Tao of Steve

The Tao of Steve is perhaps one of the greatest guy movies of all time. Some of the movie includes how to hook up with women which takes 3 easy to do steps:

1. Be desireless
2. Be excellent
3. Be gone
   

In a quick summary, when you want to hook up with a girl. Mentally not want to hook up with her, then do something great in her presence, then ignore her for a while. When Dave asks why you should ignore her, Dex responds with one of my favorite lines in any movie. "You never see a dog chasing a stick that already laying on the ground, do you?"

It's like poker in some ways. You can't push every pot, you have to be desireless, don't let your emotion get in the way. You need a good flop so that you have people chasing, and it's even better when they can't improve. Or perhaps the real way that it relates: I just say it does, so watch the movie, laugh, and then play some cards, or chase skirts around the bar/casino/etc.


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I played in the FTP $10 PL Hold'em Tourney. It went quite well, and there are times that I think I like PL more then NL. Some hands of interest:

50/100: An above average amount of chips in front of me, and I get AA UTG, this position is a bit of problem in PL, so I limp and hope for a raise so I can reraise, I get one other limper, the SB completes, BB checks. The flop comes out unorganized except for two flush cards that matched one of my aces. I bet the pot and pull it down.

100/200: I'm in 4th place and get KK UTG. I raise the pot, folds to MP who raises the pot back at me. I think about it for about 30 seconds, trying to figure if I should put him all in or to call and check for an ace on the board. I hate KK, so I call. The flop comes out with an ace. I think about it for a second and check. He pauses for about 12 seconds, and puts the rest of his chips in. It seems as though he didn't like the ace either, or else it was a good acting job. However, from the past hands I have seen him in (he's the second chip leader at the table to me) he normally places very fast. I put him on a pair and call. He shows JJ and I knock him out. This pot brings me to 2nd place.

120/240: I'm in the SB with 78o. Four people limp in the pot not including the BB. I complete because the pot is so big. The flop comes up 56T rainbow. I consider betting, but I hate betting a draw from the SB with that many people in the pot, so I check and it check around. The turn brings a 4, and gives me the nuts. Since it checked around the previous round I bet the minimum to try to get some action. The BB goes all in behind me, and UTG raises the pot (around 2.5k). What could be better? I look at the board again. There is now two to a suit, but other then that there isn't anything scary out there. I reraise the pot and get called by UTG. SB shows 34, UTG shows QQ, and also says "of fuck me" in the chat. I take down a massive pot and our table gets split.

The rest of the tourney was 90% preflop play, and I reach the final table with about 23k. The chip leader has 73k when we combine and my stack is about normal (I think I was 4th). First hand at the final table and the big stack takes out two other players. Down to 7. Next hand he takes someone else out. Down to 6. The next hand I get 77 UTG and raise minimum, jumbo stack raises min more behind me and another guy calls and is all in. I call. Flop comes out with two kings, I keep checking and jumbo stack bets minimum on flop and turn. The pot is so big at the flop I had to call, not knowing what the jumbo stack would be playing, on the river card he bets about 9k at it and I fold, he shows KT for trips. We are down to 5. I'm at about 17k. Another guy gets wrapped up in a pot, and we are down to 4, I made a few moves and have about 29k. Jumbo stack has about 105k other two stacks have about the same as me.

I get a call and I have to leave in the next 10 minutes. What a time for that to happen. I looked at the payouts. 4th to 3rd was about $35 more and 3rd to 2nd was about $40 more and 2nd to 1st was about $100 more. Since I had to go, and the jumbo stack had so many chips, I made a decision that I was just going to push every pot that I had a Q or higher in. A couple hands later I get Q7 and a medium stack and I get in a raising match preflop and I get all in. He shows K9, we both don't improve and he wins with king high. In retrospect I would play it the same way. There were enough chips left on the table to accumulate to get a shot at first, but just hanging around wasn't that productive.

Anyways. I'll be updating a little more frequently, however I still have some work to do on my side project, and I have had the flu the last few days, so I didn't get much done.