thirty seconds to live.

Next hand, I catch ace-nine and shove it. I get called by J8, which is a good result. I flop two pair and double up. Still alive!

55 gets in against Ad-Kd. After a rainbow flop that misses them both, the AK catches two running diamonds to stay alive. I'm back to folding rags. I just checked my hand history: I haven't had jack-ten yet in this tournament. Figures.

Short stack shoves in his last 445 under the gun while I'm in the big blind with jack-four. Since this is a table full of dimwits, we get three calls before I cheerfully set my cards on fire. The dimwits cooperate to see to the original short shover's demise, but his A6 catches well enough to split the pot and he stays alive. He shoves KQ from the big blind in the next hand, gets called by 66. He catches his king on the flop... but a 6 comes on the river and he's gone. JokerStars has a really cruel sense of humor.

The aggro-donk to my right is still around and still aggro-donking, by the way. He jams ace-jack like it's the flat freaking nuts, leading out on every street, keeps getting called all the way down, and catches a jack on the river to beat the other guy's nines. He's now the big stack at the table. He's not like Moron Boy, but anytime he catches even a reasonably good hand -- any ace, for instance -- he jams it. The rest of the table is shying away from him now. The last few hands he's raised, gotten one caller, bet the flop hard and taken the pot.

I'm getting 7:1 odds in the big blind, but lay down my 76 offsuit anyway. With my stack as it is, even that limp dents me, and there's not much hope of hitting the flop in any meaningful way in that hand. I've drifted back into looking-for-a-hand-to-shove territory.

King-jack in the small blind next hand; I could shove with five limpers, but I limp it. Flop is 88T rainbow, and I'm not going to take any shots at this pot. That flop hit somebody.

Actually, it didn't. The pot ended up being taken by a guy that picked up a 5 on the turn.

King-nine on the button, but facing raise-call in front of me, I have to throw it away. Someone busts and I get moved to a new table that has three sitters, so we're now six-handed. That brings us to the one-hour break. I have 2420 in chips, and after the break blinds will be at 100/200 with 25 antes, meaning my M is under 5 and I have to shove. What's worse, I'll be under the gun, meaning I have to either shove whatever hand I get first after the break, or blind-shove whatever I get when I'm in the big blind. I'll relay the story of my gallant last stand in five minutes. Right now, it's a bathroom stop and some peppermint patties.

My first hand after the break is 44. That's plenty good for my last stand, so I shove my chips in. Unfortunately, everyone folds. I gather enough to last another orbit, but that's all.

Ace-jack suited in the big blind, next hand. Once again, that's not an optimal hand--Bryan hates ace-jack--but my options are few. There's only one limper, and I shove. He folds and I collect the blinds and antes again. That'll allow me to tighten up my need for shoving for a couple orbits. (After that, the blinds jump straight to 200/400 and I'm totally screwed.)

After rags in the small blind, I pick up ace-nine suited on the button. This time, I get calle dby fours, which stand up, and that's all she wrote. As a final thought: I started keeping track a little bit ago, and so far, in "coinflip situations" (splits no greater than 60/40) I'm 1 for 10. That has to mean I've got one great hot streak coming sometime in the future, right?

Wow! STDs??? You're Kidding!

You can find stuff to talk about all day long, just clicking around the BBC headlines feed built into Firefox. Here's a real shocker to turn your world upside-down: A lot of teenage girls in the U.S. have sexually transmitted diseases.

Let me fisk through a few quotes here:

The study, by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found an even higher prevalence of STDs among black girls.

This is true, and sad. It has nothing to do with them being black; it would be more instructive, and the results would be the same, if instead of studying race, you studied family income. Poor teenagers have more sex than rich ones, get pregnant more, and have more STDs. Maybe it's because they have no future to look forward to and so are even more inclined than the average teenager to live for right now and forget tomorrow, but honestly, I don't really think so. Virtually all teenagers are sex-crazed. More likely it's because the poorer kids don't give as much thought to protection.

That isn't the problem, though. We've been preaching the virtues of safe sex to teenagers for 30 years now, and the result has been skyrocketing pregnancy and STD rates. Once we accepted that it's OK for teenagers to be having sex with various partners, it all went to pot. The only reliable solution is: Teenagers need to stop having casual sex. Not only is it dangerous, it's also empty and emotionally damaging.

The CDC's Devin Fenton said it was a serious issue because the diseases could lead to infertility and cervical cancer.

Infertility? Somebody hasn't seen the teenage pregnancy rates lately. By 'lately', I mean anytime in the last 30 years.

John Douglas, the CDC's head of STD prevention, says screenings are underused because teenagers often do not think they are at risk.

No!! Teenagers don't grasp the concept of risk???

Trying to convince a teenager to think about mitigating risk is like trying to convince a dog to look both ways before it starts chasing after a fire engine. The sex itself is the problem; screenings are not a solution. I know most of you think the traditional way of holding down STD levels among teenagers--convincing them from a very young age that having sex with multiple partners is simply not tolerable--was horrifyingly restrictive of their self-expression or whatever, but it worked. Our way doesn't.

Analysts say some doctors are also reluctant to discuss screening with teenage patients because of confidentiality concerns, knowing parents would have to be told of the results.

Did you catch it? The subtle message of this concluding paragraph is: We have to stop parents from being involved. That's exactly the opposite of what would solve the STD/pregnancy problem. The extent to which parents were involved in their childrens' lives and aware of what they were doing correlates pretty much perfectly inversely with STD rates, society-wide. Less parental involvement = more STDs, more pregnancy. Why? Because of more sex.

This is from a few paragraphs further up in the article, but I'm going to close with it:

"Screening, vaccination and other prevention strategies for sexually active women are among our highest public health priorities," he said.

Devin Fenton is avowing to have no understanding of what causes STDs. Sexually transmitted diseases are not caused by lack of screenings, vaccinations or awareness of protection. They are caused by sex with multiple partners. I don't for a minute think Devin Fenton is that stupid. He knows full well what the problem really is, and what the solution really is. But if teenagers stopped having sex, Devin Fenton would lose his high-paying job. The more people that are contracting STDs, the more secure Devin Fenton's job is.

Can't Fault Admiral Fallon

So Admiral William Fallon, who was ostensibly the guy in charge of U.S. operations in the Middle East, quit.

Can you blame him? I can't. If I were stuck in a situation where nobody will tell me exactly why I'm in the Middle East with tens of thousands of troops or what exactly I'm supposed to be accomplishing, I'd quit, too, and Admiral Fallon's copious retirement package makes it a no-brainer.

The truth of the matter is, because nobody in the U.S. -- neither decision makers nor general public -- will come to grips with the reality of what's going on in the Middle East long enough to think about what we really want to accomplish over there, and because of it, a general-in-command is just helpless. If you don't know what you want to get done, chances are strong it just ain't going to get done.

He cited the "embarrassing situation and public perception of differences between my views and administration policy" as the reason for retiring.

I guess you're going to be told that Fallon doesn't think U.S. soldiers should be in Iraq, but I doubt it. Fallon's an admiral. Much more likely Fallon's frustrated by his being mere middle management, carrying out the whims of the Pentagon and trying to operate by rules that prevent him from waging an effective war.

The situation in Iraq is ugly, and remains ugly. It's war against an enemy that's smart enough to hit-and-run against a much more powerful foe; it's the same thing we got our butts kicked so badly with in Vietnam, just in the desert instead of the jungle. Now, as then, we're not getting anything done because:

1. We don't really know what we want to do, and
2. We're trying to fight nice. It doesn't work.

Fallon's trying to conduct a war on behalf of people who are afraid to admit it's a war and trying to pretend it's not. Faced with that reality, I'd quit and go enjoy myself on the beaches of Kokomo, too.